The old church of St Mary and All Saints at Langdon Hills dates principally from the early sixteenth century, although evidence indicates that a church existed in the parish much earlier. The surviving building incorporates ragstone rubble, red brick and limestone dressings and is protected at Grade II*.
The sixteenth-century nave and chancel retain windows and a south doorway from that period. A north chapel was added in the seventeenth century and later altered, while the timber belfry was rebuilt in 1842. By the nineteenth century the population had shifted away from the old church's isolated position.
A new St Mary's was built on the High Road in 1876, paid for by the rector, the Revd Digby Cleaver. It was intended to serve the population more conveniently than the old church. The older building later passed into private residential use, although its historic churchyard survives.
The new church was constructed on a man-made mound at the high point of Hall Wood. Its prominent position continued the long local tradition of churches acting as landmarks across Laindon and Langdon Hills.
Dunton's church of St Mary was rebuilt in 1873 by architect W. G. Bartleet. The rebuilding used architectural forms inspired by different medieval periods, including lancet windows and Decorated-style tracery, and may have echoed features of the earlier church. It is built in red brick with Bath stone dressings and has a timber-clad bellcote and shingled spire.
Changes to parish organisation followed the development of Basildon. Essex archival records show that St Mary became a chapel of ease within a larger team ministry and was declared redundant in 1980. The building subsequently entered secular use, but survives as evidence of Dunton's pre-New Town parish history.
The name Lee Chapel preserves the memory of religious buildings that have disappeared. Historical research describes medieval East Lee and West Lee as small hamlets, each associated with a chapel. East Lee's chapel is believed to have stood around the area later near The Knares and Stanway, while the West Lee chapel is associated with the area around Westley Hall.
Both communities were poor and struggled to support a priest. By the fifteenth century their independent arrangements had broken down: West Lee was absorbed into Langdon Hills, while East Lee became linked with Laindon. The chapels vanished, but the place-name Lee Chapel survived and was later inherited by a major part of the New Town.