The oldest known centre of Christian worship in Pitsea stood on Pitsea Mount. Pitsea appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, although no church is mentioned there at that date. Documentary evidence confirms that a church existed by the twelfth century, when Pitsea was associated with St John's Abbey at Colchester.
A new church was built in the early sixteenth century. The surviving west tower dates from this rebuilding and is now the most important visible remnant of the old parish church. Its position high on Pitsea Mount made the church a landmark across the surrounding rural landscape.
By the nineteenth century the church required major work. In 1871 the nave and chancel were rebuilt to designs by the prominent architect Sir Arthur Blomfield. The older tower was retained, creating the form of St Michael's remembered in many historic photographs.
St Michael's increasingly suffered from structural difficulties, while Pitsea itself was changing rapidly. The population had moved away from the old hilltop centre towards the railway, Broadway and later the New Town estates. New roads, including development around the A13, further isolated the old church from the community it had traditionally served.
St Michael's gradually became redundant as St Gabriel's took over the role of Pitsea's principal Anglican church. The final years saw deterioration and vandalism. Most of the nineteenth-century nave and chancel were eventually demolished around 2000.
The early-sixteenth-century tower and altar survive on Pitsea Mount. They are protected as a Grade II listed building, first listed on 24 March 1950. Historic England describes the tower as an important and imposing landmark and as a surviving fragment that contributes to understanding Pitsea's history.