As well as being Secretary of this fine History Group, I am also Hon. Deputy Librarian of The Essex Society for Archaeology and History. One of my roles has been to sort and catalogue the archives with a view to placing most on permanent loan at the Essex Record Office. The archive includes two volumes of church photographs taken between c.1870-1910. As someone interested in church buildings this presented the perfect opportunity this summer to go on church bagging expeditions with my wife Elaine, taking comparative ‘Then and Now’ photographs. We have gone to places never visited: Little Horkesley which was completely destroyed in 1940; Ovington, very remote by its Hall; Shalford, with its Chantry tombs; North Benfleet, in the Basildon district where hundreds of Brent Geese were assembling by the water before leaving for winter.
‘Essex Churches: Then and Now’ is a talk in preparation to be given on behalf of the Society on Thursday 27 April 2017, 8pm, at the High Country History Group.
The collection includes photographs taken between c1870-1910 by two generations. Initially it was thought to have been compiled latterly by John Edward Knight Cutts (1847-1938), church architect, whose name and date is labelled against later photographs in the collection. According to The Buildings of England: Essex by Pevsner / Bettley (2007) J.E.K. Cutts was architect of the now demolished St Augustine’s Church, Lower Dovercourt, 1883-84, and the Arts Centre, formerly the Great Burstead Board School, in Billericay, 1877-78. All Saints, Dovercourt, restored 1897-98; St Paul Church, Elmstead Market, now a house, built 1908; and, St Mary, Little Oakley, now a house, restored 1895-1902 are all the work of J.E.K. & J.P. Cutts.
This was later discounted because there were a number of errors and omissions in pencil labelling which suggested the names were added against the photographs as an afterthought. The photograph labelled “Litt. Oakley?” is clearly not Little Oakley but Ugley. On the same page a corrected entry from Great to Little Oakley is in fact, from Internet images research, Great Oakley. There is therefore sufficient evidence to determine that the volumes did not belong to the Cutts family.
The various sizes of photographs, as well as the realisation that copies appear elsewhere (e.g. Probert has a number dated 1871, ERO A13366), suggests that the mystery compiler was not the photographer but acquired copies probably from perhaps other gentlemen.
“There is no need to stress the importance to the ecclesiologist of photographs and reliable drawings of churches before they were subjected to nineteenth-century reparation.” (Benton, TEAS n.s. xxiv). This is particularly true of this collection. All Saints Church, Hutton, for example, is photographed before and after the substantial rebuild of 1873 by G. E. Street.
Included overleaf are photographs of Stanford Rivers and Greensted.
The talk next spring will be supported by contemporary narrative: Suckling (1846), Buckler (1856), Chancellor (as published in the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, and Essex Review), and manuscript notes by King (1856-93) and C. F. D. Sperling (1892-1927), all of which will be used in the forthcoming talk.