Editorial

Curating Content

Our new website is a goldmine of resources created by the High Country History Group over 26 years. See www.highcountryhistorygroup.org.

In Journal No. 98, we curated content on Parish Registers. We have more in this edition. This time it is the turn of Census records with an overview on what we have published to date.

Old Trade Directories are a further source of information of names and addresses. We have two series of Kelly's Directory data for the four parishes extracted from 1890 and 1912.

November is a time of remembrance. In 2018 I was privileged to be asked to give a history talk in Blackmore to mark the centenary of the conclusion of the First World War. That evening 157 people came to the event held in St Laurence Church, Blackmore.

A booklet accompanied the talk. One part of ten was published at the time in our Journal. I take the liberty, please, of offering the complete booklet and some other related items.

We have more on Ongar Workhouse, this time first-hand recollections from the daughter of a one-time Master and Matron.

Also, reminiscences of Essex around 1835 compared to 1906 by an unknown author who probably lived in the Gosfield area of Essex. This adds to other 'recalling' items.¹

A few years ago, we produced an index of articles relating to the four parishes in The Essex Review. It is now the turn of The Essex Journal.

We are continuing to reproduce items previously published in the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, ahead of an Index of this organisation's publications in Journal No. 100.

A miscellany of items rounds off this bumper edition.

Finally, in Journal No. 96, the Maldon Iron Works signpost at Colliers Hatch was included. On visiting in October 2026, I am sorry to report that the sign has broken and all that is left is the old post in the hedge.

Footnotes

¹ In Retrospect (Journal No. 30), W. W. Reed (born 1885) recalled his childhood in Mountnessing in a talk written and given in 1950: Retrospect – High Country History Group. Also, Peter Cameron (Journal No. 28) remembers Stanford Rivers from the 1920s: A Personal Recollection of Stanford Rivers – High Country History Group. ↩