Another Grangerized Copy of Salmon’s History of Essex

A search for a copy of this work in the Essex Record Office unearthed three volumes one of which was bound up with additional handwritten notes as well as sketches, engravings and printed pages from other sources. The front paste down provided ample evidence for its provenance from 1897, and including extracts from booksellers catalogues indicating that it had been assembled by the antiquary, Craven Ord (1755-1832). He had lived at Greensted Hall, near Ongar, having married the daughter of the previous owner in 1784. Any doubts about Ord’s responsibility for making this collection is dispelled by a pedigree of the Harvey family of Chigwell on the back of a letter cover addressed to him at ‘Greensted Park’.

Ord was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1775, and corresponded with a number of like-minded enthusiasts, including Richard Gough. In 1780 a group of them made a tour of Lincolnshire and Norfolk, looking at church architecture and taking prints from monumental brasses – a messy process involving the use of printer’s ink, numerous rags and large sheets of damp paper. Ord’s substantial collection is now in the British Library. He also gathered material for a history of Suffolk, and acquired a large number of books, manuscripts, drawings and engravings. He was in declining health by 1829, sold off much of his collection and died three years later.
It is difficult to categorize the material that he bound up with his copy of Salmon’s History. Most of the additions relate to southwest Essex, and, in particular, to the area around Ongar. They are by no means comprehensive or systematic, and appear to have been the result of numerous random visits. There is varied information extracted from parish records – excerpts from registers, notes on monumental inscriptions and charities as well as various other parochial affairs such as receipts from the collection of seventeenth century briefs. The range of dates for the various parish registers correspond exactly with those surviving in ERO today, apart from those from the early registers for Norton Mandeville (now lost) where Ord’s extracts commence in 1538. There is non-parochial material too, such as a printed list of acting magistrates, dated 1812. This has a number of amendments in ink, including the striking out of John Vandermeulen, clerk of Messing with the surprising endorsement ‘run away’. Vandermeulen was appointed to the Messing living in 1807, adding that of Belchamp St Paul inn1812.

Among the manuscript materials are a small number of sketches and watercolours including a pencil drawing of the north side of Greensted church dated 1719. Though this is the earliest known image it does not contribute anything to the history of that unique building. An unsigned but detailed and dimensioned watercolour shows the sidilia in Fyfield church. Another signed MT and dated 1778 is of a monumental brass in Harlow parish church. There are some armorial prints (probably from ledger stones) and one monumental brass inscription which may have been made using Ord’s printer’s ink process. A drawing on poor quality paper of a round-headed doorway with dogtooth ornamentation at South Weald has the impression ‘IAR del’. A fine and very detailed water colour of the ancient church door at Willingale Doe reveals the identity o the last artist as it is signed ‘IA Repron del’.

This can only be John Adey Repton (1775-1860), son of Humphrey Repton the well-known landscape designer from Hare Street, Romford. From 1796 John Adey had worked for the architect John Nash who made use of his knowledge of Gothic detail in his own work. Nash, however failed to acknowledge the indebtedness of his young assistant, and a resentful John Adey left in 1800 to work on the architectural side of his father’s practice. After his father’s death in 1818, he moved to Springfield where he continued his architectural work. He certainly had a keen interest in historic Gothic detail, and his accurate measured drawings of Norwich cathedral were published in 1816.

There is nothing to indicate how Craven Ord acquired the two images by John Adey Repton. No records suggest that Ord had been a client, though it id conceivable that John Adey might have worked on Greensted Hall. However there is no obvious evidence of this in the surviving house which was much altered in the nineteenth century. It is perhaps more likely that Ord was joined in his antiquarian outings by the young Repton who then presented him with the images – perhaps at a later date, as the Willingale Doe image is a carefully finished piece of studio work rather than a sketch made on location.