High Country History Group

As many of you are aware our Chairman, Rob Brooks suffered a serious heart attack on the 18 January and he remains seriously ill in hospital. Our thoughts and prayers are with Anne, Susannah and Paul at this very difficult time for them all,, and we wish Rob a speedy recovery.

As a result of Rob’s illness we have had to postpone some of the events we had planned for this year, although I am pleased to say that the talks will go ahead and you will see that we have arranged some excellent speakers on a variety of subjects.

Rob wrote two of the articles in this newsletter, ‘The Desecration of Essex’ and the ‘Tithe Commutation Awards’.

I look forward to seeing you at the meeting on the 13th when I hope I will be able to give you more news.

Martyn Lockwood

Yet again Essex is threatened. The planned multiplication of transport links with London now challenges any peace remaining in the Essex countryside. Does Essex have to play the host to these insidious threats? Does rural Essex need this Hadean progress?

Plans for the proposed development have been published. They show the full extent of the damage that may be expected to our homes. The development, if we can associate the word development with such an outcome, will destroy a wide sweep of Essex farmland. It is just this land that we associate with the tranquillity, the beauty and the honesty of Essex. The development will carve a strip out of the county from which only the pockets of the operators will flourish.

The development will bring the sore of the unsightly, supporting infrastructure. Despite our Master’s stated intentions towards control of this disfigurement, our lives will be blighted into eternity. There will be pollution. The evil and noxious gases will threaten the health of all that they contact, plants, trees, animals, you and me. We urge you to resist the plan. Support our campaign with all the energy you can muster!

We refer, of course, to the:

Plans and Sections
of the London and Bury St Edmunds Railway
Commencing by a Junction with the
Eastern Counties Railway
in the Parish of Stratford in the County of
Essex
and Terminating in the Cricket Field in the
Parish of St James in the Borough of Bury St
Edmunds
in the County of Suffolk
1845-461,2

These plans have recently been published and their availability is due to the solicitors Pennington and Bisgood. The plans show the railway leaving Stratford. The rail line then passes through West Ham, Wanstead, and, following the Roothing Valley, Woodford, Chigwell and Loughton. After Theydon Bois and Lambourne, where the railway crosses the River Roothing, the line cuts through the southern tip of Theydon Mount, passing through the land of the Reverend Sir Edward Bowyer Smyth.

The proposed railway then just touches Stapleford Abbots, before passing through Stapleford Tawney and the land of both the Reverend Smyth, referred to already, and the late Sir Charles Smith, his estate presently being administered under his will by the trustee Spencer Smith. The route enters Stanford Rivers near to Passingford Bridge. Still within the estate of the late Sir Charles, the line veers to the North of the cottages wherein live Jonathan Stokes, James Mead, Widow Clark, Samuel Hutchins and John Bareham. Mary (Widow) Jennings, who lives in Lawns, farms most of the land around here. The railway intends to cross the road, from West to East, between Lawns and Wayletts, where Mary Mott resides. How their peace will be disturbed!

The proposed line now crosses the River Roothing for a short distance before crossing back to approach close behind our new Ongar Union Workhouse. How long will the Workhouse survive when subjected to the constant thunder of the heavy engines? Living South of the Workhouse, in John Kynaston’s cottages, Isaac Taylor, William Pivet, William Furlong and John Mott, and their families will sleep no more. The Reverend Horrocks Cocks, in the Chapel, must prepare to have services greatly disturbed.

Those good people of Stanford Rivers, tenants of Capel Cure, towards Ongar, Charles Clark, James Green, John Knight, William Rayner and Edmund Haymer will not rest easy. Joshua Wilson’s holding, and his tenants Edward Garret, Robert Star, Robert Dix, will be within earshot. Capel Cure, and his tenants, James Mansfield, William Judd, James Lane, James Flack, William Wood, John Welsby, William Pearce, Mary Woolmer, Sarah Thorogood, Thomas Wood and Abraham Surry, the baker, and all their families, will all forsake their tranquillity.

The railway then crosses again, briefly, the River Roothing, where it enters Navestock, before passing East of Coleman’s Mill and the Windmill of William Kynaston, leaving to enter High Ongar, East of Green House and Bottles Farm.

The line then departs Ongar, at a distance of 17 miles from its origin, almost crossing the River Roothing at High Ongar Bridge before passing through Fyfield (and “Clatterfool End”). On its Route to Dunmow, the line skirts West of the Church at Beauchamp Roothing. Never very far from the River Roding, the successive parishes of Abbotts Roothing and Leaden Roothing are visited before the line leaves the river to pass through Aythorp Roothing, High Roothing, Great Canfield and Great Dunmow. The Cricket Field in Bury St Edmunds is reached 59 miles and 4 furlongs from Stratford.

HELP US DRIVE THIS
MONSTER FROM OUR MIDST!

At a scale of 13.3” to one mile, the map accompanying the plan runs to 31 sheets, of which 24 are in Essex. At such a scale, the map is very detailed, as implied by the above commentary. The survey appears to be accurate but the surveyor is unknown. The map defines the intended track and a region 100 yds on either side of this track. The owner and tenants of all fields and houses within this region are noted in the Book of Reference. The map was published 5 years after the local Tithe Award map, adding to such parish detail. Additionally, within the map volume, a number of sheets provide details of the gradients. Of course, the railway, like many others, was never built.

Would you prefer to have an occasional meeting during the day, either morning or afternoon? Would this be more convenient during the winter months? Please let the editor have your views.

The Trust (formerly The Redundant Churches Fund) was set up to care for Church of England churches no longer needed for parish use. All the churches are architecturally or historically important with most Grade I or Grade II.

Set up in 1969, the Trust now cares for over 325 churches.

Ten churches in Essex are cared for, including St Andrews at Willingale.

You can read more about the trust on their website - www.visitchurches.org.uk

Buried in St Margaret’s, Stanford Rivers, Noel Gay was a prolific composer and lyricist, responsible for many of the most popular and memorable songs in the UK during the ’30s and ’40s.

Born Richard Moxon Armitage, on 3 March 1898, in Wakefield. A child prodigy, he was educated at Wakefield Cathedral School, and often deputized for the Cathedral organist. In 1913 he moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music, and later became the director of music and organist at St. Anne’s Church in Soho. After four years studying for his M.A. and B.Mus. at Christ’s Church College, Cambridge, he seemed destined for a career in a university or cathedral. While at Cambridge he became interested in the world of musical comedy, and started to write songs. After contributing to the revue, Stop Press, he was commissioned to write the complete score for the Charlot Show Of 1926. He was also the principal composer for Clowns In Clover, which starred Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge, and ran for over 500 performances. Around this time he took the name of Noel Gay for his popular work to avoid embarrassment to the church authorities.

In 1930, Gay, with Harry Graham, he wrote his most successful song to date, The King’s Horses, which was sung in another revue, Folly To Be Wise. He then collaborated with lyricist Desmond Carter for the score of his first musical show Hold My Hand (1931). Starring Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale and Stanley Lupino, the songs included Pied Piper, What’s In A Kiss, Hold My Hand and Turn On The Music. During the ’30s Gay wrote complete, or contributed to, scores for popular shows such as She Couldn’t Say No, That’s A Pretty Thing, Jack O’Diamonds, Love Laughs!, O-Kay For Sound (the first of the famous Crazy Gang Music Hall-type revues at the London Palladium, in which Bud Flanagan sang Gay’s The Fleet’s In Port Again), Wild Oats and Me And My Girl (1937). The latter show, with a book and lyrics by L. Arthur Rose, and starring Lupino Lane in the central role of Bill Sibson, ran for over 1,600 performances and featured The Lambeth Walk, which became an enormously popular sequence dance craze -so popular, in fact, that when the show was filmed in 1939, it was titled The Lambeth Walk.

In the same year, with Ralph Butler, Gay gave Bud Flanagan the big song, Run Rabbit Run, in another Crazy Gang revue, The Little Dog Laughed. During the ’40s, Gay wrote for several shows with lyrics mostly by Frank Eyton, including Lights Up (Let The People Sing, Only A Glass Of Champagne and You’ve Done Something To My Heart); Present Arms; La-Di-Di-Di-Da’; The Love Racket; Meet Me Victoria; Sweetheart Mine; and Bob’s Your Uncle (1948). His songs for films included All For A Shilling A Day and There’s Something About A Soldier Sung by Courtneidge in Me And Marlborough (1935); Leaning On A Lamp Post introduced by comedian George Formby in Feather Your Nest; Who’s Been Polishing The Sun, sung by Jack Hulbert in The Camels Are Coming; I Don’t Want To Go to Bed (Lupino in Sleepless Nights; and All Over The Place (Sailors Three).

Gay also composed Tondeleyo, the first song to be synchronized into a British talking picture (White Cargo). His other songs included Round The Marble Arch, All For The Love Of A Lady, I Took My Harp To A Party (a hit for Gracie Fields), Let’s Have A Tiddley At The Milk Bar, Red, White And Blue, Love Makes The World Go Round, The Moon Remembered, But You Forgot, The Girl Who Loves A Soldier, The Birthday Of The Little Princess, Are We Downhearted? - No!, Hey Little Hen, Happy Days Happy Months, I’ll Always Love You, Just A Little Fond Affection, When Alice Blue Gown Met Little Boy Blue, I Was Much Better Off In The Army and My Thanks To You (co-written with Norman Newell). In the early ’50s, Gay wrote very little, just a few songs such as I Was Much Better Off In The Army and You Smile At Everyone But Me.

He had been going deaf for some years, and had to wear a hearing aid. After his death on the 3rd March 1954, his publishing company, Noel Gay Music, which he had formed in 1938, published one more song, Love Me Now.

His son, Richard Armitage a successful impresario and agent, took over the company, and extended and developed the organization into one of the biggest television and representational agencies in Europe.

GREENSTED is a small scattered village and parish, about one mile W. of Chipping Ongar, from which it is commonly called Greensted near Ongar, to distinguish it from Greensted near Colchester. It has only 159 inhabitants, and 674 acres of land, rising boldly from a tributary stream of the river Roding.

At the Domesday survey it belongs to Hamo Dapifer, and it afterwards passed to the Lucy, Robetier, and other families. The Rev. P Budworth is now lord of the manor, but part of the soil belongs to Mr. Wm. Smith, Mrs. Rayner, and a few smaller owners.

The Hall, a large handsome mansion, is now the seat of Wm. Gibson, Esq., and tasteful pleasure grounds, commanding beautiful prospects.

The Church (St. Andrew,) is supposed to be one of the oldest in England, though the nave is constructed of half trucks of oaks, about a foot and a half in diameter, split and roughly hewn at each end, to let them into a sill at the bottom and into a plank at the top, where they are fastened with wooden pegs. This primitive part of the fabric is about to be thoroughly repaired, and is 29ft. 9 in. long, 14ft. wide, and 5½ft. high, on the sides, which support the original roof. At the west end is a boarded tower, but the chancel is now of brick. Both sides are strengthened by brick buttresses, and on the south is a wooden porch. The roof is of later date, and tiled, but rises to a point in the centre, as originally formed. The chancel has a blunt pointed doorway, with mouldings curiously worked in the bricks. Traditions says that the body of St. Edmund rested here in 1011, when being conveyed to its final resting place at Bury St. Edmund’s. The small chapel or shrine, prepared for the temporary reception of the royal corpse, is said to have been afterwards enlarged, and converted into the parish church.

The rectory, valued in K.B. at £6. 13s. 4d., and in 1831 at £280, has 28A. of glebe, and a handsome Rectory House, of white brick, built in 1838, at the cost of about £2000. The patronage is vested in trust with the Bishop of London, and the Rev. P. W. Ray, M. A., is the incumbent.

The tithes were commuted in 1842. The poor have two yearly rent charges, viz., 5s. out of 3A. at Stanford-Rivers, left by Robert Petit; and £2 out of Lee Fields, left by Richard Bourne, in 1660.

This is the name of a new website which will allow you to explore over 33,000 historic sites in Essex, digitally, dating from the Stone Age through to the Cold War. This site is funded by Essex County Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the New Opportunities Fund. It allows people to discover for themselves the historic environment of their area using a searchable online database, based on the Essex Record Office’s SEAX system.

The search function enables you to look through the Essex Heritage Conservation Record by using specific words or phrases, look up different types of sites or monuments, or view records from a particular period in history.

The website is:
unlockingessex.essexcc.gov.uk

That Burdensome Tithe

By the early nineteenth century, the payment of the tithe had become inconsistent, burdensome and outdated¹. In England and Wales, the tithe represented the payment of one tenth of farm production to the established church. The payment by agricultural communities had been a contentious issue since the eleventh century but in Scotland the tithe (teind) had been abolished as early as 1623, while in Ireland the tithe disappeared in 1823. However, it remained in England and Wales.

The tithe took at least three forms. It could be levied on crops such as corn, hay or wood, on animal products such as lambs, wool, milk or honey, or on gains through labour such as fishing and milling. However, there were local anomalies, which had become established.

The tithe owner had a right to claim payment in kind, but since the 17th century a monetary payment had become more usual. The annual payments in cash were known as compositions, which could be adjusted or terminated by common agreement. A further method of settling payment of the tithe was the modus, which took the form of a permanent charge in lieu.

Dissatisfaction

Perhaps, the problems involved here can be imagined. How can a tithe, payable in kind, be collected when the number of animals owned is less than ten? If the number is greater than ten, how are the tithed animals chosen from this number? When during the year should the tithe be assessed and collected? How is the monetary payment to be calculated when the price of a commodity is varying significantly? How is a modus agreed? A modus had generally been fixed before the middle of the 16th century, and was confirmed by parish custom. A quaint example was found in the parish of Llanfihangel Esgeifiog in Anglesey, where in lieu of hay the farmer supplied dinner for the tithe owner and feed for a horse on alternate Sundays. On the other Sundays, dinner and feed were supplied at another farm! Of course, the owner of the tithe was the local minister.

The discriminatory and intrusive tax was much resented by those who had to pay. The reasons for this were several. The disparity in the incidence of the tax between urban and country areas was discriminatory. The tithe fell particularly harshly on agricultural land under development. A tithe owner, who contributed nothing towards such improvement, nevertheless reaped a considerable proportion of any profit from the investment. Dissenters rebelled against any such payment because it was made to an established yet unsupported church. They sometimes refused to pay. Since there also existed numerous stratagems to evade payment, it follows that the assessment of tithes could be, and was, frequently disputed. Costly legal proceedings could follow.

The possible consequences of an unjust, unpopular and impractical system of taxation were heightened during the economic depression, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The issue of the tithe was just one of the causes of political unrest in England. This unrest was particularly disruptive in rural areas, where farm wages were allowed to slip below a subsistence level. In Essex, some the population resorted to hayrick burning. In the Dorset village of Tolpuddle, farm labourers had formed themselves into a trade union in order to add weight to their cause. In Kent, angry mobs were known to have attacked their parsons. Initially, this lawbreaking was subject to severe justice, but increasingly fearful of the level of civil unrest and its possible repercussions the Government was called upon to look critically at the causes.

The Tithe Commutation Act

The Tithe Commutation Act, introduced by Lord John Russell on 9 February 1836, was passed six months later by Parliament on 13 August 1836. The bill was passed with an urgency not experienced in earlier parliamentary attempts at such reform. The Act commuted the tithe in England and Wales and replaced it with a fluctuating tithe rent-charge. This rent-charge was to follow a seven-year average of the price of wheat, barley and oats.

A Tithe Commission of three commissioners was set up in London to administer the Act. Considering the task, the Act imposed an ambitious timescale. Commissioners were to confirm those agreements reached before 1 October 1838, and thereafter impose awards in the remaining districts. Local agents were recruited to oversee the process.

One of the first tasks of the commissioners was to set up the districts within which the tithe surveys were to be undertaken. The scale of the task may be understood when it is realised that the total number of tithe districts reached 14,829 and covered 36.2 million square miles. The district usually equated to a parish or township. Not all districts required detailed work, certainly in cases where the tithe owner and the payer were the same; such districts numbered 3,044, leaving about 11,800 to be fully completed.

Surveyors were taken on, both to value the land and apportion the rent-charge, and to generate an accurate map of the district. Adequate maps already existed for some districts but surveyors had to be recruited in the majority of districts. Although the original deadline was not met, by 1856 only the tithe in seven districts remained to be agreed. In 1863, just five were unresolved with the final commutation of the Barham district in 1883. The delays were invariably due to boundary or other legal disputes.

Early agreements, some completed even before the end of February 1837, were accompanied by maps which were often deemed unsatisfactory by the commissioners. The standards of map-making, usually at a scale of three chains to the inch (1:2,376)³, were increasingly refined since it was realised that the opportunity could be used to generate a national resource. Great demands were placed on the surveying—and map-making industry in the short-term. However, the archive has proved to be invaluable, and the foresight justified. Indeed, the tithe award provided the most complete survey of England and Wales since that recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Tithe Commutation in the High Country

Within the High Country, the last parish to commute its tithes was Greensted in 1840, the map being signed by Roger Kynaston, the Assistant Tithe Commissioner for the district, on 30 December 1840. The details of the maps for the four parishes follow.

Parish Date Scale Size Surveyor
Greensted 1838 26.6” to 1 mile⁴ 38” x 27” E. Corfield
Stanford Rivers 1839 13.3” to 1 mile 116” x 92” Robert Hale
Stapleford Tawney 1838 13.3” to 1 mile 51” x 23”
Theydon Mount 1838 8” to 1 mile 44” x 28”

Stapleford Tawney maps is 1:4,752 and that of Theydon Mount is 1:7,920. The amount of detail differs slightly from map to map; the Stanford Rivers map is the most detailed.

The accompanying apportionments are written on rolls of parchment sheets. They list each tithe area with a reference number, which links the area to the map. The following is then listed against each area (by reference number):

○ owner,
○ occupier,
○ name and description of the area,
○ state of cultivation,
○ area in statute measure,
○ amount of rent-charge, and any remarks, but these are generally scarce.

From this, the extent of the information included in the tithe submission can start to be appreciated. In a future note, the information within will be discussed. It is worth noting that the Greensted map and apportionment has already been the subject of a volume within the Essex Place-Names Project⁵.

Your committee is mindful of the need to occasionally support those organisations and projects that actively promote local history. Using primary historical sources, The Victoria County History is writing the history of the counties of England. The series was begun in 1899 and to date fourteen county sets have been completed. The set for Essex is partially complete with Volume X, covering Dedham, Earls Colne and Colchester, having just been published. The volume containing the Ongar Hundred was published as Volume IV way back in 1956.

Following a proposal at the recent committee meeting of 11th November, the committee approved a donation of £50 to the Victoria County History of Essex Appeal. Two letters were received in reply; Patricia Hermann, Secretary and Treasurer to the Appeal Fund, wrote:

“On behalf of all our Trustees, may I ask you to convey our thanks to the members of the High Country History Group for this handsome donation to the Fund. We are so very grateful not only for the financial assistance but, perhaps even more, for the support it shows for the Editor and her team. In spite of continuing financial worries, we are all determined that the great work will be completed, and our optimism is much boosted by your faith. . . ”