High Country History Group

Did you know Hill Hall is now open for tours?

A magnificent Elizabethan mansion of national importance, Hill Hall in Theydon Mount is now fully restored and its residents well and truly settled in. Built in the 1560s and 70s by Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State Sir Thomas Smith (who can be seen - in stone - reclining by the altar in St Michael’s Church), Hill Hall is an outstanding example of early classical architecture, and contains some of the best original wall paintings in the country.
It was gutted by fire in 1969 while being used as a women’s open prison, and stood as a ruin for many years. The exterior was finally restored by English Heritage and the interior converted into apartments by a private developer P J Livesey.

The magnificent galleried Great Hall and the wall paintings rooms are, however, not part of any of the apartments and can be viewed, along with the exteriors and the inner courtyard, on a guided tour. You can learn, too, about the colourful history of some of its owners and occupiers: the young Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (who some people think really wrote Shakespeare), the bigamous Victorian baronet who had 12 illegitimate children, and, as a prisoner, Christine Keeler. Famous visitors include Percy Grainger, Rudyard Kipling and Queen Mary.

If you would like to book a tour - any number of people from one to 15, on Wednesdays only - please phone English Heritage’s Cambridge office on 01223 582700 and speak to Linda Bannister. Tours, led by Anne Padfield, are free for English Heritage members, £3 for non-members, £2.50 for senior citizens and £1.50 for children.
It’s our own local stately home - find out more about it!

If you turn off the Passingford Bridge roundabout down a dead-end road, you pass first through an avenue of stately trees, then by an octagonal lodge marking the former entrance to Albyns, a grand country house demolished in the 1950s. Glimpses of the Tudor brick ancillary buildings can be seen beside the farm. Further on, the road becomes a track, and the landscape becomes almost mediaeval, with rough grass clearings amongst forest-like trees, and tracks leading off to various smallholdings and cottages. Horses roam by, happily grazing common land, as cattle and pigs used to in the past, and the track becomes bumpier and more pot-holed. Eventually, if you’re lucky, you may reach Willow Cottage, a tiny timber-framed house built in about 1660 and set in a delightful 4-acre cottage garden.

Nearby is the site of some old marl-pits (marl is a special kind of clay), which have been cleared and dug out to create a natural open air amphitheatre. The audience sit on blankets or cushions as the actors make their entrances from behind bushes and trees. In the interval, home-made refreshments are served from the cottage, and as night falls, flickering flares light your way back through the forest to your car. A magical place.

If you would like to share the magic, you can visit Willow Cottage this summer.

Saturday 19th July, 3pm and 7.30pm
and Sunday 20th July, 3pm only:
The Merry Wives of Windsor The Wadham Players.
Adults £6, children £3.

Bring a blanket, cushions, maybe a picnic, and insect repellent.

Gentlemen
Having seen in the Chelmsford Chronicle of the 9th instant, Sir William Smyth’s resignation of the Verderership of the Forest of Waltham, I have been encouraged by several of my friends to offer myself a Candidate to succeed him in that honourable position. My property being in the immediate neighbourhood of the Forest and my late Uncle, Mr Lockwood, having had the honour of being many years Verderer of the same Forest. I trust I shall not be thought too presumptuous in soliciting your Votes and Interest on the present vacancy. Should I be so fortunate as to be the object of your choice, my earnest endeavours shall be constantly exerted to fulfil the duties of the situation.

I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen

Your obedient and very humble Servant
William Joseph Lockwood
Dews Hall, August 14th 1811.

Log Books from 1894 to 1932 for the former school have survived and are now found in the Essex Record Office at Chelmsford and they provide a social picture for the time. Below I have highlighted some of the entries.

Names of pupils in 1884.

Arthur Stubbings
William West
Frederick Starling
Henry Turner
George Tarling
Sydney Summers
George Stubbings
Charles Stubbings
Walter Stubbings
Stephen Starling
George Perry
Henry Gould
Edwin Freshwater
Archibald Prior
Oscar Tarling
William Tucker
Samuel Starling
Charles Latchford
William Toomie
Thomas Stubbings
Walter Freshwater
Horace Doe
James Starling

Lily Green
Emily Pain
Margaret Freshwater
Dora Freshwater
Hetty Stubbings
Minnie Freshwater

Rose Freshwater
Frances Toomie
Celia Threader
Rachel Summers
Florence Toomie
Eva Toomie
Ellen Gould
Daisy Threader
Maud Starling

Christina Spark – teacher

Average weekly attendance in 1895 was 27

Oct 1st 1895
The new school year commences today....... Two children are absent.....Stephen Starding who has not been back to school since the Harvest Holidays. I have sent several messages to his guardian and have since sent Miss Bonner (Infants Teacher) to his home to request that he should be sent back, but his guardians say that he cannot come for want of clothing and shoes.

Nov 29th 1895
Several children are absent on account of the damp weather.

There are many entries in the log book where attendance was low due to the weather. This may indicate that many of the children did not have sufficient clothes or shoes to deal with the cold and the wet.

In 1896 The Inspector of Schools reported, “The children attending this little school are orderly and attentive, but not very bright.....”

Jan 23rd 1899
School closed on account of nearly all the children being ill with measles. The school was re-opened on the 15th Feb but attendance poor as several children prevented as measles are still in their homes.

Nov 6th 1899
Marion Payne commenced duties as Mistress of the school today.

2nd Jan 1900
Flossie Augusta Burrage took charge for the first time.

2nd Feb 1900
Attendance has not been good as six of the elder boys have been away brushing.

Week ending 25th Jan 1901
Attendance this week has been very poor, owing to the absence of nearly all the boys, on account of the shooting. They were engaged in brushing’ in the wood

Nov 23rd 1902
Henrietta L. Cawley commenced duties as Mistress.

There are several poignant entries during the period 1914 -1918 when news of former pupils of the school are reported in the log book as ‘killed in action.’

The following article was sent in by Patrick Griggs and is taken from the handwritten copy. It seems appropriate to publish this article at this time as it is the 300th anniversary of the birth of John Wesley, who is associated with the foundation of Methodism.

John Blake was a Baker residing at the village of Great Bardfield in Essex, and having at the time my story begins [1793] a wife and five small children whom he was maintaining by dint of industry and great frugality in respectability and comfort. He is represented by those who knew him well as “Diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”

The village had obtained an unenviable notoriety in the surrounding neighbourhood for the profligacy of its inhabitants and was known at a time not at all conspicuous for a high standard of public morality, as Wicked Bardfield.

The pious Baker viewed .....uncontrolled iniquity that wounded him, and desiring as far as his humble abilities would allow to raise the standard of the gospel in the village he invited some itinerant Methodist preachers to hold services in his Bake Office which was licensed for the purpose in conformity to the law.

There on Sabbath days was a little band collected to hear the words of life and seated round the Bake Office upon the binns, flour sacks or perchance on some more convenient resting place provided for the occasion. Some of the inhabitants of Wicked Bardfield listened for the first time to the invitation of mercy addressed to them by the self denying labourers who “went about doing good”, and hesitated not through evil report and cowardly maltreatment to Proclaim to sinners round.

What a dear Saviour they had found. These irregular proceedings at the Bake Office aroused the vie of the Parish Minister who considered the Methodists as poachers on his preserves and forthwith took measures to oblige the Baker to discontinue the services; he formed a Committee consisting of Two Shopkeepers, a Publican, A Farrier, who was also Churchwarden and two Farmers of the neighbourhood who entered on their work with businesslike precision and energy. The Committee in order to effect the ruin of the Baker advertised in the public newspaper for one of the same business to come and set up in opposition, and having obtained one, they supported him and a considerable expence. But the former Baker making confessedly good bread and they did not succeed according to their sanguine expectations. The Committee then attempted to engage the whole town and parish in combination not to trade with the baker. This scheme they devoutly hoped would completely starve the poor man and his family or compel him to renounce his judgement and conscience in matters of Religion. Accordingly a writing was drawn up by some persons and presented by the............. for approbation proposing at the same time that it should be copied and stamped paper the next day an signed by themselves ad many as they could prevail upon to join with them. In this nefarious Deed they covenanted for themselves and their families, not to buy anything of the poor man, under penalty of ten shillings for every offence committed by a Master tradesman or farmer and five shillings for every journeyman or labour.

It does not appear that the foregoing was ever completely carried out in effect but it was drawn up and they carried out its design as far as possible.

These means not succeeding a course of greater violence was pursued, a number of lewd fellows of the baser sort were instigated to attack the unoffending religionists and on Sunday 14th July 1793 the preachers on arriving at the Bake House at half past ten a.m. found a mob assembled round the door in a high state of excitement crying “We have a good church, you have no business here. The Gentlemen don’t like it.” One of the Preachers replied, “We don’t come here to oppose the Church. We only come to worship God according to our consciences”. This only provoked greater wrath and fiercer cries on the part of the Mob who were armed with Branches, Bludgeons and stone, and seemed determined to Murder the preachers, who on attempting to leave the house were seized by the rioters who threatened “to do for them” it was with great ........the house and bolted the Door. The Rioters remained all the afternoon and Evening and declared frequently with the most horrid imprecations that they would not leave the place till they got them out.

The Preachers finding they were in a dangerous position and no Magistrate being in the neighbourhood they forwarded a letter by two friends who managed to get clear off with it requesting assistance from Bocking. In the meantime the Mob surrounded the House pouring in through the windows in almost every direction showers of stones and some of them with such violence as to make deep indentations in the partitions opposite, The family who belonged to the House were in the greatest distress, the cries of five small children, frightened by the noise. The stones were so excessive that it was expected every moment that some of them would fall into.... The distress of the mother weeping floods of tears over her children is beyond all description. The compassionate father was driven to his wits end to contrive some method of relieving them. He could not take them into the chambers for fear of their being killed by the stones. At length he removed his children to the barn, putting the youngest in a crate of straw, and covered him up But even here the unmerciful savages disturbed them by knocking against the wall.

The mob sent frequent messages threatening to pull down or burn the house and at last a fire brand was brought for that purpose but at this crisis a Magistrates warrant arrived from Bocking directed to one of the Constables which after being delivered to him sorely against his Will, he dispersed the mob and ministers escaped under the protection of another Constable and reached the village of Weathersfield about Midnight, thanking God for their great Deliverance.

The nature and extent of this riot having made a great sensation in the neighbourhood it was determined to bring the offenders to justice and accordingly a ringleader named Cole and seventeen others were tried before the Honourable Mr Justice Lawrence at Chelmsford Assizes in the month of May 1794 and found guilty of rioting prosecutions were also established against three men and one woman for assaulting the preachers and other acts of violence and they were all found guilty and brought before the Court of Kings Bench for sentence. The judge (The Right Honourable L C Kenyon saying that the indictment should hang over their heads and that if they were ever guilty again of the like crime they would be indicted capitally and hanged. Lord Kenyon also informed the Bail that they were very much mistaken if they supposed they were authorized in encouraging these riots and that by the Toleration Act they were as much open to punishment who disturbed a congregation of Methodists or Dissenters as those who might disturb the Church of England. The recognizances were then taken in £200 each Defendant and their two...

Thus in the issue of these trials a great principle of Religion Liberty was successfully asserted John Blake lived many years a humble and consistent Nonconformist not fearing to be prosecuted for righteousness sake. Two of the five small children still survive surrounded by numerous descendants who delight to hear from their lips the history of the Persecution and Deliverance of John Blake the Baker of Great Bardfield.

L. Blake,
Great Yarmouth, October 1861.

[Note: Patrick can claim ancestry to John Blake through his maternal grandmother]

The following article will appear in the next edition of the Essex Family Historian.

It was a discussion about the hymn writer John Ellerton, who wrote the “The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended”, and his connection with White Roding that led to this article (and hopefully others). A seed of an idea, a little research and you suddenly discover that some of our best-loved hymns are written by people with Essex connections. “Crown him with Many Crowns” written by a man born in Maldon in 1800; “Onward Christian Soldiers”, written by the Rector of East Mersea; “Breathe on me Breath of God”, written by the Rector of Purleigh; and there are many more. But we start with the story of a remarkable family and their connection with Harlow.

Sarah Fuller Flower Adams
Hymnodist and Poet

‘Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song would be,

Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!’

There are also many inspiring true-life stories associated with this hymn. Everyone who has read about, or has been touched by the tragic saga of the RMS Titanic, is familiar with it. Some Titanic survivors said it was played by the ship’s orchestra as the ocean liner went down (though other survivors said it was a different song). Wallace Hartley, the bandleader on the Titanic, an employee of the White Star Line, who went down with the ship, was reportedly fond of this hymn and requested that it should be played at his funeral.

Another story concerns the death of American president William McKinley, assassinated in 1901. Dr. Mann, the attending physician, reported that among McKinley’s last words were “Nearer, my God, to Thee, e’en though it be a cross,’ has been my constant prayer.” On the afternoon of September 13, 1901, after five minutes of silence across the nation, bands in Union and Madison Squares in New York City played the hymn in memory of the fallen president. It was also played at a memorial service for him in Westminster Abbey, London.
The hymn was also played as the body of the assassinated American President James Garfield was interred at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, who had been shot on the 2nd July 1881.

This hymn was written by Sarah Fuller Flower Adams, the daughter of Benjamin and Eliza Flower, who was born February 22nd, 1805, in Harlow. Her father Benjamin (1755 – 1829) was a nonconformist, journalist, political writer, editor and proprietor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, who had spent 6 months in Newgate for defamation.

On his release he had married Eliza Gould and they settled down in Harlow where Benjamin became a printer. A daughter, Eliza was born on the 19th April 1803 and Sarah in 1805.

Sarah married William Bridges Adams in 1834. She had hoped to be an actress but her stage career was cut short by ill health (although she did get to play Lady Macbeth in 1837). After retiring from the stage she and her husband lived at 9, Woodbury Hill, Loughton. There she turned to writing. A friend of the poet Shelley she had a gift for lyric poetry, and also wrote 13 hymns, the most famous of which is Nearer My God, together with poems and many magazine articles. She also wrote verses for the Anti-Corn Law League.

Sarah worshipped at the Unitarian church in Finsbury, where she was influenced by the minister William Johnson Fox, a reforming journalist and social commentator. In 1841 he published, with Sarah, a book of music Hymns and Anthems, which included Nearer my God to Thee.

Sarah died on August 14th 1848 at St Martin-in-the- Fields, of tuberculosis and is buried alongside her parents in the Baptist graveyard in Foster Street, Harlow. Her friends described her as ‘a woman of singular beauty and attractiveness, delicate and truly feminine, high minded and in her days of health, playful and high spirited.’ She left no descendants.

Her husband William Bridges Allen (1797 – 1872) was himself a remarkable man, a civil engineer, and an ingenious and prolific inventor, especially in connection with the emerging railways. He is best remembered for his invention of the ‘fish-joint’ on rails. When he patented his new method of jointing rails, he referred to the jointing plates as Fishplates. The first large railway company to use them as standard was the LNWR, which introduced them in 1853.

William and Sarah are both remembered and a blue plaque can be seen on the site of the house they occupied at Woodbury Hill, Loughton,

Sarah’s elder sister Eliza completed the remarkable family. She was a composer, friend of Robert Browning, and wrote the music for all her sister’s hymns, and like Sarah was not to survive into old age. She died of consumption on the 12th December 1846 and is also buried in the family grave in Foster Street.

Tercentenary

In 2002, a popular BBC television series set out to discover the Greatest Briton. From a list of 100 Great Britons, viewers were invited to make their own choice. Not easy! Who was really able to compare the merits of those in diverse spheres - between, say, Brunel, an engineer, and William Shakespeare, playwright? Choice was further limited through the restriction of the original, pre-selected list. Perhaps unsurprisingly, of the 100, only one philosopher was included — Thomas Paine, an American revolutionary and the author of The Rights of Man.

John Locke deserved his place. The philosophy and political writings of John Locke influenced the framing of the Constitution of the United States and, from today’s perspective, the evident results of this inspiration may be regarded as very considerable, even 300 years after his death. From 1691, Locke was a local resident, renting rooms in Otes, High Laver. The tercentenary of his death is next year, 2004.

John Locke

Locke was educated at Westminster School. In 1652 he followed his illustrious contemporaries, Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, a physicist, chemist and architect, to Christ Church, Oxford. There he started a medical notebook and he was to keep such notes throughout the rest of his life. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, and thence to a Master’s degree in 1658, Locke was able to continue his medical studies under a college studentship. At Oxford, he later met Robert Boyle, chemist and physician. These people, within his elevated circle of friends, were to remain close to him.

Locke’s skills in the medicine of the day were considerable and frequently consulted by society. Lord Ashley was one who was successfully treated by Locke, a complaint being caused by an abscess on the liver, this was the first recorded successful treatment. Ashley, owing his life to Locke, became Lord High Chancellor of England and the First Earl of Shaftesbury in 1672. Locke was well connected.

The publication of the important philosophical writings of Locke was clustered around the period from 1689 to 1693. Two Treatises on Government was published in 1690, although almost certainly written much earlier. Again, the influential Essay Concerning Human Understanding, generally referred simply to as The Essay, the result of ideas established some twenty years earlier, was published in 1690.

Otes, High Laver

Nearing the age of 60, the poor atmosphere of London increasingly affected Locke’s health, subjected to recurrent bouts of asthma and bronchitis. Locke realised that he had to find quarters outside of the capital, and the urgency was emphasised by several of Locke’s close friends passing away in succession. Locke first asked the king to restore his studentship at Christ Church, but after realising that this would involve the expulsion of the current holder of the studentship, Locke withdrew.

In, 1691, Locke took winter quarters at Otes manor house, in High Laver, where he rented rooms from Sir Francis Masham and his wife Damaris, formerly Damaris Cudworth. She had been a friend of Locke’s for many years. The rent was set at £1 for both Locke and his manservant and 1 shilling for a horse. Otes was soon to become furnished with the scientific instruments derived from a life of enquiring endeavour, meteorological instruments, a telescope, botanical specimens and medical instruments. It may be concluded that the hosts were both understanding and generous. More so as Locke added to his library at Otes, the number of volumes in the library swelling to around 4,000.

The warmer summers allowed Locke to make frequent visits to London, indicating that he was still well enough. Wishing to remain active, in 1696 he took a post as a Commissioner for Trade and Plantations. While in High Laver, Locke continued his medical work. It was difficult for him to retire from medicine completely, as he may have wished, since his medical skills were still highly regarded. A man of his reputation would have naturally acquired a practice, which included not just the Masham family but the local community together with his remaining London circle.

. . . snails and woodlice . . .

In 1700, Locke became seriously ill, causing him to resign his official appointments. Severe asthma and bronchitis resulted in a chill, inviting a visit to Tunbridge Wells to take the spa waters. Later, he suffered violent earache and his notebooks recall both the somewhat primitive and the empirical nature of the proposed cures. A Dr Alexander Geekie proposed a large roast onion wrapped in colewort leaf, with the addition of herbs, as a poultice. In similar manner, other physicians proposed treatments to Locke for the condition, in return for the medical consultancy that Locke had provided to his numerous and influential friends. James Tyrrell advised an onion poultice, but with the addition to the application of “woman’s milk warmed” with juice of rue. Dr Guide suggested, and try this if you will, “oil of worms in which you have boiled snails and woodlice distilled and then dropped in the ear with a slice of onion or garlic”. It is recorded that the pain lessened, for whatever reason, but Locke did become deaf. Further treatments are recorded in his notes; wool rubbed with civet; beef gravy, pickled in salt; spirit of camphor, and so on.

The offending abscess burst. Geekie requested that the offending ear be cleaned with rose water, tincture of myrrh, and aloes made with brandy. He sent a silver ear trumpet, which Locke felt obliged to return. After making a full recovery, Locke delivered his portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller to the good doctor in gratitude.

Locke’s extensive network of medical contacts enabled him to consult most of the leading physicians in England, France and Holland on the subject of his asthma. Throughout this period of failing health, Locke remained active, preparing a commentary on the Epistles of St Paul and arranging a fourth edition of his Essay. He corresponded with his usual energy but during the summer of 1704, Locke’s breathlessness persisted and his legs became swollen. He probably realised that these were signs of worsening heart failure. He made a will, dividing his library into two.

Two Halves of a Library

He died on the 28th October, 1704. His death was peaceful, with Lady Masham reading him psalms, as he had requested. He raised his hands to his eyes and died quietly. He was buried in the churchyard of All Saints, High Laver, with little show. He left £4,555 of personal property. £3,000 was bequeathed to Francis Masham, £100 to the poor of High Laver, and £100 to the parish of Publow and Pensford. His books were divided between Francis Masham and a Peter King.

However, the lasting legacy of John Locke is embodied in the establishment of one of two leading European schools of philosophy. The English philosophers, Hume and Berkeley, were to continue this British empirical philosophical tradition in the following century. The consequences of his political writing are also manifest today. In the 17th century it had been accepted that the rule of a king was accorded authority by Divine Right. Locke’s political writing argued that what existed was a social contract. The social contract was formulated between subject and ruler, with no reference to God, but with rule determined by reference to the common good. Locke also established the doctrine that the legislative, executive and judicial functions should be separate (“checks and balances”). Constitutionally, the United States followed this liberal principle almost completely with President, Congress and the Supreme Court being independent of each other.

One now forgotten custom was to carry a garland, in the shape of a crown adorned with flowers and paper trimmings, at the funeral of an unmarried girl and to hang it in the church afterwards. This practice can be traced back to the 16th century and must be much older still it probably went into decline in the 17th and 18th centuries, restrained by Puritan reformers and the tidy-minded, but it has not entirely died out in modern times. In 1973, a garland was made for a funeral at Abbots Ann, Hampshire, where forty-nine garlands can be seen in St. Mary’s church.

A survey carried out 20 years ago by Gereth M. Spriggs identified 64 churches which preserve maidens’ garlands. Since then, only one other has been identified, in St. Michael’s church, Theydon Mount, it is one of two which a photograph of 1905 shows to have once hung from the nave roof. Since the other one disintegrated in a cloud of dust some years ago, efforts have been made to preserve the surviving example. It is currently being painstakingly restored at the Conservation Laboratory of the York Archaeological Trust.

The conservation of the garland has shed much light on its construction and history. The wooden frame, now worm-eaten and very fragile, was made of ash. Attached to it are sprigs of box, surprisingly well preserved, though the leaves have now gone brown. They are tied on with string made of hemp. As an evergreen shrub, box has been associated with burial practices since at least Roman times. Most interesting of all has been the analysis of the now very fragmentary paper decorations. Some of these have printed patterns in black or red on a white background, which look as if they date from the later 17th century. As such, they are the best dating evidence for the garland and indicate that it is very much older than previously suspected. Indeed, it is one of the oldest surviving garlands as well as being the only one in East Anglia.

The conservation of the garland has been made possible through the generosity of the Essex Heritage Trust, the Manifold Trust, and Essex County Council.

The census is a survey taken every 10 years to collect information on the population of the United Kingdom. From 1801 to 1831 the censuses were simply head counts with no personal information on individuals recorded (except in exceptional cases). From 1841 personal information on individuals was recorded.

From 1841 personal information was collected on individuals. Over time, more information was collected. Slightly different information was collected in the censuses for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

A brief look at the 1841 Census for Stanford Rivers reveals a high proportion of the residents shown as Agricultural Labourers. Other occupations include Miller, Shoemaker, Hay Binder, Sadler, Grocer, Butcher, Wheelwright, Chimney Sweep.

John Barnard, aged 56 was the Publican of the White Bear; The Rev Dowdeswell, aged 77 was the Rector, with a Butler, Gardener, Housekeeper and housemaid to look after him. Robert Smitheman is the Miller at Toot Hill and Robert Humphreys, the Miller at Littlebury. John Woolmer is described as a Church Clerk. Thomas Nichols, aged 60 is the Publican at the Green Man, Toot Hill. The Taylor family are shown living at Little End. Isaac Taylor is described as a ‘Literary’ His daughter Jane (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) is 13 years old.

The 1841 Census lists some 861 persons living in the parish and provides an interesting social insight into a rural village community.