High Country History Group

On 17 July, members of the High Country History Group visited Ongar Park Wood. The weather was dull, hard to remember now in a late summer of so many warm, sunny evenings. Our guide was Peter Moring, Peter and Clare Moring having bought the neighbouring wood, High Wood, in 1999. High Wood and Ongar Park Wood show many ancient and interesting features relating to the history of the local landscape.

In High Wood there are three dominant species of trees - hornbeam, oak and silver birch, with the occasional holly, horse chestnut and wild cherry interspersed. Until the Second World War the wood appears to have been managed as hornbeam coppice¹, but then coppicing stopped. Oaks were felled during the same period but were not replaced. A result of this felling was that two clearings were established within the wood.

Hornbeam, a very hard wood with a tendency to split but with a high calorific value, would have been used both for fuel and for the production of charcoal. The hamlet adjacent to the wood to the south is called Colliers Hatch, after charcoal burners who were also called wood colliers. The charcoal was used in local brickyards, of which there were a number in the vicinity. A brick and tile works is recorded on the Ordnance Survey map of 1881 on the site of the present Carisbrooke Farm.

The by-way to the west of High Wood is believed to have been part of an old droving road along which cattle and sheep would have been driven to market. The track is about 30m wide, but at one point it broadens, possibly so that animals could be penned to allow them feed and rest overnight. The by-way supports many gnarled trees with roots marooned, suspended above the eroded banks. Evidence of at least one sawpit, a further lasting witness of man’s earlier endeavours, can be seen.

¹ Coppicing is the management practice of felling trees near to the ground and allowing the new shoots to grow. In most cases the shoots need to be protected from the deer. Mature poles are cut in a coppice rotation to produce poles of just the required size.

The Deer Park

The substantial bank separating High Wood, to the west, and Ongar Park Wood, to the east, is a visible survival of a medieval deer park. The deer park has the distinction of being the earliest recorded within England, the reference dating from 1045 when a will² mentioned “a wood . . . outside the deerhay”. The Anglo-Saxon word deerhage can be interpreted either as a hedge to keep deer in or as a hedge used to catch them! The reference in the will offers unique, but still tenuous, evidence of a continuity between Anglo-Saxon and Norman deer parks. Some controversy still follows the precise meaning of hay.

The bank is still massive, and although substantially eroded we can still speculate on its original size and shape. To retain the deer, the bank would have been topped with brushwood or palings. The deer park extended from this visible bank, past the water tower in Toot Hill, along the side of the small wood known as Miller’s Grove, near to the former Blake Hall Station, to the A414 at Tylers Green, then along the southern boundary of North Weald to Carisbrooke Farm, again to join the visible bank approaching Colliers Hatch. This is a distance of approximately 5 miles and encloses an area of around 1,200 acres. Bank construction would have been a formidable undertaking with only personal tools and scarce labour. This labour may have been exchanged for common rights to some of the benefits of the park. In addition, maintenance of a paling fence would have absorbed considerable funds. Apart from its functional use, there is little doubt that such a park would have provided a recognisable landmark to display the power and wealth of the owner³.

Little Domesday, the later addition to Domesday covering East Anglia, refers to both park (parc) and hay. Both words may both refer to deer park, in which case the number of deer parks in Domesday will have been underestimated. It is often commented that Domesday mentions 35 deer parks but Ongar Park is not one of these, the only park in Essex mentioned being at Rayleigh⁴. This probably means that the deer park was not always recorded anyway in Domesday, rather than suggesting any demise associated with the sturdy structure of Ongar Park.

The park may have been enclosed wood-pasture, grassland surrounding pollarded⁵, wooded areas, providing cover for the deer. Alternatively, it may have been compartmental, with wooded areas being separated from the grassland by banks internal to the boundary and there is some evidence to suggest this in Ongar Park. Trees within these compartments could then be coppiced with the banks helping to exclude the deer from the new shoots of the coppice. Rackham states that some internal coppice banks may still be visible within Ongar Park⁶.

² Kerr, Sandra, Ongar Great Park, in ‘Aspects of the History of Ongar’, (Ongar Millennium Group 1990), p6-7.
³ However your own gallows would have proved that you also had influence!
⁴ Darby, H.C., The Domesday Geography of Eastern England, (Cambridge, 1952), p 234.
⁵ Pollarding is the technique of cutting branches at a height of ten feet from the ground. New branches would be allowed to grow out of harm from the deer.
⁶ Rackham, Oliver, The History of the Countryside, (London, 1986), p 126.

The Deer

At the time of the Norman Conquest, deer would have been restricted to red deer and roe deer. It was only in the twelfth century that fallow deer were introduced into England by the Normans. More manageable than the roe deer, the behaviour of the fallow deer encouraged the construction of new parks. These new parks confirmed the increasing wealth of landowners. The deer park provided the landowner with a convenient supply of meat, the venison being much prized. Sometimes said to be beyond price, the meat appears to have been reserved only for the feast. Ongar Park was probably large enough to support hunting the deer, the hunting probably carried out using specially bred dogs. The park appears to have been one of the largest, certainly large enough to support a herd of hundreds of deer.

Deer were encouraged to enter but deterred from leaving the park by a deer leap, an external ramp and an internal pit at a break in the boundary bank. William I and his Norman followers put great store on their right to unrestricted hunting. With the introduction of the Norman Forest Laws, laws that provided almost total protection for the deer within designated areas called Royal Forests⁷, the establishment of the deer park in or close to the Royal Forest was subject to licence. The deer leap was also strictly controlled within and near to the Royal Forest, but Ongar Park was permitted to install two such leaps⁸.

Over one quarter of the country, all deer effectively belonged to the king. The deer were often the gift of the king who would sometimes generously donate them towards the stocking of a new park.

⁷ The use of the term Royal Forest does not imply forest or woodland, but simply refers to those areas within the jurisdiction of the Forest Laws. It is believed that Essex was wholly a Royal Forest at one time.

Essex Deer Parks

The number of deer parks grew in the twelfth century, aided by the arrival of the fallow deer. It has been estimated that in 1300 there were between 1,800 and 3,000 deer parks in the country. Some of these are well documented because of the need for a licence. Cantor⁸ has provided a methodical list of about 1,900 parks, listed by county and noting early references to the existence of a park. According to Cantor, Essex contained 102 parks at this time, with possible sites for a further six parks also being listed. How many of these were distinct parks is a subject for conjecture since there is usually no reference to the actual location of the park, but only to the landowners. More recently, Hunter⁹ has stated that 160 existed at this time in Essex, more than in any other county except Hertfordshire.

Cantor provides early references to these parks and to find them we must search in the documents recording the proceedings of state - the Calendar of Patent Rolls and the Calendar of Close Rolls, for example. Local medieval parks listed include those at Aythorpe Roding, Berners Roding, Doddinghurst, High Ongar, Matching, Stondon Massey, and Theydon Garnon and two in Writtle. Within the High Country, parks are listed under Chipping Ongar, Stanford Rivers and Stapleford Tawney. However, it seems likely that the first two of these refer to the same park.

⁸ Cantor, Leonard, The Medieval Deer Parks of England, (Loughborough University of Technology, 1983).
⁹ Hunter, John, The Essex Landscape: A Study of its Form and History, (Essex Record Office, 1999), p119.

Regeneration of High Wood

High Wood has not been managed for more than 50 years. The results of this can be seen; un-coppiced hornbeams have created a dense canopy under which few woodland plants grow; bracken has invaded clearings; the pond has become stagnant; silver birch has become established in some areas, competing with hornbeam and oak; the bridleway has become deeply rutted, partly as a consequence of shading which prevents the path from drying out. Peter Moring intends to introduce a management plan to restore the wood to its earlier state; some hornbeam will be felled; the elimination of the bracken from the clearing has been started; the pond will be cleaned; oak will be reintroduced to the new clearings; the local council has introduced restrictions to bridleway entry and shading trees are being cut down.

A plan has been drawn up for the management of High Wood. With the re-introduction of felling, the plan is intended to restore some of the features of a managed wood. These will increase the environmental richness and the attraction of this small wood. The future of High Wood looks brighter!

Saturday, 16th August, 2003

Twenty-eight members of the High Country History Group and friends visited the Royal Gunpowder Mills. This was the first visit to the site for most of the party. At noon, the Group filled the land train, a tractor drawn trailer with seating, for the guided tour. A smaller party was left to board the following train. The site is 175 acres in extent and the land train takes about 45 minutes for the tour.

The first record of the Royal Gunpowder Mills dates from 1664. They were then privately owned. For the next 300 years the Mills at Waltham Abbey produced explosives of the highest quality, providing the necessary raw material for the promotion of this island’s naval and military campaigns during the long period of international supremacy.

Under protest from the owner, John Walton, the Crown bought the Mills in 1787 for £10,000. The action was taken to guarantee the supply of explosive at a critical time of international tension when other European powers threatened Britain’s rising trade. Between 1793 and 1814, the Napoleonic Wars necessitated an increase in the production of gunpowder from 5,000 to 25,000 barrels, amounting to 1,100 tons, per annum.

In 1863, following many years of unsuccessful manufacturing trials, the production of guncotton was perfected at Waltham Abbey. Output of guncotton rose to 250 tons per annum in 1872. Production of cordite started in 1891. With the introduction of these improved explosives the demand for gunpowder declined. However, new sites in Waltham Abbey were still needed for the new processes and were duly purchased.

During the Great War some 6,000 workers, half of them women, were employed there, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some ancestors of members of the High Country History Group were there during this time, with at least one walking daily to the Mills from Theydon Mount! In the years following, demand for the products declined, only for demand to be revived again both with the onset of the deterioration in international relations in the late 1930s and the development of further new explosives, such as RDX. The factory closed in July 1945 although the site continued as a research and development establishment, under various Ministry of Defence headings.

The site closed in 1991. Unsurprisingly, none of the earliest buildings have survived. Nevertheless, there still exists a remarkable collection of 250 buildings and structures. Many of these had been vacated or destroyed earlier in the life of the Mills. English Heritage list twenty-one of the remaining buildings. The Mills remain a fascinating display of the development of industrial processes, and demonstrate the supply of the power needed sustain them.

Please visit the Mills if you have not already done so. The site supports a cinema showing an excellent (noisy!) short film. There is a visitor centre, museum and other small exhibitions. There is plenty of space and there are walks through woodland and alongside the canals, so important for both transport and power through the site. Two thirds of the site is protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The site supports a large heronry. If you have been to the Mills, then be encouraged to go again but note that opening times are restricted these days.

The Royal Gunpowder Mills can be contacted through the website www.royalgunpowdermills.com for further details.

Following the High Country History Group’s recent visit to the Records Office at Wharf Road, Chelmsford, I received a list of Essex Records Office events, one of which was an opportunity to view the only complete set of plans in existence for a workhouse in Essex, those of the Epping Union Workhouse. Having spent eight years employed in the administrative offices of St. Margaret’s Hospital housed in the workhouse, these plans were of particular interest to me.

The Epping Union Workhouse was a good example of the type of complex built for relief of the poor. The Poor Laws have been in existence since Elizabethan times when it was the responsibility of each parish to provide them with outdoor relief. From 1601 small parish workhouses were erected as an alternative. People unable to find work were set menial tasks in return for food and shelter. However this did not deter the able-bodied from seeking relief and as numbers and costs increased more drastic measures were considered, culminating in the introduction in 1834 of the Poor Law Amendment Act. Under this new Poor Law well regulated Union Workhouses were built serving several Parishes. At this time there was harsh discipline and segregation of the inmates. The Epping Union Workhouse was designed by Lewis Vulliamy and was built in 1838 at the northern end of Epping Town and within the Parish of Theydon Garnon It was built of red brick with a slate roof En 1896 boundary changes placed it in the new Parish and Urban District of Epping.

The original plans of 1838 show the Workhouse to consist of two parallel ranges with cross-wings and a central projecting range, these buildings being of three-storeys and housing inmates in dormitories separated by their gender and social class. Spanning from each side of the central projection were a group of single-storey buildings - the cookhouse, bakehouse and stores. A few of these buildings still existed up until recently. Behind the three storeys were more low buildings creating an enclosure of four separate yards used for the segregation of men, women, boys and girls during recreation. These were divided by walls with a central tower where the Master was able to monitor all activity within the yards. Detached from this block was the washhouse and sewing room. By the mid-19th century the corrupting influence of adult paupers on workhouse children was causing concern and detached industrial schools were erected to prepare children for adult life. These were a disaster, disease was rife and children mal-adjusted These schools were replaced by cottage homes.

In 1882 a third parallel range of three storeys was added to the Workhouse. It is believed that this was the isolation infirmary. Lavatory and ablution arrangements were shared with other inmates in the Workhouse. Water pressure was insufficient for the upper floors so this was supplemented by the hydrant point and also the well which ran dry in the summer months. There were inadequate drainage and sanitary arrangements. The babies in the Nursery were bathed in the kitchens and there were no lavatories at all in the Nursery. The kitchens had no refrigerators-

Poor Laws were disbanded in 1929 when their role was transferred to Borough and District Councils. The Epping Workhouse continued in use after 1930 as a Public Assistance Institution, being renamed St. Margaret’s Hospital in September 1938 and afterwards in July 1948 it became an NHS Hospital. The original Workhouse building housed the Hospital administration offices until these moved out in mid 1998. The front projection of the building became the Porter’s Lodge and Hospital switchboard.

Also housed in the workhouse area were the kitchens serving the whole Hospital, the Catering Department, the cleaning contractors, the linen services, the medical photographers and darkroom, the Pharmacy, the Voluntary Services Organizer and a restroom for gardening staff. The original boiler houses were demolished and new boiler rooms erected. Some of the medical staff were accommodated in the workhouse and geriatric patients were housed in Forest Wing (the third parallel range to be erected). Nursing staff were the jurisdiction of the Matron and initially they lived in the infirmary building erected on the site in 1913. Later this became the Medical Library and Post Graduate Medical Centre. It is now known as Birchwood House and its use has changed. The original wash house of the workhouse still stands as in 1989 this received Grade II listing. It accommodates the current Hospital laundry with the original attached single-storey buildings in use as linen stores. The Nursery building also remains, along with a few other single-storey buildings.

Until recently Essex had retained a large number of its workhouses. St. Margaret’s Hospital was still buzzing with activity in its heyday in the 1960’s and 197G’s. This was the time the new Out-patients building was erected, the Hospital expanded and the majority of the workhouse area was in use. Now with modern health reforms the old buildings are surplus to requirements, and in this Millennium the Epping Union Workhouse was demolished in stages.

Forest Wing was the first to go, closely followed by the main institution. The rustic bricks and the huge workhouse bell-tower which topped the building were sold. Occurring simultaneously with the demolition of the Epping Workhouse, was the demolition of the Workhouse at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford. This was the only workhouse remaining in Essex constructed to a cruciform plan. A campaign to save it was launched, but it was argued that the interior of the building had changed so much that it was not worth saving.

Chris Morris was born to a single mother in 1913. He lived all his life in the South Woodford and Epping area. His father was believed to have been lost when the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915, and Chris and his family grew up in desperate poverty. Chris was boarded out in his early years and during this period suffered double pneumonia and meningitis. Leaving school at 13, Chris was self-taught throughout his life. He entered local farm work, eventually working at the Copped Hall Estate from December 1944.

He became Chairman of the Epping Branch of the Labour Party, and from there he took increasingly responsible positions within the National Union of Agricultural Workers. As a direct consequence of this involvement, he was dismissed from his job and forcibly evicted from his cottage on the estate in 1960. His plight focused national attention onto the tied cottage system and, as a result of subsequent lobbying of MPs, the Rent (Agriculture) Act eventually became law on 1st January 1977. Under increasing ill health, Chris died on 2nd September 1990 in St Margaret’s hospital, Epping.

The book is a transcript of tapes by Chris Morris covering his early life. The book has strong local interest. Stan Newens has added additional details with an introduction and postscript. The book has been published by Labour Heritage, which exists to promote interest in the Labour Party and the labour movement. It can be obtained from Stan Newens, The Leys, 18 Park Hill, Harlow, Essex CM17 0AE, at £4.50.

ONGAR UNION

The Board of Guardians is desirous of engaging a competent unmarried female not less than 30, no more than 45 years of age as SCHOOLMISTRESS for the Instruction of the Boys and Girls in the Workhouse of this Union. The salary will (subject to the approval of the Poor Law Commission) be £25 per annum with double rations. The average weekly number of Boys and Girls between the ages of 4 and 16 years maintained in such workhouse during the last year has been 40.

Testimonials of Character and Ability of each Candidate must be sent (postage paid) addressed to me previous to the 31st inst and Candidates must attend the Board on TUESDAY. The 7th April next at the Town Hall, in this Town at One o’clock.
By Order of the Board
Wm. Baker, Clerk.

Among those lately committed to prison we find Josiah Dow, a lad of 16 years of age, who is charged with setting fire to a parcel of Hay under the following circumstances.

About 3 o’ clock in the afternoon of Thursday, Dow in company with several other boys was observed by Mr Worters of Stapleford Tawney, lurking about one of his fields, in which he had placed a boy to keep of rooks; the latter had kindled a fire. Mr Worters observing Dow and his associates addressed himself to Dow in particular and desired that they would leave the field, or he would horsewhip him (Dow). These words it would appear, produced a feeling of revenge in the breast of prisoner who was heard to say that he would “serve him (Mr Worters) out” This youthful delinquent shortly after borrowed a knife off one of his companions, cut a stick, which he lighted at the fire in the field and was seen to go to a parcel of hay (about 40 trusses) which was thatched. In a few moments the hay was observed to be in flames and no part could be saved. Dow was immediately apprehended and after an examination before the Magistrates was fully committed to take his trial for the offence.

So numerous have been the depredations upon sheep belonging to farmers in the neighbourhood of Chipping Ongar, that as many as 50 have been stolen within a very short period. Mr Jonathan Lewis of Water End Farm, is one of the principal sufferers.

Sarah Twights was convicted of stealing from the person of George Flack labourer of Stanford Rivers, a purse containing a sovereign and 7s 6d in silver. Prosecutor was drinking in the tap-room of the Two Brewers Public House, High Ongar, when the prisoner who sat on the settle by the side of him, put her hand into his pocket and took out his purse. Being detected she threw the purse across the table to two men, one of whom emptied it of its contents, threw the purse back and ran out.

Sentence – 7 years transportation.

A General Meeting of the Members of this Association will be held in the Town Hall in Chipping Ongar, on Saturday 3rd January 1835, at three o’clock precisely for the purpose of auditing the accounts of the Treasurer and for other purposes at which meeting the members and other persons having property within 12 miles of Chipping Ongar desirous of becoming members of the Association are invited to attend.
Dated 22nd December 1835
Capel Cure } Treasurers.
Richard Stokes }