High Country History Group

Some 26 members visited Ingatestone Hall, the
home of Lord Petre, Lord Lieutenant of Essex,
on the 8 July. The Petre family have lived at the
hall since 1540. The hall is mentioned in Simon
Jenkins book, 'England's Thousand Best
Houses'.

If you were unable to join us on, I would
recommend that you pay the hall a visit as soon
as possible. You will not be disappointed.

James Woolmore had served as churchwarden
at St Margaret's church, Stanford Rivers for 55
years when this photograph was taken in
February 1905.

During his long service he served under four
Rectors.

To London

The Stortford Coach at 5p.m.
The Fakenham at 8a.m.
The Norwich Coach at 9a.m.
The Cambridge “Times” at 10a.m.
The Cambridge Coach at 2p.m.
The Bury Coach at 11p.m.
The Swaffham Coach at 8 p.m.
The “Magnet” from Norwich at 4a.m.
The Norwich Mail at 5a.m.
The Walden Coach at 2p.m.
The Harlow Coach at 9a.m.
The Thetford Coach at 9a.m.
The Dunmow Coach at 9a.m.

From London

The Thetford Coach at 9a.m.
The Fakenham at 8a.m.
The Cambridge Coach at 12a.m.
The Bury Coach at 4p.m.
The Cambridge “Times” at 5p.m.
The Norwich Coach at 6p.m.
The “Magnet” to Norwich at 8p.m.
The Swaffham Coach at 8p.m.
The Norwich Mail at 10p.m.
The Walden Coach at 12p.m.
The Harlow Coach at 6p.m.
The Stortford Coach at 5p.m.
The Dunmow Coach at 9a.m.

(From an Almanac published by Mr Griffith, printer & stationer of Epping. Essex)

In 1750 a coach ran through Chipping Ongar 3 times weekly and in 1764 the Ongar ‘Crown’ landlord sponsored a ‘New Machine’ to run from Fyfield through Ongar to London. One of these 2 coaches soon ceased, the other continued for nearly the rest of the century.

In addition there were 2 Epping coaches, each performing 2 journeys a day, making the total number of coaches to and from Epping 25 a day. Each coach driven by four horses, called at a particular inn, where the horses would be stabled.

The coach guard played a series of particular calling notes when arriving at the inn. There were also post horses, many of them used by travellers to ride to the Newmarket races.

Other horses were required for the yellow post chaises then in use, as well as for the coaches kept by a number of local county families. These were usually equipped to carry the family and their luggage long distances, so would be drawn by a four-in-hand. Epping by the 1790’s was served by coaches making 46 journeys a week.

Purely local services did not develop until end of 18th Century and then only on a small scale.

The man who cuts the grass in the churchyard of St Nicholas’, Fyfield, recently had the alarming experience of stepping back and falling into a hole which opened beneath him. Thankfully, he was not injured but investigation into how the accident occurred revealed a grave which was far from commonplace. These notes describe what was found and from other sources, it has been possible to piece together some facts about the people involved. First, however, some background notes about the churchyard provide the context for what follows, and they include a small mystery of their own.

The ground in which the departed of Fyfield are buried today was only brought into use as a burial ground as recently as forty years ago. Expansion of the original graveyard surrounding St Nicholas’ church had started in 1904 and since then the boundary has been moved again twice to bring additional land into use for burials¹. The boundary line of the original, medieval graveyard can be established by reference to surviving memorials² and therein lies the first thread of the puzzle.

The original graveyard extended only fifty feet south of the church building, giving a total area of just over half an acre. The church built here by the Normans and its considerable extension through the fourteenth century are on a scale which indicates that Fyfield was a significant village in mediaeval times and it is surprising to find that it was served by such a small burial ground, in an age when the norm was for double this area; popularly referred to as ‘God’s Acre’. This leads to the second element of the mystery. It has always been the practice in the English church to reuse grave spaces after a decent interval – around a century – when the remains of earlier occupants have settled. This efficient use of the land had the practical advantage that it seldom did a graveyard run out of space for fresh burials. However, continually adding new dust to the old eventually had a noticeable effect upon the sheer bulk of the earth into which it was all being placed and mediaeval churchyards are typically characterised by a significant elevation of the ground level, which can impart a sunken appearance to adjacent features, such as the path to the porch and even the church building itself. For a burial ground as unusually cramped as that serving Fyfield, it would be reasonable to expect this effect to be especially marked; a view reinforced by crude extrapolation of the parish registers, which suggests that it is probably the resting place for eight-thousand or more departed souls. Despite this, the mediaeval graveyard surrounding St Nicholas’ church exhibits no obvious signs of increased bulk.

Exploration of this puzzle is beyond the scope of these brief notes but there is no doubt that the old burial ground was still in full and active use until a century ago, when the boundary was moved to enclose the first new piece of farmland acquired for future graves and at that point burials in the old ground were discontinued. Some twenty years after the new ground came into use, in order to ease maintenance, it was decided in 1923 to level all the burial mounds and to lay flat on the ground all the gravestones in the old burial ground, except for “modern” ones and those with a continuing family connection³. The headstones so laid down are still there, the turf having closed over them in the intervening years.

Curiously, the grave involved in the recent accident was not one of that majority which had been laid flat in 1923, but neither was it then a modern one and Grout, the family name it commemorates, appears to have died out in Fyfield before the end of the eighteenth century.

Thomas Grout was born in about 1710. With his wife Grace, some eight years his junior, and their daughter Mary, who was born around 1739, he came to Fyfield as the schoolmaster⁴; the year of his arrival is not recorded. It is a reasonable assumption that they lived in School House, one of fifteen separate houses which were then in the village main street⁵, and which had been established as the schoolmaster’s residence in 1692 by the will of the late rector, Anthony Walker. Before she had reached the age of thirty, Grace was dead, being buried in March 1747⁶ in a plot in the north-east corner of the churchyard. The limestone headstone which marked her resting place was of modest size and the epitaph which her grieving husband put on it expressed his desire eventually to be reunited with her.

This is the grave which opened unexpectedly one day recently. Apart from the small, partially sunken headstone which marks its position, the ground it occupied was completely level, with grass growing over it, as it does over most of the plots in the old churchyard and there was nothing to indicate that it was other than a conventional, earth-filled grave. However, Thomas Grout had gone to some trouble over his wife’s final resting place and, instead of it simply being backfilled with the earth removed when it was dug, he had it lined with brickwork almost up to ground level. This comprised more than twenty courses of bricks laid in stretcher-bond. The grave was narrow at the head, with curved sides broadening to about twenty inches wide at the shoulder position, before following a curved taper down to about nine inches at the feet. The result was a coffin-shaped hole more reminiscent of mediaeval graves constructed under church floors⁷ and it is unusual as an eighteenth-century churchyard burial. But this is not the end of the story.

In October of the following year, Thomas Grout remarried, taking as his wife Elizabeth Maynard⁸; and their marriage lasted until Elizabeth’s death twenty years later. Her husband seems to have had interests and skills beyond the modest demands made upon an eighteenth century village schoolmaster and his name occasionally crops up in matters unrelated to his formal position. In 1759, we find that both Thomas and Elizabeth Grout were witnesses to the will of John Young, a husbandman of Moreton⁹. Then, in 1764 he is named as the surveyor responsible for a map of Longbarns Farm in Abbess and Beauchamp Roding, property of Stephen Skinner Esq¹⁰, which is of some interest since eighteenth century landowners were not generally inclined to commission detailed surveys of their holdings which might one day constitute inconvenient evidence for tithe claims against them. The map is a first class piece of draughtsmanship, giving every indication that Grout was an experienced hand at such work. In April 1768, Elizabeth Grout died and was buried¹¹, in a plot of which no identifiable trace is left to us today. By her death, Elizabeth missed the marriage in Fyfield, the following July, of Grout’s daughter Mary to Robert Allaway, of the London parish of St Giles in the Fields¹². Witnesses to the marriage were Grout himself and John Chipperfield. Chipperfield seems to have been the parish clerk from around 1757 until his death in 1779 and he signed as a witness to virtually every marriage in Fyfield during that period¹³. In 1746 he had married Elizabeth Nichols but their only child, John, died in infancy in 1749. After the death of his wife in 1770, Chipperfield married Mary Wilson in October of the following year and Thomas Grout was one of the witnesses to that marriage¹⁴.

Following the death of his second wife, Thomas Grout grieved for a much shorter period than after his earlier loss of Grace, and only four months later he married Martha Devenill¹⁵. However, he now had only three years left himself and he died in July 1774, aged sixty-four¹⁶. With his death, we return to the collapsed grave in the churchyard, for a feature of its brick construction suggests that Grout may always have intended to be buried in it with his first wife, Grace. Nine courses of brick up from the bottom of the grave, the curvature of the walls had been increased to accommodate Thomas Grout’s broader frame. The result was that, at the shoulders, the grave space for him was about four inches wider than the space below, in which rested Grace. Two holes were left in the brickwork on each side to allow insertion of a pair of wooden beams spanning the width of the grave, to provide support for Thomas’ body. This section of greater width has a height of six brick courses, above which, up to the surface, it resumes the narrower profile of the lower part of the grave.

It is unclear whether the grave was constructed originally with this modified profile, on Thomas’ instruction, or if it was rebuilt only on his death, perhaps when a decision was taken to bury him in the same plot as Grace and it was then found that he was too big for the grave which had been built twenty-seven years earlier. The uniformity of the bricks and bricklayer’s style throughout the walls lends support to the idea that it was built this way from the first. However, had it been modified later, the same bricks would have been re-laid with the walls further apart and so the brickwork alone is not a reliable indicator. The size of the headstone suggests that Thomas might not have intended his own name to be added to it. It is a small stone and the epitaph to Grace, although only partly legible, fills all the available space on its face, leaving no room for his own details. Eventually, when he died, the stone was turned over and the dedication to him was inscribed on the other side.

Scarcely had Grout been laid to rest than his daughter followed him to the grave, at the age of only thirty-five and she too was interred in what had, effectively become a family grave¹⁷. With Mary’s death, in October 1774, the grave was closed for the last time, by placing three sandstone blocks over the opening. The stones are of irregular shape and have not been worked by masons’ tools, indicating that they were not intended to be seen and were then covered with earth. They so lay for over two-hundred years until the recent accident, which happened when the centre stone broke in two. There was no obvious evidence in the grave upon which to determine other practical details of the manner of burial of the three occupants.

The Grout family connection with Fyfield now continued by a single thread. Mary’s widower, Robert Allaway seems to have stayed in the parish. He appears briefly in the registers in October 1777 when he was witness to the marriage of Richard Berwick and Elizabeth Netherstreet. Then, in May 1780, he remarried, his second wife being Mary Turner¹⁸. However, he did not enjoy his new-found happiness for long and he was buried in Fyfield in December 1782¹⁹, after which the registers contain no further mention of the names Grout or Allaway.

This leaves unanswered the question as to why, one hundred and forty years later, the Grout gravestone was not laid flat, along with all the other ones commemorating family names long extinct in the parish. It may simply have been overlooked but a more pleasing possibility suggests itself. I like to imagine the man told to do the job scratching his head as he puzzled over which of the two inscribed faces of the Grout headstone should be condemned to face forever downwards and eventually deciding to offend neither Grace on one side, nor Thomas and Mary on the other and quietly retreating, leaving them all undisturbed, for eternity.

Marcus Dain
Churchwarden
St Nicholas, Fyfield
May, 2004

The endless tides of history have washed the green hill-country of Theydon Mount a thousand years. Nothing more important in the life of the parish than the building of its church has happened there throughout that time. With Hill Hall, St. Michael's encompasses the whole history of the parish in its noblest and humblest dimensions. A great Elizabethan lies within it, adding lustre to the more prosaic memory of parishioners 'who, like him, worshipped there in the faith for which this pleasant little Essex church was built. We do not know if Godric, who farmed the lands of the Saxon manor, shared this privilege, or if the FitzWimarcs, the powerful Norman magnates who usurped his inheritance at the Conquest, raised a Norman church at the site.

In history there is no church at Theydon Mount until 1236 when, the Essex archives tell us Robert the parson was involved in a dispute about land. But the absence of a reference to one on the manor at the time of the Domesday Survey does not preclude the presence of a church in 1086. The parochial system was well established in Essex before the Normans came and it is at least possible that the first church at Theydon Mount had been built by the end of the twelfth century or even earlier. We have, unhappily, no information that would enable us to describe the earlier church. It is likely to have been largely of timber construction for there is little building stone available in Essex and such a precious commodity would almost certainly have been beyond the resources of such a sma1l community or, at any rate, not readily discarded when the present church was built. Oak on the other hand, stood in abundance on the clay slopes of the wooded ridge that still characterise the parish landscape. That too would explain the apparently complete loss of the old church by fire, as a result, it is said, of being struck by lightning in 1611.

The old church was dedicated to St. Michael and St. Stephen. It enjoyed, like its successor, the present church, the patronage of the lords of the manor who presided at the great houses on the Mount within the shadow of which it stood. Its destruction, like that of Hill Hall 350 years later, was a major event in the story of the parish. It made way, however, for the fine brick built church we now admire, and much, as the most famous of Essex historiographers, Philip Morant, wrote in 1763 'stands pleasantly' in the parkland around the ruined shell of Hill Hall. At the time a note of frustration and impatience, a not unfamiliar experience today, was sounded by the rector who, in the parish register, wrote: -.

'for Two yeeres we had none Christened in or Church because it-was so long building, after it was burnt‘

It was not until 1614, with Margaret Juby, the first of the rector's four children to be christened at the church, that the entries were resumed in the parish registers. At the time there appears to have been more than a little anxiety to disturb the tranquillity of this remote parish. In the year of the fire the Parochial Visitations note that George Mott, warden, tackled about his deteyning a chest in his custody belonging to the church …. alleged that the chest was broken open when the church was robde, and that it was cast broken into a field. ‘They want', it was said, ‘a strong chests or box for the almes for the poore'. No one could deny it! And again, the Visitation of 1638, the new church no doubt still lacking in any respects, reports the need to rail the communion table and provide plate, cloth, a book of homilies, a book of commons, a book for the fifth of November, a new chest for the ‘ornament of the church', an alms box for the poor with lock and keys, a new cover for the pulpit cushion and a font cover. The churchyard fence was to be ‘repayred and mended’. A new parchment register was to be provided for christenings.

The registers - to which we now return were, the rector was instructed, ‘to be kept in ye chest'. The whole spectrum of parish life is exposed in the fading mundane pages of these documents. Mingled with entries recording the baptisms, marriages and deaths of the great folk of Hill Hall are such as the 'vagrant's child' buried in 1638 and Jane Anderson, 'Daughter of a trauelling straunger' baptised in June 1642. There is poignant tragedy too. Willyan Doucet had a little son baptised and 'next day dyed and buried'. And the continuity of family life within the ambit of the parish church was set do\m for posterity. Thomas Winter and his sweetheart, An Weldon, married in the church in May 1626, brought Thomas and Rebecca their 'Twines sonne & daughter' to the font in 1629.

Pre-eminent is the name of Sir Thomas Smith whose burial in the chancel was recorded in the register on 5th September 1571, with an unique verbal flourish in contrast to the normal economy of the rector's clerical routines:

'Thomas Smith miles et principalis secretar' nobilissime pricipis Elizabethe Regine Anglie.

This great man's name dominates the history of Theydon Mount and Hill Hall. Essex-born, and an intellectual of the first rank in Tudor England, Sir Thomas, after a life of achievement and tribulation, ended his days at Hill Hall the architectural conception of which sprang largely from his fertile inspiration and experience. His tomb in the chancel, elaborate and impressive, he is believed to have designed himself. It forms part of a luxuriantly incongruous array of monuments to the Smith family whose members were for more than three centuries closely associated with the church as patrons and rectors. But if St. Michael's has today outlived its role as a family sepulchre for the Smiths, their stony presence still transcends the otherwise simple piety of this modest church, as if reluctant to relinquish the status they once enjoyed.

The new building was one of fifteen pre-Victorian parish churches in Essex dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, thus symbolising the triumph of virtue and the church in its militant aspect. It is interesting that this dedication is not infrequently found attached to churches with hill-top sites like that at Theydon Mount. The dedication was made when the new church was consecrated by John Lang, the Bishop of London, in 1614. Not large, the church is none-the-less an unusually complete example of its period which was not prolific in church building in Essex or indeed elsewhere. But for the fire, Theydon Mount is unlikely to have had a new church before the Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century.

We may, perhaps, appropriately pause here to consider the church in its architectural aspects. There is much good brick building in Essex and the church stands comparison with the best although it has not the striking external diaper work of Ingatestone or the scale or elaboration of the towers at East Horndon, Rochford or Layer Marney. Its agreeable red-brick textures harmonise well with its immediate environment. Probably the bricks were made in the kilns which, according to the Chapman and Andre map, still operated in the fields to the north of the church in the eighteenth century. Certainly, it is the homogenise of this medium and the sepulchral edifices which crowd the chancel, that are the most significant feature of the building. I like the proportions of the neatly recessed and shingled spirelet that satisfied but refuses to compete with the sturdy battlemented three-stage tower on which it rests. The fenestration is fittingly simple with moulded labels and unsophisticated intersecting tracery.

Conversely, the porch, with curvilinear sable and classical decoration; is slightly fussy and inconsistent with the architectural idiom as a whole. The Smith memorials divert attention from a plain but well contrived arch-braced roof of the nave and such details as the elegant and unusual marble font reputedly of Italian origin, and apparently contemporary with the main fabric. The benches too must be survivals from the early seventeenth century.

In 1791 Humphry Repton, the famous landscape gardener, was concerned to exploit the aesthetic qualities of the church, its tower 'imbosomed high in tufted trees’ for the benefit of the vistas from Hill Hall. A glimpse of the church at that time is thus afforded by his brief descriptive reference and the little water-colour with which he illustrates his proposals in the Red Book prospectus I he prepared for the Smiths:

‘The church which I now suppose….. is of red brick, in which there is less harm than in the attempt to ornament it by white windows and a white spire….’

Less harm indeed: It is the use of this sturdy and pleasant medium, characteristic of an Essex building tradition of the period, that we now find so attractive. A less sophisticated view was taken in 1845 in an article in The Penny Magazine describing Hill Hall and the park, then well-stocked with deer, which called it 'a neat little church'. A present authority, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner acknowledges its architectural quality and rarity in his monumental modern Domesdey Book of buildings in England. For the external elevations are suitably described in a lapidary reference to Dr. John Dod whose memorial of 1762 is in the churchyard. Like him, the church was endowed with ‘A simplicity of manners which would have done honour to a better Age’. For the time in which it was built in fact heralded a decline from the cultural and intellectual standards of Tudor England and a period in which the vicissitudes in the affairs of church and state did little honour to either.

Theydon Mount did not escape the pressures of the doctrinal confusion and political turmoil of the seventeenth century. Its rectors, Daniel Whitby, accorded the dignity of appointment by the Crown in 1637 as the patron was still in his minority, suffered, along with many of his contemporaries in Essex, the indignity of ejection during the Civil War and the Commonwealth. 'Since my Returne to Mount' as he wrote in the register in 1661, he was faced with restoring the diminished prestige and flagging morale of his church and the pastoral life of the parish. Whitby's place had been taken in 1643 by Walter Wells. The parochial records bear witness to the supportive role of the parish church, despite the stresses of that time, in buttressing the social fabric of the community. It was thus in the corporate life of the parish that the people of Theydon Mount eventually compounded their political and religious problems under the spiritual aegis of their restored rector and his successors. Not until modern times was the church again faced with a social challenge of the same order as that which confronted Daniel Whitby and his tiny rural community at the Restoration.

Always there were matters of general and local status to attend to. The churchwarden' s accounts express the church' s concern in secular affairs and its own house-keeping. The petty cash was available for assistance to the indigent or for needy travellers. So, typically, we find sixpence provided in August 1752 'To several sailors in their passage to Sussex'. In January 1753 to shillings was offered as a ‘thanksgiving for the ceasing of the Contagious Distemper amongst the Cattle’. Half that sum was produced in 1813, according to the Apparitor at the following Easter, for the fee for the ‘Proclamation for General Thanksgiving on the Victories of the Allied Armies’ over Napoleon. A proper sense of local priorities one might think, and, returning to matters of more immediate concern, 10s.6d. was spent by the churchwardens on painting the 'stiple' in 1828 and, in 1834, it cost three shillings to mow the churchyard. Such is the pecuniary reality of collective philanthropy, gratitude, and necessity at the parochial level.

In 1755 the rectory of Theydon Mount was joined with that of St. Mary's at Stapleford Tawney. In the year of Victoria's accession, during "the incumbency of the Rev Sir Edward Bowyer Smijth, the church was considerably restored after over 200 years of service. In addition to repairing the fabric a gallery was erected at the west end for the use of the musicians who supported the singing and the servants from Hill Hall who could not, with propriety, sit among their masters below. This, the most significant work on the church since it was re-built in 1614, was noted by an inscription on the string-boarding underneath the gallery. Also in late-Victorian times was received, by gift, additions to the church furniture, including the chancel chair, the pulpit, reading desk, and credence table.

In 1926 a Faculty was granted. by the Bishop of Chelmsford for changes that left the church in appearance much as it is today. The plastered ceiling was opened up to reveal the timbered roof and the ‘existing unsightly gallery’, which, as we have seen, had been erected in 1837, was removed. Three years later the church was honoured, as is rarely the experience of our remote country churches, by the visit of the reigning monarch's Queen. Not since 1400, when Pope Boniface IX, who was liberal with such benevolence, granted a ‘Relaxation of Penance’ for three years and 120 days to pilgrims visiting the church at Theydon Mount on certain days, had the church received notice by such an eminent personality.

On 29th June 1926 Her Majesty Queen Mary travelled by road from Buckingham Palace to Hill Hall where she was entertained by Sir Robert and Lady Hudson. During the visit she was received at the church by the rector the Rev. S.J. Stanley and her royal name thus lends distinction to the annals of this secluded and unpretentious church in the pretty Essex countryside on the slopes above the Roding-. . It has thus had its moments of conspicuous glory. A royal visit, a Papal Indulgence and the memory of a great Tudor statesman and scholar embellish the story of the secular and pastoral life of this little parish church. But much as we may value its personal associations with the gracious Queen and the illustrious Sir Thomas Smith it is, nevertheless, in its parochial role that its
enduring significance lies. St. Michael the Archangel still ‘stands pleasantly’ at Theydon Mount" cherished by all who know it. Thus, it continues to sanctify and enrich the lives of the parishioners it serves, quietly and agreeably, in character with the restraint and spiritual qualities of. its architecture.

Charles William Dunn joined the Essex Constabulary in April 1892 (as Constable 286) and during his short service he was stationed for a time at both Ongar and Epping. On the 15 June 1899 he was presented by HRH Duke of York (George V) with a Royal Humane Society Award for saving the life of one George Bridge from drowning at Ongar, on the 18 May 1899.

Dunn resigned from the police in 1902 and for a while was the licensee of the Merry Fiddlers Public House at Coopersale, and later a shopkeeper on Bell Common, Epping, where he died in 1946, aged 73.

My favourite and most famous relative is Fred Archer who, as any horseracing fan would know was one of the most successful jockeys this country has ever known. Fred Archer was born in 1857, the son of a steeplechase jockey William Archer. William Archer’s brother was my great-great grandfather. In his short life, he became one of the most successful jockeys ever, riding 2,748 winners from 8,004 races, giving a remarkable average of a win every third ride.

At the age of 11 Fred Archer was an apprentice to Matthew Dawson at Heath House Stables, Newmarket, and rode his first winner when he was only 12 years old in a steeplechase at Bangor, weighing in at only 4 stone 11 lbs. His first success on the flat came in 1870 aged only 13 but his career really took off in 1873 when he had 107 wins from 422 rides.

Fred Archer became champion jockey at the age of 17 in 1874 and he retained this title for the next twelve years until his death in 1886. He became a great celebrity of the time and rode for some of the most influential and wealthy owners such as Lord Falmouth, Lord Rosebery, the Duke of Beaufort and the Duke of Westminster. In all he achieved 21 classic victories, being 5 Derby wins, 6 St Legers, 4 Oaks, 4 2,000 Guineas and 2 1,000 Guineas.

Fred Archer was 5ft 11 ins tall and had a constant battle with his weight, so much so that he commissioned a special medicine to help him keep his weight down. This medicine was apparently quite revolting and became known as Archer’s Mixture. Unfortunately tragedy befell him in 1884 when he lost both his newly born son and his wife in the same year. He never recovered from these losses and, together with his constant battle against increasing weight, took his own life, in a fit of depression on the 6th November 1886 at the young age of 29.

Fred Archer is buried in Newmarket cemetery in the same grave as his wife, daughter and son. The Jockey Club, who also have at their headquarters a collection of memorabilia, including the pistol with which he shot himself, immaculately maintains the grave. The legacy of Fred Archer’s name has been handed down through the generations. His father was a William, my great grandfather’s name was William Frederick, my grandfather was William Frederick and my middle name is William, unfortunately my mother refused to be called Fred.

Thomas Turner was a Pickwickian figure hailing from Forest Gate. I knew little about him until quite a short time ago, when my father suddenly offered me a notebook recording the walks made by his grandfather in 1926, the year of his retirement from the Post Office.

Most of the walks centre on the area around Epping Forest, which has always loomed large in my life. I started visiting it as a boy scout from suburban Ilford, and for the last 25 years have explored it from homes in Chingford and Epping. The notebook was a revelation – walking in the forest and a visit to the pub en route were implanted in my genes by my paternal great-grandfather.

Apart from the notebook, the only other story to survive him is one of gallantry. He was stabbed in the stomach outside a Forest Gate pub after springing to the defence of a young lady. But that was not the cause of his death in 1927. He was a large man, reputedly 18 stone, and on the last walk he took, he tripped over a tree root. He fell heavily, and died a few days later.

The notebook reveals how rural the area was in those pre-war days, as well as the reliability of public transport. A typical entry gives a little sketch map of the route and a timetable, with notes on the weather and the state of the footpaths. On July 6 he left home in Halley Road and took the 11.09 am train from Wood Street to Chingford. He walked through High Beech to the Wake Arms for lunch, returning to Chingford station via Loughton Camp and Grimston’s Oak to catch the 5.40 pm home.

The first walk is dated January 5 1926, and the last January 4 1927. After tramping through the countryside twice a week for 12 months his conclusion was simple; “If you think there is a better all-the-year climate than the British – look at this book.”

I and my cousins have always been made aware, by parents and relatives, that our family has a strong link with George and Robert Stephenson, the railway engineers and bridge builders. George Stephenson (1781-1848) was one of six children born to Robert and Mabel Stephenson. His first marriage to Frances Henderson produced his one and only child, Robert.

Famous for his first engine Blucher which he built in 1814, George, in partnership with Edward Pease of Darlington, obtained an Act of Parliament to construct a railway from Stockton to Darlington to develop a passenger service, which opened in 1825. It was George’s Locomotion which pulled the passenger train, at 14 mph.

Later, in 1830, at the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway, it was George’s Rocket which won the competition to pull wagons to Rainhill (Manchester). He later became engineer to various countries while his son, Robert, went on to build the High Level Bridge in Newcastle upon Tyne and the two-tiered bridge in Berwick on Tweed.

The link with these two gentlemen, is through my paternal grandmother, Thomasina Walton (nee Stephenson; 1876-1958), but having accepted the connection, I now find myself on a long quest to trace the lineage as, sadly, those with the full knowledge, are no longer alive.

Grandmother produced three sons and one daughter. Two of the sons became first class engineers. Robert, who worked for the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company, had several patents to his name, including the Walton Mole used for cleaning out large diameter water pipes. James had his own small engineering business near Slough and built wonderful model steam engines, large enough for us, as children, to ride on.

Sadly, the family Bible, which I recall contained a full record of all the family births, deaths and marriages, cannot be traced by any of my cousins. One cousin, living in Malta and himself a fine engineer, has lots of information pertaining to George Stephenson, while I inherited a beautiful copper kettle, which I have been told, Grandmother Walton brought to the marriage from the Stephensons. I and another cousin each have a sherry glass engraved with “Isabell Stephenson 1899” but so far I don’t know who she is.

I have quite a considerable search ahead of me, but I am quite spurred on by my husband’s reaction on first meeting Grandmother and Uncle Jimmy. In his words, the facial resemblance of both of them to George Stephenson, leaves no doubt that there is a relationship.

Lieutenant Henry Millbank, from my wife’s family, fought at Trafalgar in 1805. At the time he was serving as Master’s Mate on board the Colossus. The Colossus was a new ship, launched at Deptford in 1803. With 74 guns, she was classed as a second-rate. Trafalgar was her first major engagement.

A master’s mate was an experienced seaman, often recruited from merchant service. The rank was the highest rank of non-commissioned officer, and midshipmen, who were kept waiting overlong for promotion to lieutenant, would often seek an interim appointment as master’s mate. Henry Millbank would have been responsible for the condition of the sails, rigging and anchors, and the stowing of the hold since this affected the trim of the Colossus.

At Trafalgar, Nelson’s strategy was to break the French line by sailing two columns of ships across the French line. The strategy involved huge risks until the French line had been broken. Colossus, under Captain J. N. Morris, was the sixth ship in the lee column.

At the point of victory, the Colossus had suffered greatly in the battle. She was almost totally incapacitated, with foremast shot through, mizenmast in the sea, and the mainmast close to a similar fate. With 40 crew dead and 160 injured, she suffered more casualties than any other British ship. Captain Morris, who had been shot through the leg, remained on duty until fainting from loss of blood.

Henry Millbank lived only three more years during which time he was promoted to lieutenant. His obituary reads:

“On the 18th of July last died, on board His Majesty’s ship Colossus, off Toulon, Lieutenant Millbank, eldest son of Mr. Henry Millbank of Feering in this county, deservedly lamented by the officers and crew after lingering in a very debilitated state of body for several months occasioned from the wounds he received in the ever-memorable battle of Trafalgar, in the above-named ship, in the 37th year of his age. Such was the zeal & courage displayed by Lieutenant Millbank in the glorious action of the 21st October, that though he received five severe wounds, he persisted in remaining upon deck till the engagement terminated, contributing in a very eminent degree, by his example & perseverance, towards the defeat of the enemies of his country. The date of the year 1808.”

His experiences of that day are impossible to fully appreciate or recreate now. His portrait, not very well executed, is in our house and his sword is believed still to be in the family. However, we intend to pursue Lieutenant Millbank through his service records.

My father was member of the Local Defence Force (the Home Guard) formed in 1940 as an auxiliary defence force against the threat of an invasion of the United Kingdom by German forces from the Continent. This collection of part time soldiers has been immortalised by that wonderful BBC TV Programme Dad’s Army. Many of the humorous situations featured in that popular and evergreen series were almost certainly based on true incidents, possibly as follows.

During World War Two, my family lived in the Gants Hill area of Ilford which, although on the edge of the heavily bombed East End, suffered considerably from enemy airborne action especially during the Battle of Britain. I remember my father, a Corporal although also a Captain Mainwaring “lookalike”, coming home one evening with a large greasy object wrapped in newspaper. This was an American Springfield rifle of World War One vintage, which my father restored to working order after many hours of tedious cleaning; an accompanying bayonet was similarly treated. He had been issued with a uniform some time previously but up to then had carried out arms drill with broomsticks, such was the shortage of military equipment after the withdrawal of the British forces from France at Dunkirk in 1940.

Because of the possibility of imminent invasion, it was policy for the Home Guard to retain their firearms at home. After one of the many daylight air raids during the Battle of Britain, my family emerged from our garden air raid shelter to see an aircraft issuing smoke and descending some distance away. But overhead, and apparently about to land in our garden, was an airman in his parachute. Both my father and his neighbour, another member of the Home Guard, said “Jerry” (meaning German) and rushed indoors to collect their firearms. If ammunition had been available they could, in their excitement, have filled the poor bloke with holes but he was saved by the wind which carried him rapidly away to land some distance off. We learned later that he was not German but British and one of Churchill’s Few.

During the night blitz, the local animal hospital at South Woodford was bombed and the stables set alight. The horses were released to save them and a number of these terrified animals bolted onto the nearby main road and set off at a fast pace. Several miles further on, the Home Guard with their rifles ready were manning a barricade on the Southend road to stop any invading German forces (probably armoured vehicles!) from entering London from the East. Hearing strange sounds from behind, they turned to see a bunch of horses with flared nostrils, wide eyes and flying manes bearing down on them at high speed. In the true tradition of the British Army and the Home Guard they vacated the area with equal rapidity. The horses vaulted the barricade as if at the Grand National and continued on towards Romford where they ran out of steam in the market place and were secured. The Home Guard then proceeded to brush themselves down and make a cup of tea to restore their shattered nerves.

In reality, this was a serious business. The poor devils behind the barricade would have stood no chance against armoured vehicles and none would have survived any engagement for Hitler had declared the Home Guard as irregulars who were to be shot in sight. And these soldiers had already done a full days work and often had little sleep because of nightly air raids. For instance, my father was a bank official in the City of London to which he travelled each day in a crowded steam train, which could been bombed at any time. He then may have stayed overnight at the bank to “fire-watch” and help deal with any fires caused in the blitz. His home life was taken up with cultivating an allotment where he grew vegetables to eke out our food rations, and then attend duty in the evenings with the Home Guard. Like others his health suffered badly but he battled through, as did many of his associates, and we must be eternally grateful for their efforts during this war.

In later years the BBC TV series Dad’s Army reminded many, and introduced others, to life on what was then called the “Home Front”. By chance, I had a minor association with one of the major props used in the TV Series. Before we were married my wife lived next door to a family, the grandfather of whom specialised in antique motor vehicles. One day a large and ancient Crossley type van of very early vintage appeared outside the front of the house. Its owner was the grandfather who was hiring out the vehicle to a film company. One side was inscribed “Chivers Jams” but the other was blank. He told us that this side would bear the name of a butcher’s business for its appearance in a film about the Home Guard. This was the famous Butchers van owned by the Dads Army Corporal Jones and I got to know it quite well. The cab was spacious with a hard wooden bench for driver and passengers and it could seat four. I was not allowed to drive the vehicle because of the difficulties of coping with its non-synchromesh gearbox. However when the van was featured in a recent film about the making of the TV series, the lady presenter made her commentaries from the cab while attempting to drive it. The effect on the gearbox was appalling and I’m sure that the grandfather would have turned in his grave if he had known what was happening.

Apart from being a recent contender for the most popular TV comedy programme, Dads Army has reminded us of those dark days when Britain really had its back to the wall; but the programme has also brought pleasure to thousands. The best comment made about it came from some young children who said that the programme was very funny and the more likeable because it contained no violence, bad language or reference to sex. Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings . . .

These are not strictly my Ancestors, but those of my late wife. I thought they would be of interest.

Seven generations, back in the 1820s, John Thortell of Norton Hall, Fakenham, was an officer in the marines. His Father was an alderman of Norwich. In the words of an elderly member of the family; “John was a spoilt young man, who became mixed up with a bad crowd, gamblers and the like”. He and some friends got heavily into debt to one of their own crowd. They had no hope of paying off the money, and after a discussion they decided to kill him. In order to decide who should carry this out, they drew lots. Whether by design or not, the burden fell to John Thortell, and he duly committed the murder. He was very quickly apprehended and hanged at Hertford in 1824. The effigies of both himself and his victim are still preserved in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds.

Researching another branch of the family, the Legg family, a curious coincidence arose. In the late 1700s, two of Legg brothers went to Spain, and one of them married a beautiful Spanish lady. She was very badly treated by the Legg family, so she placed a curse on the family that haunted them for several generations. There is a sequel to this. When I was researching the Milnes’ family history, I was in touch with a lady member of the family now living in Holland. I sent her the above story, and on receiving it she phoned me and said that since a child she had experienced bad nightmares involving a Spanish lady, yet until my letter she had no knowledge of the family curse.

t was not until I was sorting through a file of family papers that came from my father’s house that I discovered why I had the middle name of Spear and why the family crest is a bras arme with a raised spear. Lieutenant Spear served under Capt Pellew at the battle of Trafalgar on board the 74 gun Conqueror. His first command was the 80 gun Bucentaure (a war prize ) in which he was wrecked in Cadiz Bay on October 22nd 1805.

Despite this misfortune he was promoted to Commander on December 24th, the same year.

In September 1811 Captain Spear was in command of the 10 gun brig Chanticleer when it was attacked by 3 Danish brigs packing much greater firepower. Heavily outgunned he decided to flee the scene leaving his much slower escort (the gun brig Manly, under the command of Lieutenant Richard Simmonds) to engage the enemy. Captain Spear and the Chanticleer escaped but the Manly was shot to pieces by the 3 Danish brigs and was captured. The crew of Manly consisted of 37 men and 5 boys. Despite an engagement, which lasted 2 hours 25 minutes, loses were limited to 1 dead and 3 wounded. This act of “tactical withdrawal” does not seem to have hampered Captain Spear’s promotion prospects - he obtained Post Captain rank on May 3rd 1813. It is recorded that in 1809 Captain Spear married Anne Maria Walter the daughter of John Walter, naval contractor at North Yarmouth and a descendant of John Blake the persecuted baker of Great Bardfield of whom I have previously written in the Newsletter.

The Padfields in Essex can be traced back 100 years or more. The story has to start way back in the early 1800s when times were very prosperous for the farming community. Most of the land in West Essex was owned by big London city people with money made from brewing and railways etc..

The big estates in this area – Copt Hall, Blake Hall, Forest Hall, Suttons, Gaynes Park and Hill Hall – the farmers rented the farms from the landowners, while the hunting, shooting and fishing were reserved for the landowners.

The price of grain in the early 1800s was kept high by the import tax, but as the years progressed the laws were amended and in 1846 they were repealed by Robert Peel. The price of wheat crashed and the farmers, after having years of prosperity, could not cope and many went broke leaving the tormented farms vacant.

This is when the dairy farmers came from Scotland and the West Country to fill the vacant farms. The railways were now set up and milk was needed in London. The dairy farmers in London could not provide enough fresh milk for the growing population. The new railways allowed fresh milk to be transported to London from this part of Essex every day.

My grandfather came with six boys and one girl to Bridge Farm, Loughton, from Street in Somerset, the cows and the family were on rail. Our farm was right next to Chigwell Lane Station (now Debden). The milk train left Ongar at eight o’clock every morning stopping at all the stations to pick up the churns.

Our Bridge Farm milk, with others, had to catch that train. Stories were told of horses and milk carts galloping along Chigwell Lane to catch this train, always hoping that it would be a little late. The Scottish farmers were the Gemmils, Kerrs, Torrances, McShanes and the West Country Padfields and Rowes, all now in farms that had been vacated by the previous farmers. The story is that the Padfields could farm any farm they liked rent-free for one year and then take up a proper tenancy.

Even the Gemmills brought their cows from Scotland, along with the family of ten sons and four daughters. Generally, the big estates have gradually been broken up, farms sold by successive generations. Capel Cure remains at Blake Hall and Chisenhale Marsh at Gaynes Park.

Born in Edinburgh in 1813, the youngest son of a Writer to the Signet (Scottish lawyer), Robert Murray McCheyne was part of the great 19th century religious revival in Scotland. A remarkable scholar, he taught himself the Greek alphabet at the age of four and entered university at 14. At 18 he began a four-year course in Divinity and was licensed to preach at 22. A year later he was ordained and became the first minister of a new church in a Dundee suburb. He was an outstanding and compelling preacher, with a regular Sunday congregation of 1100 mainly working-class people in his own parish, and frequent invitations to preach elsewhere during the week.

Often suffering from ill health, he briefly gave up parish work and joined a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews. The journey to Palestine and back almost killed him, but on his return he found his church packed to overflowing. His powerful preaching continued to ‘bring souls to Christ’ sometimes quite dramatically, and he travelled to Ireland, London and the north of England as well as within Scotland. On one occasion he preached at 24 different places in less than three weeks. He also found time to get engaged ‘twice’ but never married.

In 1843, after visiting some parishioners with typhoid fever, he fell ill and died. He was not quite 30. His funeral brought the town of Dundee to a complete standstill. So many people tried to attend that an overflow service had to be held outside, many walking for miles to be there.

McCheyne’s biography, which included his many letters, sermons, poems and hymns, went through 116 editions in its first 25 years alone and his sermons were still being published in the 1960s. Soon after his death, a new church was built in Dundee, the McCheyne Church, with the pew

This is the story of my grandfather, Joseph Brady, who was bom in Dublin, Ireland, in September 1884 and died in Loughton, knocked down by a bus in October 1943. All the information has been compiled by my uncle, Desmond Brady, partially from the Cheshire regimental records and also from letters written between my grandfather, his wife Ethel and his sister Lucy.

In between the many events that occurred during his lifetime I wish to briefly mention his career and the 1916 Irish Easter uprising. At the start of his career, he joined the British army as a Private possibly under age (originally the Royal Dublin Fusiliers but later transferred to the Cheshire regiment in 1904) around 1899 and served in South Africa, India and finally Europe in the First World War.

At the start of the First World War, he had been promoted to Colour Sergeant with the second Battalion Cheshire regiment at Ypres and by the end of the war he had served four turns of duty having been wounded 3 times, promoted to Major and awarded the Military Cross. After each wounding he was sent back to England for a number of months recuperation and a son or daughter appears to have arrived 9 months later. After his promotion to Second Lieutenant in 1916, he writes to his wife that he continued to wear his steel helmet and carry a rifle rather than an officers hat and a pistol when going over the top. This may explain in part his survival to the end of the war; the life span of a second Lieutenant during that period was only a matter of months rather than a year. The promotion from Private to Major in the space of less than eighteen years I feel has to be quite rare at the beginning of the twentieth century especially as the Army was split in two parts - officers and other ranks.

The second episode is taken from a letter written by my grandfather’s sister, Lucy, from Dublin as an Irish Catholic to my grandmother. In the letter dated 25th April 1916 she writes in her own words of the Irish Rebellion in Dublin in great detail. She describes various events of the fighting and the problems occurring within Dublin and the general destruction. The main theme of her letter is that; “The great majority of the public are opposed to this dreadful thing. We are now certain that everyone will look on all Irish as wild savages.” These are her words that I find very interesting from an Irish Catholic living in Dublin in 1916.

The Project has the aim to record names of roads, streets, fields, farms, houses, woods, inns, rivers, streams, mills, owners and tenants from old documents and maps, dating from current Ordnance Surveys, through 19th century tithe maps, estate maps, medieval, Anglo-Saxon and (occasionally) Roman documents, parish by parish.

To explore local areas in each parish where there are current or earlier names which suggest their history, industrial or agricultural use (milling, cloth making) or archaeological remains (such as former buildings and burial mounds), to see if any evidence still exists.

And to make available this information to any person or group who wish to use it for further research into history, archaeology, genealogy, linguistics, philology or related subjects.

The recording is done by volunteers, who may be individuals, groups, or local societies. The information they gather will be put onto a database which will be made available for research.

If you are interest in recording, working with maps and if you have computer skills, further information is available from the Essex Record Office.

The Ongar Millenium History Society have produced a fascinating booklet which give dates in the history and development of Ongar from 900 – 2004. The booklet is illustrated with many views from Ongar’s past.

Just a few examples;

1284 – John the Clerk killed whilst ringing the bell at St Martins Church.

1837 – Ongar Gas Company established.

1898 - Ongar Waterworks Company began.

1912 – Father Thomas Byles, Ongar’s Catholic Priest dies on the Titanic.

Written by Jill Coward and Jenny Main and priced at £3 this is good value and they are to be congratulated on producing it. Copies can be purchased from the Society.