High Country History Group

Welcome to Magazine no 22, which is again filled with a variety of articles. We are now on target to produce 4 newsletters a year and I hope that you like the new format. But if you have a suggestion too make about the kind of articles or other items you would like to see in the magazine, then let me know.

In February our speaker was Major Graeme Cooper who lives at Moreton, near Ongar Moreton. Graeme is an experienced guide who has taken many groups on tours of the battlefields in Europe. He is secretary of the Guild of Battlefield Guides, and he gave a very interesting talk on European Battlefields, from Marlborough through to the Second World War.

In 1818 there was no school in the parish, although the poor were said to
desire schooling for their children. In 1826 Mrs. Letitia (later Lady)
Bowyer Smijth set up a girls’ school in some cottages, paying the fees of
needy children and taking an active interest in the work. It is possible
that these cottages were situated at the brickfield near Hill Hall.

In 1836 Sir John Smijth established a boys’ school, which the Smijth family
largely maintained in the years following. In 1839 the rector, besides
making financial contributions, carried out most of the detailed
administration at both schools. There were 33 boys and 42 girls in
attendance, the fee evidently being 1d. per week. The textbooks of the
National Society were used but neither school was a National School.

About 1846 a new mixed school was built, apparently on the site of the boys’
school of 1836. Members of the Smijth family seem to have paid most, if not
all of the cost, and to have remained for many years the owners and chief
source of income; in 1846–7 Sir E. Bowyer-Smijth was stated to be the only
contributor. Children attended the school from Stapleford Tawney as well as
from Theydon Mount. After a successful start the school seems to have
declined. In 1846–7 there were about 70 pupils under a master and a mistress
who were paid £40 and £14 a year respectively.

By 1871 there were only some 36 pupils and the building was in poor
condition, despite continued support from the Smijths. The government
declared that it could not be considered an efficient school for the 31
children from Theydon Mount and the 30 from Stapleford Tawney needing
elementary schooling unless it was thoroughly repaired. Theydon Mount
parishioners were now prepared to accept responsibility for the school and
in February 1873 the Smijth family transferred ownership to the rector and
churchwardens as trustees. The building was repaired so as to accommodate up
to 50 pupils, the building of a new school at Stapleford Tawney making
greater accommodation unnecessary.

In 1880 the school seems to have been reorganized and officially reopened as
Theydon Mount Church of England school. In 1884 the first government grant
was received, one of £12, and this amount rose slowly to an average of about
£44 in 1890–1900. Other income came from ‘school pence’ and from a voluntary
rate which in 1880 yielded some £33. The master was paid £36 in 1877 and £52
in 1886. In 1887 he was replaced by a mistress who also received £52.

The population of the village was declining and average attendance at the
school was only 27 in 1893 and 23 in 1899. Under the Education Act of 1902
the school passed under the administration of the Essex Education Committee,
Ongar District, as a non provided, mixed elementary school. Its average
attendance was 37 in 1900, 45 in 1910, 36 in 1929, and only 24 in 1938. In
1939 it was reorganized for mixed juniors and infants and in 1942 it was
closed because of the insufficient number of pupils. The children were
transferred to Theydon Garnon school.¹

Memorials are a common feature in church stained glass windows. At the Priory Church of St Laurence, Blackmore, many of the windows date from the first two decades of the twentieth century.

An unusual record is on one, in what is now the kitchen:

"This window is erected as a thank-offering to Almighty God for the protection in the Great Air Raid of March 31st 1916".

Curious to find out more, I looked at local newspapers for the time, and visited the Essex Record Office.

During the First World War, civilians were subjected to indiscriminate bombing from Zeppelins: large airships which flew at high altitudes. In all there were 53 separate attacks on England, twenty in Essex, which then had army and naval garrisons at Harwich, Colchester and Southend, and docks along the River Thames.

The night of 31st March 1916 was to be one of the greatest in terms of civilian casualties, when the L14 and L15 flew over Essex, dropping bombs in Colchester, Braintree, Stanford-le-Hope, Thameshaven and Blackmore. 223 bombs were dropped, resulting in 48 deaths and 64 injuries.³

The night, though, marked a turning point for the Allies because L15 was the first to be shot down during the War. The Anti-Aircraft gunners of the 3rd Company, Essex and Suffolk Royal Garrison Artillery based at Purfleet were credited with the success. This was a major breakthrough, and the Lord Mayor of London gave gold watches to the members of the gun crew. (He had originally put up a reward of £500.) An eyewitness recorded,

"It was about 12.15am on April 1st 1916 that she came across Essex from north east at a height of about 14,000 feet ... shrapnel shells [were fired] at the raider".⁴

An aeroplane failed to hit the target. The Zeppelin, "dropped into the sea [near Margate] and sunk while being towed to land. Seventeen members of the crew were rescued and are prisoners of war at Chatham Barracks".⁵

The news must have travelled fast because Robert Taylor Bull, of Burnham, recorded in his diary the following day,

"A Zeppelin was brought down at Thameshaven".

On 1st April he wrote:

"A Zepp went over last night about 9 ... with usual noise".⁶

We must assume that the L14 dropped bombs on Blackmore, because reporting restrictions prevented newspapers giving precise locations. The Essex Weekly News referred to "Friday's Attack on The Eastern Counties". Looking at the Burial Register at the church, it seems unlikely that anyone was killed in Blackmore, but there could have been a few near misses.

During September 1916, two Zeppelins were intercepted by members of the Royal Flying Corps at Billericay and Wigborough, marking the beginning of the end of the raids. Inside the church at Great Wigborough there is a small part of what remains of L33.

Even by the eighteenth century, illness was not regarded as a circumstance which necessarily required much positive action. There remained the notion that it was imposed by God, and it was largely a matter of waiting until the affliction was removed.

Self help was the first resort, and the main care of the sick came from within the family circle. Treatment was based on traditional home-made remedies passed down from mother to daughter. The houses of the wealthy still maintained physic gardens, and Flora Thompson tells us that as late as the 1870s, the village women of Juniper Hill cultivated corners of their gardens with herbs and made their own therapeutic drinks:

'Peppermint, pennyroyal, horehound, camomile, tansy, balm, and rue for physic. They made a great deal of camomile tea which they drank to ward off colds, to soothe the nerves, and as a general tonic. The horehound was used with honey in a preparation for sore throats, and colds on the chest...and the women had a private use for pennyroyal. As well as garden herbs, still in general use, some of the older women used wild ones, which they gathered in their season and dried. But the knowledge and use of them was dying out.'

Country law and recipes for cures were part of everyday conversation. In Dagenham, in 1822, John Prior asked the Overseers for relief as his arches (of his feet) were so bad and was told by Mr Britain that he had heard that threshing with nettles would cure rheumatism.

Old medical recipes often appeared in parish registers such as the one left by Thomas Gilbey, vicar of St Mildred's, Tenterden, in Kent (1701-51) as a prophylactic against the plague. Private receipt books were compiled by the literate, and medicinal remedies were part of a body of household knowledge which included cures relating to both human and animal diseases. Bassom, an Essex plumber, even wrote them down at the end of his account books for 1807-11. Documents relating to the Convent of the Holy Sepulchre, at Boreham, include a specific medical book with general cures, and medicines prescribed at various times for the community.

Physick (1741) and Buchan's Domestic Medicine (1769) ran into many editions.

For those who chose to use them, mainly the poor, there were supernatural aids to be invoked. Belief in the curative power of the Medieval Church had survived the break with Rome, and alongside petitionary prayer, debased versions of Catholic prayers were used as charms, and the invocation of the Divine was incorporated into the incantations of 'cunning' men and women. Faith in magical cures lingered on into the nineteenth century (and probably beyond). In 1856, it was noted that in Lincolnshire:

'Those who are not in daily intercourse with the peasantry can hardly be made to believe or comprehend the hold that charms, witchcraft, wise men and other like relics of heathendom have upon the people.'

A wide range of innovative patent and proprietary medicines and prescriptions were to be had from the chemists and druggists, and there were few aids to 'health' that could not be furnished by quacks selling their wares at fairs and markets, or by public advertisement.

Apart from the rich who could afford the services of a physician from a town, medical care was available from men and women who had learned their skills from their forebears and who practised medicine alongside their usual daily occupations – apothecaries, herbalists, bonesetters, blood-letters, cutters of the (kidney) stone, and the like – and who had had no formal education. Some had no medical training at all. A Presbyterian minister, John Clegg (1679-1755), practised medicine to feed his family, and a farmer. George Winter who, by chance inheritance of his uncle's medical manuscripts and textbooks, treated the poor free of charge three days a week and bore a remarkable similarity to Mary Russell Mitford's village 'doctor' of the 1820s, Dr Chubb:

'Inventor and compounder of medicines, bleeder, shaver, and physician of man and beast...His skill he had...inherited from his aunt Bridget, who was herself the first practitioner of the day, the wise woman of the village, and bequeathed to this her favourite nephew her blessing, Culpeper's herbal, a famous salve for chilblains, and a still.'

Women were traditionally the backbone of medical care. They were the 'wise women' who were called in to assist in childbirth, illness, and the last stages of life. Although increasing displaced by professional practitioners, many men and women versed in traditional remedies continued to practise, like Elizabeth Gaskell's country-born Alice Wilson, who:

'In addition to her invaluable qualities as a sick nurse...added a considerable knowledge of hedge and field simples much used by the poor.'

A scathing observation by William Farr, the Registrar General, in 1877, suggests that despite the inroads of 'orthodox' medicine, traditional medicine was alive and well, and had many takers:

'A considerable number of people die without the attention of a qualified medical man...and hundreds and thousands are treated by quacks, ignorant midwives, unqualified attendants, and chemists and druggists.'

The fact that most professional medical men could offer little better hope of a cure than the traditionalists is another story.

Wayletts lies on the main A113 London Road at Stanford Rivers, just past the junction with Berwick Lane. The photograph below shows the current state of the house which was totally gutted by fire some three years ago. What is to happen to this once beautiful house is uncertain as the present owners and the insurers argue as to its future.

According to Scott⁷:

Wayletts was built in the seventeenth century, although it was much altered during the Georgian era. There are gables at each end of the front, and a central chimney stack rebuilt to the old pattern, two storeys, tiled roof, and leaded casements. Inside are ancient timbers and beautiful Tudor fireplaces.

For many years it was in the estate of the former Lords of the Manor. Hale's Survey of Stanford Rivers dated 1839, states that at the time it belonged to Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith, Bart., together with its farm and "Bandish Lands" and that it was then occupied by Mr H. Mott. "Bandish Lands" was the land on the other side of London Road and extended down to the River Roding. The house, buildings, yards, gardens, grass and arable fields, covered approximately 38 acres.

Later known occupiers and/or farmers of the land include:

Later owners included Molly and Peter Triggs.

It is sad that this once beautiful house should be allowed to remain in this derelict state.

Wayletts has been listed by the Historic Buildings at Risk Register. The primary aim of the Register is to highlight the plight of buildings with the intention of instigating action towards securing their long-term conservation.

In 2005 there were no fewer than 15 buildings in the Epping Forest area that were at risk.

Martyn Lockwood

Sources

7. Harold Scott, Stanford Rivers. Published privately by the author, 1973.

Notes

8. William Johnston acted as Land Steward to the Lord of the Manor.

In the United Kingdom the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 requires the government to create lists of buildings that are to be specially protected as part of the national heritage. Buildings on these lists are referred to as listed buildings. Other structures such as bridges and even urinals may also be listed.

There are three types of listed status (in descending order of "importance" and difficulty to obtain planning permission):

Grade I: buildings of exceptional interest.
Grade II*: particularly important buildings of special interest.
Grade II: buildings of special interest.

According to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, which oversees listed building applications and enforcement, there are (as of May 2003), approximately 442,000 listings in place, of which 418,000 (94.5%) are Grade II, 18,000 (4.1%) are Grade II*, and 6,000 (1.4%) are Grade I. There are estimated to be about 500,000 actual buildings listed, as listing entries can apply to more than one building.

The owner of a listed building may not demolish, extend or alter it without receiving special permission from their local planning authority. They may also be compelled to repair and maintain the building in some circumstances.

Listed buildings in danger of decay are listed on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk Register.

The statute mile of 1,760 yards was defined by Act of Parliament in 1593. The statute mile was first adopted on maps by John Ogilby, Britannia Depicta [1675], and became usual in the 18th century both on maps and on the milestones erected by the turnpike trusts.

An entry in Domesday Book⁹ of 1086 records the existence of a mill in Greensted. The entry appears under the Hundred of Ongar, and within the estate of a landowner named Hamo the Steward. Within a longer entry for the parish, it is stated that:

".... [There is] woodland for 400 pigs. [There are] 16 acres of meadow. [There is] now 1 mill ...."

In total, the woodland of Greensted supported 520 pigs. Domesday woodland in East Anglia was measured according to its capacity to support pigs, fed from the available acorns and beech mast. This method of estimating the value of woodland would have been quick, and maybe more relevant to the intended purpose of Domesday, than assessing area in acres since the number of pigs would have been known closely. Pigs may be translated to a measurement of area if it is assumed that one pig required roughly one acre of woodland. This conversion from pigs to acres can only be a rule of thumb, but there is some analyses to justify this, based on otherwise quantified acreages of woodland within Essex.¹⁰ Therefore, the woodland in Greensted may have amounted to around 500 acres, leading to the conclusion that Greensted was considerably more wooded then than it is today.

Domesday records not only the condition and structure of a settlement, but also the changes in the settlement during the 20 years of the Norman Conquest, between 1066 and 1086. Thus the mill was in existence at Domesday, but the use of "now" in the entry implies that it was built during and not before the Norman Conquest. About one in three settlements in Essex were recorded as having a mill.¹¹ A few of these places are recorded as possessing a fraction of a mill, generally the result of sharing a mill with a neighbouring settlement. Other settlements possessed several mills; Ham, now East and West Ham, was even recorded as having eight mills, just one less than existed twenty years before.

Analysis of the sites of these mills suggests that all the mills were watermills, invariably aligned along watercourses. Darby states that the distribution of these mills is sometimes a puzzle, with some of the larger settlements being without a mill, suggesting that some mills might not have been noted.

A later reference to a mill in Greensted is to be found in the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem of 1349. Such inquisitions were set up to establish the extent and ownership of an estate following the death of a tenant-in-chief, holding an estate directly from the king. The inquest was held before a jury of twelve local men of high standing. During this process, the inheritance of the estate would have been confirmed. The entry of the inquest into the estate of Robert Burghcher (Bourchier)¹² includes property in Grenestede:

"Greenestede. A messuage, 60a land, 8a. meadow, 15a. pasture, a wood, and 19s. 3 1/2d. rent, a watermill, a windmill, and pleas &c. of court, with the advowson of the church, held of Ralph, baron of Stafford, as of the manor of Aungre, service not known."

A "messuage" is a homestead. The "advowson" carries the right to appoint a priest to a benefice, usually associated with a parish church. A watermill still operates and a windmill has now been added to the estate.

Greensted is a small parish. One stream passes along the length of the parish, forming the border of the parish before entering the Cripsey Brook at the E end of the parish. The position of the watermill on this stream is easily determined from the existing landscape. Extensive alterations must have taken place to change the course of the stream. The distance from the Hall to the site of the mill is about 200 yards. Since there is no other evidence of a watermill on the stream, this site is likely to be the Domesday site.

The details of the site of the Mill have changed, as shown on recent OS series maps. The current topography confirms the construction of the millpond and defines the millrace, together with the development of a banked island, possibly for the actual site of the mill itself. There is a noticeable drop in the stream at this point, so much so that previous owners of Greensted Hall have constructed small waterfalls by the addition of groups of stones in the stream. The site is now well wooded, more so than shown in the OS survey of c.1870, and the site is obscured.

My thanks are due to Mrs Clare Coxe for the tour of the site.

Robert Brooks

Sources

1. Williams, Dr Ann, and Martin, Prof G. H., The Domesday Book: A Complete Translation, Alecto Historical Editions/Penguin Books, London, 2003, p.1011.
2. Rackham, Oliver, Ancient Woodland: Its History, Vegetation and Uses in England, Edward Arnold, London, 1980.
3. Darby, J. C., The Domesday Geography of Eastern England, Cambridge, 1952, pp.248–249.
4. Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, IX, 239, 18 May, 23 Edward III.

• The Mural: On the North wall of the Baptistery was painted about 1961 by Mr. Fyffe Christie of Seven Kings, an art teacher who was trained in mural painting at the Glasgow School of Art.
• The Arms of the Duchy of Lancaster: In the middle of the front of the Gallery indicates the Patron. Since 1557 the advowson has belonged to the Duchy of Lancaster.
• The Pews: Those at the west end of the Nave are carved oak of fifteenth century date.
• The Pulpit: Was erected in 1812, but the six oak panels are sixteenth century.
• The Altar Rails: Belong to the seventeenth century and were no doubt put in after the Archdeacon's Visitation of 1683, when it was ordered that "the Communion Table be railed in."
• The Memorials: Apart from the two windows already mentioned, there are a number of other interesting memorials, most of which are in the Chancel.

Incumbents

Jessie Matilda Berkeley of Mere, Wiltshire, by will proved 1930, left £500 in trust for the upkeep of the graveyard of the parish church and for the benefit of the poor provided that her family vault was maintained in good repair. The income in 1950 was £20 8s. 4d., all of which was spent on the graveyard.

St Margaret's, Stanford Rivers

1914–1918

• ALDRIDGE, George
• GARDINER, Frank J.
• NEWMAN, Arthur
• OAKLEY, Cecil A.
• DOE, Ernest S.
• MILLBANK, William E.
• ALDRIDGE, William
• STAINES, Frank
• KNIGHT, Arthur
• GREEN, George
• BROWN, James
• ALDRIDGE, George
• CABLE, John
• CABLE, Mark
• KING, William, M.M.
• CROW, Richard J.

1939–1945

• ASPINALL, Frank B.
• METCALFE, Theodora A.
• BIRD, William H. J.
• DELANEY, Robert D.
• WHITBREAD, William C.
• AYLMER, Archibald
• PHILLIBROWN, Joyce D.
• PLEDGE, Victor G.
• STAINES, Victor

Cyprus

• GREENING, Raymond Thomas

Although almost in Greensted, the Drill House pub served its customers in the parish of Stanford Rivers. The Drill ceased to be a pub about seven years ago. Although now a private house, a Victorian letterbox is still situated in the wall of the building.
The letterbox is a Victorian Wall Box and dates from the period 1881 to 1904.

The letter opening is carefully guarded with a hood to prevent the rain entering. The box used to carry the name Repentance, but the plate bearing this has been replaced in recent years by a more impersonal, general identification.

There used to be a similar box in the Easters. Are there any other Victorian letterboxes still in use in the High Country?

Are there earty any other letterboxes in existence, and in use, within the district?

Passingford Bridge

There are frequent references in the records to Passingford
Bridge, important because of its position across the Roding
on the main road from London to Ongar. In the late 16th
century there was uncertainty as to who was responsible for
the bridge, probably because it spanned the parish boundary
with Stapleford Abbots. By 1593, however, the county had
accepted responsibility for repairing it. In 1785 it was rebuilt
in brick. In 1858 the county surveyor commented that the
bridge was narrow and 'situate at a very inconvenient angle
with the road'. It has been strengthened and repaired at
various times and one pier was rebuilt in 1952. 13

The old bridge could not cope with the increasing amount of
traffic it was expected to carry and it was replace by a new
structure in the 1970's.

Passingford Mill

Passingford Mill, which is about 1/4 mile west of Passingford
Bridge, just within the boundary of Stapleford Abbots,
belongs to Suttons and is said to have replaced an earlier
mill south of Suttons. It is a timber-framed and weather-boarded building of three
stories and probably dates from the 18th century. Inside the
mill are the names and dates of various millers, the earliest
being a Zach Tuck, 1760. In about 1931 a turbine was
installed and later the water wheel was cleared away. In a
map of 1777 a windmill as well as a water-mill is shown in
this position.

The present Mill House has been converted from a pair of
weather-boarded cottages, probably dating from the late 18th
century. The former Mill House is farther west. It was
probably built late in the 17th or early in the 18th century and
has a treble hipped roof. The chimney has diagonal shafts.

On the south wall is a painted wood sundial with a
pedimented top; this bears the date 1635 and the inscription
Horas non numero nisi serenas'.

High Country History Group

Enlist now for the Battlefield of Waterloo!

Waterloo Weekend

1st to 3rd September 2006

Waterloo is the most talked about battle in history. The High
Country History Group wish to raise a detachment to visit this
continental battlefield. Infantry within the group, particularly
those who heard the recent talk by Major Graeme Cooper.
may feel fired to join. Graeme has offered to lead the tour for
the group.

Please see the separate letter for more details

Should you wish to contact directly Major Cooper, Cooper's
Waterloo Tours, then his telephone number is 01277 890214
and e-mail is cooper@waterlootours.co.uk. There is a
website on www.waterlootours.co.uk

Should you be interested then please let me know before
23 March 2006.

Robert Brooks
2d March 2006

Let's give Boney a good thrashing!