High Country History Group

Some 49 members attended the AGM held on the 23 March at Toot Hill. It was followed by two short talks by Anne and Rob Brooks and the evening rounded off with wine and cheese.

The following were elected for the forthcoming year:
Chairman: Rob Brooks
Secretary: Shirley Fisher
Treasurer: Yvonne Woolerson
Newsletter Editor Martyn Lockwood

Committee: Patrick Griggs
Ann Padfield
Keith Farrow

Subscriptions are again due and those of you who have not paid will find a reminder with the newsletter.

It was one of those evenings - dark, cold and forbiddingly foggy. It was just such evening when highwaymen might have appeared in Epping Forest. Without thought for their safety, and clutching their purses closely, forty-six members and guests appeared from out of the mist to hear Georgina Green talk about Dick Turpin at Toot Hill Village Hall.

Georgina had studied Dick Turpin well. With illustrations drawn from books, contemporary maps and current photographs of some of the locations of Dick’s escapades, Georgina sought to distinguish fact from fiction. Turpin’s links were local; Loughton, Edmonton and a “cave” in Epping Forest, where he was thought to have hidden. However, perhaps sadly, the romantic, heroic vision of Dick, as portrayed in newspapers, gave way to a cruel, reckless and perhaps disloyal reality. At his eventual trial in York, Dick carelessly failed to defend himself adequately. He was sentenced to be hanged. And there was no Black Bess .... A very entertaining talk!
Rob Brooks

This post mill was built in about 1815 and is best known for a dramatic incident on 18 June 1829 when it was severely damaged after being struck by lightning. The miller, Joseph Knight, father of seven children was seriously injured, and subsequently engravings of the shattered mill were sold “for the benefit of the sufferer”. The engraving, reproduced in the Victoria County History, shows a figure in a dramatic pose in front of the ruined mill. The original drawing by Isaac Taylor of Stanford Rivers is in the Taylor collection in the Colchester Museum.

Nine days after the accident, Thomas Squire of Epping wrote at length in the Mechanics Magazine. He had examined the mill closely and described in detail the passage of the “electric fluid” through the building. After striking one sail, it passed through the cap and down a hoisting chain within the mill, welding the links into a solid mass. It then burst out through the side wall to reach the “plates of iron” covering the round house roof. From there it travelled down the iron braced access ladder to earth. The luckless miller, who was on the second floor at the time, suffered from burns, blast injury from flying fragments of wood and grain, damage to one eye and his right hand, and a compound fracture of one leg. The Chelmsford Chronicle gave a graphic account of these injuries, and Dr Potter, the Ongar surgeon, attended the victim to amputate his injured leg. The account grimly observed that “the saw was required” and noted, not surprisingly, that the miller’s health was “in a rather precarious state”.

Mr Squire, in the best traditions of journalism, had taken with him Joseph Marsh, of Park Corner, Epping, whose sketch of the ruined mill appeared as a woodcut on the front cover of the Mechanics Magazine. Squire sent at least one, and possibly two further reports to this publication and, a fortnight later, another of Marsh’s sketches featured on the front cover. The follow up reports indicated that the miller was recovering and that more than a cupfull of wheat grains had been removed from his body. The mill had not been insured but the owner, Edward Rayner, had instructed millwrights to commence repairs. There was discussion of the owner’s plan to erect a lightning conductor at short distance from the mill, as “he had no wish to invite such an unwelcome visitor a second time”. The writer considered that a well earthed copper strip attached to the sails would be a better precautionary measure. It is not clear what became of the miller, and the churchwarden’s accounts of this period are lost. It seems likely that he and his family would have required parish relief.

The mill was rebuilt and continued to operate until about 1900. By 1919 it was derelict and, in February 1923, it was again struck by lightning, setting the cap on fire. Three appliances from Epping extinguished the blaze. In 1935 a mill stone crashed through the upper floors and fell into the yard below. A photograph of that period shows the weather boarded superstructure looking deceptively intact, though scrub was growing through the round house roof. It was decided to demolish the mill and, in December 1935, after removal of the brick round house, the body of the mill was pulled down with a rope. The saleable timber was disposed of and the rest given away as firewood. The four brick piers which supported the cross trees at the base of the main post were still visible in the 1950s. Are they still there, and what became of the luckless miller, Joseph Knight?
Michael Leach

The Domesday Book assessed the value of Hatfield Broad Oak, then Hatfield Regis, as £85, this value was the sixth highest in the county. It was only in the early 1500s that the size of Chelmsford overtook the village. Much of this important, early history of the village is retained and is still displayed to the visitor.

The powerful Alberic de Vere, a close friend of William the Conqueror, was awarded the patronage and tithes of Hatfield Regis, as well as numerous other lordships. It was Alberic’s son, also Alberic, who established the Benedictine Priory at Hatfield Regis in 1135. The Priory was built adjoining the parish church. There appears to have been great conflict between the monks and the local community. This culminated in an attack on the monks by the parishioners, led by the vicar, who ejected the monks in 1378. On appeal to the King Richard II, the monks returned but the King ordered a dividing wall to be erected between the Priory and the parish church. At the time of the Dissolution, in 1534, there were just four monks and the Prior remaining. Evidence of the influence of the de Vere family and the Priory can still be seen within the present church.

The Church Library is housed in the vestry. The library was founded in the early 1700s by the then Vicar, the Reverend George Stirling. The library contains over 300 books and only the Cathedral Library in Chelmsford is larger among church libraries in Essex. Among a number of notable books are two Bibles, a ‘Breeches’ Bible and a ‘Vinegar’ bible, the names of both deriving from inaccuracies, either deliberate or careless, appearing in the text.

We have arranged to visit Hatfield Broad Oak on Thursday, 7th June. We intend to meet at St Mary’s Church, Hatfield Broad Oak, at 7.30pm. Brian Pugh, who has recently written an excellent history of the church and village, will show us round. It is possible that we may be able to climb the tower of the church during the visit.
Rob Brooks

1. Thomas Greville
2. Fountain built outside the village school.
3. 1836
4. He had been hanged for burglary.
5. Field consisting of gravel soil ‘on which a goose would starve’
6. Rev Edward Ray
7. Built into the wall of the former Drill Public House at Stanford Rivers.
8. Brine was one of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and had settled in Greensted after his return. Standfield was the daughter of another.
9. The walk along the route of the old Roman road.
10. Ivy Cottage, Greensted Green.
11. Joseph Knight
12. The telephone box.
13. Source of the River Roding
14. No 381
15. St Michael the Archangel
16. Brick making
17. Dunmow and Chigwell
18. A World War 2 sentry box.
19. A nature reserve
20. New Road
21. The composer Noel Gay is buried in the churchyard.
22. 1969 - 1971 - 1974
23. Saint Edmund
24. David Livingstone
25. Cowslips and Hawthorn berries.

One aim of the High Country Community Magazine now sadly defunct) was to record our past, and our present for the informing of the future. Set against geological time the whole of Human history is little more than a blink of the eye of Eternity. But the Soul is as old as time itself and “Intimations of Immortality” are a backdrop to all our lives. The artists painting on the walls of caves by the light of tallow flares were us, and we go back far,far before them. This may seem a fanciful concept, but if you believe with Plato that the soul is immortalised through reincarnation, and that knowledge is the soul’s recollection of previous incarnations, then the tremendous leap in scientific knowledge and technology that has taken place in the past few centuries becomes explainable. Our interest in the past is more than mere curiosity;it is a manifestation of what Jung called the Collective Unconscious. We have this urge to keep in touch with what we were, are and always will be “a remembering soul with access to divine knowledge through ‘intuitive thought.’” But apart from all that what an inspiring turnout we had for our first AGM.

Anne and Rob Brooks entertained us with slides, Ghosts and tales of ghosts always enthrall, and it struck me that when we watch old films, or look at photographs of dead people we are actually seeing ghosts. In that sense we are all ghosts of the future; but hopefully not of the scary variety!

Now we can all look forward to enjoying the programme of events mapped out by the committee. I am looking forward very much to visiting Hatfield Broad Oak.
Ken Feakes