5lackir)0»e , . . . , , , . I 57 dfa.,iri4, U'HIe 173 Dfer>Tweo S, A/brijKTs -2^^ Sfetb/rtj , 224- Weaia, S^4/K ....... *S^ W/llrrwql« ^jsaifx ^ . . . . , - '^' Wn'me ^'^"^ Tin: Chancel Arch of Stebbing Ci-iurch, Essex. See page C'JS of W\)t C|)urt|)e0 of (B&m ARCHITECTURALLY DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE BUCKLER. j^fipiHiiiiiiiiiii 1-}AST VIEM' OF FHI.STEAD CHURCH, ESSEX. LONDON: BELL AND DALDY, FLEET STREET. 1856. TO THE REVEREND BRADFORD DENNE HAWKINS, M.A. R.D. LATE FELLOW OE PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD : EECTOR OF KIVENHALL, IN THE COUNTY OF ESSEX, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY HIS OBLIGED AND HUMBLE SERVANT THE AUTHOR. 2, York Place, Kennington, London, Dec. 1856. preface. I HE object of this Work is to supply a deficiency in the Histories of the County, by giving Descriptions of the Ancient Churches of Essex, many of which are exceedingly interesting Specimens of Early Architecture. Few of the Churches have Towers or Spires to com mand attention, nor are they rich in Ornamental Detail, which may account for their being almost overlooked by the Ecclesiological Writers of the present day. This Volume contains Descriptions of Twenty-two Churches, remarkable for their Antiquity, Form, Size, or peculiarity of Arrangement. To the Descriptions are added original Plans, Views, and many specimens of Detail ; and to each Parish, a brief account of its local History. G. B. ¦ "^^T ^^^ ¦ 1 ¦ ¦ -i o ¦ 1 ^ Fl3] 1 O o a ^ M^l^jWt^ ^maHKy^ uh^kmIbI S^^^MaP^jg HRn^^^^K^ ^iW^'iiM ^^^H ^^^IH S^^^S ^^^S ^^^ ^^B ^^^^ ^^9 THE CHURCHES OF ESSEX. iWarfiaretttng Cfturcl). ( Saint Margaret.) CHELMSFORD HUNDRED. m -r^^>^^ e — Diocese Pateons . Rochester. { Courtertay Philipps, Esq. and L Edward Philipps, Esq, Annual Value £168. [HE Church of Margaretting, (formerly Ging St. Mar garet, in contradistinction to Ging Abbess, alias Ingatestone, and Ging Hospital, alias Friarn Ing,) is a noble example of the early " Perpendicular style" of the period of Henry the Sixth, highly elaborated, and still complete in design. It consists of Chancel, Nave, South Aisle and Chapel, timber Porches North and South, a grand Wooden Tower at the west, and an ancient Vestry south of the Chancel. It has undergone less alteration than many of its neighbours, but what the hand of innovation has failed to do, time and 4 THE CHURCHES OF ESSEX. neglect have been allowed silently to perform ; ivy, for ages past, has thrown its huge fibres over the fine Chancel and the magnificent South Porch. The Chancel, twenty -four feet by nineteen (one foot wider than the Nave), has two double-light windows on the north, with plain arched heads, and between them, facing the Vicarage, the Priest's door ; on the south, a similar window, and a large arch opening into the Vestry. The east window, in three compart ments, has beautiful tracery, and some fragments of ancient painted glass ; over it, inserted in the wall, is a well executed female head of early date, with the wimple head dress. The north windows retain their borders of painted glass. The roof, ceiled in a waggon-headed form, rises from an overhanging wall plate, richly moulded and crowned with battlements ; there are three principals, one in the centre, the others against the walls ; they spring from octagonal corbels of wood formed by the upper mouldings of the plate ; the feet of the carefully finished prin cipal in the centre, are visible beneath the ceiling. In the wall, north of the east window, is a black and white marble monu ment with kneeling figures, to the memory of John Tanfield and his family, 1625 ; it is well executed, and was finished in colours and gold. In the floor are several brasses of the Seventeenth Century and a purbeck marble gravestone of the Thirteenth, with Lombardic inscription much defaced. The ancient tie beam and upright boarding of the rood loft remain, and were repainted in the time of Charles the First. The lower half of the magni ficent screen is filled with superb tracery, the time-honoured and well-worn sill forms a ponderous step to the Chancel, and the carved doors hang upon their original hinges. The Nave is forty-seven feet in length, and eighteen in width ; the roof rises a few inches above that of the Chancel, the ceiling is rudely painted in square panels, having a large star in the centre of each ; the eastern bay, over the rood loft, (frequently distinguished by its decoration,) in this instance is MARGARETTING. painted to represent clouds. There are three principals of excel lent construction forming bold arches, which appear to grow out of the walls, with hammer beams, collars, and spreading braces, all painted in colours : each principal springs from stone corbels boldly carved, and in excellent preservation : four of them re present the Evangelists ; the emblems of St. Luke (an Ox) and St. John (an Eagle) on the south wall, St. Matthew (an Angel) and St. Mark (a Lion) on the north, each bearing a scroll ; the remaining two corbels are male figures, holding shields. The embattled wall plate is of the same character as that of the Chancel, the mouldings are bolder, and the lower member returns upon the wall behind the arch and forms a panel-like compart ment between each principal. The stone arches opening into the Aisle are early specimens of four-centred " Perpendicular" work ; they spring from clustered columns, with richly moulded capitals and bases. The west ernmost arch is smaller than the rest, between it and the next arch is a broad pier, against the south face of which, upon a stone step, is the magnificent " Perpendi cular" Font, two feet six inches in diameter, and of the unusual height of three feet eleven inches; it is octangular, in a good state of preservation, and panelled and highly moulded in the plinth, as well as the shaft and top. The three triple-light win dows on the north, are uniform in design, and tolerably perfect, the centre, has much of its ancient the font, fifteenth centort. painted glass ; the colours are splendid, and the drawing deli cately executed ; some portions are quite gone, and others have 6 THE CHURCHES OF ESSEX. been altered and made up of equally fine fragments, probably from the other windows. The design is in circles, each con taining two robed figures of the Patriarchs and Prophets, their names inscribed on scrolls ; the centre compartment is devoted to Kings with crowned heads, among which, are " Asa, David, Ozee, Joras, Roboas, " &c., the side compartments contain " Eliud, Obeht, Achim, Sadoch, Salatiel, Ysaac," and among the miscellaneous glass, are portions of a large figure, and a fragment with the white rose en soleil — the badge of Edward the Fourth. Another of the windows retains several of the quarries painted with the " herb margaret" or daisy. The South Aisle and Chapel, ten feet six inches wide, equal the length of the Nave, and form an interesting appendage to the Church ; the roof has been ceiled similarly to the Chancel, and at first sight appears to be vaulted. The lower portion of the screen enclosing the Chapel remains across the Aisle, the centre doors have disappeared ; it is seldom that even so much of these screens is to be met with. The windows, all of the same age, and well executed, slightly difffer in design — they have two compartments each, with the exception of a single-hght window in the west wall ; that on the east is very elegant ; of two on the south, that within the Chapel is distinguished by a ribbed sotfite. The square piscina, south of the altar, had originally a corbelled sill. Many of the old open seats remain, they are plain, substantial and secured next the wall to an embattled capping of large dimensions. An arch built chiefly of brick, opens from the Nave into the Tower, which measures from east to west twenty-four feet. It is of greater width than the Nave, and built outside the West wall : it is a prodigiously fine specimen of Wood work of the Fifteenth Century, arranged in three divisions, the centre, a clear space of eleven feet in width, and the sides each seven feet three inches ; the latter contain the raking struts or buttresses, designed for MARGARETTING. the twofold purpose of supporting the lofty pillars which carry the Spire, and of forming abutments to four parallel arches similar to those at Shenfield where these buttresses are un necessary, as the walls form a sufficient abutment. The main pillars measure twenty-two inches by eighteen, and rest upon sills nineteen inches by fifteen, bedded on walls of concreted rubble work. To the west is an elegantly proportioned door, and over it a double-light window of wood, with the tracery complete. In these examples built outside the walls, it was expedient to spread the area of the base, for the purpose of strength; at Margaretting, in addition to the main structure, there remains much of the outer wall of wood and the external boarding. Where built inside the walls, the walls serve as abutments : the lower roof in one instance covers the wall, in the other, the space required for the timber construction. The Tower above the roof of the Nave, in this instance, is oblong, the length being from east to west; throughout its height the framework is ancient ; the portion not covered with the Spire has a modern roof and gable. The Spire, at the east end of the oblong, is a simple and scientific piece of carpentry. The superior timbers of the belfry remain, but the in ferior have been much altered ; four ancient Bells hang upon their ori ginal frames, of double- braced work, fixed to gether with oak pegs ; the Bells are arranged against the four sides of the Tower, leaving a well-hole in the centre, which " crowned capitai..- 8 THE CHURCHES OF ESSEX. serves as an entrance. Each Bell has a dedication, in " Old English" of fine character ; that to Saint Margaret, has ex tremely bold capitals, enriched with crowns. The tenor (three feet two inches in diameter), " Jn ? tmiltl0 • re0onef campana • 3ot)Hnni!S " and a merchant's mark ; the next " >^ »>tt . nOttten * 2Domtm ? iBetieHittum," another " Sancta . apacgareta . ora . pro • nobi&." The smallest and most ancient Bell, dedicated to Saint John, has figures of saints, with impressions of coins, and other devices on the shoulder ; and a gridiron, on the body of the Bell, part of the inscription " Sancte. 31ol)anne0 . or a pro nol)l0," has been defaced. This Bell is perhaps, the oldest in the County of Essex, and may be considered the work of the latter part of the Fourteenth Century. Having met with a great number of Bells in Essex that were in use before " The Reformation,'' and most of them bearing Latin Inscriptions, a few general remarks upon the subject may not be out of place. Church bells are first mentioned by Venerable Bede (Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. c. 28.) about the close of the Seventh Century. It is scarcely to be assumed that any, now in existence, can claim such an antiquity as this, but, as in ancient times dates were rarely inscribed upon bells, it becomes difficult to assign a precise age to any example, and the only clue to its degree of antiquity is vested in the style of the letters, the wording of the inscription, or the presence of a coin. Where Bells are not dedicated to Saints the inscriptions are frequently borrowed from the^ Litany, or the Psalms of David. It may not be generally known that the greatest thickness of metal is in the -Rim of a bell, and by that portion the tone is mainly regulated : and that the inscriptions are round the Bodi/, or Waist. The sound of one example met with, is not perceptibly impaired by a large hole in the shoulder. The South Porch, enveloped in ivy, and nearly wrenched ¦¦ "wwr* IToRTH Porch, Margaretting Church, Essex. MARGARETTING. 1 1 asunder by its insidious inroads, has carved tracery on the sides — the cusped verge board and massive timbers remain, and there is a moulded plinth under the seats. The stone doorway into the Nave is a bold specimen of detail with deeply sunk spandrels and large label ; it contains the old oak door with a fragment of a raised iron handle. The cultivation of ivy around our ancient buildings, or the permitting it to overrun them, is often to be regretted. In this instance, particularly so : First, from the obstruction it presents to the examination of some beautiful details : Second, on account of the injury produced by the fibres of the plant penetrating and growing through the structure ; the sure end of which has proved to be dislodgement of the parts, and will be ultimate destruction of the whole. Moreover, is it advisable, practically, to exclude air and natural moisture from the surface of a wall of rubble or concrete construction (as in the case of the Chancel of this Church), which it is desirable to preserve ? for assuredly decay sets -in upon such material from continued drought, and the increasing growth of the stems of the plant will eventually burst the walls asunder. On the other hand, by a covering of ivy many relics have been preserved to us among our ancient ruins, and others may yet be discovered. It is a beautiful pro duction of nature, the dehght of artists, and largely borrowed as a model in architecture, it should therefore be respected ; but judgement should be used before training so powerful an agent over any building. The North Porch, next the Village, and therefore considered of more importance than the preceding, is perfect as regards the design, the timbers are of large dimensions, and many of them, naturally curved, the tie beams have knee-struts, and the wall plates are richly moulded ; the tracery on one side is left, and parts of the close timber work beneath are perfect ; the entrance arch, and its ornamental panels and spandrels are tolerably complete ; the tracery of one of its side compartments and the cusped verge board remain. 12 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. The small brick-built Vestry has a gable to the south, the window is ancient, and the old doorway bricked up ; it was pro bably added to the Chancel, or cased with brick, when other parts of the building underwent the same process of reparation. The floor of the Church is paved with soft red bricks inter spersed with grave stones. The roofs are all tiled, and the Spire and lantern on which it stands are covered with modern wea ther-boarding. HISTORICAL NOTICES. The name of Ginge is applied to several places in Essex. On referring to Ecton's Thesaurus we find, Ginge Abbess. " Hospital. " Mountney. " Ralph. " Margaret. Morant says, the latter is also called Yng Margaret and Ging Magna, to distinguish it from other adjoining parishes, the names of which begin or end in Ing. The name of this Parish is derived from that of the Saint to whom the Church is dedicated, with the addition of the Saxon Particle, ing, having reference to its rich meadow-lands, which are of a very superior description.* In the Saxon times, the lands were in the possession of Si- ward, Edwin Grut, Selva, and Top' and Anschill.f But at the * Wright's Essex. f Morant. MARGARETTING. 13 Time of the Survey* they were held by Robert Gernon, Mat thew Mauritaniensis, and two under tenants, WiUiam and Ilger. The Parish is divided into three manors. 1. The manor of Margaretting. 2. The manor of Copisford-deale, ahas Cold Hall. 3. The manor of Shenfield (now called KiUegrews). The Manor of Margaretting was held in the 12th of King Henry the Second 1165, or 1166 by John de Sanford, under the name of Ginge. Alice, daughter and heir of Gelbert de Saun- ford, held the manor of Gynges Regis. She married Robert de Vere, the second Earl of Oxford. At the time of her decease (6th of Edward the Second) besides a capital messuage here, she possessed the manor of Fingry in Blackmore, and lands in Wolfarneston in Chigwell. Robert de Vere her son and heir did not succeed to these estates, which were given in marriage to his Sister Joan de Vere, Wife of William de Warren, Son of John de Warren, Earl of Surrey. Edward the Second confirmed the manors of Yenge Mar garet, Prittlewell, Ovesham, High Rothing and Wolfhampton to Edmund Earl of Arundel ; and on his death (in the year 1328) to John de Warren Earl of Surrey. The Manor of Ging Margaret was held by Sir William Petre, who died 1572-3 and was succeeded by his son, John Lord Petre. The property is still in the possession of the same noble family. The Manor of Copisfold-Deale, alias Copfeild, Copfold, Coptfold, Copwold or Cold-Hall was possessed by Ralf de Gings, in the years 1250 and 1264. In 1360 it was held of the Countess of Oxford by Thomas de Lamborne ; and for several years it was in the Clovile family, from whom it passed in 1554, by marriage into the possession of William Tanfield who resided at Copfold-hall. It was subsequently sold to Richard Benion, Esq., Governor * Domesday : a judicial book, or book of the survey of England made by order of William the Conqueror ; it was begun 1081, but not completed till 1087. 14 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. of Fort St. George in the East Indies, who conveyed it to his Brother Edward Benion, Esq. : it next came into the possession of Richard Holden, Esq.,* and finally, was purchased by John Attwood, Esq., who pulled down the fine old house and laid the land into Hylands Park. The Manor of Shenfield is so named from the two Saxon words Scen-feld, a pleasant field. It was at first in the family of Gedge or Gage, and by marriage came into that of Harrys, William Harrys of Prittlewell being the Father of Arthur, who married Joan, daughter of Thomas Percy, second Son of the Earl of Northumberland. From the heirs of Christopher Harrys, who died in 1654, it came into the possession of Robert Wood, M. D., and eventually it was added to the Hylands Estate. In former times, the tithes of this Parish were appropriated to the priory of Saint Lawrence in Blackmore, and a vicarage ordained, of which that convent were Patrons. From 1328 to 1457, the Priory and Convent of Blackmore presented to the living; 1458 to 1487, the Bishop of London ; and the Priory, again from 1487 to 1533. f In 1525 Cardinal Wolsey obtained these, with the rest of that Priory's possessions, and settled them on his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. Upon the Cardinal's fall, reverting to the Crown, they were appropriated in 1533 to the Abbey of Waltham Holy Cross; and, after the general dissolution of rehgious houses, in 1540, the Rectory of this Church was granted to a widow lady of the name of Hill ; since which time this living has remained Impropriate.^ The Rectorial or great tithes are the property of George Straight, Esq. The Vicarial tithes belong to The Rev. Wilham Jesse, the Incumbent. * Morant. f Newcourt's Repertorium, vol. ii. p. 405. I Wright's Essex. MARGARETTING. 15 Margaretting Parish. Area in Statute acres . . 2259 Number of Houses in 1851 . 106 Population . . . . 517 iSroomfieHi Ct)ur(j). {Saint Mary.) CHELMSFORD HUNDRED. -^3iO^^%- DioCESE .... Rochester, Pateon The Bishop, Annual Value . . J161. fROOMFIELD Church, near Chelmsford, like South Ockenden, has a Round Tower at the West End, and comprises Chancel, Nave, South Porch and North Aisle. The Walls are probably Norman ; the top of the old Font of that period is preserved in a spare corner, but not used ; it is two feet nine inches square, with slightly sunk panels on the sides, and columns, with capitals and bases, on the angles ; the ancient lining of lead remains, but nothing of the shaft or base on which it once stood : facing the door, on an emaciated pedestal, is to be seen its modern and insignificant substitute. The North Aisle, the disproportioned arches opening into the Nave, and the thin piers, appear to have been wholly rebuilt, to efifect which great care must have been taken to support the old roofs. The Aisle, including the piers (three feet), is twelve feet three inches wide ; in the north wall is a modern door and o Ground Plan of Broomfield Church, Essex. BROOMFIELD. 19 three wooden windows, in each of the latter are inserted frag ments of ancient painted glass. Externally, the Aisle and Vestry are faced with common bricks. A strong post and rail fence, fixed at the distance of three feet beyond the face of the wall, is worthy of notice ; this fence may possibly mark the width of the original aisle and not the limit of interments, since the Church yard is of great extent and but little used for burials. The Nave measures forty-one feet long and twenty feet six inches wide ; the toof is carried upon four finely arched and moulded ribs ; portions of the old wall plates are left, and the whole surface between the ribs covered with modern boarding, instead of the too frequent lath and plaster ceiling. On the South side are two dormers, and in the wall near the chancel arch a " Decorated" single-light window, with cusps, and a transom much below the middle of the window ; the inner arch is original, and carried above the arch of the tracery ; near it is a fine two-light window of Edward the First or " late Early English" period, with lofty arches for the tracery, and small cusps at the springer. The door has an inner arch of Norman character, and westward of it is a fine " Decorated" double-light window, with tracery much damaged. The modern pulpit and desk are fixed against the south pier of the chancel arch ; the pews are very modern. The original benches are of plain char acter, with carefully moulded and stopped edges ; in the front of one is a fine piece of carved tracery, probably once belonging to a screen. Before describing the Tower of this Church it may be well to ofifer a few remarks upon the pecuhar form and remarkable character of these "Round Towers," which the Essex Historians attribute to the Danish Period. To none of the examples that have at present come before my own notice, will the construction or materials warrant a date earlier than the Norman era. More numerous and more perfect specimens of them remain in Norfolk and Suffolk than in any other of the Counties in which they are 20 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. to be found. Counties for the most part which produce an abund ance of flints and bricks, a circumstance that probably led to the adoption of this, more ancient form of structure, from the facility with which these materials can be put together and the little occasion there is for the use of expensive masonry. A high authority upon this subject is to be found in a letter addressed to Hudson Gurney, Esq., by the late John Gage Rokewood, Esq., F.S.A. ; read before the Society of Antiquaries, and pub lished in Vol. XXIII. of their Archseologia. The writer surveyed Fifty of the " Round Towers," including those in Cambridge shire, Essex, Sussex, and Berkshire. He says, — " From the received opinion that these Towers are of Danish origin, though I never saw any ground for such an opinion, I was prepared to meet with a class of Towers so rude, and doubt ful in their construction, that, like the Round Towers of Ireland, they might seem to claim higher antiquity than the Norman era. These Towers are attached to the west end of the Churches, and always constituted a part of them. In some examples, the east face of the Tower is flattened. Why they have been ascribed to the Danes I am at a loss to imagine, for the ecclesiastical round Tower is not found in Denmark, or Sweden, or along the Elbe, as far as I am able to learn, after much inquiry. If the opinion arose from these Towers being found to prevail in East Anglia, it must be remembered that the Danish dynasty subsisted in Northumbria as fully as in East Anglia, and yet not a single example of the Round Tower will be met with between the Humber and the Tweed. Whether they owe their form, rather to the fitness of the flinty material of the country, for the circular shape (so productive of strength), than to caprice or fashion, it is difficult to decide ; particularly when we reflect that the build ing of them is chiefly conflned to one Century, and that they abound in some, and are rare, or not found at all, in other dis tricts where flint is the natural product. That they are imi tations of the mihtary Round Towers I think highly probable ; -..CUDHLER.OEL. pnwmmiii West View, Broomfield Church, Essex. BROOMFIELD. 23 the disuse of that form may have risen from its heing found riot well adapted for bells." The internal diameter of the Tower of Broomfield Church is fifteen feet six inches, and the wahs three feet nine inches thick : it opens into the Nave by an arch in the west wall, which is seven feet two inches thick, the opening is fourteen feet three inches high, and was originally seven feet six inches wide ; the masonry is Norman, but the piers have been altered. The win dows are small and spread to a great width on the inside ; that to the west is semicircular, while those to the north and south are pointed, all built in the same manner and of one age, namely — " Transition," or late Norman. The walls are rubble built, mostly of rough flints, laid in courses ; the openings have quoins and arches of brick and thin pieces of stone, as if the materials had been used indiscriminately. It is worthy of mention, that the soffite of the west window is plastered, while the others show the bare rubble work. The upper portion of the Tower has pointed windows, four inches wide and three feet six inches high, very much splayed internally, and the sills apparently never finished. The stairs to the Belfry are of curious construction and worthy of examination ; they are adapted to the form of the wall, and afford an example of the earliest wreathed handrail and timber supports to stairs that have come under my notice ; the close boarded side (in lieu of balusters) is also original, and with little doubt, may be assigned to the Fifteenth Century. The oaken trap door into the Bell chamber is no trifle to be raised from its great weight and the want of standing-height. There were originally three Bells, two only remain ; one records in " Old Enghsh" letters, of quaint character, that " 'J^'^^ 2D3(£E 9l^^2D(£ 9^(£-, 1580 ; " the other, in Roman capitals, that "MILES GRA YE MADE ME, 1613;" they are carried upon four trussed principals, placed across two huge timbers. The Spire is octangular, upon a circular floor of joists, each 24 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. joist nine inches by seven, about twelve inches apart, and framed with a well hole in the centre for hoisting the bells. So far as the diameter of the circle wih allow, these joists are laid parallel over its square, and the rest of the circle completed with similar joists disposed in radiating lines ; upon their extremities spring the raking rafters of the Spire— a rafter to each joist. Eight principals, on the faces of the octagon, (where the greatest pressure of the wind would be directed) are supported by wrought and chamfered lofty ribs, which gather over from the feet of the rafters to the under side of a series of collars, which in plan form a star, with eight limbs ; over the intersection of these col lars and in the centre is a main pillar of support to the Spire; above, at intervals, are other stages of collars braced on all sides, and all tied together in a masterly manrier. The effect of the principals, which from the Belfry assume the form of a groin, is highly pleasing, the strength of the spire is greatly increased, and an astonishing amount of finish dis played in a remote part of the edifice ; adding another instance to the number on record of the zeal and real interest that was felt by workmen of, by some called, " the dark ages," in carry ing out the details of our ancient buildings. The Chancel Arch has undergone alterations similar to the arches of the Aisle, the piers are also of inadequate proportions and in bad taste. The internal angles next the Nave are splayed for some purpose, connected perhaps with the screen, no portion of which remains to elucidate the subject. —El — ^~ construction of spire. BROOMFIELD. 25 The Chancel, nearly as long as the Nave, measures thirty- seven feet ten inches from east to west, and is fourteen feet four inches wide : the walls of " Early Enghsh" or Norman date are two feet nine inches thick. It is a noble structure, with the un usual number of four openings on the south, namely, two " Per pendicular" single-light windows; an original lancet of narrow proportions with wide spreading reveal ; and a modernised priests' door : there are no vestiges of sedilia or piscina : the east wall presents a fine specimen of a triple-light " Perpendicular " win dow, containing some an cient painted glass of canopies and buttresses in fragments. On the north is one single-light " Per pendicular " window, and a modern door opening into the Vestry. There is a mutilated brass to Thomas Huntleye, late citizen, a.d. 1613, and a fine mural tablet of marble to Thomas Man wood, 1718. The South Porch, nine feet four inches long, and eight feet ten inches wide, has all but one piece of its tracery perfect ; the sides have two bays of three compartments each, the front an arch, and side openings. The roof and verge board are modern, one old moulded tie beam with knee-corbels is left. The door into Nave about two centuries and a half old, is within a modern ised opening ; in the wall, to the right of the doorway, are the remains of a holy water stoup, the chamfered arch and the LANCET WINDOW.- 26 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. dished stone of which are left ; the projecting part of the latter has been broken or cut off. The general appearance of this Church, from the Village green, is pleasing ; the roofs of Nave and Chancel are covered with tiles, and the Porch with slates. The east end has a lofty gable, and " Early English" buttresses, with gabled heads and torus capping. The Spire is large and lofty in proportion to the lately whitewashed Tower ; the base of the Spire is covered with shingle, the upper part with ancient horizontal boarding, par tially repaired; the beaded angles are covered with a wood capping, made to joint horizontally with the, boards ; the whole is painted white, and surmounted by part of the old vane. HISTORICAL NOTICES. Broomfield is so named from the circumstance of the soil favouring an abundant growth of Broom. In ancient records, it is written Brumfelda, and Bromfend. In the time of the Saxons, Broomfield was possessed by per sons named Saulf, Segar, Borda, Picot, and Godric ; and at the time of the general survey, it belonged to Goisfrid de Magna- ville, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and William de Warenn.* The Parish is divided into four, manors. 1. Bromfield-hall. 2. Patching-haU. 3. Wood-hall. 4. Bellstead-hall. The Manor of Bromfield-hall was given to Goisfrid de Magnavilla, or Geffrey de Mandeville, who landed with Will" y° Conq' ; and was rewarded by him with no less than 118 Lordships, forty-one of which were in the County of Essex. » IMorant. BROOMFIELD. 27 In the reign of Henry the Second this manor was enjoyed by Walter, Brother of Geffrey, who was honoured by King Stephen and the Empress Maud, with the title of Earl of Essex., It afterwards came into the possession of the Bohuns, Earls of Hereford and Essex ; and at the death of Humfrey de Bohun in the year 1301, Thomas de Mandeville held of him four Knights' fees, in Bromfield, Great Waltham, and Notley. In 1566 it passed into the family of Sir Richard Rich, whose second son Robert was raised to the title of Earl of War wick in 1618. When this noble family became extinct, the manor fell to Nicholas, Earl of Scarsdale, who eventually sold it to a London merchant, named Olmius, whose daughter gave it to her nephew John Olmius. The Manors of Patching-haU, and Woodhall, mentioned in some old records as one manor were in the time of the Saxons divided into three ; one of which was then held by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother to the Conqueror ; another by Gefirey de Mandeville ; and the third by Robert Gernon, and under him by Picot : hence this Manor is called Patchinghall Picot, or Pigot. Various proprietors succeeded to this manor, but it continued longest in the noble family of Bourchier, of whom Robert Lord Chancellor of England, died the 23rd of King Edward the Third. In 1548 a fine passed between Sir Richard Rich, Knight, and William Lord Parre, (afterwards Earl of Essex and Mar quis of Northampton) for the manors of Pachyng-hall and Wood- hall le Hyde and appurtenances. From Sir Richard Rich, these estates, as well as the pre ceding, descended to his Son, Robert Lord Rich, and afterwards they all became the property of John Olmius, afterwards Lord Waltham. Bellstead-hall in the time of the Saxons belonged to Godric Poinc, but at the time of the survey to William de Warren > 28 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Of this manor but httle is recorded, except that John Former in the Fourteenth Century held a moiety of William de Wanton, Knight ; by the service of twenty shillings per annum. George Vilhers, Duke of Buckingham, possessed this, as well as the adjoining estate of New Hall, at the time of his violent death, 23rd August, 1 628. He was succeeded by his son George ; it then passed into the hands of General Monk, Duke of Albe marle and his posterity, and afterwards to the owners of New hall Estate. Other Estates belonged to this Parish. 1 . A capital messuage was purchased by Sir Richard Everard about the year 1716. 2. Well-house above Broomfield Green, the property of Lord Waltham. 3. Butlers, sold by Mr. Pascal in 1563 and afterwards pur chased by George Mertins, Knight and Lord Mayor of London in 1725 : it then descended to the Family of Scratton. 4. Priors, in the South-west part of the parish, originally be longed to the Priory of Blackmore, whence it derived its name. King Henry the Eighth granted it with other lands to Wal tham Abbey, in exchange for Stantead Abbots. Upon the sup pression of the monasteries the King granted it (1544) to Richard Roger and Robert Taverner. It passed from several families into that of Thomas Love, Knight, Vice Admiral, in the reign of James the First : subsequently it reverted to Thomas Pockhngton, attorney at Law, of Chelmsford. 5. Scravels near Priors, formerly in the possession of the Boosey family and afterwards of Mr. Daniel Harrington. The Church with the lands, tithes, and appurtenances were given by Walter de Mandeville to the Convent of the Holy Trinity in London, and confirmed to that monastery by Henry the Third in 1226. In 1293 Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of London, ordained BROOMFIELD. 29 a Vicarage here, reserving to himself and successors the nomina tion of the Vicars, which the Prior and Convent were to present. Thus it continued till the suppression, and in 1541, the right and patronage were granted to the Bishop of London, and his successors, and hath continued in their collation ever since.* It is now in the Diocese of Rochester. Previous to the appropriation above mentioned, in 1289, John de Malneston, official to the Bishop, inquired into the value of the Church and the portion to be reserved to the Vicar. The value was thirty marks yearly, and there was assigned to the Vicar, a house and glebe of nine acres, called Boygrove, another acre, the fore-crop of two half-acres in Northmede, belonging to Broomfield Hall, fifteen shillings and four pence, out of the Parsonage, great tithes upon certain fields and all small tithes, obventions,f mortuaries, profits of the altar, &c. then valued at eight marks yearly. Also tithes of the woods ; and he was to strew the Church twice in Summer with rushes ; as the owners of the Rectory were to do thrice in Winter with straw. The impropriate tithes were granted by King Henry the Eighth to William Harris ; they then passed to Richard Lord Rich, who made them part of the endowment of his free school, and alms house, at Felstead. " There is paid out of Broomfield parson age, to the School, £68. 6^. lid. per annum; and to the alms house 18 bushels of wheat and 29 of malt." J BROOMFIELD PARISH. Area in Statute acres . . . 2215 Number of Houses in 185] . . 180 Population 851 * Morant. f " Incidental advantages." | Morant. Ground Pean of South Ockenden Church, Essex. (Saint Nicholas.) CHAFFORD HUNDRED. -m^^Of'^t)-- DioCESE .... Rochester. Patron J. Cliffe, Esq. Annual Value . . £754. |CKENDEN, is the name given to two contiguous parishes, in the archdeaconry of Essex and the deanery and hundred of Chafford. The Villages are about a mile apart, and distinguished by the addition of North and South. They lie under the range of hills, which forms the boundary of the valley, through which the Thames winds its course. It seems doubtful whether the etymology of the word is derived from local circumstances, or from a proper name, in either case, Morant, in his County History, considers it to be of Saxon origin ; the same opinion is entertained by all writers upon the subject. In preparing and illustrating a manuscript account of this Church for Samuel Gurney, Esq., of Ham House, with permission to publish it, the best authorities were consulted, with a view, if possible, to find records of it, in a more perfect condition, a century ago. But 34 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. the Authors of the Histories of Essex, seem really to have over looked the Architecture of the Churches ; they were, perhaps, not able to appreciate their beauties, or not fitted to describe their peculiarities. A Brief notice of the Works and the Authors referred to may not be altogether out of place. John Norden was perhaps the earhest Historian of the County, he wrote " A Description of Essex in 1594," and gives a quaint History of its general aspect, but does not notice the Churches. In James the First's reign he was made " One of the General Surveyors of the King's Lands and Woods." Nicholas Tindal, in 1642 published only Two Numbers of a Quarto work, containing exceedingly good accounts of five Churches and part of a sixth, in the Hundred of Hinckford. In 1740, Nathaniel Salmon commenced a more elaborate folio volume, relating principally to the Lands, but he did not live to finish the work he had commenced. About twenty years after, The Rev. Philip Morant, Rector of Saint Mary's Colchester and of Aldham, undertook the arduous task of collecting and arranging all the historical and antiquarian records of the County, and in 1768 produced two volumes, folio, of useful information. In 1770 followed an interesting " History, by A Gentleman," pubhshed at Chelmsford, in Six volumes, octavo. Others followed their example, but added httle new matter to the original works, especially as regards the Churches, of which they contented themselves by a repetition of Morant' s accounts of them. Thomas Wright, Esq. in his History, two volumes quarto, 1832, states, that in order " to ensure the accuracy of our de scriptions, — a point in which Morant is peculiarly deficient, — the County has been personally visited"* yet describes this Church in Morant's very words, although the building in the meantime, had undergone a material alteration ; and adds that * Preface. xnoc! HKH Oa K Bo K H SOUTH OCKENDEN. 37 there " are or were inscriptions to Sir Ingram Bruyn, Gilbert Sahonstah, &c., &c." The Monuments, with the inscriptions, remain to this day. South Ockenden is one of seven Churches in Essex, having Round Towers; the others are Pentlow, Lamarsh, Bardfield- Saling, Birchanger, Broomfield, and Great Leighs. The style of architecture to which this example may fairly be assigned, is that familiarly known as " Semi-Norman," or the " Early Pointed Style," which prevailed late in the Twelfth and early in the Thirteenth Century. A careful examination brings to hght other evidences of such antiquity, besides the north door and the Tower, although to the casual observer the most prominent features of the building would convey the idea of its dating from the commencement of the Fifteenth Century. It is dedicated to St. Nicholas, and comprises Chancel, North Chapel, Nave, North Aisle and Porch, and West Tower. It stands southward of the village green, from which an avenue of trees leads to the principal entrance on the north side. The building, composed of several distinct parts, and nearly square in shape, of lofty proportions, and vdth a stunted Tower, forms a venerable, though somewhat homely, looking pile. From the number of the graves, and their proximity to the building, the ground has accumulated around the walls to a con siderable height above the level of the floor; this proves one great cause of the dampness inside, a cure for which (but to little purpose) has been attempted by some insufficient trenching. A glance round the Church shows that much labour was bestowed upon the original fabric, and upon the various altera tions that were subsequently effected. The carefully built flint walls are occasionally bonded with blocks of stone and layers of tiles, the masonry of the windows and doors is delicately wrought, the cornices enriched with carved bosses, and the parapets em battled. In building the walls of the Chancel, lumps of iron-stone and 38 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. pudding-stone were inserted, and in after ages the Chapel was faced with black flints fitted together ; a further change of fashion led to the use of moulded bricks for the windows, and as a sub stitute for stone in repairing the old masonry. The south door, with an arch of ancient form, appears to have been built-up with fragments of good masonry, while the windows of the Tower in our own day have been diligently, but not tastefully, repaired with common bricks. There is ample reason to suppose that the Aisle is coeval with the Nave, and it is worthy of remark that the west wall of the Nave is thicker than that of the Aisle ; the difference being external, and the angle finished with quoin-stones. The north wall of the Aisle bears another evidence of its antiquity ; westward of the Porch is a small lancet window, eight inches wide, two feet eight high, and the sill about four feet from the floor line. The object of this interesting feature is not elucidated by an examination of the internal face of the wall, which is covered with plaster and white-wash. It may have given light to a Chantry Chapel, or to a Baptistery. Should the walls ever be laid bare, some evidence oi the former supposition might be manifested ; or an excavation of the ground beneath the floor might be found to sustain the latter notion. The roofs of Chancel, Nave, Tower, and Porch are covered with tiles ; the Chapel and Aisle with lead ; a transverse gutter, between the gables of Chancel and Nave is an uncommon feature and consequent upon the last alteration of the roof of the latter. The Tower, in its decapitated state, is thirty-seven feet in height ; less pyramidal than the generality of examples ; and divided into three stories : the rubble-built wall is four feet in thickness. The Basement, fourteen feet in diameter inside, and seventeen feet six inches high, is open to the Nave by an " Early Pointed" arch, with two chamfered reveals ; the outer reveal is carried down to the ground, while the inner rests upon large semi-circular columns, with deeply-sunk moulded capitals SOUTH OCKENDEN. 39 and bases. The wooden floor is modern, and the walls, to the height of eleven feet, coated with a smooth surface of cement. On the west is an " Early Perpendicular" doorway, probably an innovation, as very few examples of Round Towers have original external entrances. Over it is a small ancient window to light the Basement, but it has undergone much alteration. The room is used as a Vestry, and contains an old parish chest banded with plain iron work. The next story, twelve feet six inches in height, shows the original surface of the wall, in which is a slight fracture. Light is admitted by three windows at un equal distances from the floor, each possessing some evidence of antiquity ; that on the north (the least altered) has been care fully finished, the apertures measure fourteen inches in width, they were probably even narrower, originally : on the inside they expand to the width of three feet two inches. In the sub stance of the wall, on the eastern side, over the Tower Arch, are two roughly formed, but carefully built arches, introduced no doubt to relieve the Arch from an undue pressure of the superstructure and, at the same time, to facilitate the gathering- over from the straight line of the wall next the Church, into the circular form of the Tower. The top or belfry story is but six feet six inches in height, and the wall three feet six inches thick. Here are four windows which were shortened when the story was lowered, there are no stones or arches across the openings to connect the wall ; they appear always to have been of larger dimensions than those on the lower stories ; in their present state they are eighteen inches in width on the outside, spreading to four feet four inches inside. By raising the roof of the Nave in the Seventeenth Century, the east window of the Tower was enclosed ; it now gives access, and admits air, to the timbers of the roof. In the centre of the belfry, and suspended upon its original framing, is one Bell, two feet in diameter, with several coins of King Charles the Second's reign, and the following in scription in Roman capitals (irregularly disposed) in three hues 40 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. JOHN : and : Christopher : hodson : made : me : 1678 THIS : BELL : WAS : GIVEN I BY : RICHARD : MULFORD : SEXSTON : OF : this : parish : AND : HEARE : PLACED : TH : IL : THEN : CHURCH-WARDENS. The Chancel, twenty-two feet by sixteen, has undergone considerable alterations, yet a small portion of moulding remains to identify its originahty; it is on the north side, and agrees with the abacus moulding of the Tower Arch. Two arches (of an earlier character than those in the Nave) open into the Chapel ; the piers from which they spring are mutilated, and the square pillar, in the centre, cased or wholly rebuilt of brick. Oft repeated coats of whitewash, upon these imperfect features, render minute examination difficult without disturbing the present neat surface. The roof is in an unsound state and does not keep out the wet, the walls consequently are covered with damp and mildew ; some compensation for which, is aimed at by the introduction of a stove, whose iron funnel is thrust through the south window. The floor is three steps below the ground out side. The ceiling is coved or vaulted on the four sides to suit the modernised roof, which is hipped-off, instead of being carried up as a gable to the east, where is a large triple light " Perpen dicular" window. On the south have been two windows ; through the lower portion of one, otherwise sadly mutilated, has been forced a modern brick doorway. The eastern-most window is wholly blocked up, the sill internally appears to have been low enough to form a seat for the officiating clergy. There are no visible remains of the piscina. The portions of the floor (not occupied by gravestones) and the steps to the altar are paved with bricks ; appearing from under the step, is part of an ancient purbeck gravestone, that once contained a monumental brass, apparently to the memory of an Ecclesiastic. The communion rails are ponderous balusters, and a screen of similar workman ship parts off the Chapel. An old moulded stall-end, divested of its finial, has been converted, in modern times, into a reading SOUTH OCKENDEN. 41 desk for school purposes. Under the eastern arch is a small tomb, fourteen inches in height, four feet nine inches long, and two feet wide, the top is a Purbeck slab, without inscription : the tomb occupies a position frequently assigned to the burial place of a Founder or other distinguished Patron of the Church, and was frequently termed the Easter Sepulchre, and used during Holy Week. The Chancel Arch is probably as old as the side arches, the jambs show the holes where the Rood Screen was fixed, the screen appears to have been of an unpretending character, the lower portion remains, the upper was pitilessly cut down to the height of the pews ; its sill forms a step to the Chancel. The North Chapel, twenty-two feet by seventeen, is lofty ; the roof is flat, and the timbers exposed to view ; the main beam is dated 1618. This portion of the sacred edifice has suffered materially from damp ; and from being the stately mausoleum of the Lords of the soil, it has now become a mere receptacle for rubbish and the implements of the gravedigger. The floor is paved with brick. The windows, originally one to the east, and two to the north, were singularly and carefully altered in the Fifteenth Century : that on the east, now consists of three plain arched compartments under a circle, within a lofty arch of ancient character with a small label ; that on the north has four plain compartments under a square head and label of beautifully moulded bricks, and occupies the centre of a piece of brick wall, filled in between the two original windows, portions of which remain with their small labels, terminated with heads. The glass of these windows is in a very dilapidated state, leaves of books and pieces of paper have been thrust into the holes to ex clude the wind. The Nave, thirty-eight feet in length by twenty-two feet six inches in width, opens to the North Aisle by two arches and a half, of " Early Perpendicular" character ; on the south, are two windows of noble dimensions, of the same date ; they con- 42 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. tain some small fragments of the original painted glass. The walls exhibit a change of masonry with the change of period ; the external angles, to the height of about fifteen feet from the ground, have small quoin-stones, with a minute chamfer on the edge ; while the upper, or Fifteenth Century masonry, has larger quoins, without the chamfer. Moreover it was originally much lower, as will be seen by the ponderous stone corbels of warlike figures of the Thirteenth Century that carried the original roof. The clerestory, the work of the Fifteenth Century, had in all probability a flat roof covered with lead ; this roof, in its turn, gave way to the taste or necessity for renovation, in Charles the Second's reign. Much that is interesting of this late Period is in this Church ; for example the boldly executed open spandrels and carved trusses supporting the four tie-beams of the roof, and the elaborately moulded and mitred pulpit and sounding board, with grotesque panels and figures familiar in Elizabethan designs : the " Merchants' mark" and the initials W B 1660, on the latter, suggest that it was the gift of a wealthy merchant of that period. On the left hand of the preacher is fixed an ornamental iron stand, made to hold the hour glass used in Puritan times. When the pulpit was erected it was found necessary to shut out the entrance to the ancient and carefully built stone stair case in the south buttress ; the stairs, two feet in width, led to the Rood Loft and to the parapets of the roof : it being expedient to retain this way for workmen to gain access to the gutters, a panel at one end of the reading desk is used as an entrance : the old door, at the foot of the stairs, remains upon its plain hinges ; and on the right hand, recessed in the south wall, is a small HOUR GLASS STAND. SOUTH OCKENDEN. 43 piscina, fifteen inches by eight, and three feet three from the floor. The rafters of the roof are braced, and ceiled to the under side. The tie-beam nearest the Chancel Arch, is made to carry the brick gable ; the transverse gutter before alluded to is over the breadth of the Arch itself. The floor is paved with square tiles, among which are several gravestones. A west gallery has been erected, and modern pews grafted upon portions of the old open seats which are of a plain design. On the wall is a frame containing the Royal Arms of England 1779. The elegant " Perpendicular" Font, against the column by the entrance, is octangular : the top, two feet three inches in dia meter, has a deeply recessed panel with quatrefoil on each face of the octagon ; the shaft, fifteen inches in diameter, has elongated panels with cusped arches ; and the plinth (considerably mutilated) is com posed of a series of fine mouldings. A. portion of the original Purbeck marble Norman Font was. used as a foundation for that just described ; it is a square stone, and had a centre shaft with four small columns at .the corners ; two of the bases of the latter are exposed to view, beyond the plinth of the present Font. Another fragment of Purbeck was, at the erection of the present Font, placed as a Step, it is but little worn after being used for several centuries, affording an interesting proof of the durability of this material which was extensively employed by Early English builders. The gabled Porch is a wooden structure of the Fifteenth " perpendicular" FONT. 44 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Century, underpinned with brick work and rubble flint. It has undergone considerable alterations and the construction of the roof is hidden by a plaster ceiling ; the entrance arch and its side hghts, with cusped heads, remain behind a modern facing ; the sides are divided into four unequal bays ; the principal mullions only are original, they are nine inches square and moulded on the four edges. The North Aisle, filled with high pews, is internally of the same length as the Nave and eight feet ten inches in width. A ceiling has been added to the rafters of the nearly flat roof. Two double light " Perpendicular" windows, with tracery of fine proportions, were inserted in the north wall ; in the west, are the remains of a more ancient double-light window under a lofty arch, repaired with brick ; a piece of ancient sculpture is built into the spandrel. One ponderous stall end and finial of Edwardian character remains. The north doorway (not even alluded to by the County Historians) is a choice specimen of Norman detail, with a semi circular arch having four receding faces or reveals, elaborately carved ; the enriched members include the billet moulding, early ENGLISH BAND. DOG-TOOTH ORNAMENT. SOUTH OCICENDEN. 45 several kinds of zigzag or chevron moulding, and beaded wreaths. Each jamb has two columns, one of which on either side is wreathed and has a moulded band in the middle ; the wreath, on one side alternated with the dog-tooth ornament ; and on the other with beads and flowers. The capitals of the different reveals are composed of volutes and graceful foliage in bold relief, but mutilated, while the bases, from their contact with the ground, are much disfigured. The opening measures eight feet two inches by four feet two in width, and although small, compared with many examples of Norman doorways, the variety and combination of the ornaments around the Arch are remark able, and produce a richness of effect rarely to be met with.* Among the small fragments of ancient painted glass in the windows, are some brilliant pieces 8f blue and ruby diapers, but nothing relating to heraldry or figures. The general pattern appears to have been slightly figured quarries. The following are the monumental remains. In the floor of the Chancel is a brass six feet six by two feet six, to Ingelram Bruyn, Knight, Lord of the Village, and Patron of this Church ; he died the twelfth day of August, Anno Domini 1400. It is a very fine specimen of a warrior in plate armour, with a long sword on his left side, and a dagger on his right ; the hands in the attitude of prayer ; a pair of long spurs on his feet which rest upon a lion sejant : over the head of the figure is an elegant canopy, an ogee arch with cusps and crockets between panelled buttresses crowned with pinnacles : in the spandrels of the arch are two shields of the arms of Bruyn (azure a cross moline or). Above is an indent for a scroll, which doubtless bore an inscrip tion : one yet remains across the breast, on the jupon ; it is as follows : Ecce nunc in pulvere dormio Sed scio qd redept mens vivit. " Behold nbw I sleep in the dust. But I know that my Redeemer liveth." * Britton gives a view of it in his " Architectural Antiquities." 46 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. The head reposed upon a helmet with serrated mantling but without crest : this and other portions of this noble brass were wickedly stolen some years ago. Sir Ingelram Bruyn married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Edmund de la Pole, who survived him six years. In the East wall is a small stone panel containing a brass plate with an inscription in English verse, and old characters, to record the virtues of Gilbert Saltonstall Esquire of London, Merchant Adventurer, who died 1585 : and in the floor a small Purbeck stone, with brass plate and coat of arms, to mark the place of his interment. In the Chapel is a stately " Elizabethan" monument to the memory of Sir Richard Saltonstall, Knight, and his wife, erected 1601. Composed of variegd!ted marbles, and once highly em blazoned, it is now in a dilapidated state : a superb panel, with the armorial bearings of the family and some remains of obelisks, surmount an entablature of the Corinthian order, between the columns are two arches forming alcoves for the principal figures which are in a kneeling attitude ; Sir Richard clad in armour of the period, wears the insignia of the office of Lord Mayor of London ; in the plinth are figures of their seven sons and nine daughters. He was Patron of this Church, and presented the living to George Dry wood in 1590. Another purbeck gravestone contains a brass in full Eliza bethan costume to the memory of Margaret Barker, wife of Edward Barker, of Chesswycke, in Mydd, 1602. A black and white marble monument on the south wall of Chancel, with coat of arms in scrolled panel and two obelisks, to the Reverend George Dry wood, Rector, 1611. A grey and white mural tablet, with carefully moulded cornices and pediment, surmounted with an emblazoned coat of arms to Philip Saltonstall 1668. Tablets to Elizabeth Leith 1796, and to Jas. Crow ; and in the floor, the gravestones of William How 1639, Jasper Kingsman 1754, and Lockhart Leith, Rector, 1819. SOUTH OCKENDEN. 47 HISTORICAL NOTICES. South Ockenden has been named Wokendon Rokele, from its , ancient owners, and Wokendon Ad Turrim, from its Tower- steeple. In records it is also written Okingdon, Wokyndon, and Lockington. In the reign of Edward the Confessor the whole parish belonged to Frebert a Thane ; at the time of the Norman Survey it formed part of the lordly possessions of Geffrey de Magnaville, Earl of Essex. " Turold holds Wochadune of Geoffrey, which Friebert a Thane freely held for a manor, ten hides and half and thirty acres : always three Villaines and thirty-four Bordars ; then three Servants, now none ; then two caracutes in demesne, now three ; then seven of the men, now eight. Wood for 150 hogs — eight acres of meadow, Pasture for 100 sheep ; now one mill thirty beasts, and eighteen sheep: now eighteen beasts, one horse— worth 11. now 16/." Vide Salmon's History of Essex. 1740. The same authority says, that, in the reign of King Henry the Second " Hugh de Ou held one Knight's fee and William de la Rokele three parts of a Knight's fee of Geffrey de Mande- viUe, Earl of Essex. " A Wilham de Ou lived in the reign of King Stephen, and had issue Geoffrey de la Rokele. This Wilham probably married a Daughter of Hugh, and so came into the Estate. From him Willingale D'ou seems to have taken its name." In the following reign Sir Richard de la Rokele held it of 48 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Humfrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford : it remained in this family till Isolda, daughter and co-heiress of Phihp de la Rokele conveyed it to her husband Sir Wilham de Brune or Bruyn, Knight of the Bedchamber to King Edward the First. Isolda was made lady of the bed chamber to Queen Eleanor, and enjoying a considerable degree of Court favour, the family acquired large possessions.* In 1400 Sir Ingelram Bruyn held it of the Countess of Hereford by the service of one Knight's fee and a half. Maurice succeeded, then Sir Henry Bruyn, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Darcy, Esq. of Maldon, by whom he had his co-heiresses, Ahce, wife of Robert Harleston, Esq. and Elizabeth, married to Thomas Tyrell, son of Sir Thomas Tyrell of Heron. Henceforward the Estate was divided into two Manors, namely Bruyns and Groves. The Manor of Groves was assigned to Alice, who had three husbands, Robert Harleston, Esq. Sir John Honingham, and William Berners, Esq. The first of these left issue. King Richard the Third, on the attainder of William Brandon, re stored a moiety of this Manor to Sir John Heningham, with the advowson of the Church : on whose death in 1499, he left his son John Harleston, his heir. In the Sixteenth Century this manor was in possession of the Saltonstalls. In 1688 Philip Saltonstall was killed by a fall from his horse, his son, Philip, married Sarah, daughter of Sir Capel Lukyn, Baronet, of Messing ; who died ; she afterwards married Dacre Barrett Lennard, Esq. of Alveley. According to Morant it was afterwards in possession of John Henry Stewart, Esq. and Whitef says that Sir Thomas Barrett Lennard is owner of a portion of the soil. The Manor of Bruyns was assigned to Elizabeth, the other daughter of Sir Henry Bruyn. She also had three husbands, William Malory, Esq. Thomas Tyrell, Esq. and Sir William * Wright's Essex. f Gazetteer, 1848. SOUTH OCKENDEN. 49 Brandon, standard bearer to King Henry the Seventh at Bos worth field; where he was slain by the hand of Richard the Third. He was father to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, who is said to have been born here. The Tyrell family were owners of this Estate for many years : then William Petre, Esq. of Stanford Rivers : Jasper Kingsman, of Arden Hall, Horndon on the HiU : John Spence, Esq. of Stifford, and afterwards John Cliffe, Esq. It is a valuable property, and was put up for sale in 1847, but bought-in at the sum of 24,620 Pounds.* It has been celebrated of late years for its merino sheep, which Mr. Sturgeon has successfully bred upon the Estate, and its large pastures were extensively employed by the same occupier to the feeding of live stock for the export trade. According to Newcourt, in his Repertorium, the Patronage of the hving was in the Bruyn family in the time of Edward the First, but the first Presentation he records was in the following reign ; he says, " in old time it was a free chappel, and as such Sir Maurice de Brun or Bruin presented to it in 1326. On the next vacancy he presented to it as a Rectory, and so it hath continued ever since." Morant, referring to the above, says. " Some have fancied, that here was, in old time, only a free Chapel ; grounding them selves upon a Presentation of Sir Maurice de Bruyn to the free Chapel of Sedebourghbroke in 1326. But this chapel was in the hospital of Brook-street, which was also in the gift of the said Sir Maurice. And we find the advowson of the Church of South Wokendon, and the advowson of that free Chapel distin guished in the Inquisitions post mortem." (Inquis. 29 and 36 Edward III.) And, " Ingelramus Bruyn, obut seisitus de Advocatione Ecclesie de South-Wokendon. Et de Advocatione libere capelle Sti Johannis Baptiste de Sedebourghbroke." (Inquis. 1 Henry IV.) f * White's Gazetteer. f Morant. 50 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. The last presentation by this family, was made in 1446. Sir Robert de Marney held the gift from the year 1391 to 1398, and appointed four Rectors, through death, in this short period. On the death of Sir Ingelram Bruyn, a.d. 1400, Henry the Fourth presented to the living ; the Crown since then, has, occasionally, held the Patronage. " John Crowland, who died 1493, late Parson here, gave by will, lands in North Okyndpn in tenure of Ann Poynes valued at 13.y. 4 S ^M KW @ NhhI^Ib ^H ^^^I^^MSffl H (Saint John the Baptist.) BARSTABLE HUNDRED. Diocese . Patrons . '-'^-© ^ ¦-= — — Rochester. The Dean and Chapter of St. PauVs. Annual Value £224. N the year 1849-50, the Ancient Parish Church of Mucking was partially demolished with a view to its reparation, it continued a ruin till 1852 when it was almost wholly rebuilt. The Chancel belongs to the Patrons, who preferred repairing the ancient structure and retaining, in its integrity, the original design. In design the Chancel is nearly unique and of large dimen sions, considering the size of the Church. It is thirty-three feet in length, and fifteen in width, and a fine specimen of the " Early English" style, built in the beginning of the reign of Henry the Third. It underwent considerable alteration prior to The Reformation : its original roof had been removed and the east and south windows enlarged ; also, a Chantry Chapel of the MUCKING. 61 Fifteenth Century (with an ample arch opening into the South side of the Chancel) was added or rebuilt. The last roof, of the Fifteenth Century, was taken off in 1849, the timbers were sawn smaller, and used in the construction of the present roof. Section, Chancel : Mucking Church, Essex. Technical terms : a, collar : 6, angle braces : c, rafters ; d, puncheons : e, e, double-waU plates : /, rafters-feet : g, ridge, or apex. At the same time, the Chancel arch and the East wall were rebuilt, and huge piles of masonry as buttresses, added to the outer angles. It is true that the walls had separated, but many, even practical men, are alarmed at the sight of a crack in an ancient building, and are led to put support, in any form, to avert what often proves to be an imaginary danger : numerous examples are to be met with where these props themselves have 62 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. subsided, and left the dangerous wall just where it was before. If buttresses ever formed a feature in the Design of this Chancel, no traces of the ancient masonry remain. But the principal features of this nicely finished fabric are left; on entering the Church, the north wall of the Chancel presents to view an elegant arcade, composed of three arches, recessed in the wall Eight inches and shghtly chamfered on the edge, these spring from two octagonal Purbeck marble detached columns, small and graceful in their proportions ; a slightly attached column of the same kind forms the western jamb of the arcade, while that on the east is a square pier chamfered on the edge ; the capitals and bases vary in form and consist chiefly of delicate mouldings. Within these arches are " lancet" win dows of pleasing proportions. The remains of a credence table low down in this wall were visible, but it was mutilated ; it possessed so little interest as to render even preservation un necessary. In the south wall are sedilia for three officiating priests, and r^:^^msn >£^pj-7TTT»,_.Jl '*^?. '¦IJ.' 1 ¦ EARLT English" piscina and sedilia. -Tirvr, n a double piscina of the same date, agreeing with them in masonry, form of arch, and simplicity of design. The altar is approached by two steps, and as portions of the bases of the arcade are buried, and the floor but fourteen inches below the seat of the sedilia, it is probable that the whole floor had been, at some time, raised. CO pH o a H KO MUCKING. 65 Externally the Chancel presents great simplicity of design, there is no plinth moulding or other detail on the north side, except the single chamfer and an external rebate to the lancet windows ; on the south no vestige of the ancient structure re mains. Salmon mentions two monuments, one in the South Aisle to Elizabeth Downes wife to " four several husbands ;" she died 1607 : and another in the Churchyard to Mr. William Gray, 1714. HISTORICAL NOTICES. The Parish of Mucking is north of Tilbury, on the bank of the Thames. Two small streams, one running southward, and the other eastward, meet here and form a creek. The name of it is otherwise written in records. Mocking, Mokking, Muchinga, and Mucinga; and seems to be derived from the Saxon words Muck, an heap ; or Mucel, great ; and ing, meadow, or pasture.* This Vill was held by the Abbey of Berking before the Con quest ; Saint Mary holds Muckinge for VII Hides, and Turold of Rouecestre hath taken away thirty acres laid to the fee of the Bishop of Bayeux. Among other possessions there were Wood for three hundred Hogs and Pasture for three hundred Sheep, forty acres ; always worth flO.f According to the Monasticon, this Manor belonged to the Celeress of Berking Abbey and was probably given by the same hand which gave Great Warley. It * Morant. f Domesday fo 24. 66 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. was none of Harold's seventeen Manors, but had the service of Heriot as Great Warley.* At the suppression of Monasteries, the description and value of this Estate is as follows, " Humfrey Tirrel Fermer, of Muck ing Hall, and two water mills, one in Corringham and the other in Mucking, paid £5 and £5 8s. Qd. for other lands there. Rent of assize of the free and customary tenants, £16 \s. 3d. Rents of moveables, 6s. 8d. Perquisites of Courts, £10 135. id. Sum of all the allowances, and £26 16s. ld.'"'f Mucking was divided into two Manors as early as Edward the Third.J Mucking Hall, (which seems to have remained in the hands of the Nunnery, till King Henry the Eighth's reign), and Wal- fons. The latter as early as King Edward the Third, was in a family surnamed Walton. It afterwards belonged to the noble family of Vere, Earls of Oxford. John de Vere, the Thirteenth Earl, who died the 10th of March, 1512, possessed it of Eliza beth, Abbess of Berking, by the service of one knight's fee, and yearly rent of ten shillings : suit at the Court of the said Ab bess's Manor of Mocking Hall ; and payment, after the death of every tenant that died seized thereof one of the best beasts, for an heriot. In the early part of Edward the Sixth's Reign § he granted the Manor of Mucking with appurtenances, certain lands there called Walton's and Forman's Land, and Rectory of this Parish to the Dean and Chapter of Saint Pauls, and their successors for ever. Mr. Newcourt saith this was by way of Exchange, of which I have met with no evidence. |1 There is mention in the Sheriff's account, 1607, of Shelborn Hall in Mucking, held by William Sharyman, Esq., formerly * Salmon's Hist, of Essex, page 304. f Value of the Abbey Lands. Morant. J Salmon, p. 304. § Letters Patent, ed. vi. |1 Salmon. MUCKING. 67 belonging to the Priory of St. Mary de London, de fine antique 12d. This is now called Sabury Hall, and was purchased for the Rectory of Lime House, in Middlesex, one of Fifty new Churches with the money appointed by act of Parliament. The old Valor has ecclesia de Mokkyng XXII. Marc. Porcio ahbatisse de Berkyng ibidem xlv. m. S. sol. Mucking Hall is south of the Church ; and on the road from Orset to Stanford le Hope is a large house called Jenkins. Mucking Parish. Area in Statute acres . . . 2631 Number of Houses in 1851 . . 40 Population ..... 239 (jjenMli CljurtI). (Saint Mary the Virgin.) BARSTABLE HUNDRED. -»^3*©>^^e" Diocese .... Rochester, Patron Earl de Grey, Annual Value . . £613. ^^^M|R. MORANT quaintly describes the Church as " de- m ^^^ dicated to the Virgin Mary ; it consists of a body, and ^*^^ I a North Aisle, and the Chancel with a North Cha- if.i^^A^ pel ; at the West End there is a wooden spire of considerable height leaded." This Church is of great antiquity, and was built in the " Early English " period, towards the end of the Thirteenth Century. Originally it consisted of only Nave and Chancel ; late in the Fifteenth Century a Chapel, North Aisle, and South Porch were added ; and the Tower and Spire were built within the walls of the Nave. In making these alterations it was found expedient to pull down the north wall, and with it were de stroyed all features of antiquity on that side of the Church. Since then the hand of innovation has by degrees almost deprived the building of its ancient relics. Now it is thought better to Ground Plan op Shenpleld Chukch, Essex. shenfield. ¦ 71 see it clean and white rather than wearing an aspect of venera ble age ; the walls are therefore periodically cased with thick coats of whitewash, by which the remaining masonry is con cealed, and the old Church appears to possess little or no in terest beyond its general outline. The walls exceed a yard in thickness ; the Nave is forty-seven feet in length, and the Chancel, twenty-two feet: the width throughout is nineteen feet. The Chancel has a South or Priest's door, and on each side, double hght windows, of which the inside arches only are left. The outline of the east window and part of its early mouldings remain ; the opening has been shortened, and the stone tracery has given way to common wood mullions and gothic heads. It is evident that the building was highly finished ; a moulded and embattled tie-beam across the Chancel remains, and at the East End of the south wall a portion of the original Wall-plate, enriched with the dog-tooth ornament ; another example of which dog-tooth ornament. occurs upon the tie beams at Old Shoreham Church in Sussex. About twelve feet of this plate is left, and it is curious to observe how the enrichment is terminated : the dog-tooth, for the most part, is carefully executed, but towards the end, the figure is scarcely developed, although great care has been taken to form the scroll which encloses it. The workmen of old appear to have brought a different degree of talent or of feeling to their work, and what was allowable in wood, was inadmissible in stone : indeed a design for the same kind of object differed according to the material in which the 72 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. pattern was to be wrought. It is no uncommon thing to see the last flower or two, in old examples of masonry, spread out to fill up space, but in this instance the Carpenter seems not only to have disregarded the regularity of the pattern, but altogether to have overlooked the finish of it. A ceiling hides the timbers of the high pitched roof ; exter nally, it is covered with tiles ; the ends of the rafters, under the eaves, are moulded to give them a finished appearance. In the east wall, south of the altar, and appearing through the modern wall-lining, is a late " Perpendicular" credence table with rosettes ; other features of antiquity in these walls may be hidden by the lining ; the pew on the North Side of the altar, conceals a sarcophagus-like tomb exquisitely wrought in marble, and erected to the memory of Ehzabeth Robinson, who died 1652. The Effigy is recumbent, and dressed in the costume of the period. The roof of the Nave rises about six inches above that of the Chancel ; the lower member of the massive moulded wall plate is continued round the west wall ; a ceiling is added to the old rafters ; one heavy tie beam remains with its king post and braces ; the other was probably removed, when the wooden structure of the Tower was erected. On the South, the outer masonry of a double light window is visible, and that of a small single light opening, with chamfered edges and massive iron work. The clustered columns which sustain the ponderous roof, and which were inserted in the Fifteenth Century when the north wall was removed, form one of the remarkable features in this Church. The total length supported in this way is forty-seven feet, divided into five bays : there are four clusters, each seventeen inches on the square of the shaft, and two halves, as responds, all with moulded capitals and bases hewn out of solid Oak trees, of gigantic growth and won derful soundness. The foundations are of brick, two courses in height. The breadth of wall or plate supported is two feet nine inches ; there were probably brackets, in the direction indicated SHENFIELD. 73 ^^^^^ .:.o..V,-.>.A-// ^1 by strongly dotted lines (the spectator is supposed to be standing with his back to the east, with the Nave on his left hand. ) Similar dotted lines, over the centre column, show the pro file of arches, which had pierced span drels and perhaps cusps ; they sprung from column to column longitudinally, supported the plate, connected the co lumns, and formed, perhaps, an unique design. These with the screens were emblazoned, and the effect must have been gorgeous. Only sixteen years have elapsed since these rare details were mercilessly removed, the capitals of the columns on the profile were cut off, the shafts heightened with Deal and the capitals hoisted under the soffite, while those in front were beauti/iedwith balls. An endeavour to trace the fragments was unsuccessful. Slight iron columns were inserted as an atonement for the loss of the arches. Portions of the noble wooden bases and shafts have been cut off to make room for the occupants of the pews. When these high pews, which fill the Church, with " other im provements, were effected," it is highly probable that many rehcs of antiquity were unsparingly swept away. A por tion of a purbeck marble grave stone with indentations of brasses, used as a stepping stone to a neighbouring horsepond, leaves little hope that the pews afford protection to the monu- ELEVATION. PLAN OF OAK COLUMNS. 74 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. mental remains of the Bohuns or the Fitzwalters. Visible in the floor are the names of Walter Merrell, Gent., 1653 ; Rev. John Kenton, Rector, 1715 ; Rev. John Seamier, Rector ; and on the walls, the following Marble tablets. In the Aisle, one to the memory of Elizabeth, Wife of Charles White, Esq., 1735, with Ionic columns, and executed in coloured marbles : another to Hannah and Thomasin Ambrose, daughters and co-heiresses of Thomas and Elizabeth Ambrose of Fitzwater, 1783 ; and in the Nave, one to the Memory of Mary, Wife of John Gurdon, Gent., late of Assington Hall, Suffolk, 1771. The Font, octangular in form, with double panels and tracery on each face, is late " Perpendicular;" the upper part or bason is of stone, the shaft and base, of subsequent workmanship, of wood. The North Aisle and Chapel are fourteen feet in width ; the Chapel twenty feet in length, and divided from it by a screen, portions of which remain among the modern pews ; the Aisle is twenty-seven feet long. The original east window, in three compartments, has arched heads, with spandrels and mouldings of sohd wood ; the mullions and sill are modern. The two north windows, more perfect, are very similar in construction, but the heads of the openings are square with chamfered edges ; the old ironwork remains. The walls are built of brick, carefully finished and moulded. The roof, constructed without tiebeams, is ceiled similarly to that of the Nave. On the North is a brick Porch of shallow projection, with an embattled parapet, a choice specimen of early moulded work. The doorway is a four-centred arch with label and mouldings deeply undercut : the door remains, but has been closed up for many years. The Wooden Tower supporting the slender and lofty spire, stands three feet six inches within the west wall, and extends thirteen feet into the Nave : it has four wooden arches of large dimensions, parallel and springing from upright timbers against SHENFIELD. 75 the north and south walls secured to immense sills, and bedded upon brickwork of the Fifteenth Century ; the bricks are thin, and measure five courses in height to the foot. The elegant " Per pendicular" window in the west wall, was open to view before the modern gallery was erected. The timbers of the Basement are carefully moulded, and were painted in colours, slight traces of which remain to this day. The same parallel arrangement of timbers is continued above the ceiling ; the outer sets are cross-braced to increase the strength, the inner has a second tier of arches and carries the main posts forming the slope of the Spire ; these measure one foot ten by one foot two inches ; many other timbers in this structure are of the same unusual size. The Spire, like the Tower, consists of four trusses, which are brought into the form of a double square, in plan, by cross framing ; these squares diminish with the tapering of the Spire ; a mode of construction requisite to complete the figure, and calculated effectually to resist the force of the wind. This fine piece of carpentry consumed an immense quantity of timber, but the parts are so skilfully arranged as not to produce an appearance of confusion ; it may be added that the material, with very little excep tion, is as perfect as when first put together. The timbers forming the belfry windows remain, but the tracery has given place to modern loover boards : upon the original frame work are four Bells, dated 1626, 1637, 1664, and 1715. The roof of the Nave, continued round the base of the Tower, is covered with old lead, upon rafters, many of which are both large and ancient. The Tower is weather boarded, and the Spire is a fine specimen of shingle, capped with lead, and crowned IHl TlNlAL OF SPIRE. 76 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. with an eight-sided horned finial of elegant design overlaid with the same metal, which is carefully hammered into the mouldings. An iron bound staff above this, carries the original Vane. The South Porch, nine feet six, by eight feet three inches, a timber structure coeval with the Tower, is fine in design and bold in its proportions : on each side are eight compartments with chamfered mullions, morticed into the sills which are bedded upon the walls : the tie-beams of the roof, supported upon arches of wood, have king posts and curved struts to sustain the rafters and the longitudinal beam under the collars. The outer covering is tiles. The doorway into the Nave is not older than the time of Henry the Seventh. A panel bearing date 1741 and fixed probably as a memento of certain repairs having been effected, may have misled some as to the age of the structure itself ; the old residents say that the Church was built by Sir Christopher Wren ! At the end of the North Aisle is a modern Vestry, thirteen feet by ten : the entrance is from the Aisle ; oyer the door was originally a double-light west window. HISTORICAL NOTICES. The County Historians inform us that in the time of Edward the Confessor the whole of the Parish belonged to one Bodd ; it is also mentioned in the survey as the sole property of Eustace, earl of Bologne : * According to Newcourt, vol. ii. p. 524, in Domesday, it is * Morant. ' SHENFIELD. 77 written Chenefeld and was held by Geffery de Magnavilla or Mandevil. The Parish was afterwards divided into two Manors, named : Shenfield Hall, and Fitzwalters. The manor of Shenfield Hall appears to have been the pro perty of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, who died in 1298 ; it came into possession of this noble family by the marriage of his great-grand-father, Henry de Bohun, to Maud, heiress of the house of Mandeville. •""""i^i. l> W) "^^ ^^.^^'- X-^'^^-O SOUTH-EAST VIE-fl' 01? SIIEKFIELD CllUECll, ESSEX. 78 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. In 1361 it passed to Eleanor (co-heiress of Humphrey) and to her husband Thomas of Woodstock, sixth son of Edward the Third. It next appears to have belonged to Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who was slain at the battle of North ampton, 1460, when the estate was seized by King Edward the Fourth and settled upon his Queen, Elizabeth. In 1556 it was the property of John Lucas, whose descendant was created Baron Lucas, of Shenfield, in 1644. By his daughter Mary, it passed into the family of the Duke of Kent, whose grand-daughter, Lady Jemima Campbell, created Marchioness de Grey 1740, married The Right Honourable Philip, Earl of Hardwick.* The Manorial House, a picturesque gabled building of the Fifteenth Century, stands Northward of the Church. The Manor of Fitzwalters was the property of Eustace, Earl of Bologne. 1301 Robert Lord Fitzwalter had license to enclose his Wood at Shenfield, within the forest of Essex, to make a Park : in 1363 Joan his wife held it. 1386 it belonged to Walter Fitzwalter: it then passed into the possession of the Knyvett family, and in 1735 to Thomas Ambrose, who was sheriff of the County. The ancient manor house, belonging to this Estate, now the property of Hall Dare, Esq., was pulled down, and one, in a modern style of architecture erected, this was entirely destroyed by fire a few years ago, and the site converted into meadow land. As Mr. Morant here alludes to the wood at Shenfield and forest of Essex, an extract from honest John Norden in 1594 may prove interesting ; he says : — " Aboute the hundredes of Waltham, Onger, Becontre and muche of the libertie of Hauering, are for the moste parte woodes * Wright. SHENFIELD. 79 and wooddie groundes, and foreste, as the most parte of Essex in time paste hath bene. This forest is well replenished with deere, red and fallow, whoe seeme noe good neighbors to the foreste inhabitantes ; but the kindnes which they receyue of the forest, may worke their patience towardes the game. There is also nere Hatfeylde broadokes, a chace called Hatfeyld chace, a grounde well replenished with fallow deere. This shire seemeth not anie wher altogether destitute of wood, thowgh no wher well stored. It is full of parkes. " Barstable Hundred yeldeth great store of ottes, so doth Rocheforde and Denge, whence her Ma"^ hath greate store of prouision of auenage. " There are noe great flockes of sheepe in this shire. Yet are ther sundrie places, that yealde verie fine woull ; but not in the depe countries : the most barren and heathye groundes yelde beste woull. As one of the generall surveyors of the King's Lands and Woods — 25. Oct. 1613, he reported to Lord Salisbury upon the abuses practised by the Tenants of the King's Manors. " First by the grauntinge of leases of Manors, upon the relation of such as hope a gratuitie of the patentees, without due and true information of the state, condition, value, and other needfull circumstances, honorable officers have bene abused, and her late Ma''" and the Kinges revenewes dimished." " The demisinge of the lopps and tops of trees in forestes, chases, and other mayne woods in manors, hath bene the con fusion of his Mat° moste beautifulle woodes in the kingdom ; and it were verie expedient never to graunt the like, but to resume them that are ; for such hath bene the abuse of suche grauntes, that ther is not lefte in anie woodes thus graunted, a braunch of a tree bigger than a walking staffe. " Manie ferme howses of manors become so ruined, as if they be not more stricktlie observed and punished, they will manie of them fall to the ground. 80 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. " Thinges graunted by custodie, woodes, howses or lande, are verie ill used, by reason of the uncertayne determination of such estates ; and manie such grauntes are now helde as free- holde, which if dulie found out woulde yelde his Ma''' a great revenue. " Manie decayde trees are contynuallie wrongfuUie taken by the tenntes." Norden died 1626. The Parish is about three miles in length, and two and a half in breadth. The Village or " Street" is on the old coach- road, and across one field of gently rising ground is the little Church, prettily surrounded by trees. Shenfield Parish. Area in Statute acres . . 2397 Number of Houses in 1851 . 182 Population .... 938 (Saint James,) ROCHFORD HUNDRED. Diocese . Patrons . ?-^-© »^ ¦-= — ¦ — Rochester. The Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford. Annual Value £353. I HIS Church dates from the time of King Stephen, nearly a century before mention is made of the District, as Hadley-ad-Castrum. The Church there fore claims greater antiquity than the Castle ; but when the latter became the residence of Hubert de Burgh, and his numerous followers, the less important Village appears to have been lost sight of; lapse of time and the ultimate destruc tion of the Castle, again brought the Village into notice. The Church is dedicated to Saint James, and described by Morant as, " of one pace with the Chancel tiled. The east end of the Chancel is semicircular as that at Copford. In a Spire, shingled, is one bell." This description which has been copied by all succeeding writers, as far as it goes, is correct, with the exception of that part relating to the Spire, which has been re built. The Churchyard is a large plot of ground on the north 82 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. side of the street : the building has undergone many alterations, and its general appearance is not calculated to attract the atten tion of casual passers by ; the walls and masonry of the windows are enveloped in plaster, and the spire weather boarded. It comprises Chancel, Nave, South Porch and West Tower ; the latter, a timber structure, was built within the walls of the Nave in the Fifteenth Centurv The stvle of ground plan of hadleigh church, essbx. architecture is Norman and it is one of few Churches in this County with Chancels having apsidal terminations. In the Glossary of Architecture, 1853. Six examples in this County are quoted, viz. Great Maplestead, Little Maplestead, East Ham, Haversfield, Colchester Castle Chapel and Bam- borough Chapel : to these may be added Hadleigh, Little Brax- ted, Langford, and Copford. The Nave fifty-seven feet in length and twenty-four feet three inches in width, has walls three feet two inches in thick ness. There were originally three entrances ; one on the north, now blocked up ; another south, of Edward the First's period under a Norman arch ; and the third, a Norman west doorway with two plain reveals ; and over it an original window converted into a double light specimen of the " Perpendicular " period. There are six other windows : three of which are original, but in a mutilated condition; the apertures are small and nearly eleven feet from the floor ; on the inside of the wall they expand to a great width. The other three, yielding to the requirements of subsequent styles, were converted into large double-light openings ; one of lancet character ; the other two, " Perpendi cular," with cusped tracery. Those on the south are fine windows, with features of rare occurrence and peculiar interest : on the jambs are remains of splendid niches, which once con- HADLEIGH. 83 tained figures on delicately formed corbels, the projections have been pitilessly broken away : the niche in the window near the rood screen was more elaborately enriched with tabernacle work than the other ; both were highly decorated and painted : in a perfect state, and seen under the influence of light passing through painted glass, they must have contributed greatly to the splendour of the interior. The Rood Screen stood in front of the Chancel Arch ; the way from the staircase into the loft remains, also the entrance, with its old door and plain hinges, the lower part pf which is concealed by pews ; near it in the north wall is a small cusped recess or credence of the Fifteenth Century, which pos sibly pertained to an altar under the opening in the north pier of the Chancel Arch. The roof boarded on the under side of the ancient timbers, is liberally white- washed. The Norman Font, three feet two inches high, and two feet four inches in diameter, has an octagon top on a bold torus moulding, which is circular in plan, and sculptured with trefoil leaves, growing as it were out of a bead or necking moulding : the shaft twenty- one inches in diameter, appears to have been circular, but " worked-down" to an octagon : the chamfered base is nearly buried by the floor which has been con siderably raised. The cover, of Jacobian design, is suspended from a bracket. Credible information is afforded that '^/>y////;(///////////////// the original shaft of this Font was destroyed and remodelled within a few years, which may pardon the introduction of a few remarks upon these early Fonts. In ancient times, great Veneration was observed for the Font : its site was rarely changed : its shaft or foundation was renewed so long as the lined top remained worthy of its use : and it is the opinion of those learned in such matters, that in cases of rebuilding a Church, the Font was known to have 84 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. been protected rather than it should undergo removal from its original place : indeed among Catholics to the present day, the rite of annual consecration is observed. The presence of so many Norman Fonts, throughout the Kingdom, when not a vestige of the coeval structures in which they are, is to be found, seems to corroborate this opinion. These circumstances, and their probable effects, may in some measure give to the shaft, or foundation, of this and many other examples as at Fryerning a questionable antiquity. It may be considered a strong evidence HALF THE CHANCEL ARCH, AND ONE OF IHE SIDE ARCHES. HADLEIGH. 85 of the originality of a Font whenever the drain from it, proves to be of sufficient depth to reach below the foundations ; the desire was to lead the consecrated water after the service of Baptism beyond the reach of desecration. The Chancel arch, a fine specimen of Norman Design, fur nishes an example of the Screen-wall, used at that early period to divide the Chancel from the Nave. The wall is about a yard in thickness and pierced with three semicircular arches. The Centre, distinguished as the Chancel Arch, has two plain reveals with a small abacus moulding at the springing line ; the clear width is ten feet nine inches, not half the width of the Nave, and the height eighteen feet : the outer reveal is not continued round the circle, but is carried up, on the face of the wall, in a straight line to about three feet above the arch; where the general surface of the wall sets back several inches, and forms a recess for the centre arch. The side openings with only one reveal each, are four feet four inches wide, and eight feet six inches high. Early in the Fifteenth Century these were closed up, on the Chancel side, with masonry, in which are well detailed cinquefoil perforations or hagioscopes ; these are not only pierced in a slanting direction, but placed on one side of the recess. More recently the South arch was flushed-up next the Nave and the pulpit placed in front of it. The north arch therefore appears in the Church as a deep recess while the South is lost sight of. On the west face of the slender piers, between the arches, in a width of scarcely eleven inches, are minute niches with cusped ogee arches, and delicate tracery. In the " remote churches of Essex," as they are sometimes styled, many curious and interesting specimens of this kind of Chancel Arch are to be found, with great variety in their details and general treatment. It is not a little remarkable to observe how many have been swept away from the Norman and Early English Churches, as at Fryerning and Shenfield : not by the 86 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. hand of the spoiler, but in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centu ries, to make way for the Rood Loft and light open Wood Screens that were first introduced at the former of these periods : a taste or fashion that appears to have necessitated the destruction of this ancient divisional wall : unless indeed we can suppose that many examples were destroyed from being in a dilapidated state. The Chancel is thirty-two feet in length and nineteen feet ten in width. The walls are very thick and provided with two shallow buttresses of masonry on the inside, and four on the outside. There are five windows, a great height from the floor, and originally small and narrow like those in the Nave. Not one of them remains perfect, that to the East has been replaced by a wooden frame, those on either side of it have lost their original proportions. The other on the North has been cut down to the floor and a door formed beneath it, and that to the South, has been replaced by a lofty double light window with flowing tracery of Edwardian character, but it is extensively repaired with plaster and whitewashed. In the north wall is a lofty and very fine " Perpendicular" niche with cusped tracery, this may have been a credence for the high altar ; near it is an ambry or locker, and opposite another, like it in every respect. There are no visible remains of sedilia or piscina ; the floor of the altar is raised considerably above the general level of the Church by four broad steps. The wooden wall plate is continued round the apse and a ceiling added to the under side of the rafters ; there are two tie beams with king posts and struts to carry the upper timbers of the roof. The Tower is a carefully constructed framework of large timbers resting upon beams or plates laid on the floor, and there kept by the great weight of the superstructure. The Basement is separated from the Nave by a modern partition, and the ascent to the Belfry is by two ladders ; the upper part of the structure firmly braced to resist the pressure of the wind supports a Spire ; the original, was pulled down, and one devoid of interest erected HADLEIGH. 87 in its stead. There does not appear to have been preparation for more than one Bell, the framing is more ancient than the Bell which was re-cast in 1636. The timber Porch, on the south, is nine feet nine inches long, and ten feet two wide. The moulded and prominent wall plates appear on the inside, the rest of the surface has been plastered ; externally it is weather boarded ; the front gable is modern and the roof covered with tiles. HISTORICAL NOTICES. Hadleigh or Hadlee is not mentioned in Domesday or in the red book of the Exchequer ;* it was therefore probably included in the Estates of the Honour of Rayleigh. Henry de Essex, Grandson of Suene the Saxon, was dis possessed of this and his other Estates, by Henry the Third, for cowardice in the Welsh wars.f In records it is known as Hadley ad Castrum, a name given to it from the Castle that was erected here by Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, with the permission of King Henry the Third. There was a Park appertaining to the Castle, and the lands were held by the Sergeancy of keeping up the fences and lodges, of the Castles of Hadleigh, Rayleigh and Thundersley. In 1268, the Hadleigh Estates were committed to the custody of Richard de Thany. 1299 King Edward the First assigned them to his Queen Margaret : they next passed to Albury de Vere, Tenth Earl of Oxford. * Morant. t White, Svo. 1848. 88 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. 1402 they belonged to Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cam bridge and Duke of York ; whose son Edward presented John Westlond 1407. 1452 King Henry the Sixth gave them to the Earl of Richmond. 1539 King Henry the Eighth, to his Queen, Anne of Cleves. Edward the Sixth, the last Royal Donor, to Lord Rich, from whom they descended to the Earls of Warwick. On the partition of the Warwick Estates, those of Hadleigh went to Henry Viscount St. John, whose eldest son Henry Viscount Bolingbroke sold them. The Castle, reduced to a ruin in the Civil Wars, is on the brow of a hill, commanding a fine view of the Thames : in the foreground is Canvey Island, which is separated from the main land by the river Ray. The ruins are picturesque, and in a great measure overrun with shrubs and brush-wood ; they exhibit traces of ancient grandeur. Nearly an acre of ground is enclosed by the walls ; the length is about one hundred and ten yards and the width, forty. The Entrance gateway, with two Towers, is at the North West angle. On the North and South walls are buttresses ; and as the ground rises Northwards, the fortress was further protected by a deep fosse. The most prominent portions of the remaining building are the two Towers of a circular form outside ; but octangular within, portions of the divisional walls remain. Over a fire place in one of the Towers, is some brickwork, built herring-bone fashion. The walls composed of durable stone, are ashlared inside with chalk, of which, much remains : their substance at the base is nine feet, and at the top six feet. Shells appear in the mortar which is exceedingly hard, and where it has not been disturbed, it will resist the blow of the hammer as effectually as the stone itself. When the surface of an old building once becomes glazed by the action of the atmosphere, aided perhaps by vegetation, the incrustation continues to harden, hadleigh. 89 and, as it were, becomes vitrified : hence the rock-like appear ance of many ancient ruins, but when this natural coating is once removed the wall is opened to decay. A large portion of the Parish, on the north side, is still thickly covered with woodland. The Living is one of those termed " Discharged," i. e. ex empted from the payment of First Fruits and Tenths, on account of the smallness of the Income ; and it is entitled to receive the benefit of the Royal Bounty founded by Queen Anne. In Ecton's time the clear yearly value was £47 15*. Hadleigh Parish. Area in Statute acres . . 2769 Number of Houses in 1851 . 100 Population . . . . 412 (Saint Giles.) CHELMSFORD HUNDRED. -a^sii©^^ Diocese . . . Rochester. Patron . . . The Right Hon. Lord Petre. C£ll7, but recently enhanced by the sale of Glebe Land at Warley. Annual Value ^HIS Church consists of Chancel, Nave with North and South Aisles, South Porch, a Wooden Tower within the Nave, and a Vestry in the South Aisle. It stands aloof from the Village ; the only house near it, is the Old Hall or Manor House, now a substantial- looking farm-house. On approaching the Church it appears to be all roof ; of very short dimensions, and with a common brick Chancel, about eighty years old. The wooden Porch still looks venerable, though time, and the hand of innovation, have deprived it of all pretension to beauty. The West Front, with six buttresses, is an interesting brick facade, designed with good taste, executed with care, and inscribed with the date of its erection, 1653. No traces of the ancient windows remain, and scarcely any of the old masonry of the doors. .^^,, ^-u^ urr,^c West View oe Moumtnessing Chukch, Essex. mountnessing. 93 On entering the structure, it appears to be a portion only of an ancient building : it is in the " Early English" or Henry the Third period, three bays in length. The whole of the GROUND PLAN. western bay is screened off from the Church by a modem lath and plaster partition, in front of which is a Gallery. Behind this partition and within the walls of the Nave are the supports of the Wooden Spire, erected in the Fifteenth Century, in front of the once open stone arches and piers. The enclosed portion of the South Aisle is a Vestry, while that of the North is the rubbish and coal hole. The floor throughout has been raised at a somewhat recent period, a treatment that has deprived the building of its fair proportions. The capitals of the piers and columns are richly moulded, two on the north side have the addition of foliage in high relief. The rafters of the Nave are of the Fifteenth Century, there is one tie-beam with a king post, an octagonal shaft with capital and base, and curved brackets to support the 94 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. principal timbers over ; this interesting feature has been encased in lath and plaster; the timbers themselves have shared the same fate, and the whole has been liberally whitewashed. One roof spans the Nave and Aisles, it presents an unusual surface of tiling, and produces the unpleasant effect of disproportion. The inside dimensions are forty-nine feet in width, with a total length of forty-five feet. The timber-work, supporting the Spire and constructed in the time of Henry the Seventh, is much altered, and bound together with iron ; it was arranged so as not to interfere with the then internal length of the Church. On the inside, it assumed the appearance of a Western Tower, opening into the Nave by a lofty wooden arch springing from columns carved with capitals and bases in the sohd wood : the northern side of the Arch remains perfect. The plan of the main timbers is oblong, but brought into a square by additional pieces : from the angles, four groined ribs support the belfry floor. These ribs even now produce a good effect when viewed from below, but, when seen under their original colours, they must have been splendid. The west window is a pleasing feature under the groining. The ladder, a curious speci men of primitive work manship, is constructed of half timbers, and the approach to the Bell- chamber is through a little forest of timber. There are frames for two Bells, but only one is left ; it is coeval with the woodwork, and dedicated to Saint James : the inscription, »>ancte • 3!acotie • ora • pro ? nobigJ • is in Old English. In the Belfry are four windows, the wooden arches of two of them remain, but none of the tracery. The Spire, though covered with common boarding, and painted ""^^0^^ STEP-LADDER. mountnessing. 95 lacoBr OLD ENGLISH. white, is an ancient structure : the finial is a horned Capital, covered with lead, somewhat similar to that of Shenfield, and surmounted by a staff and vane. Among the rubbish in the en closed portion of the North Aisle, are fragments of small alabaster figures ; and built in the wall, over the west gallery, a shield ; parts of an elaborately wrought Elizabethan monument, probably demolished when the Chancel was rebuilt, and the floor of the Church raised. In the Tower is an old oak chest, hewn out of the solid tree, and formerly the depository of the sacred vestments, now the receptacle of the sexton's spade and mattock. OAKEN CHEST. The only inscription worthy of mention is a brass in the floor of the Chancel, to the memory of John Peers, of Arnolld- hall; he died in 1583. In the east wall of the South Aisle is an original arch formerly opening into a Chapel, mentioned by Morant in 1768- The Chapel has been pulled down, and the arch filled up ; north of the arch and on the easternmost pier of the Nave are the H 96 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. mutilated remains of a holy water stoup, the corbel of which is carved as an angel, with extended wings and holding a shield. The pier also contains an opening in which are three high and narrow steps, a portion of the staircase which originally led to the Rood Loft ; traces of the Screen also remain. HISTORICAL NOTICES. In the time of the Saxons, Mountnessing was in the possession of Ingwar, Alfega and Algar two free-women, and Alwyn. Newcourt in his Repertorium says he has found the word written in all these ways : Munnassing, Moun^neys-Ing, Mount nessing, Mountnasing, Mountnezing, Ging-Mountney, Yng or Yeng-Mountney, and Hynge-Mountney. In documents of Edward the Third's reign, it is called Ginge-Mountney. The name appears to be composed of two words Mountney, the name of an ancient family and, ing, meadow. Of this family, Robert de Mountenni was one of the witnesses to the Foundation Charter of Tobia Priory, alias Thody, Thobie, or Thoby Priory, which took its name from Tobias, the First Prior ; it is the Principal Manor, in the Parish. The Priory was founded by Michael de Capra, Rosie his wife, and William their son, for the Canons of Saint Augustine, and Dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Leonard. Newcourt gives the Charter at full length, but the precise date of the Foundation, he says, is not known, it may have been about 1 141, in the Reign of King Stephen ; adding that in 1 150 MOUNTNESSING. 97 or 1 151, Robert de Segillo, Bishop of London, granted a charter to this Priory, which may have been founded some time before.* Robert de Mountenni is supposed to have been the son and heir of Lsecia, eldest daughter of Jordan de Briesete, Founder of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, at Smithfield in London, t Newcourt says, that, Jordan de Brisete, a witness to this Charter cannot be the same with Jordan Briset, Founder of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem who died 15 Kalend Dec"^ 1110 about thirty years before Robert de Segillo came to be Bishop of London. The Patronage of the Priory was for several centuries in the Mountney Family. 1525, Henry the Eighth, gave it to Cardinal Wolsey, by whom it was suppressed, and the Income appropriated to his two New Colleges. Upon its reverting to the Crown it was granted to Sir Richard Page in 1530. The Mountneys possessed the Estates till the reign of Henry the Eighth. In Queen Elizabeth's time the owner's name was Hamon : afterwards they came, by marriage, to William Wilford, Esq. of whom they were purchased by Sir William Petre.:]: The Manor of Bacons takes its name from the family of Bacune who held it in the reign of Edward the First. The Manor of Chevers belonged to the De Capra family, from the time of King John to Henry the Sixth. They changed their name from the Italian De Capra, into French, Chevre, which in time became corrupted into Chever. The Manor of Cowbridge, under the Saxons, was possessed by Alwyn ; but at the General Survey by Ranulph, the brother of Ilger. The Manor of Arnolds is supposed to have derived its name * Newcourt. f Wright, % Morant. 98 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. from Sir Arnulph de Mounteney, but no record of it is found of earlier date than King Henry the Seventh. Mountnessing Parish. Area in Statute Acres . . . 4005 Number of Houses in 1851 . . 187 Population ..... 845 3(nig[ate0tone Cfjurct). (Saint Mary the Virgin.) CHELMSFORD HUNDRED. •¦9~^3X2/^^9i-- DiOCESE .... Rochester. Patron The Right Hon. Lord Petre. Annual Value . . £450. HIS Church is worthy of attention, if only for the magnificent Brick Tower, and the stately Monu ments within its walls : but upon examination it proves to be interesting in other respects, and of greater antiquity than is usuahy assigned to it : the roofs, covered with tiles, present three gables to the East. It is Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and comprises Chancel with North and South Chapels, Nave with South Aisle and Porch, and West Tower. For upwards of two centuries, several generations of the noble family of Petre were buried in these Chapels, but they are no longer used for this purpose. The Fabric has undergone many changes, the walls and windows have been coated with plaster, and in the Sixteenth Century the Chapels were faced with brick. 100 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. The West Tower, a noble piece of brickwork, was raised in the Fifteenth Century. It is a remarkable specimen of bold detail and fine proportions ; shewing what may be accomplished with common bricks, of which, upwards of half a million were con sumed in its erection. It is nearly square on plan, and four stories in height : the measurement from east to west, sixteen feet nine inches, and from north to south fifteen feet three inches, in the clear of the walls ; these are six bricks in thickness at the basement, and four at the top story. The outside face of the wall retreats with the stories, and on each side of the Tower are massive buttresses, set in a few inches from the angles, so that perfect quoins shall appear between the buttresses. This arrangement of lines is carried nearly to the summit. The buttresses are lessened in breadth of face at each story, as well as in projection : the result is, an agreeable diminution of the Tower in every direction without any harsh lines. This accounts perhaps for the graceful contour of the pile, when viewed from a distance ; and gives comparative lightness to it upon a close inspection. At the top cornice, the quoins are corbelled over to receive the pinnacles, three of which are octagon ; the fourth, at the south east corner, is circular : all of them have been considerably reduced in height and shorn of their original terminations. The machicolated parapet, two bricks in thickness, is em battled. The hidden roof is covered with tiles of recent date, and terminated with a large antique vane and scrolls, at the apex. The West Front presents the largest amount of design, and has a boldly detailed door-way, used as the principal entrance to the Church, over it is a noble four-light " Perpendicular" window, with brick mullions and tracery ; the next story, and the Belfry, have double-light openings, shghtly differing in the arrangement of the reveals ; the double light is repeated on the east side of the Belfry, but on the north and south, the only apertures, are single-hght windows in the two upper stories. i i-.'vn CR l-'il- QmtM West Front of Ingatjestone Church, Essex. INGATESTONE. 103 Great strength is thus preserved to the structure, and an im posing effect is produced. The blank walls are relieved by vitrified bricks disposed in a variety of patterns. The Basement formerly opened into the Nave by a stupendous arch of three reveals ; this arch is now hidden from the Church by a gallery, and its proportions within the Tower are destroyed by a floor for the ringers. In this chamber are some fine Elizabethan balusters, portions of an open West Gallery of the Sixteenth Century, a feature frequently to be met with in Parish Churches. The large west window is seen here to great advantage. A projection on the south side contains the staircase to the roof, the brick steps are of ample width and gather round an unusually large circular newel thirteen inches in diameter, they rest upon arches constructed as at Fryerning Church. There are five Bells : parts of the framing appear to be older than the Tower itself. The earhest Bell is inscribed in Old English " Peter Hawkes made me 1610 ;" another " Miles Graye made me 1660," one 1701 (cracked), two 1758, one of which has the following rhyme — '' The founder he has play'd his part^ Which shows him master of his art : So hang me well, and ring me true. And I will sound your praises due." The Nave, three bays in length, measuring forty-four feet from east to west, and eighteen feet in width, appears to be the oldest portion of the building, and dates from early in the Four teenth Century. Evidences of this period of Architecture are to be found in the clustered piers and form of the arches with two chamfered reveals, and such portions of the mouldings as have escaped disfigurement. Two double-light windows, slightly differing in design, and an original door blocked up and modernised, occur on the north side. Here stood a timber Porch; marks of it are yet traceable on the Wall, local tradition says that it was removed only a few years ago. A dormer has 104 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. been inserted in the roof which is ceiled in a waggon-headed form; the tie-beams and noble octagonal king posts, with moulded bases and capitals, remain ; the curved timbers spring ing from the latter are concealed by lath and plaster, and assume a fan-like form ; they are singularly ornamented with bosses, some of which came from the ancient oak roof ; these are finely carved, and consist of shields surrounded by cusps with strawberry leaves on the points : others, of inferior design are moulded in plaster. The Church is filled with high-backed pews, and the pulpit fixed against the north wall : driven into which, by the side of the pulpit, is an antique iron bracket that held the hour glass in the Puritan times. The old stone Font, hidden in a pew, would not attract attention were it not for its inviting and showy wooden cover of arches and columns in Jacobian taste; it is hexagonal, by no means a com mon figure ; the shaft is either missing or built round solidly from the floor, and painted stone colour. It is probable that this Font occupies its original position. The Chancel, of subsequent date to the Nave, measures thirty-three feet six inches in length, and seventeen feet in width, and, like it, is divided into three bays ; the piers are octagonal and the arches have three reveals. - The elongated pier on the south, where the Chancel Arch formerly stood, is of sufficient width to hold a staircase to the Rood Loft, but the surface of the wall is materially altered. Its width was probably increased and the projection finished off with battlements at the time the Chancel Arch was removed. The rood beam was sawn off, and the ends left in the walls. The roof, of simpler design than that of the Nave, has been treated in the same uncere monious manner. The east window has three lights with plain HOUR GLASS STAND. INGATESTONE. 105 tracery and transom. In the floor are two old purbeck grave stones, one has had a brass plate inserted, the other engraved with a Lombardic inscription of the Sixteenth Century to Gertrude, daughter of — Tyrell, of Warley ; there are several other stones which have had 1 . , 1 ELIZABETHAN LOMBARDIC LETTERS. brasses in them. Under the first arch, between the Chancel and South Chapel, is a fine monument, raised to the memory of William Lord Petre, (who held high offices in the state under four sovereigns, viz. : — Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, Mary, and Eliz abeth :) and Ann, his second wife, daughter of William Browne, who died Lord Mayor of London. It is an altar tomb, about seven feet in length and four in breadth, wrought in alabaster and other choice marbles ; on each side are four columns, and three panels, the ends are also panelled ; all exquisitely carved with the different quarterings of the family. Round the tomb, between the capitals of the columns is a latin inscription. On the top are superbly executed recumbent figures of these illustrious personages, attired in the gorgeous costume of the period in which they lived : his Lordship's head is supported by his helmet, that of his Lady by a pillow. An iron railing encloses the side next the Chancel, the other three are open to the Chapel. The arms of the family, enriched with foliage and executed in bold relief, are suspended over the tomb in an ornamental frame of iron fitted to the arch. The South Aisle, fourteen feet in width, coeval with the Nave, was entered from the Porch which is now cut off from the Church and used as a tool- house : on this side is one single light window, but so altered as to leave no clue for determining its precise date, and near it an original double-light window, with widely splayed jambs, and an inner arch, with ribbed soffite. The wall contains a small plain piscina near the ancient site of 106 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. the screen; a fragment of the latter remains, and forms a division between two of the pews ; the execution of the tracery is very delicate. The waUs of the Chapel were cased with brickwork, or rebuilt in the Sixteenth Century ; it is two feet two inches wider than the Aisle, and hke it ceiled in a waggon headed form ; the windows, " Late Perpendicular," are one double and one triple- light on the south, with wood lintels, and a triple-hght on the east, with a stone arch. The priest's door has had an inner lobby added to it. The eastern portion, enclosed by an iron railing, has in the wall, on the left, a monument of costly marbles to the memory of Robert Petre, youngest brother of Sir William ; he died 1593. The figure, clad in armour, is kneeling beneath an arch enriched with panels and rosettes, and sup ported by two Corinthian columns of black marble : over the entablature are obelisks ; and the family crest, in an ornamental panel. On the right is another mural monument, executed in marble and containing a portrait enclosed in an architectural frame ; the inscription records, that Captain John Troughton died 1621, aged sixty-six. The North Chapel, also belonging- to the same family, but now used as a Vestry, opens into the Chancel by an arch of the same age and form as those on the south. Against the west wall is a stately Elizabethan monument, composed of coloured marbles, chiefly of British production ; it is about eighteen feet high and fourteen long, and commemorates two generations of this highly distinguished family. John Lord Petre, and his lady Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Waldegrave, occupying the centre of the design ; and their son William Lord Petre, and his lady, Catherine daughter of Lord Edward Somerset, Earl of Worcester, the side compartments. The principal feature in the design is a grand arch, upon columns of black marble and porphyry, with a bold entablature ; over the columns are obelisks, and between them, an ornamental panel with the family arms. Ground Plan op Ingatestone Church, Essex. INGATESTONE. 109 The arch serves as a canopy to the principal figures, they are habited in full costume, and kneeling before an altar. In order to sustain the spirit of the design and to give these figures pro minence, they are raised upon an altar tomb, on which is a long inscription, recording the many virtues of this estimable Noble man. On the left, between the pillars, and kneehng upon the floor of the monument, is a figure of the noble personage whose filial duty and affection raised this costly and elegant memorial of his father's virtues, and on the right that of his lady Cathe rine, also in a posture of devotion ; a panel contains an in scription to the latter, who died 30th of October, 1624; the corresponding panel, doubtless intended for one to his Lord ship, is uninscribed. On the base of the monument, beneath the effigy of Lady Catherine, are kneeling figures of their five daughters, wrought in high relief, and under that of Lord William, similar representations of their eight sons. There is also a plain altar tomb, with black marble top, seven feet long, and three wide, to the memory of Mary, widow of Lord Robert Petre, Baron ; she was mother of three Barons, William, John, and Thomas, and died 1684-5, aged eighty-two. In the floor, are inscriptions to John, son of William Petre, 1669, Right Honourable Brigite, wife of Lord William Petre, 1694, and the Right Honourable Mary, daughter of Thomas and Mary Petre, 1713. HISTORICAL NOTICES. According to Morant, this name was written Ging and Yng ad Petram ; Gynge at Stone ; and Ging Abbess. Ecton terms it Ginge Abbots, and says that the Church is dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Edmund. 110 ' CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Gingeattestane, in Tanner's Notitia Monastica. In Domesday ; as belonging always to Saint Mary's at Berking, a nunnery founded a.d. 675, by Erkenwald, Bishop of London. Newcourt says " the manner and Church were formerly parcel of the possessions of the Abbey and Convent of Berking : to the Cellaress whereof the Collector was to pay yearly xlviii.s. After which William Petre LL.D., ancestor of the noble family of Petre, having grown so eminent in his profession in the time of Henry the Eighth, that he was employed in divers important affairs, especially in what conduced to the Dissolution of Reli gious Houses : after the accomplishment whereof, as a reward for his services, he obtained grants of several of their lands and Possessions of which this manor and advowson of Ingatestone were a part. But in Queen Marie's time, with whom he was in no less esteem, than he had been with Henry the Eighth, and Edward the Sixth, discerning that the Restoration of the Romish Religion, might endanger his enjoyment of those Abbey lands, he got a special dispensation from Pope Paul the Fourth, for retaining several of them, promising to employ them to Spiritual uses, among which this of Ingatestone was one, where he was to build an Alms-house for twenty poor People, with allowances of two pence per day, to each a winter gown, and two loads of wood, and amongst them all feeding for six kine, winter and . summer : also a Chaplain to read service daily. Sir William had been Secretary of the Privy Council to four Kings and Queens, and seven times Ambassador in Foreign parts. He died Jan. 13, 1572: 15 Ehz : and lies buried in this Church where has been also the sepulture of his son, grandson, and great grandson ; namely, John, Robert, and William ; all three successively Barons of this Realm." — Repertorium, vol. ii. page 374. Morant says that the Bull from Pope Paul confirmed, to Sir William Petre and his heirs, the following Church properties. INGATESTONE. 1 1 1 From Barking Abbey : he had the manor of Ingatestone, with the advowson of the Church : the manor of Hanley Barnes. From the Bishopric of London : the manor of Crondon. From Stratford Abbey : the manors of Cowbridge and Wefelandz : and lands and tenements in Mountnessing. From Waltham Abbey : the manor of East Horndon, with lands called Dame Elyns, and the manor of Matching. From Thoby Priory : the manor of Blunts-walls and Rec tory of Mountnessing. From Saint John's Abbey, Colchester: a farm and tenements in Writtle, called Salmons, or Monks and Barrows ; here was formerly a Hermitage founded in the reign of King Stephen. The land is tithe free, and part of the ancient ruins are still visible. From Westminster Abbey : the manors of Tuddenham and Sutton. And from the Monastery of Buckfustleigh : the manors of South Brent and Churchestow in Devonshire. The almshouses, founded in 1557, were partly destroyed for the Railway, and new ones erected upon another site. The Charity was liberally framed and amply endowed. In addition to the numerous comforts provided for the inmates, ten other common poor, that have no dwelling, were to have 2s. 8d. a month. On Christmas eve 6s. 8d, to be distributed to twenty poor folk of Ingatestone, and on Easter eve 13s. Ad. to forty poor folk. At the auditing of the accounts by the Ministers of Ingatestone, Mountnessing and Buttsbury 5s. were to be spent. £2 17*. Ad. to be deposited yearly in the Chest, towards the repairs of the Hospital, and of the Lord Petre's Chancel, built for the poor. The whole endowment was £90 13s. Ad. a year. In 1565 Sir William Petre added eight fellowships to Exeter College, Oxford ; for the Counties of Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Oxford, Essex, and any others in England, in which he or his heirs might have lands or possessions. I 112 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. The Parish of Ingatestone is divided into three manors, 1. Ingatestone, 2. Hanley, 3. Wood Barnes. 15th December 1539 King Henry the Eighth, in considera tion of the sum of £849 12s. 6d. granted the manor of Ingate stone to Wilham Petre, LL.D. By the Letters Patent and book of ahenation: in the foUowing year, 1540, 24th October, William Petre, Esq. ahenated the manors of Ginge ad Petram and Hanley, and the advowson of the Church to John Browne and others. And in 1542 the manor of Yng at Stone, was granted to Edward, Earl of Hertford. The manor of Hanley, now called Hanley-Barnes, was granted by the same King to Elizabeth, widow of Richard Hill, the King's servant. Sir Wilham Petre bought it for £133 6s. 8d. The King granted the manor of Wood-Barnes to John Smith, Esq. another of his servants, and to his heirs for ever. It does not appear how this manor came into the hands of Sir William Petre, but he is recorded to have alienated it in 1565 to Thomas Smith, Esq. and at the same time the said Thomas alienated to Sir William, styled Chancellor of the Garter, a messuage called Wood-Grange. All these Estates becoming possessed by Sir William, the Founder of the noble Family, he made Ingatestone Hall the place of his residence. It is one of the few magnificent Mansions of the olden time left in Essex ; little is known of it, but having been Monastic property, a somewhat copious digression in its favour may perhaps be allowable. Most of the ancient Religious Estabhshments had Manorial Houses, called Granges, or Farm-houses, on their Estates, in their own occupation and from whence they derived the food and wool consumed in the Parent Establishment. These were pro vided with barns, frequently large and substantial buildings, and other offices of simple and appropriate Architectural Decoration. Chapels were often attached to the Foundation.* * Glossary of Architecture. INGATESTONE. 113 This Hall, erected in the Fifteenth Century, was a Grange, or Summer Residence, belonging to the Abbey of Barking. It came with the Estate into possession of the Petres, and continued to be occupied as their family seat from that period until the middle of the last Century. It was originally built in the form of a double square, had outer and inner courts, with a stately Tower gateway to the main building. The gateway and most of the outer court have been destroyed. Of the inner court only three sides remain, from their dimensions some idea of the extent of the original Building may be formed : what is left affords ample residences for several families. This noble ex ample .of ancient Domestic Architecture must have been com paratively perfect and in good condition when occupied by the Petres. It is therefore to be regretted that upon their change of residence much of its ancient grandeur should have been de molished. Without entering into the particulars of the demoli tion of such houses as Hurstmontceaux Castle and Cowdray House in Sussex, we gather from Morant that the scarcity of building materials in Essex is supposed to have been the cause of the destruction of so many Architectural Antiquities in this County. In former times, when a Castle or Mansion became un occupied, it was neglected, and allowed to become a quarry for building materials : in later times, the Building was sold and systematically pulled down to furnish materials for modern houses. For Example : not a vestige is left of the Royal Palaces at Havering and Writtle. Only a mound, or a ditch, marks the sites of the Castles of Pleshey, Rayleigh, Ongar and Great Canfield. The magnificent edifices of the De Lacys, the De Veres, and the De Burghs have perished. Even the Manor houses and Halls of the Landed Gentry have shared the same fate, and the work of destruction still goes on. Within a few years Mylas, Great Warley Hall, Coptfold Hall, Heron Hall, Fitzwalters and many interesting farm houses have been need lessly pulled down. 114 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Nor have the ancient rehgious houses fared better. No remains exist of Brook Street Hospital ; Strat ford Abbey, or Blackmore Priory : scarcely a vestige of Beeleigh Abbey or Thoby Priory ; and merely the Gateways of the once magni ficent Abbeys of Waltham and Barking and the Priories of Leigh and Bicknacre. The plan of Ingatestone Hall now resembles the lower half of the letter H , the present, always formed the principal part of the House. Of this the family and do mestics occupied the right or south wing, and the guests and visitors the left or north wing ; the great hall connect ing them on the east. The centre portion of this transverse buildingr is converted into a modern Chapel, and the remainder of it is thrown into the respective tene ments on either side. The different ar rangement of these wing-buildings,andthe designs of the outer facades, are staircase turret. INGATESTONE. 1 15 worthy of particular notice. On the one side the apartments are smaller, with attics or rooms in the roof; and on the other, rooms of more stately proportions without the attics. The south front, exposed to the heat of the sun, is broken-up by projections, which are picturesquely gabled ; they give variety of form to the outline ; cast deep shadows ; and in Summer impart an agreeable coolness to the rooms : at the same time they afford convenient appendages, and form boudoirs for the ladies, or apartments for the children. On the other hand the north front presents a nearly unbroken line, affording greater scope for state accommodation, and the rooms open to the lawn and garden. A prominent feature of the building is an octagonal staircase Turret in the South East corner of the Quadrangle, at the base of which an Entrance door has been made. The winding oaken stairs with centre newel, remain in very sound condition. The Turret, originally roofed flat, and terminated with an embattled parapet, has had another story added, and is now covered with a conical roof. The Residence to which this Turret belongs comprises half the South wing and a third of the transverse building to the East ; portions of the Ancient Grange that have undergone fewer alter ations than the rest. Here we find some of the walls still decor ated with the ancient Tapestry in compartments, or Pictures. Each Picture is surrounded by a cinque-cento border, and occupies one side of a room. The history of Moses covers a large space : as an Infant, he is pulling the crown off the head of Pharaoh, who is stooping to caress the Child. In another tableau, he is slaying the Midianite, for which he fled the country. There is also depicted the worshipping of the Golden Calf, and the breaking of the Tables of the Law. One large picture re presents Noah and his family driving the animals into the Ark, preparatory to the Deluge, while groups of men and women are carousing and mocking the Patriarch for his prudence. Another room contains the Espousals of the Virgin and the 116 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Adoration of the Magi. In the latter picture the Virgin is en throned in a diapered niche in the cave of Bethlehem, oxen and other animals surround her, a Star rests on the Entrance, around which are grouped the Shepherds, with their rugged staves. On the lap of the Virgin is seated the Infant Jesus, and kneel ing at her feet, are the Wise Men offering their gifts in a golden ciboreum. A long procession of Knights and attendants on richly caparisoned horses and camels crowd along the road, and at a short distance from the cave, adjoining the highway, is a WATER MILL, IN TAPESTRY WORK, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. picturesque water mill and Cottage with thatched roofs : one of the gables is brick built and stepped, to agree in character with the Hall itself. The principal figures throughout the Tapestry, are as large as life ; the drawing is bold and vigorous ; great skih is dis played in the disposal of the groups ; and the draperies are INGATESTONE. 117 brilliant, tasteful, and appropriate. Little can be said about the perspective of the drawing ; and it is not to be wondered at, after so many ages, if some of the colours have changed their hue or have wholly faded. This interesting specimen, taken collectively, is not, perhaps, older than the Sixteenth Century, Queen Mary's time ; although parts of it may have had an earlier origin ; it is most ingeniously seamed throughout, and must have been a work of very great labour. It is well known that the art of weaving, or making Tapestry, is of great antiquity. In Queen Elizabeth's reign, it became so important a branch of industry in this Country, that Her Majesty granted a charter to the " Broderers of the City of London," to be a Body Corporate, under the name of " The Master, Wardens and Society of the art or mystery of Broderers, otherwise Imbroiderers of London." The " art or mystery" has become extinct, but the Corporation remains one of the City Companies to this day. It was also in one of the Projections on the south front of this portion of the Venerable Hall that a Priest's " Hiding Place" was accidentally discovered in the autumn of 1 855. The Entrance to this secret chamber is from a small room, attached to what was probably the Host's bed room, on the middle floor. In the south east corner the floor boards were found to be decayed ; upon their removal, another layer of loose^ boards was observed to cover a hole or trap about two feet square. A ladder, per haps, two centuries old remained beneath. The existence of this sacred asylum must have been familiar to the heads of the family for several generations ; indeed, evidence of this is afforded by a packing-case directed " For the Right Honble. the Lady Petre, at Ingatestall Hall, in Essex ;" the wood is much decayed, and the style of the writing firm and antiquated. The Petre family left the Hall between the years 1770 and 1780. The " hiding-place" measures fourteen feet in length, two feet one inch in width, and ten feet in height. Its floor-level is 118 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. the natural ground line ; the floor is spread with nine inches of remarkably dry sand, so as to exclude damp or moisture. A cursory examination of the sand brought to light a few bones, small enough to be those of a bird ; and ih all probability the remains of food supplied to some unfortunate occupant during confinement. The state of the law rendered these hiding-places necessary, for late in the Sixteenth, and early in the Seventeenth Centuries, the Celebration of the Mass, in this country, was strictly forbidden. It was illegal to use the Chapel ; the Priest therefore celebrated mass secretly " in a chamber," opening from which was a hiding-place, to which he could retreat in time of danger ; and where also the Vestments, Altar-furniture, Missal, Crucifix, and Sacred Vessels were kept " in a trunk." The Trunk, or Chest here alluded to, remained in this in stance ; and was an interesting relic to discover. It measures ANTIQUE CHEST FOR SACllED VESTMEKTS, ETC. four feet two and a half inches in length, one foot seven inches in width, and one foot ten and a. half inches in height to the top of the arched lid. The wood appears to be yew, only three quarters of an inch in thickness, very carefully put together, hned INGATESTONE. 119 with strong linen securely nailed, and entirely covered with leather, turned over the edges inside, and glued down. The outside edges are iron-bound ; five iron bands pass round the short way, two others lengthways, and two girt it horizontally. The metal is thin, hard hammered, one and one-eighth, and one and a quarter inches in breadth ; woven alternately under and over ; and thickly nailed. The nails are clenched at the back : each of the cross-bands is turned into a hinge, so that the lid hangs upon five hinges. There are two hasped locks, each rivetted on by three long staples made ornamental by chisel-cuts on the face ; a projecting rib formed like the letter S encircles the key holes; and there is a third means of fastening, in the centre, adapted for a padlock. At the ends are long thin handles in quaint character like the rest. Considering its antiquity and the original lightness of its make, the Chest is in good preservation ; the lining is nearly gone ; the wood, iron, and leather of the bottom, and the metal of the top, are all much decayed. The Manor House of Hanley is in the midst of a beautiful country, and away from any hard road. That of Wood-Barnes, on the Blackmore road, one of the prettiest farm houses in the neighbourhood. The Hyde, a fine mansion on the Chelmsford Road, was built by Timothy Brand, Esq. High Sheriff of the County in 172 1 . He was succeeded by his son Timothy Brand HoUis ; afterwards, by the Rev. Dr. John Disney, F. S.A. author of the lives of Jortin and Sykes. The present owner, John Disney, Esq. LL.D. founded a Professorship of Archaeology at' Saint Peter's College, Cambridge. LOCK PLATE. 120 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. In 1229 Sixty-two acres of Assart Lands were enclosed in this Parish. In 1539 One of the Tyrell family presented John Green to the Living. Ingatestone Parish. Area in Statute acres . . 2678 Number of Houses in 1851 . 208 Population .... 860 Colc!)ester Cfjurcfjes. (Saint Martin.) LEXDEN HUNDRED. Diocese . . . Patron Annual Value £72. fHIS Church, between two streets, North of the middle row, and West of the Castle, has a large proportion of " Roman brick" in its construction, and although no part of the present edifice dates farther back than the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, it is highly probable that it occupies the site of an earlier structure. In support of this opinion are, — 1. an Early English ridged grave stone, with a cross and trefoil terminations, brought to light a few years since, while excavating a grave in the Chancel, 2. the remains of several purbeck. grave-stones, now in the floor of the Porch. 3. the miscellaneous materials of which the walls are composed. Masses of ivy are allowed to grow over the building, which precludes minute examination of its construction by the antiquary, but produces a highly picturesque study for the artist. The 122 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. deep red colour of the bricks in the Tower, and the variety of tint in the walls, form a pleasing contrast to the rich green of the ivy. The Church in the " Decorated" style of Edward the First or Second period, comprises Chancel with North Vestry, Nave with North and South Aisles, Porch and West Tower. The Chancel has undergone less change than any other por tion of the Church ; the original triple-light east window and later double-light south windows are beautifully moulded. The priest's door, with four series of deeply undercut mouldings, and an arch turned off into an ogee at its apex, is a specimen of Edward the First's style. The inside sill of one of the south windows is carried low down to form sedilia, and near it is a fine piscina two feet wide and three feet high. The arch, an ogee with crockets, is supported by slender buttresses. In the Fifteenth Century the Chancel assumed, perhaps, a more ornamental cha racter ; the Arch was rebuilt in the " Perpendicular" style, win dows of that age were inserted in the walls, and a magnificent wooden roof added, which in its turn was shut out by a lath and plaster ceiling. Some idea of the grandeur of this roof may he formed by what remains : the central portion of its length is carried upon a noble truss or principal, with king-posts and struts. This kind of branched support to sustain the apex of a roof frequently occurs in our old Churches. In domestic buildings in Ireland, and perhaps elsewhere, portions of trees with their limbs on, and in their natural condition, are fixed upon the tie beams in lieu of the wrought king-posts and struts. This pri mitive mode of construction may have suggested the idea of the roof-tree to the Poet Byron who says : — " The tree will wither, long before it fall ; " The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ; " The roof-tree sinks, but moulders in the Hall " In massy hoariness; the ruin'd wall " Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone.'' COLCHESTER. 123 The tie beam and the wall plates are richly moulded and em battled ; the former is a naturally curved piece of timber, of large dimensions, and supported by a bold arch. This arch is carried from the ground upon solid wooden jambs against the walls, PRINCIPAL OF ROOF FORMING THE INNER CHANCEL ARCH. they measure fourteen inches by seven, and are moulded like the arch : the plinths of these jambs are defaced, the lower part to the height of two feet six is boxed in. Six feet eight inches from the floor are the remains of a beam which has been carefully 124 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. cut off; it may have been the rood beam. The spandrels of the arch are large, and filled with open tracery of fine design. The rafters (visible here and there through the ceiling) appear to be arched and moulded ribs, twenty-one inches apart : they spring from moulded corbels which overhang the wall plate, but are thirty-two inches above it ; and corresponding with the corbels, at the top of each rib, is a carved boss. The altar rail, under this arch, marks to this day an ancient division of the Sanctuary from the Choir. Particular allusion is made to this arrangement in the History of Saint Albans Abbey.* " In every great Church served by a Quire a screen of lighter construction parted off the Sanctuary at the extremity of the stalls. A solitary instance of the kind has been allowed to remain in perfect preservation in St. David's Cathedral. The fragments of Screens in a similar position are occasionally to be seen in the larger Parish Churches ; and it will not fail to be observed that the subdivision referred to, with out the distinction of a Screen, is faintly indicated in the Chancels of the smaller Churches, the Sanctuary in these instances being eastward of that portion occupied by the Chancel seats." In the north wall, within the altar rails, is a lofty and highly finished recess or niche, one foot wide, eighteen inches deep, and three feet three inches in height, to the springing line of the arch, which is an ogee with triple- cusped tracery : the sill is one foot from the present floor level. In the Vestry is a finely carved head of the Fifteenth Century used as a corbel for a shelf. The roof is modern, but the door from the Chancel is a good specimen of the " Perpendicular" period. The Nave, rebuilt in the Fifteenth Century, measures forty- six feet five inches in length, and sixteen feet eight in width. It is divided into three bays with Early " Perpendicular" moulded * History of the Abbey Church of Saint Alban, Herts, p. 69, by I. C. and C. A. Buckler. — Longman, Svo. 1847. Ground Plan op Saint Martin's Church, Colchester, Essex. ^^ ^v.u\i:^c^^ .w- r- T T ^^/i! J/^f '<\a^y?-^ ll I. >^ki ;. ,v' -i,' ill i, 1 1 11 1 \i / /f I /^ /^i ,^ 'H.J' H N - L->J K '• ^^ ^3] ^^^Si«i5fet: i I f ^y^T 03COHCO n o o O PW o 03 m ;> I » O K COLCHESTER. 129 arches and labels terminated with heads : the columns are octangular, with richly moulded capitals and double plinths. The Aisles are twelve feet six inches in width. Eastward of them are Chapels, of greater width than the Aisles and separated from them by transverse arches, these are moulded and spring from the walls. The roofs of the Chapels run North and South, and form gables exteriorly ; the whole of the roofs are ceiled on the underside. In the south wall is a small piscina with sink stone carved with a hexagonal figure, forming cusps with a rosette in the centre and sLv perforations leading to the drain. In the op posite angle, by the south pier of the Chancel Arch, is a bulk of carefully finished masonry, containing the stairs to the ancient Rood Loft; the steps, formed of brick, wind round a small wooden newel. In the north Chapel, the pier of the Chancel Arch is pierced in a slanting direction for a hagioscope, eighteen inches in width. In this Aisle is the magnificent " Perpendicular" Font, an octagon, two feet five inches in diameter, and three feet five in height : the sides are richly panelled, the arches ogee with crockets and finials, upon a background of cusped tracery. At the corners are angels, with extended wings, corbel fashion, to carry buttresses which are crowned with pinnacles and crockets. The soffite is formed into compartments of tracery to meet the shaft which is again deeply recessed, and has columns at the angles ; below is a superbly moulded plinth and a broad step. The windows in this Aisle are triple light specimens of the same period with fine tracery. The Tower, shorn of much of its height in the Seventeenth Century and in a state of ruin, is square on plan and small in size ; the walls, hidden by ivy, appear to be rubble built, and to have Roman brick quoins ; the principal feature visible is the west door, a bold specimen of " Perpendicular" work of 130 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Henry the Seventh's period, with deeply sunk spandrels. In ternally the rubble work is carefully laid in courses, and in the construction of the north and south walls of the Basement are arches or flying buttresses of masonry, built flush in the walls, and calculated to convey any thrust from the arches of the Nave in the direction of the ground ; a wise precaution, con sidering the construction of the Tower. As these arches form a part of the very substance of the walls, this remark need not lead to any misconception as to the age of the Tower itself, which is as likely to be anterior to, as coeval with, the Nave : the earlier Nave might even have required these abutment arches. In the north-west angle is a small circular staircase that led to the Belfry, the upper part of which is broken away. A solitary Bell cast in 1645 rests upon two beams, and a lean-to roof shelters the remains of the Tower. The South Porch has been extensively modernised, if it be not entirely of recent date : it has its share of ivy, a flat ceiling, and a modern wooden window. The different roofs are covered with tiles, and the floors are paved with brick. The Church has been cleared within a few years, and provided with open seats. The pulpit, reading desk, two lecterns, the door to the Vestry, and a poor box by the Chancel door, have been manufactured out of a collection of oak carving, among which are fragments of tracery of the Fifteenth Century. Two Parish chests of Jacobian date remain in the Tower. COLCHESTER. 131 HISTORICAL NOTICES. The Churches of Colchester present more or less a ruined appearance : upon a cessation of the disturbances, and the disastrous Siege of the Parliamentarians in 1648, some were plainly repaired, and others hastily patched up for the renewal of Worship. " Roman bricks" appear in most of them. In the original composition of the walls, and their reparation in the Seventeenth Century, such various materials were used as to render them worthy of interest in this respect. The Roman bricks, with which the locality must have abounded, from their size and shape, presented suitable materials to sustain the angles of the rubble walls, and formed an admirable substitute for stone. Brick is found in the construction of most of the Churches of Essex, but few Towns furnish so many examples of ancient buildings where it is so extensively used as Colchester. This may be owing probably to the great antiquity of its foundation, . and its magnitude as a Roman Station. Here was the accumu lation of an immense mass of building materials, made mostly, perhaps, in time of war, when it was more desirable to depend upon the natural resources of the soil, rather than incur the ex traordinary difficulties of procuring stone from a distance. History records that the Romans occupied this Town about fifty years after the commencement of the Christian Era ; it is well known that they manufactured bricks for their building operations, and it can hardly be doubted that portions of build ings erected by them, even after so long a period, are preserved in a sound condition. It is but fair then to assume that build ings of so substantial a character were appropriated by their 132 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. successors, when they were conveniently placed, or could be readily adapted to the immediate requirements of the new comers : if not, they were speedily demolished, and the materials reconstructed in a more fashionable style of architecture. It is supposed by some, that the Britons (though they had Pottery in abundance before the invasion of the Romans) learned the art of brick-making and building from the latter. Exhuma tions from the Celtic barrows afford evidence that the taste and manufactures of the Aborigines were greatly improved by their intercourse with the Romans. Writers say nothing definite about the class of buildings that prevailed in Britain from the extinction of the Roman power, to the commencement of the Norman Era, a period of more than five hundred years. It is therefore needless to quote the Saxons as a people skilled in architecture : according to Venerable Bede, they chiefly used wood in constructing their buildings : the few examples immediately preceding the Norman Era in which they applied stone, soon gave way to the grander designs of the Normans. It may therefore be surmised that the buildings left by the Romans, remained nearly or quite unmolested till the Norman - Conquest : admitting this, it is but natural to suppose that the zealous builders, to whom the revival of Architecture, at this period, gave birth, would not scruple to avail themselves, either of choice sites already occupied, or of the abundant materials they found upon them, ready to their hands. In support of this opinion, a more striking example of skill in the adaptation of old materials, need not be adduced than the Abbey Church of Saint Alban, in Hertfordshire : commenced in the year 1077, built out of the ruins, and near the site, of the ancient Town of Verulam. The Normans proved themselves as perfect masters of the art of building as the Romans had been before them, and at Colchester availed themselves of the Roman work and materials with as COLCHESTER. 133 much freedom and ability as their countrymen did, simulta neously, at Saint Alban's. In process of time the Norman Buildings themselves were altered, to keep pace with the ever varying taste, or to meet the increasing wants of succeeding generations ; the same materials were again remodelled, and in like manner, so long as the stone and the brick endure, they will be capable of similar re adaptation. Dr. Duncan made a careful survey of the Roman Remains at Colchester, and communicated the result of his interesting investigations to the Essex Archseological Society. The Col chester bricks, according to this authority, vary considerably in size and thickness ; while at Verulam, they were " mostly of one size, namely I6xl2xl|^ inches. They vary in shape and durability, in proportion to their exposure to the fire in the process of burning. Many are vitrified and warped by excessive heat : few have yielded to the action of the weather : their texture is close and fine, and the hardness such that they seem as durable as the flint with which they have been so admirably combined in the walls : they are mostly of a deep red colour." * Thin bricks were manufactured for several centuries, and from very early periods, in districts where there is no stone, and the subsoil is tough clay. Those in the staircase at Fyfield Church are Norman, and shaped for the purpose : many other examples, apart from Roman remains, may have been made in like manner. Indeed it is difficult to draw a line between the different dates and fashions of bricks, until a marked distinction in their size was established in the Fifteenth Century. " I am not aware," writes An Architectural Antiquaryf to the Gentle man's Magazine, September 1833, " that brick as an essential material in the composition of buildings was in common use in England till the Fifteenth Century, and I am far from thinking that the art of manufacturing it was entirely laid aside at any period. It enters partially into the composition of some Norman * Hist. S. Alban's, p. 23. f Mr. J. C. Buckler. 134 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. Churches remote from Roman Roads and Stations, and is fre quently seen in the buildings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. * * * 'pj^g ^rt of shaping bricks after any pattern was frequently practised, and might have been invented in the Fifteenth Century, but Roman bricks did not admit of many forms, nor does it appear that the arches of Roman archi tecture were of another or better construction than those in the Norman Abbey of St. Alban." Morant says that in St. Martin's Parish there is not above four acres, besides a few garden grounds : 117 houses : and that 279 persons were rated for the Poll Tax in 1692. There never was a Parsonage house or glebe belonging to the Rector. The Rectors were 1327, Henry Tothe : 1329, Peter Pake : 1392, Gilbert Moyse: 1437, John Grobie: 1760, John Hodgkin. St. Martin's Parish, Colchester. Number of Houses in 185] . . 231 Population ..... 942 n 3 PORCH ; 3| n EQQ Ground Plan of Blackmore Church, Essex. iSIacfemore Cburtf). (Saint Lawrence.) CHELMSFORD HUNDRED. -^3X2^^9- DioCESE .... Rochester. T, f The Representatives of the late C. JtATRON s L A. Cricltett, Esq. Annual Value . . £683. HIS ancient Structure, commonly called The Old Priory Church, and the Village are in the centre of the Parish. The burial ground, contrary to usual custom, is on the North side of the Church. The foundations of many of the Conventual buildings which formerly stood towards the South and East, still remain under the surface of the ground. The Building comprises Chancel, Nave, North and South Aisles, West Tower and North Porch : it was originally a Norman Structure, but it underwent extensive alterations in the Thirteenth, and further changes in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. The exterior of the South and East Walls is not accessible, being in the garden of a Mansion formerly known by the name of Jericho, and built on the site of the ancient Manor House. 138 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. The general appearance of the Church is peculiar, one tiled roof covers the whole building ; there are two dormers of large dimensions on the north, and three on the south side. There were originally entrances on the West, South, and North. The West door was enclosed by the Tower in the Fifteenth Cen tury : and there was little use for the South door when the Church was made Parochial ; in the mean time, the garden of the Manor House was extended till the walls of the Church formed its boundary. A modern door was made at the eastern end of the North Aisle, but it does not now appear to be much used. The principal entrance is by the Porch, under which is a finely moulded Arch and label of the " Early English" or Henry the Third period. The Church is mostly of that period, and probably built on the foundations of the Norman Edifice ; in corporated with some of the walls, are parts of the original Struc ture. It is interesting to observe that the two Designs agree in height and width. The West Front and one bay of the Norman Church is left at the West end, and there is much reason to suppose that the bay at the East, of similar width, is partly of the same age, though the mouldings do not bear out the suppo sition. The early architecture in this example is of the Twelfth Century, and the West Front is a pleasing composition : a circular headed doorway ; above which, on a line, are two windows of like form ; and over them, in the gable, a circle. The whole front is of squared masonry, and a fine specimen of Norman workmanship. A recess, with the same kind of masonry, on the outside of the wall is worthy of notice. The doorway has three plain reveals and two columns in each of the jambs ; the foliated capitals, only, are left. The windows ex pand to a great width on the inside face of the wall, and are carefully finished. When this Church was inspected for this description, the design of the West wall was to be seen only from the Tower, it has since been laid open to the Church. BLACKMORE. 139 The compartment, or bay, of the Norman Nave has slender columns on the angles of the piers and responds, with graceful capitals and abacus moulding, upon the masonry of which the Early English work is curiously engrafted. Over the arches are two of the Norman clerestory windows, giving rise, perhaps, to the idea that the original Nave (like many other examples of that period) had no Aisles. The window on the North side opens into the roof of the Aisle ; that on the South was probably mured when the modern Vestry was formed out of a portion of the South Aisle ; some of the torus string course remains under the sills of these windows. A part of the West wall has been cut away to suit modern convenience. The Purbeck Marble Font, a plain octagon two feet seven inches across, and three feet high, is also Norman : it is raised upon two Purbeck Steps, and occupies its original situation in the centre of the Nave, and Westward of the Principal Entrance. Singularly enough it does not stand square with the building, the alternate angles of the Font are placed to the cardinal points of the building. The Tower is a» timber structure upon a rubble foundation, and three stories in height. The only opening into the Base ment was the Norman door from the Nave. The supporting timbers are arranged in three avenues like those at Margaretting, but the area covered is four feet larger each way, the dimen sions of the square being twenty-eight feet on the sides. The lofty Basement is two stages or stories in height, which adds a lightness and grandeur of effect to the interior. Two parallel arches from North to Souths with a tier of braced work over them, are made to carry the central weight of the super structure, these are supported and strengthened by counter arches and braced work at the sides. Owing to the great height to be sustained, the support of the centre is effected by stages of cross-bracing instead of raking shores as at Margaretting. The outside timbers of these braces help to form the outer wall ; 140 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. where necessary, intermediate timbers are added, and the space between them flushed with plaster upon large oak laths flxed vertically. This mode of construction results in an external surface of wood and plaster alternately, much of which remains unimpaired to this day. On the West is a fine four-light wooden window with tracery complete. It is probable that the outside was originally rough cast ; the overhanging of the tiled roof is original, and the corbelled timbers at the angles, with the brackets under the eaves, remain. Out of this roof the Tower rises with diminished diameter, here the ancient upright boarding remains, and over it another roof of tiles. The Belfry forms a third story to the Structure, and is weather-boarded ; the Spire, and the gathering-over from the square of the former into the octagon of the latter are covered with shingle, and the Spire terminated with a good old finial and vane. The Spire is ancient, and constructed similarly to the ex ample just quoted : the Belfry is complete in design, the win dows retain fragments of their tracery behind the modern boarding. There are five Bells, three dated 1647, the others 1648 and 1752. The North Porch, coeval with the Tower, was once a fine specimen of woodwork ; the cusped verge board and design of the massive timber front, remain tolerably perfect, but the sides have been altered and built up with brickwork. The dormers on the North side of the Church, late examples of the Sixteenth Century, are remarkable specimens, of an in teresting character, corresponding in size, and carefully incor porated with the ancient wall of the Church. In this wall are four windows, three of which are of very early " Perpendicular" work, or perhaps of Richard the Second period: two of the windows are between buttresses, which are connected over the window by a corbel-like arrangement of mouldings, and carry the gabled dormers of wood and plaster. The buttresses are singularly arranged, and have been so ingeniously altered as BLACKMORE. 141 ELIZABETHAN DORMER. to throw a considerable doubt upon their originality, but the effect is ex tremely pleasing and satisfactory in a picturesque view. Under the fur ther of these dormers is an Elizabe than door and window with transom, and more East a single-light open ing, partially bricked up, and used for ventilating a Vault which has been made at the end of the North Aisle. The Early Enghsh work is uni form, four bays in length : the co lumns on the north side are clustered, the capitals, arches and labels are finely moulded : those on the south, are octagons of large diameter, and the arches chamfered. The point of junction between the Chancel and the Nave is lost, except in the roofs, the former is ceiled and the latter boarded in square panels, the mouldings of which are enriched with shields and bosses at the intersections. The Chancel in all probability stopped at the columns, though the roof may have overhung and formed a canopy to the Rood Loft, The Chancel thus embraces the narrow bay of Norman dimensions at the East end, and one and nearly half of another of the Early English arches, giving it a length of thirty-five feet, and a breadth of twenty feet. A few years ago the arch on the South side of the Altar as well as the North was mured, which had the effect of recessing the Altar. This end of the Church is very ancient, but it has undergone such remarkable changes, that were it not for the " Early English" label, (of small size and spanning nearly the whole breadth of the east wall,) the wall itself might not be considered older than the window, viz. the Fifteenth Century. It is just possible that what remains may be only the Nave of the 142 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. ancient Church, and the Choir or Chancel destroyed ; if so, this wall under the label would be the filling in of the Chancel Arch. The arch on the North side of the Altar is of fine masonry, with moulded brick capitals ; the opening was built up when the vault was formed. The opposite arch is of brick, with capitals of the same material upon stone octagonal jambs. The recent removal of masonry from this Arch, opens to the Chancel what was, no doubt, in later times a Chantry Chapel. In the East wall, and not in the centre, is an arched opening, with a small torus label coeval with that in the Chancel, and like it, spread out to the width of the Aisle. On the South side of this Chapel is a trefoil headed arch, and under it a Pointed door, and a fine piece of Norman sculpture. This doubtless led into the Cloister, the presence of which alone can account for the absence of win dows on this side of the building. Within this Chapel, and railed off from the rest of the Church, is a fine altar tomb, with recumbent effigies of a man and his wife in " Elizabethan" costume, beautifully executed, and attributed to Thomas Smyth, Esq. 1594, and Margaret his wife. About midway in the South wall, but possessing no particular character, is a piscina-like recess. The inner face of the windows on the North side are carefully finished with torus sills projecting upon the face of the wall. There are several small fragments of painted glass in the windows ; and in the floor a Purbeck marble diminished grave stone, with the matrix of a fine brass cross and shields over the upper hmb, and another stone of the same material, containing a brass of simpler design. To pursue inquiry upon a building so complicated, and so changed in form and character as this fragment of a Priory Church, the investigator would require the aid of workmen, with permission to lay bare whatever features may be concealed in the walls, and to remove the ground to some extent around and within the building. BLACKMORE. 143 HISTORICAL NOTICES. Blackmore is supposed to have derived its name from the dark colour of the soil, the lands lying low and swampy. As a Parish it is not mentioned in Domesday, but in the reign of King Stephen, the greater part of it belonged to the De Sand ford or Samford family. Morant alludes to four Manors, 1. The Manor of Black- more Hall. 2. The site and Manor of Blackmore Priory. 3. The Manor of Copsechys. 4. The Manor of Fingreth. All these Manors have belonged to the De Samford family, and Blackmore Hall was their seat. This House, afterwards known as Smith's Hall, was pulled down several years ago. Adam and Jordan De Samford gave the bulk of their property to the Monastery of Saint Lawrence de Blackmore, which they founded in the reign of King Henry the Second. According to Newcourt, vol. ii. p. 63, the Priory was for Canons Regular, of the Order of Saint Augustin. The Rec tory, Tithes, and Profits were appropriated to the Prior and Convent by Wilham de Sancta Maria, Bishop of London, about the reign of Eling John, and confirmed about 1236 by the Dean and Chapter of Saint Paul's, Galfry de Lucy being at that time the Dean. 1369, the Prior and Convent neglecting to elect a fit person, Ralph de Baldock, Bishop of London, issued letters mandatory, requiring them to present within ten days : upon which, the Prior and Convent, by their Proxy, and fellow Parishioners 144 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. appeared before the said Bishop and his Commissary in the Hah of his Palace at Stepney, where it was agreed " on behalf of the Rehgious, that they should cause Divine offices to be performed on Sundays and Holidays : and on behalf of the Parishioners, that at their own charge they should find One Missal, One Chalice, and One Vestment, and several other things therein specified, requisite for the celebration of Mass, as are found by Parishioners in other Parishes." 1527 the Priory was dissolved, and granted among others to Cardinal Wolsey for the endowment of his two Colleges at Oxford and Ipswich, but, by reason of the conviction of the said Cardinal of a Premunire in the twenty-first of King Henry the Eighth, it reverted to the Crown, and the King granted the Church and Priory to the Abbot and Convent of Waltham Holy Cross, in lieu of Stansted Abbots in the County of Hertford. King tienry the Eighth by Charter granted a Fair to be held at Blackmore, yearly, on the vigil of the Feast of Saint Lawrence, on the Festival itself, and the day following. Upon the general dissolution of the Monasteries, the same King, in 1540, granted the Estate to John Smith and his heirs. Of the Manor of Copsechys, little is recorded beyond the fact that Thomas Stalbroke died in possession of it 1484. He held it of the Earl of Oxford. It was added to the Manor of Blackmore Hall. The Manor of Fingreth was held by Sir John de Samford in 1165. 1315, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, granted all the lands and tenements which Henry de Fyngrye held of him in the Vill of Fyngrye to the Prior and Convent. The Manor was held of the King in Capite by grand Ser- jeantcy of being Chamberlain to the Queen of England, of keeping her chamber and the door of the same, on the day of her Coronation, and of having for his fee the furniture of the chamber, the beds, basins, &c. blackmore. 145 Gilbert de Samford held it as Chamberlain to Eleanor, Queen of Henry the Third. Dr. Cory and Mary his wife claimed the office, at the Coro nation of Queen Anne : and the Lord of the Manor, 1 1 Oct. 1727, at the Coronation of Queen Caroline, but his claim, not being made out, was disallowed. Blackmore Parish. Area in Statute acres . . . 2576 Number of Houses in 1851 . . 151 Population 704 ^^s ^ s ^ m ^^B S ^^ ^^^2 ^ sB mm w ^^S » ^D R^M m H m m ^B g ^H Cf)e Mlillittiffato. DUNMOW HUNDRED. jILLINGALE is the only instance, in this County, in which there are two Churches in the same yard : an irregular piece of ground, but nearly equally divided between the Parishes. An ancient foot-path across the yard was generally supposed to be the division, but other marks of boundary remaining, a row of trees has lately been planted to define the line. The west walls of the two Churches are on a line with each other : the buildings are one hundred and fifty feet apart. Other examples of two Churches in the same yard occur at Coventry in Warwickshire ; Evesham, Worcestershire; Great Melton, Snoring, and Reepham in Norfolk ; Swaffham Prior in Cambridgeshire ; Bury Saint Edmund's and Trimley in Suffolk. I l-M-l-,-,_, l-l-l-l-i-,-._„ /:! -i-i-K,-,-,.,,.,.,.,.,. Plan of the Churches op Willingale Spain, and Willingale Dob, Essex, r'^X ,^'^ 1 f< ^-PS Ife^A (M mm W I 02 \ ^i^fcl -.J ¦-¦¦ if-' THE WILLINGALES. 151 millinflale ^patn Cijurtjj. (Saint Andrew and All Saints.) — m-^X2^^m ¦ — Diocese . . . Rochester. Patron . . . The Bishop of London. Annual Value £ZA.0. HLLINGALE Spain is the Southern and more ancient of the two Churches. It comprises Nave and Chancel in the " Early English" lancet style of the reign- of Henry the Third : it has undergone extensive alter ations, but the original fabric still remains. The Walls are built with rubble materials, some of which it is possible may be " Roman Bricks," a-nd supposed to have been brought from a ruin in the neighbourhood, but no Roman building nearer than Writtle is quoted. This opinion may have arisen from the kind of Bricks that are visible on the north side of the Nave. The doorway is a curious relic, with a reveal nine and a half inches in depth, without any attempt at mouldings. The size and shape of the material to be used, possibly suggested the simplicity of a semicircle for the arch, and gave NORTH DOORWAY. 152 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. rise to some erroneous impressions as to its age. The layers of mortar are nearly as thick as the bricks ; these vary somewhat in size, and in thickness range from one and an eighth to one and a half inches. From the early age assigned to this Church down to the Fifteenth Century, bricks were gradually increased in thickness to two and a half inches. The ancient and highly wrought iron-work, made to the form of the arch, and almost covering the door, (much of which is lost, owing to the ground having been raised,) is of the date of the arch. The Nave is forty feet in length, by eighteen feet six inches in width. At the west end is a dwarf wooden spire, compara tively modern, made out of the materials of the former spire, and boarded. The walls were always plastered, and the plaster indented with a zigzag pattern, a fashion that is perpetuated to this day, in districts where timber and plaster buildings prevail, as in Essex. The West Gable, as well as the Spire, has been rebuilt. On the North side, and coeval with the doorway, are two small and original " Early English" windows, two feet six inches in height, and eleven inches in width, with very little depth outside, but expanding inside to the width of three feet seven inches ; they are ten feet nine inches from the floor. Bricks are apparent in one of them, but, without removing the plaster from the surface, it would be impossible to say whether this were the original construction or a mere reparation. On the South is a lofty and elegant window, with a label of highly finished masonry in the same style as the Li, preceding, more than six feet in height, the i_h same width of opening, but spreading inside QI to five feet seven inches and a half, and -J seven feet from the floor. The other features of the Nave have been changed, and a late " Decorated" window inserted in the south wall. The Porch and door are modern. -^%x LANCET WINDOW. THE WILLINGALES. 153 There are two Bells, the larger is ancient with a Lombardic inscription of the Fifteenth Century, XOH jSCXlXXX^t a^xB-ttx : djsL'^G: : »xxiaxi:e[^e:* LOMBARDIC INSCRIPTION, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. The primitive ladder, and the supports remain : the latter are massive timbers, and span the Nave in arch-like form : the south half of the front arch remains tolerably perfect. Nearly one third of the length of the Nave is occupied by this timber structure ; in plan it forms an Anti- Chapel into which the south door opens. In the centre, and raised upon an old brick step with oaken curb, is the octagonal Font, an ele gant specimen of " Per pendicular" workman ship, the top has quatre foils and rosettes ; the shaft, arched panels with cusps, and the plinth is finely moulded. croaching ten feet more into the Nave, is * Dignare. Great freedom was used with words supernumerary letters were frequent. of the ancient Belfry, TOWER ARCH, FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Beyond this, and en- a gallery of the Doric and letters in early days, and 154 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. order, SmaU as this Church is, it would appear to have been too large for the congregation when the gallery was erected in 1765, or it would, in all probability, have been built against the west wall, and the sittings made to occupy a larger area. On entering the Church, this peculiar arrangement of Vestibule, Gallery and Nave, (though known to be accidental in this case,) strongly resembles that of Anti-Chapel — Screen — Inner Chapel or Choir, in Collegiate Estabhshments. The Chancel, twenty-five feet by sixteen, has undergone considerable alterations. North and south are two double-light " Perpendicular" windows of the reign of Henry the Sixth, all agreeing in design : the sills range, and the jambs of those on the South are finished off on the inside with stopped chamfers. The arch of the Priest's door is coeval with the windows. The East window was originally of large dimensions, the outline of it was distinctly marked a few years ago, when a portion only of it was used as a window, with common wood mullions. The Chancel has been since restored, and a new East window, which had been prepared for a neighbouring Church, and was too small to fill the opening here, has been inserted. The superabundant space was filled in with masonry, and the outline of the ancient window thus effectually obliterated. The underside of the rafters has been ceiled, but the moulded wall-plates remain : under the East window is a modern reredos, plastered and panelled. The History of Essex by a Gentleman, 1770, speaks of " A monument on the north side of the Chancel, singular in its con struction, being of vellum framed with wood, enclosed by a wooden door, on the outside of which is painted the arms of the Bewsies.* Upon opening the door, an inscription on vellum gives an account of ' the time of the lives and deaths of the children of Edward Bewsey, D, D. (Rector of this Parish from 1607 to 1642) and Jane his wife, which were nine in number.'" The inscriptions are preserved by the same author. * Boosey vel Busey — Newcourt. THE WILLINGALES. 155 lUtlltngale Boe CJjurtf). (Saint Christopher.) — --^ --a © ^ -s-^ — Diocese . . . Rochester. Patron ... T. PF. Bramston, Esq. M. P. Annual Value ^550. |HIS Structure, in the " Decorated" style of archi tecture of Edward the Third's period, consists of Chancel, Nave, South Porch and West Tower. Some of its ancient features remain, but it has under gone such considerable alterations, as almost to deprive it of its antiquarian interest. The South Porch was extensively altered little more than a Century ago ; the old wall plates are grooved for tracery, and two of the ancient principals of the roof remain ; the wooden uprights upon the present brick sides were reduced in size, then refixed, and plastered. The masonry of the south door and windows of the Nave, without doubt decayed or mutilated, has been from time to time repaired ; the remains of the latter appear to be " Perpendicular," of the Fifteenth Century. At this period the Tower was added, and the Church underwent the last change before The Reformation. The masonry of one of the windows has been recently repaired. On the north side, the original doorway is used as an entrance to a modern Vestry : the two windows (from the first), small in size, bear the mark of antiquity, hut so completely are they enveloped in plaster, that. 156 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. without destroying the present surface, it would not be possible to speak of their precise age or design. In all probability they have a Norman or Lancet origin. It is, perhaps, worthy of notice, that there has been some remarkable alteration of the north wall, between the Vestry and the Tower, the object of which is not very intelligible. The roof is ancient, but the timbers are concealed by a plaster ceiling in form that of half a decagon : the tie-beams are cased with thin boards, and the king posts are modern. The West Tower is a carefully exe cuted structure of the Fifteenth Century, of good proportions, three stories in height, and terminated with an embattled parapet. A lofty and bold arch opens from the Basement into the Nave, the west window has been filled up. The next story has, on three sides, small windows, the tracery of which is mutilated : on the east, are the remains of a fourth window. The Belfry windows with their tracery are tolerably perfect, the masonry was grooved as for the insertion of glass. The floor is old and dilapidated, and suspended to a modern fram ing are four Bells : the Tenor, XSBiX.'Xi.'- fllGC : KGCCCX'ti: I6IO, in Lombardic letters unevenly disposed, each letter in a frame, like the specimen here given. The other Bells are dated 1632 : 1634 : and Mears 1797. This Tower had been fractured for a Century past, it has since been pulled down and a new one built : the North wall of the Nave (the most ancient part of the edifice) has also been destroyed, and an Aisle added since 1852. The Font, of the same age and design as that in the other Church, is not quite so graceful in its proportions. The Chancel Arch is original, and simple ih design, — there are no remains of the Rood Screen ; the Chancel, thirty feet in length, is lofty, and as in the former instance, large in proportion to the Nave, which is but forty-seven feet, exclusive of the Tower. The lofty I.IIITATIOS LOMBARDIC LETTER 1610. THE WILLINGALES. 157 east window has had the tracery of " Perpendicular" design lately restored within the earlier arch, and the gable over it re built and surmounted with a cross ; two double-light windows North and one South are fine specimens, carefully preserved ; the tracery of that on the South is particularly good, and the sill inside is carried sufficiently low to form sedilia ; one of the others has been filled with modern stained glass. On the South is a large triple-light window with new tracery, and also filled with stained glass ; the original masonry of this window inside remains. Small fragments of ancient painted glass appear in several of the windows, and though of interest, they do not furnish any information. The piscina is hidden by a magnifi cent mural monument, which also encroaches upon a window ; this monument, built of black and white marble, in two com partments, with columns and arched heads, springs from a con tinuous corbel in the wall : under the arches are two small kneeling figures in high relief; beneath these, and behind the columns, on the floor of the monument, lies a recumbent figure, the size of life ; the design is surmounted by shields, and other devices, carefully carved, — the whole has been beautifully painted and gilt : it was erected conjointly to the memory of Richard Wiseman, who died in 1618, and his son Robert, in 1641, of Terrell's Hall. The Chancel contains other mural monuments of 1684 and 1744, finely executed in marble, and on the floor three brasses, one to Dorothy, wife of Thomas Brewster, 1613, the other two to a man and his wife, name gone, date 1582. 158 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. HISTORICAL NOTICES. In records this name is written Willinghale, Wylinghale, Wil- lingeham, Willingehale, Willengeham, Willingehala and Wigen- hale. Morant is of opinion that the word is derived from the Saxon word Pillen (woollen) and Hall. The district, it appears, was celebrated for the abundance and excellent quality of the wool it produced. In Edward the Confessor's time, the lands were held by Siward and six freemen. At the time of the General Survey, they were held by Suene of Essex, and Ralph Peverel, when there appears to have been but one Parish. The distinctive names D'ou and Spain do not appear to have been used until 1393.* The affix SPAIN is derived from De Ispania or Hispania, an ancient family no doubt of Spanish extraction, settled in this country in the Eleventh Century, and mentioned in Domesday. This Parish contains two Manors, Spains Hall and Myn- chens.f The former was held by Edeva in the Confessor's time, and at the General Survey by Alan Fergent and his under tenant Hervey de Ispania. It was given by Alan le Savage to Alberic de Vere, Earl of Oxford, whose successors retained it till the Sixteenth Century. Humfrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, appears to have had an interest in it in 1372, and the * Morant. f Minchin, Anglo-Saxon for Nun ; e. g. Minchin-Hampton, Co. Glo. The Minchery, or Nunnery, Littlemore, Oxon. THE WILLINGALES. 159 Spice family is mentioned in connexion with it for several gene rations. It was next purchased by John Brocket, Esq. The latter belonged to the family of Scroop, it afterwards formed part of the possessions of the Monastery of Clerkenwell ; at the Suppression, it came to the Crown ; in 1 539 King Henry the Eighth gave it to Sir Richard Rich, after this it changed hands several times. Wilham de Hispania gave the Church to the Priory of Saint Lawrence at Blackmore. Fulke Basset ordained a Vicarage, and the profits of the Living were divided between the Convent and the Vicar : the Prior, finding the Vicar's income too small, petitioned Bray broke, Bishop of London, to annul the Vicarage, and to vest the whole profits in a Rector. This was effected, and the act ratified under the Bishop's seal in 1398. The affix DOE, is derived from the ancient family alluded to at page 47, who were apparently the owners of this estate in King Stephen's time. This Parish is larger than the other, and is divided into two Manors. Willingale Doe and Terrell's Hall. The House belonging to the Manor of Willingale Doe is called Warden's Hall, a corruption of de Wanton, the name of a family who held it in 1347 of Maurice de Bruin; 1377 Sir Robert de Marney is mentioned as owner, and in 1425 John de Rokele. Morant assumes that the Torrells held this Manor in the Fifteenth Century, as well as that distinguished by their name, from the fact of their having Presented to the Living, the Patronage whereof went with the Warden's Hall Estate. Afterwards it passed into the Fytche family, who sold it in 1586 to the Brockets: 1634 it passed to Robert Cole, Esq. one of the body guard of King Charles the First: 1733 this family becoming extinct, it was bequeathed to Sir John Salter, Knight and Alderman of London, who rebuilt the Hall, and was a benefactor to the Church, " having built galleries in them both with other decorations." M 160 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. The Manor of Terrell's Hall seems to have been taken out of Warden's. The Torrells came from Shellow, and enjoyed this Estate till 1544, when it passed by marriage into the Jocelyn family, who sold it to Richard Wiseman, Esq. in the Seventeenth Century. 1 688 it was sold to John Brocket, Esq. 1719 to Charles Blunt, Esq. Willingale Spain Parish. Area in Statute acres . . 1200 Number of Houses in 1851 . 47 Population . . . . 216 Willingale Doe Parish. Area in Statute acres . . 1 739 Number of Houses in 1851 . 107 Population . . . . 518 ilrenttooolj Cfjurcf). (Saint Thomas a Becket,)' CHAFFORD HUNDRED. Diocese .... Rochester. Patron .... C. T. Tower, Esq, Annual Value . £124. jHIS Church was founded early in the Thirteenth Century as a Chapel of Ease to the Mother Church and Parish of South Weald. It is no longer devoted to sacred purposes, but the murmur of a School is heard within its hoary walls. It was established for the con venience of the tenants of the Abbot and Convent of Saint Osith resident at Cost Hall or Brentwood. " The Chaplain was to pay yearly two pounds of wax to the Parson, and to swear that he would not knowingly injure the mother Church : all offerings made by strangers and passengers (except at the time of the fair, or on the feast of St. Thomas) were to be for his use." The original plan and extent of the building are complete : it comprises Chancel, Nave, Tower, and North Porch in the style of architecture that prevailed in the reign of Edward the First ; the walls are rubble built, faced with round pebbles laid regularly 162 churches OF ESSEX. and interspersed with blocks of stone, and occasionally a layer of thin tiles. The roofs, of less ancient date, are high pitched and covered with tiles. The Chancel is twenty-seven feet in length by seventeen feet six inches in width, and ceiled in a waggon-headed form ; the ancient moulded and over-hanging wall plates remain. The walls are two feet in thickness ; on the south are two original double-hght windows of pleasing design and proportions, also the mutilated remains of a double piscina : on the north, one original window like those opposite, and one in the " Perpen dicular" style, of more lofty proportions. The east wall with an unusually large window, appears to have been re-built or cased (in the Six teenth Century) with red bricks, ornament ed with black headers in reticulated pat terns : the window is a fine example of the period with four com partments with plain tracery : a moulded brick transom, of the same section as the mullions, adds much to its character; the arch and label retain the original Edwar dian form. The wall between the Chancel and the Nave is two BRICK WINDOW, SIXTEENTH CENTURY. fcct niue Inchcs thlck ; Ground Plan of Brentwood Church, Essex. BRENTWOOD. 167 the Chancel Arch thirteen feet three inches in width, is of noble character, with two reveals, chamfered on the edges ; the under soffite grows out of the jambs. The width of the Nave, rather more than twice that of the Chancel Arch, is twenty-seven feet between the walls: the length thirty-nine feet. On the south is a small specimen of a " Perpendicular" piscina with cusped head, the corbel has been cut flush with the wall : there was doubtless a side altar here. Two triple-light windows (fine specimens of Fifteenth Century " Perpendicular" work) proved, in later times, inadequate to light the Church ; the large west window was blocked up ; huge galleries erected ; and it became necessary to insert four dormer lights in the roof. The roof retains its three ancient principals with moulded tie-beams, and king posts, with four brackets from each, to support the rafters and longitudinal timber at the apex : the rest of the construction is hidden by a comparatively modern ceiling. The tie-beam next the Chancel was renewed in 1619 ; in addition to the date, it bears the initials I. S. in ornamental letters ; the chamfered edges are cleverly stopped-off. On one of the king posts, is an antique and delicately formed bracket of iron, designed probably to support a banner. The gallery, eighteen feet in depth at the west, is returned on the sides to the Chancel Arch ; the old front deserves notice, as a specimen of Jacobian design ; it is of sound workmanship, composed of three flat arches with carved key stones, highly ornamented pilasters, and elaborately carved balusters. There were anciently three Entrances, one from the present Vicarage garden, on the South, with rounded mouldings and well finished label, the masonry is of soft stone, and relieved by an arch of hard blue-lias stone laid edgewise, and as sound and compact as when first built. Another on the West, also, of crumbling stone, but contracted in its size with brickwork, in the Sixteenth Century ; the old oak door, made to fit the brickwork, still retains its sturdy hinges. The third and most 168 churches OF ESSEX. important Entrance was on the North, from the High-Street, under a completely modernised Porch with gabled roof: the ancient oak door, with its iron work, remains in the original masonry, the mouldings of which are finely undercut, and tolerably perfect. The Tower stands at the north-west corner, within the walls of the Nave ; but in order that its area should not be wholly lost to the Church, the two internal walls are carried upon extremely elegant arches ; the angle of the pier supporting them is relieved by a graceful and lofty octagonal pillar, with capital and base, the projecting portions of which are mutilated. The Tower is about seven feet six inches square inside ; the walls, three feet six thick at the base, are built of rubble masonry ; the circular staircase, in the north-west angle, is but fifteen inches in width ; the steps, of a solid hard stone, with small round newel carefully wrought, lead to the first floor, which is lighted by a small single compartment window on the west. The Belfry, ap proached by a ladder, has, on the east and west, double light " Perpendicular" windows, and on the north and south, single light openings, all with inner facings of masonry of a perishable quality. There were two Bells, cast in 1764, and removed to a new Church that was erected in 1835; portions of the old framing remain. The floors and internal construction of the upper part of the Tower are in a state of dilapidation. The Spire, probably a century and a half old, is built of ancient timbers ; the outline is satisfactory, and the covering of copper, a material frequently used for such purposes at the time this Spire was rebuilt : at the apex is an old fashioned wrought iron staff, with the points of the compass, and a weathercock. For school purposes a boarded floor has been laid above the level of the old pavement, by which the building loses its fair proportions. Great credit is due to the authorities whose care protects this relic from further injury by the boys collected within its walls. BRENTWOOD. 169 In the modern Church is a small brass plate to Johannes Parker, 1673, and two excellent fragments of painted glass ; one the arms of England and France quartered, the other the cross of Saint George, ruby on ground argent ; smaU salvage from Saint Thomas's Chapel. HISTORICAL NOTICES. — seQQiJfQQse — This District once formed a portion of the Forest of Essex, and was called by the Normans Bois arse, or Boscus Arsus, Burnt- wood; from the fact that this portion of the Forest was de stroyed by fire. The Hamlet is very ancient, for King Stephen granted a market and fair in consideration of its having grown a considerable place, and according to Wright, it was given to the Abbey of Saint Osith by William de Wochendon Camerarius, (William the Chamberlain,) and confirmed to that house by King Henry the Second, at the time the latter was founded, or soon after. " At the request of David the Abbot, with the consent of Eustace de Fauconbergh, Bishop of London ; Mr. Richard, Parson of Walde ; Richard, Abbot of Waltham and his Convent, then Patrons hereof, that licence was given to build a Chapel here, early in the Thirteenth Century."* The Chap lain was to be presented by the Convent of Saint Osith : now the Lord of the Manor of Weald is Patron. In the Fourteenth Century a complaint was made to Simon Sudbury, Bishop of London, of a great neglect of duty, and of alienating the house belonging to the Chaplain, to laymen : the Patrons were cited and appeared by their Proctor, who promised to pay fifty shillings yearly to the maintenance of the Chaplain, * Newcourt's Repertorium. 170 CHURCHES OF ESSEX. and promised that the Chaplain's house should not be alienated in future. After the Suppression of the Monasteries, King Henry the Eighth granted the Manor of Brentwood or Costead Hall to Thomas Lord Cromwell, upon whose attainder it reverted to the Crown, and in 1553 King Edward the Sixth bestowed it upon Anthony Brown. It next came to the Smiths, and after wards to the Tower Family, the present owner is Christopher T. Tower, Esq. The Assizes were formerly held here, and a few years ago the remains of the Town Hall and Prison, afterwards the Crown Inn, in the High Street, were pulled down. The History of Essex by A Gentleman records " that Mr. Simonds, in his Collection, saith that his Master had writings to show that the Inn was very ancient, it had been an inn for 300 years, with this sign, that a family named Salmon held it 200 years, that there had been 89 owners, amongst whom were an Earl of Oxford and an Earl of Sussex." Brentwood District. The acreage included in the Parish of South Weald. Number of Houses in 1851 . . 465 Population 2205 South East View of Little Braxted Church, Essex. >^^^?