What’s the secret history of your house?….

When I was researching my book “Sudbury, Long Melford, and Lavenham Through Time” (available from Amazon), this postcard from the early 1900s totally and utterly baffled me.

I “knew” I was in the right place for the Bull Hotel, but I just couldn’t find the building.

This was bizarre.

I’ve long known Long Melford’s Bull Inn – with its very large and striking Tudor frontage.

I’d first encountered the hotel when I went to a lovely wedding reception there in the late 90s. Additionally, I had stayed in the Bull several times in the years immediately before I wrote my book.

But looking at my postcard showing the hotel from the early 1900s, I had a totally ditzy moment about it. I thought the photographer had incorrectly captioned it. It just didn’t look like the Bull I knew and loved.

So I walked up and down Long Melford’s three mile-long Hall Street looking for this Georgian building…

That was a bad research day – pouring with rain – I was being totally ditzy – walking up and down Hall Street – and I ended up soaked through with sore feet!

I just could not locate the building…

Then I twigged I’d been looking at it all along and it was hiding in plain sight.

Of course, when trying to locate the building, I’d totally forgetton the Georgian’s and Victorian’s love for cladding beautiful Tudor timber-framed buildings with plaster or brick.

The facade shown in my early 1900s postcard was placed onto the building in the 1820s. For over a hundred years, the Bull Hotel had the appearance of a grand square-fronted symmetrical Georgian building – not a sprawling timber framed Tudor structure.

But the cladding was finally taken down in 1935 – revealing its original beautiful timber-framed Tudor building.

Strange to think that our Victorian and Edwardian ancestors – if they’d visited Long Melford – would have seen the Bull Hotel as being a splendidly imposing Georgian building.

During the Georgian period, many gorgeous Tudor timber-framed houses were encased in a red-brick facade. We think them to be an elegant Georgian buildings. Whereas they’re hiding in plain sight a fabulous Tudor structure.

Do you live in a Georgian house? Is it hiding it’s past?

If you are fascinated about the history of your home, then you’ll be interested in my new online course

🏡 If Walls Could Talk…
Uncover the secret history of your home🏡

Make you note in your diary… signup starts from 19 September 2019.

Course commences on Monday 30 September 2019

Keep an eye on my blog throughout rest of September for more news.

I’m also doing regular posts on my Facebook page about how to

🏡🏡 Uncover the secret history of your home🏡🏡

I hope you’ll join me and take part in this fascinating course. Learn how you can trace the history of your home.

As this is the first pilot version of my course, it’ll be offered at a very special low price that will not be repeated.

Resources for tracing the history of your home

I’ve written a short pdf listing some of the resources that you can use for  researching the history of your house.

Download 25 online resources for uncovering the secret history of your home…

By giving us your details, you are agreeing to join our email list to receive emails and offers on our services. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails, or from this website. For information about our privacy practices, click here. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.

Long Melford Through Time

Post created: September 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

The not so secret past of houses in Hutton Poplars

The other day I told you about the first home I purchased in the 1980s – a converted Victorian school in Wimbledon.

After I left Wimbledon, I moved to Hutton close to Shenfield in Essex. Where I became fascinated by the history of the new houses that were then being built in an area known as Hutton Poplars – in the grounds of a former Edwardian school.

For anyone visiting or passing through Hutton, this building is a familiar sight – Hutton Poplar Lodge.  It looks the same today as it did when this photograph was taken one hundred years ago – shortly before the First World War.

It is one of only three buildings that have survived from a large Edwardian industrial school founded by, among others, George Lansbury in 1906. This building was once the porters’ lodge.

During the final years of the nineteenth century, Poplar Board of Guardians decided to sell their Forest Gate training schools because of the terrible conditions. On New Year’s Day 1890, a devastating fire broke out in the Forest Gate school and 26 small boys died.

Despite this appalling fire and the generally awful conditions, the school continued in Forest Gate until the early 1900s.

Chairman of Poplar Board of Guardians, George Lansbury, a social reformer, paid a visit to rural Hutton (next to Shenfield) and liked what he saw. At Lansbury’s instigation, Hutton Industrial School (also known as Poplar Union Training School) was built in 1906 at the cost of £160,000. 

Originally founded as a residential school for pauper boys from Poplar, the school eventually accommodated both boys and girls based around the concept of a “cottage home”. 

Fortunately, this school did not have same appalling reputation that Hackney Industry School had in nearby Brentwood. The school in Hutton was generally so well-run that the Board of Guardians had to appear before a Parliamentary Committee accused of “extravagances” in the new school!

The school closed in the 1980s and the majority of its buildings were demolished – apart from 3 buildings still present today. 

Today the area is known as Hutton Poplars and contains extensive new housing. 

Is your house in Hutton Poplars? If it is, did you know the story of the area?

Here’s a quiz for you. George Lansbury later became the British Labour Leader in the 1930s. He had a very very famous grandchild – an absolute legend. What’s his grandchild’s name? (No Googling!!)

New Online Course to trace the history of your home…

If you are fascinated about the history of your home, then you’ll be interested in my new online course

🏡 If Walls Could Talk…
Uncover the secret history of your home🏡

Make you note in your diary… signup starts from 19 September 2019.

Course commences on Monday 30 September 2019

Keep an eye on my blog throughout rest of September for more news.

I’m also doing regular posts on my Facebook page about how to

🏡🏡 Uncover the secret history of your home🏡🏡

I hope you’ll join me and take part in this fascinating course. Learn how you can trace the history of your home.

As this is the first pilot version of my course, it’ll be offered at a very special low price that will not be repeated.

Resources for tracing the history of your home

I’ve written a short pdf listing some of the resources that you can use for  researching the history of your house.

Download 25 online resources for uncovering the secret history of your home…

By giving us your details, you are agreeing to join our email list to receive emails and offers on our services. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails, or from this website. For information about our privacy practices, click here. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.

Post created: September 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

Tracing the history of my home…

This is the first home I purchased. Back in the heady days of the low property prices of the 1980s.

It was a converted flat – converted from an old Victorian school built in 1896 (so the date plaque on the right entrance states).

When it was built, Wimbledon was in Surrey – the inscription over the left entrance “S.C.C.” marking that it was a school under the governance of Surrey County Council. But without the building moving an inch, it’s now in the London Borough of Merton.

I was in my very early 20s and fell in love with the flat the minute I set my eyes on it.

I knew I had to have it.

I first saw it literally as it was being converted from a school to a block of one-bedroom flats. I wish I’d had a camera back then to record the renovation’s progress!!

When I bought the flat in 1986, it cost £41,500 – then an arm and a leg. Other nearby one-bedroom flats were all between £35,000 to £38,000. The jump to £41,500 was massive. Well, it was in those days! I had to take on a massive mortgage at stupid interest rates to pay for it.

But I was obsessed with it.

I had started genealogical research when I was just 18. But until this point, I hadn’t dipped my toes into local history. However, when I saw this building, I not only fell in love with the building, but also the local history of the area.

And the idea of living in an old Victorian school.

The converted flats kept the 2 original entrances either end of the block; one for girls and the other for boys. The developers also added a new central entrance for those of us whose front-doors were in the middle. To this day, I can still recall the noise of the buzzer and door-release.

The central large-oval window in the block was the massive window on the landing leading to the front-doors of all the central flats. The small window to its right (top floor) was my bedroom. Immediately above my bedroom’s ceiling was a massive full height loft that I always intended – but never did – investigate.

To its right – and the last huge window on the right of the building – was my living room. Not a massive room – conversions were very lacking in space in the 80s!. But it had a massive 20+ foot high ceiling.

A high living-room ceiling is an obsession that I’ve always had – dating from this wonderful flat. My current living room – many miles (in more ways then one) from my first flat – is also 20+ foot high. That’s despite my home today not being a Victorian converted property, but a house purpose-built in 2000.

My living room in my flat was part of the old school’s hall. Sometimes at night, I used to lie in bed, imagining the noise of the children in their school hall. In fact, on the night of the Great Hurricane of 1987, I thought they’d all come back to pay me a visit. Until I realised that it was Mother Nature conjuring her wrath on my road – not the ghosts of small children.

I spent three very happy years there. I never did research its history as a school. I bought every single local history book that was out at the time. There were a wide range of local history books even then, and those books are today still on my overflowing bookcases. When I’m long gone, my children (all born and bred in Essex) will wonder why I have countless books on Wimbledon and Merton (unless they read this post!).

I moved out reluctantly (but happily) in September 1989 when my eldest was on her way. No room for a baby in a 2nd floor one-bedroom flat – no lift and no storage (even if there was a massive loft!).

When I lived in there in the late 80s, there was no parking restrictions. I can see from Google’s StreetView that there is now.

The fun I had parking on that road! First come, first serve to the few parking spaces back then. But in those days, it was only one car per flat – and 9 flats. With most homes today having at least two cars, it must be mayhem now…

But I moved to Essex, and the rest, as they say is history (at least, for my family). Once I was a Surrey girl, now I’m an honorary Essex girl!

My obsession with local history started in this building and I look at it with fond memories.

I regret that I didn’t take photographs as they changed the building from being Victorian school to a modern luxurious block of flats.

And I will always regret that I never did research its history when I lived there.

Since the 1980s, plenty of Victorian red-brick schools across the country have been renovated into houses and flats.

❓Do you live in a converted school? ❓

❓Or do you live (or once lived) in a home that has been converted from another use – such as a hospital, workhouse, mill or a pub?❓

~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are fascinated about the history of your home, then you’ll be interested in my new online course

🏡 If Walls Could Talk…
Uncover the secret history of your home🏡

Make you note in your diary… signup starts from 19 September 2019.

Course commences on Monday 30 September 2019

Keep an eye on my blog throughout rest of September for more news.

I’m also doing regular posts on my Facebook page about how to

🏡🏡 Uncover the secret history of your home🏡🏡

I hope you’ll join me and take part in this fascinating course. Learn how you can trace the history of your home.

As this is the first pilot version of my course, it’ll be offered at a very special low price that will not be repeated.

Resources for tracing the history of your home

I’ve written a short pdf listing some of the resources that you can use for  researching the history of your house.

Download 25 online resources for uncovering the secret history of your home…

By giving us your details, you are agreeing to join our email list to receive emails and offers on our services. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails, or from this website. For information about our privacy practices, click here. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.

Post created: September 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

A house through time…

Have you ever wondered who once lived in your house?

Do you wonder….
👉Who built it and why?
👉What were their names?
👉Their occupations?
👉How did they live their lives?

Tracing the history of your home is a fascinating and all absorbing hobby.

But where do you start?…..

Roughly speaking, house-history research can be split into two large (massive!) themes:-

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👦     The people who lived in your house.  👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

🏡The building itself.🏡

So there’s two broad questions to ask about your home…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a) Who lived in your house? 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍👧‍👦👦👧👨👩

A variety of records can be used to discover the stories of your home’s occupants – from Census Returns and 1939 Registers, to tithe apportionment records and parish records.

~~~~~~~~~~~

b) Your house 🏘️🏚️🏡

You may be able to guess a lot about the physical building. Its building material – such as brick, flint, stone, timber-framed.

However, you will want to research other information such as when, why and who built your home. The date of your house – the era/century/decade.

Finding out information about the house itself is often the more complex of the two broad themes connected with house-histories…

Sometimes records will exist about the construction of your house. But not all the time…

Certainly, for older homes, records will be far more sketchy. You’ll need to use all sorts of detective work to pin down your house’s full story!

That’s all part of the fun!

🔎🔎Step-by-step, peeling back the layers…until you find the true story of the history of your house… 🔎🔎

~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are fascinated about the history of your house, then you’ll be interested in my online course

🏡 If Walls Could Talk…

Uncover the secret history of your home🏡

I hope you’ll join me and take part in this fascinating course.

 

 

Post updated: April 2020 Post created: September 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2020

Tracing the history of your home

Tracing the history of your home is a fascinating and all absorbing hobby.

But where do you start?…..

Roughly speaking, house-history research can be split into two large themes:-

• The people who lived in my house.
• The building itself.

So there’s two broad questions to ask about your home…

a) Who lived in your house?

Have you ever wondered who lived in your house before you?

• What sort of life did they lead?
• What jobs/occupations did they have?
• How many children?
• What was their family life?
• What were their tragedies and triumphs?

Children pose for the camera in Lavenham – early 1900s

Sudbury early 1900s

A variety of records can be used to discover the stories of your home’s occupants – from Census Returns and Registers, to tithe apportionment records.

Even eBay and Facebook can be used to discover the stories of people who once lived in your home!

b) Your house

You may be able to guess a lot about the physical building that is your home. Its building material – such as brick, flint, stone, timber-framed.

However, you will want to research other information such as when, why and who built your home.  The date of your house – the era/century/decade.

Finding out information about the house itself is often the more complex of the two broad themes connected with house-histories…

Sometimes records will exist about the construction of your house. But not all the time…

Certainly for older homes, records will be far more sketchy.  You’ll need to use all sorts of detective work to pin down your house’s full story!

That’s all part of the fun!

Step-by-step, peeling back the layers…until you find the true story of the history of your house…

Resources for tracing the history of your home

I’ve written a short pdf listing some of the resources that you can use for part b) of the conundrum of researching the history of a house – When was my house built

Download your FREE eBook 25 online resources for uncovering the secret history of your home…

By giving us your details, you are agreeing to join our email list to receive emails and offers on our services. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails, or from this website. For information about our privacy practices, click here. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.

Post created: September 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

Just recently, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in 18th century Maldon.

Well, to be more precise, I’ve been delving into the town’s parish registers for the 1700s – hunting down a client’s ancestors.

A fascinating pastime it’s been.

Some of the surnames from the past, I recognise in many of today’s townsfolk.

Maldon is an unusual town as it has 3 Church of England parish churches. Whilst a few Essex and Suffolk towns have a couple of CofE parish churches, it is rare for any town to have 3 parishes. I can only think of Sudbury that has two parish churches. But there’s probably more.

Maldon’s three CofE parish churches were

• All Saints
• St Peter’s
• St Mary’s

The parish of St Mary’s was/is quite distinct from the other two as it’s at the bottom of town.

But with All Saints and St Peter’s, the two parishes were more fluid with our ancestors using either churches for baptisms, marriages and burials.

Today, St Peter’s is a redundant church and only its tower has survived. The site of the ancient St Peter’s church was purchased by Thomas Plume to house his worldwide famous Plume Library at the end of the 17th century.

Today, the building also has an Exhibition Hall that houses the excellent Maeldune Heritage Centre.

The Plume Library’s website (and Pevsner) states that St Peter’s Church was redundant by the time of Thomas Plume’s purchase in the 1690s and his death in 1704. And that the church had become redundant in the 16th century – shortly after the Reformation.

However, the parish registers stored at Essex Record Office tell a different story. The townsfolk of Maldon were using both All Saints and St Peters to baptise their children, marry their partners, and dispatch their dead long into the 18th century.

St Peter’s registers aren’t as comprehensive as All Saints. The townsfolk did use All Saints more then St Peters. Nonetheless, there are separate parish registers covering St Peter’s baptisms, marriages and burials up until the mid 18th century – showing that St Peter’s was still in use.

• The last burial in St Peter’s churchyard was William Sweeting on 13 May 1750
• The last baptism in St Peter’s was in 1755. Martha, the daughter of James and Margaret Cutler born on 3 March 1754. Although this baptism is an oddity – a final baptism in the (possibly by then) redundant church. The previous baptisms took place several years earlier during the first part of 1749/1750.
• The final wedding in St Peter’s took place 15 February 1709/10 between James Faulks and Susanna Brown. There were only 19 wedding at St Peter’s during the 18th century.

So, by the early 18th century, the registers show that St Peter’s was fast in decline. But townsfolk were still using the church for registering their hatching, matching and dispatching.

Whilst I was researching this information, it did occur to me that the parish registers were recording people who lived in St Peter’s parish, but that they were physically using All Saints Church.

But I discounted this when I saw that a few entries specifically stated that such and such person was from St Peter’s parish and baptised in All Saints Church or married in St Mary’s. The implication being that when a church wasn’t explicitly mentioned in St Peter’s registers, it was St Peter’s being used.

Unless you know otherwise?… Was St Peter’s still being used in the early 18th century? Or were these merely people from St Peter’s parish that were using either All Saints or St Mary’s but their details recorded in a register for St Peter’s?

Hmmm…..!

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Not sure how to trace your family tree?… Need help researching the history of your house?..Would a Discovery Research Plan aid you in your own historical research? Let me help help you.  Contact me today! Subscribe to my emails for hints, tips & tricks! And like my Facebook Page Uncover past secrets…

Post: July 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

The other day, I showed you a zoomable map of Colchester – as it was in 1768 – when Philip Morant published the first county history of Essex.

Today, this map has moved on in time – still in Colchester – but now we’re in 1909.

From the British Library’s website, this is the description of the map:-

“This “key plan” indicates coverage of the Goad 1909 series of fire insurance maps of Colchester that were originally produced to aid insurance companies in assessing fire risks. The building footprints, their use (commercial, residential, educational, etc.), the number of floors and the height of the building, as well as construction materials (and thus risk of burning) and special fire hazards (chemicals, kilns, ovens) were documented in order to estimate premiums. Names of individual businesses, property lines, and addresses were also often recorded. Together these maps provide a rich historical snapshot of the commercial activity and urban landscape of towns and cities at the time. The British Library holds a comprehensive collection of fire insurance plans produced by the London-based firm Charles E. Goad Ltd. dating back to 1885. These plans were made for most important towns and cities of the British Isles at the scales of 1:480 (1 inch to 40 feet), as well as many foreign towns at 1:600 (1 inch to 50 feet).”

Click the image below to see the zoomable map of Colchester as it was in 1909. The link will take you to the British Library’s website.

 

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Not sure how to trace your family tree?… Need help researching the history of your house?..Would a Discovery Research Plan aid you in your own historical research? Let me help help you.  Contact me today! Subscribe to my emails for hints, tips & tricks! And like my Facebook Page Uncover past secrets…

Post: June 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

Continuing on with the plates from Philip Morant’s eighteenth century book on Essex. The county’s first history.

This next plate/engraving is of the Priory of St Osyth Priory.  Originally a religious priory, it was closed by Henry VIII at the Dissolution of Monasteries in 1539.

In 1553 the estate was granted to Thomas, 1st Lord Darcy (1506-58), for £3,947.   According to The National Archives’ online Currency Convertor, in the 1550’s, this was the equivalent in today’s money of a staggering £1,084,235!!!

If you live in the Maldon area, you will be very familiar with the D’Arcy name.  It was this family that built the Moot Hall in the High Street in the fifteenth century.  And why the village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy’s is so named – after the village’s estate that was in the hands of the D’Arcy family from the 15^th century onwards.

They were a fabulously wealthy, powerful and influential family – not just in Essex, but in England too.

The D’Arcy family also became the owners of St Osyth’s Priory from 1553, and owned the Priory for the next hundred or so years.

You may be aware that I have great research interests in the Witches of Elizabethan Essex. One event that has fascinated me includes Essex’s (and probably England’s) first witch-hunt.  This witch-hunt took place in St Osyth’s – led by none other than a member of the D’Arcy family.

Brian D’Arcy was a lesser member of this great and powerful Essex family.  He was born at Tiptree Priory sometime in the mid-sixteenth century.

By 1582, he was living in St Osyth’s Priory and “merely” the local JP/magistrate.  Unfortunately for the local women of the village, he decided that he wanted to be as powerful as his famous D’Arcy relatives.

This he achieved with appalling results for the local population.

He carried out a witch-hunt.

The first person to be interrogated was the local midwife – Ursula Kemp.  She immediately confessed to being a witch and confessed that she had caused the death of a baby.

This started a snowball effect with many women throughout St Osyth and nearby Great Clacton implicated in the alleged witchcraft activities.  These activities had apparently taken place in the village and surrounding area.

By the end of Brian D’Arcy’s 1582 witch-hunt, at least 10 women – all from the village or the nearby area – were tried and executed in Chelmsford for murder by witchcraft.  Many more were incarcerated in Colchester Castle (Essex’s county gaol), but released after being found not-guilty during their trial.

It has been calculated that for the whole of the 1580s, the activities of Brian D’Arcy account for 13% of all trials for all crimes that took place in Essex that decade.  That is a tremendously high number!

St Osyth today is small. Back then, the population was tiny.  Probably every single family or house in the village were under the shadow of this appalling witch-hunt.

After the witch trials were over, Brian D’Arcy got his wish to be all powerful. He became the Sheriff of Essex in 1585. On the back of his witch-hunting activities.

Many people have heard about Matthew Hopkins – the self-styled Witch-finder General.  But few know about Brian D’Arcy.  Essex’s (and England’s) first witchfinder.  Who, for his own political ambitions, conducted England’s first ever witch-hunt – with devastating consequences for local St Osyth’s women.

Across today’s Maldon District, the legacy of the D’Arcy family is tremendous.  The beautiful village bearing the family’s name. Maldon’s fabulous Moot Hall.

But less known is the legacy of Brian D’Arcy’s terrible witch-hunt of 1582.

My online course on the Witches of Elizabethan and Stuart course explains more about the strange story of witchcraft in Essex. Click the “Learn More” button below for full details.

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

Not sure how to trace your family tree?... Need help researching the history of your house?..Would a Discovery Research Plan aid you in your own historical research?  Let me help help you.  Contact me today! Subscribe to my emails for hints, tips & tricks! And like my Facebook Page Uncover past secrets…

Post Updated: April 2020 Post Created: June 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2020

On my last blog-post, I wrote about Philip Morant’s 1760s book that documented eighteenth century Essex:

“The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex”.

It was the first county history of Essex and published in two volumes: the first in 1763 and the last in 1768.

The book contained a number of plates/engravings with maps of the Hundreds of Essex and other engravings.  All beautifully executed and drawn.

This plate/engraving was dedicated to Thomas Barrett-Lennard, 17th Lord Dacre. It shows the Quarterings of England.

This wasn’t the coat of arms for Lord Dacre so I’m not sure why it was included in the book. Although, I think once again, Philip Morant was currying favour with the great and the good of Essex. And implying that Lord Dacre was a significant player within Georgian England.

Ironically, at my local history talk last week for Stebbing History Society, someone asked me about raven on emblems. Apparently ravens appear a flag/emblem within Thaxted church. And here in this plate for the Quarterings of England, there are at least two ravens!

I know very little about Coats of Arms and Heraldy. Can anyone help?

 

Check back next week when I’ll be putting on my blog other images contained within Morant’s book

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Not sure how to trace your family tree?… Need help researching the history of your house?..Would a Discovery Research Plan aid you in your own historical research? Let me help help you.  Contact me today! Subscribe to my emails for hints, tips & tricks! And like my Facebook Page Uncover past secrets…

Post: June 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

In my last few blog-posts, I written about Philip Morant’s 1760s book that documented eighteenth century Essex:

“The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex”.

It was the first county history of Essex and published in two volumes: the first in 1763 and the last in 1768.

The book contained a number of maps of the Hundreds of Essex, along with line drawings of grand Essex mansions (and the occasional church).  All beautifully executed and drawn.

Unfortunately, because of these beautiful engravings, many surviving books have suffered considerable damage – with many plates removed and sold separately.

Here are some of the engravings of eighteenth century Essex from this book.

 

The impressive and grand Wanstead House.  According to good ole wikipedia, the House was demolished in 1825 – after the death of Britain’s wealthiest heiress. Its gardens are now part of the London Borough of Redbridge’s Wanstead Park.

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

Not sure how to trace your family tree?… Need help researching the history of your house?..Would a Discovery Research Plan aid you in your own historical research? Let me help help you.  Contact me today! Subscribe to my emails for hints, tips & tricks! And like my Facebook Page Uncover past secrets…

Post: June 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019