At the moment, I am knee-deep in postcards, papers and books relating to the Hertfordshire town of Bishop’s Stortford, whilst I research and write my forthcoming book Bishop’s Stortford Through Time for the publishers, Amberley Publishing. During my quest for material, I happened across a book from 1882: The Records of St Michael’s parish church, Bishop’s Stortford, edited by J.L Glasscock, Jun. This book has verbatium transcripts of various manuscripts, which, at that time, were held in the parish chest within the church at Bishop’s Stortford. These manuscripts included various churchwardens’ accounts – which start in 1431. My regular readers will know that I am just ever-so slightly obsessed with churchwardens’ accounts, having spent a great many years researching and analysing the Essex town of Great Dunmow’s Tudor churchwardens’ accounts. Great Dunmow’s accounts start in the 1520s, when Henry VIII was on the throne and still married to Katherine of Aragon, and England was still a staunchly Catholic nation. Bishop’s Stortford’s, although incomplete, start in 1431 – nearly a hundred years earlier, when the boy-king King Henry VI had been on throne 10 years, and the main protagonists of the bloody War of the Roses from the Royal Houses of Lancaster and York had either not yet been born, or were still peaceful law-abiding young men. Pretty impressive for medieval manuscripts – regarding the workings of a small English parish church – to have survived for so long.
Windhill and parish church of St Michael’s, Bishop’s Stortford in the 1900s
Unlike Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts – which were beautifully bound in a tooled leather volume – Bishop’s Stortford’s accounts were loose-leaved and lying scattered in the parish chest. Amongst the churchwardens’ accounts were other manuscripts, including the “reckonings” (accounts) of the vermin catcher(s) for the years 1569 to 1571. They make fascinating reading – so I have reproduced them here – exactly as J.L Glasscock, Jun, transcribed them over hundred years ago in 1882.
St Michael’s parish church, Bishop’s Stortford in the 1900s
The Destruction of Vermin The Accounte and Reconynge of me Edward Wylley of Stortford, Collectore of all man’ of veyrmane of ij [2] yeres past both of Charge and Dyscharge as here aftr folloth frome the xij [12] daye of App’lle in a° [i.e. Anno Domino]1569 to this yere of a 1571.
On the first page is what he terms his “charge,” which is an account of moneys received by him from various persons “at v [5] tymes;” he received altogether “lij.s. vij½d” [52 shillings and 7½ pence]. Then follows his “Dyscharge,” which consists of various payments made by him to the destroyers of vermin :
He paid for:
Hedge hoggs heads . 2d each
Crose [crows] eggs 2d per doz
Pyse [magpie] eggs 2d
vj [6] crose [crows] hedds 1d
vj [6] hawkys hedes 1d
xij [12] Ratts hedes 1d
1 mowlle [mole] ½d
xij [12] myse [mice] heddes 1d
xij [12] starlyngs hedes 1d
a wysells [weasel] hede 1d
v [5] hedds of the kyngs fyschers [king fishers] 5d
a powlle cats [pole cat] hed 2d
1 boulle fynches [bullfinches] hed 1d
During the two years over which this account extends I find that vermin was destroyed within the parish of Stortford to the following extent, viz :
141 hedgehogs, 53 moles, 6 weasels, 202 crows’ eggs, 128 pies’ [magpies’] eggs, 18 young crows, 80 rats, 18 crows, 2 bullfinches, 5 hawks, 24 starlings, 5 kingfishers, 1 polecat, 1,426 mice; and besides these there are 118 heads of crows, hawks, and “cadows” (jackdaws).
Note: “There used to be a standing committee in every parish for the destruction of ‘noyfull fowles and vermyn.’ The practice still exists in some rural parishes. But many readers may be surprised to learn that this object was formerly felt to be so important that the practical use of it already then existing in many parishes received the express sanction of general suggestion by statute. A committee, consisting of the churchwardens together with six other parishioners, is named with power to tax and assess every person holding lands or tythes in any parish yearly at Easter, and whenever else it may be needful, in order to raise a sum of money to be put in the hands of two other persons, who are to distribute it. And these distributors are to pay this money in rewards for the different sorts of vermin brought in. The record is curious, and interesting enough on its own account to be rescued from forgetfulness, if only for its bearing on the natural history of the country.” Toulmin Smith, “The Parish and its Obligations and Powers“, 1854 p. 232.
The Records of St Michael’s parish church, Bishop’s Stortford, edited by J.L Glasscock, Jun, 1882, p156-157
Some of the English wildlife captured and killed by the vermin man of Tudor Bishop’s Stortford 1569-1571
As someone who was brought up listening to the bedtime English tales of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, The Wind in the Willows, and The Little Grey Rabbit – along with the American tales of Thornton W Burges and Old Mother West Wind – I find Tudor tales of killing these creatures thought-provoking. Some, now as then, still vermin; whilst others are now much loved members of the English countryside’s wildlife.
A Tudor Rat Catcher
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A slightly strange thing to be doing on a cold winter’s afternoon on a Sunday in January, but those of you who know me, know that I’m slightly obsessed with the witches of Essex. Essex people (mainly women) who – between the 1560s and c1680s – were legally convicted of the crime of witchcraft.
Living close to the Essex town of Maldon, I’m a mere stone’s throw from some of the major “outbreaks” of England’s Tudor witchcraft. So, hence my decision to go on a witch-hunt.
Today, I visited the village Hatfield Peverel. In this village lived one of the first people to be executed for witchcraft in England. She was executed in 1566. If Essex was Tudor witch-county (which it was), then Hatfield Peverel was witch-village. The parish had more Elizabethan witches living in it than anywhere else in Essex (and therefore, by default, anywhere in England).
Hatfield Peverel today, despite being near the City of Chelmsford, is still relatively small. It is probably better known for its a train station with fast trains into London and its very easy access to the A12.
Not many people realise that it was once a witch village.
So, I went hunting for poor Agnes Waterhouse of Hatfield Peverel – executed in Chelmsford in 1566 for being a witch. Her grandmother, sister and daughter – all of Hatfield Peverel – were witches too.
A woodcutting of Agnes Waterhouse. Executed in 1566 for murdering William Fynee by witchcraft
Today, there is very little trace of the Tudor or medieval village. A small amount of remnants are present in a few buildings and within the names of some of the houses. Such as Priory Lodge – located where there was once a medieval priory. Later, the ruins of the former priory were heavily amended during the 18th century.
Born in the early 1500s, Agnes Waterhouse and her family would have known the original Benedictine priory. It was closed in 1536, during Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries – part of the consequences of the English Reformation. Long before her execution in 1566, as a young poor woman of the village, Agnes might have visited the priory, seeking charity and alms – such as bread and milk – for her family from its monks.
With most of the medieval/Tudor village long gone, the nearest I could get to poor Agnes was today’s parish church – St Andrew’s.
Agnes Waterhouse was born in the early 1500s – during the reign of Catholic Henry VII. Today’s parish church was originally part of the pre-Reformation Catholic priory’s church. But by the time of her trial in 1566, England had changed and was Protestant under Queen Elizabeth I’s Religious Settlement.
So much religious change happened during the 60 years of Agnes’ life.
A booklet printed at the time of her execution stated that Agnes said her prayers in Latin. A clear indication to Tudor folk that she was of the old religion – the banned Catholic faith. During Elizabeth I’s reign, England was a Protestant country and everyone was legally forced to say their prayers in English – the language of Protestantism.
Agnes’ prosecutors used the fact that she said her prayers in Latin – the language of the banned Catholic faith – as evidence that she was a witch.
Strange times…
Unfortunately, today Hatfield Peverel’s church was locked, so I couldn’t get inside it. The interior probably looks very different to how it was during Agnes’ childhood. Back then, at the start of the 1500s, the priory’s church must have been highly decorated with paintings of Catholic saints and symbolism. The interiors of English churches were white-washed on the orders, first of Henry VIII and then later by his son Edward VI.
Today, 450 years on, it was the nearest I could get to Agnes Waterhouse.
It was very peaceful in today’s churchyard – although I could hear the constant roar of the nearby A12 – East Anglia’s equivalent to a motorway. A murder of crows was calling in the churchyard’s trees (I love that expression – I’ve always wanted to say it!). But even in the coldness of the first Sunday in January, snowdrops were in full bloom.
Normally, when I’m witch-hunting, my next steps would be to look in the parish registers – baptisms, marriages and burials. It’s unlikely I’d find the burial of a convicted Essex witch– they were buried in a pit of executed criminals in Chelmsford – in unconsecrated ground. But I might find a witch’s victims buried in the local churchyard.
However a quick look at Essex Record Office’s website shows that Hatfield Peverel’s parish registers start in the early 1600s. I don’t know the complete history of St Andrew’s – particularly when it started to be the village’s parish church after the priory (and therefore it’s church) was closed. Agnes may have worshiped at another nearby church such as the one at Ulting.
So that’s one avenue of my research closed.
I didn’t quite find Agnes. But I certainly found the places where she played and roamed – and learnt her craft of being a witch – as a child in Henry VII’s and Henry VIII’s England.
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By the way, many people think that the major road in Chelmsford – Waterhouse Lane – was named after her. Even Chelmsford’s local newspaper has published an article saying that it was….
But think about it carefully… Witches were feared throughout England. Would a road (even what was, in Tudor times, a small country lane) really be named after a convicted notorious and much dreaded executed witch? Moreover, poor Agnes came from Hatfield Peverel – not Chelmsford.
But then, playing devil’s advocate, maybe the lane was named after her because of her place of execution. Chelmsford’s gallows was located approximately at the start of Waterhouse Lane. The hangman’s gallows were roughly where the road called Primrose Hill now is.
Then again, would the great and good of Tudor Chelmsford really really name a road after an executed and much feared witch from Hatfield Peverel who had a cat called Satan – who spoke to her and told her to say her prayers in Latin.
I think not.
Agnes Waterhouse’s cat – Satan
You can learn more about Agnes Waterhouse and other witches of Essex by enrolling in my online course on the Witches of Elizabethan and Stuart Essex. Click the “Learn More” button below to discover more details…
I have written much on my blog about my young dyslexic son and my battle to secure him an education he can access. I haven’t written much, if anything, about my other much loved and cherished children. Today, my eldest – my first born, my darling girl – is getting married. She came into this world kicking and screaming 23 years, 9 months , 2 weeks and 6 days ago – and I fell in love with her the minute I held her for that very first time – a love that has strengthened and increased with each passing year.
My beautiful girl.
Now a young woman and about to marry her love and embark on a new life as a wife – and one day in the (hopefully not too distant) future, a mother.
Many, many years ago, in another life and another century, I lived in the beautiful Cotswold town of Stroud, Gloucestershire and my elder brother lived in a rented cottage in nearby Slad. The very cottage which was owned by the famous author, Laurie Lee, and the very cottage where Cider with Rosie was written (and, indeed, where most of his books were written). It is to Laurie Lee that I turn to now, and his words to tell you about my precious first born by way of his short essay (much abridged by myself) on his darling girl, his First Born, which was first given to me when my girl was merely days old.
She was born in the autumn and was a late fall in my life, and lay purple and dented like a little bruised plum, as though she’d been lightly trodden in the grass and forgotten. Then the nurse lifted her up and she came suddenly alive, her bent legs kicking crabwise, and her first living gesture was a thin wringing of the hands accompanied by a far- out Hebridean lament.
This moment of meeting seemed to be a birth time for both of us; her first and my second life. Nothing, I knew, would be the same again, and I think I was reasonably shaken. I peered intently at her, looking for familiar signs, but she was convulsed as an Aztec idol. Was this really my daughter, this purple concentration of anguish, this blind and protesting dwarf.
Then they handed her to me, stiff and howling, and I held her for the first time and kissed her, and she went still and quiet as though by instinctive guile, and I was instantly enslaved by her flattery of my powers.
Only a few brief weeks have passed since that day, but already I’ve felt all the obvious astonishments. New-born, of course, she looked already a centenarian, tottering on the brink of an old crone’s grave, exhausted, shrunken, bald as Voltaire, mopping, mowing, and twisting wrinkled claws in speechless spasms of querulous doom. But with each day of survival she has grown younger and fatter, her face filling, drawing on life, every breath of real air healing the birth-death stain she had worn so witheringly at the beginning.
She is of course just an ordinary miracle, but is also the particular late wonder of my life. So each night I take her to bed like a book and lie close and study her. Her dark blue eyes stare straight into mine, but off-centre, not seeing me.
My darling girl. My love. So so proud of you and all you have achieved. I have loved every minute and every second of being your mum. I have watched, awe-inspired, as you grew from a child, to a teenager, to a young woman. Beautiful in heart, mind, personality and looks. I am so very much looking forward to this next part of your life as a couple with your love, and all the joy you will have together – first as a couple, and eventually as a family.
Please join with me in wishing my darling girl and her lovely new husband all the very best in their new life together as husband and wife, Mr and Mrs D.
The images below are from Harrison Fisher (1877-1934), an American artist who had the gift for drawing beautiful Edwardian and art-deco scenes. There is a final, 6th, postcard in this series, but not wanting to jinx our young couple’s future, I’ll leave it to your imagination what the final card depicts.
The proposal
The trousseau
The wedding
The honeymoon
The first evening in their own home
All my love to you both, A & A – the new Mr and Mrs D – now and forever
It is early summer sometime in the mid-1890s. The flowers are in bloom and the leaves are in their full glory on the trees. A young bride poses with her new husband on their wedding day. She is dressed in the fashion of the time – a dress with full leg-of-mutton sleeves with a long train at the back of the dress. She clutches her beautiful spray of fresh flowers, and poses with her wedding party for the camera-man, Stacey of Great Dunmow.
Stacey of Great Dunmow – late Victorian wedding party
One of the female guests lightly rests her hand on the seated older gentleman. Father and daughter? Sister of the bride or of the groom? Is the elderly gent the father of the bride or groom? The bride has two bridesmaids who are both wearing matching dresses and hats, and are holding sprays of flowers (the second bridesmaid’s bouquet is hidden behind the bride’s head). Who are they? Unmarried sisters of the bride and groom, or childhood friends? Who is the woman sitting next to the groom? Is she the mother of either the bride or groom – she’s not wearing a corsage. Or is a corsage for the mothers, a modern-day tradition?
So many questions. The main question being: whose wedding is this? It looked to have been a beautiful sumptuous wedding with all the wedding party in all their full splendor.
That well known internet auction site yielded up this picture but with no clue as to who these people were – apart from the signature of the photographer, Stacey of Great Dunmow. In the Victorian era, Stacey the photographer was also a nurseryman, so it is highly possible that it was his shop who made up the beautiful floral bouquets for the bride and her two bridesmaids, and made the beautiful buttonholes for the males of the wedding party. A beautiful summer’s event captured over a 100 years ago. Someone’s great-grandparents (or great-great?) consigned to the anonymity of the modern age’s internet. It always saddens me when I see these photos of families from long ago times. They had probably been kept by the bride and groom’s descendants for 100 years, but now thrown out with the rubbish in a house clearance. The picture is excellent condition so has been stored safely for over 100 years – but probably not put out on display because age has not marked the picture.
Here they are now out on display into the modern world of the 21st century. The Great Dunmow wedding party of summer sometime in the mid-1890s – captured forever by Stacey’s of Great Dunmow.
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Do you believe in serendipity and synchronicity? The strange forces at play when various unrelated events appear to coincide with each other? As 2013 drew to a close, I had my own piece of inexplicable synchronicity.
In my last post, when I reflected back on two years of writing a blog, I told how it came about that my severely dyslexic son is now in a school for dyslexic children. This hasn’t just been a change for him but also for me as it’s meant the end to my career and working life in London. His wonderful school is in the wrong direction to London and there are absolutely no means by which I can do the school run both ends of the day whilst working in London. So, I’ve had to give up my London-based career of 30 years, and once he settled in his new school last term, I was about to start looking around for a new one.
Just as I was about to start making my plans, into my email inbox flew an unsolicited email from a commissioning editor from Amberley Publishing – a mainstream publisher of local and specialist history book. The editor had read my blog and wanted to talk to me about commissioning me to write a history book! Much toing and froing of emails went backwards and forwards between us until finally, just before Christmas, they agreed to commission not just one, but three history books from me. I now appear to have a new career as a fledgling author of local history books. A strange coincidence that just when, for the first time in my adult life, I had time on my hands to write and needed a new career, Amberley Publishing were looking for new authors and stumbled across my blog. Coincidence or synchronicity?
So now, I’m officially researching for my books and will be writing each of them in the coming months and years. If you have read my blog over the last two years, you will know that I am an obsessive collector of old vintage postcards – particularly those depicting our country’s rich past – moments in time captured by our ancestors through their camera lenses. It will be no surprise to you, therefore, that each of my books is based around vintage postcards on a particular theme or subject.
Here are the titles and release dates for each of my books.
Bishop’s Stortford Through Time (publication date: late 2014)
This book continues Amberley Publishing’s Through Time series of fully illustrated books which traces towns and villages of Britain by comparing vintage postcards to modern-day photographs. My book will tell the story of this Hertfordshire market town through postcards dating from the first half of the twentieth century, compared to modern day photographs of the same locations. Bishop’s Stortford has a rich heritage and rural past before urban regeneration took place and transformed it into the large sprawling town it now is, with a growing population of just under 40,000. I hope to capture some of its past in my book and show the town as it once was in its Edwardian and pre-First World War heyday.
Bishop’s Stortford – The Old Boar’s Head
Bishop’s Stortford – Cricket Field Lane
Bishop’s Stortford – The River Stort
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (publication date: Summer 2015)
Continuing Amberley Publishing’s Through Time series of illustrated books about Britain’s towns and villages, this book will trace these three beautiful medieval Suffolk wool towns through Edwardian, pre-First World War and inter-war postcards. It is ironic that the continuing existence of many of Suffolk’s outstanding medieval buildings bear testimony to the collapse of the wool trade in the area. This collapse led to rural poverty, which, in turn, meant that many medieval Suffolk buildings were left in tact and were not “enhanced” or replaced by the enterprising Victorians. Many Edwardian postcards of these three towns show these medieval buildings – which were once homes and trading-places of fabulously wealthy merchants – but in the Edwardian period reduced to unsanitary and poverty-stricken living quarters. Modern photographs will show how these buildings have been restored in modern times to their former medieval glory.
Lavenham, The Guildhall of Corpus Christi
Long Melford, The Green
Sudbury, Thomas Gainsborough’s birthplace
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (publication date: Summer 2016)
During the Great War (and in the years immediately afterwards), soldiers, sailors and nurses regularly sent home postcards to their loved ones. With the censors removing anything which could give away the sender’s location or military strategy, most soldiers posted simple messages sending their love to all at home. In amongst the hundreds of thousands (if not, millions) of postcards sent home from the Front, some postcards have short messages giving fuller testimony to experiences of war. This book recounts the stories of a few of Britain’s men and women who served in the Great War through their postcards home. This book was entirely inspired by my post Postcards from the Front – from you loving son. I am so happy that I have been given the opportunity to turn this one post into a full book and so can retell the stories of some of the men and women who gave their today for our tomorrow.
Postcards from the Front: Christmas Day in the trenches 1916
The flag we are willing to sacrifice our lives for in order that they may continue to float over free peoples. What I tale I will have to tell you all later of a Xmas day in the trenches. Fred
The future of my blog?
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to persuade Amberley Publishing to commission a Through Time book on Great Dunmow as the population of the town isn’t big enough. A shame in one respect because I have so many previously unpublished postcards of the town, but good in another respect because it means I can keep blogging my stories about Great Dunmow – which, for contractual reasons, I wouldn’t have been able to do, if I was writing a book about the town. So my blog will continue… when I have time to write posts.
I would also like to find a publisher for a book retelling some of my stories about Tudor Essex. For example: the witches of Tudor Essex; the assize judge who condemned many Essex people to death; and the (not so) invisible women of Tudor Essex. If any publisher or e-publisher would like to commission me to write a book on Tudor Lives of Essex, I would love to hear from you. In the meantime, I hope to continue to write stories about the Tudor Lives of Essex folk on my blog.
A plea for help…
If you can help me in any way with vintage postcards of subjects for any of my books, please do get in touch with me at thenarrator[at]essexvoicespast.com. Or, if you can help me with access to any areas – schools, churches, stately homes – so that I can take modern-day photographs of the towns and villages I am writing about, please do contact me.
Serendipity? There is one final part of strange coincidences to this story. Amberely Publishing are based in the small Cotswold town of Stroud – the very town where I grew up and spent my formative teenage years. A town I once knew and loved well. I hope to be spending some happy hours revisiting my childhood roots when I visit “my” publishers.
Exactly two years ago this week, I created this blog and published my very first post – a verbatim transcript of the first page of the 1520s financial accounts of a church: the churchwardens’ accounts of Great Dunmow, a small town in Essex. Not a dry dusty document consisting of monetary figures, but a living breathing document which opened up to the modern reader, some small insight into the workings of an East Anglian town, during the turbulent reign of Henry VIII and his children.
Local History of a small East Anglian town
My initial post came-about because originally, my blog’s sole purpose was to publish some of my research for my dissertation ‘Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex, c.1520 to c.1560′ from my Cambridge University’s Masters of Studies in Local and Regional history awarded to me in January 2012 (sadly, the degree no longer appears to be running). Before creating my blog, I had decided that I wanted to record for myself a semi-permanent record of the results of the research I undertook for my dissertation, along with verbatim transcripts of Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts – an incredible primary source dating from the 1520s which formed much of the basis of my dissertation.
So my blog was created for purely self-indulgent purposes of furthering some of my dissertation’s research and recording some of the research I had already carried out. However, to my surprise, I found that as I started to write more and more posts, I began to collect a great many readers from all over the world who appeared to enjoy my posts and were interested in my research. So I carried on researching and writing posts about Great Dunmow to be shared with you, my readers.
Local Essex history and the First World War
Previously to my masters research in Tudor Great Dunmow, I had spent many years researching the men of Great Dunmow who had marched away to war in distant lands during the years of 1914 to 1918, never to return. Families and localities torn apart by wars fought in far distant lands – far away from the rural peace of East Anglia. I decided to include my research into these stories onto my blog too. By using contemporary postcards of the time, I have been able to retell the stories of many men of Essex – including my own ancestors, my grandfather’s cousins, the Kemps of Great Dunmow.
Gordon Parnall Kemp – my grandfather’s cousin – in the early 1900s, before he was killed amongst the mud and horror of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. His father, James Nelson Kemp, a respected publican in Great Dunmow is standing in the doorway of his pub, the Royal Oak.
Victorian and 20th century history of Great Dunmow My research into Great Dunmow in the First World War naturally led me into researching other aspects of the town’s Victorian and Twentieth Century history:-
One of the original ‘Essex Girls’ – a Victorian miss dressed in her Sunday-best, captured through the lens of Great Dunmow’s Victorian photographer.
Local history of Essex’s past My dissertation wasn’t my first adventure into the past of Essex – the county which I have lived in for exactly half my life and nearly all my adult life. I had long been researching various other aspects of Essex life and during the last two years published on my blog some of that research. I have many many more articles lingering on my computer written during my time in Essex – I need to dust them off and polish them up so that I can then publish them here – which I hope to do over the coming months.
The apprehension and confession of three notorious witches. Arreigned and by iustice condemned and executed at Chelmes-forde, in the Countye of Essex, (Joan Cunny, Joan Upney and Joan Prentice) (1589)
The wider historical context
Of course, any micro-historical study of a tiny aspect of local history also has to consider the wider environment. The events of 16th Century Great Dunmow and Essex did not happen in isolation: they were a result of the actions and edicts of the Tudor kings and queens. So on my blog, I have posted articles about the kings and queens of fifteenth and sixteenth century England.
Henry VIII praying in his bedchamber from The Psalter of Henry VIII (England, S. E. (London), c1540-1541) shelfmark Royal 2 A XVI f.3.
Medieval illuminated manuscripts Whilst researching some of my posts on the Tudors, I also discovered some of the most beautiful primary sources in existence: exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts.
School Trip Friday for the Academically Challenged Unknown to me, at the same time of creating my blog, my small son’s time at one of Essex’s oldest public schools was coming to a disastrous and awful end because of his severe dyslexia. To cut a very long and painful story short, I removed him from the school, home educated him for over a year whilst fighting my local educational authority through the courts to make them provide him with an education he could access. This resulted in two highly stressful Tribunals within a 10 month period – with one going to a full contested Hearing consisting of expert witnesses and a leading educational barrister, in front of a Judge and Panel, to decide my son’s educational future. Fortunately the Judge agreed with myself and all the experts (which ironically included the local authority’s own experts) and my son is now in a tiny wonderful school which specialises in children with dyslexia and other related educational needs. (If you told me two years ago that I would have to go to a court of law, and instruct solicitors and barristers to enable my son to have an education, I would have laughed at such a ridiculous notion. I know better now.)
I can honestly say that this was one of the most stressful and painful experiences of my entire life – not only having to come to terms with the extent of my son’s disabilities, but also because of the appalling manner the local education authority conducted themselves during this time. This is not the place to document this awful experience – suffice to say that it is now in the hands of the Local Government Ombudsman who have launched an official investigation against the local education authority into my son’s case. The appalling and morally corrupt process in this country for making local authorities put in place an education a child with special educational needs can access, has left me a fervent campaigner about the rights of disabled children, and their right to an education. A basic right most people think as a “given”- but which is sadly not for many thousands of disabled children in this country. You may have seen me on Twitter commenting on this.
During my fight for my child, I came to hate the very name of my blog because the very county I loved so much and whose history I had written about with such great affection, had turned in on myself and my son. Unfortunately, despite having national laws protecting vulnerable children, these laws are very much open to interpretation by the local authority in which the child lives – an accessible education for a disabled child really is a post-code lottery. At the height of my fight, after being told to leave Essex by my barrister and move to a local authority which treated children with special educational needs better, I hated Essex so very much that I was determined to destroy my blog, all my research and all my postcards and sources I have about Essex. But fortunately, I realised in time that this would be a foolish knee-jerk action and would only hurt myself and other Essex historians. The self-serving department within Essex County Council that my action would have been aimed at are far too ignorant to have cared one jot.
However, one bright point in this horrendous situation was personally teaching my son to love history. One of his teachers at his previous school unkindly told me that my son was “academically challenged”. It was with her words ringing in my ears that I decided to blog about teaching my son a love for history: School Trip Friday for the Academically Challenged. During our year together, my son (and I!) learnt a great deal about our great country’s history. There’s not many small children who can boast that they have personally visited the site of Richard III’s burial under a council car park in Leicester! I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my love of history with my son by way of our field trips, and then writing about our visits to share with you. Whilst he cannot read my posts on my blog, he takes great interest in what I write and we often sit together looking at the photos on this blog of our trips around England. Ultimately, we went on many more trips then I had time to write-up – I was also working part-time whilst home educating him during this period. So my blogging came after his needs and my fast learning of the educational law of England.
Using vividly painted 1930s cigarette cards and 1900s postcards to teach my son the chronology of English kings and queens. The tableau above was when we learnt about the Princes in the Tower, and who we thought murdered them. This image came from my most viewed post of the last year (or so!)School Trip Friday – Of Cabbages and Kings
Looking towards the future of my writing…
Finally, apologies about the length of this post. But two years is a long time in the life of a blog, in this fast moving internet age. It seemed that the time was ripe for me to reflect back on my blog and self-indulgently share those reflections with you.
I now want to share with you the future of my blog and of my writings. 2014 is a new year and a new beginning for many members of my family – including my son in his new school. I too have a new beginning which I want share with you, my kind and encouraging readers, who have spurred me on to keep writing during the highly stressful year that was my 2013.
Next week I will tell you my own “news” about the future of my writings.
I have written before on my blog about the aerial photography taken of the town and environments of Great Dunmow by a small aircraft flying high in the skies of East Anglia in 1928. During the same flight, the small airplane also flew over the tiny village of Little Dunmow and captured for posterity one of the area’s main employers, the factory of the Anglo Scottish Sugar Beet factory. This part of Essex and East Anglia has a long history of the refining of sugar beet and it is incredible to see an aerial photograph of a factory in it’s inter-war heyday.
Anglo-Scottish Sugar Beet Factory, Little Dunmow, 1928. This photo is from English Heritage’s Britain from Above project. Click the photo to be taken directly to a zoomable image of this photo from their website.
During a recent rummage around an antiques shop in Lavenham, Suffolk (a small beautiful town which also has a history of small sugar beet factories), I found the 1976 book Essex and Sugar by the local historian Frank Lewis. It is to him I turn to now regarding the Anglo-Scottish Sugar Beet Factory in Little Dunmow, Essex. In his book, Mr Lewis refers to the factory as being in Felsted, the neighbouring village to Little Dunmow. As the two villages are so near each other, the location of the factory changes in documents/books between Little Dunmow and Felsted. The factory also appears to have changed name over time and at points in its history was known as the “Anglo-Scottish Sugar Beet Factory” or the “British Sugar Corporation Sugar Beet Factory”.
Our main Essex interest in beet sugar lies now with the Felsted factory of the British Sugar Corporation. With Mr. and Mrs. Chartres, I spent a full and interesting day at the village, now for over three decades [i.e. by the time of the book’s publication in 1976] associated with sugar production, but famed more for its ancient school [Felsted School]. In the morning at Princes Farm Mr. Gordon Crawford showed us the “Forecaster” at work, the most advanced beet-harvesting machine, and far from the days of hand-digging of obstinate roots is the operation of this mechanical giant, also an advance on machine harvesters needing an accompanying lorry in which to deposit the uplifted beet. The Forecaster is an Essex development, and is constructed as a compact unit, carrying the extricated beets to a receiving space at the top of the machine, detaching earth or mud en route, at the same time slicing off the tops of the next row of beets preparatory to lifting. Only when full did the harvester go off to deposit its contents in a lorry, thus one man only was needed for the actual harvesting; in the early days, several laboured at an arduous and unpopular toil. The crops, destined for the nearby factory are grown from seed supplied by the buyers to ensure uniformity and quality. Mr. Crawford harvested his first sugar beet with a pair of horses in 1930, and he is a member of the family formerly of Suttons Farm, Hornchurch, the site of the R.A.F. Station.
The Forecaster in 1976
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During the day we had observed the lofty buildings of the British Sugar Corporation establishment with its plume of white smoke, and later its dominance in the scene when lit up at night. One writer has remarked that with a favouring wind the factory smell carries for miles around, and a former woman member of the office staff recalled her strongest memory was of the ‘sickly sweet smell you couldn’t get away from’, but though beet processing has its characteristic odour, as does a refinery, our party were not conscious of strong odours, either in or out of the buildings, though I questioned a girl on this point, knowing from experience how responsive young women are to sugar smells, pleasant or unpleasant. The warmth of the building was felt by her, not to a too trouble-some extent. On commencing this conducted tour, we were made aware of the fact that this was a factory in the country when we were informed that the visiting party in which we were included would be the last for a long period, as a precaution against the foot and mouth epidemic appearing in that region.
The factory tour showed the cleansed beets pass to machines slicing them into strips, a glimpse of the revolving drums in which the strips yielded their sweetness into water (diffusion), the resulting thin syrup of ‘juice’ charged with lime and carbonic acid gas which combined to form a precipitate trapping impurities in the juice (Carbonatation) the extraction by filtering of this precipitate, a second carbonatation and filtering, the juice treated with sulphur dioxide to a neutral reaction, the concentration of juice containing 15% sugar to syrup containing 65% sugar under vacuum in huge boilers or vessels called evaporators, another close filtering, no char, and the rest of the process as described in a refinery with vacuum pans, centrifugal machines, final drying.
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This huge Essex successor to the ventures of Marriage and Duncan treats annually over 300,000 tons of beets from 23,000 acres spread over Essex and surrounding counties from Cambridge to Kent, and each day can process 2,500 tons of beet to yield 350 tons of white sugar, 250 tons of dried pulp or pulp nuts for cattle food and 130 tons of molasses for industrial and other uses. (An acre of beet will yield from 38 to 40 cwt of sugar against 8 to 12 tons per acre from cane; and the sugar content of the beet is 15% to 16%, the cane about 13%.) The personal of 325 men and women operate the process continuously day and night for approximately 120 days, each season or campaign from about late September to the end of January; and this seasonal labour force is recruited from the surrounding locality and from Ireland. Delivery of beets to the factory is by road, though in the past some cargoes in sailing boats travelled from Walton to a suitable point for Felsted.
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Mrs B. McArdle, who mentioned the ‘sickly smell’ has provided me with some other early memories of the Felsted factory where in her early 20s she was employed as a compotometer operator in the 1927 and 1928 campaigns. In those days no refining plant existed and she recalls the piles of brown sugar to be sent to Tate and Lyle. The small office had a canteen attached for the clerical and similar staff of 12; she can remember that wellington boots were worn for the necessary journeys to muddy and wet floors where the beet was washed and writes of having to work out prices for the farmers according to sugar content of beets, and allocating molasses on the amount of beet sent in. She lodged at a farm near the Flitch of Bacon [a pub still in existence today] in Little Dunmow, where only one shop existed, and without public transport the journey to and from the factory was a fair walk, unless a lucky car picked her up. Apparently there was little time for amusements as she worked ‘fairly late’, also Saturday and Sunday mornings when the beets were coming in; but a hard tennis court was outside the office, there were whist drives and dances in surrounding villages, a cinema at Braintree where you had to book your seat and the music was supplied by one tinny piano, and the manager sprung a party at his home for the staff. She was young and evidently found her situation not uncongenial, for both in her letters to me and to the Essex Countryside [a monthly local interest magazine] she writes of a ‘happy time of long ago’ and ‘pleasant memories of the happy time I spent at Felsted’.
Sugar-beet harvesting in 1948. Click on the image above to be taken to British Pathe’s website to see a short film of Felsted’s sugar-beet harvesting in 1948.
In February 1999, the Sugar Beet factory was demolished and now in its place is a large housing development. The estate was originally known as Oakwood Park, but in very recent years has now been renamed to Flitch Green – a throw-back to the days of the Dunmow Flitch, when it was originally held in Little Dunmow.
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Where-ever you are in the world – whether you have already celebrated the New Year, or you are about to – I wish a very Happy New Year.
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Wishing all my readers a very Happy Christmas. I hope Father Christmas has brought you your heart’s desire.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
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Windhill and parish church of St Michael’s, Bishop’s Stortford in the 1900s
St Michael’s parish church, Bishop’s Stortford in the 1900s
Some of the English wildlife captured and killed by the vermin man of Tudor Bishop’s Stortford 1569-1571
A Tudor Rat Catcher
The proposal
The trousseau
The wedding
The first evening in their own home
Stacey of Great Dunmow – late Victorian wedding party
Bishop’s Stortford – The Old Boar’s Head
Bishop’s Stortford – Cricket Field Lane
Bishop’s Stortford – The River Stort
Lavenham, The Guildhall of Corpus Christi
Long Melford, The Green
Sudbury, Thomas Gainsborough’s birthplace
Postcards from the Front: Christmas Day in the trenches 1916
The flag we are willing to sacrifice our lives for in order that they may continue to float over free peoples. What I tale I will have to tell you all later of a Xmas day in the trenches. Fred
The Forecaster in 1976
Sugar Beet Factory in 1976
