Firstly, an apology for lack of posts over the last couple of months. In the background, my writing has not stopped. In fact I have been frantically spending every waking hour researching and writing for my next book due out next spring Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919 (ignore Amazon’s date of publication as this is wrong).
My book is the story of a handful of men and women who went to war exactly one hundred years ago, as told through their postcards sent home to their loved ones. Many of the stories in my book come from single postcards, as single cards is all that has survived from that person. However, I have been able to thoroughly research and retell the story of three peoples’ war. A female volunteer nurse who nursed throughout the Battles of the Somme in one of the British Army’s largest military hospital in France; and two brothers, one of whom won the Military Cross for his courageous action during the opening day of the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) and the other brother (aged only 19 years old) who was in the Royal Flying Corp/Royal Air Force in the 49 Squadron and took part in dog-fights in the skies above France in 1918. So my book is a combination of eye-witness accounts (as told through brief messages on postcards), information from War Diaries, and newspaper reports.
My book is due to be published in May of next year. As a taster for my book Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919, throughout December, I will be posting on this blog, postcards from the First World War with their messages home. Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of First World War interest. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources new to you. Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above. When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
To Mr Burley. With the best Compliments from The Front
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My books
You may be interested in purchasing my local history books. They make ideal Christmas presents!
The Essex local paper Saffron Walden Reporter have printed a review of my local history book about the town of Saffron Walden and its surrounding villages of Audley End, Littlebury, Wendens Ambo and Little & Great Chesterford, Saffron Walden and Around Through Time.
Saffron Walden Report – 24 September 2015, page 24 Click the picture to read the review
Saffron Walden Report – 24 September 2015, page 25 Click the picture to read the review
I particularly like the reporter, Abigail Weaving’s, final line about my book “In fact, as [Kate J] Cole demonstrates, a mere window frame, memorial in a churchyard or an engraving on a wall, are not signs of an inaccessible past, but of one that is very much part of Saffron Walden today.” This, to me, absolutely sums up and clarifies local history; the past is a living, breathing organic “thing” that is all around us and just waiting for new generations of townsfolk to discover their past. And, as Abigail Weaving implies, local history is not an inaccessible past, but part of our everyday present.
Pargetting of an early nineteenth-century stage coach, on the side of a house in Gold Street, Saffron Walden. History really is all around us.
Click the picture to be taken to Amazon’s page for my book.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe to it. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. I read every single comment and value the thoughts of my readers. Thank you for reading this post.
Genes are a funny thing… Last weekend, I was sitting beside my dad’s bed in his nursing home, ordering some things from M&S for him on his laptop. (Even when you’re dying, you’ve still got to keep up your standards and shop at M&S!) After a couple of minutes I realised he was closely scrutinising me and he said to me “you look so like your brothers”. Then he paused and said “I’ve left my mark on you all”. He seemed very pleased with that, and for someone who will shortly be leaving this world, I think it brought him great comfort that he will be leaving the three of us behind looking so like him.
I looked around his room and saw all the books that my brothers and I have left for him to read – reading being one of the final great pleasures he can still enjoy. I realised that myself and my brothers have the same taste in books. Not learnt behaviour, as we haven’t spent enough time together as adults to have learnt each others reading habits. But somehow, somewhere we had inherited our love of books – in particular history – from our father.
Can strange things such as a love of history be passed on through our genes?
Genes are a terrible thing…
This week my little grandson was hospitalised because of his genes. His poor mummy and daddy have really gone through the mill with seeing their precious young baby poked, prodded, had a feeding tube inserted and put on a drip, along with endless consultations between the fantastic staff at Addenbrookes and Great Ormond Street. All because of a common childhold illness coupled with his genes makes a deadly combination.
One day genetic disorders such as my grandson’s MCADD (or to give it its full name Medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency) will be eradicated or solved with a daily tablet. Until that day comes, my precious grandchild – my daughter’s and son-in-law’s precious first born – faces being hospitalised with every single common or garden childhood illness. And my brave courageous daughter with her equally wonderful husband face the trauma of repeated visits to Addenbrookes and Great Ormond Street with their darling son.
Please support and give generously to Jeans for Genes Day who raise millions of pounds every single year for research into genetic disorders.
I am delighted to tell you that my third local history book, Saffron Walden and Around Through Time, has now been published by Amberley Books and is available in “all good bookshops”.
Click the picture to be taken to Amazon’s page for my book.
Saffron Walden is a beautiful market town in the north west corner of Essex, and a town I knew very well from my own past, when I lived for many years in the nearby town of Great Dunmow. I have shopped many a time in the splendid shops and market within the town. But, more importantly to me, I had spent many a happy hour when my third child (now a strapping pre-teen) was just weeks old as I daily pounded the streets of Saffron Walden in the attempt to get him to sleep. It was whilst walking through the grounds of Saffron Walden’s church, St Mary the Virgin, that he first looked up at me from his push chair, laughing at his own joke that he’d managed to pull off his socks and toss them over the side of his buggy. I should have been warned then that he was to become a child full of laughter and practical jokes! Saffron Walden plays as special place in my heart for those early days of exhausted motherhood to my boy. It was also during those sleep-deprived days of endless walks that I fell in love with Saffron Walden’s ancient streets and buildings.
The beginnings of my book In the late summer of 2014, I was sitting in Amberley Publishings offices in the beautiful Cotswold town of Stroud, having just delivered the manuscript for my first book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time. I was musing with one of the company’s Commissioning Editors over other books I could write for Amberley. It popped into my head that Saffron Walden would make a good book, and a town which I would personally like to research and photograph. Fortunately Amberley agreed with me, and thus was born my third local history book Saffron Walden and Around Through Time, to become part of Amberley Publishing’s phenomenally successfully Through Time local history book series. Foolishly I agreed with Amberley that I could write it at the same time as my second local history book, Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time
So there I had it. Two books to be written and delivered at the same time…
What is the “Around” of my book?
As you will see from the title of my Saffron Walden book, it is an “and Around” book, so includes other villages nearby to Saffron Walden. My brief from Amberley was to write about Saffron Walden the town, but to also include chapters on other nearby villages. They didn’t want me to wander too far from the main town, but left it totally open to me which villages I could include as my “Around” (but also dropped heavy hints that they’d like to see the Chesterfords included!). So that was my brief…Saffron Walden and Around. All to be fitted within no more and no less than 96 pages.
I would like to say that I purposely decided which villages to include. But I have to say that writing my book was very organic. It seemed to take on a life of its own and it dictated to me what villages were to be included. In the end, my “Saffron Walden and Around” comprises
Saffron Walden
Audley End
Littlebury Parish
Wendens Ambo
The Chesterfords (Little and Great)
Tales of long ago Because I use so many sources for each of my books, I write quite detailed captions to all my pages and try to tell a significant story for that street or view, or of the people who once lived in the houses and roads. So in my book on “Saffron Walden and Around”, you may read things about the town and villages which you may not have known about. For example, that Audley End (then known as Brook Walden) became infamous in 1579 as a place where the witch, Mother Staunton of Wimbish, practiced her witchcraft. That in 1601, William Newton a shepherd from Great Ambo was convicted of stealing nearly 100 sheep throughout Essex. That the infamous high wayman Dick Turpin held up the Walden and Stortford stagecoaches in Epping Forest in 1737…
There are so many stories to tell about this beautiful part of north west Essex.
Bridge Street, Saffron Walden. Near this spot, the chief constable of Saffron Walden, William Campling, was murdered in 1849.
Audley End House, with the spire of Saffron Walden’s parish church showing in the centre-left edge. In 1742, Daniel Defoe wrote that the House was in ruins and decaying.
Littlebury village. The village was on the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries stage coach routes between London and Newmarket or Norwich.
Crown House, Great Chesterford. In 1671, the diarist John Evelyn journeyed on a stage coach from London to meet King Charles II who was watching the races at Newmarket. The horses on Evelyn’s stagecoach were changed at this coaching inn.
The trials and tribulations of photographing a modern-day town In common with all books in the Through Time series, each page of my book contains:-
First World War VAD Hospital, Saffron Walden
A “then” picture. An historic photograph of a building or street dating from between the early 1900s and the 1920s, for example a vintage postcard or old photograph.
A short caption and narrative about the view, detailing the view/building and setting it in its historic context.
A “now” photograph. This had to be an (almost) exact replica of the vintage view. So I had to locate and stand in the same location as the early 20th Century photographers, and capture a replica modern-day view. This in itself caused quite a few challenges; the main one being that Edwardian photographers did not have to contend with lorries and cars hurtling through the streets, but I did! As a consequence, many of my photographs had to be shot early in the morning; more often than not, on a Sunday. But even photographing early Sunday morning didn’t stop cars taking a prominent role in some of my images. Saffron Walden’s market place and high street were particularly troublesome in getting car-less photographs. I don’t think I managed a single photograph of the market place without at least one car being ever-present. Even at 6am on Easter Sunday morning there were still cars in the area!
Ironically, my own car appears on the “now” photograph on the front cover of my book. I didn’t mean it to be in shot… It took me countless early Sunday morning trips to the top of the high street to get that famous vista of Saffron Walden. Some days, the rain was too heavy for photographs; other days there were too many cars and people for my photographs to be “good shots”; to add to my problems, the light was bad on more days then I can count. For some reason known only to my early-morning-not-totally-awake self, one time (and one time only) I parked my car right in the line of my camera’s lens. And that shot (out of countless hundreds of others) was the best view of a relatively car-less (except mine) high street….
Some of the sources I used
If you have read my blog posts about writing my other books, you will know that writing such as book is a source of great personal satisfaction and delight for me. I wrote a month or so ago on my blog a post Suffolk Voices Past: Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time detailing my life-long hobby of postcard collecting and combining that with being social historian. I also wrote about the sources that I use for each of my books, such as history books, newspaper reports, county archaeology/conservation reports, Victorian census returns, The National Archives.
British Newspaper Archive – click the picture to explore this rich online archive from the British Library
1881 Census return from Audley End’s almhouses for pauper women. This particular census return took me on my journey of discovery of Rebecca Law, a remarkable woman who lived in all the towns and villages described within my book and died aged 103 in 1916. The story of Mrs Law’s long life is told in my book.
Click the image to be taken to FindMyPast, a 3rd party online ancestry resource helping you to research your own family history.
1579 pamphlet “A detection of damnable driftes practized by three witches arraigned at Chelmifforde in Essex“. One of my favourite sources – it told the tale of the Mother Staunton of Wimbish who bewitched a baby’s cradle in Brook Walden (now Audley End)
Saffron Walden and Around Through Time I hope you enjoy reading my book. I would love to hear from you with your comments on any of my three local history books.
Market Hill in the early 1900s, Saffron Walden
Audley End Village in the early 1900s
Littlebury in the early 1900s, looking towards Queen’s Head Inn
A pretty spot in the 1920s – Wendens Ambo
The Vicarage in the 1920s, Great Chesterford
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About the author, Kate Cole
I have a Masters in local and regional history from Cambridge University, a BA in history from the Open University, and an Advanced Diploma in local history from Oxford University – all studied whilst a mature student. Amberley have commissioned me to write 5 books in their Through Time series, and a further book on the First World War. I also give talks about various aspects of East Anglian history (such as the English Reformation in Tudor Essex and the Essex Witches from the Tudor period) to local history societies and groups. I live in Maldon, Essex, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on this blog. Before starting my second career as a local historian, for over 30 years I was a business technologist and computer consultant working in the City of London.
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe to it. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. I read every single comment and value the thoughts of my readers. Thank you for reading this post.
I am delighted to tell you that my second local history book, Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time, has now been published by Amberley Books and is available in “all good bookshops”.
Suffolk is an incredibly beautiful county with a very rich heritage, so I was absolutely delighted when Amberley agreed that three towns/villages within the county would make an excellent addition to their phenomenally successfully Through Time local history book series. Thus my book Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time was born. This is my second Through Time book for Amberley – my first Bishop’s Stortford Through Time was published in 2014.
In common with all books in the Through Time series, each page of my book contains:-
A “then” picture. An historic photograph of a building or street dating from between the early 1900s and the 1920s, for example a vintage postcard or old photograph.
A “now” photograph. This had to be an (almost) exact replica of the vintage view. So I had to locate and stand in the same location as the early 20th Century photographers, and capture a replica modern-day view. This in itself caused quite a few challenges; the main one being that Edwardian photographers did not have to contend with lorries and cars hurtling through the streets, but I did! As a consequence, many of my photographs had to be shot early in the morning; more often than not, on a Sunday. But even photographing early Sunday morning didn’t stop cars taking a prominent role in some of my images.
A short caption and narrative about the view, detailing the view/building and setting it in its historic context.
Writing such a book is a great delight for me, and encompasses some of my life-long hobbies; local history and postcard collecting. I have answered some questions below about my book and hope this q&a session inspires my readers to consider writing their own local history book.
Row of Tudor shops, Lavenham
Swan on the River Stour, Sudbury
Hall Street, Long Melford
What was your catalyst that inspired you to write your book? I have collected postcards ever since I was a small child – inspired by my father’s own love of collecting postcards. I suppose I was somewhat quirky as a teenager; at an age when most of my contemporaries were involved in normal teenage activities, I was haunting postcard fairs buying postcards of fluffy cats and images from children’s story books (I have a fabulous collection of Louis Wain and nursery-rhyme postcards dating from my teenage years.) But as I grew older, I became more and more interested in history and genealogy. As a consequence, as an adult, my postcard collecting tastes turned to postcards with views of the towns and villages I’d lived in. So three years ago, when I started to blog East Anglian local history on this website, it was a very natural progression to start to blog articles about my very eclectic collection of vintage postcards. I never dreamed that I could turn my childhood hobby into a book, until a Commissioning Editor from Amberley Publishing stumbled across my blog and contacted me. Amberley’s Through Time series of books was right up my street, and after a very short negotiation period, we settled on me writing several Through Time books, including my new book on Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham.
Why Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham? Well, these are three towns and villages that I know very well. Although I live in north Essex, my son goes to school in a tiny village a few miles from Lavenham. My driving route from Essex to this village regularly takes me through Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham. I had already fallen totally in love with each place and, even before Amberley had commissioned me to write my book, had spent extensive periods walking and cogitating each place’s history.
How did you decide what images to include / exclude?
Amberley have a very strict criteria that there can be no more and no less than 96 pages to each of their Through Time books. As I was covering three towns/villages, this gave me roughly 30 pages per place; plus room for the normal pages of any book (such as title and copyright pages, introduction, contents page and bibliography). These restrictions, in themselves, gave a certain amount of guidance as to what images I could and could not include. I had to be very strict with myself and with a limited number of pages per place could only include images which would add to the overall story of each town/village. I became very ruthless with my own cutting of images/pages. For example, by the time Amberley’s editors had produced their publisher’s typeset near-final draft, my book had spilled over their limit, so they cut a random page from my manuscript. I objected to the page they had cut and insisted another one was removed and their deleted page reinstated. It took me two seconds to choose what page I wanted deleting. The page the editor had cut was far too important to not be included; so another page/image just had to go. I won’t tell you what was nearly deleted and what was removed in its place! But suffice to say I am more than happy that I took the action that I did. My deleted page still remains in my “those that got away” folder on my computer; perhaps one day I’ll publish all “those that got away” on this blog!
Sudbury’s Market Place; one of my “must have” images
What resources did you consult to in order to write the details which accompanied each page?
British Newspaper Archive – click the picture to explore this rich online archive from the British Library
As a trained historian, I used many primary and secondary sources for my book. This included Victorian census returns and trade directories, reports from all Suffolk’s local newspapers along with other national newspapers. I also consulted The National Archives, Historic England’s Listed Buildings register and local authority/council’s archaeology/conservation reports. I also read many antiquarian books, journals, local historical society publications/websites, Victoria County Histories, and read transcriptions of the Domesday Book of 1086.
Census return from Long Melford. Click the image to be taken to a 3rd party online ancestry resource.
I also took to walking the streets of each town/village to look at street furniture such as plaques on houses/buildings. In particular, Lavenham is stuffed full of buildings with date plaques from the Georgian and Victorian period commemorating being built by local industrialists; Thomas Turner the woolstapler, W. W. Roper the horsehair manufacturer, Thomas Baker the miller and maltster. Each date plaque had to be investigated and researched and, if appropriate, a story written about that person and their buildings. I also talked to local people as I walked each town/village. Many people stopped me during my photographing trips, and from these nameless people I owe my gratitude for pointing me in new directions for my research.
A row of the very successful woolcomber Thomas Turner’s Victorian workmens’ cottages, Lavenham
One fascinating but underused resource I used was Suffolk County Council’s Suffolk Voices Restored. These are cds containing incredible eyewitness oral histories from men and women who grew up, lived and worked in Suffolk during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. I listened to these recordings of people (now sadly long dead) for hours and hours on end, with absolute fascination. The story of the creation of the cds comprising of Suffolk Voices Restored is remarkable in its own right (you’ll have to read my book to find out how/why they came about!). If you are interested in social history and live in Suffolk, then the majority of Suffolk County Council’s libraries will have access to these cds. Do ask the librarian for them, they are fascinating snippets of a bygone age.
I like to think that I looked through and researched every single source that I possibly could, to gain a full insight into the story of each town and village within my book.
Was there any images or stories that you simply felt that you had to include?
During the research for my book, strong stories for each town/village started to shine through, and it was these stories, along with any relevant images, that had to be included. I fell totally in love with each town/village; these are my favourite stories from each:-
Sudbury:So many stories from this beautiful, but often overshadowed market town, emerged. Simon of Sudbury, the medieval archbishop of Canterbury who was viciously murdered in London during the Peasants’ Revolt. Charles Dickens’ caricature of the Rose & Crown Inn (and, indeed the town of Sudbury) in his acclaimed Pickwick Papers. Thomas Gainsborough’s inclusion of Sudbury’s All Saints Church in, arguably, his most celebrated of paintings Mr and Mrs Andrews. (Click on the link to be taken to the National Gallery’s online image of this outstanding painting, and see if you can spot Sudbury’s church.) The list goes on for Sudbury. But above all, I was struck by the staggering beauty and serenity of the scenic water meadows of Sudbury’s Common Meadows. I was lucky enough to have researched my book during the winter months, so was able to spend a great deal of time walking through these picturesque lands, whilst frost and snow cracked under foot. I remember coming away from my photographing trips to the water meadows with freezing feet and icicles in place of my fingers, but with a very happy and full heart.
An Edwardian view of the mill stream in Sudbury’s beautiful common lands
Lavenham:Remarkably the historic medieval village of Lavenham was nearly lost to us during first quarter of the twentieth century. Many of the medieval buildings had fallen into disrepair and were near derelict by that time. Some of its most famous medieval buildings, such as the old Wool Hall (now part of the Swan Inn), De Vere House, and Schilling Grange, were in the process of being either totally demolished or taken down piece by piece, some to be sold elsewhere (possibly America). It was only the outcry by local people and societies which stopped the destruction of Lavenham’s medieval gems. The story of how the foresight of local people, along with more prominent people (such as Queen Victoria’s daughter, the Duchess of Argyll), saved Lavenham shone through my research. In particular, one local man F Lingard Ranson. Where ever I stepped, Mr Ranson had walked decades before me; both as Lavenham’s historian and its saviour. I didn’t have enough room to extol and give him the full credit he is due in my book, but I will do it here. Simply put, without F Lingard Ranson, our knowledge and understanding of Lavenham, along with the village’s very buildings, just would not exist today. Today’s Lavenham owes a huge debt of gratitude to Mr Ranson and his ilk.
The Wool Hall (on the left), Lady Street, Lavenham as it was at the turn of the 20th century. Without the personal intervention of one of Queen Victoria’s daughters, the Duchess of Argyll, this exquisite medieval building would have been lost to the nation.
Long Melford:Many modern-day tourists who flock to Long Melford are seeking antiques, shops, along with the Tudor heritage of Kentwell Hall and Melford Hall. But nestling alongside Tudor manor houses are the remains Melford’s industrial past; D. Ward’ ironworks, Chestnut Terrace built for the Victorian workers of Long Melford, and the Scutchers Arms celebrating the village’s part in making Irish Linen. But more extraordinary is the story of Long Melford’s riot of 1 December 1885, when villagers fought a violent and bloody battle with men from the neighbouring village of Glemsford. The Riot Act had to be read by a local big-wig, which still didn’t stop the riot, and it only ceased when troops from the barracks in Bury St Edmunds were brought in by train (on a rail line that no longer exists) to quell the riot. The soldiers marched into the village in square formation with fixed bayonets, and cleared out all the pubs and beer-houses in their path. You will have to read my book to learn more about this, one of the most bloody riots in Suffolk’s history, in this picturesque sleepy village.
Sir Cuthbert Quilter. This man was the reason for the riots in Long Melford in 1885
If you purchase my book Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time, I hope you enjoy reading it and this blog post gives you some understanding as to how the finished book came about.
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Newspaper article about my book
Article about my book in East Anglian Daily Times on 21 August 2015
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About the author, Kate Cole
I have a Masters in local and regional history from Cambridge University, a BA in history from the Open University, and an Advanced Diploma in local history from Oxford University – all studied whilst a mature student. Amberley have commissioned me to write 5 books in their Through Time series, and a further book on the First World War. I also give talks about various aspects of East Anglian history (such as the English Reformation in Tudor Essex and the Essex Witches from the Tudor period) to local history societies and groups. I live in Maldon, Essex, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on this blog. Before starting my second career as a local historian, for over 30 years I was a business technologist and computer consultant working in the City of London.
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe to it. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. I read every single comment and value the thoughts of my readers. Thank you for reading this post.
Mud, Mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood! So follow me, follow. Down to the hollow. And there let us wallow. In glorious mud
Essex is a strange county to live in, with its traditions and customs – some traditions centuries old, such as the Dunmow Flitch, Plough Monday and New Year’s Day Molly Dancers. Other customs are more recent, such as the Maldon’s Mud Race, which (according to its official website) was first “run” in 1973.
Maldon is one of Essex’s hidden jewels of a town. But, for good reason, the town is locally nicknamed “Maldon-on-the-Mud”. Its nickname certainly comes to the forefront with its unique race. The race is “run” (or should I say, “crawled”) when participants have to make their way from Maldon’s beautiful Promenade Park, across the river Blackwater at low-tide, then crawl along through the mud on the river-bed, and run back through the river to return to Promenade Park. This year, on Sunday 26 April 2015, three-hundred people took part; most raising money for local and national charities.
It is such a good fun race to watch that I thought I’d share with you some of my photographs from the day. It would be good if modern-day technology had “smell-o-vision” because the pictures don’t give you the earthy salty smell of the thick black gloopy mud which wafts up from the river-bed at low tide. The poor “runners” had to contend with all of this, and it was a freezing cold day. If you look closely at some of the pictures, you will see some poor participants sunk upto their waist in the black mud and being pulled out with ropes from the helpers.
First up – The Duck Race
Ducks reach the finishing line
Clearing all the ducks from the water ready for the main event
Excited participants lining up – all nice and clean!
The first participants walk down to the starting line
Marshalls already strategically positioned on the far river-banks and in the river, ready and waiting for anyone who gets into trouble in the mud
Where’s Wally?
One by one, with arms outstretched, they navigate the mud…
Super Mario looking very confident…
Bright, bright colours. Soon to be turned black with mud…
Walking in the footsteps of those that went before.. The mud now knee deep in places.
Thick, thick mud.
She’s down!
Chloe’s mum being pulled out of the mud
On your marks… Get set… GO
They’re off!
Some falling at the start
First slippery mud bank to navigate…
Mud, mud, glorious mud…
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow.
Down to the hollow.
And there let us wallow.
In glorious mud!
One of the Where’s Wally Team streaks into the lead
There’s Wally
Behind Where’s Wally are the front leaders
Meanwhile, back at the start of the race…
Hands and knees are easier…
Where’s Wally making steady progress
Streaking across the final stretch of water, two marshalls guiding the way
The winner is… Where’s Wally!
Back at the start, some still hadn’t made the first mud bank
On the mud bank, the participants crawl on their hands and knees along the course. On the foreshore, two participants have given up the race.
Some still haven’t made it up the first mud bank…
Whilst others are streaking (or crawling?) to the finishing line…
Crawling to victory
Or not
The last runners make their way home
Only in this wonderful county of Essex can you see the surreal sight of crazy people (and someone dressed as a dog), all crawling their way to victory in thick black sticky Maldon-mud.
I wonder what John Betjeman would have made of Maldon’s glorious Mud Race?…
Thank you for reading this post.
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My book
My local history book on the historic East Hertfordshire town of Bishop’s Stortford is still available. Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
This blog
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It is widely known that following Henry VIII’s break with Rome in 1533, he went on to forcefully dissolve and destroy all the numerous religious monasteries across England. This he achieved by the end of the 1530s. Dissolved religious houses included priories, abbeys, and friaries from all the religious orders; the Augustinians, the Dominicans, the Cistercians, the Franciscans, the Carmelites. The monasteries were a massive medieval mechanism with houses and institutions all over England. From large and complex abbeys such as Furness Abbey in Cumbria, to smaller houses such as Little Dunmow Priory in Essex.
Artist impression of the remains of Little Dunmow Priory in 1820 (now part of Little Dunmow’s church)
Whether the hundreds-years old medieval monastery-system was a corrupt and decaying hulk deserving to be destroyed, or a network of religious houses who gave much needed relief to the poor and sick, is still widely debated today.
What isn’t so widely known is that there was mass whole-scale looting of the religious houses as each shut its doors. During my research on Great Dunmow (Essex) and for my two new local history books on Sudbury (Suffolk) and Saffron Walden (Essex), I came across two instances of looting which had been carried out, quite openly, by parish churches from dissolved religious houses.
Great Dunmow’s parish church and Tilty Abbey Tilty Abbey in North West Essex was surrendered to the king’s commissioners on 3 March 1536. It had been present in Essex since the middle of the twelfth century and was probably founded in September 1153. By the time of its surrender, it had a net yearly value of £167 2s 6d with a gross value of £177 9s 4d. This was considered to be a small house, so would have been forcefully dissolved under the First Suppression Act of 1536 if its abbot hadn’t voluntarily surrendered it. On the same day, an inventory was taken; the abbey had goods to the value of £19 19s 0½d, along with forty-three ounces of plate valued at £7 18s 8d. [1]
Artist impression of the remains of Tilty Abbey in 1784 (now part of Tilty church)
This was just the tangible goods which could be carried away and sold off. The abbey also had valuable building material in its very structure. In the churchwardens’ accounts for St Mary’s Great Dunmow, it can be determined that both the vicar and the churchwardens openly took advantage of the nearby dissolved abbey which was just four miles away. Sometime in the months between April 1537 and September 1538, Richard Parker sold 24 paving tiles from Tilty Abbey to Great Dunmow’s churchwardens for 2s 8d. He also sold lime sand for the tiles and charged the churchwardens 7d to bring them from Tilty Abbey to St Mary’s. Another person, Richard Barker, was paid 6d for laying the paving tiles in the church. To put this into context, at this time, the average day’s wage for a labourer was approximately 4d.
Great Dunmow churchwardens’ accounts folio 28r[2] – Tilty’s paving slabs
Item payd for lyme sande & for fecchyng
24 pavyng tyle from Tyltey ——————————————————7d
Item payd to Rychard P[ar]ker for the sayd 24
pavying tyle———————————————————————————2s 8d
Item payd to Rychard Barker for laying the
[a]forsayd pavying tyle in the church ——————————————6d
The accounts are silent as to how and why the 24 paving tiles were in Richard Parker’s hands in the first place. However, between 1525 and 1533, Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts had documented several times that Richard Parker was a “tyler” living in Windmill Street (now Rosemary Lane). How many other paving tiles did Richard Parker, the tiler, sell off to nearby churches? Did he also sell paving tiles to Great Easton church? Little Easton church? Thaxted church? There were enough churches in the immediate area of Tilty Abbey for him to have furnished them all with fine tiles from Tilty Abbey. We will probably never know how many he did manage to sell, as the relevant records have not survived in other nearby parish churches. Also, we don’t know what type of tiles these were, but perhaps they were hard-wearing stone slabs worthy of 11d per dozen. I like to think that this is the first recorded instance of the Tudor equivalent of an Essex man in his white-van doing dodgy door-step trading.…
There is some excellent unwitting testimony about the paving tiles. Firstly, the churchwardens had very openly disclosed that they had bought the tiles by documenting them within their financial accounts for the church. Secondly, at this time, churchwardens’ accounts were open documents available to the scrutiny of not just the parish clerks, vicar and churchwardens, but also any king’s commissioners who just happened to be passing by (remember, this was the late 1530s – troubled times for parish churches within England). Finally, churchwardens’ accounts were read out in church to the entire parish after evening service at the end of each accounting year – probably by the vicar himself. Therefore the whole parish (from the local elite to the paupers) would have heard for themselves that 24 paving tiles from Tilty Abbey had been bought from Richard Parker. So this was not a hidden transaction but had been openly declared and was probably considered to be of good positive benefit for the church in Great Dunmow. This really was not “dodgy dealings”.
In a similar manner, but less detailed in the churchwardens’ account, St Mary’s church in Great Dunmow bought a tabernacle from the recently dissolved Hatfield Regis Priory. The tabernacle was an ornate vessel which was used to hold the Eucharist when it was not in use during mass. Hatfield Regis’ tabernacle cost the churchwardens 20 shillings. This was a considerable amount of money. It is likely, therefore, that the priory’s tabernacle was very ornate and probably made of silver. Ironically, this “loot” was likely to have been given up to Henry VIII’s son, when church plate had to be handed over to the king’s commissioners during Edward VI’s reign.
St Mary the Virgin, Great Dunmow. Does the church still contain 24 paving tiles from nearby Tilty Abbey?
Saffron Walden’s parish church and Sudbury Priory
There is a legend that when John Hodgkin became the vicar of St Mary’s in Saffron Walden in 1541, he brought with him the chancel roof of the recently dissolved Dominican priory in Sudbury. John Hodgkin, who was made suffragan bishop of Bedford in 1537, had previously been a friar at Sudbury[3]. Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley (c.1488-1544) is alleged to have helped Hodgkin with the task of bringing the roof to Saffron Walden’s church. Whether this is true or not is open to debate. I have not seen any primary source evidence that it happened, and in my research for my book on Saffron Walden, I could not find any secondary source evidence that referenced Thomas Audley’s help. However, whilst researching my other book on Sudbury, I did find secondary source supporting this theory [4]. Of course, Thomas Audley himself was living at nearby dissolved Walden Abbey, which Henry VIII had granted to him in 1538 (now known as Audley End House). Therefore, if the roof from Sudbury’s priory had come to Saffron Walden’s church, then Thomas Audley would have been ideally placed to help.
Sudbury Priory’s remains in 1748
Moreover, as we have seen in the case of Tilty Abbey, it is indisputable that looting by parish churches of former monastic buildings had happened. It is therefore possible that Hodgkin had taken the priory’s chancel’s roof with him. The involvement of someone as senior and influential as the Lord Chancellor in this “looting” and that Hodgkin was a suffragan bishop demonstrates that this was perfectly legitimate practise for the time.
Thomas Audley,1st Baron Audley of Walden, Lord Chancellor of England 1533-1544
Rich pickings from themonasteries It has always been well known that extensive looting by locals for their own houses is the reason why former monastic buildings now stand in ruins. However, it is often thought that this looting was carried out some years – or even centuries – later. Townspeople taking stone for their buildings; eighteenth century gentleman touring Britain, taking home a little souvenir with them. However, the evidence at Great Dunmow/Tilty and Saffron Walden/Sudbury shows that this looting happened as the monasteries closed their doors. Moreover, this looting had occurred whilst Henry VIII was still alive and on the throne. The King’s will had been absolute. The monasteries had been closed by him. And there was no going back. The people were in no doubt that this was not a short lived whim of the king, but the new way of life and the new status quo. Furthermore, this was not “looting” but was a legitimate business transaction between interested parties. All open, and all above board. The firm evidence of Tilty Abbey’s paving tiles used in St Mary’s church in Great Dunmow, along with the more circumstantial evidence of Sudbury priory’s roof used in St Mary’s church in Saffron Walden, both suggest that dissolved former monastic buildings were, at least in north Essex, “rich pickings” for entrepreneurs and local parish churches in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of monasteries.
St Mary’s, Saffron Walden in the early 1800s Did some of its 1530s’ roof come from Sudbury Priory?
Footnotes [1] ‘Houses of Cistercian monks: Abbey of Tilty’, in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 2, ed. William Page and J Horace Round (London, 1907), pp. 134-136 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol2/pp134-136 [April 2015].
[2] Great Dunmow’s Churchwarden accounts (1526-1621), Essex Record Office, reference D/P/11/5/1.
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Where do common phrases and terms in the English language come from? I asked myself this question recently whilst I’ve been researching my two new books Sudbury, Lavenham, and Long Melford Through Time and Saffron Walden and Around Through Time (both books due out from Amberley Publishing in the next few months).
During the writing of my books, I have been avidly scouring newspaper archives for reports and articles about all the towns I am researching. I came across the newspaper report below of a riot in Saffron Walden.
The “Proclamation being read” and “timely Notice” are both referring to the fact that the Riot Act had to be read out to the crowds in Walden. This was a 1714 Act of Parliament which stopped a group of 12 or more people from being assembled. When the Riot Act was (literally) read out (normally by a local big-wig from the town), the crowd HAD to disperse otherwise face being forcibly dispersed and/or arrested. If the crowd didn’t disperse within an hour of the Act being read, then the authorities could take further action such as calling for troops and militia to be sent in. From the newspaper account, it would appear that Walden’s crowd dispersed once the Act was read to them (but still managed to carry away a trophy!).
Later on in history, the reading of the Riot Act caused the infamous Peterloo Massacre (Manchester) of 1819. One of the last times the act was used in East Anglia was in 1885 when it was read in the village of Long Melford. In this case, the reading of the Riot Act did not work and the people of Long Melford and nearby Glemsford continued to riot throughout the village of Long Melford. So the troops from nearby Bury St Edmunds came into Long Melford via the train and dispersed the rioters using brute force with fixed bayonets. (My new book Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time looks at Long Melford’s riot of 1885 in more detail.)
As the Act was only repealed in 1967, the term is still used today. It is where we get the phrase “I will read you the riot act” – still used today by many to control unruly children!
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My book
My local history book on the historic East Hertfordshire town of Bishop’s Stortford is still available. Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
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Just over a year ago, on her wedding day in January 2014, I told the story of my precious first born and the ordinary miracle of her birth. Harrison Fisher’s charming Edwardian and art deco vintage postcards, along with Laurie Lee’s words about his own precious First Born, beautifully illustrated her and her beloved’s engagement and wedding. At the time, I didn’t want to tempt fate by publishing on my post the very last postcard in Harrison Fisher’s series.
Today, I can show you that final postcard.
Welcome to the world to my first grandchild, a darling little boy, A.J.D., who arrived into the world yesterday morning at 3:08am (GMT) 9 February 2015 weighing in at a whooping 8lb 15oz.
Congratulations to my beautiful girl and her lovely husband – a precious couple’s new life as a family about to start with their own ordinary miracle: their First Born.
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Book writing and blog posting is firmly on hold for a few days but I will be continuing to write “Saffron Walden Through Time” and “Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time” very soon.
Today is my regular writing slot on Worldwide Genealogy Blog – a global collaboration of genealogists and historians. My post on that blog today is the story of how my American great-uncle, Harry Elmo LaBreque, brought the bullet proof car of Chicago gangster and America’s “public enemy number 1”, Al Capone, to the seaside amusement park of the Kursaal, Southend in 1933.
Click on Al Capone’s car below to read the story of my great-uncle and Capone’s car.
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