John Mackay (1982) “Wendens Ambo: The History of an Essex Village” (self-published)

ContentsPageChapter 1 First Settlements. 2Chapter 2 The Domesday Book 4Chapter 3 The Middle Ages ... 5Chapter 4 The Seventeenth Century ... 10Chapter 5 The Wenden Churches 13Chapter 6 The Eighteenth Century 15Chapter 7 Wenden in 1800 18Chapter 8 The Enclosure Award 24Chapter 9 The Robinson Family 28Chapter 10 The Nineteenth Century — early days 29Chapter 11 The Victorian Village 35Chapter 12 The Nineteenth Century Church ... 41Chapter 13 The Twentieth Century — the years up to the Second World War ... 44Chapter 14 The War and after ... 50Postscript 56Appendices57References ... Inside Back Cover

Introduction

"A tiny village, unforgettably lovely"

— Illustrated Guide to Britain (Automobile Association)

"The approach to the W front of the church is unforgettable,

cottages on the left, glorious broad sweep of thatch on the

Hall barn and the square Norman church-tower ahead"

— Essex, a Shell Guide by Norman Scarfe

These descriptions are typical of what guidebooks have to say about Wendens Ambo, usually accompanied by a photograph of the church and the old cottages leading up to it. This view has appeared on calendars,

biscuit tins and even on a jigsaw puzzle, but there is a lot more to the village than a postcard image and in this book I shall attempt to tell something of its long story.

Wendens Ambo is a scattered village with a population of just under 400 and lies 2 miles south-west of Saffron Walden, 15 miles south of Cambridge and 40 miles north of London. It nestles in its own valley amid the soft folds of chalk which form the uplands of north-west Essex. Most of this chalk is covered by boulder clay which produces a soil capable of giving some of the highest yields of wheat in the country. Through the parish run three arteries : the old London to Newmarket Road known for many years as the All but recently down-graded to become the B1383; the railway which dramatically changed the village in the last century; and recently the M1 1 motorway. Each in its own way has contributed to the development of the village. The last 150 years have brought other great changes too, but essentially Wendens Ambo remains a rural community and it is still possible to catch a glimpse of a kingfisher by the side of the stream.

Inevitably the church has played an important role throughout the history of the village and I make no apology for the frequent references to it. It has undergone many vicissitudes and indeed indignities in its time, but it has always managed to survive despite these and the chronic shortage of money, never more true than today. This book, however, is not about today — that will be for someone else.

Spindles John J. Mackay

Wendens Ambo

CHAPTER ONE

First Settlements

When Roman bricks were turned up by the plough in Chinnell Field, the farm labourer may not have realised what he had found, but he was sufficiently interested to pass the information on. Soon it came to the ears of the Hon. Richard Cornwallis Neville, the Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries and later to become the 4th Lord Braybrooke. Although archaeology as we know it today was in its infancy, he had gained considerable experience in the field and had written several

papers to his Society on the subject. In 1853 he carried out an excavation of the site. A few feet under the surface he found the remains of a Roman-type dwelling commonly referred to as a "villa" and drew a plan showing the layout of the various rooms. He was particularly interested in the hypocaust, the brick-built heating chamber which would have provided warmth throughout the house by means of underfloor ducting. He mentioned that many of the bricks were missing and concluded that these may have been used for building elsewhere. No comment was made on the Roman bricks which appear in Wenden Church; perhaps this had not been brought to his notice.

Having removed a few coins and artifacts for his collection, the site was then covered. His findings were reported in the Archaeological Journal and that may have been the end of the matter but for the planning of a motorway from London to Cambridge. As this would obliterate the area of the villa, it was quickly realised that a proper excavation of the site, using modern methods, would have to be done. The Department of Archaeology at Cambridge University came to the rescue and in 1973 Dr. Ian Hodder and his team spent most of the summer months carrying out a thorough examination. The Roman site was just as they had expected, but what fascinated the team much more was what was found not far away — the remains of an iron-age settlement of the period 300-200 BC. Using the latest techniques they were able to establish the outlines of round houses, drainage gulleys, grain pits and areas for the slaughter of animals. In all it amounted to a farmstead for perhaps one extended family, self-supporting with no imported pottery to indicate contact with the outside world. The settlement appears to have been in continuous use right into the Roman period of occupation. During the first and second centuries AD the existence of droveways indicated the increasing use of cattle. Also from this period came some early Roman pottery; the first sign of the two cultures meeting.

In the third century a more substantial barn appeared, then a cattle pen and another granary with an oven for drying corn. All these point to prosperity, the grain produced must have been more than the family's requirements and was probably being traded or bartered. Then came the building of the villa nearby, the roadway between being made up with gravel, rubble and chalk, well cambered and ditched. It would be another 1500 years before Wenden had a road as well made as that.

The 4th century brought even greater prosperity, for the granary had become a bathhouse, the walls of which were covered in paintings. Small fragments of these paintings were found together with a few hairpins in

the cold-room. It is fanciful to think that here we have a Roman enjoying a position of relative comfort hundreds of miles from his native home, but what is much more likely is that the occupants were the descendants of the iron-age folk. They had grain to sell or exchange; they came into contact either with Romans or Romanised Britons and decided they liked the life. It is unlikely that Romans ever lived in the Wenden area although they had a fort at Great Chesterford only a few miles to the north.

In the late 4th century, all activity came to a halt — the Romans had left Britain and the villa destroyed, perhaps by fire, leaving only the foundations and a few roof tiles. It could have been the work of Romans or even caused accidentally, but a more plausible reason would have been the retribution of those Britons who fared less well during the occupation. The owner of the villa may have been killed at the same time. There is no evidence of this after all this time, but if these Romanised Britons had survived, would the country have sunk into an unrecorded hiatus — which indeed it did? The "uncivilised" Britons had simply reverted to their iron-age way of life, little or nothing remained on the surface to show the long Roman occupation.

What emerges from this period of history is that the land use was already well established. Wenden is in a shallow valley and well watered. The tops of the uplands on either side of the valley would have been covered in forest with small clearances for pigs and cattle. Just as today, the slopes were cultivated for wheat and other grains and after the crops had been gathered, the sheep would graze. The good soil was an important factor in the choice of a site such as this and there were probably other settlements dotted around the same valley. But villages were to come very much later.

What the archaeologists had found was evidence of the continuous occupation of one site for about 700 years. Prior to the iron-age, people were nomadic but they did leave things lying about, including their burial remains, quite a number of which have been found at Wenden. Even at the Roman villa site flint tools from the bronze-age (6000— 3000 BC) were discovered.

Another important site excavated by Neville was in a gravel pit close to the railway viaduct. There he found two urns holding burnt human bones together with an unusual fluted cylindrical instrument or implement of sandstone, all identified with the bronze-age. In the same field, iron-age urns with the same grisly contents were also found. This field is

particularly interesting as it provides an example of continuous use for burial purposes over a considerable period, probably at least 1500 years.

In archaeological terms, everything so far has been easily explained, whether it be a settlement, implement or burial, but there is some evidence of another kind which defies explanation. In the grounds of Mutlow Hall is a vestige of a mound which was used as a meeting place of the Uttlesford Hundred (a primitive form of local government) at least until the 15th century. The word "Mutlow" is a corruption of "motelawe" meaning a mound where moots (meetings) are held. To have held the meetings on that spot must have meant that it was of considerable importance to the people, yet as far as is known it was no more than an artificial mound. In 1976 C. A. E. O'Brien published a paper with the somewhat daunting title "An integrated Astronomical Complex of Earthworks at Wandlebury and Hatfield Forest from the Third Millenium BC". What he sought to prove was that 2000 years before the birth of Christ there were people in this country with the mathematical ability to establish solar and lunar calendars for the apparent attempt of measuring the circumference of the earth. According to his paper they achieved this by establishing lines across the country marked at standing monoliths or earthen mounds, each of these being an exact distance apart. The line being examined bisects the Uttlesford Mutlow. If his theory is correct (and I am in no position to judge on this) then the mound had been carefully created on an exact spot for mathematical reasons, perhaps by the ancestors of later Druids. It does not require much imagination to see how such a place could become sacred in some way and venerated over the years, long after all knowledge of its original purpose had been lost. What is astonishing is that at no time has the chain of association ever been broken, for otherwise the significance of the small mound would have been lost for ever.

Its importance, if not its meaning, has survived the bronze and iron-ages, the Roman occupation, the Anglo-Saxon invasions and the Norman conquest. Whatever the truth of the matter, it does make one pause to think.

The Saxons

With the departure of the Romans, Britain became defenceless. Across the North Sea, Saxons and Angles were under constant pressure from Asiatic hoardes and, seeking new lands, took to their boats. Soon they occupied the entire south-east corner of Britain, plundering and slaying wherever they went. The descendants of the British or Celtic-Roman

provincials who were lucky enough to escape were forced to flee into the far north and west. In the wake of these warriors from the continent came their families and soon the first settlements were made. They were great farmers, by far the best this island had ever known and by working together they made rules for tillage and forestry, something which was to endure in a recognisable way until the 19th century. Their homesteads of thatched tent-shaped huts were usually sited near streams but on ground high enough to avoid flooding. For safety they tended to huddle together, thus giving birth to the English village. Little or no history of rural life in this period has survived, but the East Saxons had created their own territory of Essex and it is likely that Wenden as a community within it was born in the 6th or 7th century AD. It took its name from the valley in which it lay — Wendene. The derivation of this name has been the subject of much speculation but Professor Ekwell is probably nearest the mark with his suggestion that it is from the Old English word wende meaning a turn or turning, thus "winding valley" — certainly suited to the locality. Some historians had other ideas. In 1835, T. Wright suggested that the name may have originally been "Wandon" i.e. White Hill, but this does not seem very appropriate. Even less so is the opinion of D. W. Coller who, writing in 1861, said that the name is derived from a Saxon word meaning mole-hill !

The Saxon village of Wenden grew up on the north side of the stream, probably very close to the area surrounding the present church. Christianity came in the 7th century and many of the churches built were on sites formerly used as pagan places of worship. It may never be known if this is what happened in Wenden, but the Church does stand on a prominent spot.

As more land was being brought into cultivation, people had to go further from their houses to tend it and it was only a matter of time before some of them banded together to go and form a new village. With Wenden, the pioneers did not go far, less than half a mile to the west in fact and here they set up their little new settlement quite close to the same stream. They obviously liked the name, for they retained it, but to differentiate between them, the new village was to be known as Little Wenden and the older one the rather grand title of Great Wenden.

Unfortunately no buildings from this period have survived, but we do know where one stood. In 1956 the Church sold a field east of the vicarage and when a house was being built on the site, it was necessary to dig a trench. On finding a complete pot of late Saxon St. Neots ware, experts were soon on the scene and were able to find two post holes,

suggesting the wall of a building. Other buildings may come to light, but so far this is the only one researched. The pot became the proud possession of the owners of the property and they named the house "The Crockern" after the valuable find in their garden.

By the end of the Saxon period, the shires and hundreds had been clearly established. The two Wendens were in a hundred known as Uttlesford —the ford of Udel, probably a prominent local landowner. The ford is actually within the parish of Great Wenden, where the Newmarket Road crosses the village stream. Thus Great Wenden, an insignificant settlement, became the centre of local government for a large hundred which encompassed places such as Great Chesterford in the north, Stansted in the south, Chrishall in the west and Wimbish in the east. But not local government as we know it today, merely a collection of men standing or sitting around a small mound of earth, the significance of which had been forgotten.

CHAPTER TWO

The Domesday Book

The Norman Conquest probably had little effect on the peasants of the Wendens : they were accustomed to changes in land ownership and the substitution of Norman lords for Saxon thanes meant little to them. But changes were taking place, and in their thoroughness the Normans have given us that great chronicle, the Domesday Book of 1086. This took the form of a questionnaire on a then (i.e. pre-conquest) and now basis. Who owned the land in Edward the Confessor's time? Who owned it now? What were the changes in population and animals? Most important of all, how much was it all worth?

The Domesday Book is the first written account of the two Wenden villages. Great Wenden (Wendena Magna) was owned by one free man as a manor prior to the Conquest but now forms part of the estate of Robert Gernon. He had also been allotted land in Stansted, Manuden and Takeley. This patch-work allocation was intentional; the Conqueror was careful to avoid creating large estates of adjoining land. This was because each knight could raise an army from those working on his land. If the estates were far enough apart, the speedy formation of large numbers to be formed into fighting units would be very difficult and this was exactly what the king had wanted. As it was, Gernon caused plenty

of trouble anyway, for he was constantly battling with other knights and had an evil reputation.

The area of the manor of Great Wenden is given as 7 hides less 6 acres. If one accepts the generalisation that a hide was about 120 acres, this gives an approximate total of 834 acres. There were three ploughs, each probably of eight oxen, 24 acres of meadow, two mills, 3 colts, 30 swine and 67 sheep. The total value was £8. The population consisted of 9 villeins, 5 bordars and 5 serfs. Assuming an average family of five, this gives a total of some 95 people. The position appears to have been the same prior to the Conquest.

Little Wenden (Wendena Parva) had been held by Ulmar as a manor before the conquest. Now it belonged to William de Warren who also held land in GI eat Chishill as well as in the Rochford Hundred and Lexden many miles to the east. The manor extended to 1 hides and 30 acres (about 210 acres in all) and therefore about one quarter the size of its neighbour. Before the conquest there had been only one plough but now there were If (i.e. 12 oxen) and another 11 belonged to the men. There had been 17 swine but now there were none; the number of sheep had remained unchanged at 50. Whereas before it had been worth 40 shillings, its value was now 60 shillings. Two villeins and 7 bordars gives an approximate population of 45.

The total acreage of both manors at the time of the Domesday Book is about 1044. When the first accurate survey was made in 1821 the number of acres was assessed at 1409, so either portions had been added from surrounding areas or, more likely perhaps, the difference is due to the methods of measurement. In the 11th century, this would have been very rough and ready, based on the amount of land which could be ploughed by one team of oxen in a day. Another possible reason is that in the 11th century they were considering manors, whereas today we think in terms of parishes. In many cases they were one and the same thing, but it would be wrong to accept this without question for the Wendens.

Both manors were now firmly in the hands of French-speaking lords to whom every villager owed allegiance. Each would have had a primitive church, a simple structure of two parts, the nave for the people and the chancel or apse for the priest. They would have been built of wood with a thatched roof and at Great Wenden there was a fine flint tower, most of which survives to this day. Little Wenden church disappeared before the end of the 17th century and little is known of it other than it had a tower. These churches were used for worship on Sundays and Feastdays and as

meeting places at other times. They were the community centres of the period.

The core of the simple economy would have been the husbandmen or villeins; men tied to the soil. They went with it and could not leave without the lord's consent. They were the farmers then and for hundreds of years to come. The bordars were people who lived and worked on the border of farms, holding only a few acres and supplementing their meagre yield by working 3 or 4 days a week on neighbours' land for wages. At the bottom of this pile were the serfs — little more than slaves although they could not be bought or sold.

CHAPTER THREE

The Middle Ages

During the next 500 years, until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, little is known of the two parishes, but this equally applies to most English villages. The history of this period is tied to monarchs and their wars and little was recorded of ordinary rural life. No one knows, for example, what effect the Black Death had when in 1349 about one third of all the people in England perished. Many medieval villages disappeared altogether, so perhaps the Wendens fared better than many. Apart from dramatic episodes such as this, life would have gone on with little change from generation to generation; landowners would come and go but the peasantry scarcely knew of it. Few if any of them would ever have left the village of their birth. London, some 40 miles away must have seemed like a different world.

Fortunately, some early records do survive. They tell us something of the landowners and just as important, how some of the place-names have evolved down the years. The Domesday "Wendena" became "Wandenne" in 1206 and first appeared as Wenden in 1251. In 1360 it was shown as "Wendon" and until well into the 19th century the "e" and "o" were freely interchangeable. A document in 1439 showed yet another variation — "Wynden". The hamlet of Clanverend (clean ford, i.e. clear of rushes) has come down to us through Claneford in 1253, Cleneford in 1387, Clanforth Ende in 1438 and Clanford Ende in 1563. The word "End" in this context is an Essex peculiarity and refers to a hamlet beyond the confines of a village. It occurs again at Norton End. This hamlet appears oddly named as it lies to the south of the parish of Great Wenden, but it

is probably a corruption of North Tun, i.e. north of Newport, the adjoining parish. It was shown as Nortune in 1387 and Norton Moor in 1474. On the well-known Chapman & Andre map of Essex of 1777, it is referred to as Norton End or Cold Fair Hill.

Bulse Farm was first referred to in 1299 when it was shown as a tenement (i.e. a holding) of Roger Bulle. In 1427 it was shown as Boolys and in 1438 as Boles.

Westbury (literally the Western Manor House) is one name which has survived remarkably unchanged over the years, a final "e" enduring until the 17th century. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Manor House itself, for no record of its existence can be traced. It was probably the Manor House of Little Wenden, but all that is left today is a large barn of that name opposite the old vicarage.

One name which has been all but lost is Chinnell. It survives in Chinnell Lane but few people know that it is also the name of the field where the remains of the Roman villa were uncovered in the 19th century. In his book The Place Names of Essex, P. H. Reaney considers that the name comes from the Old English cealfa-wielle — the calves' stream. From this he concludes that it must have been the name of the stream flowing eastwards through Wenden to the Cam. No one in the village remembers it having a name at all, it was simply the stream, the brook, or somewhat more optimistically, the river. But in recent years this stream has acquired a name, the authenticity of which is very much doubted. When the motorway was being planned, various maps and press reports referred to the Uttle, a name probably conjured up in the mind of some official who decided that the stream must have a name. His reasoning may have been that Uttlesford Bridge carries the Newmarket Road over the stream — it replaced a ford and this ford would have been on the Uttle. Quite ingenious but quite wrong, for history tells us that the ford is named after a man called Udel.

Fortunately the Ordnance Survey has not yet put this name on the map and I hope it is not too late to stop planners and some residents using it. I should like to see a reversion to the original Chinnell, its pedigree may not be perfect but it sounds better and perpetuates a very old name.

Before leaving the subject of the stream and its name; I should mention that I came across another version whilst looking through documents on the building of the railway. Dealing with a right of way under the viaduct, reference is made to the River Wen !

Landowners

Robert Gernon, Great Wenden's first Norman landowner, was succeeded by the families of Mountfitchet and de Playz then in 1236 by Robert FitzWalter. Later the land came into the possession of the Berkeleys, one of the few authenticated Anglo-Saxon families which survive to this day. For 200 years this family provided the Lords of the Manor in Great

Wenden and many other places throughout England. Confusingly, most of the family were named Thomas, something which has led historians to refer to them in the manner of kings and in some cases to endow them with nicknames. So we have Thomas I (The Wise) who fought at Bannockburn in 1314 at the age of 70 and had stood high in the favour of Edward I. His descendant Thomas III owned Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire when Edward II was murdered there in 1327, but whether he was actually involved in this murky deed has been the subject of much debate.

On the death of Richard III in 1485, the Berkeleys fell out of favour and most of their lands were forfeited, those in Essex (including both Wendens) being granted to John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. At that time the value of both manors was assessed at £20. Despite his title, Oxford was very much a man of Essex and played a large part in the intrigues of the county. On his death in 1513, the estates passed to his son. In 1543 the ownership again changed, this time to a commoner John Gate of Garnettes, Essex, "the King's Servant", who was later to become Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

It should be remembered that during this period these gifts of land were in many instances at the whim of monarchs, being an easy way of rewarding favourites and settling old scores with those who had crossed their paths. Queen Mary was to be no exception — she ensured that families with strong Catholic connections were to be well looked after following their harassment during the reign of her father Henry VIII. So out went John Gate, to be replaced in 1556 by Margaret, daughter and heiress of Thomas Audley, a former Chancellor of England. She had a short but eventful life. Her first husband had been found guilty of treason but was pardoned a few hours before his execution was due. One year later, in 1557, he died in battle. Her second husband was Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Margaret died at the tragically early age of 22 in 1564 but she had borne five children. From the three sons are descended the Earldoms of Suffolk, Berkshire, Carlisle and Bristol as well

as Lords Howard de Walden and Howard of Escrick. From one of Margaret's daughters the Sackvilles of Knole are descended, so despite her short life she had mothered some of the most famous of the English landed titles. The Suffolks, Bristols and Howards all had a part to play in the ownership of great tracts of land in north-west Essex. Her second husband was beheaded in 1572 on the orders of Queen Elizabeth for being a little too close to the Mary Queen of Scots conspiracy.

The eldest child inherited all the estates. He was created Lord Howard de Walden in 1597 and in 1603 became the Earl of Suffolk. In that same year he began his greatest enterprise, the building of Audley End House a few miles north of Wenden. This was on a site close to where an abbey had been prior to the Dissolution and was to become one of the grandest houses in the country. It still is, despite the fact that it is now but a third of its original size.

Little Wenden was less affected by the foibles of monarchy. In the post- Conquest period the manor was owned by William de Warren then through the families of Cavendish and Fray. For a while it was part of the Oxford Estates but this did not last as long as in Great Wenden, for in 1515 the manor was sold to William Walgrave, or Waldgrave, of Smallbridge in Suffolk. In 1571 it was purchased by John Barker and left to his son in 1590. The Earl of Suffolk, anxious to acquire further land, purchased Little Wenden in 1620 thus once again bringing both Wendens under the same ownership.

These then were the landowners up to the beginning of the 17th century. Most of them had probably never even seen their land in Wenden and as far as they were concerned the manors were simply a source of income. Even the main tenants, people who held the land under the Lord of the Manor, were usually but not always absentees. They acted as middlemen, letting the land to the actual farmer or yeoman as he was then better known. The yeoman in turn employed the peasants to work in the fields, little better off than the serfs of Norman times. Not many names are recorded during this long period from the Conquest until the end of the Tudor dynasty, especially in the early years. During the 12th century John de Wendene and Alexander Bayloll held Great Wenden and from the next century only one name has survived; that of Robertus Louhot, who is thought to have given his name to the tiny parish of Wenden Lofts or Loughts. Only a few miles to the west of Great Wenden, it may have been formed in the same way as Little Wendell but no real contact was ever

maintained. Later this parish was to disappear when it was incorporated with Elmdon.

In 1404 William Louenay, or Lovenay, and his wife Margaret "shall peacefully hold the manor of Great Wenden from 'Thomas Berkely, Lord of Berkeley". He died about 1436 and in his will directed that his body be buried in St. Mary Wenden Magna and made instructions for five wax tapers and 24 poor men to hold torches. A man of some importance,

he had been appointed Keeper of the Great Wardrobe on the accession of Henry IV in 1399, a position he was to hold for nine years.. As we shall see later, he was also patron of Little Wenden Church, so he must have had a considerable association with the area. There is strong opinion that the brass of a knight in Great Wenden church is in fact his, despite the assertions of. experts on armour that the style is of 1410 rather than 1436. A possible explanation is that he bought the brass "off the shelf" many years before his death.

William was succeeded by his son John who continued as tenant-in-chief until his death in 1443. The meagre records from then on deal mainly with land disputes and settlements, which at best give but an indication of the names of people involved. In 1453 John and Agnes Fray were plaintiffs and William and Elizabeth Brandon defendants in a case involving ownership of lands in both Wendens. In 1537 Roger Newman was in a similar dispute with two couples over a house and two acres of land in Great Wenden. In 1546 Robert Watson won his suit arising from the ownership of a house and barn, again in Great Wenden.

With the recording of wills, which for the Wendens started in 1502, we get to know a little more about the people living in the villages. The first noted were for John Newman of Great Wenden and John Wenham of Little Wenden. These wills tell very little about the testators; certainly if they left a house or a piece of land these could never be identified today, it being taken for granted that other people would know which property was being referred to. Most of the wills refer to simple articles such as beds and crockery and sometimes small legacies to relatives and friends. Surprisingly, some of these wills were made by labourers who must have had little to leave anyone.

The greatest value of them is that in many cases the occupation is shown, so we know that in the 16th century Robert Bull was a tailor, Henry Churchman a weaver and Richard Tanner a yeoman. One interesting will indicated a yeoman from a specific farm, this being William Thorowgood

from Clanverend, the first "address" ever used. All these wills were for folk from Great Wenden; those showing occupations in Little Wenden were few and far between. One indicated that William Bankes had been a labourer and another showed John Feltwell as a yeoman. Feltwell's will is a long affair, starting off like most that his body be buried in the churchyard, then going on to list a number of people who were each to receive a ewe and a lamb. From the number involved it certainly appears

that he had quite a considerable flock. Some money was left to carry out repairs to property, including an amount to help with work to the steeple of the church. This is one of the few references made to the church in Little Wenden and I thought I had stumbled upon an interesting form of architectural device, only to find that in those days the word "steeple" was used to denote a tower. But at least one detail of the church long gone is known.

Church Registers

In 1538 Thomas Cromwell decreed that the incumbent of each parish should keep a record of the baptisms, marriages and burials. At first kept on paper, they were later produced on parchment and the earlier records rewritten. This accounts for many errors, something which was to be compounded in the reign of Mary when many of the records were discontinued. Thus the value of such records is open to question but the miracle is that these should have survived for so long. Today the original parchments are held by the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford but there is a manuscript copy retained in the church records.

There is ample evidence that both parishes were closely linked long before the formal union in 1662 and nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the way these registers were kept. For baptisms, the Great Wenden register started in 1549 (11 years after the requirement to do so !), the first volume ending with entries for 1615. The register for Little Wenden had been lost and they did not get a new one until 1602. In 1616 it was decided to use this one for both parishes; one which was going to last until 1711. Marriages were first recorded in 1540 but after 1580 they disappear until Little Wenden started a joint volume in 1604 which was in use until 1785. Burials in Great Wenden were recorded from 1540 until 1641 when they were also added to the Little Wenden register which appeared in 1601 to replace one lost. The burial register had a long life, for it was to remain in use until 1812.

So here were two separate churches sharing their records. One wonders which incumbent accepted responsibility for the entries.

Court Records

Although records of the 16th century are very sketchy, they do add some flesh to the skeletons of mere names and real people at last appear. One entry in 1559 referred to William Fyllupp of Great Wenden who directed his wife to "set for every one of my daughters one rood of saffron ground apiece". It is known that saffron was extensively cultivated in this part of Essex in the 16th and 17th centuries but this is the only evidence that there were such fields in Wenden.

There are two curious entries which appear to indicate that at one time Wenden Magna had a guildhall, something normally associated with towns rather than small villages. The first is in 1549 when reference is made to "Le Yelde Hall", yelde being an early form of the word guild. Later and more definite, there is an entry in 1569 which refers to "Le Guilde Hall". Other villages in the neighbourhood such as Elsenham and Berden also appeared to have guildhalls (they are referred to in the same entry as Wenden Magna), so they must have been relatively common. What is not at all clear is the trade or guild involved; in all probability the connection was with wool but we may never be sure.

In the 1580's there was a spate of indictments of men with grievances against the Queen and her government and the people of the Wendens had their part to play. In 1587 Richard Daye, a yeoman, was quoted as saying that "the Queen doth poll the country", meaning plundering by excessive taxation. John Feltwell, a labourer from Great Wenden who may have been the son of the man of the same name whose will was referred to earlier, seems to have been quite a trouble-maker, for references to him appear on a number of occasions. The wonder of it all is how he managed to get away with it. In court in 1591, whilst defending an unspecified charge, he exclaimed "Let us pray for a father for we have a mother already". Asked what he meant, he answered "Let us pray for a King — the Queen is but a woman ruled by noblemen, the noblemen and gentlemen will hold together; the gentlemen and farmers will hold together; so that the poor can get nothing. Therefore we shall never have a merry world while the Queen liveth . . . I would the Spaniards would come in so that we may have some sport". These seditious remarks

earned him the slight sentence of two hours in the pillory on market day in Walden. It should be remembered that during Elizabeth's reign there was very little land fighting — Feltwell's outburst may have been caused

by the frustration of being denied a good fight for his country. There is also the possibility that he had lost out following the death of his father — he had been brought up as the son of a yeoman but was now no more than a labourer.

He appeared before the justices on a number of occasions for various assaults. Things became so bad that the inhabitants of Great Wenden petitioned the Privy Council complaining that "he was a very troublesome and contentious person who prosecuteth divers frivolous suits against them, to their great charge and vexation". The charge had been confirmed by the justices and other local gentlemen who led the Council to instruct other neighbouring justices to look into the matter. Apparently Feltwell had obstinately refused to submit to or attend any of the meetings. The outcome of all this is not known but it appears quite remarkable that at that time a labourer with little or no standing in society was beyond the control of local justice and had to be referred to the august body of the Privy Council.

The Church Courts, or more specifically the Court of the Archdeacon of Colchester, played an important part in Elizabethan times, dealing with such diverse matters as absence from church, usury, licensing of schoolteachers, adultery, dilapidated churches and recusancy. Recusancy meant the refusal to attend the services of the Church of England or to accept the religious changes of the Reformation. It applied to clergy and laity alike and in practice it was essentially anti-Roman Catholic.

These archidiaconal courts heard cases brought by churchwardens, presentments being submitted not only on provable facts but also on rumour or merely suspicion. As can be imagined, the number of cases heard depended upon the enthusiasm of the wardens and the willingness of villagers to testify against their fellows. The sentences were rarely severe, ranging from warnings and penances to fines to be put into the poor men's box in the parish church. Failure to appear at all seems to have incurred the worst penalty — excommunication. Public penance in church may have had some effect but the hardened sinner would have scoffed. With the sort of evidence given in some cases, accompanied by

the ribald laughter of the spectators, it is not surprising that these institutions quickly became known as the "Bawdy Courts".

Wenden folk had their fair share of all this. In 1594 no less than 33 men from both parishes were put up by the wardens for absence from

communion; one was absolved, the others cited. Multiple charges were made against Godfrey Burgoyne (or Burgin), rector of Little Wenden. In 1585 he was accused of being "an insufficient minister, could not administer the communion aright, leaveth out part of the Lord's Prayer, an alehouse-haunter, a blasphemer in the name of God, keepeth company with suspected persons and papists". It came as no surprise to find that this denunciation should have come from John Feltwell. Nothing came of these damning indictments but in the next session the Little Wenden wardens had the poor rector up again, this time for not taking a service. His plea that he had been held up in Dunmow due to sickness was accepted but that was not the end of the matter, for later in the day further offences were produced. He had long absences, at communion there was bread but no wine and the registers were not being kept. The wardens appeared to be confirming what Feltwell had alleged at the previous session. In his defence, the rector replied that he was away engaged in litigation through Feltwell having molested him but he had arranged for Mr. Clarke, the vicar of Great Wenden to serve the "cure" on that day. On other times when he had gone to church on Wednesdays and Fridays to say service there was no one there. He frequented alehouses or inns only for his victuals and dressing of meat and wine but not otherwise. He was dismissed on all accounts but two years later was again reported to the court because he had not held services on seven holy-days and Sundays. Despite all these public accusations, Burgoyne somehow managed to struggle on for another ten years before he died in his rectory in 1598.

The churchwardens themselves were sometimes victims. In 1596 Roger Banckes of Great Wenden was cited for suspicion of incontinency with his maidservant Margaret. He got his own back the next year, however, when he affirmed that Robert Marsh, the vicar, had threshed corn in the church porch and laid chaff on the floor. The vicar admitted that he had five faggots there and some chaff, all of which he was advised to move. In the same year he was in trouble again, this time for marrying couples without banns being called and without licence.

A curious case arose in 1596 when three daughters of Thomas Daye of Great Wenden together with Joan the butcher's daughter were cited for

going disguised a-mumming, as was Thomas for encouraging them. Mumming appears to have been the wearing of men's clothes by females of a lewd or lively disposition. This sort of activity sounds quite harmless

and it is difficult to imagine why it should justify a submission to the court. The punishment is not recorded.

Earlier, reference was made to the loss of the Little Wenden registers. In 1599 the wardens reported that they had in fact been stolen and were ordered to provide a new book. Speed obviously was not of the essence for it was not until several years later that the new ones came into use.

Other references to the Wendens in the court documents were mainly concerned with church property. Two Great Wenden parishioners were cited for declining to contribute to the cost of casting a bell and in another case Christopher Ram, rector of Little Wenden was presented because the chancel "lacketh tiling and glazing". Fortunately William Helder, a farmer, undertook to remedy the defects.

Wenden has a silver communion cup with a hallmark indicating the year of 1589 but strangely, the cover or patten is dated 1568. This is rather odd for it is much more likely that the cover would have been lost rather than the cup. But in Wenden things worked differently and we have the record of the "Bawdy" Courts to thank for revealing the answer to the mystery. In 1588 it was recorded that Little Wenden lacked a cup although the wardens had confirmed that they had provided a "comely" one twenty years earlier. At that time six parishioners had been brought before the court for not contributing 2s. 8d. towards its purchase — this was a large sum in those days and the people were unlikely to have forgotten the incident. The cup had been lost or stolen and the court ordered its replacement. Unfortunately the money to replace it had also gone astray — George Day of Great Wenden and John Felstead of Little Wenden had testified that 10s. or more towards the purchase of a new cup had been delivered to Mr. Banckes, one of the churchwardens, but he could not remember any such money being received. Where the money came from is not recorded but a new cup was at last provided in 1589.

Apart from the strange goings-on, this case shows that the two villages, only a few hundred yards apart, appeared to be sharing their communion vessels in the last part of the 16th century. Communion services were

either being held at different times or days, or one church (probably Little Wenden) was falling into disuse.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Seventeenth Century

The 17th century was to bring three changes to the people of the Wendens; perhaps not important in themselves but taken together were to create a village which was to endure in a recognisable form into this century. The first was a gradual one and may have started before 1600. Called the "great rebuilding", it was to transform the houses of the parish into structures which still exist in many cases. The second change was the introduction of better standards of husbandry into farming methods, largely brought about by the enterprise of the new owners. The third was to be the amalgamation of the two parishes, the formal bringing together of two communities which had separated 700 years or so before. As has already been shown, in many ways they were already acting as one so that the union may have been no more than an acceptance of the de facto position.

Before examining these changes, it may be appropriate to take stock of the villages in 1600. The houses of Great Wenden were huddled around their fine church. The vicar had his tumbledown vicarage, all traces of which are now gone. It is doubtful whether anyone will ever know for sure where this vicarage stood but my guess is that it was between the church and the Royston Road, perhaps close to the north end of the existing churchyard and just to the east of the village hall. The only evidence for this is contained in an inventory of church land (known as a Terrier) which was produced in 1763. Apart from the glebe and land in the open fields the only other piece of church land was less than an acre north of the church itself. To my mind the most obvious reason for this ownership would have been that at one time the vicarage would have stood upon it.

To the south-east of the church was Wenden Hall and Farm, the Hall at least having been there for a hundred years before. Most of the remaining houses would have looked very much as they had done for centuries before — miserable hovels with low walls, no windows and tiny doors. Outside was the only evidence of wealth, a pile of manure. The small plot around each house could never have been called a garden;

perhaps a few vegetables and some herbs needing little care after a hard day in the fields. The roofs were thatched (the only material available) and there

would have been a hole in the middle to let the smoke out. The family lived in one room, augmented by their animals in the winter months. Furniture as we know it today was virtually non-existent — beds of a sort, perhaps a stool or two and a rough table to get away from some of the accretions on the rush-strewn earthen floors. It is hard to imagine what life must have been like in these hovels with the combination of darkness, smell, smoke and vermin.

Little Wenden also had its church which seems to have been a simple affair compared with its neighbour and, as we already know, in a poor state of repair. It had a rector, i.e. a minister in full possession of the greater and lesser tithes, whereas the vicar of Great Wenden received only the latter. What these tithes consisted of will be referred to later. Now the church has completely gone. Unlike its bigger neighbour, the houses were not clustered around the church, although they may have done in Saxon times. Instead they were scattered along the roadside and lacked any obvious focal point. If there had been a manor-house then most likely this would have been at Westbury across the road from the church, but as mentioned earlier there are no surviving records of this.

It is not known for sure why so many houses were rebuilt between the end of Elizabeth's reign and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, but it seems to be the case with so many villages. The common characteristic of the new houses was that they were timber-framed covered with plaster, had small windows and a properly thatched roof. Instead of a hole in the roof, they now had chimneys, some of them beautifully formed in brick, a material relatively new to the district. A few of these original chimneys still exist and in at least three cases the workmanship is very good. The stack of the Bell Inn has six diagonal strips or pilasters on each face; Oak Cottage is a particularly good example with similar diagonals and Rookery Cottage has three projecting ribs on each face. Other chimneys were more plain but none had pots — these were a manifesta¬tion of the 19th century which should not appear on 17th century houses !

Most of these new houses were of two storeys (even if the upper one was only a platform) and divided into separate rooms or chambers with the bedrooms upstairs. The larger ones were probably the homes of yeomen,

but later most of these were to be divided internally to form two or sometimes three much smaller dwellings.

In the previous chapter, reference was made to the acquisition of both Wendens by the Earl of Suffolk. At first this made little or no difference to the villagers, but James Howard, the 3rd Earl devoted considerable energy to the improvement of the vast Audley End Estates which covered a large tract of north-west Essex, including Walden, Littlebury, Great and Little Chesterford, Newport and the Wendens. In 1688 the total rents from these estates realised £2572, a considerable sum in those days. Wenden's contribution to this was £199. In comparative terms, this brought a degree of prosperity to the area. Better land utilisation benefited everyone from the Earl to the lowest worker and it was probably about this time that the first cracks appeared in the old feudalism. A new type of tenant farmer took over two levels of the social strata, replacing the tenant-in-chief and the yeoman. Such a man was Gamaliel Cornell of Wenden Hall, who was followed by his sons John and William. These men would have been closer to the Earls than any of their predecessors but at the same time were in day-to-day contact with all the farm workers.

Apart from the regular Manor courts, Wenden Hall was also used for the Sessions of the High Constable. Such meetings were usually held in market towns but the Uttlesford Session seemed to revolve around Wenden, Newport, Henham and Stansted Mountfitchet. Why Walden was not included is a mystery.

The Civil War appeared to have little effect on the Wendens apart from the deterioration of entries in the registers. It was summed up in one line in the burial register in 1642 — "ye Rebellion and ye Protestation". When the monarchy was restored in 1660 the Church of England was re¬established and non-conformists harried. Robert Pepys the vicar of Great Wenden was ejected and as there is no record of a replacement, the rector of Little Wenden, Robert Sparke probably officiated in both parishes. Much had been neglected during the war and the Common¬wealth period and there was a strong need to put things right. It was perhaps inevitable that a formal union of the parishes should take place.

A petition of the inhabitants was made to the Bishop of London, Gilbert Sheldon, with the consent of the Earl of Suffolk who was patron of both livings. In this it was said that since the Restoration the church income from both parishes was so small that they were scarcely able to maintain

one minister; the churches were less than half a mile apart; Great Wenden church was big enough for them all; Little Wenden church was

in a very poor condition; the "Mansion Houses" (vicarage and rectory) were almost uninhabitable but Great Wenden the worse of the two. Quite simply, could they have one parish? Gilbert Sheldon, a great man who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, agreed to the proposal and issued the appropriate instrument under his Episcopal Seal. This was duly confirmed by the Patron so that on 23rd March 1662 a new parish was created — Wendens Ambo, literally "the Wendens together". This was a most unusual way of describing the union but not unique for in Yorkshire there is a Huttons Ambo, although I know of no other.

Stripped of the verbiage of the time, the Instrument stated that the Rectory and Church of Little Wenden should be united and annexed to the Vicarage and Church of Great Wenden with all its tithes, profits etc. to be received by the vicars of Wendens Ambo and that the parishioners should hear and perform Divine Offices and receive Sacrament in the church of Great Wenden. It concluded by saying that the vicar and church-wardens should apply the materials of Little Walden church and those of the vicarage of Great Wenden to the rebuilding and repair of what had been the rectory of Little Wenden and was now to become the vicarage of the new parish.

Thus Wendens Ambo was born, in the same year as the Book of Common Prayer. Strangely, for many years afterwards, references were made in wills and other documents to Magna and Parva, so the old names took a long time to die out. Today the full title of the parish is used on maps, signs, postal addresses and official documents but for many local people the abbreviated "Wenden" is considered sufficient. Taking a leaf from their book, from here on I shall do the same.

In 1665 Nathaniel Wakefield became the vicar, a fact recorded in the parish register. This had not been done before (nor indeed since) and the insertion appears to be a reminder or even a caution to him, for there for all to see is the fact that he was "inducted and subscribed the Articles 3 Sep 6 Aug 4 Dec in presence of John Cornell William Cornell and Others". Is there any significance, I wonder, in the dates being out of order?

Although the parish registers were very suspect during the middle of the century, I have attempted to produce a list of the heads of families known to be in Wenden at the time of the union and this is given in Appendix I.

This shows 64 people and if the normal multiple of five is used, this

would give an approximate population of 320. The spelling used is as shown in the registers, but consistency was rare. Burrow the miller appeared as Borrow in 1632 and Burrows in 1679. This family held the mill for most of the 17th century and the first decade of the 18th. Some of the names survived into the Victorian era, families such as Cane (Cain), Clark(e), Flack, Hovel, Havers, Jaggard, Law, Porter, Parish, Shelford,. Wilson and White. A few were to endure into the present century.

About 1680 the tenancy of Wenden Hall was taken over by Ambrose Andrews from Cambridge. Five years earlier he had married Ann Churchman and when he came he brought his mother-in-law (also named Ann) with him. The earliest memorial still legible in the church is a floor slab close to the lectern commemorating her death. It reads :

"Here lyeth ye body of Ann Churchman wife of Robert Churchman Gent of Balsum in ye County of Cambridge who departed this life June ye 9th 1684 aged 70 years."

In the latter half of the century, people seemed to be moving about, at least in search of wives. Before then most marriages were of local folk, but in 1659 village girls married men from Takeley, Radwinter, Walden and Newport. Later, there were weddings where neither party was from the village. In 1688 for instance it was recorded that a man from Elmdon had married a woman from Crisall (Chrishall). Two years later there were two further weddings, the men from Elmdon and Stansted and their brides from Widdington and Elmdon. In 1695 the one marriage recorded was of a man from the parish of St Mary-at-Hill in the City of London to a woman from Walden. Why these people should have chosen Wenden is a mystery, although one possible answer is that the woman may have been working away from home and returned to the village for the ceremony. Strangely, this also happened in Great Chesterford about the same time. In the history of that village, I. Roxburgh refers to the high proportion of marriages of people who were not local folk during the period from 1687 to 1700.

Before leaving the 17th century, one incident worth recalling was a walk from Saffron Walden to London made by Robert Winstanley in November

1677. He was a younger brother of Henry, builder of the first Eddystone Lighthouse, and considered himself quite a poet. The experiences of his journey were the subject of a poem, the Perambulation, which was published the following year. The first village he came to was Wendell

where he found that the men disliked beards, considering them "chargeable and troublesome" things.

Therefore without beards commonly they go, By which sign a Wenden man may know.

This early form of doggerel was written to entertain the ordinary man and I think has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Wenden Churches

In previous chapters references have been made to the two churches. In this chapter I am departing from the chronological sequence to go back to the earliest days of church history in the parishes.

Great Wenden

This church, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, probably started as a simple Saxon structure, but following the arrival of the Normans and under their influence would have been rebuilt. The existing tower dates from this period though oddly there are a number of Saxon features; indicating perhaps that the Normans allowed the local folk some discretion in the way in which it was constructed. One small window on the west side has a strong Saxon look about it and the round sound-holes on three sides of the tower are also found in the Saxon church of St. Benet's in Cambridge. Built of flint and strengthened with clunch (a hard form of chalk), the choice of these materials shows only too well the lack of local stone. Roman bricks, almost certainly from the site of the villa, form the round-headed arch over the west door and a few more can be seen over the "Saxon" window higher up. Apart from the castella-tions and the "Hertfordshire" spike which were added later, the tower is

almost unaltered from the 11th century and is undoubtedly the gem of Wenden.

Originally the tower may have been added to the Saxon nave and chancel and these were probably wooden. Soon afterwards these were replaced by flint to form a small compact church; the nave for the people and the chancel or sanctuary for the exclusive use of the clergy.

The church was under the patronage of Barnwell Priory near Cambridge — long since gone. It was rather small, having no more than 30 Austin Canons and might not be remembered at all had it not been for one of their rules which somehow has been passed down over the years. This rule, one of many no doubt, stated that "the dishes are not to be broken or dirty or smeared on the underneath, the brethren ought all to be careful not to wipe their noses or rub their teeth on the napkins or tablecloth." Manners maketh man !

As the size of the village increased, so did the need to enlarge the church. This was done in the 13th century by the addition of a south aisle. At the same time, with greater emphasis being placed in the ritualistic aspects of worship, the chancel was demolished and replaced by a larger one. In the 14th century a north aisle was added. About 1500 the walls of the nave were heightened so that two clerestory windows could be inserted on each side to give more light to the interior. This made the nave very high in relation to its length, a prominent feature of the church as it looks today. About this time too a south porch was added.

A few years later two further clerestory windows were inserted in brick at the eastern end of the nave. This was probably to put more light on the Holy Rood — the large cross which was fixed above the chancel screen. There is evidence in the church today that there had been a vaulted loft above the screen, access to which was gained by means of a spiral staircase. This screen and the pulpit, both of which still exist, also date from the early 1500's, a time when quite a lot of money was being spent on the church.

But the Reformation was not far away and the new windows were rapidly to lose their functional value, for the Holy Rood which they illuminated would have been the first thing to be removed from the church. The next would have been the many murals which until then had served as the poor man's Bible. These disappeared under a coat of whitewash and with them the only colourful thing in the life of the peasantry. No one knows

when the Reformation came to Wenden but it was probably at the same time as Henry VIII commanded the dissolution of Barnwell Priory. This was surrendered in 1538 and the patronage of St. Mary the Virgin, Great Wenden, passed to John Gate who later became the Lord of the Manor. The patrons did not last long, for Thomas Cotton, Gentleman of London took over in 1550, followed by

William Waldgrave in 1569, John Barker in 1572 and then his son Robert in 1590. Early in the 17th century it passed into the Suffolk family where it was to stay until the partition of the Audley End Estates in 1753.

An inventory of the church carried out in 1553 showed that there were vestments in white damask, three bells and one small bell. For the administration of the divine service there was a chalice, a cope of red silk and communion cloths and surplices. There was a note that a chalice had been sold for £3.2s.7d. and a red damask vestment for 14s., receipts for which were kept by the church. Were these, I wonder, the last connection with Roman Catholicism?

Although 31 vicars are recorded from the first records in 1325 until the union of the parishes (see Appendix II), very little is known about them. Robert Smith, who served from 1504 to 1527 is the only one whose will is recorded in the Wenden lists; he left property in Walden and Great Abington. His successor John Newman attended King's College, Cambridge after Eton and had been ordained at Lincoln. The last vicar of Great Wenden was also a product of Cambridge. Robert Pepys came down from Emmanuel College in 1636 and three years later was in Wenden. He was also vicar at Arkesden from 1648 until 1660 and although the records are by no means clear it does look as if he spent more time there than in Wenden, perhaps not surprising with the poor state of the vicarage. He was ejected after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.

From the Reformation until Victorian times, the only visible external changes to the church were for remedial rather than functional purposes. There must have been a problem with bulging in the chancel walls, due perhaps to the weight of the roof, and this was corrected in the 18th century by the construction of brick buttresses at the corners.

Little Wenden

Little is known about the structure of this church but it was probably very small with a simple nave and chancel. But it did have a tower, a fact gleaned from a will referred to earlier. By the time of the union of the parishes, it was in a state of ruin and would have been demolished shortly thereafter. Since the last century there has been a lot 'of

speculation as to where the church actually stood, but there is little doubt now that it lay on the north side of the Royston Road in the garden of what was the vicarage until the 1960's. A popular belief was that it had been some distance to the west of the vicarage and the large scale maps of the Ordnance Survey marked the site there. When the motorway was planned, it was realised that the site would be obliterated and archaeologists carried out an intensive survey of the area, only to find nothing. Where the map-makers obtained their information is not known.

Whereas Great Wenden had a vicar, the incumbent at Little Wenden was a rector. Today the distinction between vicar and rector has lost all its significance but at one time it was very important. The rector of a parish used to enjoy the full possession of all the tithes, i.e. one tenth of all the produce from the land, whereas the vicar had to be content with the lesser tithes, the greater one going to a lay rector who in many cases would have been the Lord of the Manor. Which tithes were greater or lesser rather depended upon local circumstances, but in the Wendens the former were chiefly corn, the major product of the area, whilst the latter consisted of wool, lambs, cattle, hay, pigs and turnips. Later these tithes were calculated on a cash basis and in the 19th century were to disappear altogether.

The patrons of Little Wenden were individuals from the start and in most cases were the actual landowners or tenants-in-chief. The names which have survived (with approximate dates) are :-

1327 William, son of Radulph of Pebmarsh, Miles

1399 John Fitz-Rauf, Chavalier 1428 William Lovenay, Armiger 1439 John Lovenay

1443 John Fray

1465 Agnes, widow of John Fray 1477 John Say, Miles

1488 William Say, Miles

1515 William Waldgrave, Miles

1563 Sir William Waldgrave, Armiger 1572 John Barker, Merchant

1598 Sir Robert Barker, Armiger 1610 King James I

1620 Earl and Countess of Suffolk

The descriptions after the names are taken from the original records. Miles and Chavalier are terms for knights and Armiger a person entitled to wear a coat-of-arms. 1572 saw the emergence of the man of commerce. The appearance of the King may look a trifle surprising, but it appears that the crown took over patronages when they became vacant. These were then given to favoured parties.

A list of rectors exists from the 14th century and this is given in Appendix II.

The living from Little Wenden must have been a precarious one as the acreage of the parish was so small. Later records show that the church had quite a lot of land as glebe and it was probably by farming this himself that the rector managed to make ends meet. Some of the rectors took on additional duties as vicars of other parishes, presumably to augment their meagre incomes. John Crosby, rector from 1465 to 1477, was also vicar at Great Wenden, an early anticipation of what was to happen in a more formal way some 200 years later. Stephen Farand (1522-1533) was also vicar of Chishill Magna from 1527 to 1531. Edward Rumbold (1600-10) became vicar of Stansted Mountfitchet in 1601 and was still there in 1628, an indication perhaps of the better living available.

Richard Parker, rector from 1610 until 1628, was a brilliant scholar. Born in Ely, he had been a lecturer in Greek at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was the author of Skeletos Cantabrigiensis, which was published in English long after his death as A View of Cambridge. According to Cooper he was "eminent as an antiquary, genealogist and herald and enjoyed the friendship of Camden and other learned men". Several of his manuscripts are still in the College library. Regarded as "a melancholy man, neglecting all preferment to enjoy himself", it is impossible to imagine him emulating his predecessors in Little Wenden

by working in his glebe aside his parishioners. He is the only man of Wenden to have found a place in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Robert Sparke succeeded him in 1628. He was a local man from Widdington who went to Newport Grammar School before going up to Cambridge. He was the last rector and was in Wenden at the time of the union in 1662. It is perhaps appropriate that the first vicar of the new united parish should have come from the same district and been locally educated.

CHAPTER SIX

The Eighteenth Century

During the early 1700's the prosperity of the Earls of Suffolk went into decline, a contributing factor being the enormous cost of keeping Audley End House. In 1721 it was decided to demolish the greater part of it leaving only the back of the central court, all that remains today. The earls came in rapid succession and when the 10th died in 1745 he left neither a family nor a will. As can be imagined, this led to prolonged arguments amongst relatives but in the end it was decided that all the estates should pass to three descendants of the 3rd earl. These were Elizabeth, Countess of Portsmouth, her sister Anne Whitwell and Lord Harvey who was later to become the second Earl of Bristol.

The Countess, who dominated all activities, appointed Colonel William Vachell to examine the entire estates, ostensibly because tenants had never known where they stood with the late earl and he had not enjoyed much confidence in the area. The true purpose, however, was to carry out a valuation so that the estates could be partitioned between the parties.

When Colonel Vachell visited Wenden he was very impressed. Wenden Hall Farm and Westbury Farm were rented by Lancaster Rickard who had taken over the tenancy of both about 1740. The Colonel remarked in his report that Rickard was an old man, honest and substantial, adding "these farms will hold their rent; it is a pretty estate and well tenanted".

The Audley End Estate was at last divided in 1753 and not surprisingly the Countess and her sister secured the major proportion which consisted of most of the land in the north and to the east of the River Cam, including the prize of Saffron Walden. The smaller part, including Wenden, went to the Earl of Bristol though it was generally recognised

that in Wenden Hall the Bristols had the best farm on the whole of the Suffolk Estates.

Thus the second Earl of Bristol became Lord of the Manor of Wenden and the lay patron of the church. He remained until 1810 when, with considerable intrigue, his estates in Wenden and elsewhere were sold to the second Lord Braybrooke who by this time had already succeeded to the rest of the estate which had been partitioned in 1753. Lord Braybrooke had therefore in effect reunited the two portions but curiously the Earl

of Bristol retained his patronage of Wenden church, enabling him to continue the right to appoint vicars there.

The Audley End Estates controlled the most important part of Wenden but by no means all of it. Their part consisted of 481 acres, of which 414 were rich arable, 43 pasture, 2 meadow and 22 ley. At the time of partition the Wenden Estates attracted rent of £273.5s.0d. plus £36.16s.0d. land tax, an improvement on the £199 paid in 1688, remembering that inflation was virtually unknown at that time. As a generalisation the Estates lay north of the stream through Wenden, the rest of the parish being privately owned.

At the beginning of the century William Willmott, variously described as farmer and gentleman, appears to have lived in the village. In his will of 1705 he left all his land in Wenden, Newport and Littlebury to his son Thomas. In 1753 Thomas passed his rights to the Wenden lands to his daughter Mary and her husband Lancaster Rickard. Rickard of course was the tenant at Wenden Hall so it can be seen how connections between prosperous families were being built up.

Bulse Farm and a few houses (including Trout Hall) belonged to John Drage of Soham in Cambridgeshire. The Rev. Robert Howard held the land south of the stream stretching from Bulse Farm to the Newmarket Road as well as some smaller portions around Duck Street. Thomas Le Blanc (Blong in some records) was a prominent landowner. Described as a London merchant, his property consisted of the large farm at Clanvetiend in the far west of the parish, Drayton Hill Farm (later to be known as Wenden Place Farm) and several small portions scattered around in such places as the side of the Cam and in what had been the

village of Little Wenden which by that time had been downgraded to a hamlet known as West End.

As for the farmers themselves, Ambrose Andrews at Wenden Hall had died in 1718 and there is an elaborate memorial tablet to him on the north wall of the nave in the church. He was followed by his son Thomas who continued the tenancy until about 1740 when Lancaster Rickard put in his appearance. He and his son (another Thomas) were prominent members of the Manor Court which, although diminishing in importance, still provided an excuse for the Earl of Suffolk as Lord of the Manor to have dinner with his tenants. It was the custom of the earl to give each servant there five shillings "for their trouble" and pay one

shilling for the church bell to be tolled. When the Colonel later visited the hall, it was obvious that Lancaster was putting more responsibility on to his son. In his report he also mentioned that "his son receives and pays all and is, in fact, the tenant. Should the old man die, the son must not be parted with. He is a prating, whimsical fellow but will prove a good tenant". So it was to be though the "old man" lived until 1772. His son carried on until his death in 1789.

The centre aisle of the church has three floor-slabs to remind us of this family. Lancaster is described as a Gent whilst Thomas is shown as Esquire. Considering the hazards of the time, it is surprising how many instances there were of people living to a ripe old age. Lancaster's 88 years and his son's 79 must have far exceeded the average life expectancy of those days and surely an indication of the adequacy of their way of life. In the 19th century we shall see the same with the emerging middle class.

In addition to his tenancy of the hall, Lancaster through his wife had acquired a small farm in Duck Street, part of the estate of Thomas Willmott referred to earlier. In a map of 1788 the building is shown as "Mr. Rickard's Farm House".

The Willmotts, Andrews and Rickards were the village gentry of the 18th century, but there were a number of smaller farmers, people like Richard Burrowes, Edward Freeman, Richard Kent (senior and junior, both of Clanverend), George Saville, Samuel White, William Welch and Thomas Barker. Most of them would have lived in the village and walked with their men to the open fields which were a feature of that time. Cereals were the most important crop but cattle, sheep and pigs were widespread. Hops and fruit were also grown on a small scale.

The other important occupation was milling. When the Burrows family gave up the watermill on the Cam about 1710, the ownership was transferred to Matthew Stanes followed by his son William then Josiah Johnson until his death in 1741. The mill then passed to the Salmon family in whose hands it remained for over one hundred years.

There is one reference in 1767 to an inn-holder, Arthur Newman. He probably leased "The Bell" and if so, his is the first name associated with it. The building belonged to the Stortford Brewery, an early example of a tied house.

John Hare was a carpenter, William Cowell a cordwainer (shoemaker), William Dyer a weaver, Thomas Parish a shepherd and all other workers labourers in the fields. There is no evidence of shopkeepers and probably there was no need for them in such a small village. Few of the inhabitants would have gone to Saffron Walden and the things which self-sufficiency did not provide would have come from the backs of itinerant salesmen.

The parish records reveal a century of no great upheavals but a constant struggle for survival. In 1705 reference is made to a "strange child" born at Mr. Trehearns. The entry in the parish register is odd enough but this is the only time I have come across this name, obviously a man of property to earn the title Mr. In 1765 a girl was born to "gipseys" in the fields — perhaps not an uncommon occurrence in those days. In August 1790 triplets were born to the Thurgoods but within two months all three were dead.

Farm accidents took their toll. Two people were killed by wagons, Thomas Griffin in 1749 and Joseph Smith in 1793. James Smith was killed by a cow in 1785. In the same year the register shows 11 deaths compared with the average 5 or so; whether the winter had been abnormally severe or there had been an epidemic of sorts I do not know.

Although population censuses were not started until 1801 there are approximate figures available from the number of occupied houses, indicating 300 people in the parish in 1723, 250 in 1763, 225 in 1778 and 250 in 1790. Too much importance cannot be attached to these variations as their accuracy depends upon the size of families, but the figures probably point to no great changes taking place. The parish registers

show few marriages being made with partners from outside the parish : families intermarried but this was inevitable in such a small community and was no different from anywhere else in rural England.

The only prominent vicar of the 18th century was Robert Fiske who was born in Colchester and came to Wenden in 1741. A man of property, it was noted that "he had a pretty estate in Suffolk and was preferred by the late Earl of Suffolk to the living". This is the only instance when it was recorded that a patron had exercised his right to appoint vicars.

Fiske remained for 42 years, dying in 1783. There is a memorial to him in the nave of the church and to his widow who died in 1803. His son Robert, born in Wenden in 1751, was to become vicar of Fulbourn in

Cambridgeshire. In turn his son was vicar of Elmdon and his son in turn the vicar there too, changing his name to Wilkes in the process. Four generations of vicars !

Wenden was without a vicar from 1783 until 1812, almost 30 years.

The 18th century brought a new denomination to Wenden, the Independents or Congregationals, but the movement had started much earlier. East Anglia has a long history of independence of religious thought; as far back as 1669 it was known that meetings of Quakers were taking place in private houses. In that year John Churchman of Wenden was fined £.13.6s.6d. for holding such a meeting. Also involved was Matthew Day who later sold part of his Walden home for use as a Friends' Meeting House, the start of a strong Quaker movement which still thrives today in the town.

Three days before Christmas in 1682 a group of non-conformists met at the secluded Wood Hall in Arkesden to covenant together that "they would walk in profound subjection of our Lord Jesus our King, cleaving to Him, and to know one another according to His new Commandment". This marked the beginning of the Independent Church in the area. Their leader was James Day and under his pastorate a Meeting House was erected at Wenden. Where this was is not known but apparently it was inadequate for in 1751 the local congregation purchased land on the north side of the Royston Road on which a new Meeting House was built at a cost of £144.2s.0d. This was a large sum for the time and indicates the strength of the support.

From 1744 Francis Petchey of Littlebury Green was "Teacher of the Gospel" at Wenden and Clavering and when he died in 1759 he was buried in the new ground of the Meeting House. In his will he left a sum of £5 to the Wenden Meeting.

Petchey's death, coupled with the inevitable apathy which sets in following official toleration, seems to have had a marked effect on the Wenden congregation. Attendances dropped and people complained that the building was damp and cold. This may well have been true but must have equally applied to almost every church and meeting house in the country. Whatever the reason, it was decided in 1778 to move the small congregation to a new place of worship in Newport and demolish the Wenden building. This left only a burial ground in Wenden which

was to continue in use, not only by Independents in the village but also those of Clavering and Newport.

The last few years of the 18th century brought a number of significant changes in land ownership. Following the death of Thomas Rickard in 1789, Wenden Hall was taken over by John Robinson, a newcomer to the village. Within a short time he was putting his own estate together. First he bought Bulse Farm, then the lands of the Rev. Howard. When Le Blanc died in 1802, Robinson purchased all his Wenden properties. During the same period, the Earl of Bristol bought the Rickard farm in Duck Street. The Wenden estates were passing into the hands of two men.

The century ended with portents of times to come. In 1795 a bad harvest had pushed up the price of bread. This led to an attempt to provide poor families with a scale of relief related to the price of bread and the size of the family. What happened was that the farmer dropped wages even further, leaving the ratepayers to make up the difference. Those receiving payments related to bread prices could be close to starvation since the cost of other commodities was rising steeply with no allowance being made. All this happened at the same time as livestock was being sacrificed for wheat. Wars in Europe were making great demands and these were being felt in the smallest village. Wenden was no exception.

CHAPTER SEVEN Wenden in 1800

The nineteenth century was to bring far-reaching changes to Wenden; particularly with the enclosure of the open fields, the arrival of the railway and the introduction of formal education. It was a century dominated by two families, the Barons Braybrooke and the Robinsons. The Braybrookes were inheritors of vast estates in north-west Essex and elsewhere, built up from the initiative taken by the Suffolks two hundred years earlier. In the case of the Robinsons, they were comparative newcomers who brought with them the wealth to acquire good agricultural land at a time when the demand for food was high.

From maps available around 1800 it is possible to re-create a picture of what Wenden may have looked like at that time, but before doing so

it might be helpful to sort out the names used for the roads to avoid confusion. Even today some Wenden roads have alternative names and many people are quite dogmatic about their own versions. I have no intention of trying to establish what these names should be; rather my aim is to indicate those in commonest use. The most troublesome one is that which runs more or less from east to west through the parish, in fact the "main road" of the village. Like most roads, its name indicated where it led to, but sometimes this was to more than one place ! One historian described it as the road from Wenden Loughts, which is quite correct, but nowhere else have I found this name used. This leaves Elmdon and Royston, both of which were in common usage in the last century, but as the latter appeared more frequently, this is the one I shall adopt. The other road was the main turnpike running from south to north, variously referred to as the Newmarket, Cambridge, Newport or London Road, depending perhaps where one was intending to go at the time. The one most commonly met with was Newmarket, so for that reason I will use it.

The focal point of the village was of course the church (No. 1 on the map) with the nearby Wenden Hall and Farm (2). Parts of the Hall can be traced back as far as the 15th century and even before the additions made to it in the 18th century it must have been the largest and most important house in the parish. The Manor Courts had been held here for hundreds of years and it was the traditional home of the tenant of the prosperous farm. There are two fine 17th century timber-framed and weatherboarded barns. The larger one is a splendid structure of eleven bays with three large gabled entrances on the east side. Its interior is almost church-like with its mass of roof timbers. It is reputed to be one of the largest thatched barns in England. The smaller barn would also have been thatched at one time but is now tiled. Parts of it are plaster-covered and the whole was carefully restored in the 1970's.

Leading up to the church (and past it to the farm) is a lane known at one time as Church Road but today referred to as Church Path. On the left-hand side are three old cottages which make up the well-known picture so beloved by painters, photographers and compilers of guide¬books. The one nearest the church (3) dates from the 17th century and has been extensively restored. The middle house (4) is from the "great rebuilding" period of 1600 or thereabouts with a single storey addition of the 18th century. The older part has the upper storey projecting at the front, a feature not uncommon in houses of that age. The single storey

part retains its thatch. The third house (5) is an excellent example of a 17th century cottage complete with small casement windows and a thatched roof. There is a fourth house in Church Path (6) which may be as old as any of its neighbours, but as it was clad in yellow brick sometime during the 19th century, no one knows what it looked like originally. The interior however leaves no doubt as to the age of the building.

At this point, the Royston Road runs for a short way in a south-north direction on an incline known as Drayton or Draytons Hill, the derivation of which is not known. It does rather sound like a surname although I have not been able to find any Draytons in the parish registers. It could, of course, pre-date these. On this hill, opposite the entrance to Church Path, is another thatched cottage (7) dating from the 18th century with a single-storey extension to it on the north side. Later in the century this was to become the post-office and shop. Further up the hill, on the same side, were five small cottages (8). The lower three were demolished in the present century and the two remaining converted into one home, the thatch being replaced with tiles.

Round the corner (and now facing east) there was a large yard containing animal pens with a pair of cottages (9) backing on to the rear of those in Church Path. This was where the butcher did his work, not retailing meat, but slaughtering animals .One of the outbuildings still exists today and serves as a garage. The cottages themselves have been converted into one house. In 1800 there were no other dwellings on the south side of the Royston Road east of this point, but on the north side there were three. The first (10) has been extensively altered but probably dates from the 18th century. The western part has attractive dormer windows under a thatched roof and the eastern end is unusual in having

a double gable, thus showing two pitched roofs. The second (11) is a good example of a house with a buttery — nothing to do with butter, but a single-storeyed addition behind the main fireplace which "abutted" the house. This building has a 17th century look about it, but when structural alterations were recently carried out, evidence of a much earlier date was revealed, perhaps as far back as the 15th century. The third (12) consists of two semi-detached homes built in the 18th century which lie at a slight angle to the Royston Road at its junction with Nats Lane. With an ornamental gable in the centre, a rough-cast wall surface and large asbestos-tiles on the roof, the building has all the appearances of having been erected in the 1930's, but in fact it was still thatched at the outbreak of war in 1939. They were known as Chapel Cottages well into the present century and

may well have been built by the "Independents" as their burial ground was adjacent. Certainly the Independent Meeting owned these houses in 1800.

Up Nats Lane on the left-hand side is a large thatched cottage (13) of indeterminate age with many windows of different sizes, the smaller ones perhaps being original. It may have started life as one home but like so many of the others had been sub-divided by 1800. Today is it one house again. Nats Lane is quite short and was probably originally provided to gain access to the open fields, but was also used as a short-cut to Saffron Walden. It is thought to have been named after Nat Saville, one of a large Wenden family.

Royston Road, then devoid of houses, carries on until it meets the Newmarket Road. This junction has moved at least five times and in 1800 the two roads met at right angles to one another. The slope downwards is quite steep here and a few years later the junction was moved slightly to the south so that traffic had a more gentle hill to negotiate.

Returning to the centre of the village, the next arm takes us southwards down Duck Street. It was not called that then — the name appeared slightly later in the century, probably a somewhat pastoral idea for there were certainly ducks ! Some people have attached importance to the use of the word "street" in a village environment, linking it somehow with the Roman site not far away, but I think it rather unlikely that a Roman name could have survived the dark pre-Norman age. Going southwards, almost immediately one reaches Trout Hall (14) on the right-hand side. The history of this building is rather obscure but it appears to date from about 1600 and could have been the home of a prosperous yeoman.

There has been a suggestion that the many outbuildings (most of which have now gone) were used for tannery purposes. Unfortunately it was so extensively altered later in the century that it is impossible to imagine what it must have looked like before.

After Trout Hall the road crosses the stream by means of a ford and south of it the land is very flat indeed. So much so that flooding was quite frequent, as people who built houses along Duck Street in this century were to find to their cost. But in those days there were few houses, just three in fact. A few yards beyond the ford there were two opposite one another, their gables flanking the road. The one on the right (15) is a very good

example of the simple type of cottage built in the early part of the 17th century. The windows are very small and there is a brick chimney which leans precariously. Unfortunately a modern bungalow was added at the back of this building, completely ruining what would otherwise have been a most interesting house. The one across from it (16) is a smaller edition, which although now derelict, was occupied until 1936 when it was condemned by the local authority. Today it serves as an outhouse.

The third house (17) lies on the left further up the road. It is not as old as it looks, probably dating from the latter part of the 18th century. It is the only house in Wenden with exposed beams but these are on the lower half only and have been infilled with brick.

A trackway off to the right is known as Chinnell Lane. A few yards along it is a fine farmhouse (18) dating from the 17th century with a remarkably good brick chimney which is very broad at ground level and narrows as it rises. Much of the effect is spoiled, however, by the addition of modern adjuncts, especially a garage which I find quite hideous. It is a mystery how planning authorities could ever have allowed such horrors to spoil a beautiful building. This house was the property of Lancaster Rickard in the 18th century and in 1800 it was still known as "Mr. Rickard's Farm House". Later it became known as Bennett's Farm and its stackyard, which lay between the house and Duck Street, was a prominent feature after the harvest each year. For some obscure reason, this house is known today as "The Old Rectory". This building has never been connected with the church and people who remember the early days of this century are positive that it did not carry that name then. Whereas people have the right to call their homes by any name they

wish, it is a great pity that some are occasionally chosen which cause confusion. This is a good example.

There were no other houses in Chinnell Lane which soon petered out in the common fields.

A striking feature of Duck Street was the number of pollarded trees which lined both sides. These were elm (alas all gone), willow and sycamore which were harvested annually to provide wattle for sheep- hurdles, housebuilding and other uses.

All the old maps show Duck Street (or more properly a continuation of it) proceeding in a straight line to the south-west leading to the village of

Wicken Bonhunt and forming part of the parish boundary with Newport. On the right-hand side, just after the junction of a road leading to Bulse Farm, were two old cottages. The first (19) consisted of two dwellings of the simplest kind, each having one room and a kitchen. The second (20) was larger, but by no means anything other than a modest home. An auction notice dealing with the sale of both these properties in 1818 is held by the Essex Record Office. What is remarkable is that they have rather grand titles, the first being referred to as "White House" and the second as "Fidler's Hall". To quote from the particulars, Fidler's Hall consisted of two chambers, parlor (sic), kitchen and buttery, yard, well of good water, large barn and a small close of rich pasture — hardly the making of a "Hall' in the accepted meaning of the word. They formed part of the estate of the deceased Hervey Kimpton and both were let to Robert Kempton, the tenant of Clanverend Farm. The similarity of the names is bad enough but even the auctioneers were known as Kimpton & Son (of Bishopsgate Street in London). At the auction in the Rose and Crown, Saffron Walden, White House was sold for 60 guineas and Fidler's Hall for 48 guineas.

The finding of this auction notice was quite a triumph for me, for I had come across a number of references to Fidler's Hall Lane and could not imagine how the name came about. In 1800 the lane was so called, yet curiously the auction notice mentions that both properties were in Duck Street. About 1840 or thereabouts it became known as Cherry Orchard Lane and before the century was out it had changed again, this time to Dodnoe Lane — the one which has survived.

Returning to the junction, the left-hand lane goes through Bulse Farm (21) and beyond. The farmhouse which stood there was destroyed by fire

about 1850, so we shall never know how old it was. The house built to replace it was similarly destroyed a hundred years later. Of the farm buildings, little of the original remains; most of the existing barns and sheds are modern. At the farm the lane turns to the east and as it follows the parish boundary it is probably very old indeed. Along it lies a large house (22) which may have started off as the home of a yeoman. Investigations of the timber-framed structure have indicated that it was built about 1560 and, typical of the period, the upper floor projects at the front. It has one of the finest Tudor chimneys in the village. By 1800 the house had suffered the fate of so many others by being divided into separate homes, in this case three. It remained like this until the 1960's when it was completely restored and became one home again. A tiny

cottage in the garden, which now serves as a garage, was also in occupa¬tion until the 1930's.

The only other house in this lane was at Rookery Farm (23), a pleasant 18th century building which still stands with many of the original outbuildings. After this farm, the lane disappeared into the Hospital Common Field in the parish of Newport. Whether this trackway had a name in 1800 is not known, but later in the century it acquired the ubiquitous "Duck Street" which persisted until someone came up with the bright idea of calling it Rookery Lane.

There may have been other houses in earlier times, for this area has been considered a hamlet in the parish, known variously as Norton End, Cold Norton or Cold Fair Hill.

Going back to the centre of the village, the next arm is the Royston Road proceeding west. As the road turns at the foot of Drayton Hill, the first building on the right is Wenden Place Farmhouse (24). A large 18th century building, it was to be considerably extended as we shall see later. Many of the farm buildings still exist, the most prominent being a tall wooden barn. Next to the house is a tiny thatched cottage (25) of the same period. Across the road is the Bell Inn (26), another fine timber- framed structure from the early 17th century, part of which has a projecting upper storey. It is thought that the building may have been used as an inn from the beginning.

Proceeding westwards, we enter what had been Little Wenden, although no records exist to show where the actual boundary was. A small

thatched cottage on the left-hand side (27) was demolished early this century. A little further along and across the road stood the vicarage (28) in its extensive grounds containing the sites of what had been the church and grave-yard of Little Wenden. By 1800 the vicarage was becoming very run-down, but more than fifty years had to elapse before remedial work was done.

Crossing to the south side of the road once again, there is Westbury Barn (29), the last remnant of what had been the Manor for the small village.

All the remaining dwellings along the road are on the south side, lying in a narrow strip between the road and the stream. The first (30) is now but a small part of a much larger house. The next (31) was demolished

early in this century, but the one next to it (32) is a good example of an Elizabethan house complete with the characteristic chimney. It had been built as one house, but had become two by 1800. Today it has been restored to one home again with a considerable amount of timber cladding added. Further along are two more cottages (33 and 34), both probably quite old, but much altered and added to in the course of time.

All that is left in this direction is Clanverend Farm (35), the house probably dating from the 18th century but again much restored. The usual cluster of farm buildings may have included labourers' cottages but information on this is scanty. Here the road divides, the one on the left going over the hill to Arkesden and the other to Royston.

This leaves only one area of the parish unvisited. This is a small community on or near the Newmarket Road close to Uttlesford Bridge. The slope down to it from the junction with the Royston Road was known as Myrtle Hill and the hamlet as Myrtle Vale. This is a typical example of how names change with the passing of time. Myrtle is in fact a corruption of Mutlow or Moot-Law, the original meeting place of the Uttlesford Hundred which was nearby. The more romantic Myrtle was to endure into this century. The main building was a very old inn known as "Ye Cock in ye Hole" (36) which served as a staging post for the coaches which passed regularly. The name is an obvious reference to the popular sport of cock-fighting. Next door to the inn was the forge (37) which has now gone. Behind these buildings were a number of substantial barns and stables .

On the other side of the road is Mill Lane. Near its start is a row of seven terraced cottages (38) in which lived the blacksmith and those who

tended the horses at the inn. They were built in the late 18th century and the pantiles may be original. At the end of the lane is the 18th century mill house, built of brick with a central gable which in those days would have held the loft hoist. Attached to the house was the mill with its water-wheel served by a mill-race forming a "by-pass" to the River Cam; the infant stream which flows somewhat more majestically through the Backs in Cambridge.

All the buildings known to have been in Wenden in 1800 have now been mentioned, but one other structure is worthy of comment. On the Royston Road opposite Duck Street is an excellent example of wall construction, so fine in fact that it has been listed as Grade II by the Department of

the Environment. This wall stretches from Wenden Place Farm to the building later to become the post office, turning an angle of 90 degrees as it does so. Flint walls with supporting brick piers are common enough in Wenden and elsewhere, but this one is different — over ten feet in height with a confection of other stones, large and small in addition to the flint. Being predominately chalk, there is little stone in the area apart from erratics left behind when the glaciers of the ice age melted. Wenden was near the southernmost extent of these massive ice sheets and the stones and other debris came from as far away as Yorkshire. Some of these stones are boulder size and those which did not become field markers or protect corners found their way into this wall, including several good examples of puddingstone, an attractive geological feature of pebbles

encased in a natural cement. It is the mixture of this exotic material with the local flints which produces the fascinating texture.

In this chapter I have not used many of the house names for the reason that few of them existed early in the 19th century, but to help readers I have prepared a list to be read in conjunction with the map. This shows the name by which the house is known today and what previous names (if any) it had. It also gives the Grade allotted by the Department of the Environment.

This then is a rough picture of the village in 1800; a central core with a few farms and hamlets. But changes were on the way, the impact of which would affect virtually everyone in Wenden.

Map

No. Grade Present name Former name's

1 I Parish Church 20 (destroyed by fire)Bulse Cottages,

2 II Wenden Hall and Farm Fidler's Hall

3 II 1 Church Path 21 Bulse Farm

4 II 2 Church Path (house destroyed by fire)

5 II 3 Church Path 22 II Rookery Cottage Norton End

6 Hillside 23 Rookery Farm The Rookery

7 II Old Post Office Post Office 24 II Wenden Place FarmDrayton Hill Farm

8 Drayton Hill Cottage (originally 5 cottages; 25 IIWenden Place Cottage

3 now demolished) 26 II "The Bell'

9 Drayton Farm Cottage 27 (demolished)

10 Wenden Hill Cottage 28 Old VicarageVicarage

11 II The Close 29 Westbury Barn

12 Chestnuts Chapel Cottages 30 Courtlands The Willows

13 Reeves 31 (demolished) Rose Cottage

14 II Trout Hall 32 II Hawley Bishopps Oak Cottage

15 II Un-named 33 Brooklands

16 (derelict) Yew Tree Cottage 34 Brookside

17 Beam End Wenambo Lodge 35 Clanverend Farm

18 II Old Rectory Bennetts Farm, 36 II Old Forge"Ye Cock in ye Hole"

Mr. Rickard's Farm House 37 (demolished)Forge

19 (destroyed by fire) Bulse Cottages, 38 II Silver Row

White House 39 II The Old Mill HouseMill House

(and Mill now demolished)

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Enclosure Award

To understand what "Enclosure" is all about, one has to examine how the land of the parish was being used. Until Tudor times, virtually all land was unenclosed, i.e. there were no fences or hedgerows separating one man's field from another. Animals could not be contained in any one place so that there was a constant need for people to attend to their herds and flocks. In the 16th century many landowners enclosed the better portions, especially those close to the farm buildings and in the water meadows where the cattle grazed in the summer months. The rest, much of it relatively unproductive, was used by all and sundry who enjoyed common rights. The villagers would have crops of some description in different parts of these common fields and, as was the custom for hundreds of years, pay tithes to the Church and the Lord of the Manor. This common land principle went back to Saxon times when

each village or community brought one or more such fields into cultiva¬tion. Each man had a number of strips of land, the dimensions of which were related in some way to the extent an ox team could be used for ploughing. In some cases, one field could contain several hundred such strips, each separated from its neighbour by a thin baulk of unploughed land.

Much of England had been enclosed by the end of the 18th century but north-west Essex was a notable exception, for thousands of acres of open fields existed there in 1800.

In Wenden the larger fields were in the north of the parish, extending virtually from west to east, but there were a number of smaller ones in the southern part. They were worked by labourers in much the same way as their Saxon forebears, with the help of wives and children when necessary. The crops consisted mainly of wheat and rye which were sown in the autumn with barley and oats in the spring. It was usual for each strip to be left fallow every third year, but otherwise husbandry was somewhat primitive.

The Industrial Revolution was making demands for more food and this was intensified when the Napoleonic wars cut Britain off from the

WENDEN IN 1814

The parish before the start of the Enclosure Award, showing White

Hedge Field and its extension, Townsend, stretching virtually from west

to east. The land already enclosed lay in the centre of the village and

along the roadways, the one major exception being Dodnoe, the large

field in the extreme south of the parish which belonged to Lord

Braybrooke.

The names of ancient enclosures are also shown on the map. The field to the south-west of the church known today as the "Wick" was then referred to as the "Back-wick". Chinnell has retained its name in the lane which leads to it and Dodnoe in the far south, an island of Braybrooke

territory, also keeps its name in a trackway. Others are meads or meadows including the curiously named Day's Pightle.

The Award is beautifully written on parchment and bound in one volume with the map. Two copies were prepared, one for retention by the Archdeacon of Colchester and the other lodged in Wenden Church. It is not known whether any arrangements were made to share the document with Arkesden but for as long as anyone can remember the book has remained in Wenden. At first it was used by solicitors when land was being sold as it constituted the title deeds for much of the land in the parish. Evidence of this is apparent from the number of pencil notes in the margin. The pages are liberally sprinkled with stamp duty seals.

In theory at any rate, the new owners would have started to hedge or fence their awarded land and before long the landscape was to change into the one familiar to those who remember this part of the countryside before the advent of the combine harvester — compact fields separated by neat hedges (usually of hawthorn) and ditches. Self-sown trees would be allowed to grow as a feature and in time they relieved the monotony of the hawthorn. Today only a small number of these hedges and trees remain, usually where they form the boundary between two farms or the limit of the parish.

Little is known of the fate of the small farmers who did not fare well from the Award, but the villagers who had relied on the common land for grazing their animals had nowhere to put them now. They could neither gather firewood nor take the odd rabbit. The land was no longer for their use and any rights they had were gone. Trespassing on what had been common land was a serious offence for which transportation was a frequent penalty. To survive the men had to hire themselves out as labourers in a market where the cost of living was rising whilst wages were falling. The Corn Laws worsened the plight of the poor, for Parliament supported the substantial landowners who profited during

The few farmers who were allotted small fields had to abandon any pretence of making a living from them. Most sold out to their neighbours, usually for about £10 an acre, and became labourers or moved elsewhere. In the 1820's and 1830's many people in Wenden found it impossible to make a living and these were times of migration, some to the new industrial areas, others to the developing colonies. It is for this

reason that so few houses for workers were built in Wenden in the 19th century — quite simply there was no need for them.

The parish was left with five farms. By far the largest was Wenden Hall owned by Lord Braybrooke; the others, Bulse, Wenden Place, Rookery and Clanverend by John Robinson. All were tenanted, but there is one odd point. Prior to 1820, John Robinson was in fact the tenant of Wenden Hall which meant that he either owned or farmed all but a few acres of the entire parish.

The aims of the Enclosure Award were being achieved for the yield from the land increased dramatically. This improvement in agriculture was essential to the task of feeding the country's growing population, especially in the urban areas.

CHAPTER NINE

The Robinson Family

John Robinson came to Wenden in 1790 to take up the tenancy of Wenden Hall following the death of Thomas Rickard the previous year. He had come from Littlebury with his father Stephen who had owned large estates there following a good marriage to Martha Fuller. He also owned estates in Horseheath in Cambridgeshire and Denston in Suffolk; the family was obviously a prosperous one. John, an only child, was born in 1762 so he would have been about 28 when he came to Wenden. It did not take him long to start acquiring farms locally and from the start these provided a lucrative income. His father returned to Littlebury where he died in 1806 although he was buried in what was to become the family vault in Wenden Church. By this time John had married a Saffron Walden girl, Hannah Catlin, and of their five children at least three were born in Wenden Hall. The eldest, John, died in 1800 at the age of eleven. The others were Nathaniel, Stephen, Martha and Robert.

John inherited all his father's estates and must have been a very wealthy man. Despite this he continued as tenant of Wenden Hall until about 1820 when he decided to move into one of his own farms, Wenden Place, only a short distance away. By now Nathaniel had married and moved to Littlebury to run the estate there. Stephen had gone to Saffron Walden

having married Mary Catlin, another member of the large family from which his mother came. It was the Catlins and the Gibsons who founded the bank in Saffron Walden, known as Gibson's Bank and now part of Barclays. Stephen joined the malting side of the business and became mayor of Saffron Walden in 1820.

This left John and Hannah with their two unmarried children, Martha and Robert, and his widowed mother. Apart from the work in running his many farms, he was also described as an attorney and in charge of the local constabulary. He was reputed to have been a large powerful man and a daunting sight on horseback in pursuit of the lawbreaker.

He was also fond of "improving" his properties. At Wenden Place Farm for instance he enlarged the timber-framed farmhouse by adding what was virtually a new house at right-angles to it so that the gable abutted the front of the original. The new structure was of brick and although

this may have been the most practicable material available, it fails to blend with the more traditional plaster. The result is a somewhat incongruous mixture of styles.

John's wife died in 1824, followed five years later by his daughter Martha and his mother. Not long before, Martha had married a vicar from Bolam in Northumberland but may have died locally as she is buried in the family vault. By this time Robert had married too. He was not a country lover and being rather restless had soon moved to London where the life-style was more to his liking. By the end of 1829, if one can ignore the number of servants he would have had, John was on his own.

One year later he moved again — this time a few yards down the hill to one of his other properties, Trout Hall. The temptation to "improve" the Hall was irresistable, the excuse being that one day his son Stephen would move there to take over. This time he added a storey which he then hung with tiles, a style quite unknown in Wenden. Then he added a substantial north wing in brick, creating a ten-bedroomed house. This new wing may have replaced an earlier structure as the cellar under it appears to be of the same period as the original part of the Hall. The wing became the main living quarters, the older section being turned over to the servants.

When John died in 1841 at the age of 79, it was recorded that he had been much respected and would be specially missed by the poor of the parish for whom he had done so much. In his will he left Clanverend to

Nathaniel, Wenden Place to Robert and Bulse Farm, Rookery Farm and other Wenden properties (plus some land in Newport) to Stephen who appears to have been his favourite. Soon afterwards Nathaniel sold Clanverend to Edmund Cotterell and Robert enhanced the Audley End Estates by selling Wenden Place Farm to Lord Braybrooke.

By now a widower, Stephen dutifully returned to Wenden and moved into Trout Hall. In addition to looking after the estate affairs, he took much interest in the extraction of gravel from shallow pits just beyond the parish boundary into Newport. The improvements being made to the roads at that time called for a considerable quantity of gravel and Stephen was making a healthy income from it.

He and Mary had six children but only the two eldest, John George and Mary, survived infancy. Like his father, the son married a Saffron Walden

continent. The need was for more home-grown produce, particularly wheat for bread, and success could only be achieved if the common fields were to disappear. The old system simply made attempts at new methods uneconomic and crops were constantly at the mercy of roving livestock.

To enclose fields, it was necessary for the landowners to obtain a special Act of Parliament. As far as Wenden was concerned there were only two major landowners, Lord Braybrooke and John Robinson and it is unlikely that there was much dissent in bringing the Bill before the Commons. As the parish was quite small, it was arranged that the Enclosure Award would be shared with the adjoining parish of Arkesden. The Act "For Inclosing Lands in the Parishes of Wenden, otherwise Wendens Ambo, and Arkesden in the County of Essex" received the Royal Assent on 23rd July 1814. It refers to the Rt. Hon. Richard Aldworth Griffin Lord Braybrooke as Lord of the Manor of Wendens and Impropriator of the impropriate Rectory of Great Wenden and to the Earl of Bristol as Patron of the United Rectory of Little Wenden and Vicarage of Great Wenden and the Rev. Edward Ryder, Clerk, being the incumbent of the said United Rectory and Vicarage.

Three commissioners were appointed, Martin Nockolds of Tring in Hertfordshire, John Jossleyn of Sproughton in Suffolk and Anthony Jackson of Barkway in Hertfordshire. Their task was to draw up a map of

the parishes, allocate the common land in compact blocks, not necessarily in size but proportionate in value, and to exchange certain lands already enclosed (referred to as "ancient enclosures") to achieve parity.

Following notices which appeared on the doors of the parish churches as well as in The County Chronicle and Cambridge Chronicle, the first meeting was held at the Crown Inn at Great Chesterford on 11th August 1814. John King of Saffron Walden was appointed surveyor and his map of the parishes is the first large-scale accurate representation we possess. It was drawn on vellum on a scale of 9 chains (198 yards) to one inch and from checks made, is very accurate indeed. Quite apart from the information necessary for the Award, it gives a wealth of detail and a fine picture of the village. Every field, path, road and house are shown with the names of the owners of the land already enclosed and the fortunate recipients of the common land. This meticulous survey showed

WENDEN IN 1821

After enclosure, a very different picture emerges. The common fields have

gone and Lord Braybrooke, John Robinson and the Vicar become the

predominant landowners.

AcresRoods Perches

Common Land 897 0 38

Ancient Enclosures 488 2 11

Public and private roads 14 1 15

Town streets and lanes 9 0 8

1409 0 32

These divisions of an acre are now archaic. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with them, 40 perches made one rood and 4 roods made one acre.

The Award starts by carefully defining the boundary of the parish, the first time this had ever been done. It goes on to describe all the public and private carriage roads, footpaths and rights of way, stipulating those which were to disappear and the minimum required breadth of those to remain. Then follows the main part of the work — the allocation of the common fields, done with a wealth of detail (far too much to be given here), but the final effect will be clear from the two maps. In anticipation of the Commutation of Tithes Act of 1836, special allotments were made to Lord Braybrooke as Lord of the Manor and to the Vicar in lieu of their tithe income.

Obviously all this careful work took some time and it was not until 28th June 1821 that the Award was enrolled in the office of the Clerk of the County of Essex in Chelmsford.

The names with no comment were probably of absentee landlords as they do not appear in local records. From this it is clear that little of the awarded land went to working farmers.

Before looking at the consequences of the Enclosure, perhaps it is of interest to note some of the field-names which were to disappear, at least from documents and maps. Fortunately some of the names are still used by farmers. On the east side of the Newmarket Road, near the Cam, were Goodwin's Shot, Mill Mead, Swan's Nest and Madgmadells. White Hedge Field and Townsend Field, the two largest areas of unenclosed land, had no "inner" names, suggesting perhaps that most of the farming there was done by the tenant of the Audley End Estates. Elsewhere, however, small field names were plentiful, especially in the south-west of the parish. Notable ones were Langley Field, Arkesden Street Shot, Broad Croft, Down Hill Field, Nix Hole Shot, Dean Shot, Foxhole Shot and Barns Croft. The derivation of many of these names

girl, Mary Clayden. She was the daughter of a prominent local farmer and as a result of the marriage she and John George were able to take up farming on a large scale at Oakley some 8 or so miles south of Wenden. You will not find this place on the map today, for it is now known by its

original name Ugley which must have been too much for the Victorians. They moved into the Hall there and farmed some 1000 acres of prime wheat land. She bore twelve children although one was to die as an infant. Three were boys, Martin, Francis and Arthur.

Back at Trout Hall, Stephen and his unmarried daughter Mary were the only two there and it looked as if she was destined to devote her life to her father. But things turned out differently. In 1862 John Jackson became vicar and within two years Mary, by then 42, became his bride. This left Stephen on his own just as his father before him had been. He continued to hold the properties he owned but the derived income was dropping alarmingly due to the agricultural depression. When he died in 1881 at the age of 89, John George inherited everything. By now Ugley Hall was not the profitable enterprise it had been; John George could do little or nothing to avoid the effects of the depression and he found the costs of educating his children almost too much for him. He was therefore quite content to get away from it all and return to Trout Hall. At least the upkeep would be less than the large mansion at Ugley. Except for his son Francis who had just married, all his family went with him, so filling the large house for the first time.

Martin became an architect who used his home at Trout Hall as his place of work but he occasionally travelled into London by train on business, perhaps one of the first Wenden residents to do so. Francis was a solicitor who became Town Clerk of Saffron Walden but later moved to Greenwich to take up a similar but more exalted position there. Arthur had never been strong and suffered from a chronic illness which was to cause his death when he was only 34.

In an attempt to keep things going, John George decided to sell Bulse Farm to Sir James Bailey in 1894. Sir James lived at Shortgrove Hall in Newport and must have been one of the few optimists around at that time. No doubt the farm was sold for a low figure as the demand could not have been very high.

Perhaps John George found his family a little too much for him (he was 56 when his youngest was born) but whatever the reason he moved off on

his own to Rookery Farm. This probably meant that it had no tenant at the time, in other words, he was deriving no income from it. Just before he died in 1900 at the age of 79 he had moved back to Trout Hall. All he possessed was left to his wife but Martin became the father-figure in the house. In the same year Rookery Farm was sold to John Creasy, leaving

the family with Trout Hall, a few plots in the village and about 8 acres in the south-east of the parish extending into Newport.

Thus in less than a century, the fortunes of the family had completely changed. John Robinson was by far the most successful of the family although to be fair to the others, land values were in his favour in the earlier part of the century. What is notable is that in the history of most villages, the families which endure are at the opposite ends of the social scale. The labourers did not move unless they had to and the aristocracy had a long tradition of land ownership. In the case of Wenden, the Robinsons were to prove the exception — a middle-class family who owned substantial property in the area for well over 100 years. Added to which, they were the only major landowners in the history of Wenden who actually lived and worked there. As we shall see later, they were an integral part of the village community.

CHAPTER TEN

The Nineteenth Century — Early Days

The previous chapter dealt with a complete century to give a continuous story of the fortunes of one family. It is now necessary to retrace steps and go back to the start to see what else was going on in Wenden. As mentioned earlier, few houses for labourers were built but there were a number of more substantial homes. Two early ones were of very different characters. The first, built in 1819, was a modest but finely proportioned house on the north side of the Royston Road quite close to the present bridge over the railway. It was built on land belonging to John Robinson but no Robinson was to live there until the present century. The name of the first occupant is not known and it was not until the 1850's that William Nicholson (of whom more later) came to live there. This was one of the earliest Wenden houses to be given a name — Rose Cottage. The name fell into disuse early this century, perhaps because another Rose Cottage appeared in West End, and today the house is known simply as "The Cottage".

The other was a much grander affair, a small mansion built and occupied by Thomas Scott. Little is known of him apart from the fact that he was possibly the first person to create a garden or "private pleasure ground" as it was referred to at the time. The house stood close to the junction of the Newmarket and Royston Roads, near the spot marking the old

meeting-place known as Mutlow. So it became known as Mutlow Hall, the name which survives today.

When Mr. Scott died, the property was purchased by Thomas Bird who carried out extensive alterations. On the northern side of the house one of his workmen found a flagon-shaped vase of unbaked clay, hand-moulded and without ornament. Unfortunately, in ignorance of what he had found, he struck it with a pickaxe into three pieces. The Hon. R. C. Neville (later 4th Lord Braybrooke) was called in to inspect the remains and one is left to imagine what his feelings were. He reported that although mutilated "the pottery is wonderfully perfect". What happened to the workman is not recorded !

Otherwise little was changing. Clanverend Farm, through which the Royston Road ran, was given a by-pass which straightened out the road a little. At the same time a bridge was built in place of the ford which had given its name to the area. A much more interesting bridge, however, was built at the other end of the parish where the Walden Road crosses the Cam. It was called Sir Joshua's Bridge and some have wondered who he was. In fact it was a horse, and a very famous one too. The 3rd Lord Braybrooke bred racehorses at Audley End, using part of the extensive kitchen gardens as a paddock. Sir Joshua won eight times at Newmarket, its greatest triumph being in April 1816 when it beat the St. Leger winner for The Thousand Guineas. This feat was celebrated by naming the new bridge after the champion.

The early days of the 19th century saw an upsurge in the amount of charity being dispensed to the poor of the parish. Until then, apart from the poor box in the church, the only charity was that of Lettice Martin which had a long history. By means of two indentures in 1562 and 1564, she made allowances for the poor parishioners of some 25 villages in Essex, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. As she lived in Chrishall it was natural that this village should be at the top of the list, but for some reason Great Wenden and Little Wenden shared first place, each of them receiving £1.6s.8d. Her will confirming these gifts was proved in 1575 but much argument followed concerning the true value of the

land from which the gift was derived and difficulties in finding suitable trustees.

In 1836 the Charity Commissioners noted that the lands had been conveyed from time to time to new trustees, the last being in 1806 to John Wilkes of Wenden Lofts and John Robinson of Wenden. The 159

acres of 1562 had been reduced to 79 by 1836 due to the arrangements of the Inclosure Act of 1809 whereby lands of superior quality but of lesser extent were allotted to the Charity. By then the value was £52.13s.0d. of which £5.4s.0d. was allocated to Wenden. The churchwardens of Wenden distributed the charity among the ageing poor in sums varying from 1s. to 2s.6d. according to need and the number of family. The same persons continued to receive the benefit during their lives.

Lord Braybrooke formed another charity in the 1820's, known as the Audley End Livery. Annually at Christmas he gave to each of three men in the parish a coat, waistcoat and breeches and to each of three women a gown and bonnet. The recipients had to be members of the Church of England and could not obtain the gift more than once every four years. In the case of a married couple, one could not benefit within three years of their partner having done so. Each year the names of the beneficiaries were noted and the last entry appeared in 1856. It is possible that a similar charity was extended to other parishes where Lord Braybrooke was Lord of the Manor.

Another charity, rather grandly titled "Clothing Club of Wenden Provident Institution", flourished in the first half of the century. Participants deposited 3d. per week to be paid at 9 o'clock every Monday morning to the Minister. At the end of the year, each depositor would receive an order upon certain shopkeepers in Saffron Walden for goods to the amount of 18s. The difference was made up by subscribers to the club, who could name one depositor for every 5s. subscribed. In 1838 the subscribers were :

Lord Braybrooke £5Lady Braybrooke £2Rev. E. Ryder £1Messrs. Cornwell £1Gibson £1R. Robinson £1S. Robinson £1 N. Robinson 10s.Salmon 10s.Scott £1

This totals £14 which meant that there would have been 56 participants. By 1845 everyone was paying 1s. every four weeks, presumably to cut

down paper-work. The club was still in operation in 1860 but seems to have come to an end shortly thereafter.

Transport

Wenden almost had a canal. These artificial waterways were becoming increasingly popular as an inexpensive means of moving bulk materials such as grain and coal at a time when conditions on the roads were very poor. The Lea Navigation from London with its branch to Bishop's Stortford had been built before 1800 and if a way could have been found to connect this with the Cam, then barges would have been able to deliver produce from the Fens into the heart of the capital. From an engineering point of view the task would not have been difficult as the river valleys were almost flat. But the people of Saffron Walden wanted a canal too, for they were large producers of malt. To get a canal there would have been costly due to the number of locks required, but Lord Braybrooke gave every encouragement as he had no intention of allowing a canal to pass through his "private water and pleasure grounds" at Audley End House. Plans were drawn up showing the canal running parallel with the main road northwards, following the Cam (through Wenden parish) then turning east to avoid the Audley End Estate. These plans were submitted in 1810 but debate went on for years between vested interests and Parliamentary approval was not easily forthcoming. What finally killed the proposals was a much more novel form of transport.

The Railway

In 1821 William James surveyed a railway from Bishop's Stortford to Cambridge as an alternative to the abortive canal. At that time it was far too ambitious but the important concept of linking London with the north via Cambridge had been initiated. The idea was taken up again in 1825 by the Northern Railroad Company with John and George Rennie as surveyors, the route being planned to use the Lea valley and go through Barkway, ten or so miles west of Wenden. National depresssion ruined this scheme but in 1833/4 another chance came when Nicholas

Cundy completed a survey for the Grand Northern and Eastern Railway which would run from London to York through the rolling countryside east of the Cam. The intention was for a junction somewhere between Saffron Walden and Linton to provide a link to Norwich. Understandably some of the gradients would have been far too great for the motive power available at that time and this may have been a deciding factor when the

Bill was defeated in the House of Commons by 14 votes. Had it gone the other way, there may never have been a railway in Wenden but Saffron Walden could have become an Essex version of Crewe !

Sanity prevailed and soon a further Bill was laid for a new company to provide the link in the network. The Act to enable the Eastern Counties Railway to construct a line from Newport to Ely and thence to Brandon in Norfolk received the Royal Assent on 4th July 1844. The route had been planned by the famous engineer Robert Stephenson and the line was constructed by the firm of Grissell & Peto, better known for their building of the present Houses of Parliament in Westminster. Obviously the railway was not for the benefit of anyone in Wenden and it was merely fortuitous that it should pass through the parish on its way north. Nor would there have been a station but for the proximity of Saffron Walden.

Work proceeded almost at once although the Act contained pages of detailed instructions to the contractors about what they could or could not do on Lord Braybrooke's land. The last thing he wanted was a railway which could be seen or heard from his mansion or grounds and elaborate but unnecessary plans were made for three tunnels, one in the parish of Wenden and the others in Littlebury. For some unknown reason the Wenden tunnel was never built and at the planned place for it, the railway lies well hidden in a deep cutting through the chalk.

Apart from a bridge to carry the Royston Road over the lines, the only other piece of engineering on this section of the railway was a viaduct over the stream approached from the south by a high embankment. Some 70 feet above the level of the stream, it must have been quite a landmark when it was first built but today it is largely obscured by trees. The Act had little to say about the viaduct, merely "that the company shall erect and build a bridge over the river in Wendon (sic) with arches of sufficient size so as effectually to carry off all flood waters". The land south of the stream belonged to Stephen Robinson, the boundary between his property and that of Lord Braybrooke being along

its course, and in separate negotiations 2.5 acres in Wenden and Newport were sold to the railway company for £500. At the same time Robinson was given exclusive passage under one of the archways on the south side of the stream, a footpath which still exists today.

The work was completed on 29th July 1845 and public services started the next day. The first train was a special one from London to Ely, carrying local landowners (including Lord Braybrooke) and other prominent people. From all accounts the greatest excitement of the day was a visit to Ely Cathedral.

The local station, built on land purchased from Lord Braybrooke, was appropriately named Wenden but this was rather short-lived for on 1st November 1848 it was changed to Audley End. For three years then Wenden appeared in the time-table and in capital letters too ! This distinction was accorded to important places such as Bishop's Stortford and Cambridge — there was nothing special about Wenden, so it must have been because it served Saffron Walden.

The first time-table showed that the London terminus was Shoreditch (Liverpool Street Station did not open until 1875) and that the line ran along the Lea valley all the way to Stratford where it met the service coming in from Chelmsford. The week-day service consisted of seven down and six up trains, one each way being described as "quick". At first these quick trains (for which an extra charge was made) called only at Broxbourne and Wenden before Cambridge, but by August 1845 an additional stop was being made at Bishop's Stortford. When one considers the standard of track and locomotives in those days, then these quick trains really lived up to their name. The 11.30 a.m. from London took only 1 hour 20 minutes to reach Wenden. The return journey took a little longer, 1 hour and 33 minutes.

At the other end of the scale there were 3rd class only trains, one a day in each direction, which were really slow. They stopped everywhere and took about three hours to do the journey. The other trains stopped at five or six intermediate stations and carried all three classes of passengers. The quick trains had no third class accommodation.

Queen Victoria used the railway on the occasion of the installation of the Prince Consort as Chancellor of Cambridge University on 5th July 1848. The Royal train, bedecked with flags, made a stop at Bishop's Stortford for water then carried on non-stop to Cambridge. I wonder if the local folk turned out to get their first glimpse of the Royal Family?

Although cheap by present day standards, the fares charged were high in relation to the earnings of the time and as far as workers were

concerned, travel by rail was simply beyond their means. For the better off, the first class single fare from Wenden to London was 8s.6d., second class 6s. and third class 3s.8d. On the quick trains the first and second class fares were lOs and 7s respectively.

The quick trains did not last long, no more than a few months, and when they were re-introduced in 1852 they were non-stop from London to Cambridge, thus depriving Wenden (or Audley End as it would have been by then) of a fast service to the capital. Sadly the whole service soon deteriorated and by 1855 it had almost ground to a halt with poor maintenance. Nothing ran to time and finally things were so bad that the Eastern Counties Railway was absorbed into the Great Eastern Railway in 1862. This was the beginning of a new era; for with initiative

and energy the new owners soon began to lay the foundations of a very different reputation. This relied not on speed but on a standard of punctuality and reliability of operation which was exceptional for the period.

In 1861 pressure from local interests in Saffron Walden led to the creation of the Saffron Walden Railway Company to build a line from Audley End Station to Bartlow, passing through the town. The junction was to be at the north end of the viaduct so that it would not be possible for the existing platform to be used. This meant that a separate single platform had to be built in the yard and passengers had to cross from one to the other. The line was opened on 23rd November 1865 as far as Saffron Walden and completed to Bartlow one year later. It crossed the Newmarket Road on a bridge at a point where the Royston Road began, so the road had to be moved slightly to the south and a level- crossing built.

From the Newmarket Road the land falls down to the Cam and this meant the construction of a high embankment to take the line over the river. When the river bridge was being built the water had to be diverted, this being done by a small cutting in a former river-bed. Sixteen feet down the workmen found an astonishing quantity of bones, so many that two cartloads were needed to take them away. Most of these bones were from animals including a horn from the now extinct Great or Irish Elk. This animal did not exist in England after Neolithic times so the find was somewhere between 4000 and 7000 years old. Even more interesting was

a human skull, probably female, of the same period, the only evidence of man (or should I say woman) of the Stone Age.

The station building at Wenden was no ordinary affair. It was almost certainly designed by Francis Thompson, a fashionable London tailor who turned his hand to railway architecture when necessity arose. Most of his work is in the Chester area but three stations on the Eastern Counties Railway were his, Cambridge, Great Chesterford and Wenden. The Wenden one is a pleasant building, classical in concept with Italianate windows, but what makes it so different from the others is the splendid east front dominated by a single-arched porte-cochere. The purpose of this was to give protection to the guests of Lord Braybrooke when they arrived at the station. The coaches to take them to Audley End House would be waiting for them under the protection of this "umbrella".

From the beginning the station was an important one. Sidings stretched far into the cutting north of the station so that the bridge over the lines had to be of three arches. The yard was a clutter of goods sheds, turn¬tables, water-towers and engine sheds. There was even a small gasometer on the west side of the line to hold the gas used for heating and lighting. This gas came from Newport where a works had been built in 1867, the pipeline conveniently following the tracks. This was the only gas supply Wenden ever had and it was only used in the station.

By comparison with the rather grand building on the east side, that on the west was no more than a waiting room, but unusually this had been extended in both directions to create two single-storey dwellings for railway workers. They must have been very noisy to live in but they remained in use well into this century. William Collis, the first station¬master to the Eastern Counties Railway, lived in better style in his house above the main station.

Audley End became the principal mail station for the area, a position it holds today, although the newspaper traffic is handled at Newport, the next station south.

For the first time in a century there was a demand for houses, not for local folk but for the number of railwaymen coming into the district. This demand was met by Lord Braybrooke who built a fine terrace of dwellings on the north side of the Royston Road just east of the railway bridge. There are nine cottages in all, eight of them identical in style of flint walls with brick flashings, the white latticed windows providing a handsome contrast. The last house looks like an afterthought, for not only

is it set back from the others, but is of rendered brick. These houses were let to the Railway Company on a 99 year lease.

Taking advantage of all the new people coming and going, Lord Braybrooke built a hotel close to the station, known as "The Neville Arms" after his family name. This was tenanted by George Saich who in addition was licenced to let horses. In those days this combination must have led to a thriving business. Like the Railway Cottages, the hotel was built of flint and was well-proportioned in the manner of a country house. The area behind it was used for stabling the horses.

The railway line brought many changes to Wenden, not least by effectively dividing it down the middle. The old centre core carried on as if nothing had happened but to the east, over the bridge, there was a hive of activity and a lot of newcomers.

Roads

Before the railway, the roads carried everything and they were usually in a terrible condition. Since medieval times the roads in each parish had to be repaired by the peasantry, each householder having to give up at least four days in every year to the job. To get it over and done with, this work was frequently done in one session and became quite a festive occasion. It needs little imagination to realise what a state these roads must have been in if they were only attended to once a year.

With the increasing demand for better roads, especially between towns, Turnpike Trusts were set up in the 18th century. The local one which dealt with the stretch from Harlow to Stump Cross, north of Great Chesterford, was formed in 1744. The trunk road was entrusted to the local gentry, income being obtained from toll-gates where levies were charged for the passage of coaches, livestock, etc. and expended in repairs and maintenance. These turnpike roads were mainly of earth with the inevitable holes filled in at irregular intervals. It was not until 1800 that James Macadam surveyed them and recommended improvements in the method of surfacing and drainage — in fact to produce the first good roads since the departure of the Romans. His method was to use small stones which were washed and laid in camber, thus draining water into ditches.

There were no toll-gates in Wendell but in any case local people were allowed through free of charge. Typical charges were 1 s. for a coach and 1 d. for a mule or ass. No reference is made to poultry although Daniel Defoe noted that in 1720 large flocks of turkeys were common on the Newmarket to London road. What condition these birds would have been in when they arrived at their destination was not recorded, but they must have been pretty tough to have survived the journey at all. -

The lesser roads were still neglected and must have been a constant nightmare. Animal droppings were a valuable source of manure and the villagers took their plunder by scouring the roads around them. Over the years these roads would gradually have become lower and it has been suggested that this may have been a contributory factor in the creation of high banks on either side. This appears to be the case with Dodnoe Lane, although much of the effect has been lost since the building of the motorway.

1784 saw the arrival of mail-coaches and these were to last until the advent of the railways killed them off. By 1836 eight stage-coaches passed along the Newmarket Road every weekday, destined for such places as Cambridge, Haverhill, Bury St. Edmunds, Norwich, Wells and Holt. Although such travel was arduous, it was only the rich who could afford it. Travelling inside the coach cost 4d. per mile — even more than first- class travel on the railways.

With goods traffic being transferred to the quicker railways, the cumber-some horse-drawn wagons were disappearing from the main roads and these were becoming almost deserted. But on the minor roads the traffic was increasing, especially when they led to a station and in Wenden the two surveyors to the highway, farmers Charles Free and William Cornwell, must have had a busy time. Traffic to and from Saffron Walden was particularly heavy and in 1848 a horse-drawn omnibus came into operation to connect with the main trains. This was the first regular service of its kind but its need vanished when the branch line opened.

In 1870 the Turnpike Trust was wound up and the repairs to the roads once again became a parish responsibility, although it was not long before this came under the control of the newly-formed County Council.

Before the end of the century the only other change in the parish road pattern was a further move of the Royston Road junction. Possibly to

overcome the nuisance of the level-crossing on the Saffron Walden branch line, the road was re-aligned so that it met the Newmarket Road on the north side of the railway bridge.

Earlier, another roadway had been made, not in the parish but in that little outpost of Newport which nestles close to the south-east boundary of Wenden. Before the Enclosure Award the trackway now known as Rookery Lane had simply petered out in the common fields. After the arrival of the railway it was decided to extend this to the Newmarket Road, building up the land so that a level-crossing could be made. There were (and still are) two old houses in the immediate area, often considered to be part of Wendell although in the parish of Newport. To them was added a newcomer, a small brick cottage to house the level-crossing keeper. The making of this road created a rough square which became a popular two-mile walk for the villagers.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Victorian Village

Apart from the railway, other changes were taking place. A resurgence of interest in the non-conformist movement led to the building of a new chapel in 1851 on the same site as the one demolished in 1778. The simple brick building still stands today, although its future is insecure. A new inn was constructed in 1865, facing the Newmarket Road at a point just to the north of the new railway bridge serving the Saffron Walden branch line. This typical Victorian pub replaced "ye Cock in ye Hole" at the foot of Mutlow Hill, but the name was not forgotten, for the new one became "The Fighting Cocks", the name it retains today. The old inn became dwellings although the smithy next door remained, extending its activities into the more complicated trade of wheelwright. Henry Skipper had been the smith but the Thomas family took over the business about 1855 and it remained in their hands well into the present century.

To the south of the same railway bridge Alfred Francis set up his little brickworks in 1875. Many of the bricks were used locally as will be seen later. He built his manager's house nearby but this was demolished when the main road was re-aligned in the 1970's. For a short period he also had a pottery near the station and in an advertisement in the Saffron

Walden Directory of 1886 reference is made to his Brick, Tile and Pottery Works in Wenden, going on to "beg to call attention to the large assortment of plain and ornamental flower pots". The raw material for the bricks, known locally as "pug", came from a number of fields nearby, leaving deep depressions which can still be seen today.

As mentioned earlier, the brick house in Church Path is much older than it looks from the outside. There is ample evidence of this from all the beams but the most interesting feature is a very large bread oven. This was where the villagers brought their kneaded dough for communal baking, marking their own loaves in a distinctive way. They also supplied the faggots for the fire and there must have been some regular arrange¬ment for attendance to get the most out of the fuel. This building was also Wenden's first shop, mainly for the sale of sweets and tobacco but it probably stocked a few other everyday things. It started about 1850 and was run by William Havers and his wife Hannah. Later the shop was taken over by his sister Mrs. Jane Burrows.

The Havers were the only family I can trace with any certainty back to the 16th century. William was a direct descendant of John Havers who lived in Great Wenden at the time of the union in 1662. John's wife Mary was a grand-daughter of Thomas Wilson who was born in 1572. There may be other cases but the poor state of the records makes it very difficult to link the generations. Unfortunately, this line of Havers died out early in this century and although there were other people with the same surname in the village, there appears to be no connection. But a proved continuity of one family for over 300 years was worth all the searching.

In 1853 Job Reeves, the Parish Clerk, was appointed the first postmaster and messenger in Wenden at a salary of £19 a year. Letters arrived by foot from Saffron Walden at 7 a.m. and would then be sorted and delivered by him. The post office was in the thatched house opposite Church Path where it was to remain until closure in the late 1960's. There is still a mark on the wall indicating where the post-box had been. In the Directories of the time it was recorded that post was collected from a box "near Mr. Cornwell's" at 7 p.m. As there were two Cornwells, one at Wenden Hall and the other at Wenden Place, this piece of information is not particularly useful. There was also a box at the station and by the late 1890's one had been installed in the wall by The Fighting

Cocks. In a small adjunct to the post office, Mr. Barker carried on his trade as

Shortly after the arrival of the railway the first coal merchant appeared — George Barnard from Newport who set up his yard near the station. In 1890 the name changed to Barnard Brothers and although long since gone in Wenden, the firm still flourishes as Corn Merchants in Newport and Saffron Walden.

The watermill on the Cam, as in the earlier century, was run by the Salmon family, but about 1850 it was taken over by John Holland. He made some improvements, first by replacing the old millstones with horizontal rollers then introducing a steam boiler so that milling could continue when there was insufficient water in the river. Although the mill continued for another 40 years (by which time Alfred had succeeded his father) it was not possible to improve it further. This led to the decision to build an entirely new mill which relied solely on steam-power. This was erected behind the west side of the station in 1896 with a prominent chimney made of Wenden bricks. On this site the benefits of the railway were apparent — coal for the boiler, grain for the rollers and flour for the customer could all be carried with the minimum of handling. Water was the only problem, but this was solved by installing a series of pumps from the stream at the bottom of the slope.

The new mill took advantage of the latest innovations, a Royston Proctor Tandem Compound Condenser Engine which in itself sounds impressive enough, but the pride and joy of the miller was the "Invincible Dustless Milling Separator", one of the first to be imported from the United States. The output from the mill was very high and Holland flour bags were a familiar sight on grocers' shelves for many years. Close by the mill a new house was built for the miller and his family, probably the last building to be erected in Wenden in the 19th century.

The old building by the Cam was not closed down — it continued in use as a grist-mill.

The ownership of land has already been dealt with, but what of the farmers? Of the five farms Wenden Hall was still the most important. When John Robinson left there in 1820, the tenant became Thomas

At Wenden Place Farm, John Robinson had spent some ten years there before he moved in 1830. The farm was then let to William Cornwell. The records are rather confusing but it appears that there were in fact two Williams, perhaps father and son. Almost undoubtedly they were closely related to the Cornwells at Wenden Hall but I have not been able to establish in what way. The second William died in 1890 to be replaced by John Spencer Smith, the first of three generations to work there. The farm was not a large one although they worked part of the land allotted to the church at the time of the Enclosure Award.

Bulse Farm was tenanted by Charles Free and once again it appears that there had been two of them. The evidence for this comes from the Enclosure Award for Newport which was completed in 1860. In that parish was the large Hospital Field (named after the long vanished leper hospital) and when this was divided and allotted, awards were made to Stephen Robinson, Charles Free the elder and a small part to Charles Free the younger. These portions of land lay along the south side of Rookery Lane and included a windmill which was to dominate the skyline for most of the 19th century. Much of Bulse Farm was within the Newport parish and it is interesting that, as at Clanverend, the tenant farmer was awarded some land from the common fields. The Frees were followed by Walter Seabrook in 1875 and Stephen Hagger in 1890.

At Clanverend Farm, Robert Kempton had the tenancy followed by his son Joseph. About 1850 it was taken over by Edmund Cotterell of Wicken Bonhunt as owner and tenant and in 1895 sold to Arthur Perry who carried out extensive alterations to the farmhouse.

Rookery Farm had a succession of tenants, an indication perhaps of its lack of prosperity, even when the others were doing well. Much of the land was low-lying and marshy and tenants may well have found it difficult to make it pay. Some of their names are known : John Jeffrey in 1850, Joshua Mansfield in 1866 and the brothers Thomas and Henry Reeve in 1878. There may have been no farmer at all in the last decade of the century, for John George Robinson spent some time in the farmhouse there.

Apart from the railway and the few trades, the only other occupation was working on the land, as it had been since Wenden began. By the middle of the century the importation of cheap food from abroad was beginning

to affect farmer and labourer alike, but whereas the farmer could improve productivity by using more modern methods, this only made matters worse for the worker. In 1841 almost half of the population of England lived in urban areas; by 1881 this had increased to 70%. The reason for this change is obvious; the jobs created by the industrial revolution acted like a magnet to rural labour struggling for an existence. The 1851 census showed the first real decline in rural population, a pattern which continued into the 1860's when depopulation was rampant, especially in north-west Essex. But the situation was contra¬dictory in Wenden; labourers were leaving but the number of parishioners was actually increasing. This was entirely due to the arrival of the railway, for although some farm workers managed to find non-skilled jobs on the line, for the greater part the labour came from elsewhere. Many were young and unmarried and it was not long before weddings were taking place with local girls. The marriage register has many references to porters, plate-layers, gangers and engine-drivers from such scattered places as Maidstone, Thame, Bayswater, March, Stratford, Brompton, Edmonton and Ware. Many of these men were transferred to other parts of the railway system, taking their wives and families with them. For the first time young Wenden men had to seek wives from other villages. One can understand the effect the railwaymen had, for their weekly wage was 21s. to 23s. depending on the responsibility of the job. The average wage of the labourer on the farm was 14s.

At the start of the century the population of Wenden had been about 270, rising to 290 in 1811 and 336 in 1821. As few new houses were being built during these years, the existing ones were probably being divided into smaller units. Thereafter the numbers remained more or less constant until 1851, the year of the first census following the arrival of the railway, when the population jumped to 421, the highest figure recorded at any time. Even the railway could not stop the drift and the picture to the end of the century is one of decline, settling down to about 360 people.

After 1861, the cause of death was added to the entry in the burial register and many of the items are revealing. By far the commonest causes were old age and inflammation of the lung, although an outbreak of scarlet fever claimed the lives of seven children in one month in 1863.

About this time, an unknown hand decided to bring a touch of reality to some of the entries in the register. In pencil, opposite a burial indicating death caused by "heart diseased suddenly" is written "drink". In the same vein, "beer" is shown against "disease of heart and liver". More

poignantly, an entry in 1865 for a woman of 36 who died from "inflammation of the brain" had been changed to "sunstroke from gleaning".

The Saffron Walden Union House (the workhouse) took its toll of Wenden folk, five dying there between 1868 and 1883, three of them in one year. The workhouse was the last ignominious refuge for those unable to find work.

An interesting entry appears in 1868, referring to the death of a woman who, eighteen months before, had undergone surgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge for the removal of a breast cancer. The miracle was that she should have survived so long after such major surgery at a time when modern medicine was in its infancy.

Accidents, especially amongst the young, were all too common. George Clark, 14, was killed when he fell whilst birdnesting, a young lad of 8 died in Saffron Walden Hospital from lockjaw after catching his hand in a machine and Robert Clark, 13, died when a horse fell on him. In 1868 William Shelford died in "unusual circumstances". No further details are given other than that the coroner's jury had returned a verdict of manslaughter. The first recorded railway fatality was in 1875 when John Pledger was run over by an engine. With all the activity at Audley End Station and the general lack of safety standards at that time, it is rather surprising that 30 years had gone by without a death.

When Charles Barnes became vicar, he continued the practice of his predecessor John Jackson in showing the manner of death, but he preferred the term "natural decay" to the previous "old age".

The labourers and their families who remained in Wenden had a hard time of it in the latter half of the century. Although surrounded by fields of cattle, sheep and pigs, any form of meat was a real luxury and it was a fortunate family who could afford it even for one meal in the week. The staple diet consisted of bread, cheese and plenty of turnips and swedes. A plateful of swedes awaited each man when he returned from

the fields at dusk, being served with a little butter and lots of pepper and known affectionately as "Wenden beef".

During harvest the women and children were allowed to glean the fields. This was vitally important to them, for these grains of corn were to provide their bread for the winter. Sacks of it would be taken to the watermill on the Cam or to the windmill just over the parish border in Newport where it would be ground into flour for a small charge. It was this flour which found its way into the communal bakery.

It was a long tradition in the village that gleaning could only be done between certain hours and the signal for the start and finish would be a toll on one of the church bells. Someone had to decide which fields were to be gleaned and somehow the women had to be told. Perhaps this was the sort of activity which went on at The Bell in addition to the provision of beer which, being cheap, was a solace for many and a problem for some. Traditions like this probably existed in other places as well, but in Wenden it is documented in a note prepared by the vicar in 1871 detailing the duties of one of the women. This reads :

Clean Church and vestry, light and attend

to fire in Church on Sundays. To light

candles and prepare Church for evening

service as required. To take Sacramental

Box to and from Church . . . . . . Is. per week

To wash the Surplice £.1 per year To ring the gleaners' bell a.m. and p.m.

during harvest 8s. per year

The total for all this work was £4 per year.

To make it easier for labourers to grow their own food, Lord Braybrooke set aside a few acres north and south of the Royston Road east of the railway line to be used as allotments. These were probably tended by the women or men too old to work in the fields and would have been a valuable benefit.

The scientific approach to farming introduced some crops new to the area, potatoes being an example. New strains of wheat more resistant to disease and pests meant increased yields, especially when tile-drains

were put into the soil. New machines such as sub-soil ploughs were also being

introduced and when these were used with the first steam engines for winching the plough across the fields, much of the hard work was being eased. Despite this the age of rich farming was all but over by 1875. Huge cargoes of American wheat were being off-loaded at prices far below those for the local produce. It was going to be a long time before there would be any improvement and the decay which set in was to bring great agricultural depression in eastern England. Whereas during the 18th century livestock had been sacrificed for wheat, farmers now found it difficult to reverse the process. Somehow they seemed unable to respond to the challenge and as a result land values dropped. By the end of the century almost everyone in Wenden and hundreds of other villages in the East Anglian wheat belt were worse off than their forbears of 50 or 60 years earlier.

In 1895 the labourer with his extra harvest money was earning 15s. to 17s. a week but if they had children working or if their wives could go into the fields there may have been as much as 25s. coming into the home. These figures were quoted by the Rev. Arthur Goldring in The Essex Review and he went on to say ". . . some cottages were worse than pig- styes, nearly all hovels owned by petty tradesmen and small farmers who had invested their savings in cottages but had no money to keep them in repair". Although said in a general way of north-west Essex, it is probably a reasonably accurate picture of Wenden at the close of the century.

Education

Between 1804 and 1870 some 70 boys from Wenden attended Newport Grammar School. John Robinson was a trustee of that school from 1802 until 1836, followed by his son Stephen and they were responsible for the nomination of all the local pupils. Most of these boys were the sons of labourers, so the Robinsons played a major part in giving educational opportunities to those who otherwise would have done without. The boys usually started at Newport when they were about ten years old and stayed for three years, after which they would have joined their fathers in the fields.

Fortunes were mixed : James Porter was a "truant player", poor little Charles Ireland was "dull", George Rushforth a "bad boy" and James

Pledger was expelled in 1857 for "irregularity of attendance". On the credit side Fred Holland the miller's son was a prize-winner and a few

years later his brother Alfred was 5th in the top class. Tom Webb rose to the Latin class which apparently was considered quite an honour at that time. John Flack and Henry Savill, both labourers' sons, were first and second in Classes II and III respectively.

Stephen Robinson's trusteeship ended in 1871 — it is probably no coincidence that Wenden boys stopped going to Newport after 1870. In fact the next to go there was in 1921, over 50 years later and from then to the outbreak of the second world war there were only five, most of them sons of farmers.

Apart from Newport, there was little available for the young. In 1819 the vicar was required to make a return to a Select Committee on the "Education of the Poor". Mr. Ryder reported that there was no school in Wenden but 28 boys and 24 girls attended a Sunday School supported by subscriptions. A teacher instructed twice a week in reading and writing but he added that "the poor are without sufficent means of education".

It is not known where the tuition was done, for it was not until 1837 that an amount of £77.13s.6d. was raised by subscription for a building of a "Room for the Sunday and Evening Adult Classes". Work started on 9th April 1838 and the building was opened for use on 11th August of the same year. The modest brick building is in the corner of the open space known as "The Croat" near the church and still in use today as the Sunday School and village hall.

At least to start with, it was used each Sunday at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., opening with a prayer and closing with the "Grace". In the morning there was a repetition of Collects followed by reading, preferably from the Scriptures, then a further repetition of the lessons learnt. In the lower classes there were spelling lessons. In the afternoon there was reading again with the Catechism being taught orally to the younger children. Every inducement was offered for children to attend; good marks were given for punctuality and for doing well in any of the subjects. Prizes were awarded up to Is. per year for any one child. The management consisted of the officiating minister and seven others and it is apparent that the primary function of the school was to promote a religious awareness for the children rather than a broad education.

In 1839, the year after the Sunday School opened, a further return was called for, this time from the London Diocesan Board of Education. The

anonymous reply (the living being vacant at the time) was that there is a school in the adjoining parish (an obvious reference to Newport) where children are educated during the week at a very small cost — better than could be obtained in Wenden. The report went on to say that there were now 32 boys and 32 girls in the Sunday School, that annual receipts were £4.16s.0d. and expenditure £4.0s.0d. The evening adult school was held once a week at which 6 or 8 attended and made very rapid progress. The evening lectures were held on Wednesdays.

The marriage register gives some indication of the effects of education in Wenden, even the primitive kind which was offered before the proper school arrived in 1881. At the beginning of the century few people could do more than place a cross where their signature should have been in the register. Indeed in the ten years from 1837 there were 20 marriages, all local people, but only eight men and seven women could sign their names. After this the girls sweep ahead (perhaps they paid more attention at the Sunday School) but the balance was redressed when the railwaymen arrived, for somewhat surprisingly they could all at least write their names. By the 1880's almost everyone could sign, only a few crosses appearing after that.

About 1870 Hannah Savill started a school for infants in her home in Church Path, charging 1d per week. When they reached seven, they then went to Audley End village where there was a small school, now used as a post office. This must have been a long walk for such young children but fortunately Lady Braybrooke arranged for a soup kitchen so that they got something to eat. Sometimes the children carried containers of sorts and were then able to take soup back for their families, a welcome addition to the diet.

Although the 1870 Education Act set up School Boards for non¬denominational elementary education, it was another eleven years before Wenden had a school of its own. This was built of Wenden bricks in typical Victorian style on the north side of the Royston Road, just east of Draytons Hill. It was opened on 25th April 1881 with 56 pupils of ages ranging from 3 to 12 and during that year a further 17 joined, making a total of 73. The subjects taught were reading, writing and arithmetic plus needlework, history and geography for the older ones. Just as at Hannah Savill's, the charge was Id. per week but in 1891 Government grants

were made to School Boards which meant that education now became free.

The first teacher was Miss Helena Davis who lived in the house which formed part of the school building. She was to be the only teacher until the end of the century but she was assisted by monitors, young girls whose main task was to look after the infant class. It is most unlikely that these monitors had received any form of training but they must have been of considerable help to the teacher who had to cope with so many age groups at different levels.

In the early days of the school an average of 14 pupils joined each year but this gradually dropped to about 10 by the end of the century.

Other Personalities

Although the Robinson family dominated the village in the 19th century and the influence of the Lords Braybrooke never very far away, two other men left their mark.

The first was William Nicholson who moved into Rose Cottage about 1850. Very little is known about his village activities but when he died in 1886 he was buried near the south porch of the church and his gravestone tells part of the story. It reads :

In loving memory of William Nicholson of this parish Midshipman in Nelson's Vanguard who died December 16th 1886 in his 104th year.

At evening time it shall be light.

From the burial register it appears that the funeral took place on 18th December and as John Jackson was ill, the vicar of Newport, G. F. Tamplin, officiated. Against the entry in the register the vicar had written "query whether his age was as much by several years". Unsurprisingly the cause of death was given as old age.

The records of the National Maritime Museum reveal that William Nicholson had been promoted to lieutenant on 14th February 1803 and

He appeared in the Wenden census returns for 1861 and 1871. In the first he describes himself as a widower who had retired from business,

that he was 77 years old and had been born at Fareham in Hants. In the second he appears as an annuitant (i.e. a pensioner) of 87 years. It is perhaps understandable that some elderly people add a few years to their ages and this is obviously what the vicar had suspected at the time of Nicholson's death. What is most unlikely is that he would have given an incorrect age on two separate occasions ten years apart which means that, depending on the time of year when the censuses were taken and his birthday, the most likely year of his birth was 1784. The gravestone refers to his 104th year which means that his actual age at the time of death was 103. On this basis he would have been born about 1785 — only one year out at most and certainly refutes the vicar's allegation.

But why did he come to Wenden? As Rose Cottage belonged to the Robinsons, it may have been that he was a friend of the family but this is mere speculation. Whatever the reason, he had gone into business after his spell in the navy and came to the village to retire. It is enigmatic that a man about whom we should know so little is perhaps one of the best remembered Victorians in Wenden all because of the inscription on his tombstone.

The other man was Turner Collin who exerted considerable influence well into this century. He came to Wenden as a lad of eleven in 1868 with his parents who had taken over Mutlow Hall from George Webb, the owner after Thomas Bird referred to earlier in the incident of the broken pot. Turner's father Joseph Thomas Collin was a successful solicitor in Saffron Walden and after Cambridge, Turner joined him. His father died in 1888, whereupon Turner took over the practice and Mutlow Hall and was to live there for the rest of his life. He had been a fine sportsman and one of his proudest possessions was the shirt which he wore when he played rugby for his university — for some time this was displayed on the wall of his drawing room.

He was also a very keen skater and when the lake at Debden Hall was frozen over delighted in tricks such as jumping over barrels. Each

summer he went mountaineering in the Alps and one year succeeded in getting to the top of Mont Blanc. In Wenden, in a much more modest way, he started the local football team on a rough pitch near Bulse Farm where the new farmhouse is now. At his expense a small but was erected as a change-room. Later he took a prominent part in the running of the local cricket team.

In 1895 he held many positions in Saffron Walden and the surrounding area. Apart from the practice, he was Clerk to the Linton Bench of Magistrates (a position held for 50 years), Governor of Saffron Walden Grammar School, Trustee of the King Edward VI Almshouses, Clerk of the Petty Sessions, Registrar and High Bailiff of the County Court and, on a more mundane level, Treasurer of the Saffron Walden Coal Club.

Lucy, one of his three sisters, married John Fiske Wilkes, the great-great-grandson of the Rev. Robert Fiske who had been vicar of Wenden from 1741 until his death in 1783. His wife Maude took a great interest in the village and frequently made the grounds of Mutlow Hall available for charitable purposes. This family continued to play an important part in the present century and in a later chapter they will be referred to again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The 19th Century Church

As already mentioned, the church had no vicar from 1783 until 1812. From the registers, the names of at least seven curates appear during these 29 years, but whether they were from other parishes or lived in the village is not known. After the long vacancy, Edward Ryder came and stayed for over 20 years, witnessing great change in the pattern of church-going. Whereas before then people had gone regularly to church without question, now the attendances were dropping sharply. In 1837 for instance, only 9 men and 14 women were communicants in Wenden. Most of the men were landowners and farmers — the labourers had fled their Church. Despite this, the collections were high for the time. In that same year the money collected at the administration of Holy Sacrament amounted to 14s.10d. at Michaelmas and 13s.91/2d. at Christmas, all of which was distributed to the poor of the parish in shillings and sixpences.

From 1837 until 1857, the church was again without a vicar, perhaps because both the church and the vicarage were in a poor condition. Another factor may have been that in 1846 Wenden (like most of Essex) was transferred from the Bishopric of London to that of Rochester — a peculiar choice which may have stretched communication within the Church to intolerable levels. This odd arrangement lasted until 1875 when a new diocese was created at St. Albans and Wenden became part of it.

Where the money came from is not recorded, but in 1858 the vicarage was extensively repaired with a large new wing added to the west of it, creating the large family home so often associated with parsons in those days. The stable block was also renovated (some coloured tiles on the floor oare the same pattern as those in the church), and a pair of cottages were built by the entrance drive for staff.

Work was also done on the church, the main job being the complete replacement of the north aisle. Due to its exposed position it was probably in a poor state. No old prints of the church showing the north aisle have ever been found so we may never know what it looked like, but from the map prepared at the time of the Enclosure Award it appears that it was not as long as it is today. It stopped at the east end of the tower so that the north wall of the tower was exposed. This must have given the church a somewhat lop-sided appearance and when the aisle was rebuilt it was brought forward to the front of the tower to balance with the south aisle. But not quite, for when the south aisle was added in the 13th century it was skilfully joined to the tower in such a way that it is difficult to see where the new flints merged with the old. The 19th century builders adopted another method. They did not break into the fabric of the tower (perhaps fearing that the whole structure may fall about them) but merely butted the new aisle on about 9 inches back from the old western building line. The new aisle had a door opposite the one in the south aisle but unlike it had no porch to give protection. Later in the century this door was to disappear.

With this remedial work done, a new vicar appeared in 1857, Frederick Shannon, followed in 1862 by John Jackson, son of a Bury St. Edmunds solicitor. He served in Wenden for 25 years and as mentioned earlier, married Mary Robinson. After a long illness he retired to Worthing in 1887 where he died the following year. In the true Robinson tradition, his widow lived until she was 92.

Jackson was followed by Frederick Grey, son of a vicar and nephew of Earl Grey. He died in Wenden at the age of 48 after only five years' service, most of it in poor health.

The next vicar was someone who should always be remembered for his contribution to the church. He was Charles Barnes who had been at Pembroke College, Cambridge and had become chaplin to Lord Bristol, by now a Marquis. No doubt it had been the Marquis as patron who had

arranged for Barnes to come to Wenden and the villagers were delighted to acquire a man who instantly fell in love with their little village. Almost at once he realised that major works were necessary to keep the fabric of the church in one piece for it was in a most dilapidated condition. It was estimated that the works would cost about £600, of which £350 would be raised by public subscription and he would lend £250 until such time as it could be repaid. With great enthusiasm the Church Restoration Fund was set up in 1893 and in April of that year the first jumble sale ever recorded in the village raised £15.12s.11d. Concerts in the School Room raised a further £7.6s.8d. and later in the year a bazaar was held in the grounds of Mutlow Hall. This was opened by Lady Braybrooke — "the weather was very fine and the arrangements most satisfactory in every way". A sum of £104.16s.4d. was collected of which £11.4s.3d. was in entrance fees. The church records are silent on this magnificent effort. These figures would not shame an organiser today; they must have been just short of miraculous then as Wenden was in the middle of a deep agricultural depression.

In 1895 the work commenced, entrusted to Messrs. Bell & Son of Saffron Walden. The nave and south aisle were completely re-roofed, floors re-laid, seats repaired and replaced, the door in the north aisle closed up and a new window made where it had been. The clerestory windows were replaced, walls distempered, a new floor laid in the tower and the oak screen cleaned. A heating apparatus was installed in a sunken pit. All this work was carried out within three months, during which time the services were held in the Sunday School (or School Room as it was called at the time). The re-opening ceremony was conducted by the Bishop of St. Albans on 2nd November. In 1898 the vestry and part of the tower were restored at a cost of £103 and all the debt contracted three years earlier was paid off.

The next year the last remaining alterations were made. The first was a

small extension to the south aisle to provide space for an organ. This meant that 5 or 6 graves had to be moved. Part of the south wall of the chancel had to be pierced to form an arch and it was only later that the discovery was made that a medieval painting, long hidden behind coats of white-wash and distemper, had been partially destroyed in the process. The Lovenay brass may have been taken from the floor at this time and set up in the wall for protection.

For many years the origin of the organ has been in doubt and a number of local people were under the impression that it may have come from Audley End House. This lovely instrument, built in the late 18th century, was in fact a gift of William Walker, the vicar's father-in-law. Walker was a man of substance who lived in a very large house called Whitehall in Chingford. This house has now gone but the name has been perpetuated in a road there. The organ is thought to have come from a house at Buckhurst Hill, not far from Chingford, but efforts to trace which one have been fruitless.

This organ replaced a harmonium which had to suffice before and Fanny, Turner Collin's sister, continued to accompany the congregation.

During this period Charles Barnes lost his wife and in her memory her father gifted the sum of £80 to replace the south porch which, like so much else, had been in a tumble-down state. The new one was larger than the one it replaced, but carefully designed to harmonise with the rest of the church.

Despite the loss of his wife, it must have given the vicar some satisfaction to see all the results of the effort to improve the church. It remains substantially unchanged since then and no one can criticise what the Victorians had done to it, unlike hundreds of churches up and down the country which were ruined architecturally by ill-advised but well-meaning "improvers".

Another of his achievements was the formation of a choir shortly after his arrival in 1892. At Michaelmas the new choir were vested in cassocks and surplices and although there is no record of their numbers or ability, we do know that they had successful outings each year. They went by train to such places as Hunstanton, Lowestoft, Epping Forest, Southend, Yarmouth and "The Indian Exhibition at the Zoo".

Additions to the village in the 19th century. The Saffron Walden Branch,

goods depots and sidings have now all gone. The buildings behind the

Neville Arms were used as stables.

On 12th November 1899 a confirmation service was held in the church "the first in the living memory of the oldest inhabitant".

Mr. Barnes was obviously interested in the history of the village, for in 1895 he wrote to the Essex Review enquiring if anyone knew about Little Wenden Church. His curiosity had been aroused whilst digging a hole about three feet deep in his garden when he came upon a complete skeleton buried east to west. Remembering he had heard that the old church had stood in the vicarage garden, he had a trench dug about 12 feet in a southerly direction and found there nine further skeletons buried in the same line and direction. He concluded that he had found the churchyard of Little Wenden and assumed that the church must have been nearby. He also asked where the vicarage of Wenden Magna had been.

The reply quoted the usual source, Morant's History of Essex which gave the unhelpful answer that the church had stood on the left side of the road from Wenden Loughts to Great Wenden. "Several ashes grow in the place where it stood". It also referred to a comment made by the Rev. J. H. Sperling in The Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society in 1861 who had said it was a small church consisting of a nave and chancel only and occupied the site of the present vicarage garden. "A solitary memento remains, probably a fragment of a Norman piscina or font". This fragment remained as a garden ornament for many years but disappeared when the vicarage was sold.

No one was able to tell him where the Wenden Magna vicarage had been.

Unfortunately Charles Barnes did not live long for he died in his beloved Wenden in 1905 at the early age of 43.

Before leaving the 19th century church, I should mention that an inventory carried out in 1887 showed that it owned over 200 acres. Highfield, the major acquisition from the Enclosure Award, was 188 acres and let to Lord Braybrooke and his sub-tenants. This field was reduced to 104 acres in 1898, perhaps to finance part of the costs in the church renovation. Another field of 21 acres behind the vicarage was similarly tenanted and there was a small meadow of about 4 acres as well as the vicarage with its garden of just under two acres.

The same inventory referred to five bells, four of them cracked. As if to herald in the new century, these were recast and rehung by Bowell of

Ipswich in 1904. A sixth bell was added in the same year, gifted by Turner Collin in memory of his father.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The loth Century

The years up to the Second World War

The first forty years of the present century was a period of terrible depression in agriculture; fields lay untended, machinery slowly rusted and farms were sold for ridiculously low prices. Wenden was as much affected as other rural communities and just as in former times, it was the farm labourer who bore the brunt of the hardship. Cottages were being neglected by their owners because the rents were so low and it is true to say that many of the villagers in pre-war Wenden were living in conditions that would be considered intolerable today. I was constantly reminded of these hard times when I spoke to older residents, but some-thing else which they all remembered was the amount of kindness and spirit of goodwill which existed.

A good example of this was the sequel to a tragedy which befell three families in 1902. In an earlier chapter, reference was made to two houses in Dodnoe Lane, known early in the last century as White House and Fidler's Hall. Their condition had deteriorated considerably during the century and the old names forgotten. They became known as Bulse Cottages, named after the farm where their occupants worked. On the first of April in that year both houses were completely destroyed by fire — the combination of thatched roofs and a high wind made short work of them. The menfolk were in the fields at the time and when someone ran to them for help it was not forthcoming, perhaps a natural response on All Fools' Day. The horror of it all was soon apparent and when they finally returned, all that remained was a mass of charred rubble. The Harveys, Laws and Hanchetts had lost the little they owned. Within hours, offers of accommodation came together with gifts of clothing which had miraculously appeared from somewhere. The owner of the cottages, Sir James Bailey, promised to rebuild and this he did. Within a few months, a pair of brick semi-detached cottages was built on the site of White House and soon the Harveys and Laws were able to return. The Hanchetts found a home elsewhere. Where Fidler's Hall had been was

never built upon, but the site is still clearly visible as an elevated "platform" to the south-west of the existing cottages.

In 1900, agricultural wages were very low, some labourers earning as little as 6/-d. a week for work which continued until it became too dark. Even in 1939 the average wage was about 35/-d. although the working hours had been reduced to 50. Little wonder that as late as 1910 women were augmenting the family income by clearing the fields of stones, even though all they got for their labours was id. a bucketful. The more fortunate were in domestic service, for although the work was hard and the hours long, it was much more preferable to being out in the fields in all weathers.

Medically, however, everyone was better off. Dr. Bartlett from Saffron Walden held a weekly surgery in Wenden Farm Cottage, the home of Miss Chipperfield the local midwife. Dr. Smith from Newport came over on horseback when required.

The communal baking of bread had stopped and regular deliveries of loaves were made by a baker from Heydon. Mrs. Fanny Harvey was now the postmistress and when she was replaced by Mrs. Matilda Richardson in 1922, the business was extended to include the selling of sweets and similar items. Prior to this, there had been two shops in the village, one across the road in Hillside run by Mrs. Jane Burrows and later by Miss Eleanor Havers (no relation to the 19th century family). The second was in one of the Chapel Cottages (now Chestnuts).

Barker the shoemaker still had his little place next to the Post Office but this had gone before the first war. Milk came from Rookery Farm, something which continued until the 1950's when a dairy in Saffron Walden took over. At the corner near Clanverend, the Darrington family ran two businesses, market gardening and a small nursing home. For some obscure reason, this area was known early in the century as "Dirty Dick's Corner" and a popular story at the time was that Dick (whoever he was) buried one of his dead horses upside down with the hooves protruding through the earth to be used for hitching his other (live) horses !

In 1900 the licensee of The Bell was George Coleman. Two years earlier the Bishop's Stortford Brewery had sold it to Benskin's of Watford, later to become part of the Ind Coope Group. When Coleman left in 1905 he

was replaced by William Goddard who arrived with a large family. One of his sons, Charles, took over The Neville Arms three years later. A prefabricated timber bungalow was built in the grounds of The Bell

about this period, presumably to house part of the family — this was moved later and ended its days in a chalk pit in Wicken Bonhunt. At least one member of the Goddard family moved into Saffron Walden and there is still an electrical business in that name today.

One of the first houses erected this century was "The Beeches" to the east of the chapel, built by a Mr. Holden then bought by Mr. Woods, a retired Lancashire mill-owner. He was the first to instal a windpump for raising water and this was quite a novelty for a while. Other people had to rely on wells and "dip-ins" but there were two hand-pumps, one at Drayton Hill and the other where Wenden Garage now stands. It was not until 1938 that watermains were laid and even then there was a reluctance on the part of many people who seemed to prefer the traditional wells. Many of these survive in village gardens and some are still in use for watering purposes.

As mains gas had never reached Wenden (except for the supply to the station from Newport) and electricity did not come until after the second war, the chief source of light was paraffin. Even today there is at least one house in the village without electricity.

The only surviving charity was that of Lettice Martin, the administration of which was left to the discretion of the vicar and churchwardens. By 1910 the total available for distribution had reduced to £3.19s.0d, per annum and at Christmas this was divided amongst 23 people with qualifications such as illness or widowhood, the amounts paid ranging from 10 shillings down to 2 shillings. The list kept on increasing which meant that a maximum of 2 shillings per person had to be adopted. In the 1920's the income had risen to £5 but the list was still growing — a sure sign of the state of the village in the depression years. Even in the '30s there were up to 49 recipients of amounts ranging from 5 shillings to 1/6d.

As far as the farms were concerned, Lewis Duke's tenancy at Wenden Hall was quite short, for he died in 1908. He was followed by his son Harry, who farmed there until his death in 1966 at the age of 90. Emulating many tenant farmers before him, Harry Duke purchased a number of properties in the parish, notably Clanverend Farm in 1930.

Hitherto owned and farmed by Arthur Perry, the farm was then tenanted by William Dawson.

Wenden Place Farm continued to be worked by John Spencer Smith until he left the parish in 1925 when his son Robert took over. Sir James Bailey sold Shortgrove Hall in 1903; Bulse Farm was part of the deal and the new owner became Sir Carl Meyer. The tenant at the time was Stephen Hagger and in 1910 his son Joseph bought the farm. When he died in 1934 his son Chris took over.

Rookery Farm seemed to fare no better in this century than it did in the last. As mentioned in the chapter dealing with the Robinson family, John Creasy bought this farm in 1900. It had a series of tenants before being taken over by George Tickner in the 20's. He kept quite a large herd of milking cows and as well as supplying the village as those before him had done, he obtained the contract to provide milk for the children in the school when the Government scheme was introduced.

When the war broke out in 1914, the population of the village was about 390. A list of those who served in this war is on the wall of the church

— no fewer than 52 young men went into uniform and of the six who were killed in action, four were Clarks. Most of these men were farm workers and like everywhere else, it was the women who had to take over and keep the wheels turning. Apart from the food shortages and the natural concern for those in the war, life went on much the same — and not without some humour. The villagers were much amused when a party of boy scouts from Saffron Walden were sent to guard the viaduct and even more so when it was discovered that they had taken a prisoner

— a railway policeman from Cambridge !

After the war, some people left the village and those who remained had such awful housing that something had to be done. In 1921, the Saffron Walden Rural District Council purchased land on the north side of the Royston Road from the Audley End Estate and the first Council houses were built. They must have been paradise compared with what the new tenants had left. Other houses were built too, a few at Clanverend and in Mill Lane. The two in Mill Lane were remnants from the war, formerly being wooden barrack rooms, but they must have been robustly built for they still stand today.

The railways had suffered badly from the war and services to and from London were considerably reduced. Even in 1922 there was only one direct train to the capital and none on the return journey, changes having to be made at Bishop's Stortford. With the grouping of the

railway companies in 1923, the Great Eastern disappeared into The London and North Eastern Railway and it was not long before better services were being reintroduced. Wenden folk would not have been much concerned with all these changes, but they did depend on the branch line to Saffron Walden for shopping. The fare was 2d. for adults and 1d. for children.

The village hall was a popular attraction in the 20's and 30's, being used for dances, concerts, whist drives and as a reading room. From the Parish Magazine one gleans the kind of entertainment which the village enjoyed. On 26th March 1926 Miss Gertrude Robinson organised a varied programme of songs, violin and a play, entitled "Stuffing". Most of the performers were members of the Girls' Friendly Society "who all were most enthusiastic and carried out their parts with much spirit".

The hall was also used for a more serious purpose. Mrs. Collin made a regular practice of buying materials for sheets and pillows and selling these to the womenfolk at cost together with instructions on how to make them. These classes took place on Thursday afternoons. She also organised boot and clothing clubs, probably on the same lines as those of the previous century.

Her husband's business continued to prosper and it is not surprising that Turner Collin should have been the first owner of a motor-car in the village, a model known as a Maxwell. When he had used a horse and trap to go to his work in Saffron Walden, he always drove himself but when the car came along his gardener became the chauffeur.

During the first war, part of Mutlow Hall was turned over to the Belgian authorities for the rehabilitation of wounded troops from that country. Arising from this Turner Collin was awarded a medal and this was presented to him at a special ceremony by King Leopold of the Belgians. The war over, he continued to support village activities, particularly in the cricket and football clubs. He was a much respected man and for many of the villagers was known as the "Squire". He continued to work well after normal retirement age and when he finally gave up business in

1930 he had but one year left to live. His widow remained in Mutlow Hall until 1938 when she left the district.

Martin Robinson and his sisters remained at Trout Hall until 1919 when they moved to a new home just east of the level crossing on Rookery

Lane which was to be known as "The Crossways". Although not in Wenden at all (that part being in Newport), close ties with the village and its activities continued. A little later another house was built on an adjoining site by F. R. Lynch, the husband of Martin's sister Constance. The couple had returned from South Africa where he had been very successful in business and it was appropriate that the house was named "The Outspan" as a reminder of the years there. Both houses were built on the site of the gravel workings which had proved such a success to Stephen Robinson. Martin died in 1933 and shortly afterwards his sisters Agnes, Gertrude, Grace and the widowed Edith moved into "The Cottage", the home of William Nicholson a century before.

Francis Robinson, always known as Frank, returned to Wenden when he retired but found it difficult to settle. After a few years in Reeves Cottage he moved to Saffron Walden and finally to Bungay in Norfolk where he died in 1961 at the age of 99. I have referred before to the longevity in this family and a good illustration of this is that Frank must have known his grandfather Stephen very well as he would have been 19 when the old man died in 1881. Stephen was born in 1792 at the time of the French Revolution and as a child would have remembered much about the Napoleonic Wars. It seems remarkable that his grandson died just over twenty years ago.

Frank had outlived all his brothers and sisters with the exception of Edith who died in 1962 at the age of 95. Most of the family are buried in the Wenden churchyard but a vault in the church was used until the middle of the last century. Apart from gravestones, a memorial tablet and a stained glass window in the church, the only reminders of the family to be seen today are the curious architectural efforts of John at Wenden Place and Trout Hall and a modern building on the road leading to the station known as "Robinson's Bungalows". A great pity, for their contribution to the village, particularly in the last century, was very great indeed.

When Trout Hall was sold in 1923 (having been in the Robinson family for almost one hundred years) the new owner was Arthur Snow, a man of many talents. In 1930 he and his wife started "The Home School of Crafts", the aim being to provide courses in crafts, music and arts to students over school age in the atmosphere of a private home. No more than five residential pupils were taken at any one time. The craftwork consisted mainly of hand-loom weaving, spinning, dyeing and design;

the purpose being to provide either a useful hobby or sufficient knowledge to enable a student to establish a business of his or her own. If art or music were the main study, the course was arranged to suit individual require-ments. This school went with the war, but there is still a loom in Trout Hall as a reminder.

In the summer months of 1930, Trout Hall had a very famous visitor. She was Helen Keller, that great woman who, despite being blind and deaf since infancy, found the strength and courage to teach herself to speak. She had travelled extensively with her constant companion Ann Sullivan (always referred to as "Teacher") giving lectures and encouragement but the strain of her visit to England in that year had been too much for her. So it was that she came to Trout Hall for a complete rest. Writing in her Journal seven years later, Helen Keller's thoughts took her back to Essex which had happy memories for her. "Essex is dear to me also because it holds little pastoral Wendens Ambo where the people live just as they did centuries ago . . . our retreat was a 400 year old house with a walled garden where I found long and diversified walks which I was able to manage alone. The place was called Trout Hall — why I cannot imagine, as there was not a trout in the tiny river at the end of the garden". What she may have forgotten was that Arthur Snow had erected ropes by the paths which enabled Helen to take such safe walks on her own.

By the 20's the Goddards had gone from the village and the licensee of The Bell was Monty Parkin, a popular figure and very much a local man. He was the son of a mill-worker and had been born and brought up in Silver Row. He remained there until the war years.

The grist-mill by the Cam was reaching the end of its useful life and finally closed in 1940. Shortly afterwards it was demolished due to its dangerous condition, leaving only the mill house.

Education

From 1903, minutes of the Managers' meetings were kept and these showed that the vicar was usually the chairman; not an onerous job as the meeting rarely met more than once a year. Miss Boyd had replaced Miss Davis as Head Teacher and in 1914 her place was taken by Henry Barlow, his wife becoming Infant Mistress. The couple had come from

Kettering and, knowing all about boots and shoes, he extended the curriculum by teaching the children how to repair them — probably a most useful subject at that time. In 1917 William Smith took over, followed shortly afterwards by Mr. and Mrs. Pilgrim. It was noted that in 1922 the Head Teacher's salary had been increased from £307.10s.0d. to £315.0s.0d. £6 a week does not sound much these days but would have been a small fortune then compared with labourers' wages.

In 1923 the Inspector of Schools made a somewhat critical report, suggesting that better monitors be appointed in view of the number of pupils on the roll. There were 62 altogether, 35 in the main room and 27 infants. It was recommended that a suitable girl be found who could cycle over from Saffron Walden as there was no-one in the village who could take up such duties. The next year Miss Austin was appointed monitoress at £19.10s.0d. per annum.

Those children who could not get home for lunch probably brought packed meals of sorts with them — in the minutes it was mentioned that a kettle had been purchased in 1925 so that tea could be made in the middle of the day "but it must be boiled by a teacher to avoid scalding".

By 1927 there were nearly 40 children in Standards I to VI in the main room and a supplementary teacher was required. This was not sanctioned, so the poor teacher had had enough and left. The new one rejoiced in the name of Mrs. Basham and being of sterner stuff, remained as Head until 1942, a period of 15 years. By now Miss Austin, the former monitoress, had become a fully-fledged teacher who taught history, geography and nature study in Standards I and II in the main period. A monitoress took charge of the infants during these periods.

The Church

Following the death of Charles Barnes in 1905, the new vicar was Francis Berry who remained until 1928. From the Churchwardens Book which started in 1906 it appears that church meetings took place

annually either in April or May and were known as Easter Vestry Meetings. Income and expenditure were the main topics — what church was different? Turner Collin had been a warden from 1909 until 1923 and in 1919 it was mentioned that A. Thomas had occupied a similar position "for upward of twenty years".

In 1914 Essex became a diocese, the parish church in Chelmsford being elevated to a cathedral, so the link with St. Albans was broken in that year. In 1922 Parochial Church Councils were set by an Act of Parliament, the first elected members being Mrs. Duke and Mrs. Parry (both farmers' wives), Miss Wood and three members of the Robinson family, Gertrude, Martin and Frank.

By 1926, the fabric of the church was once again a source of trouble. The condition of the plaster in the chancel was described as poor and dangerous but nothing more of this was heard until 1932. In 1925 the churchyard had been extended northwards, material from the old wall being used to enclose two sides and a new fence erected on the third. In the same year the Rev. Berry noted sadly that confirmations were being disregarded and that many were reaching adulthood unconfirmed. Two years later, he planned a confirmation service — something which had not taken place in Wenden for a long time. Unfortunately no candidates presented themselves, so it had to be cancelled.

Using the Parish Magazine as a vehicle for his thoughts, he wrote in 1927 that he believed Wenden to be the poorest living in the Diocese. In his opinion, the sole reason for this was the refusal of the patron, the Marquis of Bristol, to give up the right to sell the advowson (the right to appoint. vicars) which the vicar had several times begged him to do. "If Lord Bristol would only agree to do what almost all other patrons had done, the income might be £350".

Perhaps disillusioned by it all, he left Wenden in 1928 to be replaced by William Warren. He was followed in 1932 by Canon Charles Gwynne who, although appointed vicar, assumed the position on a temporary basis until a more permanent incumbent could be found. In fact he was only there for one year but in that time he took the initiative to have something done about the chancel walls. It had been brought to his notice that remains of wall paintings were found about 1890 and now that extensive remedial work was necessary, he sought advice from the Chelmsford Diocesan Board. G. Montagu Benton visited the church in May 1932 when he found slight but distinct traces of wall painting on the south wall of the chancel. He urged an examination before any remedial

action be taken but owing to the illness of the Canon arid his subsequent resignation the matter was left in abeyance. The new vicar, William Wright, was equally interested and the church was again inspected in May of 1934. What was revealed was work which had been carried out

about 1330. On the north wall only the slightest traces of colour could be detected, but on the south considerable remains of the painting were brought to light, even though a large part had unwittingly been destroyed with the insertion of the archway to form the organ chamber. The painting depicts scenes from the life of St. Margaret, the virgin martyr of Antioch and is the only example in Essex. Only one pigment was used, red ochre, which when mixed with lime gave intermediate pinks. All this was exposed after layers of colourwash had been carefully removed from the walls. A little later Professor Tristram made detailed sketches of the paintings which were then framed and now hang on the wall of the north aisle of the church. He agreed with the date of the painting but thought that what was depicted was Christ's entry into Jerusalem.

Thus a valuable, if fragmentary, addition was made to English medieval painting and both vicars were congratulated by the Essex Archaeological Society.

The organ was overhauled and repaired in 1933 by a gift of Mrs. Collin in memory of her sister-in-law Fanny Collin, who had shown much interest in the instrument and had been the first to play it after its installation in the church.

Following a visit by the diocesan architect, a note was sent regretting the modern reredos and decoration of the chancel which, in his opinion, was not in keeping with the ancient simplicity of the church. Strangely, nothing is known about this reredos or when it was installed, but the vicar obviously shared the concern when in 1933 he bought oak panelling from Wendens Lofts Church (then in ruins) to be substituted for it. Unfortunately for the vicar (who had spent £10 on the panelling) the Diocesan Advisory Board would not give approval for its installation, suggesting instead that the chancel should simply be limewashed — but not of course to cover the painting. At the same time they suggested that a concrete slab under the altar be removed and the altar itself lengthened. The reredos had to go but this took longer than was intended, for nothing more was heard of it until 1955 when it was

suggested that it may be accepted by a new mission church in Sheering near Harlow.

Church heating seemed to be a constant problem. In 1933 for instance the vicar noted that the temperature in the Church on one winter Sunday was only 36 degrees at 8 a.m., rising to 40 at 6.30 p.m. and someone had suggested oil radiators.

William Wright attempted to modernise the service but this met with little response. In 1935 he suggested Hymns of Praise in place of Hymns Ancient and Modern but the congregation did not accept this despite the vicar's pleas that this was what the young wanted. The congregation appeared to win the tussle, but so did the young, for the new Hymn Book was introduced into the Sunday School.

In 1936 the Vicar informed the Parochial Church Council that with the Tithe Commutation Act, the office of Lay Rector no longer existed — the last break in fact with the old system. This would mean that the care of the chancel now fell upon the Church Officers from a fund formed from the commuted tithes. As if to prove the point, the redecoration of the chancel was completed in the same year.

One little gem revealed by the church records was the existence of a communal bath chair, presumably to transport the old and frail to and from church. The vicar complained that it took up too much room at the vicarage. It was suggested that Canon Gwynne, who by now had moved to The Beeches, might find a place for it, but the outcome was never recorded. We may never know where this period piece finished up.

In April 1939, the P.C.C. decided to apply for a faculty to instal electric light in the church but the outbreak of war put a stop to that. In that year the November meeting was held in Wenden Place Farm as there were no black-out facilities in the Sunday School where the meetings were normally held. At that meeting an offer was made of an organ in excellent condition at present in a gentleman's private chapel at a cost of £100. After a week's thought, the Council could not accept the offer "under prevailing conditions". At the same meeting consideration was given to having the bells taken down to avoid damage but this was thought to be too expensive.

The last few years before the war

By the late 30's the only shop left was the Post Office and the only trades were the flour mill by the station, W. A. Thomas the blacksmith on the Newmarket Road, A. C. Cain the builder and B. S. Thomas, haulage contractor, both of West End. A few new houses appeared, including two in Rookery Lane with mock Tudor chimneys inspired by others in the

village. But the most notable addition to appear was in Duck Street a few yards south of the ford. This "new" house had been built originally near Southwold in Suffolk and for about 350 years had stood there. The owner loved the house but wished to move to Wenden. So it was that with expert advice the house was taken apart timber by timber (all carefully numbered) and moved across a county to be faithfully re¬assembled in Wenden. It still stands, a pretty picture in its Suffolk pink and manages to blend in very well with its surroundings. Of all the houses in Wenden, it is the joker in the pack, for anyone going round the village with my map of 1800 would wonder how I had managed to omit such a fine Elizabethan house. The answer is of course that it wasn't there !

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The War and after

One has to look hard for evidence of the war in Wenden but a careful search will reveal concrete pill-boxes around the parish which, by their very nature of construction, appear destined to be with us for ever. They are a reminder of the very real threat of invasion which hung over the country in the dark days after Dunkirk. Less obvious is the fading green and brown camouflage on the sides of the old mill opposite the station. It was probably thought that such a large building would be a good pointer to the railway station and therefore concealed as much as possible. But all in vain, for during a daylight raid in the summer of 1942 a German aircraft dropped three bombs, the first on the up platform of the station, the second on the viaduct (which mercifully did little damage) and the third amongst the trees near the stream, the crater from which is still visible. "Pock marks" in the brickwork of the viaduct caused by shrapnel from one of the bombs can also be seen.

What the bomber was after was a train fully loaded with aviation spirit which had stopped near the station when the alert was sounded. The driver sustained injury to his thumb but the train and its valuable cargo were unharmed. Within a few miles of the station were at least five

airfields and the railway was an important link in getting supplies through to them. A searchlight unit at Clanverend was also a target and two farm cottages there were destroyed. They were rebuilt after the war.

A British aircraft, perhaps damaged and unable to find its base, crashed into the field behind Brooklands on the Royston Road.

The Army had requisitioned many large houses in the area, but the only one in Wenden was The Beeches. Nearby, Audley End House was used for training Polish Commandos and Shortgrove in Newport had been occupied by the Northamptonshire Yeomanry until 1943 when it was taken over by the Field Hospital Division of the U.S. Army up to the Normandy invasion in 1944. Audley End Station was a very busy place during these troubled years, attracting the nickname "orrible end" — a reflection on the amount of time wasted by service personnel there waiting for infrequent trains. In the same vein, Saffron Walden became "suffering boredom" — an unkind epithet.

Villagers who remember Wenden before the war speak with affection of the green lane which ran up the hill from the Royston Road towards Littlebury Green. During the war, Nissen huts were erected on either side of it and concrete laid, the area being turned into an ammunition dump. This lane never recovered its character afterwards and although all traces of the buildings there have gone, some of the materials used found their way into houses being built in Duck Street at a time when such supplies were difficult to get. One of the Nissen huts can still be seen at Wenden Place Farm where it is used as a shelter.

Just a few days after the outbreak of war, some 28 evacuees arrived. Some were private, i.e. they came to live with friends and relatives, but most of the children were placed by the Government. They came from such potentially dangerous areas as Mile End, Leytonstone, Old Ford and Bow, all in the east end of London. They were taken in by anyone with room to spare : four to the vicarage, one each in the Neville Arms and Fighting Cocks, the others in ones and twos in houses throughout the extent of the village. None of them stayed for any length of time, but it is not clear whether they returned to their own homes or went on somewhere else. The last one to leave Wenden School did so in December 1942.

The resources of the school must have been sorely tried with the influx of these evacuees as there was no additional staff. Mrs. Basham left in 1942

after 15 years' service and was replaced by Mrs. Jenkinson. She in turn was replaced in 1945 by Mrs. Ridley.

In 1944 a massive ammunition explosion at Chesterford Park, a few miles to the north of Wenden, caused widespread damage but in the village itself this was very slight; the chancel of the church suffered a broken window which was replaced by the War Damages Commission for an amount of £7. A year later the war was over : in Wenden the scars were few but two young men did not return. Those who did found conditions much as they were when they left — and prospects were not bright. The new agricultural revolution had not yet arrived and even when it came, the demand was for machines, not men. So the number of villagers continued to drop, from 330 in 1951 to 319 in 1961. What was par¬ticularly distressing just after the war was the diminishing number of village children. In December of 1945 there were only 22 on the school roll and if the seniors were removed only 11 pupils would have been left. The School Managers therefore recommended that the school should close, but somehow it struggled on for another two years before the last pupil left in July 1947. Mrs. Ridley was to be the last Head and Miss Austin, who had started her career as a monitoress in the same building, left with her. In the 66 years of its existence the school had seen 753 children through its classes. For a number of years the schoolhouse was let but finally the Essex County Council sold the property which was turned into a dwelling.

Electricity came to Wenden in 1948 and one of the first buildings to enjoy this novelty was the church. At a cost of £61, electric lights were installed and at the same time a sum of £57.10s.0d. was spent on a blower for the organ. The days of hand-pumping were over.

The need for re-housing was acute and the Rural District Council pur-chased land from the Audley End Estates on the south side of the Royston Road (now called Station Road) so that a number of Council houses could be built. At the same time a few privately-built houses were going up in Duck Street.

Otherwise there was little change in these dark post-war years, one notable exception being an extension to the mill at the station in the form of a tall silo block built of timber and asbestos which provided a landmark for over thirty years.

Small farms were no longer practical and when Mr. Tickner died in 1944 the land at Rookery Farm was divided amongst several adjoining land-owners. The farmhouse later became a private dwelling. In 1950 Harry

Duke sold Clanverend Farm to A. Goddard (now deceased) and the property is still in the same family. At Wenden Place Farm, John Smith took over from his father in 1949 and remained there until 1970. The farmhouse ( John Robinson's first "improved" property) was then sold to become a private dwelling. Chris Hagger, the third generation of that family at Bulse Farm, departed in 1950 and the property was bought by John Prime who later sold it to Adrian Denham, who still farms it today.

Harry Duke, tenant at Wenden Hall since 1908, died in 1966 at the age of 90. He was the last of the old-style farmers, a man not to be meddled with. Long after farm horses had given way to the tractor, Harry kept his white Shire on the Wick, a popular animal with the children and a reminder of the sterling work these noble beasts had performed before and during the war.

Henry, the 7th Lord Braybrooke, had succeeded to the title in 1904 and for many years it seemed that there would be no children. Indeed it was assumed that his nephew Henry Seymour Neville would inherit after him. But the 7th Lord remarried in his sixties and had three children; Richard born in 1919 followed by Robert and Catherine.

The father died in 1941 and in August of the same year Robert was killed in action. This tragedy was compounded two years later when Richard (by then the 8th Lord Braybrooke) also lost his life on active service. Thus Henry Seymour Neville did succeed to the title, becoming the 9th Lord. Not only did he inherit the Audley End Estates and the mansion — he was left with two sets of death duties to pay. He had been an engineer, had served in the 1914-18 war as a pilot and his career in the oil industry came to an abrupt end with the death of his cousin. Almost immediately he had to start work to look after an estate of some 7500 acres and 200 cottages, all of which had suffered from years of neglect. Although a gradual process, the estate was transformed from decay into prosperity. The mansion had to be sold and in 1948 this became the property of the Ministry of Works, now the Department of the Environment. It is open to the public with an excellent display of period furniture and fine paintings.

Lord Braybrooke had to find a home somewhere and in 1946 he bought Mutlow Hall, so becoming the first Lord of the Manor ever to live in

Wenden. He took a particular interest in Wenden Hall Farm and later formed a Company to manage it. When Wenden Place Farm was added,

the whole became known as Mutlow Farms. With the death of Harry Duke in 1966, Wenden Hall was sold and a new house built nearby for the bailiff. Houses for farm-workers were built in the village and on the road to Clanverend. Later, some small cottages were erected near the Newmarket Road to accommodate retired workers from the Estate. In Wenden and elsewhere, surplus land and cottages were being sold off to help finance these works.

It was in the 1960's that significant changes occurred in Wenden, some for better, some for worse. One of the most important was the introduction of diesels in place of the old steam locomotives, for this brought about a marked improvement in the rail services to London and Cambridge. People working in the London area suddenly realised that living in the country had its attractions, especially when there was a good train service to the City. Like many other places, Wenden had been "found", the only problem being the dearth of housing available. Such demand is usually satisfied and this was done in two ways. The obvious one was to have houses built and this is exactly what happened with the land released by the Audley End Estates and other owners. Soon houses were appearing in Nats Lane, Royston Road, Mill Lane, Duck Street and Rookery Lane, but fortunately for the village, any attempts to erect estate-type houses were strongly resisted and no new roads were built. Even today, the road pattern is almost as it had been for hundreds of years. When the centre of the village was declared a Conservation Area, the task of the planning authorities became easier.

The second way was to buy one of the old cottages in the village and have it renovated and modernised. In most cases this was done with great care and sensitivity, retaining the concept of casement windows and plastered walls which were characteristic of the area. Sometimes extensions were necessary and these were carefully sited at the back so that the front elevation remained essentially as before. Only a handful of cottages have not been so treated and it is saddening to see the extent to which some are deteriorating. Whatever else is said about people who come into a village with no background there, in Wenden at least it must be conceded that all the improvements to old property have enhanced the whole appearance of the place. Obviously it would be foolish to pretend that every structural change has been for the better, but

compared with many villages within a few miles, Wenden has fared very well indeed.

With cars becoming more popular, fewer passengers were using the

Saffron Walden Branch and in 1964 it was decided to close the line. In its place a bus service was inaugurated to connect with trains to and from London, but the pressure was being exerted on British Railways to provide more car-parking spaces at the station. This could only be satisfied by removing goods sheds, sidings and the last vestiges of the Branch Line. All that is left today to remind us of this line is the little waiting room which is now used as a cycle shelter. The parking facilities were gradually extended to meet the additional demand and today there are more than 400 spaces. Few of these are used by Wenden people — they are for travellers who come from as far away as Newmarket to reach their most convenient station. The catchment area of Audley End Station is estimated to be over 250 square miles, an almost unbelievable figure. For an hour or so in the morning and in the evening of working days, traffic around the station is heavy, but otherwise the village is scarcely conscious of the railway.

Other amenities disappeared in the 1960's. By then the mill had outlived its usefulness and was closed. The first thing to go was the chimney but the tall silo tower remained until 1978. Although a difficult thing to love, many villagers were disappointed when this landmark went. The original mill building remains and is now used for light industrial purposes.

The Neville Arms went next, leaving the village with two pubs, The Bell and The Fighting Cocks, which fortunately are with us today. The post office and the little shop that went with it also closed, although Mr. Pratt, the last sub-postmaster, continued to live in the house until his death in 1980.

One addition was a petrol station and garage at the corner of the road leading to the station. Behind it, in the area formerly used for stabling horses for the Neville Arms, a few small industries were unobtrusively carrying on their business.

By the mid-seventies, most of the remaining spaces had been filled with new houses and soon the number being built had dropped to a trickle. The Congregational Chapel had suffered for a long time from the age-old problem of diminishing congregations and in October 1971 the last service was held there. The burial ground remained in use but as I write

this, a planning application is being considered for a house to be built on the site which would mean the removal of many or all of the gravestones.

Road improvements on the All were carried out in two stages. First, in 1968 the redundant railway bridge over the road was demolished and once again the junction with the Royston Road (or Station Road) was moved to a site just north of The Fighting Cocks to fit in with a road widening scheme with a short stretch of dual carriageway to increase safety. The second stage was the realignment of the road on Mutlow Hill, moving it slightly to the east to improve visibility and widen the carriage¬way. In the process, two houses had to be demolished, one of them the dwelling erected for the manager of the old brickworks. Uttlesford Bridge was rebuilt. The old road can still be seen close by Mutlow Hall, with grass and a footpath instead of tarmac and it is almost impossible to believe that until the mid-seventies this narrow stretch carried heavy traffic, particularly at holiday periods when the whole world appeared to be going to Norfolk.

Work started on the M11 motorway in 1977. This entailed cuttings through the chalk in the north and south of the parish and a high embankment through the centre. Two tunnel-like bridges had to be constructed, one over the Royston Road and the other over Dodnoe Lane, neither an object of beauty. The first is particularly obtrusive as it blocks the fine western view one had of the village centre. The greatest problem was noise, the severity of it not being appreciated until the motorway was opened to traffic in November 1979. Plans had been made for a fence to alleviate some of this nuisance but it proved insufficient and it was not long before this had to be heightened to make life bearable for those people close to it. The double-glazing on the windows, paid for by the Government, helped a little.

Following a number of fund-raising activities (including a re-enactment of a Civil War battle held on two successive days) enough money was collected to enable the village to purchase The Wick (that field in the centre of the village which fronts Church Path and the thatched barn), so that it could be used as a village green. The Croat, next to the Sunday School, had served for this purpose for many years but in the future it may have to be used as an extension to the churchyard.

The ford in Duck Street usually carried no more than a trickle of water but after heavy rain the swirling flood could be up to two feet deep,

stopping all but the most intrepid (or foolish) motorist. Realising that water from the surface of the motorway may have increased this hazard, it was decided to build up the ford by means of a concrete raft with

culverts underneath. This has effectively dealt with the problem but visually the new structure lacks the charm of the old ford.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Lettice Martin Charity continued to exist. After the war, greater discretion was used to make the awards more meaningful and gradually the names of men disappear, leaving only widows. Several attempts were made in the 50's and 60's to stop the distribution as the amounts were so small as to be almost derisory, but spirited resistance was put up on the grounds that the charity was a right — the actual amount was immaterial. In 1972 the last payments were made, at a time when the bequest was held in 24% Consols with a nominal value of £211.40. In that year 15 people people received 30 pence each and four others 15 pence. A suggestion was accepted that the income be allowed to accumulate for reasons of real need and this remains the position today. Unfortunately, inflation has eroded the value to such an extent that the charity has become little more than a book-keeping exercise.

Farming is now prosperous, although the actual number engaged in this activity in the parish is only about twelve — a very different picture from the past. The staple crops are wheat, barley and sugar beet, although in recent years oilseed rape has become more popular, producing fields of brilliant yellow in May. In the last century a little of this crop was grown, but demand fell away with cheap imports of tropical palm oils. Thanks to the EEC support system, output has increased fifteen-fold since 1970 and the oil is important for the manufacture of products such as margarine, salad dressing and cooking oil. Strange as it may seem, this member of the cabbage family (Brassica napus) is a very close relative to the common swede — that vegetable which formed such an important part of the Wenden diet in the 19th century.

In the late 70's a number of new light industries came to the village, all in the neighbourhood of the station. Some of course had been on the east side for some time, but to them was added a larger factory for the design and assembly of electronic systems. The Company involved later acquired the old Neville Arms building for use as offices. On the other side of the line, development has taken place in the field below the former mill; small individual light industries. The suggestion of this kind of develop¬ment in village communities had been welcomed as it would

provide job opportunities but so far there is little indication that this has indeed been the case. Many people now hope that this type of growth has been fully

exploited as further development could create a serious imbalance in so small a community.

Today Wenden is a thriving village : once again the sounds of children are everywhere, so much so that there is probably justification for a primary school. The Wendens Ambo Society, formed as a "watchdog" to protect the character of the village, performs a valuable job and the Women's Institute and other organisations keep the Village Hall occupied. Lord Braybrooke still takes an interest in the farm and estates, but he has given up Mutlow Hall for a smaller home nearby. The cricket club continues to flourish, despite the rather frightening slope of their pitch !

Even the church has attracted a larger congregation. After the war, numbers had reduced dramatically. William Wright had been followed by Hubert Gardner in 1945. The Rev. Gardner apparently had great ideas for the church but it was only after he left in 1953 that it came to light that he had arranged for plans to be drawn for a Lady Chapel — at a time when only a handful of people attended services. The Parochial Church Council first heard of it when the bill for the plans came in — this was promptly sent to him for settlement ! The next Vicar was Henry Watson. During his time, an interesting discovery was found in an old box in the Saffron Walden branch of the Westminster Bank. This was the chalice of 1589 and its patten of 1568, the church silver which caused so much trouble in Elizabethan times. It appears that they had been completely forgotten and it is rather surprising that no-one had wondered where they were. They had probably been put there for safety when the church and vicarage were being restored in the middle of the last century. Somehow or other the record of where they had gone was lost and this is a very good example of the importance of keeping track of valuables. This "find" aroused much interest — the silver went on display at an exhibition in Dagenham and Christies in London also showed them together with other articles of church plate from around the country.

Lord Braybrooke made two gifts of land to the church, the first in 1956 so that the graveyard could be further extended. A year later it was the

piece of ground known as the Croat which included the piece of land on which the Sunday School/Village Hall stands.

Getting bell-ringers was always a problem, but the vicar hoped that it would be possible to get enough people together so that the "best light

peal in Essex" could be heard again. Happily his wish was granted and today these bells are frequently heard. In 1955 repairs to the roof were carried out at a cost of £1048 and almost immediately afterwards it was found that the two beams holding the spire were rotting through — this would cost a further £1500. Unusually, the church was described as being in excellent condition in 1958 but at the vicarage the position was becoming almost unbearable for the vicar. To modernise it would be beyond the resources of the church and a new one would cost at least £6,000 — "it might be that Wendens Ambo in future be joined with another parish, making a vicarage redundant". These were prophetic words.

When Henry Watson retired in 1970, the church had reached a major crisis; the costs of keeping it going were rising steeply and this coincided with an even lower number of people attending the services. Serious consideration was given to closing it down altogether, adding another ancient building to the sad list of redundant Essex churches, but fortunately a solution was found. The vicarage was sold and Wenden and Saffron Walden united under one vicar. Most of the services were taken by retired clergy from the College of St. Marks in Audley End Village, which although not an ideal solution, did keep the church open.

It was in 1975 that a bold experiment was carried out — the creation of a team ministry to look after Saffron Walden, Littlebury and Wenden. A hierarchy was created using old clerical titles in a new way : the vicar of Saffron Walden became styled as a rector, his assistant as a vicar and the next in order as a curate. The Parochial Church Council, which for many years had looked after the affairs of the local church, became the District Church Council and the old ecclesiastical parish of Wendens Ambo disappeared. It does remain a parish, however, in the civil sense, as part of Uttlesford District which was formed from the merger of three authorities, including Saffron Walden Rural District Council, at the time of local government reorganisation. The choice of Uttlesford as the name for this new council was a happy one for it perpetuates the title of the old Hundred associated with Wenden since the earliest days.

The Ordnance Survey, that grand old institution which started to provide maps for public use at the beginning of the last century, has proved to be a valuable source of information. This is especially true with the large- scale maps, the sort used by local authorities and those concerned with land. The one on the scale of 1 :2500 (approximately 25 inches to the

mile) is particularly useful and the 1921 edition is a veritable mine of information. One disadvantage was that only the grander homes were named but after the last war when the maps were up-dated, house names were inserted for the first time. This must have caused a number of problems in Wenden as quite a number of houses had no names at all — there are still at least two — but the surveyor found some other difficulties as well. When he called at The Old Rectory (correctly Bennett's Farm) whoever he spoke to there must have confused him completely, for the name he inserted is the farm in Widdington where the owner lived. Thus, on the map, this house is known as Shipton's Farm ! Later, when the surveyor called at The Cottage, the door was answered by a daughter of the owner called Hood. On asking the girl what the name of the house was (there apparently being no sign at the gate) the mischievous reply was "Hoodwink" and that is how it is still shown on the latest Ordnance Survey maps. I mention these instances for it is very easy to take sources such as maps as gospel whereas almost everything has to be double-checked.

More than ever before, old buildings are being examined by experts, particularly when major internal alterations are taking place. In many cases they have shown that some are much older than previously supposed and in the next few years further delving into the timbers of Wenden's old buildings will produce interesting facts. A study has just been completed by two experts on the building at No. 2 Church Path. Douglas Scott and John McCann have produced a fascinating description of this fine old house and date it to a period between 1500 and 1536, much earlier than experts before them. Without dwelling on the arguments which they use, their conclusion is that this building was at one time the guildhall of Wenden Magna, the mystery "Yelde Hall" and "Guilde Hall" referred to in the records of the 16th century. Naturally it is almost impossible to prove this, but the arguments which they use are most convincing.

This example shows how the past is still being revealed to us and I hope that other mysteries mentioned in this book will one day be solved.

During all my researches and talks with people, I was somewhat dis-appointed to find no references to witchcraft or the supernatural, for these subjects are frequently encountered in medieval villages. Then, right at the end of my work, I find that Wenden has a ghost ! Earlier I referred to stables behind The Neville Arms. A few years ago these

were demolished and replaced by an office block, part of which is occupied by the printers of this book. The owner assures me that he has felt the presence of the ghost of a lady in this modern building. One elderly resident has also seen her and even knows her name — Mrs. Goddard. The Goddards were the family who came to Wenden early in this century to take over The Bell and later one of the sons held the licence for The Neville Arms. It is thought that the lady may have moved to her son's place following the death of her husband. Distraught by her loss, she died soon afterwards and today her gentle ghost haunts the area where she once lived. I wish her peace.

Postscript

This book has dealt with one English village but there are other Wendens elsewhere in the world. Two are in Western Germany, the larger in a forestry area near Olpe, some 40 miles east of Cologne. The other is a few miles north of Brunswick on the Weser-Elbe Canal. The derivation of the name may be the same as the Essex Wenden in each case and I should like to think that both lie in winding valleys.

Another European Wenden has now disappeared, at least in name. This was a small town 50 miles north-east of Riga in Latvia. When that country became part of the Soviet Union, the name of the town was changed to Cesis or Tseris.

Further afield, the next Wenden is in a remote valley in semi-desert country about 150 miles north-west of Phoenix, Arizona. The Historical Society of that state has established that this Wenden was founded by Otis E. Young who had gone there from Pennsylvania at the end of the last century. Before going west he had owned a farm called Wendendale

and this was the name he took with him. It was still known as that when the U.S. Post Office was opened there in 1905, but by 1909 the name had been shortened to Wenden. Anxious to trace some connection, I con¬tacted the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. They found references to Otis Young in the census of 1860 when he was living in Pittsburgh and in a directory of 1863/4 where he is described as a painter. From then on, his name disappeared, so it seems likely that he left the area shortly thereafter. Whether the two Youngs were in fact the same person or perhaps father and son is not known. The greatest dis¬appointment was the lack of any information on Wendendale Farm, so at least for the time being the derivation remains a mystery.

The last known one is on the opposite side of the world in the far south of the South Island of New Zealand. Known as "Wendon", it is a scattered rural community and no one there has any knowledge of how the name came about. One suggestion was that it may have been named by a surveyor who did not belong to the district — he or his parents may have come from Essex but we may never be sure.

APPENDIX I APPENDIX II

Heads of families known to have been in Wenden at the union of the parish in 1662.

Details and spelling are as shown in the church registers.

ff rancis Banks Yeoman Richard Monke The Clergy

Wendell Magna — Vicars

John Bayley Richard Newport 1325 John de Grafton

Richard Burrow Millers and George Newton 1361 Robert de Kent

William Burrow J Malsters John Page 1366 Ralph Burstall

William Cane John Parish Widower 1366 John Hawys

Robert Carter Thomas Parish 1397 Thomas Birham

Edward Churchman Weaver Robert Porter 1397 John Rode

Edmund Clarke Robert A poor man1400 Robert Lawly

Mathew Clerke William Rumball 1401 Alen Boys

Thomas Cocke Edward Salisburie 1409 John Philips

Robert Coleman John Scrambler 1427 Thomas Wymer

John Cornell Yeoman Ezechiel Shelford 1430 John Thooker

William Cornell Yeoman James Shelford 1432 Robert Causmere

John Flack Thomas Shelford 1434 William Goldring

Francis Fleming Robert Sparke Vicar 1434 John Fryer

Sarah Freeman Spinstress John Stanes 1437 Nicholas Style

Edward Frost Yeoman Matthew Stanes Miller 1464 John Venderlock

William Garret Richard Stanes 1465 William Baxter

Mary Graves Richard Strutton Tanner 1471 John Awdeley

John Havers Thomas Strutton 1474 John Crosby

John Heydon Thomas Turner 1477 John Brampton

Susan Horwell Single woman John Wakelin / ? father and1493 Robert Rest MA

George Hovel John Wakelin 1 son 1504 Robert Smith

Edmund Humphrey John Ward Yeoman 1527 John Newman MA

Robert Jaggard Thomas White 1527 Richard Bromley

William King John Wilson 1554 Bri. Wade

John Law Shepherd Thomas Wilson 1577 Galf. Clerk

John Lawes Thomas Winterflood 1591 Robert Marsh

Charles Leader Thomas Woodruf 1601 William Faune

Leister Thomas Worley 1632 Justinian Tayler

Joseph Lodge John Write 1633 Henry Leader MA

John Malin William Young 1639 Robert Pepys MA

APPENDIX II continued

Wenden Parva — Rectors

Thomas de Stortford 1327 Gui de S. Georgio

John Spicere

1399 Roger Roche

1428 Thomas Thunderlie

Richard Coks

1439 John Buke

1440 Thomas Bury

John Gibson

1465 John Crosby

1477 William Baxter

1488 Hugo Harward

1494 Christopher Kenyon

Rad. Barlow

Wendens Ambo — Vicars

1665 Nathaniel Wakefield MA

1678 George Bell MA

1680 George Grant MA

1728 John York BA

1730 Robert Butt MA

1741 Robert Fiske MA

1783-1812 Vacant

1812 Edward Ryder

1837-1857 Vacant

1857 Frederick W. Shannon

1862 John Jackson MA

1887 Frederick T. Grey

1892 Charles E. Barnes MA

1905 Francis W. Berry MA

1928 William W. Warren

1932 Charles B. Gwynne MA

1932 William A. Wright BA

1945 Hubert E. Gardner MA

1953 Henry Watson

1972 Eric W. Raynor MA

1974 Arthur R. H. Rodwell BD

(died 12th October 1982)