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The
Friends of Historic Essex President: The Lord Petre, KCVO, MA, JP Chairman: Dr. Christopher Thornton, FSA, FRHistS
Reg. Charity No. 235270
NEWSLETTER AUTUMN 2017
www.friendsofhistoricessex.org
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From the Chairman
This summer has been a busy time for the
Friends committee. The AGM was held on
15 July at Braintree Museum. We owe a
great deal of thanks to Stuart Seymour for
helping to organise the day and to the
museum staff for their kindness in making
various practical arrangements. After the
AGM and lunch the museum’s manager,
Robert Rose, gave us a fascinating short talk
on the history of the museum, its building
and collections. David Adlington of ECC
also kindly updated us on developments at the ERO and a survey of
the impressive work being undertaken by ERO staff across a wide
range of spheres in 2016-17. Stuart Seymour then led members on a
guided tour of the museum’s current displays before we retired to the
museum tea rooms for further refreshment.
An important addition to the society’s officers occurred at the AGM
when existing committee member Ken Crowe was elected as Vice-
Chairman. Two of our other officers, Sarah Ensor (Hon. Membership
Secretary) and Edward Harris (Hon. Treasurer) stood down from
their posts at the AGM. We sincerely thank them for all that they
have done for FHE. Sarah kindly agreed to remain on the committee
and will continue to manage the Essex Great War Archive Project for
us. Since the AGM we have also been very fortunate in finding two
new trustees who have been co-opted onto the committee for the
current year: Janice Gooch (Hon. Membership Sec.) and Ruth
Earnshaw (Hon. Treasurer). We welcome them to the committee and
very much look forward to working with them in the future.
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FHE’s Great War Archive Project has continued on its successful
path. Please see later in this newsletter for an interesting deposit of
photographs and accompanying material concerning a soldier based
in Essex. We would be very interested to hear of similar material
which members of the public would be interested in depositing with
the archive or allowing us to digitally copy should they wish to retain
the originals in their family ownership. The project’s next Autumn
Lecture afternoon will be held at Chelmsford Museum on Saturday
25 November. For details see: www.friendsofhistoricessex.org/events
Document Acquisition
Behind the scenes much of the work of FHE over the past six
months has been concerned with attempting to acquire archival
material for the ERO, and finding the money to do so. Sometimes we
have been successful, but sometimes sadly not. The task is becoming
increasingly problematic for several reasons. First, whereas FHE
used to provide ‘top up’ grants (typically 50% of costs) for the
purchase of records by ERO, the current local government financial
background means that no funds exist and we have to try to find the
full amount. Second, there is a long term trend, but perhaps
accelerating, for the perceived commercial “value” of archival
material to rise a great deal, especially in certain “collectible” areas.
Material appears not only at traditional auctions, but also on-line and
on sites such as e-bay, and material is increasingly offered to the
ERO for purchase rather than for deposit. The increase in prices and
limited resources means that some difficult decisions have to be
taken.
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Later in this newsletter I report on a successful fundraising
campaign led by FHE that enabled the ERO to secure 11 late
medieval and Tudor property deeds at a Sotheby’s auction, the
documents being associated with the Paycocke family of Coggeshall.
The cost was shared between a number of local and national sources,
to all of whom we are immensely grateful. However, it is also
sobering to report that similar attempts to acquire at auction an
original panoramic drawing by Repton of the improvements planned
at Riffhams, Danbury, in 1815 (including a view of the Common),
and a late 18th century estate map of Dagnam Park were defeated by
the very large hammer prices (£4,400 and £3,500 respectively) which
were way beyond the auctioneer’s estimates and our collected ‘pots’.
In both cases it was very much worth the effort, but the failure
highlights the difficulties faced by heritage charities and public
institutions such as archives and museums to match the sometimes
deep pockets of dealers and private collectors.
The Friends have also purchased some smaller items offered to them
by dealers and collectors. The largest acquisition followed an offer
for FHE to have first sight of a very large collection of postcards,
books, pamphlets, original documents and other ephemera chiefly
concerning Harwich and Dovercourt that was coming up for sale.
The complete collection was valued at over £5,000, so again we had
to be selective.
Much of the original material has been purchased together with very
interesting printed material that the ERO did not currently possess.
The sorting process involved both FHE committee members and
ERO staff. Unfortunately we did not have the resources to purchase
the large collections of postcards..
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After these reports it is hardly necessary to say that the FHE
committee would appreciate any further practical ideas for
fundraising or, indeed, any donations towards future purchases, of
which we have received several generous ones of late.
At the time of writing there have just been some further changes in
the management and administration of the ERO. We will report on
these in a later issue, but for now the main practical change is that all
ERO enquiries, including the issue and renewal of reader tickets, will
now be dealt with by the searchroom reception on the first floor.
I hope you will enjoy reading the account of our society’s activities
in this newsletter.
Chris Thornton
The Essex Great War Archive Project –
William Charles Thirkettle
Earlier this year Bruce Thirkettle kindly lent some photographs and
military papers relating to the service of his grandfather, William
Charles Thirkettle, to the ERO for digital copying, as part of FHE’s
Essex Great War Archive Project. One of the photographs is
reproduced below. Bruce also provided much biographical
information about his grandfather, an edited version of which appears
below.
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William Charles Thirkettle was born on 1st May 1885 in Broadstairs,
Kent, the son of Edward Thomas Thirkettle (b.1854) originally from
Norwich, Norfolk, and Lizzie Maria Day (b.1860) a local girl from
Saint Peter's in Kent, the daughter of a carpenter. His father Edward
started his working life as an Under-waiter at the Norfolk Club in
Norwich, but in 1881 he moved to Broadstairs to work as a house
servant at Northforeland Lodge, where he met Lizzie Maria who was
employed there as a Housemaid. At the time, North Foreland Lodge
was the private home of Robert Isaac widower of Matilda
Scrymgeour-Wedderburn, the daughter of the 7th Earl of Dundee,
but later it became a private girls’ school attended by Sarah
Churchill, daughter of Sir Winston. At the time of William's birth,
Edward was employed as a Butler, but later went into business on his
own account as a bath chair proprietor.
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In 1901, at the age of 15, William was employed as a Milkman on a
local farm, and was still living at home with his parents in
Broadstairs. In the 10 years between then and the 1911 census, he
somehow managed to acquire sufficient driving skills to become a
chauffeur for a private hire company in London, and was living in
lodgings with the family of a work colleague in Chelsea. This was
not an inconsiderable achievement for a lad of modest beginnings
given the early stage of motorised road transport; after all, the first
motorised bus did not go into regular service in London until 1902,
and it was still early days for private ownership of a motor car.
On the 15th August 1914, following the start of the Great War,
William enlisted in the 1/8th Cyclist Battalion of the Essex
Regiment, Regimental No 38657. This was a battalion of the
Territorial Force deployed for home defence; in the early stages of
the war, there was a very real fear of invasion. It is likely that
William would have been sought-out specifically for his driving
skills, as this was a mechanised unit, and at this time, such skills
were in short supply. In August 1914 the battalion was in Colchester,
unallocated to a Brigade, but on mobilisation moved to the Essex
coast, Battalion HQ being located at Wivenhoe. They came under the
orders of the 73rd Division January-October 1917, moving in
January to Southminster and in October to Margate. In February
1918 they moved to Enniskillen, then to Curragh in March, and Tulla
and Naas in October 1918.
At the age of 29, no doubt on a spot of leave, William married
Phoebe Louisa Overton (b.1885 in Marylebone, London) on the 10th
January 1915 at the parish church of Saint Luke, Chelsea, London.
They most probably met through William's occupation; it would have
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been normal for a chauffeur or other tradesman to sit with the
servants whilst waiting for the master of the house. Phoebe was the
daughter of John William Overton, a 'Carman,' or bus driver, for the
London General Omnibus Company (LGOC), the principal bus
operator in London from 1855 to 1933, who would have spent most
of his employment on horse drawn buses, which continued in service
until about 1909.
William was stationed in Frinton-on-Sea at the time of his marriage
in 1915, but at some point he transferred from the Territorial Force to
the Regular Army - the 6th Battalion, The Queen's Own Royal West
Kent Regiment - possibly as a result of the Military Service Act
1916, or he may have signed the Imperial Service Obligation,
agreeing to serve overseas. Whatever the circumstances, he saw
service in France after the 1st January 1916, as he received the War
Medal & Victory medal, but not the 1914 or 1914-15 Star.
William and Phoebe had four children, Phoebe Joyce (b.1916),
Edward John (b.1918), Cecil Frederick (b.1921), and Wilfred
(b.1923); so clearly there was opportunity to get home at times! He
was 'disembodied' from the Army - a term used for personnel who
had originally signed-up for the Territorial Force - on 6th May 1919
with the rank of Acting Sergeant; surviving the war at least
physically unscathed. His commanding officer's testimonial was “this
NCO is a good and smart soldier, character excellent.” On leaving
the army, William first returned to Broadstairs in
Kent, but by 1923, he had moved the family from Kent to East Ham
in Essex, and in 1939 at the age of 54 he was employed as a
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chauffeur by the local authority. He later moved to a retirement
cottage in Brentwood, Essex.
Bruce Thirkettle – July 2017
The Coggeshall Deed Collection
The Essex Record Office was informed by staff at the National
Archives that a collection of Essex manuscripts were to be sold at a
Sotheby’s auction sale of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts and
Continental and Russian Books on 23 May 2017. In the catalogue
Lot 55 was described as ‘Eleven documents relating to property in
Coggeshall, Essex, in Latin with a few place-names and other words
in English; England (Coggeshall), dated 1427 to 1574’, and the
estimate was given as £3,000 to £5,000. The large estimate was
clearly a product of their appearance in a major London saleroom in
an auction devoted to many other valuable manuscripts, but also
because transactions recorded in the deeds involved members of the
Paycocke family of Coggeshall, relatives of the famous clothier
Thomas Paycocke (d. 1518) who built Paycocke’s House which is
now in the care of the National Trust.
Although the estimated price was beyond the stretched resources of
the Friends, we decided to attempt to put together a consortium to
finance a bid starting with the sum of £1,000 from FHE. It was
extremely pleasing that other heritage organisations and individuals
were prepared to help us, a reflection of the potential significance of
these documents. The bid entered by ERO staff was successful and
we acquired the lot for a total of £3,425.28 including hammer price,
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buyer’s premium and shipping. We are most grateful to all those who
contributed, including The Friends of the National Libraries
(£1,000), The Coggeshall Society (£750), John Lewis (£375), The
Essex Heritage Trust (£150) and The Essex Society for Archaeology
and History (£150).
The deeds are now at the ERO where they will be conserved and
catalogued. Ten of the deeds relate to the descent, usually by sale, of
a messuage with a curtilage in West Street in Coggeshall that lay
between the field of abbot and convent of Coggeshall called
Wyndmelnefelde (Windmill field) on one side and the king’s
highway leading from Coggeshall market place to Braintree (i.e.
West Street) on the other. In 1427 one end or side of the messuage
and curtilage abutted the tenement and land of Richard Aldham on
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one side and the lane leading to the windmill on the other side.
Almost all of the deeds are endorsed, in what appears to be a 16th
century hand, by the phrase “corner howse”, which was presumably
the name of the messuage. Thanks to the topographical
reconstruction of the town by the “Discovering Coggeshall” project,
we know that the property lay on the north side of West Street close
to where the later vicarage stood.
The same property was transferred in deeds of 1441, 1480, 1504,
1506 (2), 1507, 1515, 1532, 1552 and 1574, although sometimes the
details are elaborated or the description of the abutments amended.
The property first seems to have passed to the Paycocke family in
1480, when it was acquired by Thomas Wynlove of Stisted, a fuller,
and John Paycocke otherwise called “Cosyn Peycok” of Coggeshall,
a butcher, and several others. This John Paycocke was the father of
the famous clothier Thomas Paycocke of Coggeshall. He owned
several properties in Coggeshall including one directly opposite on
the other side of West Street which he left to Thomas Paycocke in his
will of 1505. That house was later rebuilt by Thomas Paycocke in
1509–10 and still stands as Paycocke’s House.
The property on the northern side of West Street did not, however,
descend to Thomas Paycocke who was John’s third and youngest
son. Instead in October 1504 the property first appears to have been
granted to John’s second son, Robert Paycocke, and Robert Wynlove
of Halstead, a tailor. Only two days later it was then sold to another
Coggeshall butcher, John Bacon (‘Bacowne’) on a mortgage. It was
then bought and sold several times, before in 1532 being sold to John
Rerye of Coggeshall, a fuller, John Paycocke the Younger and
several others (Rerye appears to have been the actual purchaser).
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John Paycocke the Younger was probably the grandson of John
Paycocke, the butcher who had owned the property in the late 15th
century, although his own son was also called John (d. 1533). He was
therefore either the brother or nephew of Thomas Paycocke. After
Rerye had died his widow and Robert Felsted had sold the property
to a Sandon yeoman called Edward Solme, who in 1552 passed it to
his son John Solme. The final deed in the collection, dated 1574,
records the sale of the property by John Solme’s son, Edward Solme
of Kelvedon, to John Paycocke of Coggeshall, yeoman. In this deed,
the John Paycocke must be identified with the great grandson of the
first John Paycocke, who died in 1584 ‘the last of his name in
Coxall’.
The eleventh deed in the collection, dated 1452, is closely related to
the others as it records the transfer of three roods of arable land
located near, if not adjacent, to the messuage and curtilage described
in the others. The land was transferred from the abbot and convent of
Coggeshall to a fuller called John Wynlove, who must be related to
the Thomas and Robert Wynlove mentioned in the other deeds of
1480 and 1504. The 1452 deed was dated ‘in the Chapter House of
the said Convent’ and probably originally had a fine monastic seal,
which is sadly now missing. Most of the other deeds do carry seals,
however, the largest number being five on the deed of 1507. While
some are broken or indistinct, they appear to include, a lamb and
flag, different initials and various merchants’ marks. Some of them
may be identified with the named persons that were party to the
deeds.
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Finally, the collection is also interesting for the great many names of
Coggeshall people they record and for the involvement of men from
other surrounding small towns and villages in the transactions,
indicative of a network of economic and social relationships some of
which were probably associated with the cloth industry. The recorded
occupations of buyers, sellers and witnesses included men working in
the cloth industry, for example as fullers and shearmen. Other trades
included several butchers and a waxchandler. Overall, the deeds will
contribute much to our understanding of the property market in late
medieval Coggeshall, which is otherwise relatively poorly
documented, and add more contextual information to the rise of the
Paycocke family which will be explored in future research
publications.
Chris Thornton
Volunteers at the Essex Record Office
Following on from the report penned by our ‘Wednesday volunteers’
in the last newsletter this time we can read about the work
undertaken by two others who have given their time to help at the
Essex Record Office. Firstly Ross Moncreiff who is a student at
Oxford University tells us about his work listing the Spalding
photographic negatives of the Chelmsford area for adding, with the
images, to the online catalogue; these should be a very popular
addition to the catalogue for those wishing to see what the county
town looked like a century ago. Secondly Lesley Vingoe, a member
of the Friends of Historic Essex, reports on the various pieces of
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work she has undertaken for the Record Office over the years. We
are very grateful to both of them and all the rest of our volunteers for
the time they give to us.
Sarah Ensor, Archive Assistant
Indexing Spalding photographs
I volunteered over the course of a month (and a bit) at the E.R.O.,
helping to document thousands of photographs taken by three
different generations of Chelmsford photographers in the Spalding
family (all called Fred!) in order to make them ready for an online
catalogue. One of the interests that this work has had is the natural
interest we get from seeing places we are so familiar with in the past.
For example, one of the highlights was finding out that Shire Hall
used to have a cannon used in the 1850s Crimean War on a plinth
outside it. It seems rather a shame that it is no longer there, but sadly
the increasing use of cars necessitated an expansion of the road in
Tindal Square which moved the statue of Judge Tindal and caused
the cannon to be removed to Oakland House. This leads to the other
great interest that these photographs prompt- an interest in social
history. From changes in clothing to the rise of motorised transport to
the changing role of women, Spalding’s photography gives us an
insight into the everyday challenges of people in the early 20th
Century. One particularly example, perhaps striking in its mundanity,
are the photographs of the construction of Hoffmann’s. Built in
1918-19, before widespread motorisation, there were no lorries or
trucks to transport building materials to the site. Instead they had to
extend railway tracks into the construction site and bring the
materials via the steam train. Everyday situations like this make you
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realise how we take the ease of transport in our own time for granted.
On a bigger, more important scale, Spalding’s photographs also
highlight the changes modernity was bringing about. As the
photographs get older, more cars start appearing and clothing
becomes less formal (fewer top hats!). In photographs of the 1924
election hustings, women can be seen in the crowd, eager to cast their
vote only six years after their enfranchisement.
The very nature of cataloguing the Spalding photographs has also
raised interesting questions. Dating the photographs is often difficult,
sometimes impossible. On occasion it can be hard to tell what the
subject of the photograph is, especially if it has not been labelled
well. The fact that we struggle to identify when and where
photographs were taken of times still within living memory shows
the fragility of our links to the past. Piecing together our own history
is dependent upon the piecing together of thousands of bits of
evidence, like the Spalding photographs, and cross referencing them
with newspaper articles, sale catalogues and directories. Indeed, the
importance of this archival work features in the Spalding
photographs themselves. He was commissioned in the late 1920s,
early 30s, by the county engineer to take photographs of beautiful old
gable houses dating back from the fifteenth century at the latest,
which were due to be destroyed in order to make room for the new
road. This, it seems to me, sums up modernity and our relationship
with history. These gable houses were a part of our past- people had
lived in them for hundreds of years, and we simply knocked them
down without a second thought. And yet, these houses were so old
and unsafe and unhomely that it was no longer practical for people to
live in them. On top of this, the road did have to be expanded-
anyone who has got stuck in traffic driving around Chelmsford
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would have it even worse had these road expansions not been
undertaken. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, they did not simply
knock these buildings down unthinkingly. Spalding was deliberately
commissioned to photograph these houses in order to preserve their
memory. This is an important lesson for all of us in the modern world
who prize and value our history: though progress might necessitate
the destruction of our past that does not mean we should not
remember it.
Ross Moncreiff
‘GETTING TO GRIPS’ WITH HISTORY AS AN ERO
VOLUNTEER
A keen social historian, I signed up as a volunteer some 5 years ago
in response to a plea for help in the ERO newsletter.
With some trepidation I was set to work trawling through local
newspapers to find snippets of interesting or titillating news for a
BBC Radio Essex phone-in programme broadcast on a Saturday
afternoon. The purpose of my newspaper articles was to elicit a
response from the listening public who it was hoped would then
phone in to share their experiences: which I’m glad to say they did.
When the programme ceased I moved on to the document
conservation department where I joined a friendly team of volunteers
cataloguing, cleaning and repairing the enormous archive of
architectural plans produced by the Chelmsford firm of Frederick
Chancellor. Dating from the mid-19th century each plan is a work
art having been drawn completely by hand and often beautifully
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coloured. In this age of technology it is humbling to think of the
skills required in those days to undertake this intricate work.
Earlier this year I was delighted to be asked to take part in a project
to transcribe and list for publishing online the many hundreds of
marriage bonds and allegations dating from the 17th
century held by
the ERO. A truly fascinating project as the documents give a
valuable insight into the lives of Essex people during this period. So
far I have noted 53 different occupations the vast majority of which,
not surprisingly for an agricultural county at this time, are allied to
the land. Mariners and maritime trades abound in ports such as
Harwich and Leigh on Sea and weavers in the Colchester area. My
favourite so far is without doubt the grandly named Francis Joseph
Deprez de Fenelos of Paris who applied to marry Joanna Marie
Preston of Amsterdam in October 1733. His bondsman was Daniel
Chabier, also of Amsterdam, a peruke (wig) maker. I find the
signatures particularly poignant: many are just simple marks whilst
it is possible to see that others are very carefully penned, perhaps by
people who could only write names and did so with pride. It goes
without saying that the gentry sign with a flourish.
I hope the above has given readers an insight into volunteering at the
Essex Record Office. For anyone with a love of history,
volunteering offers an opportunity to meet like-minded people, learn
new skills and literally ‘get to grips with history’.
Lesley Vingoe
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Great War Archive Project –
The Bradhurst Family Scrapbook.
As part of the Great War Archive project, The Friends recently
purchased a First World War scrapbook for the Essex Record Office
which was created by Mrs Minna Evangeline Bradhurst, of Rivenhall
Place near Witham. On first glance, the scrapbook looks like a record
of newspaper cuttings, photographs, drawings, tickets and
programmes about the everyday life of an upper class lady in the
early twentieth century,
and the issues and events
that influenced her
experience of the war.
However upon further
detailed reading and
research using other
documents held in the
archives at the ERO,
amongst others, it has been possible to discover much more than just
information about Minna’s life during the war.
One of my first tasks was to read through the scrapbook and make a
list of all the people mentioned. These are quite a wide and varied
bunch, covering not just immediate family, but extended family
members both in Britain and the USA, social acquaintances and
society figures. Putting together a Bradhurst family tree lead to the
discovery that Minna was actually from the prominent county
‘Wood’ family, and that this was where the social connections and
aspirations came from. A large number of cuttings in the scrapbook
concern Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, Minna’s uncle, and she
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appears to be immensely proud of him and his achievements. Details
about his life and career can be found in one of the blog posts that I
have written for the ERO, including details of his incident with a
giraffe (I won’t give away the details, other than to say it doesn’t end
well for him!). Minna also documents her husband Augustus
Maunsell Bradhurst’s naturalisation (he was American and became a
naturalised Brit so that he could join the British Army), and his
activities as a local Special Constable and in the Essex Volunteer
Regiment.
Another selection of cuttings that caught my attention were the
programmes and reviews of stage productions that were either put on
by, or performed by, or both, Christine Bradhurst, Minna’s daughter.
As an only child, Christine appears to have had a luxurious and
happy childhood, and at the outbreak of war in 1914, was 20 years
old and expected to do her bit. As many other ladies of her social
position chose to do, she became as Red Cross Voluntary Aid
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Detachment (VAD) general service worker (rather than a nurse), and
put her artistic talents to use to raise money for the local Red Cross
Auxiliary Hospitals and entertain the soldiers in them. It has been
possible to research the role that ladies such as Christine played in
the war, how vital their contribution to the hospitals were and how
important the Red Cross Auxiliary and Military hospitals in the
county were to the war itself. Learning about the importance of
VADs and the Red Cross, to the war in Britain and across Europe,
has been fascinating and one of the highlights of the scrapbook for
me. I had hoped that it would be possible to discover Christine on
stage after the war, but unfortunately she appears to have married and
stopped performing. I did uncover, however, that she was the
Grandmother of the current Home Secretary, The Right Honourable
Amber Rudd MP. It appears that, to Minna, the actions and activities
of her family during the war were as important to her as the
weddings, births, deaths and all the other day-to-day events that
continued to take place.
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Alongside the research undertaken above, I have discovered that the
family home (Rivenhall Place) has a long history, and has been
owned by four Queens of England, several MP’s and been left to ruin
on more than one occasion. During the First World War, soldiers
were billeted at the family home, but unfortunately it has not been
possible to find any details other than those in Minna’s scrapbook
and diaries. I have found the research into Rivenhall Place one of the
most interesting things to come from the scrapbook, and it has led to
further research on the use of country homes across the county
during the war.
I hope that the work that I have done on the scrapbook will highlight
the place of the county in the national war effort, and the place of
individuals within that effort. Further work that has been done
includes a transcription of the index that Minna included in the
scrapbook and hopefully this will be linked to the Seax entry.
Caroline Wallace, Research Intern, Essex Record Office
Listening Bench moves to Belfairs Woodland Centre
The You Are Hear listening bench funded by the Friends of Historic
Essex has moved to the Essex Wildlife Trust’s Woodland Centre at
Leigh-on-Sea. The listening bench was launched by the Mayor of
Southend-on-Sea, Fay Evans, on Monday 11th September. A small
group of five and six year-old pupils from Chalkwell Hall Infant
School were there with their teachers to listen to some of the
recordings and take part in a quiz. The Mayor spent a considerable
amount of time talking to the school children both before and after
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cutting the green ribbon around the bench. The Mayor also spoke to
some of the Trust staff and volunteers. Photographs were taken of the
event which has been reported in several local newspapers.
I am a volunteer at Belfairs Woodland Centre and mentioned the
listening bench to the Assistant Manager, Alison Askwith last year.
She was very enthusiastic about the project and was soon in touch
with Sarah-Joy Maddeaux at ERO. Alison and Sarah-Joy worked
together to choose relevant recordings. The bench is sited just outside
the rear entrance to the Centre, and visitors can sit there listening to
six recordings, with a lovely view of the parkland and golf course
towards the east. The recordings include ranger Ashley Pinnock
describing the butterflies which can be seen in the nearby woods and
nature reserve, the dawn chorus recorded there in 2016, an extract
from a 1996 nature programme about wild service trees, and several
recordings relating to autumn from ERO’s Sound and Video Archive.
The Woodland Centre was opened four years ago by Essex Wildlife
Trust. It is situated at the edge of the woodlands of Belfairs Park and
Belfairs Nature Reserve, both owned by Southend-on-Sea Borough
Council and managed by Essex Wildlife Trust. This large area of
ancient woodland has many interesting trees, flora and fauna,
including the wild service tree (indicative of ancient woodland), over
30 species of butterfly (including the heath fritillary). The dormouse
and song thrush are also key species which the Trust aims to protect.
Essex Wildlife Trust manages the woods in the traditional way by
coppicing. Belfairs Woodland Centre (SS9 4LR) reached from
Eastwood Road North has a café and gift shop. The Centre offers a
wide range of events for adults and children; the ranger leads themed
walks through the woodland, talking about the management of the
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woods, the trees and the wildlife, school groups are welcomed by the
two education officers, and there are also special events. For more
information about the Centre see the Essex Wildlife Trust website
www.essexwt.org.uk
The listening bench will stay at Belfairs Woodland Centre until the
end of November. For more about the You Are Hear project see
www.essexsounds.org.uk
Jenny Butler
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Essex History Group
The Essex History Group meets in the Essex Record Office lecture
theatre. There is no formal membership, so drop in and discover
something new! Talks start at 10.30am in the ERO lecture theatre
and finish at 12noon at the latest. The lecture theatre is accessible to
people in wheelchairs and is fitted with an induction loop.
Admission is £3, and includes tea or coffee and a biscuit, before and
after the talks. Advance booking is essential, then pay for admission
on the door.
The Essex Branch of the Historical Association meets for talks
monthly on Saturdays at 2.30pm at The Link, Trinity Methodist
Church, Rainsford Road, Chelmsford, CM1 2XB
Free parking at the Church or in the County Council car-park
opposite. Visitors and prospective members warmly welcomed - a
£3 donation requested. Forthcoming talks:
2 December -
1918 Revisited: How the First World War ended
Professor David Stevenson, Professor of International
History, London School of Economics.
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(Light seasonal refreshments after the talk)
13 January
Oliver Cromwell: Hero or Villain?
Dr. David L. Smith, Fellow, College Lecturer and Director of
Studies in History, Clare College, University of Cambridge.
10 February
Carve her Name with Pride: Female Secret Agents in the
Second World War
Dr. Juliette Pattinson, Reader in Modern History and Head of
School of History, University of Kent.
10 March
How did Martin Luther King Jr change America?
Professor Tony Badger, Professor in American History at
Northumbria University, Emeritus Paul Mellon Professor at
Cambridge and Emeritus Master, Clare College, and
President of the Historical Association.
For further information: email [email protected] or
phone 01245 256892
www.history.org.uk and essexbranchha.blogspot.com
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Officers and Committee 2017/18
Chairman:
Dr Chris Thornton
Vice Chairman:
Ken Crowe
Secretary:
Jennifer Butler
Treasurer:
Ruth Earnshaw
Membership Secretary:
Janice Gooch
Publications Secretary
Martyn Lockwood
Committee:
Jane Bedford
Sean O’Dell
Alison Rowlands
Hannah Salisbury
Sean O'Dell
Sarah Ensor
Page | 28
Published by the Friends of Historic Essex, Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, CM2 6YT
