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Computing A Concise History

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.
 The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loughton,
Essex: A brief account of the Manor and Parish
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Title: Loughton, Essex: A brief account of the Manor and Parish

Author: William Chapman Waller

Release date: January 1, 2017 [eBook #53862]

Language: English

Credits: Transcribed from the 1913 edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUGHTON,

ESSEX: A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE MANOR AND PARISH ***
Transcribed from the 1913 edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

Loughton. Essex.

A brief account of the Manor

and Parish, being the sub-
stance of a paper read in 1903
by William Chapman Waller,
M.A., F.S.A.

(One hundred copies reprinted October, 1913).

Price: Six Pence.

‘Things are always ancienter than their names.’

Richard Hooker.
 Loughton. Essex.

Foreword.—Perhaps some apology is needed for reprinting this

paper. It was read some ten years ago to the Club Literary Society,
fully reported in the ‘Loughton Gazette’ in March, 1903, and
thereafter issued in pamphlet form, one hundred copies being struck
off. But these copies have long been dispersed, like many of the
people who then lived in the village, and it may be that a new
generation will not be unwilling to devote a few moments to the
story of the place in which their lot is, at any rate for the time being,
cast. To those whose interest may be aroused I may indicate the
existence of a fuller account, contained in a volume (of which only
twelve copies exist,) to be found in the Guildhall Library, the British
Museum, and a few other public libraries.
W. C. W.
 Loughton before the Conquest.

It is not always that the story of a parish reaches back to a period

beyond Domesday Book, but that of Loughton begins for us in the
reign of the Confessor. In the year 1062, four years before the
coming of the Conqueror, King Edward, with the assent of his Witan,
or wise men, confirmed to the Monastery at Waltham a great gift of
lands which had been made to the Canons by their founder, Harold,
the son of Godwin. The different estates are enumerated in the
document, and the boundaries of several are given—not in Latin, the
language of the rest of the document, but in Anglo-Saxon. Among
them are three—Lukinton, Tippedene, and Ælwartun, which are
incontestably to be identified with the places we now know as
Loughton, Debden, and Alderton. The boundaries of Lukinton, or
Loughton, are unfortunately wanting. Not, of course, that it would
be any longer possible to trace them; even in the case of Debden,
where the natural features are mentioned, it is doubtful of what
extent the manor was; in the case of Alderton none of the
boundaries can be connected with any names occurring in
documents of a later date.
 Domesday Book.

When we come to Domesday Book we find no less than eight

separate entries, all of which apparently relate to Loughton. The
Canons are found to hold Debden and Alderton, with two other
manors merely described as ‘Loughton.’ Peter de Valoines held two
more, equally nameless, one being his demesne, and the other held
by an under-tenant called Ralph; the latter was probably near
North’s Farm on Buckhurst Hill; Robert Gernon held 44 acres, his
under-tenant being W. Corbun; and the King held 20 acres, which
were seemingly a sort of perquisite of the royal Reeve at Havering.
There appear, therefore, to have been six manors and two extra-
manorial holdings. What ‘manor’ meant in that remote period is still
a moot point, but it is certain that the word was often applied to
much smaller areas than in later times. A very learned modern
writer suggests that the manor implies a channel of payment, the
owner being liable for the Danegeld due not only from himself, but
also from his free tenants, whose tie to him was otherwise very
slight. And, in passing, we may note that ‘tenant,’ in the Domesday
sense, is almost equivalent to our modern ‘freeholder.’ No mention is
made of a church in Loughton, but it is more than probable that one
existed.
 The 12th and 13th Centuries.

More than a century must be passed over in order to reach our next
fragments of documentary evidence. These are gathered from
charters, or grants, made by Kings and Popes to the monks at
Waltham, and are not sufficiently important for us to dwell upon
now, except to say that, in 1182, a church at Loughton is
mentioned.
The lapse of nearly another century brings us to a considerable
amount of very curious and interesting information relating to the
lands in the parish, contained in certain MSS. of great antiquity
formerly belonging to the great Abbey at Waltham, and now, with so
many other treasures, stored in the British Museum. The Canons at
Waltham went on adding acre to acre—sometimes by purchase,
sometimes by the gifts of the faithful—and the little ‘charters,’ or
deeds of grant, were copied into a book, and kept for reference.
And so it comes about that, six hundred and fifty years afterwards,
we can still put our fingers here and there on the parish map, and
say that, here or there, was such or such a man’s land. Some of you
perhaps know a little meadow on the left as you go to the Tram
Farm; it is still called Plum-tree Mead, and by a name but little
different (Plumtre Croft) it has always been known; about 1250 it
belonged to a man named Edward Reintot, who gave it to the
Canons. In England’s-lane, again, there is a small freehold known as
Marlcroft; this was held of Richard de Munfichet by John Pyrle, who
paid a half-yearly rent, and three hens and a cock on St. Stephen’s
Day, and when he went to make payment at his lord’s court at
Woodford or elsewhere, he and his horse were duly fed by the lord.
After the lapse of centuries Pyrle’s name has been revived, and
stands on the Ordnance Map; it had survived, but in the corrupt
form of ‘Pole.’ Some may still be familiar with Poles-lane, as old folk
call Rectory-lane, and a field at the corner of Rectory-lane called
‘Poles.’
But of all these early grants the most interesting is one relating to
Monk Wood, the story of which we will trace back from the time
when the Corporation of London acquired it, by purchase, from the
lord of the manor, sometime in the seventies. Monk Wood you all
know, and it may have occurred to some to wonder why it differs
from the rest of the Forest round about it, from which it is not in any
way separated. The fact is, that, although subject to rights of
common of pasture, it was the lord’s wood; and from time to time
be exercised his right of lopping in it. In a plan of the manor made
one hundred and fifty years ago Great and Little Monk Wood are set
out, with their bounds; and in a still earlier survey (1612) the rights
over them of the lessees of the manor under the Crown are
recognised. About thirty years before that date certain
circumstances had led to the empanelling of a jury of the
neighbourhood, which, as part of its verdict, found that Monk Wood
—i.e. the timber therein—had been three times sold within the
memory of man: one time by the Abbot of Stratford, and twice in
Queen Elizabeth’s time. This intrusion of the Abbot of Stratford into
what was pre-eminently the territory of his brother of Waltham,
strikes one as a little singular, and it is here that our charters come
in to help us to the explanation. We have already learned from
Domesday that Peter de Valoines held two manors in Loughton, and,
from a somewhat later authority, we find that among those holding
of the Valoines barony in Essex were some subtenants called de
Snaring (so called from Snoring in Norfolk), and from them a part of
Loughton came to be called ‘Loughton Snarryng.’ In this part was a
certain wood of 56½ acres, once the joint undivided property (in
unequal shares) of Geoffrey Reyntot, Roger Fitz Ailmar, and Ralph de
Assartis (a subtenant of de Snaring), who had given his three
quarters to the Abbot and Monks of Stratford. The remaining fourth
part, with their rights of cutting down and carrying away trees, and
pannage, Geoffrey and Roger gave to the Abbot and monks of
Waltham. To the 56½ acres seventeen were afterwards added, and
credited to the share of Waltham. Trouble arose, as might be
anticipated, between the tenants in common, and sometime in June,
1240—over six hundred years ago—the Abbots met at Chelmsford,
in the mother church there, and settled their differences. The
document containing the agreement they came to, doubtless after
long parleying, is illustrative of the elaborate methods of the time. It
was agreed that when Stratford owner of three-fourths, wished to
fell timber, he was to send for Waltham’s bailiff, and then choose
four trees of equal value. Of these Stratford had first chore as to
two, Waltham next choice, and the fourth tree remained to
Stratford. Vice versâ, if Waltham wanted to fell timber, he was to
send for Stratford’s bailiff. If either Abbot did not want to fell his
timber at the moment he was to mark and leave it standing. The
feed in the wood was to be divided into four pasts, of which
Stratford was to have three. The last provision seems to indicate
that the wood was then enclosed and not subject to common rights
of pasture. In later times, however, this was overlooked, and it
seems to have been held that Monk Wood was only reserved to the
lord on the condition that his tenant farmers should be restrained
from lopping at large in the Forest and so infringing the privileges of
copyholders. Monk Wood was lopped for the last time somewhere
about 1840. In 1767 the tenant of Alderton Hall had under his lease
an assignment from it of 1000 faggots yearly ‘to be made up as
London ware,’ and 100 logs; in 1787 he had 500 faggots and 250
logs: all to be used on the premises. For this information I am
indebted to a couple of old leases kindly lent me by Mr. G. S. Gould.
Landlord and Tenant in the Middle Ages.

In addition to making copies of their deeds the Monastic owners of

lands frequently drew up what are known as ‘Extents’—i.e. detailed
descriptions of the services due from their tenants, the stock on
their farms, and a multitude of other matters into which we need not
go. It can have been no joke to be a landed proprietor in those
days; and possibly it was a still more serious matter to be a tenant.
From such an account of their manors here in Loughton which the
monks had drawn up somewhere before 1300, we had that Alderton
(Aluertuna, Alwarton, Alwardtun, ‘Ailward’s town’) was still the
largest, the most populous, and possibly the most lucrative, of the
four manors said by Domesday to belong to them. Typeden
(Debden) comes next, and Luketon (Loughton) makes a bad third.
The explanation of this is probably that the manors of Loughton
were kept in hand and farmed, while the others had been granted
out to what may be roughly styled ‘copyholders.’ Of such
copyholders there were in Alderton 28, holding 371 acres, paying
between them something over 40s. a year in money, 47 fowls, and
424½ eggs. In Loughton were eight tenants holding 75 acres, and
paying about 14s., and 9 fowls. In Debden there were 24 tenants,
who held 160 acres, and paid about 23s., 17 fowls, and 26 eggs. It
is interesting to note that among the names are found Achelard,
from whom Allard’s Grove is derived; Potman, whose name still
cleaves to a field by Clays-lane, near Debden Green; and Ralph
Traps. Memories must have been good in those days, when but few
could read or write; for, of the tenants, no two paid exactly the same
rent—and when I say ‘pay’ you must by no means conclude that
money is meant. In rural economy at that date money played but a
minor part, as we shall see if we look at the complicated services
due to the landlord from, for instance, Arnold and William Ram, who
held 15 acres in Alderton; and no one held more than 15, although
many held less. Arnold, we are told, paid 31d. a year and a
‘warpany’ (ward-penny) of 2d.; the latter seems to have been in lieu
of certain police services once rendered. Next he gave a hen and
ten eggs. When the great boon-ploughing took place in winter, he
came twice with his team and did a day’s work. In Lent he came to
the boon-harrowing and brought a horse, whether he owned one or
not, and he worked till the ninth hour, getting no rations; if, however,
he worked on until evening he got some food, and his horse a
handful of oats and some hay. If the lord of the manor wished it, he
had to come, with one scythe, to mow the meadow, and had his
rations. He provided and fed a man to lift hay until all was carried.
On two days he weeded from morn till eve and had two meals. He
drew a load of hay and had his breakfast given him. He sent a man
to one boon-day, when beer was not provided; and two men to
three others. If he reaped oats on the great boon-day he bound
them on another and got no rations. He had to send a man for one
day to gather nuts till eve, and the man had food given him; on
another day, when he was to leave off at the ninth hour, he got no
food. William Ram had to provide a day’s work twice in each week,
and did much else, with the details of which I will not here trouble
you; but a general statement of such rights and duties as could
apparently be described as common to the inhabitants of all three
manors or vills, is given and is worth recital.
 Tenants’ Duties.

‘Every tenant of the three vills aforesaid (Alderton, Debden, and

Loughton) shall come with his team to the boon-ploughing twice in
winter. Every tenant of five acres shall come and harrow twice in
Lent, if he has horses, and shall have his food. Every tenant of 10
acres, whether he has horses or not, shall come in like manner. So
all shall come to mow, to lift hay, to weed, and to gather nuts. If,
owing to bad weather, they have to give up work, they shall return
on the morrow to finish. If any man’s daughter is seduced while in
his house, her father shall pay a fine to the lord. No one may marry
his daughter without the lord’s licence. No one may sell horse or ox,
except such as he himself has bought, without showing it to the
bailiff. No one may sell a tree. The lord may appoint anyone to be
his reeve, and can take tallage (tax) at his will. Everyone belonging
to Luketune or Tipeden shall bind the oats he reaps without having
food found him; they of Alwartune shall bind only those which they
reap at the great boon-day; and every brewer of that vill owes an
offering of beer from each brewing. William de Broc and Kathale,
who are from Alwartune, owe carrying service, and it should be
known that the men of each vill engaged in harrowing, are to have
in the field a handful of oats; but if they carry it away they are liable
to punishment.’ Just imagine what it must have been for the
steward who had to exact, and the tenant who had to remember to
render these services. Others there were whose services were still
more complicated; and if their days were spent in working, their
nights must have been passed, one would think, in a sleepless
endeavour to remember where and how the next day was to be
employed. Certain days, called boon-days, were supposed to be
given to the lord at his request, and not under compulsion—and
these again were divided into ‘dry’ and ‘beery,’ according to whether
beer was provided or not. Acorn-gathering, weeding, harrowing,
hay-carrying, and a host of other employments are specified. One
tenant in Debden paid thirty feet of candle by way of rent—at least
such appears to be the meaning of the mediæval Latin in which the
service is mentioned.
Certain provisions relating to timber and carriage lived on. I have in
my possession a licence, dated November 6, 1851, to cut down 20
pollards to use on the premises, and five ash trees to be sold, one-
third of the proceeds to be paid to the lord ‘according to the custom
of the manor,’ with a receipt for 19s. 4d. in the margin. And the
tenant of Alderton, in 1832, still undertook to do two days’ carting
yearly with a good team.
 Social Life in the 13th Century.

You will ask me, perhaps, where and how all these people lived. It
is probable that there were clusters of rude hovels round Debden
Green, Loughton Hall, and Alderton Hall, and that the tillers of the
soil dwelt there. Some few copyholders, if such they can be called,
may have lived on their own small estates away from the villages.
But the strip system of cultivation probably prevailed, though the
traces of it in later times are very slight.
Before passing on, I must just mention that, by some curious
accident, one or two Court-rolls of very early date have been
preserved. 13th century rolls of that sort are rare—and this is dated
1270. The entries are brief and mainly concerned with land; but
they tell us that one man insulted the official in the court; that
another thievishly took of the lord’s corn in the lord’s barn; and that
Walter Linge stole sheep all over the country and was seen at the
lord’s fold; ‘and when the shepherds would take him, he fled from
them.’
 Origin of some Local Place-names.

When we pass to the 14th century material becomes more scanty

and we turn to the ancient tax-rolls. One of these, written in 1320,
tells us that the tax-payers numbered nine—William Smith, John
Traps, William Woodward, John Goldyng (Goldings-hill), Geoffrey
Algor (Algers-road), Sewall Renoit, Godfrey Bigge, Richard Brown,
and Stephen Shepherd—who among them contributed 23s.—
equivalent it may be to £23 and more nowadays. Six years later 19
people contributed just under 25s. Of these John de Hatfield has
left his name behind him. Theobald of Loughton seems identical
with a Theobald Poleyn, who was Serjeant of the Chancery Rolls,
and in that capacity had a warrant from the King to the Abbot of
Stratford in 1333, calling on him to provide a pack-horse and groom,
for carriage of the rolls to York. He also did a little business as a
money-lender, and our rector in 1324–5, Henry de Sutton, was in his
debt for 40s. It is noteworthy that, though the spelling of Loughton
about this time is Loketon on the tax-rolls, on the Close Rolls it is
Lughton.
The first poll-tax was granted in 1376, and about that time our
parish numbered 44 assessed souls, husbands, wives, and widows,
John Ruddok being the only bachelor. At the same time Chigwell
had a population of 136.
 A Windmill in the Forest.

It was in this century that the Abbot got into trouble for erecting a
windmill in the Forest. Though, so far as I know, all memory of the
mill’s existence has passed away, we are still able to say where it
stood. In 1739 the hill near The Warren (Mr. McKenzie’s) was still
known as Mill Hill and as such it appears in Chapman’s map in 1772.
That there was in the parish a water-mill, belonging to P. de
Valoines, we know from Domesday Book, and evidence of its
existence is still to be seen about Loughton Bridge. Needless to say
that there were quarrels about the water with the great de Veres,
Earls of Oxford, who then owned Wolston Hall, and had a mill there;
but these disputes were amicably arranged in 1273, after a bit of a
riot, when certain men came to the Abbot’s bridge and mill-pond,
broke both down, and carried off the timber of the bridge. The
bridge was then called ‘Hynekesford Bridge,’ a name which never re-
appears.
 The Peasants’ Rising.

Of the effects of the Peasant Rising and the Lollard movement

during the latter half of the 14th century we have no evidence in our
own parish, but the beginning of the 15th was turbulent, and our
predecessors caught the infection. Some of them took to cutting
down the trees and underwood of the Abbot, and then conspired to
kill the Abbot and his servants. On the Sunday about St.
Bartholomew’s Day, 1410, they broke into the Abbey, insulted the
Abbot and Sheriff, and struck the latter. Moreover, they broke down
the bridges used by the whole country-side. As is so often and so
vexatiously the case, the story can only be imperfectly pieced
together from scanty materials, and in this case a quaint Norman-
French petition for mercy, with a schedule attached, is our principal
authority. It is pleasant to know that the pardon sought was
granted. From the number of the rioters and the names of those
given, it looks as though the Abbey tenants were dissatisfied with
some action on the part of the Abbot, and took, as was not by any
means unusual in those days, violent means to express their views
and get redress for their grievances.
 Alien Immigration in the 15th Century.

The tax-rolls which helped us in the 14th are defective in the 15th
century, and the only detail of interest, such as it is, that one could
glean from them was that, in 1442, one Peter, a Frenchman, kept an
inn in our village, and, being a foreigner and an innkeeper, had to
pay a poll-tax of 8d. every half-year. The trade seems to have been
largely in foreign hands, for other foreigners are reported at
Theydon, Stapleford, Lambourne, and Fyfield. Foreign servants
there were, too, here and at Chigwell, Navestock, and Epping.
 The Reformation.

We now enter on the period of upheaval which marked the 16th

century. From the Conquest down to the reign of the eighth Henry
the Abbots of Waltham had held quiet possession of Loughton.
Twice a year, perhaps oftener, during something like five hundred
years, a cavalcade, in the coarse of its progress from manor to
manor, had come to Loughton Hall, tenanted by the ‘farmer,’ as he
was called—lessee, as we should style him. There the Cellarer,
Steward, and Receivers of the Monastery, with their servants and
horses, were entertained for two days, while they held the Court of
the Manor. At this Court transfers of the copyhold estates were
effected; offenders were fined, whether for offences against the
manor or the customs of the Forest; small criminal matters and civil
disputes were settled: and nuisances were ordered to be abated. It
is probable that such a Court held in April, 1539, was the last the
Abbots ever held, and, at it, we learn, the question of a pillory and
cucking-stool was raised. The latter was a low car on two wheels,
for ducking a culprit in pond or river. The instruments were again
lacking in 1582.
On March 3rd. 1540, the Abbot and Canons resigned all their
possessions into the King’s hand, and Loughton became a royal
manor. Things probably went on much the same for a time. The
lease of the ‘farmer’ was confirmed, and he paid to the Kings
Treasurer his annual rent of £46, less certain outgoings, including
the repair of the water mill; and other tenants of the manor did the
same. For Hatfields Henry Mynce paid £2 14s. 8d. Included in the
various rents are 34 hens, valued at 2d. each. These hens, handed
down as we have seen, from very early times, were sometimes
called ‘smoke hens,’ just as we read of ‘smoke-silver.’ And it is
probable that they were originally something in the nature of a
hearth-tax. It is particularly interesting to note that the England
family—from whom England’s Lane has its name—paid two hens and
a cock so late as 1675, just as five hundred years earlier our friend
John Pyrle paid the same rent for the same freehold land.
For a brief period during the reign of Edward VI. the manor ceased
to be royal; but Lord Darcy held it for little more than a year, and it
was then given to Princess Mary. She, however, about two months
afterwards became Queen, and by her the manor was incorporated
into the Duchy of Lancaster, with the accounts of which it is always
thenceforth associated. It will be convenient here to trace in outline
the subsequent descent of the property.
John Stonard, the lessee under the last Abbot, left a son Robert,
who secured a fresh long lease. To him in turn, a son John
succeeded, and his daughter and heiress Susan, married the eldest
son of Sir Thomas Wroth, of Enfield. Old John Stonard, a wealthy
man, bought Luxborough in Chigwell, where he built a good house.
On his death. Sir Robert Wroth and Susan, his wife, entered into the
inheritance. To them succeeded their eldest son, also Sir Robert,
and he, in 1613, bought the fee-simple of Loughton manor from
King James I. In his time there were gay doings at Loughton Hall,
which he rebuilt, and where he entertained, as Ben Johnson tell us,
all sorts and conditions of men.

“The rout of rural folk come thronging in,

(Their rudeness then is thought no sin)
Thy noblest spouse affords them welcome grace;
And the great heroes of her race
Sit mixt with loss of state, or reverence
Freedom doth with degree dispense.
The jolly wassal walks the often round,
And in their cups their cares are drown’d.”