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. Decorative divider (One hundred copies reprinted October, 1913). Price: Six Pence. ‘Things are always ancienter than their names.’ Richard Hooker ....

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 an

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 sever

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 acre

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.

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 b

‘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.  I

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 so

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 Ha

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

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.  Moreove

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 C

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

Returning to the Reformation period we will pause to regard the site on which the Memorial Chapel now stands.  The church itself, of which one or two illustrations are in existence, was unfortunately pulled down in 1847, when the new one was built.  The first recorded church is mentioned in the second half of the 12th century, temp. Hen. II., and it seems as though some remains of that building were to be found in that which existed in 1846, if we may trust the illustration which shews two round

Hard by the church stood the old Hall, an ancient structure, which about the year 1600 was said to be in sad decay.  Soon afterwards Sir Robert Wroth brought it, and, at great cost, converted it into the imposing mansion of which an old water-colour drawing gives some idea.  It will be seen that the facade is Jacobean, while what lies behind it wears a familiar Tudor air.  This house, and apparently its contents too, were sold with the estate, and all was kept by Miss Whitaker much as the Wroths

Mr. Hamilton, who became Rector in 1804, as already mentioned, affords a somewhat startling instance of the pluralism which was common less than a century ago.  In addition to being Rector here, when the tithe was still uncommuted, he was also Archdeacon of Taunton, Canon Residentiary of Lichfield, Rector of St. Mary-le-Bow, Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the King, Librarian of St. Martin’s Library, and, to cap it all, Parish Clerk of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields—a post worth £334 a year, with duties, as