A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



Water was supplied in the village by the Herts, and 

 Essex Waterworks Co. in 1899.^^ Two of the four 

 pairs of council houses in Gainthorps Road have a 

 sewerage system.*-' There is no supply of gas,*-* but 

 electricity was laid on in 195 1 .^s There is a small parish 

 room, and a large army hut at Blake Hall can be used 

 for meetings.** A branch of the county library was 

 opened in February 1939." The football and cricket 

 clubs have their own grounds.*' 



Bobbingworth has always been a rural parish devoted 

 almost exclusively to agriculture. The large landowners 

 were all resident in the parish from the last quarter of 

 the 1 6th century until the beginning of the 1 8th cen- 

 tury.*" It is not clear whether the owners of Blake Hall 

 were resident in the parish during the first quarter of 

 the 1 8th century. By 1735 the lord of the manor, 

 Richard Clarke, lived at the manor house but did not 

 farm the estate.'" He let Blake Hall manor farm to 

 Robert Crabb and Bilsdens farm to Samuel Corney.3' 

 These two farms continued to be let until after Capel 

 Cure purchased the estate in 1789." After John Poole 

 sold the manor of Bobbingworth to Charles Houblon in 

 1708, the owners of Bobbingworth Hall were generally 

 not resident in the parish until J. A. Houblon sold the 

 estate to Capel Cure in 1834.33 



In 1840 the parish consisted of 1,628 acres-S-* Capel 

 Cure of Blake Hall owned 1,058 acres of which he 

 farmed nearly 700 acres himself.35 He let Water End 

 Farm (297 acres) to Jonathan Lewis, and Hobban's 

 Farm (61 acres) to G. Pavitt.3* This Capel Cure, son of 

 the purchaser of Blake Hall, was a conscientious farmer 

 and landlord. After his father's death in 18 16 he 

 kept a notebook recording his farming activities 

 and the entries show him to have been energetic and 

 methodical.37 He toured his estate personally and 

 carefully noted down the area of the individual farms, 

 their state of cultivation, the condition of the buildings, 

 the repairs which he had ordered, and the industry of 

 the tenant farmers.3 8 He put a new tenant into Bilsdens 

 in 1827, some three years after he had observed that this 

 farm was 'shamefully mismanaged'.'' But he was kind 

 and encouraging to industrious tenants. On a rent day 

 in 1828 he gave a rebate of j^io to one tenant 'who is 

 an industrious man, with a large family'.-*" At the end 

 of his estate notebook Capel Cure copied a well-known 

 passage from Sydney Smith: 'there are so many tempta- 

 tions in the life of a country gentleman to complete 

 idleness, so many examples of it, and so much loss to 

 the community from it, that every exception to the 

 practice is deserving of great praise' .■♦' Capel Cure 

 himself was certainly one of the exceptions. 



In 1840 there were only two other substantial 

 owners in the parish; J. Stacey owned Perrils Farm 

 (89 acres) and Sayers Farm (112 acres), both of which 

 he farmed himself, and G. Thistlewood owned, but 



" Inf. from Herts. Sc Essex Waterworks 

 Co. 



" Inf. from Canon E. H. Gallop, Rector 

 of Bobbingworth. 



M Ibid. 



" Inf. from Ea»t. Elec. Bd. 



" Inf. from Canon Gallop. 

 , " Inf. from County Librarian. 



*' Inf. from Canon Gallop. 



"> See below. Manors of Bobbingworth, 

 Blake Hall, Bilsdens. 



» E.R.O., D/DCcTi/3. 



>■ Ibid.; D/P 127/8. 



» E.R.O., e/RPl 685-700. 



" See below, Manor of Bobbingworth. 



" E.R.O., D/CT 38. 



35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 



3' E.R.O., D/DCc E6. 



38 Ibid. 3« Ibid. 



« Ibid. 41 Ibid. 



« E.R.O., D/CT 38. 



«3 Ibid. 



■M E.R.O., D/DCc E6. 



•»5 ff'Aile's Dir. Essex (1848), 414. 



<' E.R. xl, 163. Photograph at E.R.O. 



«' Ibid. 



■" Kelly's Dir. Essex (i()iz, J914). 



*'' Inf. from Mrs. Burling. 



5° H'hite's Dir. Essex (1848), 414. 



5' E.R.O., D/DCc E6. The evidence 

 suggests that J. Lewis may have been 

 Cure's estate manager. He also acted as 



did not occupy, Newhouse Farm (i ig acres).** There 

 was only one other farm of over 40 acres.-" 



Then, as now, there was mixed farming in Bobbing- 

 worth. A three-course rotation of crops was generally 

 followed, wheat, barley, and either beans or clover 

 being the usual crops.** 



In 1 848 there were in the parish a cornmiller, who 

 was also a baker, and a land surveyor.*^ The windmill 

 was a wooden post-mill, turned by hand, with a brick 

 'round house' below.** It probably dated from the 

 1 8th century and the post, which was inscribed '1640', 

 may have been an earlier one reused.*' The mill be- 

 came disused between 191 2 and 1914.*' The upper 

 part of it was blown down in 1923;*' the round house 

 stood for some time afterwards. 



The land surveyor mentioned in 1 848 was Jonathan 

 Lewis. 50 It was probably the same Jonathan Lewis 

 who drew up some of the local tithe maps at this 

 period and who did much surveying and other work 

 for Capel Cure on the Blake Hall estate.^' 



This estate, totalling some 3,800 acres in Bobbing- 

 worth and other parishes,^* must have employed a con- 

 siderable amount of domestic as well as agricultural 

 labour in the middle of the 19th century. 



In 1066 BOBBINGWORTH was held by 2 free- 

 men as I hide and 30 acres and was worth 

 MANORS 40^.53 In 1086 it was held of Ranulf 

 brother of Ilger by Richard and was worth 

 60J.S* In the early 13th century it seems to have been 

 held in chief by Hamon de Marcy.ss Hamon ap- 

 parently left as his heir Serlo de Marcy, lord of Stondon 

 Massey (q.v.), who was dead by 1 244.5* In that year 

 Serlo's sisters and heirs, Alice wife of John de Merk 

 and Agnes wife of Nicholas Spigurnel agreed to divide 

 between them the tenements in Bobbingworth and else- 

 where which Denise, widow of Hamon, and Agnes, 

 widow of Serlo, then held in dower. s' Afterwards it 

 was evidently agreed that the Spigurnels should hold 

 the Bobbingworth tenements of the Merks, forin 13 11- 

 12 William son and heir of Ralph de Merk granted the 

 overlordship of these tenements to Humphrey, Earl of 

 Hereford and Essex (d. 1322) who in 1 3 1 2-1 3 granted 

 it in fee tail to his youngest son William de Bohun, 

 later Earl of Northampton. ss In 1328 the manor of 

 Bobbingworth was held of William by the service of 

 \ knight's fee. 5' He died in 1360 and was succeeded 

 by his son Humphrey, later Earl of Hereford and of 

 Essex.*" After Humphrey's death in 1373 the over- 

 lordship passed through his daughter Eleanor to Anne 

 wife of Edmund Earl of March.*' After the deaths of 

 Edmund (1425) and Anne (1432) the overlordship 

 passed to Anne's brother Humphrey, Duke of Bucking- 

 ham (d. 1460).** In 1475 the manor was held of 

 Humphrey's widow Anne.*3 In 1485 and 1493 it was 

 held of Jasper, Duke of Bedford (d. 1495) and his 



overseer of the parish for many years before 

 1827 (see below. Parish Government and 

 Poor Relief). 



52 See below, Manor of Blake Hall. 



53 V.C.H. Essex, i, 540,2. 

 5« Ibid. 



55 Feet of F, Essex, i, 148-q. 

 ss Ibid. 57 Ibid. 



58 DL25/1592, 1453. 



59 Cat. Inq. p.m. vii, p. 104. 

 '" Complete Peerage, vi, 472-3. 

 *' C 1 37/90; Ci ;i()l 1 2 ; Complete Peerage, 



vi, 474-5, viii, 453. Anne was grand- 

 daughter of Eleanor. 



<>^ Complete Peerage, ii, 388. 



" C140/52. 



10 



