ONGAR HUNDRED 



NAVESTOCK 



strip holdings (in private ownership) in 'Navestock 

 Common Mead' adjoining the Roding south of 

 Shonks Mill.'s There is no suggestion that they were 

 still farmed in common, but it is likely that they repre- 

 sented the areas of earlier strips in the open water 

 meadow. 



Navestock has always been an agricultural parish 

 and there do not appear to have been any important 

 occupations that were not connected with agriculture. 

 The fragment of the parish that was within the 

 ancient forest of Essex escaped the destruction that 

 overtook most of the neighbouring forest at Hainault.*^ 

 Curtismill Green was disafforested in 185 1 and in 

 1858 was allotted as common to the parish of Nave- 

 stock.*5 



Apart from the Waldegraves, several of whom 

 achieved distinction,** Navestock numbers among its 

 worthies William Stubbs (i 825-1901), the historian 

 and Bishop successively of Chester (1884-8) and 

 Oxford (i 888-1901) who was Vicar of Navestock 

 from 1850 to 1866.*' Much of his early work for the 

 Rolls Series was done in the parish. He married a 

 local girl, Catherine Dellar, who had been mistress of 

 the village school. His predecessor as vicar, James Ford 

 (1779-18 50, vicar from 1830 to his death), founded 

 the Ford Lectureship at Oxford University.* * He is 

 said to have made manuscript notes towards a history 

 of the hundred of Ongar and to have left them to 

 Trinity College, Oxford.*' He and Stubbs were not 

 the only historians to be connected with Navestock, 

 for Adam de Murimuth (1275 ?-i347), Canon of St. 

 Paul's, to whom the manor was leased in 1335 by the 

 Dean and Chapter,'" was the author of the Continuatio 

 Chronicorum, a chronicle which is a primary authority 

 for the history of England in the first half of the 14th 

 century." 



The manor of NAVESTOCK was acquired in or 

 before the nth century by the Dean and 

 MANORS Chapter of St. Paul's. There is a charter 

 purporting to have been issued by King 

 Edgar (958-75) but dated 867." In this the king is 

 made to say that at the request of Bishop Deorwulf and 

 Alderman Ealdred he has granted to the church of St. 

 Paul 1 5 mansiones of land at Navestock. The first 

 witness to the charter, Oda the Archbishop, held the 

 See of Canterbury from 942 to 95 8. The other witnesses' 

 names, 2 5 in number, are consistent with the date 867, 

 and so also are the names of Deorwulf (who was 

 Bishop of London) and Ealdred. The formula by 

 which the king makes the grant at the request of certain 

 named persons is found occasionally in the 9th century, 

 but never in the ioth.'3 It therefore seems probable 

 that the Navestock charter is based upon a genuine 

 original of 867 or thereabouts. Perhaps the property 

 was granted to St. Paul's in 867 and confirmed by 

 Edgar in 958, and some of the names from the con- 

 firmation have crept into the original through careless 

 transcription.'* But in view of its inconsistencies the 

 charter of 867 cannot be accepted as genuine in its 

 present form, and must be treated with reserve. 



If the canons of St. Paul's had ever held land in 

 Navestock before the Norman Conquest they had 

 evidently lost it by 1066. In that year the landowners 

 included Houard and Ulsi, who held two manors 

 amounting together to 5 hides less 20 acres, Turstin 

 the Red, who held a manor of i hide and 40 acres, 

 seven unnamed freemen who held 2 hides between 

 them, and Gotil, who held a manor of 80 acres. In 

 1086 Gotil's manor was held by Ralph de Marcy of 

 Hamon dafifer. All the other estates were held by St. 

 Paul's. It was stated that the canons claimed the manors 

 of Houard and Ulsi as of the king's gift, and that they 

 had seized Turstin's manor. The Domesday Survey 

 also recorded that a priest held \ hide and 20 acres in 

 Navestock but that the hundred court considered this 

 to be the rightful property of St. Paul's. It is not clear 

 whether the priests' tenement was included in any of 

 the other estates mentioned above. In 1086 it was in 

 the king's hand.'s To support their title to the Nave- 

 stock manor the canons of St. Paul's produced a 

 charter stating that William I on his coronation day 

 (25 December 1066) regranted to St. Paul's lands at 

 Navestock and elsewhere which had belonged to the 

 cathedral church before but which had been lost.'* 

 This charter must be looked upon as a forgery. 



The manor of Navestock, however acquired, 

 remained in the possession of St. Paul's until the i6th 

 century, and was annexed to a prebendal stall in the 

 cathedral." The manor in Navestock which Ralph 

 de Marcy held in 1086 was probably merged by him 

 or one of his immediate heirs with the estate which he 

 held in Kelvedon Hatch (q.v.). Shortly after 1086 the 

 canons of St. Paul's accused Ralph of seizing several 

 lands belonging to their manor of Navestock. The 

 dispute was not settled until after his death. Before 

 1 1 20 William son of Ralph made a compromise with 

 the canons whereby he was to hold all the lands in 

 Navestock which his father had held at his death on 

 payment to St. Paul's of lbs. a year.'* Ralph de 

 Marcy's heirs continued to hold this Navestock estate 

 of St. Paul's until after 12 22." They also held the 

 manor of Magdalen Laver (q.v.). No certain reference 

 to their Navestock estate has been found later than 

 1222, but it is possible that, together with their estate 

 in Kelvedon Hatch, it became the manor of Myles's 

 (q.v.) in Kelvedon Hatch. 



In I 544 the manor of Navestock and other manors 

 belonging to St. Paul's were surrendered to the king 

 in exchange for properties elsewhere. 8" Navestock ' 

 remained in the possession of the Crown for ten years 

 until in 1554 Queen Mary sold it with the advowson 

 of the vicarage to Sir Edward Waldegrave, who had 

 been appointed steward in 1553, for ^^1,228, to hold 

 for 55 knight's fee. The manor was then occupied by 

 Richard Greene on a lease granted by St. Paul's in 

 I 526 for 40 years at a rent of ,^50 a year.*' 



On the death of Mary Sir Edward Waldegrave, who 

 had been Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was 

 imprisoned in the Tower of London, and he remained 

 there until his death in i 561.82 pjg jgft Navestock in 



«3 E.R.O., D/DXa 24. 



'♦ For Hainault Forest see Chigwell, 

 Lambourne. 



05 E.R.O., e/RDc 42, 55. 



" See Burke'i Peerage, Waldegrave. 



" D.N.B. 2nd Suppl. 68 D.N.B. 



<"> Ibid.; E.R. 1, p. 77. The MSS. can- 

 not now be found at Trinity College. For 

 a MS. biography of Ford see E.R.O., 

 T/G 35. 



■"> See below. Manors. " D.N.B. 



'2 Birch, Carl. Sax. iii, p. 488; Early 

 Charts, of St. Paulas (Camd. Soc. 3rd ser. 

 Iviii), p. 2, n. 2. 



" Cf. Birch, op. cit. ii, p. 169. 



7* For such occurrences see e.g. J. A. 

 Robinson, Times of St. Dunstan, 48. 



" V.C.H. Essex, \, 443a, 502A. 



'<■ Dugdale, Hist. St. Paul's {181 8 edn.), 

 297. 



" For tenants of the manor in the 14th 

 and 15th cent?, see Hist. MSS. Com. gth 

 Rep. pt. i Afp. 32 f. 



'* Domesday Studies (ed. P. E. Dove), ii, 



553-5- 

 '« Dom. of St. Paul's (Camd. Soc. 1858), 



75. '33- 

 8°. L. & P. Hen. nil, xix (i), p. 495. 

 8" Cal.Pat. 1553-4,248,393. 

 8» D.N.B. 



143 



