EDWINSTREE HUNDRED 



LITTLE HADI-IAM 



LITTLE HADHAM 



The parish of Little Hadham has an area of 3,081 

 acres, of which about two-thirds consist of arable 

 land.i There is now little woodland, but probably 

 like Much Hadham this parish was once well wooded.' 

 The River Ash flows through a valley in the 

 middle of the parish, the ground rising steeply on 

 each side to an average height of 300 ft. Running 

 east and west through the parish is Stane Street, 

 the high road into Essex, and intersecting this is the 

 road running north from Much Hadham to Albury 

 and the Pelhams. 



The population of Little Hadham is scattered in 

 hamlets. The church of St. Cecilia is situated a 

 little to the north of Stane Street, and with a few 

 cottages, the Rectory, a modern house built in 1875 

 and rebuilt in 1907, and Church End House, a 

 17th-century half-timber house to which a plastered 

 brick front has been added, forms the hamlet known 

 as Church End. A thatched building which stood 

 here, once forming three almshouses belonging to the 

 churchwardens and overseers of Little Hadham, was 

 pulled down about 1886. 



Hadham Hall, the manor-house of Bauds' Manor, 

 now the property and residence of Mr. William 

 Minet, F.S.A., J. P., stands on high ground about a 

 quarter of a mile east of the church, with which it 

 is connected by a raised path called the Church 

 Causeway. It consists of the west wing and part of the 

 south wing of a large house of the courtyard type ; the 

 other wings have disappeared, but most of the founda- 

 tions have been traced and a plan of them made. A 

 modern wing has been built partly on the site of the 

 former north wing. The house was probably built 

 about 1 5 70 by a member of the Capell family. There 

 appear to have been two houses before the present 

 one ; the first on a moated site a few hundred yards 

 west of the existing house, and another, with which 

 the present house appears to have been partly incor- 

 porated, at the south-east corner. In this, as in other 

 points, Hadham Hall resembles Standon Lordship 

 about 4 miles away, a house erected a little earlier 

 in the i6th century. The foundations of the older 

 house, which was probably built in the 15 th century 

 by a member of the Baud family, still remain ; the 

 orientation of the older building differs 6°2o' from 

 that of the existing one. The present house is built 

 of thin z-in. red bricks. The mullions and dressings 

 to the windows are of brick covered with cement, 

 but some of these have been replaced with modern 

 stonework ; the roofs are tiled. The principal front 

 faces west, and is about 115 ft. in length by 26 ft. in 

 width. At its south end a portion of the south 

 wing projects eastwards ; the end of this is set back 

 about 14 ft. from the face of the west wing. The 

 house is of two stories with attics. In the centre of 

 the west front is one of the two gateways which 

 formerly gave access to the courtyard ; this has been 

 inclosed to form an entrance vestibule. The semi- 

 circular archway is of cement with classic entablature 

 above. On each side of the archway are large semi- 

 octagonal turrets carried up above the roof with 



embattled parapets ; the one to the south formerly 

 contained a stair ; between them is a gable with a 

 saddle-back coping, close under the apex of which is 

 a projecting corbel for a finial, which has gone. All 

 the main front windows are of four lights with moulded 

 mullions and transoms, set in moulded frames and sur- 

 mounted by pediments ; the walls now have a plain 

 parapet with saddle-back coping. The east side of 

 the block has a modern cement archway in the centre, 

 but is without the flanking turrets. The windows 

 are similar to those on the west front, but have no 

 pediments. There are two small doorways on the 

 east front, both now blocked ; they probably served 

 as independent entrances to lodgings occupied by 

 guests. The doorways have hollow-chamfered mould- 

 ings and four-centred arches. At the north end is a 

 modern doorway. 



At each end of the west wing of the house is an 

 original chimney stack of two detached shafts with 

 octagonal moulded caps and bases ; the western shaft 

 in each stack is circular, covered with honeycomb 

 pattern, the other a plain octagon. All the other 

 chimneys on the west wing are plain and date from 

 about 1670. The east and west gables of the south 

 wing are crow-stepped, with square early 1 8th-century 

 chimney shafts set diagonally at their apexes. The 

 lower windows on the south front have splayed brick 

 round-headed arches. The upper windows were 

 formerly mullioned ; one remains on the north and 

 one on the west, both blocked, but those on the south 

 were filled with sashes in the 1 8th century. The south 

 wall of the eastern end of the south wing remains, but 

 all the openings are blocked, with the exception of a 

 wide archway about the centre of the wing, which was 

 formerly the south entrance to the courtyard. The 

 house was in a very bad state when the present owner 

 obtained possession, but he has thoroughly restored it 

 in a conservative spirit, retaining all original work 

 intact where possible. The interior retains many of 

 the original wooden partitions with the old timbers 

 showing. Some moulded beams and four-centred 

 arched doorways of oak remain in the west block, 

 and some of the rooms contain chimney-pieces and 

 panelling put in, probably, about 1633. Some good 

 18th-century panelling is in the south wing. The 

 staircase, with its semicircular inclosure projecting 

 from the east front, is of 18th-century date. 



To the east of the house was a large formal garden 

 of the late 17th century, shown in the picture by 

 Janssen, now at Cashiobury, of Arthur Lord Capell 

 and his family; the positions of the balustraded 

 terrace and the fountains here have been traced. A 

 gate-house stands about 1 00 yards west of the house ; 

 it is of brick, with diaper patterns of black bricks. The 

 central archways are four-centred. A portion of the 

 building is of the 1 5 th century, the remainder, includ- 

 ing the archway, of the i6th. A little further to the 

 north-west is a plain late 1 6th or early 1 7th-century 

 brick barn, with modern buttresses added in 1 902. 



A little to the north of Hadham Hall is a moated 

 tumulus. 



* Statistics from Bd. of Agric. (1905). 



' See Much Hadham. In the 1 3th 



century the lord of Little Hadham had 



meadow in Dene Wood, Westgrove, in 

 the 'grava' called Estwode, &c., which 

 suggests that at this date woods had been 



49 



recently turned into meadow (Cott. MS 

 Claud, cxi, m. 163*). 



