BRAUGHING HUNDRED 



and granted by him about 1175 29 to the monks of 

 Stoke by Clare that they might celebrate divine service 

 there in honour of St. Michael, St. John the Baptist, 

 St. John the Evangelist and All Saints, for him and 

 all his family. 30 For a time the hermit and brothers 

 lived at Salbourne and received various grants of 

 land, 31 but there seems to have been no com- 

 munity after the beginning of the 14th century. 33 

 At the end of the century, when the manor was in 

 the king's hands, he appointed chaplains, 33 and in 

 1 393 the chaplain of All Saints, Puckeridge (see 

 below), received a grant of ' the chapel called a 

 hermitage of St. Michael, Salbourne,' on condition 

 that he stayed there and officiated. 3 * From the 15 th 

 century the chapel and lands were farmed out by the 

 Dean and Chapter of the collegiate church of Stoke 

 for a rent of 3or. 36 They were held in the reign 

 of Edward IV by John Field 30 (see Bromley Hall), 

 and at the beginning of the 15th century by his 

 widow Agnes Morton. 37 As only a rent of 30J. is 

 entered to Stoke in the Valor Eccksiasticus, is it is 

 evident that the chapel property was still in the 

 hands of tenants, who probably remained in pos- 

 session after the Dissolution, as no grant of it is 

 on record. The lands of John Field and his 

 descendants included a close called Pound Hawe 

 (otherwise Pond Croft), Crabs Croft, land in High- 

 field, a tenement called Buttons, and a messuage 

 called Hallys (the last held of the manor of Milkley). 39 

 These descended with his other lands (see the Brick- 

 house, under manors) to Thomas Howe, who in 

 1544 conveyed the messuage called 'Hallys and 

 Ducketts' with lands lying in the common field 

 called Papwell Walk, Long Croft and Cock Croft, to 

 John Gardiner. 40 The identity of these names with 

 the names of lands afterwards in the possession of St. 

 Edmund's College " points to the property of John 

 Field and his descendants lying in the neighbour- 

 hood of Old Hall Green, and if the hermitage estate 

 was included in that property, as seems probable, the 

 cottage called the Hermitage at Old Hall Green, now 

 belonging to the college, may mark the site of the 

 original hermitage, local tradition having preserved 

 the name. 



Another chapel is recorded to have stood on Our 

 Lady Bridge on the highway to Stortford, possibly 

 where the road to the south of the village crosses the 

 Rib. This, according to a survey of the 16th century, 

 contained ' a lady [i.e. presumably an image of our 

 Lady], and certain service thereunto did belong with 

 divers offerings made unto her.' The offerings were 

 received by the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem and 



STAN DON 



were probably for the repair of the bridge, for which 

 he was responsible. This chapel had fallen into 

 ruins and been removed before 1590, and the bridge 

 was then in decay. 42 The bridge may have had some 

 connexion with the gild of our Lady in the church. 



At Old Hall Green (Eldhallegrene, xiv cent.),'' 3 

 on a high ridge of ground to the west of the North 

 Road, is the Roman Catholic College of St. Edmund. 

 In 1 749 a school (representing one at Twyford which 

 had been closed since 1 745) was established at Standon 

 Lordship (then in the hands of the Roman Catholic 

 family of Aston ") by a Douay priest named Richard 

 Kendal. The school was afterwards moved to Hare 

 Street in 1767, and in 1769 to Old Hall Green. 96 

 In 1772 Bishop Talbot bought the Hermitage with 

 30 acres of land there from John Hale Wortham, 

 and in 1787 he purchased the Old Hall Estate, which 

 he already held on a lease, from Sir George Jennings 

 of Greenwich. 40 These properties were added to the 

 school, which became known as the Old Hall Green 

 Academy. St. Edmund's College also represents the 

 English college at Douay (founded by Cardinal Allen 

 in 1568, primarily for the education of clergy) 

 which was suppressed with its offshoot the secular 

 college of St. Omer during the French Revolution, 

 when the professors and students from both colleges 

 came to Old Hall Green (1793 and 1795) and took 

 up their quarters in the 'Hermitage,' the 'Ship' 

 and the ' School in the Garden,' now the carpenter's 

 shop. The estate was increased by the purchase of 

 Riggory's Farm in 1 8 1 5 (see under manors) and ot 

 the Old Hall Farm * 7 estate, purchased from the repre- 

 sentatives of Ambrose Proctor by Bishop Poynter in 

 i8z6.« The old schoolhouse known as the Old 

 Hall is a low red-bricked house separated by several 

 acres of garden from the present college. A new 

 building, forming the main block of the present 

 college, was begun in 1795 by Dr. Stapleton, the 

 first president, and opened in i799- 4a After the 

 Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1 79 1 fll) a chapel called 

 the -old parish chapel' was built at the back of the 

 Old Hall on the site of the present farmyard in 1 792, 

 and for a time this was used by the college. 61 A new 

 parish chapel was built in 1818, which has been 

 superseded by a building consecrated in December 

 191 1. A college chapel, afterwards known as the 

 ' old chapel ' (now the senior study), and a refectory 

 (now the college library) were built in 1805. 62 The 

 present chapel, designed by A. W. Pugin, and con- 

 taining a rood screen which is considered his master- 

 piece, wasbuilt in 1845-53." In 1855-60 the 

 wing containing the present refectory was built, and 



r it addreaaed to Gilbert 

 n, probably Gilbert Foliot, 

 bably made after 



president of the colle 



4! Sess. R. (Herts. 



« Cott. MS. Nero 



" Lord Aston had 



to his Staffordshire 



E. H. Burton, Life 



Ciallomr, i, 290). 



Richard de Clar, 



M7J. 



30 Cott. MS. App. xxi, nt 

 MS. 6042, fol. 72. 



31 Add. MS. 6041, fol. 72. 



33 See article on Religio 

 V.C.H. Herts, iv. 



31 Cal. Pat. 1381-;, p. 48S 



34 Ibid. 1391-6, p. 241. 



35 Harl. Chart. 44 I. lo-eo. 

 " Ibid. 

 37 Ibid. 



«fW^/.(R«.Com.),,i,46<,. 



M See Chan. Inq. p.m. 17 Edw. IV, Roman Catholics 



no. ;6 ; (Ser. 2), xxxii, 88 ; Harl. Chart. chase lands being ... 

 56C.43; Harl. Roll L. 33. « The farm (now 



D. Enr. East. 36 

 nicated by Mgr. Ward, 



:ntly the date 1693 on the 

 immunicated by the Presi- 



:o. Rec.), i, 2. « Ward, Hist, of St. Edmund's College. 



E vi, fol. 121. s ° Previous to this the Roman Catholica 



hortly before moved of the neighbourhood, who were numerous, 

 seat at TUall (see had attended the private chapel at Standon 

 ind Times of Bishop Lordship, see Ward, St. Edmund's College, 

 who shows that Standon was a RomiXn 

 Catholic centre even before this date. In 

 1650, in the returns relating to popish 

 recusants, nine names were given for this 

 parish including that of Walter Lord 

 Aston (S«i. R. [Herts. Co. Rec.], i, 304). 

 51 Before this a chapel hidden in the loft 

 of the 'Old Hall ' is aaid to have been used. 

 S5 Information from the Rev. E. Burton, 

 rd Hake s Cottage) =" Ward, St. Edmund's College Chapel. 



?f St. Edmund's 

 : E > 3 5- 



Deeds communicated fay the Presi- 

 The conveyance was effected 

 shop Talbot's behalf by John HoII- 

 >rth, the penal laws preventing 

 from being able to pur- 

 ill in force. 



