Monthly Archives: August 2013

Favourite ERO documents: Walker map of Chelmsford, 1591

Posted on by

As well as asking our users about their favourite documents from our collections, we have also been asking ourselves. Here Public Service Team Manager Neil Wiffen tells us about his favourite document, John Walker’s 1591 map of Chelmsford.

 My favourite document at the ERO has to be one of the best known and most widely reproduced – the 1591 Walker map of Chelmsford. This might be an obvious choice (and could it be said boring?) but for me it works on so many levels.

Extract from the Walker map of Chelmsford, 1591 (D/DM P1)

Extract from the Walker map of Chelmsford, 1591 (D/DM P1)

First of all it is a map and I think everyone likes a map because we can all get something from a map so very easily. We don’t need to read Latin or funnily written handwriting to be able to enjoy an historic map. As maps go it is a sumptuous and artistic map. The colours are still so very vivid even after 422 years and the wonderful portrayal of the buildings by John Walker is exquisite.

Being Chelmsford born and bred it works for me on a local level, a source of civic pride. I can’t help when I walk down the High Street but try and imagine what it would have been like when Walker surveyed the town. Indeed walking down the High Street is to walk in our predecessors footsteps so little has the basic layout of the town changed over the centuries. In a way the map is the nearest we can ever get to late Tudor Chelmsford, so it allows us to travel in time. It is a map that continues to keep me thinking about town development. If ever you’ve been shopping on a Friday or Saturday when they have the market stalls in the High Street you can just imagine what it was like when the Middle Row was developed over centuries. Stall holders didn’t bother to take down their stalls overnight but slept under the counter or added another level and before you knew there was a row of permanent shops which Walker depicts.

It can also be a dangerous map as well. Looking at the layout of Chelmsford in 1591 we can be lulled in to thinking how much nicer it would be to live in a small Chelmsford. Urban development and awful planning decisions of the 1950s-70s have deprived the town of much interest which is there in the Walker map. However, we must not forget the appalling inequality, insanitary conditions and harsh punishments of those earlier centuries.

Last of all it is a map of wonder. How did John Walker survey the town and produce the map? Whenever I look at the map I always think – ‘John Walker, what a clever bloke!’

If you would like to nominate your own favourite ERO document, we would love to hear from you. Simply download this form, and return it to the Searchroom desk or by e-mail to hannahjane.salisbury[at]essex.gov.uk. There are also paper copies available at the Searchroom desk. Nominated documents may be featured on this blog or in displays at our open day on Saturday 14 September 2013.

Could this be our smallest document?

Posted on by
D/DLu 17/6 is definately very small.

D/DLu 17/6 is definitely very small.

D/DLu 17/6 measures just 36 x 26 mm and is so small that we have had to construct a special folder to keep it safe and to make it harder to lose.

D/DLu 17/6 in its specially made folder.

D/DLu 17/6 in its specially made folder.

All wrapped up and ready to go back into storage. The larger folder certainly makes it easier to keep track of.

All wrapped up and ready to go back into storage. The larger folder certainly makes it easier to keep track of.

 D/DLu 17/6 is a tiny sketchbook created by Clarissa Sandford Bramston [née Trant] who was married to the Reverend John Bramston from 1832 (vicar of Great Baddow, 1830-40; vicar of Witham, 1840-72; Dean of Winchester, 1872-1883). It is impossible for us to know when the document itself was created other than to say it must have been created before 1844 when Clarissa died. Perhaps someone with a strong magnifying glass and an interest in Essex architecture may be able to suggest a date?

IMG_1095v

Galleywood Chapel which pre-dated the church before it was a parish in its own right.

The sketches show several churches, chapels and houses of Essex and a rather attractive view of Danbury, all in a surprising amount of detail for its diminutive size.

A view of Danbury.

A view of Danbury.

Alongside this miniature sketchbook, Clarissa also left us several other documents of more reasonable size, including her journals and diaries running from 1800 right up until her death in 1844 and numerous other scrapbooks, recipes and items of correspondence, all of which are part of the Luard and Bramston deposit (catalogued as D/DLu).

Your favourite documents: an unexpected find

Posted on by

As part of our 75th anniversary celebrations this year, we recently asked you, our users, to nominate your favourite ERO documents. Thank you very much to those of you who have sent in nominations so far – today we bring you the next in a series of your favourites.

Today’s nomination comes from Paul Mardon, a member of the Essex Place Names Project, and is a map of part of Prittlewell dating to 1825 (Q/RHi 4/49). It is a good example of finding information in unexpected places:

I began working as a Recorder on the Essex Place names project in 2008. My first parish was Prittlewell, the historic centre of Southend. The Tithe Map proved to be disappointing in terms of place name information , so I began to research other maps hopefully to find more data.

This record consists of a map & accompanying order approved by Justices of the Peace at a special session in Rochford in December 1825. They record an agreement to stop up a footpath (1092 ft long by 4 ft wide) running through three fields on the south side of East St, Prittlewell. What appeals to me about this record is the exquisitely & precisely drawn coloured map which accompanies the decision. Why was so much care taken with this when a simple sketch map would seem to have been adequate? Even more surprising is that this little map has survived to the present day in such excellent condition. The colours have faded slightly but what would you expect after nearly 200 years. I think this record also illustrates that the treasures we are so fortunate to have at the ERO are not just of the great & the good but on so many occasions give us an insight into everyday lives of ordinary people.

G/RHi 4/49

G/RHi 4/49 (click for a larger version)

One of the documents accompanying the map tells us that the path was being stopped up because it was ‘useless and unnecessary’, and also gives us the professions of the three landowners named on the map: Thomas Lindsell was a wheelwright, and William Carr and William Cockerton were farmers – another good example of finding information about individuals in unexpected places, especially in pre-census years. Each signed their names to agree to the order stopping up the path.

G/RHi 4/49 

If you would like to nominate your own favourite ERO document, we would love to hear from you. Simply download this form, and return it to the Searchroom desk or by e-mail to hannahjane.salisbury[at]essex.gov.uk. There are also paper copies available at the Searchroom desk. Nominated documents may be featured on this blog or in displays at our open day on Saturday 14 September 2013.