Document of the Month, October 2016: ‘Barking Domesday’, c.1275

Posted on September 27, 2016 by admin

Katharine Schofield, Archivist

(D/DP M150)

We are publishing October’s Document of the Month a little early since we are excited about our conference Norman Essex: what did the Normans do for us? taking place this Saturday (1 October 2016). Despite the fact that it dates from about 200 years later, this document is named after that most famous of Norman documents – Domesday Book.

Compiled in 1086, Domesday Book records the lands in the possession of the king’s tenants-in-chief; Norman followers who were rewarded with land in return for military support. By the end of the 12th century Domesday Book was held in sufficient respect to be kept with other important Exchequer documents and the Great Seal. In c.1179 Henry II’s treasure Richard fitzNeal or fitzNigel described in his Dialogue of the Exchequer how it was known to the ‘native English’ as Domesday Book ‘not because it contains decisions on various difficult points, but because its decisions, like those of the Last Judgement, are unalterable.’

Our Document of the Month follows in the footsteps of Domesday Book, and it is clearly headed with the words ‘domes daye’. It is the Ingatestone portion of the ‘Barking Domesday’, dating from about 1275. Only two parts of the survey survive, a 15th century copy of the manor of Bulphan and this from the manor of Ingatestone which is stitched into a rental. The survey names the tenants, gives a brief note of their landholdings and rent and then a much more detailed account of the labour services such as ploughing, hoeing, making hay, reaping and even gathering nuts that they owed to the lord of the manor and the times of year when they were due.

Although the words Domesday look as though they have been written in a different hand we do know that on 28 October 1322 the manorial court required the that the ‘Domesdaye de Berkyng’ be produced to answer a question about succession dues owed to the manor.

To find out more about what the original Domesdaye survey tells us about Essex, join us for Norman Essex this Saturday (1 October), and do have a look at the Barking Domesday if you visit the Searchroom during the coming month.

Zeppelins over Essex

Posted on September 23, 2016 by admin

On the night of 23 September 1916 12 Zeppelins crossed the Channel to attack locations around the country. Two of them were to make their final resting places in the fields of Essex, much to the surprise of the locals who found these giant machines descending upon them.

One of the giant airships, the L33, made a forced landing at Little Wigborough and the crew all walked away largely unharmed. The other, the L32, crashed in flames in Great Burstead, killing all on board.

There are many records in our collections which tell the stories of both of the airships coming down, from civilians, Special Constables, Police and the military.

The wreck of Zeppelin L33 at Little Wigborough

The wreck of Zeppelin L33 at Little Wigborough

Why were there Zeppelins over Essex?

Zeppelins were giant airships used by the Germans to drop bombs on Britain during the First World War. They were named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who pioneered them from 1895. They were filled with hydrogen which is lighter than air, but explosive. They were 650ft long and carried a crew of 22 and a payload of 2 tons of bombs.

Airships flew over Essex attempting to reach London. They crossed the North Sea and flew over the Essex coast, before following the Great Eastern Railway or the River Thames to London. Many never reached their destination because of anti-aircraft guns around the capital, and turned back, dropping their bombs indiscriminately over Essex.

Zeppelin L33 – Little Wigborough

On the night of 23 September 1916 Zeppelin L33 was busy dropping incendiary bombs over Upminster and Bromley-by-Bow when it was hit by an anti-aircraft shell, despite being at an altitude of 4,000m. Its gas bags were punctured by shrapnel and it started to lose height.

By following the railway line, the crew navigated to Chelmsford where they were engaged by Lieut. A de B Brandon of the Royal Flying Corps, but his machine gun fire had no effect.

The ship was losing height and the crew jettisoned everything they could; items were found strewn across the fields over the next few days, including a machine gun, two cases of machine gun cartridges, and maps.

By 1.15 a.m. the ship had reached the coast, but the crew realised they could not make it back across the Channel. The Commander, Kapitanleutenant Bocker, turned the ship inland and brought it down near Little Wigborough, narrowly missing some cottages.

Bocker spoke good English, and he warned the residents of the nearby cottages that the airmen were going to set fire to the airship to prevent it falling into British hands. The Zeppelin was burnt and left as a broken shell, but there was still much in the wreckage that the British could learn from in building their own airships.

The crew then set off to walk to Colchester to give themselves up. They were found on the road by a Special Constable and remained in captivity for the rest of the war.

Eyewitnesses

Records at the Essex Record Office include several eyewitness accounts of the both Zeppelins which came down on the night of 23 September 1916. One of the most detailed accounts of the descent of the L33 is an excited letter written by 40-year-old Rose Luard who lived nearby in Birch. (We have written before about her sister Kate Luard who was a nurse on the Western Front throughout the war.)

In her 6-page description Rose describes the ‘thrilling’ night the L33 landed in Wigborough, with most of the household dashing from window to window to see the drama unfolding a few fields away. On the following day members of the family went to see the wreckage:

The Zep. is a vast monster, lying in its naked framework of girders, across 2 fields & a land between them. Parts of it look absolutely unhurt, but of course the gas bag is all burnt and the bottom machinery part is all smashed on the ground, & its back is broken & bent in several places, so that it looks like a gigantic antediluvian reptile of sorts, with its nose posed in the air, & its tail intact behind. I tried to make a very rough sketch of its shape as it looked from the stubblefield, which was the nearest we were allowed to go, about a field off.

Her writing is a little tricky to read in places, but still the letter gives us a sense of the sensation the Zeppelin created in the village and surrounding areas; you can read a transcript of her whole letter here.

Rose Luard’s sketch of the wreck of Zeppelin L33 at Little Wigborough, 24 September 1916 (D/DLu 76)

Police reports

There are several documents written by Police and Special Constables which tell us about what happened on the night of 23 September and in the following days and weeks. This letter from Captain M Ffinch reports on how the Special Constables of Peldon helped to control the traffic and sightseers which descended on the village on day after the Zeppelin landed. It also includes a report from Special Constable Edgar Nicholas, who was the first local man to encounter the German crew.

Nicholas described being in bed and hearing an explosion at about 1.20am. He got up and set off on his bicycle towards Little Wigborough, where he could see a fire. Before he reached the site of the wreck he came across the German crew who were trying to find their way to Colchester to hand themselves in. Nicholas followed them to Peldon village, talking to those in the crew who spoke English. One of the Germans asked him what English people thought about the war, and shook Nicholas’s hand. The party soon encountered other Special Constables and the crew was handed over to PC Charles Smith at Peldon, who telephoned the army to come and fetch the crew to take them prisoner.

Report from Capt M Ffinch on the activities of the Peldon Special Constables on the surprise arrival of L33 (J/P 12/7)

Zeppelin L32 – Great Burstead

While the L33 was making its forced landing in Little Wigborough, the L32 had bigger problems.

It had dropped its bombs in Kent before flying north over Essex. It was spotted by a BE2c flown by 2^nd Lieut. Frederick Sowrey, who hit the airship with incendiary bullets which set it alight. The L32 came down in flames near Great Burstead. The entire crew of 22 men was killed.

The following day, just as at Wigborough, the wreck site became a tourist attraction. Catherine Brown, who worked at the Kynochtown munitions factory at Corringham, later recalled:

The next morning, some of the girls who lived that way went to view the wreck. They also saw some of the poor lads who had been shot down; they only looked about 16 years. We could not help but feel for their mothers in Germany.

Sgt James McDiamid was stationed nearby with the Glasgow Yeomanry, who were despatched to help guard the wreck. On Monday 25 September he wrote to his brother Hugh giving his perspective on events:

Well, yesterday morning at 7a.m. we were sitting at breakfast when the adjutant came in and told us to be ready as soon as possible full marching orders – that is horses and men with everything on. The first twenty who were ready were sent off with Lieut. Young (I was one of them) to where the wrecked Zepp was. We had ten miles to go and we travelled hard. There was a mark along the road of the sweat off the horses. We trotted every step of that ten miles. We picketed our horses, left three men to guard them, and fixed bayonets and down about 20 yds to where the heap of wreckage was lying. We had to keep the people back form it. Everybody wanted a souvenir & most of them got it too. There must have been an explosion after she landed for there were bits found a mile away.

The heap of twisted bars of alliminimum [sic] was about 40 ft high. A tremendous pile, unless you saw it you would hardly credit it. Then the work of pulling out the bodies commenced. It was a gruesome job. The R.A.M.C. and the R Flying Corps did that. They got twenty two bodies. The commander was not badly smashed but some of the others were in an awful mess.

The crewmen were buried in Great Burstead churchyard. Their bodies were later moved to Cannock Chase.

Burial of the crew of L32 at Great Burstead (D/P 139/1/23)

Sightseeing and souvenirs

The following day, both sites were abuzz with sightseers. Rose Luard described the scene at Wigborough:

A dazzling day & a very happy heterogeneous crowd of country people, mixed with Colchester of course, all taking their Sunday matins in that pleasant form. A good many soldiers and officers of course from Colchester, with their womenfolk & I saw one old General & lots of red tabs prancing [?] about on the stubble with the common herd. It was Fred & I who swelled the godless crowd. I persuaded him to come with my in the morning. Daisy & Nettie have gone this afternoon, but I expect the few hundreds will have swelled to thousands this afternoon. It was such a jolly local crowd, gazing at their own Zeppelin, none of y[ou]r hoards from London.

Special Constables, Police and the military were deployed to control the crowds. Sgt McDiamid told his brother:

The crowds were immense during the day but very orderly, altho’ quite annoyed at not getting closer. During the day there were six British aeroplanes and a British airship came along to see the wreckage. One of the aeroplanes landed not twenty yards from where I was standing.

Capt. M Ffinch sent the Special Constables of Peldon out ‘to assist in the control of the enormous traffic caused by the thousands of sightseers in all kinds of conveyances’.

Many of these sightseers wanted a little piece of Zeppelin of their own as a souvenir of their unusual experience, which caused an even greater problem for those tasked with guarding the wrecks.

The wrecks were considered to be of military importance, and punishments for anyone found with anything taken from the wreck sites were severe – a fine of £100 or imprisonment with hard labour for six months.

Despite the warnings, many people still collected and kept fragments of wreckage or other items – including, it seems, police and the military themselves. Rose Luard described:

Our Policemen got near & picked up a bit of the burnt gas bag covering and gave it to George whom I met on the field & he gave a bit to me. It is very fine canvas with a silky sheen on it.

Sgt McDiamid told his brother:

I got a lot of wee bits of Zepp but we were not supposed to take them away altho’ there wasn’t a man there who hadn’t a bit. This is a piece of it I picked up near it. The cloth is a piece of the commanders [sic] clothing.

Two fragments reputed to be from Zeppelin L33 which have been made into pendants (M55, M56)

Even though this is one of our longer blog posts there is still plenty of material in the archive which we have not had space to mention. If you would like to know more, we recommend The Impact of Catastrophe by Paul Rusiecki which is available to read or buy at ERO (£17 + P&P – call us on 033301 32500) or to borrow from Essex Libraries. If you would like to go straight to the primary sources themselves, why not have a search on Essex Archives Online to discover what other stories our archives hold.

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On Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 2016 the village of Little Wigborough is holding Zepfest to mark the centenary of the landing of L33 in their parish. There will be a small display from ERO in St Nicholas’s church, and there are activities taking place all weekend.

You Are Hear Up North

Posted on September 13, 2016 by admin

For the Heritage Lottery Funded project, You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place, we commissioned a Sound Recordist, Stuart Bowditch, to capture some of the sounds of Essex in 2015/2016. We compiled suggestions from members of the public, gathered at survey events held last year, of typically Essex sounds that should be recorded. We also had some specific items in mind to compare with historic sounds already in the Essex Sound and Video Archive.

Stuart has busily been recording here, there, and everywhere to get a wide range of recordings. They will be deposited with the archive, so future generations can hear what Essex sounded like in 2015-2016. Clips are also being pinned to our online audio map of Essex Sounds. There, you can compare the sounds of today with sounds of similar places or events from days gone by (click on the ‘old and new’ option at the top of the page).

At the end of June, Stuart went on a week-long recording trip to the north of the county. Here are some of his thoughts after day one of his trip.

Day One of my Trip to North Essex: 13 June 2016

After packing my bags and picking up some kit from the studio I set off for the wilds of north Essex, happy to be leaving the south behind. Farewell to the estuary, to the busy Victorian terraces and crowded roads with a particular style of driving. It felt good to wave goodbye. And then say hello to a long queue on the A130. But despite that, I made it to the Essex Record Office to pick up some project flyers before heading to my first port of call, Marks Tey. Not exactly north, but the gateway to the Gainsborough Line, which takes you due north to Sudbury, via Chappell and Bures.

Photograph of platform at Marks Tey station with microphone in the foreground

The roving microphone at Marks Tey station

I’d sought permission to record from Abellio Greater Anglia but hadn’t heard back, so I asked at the station when I arrived. My slightly unusual request was met with some surprise and puzzlement, but after a couple of phone calls the station manager gave me permission, and I set off with my instructions not to stand next to the edge of the track. So I recorded a few trains passing through the station (a class 360 to Ipswich stopping and departing, a class 90 Intercity to Liverpool Street, a class 66 freight train to Felixstowe port and another class 360 to Liverpool Street) and waited for the Sudbury train to arrive.

The driver and guard seemed okay to have me on board, and I duly recorded the whole journey through Chappel & Wakes Colne and Bures to Sudbury. I wasn’t sure if it was just the way of things, but there were no announcements or tickets checked during the entire journey, which would have made the listening experience of recording a little bit more informative. On the return journey, however, an announcement was made about the ticket machine not working, which was a shame to miss as it added some personality to the soundscape.

I broke the journey at Bures and took a walk around town. I had to backtrack a few
hundred metres after I discovered that my tripod attachment had fallen off, but
luckily I found it next to a huge puddle in Water Lane.

Photograph of River Stour, with microphone in foreground

Roving microphone by the River Stour

I bought a sandwich from the local delicatessen and found a very nice spot next to the River Stour from which to eat it and also to record. It was slightly raining, but that did nothing to deter the house martins, ducks and ducklings, and occasional passersby from enjoying the peaceful moment.

Back in Marks Tey, I loaded up the car and drove west, through Coggeshall to see if my friend Walt was in. He wasn’t. That’s a shame as he said it’s particularly quiet standing in his garden and had invited me over to record one day. I had to leave that for another time. So I proceeded further along the A120 and saw a sign for Stisted. My friend Ed had said it was a particularly beautiful village, so I decided to take a detour. The buildings are great, so I decided to park up at the Village Green. As I did so the school bell was chiming, but unfortunately it had stopped by the time I had set up the microphone. I waited for half an hour there, but the bell never chimed again. However, I did get a great recording of the birds on the green which included chaffinch, greenfinch, robin and blackbird. There was also a reasonably continuous stream of cars making turns at the junction, but when they weren’t present the quietness was really pronounced and the recording will clearly indicate the impact that motor vehicles have on the sonic environment. I may return tomorrow if I’m in that area to try and record the school bell.

Photograph of Stisted village green with microphone in the foreground

Roving microphone by Stisted village green

Next on the list was Halstead High Street, and I decided to make two recordings here, one at the bottom of the hill and one at the top. There was a constant flow of traffic along the high street, including many vans and heavy goods vehicles. There were also plenty of passersby going about their daily business, including people of all ages and social standings. One of the interesting things about this project is picking up the different accents and languages that can be heard in different parts of Essex today, and coming from the south of the county it was interesting to note that in an hour on Halstead high street I didn’t hear a single foreign language. The recording at the bottom of the hill features two van drivers loading parcels and letters from the Post Office and some children playing.

The recording at the top of hill was made next to the war memorial as light rain was falling, and also captured the moment that St. Andrew’s Church struck 5 o’clock.

The first day of recording had felt reasonably productive, and despite the promise of some traditionally British inclement weather the next day I was looking forward to more roaming and recording.

All of Stuart’s recordings from his trip up north are collected here on the Essex Sounds website. You can follow Stuart’s progress with his latest recordings on his Twitter account: @stuartbowditch.

To hear more about Stuart’s adventures, plus talks from the rest of the project team and guest speaker Martin Newell, come to our official Essex Sounds launch. The event will be held at Colchester Town Hall on Wednesday 28 September 2016, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. Attendance is free, but please register on our Eventbrite page.

Meet the photographer

Posted on September 2, 2016 by admin

We’re getting excited to share the creative side of our collections with visitors at our Heritage Open Day next week (Saturday 10 September 2016), including an insight into our most extensive photographic collection, the Spalding Collection. This collection includes some 7,000 images depicting 19^th and 20^th century Essex, created by three generations of the Spalding family, all of them named Fred.

Alongside a display of some of the Spalding images, we will have our very own digitiser and early photography expert Andy Morgan with a display of historic cameras, to explain how the photographs were taken.

The first Fred Spalding (1830-1895) took up the new art form of photography in the 1860s. Born in Danbury, Spalding was the fifth child of a shoemaker, and had several lines of business before becoming a professional photographer (in an 1859 directory he is listed as a ‘bird stuffer and furniture broker’). By 1862 he was listed as Chelmsford’s only photographer, mastering the complex equipment and chemical processes demanded by the early days of the pursuit.

Tindal Square, Chelmsford, in 1876, with the first Spalding shop in the centre. Spalding combined his photography business with a ‘fancy goods’ shop. To illuminate his portrait photographs with natural light, Spalding had a glass studio built on the roof, which can still be seen today. (D/Z 206/1/86)

At this stage Spalding would have been using the wet collodion method of photography, invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. To create an image, a glass plate was coated with a mixture of collodion and potassium iodide, sensitized with a solution of silver nitrate, and then exposed for anything from a few seconds to several minutes. While still damp, the chemicals were fixed and developed, producing a negative image on the glass plate, which could then be used to produce a positive print. The whole process – from coating the plate to making the exposure to developing the negative – had to be completed within about 10-15 minutes, before the chemicals had time to dry.

Glass negatives on a lightbox. Some of the glass negatives in the Spalding collection are as large as 12×10 inches. Glass negatives can produce a wonderfully sharp image, but of course are extremely fragile.

This short Vine loop shows how we can use editing software such as Photoshop to turn an image taken from a glass negative into a positive image. This is a photograph of women at work in Marconi’s first factory in Hall Street, c.1900.

Fred Spalding’s earliest surviving view of the lower end of Chelmsford High Street, with Shire Hall visible in the distance, taken in the late 1860s on a glass plate using the wet collodion process. Taking a photograph outdoors using this process was extremely challenging. (D/F 269/1/3715)

Victorian photographers experimented with different printing processes from albumen paper, coated with egg white to the later gelatin silver prints introduced in the 1880s. The Spaldings used a variety of processes including carbon print and platinotype in a search to find a print that would not fade.

The largest print from the Spalding collection, with a pencil to give an idea of scale. It shows the Prince of Wales’s visit to Easton lodge near Great Dunmow in 1891, the home of his mistress, Daisy, Countess of Warwick. The prince is standing in the centre of the back row, with Daisy to his left.

Frederick Spalding junior (1858-1947) grew up immersed in the world of his father’s photography. In the early 1890s he moved the growing business to 4 Chelmsford High Street, next door to the Saracen’s Head Hotel, and built a reputation as a portrait, landscape, and commercial photographer.

Fred Spalding junior, photographed in his father’s studio in Tindal Square in the mid-1860s. (D/F 269/1/3719)

By 1891, Frederick Spalding junior was well-established in his Chelmsford ‘fancy goods’ shop and photography business. In addition to portrait, landscape and commercial photography, Spalding took a keen interest in Chelmsford’s history, and fought to save ancient parts of the town, documenting them through photographs as they disappeared. Several of his photographs display a creative flair for posing groups of people – here are two of our favourite striking images.

Chelmsford Borough Fire Brigade proudly demonstrate their new fire escape ladder against the side of Chelmsford’s Corn Exchange, May 1899. Until 1918 the Chelmsford Fire Brigade relied on horses to pull their fire engines. (I/Sp 15/350)

Jackson’s dairy farm at Wickford, early 1920s, when new hygiene rules were having an effect on cowmen’s clothing. Essex became the first county to hold a clean milk competition in 1920. (D/F 269/1/4492)

Join us at our Heritage Open Day, a celebration of creativity in the archives, on Saturday 10 September 2016 to see more from the Spalding Collection, and lots more. You can find all of the details here.

Document of the Month, September 2016: History of Wormingford with illustrations by John Northcote Nash

Posted on September 1, 2016 by admin

Carol Walden, Archivist

September sees the opportunity to visit a huge range of locations across England through Heritage Open Days. Here at Essex Record Office we will be open 10am-4pm on Saturday 10 September and we’ve taken the theme of creativity in the archives to inspire our choice of activities and displays.

The current document of the month in the Searchroom is a history of Wormingford compiled by the Women’s Institute (WI) in 1958. The village is located approximately halfway between Colchester and Sudbury to the south of the River Stour. The history records the creation of Wormingford WI in 1926 saying that early talks included ‘How to keep a husband happy’ that decided ‘food and tobacco did the trick’! Due to the lack of a venue for meetings the WI petered out. It was re-started in 1949 when a village hall was built and C1046 and A11292 contain various records of the group.

The history draws on a number of sources to tell the story of the village from Palaeolithic times with copies of original records, photographs and illustrations. The latter are of particular note as they are reputed to have been sketched by local resident John Northcote Nash CBE, RA.

The information we have is that the illustrations are by Nash, but they are unsigned and there is no contemporary note in the typescript that they are by him. This could potentially be explained by the fact that none of the individual contributors to the history are named. A published edition of the history names his wife, Christine Nash, as the author of a drawing used on the front cover, but doesn’t attribute the other illustrations to anyone. We are attempting to make contact with art history specialists to confirm whether the information we have that the sketches are by John Nash is correct.

Wormingford history book with illustrations

History of Wormingford with illustrations reputed to be by John Northcote Nash (A11292)

Nash was certainly part of the local scene at the time the history was being compiled. From 1929 he spent the summers in Wormingford and in 1944 bought Bottengoms Farm in the village. He painted several scenes of the local area, such as this one of Melting Snow at Wormingford (1962) which today is at the Beecroft Art Gallery in Southend.

Nash, John Northcote; Melting Snow at Wormingford; Southend Museums Service; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/melting-snow-at-wormingford-2708

Nash, John Northcote; Melting Snow at Wormingford; Southend Museums Service (from Art UK website)

Nash was born in London in 1893 and later moved to Buckinghamshire. He began to train as a journalist but switched career path to follow his brother, Paul Nash, as an artist. Paul enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, which opened opportunities for both brothers; they went on to hold a successful joint exhibition of their work in London in November 1913.

In the autumn of 1916 John joined the Artists’ Rifles, fighting on the western front for nearly two years before becoming an official war artist, as his brother had already done. Much of his work from this time, including Over the Top (1917), is today held at the Imperial War Museum.

After the First World War Nash continued to paint in oils and watercolours as well as doing drawings and woodcuts for book illustrations, especially related to botany. From the 1920s to the end of his life Nash taught in Oxford at the Ruskin School of Art and in 1940 he was commissioned into the Royal Marines as an official war artist. Between the wars he had travelled extensively across Britain filling sketchbooks with drawings and notes to later be developed in the studio.

Nash was a founding member of the Colchester Art Society in 1946, serving as president between 1946 and 1979. He also taught at the Colchester Art School and held plant illustration classes at Flatford Mill in Suffolk. He continued to paint until his death in Colchester in 1977 and was buried at St Andrew’s, Wormingford.

The village history displayed in the Searchroom contains a number of sketches purported to be by Nash of views around Wormingford, including the ford, the old workhouse, the Queen’s Head and the mill. It is open to the pages showing a drawing of Mr William Sac, the last carrier, along with his horse Sturme and another of his cottage. The carrier departed Wormingford at 9.30am and arrived at The Bull, Colchester at 12 noon. It left for the return journey at 4.30pm arriving back in the village at 7pm, all for the cost of 6d for adults, 3d for children and parcels at 2d.

Illustration of ‘The Last Carrier’ in history of Wormingford (A11292)

Other entries in the document mention the appearance of a ‘beast’, possibly a crocodile, in the valley (1400); visits by Elizabeth I to the village; accounts of witches, such as ‘Old Jemima’ (1880); bombs dropped by a Zeppelin in Metland Field (1914); and the Americans manning the airfield who ‘taught the village to chew gum’ (1939).

The typescript will be on display in the ERO Searchroom throughout September 2016.

Join us for our Heritage Open Day on Saturday 10 September, 10am-4pm – full details here.

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Monthly Archives: September 2016