ERO’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Travel Journal from 18th-Century Summer Holiday


Abboristwith is a poor wretched Old Town, a Sea Port which makes it very well supply’d with fish … they might have a very great trade here but they are a very indolent Lazy kind of People here

These scathing comments about the town of Aberystwyth are taken from a journal of a tour through England and Wales in the 18th century (D/DMy 15M50/1325).  Although unimpressed by the town, the author did at least enjoy the view from nearby Rhugo (?) Hill from whence you have the finest prospect in the World … so that you have the View of St. George’s Channel almost all the way.

Digital image of page from handwritten travel journal
Travel journal opened to page showing description of Aberystwyth, 1741
(D/DMy 15M50/1325)

The diary begins in Oxford and the journey continues through Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Shropshire before entering into Wales via Hay on Wye.  The writer then visits most of the Welsh counties (except for what was then Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire), returning to England via ‘West Chester’ (Chester) and continuing through Lancashire and Yorkshire and then south to Hertfordshire and London.  On the way, he inspects castles, cathedrals and great houses ranging from the well-known (Powis Castle and Erddig, both now owned by the National Trust) to ‘Choffden Court’ (Shobdon Court, Herefordshire, now demolished). 

The journal makes no reference to Essex, but the author is presumably one of the Mildmay family of Chelmsford, since it came to us with a collection of their family papers.  We do not know with whom he travelled or the cost of any of his lodgings or meals – sadly this sort of information simply isn’t recorded. 

Only the day and month are recorded; we knew that it took place in late July and ended in late September, but could not be certain of the year.  Internet searches (not possible when the document was first deposited) enabled us to narrow down the period when the diary was written.

A reference to the then Bishop of Banger, Dr Herring, meant that we knew the author must have visited sometime between 1737 and 1743.  Checking against a perpetual calendar suggested the diary was written in 1741, but further cross-checking in Cheney’s Handbook of Dates indicates it was actually 1738.

The later 18th century saw a growing interest in tourism within Britain, made easier in part by improvements to roads through turnpike trusts and encouraged by an increase in guidebooks.  The volume is therefore early evidence of this enthusiasm for travel.

Colour engraving of Chelmsford Road, 1806
Chelmsford Road, 1806, published by M. Jones (I/Mb 74/1/144)

The document is on display in the Curiosity Cabinet in the Searchoom until September.

You can view the Curiosity Cabinet and more on our next public Searchroom tour, on 5 September at 10:30 a.m. This 45-minute tour will show you how to get the very best from the Record Office’s Searchroom and is ideal if you are just starting your research. Find out more and book online.

Document of the Month, June 2016: Psalmodia Evangelica, c.1789

Lawrence Barker, Archivist

 (A14439, part)

The document of the month for June is the first volume of a two-volume publication entitled Psalmodia Evangelica, ‘a complete set of psalm and hymn tunes for public worship’, published in St Paul’s Churchyard, London by Thomas Williams of Clerkenwell Green in about 1789.  It is a charming volume of psalm and hymn tunes which opens a window into protestant and non-conformist worship at the time of Jane Austen. The volume once belonged to Stebbing Independent Chapel (later Congregational Church), one of three music books we took into our custody at the beginning of April this year.  Presumably, it was used in the worship of that church.

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The title page proudly claims that it contains ‘a greater number and variety than any former collection’.  There are some tunes which worshipers today would instantly recognise; such as ‘Salisbury’, the tune named by Wesley himself for his Easter Hymn Christ the Lord is Risen today, Hallelujah, or ‘Helmsley’, Lo he comes with clouds descending.  But there are many more which have since fallen out of use.

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Interestingly, the music is ‘correctly adapted for three voices [instead of the usual four found in hymn books today], and figured for the organ’; the main tune is in the middle, with a contra part on top harmonising above and below the melody and a figured bass below.

“Figured bass” is a common feature of eighteen century instrumental music, where the “continuo” part played by ‘cello, bass and bassoon, would also be played on an organ or harpsichord with chords above, indicated by figures under the part rather in the manner of guitar chords indicated in a popular song today.  For example, where there is no number, a standard chord with the root note at the bottom would be played, whereas a 6 indicates a chord “in first inversion” with the third note at the bottom and the root note on top, i.e. six notes above the bass.

At the beginning of the volume, there is an introduction which offers a guide to performance expressed in language both redolent of the period and seemingly indicative of a non-conformist preoccupation with improvement. It begins:

Most people are sensible of the difference between a regular and just performance of Psalmody in divine worship, & that confusion and dissonance too often heard instead of it; though few, comparatively, will bestow any share of their own time & attention to apply a remedy…Should those who have already learned to sing condescend to look over these pages, it is not impossible that many of them may be either informed of reminded of some things tending to their improvement.

The Psalmodia includes advice for singers, including, crucially, remembering which part they are singing

The Psalmodia includes advice for singers, including, crucially, remembering which part they are singing

For example, in section 4, OF GRACEFUL SINGING, ‘the following directions are submitted to the reader’s consideration’.

1) ‘Let your gesture be decent and manly;’ which seems to point to an all-male choir made up of men and boy trebles.

3) ‘Chuse the Part that best suits you…The Treble requires delicacy, without tameness: The counter a peculiar sweetness: The Tenor a medium between effeminate softness and masculine robustness: And the Bass gravity, pomp, solidity of voice, and bold expression.’

6) ‘Express your words with all the politeness possible, without affectation; imitate the Orator rather than the Clown.’

The Psalmodia will be on display in the ERO Searchroom throughout June 2016.

Art in the archives: portrait of the Barrett-Lennard family by Pompeo Batoni

As well as looking after the archives for Essex, the ERO is also the Corporate Custodian of Art for Essex County Council (ECC). Besides commissioning portraits of its chairmen ECC has never actively collected art, but has received a number of donations and bequests over the decades. Some of this art is displayed in ECC buildings, while other pieces are in storage at ERO.

Many pieces are viewable on the BBC Your Paintings website, and if there is something in storage that a member of the public would like to see you can make a request for it to be made available – please contact us on ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk

The largest single collection of artwork was donated by the Barrett-Lennard family. It includes this family portrait by the Italian artist Pompeo Batoni painted in Rome in 1749/50.

Batoni portrait of Barrett-Lennard family

Portrait of Thomas and Anna Marie Barrett-Lennard with their daughter Barbara Anne by Pompeo Batoni, 1749/50

The painting has a very sad story behind it. It shows Thomas and Anna Marie Barrett-Lennard with their daughter, Barbara Anne, who had died of tuberculosis the previous year. The artist painted her likeness from a miniature by Thomas Hudson which the couple brought with them on their travels.

Barbara Anne was the couple’s only child, although Thomas had two illegitimate children with a mistress who were brought up by the couple as their own. The eldest, Thomas Fitzthomas, inherited the estate, and in 1786 he was granted the right to adopt his father’s surname and titles, becoming Thomas Barrett-Lennard (more on that here). A portrait of Thomas Jr by John Opie hangs in the ERO Searchroom.

The Barrett-Lennard family lived at the mansion of Belhus in Aveley, which they built up into one of the largest estates in Essex. During Thomas’s tenure, he remodelled the house in the gothic style and employed Capability Brown to landscape the park and gardens.

The painting was loaned for The Family in British Art, a touring exhibition that visited Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, and the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle in 2011-12. The tour was part of the Great British Art Debate partnered with Tate Britain. It is currently stored at ERO, and is brought out for special occasions for public view. A high quality digital image is available, and anyone wishing to view the original can request for it to be brought out of storage.

Document of the Month, June 2015: Settlement examination of James Sutton, 1821

Our document of the month for June is a record of a man named James Sutton being questioned by Justices of the Peace trying to establish where he was entitled to claim poor relief (D/P 332/13/4).

James Sutton was attempting to claim poor relief in Rayleigh, but had not been born there. Under the laws of settlement, if it could be proved that a person claiming relief was legally the responsibility of another parish then they could be removed to that place. Settlement examinations often contain a great deal of biographical information about the poor, and there are thousands of them in our collections.

What is notable about this particular examination is that James Sutton gave no information about his place of settlement but stated that he had served for seven years and six months in the 54th Foot and had been wounded in the left arm at the Battle of Waterloo. He continued to serve until 1820 when he was discharged.

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He stated that had been awarded a medal for his service but not a pension as he had volunteered from the East Middlesex Militia and had served less than 14 years with the 54th Regiment, and that this meant that he was not entitled to a pension. The Waterloo Medal was the first time a medal was awarded to all ranks (although we cannot find a James Sutton of the 54th Foot on the Waterloo Medal Roll).

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2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, which saw the decisive defeat of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the French. Within a few days Napoleon had abdicated and by the end of the year was in exile on St. Helena.

Waterloo brought to an end wars which had raged across Europe from the 1790s.  Approximately 15,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded in the battle, with another 7,000 Prussian and between 20 and 24,000 French casualties. Nearly 50 years of peace followed in Europe, which was brought to an end by the Crimean War in 1853 when Britain and France fought as allies.

This document will be on display in the ERO Searchroom throughout June 2015.

What is a manor and what are manorial records?

Ahead of Essex through the ages: tracing the past using manorial records on Saturday 12 July, we begin a manorial mini-series exploring what these fascinating documents can tell us about Essex in the past. In this first post Archivist Katharine Schofield writes for us about what a manor actually was…

A manor was essentially a unit of land.  Manors were at the heart of the post-Norman Conquest feudal system whereby all land was owned by the King.  He rewarded his followers (or tenants-in-chief) by giving them land which they held in return for military service to the King.  They in turn rewarded their followers (or tenants) on the same basis.  At the bottom of the structure was the knight’s fee, the amount of land considered sufficient to finance the service of one knight.  Domesday Book, produced in 1086, shows the beginnings of this system and is arranged by manors rather than towns or villages.  It is for this reason that a number of places appear in it more than once.

Manors and parishes rarely coincided.  Domesday Book, for example, records three manors in the parish of Takeley, owned by Eudo Dapifer [the steward], Robert Gernon and the Priory of St. Valéry in Picardy.  By the time that the Revd. Philip Morant wrote The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex in 1768 there were four manors in the parish – Waltham Hall, Colchester Hall, St. Valerys or Warish Hall and Bassingborns which could trace their ownership back to the three Domesday manors.  Manors could also have land in a number of different parishes; for example, records of the manor of Berechurch or West Donyland in Colchester included property in Old Heath and on East Hill and St. John’s Green, all in other parishes.

The lord of the manor owned everything in and of the manor – the crops, animals, mineral, hunting and fishing rights and also the tenants, who could be bought and sold and who owed days of labour and items of produce to the lord.  The lord would either keep the land and farm it using the labour of his tenants or he would rent the land, retaining jurisdiction over it.

Among the earliest deeds in the Essex Record Office are a small number of early 13th century grants where named individuals, with their belongings and descendants, or chattels and issue [catallis et sequela – underlined in red below]), are sold or exchanged for land.

Grant by Thoby Priory of William le Beggere to Barking Abbey, c.1202-1201 (D/DP T1/1582). William had originally been purchased by the Priory from Robert de Saincler. In return for this grant, the abbey gave the priory land in Mountnessing.

 

As tenants were considered part of the property, the lord was also entitled to customary dues which would be paid as compensation for the loss of income that the tenant or members of his family would bring.  These included payments which were required when a son was sent to school or entered holy orders, as well as ‘merchet’ which was paid when a daughter married and ‘chevage’ paid to live the outside the manor.

The territorial rights of the lord over the tenants and their lands were enforced in the manorial court – the court baron.  Some, but not all, manorial lords also had jurisdiction over minor criminal matters in the court leet.

The rights of manorial lords did not change significantly over the centuries, but the nature of the manor did.  Some rights ceased to be exercised and others became more important.  It is estimated that the Black Death of 1348-1349 killed around a third of the national population and possibly as much as half of the population of East Anglia.  This ultimately led to lords being unable to find tenants willing to work the land as they had done previously, and the labour dues of tenants being commuted to rents or quit rents.  This, in turn, meant that records which commonly appeared in the early Middle Ages disappeared to be replaced with rentals.  Similarly by the 18th century the business of the manorial courts was mostly taken up with the admission and surrender of land by copyhold tenants.

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Manorial survey of Castle Hedingham by Israel Amyce, 1592. This survey book includes written descriptions of pieces of land illustrated with maps. (D/DMh M1)

The Manorial Documents Register (MDR) was established in 1926, the year after manorial landholding (copyhold) was abolished, to record the location of documents and ensure that they could be traced if they were required for legal purposes.  The two main types of manorial records listed by the MDR are:

  • Court records – court rolls, later books, estreat and suit rolls, stewards’ papers, admissions and surrenders
  • Assessment of land and financial records – surveys, extents, custumals, accounts (or compoti), rentals, and quit rents

As well as the records listed by the MDR, the Essex Record Office holds many deeds of copyhold properties and of the manors themselves.  Manorial titles remain and still retain some rights, including the extraction of minerals and fishing and any remaining rights must have been registered with the Land Registry before October 2013 if a lord intends to continue enforcing them.

Over the last few years, the ERO has been contributing to a major update to the Manorial Documents Register, improving the catalogue and getting information online to make these useful and fascinating documents more available to researchers. Even if you don’t want to attempt reading the earlier Latin documents, from 1733 they were kept in English, so there may well be information contained within them of interest to your research in family history, house history, or local history. Essex through the ages on 12 July marks the completion of our contribution to the project, and celebrates the improved accessibility of these records for researchers.

Whether you are interested in using manorial records in your own research, or just want to enjoy hearing experts talk about them, join us for Essex through the ages: tracing the past using manorial records on Saturday 12 July 2014 to find out how you can discover centuries of Essex life using these fascinating documents. There are more details, including how to book, here.

‘Mistress Elizabeth Slany’s Book of Receipts &ca’

Our recipes series is back! We had a little break in transmission while we prepared for and then recovered from our Heritage Open Day, but we’ve plenty more recipes from the archives to share with you.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve become rather hooked on the BBC’s Great British Bake Off, and it really brings home to you the knowledge and skills that you need to be a really successful baker. 

It must have been even more challenging, then, with no refrigerators to keep your ingredients fresh, and no easy switch to flick to turn on your oven to the desired temperature. This makes the elaborate recipes we find in the archives even more amazing. 

One of the most extensive recipe books in the ERO belonged to Elizabeth Slany, who began recording her recipes in 1715. Elizabeth was born near Worcester, and in 1723 she married Benjamin LeHook, a factor (or agent) in the City of London.

 Title page of Elizabeth Slany's recipe book 

As mistress, Elizabeth would have been responsible for the running of the household, and the health of its members. Her book suggests that she embraced this challenge with gusto; not only does it include sections on meat and fish, pies, pastries, cakes, sweets, preserves, pickles, cordials and wines, it also includes medicines, salves and ointments. All of these recipes were carefully indexed at the back of the book.

Index in Elizabeth' Slany's book of receipts

Eighteenth-century food (at least for those with a substantial income) was rich and elaborate, and required a great deal of preparation. Dishes – savoury and sweet – tended to be heavily flavoured to disguise the flavour of tainted meat or butter. 

Caraway seeds, almonds, mace, cloves and other spices were frequently used to flavour cakes, as evidenced in these recipes fromElizabeth’s book:

Cake recipes in Elizabeth Slany's book 

To Make Good Cakes

Take a pound of fine flower & a pound of fine sugar and some carraway seeds beaten then take 7 yolks of eggs & 3 whites & mix them altogether with your flower & then put them in a stone mortar & beat it well then butter your moulds well or they will stick fill them about 3 parts full and put them in the oven & let them stand till they are enough if you please you may put in more currans.

To make a Good Seed Cake

Take 5 pound of flower put 2 pound & better of sweet butter when it is well rub’d in put to it at least a pint & ½ of the best ale yest [yeast] 6 spoonfulls of cream 4 or 5 spoonfulls of sack [a type of white wine] 6 eggs & 3 whites well beaten with this all mixt together which will make it much thinner than dough & after it is well kneaded & mixt with your hands cover it with a clean cloth & let it lie before the fire ¾ of an hour in which time your oven must be ready hot then take it up & work into it a pound & a ½ of carraway comfitts &1/2 a pound of fine sugar & butter your tin pan & put it down close all round & set it in. An hour & ½ will bake it.

To make a Plumb Cake

Take 4 pound of flower and 4 pound of currans ½ a pint of sack plump the currans then take a quart of ale yest ¾ of a pound of sugar 10 eggs & half the whites a little nutmeg mace & cinnamon & a few cloves a pound of almonds blanch’t & beaten fine orange flower water a quart of cream boyl’d + when you take it of the fire put a pound of fresh butter in it heit [heat] till it is blood warm then mix the spices currans & a little salt with the flower then put in yest almonds cream eggs & mix them with a spoon then set it rising you may put in some musk & ambergrease [a waxy substance that originates in the intestines of the sperm whale, with a pleasant smell, which is also used in perfumery]your oven must be very quick and you must put it in a hoop an hour or a little more will bake it your bottom must be paper.

Note that the plumb cake mixture should be heated until ‘blood warm’ (and also that it doesn’t include any plums!). 

Elizabeth lived to the grand age of 93, dying in 1786. Her eldest daughter Elizabeth LeHook married Samuel Wegg, who was the son of George Wegg ofColchester, a merchant tailor and town councillor. It was through the Wegg family that the book came toEssexand ultimately to the ERO. 

The book is catalogued as D/DR Z1, and you can view images of the entire book here by the magic of Seax. Let us know if you try out any of the recipes! 

See also: ‘Mistress Elizabeth Slany’s Book of Recipes’, Daphne Smith, Essex Countryside, Feb 1966, vol. 14 – in ERO Library