Loughton, Essex: A brief account of the Manor and Parish

by William Chapman Waller

It was in this century that the Abbot got into trouble for erecting a windmill in the Forest. Though, so far as I know, all memory of the mill’s existence has passed away, we are still able to say where it stood. In 1739 the hill near The Warren (Mr. McKenzie’s) was still known as Mill Hill and as such it appears in Chapman’s map in 1772. That there was in the parish a water-mill, belonging to P. de Valoines, we know from Domesday Book, and evidence of its existence is still to be seen about Loughton Bridge. Needless to say that there were quarrels about the water with the great de Veres, Earls of Oxford, who then owned Wolston Hall, and had a mill there; but these disputes were amicably arranged in 1273, after a bit of a riot, when certain men came to the Abbot’s bridge and mill-pond, broke both down, and carried off the timber of the bridge. The bridge was then called ‘Hynekesford Bridge,’ a name which never re-appears.

The Peasants’ Rising.

Of the effects of the Peasant Rising and the Lollard movement during the latter half of the 14th century we have no evidence in our own parish, but the beginning of the 15th was turbulent, and our predecessors caught the infection. Some of them took to cutting down the trees and underwood of the Abbot, and then conspired to kill the Abbot and his servants. On the Sunday about St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1410, they broke into the Abbey, insulted the Abbot and Sheriff, and struck the latter. Moreover, they broke down the bridges used by the whole country-side. As is so often and so vexatiously the case, the story can only be imperfectly pieced together from scanty materials, and in this case a quaint Norman-French petition for mercy, with a schedule attached, is our principal authority. It is pleasant to know that the pardon sought was granted. From the number of the rioters and the names of those given, it looks as though the Abbey tenants were dissatisfied with some action on the part of the Abbot, and took, as was not by any means unusual in those days, violent means to express their views and get redress for their grievances.

Alien Immigration in the 15th Century.

The tax-rolls which helped us in the 14th are defective in the 15th century, and the only detail of interest, such as it is, that one could glean from them was that, in 1442, one Peter, a Frenchman, kept an inn in our village, and, being a foreigner and an innkeeper, had to pay a poll-tax of 8d. every half-year. The trade seems to have been largely in foreign hands, for other foreigners are reported at Theydon, Stapleford, Lambourne, and Fyfield. Foreign servants there were, too, here and at Chigwell, Navestock, and Epping.

The Reformation.

We now enter on the period of upheaval which marked the 16th century. From the Conquest down to the reign of the eighth Henry the Abbots of Waltham had held quiet possession of Loughton. Twice a year, perhaps oftener, during something like five hundred years, a cavalcade, in the coarse of its progress from manor to manor, had come to Loughton Hall, tenanted by the ‘farmer,’ as he was called—lessee, as we should style him. There the Cellarer, Steward, and Receivers of the Monastery, with their servants and horses, were entertained for two days, while they held the Court of the Manor. At this Court transfers of the copyhold estates were effected; offenders were fined, whether for offences against the manor or the customs of the Forest; small criminal matters and civil disputes were settled: and nuisances were ordered to be abated. It is probable that such a Court held in April, 1539, was the last the Abbots ever held, and, at it, we learn, the question of a pillory and cucking-stool was raised. The latter was a low car on two wheels, for ducking a culprit in pond or river. The instruments were again lacking in 1582.

On March 3rd. 1540, the Abbot and Canons resigned all their possessions into the King’s hand, and Loughton became a royal manor. Things probably went on much the same for a time. The lease of the ‘farmer’ was confirmed, and he paid to the Kings Treasurer his annual rent of £46, less certain outgoings, including the repair of the water mill; and other tenants of the manor did the same. For Hatfields Henry Mynce paid £2 14s. 8d. Included in the various rents are 34 hens, valued at 2d. each. These hens, handed down as we have seen, from very early times, were sometimes called ‘smoke hens,’ just as we read of ‘smoke-silver.’ And it is probable that they were originally something in the nature of a hearth-tax. It is particularly interesting to note that the England family—from whom England’s Lane has its name—paid two hens and a cock so late as 1675, just as five hundred years earlier our friend John Pyrle paid the same rent for the same freehold land.

For a brief period during the reign of Edward VI. the manor ceased to be royal; but Lord Darcy held it for little more than a year, and it was then given to Princess Mary. She, however, about two months afterwards became Queen, and by her the manor was incorporated into the Duchy of Lancaster, with the accounts of which it is always thenceforth associated. It will be convenient here to trace in outline the subsequent descent of the property.

John Stonard, the lessee under the last Abbot, left a son Robert, who secured a fresh long lease. To him in turn, a son John succeeded, and his daughter and heiress Susan, married the eldest son of Sir Thomas Wroth, of Enfield. Old John Stonard, a wealthy man, bought Luxborough in Chigwell, where he built a good house. On his death. Sir Robert Wroth and Susan, his wife, entered into the inheritance. To them succeeded their eldest son, also Sir Robert, and he, in 1613, bought the fee-simple of Loughton manor from King James I. In his time there were gay doings at Loughton Hall, which he rebuilt, and where he entertained, as Ben Johnson tell us, all sorts and conditions of men.