Willow Cottage

Willow Cottage Curtis Mill Green A Short History (March 1990) The Manor of Stapleford Abbotts was held by For those of you who drove up, it is on record in the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds before the 1583 that the roads "may always have been Norman Conquest. It was recorded in the poor in this part of the parish, where the woods Abbey's registers that one night in 1013 the Lord of Curtis Mill Green form a barrier", and there of the Manor of Stapleford was miraculously was also a report that the road from Brentwood cured of a lingering illness by the presence of through Navestock to Epping was blocked by the body of St Edmund on its way back to Bury Curtins Mill Gate which was the only defence for Abbey from London, and that in return to his cattle commoning on that part of the forest. The recovery he granted the Manor to the Abbey old London Road ran through this area -- traces forever. Records suggest that the Abbey owned are still obvious -- and down it trundled the the Manor in 1066, at which time it was worth 45 haywains on their way to the big city. In the days shillings! The Manor and Parish were then of Henry VIII all the men and boys of each known as Stapleford Abbotts. The main parish was supposed to set aside one day in the Stapleford probably derives from the logs or year for repair of the roads. As far as we know "stepples" which were placed to afford the river this law was not enforced. Twenty years ago Roding. The bridge, known as Pont de that the road to Lodge Farm was laid by Peter Pissingford in 1297, is on early maps as Balcombe and continued by the Williams with Pissingford Bridge, and the Green is variously help from friends. Hundreds of tons of rubble Curtins Mill, Kirtons Mill, Curling Mill or Curtmill. were used, including the old Passingford Bridge. The Mill was reputed to have been owned by The coaching inn at the bottom of the Green, the Geoffrey Curtis in the 13th century. Several of Talbot, was used by travellers from Chipping the watermills in the district no longer exist, the Ongar to Aldgate. It's now a private house, but exception being Twynehams at Passingford the bar is still in the sitting room! Bridge, still a working mill today. There were boundaries from earliest times over which the In January 1617, James I demised the Manor, villagers dare not stray. They were the forest with all its lands, rents and profits to Sir Francis borders in the days when the forest of Essex Bacon for a term of 99 years, and in 1650 was a cohesive whole, and the actual extent of Charles II mortgaged Stapleford Abbotts for that part of it are called Waltham Forest had to £4000. By 1654 Sir Robert Abdy was created be particularly delineated because it reserved to first baronet of Albyns in the Manor of Stapleford the King for his hunting and his recreation. Two Abbotts and here the history of the Green begins old marker stones called the Richard Stone and to involve Willow cottage, for a later Sir Robert the Navestock Stone were laid in the 18th Abdy's name is on the insurance policy for 1925! century and showed the line between King and We know that some timber framed cottages commoner in the woods at Curtis Mill Green. were built on the Albyns Estate in 1660 or The Navestock Stone was found by H. Burdon, thereabouts, and the cottage may have been who wrote in 1905: "We found the stone deep in one of these. Last year in March it was a ditch embankment at the rear of a row of inspected and dated circa 1660/66. The beams quaint cottages on the outskirts of Curtis Mill and whole framework is original, and the way Woods. From this point we followed the pretty the cross beams are set gives a fairly accurate broken piece of woodland down an open glade indication of the date. In those days, some in which we found the Richard Stone lying cottages, like boats, were built with green oak, prostrate." You can still see these stones today. and had to be finished by a given date, so the framework was put up and the building locked firmly together as it dried out. Willow Cottage was probably built for two families, and the whose rights were not registered at this time staircase divided halfway up into two sections. have lost them, as the registers are now closed. The large beam between the two bedrooms had Most of the residents in the early part of this at some time been cut to form a doorway and century were farm workers on the Albyns estate, resulted in that part of the building leaning or Suttons. There were allotments on the site of outwards. In a reference book this charming 40 Acre Farm, and produce was taken to description could apply today: "The labouring Romford Market by horse and cart. Mr. Shead part of the population lives in pleasant cottages from Glade End Cottage took eggs and generally at a considerable distance from each vegetables into Romford this way until the other and there is everywhere and appearance 1950s. Carters would bring groceries from of health and cheerfulness." The surprisingly Abridge, eggs were thirteen for a shilling, and a large gardens surrounding old cottages may supply of little iced biscuits was kept to give to have been the result of planting two hedges, the children. In winter, barrels of beer were cutting down the inner one after a few years, brought up by sledge to the Harrow, a tiny and planting a second hedge outside the beerhouse at the top of the Green. Some of existing one! these were half barrels, the front half with the tap contained beer, but in the back were So what was England like in 1660?... Charles II poached rabbits and pheasant. A friendly was on the throne, and after years of austerity policeman would turn a blind eye, saying to the came the restoration of the nobles and gentry to poacher, "Tell the landlord my helmet's on the their hereditary place as leaders of local and back window ledge and a pint of beer would be national life. The plague, which had reached poured in! England from the Far East three centuries earlier and was known as the Black Death, had After the First World War, people would come remained in the soil and broke out occasionally out from London at the weekend to set up their mainly in ports and riversides and where the tents on Curtis Mill Green. White, green, blue flea-bearing rats multiplied. The outbreak in and red, the whole area was covered as far as 1665 was the last, but not the worst that London you could see with tents, like an army had known. East Anglia suffered very severely in encampment. Gear was left in a shed rented this last outbreak. The Great Fire the following from one of the cottagers for sixpence a week. year raged for five days, and destroyed the The visitors spent the weekend swimming in the whole city between the Tower and the Temple. river, hiking, cooking on Primus stoves, singing So, the new buildings began to be of brick, and far into the night, playing gramophones and the wooden houses and cottages, whose straw piano accordions. Buses ran from Victoria to and cloth hangings harboured infected fleas and Abridge, and Hillman's coaches, based where rats, were replaced by more sophisticated the aerodrome now is, ran special services from carpets and panelling. Abridge to Passingford Bridge. Johnny Triggs and his wife Bertha came down on their tandem In the course of the next two centuries, very little with a sidecar full of sweets, Soapy Reynolds changed on the Green, the residents had their had a tea and cake stall, paraffin was delivered common rights to graze animals and cut wood, to the visitors and residents and the children these rights being passed on from father to son. picked up all the empties to collect ha'pennies. One would have seen at this time grazing cattle This idyllic weekending came to a stop in 1934, and pigs, which ate the undergrowth, and kept when the residents noticed that their tea tasted the forest glades open. These common rights of soap, and realise that the visitors were which most of the residents still possess, had to washing in the world which supplied them with be registered in 1966, and the long complex water! The notice prohibiting camping went up at procedure began. This involved many interviews the bottom of the Green and the Council took with older residents, much reading up of over the lower end as Lords of the Manor, while pamphlets, many, many letters flying between here at the Willow Cottage end, our Lord of the Chelmsford and Curtis Mill Green until it was all Manor is Sir John Spencer-Smith. made legal in 1979. In 1938, the News Chronicle published an article Our rights now include raising of cattle, horses, headed "Off the Map parish has no road to cutting down the trees of certain thickness and it"..."This most inaccessible parish is only 20 the gathering of dead wood. Any commoners miles from London, the cab driver who took me there had never heard of it, but the postmistress children to the gates which he opened for the at Stapleford drew a map for us.

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