BRENTWOOD (28Th JULY 2012)

BRENTWOOD (28th JULY 2012) INTRODUCTION The end of July 2012 saw a busy 24 hours for me, as I mixed sports with religion, but not at the same time. I had already planned a Saturday visit to Brentwood, but a belated decision took me off to Maldon on the Friday night to the football. At that time I was quite friendly with the parents of current first teamer at Colchester United, Alex Gilbey, who then was a member of their Under 18’s youth team, and on a few occasions, I managed to get lifts to away games. Now I had a thought, that I might get a lift, but to keep the story short, his dad, Scott, when I rang was on a train back from London to North Station, and I was told, if I could get to Nat West Lexden, in about 30 minutes, I could have a lift, it was a breathless me who just about made it, and a lift was secured. Coincidentally Colchester won the match 2-1. Part two of the story, was that Colchester had another match the next day in Brentwood, he said that I could have a lift back, but not there, as he had some building work to do in the morning. Hence i have a story to tell, about my morning there in the town. THE JOURNEY DOWN From what I can recall, I had never been to Brentwood, I had been around it on the A12, I had been through it, when going to girls football match in Brentwood, and further down in Aveley. We had driven in part of the main road in, but had then branched off, I had even been through it on a train, but this I thought, was my first ever actually visit. As is my custom, I wanted to make a day of it. First a visit to the town, then a walk to the Football ground, which was near to the Brentwood Leisure Centre. It was a bus leave from home about 730, two buses to North Station, then a train to Shenfield, and the local service train to Brentwood. As usual I did a map, but when you do a map, and there is an exit out of a railway station, you are never too sure, whether it be left or right, I went right, thought after a while, I was wrong, went back, asked someone, and my first thoughts were right, it was about a five minutes’ walk to the main street, and I elected to give Subway a miss, and having checked, where there was an M & S, I thought I would cash in one of my M & S coffee vouchers. However to my dismay, Brentwood M & S did not have a café inside it, so I had to go back to Subway, for a coffee and a sub roll. I then made a walk down the main street, it really was the only main street that I saw, but there were a fair number of shops and I set about looking in these. MEMORABLE PLACES For some reason, there was something, I not sure what know, but I believe it was a Robert Dyas shop I went inside and bought some household goods. - 2 - Now I asked the shop assistant, were there any famous places to see in the town, the answer I got was that next door was the Sugar Hut”, which was featured on the TV programme, the only way is Essex, and a pub across the road was owned by a celebrity. The more interesting thing that I had seen was a church across the road, now that was more to my liking, but before I tell you more of my tale, It would be interesting to give an account, shown on Wikipedia, about the town of Brentwood. How my morning was to be in the town follows later. HISTORY OF THE TOWN Brentwood is a town and the principal settlement of the Borough of Brentwood, in the county of Essex in the east of England. It is located in the London commuter belt, 20 miles (30 km) east north-east of Charing Cross, and near the M25 motorway. Brentwood is an affluent suburban town with a small but expanding shopping area and high street. Beyond this is extensive sprawling residential development entirely surrounded by open countryside and woodland; some penetrating to within only a few hundred yards of the town centre. Brentwood is twinned with Roth (since August 1978) and Montbazon (since March 1994) respectively in Germany and France. The name was assumed by antiquaries in the 1700s to derive from a corruption of the words 'burnt' and 'wood', with the name Burntwood still visible on some 18th century maps. However, "brent" was the middle English for "burnt". The name describes the presumed reason for settlement in the part of the Forest of Essex (later Epping Forest) that would have covered the area, where the main occupation was charcoal burning. An alternative meaning of "brent" is "holy one", which could refer to the chapel dedicated to Thomas Becket, for the use of pilgrims to Canterbury. Early history Although a Bronze Age axe has been found in Brentwood and there are clear signs of an entrenched encampment in Weald Country Park it is considered unlikely that there was any significant early settlement of the area which was originally covered by the Great Forest covering most of Essex at that time. Rather it is believed that despite the Roman road between London and Colchester passing through, the Saxons were the earliest settlers of the area. Robert Graves, in his book I, Claudius, refers to Brentwood as the site of the battle where Claudius defeated the Ancient Britons in 44 AD. However, Graves also states that names and places in the book are sometimes fictitious. - 3 - The ruins of the Chapel of Thomas Becket in the town centre The borough began as a small clearing in the middle of a dense forest, created by fire, giving it the name of Burntwood, or 'the place where the wood was burned'. People began to settle there and, because it was on the crossroads of the old Roman road from Colchester to London and the route the pilgrims took over the River Thames to Canterbury, it grew into a small town. A chapel was built in or around 1221, and in 1227 a market charter was granted. The new township, occupying the highest ground in the parish, lay at the junction of the main London- Colchester road with the Ongar-Tilbury road. Its growth may have been stimulated by the cult of St. Thomas the Martyr, to whom the chapel was dedicated: the 12th century ruin of Thomas Becket Chapel was a popular stopping point for pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. The ruin stands in the centre of the High Street, next to the tourist information office, and the nearby parish church of Brentwood retains the dedication to St. Thomas of Canterbury. Pilgrims Hatch, or 'Pilgrims' gate', was probably named from pilgrims who crossed through on their way to the chapel. It is likely, however, that Brentwood's development was due chiefly to its main road position, its market, and its convenient location as an administrative centre. Early industries were connected mainly with textile and garment making, brewing, and brickmaking. During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, Brentwood was the meeting place for some of the instigators, such as John Ball and Jack Straw. They, apparently, met regularly in local pubs and inns. The first event of the Peasants' Revolt occurred in Brentwood, when men from Fobbing, Corringham and Stanford were summoned by the commissioner Thomas Bampton to Brentwood to answer as to who had avoided paying the poll tax. Bampton insisted that the peasants pay what was demanded of them. The peasants refused to pay and a riot ensued as Bampton attempted to arrest the peasants. The peasants moved to kill Bampton, but he managed to escape to London. The rioters then, fearing the repercussions of what they had done fled into the forest. After the event, the peasants sent word to the rest of the country and initiated the Peasants' Revolt. The Essex assizes were sometimes held here, as well as at Chelmsford. One such pub was The White Hart (now a nightclub called Sugar Hut Village and showing little of its original historic interest), which is one of the oldest buildings in Brentwood; it is believed to have been built in 1480 although apocryphal evidence suggests a hostelry might have stood on the site as much as a hundred years earlier and been visited in 1392 by Richard II, whose coat of arms included a white hart. - 4 - The ground floor was originally stabling and in the mid-1700s the owners ran their own coach service to London. On 13 September 2009, the building and roof suffered significant damage during a fire. Marygreen Manor, a handsome 16th century building on London Road, is mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diaries and is said to have been often visited by the Tudor monarch Henry VIII when Henry Roper, Gentleman Pursuant to Queen Catherine of Aragon, lived there in 1514. It is now a hotel and restaurant. In 1686, Brentwood's inns were estimated to provide 110 beds and stabling for 183 horses. There were 11 inns in the town in 1788. William Hunter monument at Wilson's Corner Protestant martyr William Hunter was burnt at the stake in Brentwood in 1555. A monument to him was erected by subscription in 1861 at Wilson's Corner.

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