FHS Report April 24: “If these walls could speak” (My 600 year old house).

FHS Report - April 2024.  Roger Green:

“If these walls could speak” (The history of my 600 year old house).

There was a full house on 9th April when local historian Roger Green led us all back in time some 600 years to accompany him from the Market Hill, Sudbury down what was to become Friars Street to a group of houses built opposite the Priory. His house No 64 was called Crooked Cott before Friars Street was actually built. The roadway (now School Street) stopped there by the gate to the Priory and there is still a generous forecourt for carts and carriages - and now cars - to turn. 

Roger Green has lived there for 41 years. The modern-day group of houses often linked into each other as ownership changed over the centuries. A spiral staircase from next door actually now ends in Roger Green's wardrobe! Three of the houses now have rear extensions but two do not! 

Roger took us back to C16 and Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. He noted that the last Prior had sold off land at that time and received housing in lieu, probably Nos 62 & 64. 

Starting with John Cotton the last Prior, Roger led us through a whole range of owners and residents to the present day; From the C16 when the Ruddells family owned almost all the houses in that row. They were in the wool trade and in the 1620s they had an office in Friars Street which was then being constructed. But in 1637 George Ruddell lost a court case for refusing to pay a local weaver for substandard work (in his view) and the blow to his reputation led to a move to Bocking in Essex - and the eventual resurgence of the family as the best weavers in that locality, and the purchase of magnificent Spains Hall in Finchingfield in 1760.

We heard of Susannah Gainsborough (Thomas’s sister) who had a milliner’s shop there.  Also about the Gardiners, the story of Theophilus Lane and the Hills family - all of whom lived in the row of houses. And a clay pipe manufactory which was unearthed in the garden!

Roger Green concluded with the tale of  barge folk and the mystery of Elizabeth Sarah Ann Plantin? or Norman?

There was much to keep the large audience entertained. A fascinating trip back in time. The walk down Friars Street past the cricket ground to the site of the Ship & Star pub will never be the same again.

An accomplished Musician, Organist and Head of the music department at Great Cornard school, Roger remembered St Peter's church with its organ becoming redundant in 1971, and facing possible demolition in favour of a car park. As volunteer Heritage officer with Friends of St Peters he has been credited with helping transform the church into our current vibrant and cherished Arts centre. His interest in the history of the church, younger than his house, led him into further research of the area, his house and others nearby. He still plays the organ in St Peter’s church. 

Our thanks for a most entertaining talk.

Michael Stebbing.

FHS Report March 2024 AGM & Talk: ‘An Election Entertainment’ by Stephen Astley

FDLHS. - Report for Parish News Tuesday 12th March AGM. &

 ‘An Election Entertainment’ by FDLHS. member - Stephen Astley 

Foxearth & District Local History Society held its A.G.M. on Tuesday 12th March.

2023-4 was another successful and interesting year with increasing numbers of both Members and Visitors. The committee was re-elected, and Keith Robson was chosen as our new Chairman.

Following a break with refreshments, Stephen Astley, ex-curator at Sir John Soane's Museum, spoke about William Hogarth’s sequence of four paintings (also reproduced later as a series of prints): ’’.  As the UK has an imminent General Election, he felt it a good time to look at the series.

The paintings illustrate the 1754 election of an MP in Oxfordshire. Hogarth mercilessly satirises the process of a Parliamentary election, with candidates vying for the votes of the easily duped electorate - which is desperate to be bribed. There had not been an election there since 1710.

The series demonstrates the corruption endemic in parliamentary elections before the 1832 Great Reform Act. Then, each constituency elected two MPs, and there was a property qualification for voters, so only a minority of the male population was enfranchised. Without secret ballots, bribery and intimidation were rife. Stephen pointed out and explained details and characters in each painting. 

The first painting ‘An Election Entertainment’ depicts a tavern dinner organised by the Whig candidates, while the Tories protest outside. 

In the tavern the two Whig candidates are ingratiating themselves with supporters. One candidate is kissing a conventionally unattractive woman, while a girl tries to steal his ring; the other is listening to a drunken bore. At the other end of the table the mayor is collapsing from over indulgence in oysters, while the election agent is knocked out by a brick thrown through the window by the Tory mob.

‘Canvassing for Votes’, The second painting depicts Tory and Whig agents, both attempting to bribe an innkeeper to vote for them. The crowd outside the tavern is visible in the background.

‘The Polling’, shows voters declaring their support for the Whigs (orange) or Tories (blue). Agents from both sides are using unscrupulous tactics to increase their votes or challenge opposing voters. Even a dying man is being carried to vote. In the background is a woman in a carriage with a broken axle (Britannia). 

‘Chairing the Member’, last in the series, shows the celebrations of and their supporters carrying the victorious Tory candidate through the streets on a chair in a traditional ceremony. He is about to tumble because one of his carriers has just been accidentally hit on the head by a Tory-supporting rural labourer who is attempting to fight off a Whig supporter.

The many now unacceptable practices now seem unlikely but still amusing.  We reflected how far our democracy has progressed and counted our blessings. Of course, such corruption does not feature in today's UK elections!  And at least we are not in Russia…

FDLHS Talk May 2023: The History and Conservation of the Sudbury Common Lands

 FDLHS May 2023 - Nick Shimwell and Jack Creswell

The History and Conservation of the Sudbury Common Lands

Nick Shimwell and Jack Creswell’s natural habitat is the Sudbury Common Lands, the 46 hectares that provide a green lung stopping the westward sprawl of the town. You may have spotted them in the wild, wearing their distinctive green ranger’s uniform. They came indoors to speak to a well-attended meeting of the FDLHS at Foxearth Village Hall.

Sensibly, Nick and Jack started by explaining what a “common” is and helped dispel the myth that commons are owned by the public. There are over 8,000 of them scattered across England. A defining feature is the “rights of common”, which give third parties the legal right to do something on the land, which is owned by a private individual or body such as the National Trust or local council. In Sudbury, the right is to “pasturage” (to put livestock out to feed on the grass) over the five water meadows to the west of the town, but on other commons rights can include for example “pannage” (right to put pigs out to feed in woodland) and “piscary” (right to take fish from ponds, lakes, rivers and streams).

It is the Sudbury Freemen who have pasturage rights over the Sudbury Common Lands – or to be exact, the right “to depasture two head of cattle on the Common Lands, and widows or widowers of Freemen one head of cattle”. If you fancy becoming a Freeman you are out of luck unless you are the adult child or grandchild of a Sudbury Freeman or have been apprenticed to a Sudbury Freeman (in which case, you can take up your rights by applying to Sudbury Town Council). These days, none of the Sudbury Freeman own cattle. The Sudbury Common Lands Charity was established in 1897 to be the custodian of the Common Lands, and trustees contract with a farmer to graze their cattle on the water meadows. The charity pays £4 a year to each Freeman for use of their rights. A “turning on” ceremony is held every five years, attended by the Freemen and Mayor of Sudbury in their regalia, with the Mayor invited to sample the sward. As Nick and Jack explained, this doesn’t have to involve actually eating the grass though some Mayors have chosen to do so.

Over recent decades, the cattle breeds have changed from South Devons and Highland cattle, to Simmentals and Limousins. Their grazing is vital to achieving biodiversity, eating down and churning the pasture just enough to allow wild flowers to flourish, including what Nick and Jack called the “star plant”, the Tubular Water-dropwort. Ditches were reformed in 1993, designed to retain still water for wildlife to create an additional type of aquatic habitat in contrast to the flowing Stour. Trees have been planted, the willows pollarded every 2-3 years.

The Charity is also contracted to manage the Valley Trail, now an important “biological corridor” for 2½ miles from Kingfisher Leisure Centre to Melford Country Park. Dr Beeching’s closure of the railway in 1967 has been a boon to bats and rare flora including the Deptford pink, which is found in only 15 sites across East Anglia. Nick and Jack also work on the ancient and reclaimed woodland of the Great Cornard Country Park, which provides different habitat for wildlife, including bluebells and bea orchids.

We’re fortunate to live surrounded by so much countryside along the Stour Valley but modern farming practices over the last 80 years, though taking great strides in improving productivity, have often had a negative impact on biodiversity. The work that Nick and Jack do provides a small remedy.

Andrew Le Sueur

FHS Feb 24: A Millennium of Mills and Milling

FDLHS - Report - February 2024

Robin Drury -  A Millennium of Mills and Milling – A Potted History of Windmills and Watermills

Mr Drury’s talk on mills was tightly focused geographically on Sudbury. His time span was enormous, from before the Romans to the demise of the local mill in the late nineteenth century. He showed how a few brand names only survive until today, and then only as a result of diversification.

Robin revealed a remarkably equidistant distribution of the mills along the Stour, which he attributed their use of Roman weirs built to improve navigability on a notoriously shallow river. It would be interesting to see this thesis tested by comparison of mills on other rivers. Almost all of the mills discussed were recorded in the Domesday Book.

These local watermills suffered a variety of fates. A few have been demolished. Others still have commercial uses such as the Mill Hotel in Sudbury. Most have been turned into homes, some with sensitivity toward the historic buildings, others less so. Some had famous residents ranging from the poet Edmund Blunden at Hall Mill, Long Melford, to Derek Taylor, publicist to the ‘Fab Four’ and one of the many called the ‘fifth Beatle’, at Brundon Mill.

A sadly all too short part of the talk covered wind mills, but astonished at the number in and around Sudbury. Mr Drury also explained the excellent but neglected late eighteenth century house at 48 North Street as having been the home of the owner of two windmills in Sudbury, one of which stood just across the road.

The end for these mills came suddenly when an East Anglian farmer’s son, John George Cranfield, went to Minneapolis, saw steam powered steel roller mills, and brought this new technology back in the 1880s to a mill on Ipswich docks. It was so efficient that to keep it running, cheap grain had to be imported from the wheat lands of North America.

Stephen Astley

FHS April 23: ‘The Soil Sisters’

FDHS  April meeting 2023

Nicky Reynolds: ‘The Soil Sisters’ - The Women’s Land Army in Suffolk 

Rat catching, farm labouring, and commercial logging are occupations that in normal times are dominated by men but twice in the twentieth century women from all social backgrounds stepped forward to do these types of work – during the Great War and the Second World War. In a meticulously researched and nicely illustrated talk to a good-sized audience, Nicky Reynolds shared her “obsession” with the history of the Women’s Land Army (WLA) in Suffolk.

Women, of course, have always played an important role in the countryside economy. On farms, women’s work tended to be seasonal (all hands needed for the harvest) and in aspects of dairy and poultry keeping. In 1916, with enemy U-boats disrupting food imports to the UK, the Ministry of Agriculture agreed to fund a new voluntary organisation to recruit women for emergency work on the land and so a “Land Army” was launched. Enticed by uplifting posters showing idealised images of farm work in sunny fields, 23,000 women signed up in the Great War and more than 80,000 in the Second World War. Though it caught the popular imagination, “Army” is a misnomer. While the workers were issued with uniforms, the WLA was a civilian not military organisation and the women were employed by individual farmers. Nicky illustrated her lecture with numerous slides showing Land Girls at work and off duty. The work was hard and the women were away from loved ones, but it’s clear that many experienced a sense of camaraderie. A structured training programme was available, with opportunities to progress to higher rates of pay as proficiency tests were passed.

Nicky’s talk concluded with an unsettling note: there was, she said, “no fairytale ending”. Too often women are not written into official histories and so it sadly proved for the Land Girls. It was not until 2008 that the contribution of members of the WLA and its sister organisation the Women’s Timber Corps, was formally recognised when the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) issued a badge of honour to the 45,000 surviving Land Girls and Lumber Jills. Some felt that this was too little too late. There is now a memorial statue at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. 

In conjunction with Suffolk Archives, Nicky and colleagues are fundraising for a permanent memorial to commemorate the WLA’s work in Suffolk. The project has already completed a digital roll of honour, tracking down some 1700 of the 2500 women who helped feed the country and ensure wood supplies for the war effort. This work is a brilliant example of “public history”, where through engaging with communities historians can help us reconstruct our local stories and sense of place in the world.  

Andrew Le Sueur

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS 2024

 

Recent Archaeological Excavations in Clare. Nov 2023 presentation.

Foxearth District Local History Society - Nov 2023 

Recent Archaeological Excavations in Clare - Joanna Caruth

“Archaeologists interpret a site as they dig it. And then they re-interpret it later as they mull” Joanna Caruth of Cotswold Archaeology told Foxearth History Society on 14 November. Her well attended talk demonstrated how the myriad of discoveries made over three seasons of excavation at Clare Castle both undermine old certainties and raise new uncertainties.

It had long been thought that the railway line driven through the southern part of the castle site had destroyed much of the archaeology. Ms Caruth showed that the excavations (2018, 2019 and 2021 – with 2020 lost to Covid) showed the opposite was true. Soil had been moved from the northern bailey to level the area by the river on which the station and tracks were built, sealing and preserving the archaeology.

The discovery of a major Anglo Saxon cemetery (with possibly up to a thousand burials) in the inner bailey raised further questions. Was this the Norman conquerors building their castle on the best site, over the town’s cemetery as a symbol of conquest as has previously been thought, or was the cemetery still in use by the priory established on the site by the Normans, and simply enfolded by one of the two castle baileys?

Satisfyingly much of the archaeology supports the written records which survive in large quantities, especially from the tenure of Elizabeth de Burgh in the 14th century, which was the castle's golden age. Finds of stained glass, hunting arrows and much equestrian equipment demonstrate the high status of the site. Pork was served a treat on Feast Days but the excavation of the kitchen s revealed an unusual number of bones from piglets, again showing the money spent on guests in this period.

Ms Caruth could not, without further excavations, provide all the answers but certainly left the audience with much to mull.

Stephen Astley

WITCHCRAFT in Essex and Suffolk. Oct. 2023 meeting

Foxearth & Distinct Local History Society - Tuesday 10th October

WITCHCRAFT in Essex and Suffolk - Professor Alison Rowlands 

Professor Alison Rowlands looked at the role played by the infamous witch-finders, Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, and the many local people who helped them, and explain why their witch-finding activities spread so quickly from north-east Essex into Suffolk, to make Suffolk the county worst affected in East Anglia 1645-1647. 

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Alison Rowlands, Professor of History at Essex University, had battled through gridlocked Colchester traffic to reach Foxearth. We were pleased to see the village hall packed as she gave us a fascinating account of the events of 1645-47, when the largest episode of ‘witch’ persecution in English history began in Essex and spread into Suffolk.

Civil war was raging in 1645, and in Manningtree there was a vacuum of authority after the rector left for London & the Lord of the Manor died. Personal grudges sparked accusations of witchcraft, which were investigated by self appointed ‘Witchfinders’ John Stearn and Matthew Hopkins. To discover a witch, evidence had to be found of magic-working, association with evil spirits, or having ‘familiars’ (demonic imps). Unusual marks on a body were seen as the ‘Devil’s mark’, from which familiars would suck the witches’ blood. “Harmful magic” was seen as ungodly and a capital offence.

Eighty years old and one legged, Manningtree’s Elizabeth Clarke was the first person accused. After sleep deprivation and (illegal) torture she admitted association with several witches. Before she was tried at the Chelmsford Assizes and hanged, she implicated other poor women of harmful magic, and sex with the devil. This soon led to 92 testifying against the various accused. On the 21st March 1645, 13 were arrested from communities in the Tendring Hundred. In all 36 Manningtree women were charged with witchcraft, 29 were tried in Chelmsford, and 19 hanged. Only 9 were reprieved & pardoned (but some died in jail first).

Without this result other communities might not have become involved, but now the witchfinding spread quickly. John Stearn originated from Long Melford and later lived in Lawshall. Matthew Hopkins, son of a puritan minister at Wenham, volunteered to be his assistant; he had family at Framlingham. Buoyed by their early ‘successes’, Stearne and young Hopkins now set off on proactive witch hunts, starting in the parts of Essex and Suffolk where they had family and contacts. Spurious accusations of witchcraft were widespread and ‘confessions’ forced. Trials ran into the hundreds and John Stearn boasted that over 100 were executed in just 2 years. Widespread panic set in...

In Sudbury, Anne Boreham was interrogated and finally confessed to denying Christ and having relations with the devil, but not to any acts of harm. Although she escaped hanging in 1645, records show two Borehams, a mother & daughter, were hanged 10 years later in Bury St Edmunds.

The victims were overwhelmingly women, but 90 year old vicar of Brandeston John Lowes was accused of witchcraft, tried at Bury & hanged. This is still illustrated on the Brandeston village sign!

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The Witchcraft Act of 1542 had made it a criminal offence, but it was over 100 years before this frenzy took hold here - then two years later it was largely** over. Why?

We were told it was probably for a combination of reasons:

   • The Witchfinders received little support further afield. Norfolk and Huntingdonshire did not encourage them, and they could not widen their influence.

    • Nearer home, people were realising that enough was enough. There were more critical voices, and sermons against the self appointed Witchfinders’ lucrative activities spread. Local ministers and Lords of the Manors realised the process was doing more harm than good, and had enough authority to divert the witchhunts elsewhere. 

    • Matthew Hopkins became ill and died in 1647 – aged about 30.

    • In wartime there were practical reasons too. Colchester Castle had an outbreak of plague in the overcrowded cells holding pre-trial ‘witches’.  

    • And the biggest disincentive to new accusations may have been that the accusers or their community had to pay all the costs of the trials, and the prison fees too.  It simply was not worth it financially… 

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** However, it was not entirely over – the last execution for witchcraft in England took place in 1716, taking the total well over 1000….

During the many questions from a fascinated audience, Andrew Clarke pointed out that earlier indictments of 1578 in Borley and Foxearth had not been upheld so perhaps in north Essex we were saved from this later ugly persecution.

Alison was warmly thanked and we wished her a more straightforward return journey!

Mark & Clare Mathieson

THE MONUMENTAL BRASSES OF ESSEX AND SUFFOLK. Sep 23 talk

 FOXEARTH & DISTRICT LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY  - Tuesday September 2023

Martin Stuchfield  - THE MONUMENTAL BRASSES OF ESSEX AND SUFFOLK 

The Society welcomed Martin Stuchfield, Vice-President and former President of the Monumental Brass Society, to give a talk on the Monumental Brasses of Essex and Suffolk. Martin last gave a presentation to the Society some six years ago. There was a sizeable audience hanging onto Martin’s every word and who were glued to his impressive powerpoint presentation.

We learned that by geographical distribution of brasses, Essex and Suffolk rank 3rd and 4th respectively in the United Kingdom. Essex has a total of 473 and Suffolk 436. Norfolk is in first position with 946. When it comes to effigial brasses, Essex is in second place behind Kent with 272. If those figures are impressive, Martin has visited 75% of all churches in England.

Monumental brasses were a popular form of floor or wall memorial in the Middle Ages and can still be found in many churches especially in East Anglia. Some depict important figures in British and European history, while others commemorate local ‘worthies’. In much the same way as wealthy landowners and merchants contributed to or built large churches, brass monuments signified wealth and position in society – one had arrived!

As well as being fascinating in their own right, brasses prove a rich visual imagery for those interested in other subjects including armour (Martin pointed out how these had changed over the years which he called the ‘Mary Quant effect of their time!), costume and heraldry. Remarkably they also provide a deep source of social and local history and genealogy. As an example of the genealogy's importance, two slides were shown depicting brasses of Thomas Beale, twice mayor 1593 with his two wives and eight of his surviving 21 children. The brass is particularly interesting as it also depicts his ancestors back to 1399. This particular brass is at Maidstone in Kent. The other brass is of a recumbent figure in civil dress with a curious genealogical tree of the Lyndley and Palmes family placed in the church at Ottley in Yorkshire in 1593.

Nearer to home is what Martin described as the best-preserved monumental brass in the country at Acton, depicting Sir Robert de Bures c.1331. The finest collection is, in his opinion, at Cobham, Kent where 18 full size monumental brasses have been laid on the chancel floor filling the chancel. These date from between 1320 to 1529.

During the presentation Martin held up a key which he asked the audience to identify. Correctly answering ‘church key’, he proceeded to explain that this was the church key to Little Horkesley church which was destroyed by a German bomb on 21st September 1940. He then showed a photograph of the destruction of the church and the badly damaged brass depicting Sir Robert Swynborne, Lord of the Manor, 1391, and his son, Sir Thomas, Mayor of Bordeaux, 1412. These brasses were recovered from the destroyed church, subsequently restored at Colchester Castle and returned in 1957.

Foxearth and Borley churches also have significant brasses – in Foxearth an inscription commemorating Joseph Sidey, gent., 1605. In Borley the inscription is to John, 3rd son of Thomas Derhame of West Dereham, Norfolk, Esq., 1601, aged 67. In Pentlow church there is an indent for the lost brass of a civilian with a foot inscription, dated c.1490.

This report only touches on the content of the superb, in-depth presentation. There were many other fascinating gems shared by Martin. The reusing of brass, adaptive brasses, ‘waster’ brasses where brass had been reversed. One brass had actually been reused, the original had depicted a male with two wives. The reused benefactor of the brass did not have two wives so he converted one wife to depict his mother!

As a measure of the engagement generated by Martin, there were many questions which included the method for dating and analysing the age of brass, the constituents of brass, the cost of brass memorials and engraving in today’s value (6 figures and some 7), the origins of the raw manufactured brass, how NOT to clean brasses (keep the Brasso can well away) and when did Martin take up his interest in monumental brasses.

Martin has devoted a life-time to his interest in monumental brasses that has included authoring many books and academic papers. This presentation was so full of interesting facts and discoveries it is worthy of a follow up as it is very likely Martin has only skimmed the surface of this subject.

FLDHS - Kelvin  Hastings Smith

Programme of events 2023

 

Visit to National Horse Racing Museum, Newmarket

 Visit to National Horse Racing Museum, Newmarket 

Tuesday 11th July

Members of Foxearth History Society had a fascinating trip to Newmarket on 11th July, visiting the National Horse Racing Museum, and Palace House art gallery. In fine weather, our guides from Discover Newmarket and the N.R.H.M. made for a memorable day out.

The 5-acre site in the heart of the town includes part of Charles II’s palace, and the area that was the Rothschild family’s stables until 1985. Both have been fully restored, and a modern museum and visitor facilities added. Queen Elizabeth II formally opened the museum in 2016.

Our visit started with a ‘behind the scenes’ tour where we were shown the stables and Rothschild Yard, now used for retraining racehorses. As they are trained from birth to run flat-out in straight lines, and often highly strung too, it takes much dedication and patience to re-educate them for other forms of riding! We watched some of this work taking place with a newly arrived former racehorse, and also visited the forge for an explanation of the farriers work. An amazing glimpse of a different world to most of us…

The Horse Racing Museum in converted buildings is an excellent modern example. It was accessible and informative for everyone, using interactive displays and animations as well as historical pictures and artefacts. The history of racing with an emphasis on Newmarket was of course covered, and much more too. One interesting section covered the evolution and anatomy of the racehorse, comparing its skeleton to our own, and explaining how the thoroughbreds can achieve their amazing speed.

The first Newmarket Palace was built for James I, and rebuilt by Charles II after 1668. His private quarters, including his bedroom, survive as Palace House, an imposing (if not palatial) building opposite the museum. This houses the British Sporting Art Trust and the Packard Collection, many historical paintings of racing and other sporting activities, with modern artists displayed too.  

Highlights of these include horses in racing landscapes, and those showing fashions of the time, such as women riding sidesaddle. Paintings by well known artists included John Wotton’s ‘View of Newmarket c.1720 showing horse owners and jockeys on the heath with Newmarket, a small town dominated by a church spire behind and  Queen Anne and her entourage at Warren Hill, Newmarket.  

A first edition of George Stubbs ‘The Anatomy of the Horse’ 1766. showed his fascination with horses' anatomy and plates he made himself over 10 years as no one else would engrave them. Jenison Shafto’s racehorse ‘Shap' c1762 in a landscape setting (Shafto a founder member of the Jockey Club). 

Samuel ‘s The Pinckney family coursing at Stonehenge, 1845  has a detailed view of Stonehenge before the stones were re-erected; Sir Henry Landseer’s Shoeing 1884, shows a typical rural scene.  

A massive painting at the top of the stairs was Colt hunting in the New Forest 1897 by Lucy Kemp-Welch, the first illustrator of Black Beauty; Sir Alfred Munnings, paintings include The Start, October Meeting, Newmarket 1950;  Most recent was The Belvoir Huntsman John Holliday on Edward by Charles Church (b.1970), which was unveiled by our late Queen..

The N.R.H.M. also houses travelling exhibitions, and we were very fortunate to visit when it was hosting the Exhibition ‘Banksy Under Siege’. This collection of replica life-size “walls”, created by Banksy during his visit to war torn Ukraine in November 2022, form a spectacular art installation, thought provoking and sad. It is the first time the exhibition has been seen anywhere in the world and for many of us it was the highlight of the day.

We finished our trip in the sunshine in their beautiful grounds, enjoying coffee & cakes from the on-site bakery, and planning to visit more of Newmarket's many historical sites before long.

Guided visit to Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury Saturday 10th June

Guided visit to Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury 

Saturday 10th June

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Since our previous visit 11 years ago, the artist’s home has been transformed into the National Centre for Thomas Gainsborough.  Thanks to a Lottery Heritage grant, the new gallery and exhibition space opened in November 2022, on the site of the old Labour Exchange alongside the existing house and gardens.

There had been little investment since the Gainsborough’s House Society was formed to purchase the house in 1968, to refurbish and establish it as a centre for Gainsborough’s work. The vision was always to build upon the rich history of Gainsborough’s House. The striking new gallery is modern and accessible, celebrating Gainsborough; his followers, contemporaries and other Suffolk based artists like John Constable and Cedric Morris. There is also new gallery space for regular temporary exhibitions.

The museum holds 40 of Gainsborough’s paintings and over 4,000 prints & drawings, many gifted or on loan to the museum.  Not all can be shown at one time, so they rotate over time. The new Gainsborough exhibition space has silk wall coverings donated by Richard Humphries Weaving based in Sudbury. 

Our groups were given guided tours by expert volunteers. We were shown early works, portraits of his family and the wealthy sponsors who helped him launch his career, and his landscapes- a real passion since sketching the Suffolk countryside as a boy. Through the portraits, landscapes and sketches we were treated to the background information behind many of the paintings. These show his love of horses and landscapes, and how he used light and dark as backdrop to his portraits of both wealthy and poorer subjects. 

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Gainsborough was born in 1727 to John Gainsborough, a wealthy Wool merchant and his wife Mary, the youngest of 9 children. He attended Sudbury Grammar School till he moved to London aged 13 to develop his artistic skills. Here he met Margaret Burr, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort and made an advantageous marriage. A settlement of £200 annuity on the couple enabled him to move in influential circles and gain rich sponsors for his work. Thomas returned to Sudbury in 1749 when his father died and his family bought the house, and later moved to Ipswich, London & Bath to further his career.  

We learnt about Gainsborough’s family including his daughters Margaret & Mary, his nephew Gainsborough Dupont who joined Gainsborough’s family as a boy and became his permanent assistant (and others who were murdered in London). 

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We thanked our knowledgeable volunteer guides who shared their enthusiasm for Gainsborough's work with 24 History Society members. We all agreed that their background information and wealth of detail about the works was key to making the visit a great success. 

Then in perfect summer weather, we enjoyed refreshments in the beautiful garden, maintained by volunteers who exclusively cultivate plants available in Gainsborough’s lifetime, including a 400 years old Mulberry Tree. 

All of us really have a national treasure in Sudbury - an international centre for Thomas Gainsborough, and the largest gallery in Suffolk.  

See: https://gainsborough.org/your-visit/

Southend Past – the Town Our Parents Knew

Foxearth and District History Society

“Southend Past – the Town Our Parents Knew” 

A film screening, 14 February 2023

However much I love the country lanes, footpaths, fields and woods of our part of Essex, every few weeks I have a yearning to be by the seaside (writes Andrew Le Sueur). Since moving to Borley, Aldeburgh has become our beach of choice. For something more remote, Shingle Street or Lee-over-Sands are good options. But for a full-fat bucket-and-spade candy floss experience, Southend-on-Sea is hard to beat.

The FDHS’s February meeting (well-attended despite or perhaps because it fell on St Valentine’s Day) was a screening of a 55-minute film “Southend Past – the Town Our Parents Knew”, narrated by Sally Ann Burnett, part of the Your Region on Film Series produced by Timereel Studios released in 2008.

The archive film traced the development of the town as a holiday resort (“a matchless Cockney paradise”) across the first 60 years of the twentieth century. The town was clearly a place for family fun and relaxation but the thoughtful narration did not shy away from highlighting the realities of life during this period. In the run up to the First World War, the town was a hierarchical society recognisable to the mid-Victorians. The Great Depression of the 1930s made it clearer than ever that Southend, while presenting opportunities for escapism for day trippers and holiday makers, was a town of haves and have-nots.

The 1950s were the last hoorah for mass tourism. The train trundling the mile-long pier was electrified and the film clips evoked an era of the simple pleasures of Miss Lovely Legs competitions, bowls and putting greens. The rise of package holidays abroad might have been the death knell for the town, but for a while Southend Airport boomed as a hub for scheduled and charter flights across Europe. It was astonishing to see air-car ferries from the 1960s, with cars being driven onto planes for the short hop across the English Channel, where passengers started their continental holiday.

For all the challenges it has faced over the years, the film emphasized the town’s civic pride. The film ended with a 1967 clip of the Queen Mother opening Southend Civic Centre, a concrete and glass tower block designed by the borough architect. The good cheer of onlookers was not dimmed by the “gentle but persistent drizzle” – something that those of us who prefer holidaying in England are familiar with.

A History of Easton Lodge

 Foxearth and District History Society

“A History of Easton Lodge – the Countess and Her Gardens”

A talk by Gary Matthews

10th January 2023

At the FDHS’s first meeting of the year, Gary Matthews expertly wove together two stories of transformation –  of the lifestyle of an Edwardian socialite, the other of her fabulous gardens designed by renowned landscape architect Harold Peto at the turn of the last century (writes Andrew Le Sueur of Borley Lodge).

The backdrop to both narratives was Easton Lodge, a large country house near Great Dunmow in Essex. Over the centuries this morphed from a small hunting lodge into an Elizabethan manor house into a Jacobean mansion until a devastating fire in 1874 created an opportunity to build a large Victorian Gothic pile. Arguably, its heyday was the Edwardian period when it became a setting for lavish parties attended by the Marlborough House Set including Bertie, the Prince of Wales and future Edward VII.  The hostess was Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, who had inherited Easton Lodge aged three. Daisy lived her life at full throttle, taking several lovers while married, and becoming an accomplished horse woman. In her middle years, her life took an unexpected turn: she became an avowed socialist and devoted her remaining years to fighting social inequality, philanthropy, and stood (unsuccessfully) as a Labour party candidate. By the end of her life, her colossal fortune was so depleted that she faced the prospect of imprisonment for debt. She died a woman of modest means in 1938.

During the Second World War the house was requisitioned for the RAF and many thousands of trees were destroyed and the elaborate gardens fell into ruin. After the War, the house was demolished except for one wing, which remains in private ownership. 

From the 1970s, volunteers have devoted countless hours to restoration of the gardens, which is an ongoing project. These are open to visitors every Thursday from March to November with open days on selected Sundays. February provides a chance to see the garden’s fabulous display of snowdrops.

To find out more about the gardens, visit https://www.eastonlodge.co.uk/