Strethall – a Brief History

Strethall, (600 acres, 11 houses, Pop.26 at present), is arguably the smallest parish in Uttlesford, in Essex and possibly in the whole country. It is flanked on the east and south by Littlebury, on the west by Elmdon and its northern boundary is the Cambridgeshire border.

The name is usually taken to mean the “nook” or “sheltered corner” on the “street” – a reference to the Roman road which ran through here from Braughing to Great Chesterford, following the line of an even more ancient trackway. Thus, while today the village can only be approached up two no-through-roads, it once, and for many centuries, lay astride a major communication route in this part of the world.

The Iron Age folk were the first to settle here, according to field-walking evidence amassed by Dr Tom Williamson, and they did so on the southern edge of Strethall wood which conveniently provided shelter from the north winds. Since the land here runs up to 400 feet above sea level this was no doubt very welcome. The fact that the edge of Strethall wood has not shifted its position much since the Iron Age is due to the local geology. The hilltops are covered with boulder clay which will support woodland whereas the lower chalk slopes will not. The clever place to settle was thus at the edge of the boulder clay (which afforded timber and ponds) and adjacent to the chalk slopes where there was no water but sheep could graze. The Romans were here too, of course, Williamson also found evidence of a substantial tiled building to the east of where Strethall Church now stands. No military commander, such as that of the garrison at Great Chesterford, would tolerate being looked down on from neighbouring high ground without establishing a presence there.

It happens to be exactly a thousand years ago this year (2008), since the first written record of Strethall (spelt Strethle) appeared in one of the charters of the Abbey of Ely. Ten hides of land here (about 1200 acres) were being sold by King Aethelred to Abbot Aelsinus - land which shortly afterwards and certainly before 1066AD - was divided in two along the east-west line of the byway to Elmdon. The southern half became Littlebury Green, while the remaining 600 acres formed Strethall and that is the size of the parish to this day.

For the past thousand years and probably for at least two thousand years before that, most, if not all those who have lived here have worked on the land. In the past century, agricultural labour was a reserved occupation in both world wars and this has led to the fact that Strethall Church is one of very few in the country with no war memorial. That agricultural tradition finally came to an end last year and 2008 is the first year in the history of the parish when no resident can be described as a farm labourer.

Two dramatic incidents have disturbed this centuries old rural idyll, the first being little more than a legend. There are two independent reports that during the civil war, probably in 1647, three Royalist brothers named Richards were besieged in the manor house by Parliamentary troops from the camp on Thriplow Heath. The brothers escaped, having held off the Roundheads for a day and a night. The earliest of these reports dates from 1881 and both must derive from a still earlier document which has not so far been traced.

The second incident is the shooting of a gypsy by the farmer Nehemiah Perry in 1849. Perry lived in the manor house (apparently not the same one as that besieged 200 years earlier) into which the gypsy with two others had broken via the scullery window. He started up the staircase and Perry, who had appeared at the top with a shotgun, shot him dead. At the inquest two days later a verdict of Justifiable Homicide was rapidly recorded and Perry was congratulated by all present on his courage.Thereafter the corpse was displayed in the Church tower for a few days for identification. This enabled an enterprising sexton to charge 3d to would-be viewers and hundreds reportedly came. Then, since no-one had claimed the body, Perry despatched it in a game hamper to his medical adviser, Dr George Paget, at the Cambridge University Anatomy School. To this day, the skull of Abraham Green, for that was his name, is in the Duckworth Collection of the Department of Biological Anthropology while about half of his bones are kept in the Museum of Zoology.

The Grade I listed building that is Strethall’s magnificent Saxon church was very probably built about the time of Aethelred’s charter and is thus within a few years either side of its millennium. According to the Ancient Monuments Commission it dates from the early 11th century. In 1010 King Swein’s henchman, Thorkill the Tall, burned Thetford and Cambridge and the burning of Cambridge would have been readily visible from Strethall. Since King Swein forcibly converted his subjects to Christianity, any prudent Lord of the Manor would wish to demonstrate his Christian beliefs and may well have hastened to build himself a small stone church as a pre-emptive move in such circumstances.

Small it may be but the history of Strethall is rich and long. Many intriguing and unlikely associations are to be found between this tiny hamlet and places, objects and events as diverse as the Battle of Bannockburn, the P&O liner S.S. Carnatic, a bloodstained pair of leather galligaskins, a sore sparrowhawk and the German wartime rocket research base at Peenamunde. The Lords of the Manor have included some of the most distinguished figures in the land. Hugo de Berners arrived with William the Conqueror and usurped it, Sir Robert de Tybetot, friend and fellow crusader of Edward the First was given it by the King in 1270, John Gardyner a wealthy Middle Temple lawyer obtained it in 1500AD in lieu of a bad debt and in the 19th century it was passed to and fro among a number of extremely distinguished soldiers whose families were related by marriage. When the country was Protestant in the time of Elizabeth I, the Lord of the Manor of Strethall was an obdurate Catholic and in the Civil War, when East Anglia was a stronghold of Parliamentarians, a staunch Royalist owned the parish.

Given this long history and the tradition of non-conformity, it is no surprise that when a Boundaries Commission in 1980 proposed to abolish the parish, a Keep Strethall Independent Campaign sprang into action to oppose the extinction of this small survivor. It succeeded and Strethall remains independent to this day. In a time of rapid and accelerating change it is rewarding to find a small corner of the land in which echoes of much of the history of this island can still be discerned. Such localities are becoming rare and deserve to be cherished and protected.

References

A History of the Manor and Parish of Strethall, D.A.Melford, 1998.

Available in the Saffron Walden Town Library (2 copies), Cambridge University Library and the Essex Record Office.

Primary Source Material on loan to Essex Record Office.

Other Deeds and Conveyances, 1700 – 1920, 19 documents.

Source material (photocopies) available in Saffron Walden Town Library.

Item No.	Description
1	Photocopy from Liber Eliensis - the earliest reference to Strethall, 1008AD.
2	Extract from Rotuli Selecti and transcription — forfeiture of Strethall, 1262.
3	Beatrix de Berners relinquishes her right to dower in Strethall, (CCR).
4	Eve de Tybotots Dower, Calendar of Close Rolls 1298.
5a	Photocopy and transcription of Inquisition Post Mortem valuation of Strethall, 1298.
5b	Ditto after the death of Payn de Tybetot, 1314.
6	Photocopies of Inquisitions Post Mortem.
7	Extract from family history of John Tiptoft and Tiptoft family tree.
8	Extracts from Calendar of Close Rolls (CCR).
9	Extracts from Calendar of Patent Rolls.
10	Photocopies of Calendar of Close Rolls 1416.
11	Photocopy and transcription - the dispute over John Gardyner's will, 1508.
12	Transcription of the will of Robert Dryver of Elmdon, 1556.
13	Photocopy of the will of Thomas Crawley of Wenden Lofts, d.1559.
14	Photocopy — Will of Richard Welles, 1562.
15	Photocopy and transcription of Steward’s notes of 1573 Court Baron.
16	Photocopies - copies of Court Rolls dated 1653, 1679, 1698 + parts 1700, 1828.
17	Transcriptions of part of Court Rolls for 1753, 1786, 1791.
18	Photocopy and transcription - the will of Rev. Charles Lancaster, 1738.
19	Photocopy - Will of Thomas Fuller, d.1820.
20	The killing at Strethall Hall - photocopies of contemporary news reports, 1849.
21	Transcriptions of same.
22	Plot of population changes in Strethall, 1801 — 1971.
Colour Photographs (courtesy of Public Record Office)
23	Inquisition Post Mortem of Thomas Crawley of Wenden Lofts, 1559
24	Ditto for Thomas Crawley of Manuden, 1626.
Aerial Photographs (courtesy of Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography)
25	Vertical colour photograph of Strethall village, 14th June 1988.
26	Bronze Age ring ditches on Coploe Hill, photographed 1973.
27	Soil marks revealing vestiges of strips 80 and 81, photographed 1973.
28	Soil marks revealing rectangular Iron Age? enclosure N.W. of Strethall Wood.
The Williamson Thesis
29	Roman and Medieval Settlement in N.W. Essex, T.E. Williamson.
1848 Tithe Commutation Map
30	The field names of Strethall derived from the schedule accompanying this map.
Microfilm
31	Notes made by Thomas Crawley's Steward at Court Baron on 28th September 1573. (Bodleian Library : MS Rawl.B.318, p.153-8).

  
     

David Melford

Local History Recorder for Strethall