Harlow 1848 Whites Directory
HARLOW, a small ancient market town, is pleasantly situated near the North-Eastern Railway, on the high road from London to Bishop Stortford, 23 miles N. by E. of the former, 6 miles S. of the latter, and 7 miles N.W. of Ongar. It is on the eastern side of the picturesque and fertile vale ofthe navigable river Stort, and its parish contains 4000 acres of land, and in 1841 had 2315 inhabitants, but 125 were labourers then employed in constructing the railway, and 12 others were temporary residents, in barns, when the census was taken. The town consists chiefly of one long street, and was formerly a seat of the woollen manufacture, which declined with its market many years ago.
The latter, held on Wednesday, has been revived, but is of small importance. It has a wool fair on Old May day, and cattle fairs on Sept. 9th and 10th, and November 28th and 29th. That held in September is a large and highly celebrated mart for horses and cattle, called Harlow Bush Fair, and held on the Common at the top of Potter Street, a hamlet, 2 miles S. of the town. In the Centre of the Common is BUSH FAIR HOUSE, where the Essex Archery Society hold their annual meetings, and to which are attached extensive Assembly Rooms. The parish includes the elegant seat of Moor Hall, Huberts Hall, Mulberry Green, and many scattered houses, and is in several manors, as afterwards noticed.
The parish CHURCH, (St. Hugh,) stands E. of the town, and was rebuilt in 1709, after the old one had been destroyed by fire, and some of its windows are enriched with the arms ofthe principal contributors to the building. It has a small brick tower with an open cupola, containing one bell. The vicarage, valued in K.B. at £15. 7s. 11d., and in 1831 at £393, is enjoyed by the Rev. Chas. Miller, M.A., and is in the patonage of the Marquis of Bute. St. JOHN’S CHURCH, in the centre of the town, was built by subscription in 1839-40, in memory of the late Rev. Chas. Sanderson Miller, M.A., who was many years the highly respected curate and afterwards vicar of this parish. It is a neat structure, and the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Vicar, and incumbency of the Rev. C. M. McLeod. ST. MARY MAGDALEN CHURCH, on Harlow Common, nearly 3 miles S. of the town, is a chapel of ease for the southern parts of the parish. In the town is a Baptist Chapel, belonging to a congregation formed in 1668, and the parish has National and British Schools, and various Almshouses and Charites for the poor.
In the 10th of Elizabeth, JOHN GODSAFE left several tenements, &c. , for the use of the poor, and they now consist of ahouse and garden let for £15, and two tenements, a school, and several garden plots, worth about £30 a year. The premises were greatly improved and enlarged by the late lessees. The clear income is distributed with other charities among the poor parishioners, mostly in small sums, and partly in coals. In 1639, FRANCIS REEVE left £100 for founding an Almshouse for four poor widows, but it but it was not built till 1717, when £130 was paid for the land and building. A small garden is attached to each of the four tenements, and each of the widows has £1 per annum from Wise’s Charity. In 1643, GEORGE BENSON left a cottage and 6A. of land, near Harlow Common, now let for £18 a year, and directed the clear income to be applied by the churchwardens in providing coats and breeches of drab cloth for poor men, and camlet gowns and linsey-woolsey petticoats for poor women, with the letters G. B. upon the coats and gowns. Ten or twelve persons selected by the Vicar receive the benefit of this charity yearly. Two Almshouses in the Churchyard, founded by William Newman, are occupied by two widows, who each receive yearly £2 from Stafford’s and Taylor’s Charities. For the purpose of repairing these almshouses, three yearly rent-charges, of 3s. 4d. each, were left by unknown donors. In 1659, JOHN WRIGHT left £160 to provide yearly 6s. 8d. for a sermon, and 12s. 6d. for a dinner for the trustees of Stafford’s Charity ; and a gown every second year, and a load of wood yearly, for each of the three poor women in Stafford’s Almshouses. This legacy was laid out in the purchase of a barn and twelve acres of land, called Noake’s Crofts, now let for £23 per annum. The surplus rents are distributed in bread and money. In 1617 EMANUEL WOOLLEY gave, for the poor, a yearly rent-charge of 20s. out of Hallison’s Meads, in Sawbridgeworth. It is distributed with other funds on St. Thomas’s Day. In 1651 ALEX. STAFFORD left a yearly rent-charge of £12 out of the manor of Bignors, near Deptford, to be applied as follows : £2 for repairing his monument and the south aisle of Harlow Church; £3 for ringing the bell and keeping the clock in order ; £2 for the widows in Newman’s Almshouses ; and £5 for distribution among the poor parishioners. Three tenements in Churchgate street, called STAFFORD’S ALMSHOUSES, are repaired by the parish, and occupied by three widows nominated by the Vicar. Their only endowment consists in the annual sums of, 20s. allowed to each widow for wood, and of 20s. every alternate year for clothing, from Wright’s Charity ; and the annual sum of 20s. to one of the widows from Taylor’s Charity. In 1724, the REV. JOHN TAYLOR left a house and garden, now worth £17 a year, and directed the rents to be applied yearly as follows : 20s. to each of the widows in Newman’s Almshouses ; 20s. to one of the widows in Stafford’s Almshouses; and the remainder to be distributed among the poor parishioners. The latter have a weekly distribution of bread from a yearly rent- charge of £5. 4s., left by RICHARD HARRISON, in 1734, out of a house and land called Drinkwater’s. A legacy of £100, left by EDWARD WISE, in 1798, was vested in £158.5s. 1d. Three per Cent. Consols, and the divi- dends are applied as follows : £1 to each of the four inmates of Reeve’s Almshouse, and 14s. 10d. for cleaning and repairing the donor’s tomb. The dividends of £210 new Three- and- a- half per Cent. Stock, left by JOHN PERRY, in 1809, are applied in providing gowns and petticoats for six
poor women. In 1504 THOMAS CRANWELL bequeathed, for sustaining and repairing the parish church, 3A. OR. 2P. called Smith’s Mead, now let for £9 per annum. The rent of a farm of 16A. 3R. , in, Potter street, let for £52, is applied to the same use, and was bequeathed in 1505, by JOHN SWORDER, to the churchwardens, in trust that they should bestow the yearly proceeds thereof in re- lieving the poor parishioners from the payment of fifteenths and other taxes levied by Parliament, or if not wanted for that purpose, in repairing the parish church. Both these charities were conveyed to new trustees in 1830, and the yearlyincome ( £61, ) is applied in the service of the church, and in paying the organist. In 1803 £136. 10s. was given by the trustees towards the purchase of a new organ. Ahouse, left for the organist by the Rev. Jno. Taylor, in 1724, having become ruinous, was given up to the lord of the manor of Harlow-Bury, in 1791. In Edward the Confessor’s time, Harlow belonged to the Abbey of Bury St. Edmund’s, and to six freemen. At the Domesday Survey the Abbey still held its portion, but the rest of the parish was then held by Ranulph, brother to the Earl of Boulogne. The manor of HARLOWBURY, about half a mile N.N.E. of the church, was held by the abbey, and was one of the abbot’s resting places, in his way to Parliament. At the dissolution this manor was given by Henry VIII. to Katherine Addington. It was sold in 1617 by Francis Lord Guilford, and it is now held by Wm. Barnard, Esq.
Near the manor house is a large ancient chapel, converted into a barn, and having a fine circular head door, the shafts of which have capitals, like those of the Gallilee, or Chapel of St. Mary, at Durham. This building is in a good state of preservation, and some of its small windows have round and others pointed heads. MOOR HALL, the elegant modern seat of J. W. Perry, Esq. , is pleasantly situated nearly a mile N.E. of the church, in a well-wooded park, with shady walks, a fine sheet of water, and beautiful gardens. The south-eastern front is handsomely ornamented in the Doric style, and at some distance from the house is a retired walk, presenting ex- tensive and highly interesting views of the surrounding country. In 1324 Matthew de Wodeham and John Snow held the manor of Moor Hall, and it was purchased in the latter part of last century, of the Henshaw family, by the late John Perry, Esq. , of Blackwall. Roffey Hall and several other farms have been added to the estate. HUBERT’S HALL, three quarters of a mile south of the church, was anciently held by the Hubert family, and afterwards passed to the Shaw, Reeve, and other families, and is now the seat of the Misses Sims. The Baroness North is now lady of the principal manors , and also patroness of the vicarage, and impropriator of the great tithes, and not the Marquis of Bute. She also owns a great part of the soil, and the other principal land owners are- J. W. Perry, Esq. , C. Selwin, Esq. , H. White, Esq. , and the Rev. J. Arkwright.
The tithes have been commuted- the rectorial for £597. 12s. 6d. , and the vicarial for £396.5s. 6d.perann. The Vicarage House was formerly the Rectory, and is an old wood and plaster building. Petty Sessions are held here four times a year, on the first Wednesdays in March, April, May, and September. Many British and Roman coins have been found in the parish and neighbourhood, and Mr. Barnard, of Harlow mill, has a fine collection of them.
The Baptists have a chapel in Potter street, as well as in the town, and their congregation dates its foundation from the preaching of the Rev. William Woodward, who was ejected from the established church for non- conformity, in 1662, and suffered much persecution till the Revolution of 1688. He died in 1712, and was buried in his own cemetery in Foster street, which he bequeathed to the congregation as a burial place, and in which a sinall chapel was built a few years ago.
POTTER STREET, OF VILLAGE, is a hamlet of Harlow parish, from 2 to 3 miles S. of the town, near the Common and Harlow Bush . Ithad formerly several potteries, and has been much improved during the last 20 years. It has aneat Church, (St. Mary Magdalen,) built in 1834, at the cost of about £ 1,000, contributed by the Vicar and other subscribers. This building has recently been constituted a district church, and the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the vicar, and incumbency of the Rev. W. T. Beckett, M.A. Attached to it is a house for the minister, and also a National School. The village has a respectable boarding school, a post office, and a Baptist Chapel. The latter was built in 1756, and enlarged in
1832, at the cost of £200.
HARLOW PARISH DIRECTORY.
Marked * reside in Potter Street, and the rest in Harlow , or where specified.
POST OFFICE at Mr. Dd. Whittaker’s, Harlow. Money orders granted and paid. Letters despatched at 3 morninng. There is a receiving house at C. Lewsey’s, in Potter Street.
Appleton John , auctioneer, &c.
*Beckett Rev. William Thomas. , M.A. incumbent of Potter Street
Bull Mr. Benjamin
Chaplin Mrs. Elizabeth
Chaplin Pp. wool stapler & corn merchant
Chaplin Thomas, brewer, &c.
*Chew Jno. relieving officer & registrar
Collins Rebecca, straw hat maker
Dyer George, furniture broker
Finch Rev. Thomas, (Baptist)
Foreman John, solicitor
Francis Francis, saddler, &c.
Fuller Mrs. Mary
*Gipps Rev. John (Baptist)
Haylock Thomas Busick, surgeon
Jay George, station master
*Lewes Rev. Dd. curate of Latton
MacLeod Rev Chas. Middleton, M.A. incumbent of St. John’s
Miller Rev.Chas. M.A.vicar, Vicarage
Miller Miss S. Vicarage
Monk Henry, saddler
Mumford Mrs. Elizabeth
Parrish John , rake & hurdle maker
Perry John Watlington,Esq. Moor Hall
*Pool John, auctioneer & valuer, & agent to Royal Exchange Ins. Co.; & sec. to Essex Archery Society Pratt & Newton, carpenters
Pratt Wm. watch and clock maker
Pratt William, jun. bookseller, &c.
Pryor George, bricklayer, &c.
Pryor William, butcher
*Saltwell James, bricklayer
*Samuel Charles , hair dresser
Selmes George, butcher
Sharp Wm. builder and carpenter
Sims Misses M., H. & F. Hubert’s Hall
Smith Francis, butcher
Speller George, hair dresser
Spicer John, fishmonger
Thornton James, railway contractor
Wade Mr. Chas.
Stone Mrs. E.
Webb Hy. Esq.
*Wilson Jno. gent.
Whittaker My. Ann & Eliz. drapers, &c
Winch James, bricklayer
Wood John E.chemist, druggist, &c .
Wright Mrs. Barbara
Wright John , brick & tile maker
Wright James, cooper
INNS AND TAVERNS.
Crown, John Perry
George, William Cook
George Inn, Susannah Crane
Green Man, James Jackson
Horns & Horse Shoes , Joseph Phillips
*King’s Head, James Bull
Marquis of Granby, Thos. Smith
Queen’s Head, Edw. C. Bambridge
*Red Lion , William Aylett
White Horse, William Heighton
ACADEMIES
Blackwell Richard
*Cleary Peter, Grammar School
Free School, Robert Pink & Ann Cave
Jones Martha & Eliza
Lodge Miss S. E.
*Kent William
National School, E. Winger, L. Redington, and
*Mary Wolf
BAKERS.
*Aylett William
Borham William
Glasscock Thos.
Grimwood Wm.
*Hutchin James
Shead Thomas
Thurgood Jno . H.
*Tyser Joseph
BEERHOUSES.
Dedman Mary
Foster James
Hasler John
Page Elizabeth – Chequers
BOOT & SHOE MAKERS.
*Lewsey Chas.
Rumble Eliz .
*Parson John
Rixon Henry
Sanders Henry
*Smith Jno. E.
Ward William
White Charles
BLACKSMITHS, &C.
*Debnam Benjamin
Hutchin George
Hutchin John
Robinson John
CORN MILLERS.
Barnard Chas .
Barnard John
Glasscock John
*Phillips Joseph
GROCERS AND DRAPERS
Adams Joshua
*Hutchin James
Girling Henry
Scott Frederick
Perry James
Taylor Henry
Whittaker David , Post Office
FARMERS.
Ash John
Baker Joseph
Barnard John
Barnard William, Harlowbury
Blackman Robert
Chaplin Philip
Chaplin Thomas
Dennis John
Glasscock James
Glasscock Thos.
GoodwinGeo .
Hide Thomas
Martin Charles
Matthews Chs. P.
Matthews Sml. P.
Squires James
Wallis James
Wentworth Hy. C. (& insurance agent)
White Algernon H. Gladwins
MALTSTERS
Barnard John
Glasscock Thos.
Goodwin George
PLUMBERS, PAINTERS & GLAZIERS
Deards George
Jackson James
Nottage Susannah
SHOPKEEPERS
*Battell Boaz
Dedman James
*Lewsey Chas.
Tyser Robert
SURGEONS.
Haycock & Maund
Dobson Jas. Stuart
TAILORS , &C.
*Lambert Chas.
Scott Benjamin
WhittakerJoseph
WHEELWRIGHTS.
Cannon John
Collins James
*White Charles
RAILWAY
Trains every hour, to London,Cambridge, &c .
VESSELS
From the Bridge to London, &c. , daily.
CARRIERS
Pass to London, &c. , on Mon. Thurs. & Fri.