History of Manningtree These people found work here. Can you spot who they are? (Answers at bottom of page). Because our town is so small (smallest in England!) our adjoining villages of Mistley and Lawford make up our community and share our history. The history of Manningtree can be traced back to Roman times because of archaeological evidence showing that a Roman road was constructed from Colchester to Mistley. This may have led to a ferry-crossing point to reach the other side of the River Stour and then on into Suffolk. The purpose of the road might have been to connect Colchester to a port at Mistley as an alternative to the Hythe. It is probable that the stone for the Colchester Town wall was conveyed via this port from Harwich and Wrabness. In the Domesday Book (1086) Mistley bore the name Sciddinghoo” which is conjectured to mean “Hill of the shed dwellers”. Sciddinghoo was a manor within the parish of Mistley of which Hubert de Roylly was lord of the Manor when he was granted a charter to hold a market by Henry III in 1238 on the site later known as Manytre. It has held a market to this day with the exception of a brief period in the 14th century when it was closed down for being in competition with the King’s market in Colchester. Sciddinghoo was sold by the de Roylly family to the countess of Hertford who used it to support the Nunnery of Canon Leigh in Devon until the Dissolution. There are competing explanations for the origin of the name Manningtree or “Manytre” as it was called in the Tudor period when it was a busy port. One meaning attributed to it is “Place of Many trees” while another is that it was home to a tribe of people call the Manni. By the 16th century Manningtree had become a recognised resting point for travellers journeying to the ports of Harwich and Mistley from London. The town had an annual Whitsun fair at which a whole ox would be roasted. It is believed that William Shakespeare travelled to the region with a touring play and may have visited Manningtree because of his reference to it in Henry IV part 1, ii 4 : He has Prince Henry describe Falstaff as that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with a pudding in its belly”. To celebrate this piece of history our local Rotary club provided the town with a life-size sculpture of the Ox, complete with pudding, situated at Market Cross. In the 1640’s Manningtree gained a sinister reputation when Matthew Hopkins, better known as the notorious “Witchfinder General”, moved here. He famously began his witch hunts where the accused (mostly women) were tortured and put to death. This was a profitable enterprise for him as he was paid well for his services and he had vast numbers of people hanged (87 in one day alone). He died young and the cause of his own death is unknown but some say he was also hanged. Records show that he was buried in a churchyard in Mistley. The importance of the River Stour to trade in the area was recognised in the early 1700’s when an act of Parliament was passed to make a large section of it navigable to goods vessels. This involved building 15 locks at considerable expense. The principal goods passing through were bricks (from Sudbury for trans-shipping at Mistley for London), barley, wheat, malt, wool, coal, lead, iron plus many other commodities. During this period the wealthy Rigby family moved into Mistley and established an impressive estate where lavish parties were held for the gentry and sometimes royalty. They set about establishing a Spa town at great expense and hired the famous architect Robert Adam (1728-1792) to transform the area. Due to financial mismanagement the Rigby money ran out and the project was halted but a few remaining works of Adam can be seen : the Mistley Towers, the Swan fountain, the remaining gate lodge at the west end of Green Lane, the Hopping Bridge etc. As a result of the town’s prosperity many timber framed cottages and houses were “improved” by the addition of elegant facades and brick cladding over the original timber construction. Several still retain lath and plaster walls. The English romantic painter John Constable (1776-1837), who was also born in the Stour Valley at nearby East Bergholt, was commissioned by Edward-Daniel Alston of Manningtree (a distant relative) to paint “The Risen Christ” for St. Michaels and All Angels Church in Manningtree High Street. The Church survived from 1616 to the late 1960’s when its timbers were destroyed by woodworm, but the painting was eventually relocated to Dedham Church. For the next two hundred years Manningtree and Mistley thrived through the activity of the port and in the businesses of brewing and weaving. Even today the weavers’ cottages and malting buildings are evident and some of the malting industry still remains. Before the arrival of the Eastern Union Railway, (the station opened in 1846), Manningtree was on the coaching routes between London and the south east coast and had several busy inns with livery stables for the horses. It even had a daily service to London. During this period other industries sprang up such as the Lawford Ironworks (which remained open until 1971), the gasworks and shipbuilding. In 1887 “British Xylonite” (an early form of plastic) re-located its factory from Homerton in East London to the Brooklands Farm site in Brantham on the opposite side of the river. It was supplied with large quantities of acid in a specially constructed vessel made at the Mistley shipyard. The company became “BX Plastics” and took over an impressive but ill-fated manor house “Lawford Place” in Lawford to use as a research department (it was gutted by fire). In 1947 one employee was a young lady research chemist who went on to be Prime Minster: Margaret Thatcher. During the “Cold War” in 1951 a secret nuclear bunker to protect MoD staff and government officials in the event of an enemy attack was built underground on the edge of the woods in Mistley. It was eventually decommissioned and sold off in 2003 but it was briefly opened to the public as a visitor centre. This gave rise to bizarre road signs that gave motorists directions to “the secret bunker” ! The infamous flood that hit eastern England in 1953 did not spare Manningtree: the river rose and flooded the high street at Market Cross. In the 1970’s a wall was built along the river to prevent further floods due to the high spring tides. During this last 800 years of history we have been (and still are) home to “Old Knobbly” an old oak tree that is believed to be the oldest in Britain. It was already about 300 years old when Shakespeare wrote about the “Manningtree Ox”. There is a lot more interesting history to read on the Visit Manningtree website and in the Manningtree, Mistley & Lawford Local Guide. [Pictured left to right: Matthew Hopkins (Witchfinder General); Robert Adam (architect); John Constable (painter); Margaret Thatcher (former Prime Minister)].
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 06:20:42 +0000
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