Dedham, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Dedham St Mary is an Ancient parish in Essex. The present building dates from the late 15th century. The Ascension by John Constable is on permanent display in the church.

Dedham is at the heart of 'Constable Country' - the area of England where John Constable lived and painted. Constable went to school in the village in the Grammar School (now the 'Old Grammar School' and 'Well House'), walking along by the River Stour from East Bergholt each morning to school. Many of Constable's paintings feature Dedham.

Dedham is frequently rated as containing some of England's most beautiful Lowland landscape, most particularly the Water Meadows of the River Stour, which passes along the northern boundary of the village forming the boundary between the counties of Essex and Suffolk. Dedham has a central nuclear settlement around the Church and the junction of Mill Lane and the High Street (forming the B1029). Connected to Dedham are the hamlets The Heath and Lamb Corner, both of which formerly retained their own shops and pubs. The village forms a key part of the Dedham Vale.

The diocese of Chelmsford was created in 1914, prior to this Essex parishes were in the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London until 1845 when they transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The diocese of Chelmsford has 474 parishes and 600 churches and is the second largest region in the church of England outside London.

The church of ST. MARY was rebuilt in the later 15th century and the early 16th, creating a tall aisled nave with clerestorey, two storeyed north and south porches, a large chancel, and a tall west tower which has a north- south passageway through the lowest stage. The church is flint-faced but all flint surfaces have been rendered except the plinth, elements of the north porch, and the tower, where decorative flushwork is still exposed. Only a burial vault, fragments of masonry at the west end of the nave, a small part of the former south aisle wall (now within the south porch), the mid 14th- century south door and reset porch opening, and a contemporary pier base re-used in the 19th century for the font, remain from an earlier church. The design is coherent though built in stages. The chancel was apparently rebuilt in the later 15th century, followed by the six-bayed nave, probably from c. 1491. The north aisle was added c. 1504, with money bequeathed by John Gurdon, to match the south aisle's arcade, which has tall piers each with four narrow shafts alternating with deep hollow mouldings. The roofs are largely original, the nave roof resting on wall shafts springing from the arcades. The traceried altar tomb of Thomas Webb (d. 1506), erected by his son John, stands below the north-east nave window, probably not its original position. Work was in progress on the tower in 1494, and on its battlements in 1518. The passage vault bears Tudor roses, portcullises, heraldic shields, and the initials I.W. and T.W. for John and Thomas Webb, with their merchant's mark. The initials I.H., perhaps for a member of the Hawke family, were added later. A gallery was built in 1629 and the church was regularly repaired in the 1630s. In 1684 windows of the 'middle aisle', presumably the clerestorey, and some in the chancel, which had been blocked up, were ordered to be opened and glazed. Major repairs seem to have been carried out in 1704; in 1717 brick buttresses were built against the south wall, and in 1774-5 the roof was extensively repaired. Between 1784 and 1789, under the direction of T. Aldis of Woodbridge (Suff.), the church was repewed, and a new, semicircular, gallery was built. A visitor in 1844 found the gallery ugly and complained that the central pulpit hid the altar. The church was restored in 1862-3, to plans by James Mackenzie Roberts, a local architect. The gallery was removed; the chancel floor was raised, and the Perpendicular-style piscina and sedilia were inserted in its wall. During the work the medieval font, and the 14th-century pier base on which it was later placed, were discovered under the nave floor. The chancel was re-ordered and repaired c. 1881, apparently to plans by H. Woodyer, but in 1896 the interior of the church badly needed 'judicious decoration'. (fn. 30) By 1866 the tower was so cracked that the bells could not safely be rung, but it was not repaired, under the direction of R. Reynold Rowe, until 1881-2. The clerestorey, aisles, porches, and tower were further repaired between 1886 and 1896. The chancel was restored, at the expense of W. W. and Sophia Hewitt, in 1909; the work including opening four blocked windows and filling them with stained glass, largely by Kempe and Kempe &amp; Tower. A choir vestry was created at the west end of the north aisle in 1916. In 1959 the east end of the south aisle was furnished as a chapel, and the church was repewed in the early 1970s. Between 1980 and 1990 the roofs, pinnacles, and tower were repaired, the first phase of another major restoration. The silver communion cup and paten in the church in 1618, and another cup and paten given by George Dunne of London in 1631, had both presumably been lost by 1784 when the surviving plate was made. The eight 18th-century bells are hung for chiming. The churchyard was extended southwards by c. ¼ a. in 1853, by c. ½ a. in 1882, and by a further c. ¼ a. in 1923.

From: 'Dedham: Church', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 179-183. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15222&amp;amp;strquery=dedham Date accessed: 12 February 2011.

Dedham is a village within the borough of Colchester in northeast Essex, situated on the River Stour and on the border of Essex and Suffolk. The nearest town to Dedham is the small market town of Manningtree.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Online images are available Seax - Essex Archives Online From the Essex Record Office

Census records
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Index for the Census may be searched at FamilySearch Historical Records

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Lexden and Winstree Poor Law Union, Essex

In the 1580s the vicar and lecturer agreed with the inhabitants a set of orders for the town. As well as regulating religious observances, they provided that the ministers and vestrymen should visit monthly the houses of the poor and places frequented by the disorderly, and that only householders and those retained by them might stay in Dedham. In 1645 the church wardens and constables chose four surveyors of the highways. In the early 19th century the parish vestry nominated four overseers of the poor. The 19th-century vestry was composed of principal inhabitants who generally served for life; vacancies were filled by cooption. Parish officers were elected annually on Easter Monday, and monthly meetings were held either in the church vestry or at inns including the Marlborough Head, Sun, and Compasses. Two police officers were recorded in 1841, but generally there was one police constable in the later 19th century. There was a police station in High Street by 1890. The workhouse or poorhouse recorded in 1671 may have been the cottage held by the churchwardens in 1672. It may have become the three timber framed cottages on Dedham Heath, which the parish held in 1838 and which were called a workhouse at their sale in 1840. A house on Crown Street was adapted as a new workhouse in 1725. The accommodation was increased after 1730 using land, buildings, and money given by John Freeman. In 1775 the new master was to maintain paupers at 1s. per head; he put them to work on the 20 spinning wheels and 4 looms in the weaving room and another workshop in the house. In 1781 the parish experimented with leasing its poor, but by 1804 there was a salaried governor. By 1807 the workhouse ran a sack manufactory and the following year had a starching room and setting shop as well as spinning rooms. Medical assistance for the poor was provided from 1775, and a salaried doctor employed from 1801. In addition to the 20-30 inmates of the work house in the early 19th century, 50-70 people received outdoor relief. Until 1801 such relief was in bread and meal; thereafter it was in money, although tea and coal were still given to the old and widowed, and clothing, furniture, accommodation, and loans were sometimes provided. The Speenhamland system was occasionally employed, and in 1808 the overseers themselves used subsidized pauper labour. In 1834 thirty-four Dedham men who had been refused outdoor relief marched to Colchester, where they were summarily dismissed by the justices. The £464 spent on the poor in 1776 was by far the highest amount in the Colchester division of Lexden Hundred, and the average spent on the poor between 1783 and 1785, £458 7s. 10d., was second only to Great Horkesley. A very large sum, £2,701, was expended in 1801, but relief fell the following year to £1,300. It then rose gradually during the second decade of the century until between 1816 and 1819 it again exceeded £2000. Between 1820 and 1835 it averaged c. £1600. Nonetheless, expenditure per head of population was considerably lower than in many neighbouring parishes, which may explain the nearly £100 voluntarily subscribed for the poor in 1820. The workhouse closed in 1835 and was sold in 1838 to Whitmore Baker, from whom it was later named Whitmore Place. Converted into tenements by 1841, it was in poor condition by 1937. Proposed demolition in the 1960s was successfully opposed by the parish council. It was restored and divided into four dwellings c. 1970. Buildings of the 16th century and later are arranged around a courtyard open on one side to Crown Street. Many red brick alterations and additions were made to the timber framed fabric in the 18th century, most of them c. 1725-30 when the property was converted to a work house. The western range is a 2½-storeyed, three bayed lobby entry house of the later 16th century to which red brick fronts were added on all but the west in the 18th century. The north and east fronts were brick faced perhaps c. 1725-30 when the house probably became the main accommodation for the poor. The inserted flat arch over the entrance door is a rustic version of the moulded and rubbed brickwork decorat ing the building on the south of the courtyard, apparently the workhouse master's house and offices. That is of two parallel ranges with brick facades of c. 1725-30 in two colours and with classical details. The north block has a three bayed north facade and a shaped east gable. The south block, which has a 1725 datestone, has alternating pediments to firstfloor windows on the south. Probably c. 1838 the facades of the south part were raised to a straight parapet and the ground floor was rendered and rusticated. The north range, apparently used as the sack factory, originated as a nondomestic 5 bayed timber framed building of the 16th century or earlier. Several modifications have been made to it, probably c. 1725-30. They include the casing of the south wall, underbuilding on the east wall, the addition of a north-east large stack with tabled offsets and a north outshut, and the inser tion of windows with ovolo mouldings under the eaves. The floor and the internal jetty in the westernmost bay were introduced c. 1970. A pest house north of Coopers Lane housed smallpox victims in 1749-50, but had presumably closed by 1770 when one was required. The house had apparently reopened by 1804, but was later demolished.

From: 'Dedham: Local government', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 177-179. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15221&amp;amp;strquery=dedham Date accessed: 12 February 2011.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Essex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
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Web sites
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