Wakes Colne, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Wakes Colne All saints is an Ancient Parish in Essex.

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 ALL SAINTS, of flint rubble with limestone dressings, comprises chancel with south vestry and nave with north porch and west bell turret. The 12th-century church comprised nave, central tower, and small chancel, of which the nave, with its south doorway and several windows, and the north and south tower walls survive. In the 14th century the upper part of the tower was demolished and the lower part was incorporated into a rebuilt chancel with a chancel arch in the old west wall of the tower. Two windows were inserted in the nave walls. The new nave roof, of scissor brace and collar construction, survives, underceiled as a barrel roof. Early in the 15th century the timber bell turret was built at the west end of the nave, and the timber north porch was added. Early in the 16th century a squareheaded, brick window was inserted into the south wall, and the surviving north door made. In 1684 the bell turret, chancel roof, and buttresses needed repair. The bell turret or 'steeple' was rebuilt and the porch repaired in 1807. A partition, complete with door and bell, was made in the church in 1815, perhaps to create a vestry. Before 1839 buttresses had been built or enlarged to support the east wall. (fn. 25) A west gallery was enlarged c. 1859. In 1862 the church was repaired and reseated. A vestry was built on the south side of the chancel, and a new doorway to it cut through the chancel wall; stairs in the north wall of the chancel, perhaps made for a Lenten veil screen, were blocked. The surviving brick east wall was probably built at the same time. About the 1890s the small window in the west wall was replaced. In 1902-3 the bell turret was heightened, the plaster removed from the outside walls, and perhaps the twolight window inserted into the enlarged opening of thewesternmost 12th-century window in the south wall of the nave. The late 12th-century font, given in 1846 by the rector Thomas Henderson, probably came from his other church at Messing. On the east wall of the nave is a fragment of 16th-century wallpainting, a diaper of black roses. The east wall of the chancel was painted c. 1911. The three bells, (i) Henry Pleasant 1707 (ii) Henry Jordan mid 15th century (iii) Miles Gray 1662, were rehung in 1987. The plate includes a cup of 1702 bought in 1703 to replace a stolen one; it was itself sold or lost in 1876 and bought back for the parish in 1912. The churchyard was enlarged in 1908 with land given by C. P. Wood of Wakes Hall.

From: 'Wakes Colne: Church', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 126-128. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15197&amp;amp;strquery=wakes colne Date accessed: 14 February 2011.

Wakes Colne is a scattered village on the north side of the river Colne, 8 miles West North West of Colchester, and 5 miles East South East of Halstead. For adminsitrative purposes it is part of the Colchester District of Essex County Council.

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

Essex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

Census records
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

Between 1681 and 1741 the overseers paid weekly allowances and supplied firewood and other relief in kind to 6-9 paupers, and gave occasional relief to others; some pauper children were apprenticed. In 1724-5 a woman was taken to hospital in London. Apart from the wheel and two spindles bought for a widow in 1717, nothing was done to set the poor on work. Rents were paid for a few paupers; others were accommodated in the town house or workhouse at Wakes Colne green, or in the parish or poor house, occasionally also called the town house, east of the church. One house, called the almshouse, was built or rebuilt in 1698; the town or workhouse was extensively repaired, in white brick, in 1749-50. The total amount spent averaged c. £60 a year, reaching a low point of £28 in 1688-9, and high points of £122 in 1715-16 and £123 in 1730-1. Expenditure was high between 1715 and 1723, perhaps because of widespread illness, and in 1721 the overseers reduced spending on clothes and other relief in kind. Expenditure on the poor was £168 in 1776, averaged £180 between 1783 and 1785, and rose in 1803 to £324, or 17s. 5d. per head of population, about average for the hundred. Between 1813 and 1836 expenditure per head of population was among the highest in the hundred, although total expenditure fell from £961 in 1813 to £638 in 1815 before rising again to £882 in 1819. It reached a high point of £1,070 or 48s. 5d. per head in 1831 and £1,015 in 1832 before falling sharply to £683 in 1834. In 1800-1 paupers still received weekly allowances, wood, clothing, and other contributions in kind, but by 1823 almost all out relief was in cash. Men worked in the gravel pits or on the roads; in 1824 and 1825 four girls were at a nearby silk mill. From 1830 the overseers paid the workhouse governor for keeping up to 26 paupers at 3s. a head, but other payments to the poor continued as before. The workhouse was used until 1837, when it was sold and the paupers transferred to the Union workhouse in Stanway. The usual parish officers, 2 churchwardens, 2 overseers of the poor, 2 surveyors of the highways, and 2 constables, were elected annually from the late 17th century or earlier. From 1734 to 1822 there was only one churchwarden. Attendance at the Easter vestry in the earlier 19th century ranged from 2 to 9; the rector, when present, took the chair.

From: 'Wakes Colne: Local government', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 125-126. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15196&amp;amp;strquery=wakes colne Date accessed: 14 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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