Stanford Rivers, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Stanford Rivers St Margaret is an Ancient Parish in Essex.

The parish church of ST. MARGARET consists of nave, chancel, north porch (blocked), west porch, south vestry, and a west bell-turret with spire. There is a gallery beneath the turret. The walls are mostly of flint rubble with dressings of clunch and other stone. The upper part of the chancel is of brick. The church is faced externally with Roman cement. The roof is tiled. The nave was built in the middle of the 12th century. The original semicircular arch of the south doorway can still be seen internally. Both north and south walls have two single-light round-headed windows of the 12th century, but in each case those nearest the west end have been blocked and are only visible from the outside. There is a similar blocked window in the west gable with exposed flintwork surrounding it. During the first half of the 14th century two threelight windows were inserted near the east end of the nave, one on the north and one on the south side. These probably replaced small 12th-century lights, which suggests an original arrangement of three windows to each wall. On the east splays of the two 14th-century windows wall-paintings, probably con- temporary, were visible until recently. These consisted of figures under gabled and crocketed canopies with shields of arms above. The present chancel also dates from the first half of the 14th century. On its north side there is a contemporary window consisting of two trefoil and ogeeheaded traceried lights. The south wall has two similar windows with a blocked doorway, probably of the same date, between them. Richard Salyng, by his will proved in 1404, made a bequest for the remaking of the rood loft, and provided that if he died at Stanford Rivers he should be buried in the church beside the monument to his late wife Alice. Late in the 15th century the north porch was built. It is of timber and is of a type common in Essex. Many of the original timbers remain. The external arch, now blocked, is four-centred with trefoil carved spandrels, and the panels flanking it have traceried heads. It is now used as a store. The south porch, now the vestry, was probably similar. The timber-framed bell-turret was probably built in the 15th century. It was inserted in the westernmost bay of the nave. The massive angle-posts are stop-chamfered near floor level. The turret is weather-boarded and is surmounted by a small lead-covered spire. The roof of the nave also dates from the 15th century. It has three trusses with rebated king-posts and four-way struts. The timbers between the trusses were exposed during the restorations in 1951. In the 15th century, or early in the 16th, a wide three-light window with a segmental pointed head was inserted in the south wall of the chancel. This was later plastered over, but during the restorations of 1948-52 it was opened up and glazed and the stonework was renewed. Early in the 16th century the roof level of the chancel was raised, the walls were built up in brickwork and three segmental-headed clerestory windows were inserted in both north and south walls. This curious arrangement may have been the preliminary to a general raising of the wall height, never carried out. The chancel arch was probably destroyed at this time, giving the present awkward junction between chancel and nave roofs. The chancel roof has curved and moulded principals and is of the early 16th century. The timbers between the trusses were exposed in 1951. At the archdeacon's visitation of 1606 the churchwardens stated that the chancel was out of repair, both glass and stonework of the windows being broken, and the walls dirty. At another visitation in 1683 the churchwardens were ordered to mend both the church porches, the crack on the north side of the steeple, and the tiling towards the lower end of the church. A small scratched sundial on the external jamb of the 14th-century window in the south wall of the nave probably dates from the 17th century. In 1817 important repairs and alterations were carried out at a total cost of about £350. These included the opening of the present west entrance and probably also the conversion of the south porch into a vestry, the building of the gallery, and the insertion of the present east window in the chancel. The west porch is open and of oak. It has a segmental pointed arch and pierced spandrels. The window above it is three-light with a segmental head and a wide architrave of wood. The gallery incorporates panels from a 15thcentury chancel screen. All this work was carried out by Richard Noble of Ongar under the direction of a surveyor named Foottit. In 1944 a flying bomb damaged the south side of the church. Restoration was carried out between 1948 and 1952. During that period the gallery was converted into a small parish room by the fixing of a temporary partition to the front. In 1552 there were three bells in the steeple 'of which the great bell contains 1 yard deep lacking 3 inches, the second bell 2 ft. 3 ins., the breadth 1 yd. 1 in., the third bell 2 ft. 3 in., and the breadth 1 yd. lacking 2 ins.' There were also a handbell, a sanctus bell, and two sacring bells. There are at present two bells in the steeple, one cast by Joseph Carter in 1609, the other by Anthony Bartlet in 1662; one of these was damaged in 1944 and is no longer in use. The third bell appears to have been sold in 1806 and the money applied towards repairs to the steeple. The early-13th-century font is of Barnack stone, the octagonal bowl having sunk panels with pointed heads and the stem having eight detached shafts. There are sixteen 15th-century oak benches near the west end of the nave, the ends being carved with small buttresses. The communion rails have turned balusters of the late 17th century. They were no doubt erected as a result of the archdeacon's visitation of 1683, when it was ordered that the communion table should be railed in. The wrought-iron-work supporting the altar lamp is apparently of early-18th-century date and came from Suttons in Stapleford Tawney. The stained glass in the east window was inserted in 1952 in memory of H. W. Millbank (d. 1950). The electric heating was installed in 1952. The church plate consists of a silver flagon, paten, and chalice of 1812, presented by the Revd. E. C. Dowdeswell. In 1552 there were three chalices of silver, one being partly gilt. There was delivered for service use one silver chalice. There are a few details of the church furnishings in past centuries. Richard Ballard, by his will proved in 1526, left money for the 'gilding of oon of the tabernacles'. The image of the Assumption of Our Lady, in the chancel of the church, is mentioned in a will of 1537. In 1636 £1 10s. was paid for painting the royal arms and whitewashing the church. In 1651 the arms of the Commonwealth were substituted for those of the king; this and the setting up of the Ten Commandments cost £1 8s. (fn. 51) In 1660 the royal arms were again set up, at a cost of £1 5s. On the north wall of the chancel is an inscribed brass to Thomas Grene (1535) and his two wives. In his will (proved 1537) Grene gave instructions that he was to be buried in the chancel before the image of the Assumption of Our Lady, or in the chancel of the church of Cottered (Herts.). Also on the north wall of the chancel are white marble tablets to Charlotte Edwards (1823) and Isaac Taylor (1865). On the east wall of the chancel is a white marble tablet to Dr. Charles Gibbs (1681), and on the south wall a brass inscription to Katherine (1609) wife of Richard Mulcaster, rector of the parish. In the nave is a stone tablet to Anne, wife of William Napper (1584), bearing a brass of a kneeling woman and her six sons. On the floor of the chancel, some of them concealed below the altar, are four floor-slabs with brasses: (1) fragment of late-16th-century slab with shield of arms; (2) Thomas, infant son of Giles Greville (1492) with a figure of a Chrisom child and shield of arms; (3) Robert Borrow (1503) and Alys his wife: figures of man in plate armour and woman in pedimented head-dress with dog at their feet and shield of arms; (4) Lucy, daughter of William Petre (1637): inscription only. Also in the chancel are many floor slabs to the Petre family, ranging in date from 1677 (William son of Lord Petre) to 1797 (Hon. George William Petre). The Berkeley Charity, for the upkeep of the graveyard of the church, is described below, under Charities. The old rectory is a fine late-18th-century red-brick house of two stories and attics, with a one-story wing to the south-west. The entrance front has a pedimented doorcase and on the garden side there are two slightly projecting bays with pediments. The detail here and elsewhere is of c. 1780. Parts of the moat remain to the north of the house. The glebe terrier of 1610 describes extensive buildings which were probably on the same site. There appear to be no traces of these earlier buildings. For the present rectory see below, Protestant Nonconformity.

From: 'Stanford Rivers: Church', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 4: Ongar Hundred (1956), pp. 216-218. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15666&amp;amp;strquery=stanford Rivers Date accessed: 06 February 2011.

Stanford Rivers is a village and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex, England. It is located 2.0 miles (3.2 km) North-East of Chipping Ongar, 2.4 miles (3.9 km) North-West of North Weald Bassett and 3.1 miles (5.0 km) South-East of Kelvedon Hatch.

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
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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
Ongar Poor Law Union, Essex

Records of the courts of the manor of Stanford Rivers exist for the years 1324-5 and 1327-9 and also for 1534 but they are continuous only from 1560. Between 1560 and 1624 the court met annually, usually between July and November. No court appears to have met between 1624 and 1659. The fact that constables began to be chosen by the vestry in 1637 seems to confirm that no courts leet met about this time. From 1662 courts were held regularly about Eastertide until 1690. There was a court leet in 1710, another in 1714, and then no more. Twelve to seventeen men were usually sworn as a jury, the same men serving year after year. They were chosen as tenants, not necessarily resident within the manor. The jurisdiction of the court extended over all residents within the manor. Each court leet also transacted court baron business, and courts after 1667, although described as 'of the View of Frank-pledge' did no true leet business except the election of constables. The primary duty of the court-to view frank-pledge- was occasionally discharged by early Elizabethan courts. The immediate extension of this duty-a general surveillance of manners-frequently occupied courts about this time. But the commonest subjects of presentment were failures to maintain roads and bridges by those bound ratione tenure to do so. Statutory offences presented in Elizabethan courts included defaults under the first Highways Act (2 &amp; 3 Philip &amp;Mary, c. 8). Disrepair of the stocks was sometimes presented. Most courts elected two constables and swore them if they were present. In 1561 a constable was not sworn because he was absent, and this, uncommon at that date, became usual as the court declined. Of the seven appointments made after 1675 three were made in the absence of one or two of the men elected, who were ordered to take their oaths before justices. The only reference to the constables' work is their presentment for not punishing vagabonds, made in 1567. The orders of the court were directed to the bailiff. The court had one weapon, the amercement, which was assessed or 'affeered' by two jurors appointed as 'affeerors'. It does not seem to have been very effective. A principal cause of the decline of the court leet was the rise, chiefly as the result of the Poor Law of 1598, of the vestry. In 1634-44 five courts (one court leet and 4 courts baron) were attended by a total of 17 jurors. Of these 7 had served parish office during the same 11 years. The man who served parish office most frequently (5 times) attended 1 court. The man who attended all courts served parish office 3 times. The court and the vestry had a specific common interest-the appointment of constables-and their activities were closely co-ordinated. From 1637 constables were nominated in the vestry while courts leet were not being held. After 1662 the vestry appears to have nominated only when it knew that the court was not to be held for some time. When the court was to meet soon after the vestry the vestrymen doubtless knew this from the bailiff's summons and did not nominate constables in the vestry. As late as 1734 constables were still being noted in the vestry book as 'chosen by Wm. Petre esq.' (lord of the manor and an active vestryman) although no court leet had met for 20 years. Occasionally the tenants in court were able to assist themselves as parishioners in vestry, as for example in 1684, when the court ordered John Combers the younger to pay 2s. 6d. a year to the poor for a gate in Bowyers Lane. The earliest surviving vestry record is a brief churchwarden's account of 1592. Notes of the appointment of officers begin in 1604 and are defective at first. The earliest summary account signed by the vestrymen as approving it is dated 1619. In the early 17th century the vestry apparently met only at Easter, to pass accounts and appoint officers. After 1673 there was a regular additional meeting at Christmas, at which the surveyors of highways were nominated. Other meetings, rare in the late 17th century, became more common in the early 18th century, and at a meeting in November 1724 it was agreed, as one of ten standing orders, that a vestry should meet once a month, every first Thursday at 3 p.m. This order was followed and the meeting in February 1786 was entitled, as something uncommon, a '2 month vestry'. (fn. 95) Standing orders enjoined the vestry to meet in the church and prescribed that any expenses incurred if it adjourned to a public house should be borne by individuals. Nevertheless the Easter vestries of 1728 and 1744 charged the parish with £1 and £2 2s. respectively, the latter for dinner and punch. The Easter vestry of 1782 held a dinner 'at Mr. Sammes'. In the 17th century the vestry was often attended by fewer than six men. Numbers rose in the next century. In the three periods 1725-7, 1750-2, 1800-2, for example, about 12 attended the Easter vestries and 6-9 the other meetings. The chairman was never named as such in the minutes but members of the Petre family always signed first when they were present, during the first half of the 18th century; in their absence the rector signed first. About 1740 the curate sometimes appears to have written the minutes but did not sign. When neither a Petre nor the rector was present one of the churchwardens signed first. Committees were occasionally appointed. In 1769 one of five members was appointed to negotiate with a builder for the erection of a workhouse, and in 1805 one of seven was set up to reassess the parish rating. The Easter vestry of 1824 adopted the 2nd Sturges Bourne Act (59 Geo. III, c. 12) and appointed a select vestry consisting of five men in addition to the rector, churchwardens, and overseers. Each successive Easter vestry appointed a select vestry, usually of 10-15 men, until 1834. The usual officers were nominated and appointed by the vestry. Three overseers of the poor were appointed until 1642, when it was decided that two were sufficient. Before this they were usually called 'collectors'. In 1642 it was noted that the constable should be chosen first. Between 1624 and 1634 there were opportunities for 93 men to serve parish office. Thirty-nine actually served. In 1750-60 there were 88 opportunities and 30 men served. Allowing for the fact that one churchwarden served throughout the later period it appears that the incidence of office changed little, although in the 18th century the office of overseer was more widely shared than it had been in the 17th century, when the responsibilities were lighter. A paid overseer was appointed in 1810 at an annual salary of £10 10s., and he was reappointed every year until 1822, when he became a constable. Women were twice chosen as overseers in the 18th century. This indicates a rota of substantial landowners from which overseers were picked. A woman overseer's responsibility seems to have ended with providing by her 'substance' financial security for the operations of her male deputy, who attended vestry for her. It is possible that one churchwarden was customarily chosen by the parishioners and one by the rector, and an explicit statement of this first occurs in 1763. The standing orders of 1724 provided that an officer with an account to pass who did not appear should be prosecuted. This order was applied capriciously. In 1725 it was resolved to apply for a warrant against a defaulting overseer, who subsequently returned. In 1735 Mr. Webb, a surveyor, came to the vestry without his accounts but declared 'to the best of his knowledge' that he had spent £6. In fact he had spent slightly less, as appeared later, but there is no hint of censure. After 1750 the totals of each overseer's disbursements were recorded monthly and were presumably examined by each monthly vestry. Income from parish property and charities went far to meet the expenses incurred during the 18th century and rates were not often required. Money was raised for special purposes by loans (e.g. £250 to build the workhouse in 1769), the interest on which was paid from the rates. In 1806 the parish debts were paid by the sale for £120 of parish lands in Shonks Mill meadow and the sale of timber worth £80 'in the field adjoining the workhouse'. In the 17th century and the first half of the 18th rates were granted to each officer as required. In 1732 the surveyors were ordered to pay the surplus on their account to the repair of the church bells. In 1741 the last separate surveyors' rate was levied. Thenceforth all rates were levied by the overseers who reimbursed other officers. The product of a 1d. rate in 1731 was £9. By a resolution of 1749 there was a reassessment, probably stimulated by a sharp rise in the cost of poor relief. In 1748 a 1d. rate produced £10 15s., and in 1749, £11 4s. It produced £9 in 1805 and 1817. In 1824, after a new reassessment, the product was £17. An entry in the churchwardens' accounts in 1626 'for writeinge 1s. 6d.' is the first surviving record of payment to a servant of the parish. In 1674 Richard Cox bequeathed to the parish a black shroud, directing that the parish clerk should have custody of it and that he and succeeding sextons or clerks should be paid 1s. by each person using it. In 1744 a church clerk was appointed at a salary of £2 a year. A new vestry book was started in 1775 and most of the records of meetings in it are signed by the clerk. Previously, from the mid 17th century, minutes seem to have been written by the best penman present. In 1817 the salary of the clerk was raised to £4 4s. a year. It was easy to relieve the poor in the 17th century. Income came from Easter communion collections, from Green's Charity, and from casual bequests to the parish poor. In 1617, for example, the first source yielded 8s., the second £2, and the third 10s. Fifteen persons shared this income. They included five widows, and three men who appear from the Register of Baptisms to have been aged 70, 58, and 52. The recipients of poor relief were such old and infirm people as these, some children, and travellers along the London road. Relief was by money doles, boarding out, apprenticing of poor children, providing clothes, and apparently also by providing accommodation. In 1652-3 the sum of £6 17s. 6d. was laid out towards the building of a cottage for the poor. No other reference has been found to the use of this cottage. The administration of poor relief during most of the 17th century was entrusted not to the overseers of the poor but to the churchwardens and constables. All the examples quoted above come from the churchwardens' accounts except those relating to travellers, which are from the constables' accounts. Records of the overseers handling money appear first in 1670. During the 18th century the duties of the overseers became increasingly heavy as the cost of poor relief rose. Between 1724 and 1754 the average cost was about £130 a year. In 1754-64 it was over £180, in 1764-74 it was £260, in 1774-84 it was £360, in 1784-94 it was £440, and in 1794-1804 it rose to £840. The parish spent ten times as much in 1800-1 as in 1726-7. The poor rate levied between 1801 and 1817 was rarely below £1,000 in any year. The two overseers acted independently and rendered separate accounts. When the balance of both accounts had been struck at the Easter vestry the surplus in the hands of the outgoing officers was shared between their successors. Each overseer apparently acted for a different 'end' of the parish, either Toot Hill or Hare Street. The poor in the 18th century formed two classes. About two dozen received regular weekly doles, and the rest, varying in number with the season and the price of food, received casual aid. The recipients of the regular doles were enjoined by the orders of 1724 and 1732 to wear badges. Until the building of the workhouse the expedients of the previous century seem to have been adopted for the relief of the poor. Medical attention was perhaps new. In 1741 an account for medicine of £4 8s. was passed, and in 1746 there was payment of £4 4s. for medical services. Paupers' rents, and from 1764 the cost of their firing, were often paid and in many cases the money went to prominent vestrymen. In 1769 a workhouse was built on parish land near the church. From 1770 payments for wool and spindles indicate that the inmates were engaged in spinning. From 1771 this work brought income; the weekly sums recorded were usually greatest in the winter. This income later declined. Another source of income was the hiring of paupers' labour. From 1810 until 1815 regular statements of account between the governor of the workhouse and the parishioners were recorded. The overseers made monthly or fortnightly cash payments and supplied flour to the governor. He kept the paupers at an agreed rate for each person, and received extra for fuel, potatoes, and 'hair cutting, shaving, mops, brooms, thread, worsted, tape, oil &amp;c.' In 1809 there were 12 beds in the workhouse and in 1830 there were 13. In 1829 Stanford Rivers joined with nine other parishes in a voluntary poor law union. The parish raised £300 on £50 bonds at 4 per cent., dated 1830-1, to defray its contribution towards the cost of the new incorporated workhouse, and in 1831 sold its own workhouse for £420. The new incorporated workhouse was built (probably in 1830-1) at Little End in Stanford Rivers, on land formerly owned by Capel Cure. After the formation of the Ongar Union in 1836 it became the property of the new union and served as its workhouse until the union came to an end in 1930. Stanford Rivers became part of the Ongar Union in 1836.

From: 'Stanford Rivers: Parish government and poor relief', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 4: Ongar Hundred (1956), pp. 218-221. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15669&amp;amp;strquery=stanford Rivers Date accessed: 06 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.

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