LOUGHTON AND DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

NEWSLETTER 196 JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2013

Price 40p, free to members

www.loughtonhistoricalsociety.org.uk Golden Jubilee: 50th Season

Loughton Cricket Club – the old and the new

Loughton Cricket Club was formed in 1879. The thatched pavilion in this striking new painting is over 80 years old. On the L & DHS comprehensive website, click on Newsletters, then Index, for references to the Club. Included in editions 187, 188, and 189, are extracts from the late Percy Thompson’s excellent history of the earlier years of the Club – ‘The story of Loughton Cricket Club as recorded in its minutes 1880–1926’.

continuously for the last six or seven months, only being late on one occasion. From the Motor Car Journal, 23 April 1904.

Forest for the People Forest for the People: George Burney (1818–1885) and His Fight to Save Epping Forest is the title of a new booklet by Richard Morris and is the story of an iron-tank manufacturer, from Millwall on the Isle of Dogs in East London, who achieved some notoriety in the 1870s, in the fight to save Epping Forest from enclosure – he organised the pulling down of fences on pieces of forest land which he believed had been illegally enclosed. His involvement in helping to save the Forest was, however, much greater than just pulling down fences. Richard’s booklet seeks to explain Burney’s wider activities in this respect, and to give some background to his family and business in East London. Burney & Company became known internationally for its iron products and was sole supplier of iron water tanks to the Royal Navy. The book has 44 pages (including 8 pages of illustrations) and is £3 for members and £3.50 for others.

As was briefly mentioned in the Journal for the 23rd. ult, the night mails between London and Epping have for some time past been conveyed by a 16-hp Milnes-Daimler car belonging to Mr George Hayes, of Plumstead. The vehicle leaves Mount Pleasant WC every night at 11.50pm, and runs via South Woodford, Woodford Green, Buckhurst Hill and Loughton, short stoppages being made at each of these places to deliver mails at the Sorting Offices. Epping is timed to be reached at 2.8am, and ten minutes are allowed for unloading the car and reloading it with local mails for the metropolitan district. The return journey, which starts at 2.18am, is made via Chingford, where further mail bags are picked up and Mount Pleasant is again reached at 4.20am. The service, which has been experimentally run for the last eight months, has proved so successful that, we learn, the GPO authorities have decided to put it on a permanent basis, and have arranged a three years’ contract with Mr Hayes, who is having a new 16-hp van of the same type built for the purpose. The Post Office have two other motorcars in use in the London district by way of experiment – an 18-hp Durkopp which is conveying the mails to Redhill, and a General light van, which is used for short journeys in the Metropolitan area. In the latter class of delivery work the automobile has proved its capabilities to the satisfaction of the postal authorities who, we understand, are contemplating putting a number of additional cars in service at an early date. From the Motor Car Journal – 7 May 1904.

Epping to London mail: 1904 Submitted by J O H N

HARRISON

A motor-van is being used for the mail service between Epping and London, and we believe this car has run

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Secretary to a Home for Girls’. She enjoyed other things too – piano and singing lessons, and a round of visits, which she recalled as being in the days of ‘four wheeled cabs and hansoms, of tin foot-warmers in the unheated trains which had not begun to have corridors’. It is said that Elizabeth attended her first ball at Knighton, the home of Edward North Buxton and his family. She remembered the clothing of the period:

Elizabeth Fox Howard LYNN HASELDINE-JONES Elizabeth Fox Howard spent most of her life living in Buckhurst Hill but she was born in Walthamstow on 6 March 1873. Her parents were Eliot Howard (1842– 1927) and Charlotte Fox Tuckett (1842–1933). Eliot, and his brother David, who also lived in Buckhurst Hill, at Devon House, were members of the Howard family of Tottenham, well known locally for their pharmaceutical company. Her father, who became a mechanical engineer, was educated at a Quaker school in Tottenham, and her mother was also of Quaker origin, but they were supporters of the Church of St John the Baptist when they moved to Buckhurst Hill. Elizabeth, however, whilst baptised into the Anglican Church, was strong in her attachment to her Quaker ancestry and was active for the Society of Friends for many years. The Museum of London Docklands is currently showing an exhibition ‘London, Sugar and Slavery’; on display is a pale blue silk handbag from the 1820s, with a screen-print of a black slave mother with child on one side and an anti-slavery verse on the reverse which originally belonged to Rebecca Fox of Tottenham, and was donated to the Library of the Society of Friends by her granddaughter, Elizabeth Fox Howard, in 1915. Elizabeth was born at the family home of Cleveland House. This is still to be found on Hoe Street, Walthamstow, although it is now divided into flats. She and her two brothers Francis Eliot, born in 1875, and Geoffrey Eliot, born in 1877, were brought up in a home very much of its time – with servants, and a nurse to look after the children. She wrote:

‘We danced in dresses with long trains, looped over the arm, in those days. Even in the daytime, for some years, trains were worn, and most inconvenient they were! When we began to bicycle we wore skirts almost down to the feet, specially made for the purpose, with an elastic round the ankle, to keep our voluminous skirts from blowing over our heads. We wore enormous hats, skewered onto our hair, which was piled high up over a frame or pads.’

The Howards moved to Buckhurst Hill in 1897, by which time Elizabeth was in her early 20s. The house they moved to was Ardmore House, which they acquired from Dr Barnardo. It was around this time that Elizabeth decided to become a committed Quaker. Her family were keen on good works of many kinds, including running an annual festival at their home for local children, inspired by Dr Barnardo, whom Elizabeth’s father had known for many years. Elizabeth became a Poor Law Guardian, and was a member of the ‘Fifty Club’, a society for local women which met every month in their various large houses for musical and literary afternoons. She enjoyed walking in the forest with her dogs, and playing tennis on the court at Ardmore, although playing on Sunday was not allowed. Elizabeth was very well travelled for a woman of her time. She visited the United States, and is known to have also been to Tangiers and Greece. During the First World War Elizabeth worked in London. Her mother arranged a working party at Ardmore in support of the Red Cross – this helped to equip several hospitals, and provided clothing for Belgian refugees. It must have been her experience of the First World War and her war work which motivated her to work to help the Germans after the end of the war. In fact, by 1950 she could write ‘for twenty-five years my connections with Germany had been closer than with any other country except my own, and I had spent months each year on some form or other of relief or reconciliation work, leaving Frankfurt, indeed, only a couple of weeks before war broke out in 1939’. She was proud of the fact that her great-grandfather, Luke Howard, a meteorologist, was a correspondent of Goethe, which stood her in good stead in intellectual circles in Germany. Elizabeth wrote about her experiences in Germany in two books: Across Barriers, published in 1941, and Barriers Down, published in 1950. The first records her personal experiences and impressions of Germany over the previous 20 years, up to the outbreak of the Second World War. It includes her account of her arrest by the Gestapo in 1935. She was interrogated about papers in her possession concerning activities of Quakers and others who were considered to be acting

‘Our house was an old one, and it was lighted only by oil lamps and candles, so that memories of winter evenings are of dark passages of flickering shadows from the solitary candle on the landing, and of the black piece of staircase which had to be traversed before the welcome line of light under the nursery door proclaimed the end of the perilous ascent. Perhaps it was not surprising that we were rather delicate and nervous children. Our nurseries were very lowceilinged, and the windows were never open at night.’

She went on to say: ‘Nurse used to take us for somewhat uninspiring walks, along streets whose names of Beulah Road and Eden Road were deceptive. She was also rather fond of conducting us round the cemetery, which was at least by way of being an open space. Later on, with a governess and the enlarged schoolroom party, we got to Epping Forest, which was then, and still is, my best beloved corner of England.’

Her childhood memories in Walthamstow included buying crumpets from the muffin man which were taken home to toast before the nursery fire. Toys included hoops, which were bowled along the pavement. In due course she went to school, St John’s in Brighton. She left at the age of 17, and was, as she put it, ‘put into harness’ as a parish worker, ‘teaching in Sunday School, running a Band of Hope, flirting very mildly with a succession of curates, and acting as

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against the interest of the German state. She heard Hitler speak in Frankfurt, and commented ‘when Hitler finished his speech, the whole audience rose as one man, and, holding up their right hands, sang Deutschland, Deutschland! with a passionate conviction which moved even an English onlooker. Hitler himself seems to have no constructive programme, and no personal charm, but he is, as many Germans feel, their last hope.’ The later book covers the immediate post-war period and the beginnings of the German recovery. Richard Crossman, MP, who spent much of his boyhood in Buckhurst Hill, and whose mother was a Howard, was asked to prepare a dustjacket introduction to this book. He wrote:

and fellow author Una Lucy Silberrad (who lived at a house called Sunnycroft, now demolished but which was across the road from Holly House on the High Road). Silberrad, whilst an Anglican herself, was an admirer of the work of the Society of Friends, and her novel set in the local area, Keren of Lowbole, is also timed as the late 17th century, a period of interest to both women. Elizabeth’s poems were published in a little booklet by the Society of Friends. Here is one example: September Dawn The night we deemed unending has gone by; The crash of battle in a spangled sky; The thud of bomb, and crack of bursting shell; The near horizon stained by fires of hell; The falling flares that turn night to day; The hovering hawk above its helpless prey; The breathless moments, and the ears astrain, Braced to each blow again and yet again.

‘The first genuine author I ever knew personally was my cousin Elsie Howard. Her stories were family reading at home. She was also the only relation of mine who held heretical political views. I can still remember the scandal which she caused by sticking up for the German internees during the First World War, and the secret admiration which I felt for her. There are countless people, outside the circle of Friends, who have been influenced, as I have been, by her example – without accepting all her views. In the last war I found myself censoring her broadcasts to Germany, to ensure that their Christian spirit did not violate Government directive! Once again she beat the censor. Barriers Down is another chapter in a life inspired by conscientious objection to hatred. The conditions which it records are now a guilty nightmare. The evils of Western Germany in 1950 are no longer hunger and ostracism by the Occupying Powers. But the moral of Miss Howard’s book is unaffected by this change. The politician can achieve many things, but not a change of heart. That can only be accomplished by the individual who defiantly crosses the barriers before they are down.’

Now din and terror have been rolled away, God has endowed us with another day; A silence comes in place of whirring wings, And with the ‘All Clear’ at dawn, a robin sings. Buckhurst Hill 1940

Elizabeth Fox Howard with Ernst Reuter, Mayor of Berlin (probably early 1950s)

Elizabeth’s father died in 1927 and was buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist, Buckhurst Hill. Her mother died in January 1933 and it was probably after this that Elizabeth decided to move to a smaller and more up to date home, but she remained in Buckhurst Hill. Ardmore became a Mothers’ and Babies’ Home during the war, and was later an Old People’s Home run by Essex County Council (it was later demolished and replaced by three houses in Ardmore Place). After the end of the Second World War’ Elizabeth continued her reconciliation work in Germany, working with displaced persons and

Miss Howard was the hostess when Gandhi paid his visit to Buckhurst Hill in 1931. It was a private visit, arranged in order to give him a quiet day away from public affairs. The Woodford Times reported the visit and this was covered in Newsletter 194. Elizabeth Fox Howard was a published author, not just of her work in Germany, but poems and works of fiction. Her novel, Damaris of the Downs, a love story with a Quaker background, set in the late 17th century, was dedicated to ULS – her near neighbour

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concentration camp survivors. She makes the point in her book that at the age of over 70, she had to wear military uniform (that of a Lieutenant-Colonel) to be allowed into Germany by the occupying authorities. She tells the story of leaving her home in Buckhurst Hill in 1947, dressed in her uniform and her neighbours waving her off. This house was 7 Russell Road, where she lived until her death in 1957.

The George, Wanstead A plaque commemorating a stolen cherry pie! TERRY CARTER Although The George is not a particularly old building, dating from about 1902, there has been a pub on that site for hundreds of years. In 1716 it was called the George and Dragon. Some time in its history, in the reign of George I, the Dragon, no doubt for diplomatic reasons, was discarded. Set into the side of the pub is a plaque, dating from 1752, which was formerly part of an older pub building. The plaque is inscribed with the eccentrically spelled verse:

References Fox, Tony: ‘Una Lucy Silberrad, Authoress’ in Essex Journal, Autumn 2009. Grateful thanks to Joan Francies and her friend Peter Heathfield for the loan of the books Across Barriers and Barriers Down. Hatley, Annie R (Ed): Across The Years – Walthamstow Memories (Walthamstow Historical Society, 1953/2008). Howard, Elizabeth F: Across Barriers (Friends Service Council, 1941). Howard, Elizabeth F: Barriers Down (Friends Home Service Committee, 1950). Howard, Elizabeth F: Damaris of the Downs (Headley Brothers, 1910). Howard, Elizabeth F: Little Man and other Collected Poems (The Friends Book Centre, 1953). Morris, Richard: From Clouds to Quinine: the Howard Family of Tottenham, Buckhurst Hill and Loughton (Loughton and District Historical Society, 2004). The Powell Scrapbooks in the Vestry House Museum, Walthamstow. Unattributed article on Elizabeth Fox Howard, undated, in Loughton Library. Woodford Times, Friday, 25 September 1931 (Loughton Library).

In Memory of Ye Cherry Pey As cost ½ a Guiney Ye 17 of July That day we had good cheer I hope to so do maney a Year R C 1752 D Jerry

Stealing cabbages Submitted by R I C H A R D

MORRIS

At the Stratford police Court on Monday, John Rivers, 45, a labourer of Smart’s Lane, Loughton, was charged with stealing five cabbages from a field at Loughton, the property of John Chilton. At about 10 o’clock on Saturday night prisoner was seen to leave one of Mr Chilton’s fenced fields, and as he had cabbages in a handkerchief he was asked to explain how he got them. He said they were given him by a William Hyde, but Sergt Earp, 40J, disbelieved that story, and took him into custody. He now pleaded guilty, and was fined 5s and the costs.

Woodford Times, 1889

A well-known sight of old Loughton

When this public-house was rebuilt, an inscribed stone was preserved and is visible on the Southern wall on the exterior of the building. It records the fact that one of the workmen in 1752 stretched out his hand and stole a cherry pie from a passing baker. The magistrate found him guilty and fined him half a guinea. The inscription is in the form of a rhyming verse. Some poetic licence may have been involved, and this might affect its accuracy. So the theft story has come under severe scrutiny. Probably a more likely explanation is that it was placed there by the landlord of 1752, David Jersey (the inscription to D Jerry on the plaque being corrupted by centuries of repainting and recutting), commemorating a feast which included a huge cherry pie. Spectacular pies were a feature of 18th-century Essex rural festivals: the Tollesbury Gooseberry Pie Festival is still in existence, and it seems other inns around the edge of Epping Forest were famed for pies (viz. rabbit

Like the preceding article about cabbage theft, this fascinating old ad is also from a Woodford Times issue of 1889.

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the Claybury cricket team and my brother and I spent many a warm sunny Sunday playing in the grounds of the hospital while Mum sat in her deckchair knitting and watching the cricket. I never had the opportunity to see inside the hospital but I was always intrigued by the big tower. I think it was a water tower. The Claybury I remember was much bigger than the 1908 picture shown. It had impressive gates with lodge houses on each side. As children, my brother and I and all our friends would go to Toms Wood to pick blackberries, we were always on the look-out for ‘escaped patients’ and, perhaps unkindly, on looking back, imagined anybody we saw was an inmate! Many a full bowl of blackberries was lost in our haste to run home!

pie at The Reindeer, Loughton (later The Warren), and pigeon pie at The King’s Head, Chigwell). Wanstead was well known for its cherry orchards as late as the 1830s, when they were mentioned by the poet Thomas Hood, who lived in Wanstead from 1832 to 1835. For the record, David Jersey was indeed ‘mine host’ of The George. He was born in East Ham in 1697 of a family of East Ham innkeepers. Their family grave is still prominent in an East Ham churchyard, though David Jersey himself, who died in 1754, is buried in Wanstead.

Claybury Hospital – memories

On reading the above J A M E S D O U G L A S replied:

(With thanks to the Internet )

It was a water tower, 150ft tall, and I was one of the few people privileged enough to climb its stairs to admire the astonishing view from the top. (I think we had to go through the kitchens to enter the tower.) At the time (the mid-1980s) I was working at the hospital with the administrator’s son; and it was our task to move hundreds of the hospital files from one section of the hospital to another. Some of the books containing these records were huge, showing details of all the many people – men, women and children – who were admitted to the hospital over the years. Photographs of some of the Victorian patients (often seated in front of a mirror, if I recall correctly) were particularly poignant. (As far as I know, these records were ultimately moved to Ilford Library upon the hospital’s closure.) Incredibly, Claybury Hospital also had its own bank, chapel, and a beautiful old music hall – a real community within. There was also a huge network of tunnels beneath the hospital, which we also got access to, courtesy of the administrator and a pal of mine who also worked in the admin department. What an experience! As you probably know, the place is now an up-market housing estate. But the ghosts of Claybury linger on . . .

Claybury Hospital was a psychiatric hospital at Woodford Bridge in Essex. It was opened in 1893 making it the fifth London County Council Asylum. At that time it was known as ‘The London County Lunatic Asylum’. From 1918 to 1937 it was called ‘Claybury Mental Hospital’, and therafter, until its closure in 1997, simply ‘Claybury Hospital’. Now, of course, it is the Repton Park estate. With the Care in the Community Programme and the inevitable decline in patient numbers from its peak of 4,000 patients, Claybury faced a difficult future. The NHS pressed for extensive demolition and maximum new-build, whereas the Local Planning Authority and English Heritage argued for maximum retention of the historic buildings and restriction of new-build to the existing footprint, in accordance with the Green Belt allocation in the Unitary Development Plan. A 60-day Public Inquiry was held in 1997 and the Council/English Heritage position was accepted. The hospital was shut down and converted into luxury flats called Repton Park by Crest Nicholson, working closely with English Heritage and the London Wildlife Trust.

There have been many reported ghost sightings at the site, (such as tall men) both while it was still a mental hospital and more recently as the Repton Park development.

Harlow and its Railway – Part 3 RICHARD BRADLEY [This article is reproduced from The Great Eastern Journal, April 2011, published by the Great Eastern Railway Society, with the kind permission of the author and the editors of that Journal. Some minor amendments have been made to help those not familiar with railway terminology and some of the more detailed changes to track layouts have been omitted. All changes have been reviewed by and approved by the author – Ed.] Road transport The railway’s passenger services had faced little competition but in 1928 Acme Pullman Services of Bishop’s Stortford began to operate a motor coach service to London passing through Harlow. It was followed two years later by the National Omnibus and Transport Company which operated a similar service on behalf of Green Line. Then in 1933 both routes were superseded by Green Line Route V.

‘Claybury Asylum’ 1908 – the Administration Block, with the Chapel in the background.

On a lighter note: From H I L A R Y H U G H E S , on Claybury memories: Both my parents were nurses at Claybury during the 1950s. My dad worked days and my mum worked nights. I can remember her telling me that when she did ‘the rounds’ during the night she used to ride her bike through the dark corridors crunching over cockroaches! Dad was umpire for

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In March 1947 when the New Town was formally designated there were only nine months left to run before the LNER was nationalised but the creation of British Railways on 1 January 1948 had little immediate effect on Harlow. The station had hardly changed from GER days and the passenger timetable was much the same as that of 1921. Commuters to London were served by four fairly fast rush hour trains in the morning peak and the same returning in the evening but at other times of the day the service was infrequent. There were two-hour gaps in up trains in the late morning and early afternoon though down trains were more evenly spaced. It could be said that the timetable had been honed to meet local needs but the town was changing and over the next 10 years the New Town Development Corporation would continually press the Eastern Region of British Railways (BR(E)) to make improvements though with limited success. Burnt Mill enjoyed a similar service to Harlow but as a much smaller station serving a few villages and hamlets it had only basic facilities for passengers. In the New Town’s early years some staff of the Development Corporation used the station to get to their offices in a nearby country house and their stories of huddling around a tortoise stove in the porters’ hut waiting for trains which were never on time may well have reinforced the Corporation’s view that the railway services left a lot to be desired.

Competition for the railway. A Green Line T coach on Route V bound for Liverpool Street calls at Harlow Post Office in January 1936. The bus stop has already been equipped with the new style of bus stop flag and shelter introduced by London Transport under the influence of Frank Pick a year or so earlier. Responsibility for the design of the flag is difficult to establish but the shelter has been attributed to Charles Holden.

The coach service was popular as it was frequent and relatively cheap but the journey to London along the A11 trunk road (as it was to become) was too long to make it a serious competitor for the railway’s London business traffic. On the other hand the coaches offered a more convenient means of travel between Harlow and Bishop’s Stortford as they were comfortable and stopped in the middle of towns and settlements en-route. Bishop’s Stortford was an important destination for Harlow people as it offered shopping and other services not available in the town but it does not seem that the volume of traffic was great enough to cause concern to the LNER as there is no sign of the railway timetable being amended. The last years of the old Harlow Harlow emerged from the Second World War largely unchanged. The marine engineering firm at Burnt Mill had gone out of business in the early 1930s (the dry glazing firm appears to have closed much earlier) but, as if to compensate, the Holbrook Machine Tool Company, based in Stratford, East London, had opened a factory next to the station in 1932. Some other factories had also operated in the town from time to time but there had been nothing on a large scale nor had there been any widespread housing development. The result was that in 1947 when the New Town was designated, Harlow was still a small community of only 4,500 inhabitants set in rural surroundings. Although still officially a parish forming part of Epping Rural District, Harlow had the characteristics of a town and was far from being the run-down village as later portrayed by the New Town Development Corporation. Nevertheless it was still a small place and its inhabitants were dependent for their more specialised needs on nearby larger towns such as Bishop’s Stortford and Epping.

This photo of Burnt Mill is taken from a postcard which was probably published in the first decade of the 20th Century. The station changed little in subsequent years and was in much the same form in 1948 when staff of the Development Corporation started using it. The photographer is standing on the up platform with his back to the waiting room. The level crossing, signal box and down station buildings are clearly visible and part of the goods shed can be seen to the left of the porter’s lodge which stands behind the down side crossing gate.

A new station and goods yard for the town The Master Plan for the New Town had recognised the need for the railway services to be improved and had provided for a new station to be built on the site of Burnt Mill as it was only about half a mile from the New Town’s proposed centre. However the project had to wait for BR(E) to find the resources. The Development Corporation realised that passengers would be inconvenienced but let matters take their course as they did not wish to encourage commuting in the New Town’s early years. As events turned out construction of the new station would have to wait until the line was electrified in 1960. The Master Plan had also provided for Harlow station’s goods yard to be enlarged and improved to serve the New Town’s factories. BR(E) was receptive

The New Town It was a principle of New Towns that they should be self-contained in terms of employment but it was also recognised that they should have good communications with the outside world. Harlow’s location on the Cambridge Main Line and its proximity to the future London to Norwich Motorway were therefore two reasons for it being chosen as the site of a New Town.

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to this proposal and work began on preparing the site in 1952. The land had to be filled to bring it up to track level and the streams and drainage ditches crossing it put into culverts. Three occupation bridges were also filled in and two pedestrian surface crossings abolished. The enlarged yard was connected to the up main line by a facing connection which led into an arrival road alongside which there was a run-round road. At the station end the arrival road was linked to the old goods yard which was given an extra siding for coal traffic. At its London end, a group of three new exchange sidings was connected to the run-round road by a trailing connection. From this junction a private siding climbed a steep incline to a new glass works built by the Key Glass Company adjacent to Latton Mill bridge. The new yard opened on 12 April 1953. It was served by three trains a day, the up and down pick-up goods and a train from Redhill carrying sand for the glass works. The locomotive on the up train normally left its train in the up loop while it went forward to the yard to drop off and collect wagons whereas the down workings set back into the yard. The sand train arrived in the early hours of the morning after crossing London using the East London Line the day before.

services from London to Norwich were transformed from 1951 by the arrival of the Britannia Pacific locomotives. In 1955 diesel railcars took over from steam on many branch lines in East Anglia. Electrification of the Cambridge Main Line from Liverpool Street to Bishop’s Stortford remained a high priority and an announcement that this would be carried out was made in the British Transport Commission’s 1955 Modernisation Plan. However, the scheme had to wait for the resources to become available so for the time being there was little change at Harlow. Train working in the 1950s From the late 1940s LNER standard designs had gradually displaced older steam engines on the Cambridge Main Line. By 1953 when the Britannia Pacifics had taken over the London to Norwich trains on the line, the change in passenger motive power was more or less complete. B17s, B2s and B1 4-6-0s were in charge of the less important expresses and semi-fast trains and K3 2-6-0s were commonly used on summer passenger services and special trains. The suburban trains were hauled by L1 2-6-4Ts though N7 0-6-2Ts appeared on short journeys. In contrast freight motive power was in a state of flux. The O2s had all departed by 1950 leaving ex War Department 2-8-0s in charge of the heaviest freight trains with K3s and K1 2-6-0s handling the lighter and faster freight services. These were assisted by ex GER 0-6-0 locomotives of classes J17 and J20 and, less commonly, J19s and LNER J39 0-6-0s. In 1953 it was reported that Britannia Pacifics were to be used on fast fitted freight services and new BR 9F 2-10-0s were to handle the heaviest freight traffic but these plans did not come to fruition. Many WDs were replaced in September 1953 by K3s in an attempt to speed up traffic but the lack of more powerful class 8 engines was felt. In 1955 a small number of 9F 2-10-0s appeared on the line but the restricted length of the loops and braking power limitations prevented their full power being used. Two years later they were transferred to the ex-Great Central Line in exchange for O1 2-8-0s. The first main line diesels appeared on the Cambridge Main line at the end of 1957 and from the following year began to be used on freight as well as passenger workings. This brought a halt to further changes in steam power which slowly diminished until the end of steam on the Great Eastern lines in 1962.

B17/6 61637 Thorpe Hall passes through Harlow on Saturday, 30 May 1953 with what is probably a Cambridge–Liverpool Street service. (R E Vincent/Transport Treasury.)

A map prepared by the Development Corporation for a Royal Visit in 1952 shows additional sidings proposed on the Burnt Mill side of the glass works but these were never built. It soon became evident that most new town factories preferred to rely on road transport. The glass works with its need for bulk loads of sand, soda and limestone remained the only significant individual user of the goods yard. Subsequently the exchange sidings were used mainly for glass works traffic and wagon storage though on rare occasions locomotives which had run hot or failed for some other reason were stabled there temporarily.

Electrification Electrification works had started at Harlow Station in 1958 with the erection of poles for the catenary and by 1959 were in full swing. The main project was the replacement of the A11 trunk road bridge. The old bridge had always been an obstacle, spitting the station and forcing passengers to cross the road to get between platforms but it now stood in the way of modernisation. The wider span of the new bridge provided the solution by allowing the up platform to be extended underneath enabling a footbridge linking the platforms to be built. The bridge also spanned a pedestrian underpass allowing people on the country side of the bridge direct access to the station forecourt.

Modernisation Although BR(E) had found it necessary to defer the construction of the new station at Harlow, it was making great progress in modernising other former GER lines. Electrification of the Liverpool Street to Shenfield services was completed in 1949 to be followed in 1956 by the extension of electrification to Chelmsford and Southend Victoria. The main line

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The new road bridge was designed to carry a dual carriageway road so was considerably wider than the one it replaced. Most of the extra width was located on the country side of the old bridge’s footprint to avoid disturbing the signal box which had to remain operational until a new power signal box controlling the line between Harlow and the town’s new station had been commissioned. This was built on the site of the siding whose turntable had once served the gas works siding. Extending the station’s platforms to take eight-car trains presented no difficulties as far as the down platform was concerned but the up loop had to be shortened to make room for the longer up platform. Its connection to the main line was moved about 100 yards further away from the road bridge and the 1892 trailing crossover opposite the down platform was removed at the same time. At the same time a new facing crossover was installed between the trailing crossover opposite the up platform and the 1953 connection to the yard. To make room a siding in the goods yard was removed together with the 1882 trailing connection to the yard which had been more or less unused since the yard’s enlargement in 1953. Since its rebuilding in the 1870s, the bridge carrying the old road at Harlow had consisted of a main span crossing the main lines and a brick arch over the up loop. It was not practicable to raise it to provide adequate clearance for electrification so it was demolished and replaced by a new structure with prestressed concrete beams spanning the main lines and the up loop. (To be continued.)

Saturday activity amid the quiet green countryside of High Beech was a vast contradiction to the normal way we appreciated the countryside. However, it was a fun pastime and only happened once a week for a few hours. It drew supporters from London and many of the suburbs. Dirt-track cinder racing would all but disappear when war was declared. It came back to High Beech in 1948, but with a much reduced following, and I seem to recall the race track stadium being torn down after 1950, when competitive speedway finished there. [See Peter Cook’s comprehensive article, ‘The dirt track in the forest’, Newsletter 192, September/October 2009.]

Motor-car accidents – epidemic in Chelmsford district Sent to J O H N H A R R I S O N by A D R I A N T R A N M E R A number of motor-car accidents have occurred recently in the Chelmsford district. A horse, attached to a trap belonging to Messrs W J Wenley and Sons, Chelmsford, on Tuesday morning, [shied] and backed [a] car into a large plate-glass window at Mr Fred Spalding’s shop. The window was wrecked, and the horse was with difficulty restrained from further mischief. The motor-car belonged to Mr R C Knights. The previous afternoon there was a narrow escape at Great Baddow, near Chelmsford. A funeral cortège was on its way to the churchyard at Baddow, when Mr E Rosling of Melbourne Farm, Writtle, who was driving a motor-car, attempted to pass with his machine. The horse attached to the hearse took fright and bolted down the road towards Great Baddow. It was only by skilful handling of the reins that the driver of the hearse managed to escape a collision with a wagon that was in the road some distance away. Eventually the horses were got under control. On Friday a governess and the little son of Mr D Cecil Gibbs, of Great Baddow, were driving, when a motor approached and frightened the pony, which drew the car up the bank by the side of the road. The occupants were thrown out, and the little boy was injured, though happily, not seriously. On Tuesday last Mr Coroner Lewis held an inquest into the circumstances attending the death of Mr Wm Picksley, 57, gardener, at Baddow Frove, near Chelmsford, who was thrown out of his trap and killed through his pony being frightened by a motor-car. The driver of the car was Mr Geo Balls, electrical engineer, of 58, Bergholt Road, Colchester, who deposed that he pulled up the car as soon as he saw the pony plunging, but too late to prevent it overturning the cart. The Jury returned a verdict of ‘Accidental death’, attaching no blame to the driver of the car, but calling the earnest attention of the authorities to the many serious accidents that had recently occurred through motor-cars. From Essex County Standard, 30 September 1899.

Cinder-track racing at High Beech M DENMAN LALONDE My home was in Buckhurst Hill, but on Saturdays in the summertime my Dad would sometimes take my Mum and me to the cinder racing track at High Beech. My memories of those Saturday afternoons come back as clear as a photograph, each one enhanced by the smell of Castrol Oil, the lubricant of choice for the motorcycle dare devils. The grandstands would be full, the men selling choc-ices would wander the stands trying to earn a few shillings, while getting to watch various racing heats. The ‘gate’ would fly upward and as many as 10 young men, and sometimes a young woman, on brakeless motorcycles, would dive for the first turn. In unison they would lay their bikes down, almost touching the ground. The rider’s left knee had a steel plate strapped on it, and their left shoe had a steel toe protector. Races of 5, 10 or more laps would determine who would be in the final. The din from these finely tuned machines was as deafening as the race was thrilling.
Names like Vic and his brother Ray Duggan were top riders of the day. Their brightly coloured leather suits and helmets were all the fans could see amid the blue smoke, which made that unique smell and clouds of flying cinders. Many bikes were powered by the small but powerful JAP engines. This very noisy and smelly

Owned first car in Essex – Mr C J Cottis dies at 74

Sent to J O H N H A R R I S O N by A D R I A N T R A N M E R The death occurred on Wednesday at his home, Squires, Epping, of Mr Crispus Joseph Cottis, JP, one of the bestknown men in Epping. He was 74 years of age, and managing director of Messrs Wm Cottis and Sons Ltd, agricultural engineers, founded by

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his grandfather in 1858. He had been a JP since 1928, and a member of Epping Urban Council for eight years. He was associated with many local organisations. Mr Cottis fought in the Boer War as a volunteer in the Loyal Suffolk Hussars, and was one of the founders of the Essex Yeomanry. He claimed to have owned the first motor-car in Essex. He leaves a widow and one son. The funeral will be on Monday at 2.30. From Chelmsford Chronicle, 19 January 1945.

raided, churches are open. Was there ever such an hour in human history, but have patience dear one, I shall be with you for good within six months now, I hope. I suppose you did a jig round the table and clapped your hands, etc. I wonder if you would do that if I knocked at the door and said ‘I am free to love you dearest and guard you without a government interfering. Will you take me now?’ Now another subject. Did I tell you I had a puppy to bring home, one of these days. I know the mother and father of the dog and they are pretty tough ones so I expect it will become a decent dog. It is a mid-buff colour. In three months’ time it will be a decent dog. Well I must close now. I am going to church tonight if I can. Meanwhile I remain your loving friend, Dick.

The Gardeners Arms

The River Roding

The Gardeners Arms at the top of York Hill in 1899. This photograph was taken from Woodbury Hill. From this point, known locally as Grout’s Corner, there is one of the most extensive views in the south west of the county, looking across Metropolitan Essex to London and the hills of Kent. The Gardeners Arms began life as a tearoom. Next door, the ancient timbered Brittons Cottages still stand, and bear the date 1525. Members of the Grout family had run the premises for nearly 40 years, until John Hughes took it over in 1886, to be succeeded in 1925 by Mrs Caroline Hughes, who remained in charge until 1933. The present name was applied in 1881.

Armistice 1918 Submitted by EVE LOCKINGTON [As the Prime Minister has now set out the plans to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War in 1914, Eve thought it would be interesting to have her father’s record of its end, on 11 November 1918. He had been writing a letter to her mother when the following occurred:]

This digitized old print of the River Roding, from Wanstead Park, is taken from London City Suburbs as they are Today, by Percy Fitzgerald, illustrated by W Luker, Jr, from original drawings, published in 1893 by The Leadenhall Press, in London and New York.

Lynda Farrow – an unsolved local murder

Since writing the first part of the letter, I have been asleep and today I find is the Red Letter Day of the whole world. At 11 am the officer said to me ‘Well the war ought to be over by now’. He had barely said it when someone raced in with the news. Two minutes after, one whistle went, 3 minutes more whistles and a huge hooter. 4 minutes and the World was in uproar. Hooters, whistles, bells, sirens, all going full blast. A church bell close to me had been tolling for the dead, someone being buried. Its toll soon changed and now it is ringing victory. Tennyson once said ‘Ring out wild bells, ring out, and they are doing all that and a bit beside. I have just been out into the town (as although I have heaps to do, I can’t do it) and the scenes outside beggar description. Soldiers with bunting, rags or paper or anything that looks like a flag are wearing it. Troops are marching along with little flags on their helmets, guns, or anywhere that can take a flag. Shops are closed, pubs are

On 19 January 1979, heavily pregnant mother of two, Lynda Farrow, was found brutally murdered in her home in Whitehall Road. Her throat had been slashed and she had been raped. Earlier that day, Lynda had been shopping with her mother, then 86, and had bought a new pair of shoes and a coat made for a pregnant woman. She then went to her partner’s fruit stall before returning home by car. It is believed that Lynda either ran into her home to answer her ringing phone, leaving the door opened behind her, or that she knew her attacker and let him in willingly.

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Her body was found by her two daughters. In 2010, the Farrow killing was reconstructed on BBC’s Crimewatch. The appeal featured her partner, now remarried, and her two daughters. The only sighting of the probable killer was by her neighbour, who saw a man wearing a long black coat entering Farrow’s home at around 2pm. He had blonde hair and blue eyes. The only other clue to the killer was a set of footprints leading to Farrow’s house. Police were also unable to trace a white car seen departing Ms Farrow’s Whitehall Road home at about 1430 GMT on the day she died. The case remains unsolved, despite the fact that the Metropolitan Police had announced a £20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of her killer or killers.

typical design of the period was a cast-iron or wooden board with the words: ‘To Motorists, this hill is dangerous.’ Another sign in use exhorted carters to put a ‘sledge’ under their wagon wheels to retard it on a steep descent (remember, brakes were only for wimps in those days). In 1904 the Local Government Board suggested using a white ring and a plate for speed limits, a solid red disc for prohibition, a red triangle for warning and a diamond shape for all other notices. Very few of these survived the Great War – but there are a few diamond weight restriction signs surviving on canal bridges and it is possible to find solid red disc signs on some of the byways in the New Forest. The new motoring organisations began to make good the deficiencies of local authorities even before the First World War. Examples of these can still be found – the most famous being the ‘Motor Union’ plate on Westminster Bridge. The Automobile Association introduced its yellow and black enamel signs in 1925. These are now collectors’ items. They also erected roadside hazard posts in the shape of their original badge which were fitted with ‘reflex’ bulls-eye lenses. Being right on top of things, the Ministry of Transport suggested some standardisation of road signs in 1921 – these had been adopted at the 1909 Paris Convention on the International Circulation of Motor Vehicles but it was not until 1929 that the five ‘International’ signs for bends, crossroads, crossings with or without gates and uneven road surfaces were adopted. The ‘Slow – Major Road Ahead’ and the ‘Halt’ sign (a ‘Halt’ plate below a red triangle in a circle) appeared in 1933. None of these early signs is known to have survived (unless you know better , or have one on your garage wall!). Many of the blue and white advance direction signs provided by the RAC at road junctions at this time have survived, however.

The development of road signs DAVID DAVIES [Many readers who passed their driving tests in the 50s and 60s will remember road signs that used language instead of symbols: ‘HALT – Major Road Ahead’ looms large in the memory and it was a large sign at road junctions. In this article reproduced from The Vintage Motor Cycle, the official journal of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club, September 2012 issue, by kind permission of the author who is also the Editor of that journal, he gives a potted history of the development of these signs. He welcomes the survival of the finger post direction sign of which we have two excellent local examples at the foot of Traps Hill in Loughton and also at the foot of Piercing Hill in Theydon Bois. Perhaps the road sign era has now passed its peak as experiments are afoot, following the example of Canada, to remove all traffic guiding and mandatory signs in towns to make drivers more cautious — Exhibition Road in Kensington is one of the test beds. However, many of us will welcome the removal of many signs on aesthetic grounds and also as a help to concentration when driving.] Apart from milestones and guideposts which date back as far as the 16th century, the first road signs were the notices erected under the 1861 and 1878 Locomotives Acts. These Acts permitted owners of bridges to erect warning notices to the drivers of traction engines and road rollers that their bridges were not designed: ‘To take weights beyond the ordinary traffic of the district.’ Some still survive, but their existence is severely threatened by the activities of metal thieves and ‘collectors’. The next traffic signs resulted from the rise in popularity of cycling in the latter half of the 19th century. The first sign warning cyclists of a steep hill was put up by the Bicycle Union – later the National Cyclists’ Union – at the top of Muswell Hill, London. Some 3,000 or so had been erected by 1902 – but very few survive. ‘Danger’ boards were provided for very steep hills and ‘Caution’ for less steep ones – remember, very few bicycles were fitted with brakes at that time. The 1903 Motor Act transferred responsibilities for signage to local authorities but there were no regulations enforcing their application or design. A

The author’s favourite traffic sign, ‘Tram Pinch’, on Beeson Street, Corporation Road in Grimsby, where the Immingham trams (the ‘Klickety’) made use of a passing loop. The sign warned road users that the tram in front of them was literally going to ‘pinch’ the road as it lurched to the left in the loop. Sadly the sign disappeared shortly after the trams also disappeared in 1961.

Traffic lights are worthy of a history all on their own, but a brief summary will suffice here. The first traffic signal was a semaphore-type contrivance put up by the Metropolitan Police in London in 1868 and lit by gas. It exploded soon after erection. Several towns controlled traffic with semaphore railway signals and the last example survived until quite recent times at the level crossing over the main street in Hayes, Middlesex. The first electric traffic

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report in 1944 which resulted in yet more design changes being introduced in 1946, one retrograde effect of this was the disappearance of ‘fingerposts’ at road junctions in favour of ‘advance signs’ (but these are coming back in certain parts of the country). There were again more changes in 1957 with the introduction of motorways and yet again in 1963 which resulted in the adoption of the complete signage conventions for all of Europe which had been agreed upon as early as 1909! If anything, we now have too many signs alongside our roads, not only do we have ‘official’ warning, advisory and mandatory notices, but we are plagued with an overkill at road junctions and with signs for new housing developments, ‘tourist attractions’ and car boot sales, etc – all of which seem to have acquired a degree of permanence.

lights appeared in the early 1930s; they were often known as ‘automatons’ and simply worked on a time switch. Amazingly one such system remained in operation in Southampton from 1932 until 1955! Photo-electric cells were soon installed but they were open to abuse: a newspaper waved across the magic eye by small boys on a busy Saturday morning provided hours of cheap entertainment! Pressure pads became almost universal – augmented by special actuating ‘skates’ in the overhead wires where tram cars and/or trolley buses prowled about. The increasing weights of heavy lorries saw off the pressure pads and these were replaced by ‘inductive loops’. These are proving to be equally unreliable and so we will soon be moving on towards ‘movement sensors’. In 1933 the then Minister of Transport, Mr HoreBelisha, introduced the ‘Belisha Beacon’ for pedestrian crossings, replacing the ‘Please cross here’ notices which had not placed any obligation on the motorist to give way to a pedestrian (nothing has changed). Down the years, these have metamorphosed into ‘Pelican’, ‘Panda’, ‘Puffin’ (and Porcupine and Pangolin for all I know) crossings to little effect. At the same time, the 30 mph limit was introduced. Until 1930 the speed limit was 20 mph everywhere(!) and a few of these 20 mph plates, surmounted by a red circle, may still survive on MOD roads in Hampshire and Wiltshire. The first white lines appeared down Whitehall in 1924 but it was not until the ‘Blackout’ in the Second World War that they became universal along main roads. Probably the most useful invention was the ‘cat’s-eye’ by Percy Shaw, OBE, in 1934, which supplemented the white lines.

The day war broke out ALBERT SMITH It was a fine Sunday morning and on this 3 September 1939 families were listening to the wireless to hear an important announcement. My father was at work at the Engineering Department of the LNER at Stratford. My aunt, who lived next door, was sitting with my mother, having a cup of tea. We lived in a terraced house in Forest Gate, near to the West Ham park. My uncle was doing work on an Anderson air raid shelter in the garden. I was trying to study. At 11am the Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain, announced that we were at war with Germany. Within a few minutes the air raid siren went off and we rushed to the front of the house, meeting neighbours doing the same. My mother and aunt were crying, as were others nearby. The ‘all clear’ soon sounded but we were going to hear these sirens many, many times. Whilst Germany was fighting in Poland, we in London experienced a phoney war. However, the news about our ships at sea was often very sad. The bombing blitz started on a Saturday afternoon, with East London and the docks area being the main target. It was a frightening experience. Daylight bombing continued and we, with other houses nearby, had windows shattered and ceilings falling. After the Battle of Britain, bombing of London continued at night. I was working for a chemical company in a team involved in the allocation and delivery of raw materials for the war effort. The Ministry of Labour ordered the company to find premises away from the factory to preserve records and the continuity of operations. This resulted in taking over an empty mansion in Buckhurst Hill, known as Ellerslie, until after the war. This is now Braeside School on the High Road. My entry into the navy was deferred until chemical production increased, thus eliminating the need for allocation of supplies. However, I never joined the Fleet Air Arm and my life took a dramatic turn – but that is another story.

Rural calm at the junction of Traps Hill and High Road, about 1910. On the left is Monghyr Cottage. Note the LUDC gas lamp, with street names in the upper glasses, and the hand-painted signpost, replaced by the present one about 1930. From A Century and a Half of Loughton in Pictures (LDHS, 2012).

The Second World War saw the mass extermination of road signs, signposts, village and town name boards and the name boards on railway signal boxes in the name of national security, also the wholesale removal of mile posts – some did survive as they were removed by parish and town councils who put them in store. Regrettably, many were then destroyed in the cause of ‘Modernity’ and replaced as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain celebrations and were never reinstated after the war. However, we digress. The publication of the first edition of the Highway Code in 1935 (now republished as a facsimile) will give you a clear picture of the road signs of the ‘thirties. There was another governmental

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My father had many horrible experiences which affected him mentally and physically until he died. My mother was ‘called up’ for light factory work and enjoyed many years in the packing of drugs and related products – earning her own wages! She made many friends which continued long after the war. Our home remained habitable but suffered damage like almost every home in London. The biggest loss was our front iron railings and gate – taken for the war effort! I eventually returned to live in Buckhurst Hill and continued my career.

station was closed in the early 1960s, soon after the line’s electrification, and the passenger platform has now also been demolished. The line passing the station site is now private, run as a heritage railway by the Epping and Ongar Railway.

Blake Hall tube station and Blake Hall TERRY CARTER The former Blake Hall Station, near Ongar, Essex.Taken in 1985, a few years after the closure of the station. Blake Hall was the penultimate stop on the Central Line on its way to Ongar. The single-track line from Epping, via North Weald, to Ongar closed about 10 years later but was reopened in 2004 as a ‘tourist attraction’ by the Epping and Ongar Railway Society. They run trains on Sundays all year.

Somewhere along the way, on a relatively rare visit to Chelmsford, we saw a notice advertising wedding receptions at Blake Hall. Wishing to refresh my memory about what I knew of the Hall, and of Blake Hall Station, which I had only ever visited once, over 50 years ago, on our return I checked a few websites. Many members and readers will be well aware of most of what follows but some may not, including those from far afield, reading this Newsletter on line.

Blake Hall The Brentwood Gazette of 2 January 2012, claims: ‘Living in Blake Hall is a daily history lesson . . . The pressure of the beady eyes of proud ancestors bearing down from the dining hall wall no doubt places a huge burden on an heir’s shoulders.’ Blake Hall has been the residence of the Capel Cure family since 1789. The house is based around an original fabric dating from the 17th century or older, but was largely rebuilt in the 18th century and later remodelled by George Basevi in 1822. Set in 25 acres in Bobbingworth, near Ongar, the lavish 36-room country building would once have been filled with the masters, servants and butlers but, like so many beautiful rural estates, the cost of upkeep spiralled out of control. Like all fighter airfields, nearby North Weald suffered its fair share of bombings. In September 1940, the operations room suffered a direct hit and subsequently was moved to Blake Hall and remained there for the rest of the war. The Hall was requisitioned, extensively gutted and adapted for the purpose. In 1948, in a sad state it was handed back to Nigel and Nancy Capel Cure, leaving them to deal with its battered state. North Weald, features in Newsletters 167, 168, 171 and 189. It has been some 30 years since, George ‘Ronnie’ Capel Cure, first took further steps to tackle the burden. The garden was his passion and with a host of gold-plated ideas, restoration of the grounds was undertaken and the doors opened to the public for the first time ever. The Brentwood Gazette’s report of 31 December 1981, ‘Leisure plan for historic hall’, outlined his plan to pay the soaring maintenance costs, by planting around 1,000 trees and shrubs, setting a tropical house to exhibit botanical treasures and build a garden centre. He would later go on to add a 10-acre maze. Afterwards he opened the Hall as a war museum,

Blake Hall station This is a disused station in Essex, formerly on the Central Line of the London Underground between North Weald and Ongar. It was named after Blake Hall, a country house located a mile or so to the northeast of the station in the village of Bobbingworth, and inhabited by a family of substantial local landowners. The station was built as part of the landlord’s agreement to build a railway through his land. The station was first opened by the Eastern Counties Railway on 1 April 1865, serving principally as a goods station taking agricultural produce from the nearby farms into central London. Steam locomotives operated by British Railways for the Underground ran a shuttle service from Epping to Ongar (stopping at Blake Hall) from 1949 to 1957, when the line was electrified and taken over by the Underground’s Central Line. Blake Hall opened as an Underground station on 18 November 1957. On 18 April 1966 the goods yard was closed. It subsequently achieved the dubious distinction of being the least used station on the entire Underground. Fare subsidies provided on the rest of the Underground system were not available on this part of the line because local government agencies for Essex and London failed to agree on their respective public transport responsibilities. Furthermore, Blake Hall station was located a considerable distance from any substantial settlement. By the time it was closed, on 31 October 1981, the station was reported to have only six passengers a day. The entire Epping to Ongar branch was closed 13 years later, on 30 September 1994. The station building still exists but has since been converted into a private home. The small coal depot at the western end of the

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and, in the 80s, also staged a country fair which attracted visitors in their thousands every year. His outstanding efforts to preserve the family home were sadly ended prematurely by his death from cancer in October 2006, aged 70. It was time for the Georgian mansion to be passed down, and his second son, Hugo, entered the breach, moving back into Blake Hall with his wife, Rachel, and two sons almost six years ago. Some rethinking was necessary, as some of the rescue plans were not entirely successful. Although the house had been left in a very bad way when her father-in-law moved back in, Ronnie had concentrated more on the gardens. The garden centre didn’t succeed, and tough decisions were taken, including closing the gardens to the public and bringing to an end the craft fair and the annual country show in 2009, all of which had become less popular over time. The RAF war museum had been closed in 2006. Their concentration turned to weddings in the extensively redeveloped and refurbished barn, following on from an idea Rachel’s father-in-law had developed.

and finance, the Hanseatic cities, London, Amsterdam, and so on, as well as the Turkish Empire and North Africa. Some Sephardi families became enormously wealthy and influential, including the Suassos. Although exiled from Spain, the Loughton Suasso’s grandfather had received the title of Baron Avernas le Gras from King Charles II (of Spain) in 1676. His father, Francisco, had become one of the most important men in Holland, where he lived and worked, such that when William of Orange was planning the invasion of England in 1685–88, it was to Suasso he turned for the cash. Suasso loaned William two million gulden/guilders; and (so Wikipedia tells us), the story is told that William asked Suasso what he wanted as collateral for the millions, to which Suasso replied: ‘If thou art felicitous, I know thou wilt return them to me; art thou infelicitous, I agree to having lost them.’ Suasso was responsible for a number of elements of the invasion, and through his father-in-law in Hamburg he was able to make speedy arrangements for the transport of Swedish and Pomeranian troops provided in November 1688 by Charles XI of Sweden to assist William. The coffer in which William repaid the loan to Suasso is even today on display in the Willet-Holthuisen Museum in Amsterdam. They continued to finance the British Government, and one commentator suggested that the victorious battles of Blenheim and Oudenaarde were founded on Sephardic finance as much as brilliant generalship. Lisa Jardine (in Going Dutch) says that Suasso senior was a man of considerable culture, in whose house society gathered for concerts and recitals. The same applied to the son and heir, and it may be that Loughton Hall hosted the glitterati of the eighteenth century as much as Mary Wroth had over a hundred years before. They were certainly devotees of music. Apart from the Handel connection that led me into this, they were subscribers to various musical, philosophical and scientific books, all of which no doubt ended up on Loughton Hall shelves. The mother of Isaac was Leonora/Rachael da Costa (1660–1749), daughter of another prominent family of Sephardim; she seems to have lived with her son at Loughton. Confusingly, Isaac appears to have married a first cousin, also Leonora da Costa (1696–1770), daughter of the Governor of the Bank of Eng-land, Moses Mendes da Costa, in 1714. The Suassos were thus seriously rich. After the death of John Wroth, Loughton Hall was left to trustees. It was probably therefore let out so as to secure an income, and Waller records that Elizabeth, the widow, did not ‘always’ live there. Isaac is in a list of ‘Riding Foresters’ in Fisher’s Forest of Essex. Why the Suassos came to Loughton is unclear. John Wroth, the Hall’s owner, was an ardent Protestant, and fought alongside William III in the Glorious Revolution; so there may well have been a connection. A Mr Richard Rooth (also spelt in some sources Wroth) was owner of the two houses in Epsom (The Cedars and the Elms) that the Suassos also owned. We do not know how long they stayed in Loughton: an exhaustive survey of local records might reveal it.

Blake Hall, Ongar

That successful step takes us back to the introduction to this brief article, and to my curiosity about the Tube station and the Hall itself, shown above, probably in the late 19th century.

The Suasso family CHRIS POND Browsing through obscure references to Loughton in the City of London Libraries, I came across one to Isaac Lopes Suasso, third baron of Avernas le Gras, 1693–1775, as being a subscriber to the compositions of Handel. He was said to be of ‘Old Loughton Hall, Essex’, and also owned The Cedars at Epsom. Richard Morris then kindly pointed out a reference in Waller’s Loughton-in-Essex to the will of Leonor Suasso da Costa, Isaac’s mother. Waller says they inhabited Loughton Hall after the death of John Wroth (1718), and he also found references to various of their servants in 1732 and 1733. He adds they were Jewish, ‘and of great wealth’. A Hebrew scroll was found in Loughton Hall in 1833 and may still be in the possession of the Maitland family. Behind these few words lies a family history as romantic as any in Europe. When the Sephardi were expelled from Spain in 1492 (and later Portugal) under the Alhambra Edict, they were obliged to find a refuge elsewhere in Europe, and many settled in the great centres of trade

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Isaac Suasso eventually returned to Holland and died at den Haag on 3 October 1775. His daughter, however, had died in London in 1766 and was buried in the Sephardi New Burial Ground at Mile End (now behind the Law Faculty building of Queen Mary College).

Spies and Epping Forest ALAN W SMITH From the 1890s onwards there was a positive flood of literature – whether frankly fictional or allegedly predictive – about the expected clash between Britain and Germany. Much of this material has been collected by I F Clarke in The Great War with Germany 1890–1914 (Liverpool University Press, 1997). Casually dipping into this, I found some curious local references.

Great jaundice mystery Submitted by E L A IN E H A R RIS EPPING: TRIBUTES PAID TO RESPECTED DOCTOR AND SOLVER OF GREAT JAUNDICE MYSTERY

In Britain the anticipated German invasion fostered a belief that the country was already infested with spies and ‘conspicuous as the spokesman of the spyalarmists’ was Colonel Lockwood, MP for Epping. It is perhaps a shame that the exotically named Amelius Mark Richard Lockwood (1847–1928), later first Baron Lambourne, should be remembered for this (rather prolonged) ‘moment of madness’ in his otherwise worthy career. He was MP for Epping from 1892 to 1917, Vice-President of the RSPCA, a campaigner against vivisection, an active horticulturalist and, from 1919, Lord Lieutenant of Essex. In July 1908 he informed the House of Commons that he knew of German spies ‘charged with the mission of securing photographs of Epping Forest’. This ludicrous claim attracted the attention of the former Berlin correspondent of The Times, Charles Lowe, who attacked Lockwood and others for propagating fantasies: ‘It almost savours of insanity’, he wrote, ‘to ask us to believe that German officers give themselves the trouble to make sketches and maps of the Epping neighbourhood when . . . they can buy as many sections as they like of our Ordnance Survey maps which would more than satisfy the wants of any invader.’ Mr Clarke’s book contains many more examples of Essex-focused fantasies, culminating in the assertions of another military man, Colonel Driscoll, that England had been infiltrated by German soldiers, who were now all concealed as civilians, and perhaps numbered as many as 350,000. Until such rumours were blown away in 1914, Lockwood and those like him were mercilessly lampooned in Punch and, most splendidly of all, by a weekly series of cartoons in the Sketch. The first of these showed spike-helmeted German soldiers swinging from the forest trees while a diminutive Boy Scout patrols below. The Great War with Germany 1890–1914 is strongly recommended for the light that it throws on the powers of the imagination when unfettered by mere facts. [Some members may recall this book review from 2004, which seemed worthy of repeating – Ed]

T R I B U T E S have been pouring in for one of Essex’s most highly respected doctors and solver of the great ‘Epping jaundice mystery’, who has died at the age of 93. Dr Harry Kopelman dedicated his life to medicine through his work as a consultant physician at both St Margaret’s Hospital and Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, but was perhaps best known for helping to uncover a strange epidemic which hit Epping in February 1965.

It was through the work of Dr Kopelman and his colleagues that an initially baffling jaundice outbreak which affected 84 residents in the town was traced to a batch of contaminated bread in a bakery. Through their scrupulous and widely acclaimed detective work, it emerged that a bag of flour being taken to the bakery in a courier’s van had split and mixed with a dangerous chemical, diaminodiphenylmethane. His seminal paper on the Epping jaundice (British Medical Journal, 26 Feb 1966) detailed the painstaking investigation of the mysterious outbreak. * Dr Kopelman was very highly respected across the profession, particularly for his diagnostic ability. But he was also very highly regarded and well known for his kindness towards his patients who, together with his colleagues and other local doctors, greatly liked and respected him. Although quite proud of his work with the jaundice mystery, it did mean he had to do many, many medical talks about it after it happened. While medicine remained Dr Kopelman’s main passion in life, he was also a familiar face at Theydon Bois Golf Club, where he continued to play until the age of 90. Dr Kopelman died after becoming ill following a fall. He is survived by two sons, three granddaughters and one grandson. His wife Hazel passed away several years ago.

Harts Hospital – a local lost hospital

Epping Forest Guardian of 2 October 2009

TERRY CARTER

* The fascinating account was subsequently featured as a BBC radio play (The medical detectives: the Epping Jaundice). Elaine Harris kindly gave the Editor a CD of the play.

Situated off the road at The Green, Woodford Green, Harts Hospital was, from 1920 to 1984, a specialist centre, first for the treatment of tuberculosis, then later for a range of chest diseases and geriatric problems.

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History In January 1919 the East Ham Borough Council bought Harts House, a three-storey grand Georgian mansion which had been rebuilt in 1816, for use as a hospital for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Harts House had been steeped in history. In 1617 the site belonged to Sir Humphrey Handforth, Master of the Wardrobe to King James I. It has been recorded that King James stayed at Harts House when he went hunting in Epping Forest. In 1754, botanist Richard Warner planted the first gardenia in Europe in the grounds. Harts House became famous during the 18th century for the garden of botanical specimens collected by Warner, who was also a director of the East India Company. He died in 1775. His studies of local plants were published in 1771 as Plantae Woodfordiensis.

Sister. The cottage was decorated in cream and brown, with chintz curtains at the windows, with saxe blue linen bedspreads and matching chair covers. The Sanatorium joined the NHS in 1948, with 98 beds. It was renamed Harts Hospital. In 1949 the war dilapidations were repaired and an operating theatre built for thoracic surgery. A well-equipped Occupational Therapy Department was established and Art Therapy was introduced. In 1959 the Hospital had 100 beds. A new chapel was built during 1960 and 1961. With the introduction of antibiotics, it began to specialise in non-tuberculous diseases of the chest. At this time the weekly cost of an in-patient was £18 15s 7d (£18.78p), rising to £19 10s (£19.50) the following year. Some 50 years ago, one of the Editor’s friends, now sadly deceased, spent six months in Harts, recovering from tuberculosis. He was fully cured – when he died, in his 80s, it was not from TB. His physician, Dr Herbert Duff-Palmer died in 1982. By 1983 the Hospital had become used mainly for geriatric cases, with 58 beds for such patients, and 20 beds for chest patients. It closed in 1984, despite a vigorous local ‘Save Harts’ campaign. The former main hospital building, Harts House, is Grade II listed and has become Harts House Nursing Home, a BUPA nursing home with 60 rooms. The grounds have largely been redeveloped as Harts Grove, a private estate with 44 dwellings.

Harts Sanatorium about 1921 – note the deckchairs in the open air.

The Harts Sanatorium opened in 1920. The larger rooms of the building had been converted into wards for female patients, while the remaining rooms became administrative offices and staff quarters. Some alterations and adjustments had been made to accommodate the dispensary and the laundry. A hut and six shelters were built to house the male patients, as well as a dining hut to be shared by both sexes. In 1933 a new pavilion with 32 beds (20 female and 12 male) was built, at the cost of some £12,000. It was officially opened in October by the Mayor of East Ham, Alderman G H Manser. The central part contained the X-ray Room and the Sisters’ Duty Room, and male and female wards led off each side from this. The Sanatorium then had a complement of 80 beds. Before anti-tuberculosis drugs were available, patients were treated by bed rest, nourishing food and fresh air, often lying on open verandahs for many months. The pavilion was built to be a real suntrap, giving each ward the maximum of sunlight, fresh air and uninterrupted views of the countryside. The wards – each with one or two beds – had no heating, even in winter, and the french windows were left open all the time. The head gardener’s cottage, which had its own garden in a quiet corner of the grounds, was converted into a Night Nurses’ Home, to accommodate six nurses, with a bed-sitting room for the Night

The Village Pump, Woodford Green, 1921

Youngsters and the car Submitted by J O H N

HARRISON

Thanks to the inciting zeal of Miss Annesley Kenealy, three hundred cripples from the dark slums of the Great City have enjoyed a motor ride to Epping Forest, whose glades and thickets are now browning towards autumn. There are not many from the other end of the town who know the splendid roads about Chigwell, Ongar, Loughton and other delightful places – pleasant indeed on ordinary days, though infested with verminous hordes and resounding with Cockney enthusiasm on Bank holidays. Unhappily the approach to the Forest is a barrier to its popularity with motorists, but not the little motorists who have just had their first and possibly last taste of the ideal travel. It was a kind act of Miss Kenealy to set the tide of automobile generosity flowing towards London’s misfortunates. An ocean of liberality might well be expanded in thus adding to the delights of a section of the community whose wants are as restricted as their circumstances. From Motor Car Journal, 29 July 1905.

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[As reported, a happy event at the time but, looking back, one which induces very mixed emotions PS – Chris Pond unearthed three photos of this event, and I approached the Daily Mirror for permission to use two of them. I expected this to be a mere formality, but was taken aback when they proposed a charge of £20, plus VAT. We declined, so the photos remain on my computer. – Ed.]

Thoughts on missile launchers and guns The missile launchers installed around the Olympic site, including in Epping Forest, bring to mind that, during WW2, there were anti-V1 and V2 machines located on Wanstead Flats. They were nick-named, possibly rather tenuously, ‘Chicago Pianos’, apparently after the Thomson machine guns used to shoot down gangs of hoodlums in prohibition America. Anyway, they were a series of rocket launchers which went off in rapid succession. During the day they were hidden in the bushes, and were brought out at night to be operated. There were not that many women drivers in the fire service at that time, but there was a feisty lady stationed at Woodford who was a greengrocer’s daughter. One night, during blackout, she was driving across the flats on a journey from Stratford and Woodford. Being blackout, she couldn’t see much. All of a sudden they fired the Chicago Pianos as she was driving past! When she arrived back at Woodford headquarters, her language was such that it could not be repeated in this Newsletter. She tore off her tin hat, and said, ‘Just as I was coming across the flats they fired the Chicago Pianos, and it frightened the life out of me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go upstairs and change my underwear!’(An anonymous member of Epping Forest U3A)

In Epping Forest – Benjamin Shipham (1808-1872)

This delightful image, The Picnic, Epping Forest, seems to be an advertisement for Huntley and Palmers, of Reading, whose containers are clearly visible in the picture

The entrance to the Warren Estate at the top of Warren Hill, with coach and liveried coachman, c1900. Askew’s, the local contracting firm, ran a coach as a tourist attraction; it may be this is it. From A Century and a Half of Loughton in Pictures (LDHS, 2012).

LOUGHTON & DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY (Registered Charity 287274) www.loughtonhistoricalsociety.org.uk President: Heather, Lady Murray of Epping Forest Chairman: Dr Chris Pond, Forest Villa, Staples Road, Loughton IG10 1HP (020 8508 2361) Secretary: Linda Parish, 17 Highland Avenue, Loughton IG10 3AJ (020 8508 5014) Treasurer: Paul Webster, 63 Goldings Road, Loughton IG10 2QR (020 8508 8700) Membership Secretary: Ian Strugnell, 22 Hatfields, Loughton IG10 1TJ Newsletter Editor: Terry Carter, 43 Hillcrest Road, Loughton IG10 4QH (020 8508 0867) Newsletter Production: Ted Martin All rights reserved. © 2013 Loughton & District Historical Society and contributors. Printed in Great Britain by Streets Printers, Baldock, Herts.

Gipsy Rodney Smith Memorial, Epping Forest. Known as the Gypsy Stone. The inscription says Gipsy Rodney Smith, born here 31 March 1860, preached the gospel of Christ to thousands on five continents for 70 years. It is in a secluded clearing of the forest, not far from the busy A104, Woodford New Road, just north-west of Waterworks roundabout.

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