History of Arkesden

Arkesden
Reproduced courtesy of Footsteps.
Quality reproductions of old photographs.

History of Arkesden >> White's Directory 1848

White's Directory of Essex 1848

ARKESDEN, a pleasant village on the banks of a rivulet, 5 miles South West of Saffron Walden, has in its parish 498 souls, and 2300 acres of land, exclusive of roads. R.B. Wolfe, Esq., who has a handsome seat here called Wood Hall, owns most of the soil, and is lord of the manors called Wood Hall, Mynchens-with-the-Rectory, and Rockells­Wiggerpets-and-Coggeshall. At Domesday Survey, the parish was held by Eudo Dapifer and Robert Gernon, and it afterwards passed to the Cutts, or Cutte, and other families.

St. Mary's Church, Arkesden
Reproduced courtesy of Footsteps.
Quality reproductions of old photographs.

The Church (St. Mary,) is a neat stone fabric, consisting of a nave and side aisles, a chancel, and a square tower, containing six bells. The north aisle was built in the reign of Henry VII., by Thomoas Alderton, fishmonger, of London, who also founded a chantry here. An ancient altar tomb in the chancel bears the recumbent effigies of Richard Cutte and his wife, who died in 1592 and 1594. Here is also an elegant marble monument, with a Latin inscription, in memory of John Withers, Esq., who died in 1692. The vicarage, valued in K.B. at £13.6s.8d., and in 1831 at £181, is in the patronage of R.B. Wolfe, Esq., and incumbency of the Rev. T.S. Griffinhoofe, M.A., who has a good residence, and 151 acres of glebe, mostly allotted at the enclosure in 1812, in lieu of tithes. At the same time 31A. 2R. 25P. of land was awarded to R.B. Wolfe, Esq., the impropriator, in lieu of the rectorial tithes chargeable on land not belonging to him. Here is a neat National School, built in 1844. The poor have 13s., a year from Martin's Charity.