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History of Manuden

The Old Maltings, Manuden.
©Robert Edwards
Photograph by kind permission of Robert Edwards,
contributor to the Geograph Project

History of Manuden >> White's Directory 1848

White's Directory of Essex 1848

Maunden
Reproduced courtesy of Footsteps' Shop on Ebay.
Quality reproductions of old photographs.

MANEWDEN. or MANUDEN, a pleasant village on the western side of the river Stort, 4 miles North of Bishop Stortford, has in its parish 688 souls, and 2486A.1R.36P. of land. It has a fair for toys. etc. on Easter Monday. J.M. Leake and Robert Gosling, Esqs., are lords of the manors called Manuden Hall and Battails, and owners of a great part of the soil; and the rest belongs to Miss E.F. Horsley, and several smaller owners. The first named manor belonged to Robert Gernon, at Domesday Survey and was afterwards held by the Bassingbourne, Playz, Gardiner, Bradbury, Bendish, Crawley, and other families. It was left to J.M. Leake, Esq., in 1831. The hall is an ancient farm-house, and the court is held under a tree called White Ash Court. Battails, another ancient farm-house, was built by Sir. William Waad, and was long the seat of his family, the last of whom, Capt. Waad, was murdered near his own house, in 1607. Other manors or estates here are called Pachenhoe or Payton Hall. Sawcemeres and Pinchpoles, and formerly belonged to the Barley, Buck, Sawcemere, and other families. Manewden House is the seat of John Thomas, Esq.

The Church (St. Mary,) is a large cruciform building, of flint and stone, consisting of a nave and aisles, a transept, a spacious chancel, and a tower. containing five bells, and crowned by a spire. It was appropriated by Richard de Camville to the monks of St.Melan, in Bretagne. who had a cell at Hatfield Broad Oak. The vicarage, valued in K.B. at £14, and in 1831 at £171, is in the patronage of the Rev. St. John Wells Thorpe, B.A., and incumbency of the Rev. J.C.H. Stokes, M.A., who has a good parsonage, but resides at Shrewsbury. The tithes were commuted in 1839, the vicarial for £20l, and the rectorial for £629 per annum. The latter are in the impropriation of J.A. Casamaijor, Esq., and the glebe is 53A.3R.26P. A new National School was built in 1848, and here is a small Independent Chapel. The poor parishioners have £44.10s. divided among them yearly, as the gross proceeds of the six following charities; viz., a rent charge of 13s.4d. given in 1559, by Thomas Crawley, out of the manor of Manewdon Hall; £4.5s., the rent of two old cottages, derived from the will of William Bull, in 1569; £4.1Os; from two tenements and a garden, left by John Jacklyn, in 1659; £3, as the rent of part of a house left by the Rev. Thomas Pakman, in 1673, and partly occupied, rent free, by paupers; £19 from lOA. of the Mill common, purchased with £100 left by Thomas Parker, in 1699; and £13.10s. from 6A.1R. of land, purchased with £100 left by Thomas Gardiner, in 1709. Three poor men, and three poor women have clothing every third year from Robert Buck's Charity, of which the Draper's Company, London, are trustees. The parish paupers have for a distribution of blankets 2A. of land, purchased with £100, left by Edmund Edward Southouse, in 1812, and now let for £4 per annum.

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