HATFIELD PEVEREL
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales...., by John Marius Wilson. circa 1866
HATFIELD-PEVEREL, a village and a parish in Witham district, Essex. The village stands adjacent to the Eastern Counties railway, near the river Ter, 2 miles SW of Witham; and has a post-office under Chelmsford, and a fair on Whit-Tuesday. The parish comprises 4,728 acres. Real property, £10,777. Pop., 1,311. Houses, 289. The property is divided among a few. The manor was given, by the Conqueror, to Ralph Peverel; passed to the Leights and the Alleynes; and belongs now to John Wright, Esq. A college for secular canons was founded here, by Ingelrica, the wife of Ralph Peverel; was changed, in the time if Henry I., into a Benedictine priory; and went, at the dissolution, to Giles Leigh. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £88. Patron, John Wright, Esq. The church was the church of the priory; is Norman, in very good condition, with turret-tower; and contains an effigy of the Lady Ingelrica. There are a Wesleyan chapel, a national school, and charities £158.
Transcribed by Noel Clark
KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF ESSEX 1933
HATFIELD (or Hatfield Peverel) is a large and pleasant village and parish on the rivers Ter and Chelmer, on the high road from Chelmsford to Colchester, with a station adjoining the village on the London and North Eastern railway, 36 miles from London, 2 south-west from Witham, 6 north-west from Maldon and 6 north-east from Chelmsford, in the Maldon division of the county, hundred and petty sessional division of Witham, rural district of Braintree, county court district of Maldon, and in the rural deanery of Witham, archdeaconry of Colchester, and Chelmsford diocese. This parish is an ancient place and is stated to have been given by King William the Norman to Ralph Peverel, a Norman soldier, who married Ingelrica, an English lady: it extends southward to the Chelmer and eastward to the Blackwater and contains many pleasantly situated residences. The church of St. Andrew, formerly the priory church, is an edifice of flint and brick, consisting of nave, of five bays, with ritual chancel, aisles, vestries, south porch and a turret with two bells: in 1873 it was completely restored and a large piece of ground taken in on the south side to form a new aisle with upper and lower vestry rooms, clerestory windows being inserted on the south side of the nave: an oaken screen was also placed between the chancel and the nave and a carved reredos of Bath stone erected: the church retains a monumental effigy of a civilian (late 13th century), besides memorials to the Bragg and Alleyn families, including the brass figures of John Alleyn, 1572, his three wives and children: there are also three other brass effigies, and a long inscription in English verse, supposed to belong to them: the windows and west doors have some heraldic shields: there is also a tablet in the wall of the church containing the names of those connected with the parish who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-18: the church affords 450 sittings. The register of baptisms dates from 1702, of marriages from 1703, and burials from 1626. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £350, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Chelmsford, and held since 1924 by the Rev. David Buxton Barclay M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, who is a surrogate. All tithes, amounting to £722 yearly, with the exception of £50, purchased for the benefice, are received by various lay impropriators and £662 have been sold. There is a Methodist chapel, erected in 1875, and also a Memorial hall, erected in 1920. The charities amount to £145 yearly, left in 1820 by Martha Lovibond, of Hatfield Peverel, and there are four almshouses, built and endowed by the same benefactress in 1820, for two married couples and two single persons, for which purpose she left £5,720; each married inmate receives 15s. and each single inmate 10s. per week. Ingelrica, before mentioned, founded here a collage for secular canons, afterwards converted by W. Peverel, in the time of Henry I, into a Benedictine priory, and dedicated to St. Mary; the priory was a cell to the abbey of St. Albans, and the revenues at the Dissolution were valued at £83 19s. 7d. The learned Edmund Castell S.T.P. author of the “Lexicon Heptaglotton,” was vicar of this parish from 1666: he also held the rectory of Woodham Walter and that of Higham Gobion, Beds, where he died and was buried in 1685. The Priory, an ancient mansion of stone, situated in a delightful and secluded spot, surrounded by a park of about 100 acres, at the entrance to which stands the church, is occupied by Philip Charles Tennant esq. Crix is the residence of Collingwood Hope esq. C.B.E., K.C., F.R.G.S., DL., J.P. H. A. Hare esq. is lord of the manor. Lord Rayleigh is the principal landowner. The land is chiefly arable; subsoil, gravel and clay. The chief crops are wheat, barley, oats and beans. The area of the parish is 4,849 acres of land and 17 of water; the population in 1931 was 1,892 in the civil and of the ecclesiastical parish in 1922, 1,476.
Post, M. 0., T. & T. E. D. Office. Letters through Chelmsford
Railway Station (L & N. E)
Carrier to Chelmsford.—Basil W. Moore, car passes through from Kelvedon, mon thurs. & fri
Conveyance.—Omnibus services pass through here daily between Colchester & Chelmsford