MANNINGTREE, WITH THE VILLAGES OF MISTLEY, DEDHAM AND NEIGHBOURHOODS
Pigot's Essex 1832-3 Trade Directory
MANNINGTREE is a market town and parish, in the hundred of Tendring; 60 miles from London, 9 from Colchester, and 12 from Ipswich, in Suffolk. The town is irregularly built along the south bank of the river Stour, on the road from London to Harwich, from which town it is distant 12 miles. Maud de Clare, Countess of Hereford and Gloucester, bestowed the manor on a nunnery of the order of St. Augustine, at Canon Leigh, in Devonshire. After the dissolution, Manningtree (then called Many Tree, or Scidinghoo, in the grant,) was given by Henry VIII to Sir John Rainsworth. Queen Anne sanctioned an act of parliament for rendering navigable the Stour from hence to Sudbury, in Suffolk. Manningtree, in its external aspect, has been much improved within the last 20 years; but its market has not kept pace with such apparent prosperity, - on the contrary, it has declined in its benefit to the town : its chief business now exists in the malt, corn and coal trades, in which branches, there are some respectable establishments. Manningtree is stated, by the parliamentary returns, to be a distinct parish of itself; but it seems that the mother church is at MISTLEY, also noticed as an independent parish. The surrounding country is in a superior state of agriculture, and some of the finest corn land in the kingdom is to be found here. Market day, Thursday; fair, Thursday and Friday in Whitsun week, for toys and pleasure. By the returns for 1831, the parish of Manningtree contained 1,237 inhabitants; being an increase in its population, during the preceding thirty years (from 1801), of only 221 persons.
MISTLEY is a genteel village and parish, in the same hundred as Manningtree, the village being situated about half a mile from that town, on the Harwich road. Here is a very neat modern church, with a handsome chancel; the living is in the gift of Lady Rigby; the incumbent is the Rev. Henry Thompson, and his present curate, the Rev. L.P. Bradfield. A meeting of the magistrates takes place once a fortnight, on Mondays, at the 'Mistley Thorn' Inn. - A kind of statute and pleasure fair is held annually, on the 8th of August. The number of inhabitants in the parish, by the last census, was 876.
DEDHAM, at one time a market town, can now only be ranked amongst the most respectable class of villages in Essex. It is in the hundred of Lexden, about three miles, and a half from Manningtree, and, like that town, situate on the river Stour, having the same advantages of navigable communication with Harwich. The church is a very elegant and large edifice, with a fine chancel, an organ and eight good bells. Here is also a chapel for independents, and a free grammar-school of royal foundation. An assembly-room here is well attended by the gentry of this respectable neighbourhood. The parish of Dedham contained, by the returns for 1831, 1,770 inhabitants; being an increase, in 30 years, of 233 persons.
POST OFFICE, MANNINGTREE, John Webber, Post Master. - Letters from LONDON, &c. arrive (by mail-cart) from COLCHESTER every morning at 7, and are despatched every evening at 9. Box closes at 8.
POST OFFICE, DEDHAM, John Barker, Post Master. - Letters from LONDON, &c. arrive every morning at seven, and are despatched every evening at seven.
COACHES To LONDON, the Foreign Mail, calls at the Mistley Thorn and Packet Inns, every Monday and Wednesday morning - and the Times (from Harwich), every morning (Saturday excepted) at half-past eight; both go through Colchester, Chelmsford and Brentwood.
To HARWICH, the Foreign Mail, calls at the Mistley Thorn and Packett Inns, every Wednesday & Saturday morning at nine - and the Times (from London), every Monday evening at five, & Tues. Thurs. & Sat. evening at seven.
CARRIERS. To LONDON, Broom & Winter's Waggons, call at the Marlborough Head, Dedham, every Thursday afternoon.
To COLCHESTER, William Blyth, from his house, every Monday and Friday morning - Samuel Baker & - Wilson, from the King's Head, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, and J Porch, every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon - Robert Salter, from the Rose and Crown, every Monday, Wednesday, Thurs. and Sat. morning - Thomas Osborn, from his house, Dedham, every Wednesday and Saturday - and a Mail Cart, from the Packet Inn, every evening at nine.
To HARWICH, a Mail Cart, from the Packet, every morning at half-past five.
To IPSWICH, Spurgin, from the Rose and Crown, every Tues. Thurs. & Sat.
To LONG MELFORD, Waters, from the White Hart, every Wed. & Sat. morn.
To STOWMARKET, Broom & Winter's Waggons, call at the Marlborough Head, Dedham, every Monday morning.
CONVEYANCE BY WATER. To LONDON, the Sarah Ann, Telegraph, Sisters, Alliance, The Friends and Deboriack, sail from Mistley quay, with goods and passengers, every Monday.
Transcribed by CG
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales...., by John Marius Wilson. circa 1866
DEDHAM, a village, a parish, and a sub-district, in Lexden district, Essex. The village stands on the river Stour, in a fine valley, at the boundary with Suffolk, 2¾ miles n. of Ardleigh r. station, and 3½ W by N of Manningtree; consists chiefly of one street; and has a post-office under Colchester, and a fair on Easter Tuesday. It was mentioned at Domesday; had a great clothing trade in the time of Richard II.; and was long a market town. The parish comprises 2,551 acres. Real property, £8,349. Pop., 1,734. Houses, 402. The property is much sub-divided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £170. Patron, the Duchy of Lancaster. The church is later English, with a fine tower; and was restored in 1862. A lectureship rectory, endowed by Burkitt, the commentator, is a separate benefice. Value, £430. Patron, the Governor of the grammar-school. There is an Independent chapel. The grammar-school was founded, in 1571, by William Littlebury, and has £254 from endowment for ordinary uses, and £55 for exhibitions at St. John's college, Cambridge; another school has £18. Dunton's alms-houses have £91; and other charities have £108.
MANNINGTREE, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district in Tendring district, Essex. The town stands on the navigable river Stour, at the boundary with Suffolk, adjacent to the junction of the two lines of the Great Eastern railway toward Ipswich and Harwich, 8¾ miles NE of Colchester; extends partly into the parishes of Mistley and Lawford; was known at Domesday as Sciddinchon; is irregularly built, yet contains some good houses; carries on a considerable trade in brewing, malting, and the sale of corn; had forely a considerable shipping trade, which declined inconsequence of greater facility of transport afforded by railway; is still a considerable centre for country traffic; and has a head post-office, two railway stations with telegraph, two banking-offices, two chief inns, a weekly market on Thursday, a fair on Whit-Thursday, a corn-exchange, a church, Independent and Wesleyan chapels, a mechanics' literary and scientific institution, and a national school. The corn-exchange was built in 1865; is of white brick, with stone dressings; has a front with tetrastyle Corinthian portico, and two circular-headed windows; contains thirty stands; and is also used for public meetings, lectures, and concerts. A new cattle-market, with sheds and pens, is in a back lane, near the corn-exchange. The church was built in 1616, and enlarged in 1839; and contains a monument to Thomas Osmond, who suffered martyrdom in the town in 1515. The mechanics' institute was built in 1849, is in the Tudor style, and has a library of about 1,000 volumes. Shakespeare speaks of a "roasted Manningtree ox with a pudding in its pouch;" and the author of Hudibras alludes to a witch-finder, M. Hopkins, who lived in Manningtree. The parish comprises 30 acres of land and 85 of water.(Transcriber's note: checked and verified from other sources.) Real property, £3,765. Pop., in 1851, 1,176; in 1861, 881. Houses, 221. The manor belonged to Adeliza, the half-sister of William the Conqueror; was afterwards given to Canon-Leigh nunnery; passed to the Rainsworths; and belongs now to T.G. Kensit, Esq. The living is a p. curacy, annexed to the rectory of Mistley, in the diocese of Rochester.
MISTLEY, a village and a parish in Tendring district, Essex. The village stands on the river Stour, and on the Manningtree and Harwich railway, at the junction of the line to Walton-on-the-Naze, and at the N boundary of the county, ¾ of a mile ESE of Manningtree; was formerly called Mistley-Thorn; commands extensive and beautiful views along the Stour and into Suffolk; is a seat of petty-sessions; carries on considerable commerce in corn, malt, and coals, from a good quay, which was much extended in 1849; and has a post-office under Manningtree, and a railway station, with a telegraph. The parish comprises 2,115 acres. Real property, £7,565; of which £52 are in gas-works. Pop., 1,539. Houses, 342. The manor belonged, at Domesday, to Henry de Ramis; and passed to the Rainsforths, the Baynings, and others. Mistley Hall belonged to the De Veres, passed to the Rigbys, and to Lord Pitt Rivers; was sold, with the estate around it, in 1845; and was then taken down, to make way for extensive building operations. The living is a rectory, united with the vicarage of Bradfield, in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £916. Patron, the Rev. Dr. Hayne. The church was built, on a spot about a mile NW of the previous church, in 1778. Remains of the previous church, and the burying-ground connected with it, still exist. There are a national school and alms-houses.
Transcribed by Noel Clark
KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF ESSEX 1933
MISTLEY (formerly called "Mistly Thorn") is a parish and village pleasantly seated on the south bank of the Stour, commanding extensive and picturesque views of the river and adjoining county of Suffolk, with a station in the centre of the village, near to the quay, on the Harwich branch of the London and North Eastern railway, 1 mile east from the town of Manningtree, 10 north-east from Colchester, 11 west from Harwich and 60¾ from London, in the Harwich division of the county, Tendring hundred, petty sessional division and rural district, Harwich county court district, rural deanery of Harwich, archdeaconry of Colchester and Chelmsford diocese. There is a substantial quay, which was much extended in 1849, and a considerable trade is carried on in corn and malt. The Stour is navigable as far as Mistley for vessels of 1,000 tons, to Manningtree for vessels of 150 tons, and to Sudbury (20 miles distant) for canal barges. St. Mary's church, situated in the Park, and erected in 187O-1, at a cost of about £5,000, on a site given by the Rev. C. F. Norman M.A. rector, is an edifice of Kentish rag, with Bath stone dressings, in the Early Decorated style, consisting of aspidal chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, vestry, organ chamber, south porch and a western tower, with spire 140 feet in height containing 6 bells, five new bells being added in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, at a cost of £350: arcades of five simple Pointed arches on the south side and four on the north side, supported by massive cylindrical columns of red Mansfield stone, with plain moulded capitals, divide the nave from the aisles: there are sixteen stained windows, seven of which were the gift of the Canon C. F. Norman M.A, rector 1884-1910, at whose cost the tower and spire were erected: three were presented by R. E. Free esq. who also gave the electric lighting in 1924: in 1886 a stained west window was added at a cost of 300 guineas, as a memorial to the late Rev. Richard Hayne D.D, a former rector, and in 1905 other memorial windows were placed to Mr. Robert Free, of The Elms, and to Mr. George Kensit: an elaborately carved pulpit, of marble and Caen stone, was presented by Thomas William Nunn esq.: the font, given by Mrs. Norman, of Mistley Place, has a basin of alabaster, supported on serpentine columns with carved capitals and bases: the lectern was the gift of the late J T. Ambrose esq. and the reredos is a highly decorated triptych, finely carved, by Mrs. Norman: at the west end are several memorial tablets removed here from the old church, including one to Richard Rigby esq d. 1730, and another to the Right Hon. Richard Rigby M.P. Paymaster General of the Forces, d. 1788: the interior of the church was beautifully decorated in 1885 by the rector, at a cost of upwards of £1,000, and a valuable brass eagle lectern presented the same time by the Norman family, and there are 1,000 sittings: the lych gate at the western entrance was the gift of a former rector. The registers date from year 1559. The living is a rectory, united to the vicarage of Bradfield, joint net yearly value £575, in the gift of the Buttle trustees, and held since 1930 by the Rev. Arnold Douglas Taylor M.A of St, John's College, Cambridge, who resides at Wix. The chapel of St. John's, Horsley Cross, about 2 miles south-east, is a picturesque brick building, with apsidal chancel, nave and a lofty fléche, and was erected by subscription and licensed for divine service in 1863. There is a Methodist church, built in 1862. The principal landowner is E. B. K. Norman esq. J.P. The soil is of a mixed character; subsoil, clay and gravel. The chief crops are barley, wheat and oats. The area is 2,122 acre's of land, 3 of inland and 18 of tidal water and 124 of foreshore; the population in 1931 was 1,881 in the civil parish, and of the ecclesiastical parish, which includes Bradfield, in 1921, 2778.
Town Sub-Post & M. O. Office, Deliveries from Manningtree, Essex. Tels. dispatched but not delivered.
Manningtree is the nearest T. office for delivery
COUNTY MAGISTRATES FOR TENDRING PETTY SESSION DIVISION.
For names of magistrates & places in the division see Clacton-on-Sea.
Petty Sessions are held at the Police Station, Mistley, at 11.15 a.m. every fourth monday and--or wednesdays during summer; respectively at the Police Station, Thorpe-le-Soken, at 11 a.m. & at the Police station, Clacton-on-Sea, every alternate monday, at 11 a.m. and--or wednesdays during the summer at Clacton
Police station & Petty Sessions House, New road
Ship wrecked Fishermen & Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society: Hon. Representatives,
J. H. Alliston, Messrs. F. W. Horlock, High street; Miss M. Horlock, Hill house, Dedham.
----
Railway station (L. & N. E)
A Memorial to those of Mistley that died in both World Wars has been erected.