Journal No. 55 (March 2015)

The High Country History Group (established 1999) produces a quarterly Journal for its members.  The latest edition contains the following items:

- Law and Order

- Benefactors to the Poor of Stapleford Tawney

- Fire at the Blue Boar, Abridge

- Theydon Mount Wills during the reign of King James I (1603 - 1625)

- Essex Quarter Sessions Order Book (1652 - 1661)

- What the Papers Say (1945 - 1955)

- Memories of Theydon Mount

- Tragedy at Theydon Bois 1940

- The Essex Great War Archive Project

- Notable Anniversaries in 2015

British Newspapers Online

10 million pages now searchable at The British Newspaper Archive

The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) hit a major digitisation milestone this month: it’s added its 10 millionth historic newspaper page.

The website launched with 4 million pages in November 2011, so you’ll now find 150% more to explore. If you’ve not used the collection for a while, it’s definitely time to come back and take another look.

Much more to search and a great-value subscription

It’s not just The British Newspaper Archive’s coverage that has improved in the last few years. Back in 2011, a 30 day package was £29.95. Today, a 1 month subscription is just £9.95.

A subscription will give you access to the whole collection of historic newspapers and you can keep the pages you view forever by saving them to your computer or printing them out.

View the full list of subscription options at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/payments

Thousands of pages are digitised every week and some fantastic content has been added in the last few months. Here are just some of the highlights:

1)      The Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror

Copies of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror from 1914-1918 are now available to search online. These national newspapers provide fascinating daily news, photographs and illustrations from World War One.

2)      58 new Irish newspapers

The collection of newspapers from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has grown substantially in the last few months. At launch, seven newspaper titles were available, but you can now search a total of 65.

3)      Newspapers from World War Two

More than 350,000 pages from 1939-1945 are currently available to search at The British Newspaper Archive. 60 newspaper titles are already online, including the Aberdeen Weekly Journal, Lancashire Evening Post and Kent & Sussex Courier.

You’ll find more information at http://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2015/02/11/10-million-newspaper-pages-are-now-fully-searchable/

ENDS

Journal No. 54 (December 2014)

Members of the High Country History Group will have received their copy of the Quarterly Journal.  Included in the latest edition are items on:

- Mr Charles Edward Hunter

- Wills to 1720 Online at Essex Ancestors

- Theydon Mount: Quatercentenary

- Ongar Radio Station - North Weald 1939-85 (part 2)

- A tribute to Doris Messinger 1918-2014

- Stanford Rivers and John Stuart, Viscount Mount Stuart

- Richard Beadon, Rector of St Margaret's Stanford Rivers 

Journal No. 53 (September 2014)

Our quarterly Journal to members has been posted out and naturally has a Great War theme. Items this time include:

- Essex Place Names. A review of the recent talk.

- The Great Fire, Stanford Hall, 22 September 1907

- Cowman to Major: the story of Major James William Joseph Millar, D.S.O., D.C.M.

- James Ford, a Forgotten Essex Antiquity (1779-1850)

- World War One Films: David Welford, our treasurer and film addict, reviews the history of films factual and otherwise relating to the Great War.

- Paganism, early Christianity and Beauchamp Roding church

- Ongar Radio Station: North Weald (Part 1)

That Precious Legacy: Vaughan Williams and Essex Folk Song. Our talk on 24 July 2014

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 -1958) and his folk song collecting in Essex during the Edwardian era will be the subject of Sue Cubbin’s talk to the High Country History Group on Thursday 24 July at Toot Hill Village Hall commencing at 8pm.  Sue is a retired sound archivist from the Essex Record Office, and folk song singer forming one part of ‘Potiphar’s Apprentices’. In 2003 she organised an exhibition at the ERO entitled ‘That Precious Legacy’ to commemorate the hundred years since RVW began collecting rural songs which were in danger of extinction.  The first song – ‘Bushes and Briars’ – was collected from Charles Potiphar of Ingrave.  This promises to be a great evening of local history and song – with perhaps audience participation!

Members: £1.  Visitors and potential new members welcome: £3.

Tour de France in Essex Today

Edward Henry Lisle Reeve
(future Rector of Stondon Massey)
with Penny Farthing bicycle c.1880

Journal No. 52 (June 2014)

Members of the High Country History Group received their copies of the latest Journal at the meeting last week.  Items in this edition include:

- Anniversaries

- Unhealthy Occupation: The Derby Mercury commenting in 1749 on the high number of clergy who had died in the Ongar district

- Centenary of Chelmsford Diocese (1914 - 2014)

- Dedication of Church at Theydon Mount, taken from the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society 'New Series' Volume 12 Part 3 (1911)

- William Sworder of Stapleford Tawney

- Christmas Eve: taken from Leaves of a Hunting Diary

- Inquest of the body of William Reed, 1788

- Hue and Cry: Stanford Rivers Imprisonment for Fowl Stealing, 1897

- The Queen's Jubilee and the Woes of Stanford Rivers

- Opening of a Jubilee Fountain at Stanford Rivers, 1898

- The Pilgrims Way: a reference to St Edmund

- Place Names Quiz (answers)

- St Michael's Church Theydon Mount 400th Anniversary Weekend, advertisement

- Parliamentary and Parochial Electors for Stapleford Tawney, 1914

- Dr. Livingstone I Presume!

- That's My Seat. Anne Archer of Theydon Garnon

Journal No 51 (March 2014)

The 40 page quarterly magazine is now available to members of the High Country History Group. Two new series commence in our second 50 of Journals: palaeography, and extracts from the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society (now Essex Society for Archaeology and History  Items include

- Coopersale House, Theydon Garnon - an enigma

- Transportation reprived (of Samuel James of Theydon Garnon, 1797)

- Boxing Match at Ongar

- Greensted Church and James Barlow, an historical record of his life

- Mad Dog

- Palaeography

-- (i) Introduction

-- (ii) Vagrants' Certificate from Stanford Rivers, 1598

-- Place Names Quiz

- Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society

-- Greenstead Church, by Henry Laver F.S.A.

- A View of Stanford Rivers 1866. A visit to Issac Taylor

- Obituary. Sir Richard Smijth, Rector of Stapleford Tawney with Theydon Mount, 1837

- Farming in Stapleford Tawney 1902

High Country History Group: Journal No 50 (December 2013)

Celebrating with a silver balloon with '50' on its front cover, the High Country History Group has reached a significant landmark in the production of the quarterly Journal for members.  As usual it contains a wide range of items relating to the local history of Greensted, Stanford Rivers, Stapleford Tawney, Theydon Mount and beyond.  Contents this time include:

- An Appeal for Information: about a Mr Mugleston who took the tenancy of Littlebury Farm in Stanford Rivers in the 1870s

- Attack on a Constable

- 101 Uses of a Church Porch: Stanford Rivers South Porch use for "habitacion" in 1600

- Ongar Through The Centuries. 40 Little Known Facts: a booklet just published by the Ongar Millennium History Society

- Greensted and the Course of St Edmund's Translation: taken from the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society (New Series, Volume 10, 1907)

- The Diary of Anna Reeve of Stondon Massey, 1888

- Hill Hall and Copt Hall: taken from Memorials of Old Essex (published 1908)

- In Memoriam. Lewis Newcomen Prance: taken from the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society ('New Series', Volume 13, 1913)

- Harriet Archer-Houblon: born 1812, Coopersale House, Theydon Garnon

- Coopersale: taken from Kelly's Directory 1933

A Student's Guide to Colchester

'A Student Guide to Colchester' is the title of our next meeting to be held on Thursday 24 September.  Our Secretary, Andrew Smith, is currently doing a Certificate in Local History at the University of Essex and has completed two modules on the history of Colchester, a very interesting town with a rich Roman past.  Andrew's presentation will be about the archaeological discoveries of the twentieth and twenty-first century which have helped in the understanding and to tell the history of the town.  His highly illustrated talk will take those present on an armchair (well, seated) tour of the town through the ages. It is a history of both Roman Britain and recent archaeology.  Andrew is not a Colcestrian, hence the title.  All welcome. Toot Hill Village Hall, Thursday 24 September beginning at 8.00pm.

High Country History Group: Journal No. 49 (September 2013)

The quarterly Journal of the High Country History Group has just been sent to members.  Contents this time include:

- Greensted Mystery (Part 2): Revd Benjamin Pratt

- Book Review: The 1953 Essex Flood Disaster by Patricia Reynoldson-Smith

- The Royal Forest of Essex

VI. The Forest of Writtle

VII. Medieval Documentary Sources

VIII. The Industry of The Forest

IX. The Decline of the Forest System

X. The Forest to the Present Day

XI. The Rabbit and the Medieval Economy

- Churchwarden's Presentments 1750 to 1826 for Greensted, Stanford Rivers, Stapleford Tawney and Theydon Mount

- From The Papers

- West Window, St Michael's Church, Theydon Mount

- The Home Guard Pocket Book 1942

High Country History Group: Journal No. 48 (June 2013)

The Members' Quarterly Journal remembers Dr Rob Brooks, our Chairman, with the first part of his study course on the Royal Forest of Essex (pages 14 - 31).  The contents include:

- Report of the Annual General Meeting

- Tribute to Rob Brooks (1945-2013)

- From The Papers

- Stanford Rivers Incorporated Workhouse & the New Poor Laws

- Greensted Mystery: "The cover of the Journal shows an oil painting of the Reverend Benjamin Pratt, A.M., Founder of the Living of Greensted". But who was he?

- The Royal Forest of Essex

-- Introduction

-- I.  Anglo-Saxon Essex

-- II. The Norman and Angevin Kings

-- III. The Growth of Deer Parks

-- IV. Law and Order in the Forest

-- V.  Forest Fieldwork

- Essex Royalist Clergy - and Others: taken from Essex Review

High Country History Group: Journal No. 47 (March 2013)

The quarterly Journal (40 pages) of the High Country History Group given to subscribing members.  The March 2013 contents are as follows:
- The Epping Railway Company 1859-1863: taken from the Essex Review
- The Picture of St Edmund at Greensted Church: taken from the Essex Review
- What The Papers Say: extracts from Chelmsford Chronicle, Lincolnshire Echo and Essex Newsman
- Theydon Mount School
- This Might Be Useful
-- Family History Books Collection: http://familysearch.org/#form=books
-- Centenary of The Great War: http://www.1914.org
- Essex Quarter Sessions Order Book 1652-1661
- Sayings
-- A Square Meal
-- Show a Leg
- The Budworth Family of Greensted Hall
- Rookes Evelyn Bell Crompton FRS (31 May 1845 - 15 February 1940)
- Ongar District Cottage Hospital War Memorial Scheme

Welcome to the High Country History Group

The famous log church at Greensted

Welcome to the High Country History Group, covering the small parishes of Greensted, Stanford Rivers, Stapleford Tawney and Theydon Mount just west of Ongar in Essex, England.  The Group was founded in 1999 by Rob Brooks.  The club meets on most fourth Thursdays in the month and this year we have changed our meetings to meet from March to November (except August and September) rather than through the winter months. 

For a membership of £7.00, or £10.00 for family members, those on our list receive four journals a year containing items of local and countywide historic and social interest and reduced admission to our regular meetings (£1, instead of £3 for visitors) held at the Toot Hill Village Hall.  Each time we meet we have a speaker who talks on the subject of local or general topic of historic interest.  Sometimes our members lead the evening.  We always end the evening with tea or coffee and biscuits, and at Christmas with a mince pie and glass of wine.  We believe one of our strengths is the opportunity for people to get together, enjoy a talk and a good natter afterwards.  Do join us. You will be very welcome. 

Our blog is an extension of the Group, connecting us to the worldwide web and people who may have had, or have ancestors connected with our local area. 

So welcome, and enjoy what we have to offer.