[3]
The document "Historic Sandridge - the story of a Hertfordshire parish" which was published in 1952 is important because it is one of the best chronicles of Thrale history. It gives an insight into the bygone times in which Thrale families used to live, and includes useful information about the history of many Thrale family members. It is reproduced here with the kind consent of author, the late Richard Thrale [4].
[5]
Historic Sandridge is no longer in print in the 1952 form. In 1999 it was updated and rewritten as "Historic Sandridge Revisited" edited by the late Janet R Rose. ISBN 0-9537647-0-2. This has a greater focus on the village of Sandridge and less on Thrale family history.
In earlier times Sandridge Parish was bigger than it is now. The extent of the parish as shown on the tithe map [9] of 1842; the St Albans cathedral [10] records of the fifteenth century confirm these boundaries. The parish stretched from the corner of Sandpit Lane and Sandridge Road, over Bernards Heath, down the hill, through the village and out in a north-easterly direction to Coleman Green, then continuing north over the Lea and over the road from Wheathampstead [11] to Codicote [12] and on past Bridehall to within half a mile of the church of Ayot St Lawrence [13]. The length of the parish was nearly six miles in a direct line; the narrowest part was and is by Coleman Green, where the sides come close together to form a neck just half a mile across. The total area was 5,708 acres.
[14]
The parish remained unchanged until 1905, when St. Saviour's parish **was formed out of the southern end of Sandridge. In 1923 part of the northern end was transferred to **Ayot St. Lawrence. With the formation of the Parish Council in 1895, it took over the civil administration of the parish; in 19351 a section of the northern part of the parish was from thereon administered by the Wheathampstead Parish Council, and as the city of St Albans [15] expanded, so did the civil parish of Sandridge lessen.
In the eighth century there were seven kingdoms [19] in England. Sandridge was in Mercia [20] , the kingdom which occupied that area now known to us as the Midlands [21]. The Church of England was then, as now, divided into the two provinces of Canterbury and York , but in the year 787 King Offa [22] secured the elevation of the Bishop of Lichfield [23] to be another archbishop over the seven dioceses in the kingdoms of Mercia [20] and East Anglia [24].
This arrangement lasted only fourteen years, during which time Offa died owning the parish of Sandridge1. Egfrid [25] his son gave it2 in 796 to the church of St Alban by the name of Sandruage,
So denominated by the Saxons from the soil of the place, and from the service by which the inhabitants held their lands, for the soil is sandy, and age signifies the service of bond servants3.
Such is the earliest known mention of Sandridge.
Evidence of a Saxon church at Sandridge is supposedly given by the flint rubble walls with quoins of Roman tiles, visible in the exterior of the east end of the nave, and also by the chancel arch of Roman bricks. The latter probably came from some adjacent Roman villa and not from Verulam, for some of them are of the thick variety which, though common at Colchester and Uriconium [26], are rare at Verulam4.
Herbert, Bishop of Norwich [27] , consecrated the first Norman church of Sandridge5, dedicating it to the glory of God and in honour of St. Leonard [28]. Leonard was to become the patron saint of over one hundred and eighty English churches. Son of an army officer and godson of Clovis [29] , king of the Franks [30], he was the patron of prisoners, being diligent in obtaining releases for many poor wretches. Thus he is often depicted holding a chain. This church consisted of a nave without aisles, and solid walls where the arcading now stands. These walls were pierced by narrow Norman [31] windows splayed out from the outside to the inside. The eastern wall was pierced by a round arch of Roman bricks supported by pillars of the same material. Through the arch was a short chancel, probably ending in an apse [32] which contained the altar. The western wall was perhaps pierced by another round arch, opening into a low Norman tower. The only remains of that fabric today are the north and south angles at the east end of the aisleless nave [33], with the abutments of the later arcades, the thick walls at the west end of the same nave, and the chancel [34] arch6.
About the year 1160 the nave was widened by the addition of the aisles; the side walls of the nave were taken down for almost their whole length, and the two arcades [35] of octagonal pillars, with their bold and beautiful capitals, and the six round arches of Totternhoe stone [36], were erected in their place. A clerestory [37] was raised over this arcading and the north and south aisles were added in flint work, with Norman windows; the north and south doorways of the nave were transferred to the aisles. The cylindrical font [38] also belongs to this period. It is surrounded with an arcade of intersecting arches, rising from a plain plinth. The arches, eighteen in number, do not, as is usually the case, lie over each other in crossing, but are quite flat. Above the arches is a hatchet or saw tooth ornament. The capitals and bases of this miniature arcading make it not unlike the main arcading of the nave. To protect the soft limestone [39] the inside of the font is lined with lead. The present lining was fixed in 1945, when the old one was burnt out.
Late in the twelfth century a tower was built, or rebuilt, on to the west end of the nave, with a lofty Early English arch opening into it. The bases of the nave piers already foreshadowed the Early English style of water-holding moulding. There is no evidence of further alterations to the church for about two hundred years.
John de la Moote, the thirty-first abbot of St Albans, elected in 1396, did much for Sandridge and its church. He …
made at Sandrugge a new gateway and a suitable stable for heavy and light horses. He also built a mill at Sandrugge”;7.
And
he rebuilt the chancel of Sandrugge from the foundations”;.8
The chancel was not quite in line with the nave, but bent slightly to the north. The north door of the chancel also belongs to this period. It used to lead into the churchyard, but now leads into a vestry [40]. There were paintings on the walls, traces of which could still be seen in 19009. The roof timbers rest on six buckle corbels [41] carved in stone.
The famous Sandridge stone screen has an original tie beam of the chancel roof stretching right across; the other timbers were inserted in 1886. Two years before, the old chancel arch was revealed by the removal of plaster. The crown is about two feet below the bottom of the tie beam. Below the arch in the middle of the wall is a well moulded, pointed doorway which is flanked on each side by a three-light window opening. The brick arch above is partly filled in by rough stones and Roman bricks, the latter probably coming from the supports of the round arch. Ornamentations here include the arms of the abbey and perhaps those of abbot John10.
On either side of the doorway, on its eastern face, is a low stone seat end, with figures carved on them. That on the south side is of a priest with his hand to his ear, the other hand holding a necklace of beads. The figure on the north side is that of a woman with her face obliterated. It has been suggested that the priest is hearing her confession11. To erect all this new stonework, the masons must have begun by taking out for some eight feet in height the two pieces of wall on either side of the old round arch, and of course the uprights of the arch itself. They must have shored up the great mass of thick wall above with strong timbers whilst the new work was being put in. The western side of the window opening of the screen shows jambs very much splayed, and surmounted by depressed arches. But generally speaking, the western side of the screen is bare and plain, and must have almost certainly been faced by carved and painted woodwork. Judging from cuts at one time visible in the capitals of the two eastern piers of the nave, about four feet west of the screen wall, a beam here crossed the nave and supported the front of the rood loft [42]6. This beam was presumably supported by two uprights resting on the floor, on each side of the doorway, thus forming recesses for side altars, one on each side of the chancel arch. The two wooden slabs which can now be seen represent the back portions of these lost altars. There is mention of altars to St. Catharine, St. Nicholas [43] and St. Andrew [44] in 15th and 16th century wills, and of lights to the same three 'saints, and also to St. Leonard, the patron saint. There are obvious places for four altars in the nave, two against the screen, as described above, and one at the east end of each aisle. From the middle of the nave the high altar of St. Leonard and the four other altars could be seen.
In order to light the screen side altars, small windows were cut diagonally through the east angles of the nave, that on the north side is now built up. This did not sufficiently light the rest of the nave, so the fifteenth century saw square-headed windows replace the Norman ones in both aisles. There are six of these, two east, two south, and two north. Like the chancel side windows, they are of two lights with heads cusped with five foils. In the same century the south doorway was rebuilt and the south porch erected. Floor tiles in the chancel and vestry gathered from the various parts of the church also belong to this period. They have a red body with impressed patterns filled in with white slip. Finally, it must be mentioned that the nave walls as well as the chancel walls had paintings on them, but the only picture of which there is any record was one over the north door, which represented St. Michael the Archangel [45] weighing souls, with the Evil One standing by.
Thus was Sandridge's church of St. Leonard at her greatest architectural glory.
The earliest record which gives one the best impression, both of the parish and of the life which the parishioners led, is given by the [Domesday survey][1
The abbot himself holds Sandridge, it answers for ten hides. There is land for thirteen ploughs. in the demesne [52] are three hides and there are two ploughs, and a third could be made. There, twenty-six Villeins [53] have ten ploughs. There are two cottagers and one serf, and one mill worth ten shillings. Meadow for two ploughs. Pasture for the cattle. Woodland for three hundred pigs. Its total value is eighteen pounds; and the same in the time of King Edward [54]. This manor laid and lies in the demesne of the church of St. Alban.
Such is the description of Sandridge in the year of our Lord 1086, the abbot, Paul de Caen [55], being the fourteenth. A hide [56] was a measure of land as much as would support one free family and dependants, perhaps about 120 acres1. it seems that the home farm, worked by the abbey, consisted of three hides with two ploughs, and that the twenty-six tenant farmers had seven hides and ten ploughs between them. The cottagers were perhaps small holders and the serf a man whose service was attached to the soil. it is evident that the area of ten hides does not include the woodland, and probably not the pasture or meadow either. The word hide survives in our parish in the names of Beech Hyde, Simonshyde and perhaps Cheapside.
The feudal overlord of the manor was entitled to many privileges and dues. Thus from the abbey [57] records one learns that Geoffrey de Gorham, sixteenth abbot of St Albans during the period 1119-46, gave all the cheeses and gifts which were due annually, from the manor of Sandridge to the kitchener of the abbey2. Extortion was not uncommon. The thirteenth century opened with the reign of John [58], who signed Magna Carta [59] in 1215 and died in the following year. He required money for the French wars and also for the wars against his own nobles, and in 1209 he went about extorting money from the monasteries, one of the victims being Robert de la Marc of Sandridge, who had to pay thirteen marks3.
Later in the same century we have the remarkable case of William Merun who fought for four years against Roger de Nortone, twenty-fourth abbot of St. Albans. Merun claimed to be a freeman, and he therefore declined to perform the usual services appropriate to a Villein. But the abbot insisted that he really was a Villein and proceeded bit by bit to confiscate his property. On the Monday before Palm Sunday [60] A.D.1270, he sent four servants, John of Walkern, Galfrld of Sandruge, Henry of Tyngewik, and William le Baker, who seized three oxen and four horses and drove them off to the abbot's manor of Sandridge. William promptly complained, but he got no redress; instead the same men came in August and seized two more oxen and a cow, and in the late spring of 1271 they came and look four more oxen and four more horses. Still William Merun would not give in and admit that he was a Villein, so on a Sunday in August the same men made a raid on his house, broke the doors and windows, seized the furniture, arrested Merun himself and placed him in the Sandridge lock-up. The arrest was reported to the Viscount of Hertford [61] who came in person to see Merun and bailed him out. William appealed to King Henry III [62] and he claimed the return of all his animals, £40 damages for their seizure, and a further £100 damages for the attack on his house and person.
In due course the King ordered the travelling judges to try the case, and so at last it came to court. The abbot disclaimed any responsibility for the arrest of William's person, saying that he was not even in England when it happened, but as regards the seizure of the animals, he said it was justified by the fact that William would not perform the labours of a Villein. William on the other hand said that he was a Freeman and that he would establish his freedom before Mr. Richard Stanes, one of the King's Judges, by the witness of soldiers, lawyers, and other Freemen.
I hold my land free
he said,
but I am willing to pay five shillings and three pence per year to be free and quiet from all secular service.
Both parties agreed that it was simply a question of fact. Was Merun a Villein or a Freeman? Merun felt sure that if a proper search was made in the record of the rolls, his name would be found among those of the Freemen. Time was allowed for this search and the case was again brought up at Canterbury on 3rd February 1273. When the time came poor William had failed to establish his freedom and so he did not put in an appearance at Canterbury, and the abbot's attorney triumphantly claimed him as the abbot's Villein. But the new King Edward I [63] wanted to make quite sure that his claim was really just, and he ordered the minutes of the case to be sent to him. Perhaps he suspected that there was good reason why William failed to reach Canterbury. Travelling would be neither cheap nor easy when all his horses had been seized. So the King allowed both parties to come before Parliament fifteen days after Easter in the year 1274.
At Westminster the abbot once more claimed William to be his Villein, and William was required to attend on the morrow if he wished to say anything against the abbot, and it was agreed that if he did not appear on the morrow judgement would be delivered. On the morrow William Merun was publicly proclaimed, but he did not come. Enquiries were made about the investigation of the rolls before Mr. Stanes in the time of King Henry [64]. It was declared that William was deprived of liberty, that he did not hold his land free, and his goods were not free but were at the disposal of the abbot. And it was declared that the land remained the villeinage of the abbot permanently, and likewise that the said goods were permanently the goods of the abbot. Therefore the Abbot Roger, when making fresh arrangements for his lands and tenements, enfeoffed [65] Hugh the Son of Walter of Sandrugge, in accordance with the usual obligations of service4.
The feudal manorial system was simple and crude, providing the overlord with absolute might. There was the lord of the manor, in our case the abbot of St. Albans, who by means of his bailiff worked the home farm. Then there were the Villeins, bound to the soil and sold with their families along with the land when the manor changed hands. The Villeins could not move away if they wished, nor could they strike. They had to work on the lord's farm so many days in the year and supply their own oxen for the plough. In return for these services to the lord they received, not a money wage but strips of land of their own on which they worked during their free days, when the lord had no claim on them. The Villeins also shared with the lord the use of the village meadow and pasture and the surrounding woodland and heath where the pigs were turned loose. Such places as these would be Barnet Wood, now Bernard's Heath, and No Mans Land [66]. Then, beside the bailiff and the Villeins, there might be in the village one or two free men who held land from the abbot, not for service but for money rent, and this was what William Merun claimed to be. The manor and its people could be sold or exchanged like so much merchandise. In 1331 abbot Richard de Wallingford granted Sandridge manor to Robert Albyne of Hemel Hempstead for his life, rent free for fourteen years and then for a rent of thirty quarters of wheat and thirty quarters of oats. Together with this grant there was an income from half the fines and from half the heriots [67]5, the latter being a type of death duty to the overlord. Under abbot Michael de Mentmore, 1335-49, there was a reorganisation of the Abbey charities. The small tythes [68] of Sandridge were transferred from the abbey almoner [69] to the abbey infirmarer, and the great tithes were also transferred from the almoner to other offices6.
The appalling plague of the Black Death [70] in 1349 altered the way of life for Sandridge to a great degree. This plague, which swept into Europe from the east, was more destructive even than modern warfare, for in one year it reduced the population of England from about four millions to about two millions. It left no village or hamlet untouched, and some places were completely wiped out. Among the victims were the abbot of St. Albans and three vicars of Sandridge in quick succession. The social consequences of the Black Death were far-reaching. The market value of labour was suddenly doubled and the bailiffs were hard put to it to find enough workers. The free man struck for higher wages and the Villein struggled against the demands of the bailiffs for his services.
Gradually he was led on to demand his full freedom, the right to take his labour where he would, to plead in the king's court even against his own lord, and to be free of irksome feudal dues.7
The lowly classes no longer passively accepted their lot as inevitable, and were beginning to think for themselves.
Subdued discontent burst out into open rebellion with the Peasants' Revolt [71] of 1381. Wat Tyler [72] had died in London at the hands of its Mayor. The Hertfordshire rebels, assembling in what are now the grounds of St Albans School [73], attacked the abbey and threatened to burn the manor of Kingsbury and the grange of St. Peter. They obtained from Thomas de la Mare, the thirtieth abbot, a charter granting a common of pasture, rights of way, fishing and hunting, and the right to grind their own corn on their own hand mills, and the rights of self government without the interference of the abbey bailiffs8. In Sandridge there was a sequel to the revolt, and to this movement towards personal freedom. The records of the abbey tell how certain persons who alleged that they were relations of John Biker, recently hanged in the insurrection at St Albans for his manifest crimes, coming by night to the farm in Sandridge, erected before the gate a certain banner, rather like the one the insurgents erected while they were raving; and they appended a pyx [74] by a cord of flax [75] and a certain letter with tax of £21 to be paid at Canterbury on a certain day. And if they were not paid what they asked they threatened to seize goods on the manors of Astone and Wyncelowe. They hung up in various places small flaxen garments half burnt, and they scattered in the neighbourhood of the manor of Sandridge balls made of the stalks of flax, as a sign they would burn the farm if the abbot did not satisfy them. The abbot and his council were amazed al the presumption of the men; and especially since neither the abbot nor any of his household had had any quarrel with John Biker, who had been hanged by the King's Court.
At the next council it was decided that money ought not to be sent to Canterbury on account of these threats, for if it was done it was certain similar threats would be made in future. It was therefore decreed to wait in silence and see what the enemies would do. For a time the monastery property received no injury; it was on St. Alban's Day, early in the morning, however, when the household were occupied at St Albans, that these devilish men came and set light to the building where the pigs were kept, and owing to its age, it was soon burnt to the ground. Then the fire spread to the great barn, which had recently been rebuilt and was almost full of corn, barley and oats a large part of the building was consumed, and wheat laid waste. But certain neighbours running to the spot, were the cause of the greater part of the house being saved from the flames, The sacrilegious incendiaries got away and lay hidden; it was impossible to know who perpetrated so great an evil9. Thus ran the monks' account of the encounter, and thus is illustrated the gradual development of personal liberty. More and more people were gaining a form of independence during the following decades, but the number was still trivial. A few of these fortunate folk are mentioned in the abbey records:
14th May 1486. The lord abbot liberates makes free from every yoke of service, villeinage or bondage, William Nasshe and Robert Nasshe, recently natives of the demesne of Sandrugge, with all their descendants whether born before this, or to be born hereafter.”;10
26th Nov 1483. The lord abbot, under his seal and under the seal of the abbey liberates and frees from every yoke of service villeinage and bondage and makes free Philip Nassh with all his descendants already born or to be born hereafter.11
The above records may be compared with the attempt of William Merun to free himself two hundred years earlier. The slow struggle for liberty was beginning.
Another form of violence, only on a far greater scale, was to plunge the inhabitants of Sandridge into the very centre of the most hateful type of strife, That of civil war.
The quarrel between the two noble families of Lancaster and York came to a climax in 1455 with the Wars of the Roses [76]. The first battle of St Albans [77] was the beginning of this War, but the only concern here is not with the national events, but with the second battle of St Albans [78] six years later. The record of the battle is so different from the wars of our own time that it is almost refreshing to recall it. In February 1461…
King Harry [79], a prisoner with his lords, went out of London and came with their people to the town of St Albans, not knowing that the people of the north were so nigh. When the king heard of their proximity, he went out and took his field beside Sandridge, in a place called No Mans Land [66].12
Such a move gave Warwick [80] four days in which to prepare his defences against the Queen, who was coming south by Watling Street [81]. He drew up his forces in three bodies facing north west; the left wing occupied Bernard's Heath, the centre Sandridge valley, and the right was placed upon Nomansland13. A strong body of archers was stationed on the west-side of St Albans. The countryside was full of woods and hedges affording shelter for the archers, while the sunken rood through Sandridge was a formidable obstacle for the attacking forces. In addition to trenches and other earthworks, Warwick used defences, which had not been used in Britain before; cord nets of ninety-six square feet were designed to stop infantry attacks but to allow the passage of arrows. All the defences were useless however, for owing to inferior scouting,14 the whole force was outflanked.
The Queen's army passed through Redbourn [82] and attacked St Albans up Fishpool Street, which was defended, and up Catherine Street, which was not. A fierce battle raged in St. Peters Street and the Yorkists were driven out to Bernard's Heath and there,
amid the falling snowflakes, the combat went on for hour after hour, maintained on either side with that deadly animosity and bloodthirsty doggedness inseparable from civil wars.15
Warwick at first made no attempt to relieve his hard pressed left wing with his main body of troops lying idle at Sandridge. Instead he withdrew this main body to join the right wing on Nomansland, where the captive king was sitting under a large oak tree. The vacillating Warwick then decided to meet the victorious Lancastrians on Dead Womans Hill. The battle was not then lost, but treachery sealed the fate of the day. A Kentish squire, commanding a section of the right wing, went over to the Lancastrians with the whole of his force. The cry of "treason!" passed along the line, and sent the already demoralised soldiery into blind panic. At Nomansland Warwick managed to rally some of his forces and succeeded in effecting a more orderly retreat. Instead of the thirty thousand men, Warwick was left with four thousand shattered wretches under his banner, The King, having been reunited with his Queen and son, upon whom he conferred a knighthood, proceeded to the abbey. Thus was the second battle of Sandridge, the first occurring on 22 May 1455.16
This visit of King Henry VI was, until recently the only recorded visit of the reigning sovereign to Sandridge; but on 20 July 1952 Queen Elizabeth II [83] passed through the parish and village on her way from St Albans to St. Paul's Walden.
When one gazes on the parish countryside of today, one may be sure that there are several features upon which the people of the feudal period also gazed with some speculation, and perhaps conjectured upon their origin. One such feature is the Devils Dyke [87] which lies between Lower Beech Hyde and Marford, and is part of the boundary between Sandridge and Wheathampstead [11]. Excavations have revealed quantities of pottery and other relics which are believed to belong to the first century before Christ. Nearby is a smaller earthwork known as the Slad [88], nowadays partially filled with water. It is believed that Julius Caesar [89], when fighting the chieftain Casslvellaunus [90] in B.C. 54, attacked and carried his enemy's stronghold1 which was bounded by the Devils Dyke and the Slad. The whole character of the former Dyke is so closely identified with that of Beech Bottom Dyke [91]
that no one would hesitate to attribute both to the same authorship.2
Beech Bottom stretches away from the Harpenden Road in a north-easterly direction; after a mile it fades out. The dyke is no less than one hundred feet wide from lip to lip, and still in its partially filled state, reaches a depth of thirty feet. The excavated earth was piled partially on both margins. It was clearly intended by its constructors to serve as a boundary and a traffic barrier rather than a military work. It would mark the northern boundary of a tract of relatively open land lying between the parallel valleys of the Ver [92] and The Lea [93].3
Another feature, which would be visible to the eyes of our predecessors, is the Roman road from Verulamlum to Colchester [94]. It ran through the entire length of Sandridge parish from a south-westerly direction, following the line of the present road over Coleman Green, and crossing the river Lea at Waterend [95].
Much water was to flow along Isaac Walton [96]'s beloved gentle Lea from the time of the building of the dykes to the first recorded references to parish land. Robert de Gorham, eighteenth abbot of St.Albans (1151-1166), being of a generous nature, assisted Laurence, abbot of the impoverished abbey Westminster, and gave many gifts to him. The latter showed his ingratitude by stirring up strife over territory on the borders of the two abbey estates
between the river at Marford and the land of Sandrugge, and over other lands and possessions, thus raking up petty quarrels which had been laid to rest.4
The quarrels between the two overlords of the adjacent parishes of Sandridge and of Wheathampstead, which was to last for a great number of years, had thus begun.
The greatest strife over boundaries was to come two and a half centuries later. Lying between Sandridge and Wheathampstead, a mile north of Sandridge church, is an uncultivated area, known as Nomansland [66]. Such lands were usually dedicated to the devil, and it was considered dangerous to break them up by means of cultivation5. This common lay between the domain of the Abbey of St Albans [97], namely Sandridge on the south, and that of Westminster Abbey [98] on the north. Both abbots claimed it, although its name implies that it was extra-parochial, and it was a source of frequent disputes between them. The right to erect gallows [99] was one eagerly sought for, and firmly held, not because people particularly wanted to hang one another, but because the erection of the gallows established in time rightful ownership. About the year 1417 Richard Wyth, bailiff of the Abbot of Westminster, erected a gallows on Nomansland to the injury of the manor of Sandridge and the Abbey of St Albans. The gallows stood there unmolested for ten years as an indication of the ownership of Westminster. The year following the gallows were hewn down by swords and axes, no one knowing by whom, or so, at least, the chronicler says. Immediately John Wyth, the bailiff of Westminster, re-erected them, and the abbot of St Albans, having taken legal advice, had them pulled down once more. In this his servants and tenants were assisted by some Wheathampstead folk who happened to be passing. But the parishioners of Wheathampstead apparently had misgivings as to their imprudence in supporting St Albans against their own overlord. When Rogation-tide [100], the recognised time of beating parish boundaries [101], was upon them, they at about seven o'clock in the morning "In fear of their skins", stealthily made perambulation of the disputed territory, leaving as a sign of their activities a small piece of wood fashioned as a cross lying on the ground. The next day the abbot of St Albans, considering this a piece of sharp practice by the Wheathampstead folk, sent out his own servants to reconnoitre [102]; they returned reporting that they had seen no one except a few fellows lurking behind hedges, and had met with no opposition. Whereupon Sandridge led by the vicar, beat the bounds properly, according to their claims. They sang hymns as they went, and chanted the Gospel of the day and returned unmolested.
In July 1428 a shepherd of Wheathampstedbury died suddenly on Nomansland while lending his sheep. The vicar of Sandridge claimed the body for burial on the grounds that the soil belonged to the abbot of St Albans. But the people of Wheathampstead seized the body, bore it to their church and buried it in that churchyard even while litigation was pending between the two abbots, the body having had no inquest held over it by the coroner. The next year an understanding was reached John Fray, Baron of the Royal Exchequer, with the clerk of the cellarer, made a tour of the boundaries; on the following day at about three hours before supper there was an assembly of the steward of St Albans Abbey, a lawyer of St Albans living at Sopwell [103] and general adviser to the Abbey, the abbey cook, the bailiff of the abbot of Westminster and also the steward, and several tenants of both parties. A description of the bounds was read according to the evidences of Westminster, and John Adam, "an exceedingly old man far advanced in years" bore witness that the said heath was common land of both parties and not of one only.
If the land in question was in fact common to both abbeys, one would assume that neither would claim the right to erect gallows upon it, but sooner or later the abbot of Westminster had the audacity to erect another gallows upon Nomansland. These were promptly cut down by Robert Belamy, a Sandridge farmer, and Matthew Bepsette, a domestic servant of the abbot of St Albans. The two men also carted away the materials. This took place on 14th November 1434, and the dispute arising therefrom lasted nearly six years. An attempt to settle it by arbitration proved fruitless, because neither abbot would yield his claims. The abbot of St Albans put the blame, if any, for the destruction of the first gallows on a notorious robber called William Wawe. The other gallows he had removed because they were on his land. The abbot of Westminster said that they were on his land, and complained that the Sandridge men had forced an innocent Wheathampstead man called John Plomer to assist them in their dirty work by threats of mutilation and death. Arbitration having failed, the abbot of Westminster sued the abbot of St Albans for £50 damages, though he admitted that the actual materials of each gallows only cost two shillings. A preliminary enquiry was held at St Albans in the Crown Court of Pleas, during which Matthew Bepsette felt it necessary to explain that his name was neither Bibsette nor Pipsed; so the Court decided to call him Matthew and leave it at that. The case was finally disposed of by the Court of Marshalsey [104] at Westminster in July 1440. The jurymen, after taking the usual oaths, declared that Robert Belamy, Matthew and their accomplices were in no way to blame, in that they cut down, broke up, and carted away the said gallows.6
The countryside then did not have the appearance of a patchwork quilt as it has today. The land was not fenced off by hedges and ditches. There was regular rotation of crops arranged by the bailiff, and each Villein would have a narrow strip In the wheat area, and the right of grazing in a third area, which for that year was left fallow. The corn and the hay were protected from the animals by moveable hurdles. All the corn had to be ground either at the Abbey mill, St Albans on the river Ver [92], or at the abbot's mill at Sandridge, which must have been on the Lea. And thus life continued for one century more.
It was in April 1538 that Richard Boreman, a native of Stevenage [105], took up his duties as the forty-first and last abbot of the great Benedictine [106] monastery of St Albans, which had dominated the religious, economic and social life of the neighbourhood for over seven hundred years. The year after his appointment the abbot granted a lease of Sandridge vicarage to John Bigges and Joan his wife for fifty years7, which means that in return for a capital sum paid to the abbot, Mr. and Mrs. Bigges would receive the £8 a year which was the vicar's income and allow him just enough to live on. The abbot was overburdened with the king's taxes, and at last when the crippling taxation could no longer be paid, he was obliged to surrender the monastery with all its revenues, including the manor of Sandridge, into the hands of the king. The king kept the manor for some months, but in 1541 he conveyed it to Ralph Rowlatt, a London goldsmith and banker. Thus the era of secular rule had begun.
During the middle of the sixteenth century , the vicissitudes suffered by the church were severe. The services were all in Latin as they had been for five hundred years. There were no less than nine sets of vestments [109] of various colours and three copes [110], green, red and while. There was a cross made of copper, and two candlesticks, a silver chalice [111] weighing ten and a half ounces, an abundance of linen for the altar, a censer [112] and an incense boat, which shows that incense was used at Mass [113]. There was a handbell which weighed three pounds and three bells hanging in the old Norman tower by which the faithful were summoned to church. Upon the death of Henry VIII [114] in 1547, he was succeeded by his eight year old son, Edward VI [115]. The government, not only of the state but also of the church, fell into the hands of the King's Council and changes came rapidly. A set of sermons was published; outdoor processions were forbidden and the Litany [116] had to be said or sung in church just before High Mass [117]. One important change did have ecclesiastical authority [118], namely the giving of Communion [119] to the people in both kinds, which came into general use in 1548. The same year the vicar, Mr. Harding, was told, not by his bishop Edmund Bonner [120], but by the secular rulers, that he must no longer use candles on Candlemas [121] Day, or ashes on Ash Wednesday [122], or palms on Palm Sunday [60]. During the year following the first English Prayer Book [123] was issued, Mass being said in Sandridge church, as everywhere else, entirely in English. Before The end of the year many of the ancient Latin service books were destroyed by order of parliament.
[124]
The ornaments and furniture of St Leonard's [125] also suffered. All mural pictures, or scenes depicted in stained glass of pretended miracles were destroyed, and all candles except two on the High Altar were removed. This change too was made by secular authority but in the main the inside of the church looked much the same as it had done for one hundred and fifty years. Sandridge was in the diocese of London [126], and the bishop was imprisoned and replaced by Nicholas Ridley [127].
No sooner did Ridley find himself safe in Bonner's seat than he began of his own accord an attack upon altars.1
Then it was that the axes, crowbars and hammers began the work of destruction. Out came the five altars. One small wooden table was all that was allowed for the celebration of Holy Communion. Then was fulfilled the words of the psalm:
now they break down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers.
The western side of the chancel screen, which is now so plain and bare was originally enriched with carved and coloured woodwork and surmounted by the Holy Rood [128]. These drastic changes were not popular with the parishioners. During the next few years an attempt was being made to break clean away from the Catholic Church and set up a new religion. In accordance with these principles the vicar was ordered to lay aside all the valuable vestments which had been inherited from the past and to wear no special robe save a surplice [129]. In 1552 the Royal Commissioners [130] paid a visit to Sandridge church. Their errand was to make a list of all the valuable utensils still in the church and see how much of them could be turned into money for use in the King's service. The list, as it was then made, reads as follows:-
This Inventory maid the ffyrst day of Novembre &c Between John Butler &c and Hewe Hardlnge of Sandrudge alias Sandrydge within the said county Clarke of thother parte &c have appointed and delyvered unto the said Hewe all such &c hereunder wrytnne Belonginge to the Parryshe Churche of Sandrydge &c Imprimis iij Belles in the steple Itm a Challilse of Silluer parcell guylte welnge x Onc & dimid Itm a vestment or red vellat Itm a vestment of Blewe Silke Itm iiij other vestments one Sattine another damaske thother twayne of ffuschian Itm a vestment of Tawnye Saye Itm a vestment of Redde Stayned Clothe Itm a vestment of Tawnye Chamlet Itm iij Copps one grene vellat one red vellat thother Whit Saltyne Itm one uppar clothe of redde and grene Sattine of Brudgs and the curteyng of Grene Sarsenet for the highe aulter Itm a uppar clothe and another clothe of yallow sattyne or Brudgs Itm iij Sacrement clothes Itm ij Corporas caysses with clothes to them Itm one alter clothe and ij Towels of lynnon Itm a coverlet and a surples Itm ij Lattine candellstikks Itm a Sensor and a Shlpp of Lattine Itm one Coppar Crosse Somtyme guylidede Itm on lattyne Baysone and ij Crose Clothes of sllke Itm on Crosse of Wodde playted w Siluer thonsid and gultede Itm iij Cruytls of pewdar Itm a hand bell welnge iij li P me Hugone Hardyg"2
Not long after the vicar had to send almost everything on the list up to London. Sandridge was left with the bells in the steeple, the linen altar cloths [131], a coverlet and a surplice. All the costly things which Sandridge people had given to the church were swept away. During the five years of Mary's reign hardly anything is known of Sandridge. Edmund Bonner was restored to his bishopric and Bishop Nicholas Ridley [127] was burnt alive along with about three hundred people whom the Queen called heretics. These burnings were mainly In London and Oxford. They have never been forgotten by English people, and the fear and suspicion of anything believed to be popish, still existing in many minds, dates from this time. Queen Elizabeth [132] succeeded her sister Mary on the 17th November 1558, and Hugh Hardyng immediately began to make a careful record of all baptisms, marriages and burials. The oldest document at Sandridge is the first parish register, which records the baptisms from 1559, the marriages from 1593, and the burials from 1558. The earliest marriage entries appear to have been torn out. During the first six months of Elizabeth's reign the use of the Latin Mass was retained but
to put an end to the disorders that had arisen from violent sermons on both sides, preaching was forbidden by proclamation which allowed the gospel and the Epistle [133] and the Ten Commandments [134] to be read in English but without any exposition [135].3
By the summer of 1559 the English Prayer Book [123] was restored, in a revised form, and the aggressive clause in the Litany about the tyranny of the Pope was deleted. In the same year an outstanding event in church history came about with the consecration of Matthew Parker [136] as Archbishop of Canterbury [137]. The majority of English bishops derive their orders through this Archbishop. It was fifty-seven years later that the Roman Catholics, realising the importance of his consecration in establishing a continuity with the ancient Catholic Church, and in order to throw doubt on its validity, invented a story known as the Nag's Head Fable [138], which is no longer believed by anyone. The Church of England continued to be in communion with the Catholic churches on the continent and with the Pope himself for over eleven years during the reign of Elizabeth [132]. But in 1588 a new pope, Pius V [139], was elected, and it was he who in 1570 excommunicated our Queen [140], and all her subjects, clergy or laity, who remained loyal to her. He then proceeded to send missionaries to England to pervert English churchmen to the popish religion. Such was the origin of the Roman Catholic Church in England. In 1598 a national order was sent out to keep the records of baptisms, marriages and burials [141] in a parchment book. The vicar obtained such a book and copied out the available records for the previous forty years. The original papers were lost and thenceforth the entries were made straight into this book, which is still carefully preserved. On the fly leaves are some rough notes showing how the problem of poor relief was dealt with by the Church in the time of the vicar, William Westerman. The alms [142] of the people were dropped through holes in the lid of the church chest which had three different locks and keys, so that it could only be opened in the presence of the vicar and both churchwardens [143]. As Sandridge was then in the diocese of London, the famous William Laud [144] was the Bishop from 1628 to 1633. From the latter year until his execution in 1645 he was Archbishop of Canterbury and he did his best to see that the churches were properly furnished. Thus, on St. Leonard's day 1638 an inventory of church property containing twenty-eight articles was handed in at the Archdeacon's [145] Court, signed by the vicar and by the two churchwardens. This inventory shows that the altar was restored to its proper place at the east end and covered with a linen cloth. The sanctuary [146]was railed off as now and had a green carpet. There was a silver chalice with lid, a large pewter flagon [147] and two pewter dishes. The font, which stood by a pillar near the north door, had a wooden lid, which was covered with green cloth. The pulpit was old and had to be replaced4 the following year, but in the meantime too was decked in green and had a green cushion and a cover above it. There was a bier [148] for burials and a surplice for the priest. None of the three bells in the lower were cracked, and all had adequate ropes; one of them bore the inscription:
Sancta Maria ora pro nobis4 - Holy Mary pray for us
. Over three hundred years have passed since this inventory was compiled, and there remain today only three of the articles there-listed, namely, the font, the register and one pewter dish. The war between King and Parliament [149] broke out in 1642. Three years later King Charles [150] was decisively defeated at the battle of Naseby [151], the Archbishop of Canterbury was executed [144] and Parliament controlled the church and proceeded to forbid the use of the Book of Common Prayer [123]. They put in its place the Directory, which gave the outlines upon which puritan meetings were to be conducted in all churches. A fine of £5, and £10 for the second offence, was imposed on all who were found using the prayer book, whether in church or at home. In Hertfordshire forty-seven parish priests were ejected from their posts. Sandridge caught a glimpse of the civil war, when 500 cavalier [152] horsemen passed through the village, fleeing from a defeat at Kingston-on-Thames, and hotly pursued.5 From 1685 onwards misfortune fell upon the parish, in that the fabric fell into worse and worse decay. Lord Churchill, Baron of Sandridge, repaired the chancel, but in 1693 the tower fell down and was demolished. The traditional date, 1688, for the fall of the tower is based on an inaccuracy of Nathaniel Salmon who, writing In 1728, said:
The steeple hath been down and lain in rubbish almost forty years, without any endeavour to repair it, to the great shame of the inhabitants.6
The churchwardens' report in 1691 makes no mention of the disaster. There is no report for 1692, but in the following year they report:
At a Vestry held by the churchwardens and neighbours of Sandridge for surveying the steeple lately fallen down and totally demolished. The cost or charge of the reparations thereof is valued at seven hundred pounds by us, the surveyors.
The early English arch leading from the nave into the tower was happily undamaged and still remains, so the tower must have fallen outwards. The three small bells were not seriously damaged by the fall, so they were removed from the ruins and placed outside the church in Petticoat Lane. The west wall of the church had to be filled up to close the gap caused by the disaster, and in 1699 just over three pounds were spent on taking down the remaining ruins of the lower and
the leads of the steeple was sold for nearly £29 pounds by Thomas Ley the churchwarden, and the money dispersed to the poor.4
One of the overseers, Lawrence Jacques, had all the iron that came out of the steeple and the weather cock which he kept at his house. It was one hundred and forty-four years before another tower was built, but John Jacques hung up the bells on a wooden frame in the north aisle in 1701; ropes were provided and it seems that for a number of years the bells were rung inside the church. When the church tower had been down for seventeen years, the nave roof pierced by at least one dormer window was found to be in a serious condition, so that it was hardly safe to go into the church. The roof was covered with lead supported by rafters which were fixed to the chief capital beam called the crown piece. This beam was broken and the rafters were hanging down. John Jacques was a conscientious churchwarden who held office for two consecutive years, and he called two vestry meetings and reported the danger, and during Lent [153] he and some craftsmen set to work. The church roof was saved, but the other parish officers complained about the cost of this work, so that Henry Wilson, the plumber, and other workmen had difficulty in getting paid for their labours. The following is the vicar's letter to the archdeacon's registrar reporting this state of affairs:-
"Sandridge July 22nd 1710 Mr.Brown: Whereas it happened that the chief capital beam in the body of our church, called the crown piece, to which the rafters were affixed, was by length of time or default of officers not taking timely care to keep it well covered, the said crown piece was much perished and broken in the middle, so that the rafters sunk down and had like to have given away, for the whole covering of lead and timber to have fallen upon our heads. Neither could we perform divine service without evident peril to life or limb. Therefore, John Jacques, our churchwarden, calls a vestry and showed some of the principal neighbours that appeared there, their own danger, particularly one who used to sit under a dormer window, which was just ready to drop upon his head, who, never the less, seemed not very forward with a reparation. However after two vestries called, and Easter approaching, and few appearing either to consent or gainsay, therefore the church-warden sets the plummers and carpenters and smith and bricklayer on work, as he did himself too, and was very deligent to see after the labourers and to put his own shoulder to some of the heaviest burdens to my knowledge, and lost many a day's gainful work by attending to this, which he did not only out of his own good inclination, to the good of the church, but as a sworn officer and guardian of it, as he plainly affirms. Now that the church is well repaired is owing to the care of the said churchwarden, but some of this neighbourhood, to make themselves look like a wise and governing sort of people, since they cannot but deny but that John Jacques has well performed his duty in this matter, and know his power in church affairs, being of their own selection, nevertheless, keep him out of his money, and the workmen too, by a sort of cavilling about the workmen's bills who, God knows, are not yet paid one farthing on the account, or at least, as I hear of Henry Wilson, the plummer, will swear to the truth and equity of his bill, and I doubt not so will the other workmen also. Therefore I pray your Venerable Court will not let honest wellwishers of the church be run down and defrauded, while they are doing their duty, without your care for their relief. With my humble service to you in hopes of your advice and assistance, both In relation to my churchwarden in particular and the Church of England in general. I am, Your very humble servant, EDM. WOOD."
The churchwarden and workmen are very willing to lay down their bills in your Court, to be censured by such skilfull workmen as shall in your wisdom be appointed to examine them.7
In the year 1729 the church expenses were as follows:
Church repairs | £0. | 14s. | 4d. |
Altar cloth | £2. | 8s. | 0d. |
Bread and wine | 16s. | 4d. | |
Six prayer books | £2. | 6s. | 8d. |
Churchyard | 18s. | 7d. | |
Bell ringing | 9s. | 0d. | |
Three new bell ropes | 4s. | 0d. |
The bells, as has been related, were inside the church and were rung on three occasions, namely, for the coronation of George II [154], for the King's birthday, and for Guy Fawkes [155] Day. Each time the ringers got a shilling [156] each, in addition to the previously listed seven items there were the fees for the two visitations. Each visitation [157] involved a journey to St Albans by the vicar and churchwardens, and each time the latter allowed the vicar five shillings for his dinner, though the crafty fellows allowed themselves ten shillings and sixpence each. Nowadays there is only one visitation a year; the vicar is not expected to go and the Parochial Church Council [158] makes no dinner allowance to anyone. The parish churches were not then insured in the same manner as they are now, but if a church was burnt down, other parishes would come to the rescue and help to bear the cost by means of a levy called a brief; These briefs are mentioned in the prayer book, in the rubric [159] after the Nicene Creed [160]. In 1732 Sandridge helped twelve churches in this manner, including St. Peter and St. Paul, Llandaff, which is now a Cathedral. The visitations already mentioned were in fact visits by the vicar and churchwardens to the Archdeacon of St Albans; the churchwardens made their report on the slate of the church and the fabric. This was, and is still, the normal procedure each year. Occasionally, however, there was an energetic archdeacon who, declining to accept these reports at their face value, mounted his horse and visited the churches for himself. Such an untoward event occurred in 1757, when Archdeacon Ibbetson visited St. Leonard's and found the chancel in a poor condition as regards fabric, roof, windows, pews and doors. The chancel was the responsibility of Lord Spencer [161], the lord of the manor and lay rector. The archdeacon, need it be said, was not pleased; he ordered the church to be whitewashed on the inside; the seals, floor, porches and windows to be repaired, and a new cover for the font to be provided. He also ordered that
the Ten Commandments be fairly written on the wall at the east end of the church.
The churchwardens were allowed less than two months in which to see the matter through. The fabric of St. Leonard's was satisfactory in 1760, except that the chancel floor was uneven; probably there had been some burials under it and the floor not properly relaid. By 1780 the lower had been down for ninety years and the upper part of the nave walls with the clerestory [37] windows were removed as follows:
William Paul lowered the old roof without taking off the lead, having put in fresh beams, laying planks on the old original tier walls which had a row of small windows on each side, and then lowering one side about six inches, and then the other, and so on, using wedges. The wall removed was about a yard high and very tender. The attic windows then put in were made by William Paul.8
For the next hundred years the nave and side aisles were spanned by one ugly low pitched gable roof. Two windows were pierced in the wall which blocked the western lower arch, and external buttresses [162] were built at the four corners of the tottering nave [33] walls, the two on the north side consisting of ugly masses of brickwork. There were two attic windows, one of which can be seen in the picture on the title page [163], in front of the bell turret which was added a few years later. The outward appearance of the church at the turn of the century has already been noted. The inside furnishings also left much to be desired. The nave was filled from the west wall to the screen with box pews. The walls of these pews were so high that those sitting or kneeling within them could see nothing but the lofty pulpit. Each pew was entered by a separate door, and within the box were seats, some facing east and some west. It was a black period for English church furnishing; many of our wonderful churches had almost ceased to be places of worship and had become mere preaching halls. The disfigurement of the chancel by while marble memorials to the departed gentry began during this period, for which the vicar Robert Welton must be largely held responsible; no doubt though, it would have been almost impossible to deny his more fortunate parishioners their marble whims. Originally they were more offensive than now for they were situated in the sanctuary, one each side, and thrust their front towards the altar. Such then was our church within and without when the eighteenth century closed.
Travel was expensive and difficult and for this reason one finds families who have served their own small village for centuries. The Thrale family was one of the oldest families in the parish and its history is a small reflection of this larger parish history. From this period onwards the name appears continually and it would be timely at this point in the chronicle to briefly describe the background of this family about which Cussans wrote…
Few yeoman families could boast of a more respectable ancestry1
The first Thrale to come to the parish was Robert the elder, who held a lease on Sandridgebury [167] from the Abbey of St Albans [168], and had been a victualler to the Monastery. It is from Robert that the whole of the family is descended. He died in 1538, desiring his body to be buried in "the medle Aley" of Sandridge Church, and to have Masses said for his soul for nine months2. He almost certainly came from Thrales End [169] just north of Harpenden, where the family has resided since the thirteenth century at least, and he was probably the same Robert who held Tuffnalls at Thrales End in 1493. The Bedfordshire Subsidy of 1309 mentions William le Thral and Johanne Thral, and continual references can be found to the family from that date onwards. Johannes Trayle was Chevalier M.P. for Bedford Borough in 1541. The family furnished members. sometimes Masters of the Religious Guild of the Holy Trinity of Luton Church founded in 1414 and the annual lists indicated the Masters, Wardens. Brethren, Sisters. Bachelors and Maidens of the Guild who were of very high rank including Kings, Queens and Bishops. Robert the elder in his will handed on Sandridgebury partly to his wife (later Alice Fitz), partly to his son Robert and to his children. Upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries [170], Sandridgebury with the rest or the manor passed to the Crown in May 1540, and Ralph Rowlatt became Lord of the Manor upon his purchase or the Manor from the Crown. In consequence the younger Robert Thrale and later his executors were in continual conflict in chancery [171] with the younger Sir Ralph Rowlatt (his father Ralph having died in 1542) over the lease or Sandridgebury, in the same way that later Thrales were in conflict with Sarah Jennings [172] over various estate matters.
The younger Robert who died in 1541 and his wife Jane had five children, the eldest son Thomas Thrale continuing to live at Sandridgebury. Another son John was the first to live at Fairfolds [173], held by various branches of the family until 1813. Of the seven children of Thomas, one was Ralph Thrale who was to hold Sandridgebury, Astwick Manor, and Nomansland [66] and was the founder of the branch to hold Nomansland father to son without interruption, and nearly always Ralph to Ralph, for nine generations. It is with this branch that the legendary history of Queen Elizabeth [132] is connected. At the end or the 18th century, some members of the family took to South Africa an ancient manuscript leaf and it was brought back by a later descendent It was then seen by Dr Griffith in 1879, the much esteemed Vicar of Sandridge, who wrote of its history:
In ye last year or two of Queen Mary [174]'s reign (1556-58) and during the persecution of Elizth., Elizabeth was under ye necessity of making her escape from Hatfield [175] or Theobalds to Ashridge [176]; being nearly persued and nearly taken by Queen Mary's emmissarys, she dismounted her palfrey [177] or horse and escaped into the barn or house of Mr Thrale of Nomansland where she was concealed for several days and escaped. As a reward Queen Elizth., on coming to the throne, gave the Thrale family as a token of her regard amongst other things arms and a broad arrow [178];3
[179]
The manuscript was again returned to England for possible verification in the 1920's together with a portrait of a Mrs Thrale holding a large bird with a spread wing. The College of Arms however know nothing about such a grant. The tale has also been attacked by the argument that the only time when Elizabeth was in real danger was during Wyatt's rebellion [180] when Mary ordered Elizabeth to return from Ashridge [176] to London. This journey could have been the only one which would have brought Elizabeth anywhere near Nomansland [66] and then she was only under semi-arrest. Her route was via Redbourn [82]. St Albans [15], where she stayed at the house of Sir Ralph Rowlatt, Mymms [181], and Highgate. Yet curiously, the family still possesses a branding iron [178] in the form of a large arrow which it used until the Napoleonic Wars [182] when this symbol was adopted as the government mark. During the middle of the eighteenth century there was a strong pack of Harriers [183] at Nomansland very strong supporters being the 5th [184] and 6th [185] Earls of Salisbury. The Ralph Thrale of the time built extensions to the farm to accommodate the Hunt, and a meadow nearby is still called Dog Kennel Orchard, and there still hangs a painting in wood on three panels of a hare hunt, possibly by a follower of Francis Barlow [186]. In 1965 Nomansland farm was sold by a later owner, and is a sheep research farm where the removal of hedges gives a new and curious aspect to the local countryside. A brother of the first Ralph Thrale of Nomansland was John Thrale of Hammonds [187] who died in 1601 and it is through him that the Marshalswick [188] branch is descended and also the branch terminating apparently with the death of John Thrale in 1704, whose mourning tablet [189] is in the south transept of St Albans Abbey. John was an extremely ambitious and thrusting merchant, whose career commenced in the management of a plantation in the West Indies as a young man. His amply documented career gives fascinating insights into cargoes of trading vessels and general commercial conditions of the time. The arms on the monument Paly of ten, Or and Gules has been adopted by other members of the family, and can be seen in Streatham Church on the memorial of Henry Thrale, the wealthy brewer [190], whose story will be told later. John was owner of Fairfolds which he passed on to his daughters whose descendants sold the farm to Thrale kinsmen. The Marshalswick branch produced the Streatham family [190] as will be shown later, with all its well-known Johnsonian and Boswellian connections. Whilst the Streatham family will be mentioned later, record could be made at this point of Henry Thrale's continued association with St Albans in that during 1761 he had considered standing for the borough of St Albans [191] and had assurances at an early stage of 25 votes. He did not in fact stand but became M.P. for Southwark in 1765 [192]. The sister of Henry's father Ralph [193] had married Richard Smith of Kingsbury St Michael's near St Albans and a lasting relationship remained between the families. Henry Smith of St Michael's being together with Dr Johnson and others an executor of Henry Thrale's will [194] in 1781. The first to hold Marshalswick for many generations was Richard Thrale in 1630. Both house and farm are now swallowed up by modern estates of houses. His great grandson Richard held Childwickbury, Kingsbury and later Pound Farm. His altar tomb in the churchyard can still be seen. Richard's holding of Childwickbury from 1733 to 1753 brought him and his family into close contact with the Lomax family, who owned Childwickbury from 1666 until 1854 when they sold to the Toulmins. The Lomax family are continually referred to in Thrale affairs from the time Joshua Lomax came to Hertfordshire until William Thrale of Nomansland was a guardian of Joshua Lomax in 1795. The connection was not only with estate matters, but also religious, for part of the Thrale family was strongly involved with the non-conformist movement in Hertfordshire. Ralph Thrale was joint trustee with other well known non-conformists including Joshua Lomax, M.P. of St Albans in 1707 of the Chapel in Dagnall Lane in 1698. Martha, daughter of William Aylvard of New House. St Albans had married Richard Thrale of Fairfolds in 1646 and it was at the home of her father at New House that furtive meetings of non-conformists were held having been declared illegal by the Act of Uniformity [195]. The Rev. Jonothan Grew, another well known non-conformist, had baptised Thrale children at Fairfolds Farm in 1706, these children being named after members of the Lomax family. In spite of this, the Thrale family as an example of their fidelity to their parish church between 1677 and 1860 filled one hundred and sixty-six positions as churchwardens, stonewardens, overseers, observers of poor names, and constables. Richard Thrale of Childwickbury was the son of Thomas of Sandridge Street, who in turn was brother to another Richard Thrale, this time of Marshalswick, and also to John and William Thrale who held Cell Barnes, St Peters, for many years on lease from the Grimston family. Some of the leases give a detailed description of the husbandry methods or the period, further amplified by chancery proceedings between the brothers who had the most unfortunate disputes amongst themselves. The Manorial roll now at Althorp Park [196] gives a continuous account of estate dealings generation by generation, and other documents in the muniment [197] room tell of dealings with Sarah Jennings, who had lived at Waterend [95] House as a child. As a quirk of fate later Thrales were to remove from the grounds of the house a magnificent old barn and re-erect it in 1939 on a site which is now the Civic Centre at St Albans, and forms part of the Waterend Barn Restaurant [95] which provides a social venue for many communities many miles around. The son of Richard Thrale of Childwickbury, Thomas, had married Anne Parsons in 1761, a member of a family to be mentioned frequently. Upon the death of Thomas the branches linked up again after seven generations when Anne married Ralph Thrale of Nomansland, resulting in the curious situation that there were two (half) brothers living in the parish both bearing the name Ralph Thrale, and it is from the Ralph of the Pound Farm branch that both the present Wheathampstead and St Albans families are descended. The period was unhappy. An epidemic of Influenza visited the country in 1557 and continued through most of 1588,
carrying off people in hundreds and bringing sorrow to almost every household. Trade and agriculture were fearfully depressed, bad seasons contributing to the general ruin, while the heavy hand of taxation was fell by rich and poor. Storms and tempests rarely paralleled for their destructiveness added vastly to the general feeling of misery. Political unrest, and a war with France ending in irretrievable disgrace, were circumstances which clouded the more distant horizon".4
The people of Sandridge lived much the same as those in other English villages. The only one of the existing buildings that were standing at that time is St. Leonard's church [198]. The cottages were gabled and thatched with clay, loam [199], rubble and wattle-work [200] filling up the spaces between the uprights, and cross-beams. Chimneys had recently become the usual thing instead of the exception, and the fuel for warmth and cooking was wood. The people fed reasonably well with two meals a day, mostly of bread and meat.
Potatoes were just beginning to come into some garden plots, but were not yet grown as a crop in the fields. Dinner, the chief meal, was at eleven or twelve, and supper some five hours later."5
The food was served on wooden plates and eaten with spoon, knife and fingers, but not forks. The yeomen [201] might have one or two pieces of pewter, but crockery was not of that date. The men all wore beards which must have saved an incredible number of man-hours. Out in the fields the horse was gradually beginning to share with the ox the labours of the plough. The lot of the poor people is clearly illustrated when the records concerning the parish almsbox are read. 1602 After some money had been given to
Thomas Heath impoverished by reason of sickness, remaineth in the chest this present dye XjXs Viid.
Then two days after Christmas 21/4 was found in the box. Three shillings was given to
Brocke being sick and in need
and a shilling to
Robert Anderson by reason of his wife's sickness.
- Taken out of the boxe to gyve to two poore women for taking pains to burie a poore travylr and for making a grave xvjd. 1604. Found in the Church box the 17th of June xxvys vid whereof gyven to Catlines wif for searching of Lambard suspected of the plague vs. 1612. Our church chest was hand robbed and thereout taken xxxvjis.
The burial register shows the same state of affairs.
- George Monden, a poor wandering boy. 1624. Thomas Holydale, a poor wandering fellow. 1624. John Dixon, a poor old lame man. 1624. Richard Holt, an old poor man kept of the parish. 1625. Thomas Crawley, a wandering distracted fellow born about Luton. 1627. A dumb woman died at Fairfolds whose name we could not learn.
In 1631 a poor beggar whom no one could identify was found in the road near Nomansland and was buried at Sandridge. For eleven years, 1628 to 1639, Parliament did not meet, and King Charles I [150] raised money for war and defence by forced loans. Accordingly we find that twelve of the local gentry were summoned to attend at Sandridge for this purpose. They came from North Mymms, Shephall and Redbourn in Herts., and from Studham in Bedfordshire, and between them they had to pay £170. Three of them were Sandridge men, who were charged £10 each; they were Hugh Smith, a bachelor who had a special seat in church near the pulpit6, Thomas Adams and Willlam Thrale. These three men were buried in Sandridge in the years 1642, 1644 and 1646 respectively. At this period some Christians in north-west Italy were suffering persecution at the hands of the Roman Church, and during 1655 a collection was made for their relief towards which Sandridge contributed £1.13.7, the total from Hertfordshire being £754. Meantime the village folk carried on tilling the soil, marrying, bearing children and dying. Only on rare occasions did anyone get into trouble. In 1662 John Jakes, husbandman, was summoned for keeping an unlicensed ale-house7. Then Bill Weathered, a yeoman and sometime churchwarden, was indicted in 1663 for not purging a ditch along Sandpitt Lane, which was then the parish boundary.8 Just as Hertfordshire people witnessed the night bombing of the London [202] area from a safe distance, so in 1666 Sandridge people would see the glow in the southern sky at night caused by the Great Fire of London [203], which raged for five days, destroyed over 18,000 houses and at the same lime helped to cleanse the city from the effects of the plague of the previous year. The plague of 1665 [204] was the last of the terrible outbreaks which had been harassing Europe for 300 years. This was due in great part to the fact that the black, or house, rat was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries displaced by the brown rat, which does not breed indoors.9 From 1687 onwards light is thrown on village life by the parish accounts, which have been carefully preserved. That year the whole parish was assessed at £1,643, so that the rate of 9d. in the pound raised £61.12.3. from forty-eight ratepayers. The biggest ratepayer was Richard Sibley whose farm at Waterend was assessed at £125. Roger Ballard at Hill End and Roger Ballard the younger at Bridehall also had large assessments, but the Sandridge windmill was assessed at only £12, and the payment of rates was shared equally by the three millers, William Frankling, Thomas George and Michael Sanders: (The windmill which was on Woodcock Hill is first mentioned in 1628, when Mary White was killed by the sails.) The money was mainly used for the relief of poverty
as well for the lame and impotent as to set ye poore on worke.
Relief in cash varied from two shillings to twelve shillings a month, and the following items provided in kind give an impression of prevailing prices.
Item | £ | s. | d. |
---|---|---|---|
One shirt a wascote and loynings for Thomas Cattering | 9 | 10 | |
Half a loade of fagotts for the Widow Lyance | 5 | 6 | |
Charges for ye widow Lyance's boy when he went to the King | 8 | 0 | |
Paid to Sarah Anderson for a coate and wastcoate, a pair of shoes and one shirte | 1 | 0 | 6 |
Churchwardens' charges | 4 | 9 | 2 |
Constables charges | 6 | 14 | 8 |
Stonewardens charges | 1 | 12 | 0½ |
This last item was for the upkeep of the roads in the parish. The account was signed by two church wardens, two overseers and two constables and countersigned by two of his majesty's justices on 16th May 1688. His Majesty was James II [205] and presumably young Lyance had a swelling of the glands, a disease known as the "King's Evil", and went to London to receive the Royal touch, which was believed to work a cure. The Smith and Clerke charity, which still functions, dales in part from 1556, when George Clerke left his will charging his tithe, which was called Boxbury tithe and which he had recently
bought from Henry VIII [114] with the annual sum of £6. Fifty shillings for the poor of Stevenage, a like sum for the poor of Bennington, and twenty shillings for the poor of Sandridge. During February 1688 the charily of £3 was distributed by the overseers, just as it is today, except that more people received it then, forty-five in all, including eleven widows. One recipient of a shilling was Robert Law, who three years later started a "place of religious worship for protestant dissenters.
The poverty was becoming worse as the century drew to a close, and in 1699 over £132 was spent on poor relief, involving two nine-penny rates in the year. A third or more of the parish were in receipt of relief, for the low wages were insufficient support life, though men worked for thirteen hours a day; poverty drove some people to drink, so some of the relief was given in kind. In 1687 Thomas Newman was paid three shillings and nine-pence for thatching the widow Jake's house and the straw cost another three shillings. A year's rent for the widow Anderson was seventeen shillings, and Timothy Seare for keeping Thomas Cattering one year received £8. When, after eighteen years of married life, Edward Fawcelt died, Mr. Alban Pixley received two and six for making his grave and his family became a charge on the parish. In 1688 a cure for Long Daniel's child cost the parish half a crown. In 1690 Mrs. Richard Rudd was paid the same sum for laying out a poor woman, and the important beer at the vestry meetings cost one and six. When George Gray was buried two years later, the parish paid seven shillings for his coffin, four and six for a burying suit, one and six for the burial, and £1.7.6 for his widow's rent, besides the
boon setter for setting her leg and fetching £1.12.0.
In 1693 a hat for John Doll cost one and six and at various limes small sums were paid by the parish for shaving or trimming John Hamerton. The constable's account in 1695 had risen to fifteen pounds and was paid to 'ye Headborough', and in 1699 the parish officers must have got merry on six shillings worth of beer at there meeting. At the opening of the eighteenth century, if one were to take a walk through Sandridge from north to souTh, it would be found that Roger Ballard was living at Bridehall, and that Mrs. Joseph Sibley had taken over her late husband's farm at Waterend; John Adams was at Beechyde, Ralph Thrale at Hammonds with his wife Abigail and four children, Thomas Thrale at Fairfolds, and another Thomas Thrale was at Heerfleld with his wife Elizabeth and four children. Up at Sandridgebury lived Jonathan Cox, and Richard Thrale was at Marshalswick. Thomas George had left the windmill in the hands of his former partners, W. Frankling and M. Sanders, and another Mr. Sanders had a brick kiln, probably on Bernard's Heath. Jonathan Cox and Daniel South were churchwardens, Thomas Thrale and Lawrence Jacques were overseers, and Thomas Manfield and Thomas George were the parish constables. These offices were seldom held by anyone for more than a year. The Richard Thrale mentioned above died in 1710. He was the eldest son of Richard Thrale, the first of the family to occupy Marshalswick. This elder Richard had died in 1689. He had already buried his wife and daughter in the chancel of the church alongside his sister Rose Smith. He left behind him five sons, and to the fourth son Ralph he bequeathed…
half a dozen napkins of those that are at my dwelling house, and these goods following that are likewise at my son Thomas' being one coverlid and feather bed, five pairs of sheets, one bolster and one brass pottage pot, one bedstead and curtains, one coffer set of the middle sort of the pewter dishes2
It was from this branch of the family that one of the greatest friends of Dr. Johnson was descended. Henry Thrale's grandfather Ralph, brother to Richard Thrale of Marshalswick, had moved to Offley [206] and it was his son Ralph who passed on to his son a great fortune made from the Southwark brewery [207]. Henry had married Hester Lynch Salusbury and it was her wit and charm which was the delight of the Johnsonian age. Boswell [208] tells much of the intimacy between Dr. Johnson and the Thrales and when in 1781 the brewery of "H. Thrale &. Co." was sold for £135,000 to Barclay and Perkins after the death of Henry Thrale, Dr. Johnson, one of the executors, exclaimed during the auction:
we are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
The male succession of this branch of the Thrale family ended with the death of Henry Thrale's son [209] at the age of ten.
The relief of the poor was a more serious problem in the eighteenth century than it is today, costing about a million pounds a year to the ratepayers of England. There was no national scheme, but each parish was responsible for its own poor. The system of extremely low wages, coupled with wholesale poor relief from the rates, destroyed all incentive. All labourers lived on the brink of starvation for no effort of will or character could improve their position.
The most worthless were sure of something, while the prudent, the industrious, and the sober, with all their cares and pains obtained only something, and even that scanty pittance was doled out to them by the overseer".10
The rent roll of the parish was £2,800 a year, more than half of which was received by the Duchess of Marlborough [210]. By an Act of Parliament passed in 1673 every parish in which a man tried to settle could send him back to the parish where he was born, for fear that if he stayed he might at some future date become chargeable on the rates. Parish went to law against parish to decide where the possible paupers really belonged. Accordingly in 1718 Sandridge won an appeal and did not have to move George Tilcock from Flamstead [211] 11 but in 1727 they were compelled to remove John Laundy and Rebecca his wife from Hatfield.12 Money was spent on hurrying undesirable tramps through the parish for fear they should fall ill or die within its bounds, and so become chargeable to the rates. Women in pregnancy were frequently given small sums to get them away. Another class of people who had to be dealt with were known as Turkey slaves. These were men who had escaped from the Turkish galleys In the Mediterranean and on reaching England found themselves destitute. These poor people were constantly making an appearance in Sandridge demanding relief and it was impossible to discover whether they were genuine or not. This kind of relief was paid by the churchwardens, as was money for the destruction of vermin. In 1729 the churchwardens had to pay for a number of varied items:
Item | £ | s. | d. |
---|---|---|---|
57 Turkey slaves | 12 | 6 | |
One Fox | 2 | 6 | |
32 Hedgehogs at 4d. | 10 | 8 | |
17 Polecats at 4d. | 5 | 8 | |
12 discharged soldiers | 3 | 0 | |
Alms Houses Quit Rent | 16 | 0 | |
Buckets and hoops for the common Well | 6 | 7 |
In order to curtail expenses the following resolutions were passed at a vestry meeting in 1732:
It is resolved and agreed that no churchwarden or other parish officers shall after ye date hereof give or allow to any person or persons whatsoever any of ye parish money for any foxes polecats or hedgehogs or any suchlike vermin as has heretofore been done nor for any persons pretending to be Turkey Slaves or for any wandering persons claiming relief without due authority and also that no churchwardens or other parish officers shall claim or demand any extravagant fees or payments for executing any parish orders not withstanding any former custom to ye contrary and also that there shall be allowed two shillings and sixpence apiece to each churchwarden at each visitation and no more and ten shillings a year to ye Minister and no more.
The parish officers chiefly concerned with the relief of poverty were the overseers, who held office for one year at a time. They had to keep the accounts and hand over any balance at the end of the year to their successors. Richard Pilgrim of Waterend was overseer In 1735, when Robert Branthem, a labourer of Sandridge, was apprehended for taking one trout value twelve pence out of the river at Sopwell the property of Samuel Grimston Esq.13 Mr. Pilgrim was again overseer in 1740, and at the end of that year he had £3. 9. 0 in hand, which he failed to hand over as he should have done. Twenty months later this money was still owing and so the Vestry agreed unanimously that he
be arrested for ye money due and owing from him to our parish.
What the sequel to this resolution was we do not know, but two years later Mr. Pilgrim was overseer for the third time. The children of unmarried mothers were liable to be a charge on the poor rates, so steps were taken to prevent this when possible and make the father pay up or marry the girl, if he was not already married. Jeremiah Lattimore, the village wheelwright and a married man, was made to sign the following document written out for him by someone whose spelling was not his strong point:
were as I have Own'd this day att a Vestre held for ye relief of ye said poor of our said Parish of Sanderidge, Dew own, and Confess, that my servant Mary Gardener is at this present instant with Child by me, I therefore for a satisfaction to ye Perrishoners all this Vestre and for ye affections that I bear for ye said Mary Gardener, Dew promise for to indemnifie ye said Perrishoners from all cost and damiges that may or shall arise, from ye said Mary Gardener or ye child which shall or may be from her body.
As Witness my Hand Jeremiah Lattimore.
Signed in ye Presence of Benj. Preedy. Ralph Thrale.
This statement was signed in 1749; a similar case is recorded a century earlier.14 The following year Mr. John Thrale of Hammonds Farm was one of the overseers and had to deal with another case. A certain Mary Prentice was in trouble on account of a Sandridge bachelor called Stokes, and every month from May to September she was paid two or three shillings from the poor fund. But in September Mr. Thrale paid five and six for a warrant to arrest Stokes and then a week later the entry is made
pd. ye charges for taking Stokes and marrying him to Mary Prentice and my journey to Hempsted £5. 2. 6.
So Mary being safely, and we hope happily, married, we hear no more of her in Sandridge. There were, of course, other Marys in the village and the overseers allowed Mary Bigg one shilling with which to buy a spinning wheel. A frequent item in the accounts is
ye black woman 2/-.
This lady was apparently a nurse and received one and six for nursing two children for one week. Then there was Black Mary, who was given sixpence to buy straws, probably in connection with the Straw hat industry in Luton. Ye blackwoman had a daughter but we cannot say whether this was Black Mary or not. There is no doubt, however, that there were at least two African women living in the village at this time. In 1753 the shoemaker deserted his wife and left her a charge on the rates. Besides giving her regular relief the overseer bought for her "a flockbed and boulster and blanket" for six shillings. In June she fell ill, and the sad story ends thus:-
Date | Item | £ | s. | d. |
---|---|---|---|---|
July 4 | Mary Kilby for nursing of Mary Pearse | 1 | 0 | |
5 | Mary Dixon for Watching with Mary Pearse | 9 | ||
Cap face Cloth and Wool for Mary Pearse | 1 | 0 | ||
Mary Kilby for keeping and nursing Pears's children | 1 | 0 | ||
July 7 | Watching with Mary Pearse and Laying her out | 2 | 0 | |
Bearers for carring her to ye grave | 2 | 6 | ||
Mary Kilby for keeping Pear's children | 1 | 0 | ||
The Clark for ye Church fees for Mary Pearse | 3 | 6 | ||
A Coffin for Mary Pearse | 8 | 0 | ||
12th | The Charge in search after Pearse | 4 | 0 | |
14th | Cloathes for Pearses children | 3 | 6 |
It is no exaggeration to say that the conditions under which the English village labourer lived during this period were horribly degrading. By the enclosure of lands working people had lost their rights In the soil and all power had passed into the hands of the wealthy few. Voting was on a property basis, which meant that the poor were not represented in parliament. At the election which took place in 1754 only four Sandridge men had the vote. There were three candidates for the two Hertfordshire seats. Mr. Thomas George and Mr. John Thrale of Hammonds voted for Paggen Hale and Charles Gore, who were elected, but Ralph Thrale of Nomansland and Mr. William Packham voted for Edward Gardener. In 1774 Sandridge had ten voters who almost all voted for Plumer and Halsey, the successful candidates. Jonathan Parsons was the only Sandridge man who voted for Lord Grimston. In 1784 Sandridge had eight electors, in 1793 thirteen, and in 1802 and 1805 twelve. After the passage of the 1832 Reform Bill, the franchise, though still on a property basis, was extended, so that at the election in December twenty Sandridge men had the vote. It has been noted that even hard working men found it difficult to settle In any parish but their own as they would be sent away for fear that they might in future become a charge on the rates. Later on in the century it was possible for a man to get work and settle in another parish, provided he brought with him a certificate from the overseers of his own parish undertaking responsibility for his maintenance when he was no longer fit for work. Thomas Raiment and Ann his wife came to Sandridge from Walden and the certificate they brought with them is still preserved at Sandridge. On the other hand, John Gurney, who had come to Sandridge in 1763 without a certificate was told to obtain one or quit. Another humiliating social system was that by which paupers were hired out by the parish as servants to the more fortunate parishioners. The following is a minute of a Vestry [40] Meeting held At the Queen's Head In 1763:
Ordered that Ann Kilby be look off the monthly bill in consideration of being turned over as a servant to Jonathan Parsons from the Date hereof to St. Michael 1764 on an allowance of two guineas as paid to Jonan Parsons which at the expiration of the said time He is to repay to the officers of the parish for the use of Ann Kilby or to Cloath her equivalent to the said sum. It is also agreed that if Ann Kilby should fall ill of the smallpox [212] during the time Jonathan Parsons is to find her in keep and the Parish with a nurse and advice.
There were a number of similar cases which could be quoted. The following year it was arranged that John White and John Dudley, being too old and infirm to support themselves, should go round the parish and be employed in turn by the ratepayers for one day for every pound of rates paid. For thrashing the men were to receive a penny a bushel for oats and three half-pence for barley. A contemporary poet comments on this "Roundsman System" -
Alternate masters now their slave command, Urge the weak efforts of his feeble hand; Who when his age attempts the task in vain, With Ruthless taunts of lazy poor complain. 15
In April 1776 the Vestry accepted the offer of Mr. George Whitbread to take care of the poor of the parish and provide medicine and surgery for six guineas; he was to receive a guinea for each confinement
where a woman cannot do the business.
Mr. Whitbread was powerless, however, to cope with the smallpox which killed six parishioners during the years 1768 to 1770. The number of paupers in Sandridge became so great that the authorities decided that the most economical way of dealing with them was to build a workhouse, which was done by William Lawrence and John Lawford for £128. To meet this expense in addition to the usual poor relief the rates rose to three shillings in the pound. These workhouses were dreaded by the poor, and when the Sandridge house was five years old the following tines were published:
Their's is yon house that holds the parish poor, Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door; There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play, And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day; There children dwell who know no parents' care; Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there; Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed, Forsaken wives and mothers never wed; Dejected widows with unheeded tears, And crippled age with more than childhood fears; The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they! The moping idiot and the madman gay. Here too the sick their final doom receive, Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve, Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow, Mixt with the clamours of the crowd below; Here sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan, And the cold charities of man to man. Whose laws indeed for ruin's age provide, And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride; But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh, And pride embitters what it can't deny.16
The oldest legible gravestone is that of Elizabeth Cox 1744. The Coxs go back in the registers to 1595, when Edward Cox married Alice Chappell, and they go forward to the burial or Gordon William Thrale Cox in 1945. Jennings Cox, the son of Jonathan and Margaret, born 1689, died 1754, was churchwarden from 1719 to 1731. In 1833 Thomas Cox17 was farming Hammonds and William Cox was at Nashes. Later in the nineteenth century the Coxs farmed Hill End. They appear to have been the second most important yeoman family in the parish, the Thrales being the first. The militia played an important part in the life of Sandridge. The fact that the people had no votes did not prevent them from being called upon to fight for their country. From 1756 to 1763 England fought the Seven Years' War [213] and this was soon followed by the war against the American colonists. It was the duty of the parish constable to prepare each year a Militia List for the parish containing the names of all men between the ages of eighteen and fifty. There are eighteen such lists for Sandridge preserved at the County Hall covering the period 1757 to 1768. The first list contains fitly-eight names; the lowest number is fifty, and the highest 113. In 1780 there were apparently two men whose names were not known by the constable, and he describes them as
Shepard and underplowman at Hollend.
In the later lists there are attached to the names various reasons why the men should not be called up. Some had already served, some had children, some were defective, and such names as the following in 1781 are crossed out:
John Munt farmer served. James Arnold labourer five children. Edward Harper farmer lame. Thomas Hack servant lame. Thomas Floyd farmer served. John Wethered grocer one eye. William Weeb bricklayer four children. William Weeb labourer lame.
The next year the village shoemaker, William Dunham, was short of one of his little fingers, but his name is not crossed out. In 1785 Thomas Dearman, aged thirty-two, was subject to fits and could not be trusted with a rifle, so he stayed at home, and at the end of the year his wife Mary presented him with a baby. In 1786 two Militia Lists were made, and those who wished to appeal against military service had to attend at The Bull, St Albans. There is a note in the accounts that on 26th October 1759 the Sandridge Militia marched. The two men, John Draper and Thomas Woodwards, marched to where we know not, but it involved the parish in great expense. The overseers had to keep on doling out guineas to them, and on the 10th May 1762 the vestry decided to go to law against them. Apparently the parish lost the case, for six months later they paid
Thos.Woodwards and his lawyer £53.4.0
and John Draper received thirty five guineas or more in 1763. In all, the two militia men cost Sandridge £148, and the rates rose to three shillings in the pound. Sandridge also assisted Nelson [214] in his fight against Napoleon on the high seas, for in 1795 we sent two volunteers into the Royal Navy. They were Michael Murray, an Irishman, and John Munt, a native of Hertfordshire. On joining up these men received twelve guineas and twenty guineas respectively from parish funds,18 and it should be noted that three years later Nelson was victorious at the Battle of the Nile [215]. In 1736 Jonathan Parsons was made parish clerk.19 He was followed in turn by his son, two grandsons and a great grandson, and between five of them they held the post of parish clerk till it lapsed in 1881, a total of 145 years. It was to this family that the malt house belonged, which was behind the Rose and Crown,20 and which caught fire in 1779, burning 108 bushels [216] of malt. The duty of nine pence a bushel which had been paid was refunded.21 The family did much to increase the population of the village during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; In fact, there are no fewer than sixty-eight members of it recorded in our registers, so some account of it will be given here, although it exceeds the bounds of the chapter. Such a detailed account will give a good impression of the life led by such a family. The original Jonathan Parsons kept the Queen's Head, the Rose and Crown, and also ran a malting business. Jonathan was followed by his son, who held the post of clerk until he died in 1812. This Jonathan married Sarah Marston of St Albans and they had nine children in eleven years, four of whom died in infancy. After his wife died, leaving him with four young sons, he married Ann Sams and had five more children. These large families were common. Jonathan's duties for the church were not exacting. He probably attended all Sunday services and was entitled to wear a surplice. He kept the registers of the church and wrote them up, and witnessed most of the marriages. It is recorded that he carried out his duties
to the entire satisfaction or the parishioners, a just and honest man.
He was succeeded by his son Jonathan, who held the post for forty-one years. He had a son and a grandson both called Jonathan, but neither of these became parish clerks. The former was first a baker and later farmed a farm called Wheelers near Marshalswick, which no longer exists. The latter lived at Rickmansworth [217]. The third Jonathan died in 1853 and was succeeded by his half-brother James. He lived at the Rose and Crown and ran the mailing business which was in the family for about a century. He also acted as general carrier for the village. James's younger brother had married one or the Thrales, who brought up six or their seven children at Fairfolds Farm. From James the clerkship passed to his nephew William, who supported a considerable family by baking the village bread. With his death and that of his wife and son Jonathan, both in 1898, this large family fades out of Sandridge history. The above account indicates to what degree the village was a self-contained unit. The Paul family of carpenters were exactly the same type of family, but their tale belongs to a slightly later period. It was William Paul who carried out the delicate operation on the church roof, during the year 1786, with the co-operation of the churchwardens, Ralph Thrale of No Mans Land and John Munt of Cheapside. Such are the fascinating glimpses which can be obtained from the parish records of the lives the inhabitants led in by-gone Sandridge. Artisans, shopkeepers and craftsmen lived tolerably well, the yeoman farmers very well, and for such folk as the lords of the manor it was an age of elegance and graceful living. One feels glad for the labouring classes, however, that the Great Reform Act of 1832 [218] was to start opening the door to better living, and with it fairer treatment, but progress In this direction was slow.
Of the forty vicars of Sandridge whose names are known [224], there are few if any who had a more difficult task than Hugh Harding, who held the post from 1540 to 1574.
He must have been a patient and persevering man to bear with all the changes in worship, ceremonial, and church ornaments that were forced upon him by the officials in London. The vicissitudes through which he worked have been already mentioned In some part, during the narrative concerning the church. Mr. Harding appears to have been on friendly terms with Ralph Rowlatt, the new lord of the manor for in February of 1543 he witnessed his will; he was only just in time, however, for sixteen days later Rowlatt was dead. Of all the people in the parish it was the vicars who had most business with the lords of the manor, and it would be apt to refer to them here.
[124]After the fall of the monastery, by charter dated the 12th May 1541, the Crown conveyed the manor of Sandridge to Ralph Rowlatt, who was a London goldsmith and banker. With the manor went the right to appoint the vicar, and this privilege has remained with the descendants of Rowlatt ever since. Well into the twentieth century they were the principal landowners in Sandridge. Rowlatt's son, lost two wives; the bodies of both were buried in London, but he directed in his will that they be reinterred in Sandridge church,1 and he himself was buried in St Albans. Many years later his descendant Richard Jennings was reputed, to have had an income of £4,000 a year,2 but some have it that his father had impoverished the estate by raising troops to fight for Charles I [225].3 At this time the Jennings family was living at St Albans, in Holywell House, and from there Richard set out in June of 1660 to welcome Charles II [226] back to London. The same month his ninth and most famous child was born, Sarah Jennings [210]. By the time she was seven years old her parents had moved to Waterend House, Sandridge. At the age of ten or eleven Sarah was sent to court, and there, when nineteen, she met Colonel John Churchill, the son of Sir Winston Churchill, who was ten years older than herself. It is needless to recount their careers; in 1685 her husband was created Baron Churchill of Sandridge by James II [205]. Sarah's brothers had died and she had inherited some of the Sandridge estates; her husband bought the shares of her two sisters and so by the time that he became the Duke of Marlborough in 1702 he and his wife owned the entire manor of Sandridge. When he died in 1722 he left his Sandridge estates to his widow Sarah. She founded, in 1736, the Duchess of Marlborough's almshouses in Hatfield Road, St Albans, and made the vicar or Sandridge one of the trustees, a duty which has passed down to the present vicar.
To follow the careers of all the Sandridge vicars would be tedious. In 1581 Richard Woodward came to Sandridge as vicar. He was appointed by the Queen4 because the proper patron, Thomas Jennings, was under age. It is still the custom for the churchwardens to report each year to the Archdeacon on the state of the parish and the conduct of the vicar. In April 1582 Robert Sandar and John Thrale reported that Mr. Woodward was loyal to the Book of Common Prayer of 1559 [123]. He wore a surplice in church and did not preach against the State. He used the sign of the cross at baptisms, and all baptisms were at the proper font, which was not moved. Everyone came to the church where the catechism was taught, and they bowed their heads at the name of Jesus. The ring was used in holy matrimony, women were churched after childbirth and the dead were buried5. This is significant, as it shows the kind of thing that was then regarded as controversial. It was the Puritans who objected to the surplice, the ring, and the sign of the cross. Apparently all went well for nearly two more years, and in 1584 the churchwardens gave another good report of their vicar. About that time he went away for a short period, leaving a priest with no experience, William Peagrym, to take duty in his absence. Mr. Peagrym had a school in the church and he was unwilling to leave it when the vicar returned. This led to a sharp quarrel between the two priests, and they were both summoned to the Archdeacon's court for
chiding, brawling and quarrelling, one in the church of Sandridge, and the other in the churchyard, to the discredit of them whom they did so quarrel withal, and to the evil example of others.
Mr. Peagrym acknowledged his fault, apologised, and left the parish. During the latter years of his stay in Sandridge Woodward was often absent and does not appear to have been a great success. So long as he was resident all went well enough, but during the frequent absences of his last two years he seems to have supplied inexperienced, quarrelsome and unlearned curates. Soon after, the new vicar arrived.
Stephen Gosson, vicar from 1586-1592, is noticed in the Dictionary of National Biography [227] because of his fame as a writer. He is also the subject of a modern book by an American historian, William Ringler. After a university education he tried his hand at writing poetry and plays when Shakespeare was a boy of twelve. He also acted occasionally but this work did not keep the wolf from the door. Further, he had been educated in principles of strict morality, and the actors of Elizabethan days were not particularly moral people, so after two years he revolted against the whole theatrical and entertainment profession, which "corrupted morals and wasted time and money." Thus he attacked the profession by writing in 1579 a pamphlet called The Schoole of Abuse containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters and such like Catepillars of a Commonwealth [228] This was a huge success and brought the author fame and money. He did not attack the art of acting itself, but the abuse of that art. He said nothing about Sunday performances, and had no objection to honest recreation on that or any other day. Ordained priest in 1584, two years later he came to Sandridge from the rich commercial parish of Stepney, having been appointed by Thomas Jennings. He was loyal to the Church and had no use for the Puritans who wanted to reduce her to a protestant sect. Of them he wrote:
By favour and support these vermin that were long since, by the labours of learned bishops hewn in pieces. have crept out of their holes, and by continual rolling recovered their tails. Their torn papers and maimed pamphlets have been stitched together again with a skein of sister's thread, and wrought round with a white selvedge of reformation to grace them, whereby the ears of the Church have been filled with a nerve hissing, to the very mockery of religion and the impudent slander of the Church of England, which is by God's blessing all his day, even in her ruins the most famous Church In Europe."6
The year 1588 was not unlike 1940, for Spain sent the might of her Armada against England. The country was unprepared; the vicar had seen the danger nine years previously when he wrote:
Bee not careless, Plough with weapons by your sides, study with the book in one hand, and a dart in the other: enjoy peace with provision for war: when you have left the sandes behind you, lookwel to the rocks which lye before you: Let not the overcoming one Tempest make you secure, but have an eye to the cloude which comes from the south and threateneth rain."7
The vicar believed in letting
the word and sword be knit together",
and he supported the 'home guard' of those days. When in May the clergy of the Archdeaconry provided arms and arm our for the defence of England according to their incomes, Gosson supplied as his share
a calyver furnished,"8
that is a musket [229] with flask, touchbox, and murrion or helmet, girdle and leather flask. The man, Gosson also supplied, and he with his equipment was kept ready for service at short notice. Special prayers were offered in the churches three times a week during this time of anxiety, when the fate of England hung in the balance. Even with the defeat of the Armada the danger was not over and the country remained under arms for many years, Gosson keeping his calyver at the ready. In November 1590 there was a home guard parade at Romeland, St Albans, but unfortunately the vicar was sick. He made his will in 1622, leaving
fortye shillinges of lawfull money
to the poor of Sandridge, and died in 1624 aged 69.
Sandridge was fortunate in having two good and learned vicars in succession, for Stephen Gosson was quickly followed by William, brother of John Westerman, schoolmaster of St Albans. When chosen for Sandridge he was not even ordained, but was made a deacon, instituted to Sandridge and ordained priest, all within thirty-three days. In 1593 it was reported that the vicar is
of good learning: he hath served the cure in his own person and preacheth there and catechizeth diligently ever since his induction: of good life and conversation: never detected of any notorious crime.
As the country was still under arms, Mr. Westerman followed the custom of his predecessor in providing a calyver for the home guard. In 1595 this weapon was not in use, as no one could be found to fire it9. The same year the vicar provided a piece of armour called a corslet [230].10 Mr. Westerman received a certain amount of fame for his sermons at London. Two sermons were published in 1608. They defended the use of the ancient churches and cathedrals in spite of their defilement by popish abuses in earlier times, and they taught about reverent behaviour in church. On the former point, it seems that one of the excuses for not going to church was the complaint that the churches had formerly been abused by popish idolatry. Mr. Westerman agreed that they had been, but he states:
behold the Gospel preached hath pulled idols out of their hearts, and our discipline hath abolished them out of houses and churches.
With regard to reverence, he said that men's hats should be removed on entering church, and that a gesture of reverence to God should be made, and a prayer should be said kneeling down. To ignore these courtesies, and to decline to listen to the sermon, he described as barbarous behaviour.
In 1609 Westerman became vicar of Bushey [231], but he stayed on at Sandridge and provided Bushey with curates, an arrangement which would not now be permitted. In 1612 he was invited to preach at the beginning of James I [114]'s summer progress. There was a large congregation at St Albans Abbey11, and they heard a sermon containing eleven thousand words, which must have taken an hour and a quarter to deliver, perhaps even longer, It is dull reading nowadays, but with some points of interest. One of the objects of the sermon seems to have been to obtain a royal grant towards the restoration of St Albans Abbey, which through neglect was in a bad state of repair. There was a brief reference to the recent Gunpowder Plot [232], and the preacher denied the claim of the Roman Catholics that they alone were the Catholic Church. A royal grant for the Abbey was made, and a public subscription was opened. Being now a Doctor of Divinity [233] he was in a more fortunate position than his neighbouring clergy, and the bishop suggested that he should provide the home guard with a horse.12 This he did not do, but he continued to supply the calyver until he died In 1622, after thirty years in the parish. He also subscribed to a fund for the maintenance of ex-popish missionaries who had been converted to the Faith of the English Church and so found their income from Italy cut off.
Sandridge did not always have a good vicar. William Westerman had nine children, one of whom, Richard, was twenty-four when his father died In 1622, an age just old enough to be a priest, so it was probably he who became the next vicar. He followed the example of his two predecessors in providing a calyver for the home guard. Early in 1629 the churchwardens reported the vicar for immoral conduct.
We present Mr. Richard Westerman, minister of our parish, and Mary Roberts, his late servant, for committing incontinency together, as the common fame goeth."13
It look a year and a quarter to gain a conviction; the sentence of the Church Commissioners ran:
We, after invoking, the name of Christ, and having God alone before our eyes, and having fully deliberated with learned counsel on both aides, do find that the aforesaid Richard Westerman, clerk-in-holy-orders, the present vicar of the perpetual vicarage of the parish church of Sandridge in the county of Hertford, casting aside the fear of God has committed and perpetrated the abominable crime of adultery with a certain Mary Roberts formerly of his household ….. Therefore we pronounce determine and declare that the aforenamed Richard Westerman by reason of the adultery by him committed is notorious and exceedingly defamed amongst good and honest persons, and is to be deprived of the orders of a clerk and a priest, and deprived of the care of souls, divine celebration and the administration of the sacraments to faithful Christians, the parishioners of the church of Sandridge. And we deprive and remove him from the vicarage of Sandridge aforesaid, and we declare and pronounce the said personage to be void by this our definite sentence which we make or promulgate in these writings."14
It was during the lime of John Harper in 1645 that King Charles [150] was decisively defeated at the battle of Naseby [151], the Archbishop of Canterbury beheaded, and that Parliament took over absolute control of all church affairs. The victors forbade him the use of the Book of Common Prayer [123] and put in its place the Directory, which gave the outlines upon which Puritan meetings were to be conducted in all churches. A fine of £5 and £10 for the second offence was imposed on all who were found using the Prayer Book, whether in church or in the home. In Hertfordshire forty-seven priests were ejected from their posts, but Harper resigned of his own accord. For a time in 1646 Lawrence Claxton was a Baptist minister in Sandridge. This man is noteworthy for having possessed at least six different religions during his life. Brought up as a member of the Church, he became in turn a Presbyterian [234], an Independent, an Antimonian, and an Anabaptist [235]. Later he became a professor of astronomy and physics and dabbled in the art of magic. Finally, he joined the Muggletonians [236]15, a small sect founded by a mad London tailor in 1652.
Joseph Draper was ordained priest in 1628. Before coming to Sandridge and at the outbreak of the Civil War he was charged with drunkenness and swearing and with supporting the King against Parliament by saying that all who died in the service of Parliament at the battle of Edgehill [237] would go to the devil. This last charge may have been due to the misrepresentations of his words to a soldier wounded at Edgehill and who died in hospital. As it happens, Joseph went to jail for six months16. He then seems to nave reconciled himself to the new order, for by 1650 he was vicar of Sandridge, with a salary of £35 a year. Here he remained until the restoration of the crown and church in 1660, when he found a post in Bedfordshire. His successor Owen signed a petition to Parliament in 1646 saying:
We have already received many happy fruits of your unwearied endeavours for the Reformation of the Church
and he prayed that the Puritan religion might be upheld, but this did not prevent him from being vicar of Sandridge for nearly twenty years when the religion of the Church was restored.
Charles Horne, vicar of Sandridge from 1681 to 1685, seems to have been the ideal parish priest. At Easter in 1683 the churchwardens reported that there had been a great reformation in the parish, the inhabitants went to church daily, the children were instructed, and all parishioners old enough had received Holy Communion. The next year they reported
our minister is in all things comfortable, and all parishioners come duly to church
there were only two or three ignorant people who had not received Holy Communion at Easter, and the wardens were hopeful that they too would soon be ready to do so. It was during the time of the next vicar, Edmund Wood, that the tower of the church fell. At the time of his death, which coincided with that of Queen Anne in 1714, his salary was £90 a year free of land tax and poor rates. In 1729 the salary of the Sandridge vicars was increased to £200 a year by Queen Anne's Bounty [238].
Thomas Evans was vicar from 1744 to 1774, and of these thirty years he was resident for the first twenty-three. Then the period of pluralities set in, lasting for a century, during which time Sandridge only had a resident vicar for thirty years.
William Langford, besides being vicar of Sandridge was at the same time Rector of Whiston in Northants, Canon of Windsor and assistant master at Eton [239], where he lived. His eldest son Edward became a priest,17 the other three children all died young. Frederick, a scholar of King's College Cambridge [240], was carried off at the age of nineteen by a pulmonary consumption [241],18 Henry, a midshipman of H.M.S. Phaeton. when eighteen years old died of fever at Sheerness [242],19 and the daughter Decima was buried at Sandridge in 1786. The vicar, who by 1778 had become a Doctor of Divinity, paid occasional visits to Sandridge on Sundays and once took a wedding.
Robert Welton lived at Sandridge for forty-seven years, seventeen as curate to Dr. Langford and thirty as vicar. He was also curate of St. Stephen's three and a half miles away and Rector of Chaldon [243], a small village in the Surrey hills. As curate he received £44 a year from St. Stephen's and £30 from Sandridge. He lost his only son at the age of sixteen and one of his four daughters. The boy had been trained as a chemist. During Welton's curacy the oldest surviving chalice and paten [244] were made for the church. Thus Sandridge had a varied collection of priests, good, bad and indifferent.
The nineteenth century has far more in common with the century which preceded it than with the one that followed. If Jonathan Parsons, who died in 1768, had come back a hundred years later, he would have found village life much as it was in his own day. If, however, the school mistress of 1651 could see the Sandridge of today, she would scarcely recognise the parish as the one in which she lived, and would no doubt find our habits and outlook on life very strange. The changes which occurred in Sandridge, however, during the nineteenth century were by no means negligible; two of the most important were the foundation of the school in 1824 and the attempt in the middle of the century to relieve poverty by voluntary clubs augmented by the rich. The village school as part of the great national system is nowadays taken for granted, but like everything else it had a beginning. The work of those poorly paid teachers in the early days was really heroic and deserves more recognition than it usually receives. It was Kenneth Bayley, the curate, who took the initiative in founding Sandridge School, and aided by the Martens of Marshalswick [188] and the leading farmers it met for the first time at the workhouse in January 1824, the meetings being on Saturdays and Sundays only. The first teacher was Mrs Ephgrave, but she resigned after six weeks and was followed by Mrs Mardlin who was paid eighteen pence a day. A school costing £200 was built in about three months, and meanwhile William Paul, the village joiner, was making eight long forms, four dozen cotton reels at half-penny each, a ruler for one and six, and what he called a "wrighting desk" seventeen feet long. When the children arrived at the new building in January 1825, they found a well built whitewashed room, and a floor of white paving bricks. The room was fourteen feet high, with oak doors in oak frames; the walls were nine inches thick, and the was a well-pitched slate roof. The one fireplace consumed six sacks of coal during the first year. As often happens with new work the windows and doors stuck a good deal, but Mr Paul only charged one and eight pence for half a day's work in putting them right. The teacher now was Miss Sawyer who received £45 a year, and it may reflect on her power of control that during her five years only eleven window-panes had to be mended. The school was financed by voluntary subscriptions, the sale of children's needlework, and the fees of a penny a week for five days instruction. There was an average attendance of fifty children out of a population of 820. As time went on the farmers ceased to support the school and it was only due to the gentry that it survived. A cheaper teacher was appointed called Mrs. Postern, and the bills for mending windows went up fivefold. When Queen Victoria [249] came to the throne the salary was still further reduced to £25 and ten years later it was down to £20 with the use of the attached cottage. Then with the arrival of Reverend T.H. Winbolt and the death of William Paul both in 1847 the school took on a new lease of life. Paul's son William succeeded to the business and proceeded to erect a gallery in the school at a cost of ten guineas, presumably for a class room. The school cottage was decorated and the roof re-thatched and the new Head Mistress, Miss Hooker, received a bonus of five pounds. All this was possible because Mr. Winbolt persuaded the farmers once again to take a practical interest in the school which was doing so much for the children of their workers. He also started a school clothing club. When Miss Hooker married and departed, the managers tried the experiment of a joint headship of a husband and wife, but this was a failure so Miss Nicoll came for £25 plus half the children's fees, which made her salary about £34 a year. If the children were taught writing they paid a higher rate of two pence a week. Writing was not popular and not until about 1880 do we find that most of the Sandridge brides and bridegrooms were able to sign their names. When the fifth Earl Spencer [250] inherited the Manor, he conveyed the school to the vicar and churchwardens and built a new school collage. Then a brick wall was erected round the playground, which caused trouble because boys preferred playing on the wall rather than on the ground. The following notes by the teacher show that human nature does not change much.
- 11th October. Frederick Kerrison pushed David Matthews off the wall. 15th October. David Matthews was able to return to school. The wound he received is progressing favourably. 1869. 4th November. Henry Aldrtdge is a very quarrelsome boy, Fred Allen cut his head with a slate. 8th November. Alfred Woolmer was fighting Alfred King who is much younger. The little boy's head was severely cut against the wall. 26th November. Edward Stater's nose bled for a long time after a fight with Fred Hedges and Joseph Wood. 1871. Henry Aldridge set a boy on to bite Fred Allen.
Some of the girls were not much better as we shall see later. As the century progressed the needlework was producing less income because the children's efforts could not compete with the machine made articles which were filling the shops. Also parents kept their girls at home to earn a few pence by straw-platting. In October children were withdrawn by their parents to gather acorns. There were many more oak-trees than there are now. Two wars have taken their toll of timber. Further difficulties followed the passing of Gladstone's Education Act in 1870 [251]. The Church had been maintaining such schools all over England because she believed that every child of God, however poor, had a right to be educated. Eventually it dawned on the State that this was a good idea and that it, with greater resources, could do better. So the State said in effect to Sandridge school managers.
Enlarge your school or we take it from you.
Mr. Winbolt, the curate, backed up by the Bishop of Rochester [252], sent an S.O.S. to Lord Spencer, who at the age of 33 had become Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland [253] and was busy dealing with Fenian risings [254].1 In a long letter from Dublin he wrote in effect
You turned down my offer three years ago, if that is all you cared then the school might as well go to the State now. You can't expect me to pay for everything.
It was of course more politely worded. Mr. Winbolt was disappointed; after twenty-four years' experience he knew how hard it was to extract money from the farmers to keep the school going. But this time they rose to the occasion and agreed in Vestry that the money should be raised by voluntary subscription. Seventeen farmers from Bernards Heath to Bride Hall paid a voluntary rate of 6d. in the pound, which produced £135: the landlords subscribed £115, Lord Spencer heading the list with £40, and the curate gave two guineas. A classroom was built and furnished with thirty new desks; a new well was sunk in 1872 and the school remained a voluntary one for a few more years. But a voluntary society like the Church cannot compete with the State which extracts money from the people by force, so when financial troubles arose again this fine effort by the church and people of Sandridge came to an end. The School became a Board School and the first compulsory school rate was levied in the parish in 1880. The School Board did not look after the building well, and when Mr. C. W. Little was appointed Head Master in 1893, he found:
half the ceiling unboarded, with bits of dirty paper hanging from all parts. The birds of the air had previously and unanimously decided that the school was an admirable place to build in, and sometimes during that early spring the sparrows vied with each other in their twittering efforts to drown my modest-attempts to induce the young ideas to shoot".2
The village workhouse [255] had pursued its unhappy course for fifty-four years but the leaders of the village were not satisfied with the manner in which it was being run. In 1832 notice was sent to the governor warning him that the parish
mean to take the house into their own hands at Lady Day [256] next.
The sum of £200 was borrowed to carry out alterations and repairs, including the making of an outhouse "for the reception of any turbulent pauper". Repairs were also carried out on a row of six cottages on the east side of the High Street, which belonged to the parish. So great was the number of paupers, both in and out of the workhouse, that the parish found itself a further £188 in debt, over and above the £200 borrowed for the building repairs; thus the list of paupers was carefully examined to see if it could be reduced. The parish was up against it, but they granted plum pudding as an extra for the paupers on Christmas Day 1833. This same year a Poor Law [257] was passed through Parliament which reorganised the workhouses, and the effect was to relieve the Sandridge ratepayers of an excessive burden. In 1838 the inmates were transferred to Oster House, St Albans, but the Sandridge House survived another hundred years as a collection of inconvenient dwelling houses, known as Spencer Buildings. The money for the poor relief was raised by the poor rate. The parish was divided into about twenty-eight farms stretching from Heath Farm to Bride Hail. John Kinder of Sandridgebury [167] was assessed at £296, this being the highest assessment for any single farm, but the biggest local ratepayer was Thomas Kinder who held Pound Farm, Whitehouse Farm and the malthouse; he had a total assessment of £530. Lord Spencer had an equal assessment on the tithes. Thomas Oakley of Waterend [95] was assessed at £264. The farmers were the chief ratepayers, but some of them were quite small. The waterworks on Bernard's Heath were first rated in 1835. Coming down the scale, one finds the Rose and Crown assessed at twelve pounds, the vicarage ten pounds and the Queen's Head six pounds. Then came the various shops. Two shoemakers, two grocers, a carpenter, a blacksmith, a baker, a wheelwright, and a beer shop: these were valued at five to three pounds. Lastly came all the labourers' cottages, which were mostly assessed at thirty or twenty shillings, the two worst at only ten shillings. By the middle of the century the majority of Sandridge people were still poverty stricken. Wages were slowly rising, but had not yet reached two shillings a day. Poverty and drink made a vicious circle; a man drank to forget the drabness of his home, and he became the poorer by it. Besides Queen's Head and the Rose and Crown there were three retail beer shops in the village. There was little money to spare for clothes and fuel. A hundredweight [258] of coal cost nearly a day's pay, and education was not free. But the country had not forgotten the labourers' revolt of 1830 [259], when starving men marched around, burning ricks, smashing machinery, and demanding a wage of half-a-crown a day. Neither was it forgotten how the revolt was put down by tearing 420 men from their families and transporting them to Australia as convicts [260]. These troubles did not touch Hertfordshire, but they made all men realise the rotten state of our economy. In these days of want and degradation the elderly Mrs. Marten started the village clothing club for which she added threepence to every shilling subscribed. Ninety four members joined in the first year. Miss Marten's coal club was less efficient and less popular, and it was not till her brother Thomas came home from India that anything effective was done to keep the people warm. About twenty of the poorest got two hundred weight of coal free and another hundred or so got it at a reduced price. Mr. Winbolt undertook the unpleasant task of begging the money for this enterprise year after year. About six farmers provided horse and cart to collect the coal from the Abbey station St Albans, and some sixteen tons were taken around the parish. One cold winter seventeen guineas were spent on a village kitchen for free soup. There was also a sick benefit club which got into serious trouble by misappropriation of its funds. Earlier attempts at mutual help were the "Society of Good Fellowship" founded in 1807 and still going strong thirty years later, and a friendly society for women organised by the curate, Mr. Ryland, who collected and booked no less than £500 in threepences in five years. By 1872 the parish was no longer a self-contained unit. A profound change had come over the whole country during the previous forty years. The self -sufficient village had gradually ceased to be and the village shops became stocked with goods from towns or abroad. "One by one craftsmen disappeared, the harness maker, and the weaver"; the village carpenter kept going for some time, and in some places the blacksmith remains with us to this day, the sole survivor of the ancient country crafts. All this "made rural life duller and less self-sufficient in its mentality and native interests, a backwater of the national life instead of its main stream. The vitality of the village slowly declined, as the city in a hundred ways sucked away its blood and brains."3 The craftsmen in Sandridge were provided by families such as the Pauls, and it would be apt here to give a short account of such a representative family, which played a prominent part in the life of Sandridge. It was in 1781 that the Paul family came upon the stage of Sandridge history. The first William Paul was then twenty-five and is described in the militia lists of that year as a tailor. A year later he was married to Mary, daughter of William Laurence, the village joiner, who made the existing altar rails some time before he died in 1803. As a result of this marriage Sandridge had quantities of Pauls of all ages throughout the nineteenth century. The direct line may be traced thus:
William PAUL | 1756-1831 | m. 1782 Mary Laurence |
William PAUL | 1787-1847 | m. 1814 Charlotte Allen |
William PAUL | 1821-1901 | m. 1844 Mary Streeten |
Matthew William PAUL | Born 1844 | m. Emma Munt: |
Charles PAUL | Born 1868 | m. 1892 Mary AM Stapleton |
Albert PAUL | 1893-1925 | m. 1913 Rose Bates |
Charles William PAUL | Born 1914 |
The first William Paul, besides being a tailor, was also the village carpenter as were his descendants after him. It was he who carried out those delicate operations on the church roof in 1786. The third William had eight children in twelve years, and one more later. His first child Matthew William met trouble by heaving a stone at the verger; his nickname was Captain and he went to St Albans School. Another child was Harry, who joined the army, but while home on leave was accidentally drowned in the gravel pits. The seventh child, born during the Crimean War [261], was named Alma [262] after the British victory. The Paul family were the terror of the village, and the gang was known as:
Captain and Carry, Phil, Pete and Harry, Ann Selina4, Eugena5 And little Shallot.
The last three were all removed from the school for continually playing up the teacher. Ann Selina was the worst. The father of this family was a great character and it was he who more than anyone asserted the rights of the artisan [263] class to a share in village government. He broke the tradition that only gentry [264] and farmers should attend vestry meetings and he opposed the squire George Marten in the appointment of a rate-collector for the village. In 1875 he was the vicar's right hand man in founding the men's club, and in his old age he look a leading part in road management and street drainage, an ever present problem in Sandridge. Paul was one of the original members of the parish council which first met in 1894, and he served on it to within seven weeks of his death. He was present with his long white beard on a famous occasion when news came through that Pretoria, the Boer capital, had been captured [265]. The five old councillors broke off their discussions and sang the National Anthem [266] and gave three cheers. During his long life William Paul worked hard and put his savings into cottage property in the parish. One bakehouse and at least twenty-five cottages are mentioned in his will. In 1844 the four principal landowners of the parish were the Earl Spencer [267], Drake Garrard, Viscount Melbourne [268], and George R. Marten. The remaining acres consisted of the two commons of Bernards Heath and No Man's Land [66] and a large number of small freeholdings.6 Of the four major landlords the only one who lived in the parish was George R. Marten of Marshalswick [188] who inherited the estates in 1826 and lived there for fifty years as a bachelor. It appears that his half-sister Cecilia fell in love with William Holloway, the tenant of Marshalswick Farm; this house stands at the bottom of Kings Hill Avenue. The Marten family, however, did not approve of the match. Readers of the novels of Anthony Trollope [269] will realise that a lady in the position of Cecilia might find obstacles put in her way if she wished to marry a tenant farmer; at the age of forty-eight she was still single, but she died in Welwyn [270] in 1881 as Mrs. William Holloway. It was the freehold and tenant farmers who ruled the village and held in turn the offices of overseers, guardians and stonewardens. No one below this class; appears to have attended the Vestry meetings before 1870. Each year on Lady Day the vestry meeting appointed a guardian of the poor, two churchwardens, a number of overseers and two stonewardens, who were responsible for maintaining the fifteen miles of roads in the parish. The title stonewarden first appears in 1832, thirteen years after John Macadam [271] had invented a new way of making roads with stones. Formerly the same officers were called surveyors of the highways. In 1846 the stonewardens were George Young of Nashs Farm and Ralph Thrale of No Mans Land, each taking an area. Mr. Young employed three roadmen. Certain work was paid for at piece rates, the price being sevenpence a yard for stone breaking, and sixpence a yard for digging gravel; Mr. Thrale employed a different gang at similar rates. When Lady Day came round again Mr. Young produced to the vestry his account for £52 and Mr. Thrale's was for £33. It was during this period that the Thrales left the parish they had lived in and worked for so long. The stonewarden just mentioned was the head of the last family to live in the parish. His son Ralph Norman [272] gained local distinction by shooting a large panther which had escaped from a menagerie and which was loose around the parish worrying the sheep. The incident provided wonderful material for the local press.7 He and his brother William were also famed for their museum which used to be a favourite outing for the villagers during Easter. The museum contained, in the first part, almost every sort of indigenous vermin, from the field mouse up to the big dog fox; the second part consisted of every kind of flower and grass that the farm grew. One of the bachelor brothers was deadly accurate with a catapult, whilst the other was equally accurate with a bow and arrow both were crack shots with a rifle. Their father Ralph Thrale died in 1852, and the villagers gave him a wonderful burial. The family brick vault was opened, but William Archer the sexton [273] only received four shillings [156] for taking out the earth and clearing it away. The coffin was covered by the best pall [274]. William Paul was the undertaker. The main items of the bill were the coffin, costing seven guineas [275], and the hire of hearse and coach, five pounds ten shillings. Among other items, Mr. Paul provided nineteen pairs of gloves varying in price from half-a-crown to one shilling a pair, and twenty black armbands. The entire bill came to £24, which in those days would have kept a labourer's family for seven months. Other members of the Thrale family continued to flourish in the adjoining parish of Wheathampstead, and in St Albans, where they still reside. The third class of people in Sandridge, after the gentry and farmers, were the artisans, publicans and shopkeepers. They were by no means wealthy, but they had some sort of position to keep up and they could, unlike the labourers, improve their condition by being careful and industrious. It was from this section of the community that the constables were chosen. On the whole, the Sandridge people were reasonably law abiding. The magistrates appointed two constables each year from those nominated. The position gave the men a standing in the village, but it was not well paid, and as these men had large families to support they would be able to spend little lime patrolling the parish. The system was unsatisfactory; the law abiding members of the village felt insecure; especially if they had anything to lose. The matter was brought to a head by the sudden death of Jesse Geeves, a man of thirty-five who left a widow and four young children. The verdict at the inquest was accidental death, but the curate [276], Mr. Winbolt, had his doubts about this. He at once wrote to the squire of Marshalswick to ask what could be done about a proper policeman for Sandridge. Sir Robert Peel's [277] police force had been started in 1830, and by 1856 it was established in every county. Men were not plentiful, however, and if a parish required a policeman, good reasons had to be given. Thus the curate wrote an amazing letter to the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire. He stated the following five points as showing the necessity for a policeman for Sandridge:
- On the farms thefts of wool, sheep, and lambs have occurred without detection.
- The railway through Wheathampstead [11] will be opened next year, so that our parish will be encompassed with railways, thus offering an easy access to the place, and a rapid escape to the plunderers, and a ready means of carrying their booty.
- There are now five public houses and beer shops in the village, an extra one having been opened this year. This, we think, calls for increased vigilance on the part of the police.
- A local policeman might have prevented the death of Jesse Geeves.
- Sandridge contributes to the police rates.
A policeman came the following year. It should, however, be noted that in 1859 it was possible to walk north-west from Sandridge for seventeen miles without crossing a railway line. But in 1660 the Great Northern Railway [278] opened their branch to Luton, a mile and a half of which runs through the parish The Midland main line came seven years later with two tracks, and the company had the foresight to buy land for four tracks and to build the over bridges accordingly, though the actual widening of the line was not accomplished till 1894. As late as 1872 and 1873 the parish was still spending £900 a year on poor relief [279] in a population of 820. At this period Joseph Arch [280], a Warwickshire farm worker of exceptional ability tried to improve the lot of his colleagues by forming them into trade unions. A branch of the Agricultural Labourers' Union was formed in Sandridge and shortly afterwards a strike was declared. The vicar, Dr. Griftth, was largely instrumental in settling this trouble by getting the farmers to see the point of view of the men, and vice-versa. Village life was enhanced by various sports on No Man's Land, where the gallows had been erected in the fifteenth century. Watford beat Hertfordshire in a cricket match by 104 runs in August 1824. In 1829 a race meeting was promoted by Thomas Coleman, a well-known trainer of horses, who lived at the Chequers Inn, St Albans. The King's horse won the Gorhambury Stakes, but the meeting was not a financial success. A two-day steeplechase [281] meeting was held in the middle of May, 1833, and at the end of that month a dreadful fight took place in which Deaf Burke [282] knocked out Simon Byrne [283], the champion of Ireland, in the ninety-ninth round. They were fighting for three hours and sixteen minutes. Mr. Byrne died four days later, so Mr. Burke and his seconds were tried for manslaughter, but they avoided any penalty as it could not be proved that death was caused by the injuries sustained in the fight. Such was the life of the Sandridge villagers in the nineteenth century.
Another pastime indulged in from time to time was walking round the edge of the parish. This is for some reason known as beating the bounds [101]. It happened in 1720 and 1727 when quantities of beer were consumed at the expense of the rate-payers. In 1778 the Lord of the Manor paid six pounds towards the expenses. In 1899 they took two days to cover the seventeen miles; This was because William Paul, aged 78, insisted on joining the party and walking the whole way except for one mile. On this occasion the chairman of the Parish Council rode a horse. The Sandridge magazine commented:
May 1. The Parish Bounds were beaten; they were none the worse. The School children had a holiday; they were none the better.
An attempt to revive the custom in 1949 gained little support, but a few people walked round the much smaller civil parish.
After the death of Robert Welton, Charles Bourchier was instituted as vicar of Sandridge. He was a native of the place, having been born at Sandridge Lodge in Marshalswick Park; he had as his godparents a Duchess, an Earl and a Baronet. To this young man was committed the care of the people of Sandridge for forty-nine years. In his first year as vicar he baptised two infants, and that was about all he ever did in the village. The best that can be said for him is that he provided Sandridge with a succession of hardworking curates who took their duties seriously. These poor men had to live in a house with an open cesspit under one of the rooms.1 One of these curates was Thomas Henry Winbolt, who came to Sandridge in 1847. His work for the school and for the safety of the village has been mentioned. During his twenty-five years in the parish he prepared and presented 250 people for confirmation. Shortly before his departure he was specially commended by the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, who said that it was chiefly due to his work that Sandridge was almost free from detected crime.
[286]
It was during the curacy of William Ryland that it was decided to replace the church tower which had fallen down in 1693. The parish officers, with others supporting them, decided in 1836 that a new tower should be built. Unfortunately, they tried to save money by dispensing with the services of an architect and by employing only an incompetent builder, Mr. Hall of Hatfield, who undertook to do the job for the low figure of £80 to £100. The church was normally maintained by a rate of 3d. in the pound, but this was doubled, and then the next year trebled, in order to pay for the bells and tower. The builder began his operations, but a few months later complained that he underestimated the cost and could not complete the tower for as little as £100. The vestry [287] meeting showed no sympathy; by December 1837 the tower was completed; Mr. Hall continually complained about the cost and he finally obtained an extra £40, without the vestry admitting liability. That same year, when William IV [288] died, the two cracked bells were sent to Whitechapel [289] to be recast. The church looked as shown in the illustration for the next fifty years. (The clock was inserted in 1847, a gift of Mr. Thomas Powney Marten of the East India Company [290].) The two bells came back and were hung in the new tower and rung in time for the coronation of Queen Victoria [249]; the larger of the bells is still in use. Three years went by and then one Sunday morning during service, there was an ominous noise and a gap appeared in the nave [33] roof. The tower had taken a slight lean to the west, and it was discovered that whereas the east wall was on old foundations, the west wall of the lower had been built on graves, which had subsided. After eighteen months delay a London surveyor inspected the tower for a fee of nearly £9 and advised that it be shored up for the winter, which was done by William Paul. The churchwardens demanded of Mr. Hall what he meant to do about this deplorable stale of affairs. After another inspection by a surveyor, who stated that the tower needed underpinning, Mr. Hall was obliged to make good his inefficient work and it is recorded that on Lady Day [256] 1844
the works necessary for the security of the tower of the parish church have been satisfactorily completed by Mr.Hall, and the tower now appears in all respects satisfactory".2
The erection remained until 1886, and there are still a few parishioners who remember it.
William Archer, aged thirty, was in 1836 appointed verger [291]. Besides ringing the two bells he was expected to keep order in church, keep the churchyard tidy and report damage. All this was for a shilling a week. His boots were rather noisy, so the wardens obtained for him a pair of slippers for two shillings, which lasted for fourteen years. Keeping order in church was not always easy and Archer had trouble with one of the notorious Paul children. Matthew William, at the age of seventeen, heaved a stone at the poor verger in the churchyard, and although the stone missed its mark, he was duly fined. This lad probably inherited his high spirits from his grandfather, who got into trouble for his behaviour at a Vestry meeting. He was told that his charges were extravagant; when he gave the meeting his considered opinion of them. The nine farmers present agreed that he
be not in future employed upon any parish business.
Instead, they employed his son. Mr. Archer also dug the graves and his tombstone contains the following lines:
For many years I added dust to dust,
Ashes to ashes in my neighbours' graves,
Now Lord, my dust and ashes I entrust
To Thee, whose death from death eternal saves".
For forty-nine years Sandridge had been without a resident vicar and Dr. Griffith was therefore given a good welcome in 1872. Of a nonconformist [293] family and educated at Cambridge [294], he brought to Sandridge his Puritan [295] views. He had many children of his own and he expected them to renounce the devil and all his works, which included in his view dancing and sports. He was one of the most notable vicars Sandridge ever had, and he was known as Doctor Griffith, having become a Doctor of Law some years previously. In that period the clergy were still of the gentry [264] and were expected to live as such. That is why the enormous old vicarage was built at that date. Six and a half acres were bought for garden and meadow, the price being £400; £200 came from the Duchess of Marlborough [210] as long ago as 1729, and the remaining sum was a grant from Queen Anne's Bounty [238]. A few months after the new vicar's appointment the villagers cleaned the church and cleared away many years' accumulation of dust and dirt. Oil lamps were hung, replacing a few candles on the backs of the box pews, which had shed a dim light on winter afternoons.
Dr. Griffith's most outstanding work for Sandridge was the restoration and enlargement of the church. When he came he found the church in an almost ruinous slate and he quickly decided to rectify the matter and make the church secure for posterity. He would not, however, start work until all the necessary money had been subscribed; This great task took fifteen years. Many gave generously to the fund according to their means: £434 came from the Martens of Marshalswick [188], who had certain of the old box pews reserved for their use, but the continuance of this privilege was thwarted by the acceptance of a grant of £60 from the Church Building Society, which was given on condition that all seating was free and unrestricted.
The work was carried out by Messrs. Gregory and Company, under the direction of two architects at a cost of £3,808. Building operations look over a year, during which time a new tower was built, a new root for the nave provided and the whole fabric was repaired and made secure. The whole or the west end or the church dates from this time, and all the nave above the Norman arches, including the six clerestory [37] windows, likewise the pews, choir stalls, pulpit [296] and lectern, and the wooden floor blocks. The mediaeval tiles which were round here and there under the pews were re-laid in the sanctuary. The curious wooden structure above the ancient stone screen was also erected at that time, replacing the solid wall of the original builders. The idea was to allow sound to move more easily between chancel [34] and nave. The organ was moved from the chancel to the west end where it remained until 1914. The restorers were careful to preserve the old Scratch Dial on the exterior or the chancel. The vicar expressed the hope that
the work done will last good, needing only ordinary repairs, for another eight hundred years.
During the restoration of the church public worship was carried on in the village hall which the vicar had built in memory or his eldest son. He also did much to improve the housing conditions in the village and to increase the amount of land available for allotments, which are still such an important feature in village life. Of Dr. Griffiths spiritual work his obituary stated:
Every house in the village soon knew him personally and there were few where he was not welcomed.
He hated shams; like Chaucers poor parson [297] he was learned, and yet simply practical. and spared no pains to make his weekly teaching as complete and true as he could. All the same this teaching seems to have been definitely one-sided, and the next vicar, James Cruikshank, had a difficult task in restoring the balance. He came to Sandridge without any previous parochial experience but he made up for it by hard work and sincerity. In the Sandridge Magazine, which he founded we often find him deploring the paganism [298] of the village. He left in 1899 and the vicars since his day have continued to alternate between the Evangelical and Catholic outlooks. Since the Church of England is both Catholic and Evangelical this may be a good thing, even though it creates difficulties. Although Austin Oliver spent too much time hunting foxes, for he found his promise to Lord Spencer not to hunt six days a week difficult to keep, and although a perfect example of the old gentry vicar, his humanity glows in his Recollections of Sandridge and his comment that he thought
the farmers or Sandridge the best churchmen and finest sportsmen in the world
provides a moving tribute. Hugh Anson, the last or the gentry vicars, who was at Sandridge throughout the Kaiser's war, did valuable work, the results of which are still apparent. Edward Giles will long be remembered for his work. and not least for his scholarship and labour in preparing a permanent record or time gone-by in his parish.
The most ancient remains, one form of tangible link with the past, have already been mentioned. The dykes and various Roman works still remain in an area quite profusive in such building materials as Roman tile and brick. The church itself can give the best impression of bygone times in Sandridge, if properly interpreted; it can tell many tales.
An ancient homestead in the parish is Waterend [95]. In the time of King John [58], Thebridge, now known as Waterend, was held by Viel de Thebridge, a free tenant of the abbot of St Albans.1 The oldest extant document concerning Sandridge relates to Waterend, where in 1248 a conveyance of land was made.2 John Fitzsimon died in possession of a homestead and dovecote at Waterend in 1304. He rented the property from the nuns of Sopwell [103] in St Albans, from whence the supposed authoress of the famed Boke of St Albans [301] was reputed to hail. Fitzsimon paid partly in money and partly by aid to the abbot of St Albans. The manor then remained in the possession of the Fitzsimon family for a hundred years. When in 1437 Elizabeth Fitzsimon married Thomas Brocket, the Brockets were to hold the manor until 1590. This family was prominent in the neighbourhood, as the memorials in Wheathampstead church testify. As happened to nearly all the land in the parish, the manor passed to the Jennings family. It is believed that the builder of the existing house was Sir John Jennings, who built it in 1610. It is the oldest existing house in the parish. It is a good example of an early seventeenth century red brick house on an E-shaped plan. There are two storeys and an attic with large moulded brick string courses between the storeys. The roof is tiled. The west front has three projecting windows with stone mullions and transoms carried up to the attic, and above them are three steep, straight gables, with moulded coping. At the back are three large chimney stacks, with groups of octagonal shafts, which nave moulded bases and caps. The inside is now much altered, but in the kitchen there is a wide arched fireplace, and there is an original winding oak staircase of plain character.3
The earliest records of Bride Hall occur in the time of Henry II [302]. It is reputed that a certain pious matron gave "Bridela" to St Albans, which was confirmed to the monastery by Henry II [302] and King John [58].4 Of the existing Bride Hall, the date of erection is reputed to be 1630. It was the most northerly house in the parish, being three and a half miles from the church. Like Waterend House, Bride Hall was built of red brick on the E shaped plan. This shape is believed to have come into fashion as a compliment to Queen Elizabeth [132], but it continued to be used alter her death. The middle stroke of the E forms the front porch with a small room over it. The inner door of this porch is the original one. The chimney stacks are good, but much plainer than those at Waterend two of them are original and a third is rebuilt with the old material.
The hall has its large open fireplace with moulded wooden lintel, and in its ceiling is a large moulded beam. Many original solid oak door frames and batten doors survive with their iron door furniture.5
In the kitchen there is a wide fireplace on the north side of the house are two spiral staircases made of elm wood. The present house was probably built by Sir John Garrard, and it remained in the family until 1928, by which time it had ceased to be in the parish of Sandridge.
Two farm steads continually mentioned in previous chapters are Sandridgebury [167] and Upper Beech Hyde, Both are of the Queen Anne period [303], but with the number of alterations which have been carried out, it is unlikely that the original builders would readily recognise them.
Marshalswick [188] had been held by the Thrales since 1630. After 135 years the family were forced to mortgage it; It was in 1789 that the estate passed to the Bourchier family. Charles Bourchier changed the name of the house to "Sandridge Lodge", altered the character of the house by adding the west wing, and also added to the estate. In 1803 the estate passed to the Marten family. The early death of the first Mrs. Marten and four of her boys, is commemorated in the church. This family re-instituted the old name of Marshalswick and built the east wing a few years later. An excrescence for a billiard room and two lodges to the east and west were also built; the estate was calculated at about 809 acres. The two lodges are now known as 1 Marshals Drive and 191 Marshalswick Lane. The house was pulled dawn in 1927, sad passing for a building which had been the home of the squires of Sandridge for such a long time. The park was developed gradually into an estate of privately built houses and in the late 1930 the farm was bought for building land.
One link with the past was severed by the demolition of the village well as recently as 1948. In 1527 Robert Belamy left money in his will for digging a well "near the Church House". He may have been a descendant of Robert Belamy who a century earlier cut down the gallows on Nomansland. The parish accounts show that another well was dug in 1778 and lined with bricks at the cost of £3.1.4.
The census figures show that the population of Sandridge grew a little after the Napoleonic Wars [182] and being kept down by terrible infant mortality it remained round about 840 until the 1880's. Then development began on Bernard's Heath near St Albans, and by 1901 the population of the parish had almost trebled, the new houses being huddled together in six streets. The owners of the houses on Boundary Road were careful not to live in them. They were expected to make up the road prior to its being taken over by the parish, but this they did not do. They would not answer any letters from the Vestry [287] nor attend any meetings on the subject. The bother went on for many years during which time there were oceans of mud in wet weather, and bad smells in hot weather, due to poor sanitation and overflowing sumps. The new parishioners were poor people with lots of children, many of whom died, including one boy aged five who was drowned in one of the old pits of the brickworks.
A school was provided for these people and later a district nurse, and the two vicars John Griffith and James Cruikshank were diligent to see that their souls were cared for. The first church was affectionately called "The Little Tin Trunk"; this was followed by another temporary building called "The Snail". Various curates served the district till 1895 when the Reverend H. D. Burton took charge. He was a born leader of men and the church grew rapidly, but not without criticism and opposition. There were attacks in the local press and some people went so far as to distribute literature at the church gate denouncing Mr. Burton for his "High Church" [307] views. His work was interrupted by his volunteering for a chaplain's duties in the South African war [308], for which Bernard's Heath provided fifteen soldiers. He was welcomed back and in 1905 became the first vicar of the newly formed parish of St. Saviour's, carved entirely out of Sandridge, which continued its rural life.
The old village supplied 155 men to the armed forces for the Kaiser's war, twenty-four of whom gave their lives. Between the wars many houses were built and the village was linked with St Albans by a long ribbon development along the line where the Earl of Warwick [185] sited his defences in 1461. Over two hundred parishioners served in the Army, Navy and Air Force, and the Women's units during Hitler's war. Six of them gave their lives two Sailors, one Marine, and three Air Force Officers. The last was Pilot Officer Martin Mohr of Upper Beech Hyde, who was shot down on his first flight over Germany in October 1944.
In 1943 a small temporary church was erected known as St. Mary's Marshalswick, and served the four hundred houses which at that time had been built in Marshalswick [188]. In 1956 the new permanent St Mary's was dedicated, and serves a population in Marshalswick which by 1969 exceeds five thousand, people. There are three factories, a rifle range, and an important radio station on the site of the old windmill, and the majority of the parishioners do not know how to milk a cow. Yet we are still rural, with many acres of farm land north, east and west of the church, untouched by modern development. There are some who hanker after "the good old times", but the question has to be asked for whom were the old times good? A re-reading of our Book 2, Chapter 2 [309], and Book 3, Chapter 1 [310], will give the the clear answer emerges: certainly not for the majority of Sandridge folk.
The names of vicars known to have been non-resident are not given in this list. Names of resident curates-in-charge are included.
Vicar | From | Until |
---|---|---|
John Balle | 1349 | 1349 |
Walter de Flyttewk | 1349 | 1349 |
John de Redburn | 1349 | |
John Olyver | 1374 | |
William Ryvell | 1374 | |
Richard Horwood | 1410 | 1419 |
John Bryant | 1441 | 1445 |
Robert Rydley | 1465 | |
William Tyler | 1465 | 1468 |
Thomas Thykthorp | 1468 | 1470 |
James Waleys | 1470 | 1477 |
Gilbert Lancaster | 1477 | |
John Norcliff | 1527 | |
Hugh Harding | 1540 | 1574 |
Richard Adamson | 1574 | |
Richard Woodward | 1581 | 1586 |
Stephen Gosson | 1586 | 1592 |
William Westerman | 1592 | 1622 |
Richard Westerman | 1630 | |
John Lodington | 1630 | 1630 |
Alexander Wedderburne | 1630 | 1643 |
John Harper | 1643 | |
Joseph Draper | 1661 | |
Thomas Owen | 1661 | 1680 |
Charles Horne | 1681 | 1685 |
Edmund Wood | 1685 | 1714 |
William Crowley | 1714 | 1721 |
Samuel Grice | 1721 | 1744 |
Thomas Evans | 1744 | 1767 |
H. Osman (Curate) | 1767 | 1773 |
Joseph Spooner (Curate) | 1773 | 1775 |
Robert Welton (Curate) | 1776 | 1793 |
Robert Welton (Vicar) | 1793 | 1823 |
Kenneth Bayley (Curate) | 1823 | 1826 |
William Deane Ryland (Curate) | 1826 | 1837 |
Charles Boutell (Curate) | 1837 | 1846 |
Thomas Henry Winbolt (Curate) | 1846 | 1872 |
John Griffith | 1872 | 1890 |
James Alexander Cruikshank | 1891 | 1899 |
Austin Oliver | 1899 | 1905 |
Hugh Richard Anson | 1906 | 1919 |
Charles Edward Quin | 1919 | 1926 |
Samuel Weaver | 1927 | 1929 |
Tudor Aneurin Talbot Thomas | 1929 | 1939 |
Edward Giles | 1939 | 1956 |
Philip Handford | 1956 | ? |
Paul Nelson | ? | 1998 |
Vanessa G.Cato | 2007 |
St Leonards website [313].
Links
[1] https://www.thrale.com/user/login?destination=comment/reply/442%23comment-form
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[3] http://www.thrale.com/sites/all/libraries/tng/documents/historic_sandridge_front_cover.png
[4] https://www.thrale.com/richard_william_thrale
[5] http://www.thrale.com/sites/default/files/books/historic_sandridge_revisited.png
[6] https://www.thrale.com/category/tags_1
[7] https://www.thrale.com/user/login?destination=comment/reply/345%23comment-form
[8] https://www.thrale.com/user/register?destination=comment/reply/345%23comment-form
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe_map
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Albans_Abbey
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheathampstead
[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codicote
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayot_St._Lawrence
[14] http://www.thrale.com/sites/all/libraries/tng/documents/sandridge_manor_map_in_1726.png
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Albans
[16] http://www.thrale.com/sites/all/libraries/tng/documents/sandridge_parish_boundaries_map-c.1950.png
[17] https://www.thrale.com/user/login?destination=comment/reply/302%23comment-form
[18] https://www.thrale.com/user/register?destination=comment/reply/302%23comment-form
[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptarchy
[20] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia
[21] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midlands
[22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa_of_Mercia
[23] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_of_Lichfield
[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Anglia
[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecgfrith_of_Mercia
[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriconium
[27] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_de_Losinga
[28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Leonard
[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_I
[30] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks
[31] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_architecture
[32] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apse
[33] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nave
[34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel
[35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_%28architecture%29
[36] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totternhoe_Stone
[37] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerestory
[38] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptismal_font
[39] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_limestone
[40] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestry
[41] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbels
[42] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rood
[43] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicholas
[44] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Andrew
[45] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael_the_Archangel
[46] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Jessel_%28jurist%29
[47] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Walsingham
[48] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Paris
[49] http://www.stalbanshistory.org/
[50] https://www.thrale.com/user/login?destination=comment/reply/369%23comment-form
[51] https://www.thrale.com/user/register?destination=comment/reply/369%23comment-form
[52] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demesne
[53] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villeins
[54] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor
[55] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_de_Caen
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[61] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquess_of_Hertford
[62] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_III_of_England
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