STONDON MASSEY
Stondon Massey is about 2 miles south-east of
Chipping Ongar and 4 miles north-west of Brentwood. (fn. 1)
It is one of the smallest parishes in the hundred, having
an area of 1,127 acres. In shape it is roughly like a
reversed L, of which the short arm lies along a ridge
about 300 ft. high above the Roding and the long arm
extends north-west down to the river, containing the
valley of a small stream which flows into the river near
Hallsford Bridge, and also a spur extending north-west
from the left bank of the stream. The scenery is varied.
There are stretches of woodland in the upland areas,
notably Oak Wood and the park at Stondon Place,
both on the main ridge, and Church Wood on the subsidiary spur. Along parts of the road which runs northwest through the parish to Hallsford Bridge there are
high hedges, while the approach east from Kelvedon
Hatch is by a road without hedges but lined with tall
trees. From the higher ground at Church Hill there
are good views across to Chipping Ongar and also
north-east in the direction of Blackmore. During the
past 30 years the parish has become increasingly suburbanized. It retains several farms on old sites but the
buildings have mostly been rebuilt during the past 150
years.
Stondon Massey was one of the three parishes at this
end of Ongar hundred where Roman Catholic worship
was maintained through the years of persecution in the
late 16th and early 17th centuries. (fn. 2) Another point of
special interest in the history of the parish is the connexion with Marks Hall in Margaret Roding (Dunmow
hundred). (fn. 3)
Stondon means 'stone hill'. (fn. 4) This suggests that the
oldest Saxon settlement was on the subsidiary spur,
where there are still gravel pits, and it is there that the
ancient manor house of Stondon Hall (now a farm) is
situated, and near it the parish church. Most of the
other houses in the parish, old and new, are also on the
higher ground. The farms include Mellow Purgess,
Clapgates, and Chivers in the west, Soap House on the
Kelvedon Hatch road, Brook and Cannon's on the
main road in the centre of the parish, Little Myles's to
the west of the church and Woolmongers on the eastern
boundary. Bridge Farm, which is exceptional in its
situation, is on the low ground just east of Hallsford
Bridge. Stondon Place and Stondon House, both near
Cannon's Farm, are large houses each of which in turn
succeeded Stondon Hall as the residence of the lord of
the manor. The old rectory, now Stondon Massey
House, is ¼ mile south of the church. The new rectory
is farther south near Cannon's. The 'Bricklayers'
Arms', the village inn, is at the cross-roads south of
Cannon's, and the post-office is near the inn. Until
recent years one of the focal points of the village was
the cross-roads opposite Stondon Place. Here on a
small green are the remains of a sign-post to which are
fixed the irons formerly belonging to the parish
whipping-post. Immediately north of this green is the
site of the former village school and beyond it the
village hall, now little used, its entrance overgrown.
Since the Second World War the parish appears to
have lost some of its corporate life. The two big houses
have been empty (Stondon House now has a tenant
but Stondon Place is still unoccupied), there is now no
resident rector and the village school was closed in
1953.
The medieval settlement of the parish probably
spread south from Stondon Hall. Brook Farm, Woolmongers, and several other farms derive their names
from medieval tenants. (fn. 5) Apart from Stondon Hall,
part of which may date from the 15th century, (fn. 6) none
of the secular buildings which now survive appears to
contain medieval work. By the 18th century there
were houses on most of the present farm sites, and some
of the existing buildings are of this period or slightly
earlier. Brook Farm is a curious looking building consisting of two wings connected by a narrow covered
passage. It is said to have been rebuilt about 1873 (fn. 7)
but the north wing is certainly older than this. Heavy
ceiling beams are visible on the ground floor and this
part of the house may date from the 17th century.
Cannon's Farm opposite is a small two-story house with
double-hung sashes, probably built in the 18th century
but recently modernized. Little Myles's was so named
to distinguish it from Great Myles's in Kelvedon
Hatch (q.v.) of which estate it formed part. In about
1700 there was a very small house there, with a 14acre holding attached to it, but during the 18th century
the house and the farm were both greatly enlarged. (fn. 8)
The present building is of two stories, roughcast, with
a tiled roof, and plain brick chimneys. In general
appearance it is of the 18th century but it probably
incorporates parts of the previous building at the back.
Woolmongers is a small two-story building, timberframed, plastered and whitewashed and is also probably
of the 18th century. Clapgates, which took its name
from the gates which formerly stood at this point to
prevent cattle straying from Kelvedon Common, was
called Stondon Grove in 1777. (fn. 9) It has been considerably modernized but may date from the 18th century.
At Mellow Purgess, where the old farm-house was
demolished about 1850, there still survives a small
whitewashed cottage with dormers and a thatched roof
which was probably that shown in a drawing of 1789. (fn. 10)
Chivers Farm is not shown on the 1777 map and the
present house is in any case a rebuilding of 1898. (fn. 11)
Soap House, which took its name from the soap boiling
carried on there in the 18th century, was rebuilt about
1902 (fn. 12) but may contain parts of an 18th century or
even an earlier building. Bridge Farm (otherwise Hallsford House) was demolished in 1899 and replaced by a
new house on higher ground. A photograph of the old
house shows an H-shaped plan, suggesting that it dated
from the 16th century or earlier. One of the beams
removed from it was 23 ft. long and measured a foot
square in cross-section. (fn. 13) Stondon Place, which was in
existence in the 16th century, was rebuilt about 1707
and again, after a fire, about 1880. (fn. 14) Stondon House,
which was probably built about 1740, was also burnt
down in the 19th century and the present building is
of about 1870. (fn. 15) The Giles Almshouses, at the south
entrance to the village, were rebuilt in 1860. The
original cottages were of the 16th century. (fn. 16) The
'Bricklayers' Arms' is a late-19th-century building on
the site of a tarred weather-boarded cottage which in
the early 19th century served as a small provision
shop. (fn. 17)
Perhaps the most impressive building in the parish
is the former rectory, built about 1800. (fn. 18) Near it to
the south is Rectory Cottage, a tiny house with a very
tall chimney, a high-pitched roof, and round-arched
central door between two similarly arched 'Gothic'
windows. It was formerly thatched but is now slated.
Its style is similar to that of some other cottages in the
district, for example the gardener's cottage at Marden
Ash in High Ongar (q.v.) and is of the early 19th
century. The house has been known locally as the
Doll's House and is said to have been built by the
owner of Stondon House for one of his daughters. (fn. 19)
There are several other 19th-century houses and there
has been considerable development since the First
World War, mostly along the road to Hallsford Bridge.
There are many privately built houses, including some
bungalows and a number of council houses of which
the most interesting are nine pairs built about 1947 in
Reeve's Close, opposite the Giles Almshouses. Near
Hallsford Bridge there is a small engineering works,
opened about 1952.
The population of Stondon Massey was 200 in
1801. (fn. 20) It rose to a peak of 299 in 1831 and remained
at about that level until late in the 19th century, when
it declined gradually to 213 in 1921. (fn. 21) Since then
there has been a great increase, to 282 in 1931 and
489 in 1951. (fn. 22)
The road system of the parish is simple, consisting
only of the Hallsford Bridge and Ongar road, that to
Kelvedon Hatch and Blackmore, the road to Paslow
Wood Common and Chelmsford, and the loop to the
farms in the west of the parish. There have probably
been few changes since the Middle Ages. The most
important was the building of Hallsford Bridge in the
late 18th century (see below). The only other change
that has been noticed was the disappearance of a track
leading from Mellow Purgess to Kelvedon Common.
This was in use up to about 1550 but soon after this
the right of way was barred by the farmer of the
neighbouring land. About 1604 the rector, John
Nobbs, sued William Byrd, then tenant of the land,
in an attempt to reopen the track, but he was evidently
unsuccessful. (fn. 23)
No mention has been found of a bridge at Hallsford
before the 18th century. The map of 1777 shows only
'All Ford' (fn. 24) but by this time steps had been taken to
build a bridge. In 1775 a petition was sent to Quarter
Sessions by the inhabitants of Stondon and others complaining that the ford was dangerous. They asked for
a bridge to be built and this was done. (fn. 25) Hallsford
Bridge appears in the lists of county bridges from about
1800. (fn. 26) In 1858 the county surveyor reported that
the bridge was a recent erection in timber. (fn. 27) The
present bridge was built in concrete in 1934. (fn. 28) The
building of a bridge at Hallsford greatly improved
communications between Stondon and Chipping
Ongar, but the parish was not on a main road and until
the coming of motor-buses after the First World War
there was no public transport there. There are now
fairly good bus services to Brentwood and via Blackmore to Ongar.
Stondon was in 1852 being served by a postal messenger from Kelvedon Hatch. (fn. 29) It was later served
through Brentwood (fn. 30) and it was not until 1898 that
it had its own post-office. (fn. 31) There was a telephone
service by 1930. (fn. 32) Water is supplied to the parish by
the Herts. and Essex Waterworks Co. (fn. 33) Electricity
was laid on in June 1938. (fn. 34) There is no gas supply.
The village hall was opened in 1919. (fn. 35) The Blackmore, Stondon and District Ex-Servicemen's Club,
founded in 1922, is just outside Stondon parish, at
Tips Cross on the south. (fn. 36) A branch of the county
library was opened in 1927. (fn. 37)
In this parish as elsewhere in the hundred mixed
farming is carried on. In 1848 it was estimated that
there were some 600 acres of arable in the parish and
400 acres of meadow and pasture. (fn. 38) In 1849 there
were 10 farms in the parish of over 40 acres and several
smaller holdings. (fn. 39) The only farms of over 100 acres
were Stondon Hall (231 acres), Chivers (127 acres),
and Little Myles's which was partly in Stondon and
partly in Kelvedon Hatch. In general therefore this
was a parish of small farms, and it appears to have been
so for centuries. (fn. 40) In the 19th century the ownership
of the land was also widely distributed. The Stondon
Place estate was reduced in about 1816. In 1849 it
contained only 250 acres. (fn. 41) The Revd. G. G. Stonestreet then owned Stondon Hall farm and Woolmongers totalling 247 acres, and John Fane owned
Little Myles's and Clapgates, totalling 138 acres. No
other owners had as much as 100 acres. (fn. 42) During the
1850's P. H. Meyer increased the Stondon Place
estate slightly but he never came near to owning the
greater part of the parish as did his friend Capt. Budworth in Greenstead (q.v.). In the 18th century, however, and previously in the 16th century and even earlier
the lord of the manor had owned much more than in
Meyer's time. In this connexion it is perhaps significant
that there was never more than one manor in Stondon.
From the 16th century at least the lords of the manor
were usually resident in the parish. In the 18th and
19th centuries they took an active interest in the life of
the parish. William Taylor-How (d. 1777) left a
legacy for the village schoolmaster. (fn. 43) P. H. Meyer
contributed generously to the village school and the
church and led the local Volunteers. (fn. 44) The parish was
also fortunate in having a succession of able and publicspirited rectors during the same period. The agricultural depression of the 1870's may not have affected
Stondon quite so severely as some neighbouring
parishes because there were in this parish several
wealthy families-notably at Stondon Place, Stondon
House, and the rectory-which did not depend wholly
upon farming for their incomes, and which brought
money into the parish. An example of the way in
which this effect may have been produced comes from
a slightly earlier period: the prosperity of the 'Bricklayer's Arms' was built up partly upon the liberality of
Miss Hollingworth of Stondon Place. (fn. 45) The depression did, however, have one striking result in the parish.
Stondon Hall farm, which in 1868 had been bought
by the tenant, James French, for £11,000, was sold
after his death soon afterwards at a substantial loss.
The purchaser was a Welsh cattle-dealer who turned
the whole farm over to pasture. (fn. 46)
There have been few occupations in the parish other
than those connected with agriculture. Gravel digging
has probably been carried on in a small way for centuries. One gravel pit, to the north-east of the church;
was opened as recently as 1886. (fn. 47) Soap House perpetuates the memory of a local industry carried on in
the 18th century. It was occupied from 1696 to 1743
by Robert Dennett, a soapboiler, and the industry is
said to have been carried on there until about 1800. (fn. 48)
The new engineering works near Hallsford Bridge
deals mainly with repairs to agricultural machinery and
implements.