The Seal Found at Radwinter. Aldersbrook Manor, Comment: Essex Archaeological News, Summer 1973

Essex Archaeological News Summer 1973

(later called the Essex Society for Archaeology and History)

Extracts from Newsletter No 43

THE SEAL FOUND AT RADWINTER. 

Under this heading the Rev. G.A. Benton contributed to our Transactions, vol. XV, p. 158 (1921), a short note about the digging up in 1917 of a brass or latten seal (matrix) in the garden of Radwinter rectory, bearing the device :-

+ DIEU ET MON DROIT +

Sir William St. John Hope gave the opinion that it was an official seal of the seventeenth century, adding, 'But who could want to use the device of the Order of the Garter in your neighbourhood I do not know; it would be difficult to assign the seal to any person.'

Rarely did a problem of this sort remain unsolved by our scholarly former Editor; yet, having been a curate at Saffron Walden before going to Fingringhoe, it is surprising that he did not think of William Harrison the Vicar of Radwinter, who was appointed a canon of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in 1586, and wrote the now famous Description of England (1577), which incidentally contains a long section on the Order of the Garter.

There is a further link with the Order, whose Chancellor, Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State, who built Hill Hall, Theydon Mount, borrowed long passages from Harrison for his De Republica Anglorum.

If Harrison did not borrow the matrix, is it conceivable that Smith, visiting Radwinter vicarage, dropped it there?

F.G.Emmison.

ALDERSBROOK MANOR, COMMENT. 

Following the mention of the Essex Review in the report on the digging at Aldersbrook mentioned in the last newsletter, we have received a comment from Mr C.H.I. Chown, a Life member of the Society, who was responsible for the original Essex Review article. This we reproduce below:

The finding of the pottery and the wine bottle embossed 'Abraham Frosts 1701', in the recent excavations on the site of Aldersbrook House is naturally the subject of speculation by those interested in the history of this area.

In the early eighteenth century Aldersbrook was the home of Smart Lethieullier, the antiqury, who was born at the Manor House 3 November 1701 and baptised at Little Ilford Church eight days later. In a letter written from Aldersbrook in August 1750 to his friend Charles Lyttleton, afterwards president of the Society of Antiquaries, Lethieullier wrote

'No great weight ought I think to be laid upon the circumstance of the place where any antiquity is found, except concurrent circumstances agree ..... It is very possible a [foreigner] may drop a sael or a coin in my gardens, which by a parity of reasoning induce those who may find it one hundred years hence, to conclude that a [foreigner] was at this time owner of Aldersbrook.'

In view of these near prophetic words, any rash thoughts that the empty wine bottle was possibly part of the family celebrations for Lethieullier's christening should be treated with caution!

Incidentally, the article on Aldersbrook Farm in the Essex Review of 1941, referred to in your report, did not question either of the survey maps of 1723 or 1748, but corrected Lyson's assumption that the Manor House and the Farm House were constructed on the same site

It would be interesting if the West Essex Archaeological Group were able to locate the precise site of Naked Hall Hawe, believed to be the predecessor of Aldersbrook House. The latter was built early in the sixteenth century, but there are references to Naked Hall Hawe two hundred years before this time. Lethieullier's writings mention that, as a boy, he remembered the ruins of foundations of a large building, three hundred yards due South from the Heronry Pond in Wanstead Park. This may well have been the site of Naked Hall. The foundations were destroyed when Sir Richard Child was planting trees round the boundary of his estate in 1715. The level of the ground in the vicinity is said at the time to have been considerably raised.

Editorial note.

Aldersbrook Manor, Comment.

Instruction in archaeological discipline from 1750 is somewhat surprising, and more so because the point made is so perfectly valid. Of course in the present case it is unlikely that the 1701 bottle will be anything more useful than a post quem.

The juxtaposition of this article to that of Dr F.G. Emmison's on the seal at Radwinter, was initially coincidental, but the temptation to leave the articles together was irresistible.