Book Review: The A - Z of Curious Essex, by Paul Wreyford

The A – Z of Curious Essex. Strange stories of mysteries, crimes and eccentrics. Paul Wreyford. The History Press. 2013. ISBN 978 0 7524 8986 5.  160 pages (illustrated). £12.99

Paul Wreyford, by his own admission, writes that that his “is unlikely to have a detrimental effect on your development of your intellect”.  Whilst the book is not highly academic, it is an interesting read.  Set out in alphabetical form by parish, short pieces of just a few paragraphs are each subtitled.  Audley End was “Too grand for a King”; Borley has “The most haunted house in England” and Cressing’s “Mysterious knights were the order of the day”.  This is a book for the magpies of Essex history.  I have previously read about the Colchester earthquake, with its epicentre at Abberton; William Byrd of Stondon Massey; the Zeppelin which was brought down at Great Wigborough during the First World War; William Webb Ellis, the rector of Magdalen Laver, who invested the sport of rugby; and smuggling at Paglesham.  But there was material which was unfamiliar too.  Tom Keating, the art forger is buried at Dedham, the place associated with landscape painter Constable.  Harwich’s misleading lights – the low and high lighthouses – became redundant in 1863 when the river silted up.  Charles Haddon Spurgeon, born at Kelvedon, preached to as many as 6000 at a time.  Sandon became the Gretna Green of Essex during the first half of the seventeenth century: Revd Gilbert Dillingham was willing to marry any couple.  Margaret Allingham is buried at Tolleshunt D’Arcy, a village whose physician, Dr John Henry Salter kept a diary for over 80 years from the early Victorian era.  Enjoyable.  This is a book which will have wide appeal.