THE HISTORY OF SILVER END
By David Nash

Silver End and the 17th Century - or how I co-operated with Oliver Cromwell!

The LANHAMS 'TRIANGLE' was once a detached part of old Rivenhall parish. Miss Sophia Keble was a spinster and Rivenhall burial register shows her being buried in 1880, aged 63, from "Silver End near the Windmill." Now the windmill was at Withers Green, and Thomas Keble Snr. was miller there in the 1870s; his son Thomas Jnr. was there in the 1880s. You can still make out where the old mill once stood. It is strange when you think that Thomas Tusser, our homespun Tudor poet, was very possibly born near here, since we know that his father farmed in the Lanhams 'triangle'. That would mean that "Tusser Close" would be more appropriately sited in Cressing than down in Rivenhall! Tusser had written that his birthplace, in Rivenhall, was by Banktree side (i.e. Braintree).Are we meant to assume that he might have been born otherwise in Rivenhall - by Witham side? "But this Lanhams 'triangle' is not in Silver End", I can picture you saying. Quite right; but time has played tricks with our local geography; and with the ecclesiastical boundaries I found myself in full agreement with Oliver Cromwell's men.

Oliver Cromwell's Commissioners for the 1650 Parochial Inquisition stated "There are six farms lying near three miles from (Rivenhall) church and are fit to be joined with Cressing parish, being distant from the parish church of Cressing about half a mile." (In the report for Cressing they said much the same except they said only "five farms".) In the last 20 years of the 19th century, the 'triangle' was, in fact, transferred to Cressing for civil purposes, by a local government boundary order, but for certain church matters it was left to me to do what Cromwell's people suggested. Up until then, people living in the 'triangle' who wanted baptisms, wedding banns, weddings or burials all came under Rivenhall parish. Cromwell's puritans, incidentally, had births written in the registers rather than baptisms.

The SWAP: One day in the 1970s a jovial neighbouring priest said "David, It's quite OK for you to go on visiting people in my Cressing parish." "What are you on about? I don't visit in Cressing ", I said. "Oh yes you do" said he. "The Marconi factory on the airfield is actually a detached part of Cressing parish!" And so he swapped the airfield area with me for the Lanhams 'triangle' but it all had to be approved in London. It made much more sense to have Sheepcotes Farm in our parish.

So now we have a better idea of where Silver End really was? Not yet, for the name appears to have been a later development. There are two sources which we now consult for the 18th century: (a) Philip Morant's 1768 History of Essex. This deals with two manors in our Silver End area: "Lanehams" and "Bourchiers Hall" They both come under "Rivenhall" and there is no mention of Silver End. (b) Chapman & Andre''s Map of Essex, 1777 Again, there is no mention of Silver End, but Chote's Green, Egypt Farm, Rolf's Farm, Boars Tye Green and Sheep-cote are marked. It is probable that 'Boars Tye' was the area's general name at that time. Emma Upson, who was born at Boars Tye Farm in 1895 certainly spoke to me of a time when the farm had its own existence over against the "original Silver End." She said it was the settlement by the 'Western Arms.'

The first recorded mention of Silver End that I've been able to find over the last 30 years, is in Pigot's 1839 Essex Directory. Please tell me if you find one earlier. To be continued.

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