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Bloody History
Bloody British History: Chelmsford
Before Stonehenge and before the pyramids were built in Egypt, there was a monument at Springfield, Chelmsford, a linear enclosure about 670 metres long and 40 metres wide, rediscovered by aerial reconnaissance only in the 20th century. Exactly what went on at the site is still a mystery, but experts today believe it was a testing place of manhood, a coming-of-age and probably bloody site of rituals with sun and ancestry worship. Woolley mammoths once roamed the area. A jawbone find is proof.
The Romans called the site Caesaromagus and built first a fort, then a mansio there, a staging post, a kind of hotel. The grave of a Roman VIP has been found, accompanied by what seems to have been a shaman or priest.
Sometime before 1277 a Dominican Friary (Black Friars) was founded and a leper hostel was established at Moulsham. They were dissolved again in Henry VIII’s purge of 1538, but a Chelmsford man oversaw the closing of the monasteries and managed to hang on to the local religious sites – the prolific Mildmays dominated Chelmsford life for almost three centuries.
The Black Death struck repeatedly. In 1349 the abbot’s bailiff in Moulsham recorded there were no rents from 31 tenements because tenants were dead. The churchyard lay north of the rivers and it is recorded that vigilantes from Chelmsford stood guard against Moulsham folk trying to bury their plague-dead in hallowed ground.
In the wake of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 King Richard II came with Sir Robert Tresilian and his Bloody Assizes, hanging ‘ten or twelve to a beam’ because there were so many.
Chelmsford’s central position made it the home of the Essex Judiciary from early times and deaths came by beheading, hanging, drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, ‘pressing’…
During the Tudors’ religious upheavals the town saw executions for being Lollard, Protestant and Catholic.
At the infamous Witch trials Matthew Hopkins gave evidence and got his convictions for the most contrived of reasons.
While a Napoleonic invasion was expected at the end of the 18th century, Chelmsford became a garrison town, when the military outnumbered the locals, ale houses sprang up, crimes increased and in overcrowded inns soldiers burnt to death.
In the 19th century resurrectionists operated and many celebrated yet infamous trials took place, followed by hangings in Chelmsford’s Gaol, not least by England’s most prolific hangman who was born in Little Baddow.
1,300 of the 2nd Lord Chelmsford’s troops were massacred in Africa on Lion Mountain while invading the Zulu nation.
Hylands House was turned into a hospital in WWI and in WWII the grounds housed a German Prisoner of War camp. In 1944 Hylands became headquarters for the SAS (Special Air Services).
With its important and innovative factories like that of Marconi’s wireless communications and Hoffmann’s ball bearings, the town also became a target for Hitler’s bombs.
It’s a very pleasant place – or rather City – to visit, even perambulate, but did you know it had such a ‘bloody’ history?
The Romans called the site Caesaromagus and built first a fort, then a mansio there, a staging post, a kind of hotel. The grave of a Roman VIP has been found, accompanied by what seems to have been a shaman or priest.
Sometime before 1277 a Dominican Friary (Black Friars) was founded and a leper hostel was established at Moulsham. They were dissolved again in Henry VIII’s purge of 1538, but a Chelmsford man oversaw the closing of the monasteries and managed to hang on to the local religious sites – the prolific Mildmays dominated Chelmsford life for almost three centuries.
The Black Death struck repeatedly. In 1349 the abbot’s bailiff in Moulsham recorded there were no rents from 31 tenements because tenants were dead. The churchyard lay north of the rivers and it is recorded that vigilantes from Chelmsford stood guard against Moulsham folk trying to bury their plague-dead in hallowed ground.
In the wake of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 King Richard II came with Sir Robert Tresilian and his Bloody Assizes, hanging ‘ten or twelve to a beam’ because there were so many.
Chelmsford’s central position made it the home of the Essex Judiciary from early times and deaths came by beheading, hanging, drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, ‘pressing’…
During the Tudors’ religious upheavals the town saw executions for being Lollard, Protestant and Catholic.
At the infamous Witch trials Matthew Hopkins gave evidence and got his convictions for the most contrived of reasons.
While a Napoleonic invasion was expected at the end of the 18th century, Chelmsford became a garrison town, when the military outnumbered the locals, ale houses sprang up, crimes increased and in overcrowded inns soldiers burnt to death.
In the 19th century resurrectionists operated and many celebrated yet infamous trials took place, followed by hangings in Chelmsford’s Gaol, not least by England’s most prolific hangman who was born in Little Baddow.
1,300 of the 2nd Lord Chelmsford’s troops were massacred in Africa on Lion Mountain while invading the Zulu nation.
Hylands House was turned into a hospital in WWI and in WWII the grounds housed a German Prisoner of War camp. In 1944 Hylands became headquarters for the SAS (Special Air Services).
With its important and innovative factories like that of Marconi’s wireless communications and Hoffmann’s ball bearings, the town also became a target for Hitler’s bombs.
It’s a very pleasant place – or rather City – to visit, even perambulate, but did you know it had such a ‘bloody’ history?
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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