5. 19th Century – A Desirable Address

The Victorians and the Edwardians

The nineteenth century saw Colchester experience further change. Although it remained an important market town for the surrounding rural area, there were economic and social developments which would alter the profile of the town and by 1901 the major sources of employment were the engineering and building sectors, along with transportation of all kinds. These had gradually built up during the C19th, eventually replacing the activities connected to the more traditional trades. For example, business at Grey Friars’ owner Stephen Brown’s silk factory (built 1824) steadily declined, ceasing by 1881, and its buildings were eventually converted by Truslove’s to make steam pumps.

There were major social repercussions to the coming of the garrison in the mid C19th, whose arrival both enriched and challenged the community. Many activities (social, artistic, sporting for example) were enhanced by the presence of all ranks within the military, but there was also drunken and disorderly behaviour and an increase in destitution due to problems with the authorisation process for wives and families to benefit from soldiers’ rations.

The development of foundries, engineering firms, quarrying, printing and transport, along with building to cater for the increasing population, was altering the environment. By contrast, this all served to enhance the reputation of the area around Grey Friars as a quiet and fashionable part of town. Although Colchester was not subject to the extremes of social and health problems experienced in the cities (probably due to its slow expansion coupled with its capacity for expansion outwards to accommodate growth) there was inevitably social segregation to some degree.

The leaders of Colchester society in the 19th century included various branches of Grey Friars’ neighbours the Rounds of East Hill House and Hollytrees (they also owned the Castle and Birch Hall) who ranked with the Papillons of Lexden Manor and the Rebows of Wivenhoe Park. Alongside these locally and nationally powerful dynasties, there were other leading families active in the professions such as doctors, surgeons, clerics and high-ranking officers in the forces. Grey Friars housed examples of all of these.

The town’s prominent families held on to the more desirable areas such as this site and the owners and occupiers of Grey Friars continued to enjoy a privileged life, exemplified by the print below, showing the view of Grey Friars’ ‘garden front’ across the extensive and well-tended lawns.

  Print – ERO

It has been suggested that the governors of the Colchester Royal Grammar School considered the Grey Friars site when looking to relocate from their deteriorating premises in the C19th. There is an earlier connection between ‘the land of the Grey Friars’ and this institution through a reference in Colchester Grammar School documents of circa 1540, still to be clarified.

Thomas Baskerfield   Circa 1814 Rev Halls’ nephew and heir, James, sold Grey Friars to Thomas Baskerfield (1751-1816) who was a cartographer and topographical artist. Many of his maps are held in the British Library. In 1817 the property was willed to Baskerfield’s wife Sophia with his executor Horatio Cock and heirs. In 1824 Priory Field (below the formal gardens) was leased to trustees of the Colchester and Essex Botanical and Horticultural Society. In 1849 the heirs of Horatio Cock sold the main part of the property (the house, Grey Friars, and its gardens) whilst retaining ownership of the land containing the Botanic Garden.

Roper’s map of 1810 (below) shows a very neatly landscaped area between the house and the town wall to the north. We cannot be sure how accurate this was, especially as he (in common with others) has an incorrect name for the order of friars from which the site takes its name. (Crutched Friars, also known as crouched or crossed, carried a staff with a cross/crucifix on it.)

C19th  Botanic Gardens   In 1823 the Colchester and Essex Botanical and Horticultural Society was formed and plans were made to establish a facility on 8½ acres of the former friary land, behind the Grey Friars house, leased for 21 years with an option to purchase during that period. Monson’s 1848 map (below) shows the site with the Botanic Gardens in situ. Although only showing the main features (pond, perimeter walks, curator’s cottage and the entrance path) it gives a clear picture of the extent of the undertaking and how it dwarfs the residential part of the site. It also demonstrates how the top of East Hill and the eastern end of High Street are often confused.

Thomas Cromwell’s “History and Description of the Ancient Town and Borough of Colchester, in Essex” (1826) states that “the peculiar feature” of the Colchester and Essex Botanical and Horticultural Society’s plan “is the union of a Nursery with a Botanical Garden, through which it is calculated that, in a few years, the profits arising from the former will be fully adequate to the expenses of the latter; when, in consequence, the annual contribution of the proprietors will be no longer required”.  He also remarks very positively on the area’s desirability: “The situation is beautiful, commanding a view of the surrounding country at once varied and extensive; while it is of interest to many, that the ancient wall of the town forms its northern and eastern boundaries.”

On plans of circa 1847, the boundary of Grey Friars house and garden depicted differs from today’s northern wall position. As the same convoluted line appears on the original plan for developing Roman and Castle roads this shows that the owner of Grey Friars re-purchased one or more of the lots to square-off his land holding to bring the grounds to their present, almost rectangular, shape.

A great deal of effort went into the planning and operation of the Botanic Gardens venture. The aims of the Botanical Society were to set out collections of all classes of plants with a classified arrangement for the use of students of botany. Plants would be labelled in English and Latin and it would include fruit trees, shrubs, forest trees and aquatic plants. Cartographical evidence suggests that the large pond in the upper eastern section of the plan of the Botanic Gardens was probably constructed by joining together two original friary fish ponds. Cromwell wrote enthusiastically in 1826: “Considering the limited period that has elapsed since the occupation of this spot, great progress has been made … It should be mentioned also that there is a fine piece of water, well adapted to the cultivation of aquatic plants … the walks around which are already in a state of great forwardness, and tastefully disposed. The list of officers will shew that this institution has been highly patronised, and its designs taken up with great spirit; though, like most infant societies, it will require both encouragement and perseverance, ere it can attain its ultimate objects.” Certainly much was done in an attempt to make a success of the venture. An 1840 newspaper reports a meeting of the committee where they record gifts such as Rev Holmes of Copford’s donation of an assortment of seeds from the Sandwich Islands, commenting “We trust that their example will be followed by others of the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood, who may possess specimens of curious and rare plants.” The committee did its best to encourage use of the gardens. The hours were long (6am to 9pm at peak, although shut on Sundays during Divine Service) and the entrance fee of 2/6d., although very expensive, was refundable if 10/- was spent in the shop.

Attractions included balloon ascents, one recorded in William Wire’s diary for May 17th 1848: “Mr Green, the celebrated aeronaut, ascended in his balloon from the Botanic Garden about half past three o’clock p.m., and a splendid sight it was, the wind blowing from the south-west with a gentle breeze by which he was wafted gradually to the opposite point of the compass for a short distance, when he began to ascend gradually and was carried to Diss in Norfolk where he descended between five and six o’clock in the evening … What added to the splendour of the sight  was a clear sun, shiny day.”

More references to the Botanic Garden, together with further illustrations, appear in chapter 4 of part 2 of this book.

By 1851, however, the project had failed to reach its potential, there being too few subscribers. The gardens closed and the land was prepared for sale. The National Freehold Land Society, affiliated to the Liberal party, bought them. Small plots were laid out by T. Morland and C. Wilkinson. Seventy-two lots were bought by builders, craftsmen, merchants, and a few gentlemen. Forty-one were from Colchester, the rest from the London area. The names Castle and Roman Roads were not finally decided upon for ten years and not all of the plots were developed immediately, some being dormant for around forty years. In the 1860s Morland and Wilkinson laid out another small estate west of North Station Road just south of the Eastern Counties asylum consisting of Belle Vue, Colne Bank, and Essex Hall roads

During the original groundworks for the new houses and roads in 1852 some Roman archaeology was uncovered and subsequent work on alterations and extensions (even ordinary gardening activities) has also produced a variety of finds (some are described in chapter 7 of this book).

The original 1852 plan of plots shows the proposed, but not implemented, north and south road names Garden Terrace and Rose Terrace. The four plots to the south of “Rose Terrace” (now part of Castle Road) are now incorporated within the boundary of the current Grey Friars complex.

The 1851 original sale was arranged in more than 20 lots, but was eventually bought en bloc by the National Freehold Land Society which later became the Abbey National Building Society.

Roman Road and Castle Road    The development of the land which was once the Botanic Gardens, previously known as Priory Fields, has resulted in some very attractive residential streets, still a sought-after location.

Quaker Burial Ground   By the 1850s the Society of Friends (Quakers) were running out of burial space, so they purchased the four plots on the north-east corner of the site. They used three for burials and reserved one for a cottage, which was never built. They let the plot as a garden, then sold it in 1959. At another time, they bought a further space within the north-east wall and incorporated it with planting and landscaping.

The remains of the core of the Roman / Medieval town wall, forming the north boundary of the Quaker Burial Ground (top right) and the north-east corner of the original Grey Friars site from circa 1230s to the closure of the Botanical Gardens in the 1850s – photograph courtesy www.camulos.com

Rev. John Robert Smythies              This occupant is mentioned in the auction notice issued by Shuttleworth and Sons as being in tenancy at Grey Friars until Michaelmas (September 29th) 1848. The Smythies family genealogy website describes him as: “Rev John Robert Smythies B.A. of Grey Friars House, Colchester, and Lynch Court, co. Hereford, Rector of St. Mary Magdalene’s, Colchester, etc. Private Chaplain to H.R.H. The Duke of Sussex. One of the founders of the Royal Agricultural Society. b. 1778 – d. 1852” The portrait is annotated: “From the Miniature in possession of Miss Mary Peachey.”

      www.smythies.com

Rev Smythies (above) must certainly have been of strong character. He was involved in some controversy in a debate concerning agricultural matters circa 1823, during which he is reported (www.historyofparliamentonline.org) to have denounced William Cobbett as an “itinerant political tinker”. Cobbett (of ‘Rural Rides’ fame) was a popular journalist, by reputation powerful yet incorruptible, deeply conservative yet keen to embrace advanced political ideas. To some he was a champion of traditional rural England. Smythies was therefore taking on a formidable opponent.

Smythies is mentioned in White’s Directory of 1848 as being ‘the incumbent of St Mary Magdelen’. It appears that along with this role went some considerable responsibility for a hospital, where it was decreed, after being re-founded by King James I in 1610, “There were to be in it a master, who was to have the cure of souls in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen and to celebrate divine service and preach and administer the sacraments, and five poor persons, each of whom was to receive 52 shillings (£2 12s 0d) yearly at the hands of the master.” Successive masters of the hospital viewed this payment to the poor as a fixed sum, and that subject to this payment totalling £13, they were otherwise entitled to keep the whole of the hospital’s income. To test this, in 1831, the Attorney General filed an action against the Rev. Smythies, who was then master, and the Master of the Rolls declared that the hospital’s master was not thus entitled, and that the profit made by the agreement with the Board of Ordnance was to be considered the property of the charity, with the master entitled to the interest. Rev. Smythies appealed to the Lord Chancellor, who in 1833 reversed some aspects, the effect of which was to uphold the right of the master to all revenue subject to the yearly alms payment. The old hospital having become dilapidated, it had been pulled down about six years before this decree, and Mr. Smythies had erected on its site six tenements under one roof, adjoining the churchyard of the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, each containing two rooms. One was unoccupied, and the other five were inhabited by five poor widows, to each of whom the master paid the statutory 52 shillings annually. The site, in Brook Street, has a fascinating history and is the subject of an extensive report by the Colchester Archaeological Trust.

Stephen Brown   This notable Grey Friars resident was a silk throwster and magistrate. Born 1800, at WIvenhoe Hall, he married Fanny in 1833. He secured the house from the family of Horation Cock in 1849 and by a series of conveyances and covenants between 1849 and 1853, he obtained various ‘lots’ of the broken-up estate from four other owners, including Mr Thos. Green and Mr and Mrs Atkins, and the developers Messrs. Morland and Wilkinson. This eventually resulted in the basic extent of the present site, within the tall red-brick walls, we now know as Grey Friars.

The census of 1851 shows Stephen (aged 51) living at Grey Friars with his wife Fanny (39), daughters Fanny (17), Martha (15), Anna Victoria (12), Amelia (8), Julia (3) and son Richard (6). There were also five servants: John Catt (a footman), Frances Jones (Nurse), both of Wivenhoe, Lucy Harvey (cook) of Dovercourt and two maids, Anne Gage of Colchester and Harriet Sparrow of Layer Marney. There were different staff listed in 1861. Of the family, Stephen, Fanny and Amelia are listed along with Alice J (13) and Isabella (7). Only Isabella was born at Grey Friars and she also died there in 1869 aged 15. She is buried with her parents at St Mary at the Wall.are listed along with Alice J (13) and Isabella (7). Only Isabella was born at Grey Friars and she also died there in 1869 aged 15. She is buried with her parents at St Mary at the Wall.

Brown was one of the last silk manufacturers in Colchester, with a four-storied factory near the river in what is now St. Peter’s Street. This road is interesting for its varied names. Previously it was: (possibly) Fowles Lane, 1330; Dead Lane, 1702, becoming Factory Lane, 1851, after Brown and Moy’s silk factory. The precarious nature of Brown’s business is referred to in William Wire’s diary, February 1843: “Several men were discharged from the silk factory of Brown and Moy, and it is closed two days a week in consequence of the depression of the silk trade.” The factory ceased in 1881.

He also owned a mill in Hadleigh (Suffolk) until about 1853, which had its own gas works and for some time supplied gas to the town. He is reputed to have designed a gas meter, fitted as a trial in Grey Friars, eventually being taken by the erstwhile ‘Gas Board’ and placed in their museum. Unfortunately, efforts to trace this post-privatisation have failed.

The Brown family would have seen the balloon ascents from the Botanical Gardens in 1851 and witnessed their decline and sale for building land.

A subsequent newspaper report of the event details the ‘disappointing’ turnout of only about 1500, supposing that it was due to a combination of the weather and lack of novelty due to previous ascents. The evening entertainment, “a brilliant display of fireworks by Mr Gyngell the celebrated pyrotechnist” was more successful.

Following the Brown family, there was a succession occupants, variously tenants and owners.

Captain Fitzroy Wilson        The Post Office Directory of Essex, 1874, shows Captain Wilson as resident at ‘Grey friars, East Hill’ (sic). With not even the Post Office getting the address correct, this illustrates one of the pitfalls in tracing occupancy of premises throughout history. ‘Greyfriars’, ‘81 High Street’, and simply ‘High Street’ (with no indication of precise location) have been versions of the address used in various listings.

Major General Radcliffe      The 1881 census shows Grey Friars occupied by 58 year old Radcliffe, his wife (48), son aged 7 and five servants, including a butler, an ‘army pensioner’ aged 49. No people listed have local origins.

Rev Canon John Howard Marsden             This distinguished and learned gentleman was born in Wigan in 1803 and educated at Manchester Grammar School and St John’s College, Cambridge. He was variously a professor of archaeology at Cambridge, Rural Dean of Harwich, and the writer of various religious, antiquarian and archaeological papers.

  Rev Canon Marsden

Lt Colonel William Marsden                       The census of 1891 records occupation by the son of Rev JH Marsden. It shows William Howard Marsden (49, retired from the army), Katherine his wife (32) children William (16), Audrey (15), Wilfred (12), a boarder (a governess from Germany) and five servants, (cook, schoolroom maid, parlour maid, housemaid and kitchen maid) three of whom were local. Shortly afterwards, the house was sold to Dr EL Fenn.

Edward Liveing Fenn MD       In 1891 the “Trustees of the Will of the late Rev. J.H.Marsden” conveyed Grey Friars to Dr Fenn, who, due to ill health, was moving to the cleaner air of Colchester from Richmond, Surrey. Dr Fenn had practiced in Richmond for twenty years and was consulting physician to the Royal Richmond Hospital. His first wife Katharine died aged 35 from “chronic inflammation of the lungs”. In 1892 he married Edith Todd.

Grey Friars between 1891 and 1903. Images and information in this section courtesy of Fenn family archive:  www.thekingscandlesticks.com

Adria Margaret Fenn, born in 1895 to Dr Fenn’s second wife, during the family’s time at Grey Friars, wrote in 1962, aged 67: “Father’s health not being very good, he resigned from his practice in Richmond soon after his second marriage and went to live at Grey Friars, Colchester. He became consulting physician at Colchester Hospital. I was a very small child at the Colchester house, but I well remember the happy home atmosphere there, with parents devoted to one another, five good-natured big brothers, and ‘Beau’ a year older than myself to share our nursery. At Colchester, and at Nayland, he organised Shakespeare readings amongst his friends and relations. He was a good amateur actor and recited very well, and loved to recite from the Suffolk Ballads”. Adria is pictured above in her early childhood, outside the bay window in the ‘garden front’, with Edward, born in Grey Friars 1894, sadly dying young, as a Lieutenant, in action in Palestine in September 1918.

Letters in the family archive give a glimpse of Colchester gentry’s Victorian/Edwardian life. In May 1895, Fenn wrote to his son from his desk at Grey Friars: “… I drove Edgar over to Dedham last Friday in the dogcart and we had tea with Aunt Annie. It was very dusty and windy on the road. As I am writing now in the study the clouds of dust continue to roll by, we very much want some beautiful showers of rain to lay the dust and make the vegetables grow …”      November 1896: “We had our Shakespeare reading party last Thursday the arrangements much the same as we had two years ago. The bow window in the drawing room a bank of flowers for the stage, tea in the study, and supper in the dining room. Everyone said it was a brilliant evening so we were repaid for our trouble.” It is still possible to sit in the Grey Friars garden room and imagine this gathering.

This extract from a letter of July 1897 to Ernest Vanderzee (aged 17) in both parents’ hands (Dr Fenn – ‘Father’ and stepmother Edith – ‘Mater’) gives further insight into family and social life at Grey Friars in the late 1800s. One can picture the scene: “This Thursday we had a garden party – about 35 or 40 people – croquet … … ices – & strawberries were the chief attraction with two exceptions – viz Bo & Chick who appeared in white from head to foot – and were much admired.”

‘Bo’ is Edward Gerald Palmer, aged nearly 3 years at the time and ‘Chick’ is Adria Margaret, aged nearly 2 years. Ernest Vanderzee (‘Van’) spent a great deal of time away from home at school and university, then, as Rev. E.V. Fenn, joined his brother in New Zealand.

The extensive gardens (even after the loss of many acres in 1824) were clearly a major feature of family life at Grey Friars. Whether used for social gatherings (as referred to in the letter), as a safe playground for the children, or for quiet solitude and contemplation by the adults, they must have been much-loved by the families occupying the premises over the years.

Harold Fenn (pictured below) wrote from Grey Friars to his brother in February 1897, aged 20: “I like my life at Paxmans very much my daily routine is this I get up at about five or ten to six, begin work at half past, leave off at 8.20 come home for breakfast … begin again at 9 go on till 1pm and then from 2 till 5.30pm, so I have a good long day of it. I have got a nice bicycle. Lately I have purchased a cyclometer … Since the beginning of last week up until now I have been 71 miles. When you come home I will take you round the works and show you the molten iron, furnaces etc. Harold L.Fenn PW (Paxmans workman)”. Dr Fenn had five sons by his first marriage and, after remarrying, a further son and two daughters, one of whom died aged 6 months. Harold became a mechanical and electrical engineer after training at Davey Paxman and Christy Brothers and Middleton of Chelmsford, one of the pioneers of electrification in the early C20th. He was responsible for installation of steam turbine driven electrical generating plants. For health reasons he emigrated to New Zealand in 1906, a wise move because he lived to be 91. It is his son from whom we have the pictures and information.

   

Dr Fenn (left) and his son, Harold Liveing Fenn (visiting Grey Friars circa 1900) and Edward and Adria, born whilst the family were at Grey Friars

The 1901 census shows Grey Friars (as 81 High Street) occupied by Edward, a physician/surgeon aged 57, Edith, his wife aged 43, son Edward G.P. (6), daughter Adrea M. (5) and four servants, Florence Kettle (parlour maid), Edith Lovett (housemaid), Sarah Vyce (cook), Amy Blount (nurse). This was the last family to live at Grey Friars as their home and it is from them that we have the most evocative view of family life on the site in the early C20th. They lived there for twelve years.

Dr Fenn eventually inherited and enthusiastically restored grade 1 Elizabethan property “Grooms”, later re-named Alston Court, Nayland in 1902, leaving Grey Friars in 1903 to live there. Among legal papers left by his uncle and aunt he found a document signed by Dr Gilberd, which he presented to the Town Council who hung it near to his portrait in the Moot Hall. William Gilberd, born in Colchester, became physician to Elizabeth I and in his spare time he conducted experiments in magnetism and static electricity, famously publishing his findings.

In February 1903 Grey Friars was sold to ‘Madame A. Herbert and Others’ on behalf of The Ladies of Nazareth, and a convent with school was established, thus beginning over 100 years of educational activity on the site.

When Dr Fenn died in 1907, aged 64, obituaries appeared in many prestigious publications including the British Medical Journal. They celebrated a significant life of achievement professionally, socially and in the community, lived to the full by “a very fine type of man … unquestionably an honour to his profession … a dignified gentleman … universally beloved and esteemed by all who came into contact with him”.

 HillcresGrey Friars as sold in 1903

East end of High Street and the crest of East Hill in 1903 before the convent school extensions of 1904. Grey Friars is partially hidden by the enormous tree in the western side garden between Grey Friars and Hillcrest. The coach house and stable block to the east has now been replaced by the school’s east wing. The building beyond the stable block is the rather unsympathetic side extension to All Saints House. (Detail from a photograph by Alfred Wire, courtesy Vestry House Museum, London Borough of Waltham Forest ©)

 

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This section contains only a sample of the results of our research. For further details and more illustrations see the printed book or search the additional resources on this site.