Volume I - Little Baddow History Centre

een where John Levitt was living in 1672 (if not at Cuckoos) when he paid tax on 8
hearths. He died the same year and “Fillows als. Philoley” passed to his heir, John
Bastwick, who alienated it 3 years later to Colonel Mildmay. The rent was still 5s.
and the relief on entry also 5s. In the 1770s it was being farmed by Thomas
Harrington, together with parts of the lands of Bubbs and Rees. Forty years later Sir
Brooke Bridges was sub-letting all this property to Thomas Baker.
Bubbs was presumably named for the family of Bubbe, the last of whom seems to
have been John Bubbe who was dead by 1496, leaving a widow named Sibella. In
1451 however John Tenderyng held the tenement, and later Johanna (of Joan)
Bastwick lived there. She left it on her death in 1490 to her son-in-law, Walter
Multon, according to the terms of her late husband’s will; her son, John Bastwick,
was not to claim it. It consisted of a freehold messuage, garden, orchard, three crofts
of land containing 10 acres and 4 acres of meadow, for an annual rent of 3s.8d. The
1620 rental gave Widow Sorell as occupier, and in 1662 Henry Mildmay acquired it
from William Sorrell. It continued to be held by Graces manor; in 1811 Sir Brooke
Bridges was the tenant, at 3s.4d. a year. Probably by this time the house had been
demolished. In the 1620 rental two fields, called Cloggers and Rushe pytell, and
containing 9 acres of land, were reported to be part of Bubbs “as the tenantes
enforme” and a rent of 6d. was charged for them, Richard Bristowe being the tenant.
They were almost surrounded by land belonging to Cuckoos and within a few years
were included in that tenement. On them may have been the site of “Bubbesgrove”
mentioned in two fifteenth century documents.
Rees, next to Bubbs on “the higheway from Haggastrete to Boreham”, possibly
belonged to Adam atte Ree (meaning “at the stream”) in 1327. In 1497 Margaret
Fuller, widow, was in occupation. It consisted in 1620 of 29 acres (some of it near
the Parsonage land), the freehold messuage and orchard and 2 and a half acres of
meadow in Langmead, at a rent of 7s. The tenant then was Mathias Rudd; his
grandson, Matthew, sold Rees to Robert Hungerford, who at the 1675 court paid a
relief of 3s.8d. for his entry. It was in the occupation of Widow Hunt who had paid
tax for 3 hearths. In 1777 Thomas Harrington of Filiols farmed part of both Bubbs
and Rees, and in 1811 Sir Brook Bridges was holding Rees at 3s.8d. a year. The
house was demolished at an unknown date.
Map
The early history of Cuckoos, a freehold tenement sited beside a stream and pond, is
lacking. It is supposedly named for Walter Cukkok of Rivenhall, but this is unlikely
as he received half a messuage and 16 acres of land in 1369 but immediately
transferred them to John Botere of Little Baddow. The tenement however was called
Cukkoks in 1509. John Porter held “Cuckowes” in 1620 at a rent of 2s.7d. It was
soon after in the hands of John Levitt, who also acquired the lands called Cloggers
and Rushe pightle from Richard Bristowe in about 1637, when the rent went up to
3s.1d. It was at Cuckoos, according to tradition, that Thomas Hooker and John Eliot,
two Nonconformist ministers, conducted a school in 1630/1. The present house was
built during that century, and on the 1677 map is depicted as a fairly large house, with
3 chimney stacks, so perhaps it was where John Levitt was living in 1672 when he
paid tax on 8 hearths. John Bastwick inherited the property and in 1688 sold it to
Colonel Mildmay. In 1677, however, and probably earlier, Cuckoos was in the
occupation of Isaac Putto, son-in-law of the Nonconformist minister, Richard Rand,
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