Volume I - Little Baddow History Centre

was probably the land later called Willcocks. After her death a writ was taken out by
John Felsted’s executor against William Felsted because he had retained the deeds for
the two properties which the executor had sold to Thomas Oughan.
The next documents concerning Graces manor are the mortgage by Sir John Smyth in
1577 and then its sale in 1591 to Arthur Herrys of Woodham Mortimer. There is a
single court roll of 1612, being the first court held by Sir Henry Mildmay after he had
acquired the manor. In 1621 Sir Henry and his wife, Lady Amy, granted to Daniel
Spradborrow, warrener, “all the warraine of Conneyes and Warraine house with a
Barne and stable tharunto belonginge inclosed within a pale Conteyninge by
estimacion Twenty six Acres more or less called Newlodge or the warraine…”
together with 20 acres of land lying east and north of the warren, abutting on Blakes
wood, and one acre of meadow in Broadmead, for £30 per annum. There was a
covenant to supply up to 18 score couple of coneys and rabbits at 10d. per couple
from March to Midsummer and 14d. from Midsummer to Candlemas. New Lodge is
without record for the following two centuries, but in 1839 Sarah Simmons was
farming there and may have built the brick house near to the earlier timber-framed
ones.
Sir Henry in his will of 1637 mentioned Belmers farm, which he had held since about
1614 from Little Baddow manor, and “Dyers hope”, lately purchased from Richard
Glascocke of Little Baddow. He also mentioned Dales, purchased from Richard, John
and Francis Whitlocke, and two tenements, “Ould Dales”, purchased from John and
Robert Haward. It is likely that the latter tenements were in the Dales green area, and
possible that one of them could have been on the site later occupied by Little Graces,
a seventeenth century cottage much altered, which has no records at all under that
name. The earliest reference to it is in 1811 when John Burchell, aged 65, said that as
a child he had lived as a servant with Mr Fletcher of Little Graces. In the 1830s John
Simmons was tenant, sub-letting it.
After Sir Henry’s death, an “Extente and yearly value” of his estate was drawn up,
which showed that the “Mannor of Graces” with the “Messuages Landes Tenementes
and hereditaments”, “The Chapell called Graces in little Baddow” and the “tithes
oblacions and obvensions” were held of his Majesty by the fourth part of a knight’s
fee and were worth £5 per annum. Belmers, with its lands estimated at 18 acres, was
held of Henry Penninge by “fealtie suite of Court and yearly rent”. Diers hope was
worth annually 2s.6d. (its rent was 1d. per annum). The messuage and 14 acres called
Dales, in the occupation of John Whitlock, were valued at only 2s. a year and the two
messuages “called auncientlie ould Dales” at 3s.4d. No other tenements were
mentioned.
Sketch
Apsfields, probably among the oldest farms in the parish, has almost no
documentation. In 1330 Simon de Apsfeld became sub-tenant of two free messuages,
51 acres of land and 3 acres of meadow, for which he was to render yearly to Thomas
de Apsfeld one rose on the day of the Nativity of St John the Baptist. He paid a
consideration of 20 marks (£13.6.8.) and was to perform all the usual services. He
had paid a tax of 6 and a quarter pennies on his movable goods in 1327. The history
of the tenement is then a blank except that John Brown was living there in 1692 and
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