Hadleigh Castle and Strangman's Place

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Hadleigh Castle

Constable, "Hadleigh Castle, The Mouth of the Thames – Morning after a Stormy Night"

Hadleigh Castle overlooks the Thames Estuary near the village of Hadleigh in Essex. It was built by Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, between 1215 and 1239, when it was taken into royal hands, and was substantially redeveloped by Edward III in the 1360s. It was sold in 1551 and largely demolished by 1575. The remains of the castle can still be visited today.^[1]

The painter John Constable visited Hadleigh in 1814 and produced a painting of the picturesque ruin in 1829.^[1]

The Castle and the Strangmans

The Strangmans were an ancient land-owning Essex family that claimed descent from William Peregrinus, a contemporary of William the Conqueror. Members of the family lived in the parish of Hadleigh from the 14th century until they died out in the area around the middle of the 17th century.

Various sources associate the Strangmans with Hadleigh Castle or Hadleigh Ad Castrum, beginning as early as 1558, when their pedigree in the Visitations of Essex called them the Strangmans of "Hadley Castell".^[2] Some have concluded that the Strangmans owned Hadleigh Castle or at least resided there. For example, Amy Barrington, in her Strangman Pedigree, states "The residence of the English Strangmans was Hadleigh Castle, of the ruins of which an illustration is given."^[3] Barrington appears to base this assertion on the description of Hadleigh Castle and the Strangman family in Philip Morant's History and Antiquities of the County of Essex.^[3]

Hadleigh Castle as it may have appeared in 1370.

In fact, however, Morant never claims that the Strangmans owned or resided in Hadleigh Castle. In his description of the parish of "Hadley", he gives a history of the Castle from its construction by Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent in the reign of Henry III. The castle was seized by the Crown in 1232 and thereafter, was held on life tenures by various relatives of the King and other important persons. From 1299, it was held in succession by Queen Margaret; Roger de Estwyke; Aubrey de Vere, the 10th Earl of Oxford; Edmund Plantagenet, Duke of York; Edmund of Hadham, Earl of Richmond and brother of Henry VI; and Lady Anne of Cleve, forsaken queen of Henry VIII. Then in 1551 the Castle and surrounding lands were given away in perpetuity to the Riche family.^[4] Lord Riche dismantled the castle for the value of its stone, primarily between 1551 and 1575, and the castle, now thoroughly ruined, passed through Riche's descendants.^[5]

Morant records that:

In 1551, K. Edward VI gave the Maner and Park of Hadleigh ad Caftrum -, and the farm there called Hadleigh, with a feparate Fifhery, and the Advowfon of the Church, to Richard Lord Riche, and his heirs ; To hold by the 40th part of a knight’s fee. And, in 1553, he got from the fame King the following Marfhes in this parifh, Les Fleets, Rulhhalls or the Priors-marfh, and Clerkenwike or the Abbots marfh ; and all other meffuages, lands, &c. in the tenure of Edward Strangman ; to hold in focage.^[4][6]

This is the first time Morant mentions the Strangmans in relation to Hadleigh parish. Morant goes on to provide an overview of the Strangman family, which begins as follows: "Here formerly refided a Family of good account, furnamed Strangman. They had lands in this parifh, and maners at Paglefham, Hawkf- well, and other parts of this County."^[4] In short, the Strangmans were a respectable family of gentleman farmers who owned property in the Hadleigh area and leased other lands from the royal (and later Lord Riche's) estate, but they certainly did not own Hadleigh Castle, and there is no reason to believe that they ever resided there. They were the "Strangmans of Hadley Castell" only in the sense that they were tenants on the Hadleigh Castle estate.

It also needs to be understood that "Hadleigh Ad Castrum" referred to the castle estate rather than the castle itself. The name literally means "Hadleigh to the Castle", but might be better translated as "Hadleigh of the Castle" or "Hadleigh at the Castle".^[7] The descriptor "Ad Castrum" was a useful way to differentiate this Hadleigh from the parish and market town of the same name in South Suffolk.

Strangman's Place

The Strangman lands in Hadleigh included, at various times, the Blossoms Farm estate, Sayers Farm (known then as Stockwoods and later sold to the Kirton family in c.1640) , Gt. Nashes (in Daws Heath) as well as Russells Marsh below the Castle (later owned by the Wood family).^[8] They also owned a manor house, Strangman's Place (also called 'Pollington's'), on the northern side of the common, which may date back to the 14th-century and was referred to in Norden’s 1549 Historical and Chorographical Survey of Essex.^[9][10] It was on the site currently occupied by Solby's. Strangman's Place should not be confused with Hadleigh Hall, the manor of the royal estate, which was located closer to the centre of the village near the church.^[11]

Reconstructed map of medieval Hadleigh.

At this time, Strangman’s Place looked across the common towards the church and village and beyond to the Thames estuary. Much of the surrounding land was either woodland or pasture. Their house may have been moated. The road to the village church was little more than a track for their horse and carriage. In the opposite direction the unmade road led to the heath, now Daws Heath Road, and their land at Gt. Nashes.^[8]

Strangman’s Place was imagined by the Rev’d. William Heygate in 1857 in his novel Sir Henry Appleton:

The Strangman family had lived there from the reign of Edward the Third. They possessed woods and lands for many parishes around, and the best families in the neighbourhood had considered it to be an honour to be connected with them by marriage. The stranger who decided to visit them had to cross a deep moat by a bridge which was cut off by a gate-house, of the same style and material as the mansion itself.... Then a courtyard met the eye and a long front of low gables with timbers laid close to each other, in various patterns, fringed by barge boards of exquisite design and variety.... The windows were low, with oak mullions and the door was low also. One end of the building however -- the West -- was, from some strange fancy, built of another material. The ragstone of Kent had been brought over the water and a noble room was erected with open oak roof, and pointed windows of a date only some twenty years later than the rest of the building, with a glorious bay window at one end, filled with stained glass.^[12]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Wikipedia contributors, "Hadleigh Castle," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hadleigh_Castle&oldid=1088339285 (accessed December 4, 2022).
2. ↑ Metcalfe, Walter C, The visitations of Essex by Hawley, 1552; Hervey, 1558; Cooke, 1570; Raven, 1612; and Owen and Lilly, 1634 : to which are added miscellaneous Essex pedigrees from various Harleian manuscripts, and an appendix containing Berry's Essex pedigrees v.13 p. 103 (see also p,292)[1].
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Barrington, A., The Strangman Pedigree, in "The Barringtons: A Family History", Dublin, Ponsonby and Gibbs, 1917, pp 257. (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/115847?availability=Family%20History%20Library : accessed 25 November 2022)
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2} Morant, Philip. The history and antiquities of the County of Essex. Compiled from the best and most ancient historians; from Domesday-book, Inquisitiones post mortem, and other the most valuable records and mss. &c., the whole digested, improved, perfected, and brought down to the present time. Vol. 1, 1768. p.279-280[2]
5. ↑ Magnus Alexander & Susan Westlake (2009) Hadleigh Castle, Essex, English Heritage Historical Review, 4:1, 4-21, DOI: 10.1179/175201609799838429
6. ↑ 'Socage' is a form of tenure which included a requirement to pay a fixed rent along with other semi-feudal obligations: Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769). Of the Modern English Tenures. Book 2, Chapter 6. (https://lonang.com/library/reference/blackstone-commentaries-law-england/bla-206/ : accessed 3 December 2022)
7. ↑ See for example: The National Archives Catalogue Description, "Will of Margaret Strangman, Widow of Hadleigh at the Castle, Essex"(https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D958847 : accessed 4 December 2022)
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Hadleigh History, website (https://www.hadleighhistory.org.uk/content/main-subjects/people/the-strangman-family-of-hadleigh-in-essex : accessed 8 Jan 2020)
9. ↑ Philip Benton, The History of Rochford Hundred ...: From Former Authors, Ancient Manuscripts and Church Registers, Treating Upon Various Subjects, Including Notices of Churches and Chapels, the Clergy, Biography and Genealogy of Families ... and ... Other Matters. A. Harrington, 1867. p.237[3]
10. ↑ John Norden, Speculi Britanniae Pars: An Historical and Chorographical Description of the County of Essex, 1594. Camden Society, 1840. p.40[4]
11. ↑ Rippon, Stephen, "The Rayleigh Hills in south-east Essex: patterns in exploitation of a woodland." University of Exeter, 1999. p.27[5]
12. ↑ William Edward Heygate, Sir Henry Appleton; or, Essex during the Great rebellion. J. T. Hayes, 1857. pp.53-54[6]