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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2003-12 > 1071656733


From: "jacqueline.cooper" <>
Subject: Re: Quiet Time?
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 10:25:33 -0000
References: <030701c3c35f$85f7e0f0$6601a8c0@donna>


It's quiet because we're all busy with Christmas, and it will probably go
quieter still now as we are all in premature mourning up here in north west
Essex because the government wants to concrete our historic countryside.
Premature because it won't happen. But the threat is depressing. The lady in
a house called The Grange (a Scheduled Ancient Monument under threat) was on
tv saying that her husband's ancestors lived round there 700 years ago. The
genes of all those who subscribe to this list contain some fragment of those
who lived here in the past. It is your past under threat - please help us
fight it.

People go on about how fascinating history is but think it's all dead and
gone, however it is not. History is all around us here in north west Essex,
we live and breathe it every day, it is tangible and fills our souls to the
core. It is not to be found only in the dusty pages of documents
and bright screens of microfilm readers in quiet record offices - those are
just a shadow of the past - the real evidence is in the landscape. It is
here now in Clavering: I look out of my window at a 12th century castle
site, a 13th century manor house, a 14th century church, and at countryside
that would be recognisable to our medieval or even Saxon forebears. I live
on a road that I believe to be Roman, opposite an estate named after a 14th
century landowner, living myself in a house on a
field once
called the Stow, meaning holy place, special place. When I walk around the
block, there's a bank that results from centuries of oxen turning the plough
at the end of a furrow; there are bumps in the field that show where
cottages once stood; there's an ancient green lane that was trod by
prehistoric man.

Of course Clavering is not actually going to be demolished, but very similar
villages are on the hit list from this despicable decision, alongwith dozens
of listed buildings and two Scheduled Ancient Monuments = the very highest
category of historic sites. Hatfield Forest, which is UNIQUE in Europe and
probably the world, is under dire threat of death by pollution. This is a
small country but it is packed with history, and history is our greatest
asset, and yet we propose to wantonly destroy such riches!

However, it is too important to lose, and the fight will go on. We are no
longer the mortified villagers who sat by in sadness while their beautiful
churches were wrecked by Henry VIII's henchmen, we will not stand by and see
heritage destroyed. Please, listers all over the world, join your hearts and
minds to the people of Essex in the years to come.

I see that the usual complaints about non-genealogy are surfacing - but
what is genealogy if not history? Such people need reminding that the Essex
List is for genealogy AND history of Essex, and not just for notching up
ancestors. I seem to have answered about a million queries for other
people's family history (mine is in Yorkshire!), and if I'm not allowed
occasionally to talk about other things like the threat to kill part of
Essex, then I have nothing further to contribute. Whoever B Cunning is (and
it is surely not a real name) he had better refrain.

Jacqueline Cooper

Check out our new village website at www.claveringonline.org.uk











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