20th Century Artists

• For some 50 years following the late 1930s Boxted House became the meeting place for a number of notable twentieth century artist and writers including Sir Cedric Morris, John Nash and Augustus John.

• Ronald Blythe (who has contributed the foreword to the Book) recalls the hospitality of Robert and Natalie Bevan, the owners of Boxted House during these years in the company of John Nash and other Suffolk/Essex artists and writers.

• John Nash printed watercolours of Boxted Mil and the patches of Boxted woodland loving the untypical steepness of this part of East Anglia with its deep ditches and complex lanes.

• Natalie Bevan was herself the subject of a well-known portrait by Mark Gertler painted in 1929 entitled “The Supper”, which has been exhibited in The Tate.

• Boxted House became the home of a fine modern art collection (now sadly dispersed) including paintings from the Camden Town group by Spencer Gore, Walter Sickert, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner and Robert Bevan as well as Sir Cedric Morris, John Nash, Lett Haines and Mark Gertler.

• John Constable’s great, great grandfather, William Constable was a Boxted man and John Constable was known to sometime walk to Boxted via “the Langham Hills”.

 

 

Boxted’s weaving industry

• Black Death ravished the village in 1348/49 which resulted in much of the cultivated land passing back to pasture for sheep grazing leading to the growth of a prosperous wool industry.

• Flemish weavers came to Boxted in the early 14 th Century following Edward III having banned the export of wool to the continent and Boxted prospered with the aid of the Flemish weavers.

• Weaving sheds were built near the river and “tenterfields” were established by the water mill.

• A field still called “Woolpit” suggests that it may have contained the wool washing ponds.

• Some of the most expensive woollen cloth was made in Boxted including one known as “Blue Medleys” which was exported to the Vatican City.

• By 1450 Boxted was a “towne” of sufficient importance to warrant an act of Parliament to promote its weaving industry.

• In 1490 at the end of the middle Ages, sheep scab spread from Suffolk and by 1495 wool production in Boxted had almost ceased.

• Another Act of Parliament of 1585 recognised the quality of Boxted cloth.

• 13 weavers were recorded in Boxted between 1551 and 1670 and 13 clothiers between 1583 and 1686

A number of houses near the church are associated with the cloth industry including the Aubrey’s Cottages which were formed from two late 15 th or early 16 th century houses, one of which was occupied by Anthony Clere, a local clothier, Cheshunts, Gulson’s and Packwoods on the site of present day Boxted House.

 

Civil War 1642-1649

 

• Most Boxted residents initially supported Parliament and in July 1643 many leading resident signed the Boxted Covenant.

• In June 1648 Lord Goring and a royalist army occupied Colchester.

• In July 1648 Lord Goring became sick and was smuggled out of Colchester by a group of royalists dressed up as parliamentarian roundheads over Boxted Common to the Boxted Cross Inn.

• Lord Goring stayed in the Cross Inn for two nights until taken to Langham where he was rowed up the river to Manningtree to join a ship for France.

• There was a skirmish between the royalists and a roundhead force near Boxted Cross when many of the royalists were still wearing their roundhead uniforms.

• In 1925 when Hill Farm House near to Boxted Cross was being renovated, a small room was exposed within which was a skeleton plus roundhead soldier’s helmet and uniform. In all probability, this was the body of a royalist in parliamentary uniform wounded at the skirmish who hid in Hill Farm only to die of his wounds.

• Early in the war, a troop of parliament’s horse was stationed at Pond House, then owned by John Maidstone, a Puritan Member of Parliament and said to have been visited often by both Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law Colonel Ireton.

Reviews:

"From time to time this magazine receives town or village histories to review. Few are as well put together as this book about a sleepy village on the borders of Essex and Suffolk, near Colchester. It is written and researched by the local historian Douglas Carter and looks at Boxted from prehistoric to modern times." (The Suffolk Magazine)

"a guidebook and a half . . . for it tutors the reader all along, tying in Boxted's history with England's history and showing how a little rural community had a role in mighty events.  It is both scholarly and intimate, as a good guide should be". (Ronald Blythe, author of Akenfield and many other published works on English life and history)

"Forget todays TV soaps - if it's drama you're after, the life and times of Boxted provide enough exciting and intriguing storylines to rival the combined populations of Walford, Weatherfield and Emmerdale" (East Anglian Daily Times, 25.11.06)

"This beautiful pictorial account of the village and its history has been written by Douglas Carter whose family have been living in Boxted since 1815 . . . it is the creator's personal knowledge and experience of Boxted which lends the book its air of authenticity and, with a stream of colourful pictures complementing the interesting snippets of Boxted facts, it does exactly what it says on the cover - provides a portrait of an English village" (Colchester Evening Gazette, 17.11.06)