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there are over 800 photos in the collection
CHURCH STREET - COLNE ROAD
EAST STREET - MARKET HILL - WEST STREET
MARKET HILL - STONEHAM STREET - TILKEY
For more Coggeshall Photos; More Options
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Link to the COGGESHALL MUSEUM WEBSITE
The Family History research section is HERE
This website is designed, administered and funded by Trevor Disley.
Comments or suggestions are welcomed
Please use the Contact tab above.
I will always reply so if you don't get an answer, check your junk box because that's where they often end up!
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A collection of superb quality photos with detailed captions.
large format book.
COGGESHALL'S REMARKABLE BLACKSMITH
A new book about Coggeshall's eccentric Victorian blacksmith Dick Nunn.
An extraordinary story of a remarkable man. 130 pages in full colour.
Both books are available from 'Normans' sweet shop next to the town clock.
Just £10 each
0r by post - contact me using the contact tab at the top of the page.
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Hatchment of the Coggeshall family, 'Cockleshell' and of Coggeshall Abbey.
The meaning of 'Coggeshall'.
The name is Old English and is in two parts - 'cocc' and 'halh'
The first part is probably from the Old English 'cocc' a cockerel, so the abbey arms which shows three cockeralls might be spot on. The other possible meaning of 'cocc' is a heap - a meaning which also survives in the word 'haycock'. The 12th century monks may have known which was right - so we have three cocks not three haycocks on the abbey coat of arms. The other possibility that 'Cocc' was the name of a person has fallen out of favour.
The other element in the name is another Old English word 'halh' which would have exactly described Coggeshall's location in the landscape. Exact descriptions of places were important in a time without maps - the Saxons had more words to precisely describe a hill for example than the Inuit have words for types of snow. Coggeshall is on a valley side but is below the top, the river Blackwater turns through 90 degrees here and the town is on a south-facing tongue of land on the valley side between the Blackwater and Robin's Brook. So the 'halh' in Coggeshall's name would have referred to one or more of these features - all of which have been recorded elsewhere in places with 'halh' as an element.
The word is definitely not 'hall' which is a later word and appeared later, after the Norman conquest.
Often called 'Coxall' locally, this variation of the name can be traced back at least to the sixteenth century and as 'Coxhall' to the dissolution of the abbey in 1538. Both probably reflect the way the name Coggeshall was spoken in the local dialect.
The original settlement in Coggeshall was in the area of the church. It may be that the thousands of gallons of crystal clear water flowing from the pond near what became Vane Lane had made the spot important or even sacred from prehistoric times. The town centre only moved down to Market Hill after the abbey was given the right to have a weekly market here.
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The old Essex accent -
Sir,
I read piece in th' piper where it ses a powerful bit about the way they talk in parts sich as Somerset an' Devon, which I reckon is, wholly shimeful, seem as them's furriners. I cownt the regular owd English talk how we speak in Essex, wot I've heard man an' boy for years, an' I'm in me 73. Don't goo fur to put no more pieces in concarnin' they peoples. Do, I on't tike th’ piper no more, an' thet's th' trewth.
Ephrum
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Coggeshall’s sewage filled ‘Back Ditch’ was infamous for its stink.
In 1906 it was immortalised in verse;
The Devil was once passing by Coggeshall Ditch
And was asked how it compared with his native pitch.
Said he “By the smell and the dirt and the stink,
I cannot be far from my home I think’.
Anon
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A Coggeshall Vicar has a claim to the shortest sermon on record.
In 1926, the Rev H V Gardley Wilmott said;
'My text is "The wages of sin is death."
I give you notice that the wages of sin have not been reduced.'
Dundee Evening Telegraph 14th May 1928
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Amelia Harris, a Remarkable Coggeshall Woman.
Amelia was the wife of an officer's servant and accompanied her husband through several campaigns with Wellington culminating in the battle of Waterloo. On the eve of the battle she slept on the field with her son and on the morning following the first day of the battle, she and her husband breakfasted on raw meat seated upon a dead horse and surrounded by the slain. Amelia died in Coggeshall in April 1879 and retained her faculties to the end. She was 92 and the entry in the Coggeshall Burial Board register of 27th April 1879 notes that she, her husband and their three children were all at the Battle of Waterloo.
Essex Herald 29/04/1879
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