Stansted Mountfitchet Essex - an extract from Kelly's Directory 1882

Stansted Mountfitchet is a Parish and station on the Great Eastern (Cambridge) railway and a polling place for the Western division of the County in Uttlesford hundred, Bishop's Stortford union and county court district, Newport rural deanary, Colchester archdeaconry and St Albans diocese. This ancient village is on the Roman and modern high road from London to Cambridge, 3 miles north of Bishop's Stortford and close to the river Stort, on a tributary on which it stands. The town consists of two streets one side of one of which is in the hamlet of Benfield; it contains some good houses and is partially lighted with gas. The Parish of Stansted is one of the largest in Essex and is computed to be some 40 miles in circumference from Ugley to Elsenham; northwards it extends to Birchanger and Takely and westward to Bishop's Stortford in Herts and Farnham in Essex. The church of St Mary the Virgin is a large structure, consisting of chancel built in 1120, nave, north chapel, two north and one south porches and a square brick tower containing 5 bells, built in 1692: this church has been supplied with 200 free sittings, towards the expense of which the Society for Enlarging Churches and Chapels contributed £200. On the floor of the chancel, on a small brass plate in the cover of a stone coffin of pyramidal form is an inscription in characters, partly Saxon and partly Gothic, to Robert de Bokkyngg, first vicar of this church, who died 22nd September 1361. There is also against the south wall of the chancel a fine marble monument to Sir Thomas Middleton, with his effigy in a recumbent position and clad in a suit of plate armour with gilt studs and a red robe and trimmed with fur; the figure reposes under a highly-decorated arch, the inscription nearly illegible. There is also a monument to his wife, Lady Middleton, with a similar recumbent effigy; she was killed by a stag in Stansted Park.

Under a large pointed arch in the north aisle of the chancel is the figure in stone of a mailed knight cross-legged with his feet upon a conchant lion and two angels supporting his helmeted head. The register dates from the year 1558. The living is a discharged vicarage, yearly value £306, with residence, in the gift of W. Fuller-Maitland esq. M.P. and held by the Rev. Thomas Garnham Luard M.A. of Wadham College, Oxford and rural dean of Newport.
The Society of Friends and Primitive Methodists have places of worship here. The Congregational chapel erected at a cost of about £1700, raised by subscription and opened in July 1865, will seat 500 persons.

Charities producing about £50 are distributed in bread and clothes yearly. Here are a steam corn mill and maltings; bricks and drain pipes are made in the neighbourhood. The Central Hall comprises the Post Office, Literary Institute, Reading Rooms and Lecture Hall. A recreation ground consisting of two acres was given by William Fuller-Maitland esq in 1867. Here are the remains of a castle, supposed to have been built by William Gernon, surnamed Mountfitchet and situated about half a mile north-west-by-west from the church. The Priory of Thremhall, dedicated to St James, stood 2 miles south, by the side of Hatfield Forest and was founded by Robert Mountfitchet for Black Benedictine canons: some members of the family De Verre, Barrington and Mountfitchet were buried in the priory, the revenues of which at the Dissolution were estimated at £70 19s 3d. per annum; some small remains of it still exist. Stansted Hall the seat of W Fuller-Maitland esq MP. is occupied by Lord Gardner; it is an Elizabethan building of red brick with stone dressings and facings, situated about 1 mile east of the village and near the site of a hall that was pulled down about the year 1813. It stands on a well wooded park of about 400 acres, bounded on the north by the Great Eastern Railway. Hargrave, the seat of Mrs Pulteney is situated about 1 mile north-north-west from the railway station. W Fuller-Maitland esq MP who is the lord of the manor and R Gosling esq are the principal landowners.
The soil is mixed, some heavy, with some good loamy soil; subsoil, clay, gravel and chalk. The chief crops are wheat, barley, beans and roots; there is some good grazing land. The Parish contains an area of 4193 acres; rateable value £11093; and the population in 1881 was 1,923 inclusive of Benfield.
BENTFIELD END (or Benfield) is a hamlet, with a population in 1871 of 527. R Gosling esq is lord of the manor and principal landowner. AILSA STREET is a mile and a half north and BURTON END half a mile south-east from the church.

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