Parson's Cottage becomes Mulberry Cottage

 In 2019 ‘Parson’s Cottage’ was renamed ‘Broad Oak’.  This year the new residents,  Rona and Murray Shenahan, put up a spirited fight with the authorities to re-instate the name ‘Parson’s Cottage’, but they were denied permission despite the hundreds of years of suppo
rting history.  The house has now been re-named Mulberry Cottage, in acknowledgement of the magnificent mulberry tree planted in the front garden some 30 years ago.

But why and when did the cottage acquire its original name?  The obvious reason would be that a parson lived there, but as the Rectory was located in what is now Parson’s Yard maybe this was not the reason.   Perhaps people called Parsons lived there, but that is not a name recorded or remembered anywhere in recent times….

Parson’s Cottage was built around 1525, much the same time as parts of Hawkedon Hall and Langleys New House.  Using good quality materials and to a standard and size grander than that for the average agricultural labourer, it was possibly designed for a single person with a servant or two. Ideal for the priest, or as a dower house. 

William Coggeshall who owned the Manor of Hawkedon Hall and surrounding farm land died in 1508, his wife in 1518, and their son William described as “unable to govern himself” was thus unable to inherit and placed in the care of a guardian. Could Parson’s Cottage have been built for him, with a servant and/or priest or carer to look after him, and after his death became the dwelling for the priest? Quite feasible, especially as the ructions of the reformation removed and re-instated the incumbent as the monarch changed. Indeed, for a while, the priest was responsible for both Hawkedon and Somerton, and seems to have lived in Somerton or possibly at Langleys (Sir John Langley had the living from 1554 to1560). After William Coggeshall’s death, the Hawkedon Hall Manor eventually came into the ownership of the Plume family, and later, through marriage, to the Hammond family. The incumbent was appointed by the Everard family, well established by that time at Thurston Hall, and responsible for Hawkedon and Stansfield.

An old photograph shows it neatly pebble-dashed, the home of two families during and immediately after the second war; and three families at the time of the 1841 census – with the ‘Parsonage House’ next door occupied by the Rev Troughton, with a farm and barn in between!

When the original Rectory/ Parsonage House was built, and how long after the construction of the “new” Rectory  - Hawkedon House – in 1850, it was demolished, I have yet to discover. But in the days of an absentee Rector, the Curate needed to be in or near the village. Parson’s Cottage, whoever lived there, seems to have continued to be part of the Hawkedon Hall ‘domain’, and apart from a small piece of “glebe” land, was included in the Hawkedon Lot when the Hale Estate (covering Somerton, Hawkedon and land in Brockley) was sold off in 1911. Irritatingly, there are no name references: Parson’s Cottage was just one of several dwellings included in the sale, so we still don’t know for sure when or why!

It has been a strange few months, with the church closed for the first time in centuries – if ever, since the first recorded priest, Alard, in Henry II’s reign. At time of plague, folk would go into the church to pray for deliverance, whilst Cromwell’s regime enforced strict adherence to the word of the Lord……I wonder who lived at Parson’s/Mulberry Cottage then!

JRW