The Trees is gone but its history won’t be forgotten

He described it as “a long three-storeyed modern house with a cinema at the far end”.

The cinema has since been replaced by Embassy Court, but the rest is still intact and has more than a touch of the Poirot era about it.

I am really fond of it, not least because my maternal grandfather was part of the labour that helped build it.

But it has to be admitted that its construction came at a terrible price.

What was cleared away from the site was a truly remarkable, long lost, almost forgotten historic house.

Anyone who knows about this earlier structure will tell you it was called The Trees and was the home of the Baker family.

While that is certainly true, it only really represents the final chapter, rather than the beginning of the story.

To understand what absolute gem once stood there we must travel back much further in time - to the 15th century.

Hidden behind the quite bland 19th-century facade of The Trees was an entirely timber-framed Medieval house, complete with cross wings.

It largely stood at the Wantz Road corner of King George’s Place - where there was a car showroom during my father’s time, Kathleen’s Kitchen when I was a lad and now a tearoom, (Sophie’s Kitchen).

To the rear was one-and- a-half acres of meadow, that extended right the way down to The Chases (originally a fast bridleway, or gallop).

The frontage of the house extended eastwards and was originally known as Hardings.

Inside were sumptuous moulded ceiling beams and rich linen-fold panelling, with a carved frieze of grotesque figures supporting shields, some displaying a boar and a five-pointed star (or mullet) and bearing the initials “I.C”.

That heraldry gives us a clue, as it indicates an association with the Earls of Oxford, the de Veres, of Blue Boar fame.

Just like the Blue Boar Hotel up the road, the original resident was probably a retainer, or agent of those powerful de Veres - was the “I” really a “J” and one and the same agent, John Church?

In 1508 the house was in the ownership of John Dale, a Maldon yeoman, and he sold it to William Spencer.

Thereafter, it became known as Spencers and passed through a succession of gentry families including, in the Elizabethan era, the Harrises, who also owned The Friary.

James Sudbury Snr, of Sudbury, Suffolk, then had it until his death in 1704. It was then purchased in 1728 by John Moody, a wine and liquor merchant.

He, in turn, passed away in 1742 and a William Coleman took up residence.

Into the early 19th century and on the death of William Coleman in 1809, Spencers became the seat of the Coe family. Through marriage, the Coes were linked to the Coapes - their funeral hatchments still hang in All Saints church - and, in 1845, Henry Coe-Coape sold it to the well-known surgeon, Congregationalist and Maldon mayor, George May, MD, JP (1788-1871).

Around that time it changed its name yet again - to Holly Trees - and was re-modelled in the latest style with that previously mentioned facade, described as “modern” by the Royal Commission in 1921.

George May lived there with his wife, Elizabeth, their two surviving children, Elizabeth and George Parker May, along with three female servants and a groom.

Thus George Parker May (1814-1891) spent his childhood at the house and followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a surgeon MD, JP and mayor.

He married, had three children, but by 1859 the family had set up home in West House, West Square.

Meanwhile Holly Trees had another new owner – wealthy farmer’s widow, Mrs Mary Bell (b.1827), whose income was “derived from dividends”.

She lived there with her servants until 1906 and then along came Edward Thomas Baker (1869-1948), the owner of Fullbridge Mill, churchwarden of All Saints, JP and yet another Maldon mayor.

Along with his wife, Dorothy, three daughters, a son and three servants, they were the last residents of the ancient house.

Then it was out with the old and in with the new and the house was pulled down, unceremoniously swept away in 1935, one writer later reflecting that it was; “a great loss to the street scene”.

All of that history was stripped bare by the demolition gang, right back to the de Vere panelling.

But the enduring legend is that a lot of the precious woodwork was saved and shipped off to America.

So who knows, there could still be a little piece of Maldon’s Hardings mansion preserved 4,500 miles away from its original, intended location.