Wickham Bishops: A lost landscape ... and a beheaded bishop!

WHENEVER I drive along that winding stretch of the B1018 – the bit between Langford and the Hatfield/Maldon Road to Witham, I feel like I am journeying into a lost landscape.

The route takes in a large part of the parish of Wickham Bishops and, although there are a few houses along the way, there is still a wide expanse of agricultural land.

It has been like this for centuries, although it was also once well wooded.

In the past, hazel nuts were traditionally gathered here on Holy Rood Day (September 14) and pressed into oil.

As well as that obscure little snippet, evidence of the past is all around.

It must have been a truly momentous occasion when, on August 15, 1848, the first train steamed through this rural idyll.

The scar of the line can still be made out between recently restored Langford Halt and Wickham Bishops Station.

Not far from the station, there is further evidence of industrial heritage – Wickham Mills.

The mill came to the end of its working life in 1963, but the miller’s fine mansion – Wickham Place of 1715 – continues to stand in its grounds and in all its Georgian splendour. The other grand house in these parts is moated Wickham Hall, built in its hollow sometime in the 18th Century, but clearly on the site of a much earlier building.

• Wickham Hall in the 19th Century    Picture by permission Kevin Fuller

Not far away is the old parish church, made surplus to requirements when the new one was built in 1850 in what had by then become the new centre of the village. Dedicated to St Peter (and not as some have suggested St Bartholomew) the original church could be as early as 11th Century.

It is that combination of ecclesiastical heritage – of ancient church and moated manor – that takes us to the very beginnings of the settlement and even explains its name.

The Domesday Survey of 1085/86 tells us that “the Bishop holds Wickham ... which Bishop William held (before 1066) as a manor”.

The bishops referred to are the Bishops of London, and Bishop William held that office from 1051 until his death in 1075.

By the time of the survey, the bishop mentioned would have been Maurice, elected 1085 and died in 1107.

Those successive bishops were patrons of the living of “Wycham Episcopi”, as it was sometimes referred, and had a park (later enclosed by Bishop Courtney in 1375) and a palace on the site of what would later become Wickham Hall.

We know that they officiated in an associated chapel that could have been old St Peter’s or a separate place of worship next to the palace.

• Wickham Bishops' old church Photo: Jon Yuill.

In any case, there are key names associated with the manor.

An early Bishop of London was Roger Niger de Beeleigh. He had been brought up by the canons at nearby Beeleigh Abbey, climbed the ranks of the established church and was elected Bishop of London in 1228.

He would certainly have known Wickham Bishops, its palace and chapel.

Roger is a really fascinating character, but then so is Simon Sudbury.

Just like Roger, Simon took his surname from his place of birth – Sudbury in Suffolk.

He became one of the chaplains to the Pope and it was Innocent VI, who introduced him to the Bishopric of London.

Consecrated on March 20, 1362, documentary evidence reveals that Bishop Simon spent time in his Essex Palace and conducted at least four ordinations “in the manor chapel of Wickham Bishops”.

At that stage he held a powerful position which carried authority, but staying in Wickham Bishops was doubtless easy going and his duties relatively light.

However, that wasn’t enough for Simon Sudbury.

In 1375, he succeeded to the post of Archbishop of Canterbury and then, in 1380, went on to become Lord Chancellor of England.

It wasn’t a good time to hold that position as the infamous Peasants' Revolt, or Great Rising, kicked off the following year.

Sudbury was regarded as one of the architects of the detested Poll Tax and the insurgents seized him, dragged him to Tower Hill and beheaded him.

• Simon of Sudbury was beheaded during the Peasants' Revolt

It took eight blows and his decapitated head was then placed on Tower Bridge. When it was eventually taken down, the head was sent to the parish church of St Gregory, Sudbury, where it remains, tucked away in a cubby hole and in a mummified state.

In 2011 a scan was taken of it and a facial reconstruction made by a forensics expert. If that image is anything to go by, he was a strange looking man who has, perhaps somewhat unkindly, been compared with Spock and Shrek.

Studying that distinctive face as I did recently, I couldn’t help but marvel that I was looking into the eyes of a former bishop who, some 650 years earlier, was living and breathing in that very same lost landscape that I journey through today.