Belchamp St Paul, Essex
Historical Description
Belchamp-St-Paul, a parish in Essex, on the river Stour, 6 miles WNW of Sudbury, and 3 SE from Clare station on the G.E.R. It has a post office under Clare (R.S.O.), which is the money order and telegraph office. Acreage, 2554; population, 602. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £224, with residence, formerly in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's, but since 1870 in the gift of the Dean and Canons of Windsor. The church is very good.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Essex | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Belchamp St. Paul's St. Andrew | |
Hundred | Hinckford | |
Poor Law union | Sudbury |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Churches
Church of England
St Andrew (parish church)
The church of St. Andrew is a building of stone in the Norman and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays, north aisle, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells: in the chancel are ten stalls with finely carved misereres of ancient date; here also is a fine brass, which on close examination appears to consist of the remains of two brasses arranged on one stone, the inscription runs:" Here lieth the Bodie of Elizabeth, one of ye daughters and co-heiress of Edward Best late of Cornard esq, first married to John Buchenham esq. by whom she had Edward yet living and Dorothy deceased, and after married to William Golding, by whom she had Edward and Elizabeth deceased and Margery and Mary yet living, obiit. xx. Maii 1591;" although the inscription is to a lady, the effigy is that of a gentleman, and the figures of the children on the slab do not agree with the number given in the inscription: at the back of the sedilia are two lozenge shaped stones which contain brass shields charged with the arms of Buckingham and Golding, from which it would seem that the monument of Mrs. Elizabeth Golding was a raised tomb, and that these lozenges are the remains of two side panels; the top stone had probably the inscription given above with the figure of a lady now lost, three shields and two groups of children, the issue of her two marriages; the other raised tomb was probably to William Golding esq, whose figure, with those of his one son and three daughters, remains on this slab: the church was thoroughly restored and reseated in the year 1873, and has 300 sittings.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Belchamp St Paul from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Belchamp St. Paul's (St. Andrew))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Essex is available to browse.
The Essex pages from the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 is online.
Maps
Online maps of Belchamp St Paul are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers covering Essex online: