Rivenhall, Essex
Historical Description
Rivenhall, an ancient parish, with a village, in Essex, on an affluent of the river Blackwater, 1½ mile N by E of Witham Junction station on the main line of the G.E.R. It has a post office under Witham; money order office, Witham, telegraph office, Rivenhall End. Acreage, 3428; population of the civil parish, 656; of the ecclesiastical, 709. There is a parish council consisting of seven members. Rivenhall Manor belonged to Queen Editha, and passed to Eustace de Boulogne, the Scaleses, the Widvilles, the Eateses, and others. There are four other manors. Rivenhall Place is a country mansion standing on rising-ground in a park of about 100 acres. It with one other manor belongs to the Western family. Remains of a Roman villa, with traces of a tessellated pavement 400 feet by 4½, were found near the church in 1846. A part was uncovered in 1894, and other remains of the villa found. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £600 with residence. The church is a building of rabble and stucco in a style of modern Gothic, consisting of chancel, nave, S porch, and an embattled western tower; has an E window with stained glass of the time of Enfus; and contains a fine monument of 1594 to Sir R. Wiseman. There is a workmen's hall in the village, built and endowed by the late Dr. Dixon, and there are some small charities. Tusser, author of " Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," was a native.
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 | Rivenhall St. Mary and All Saints | |
Hundred | Witham | |
Poor Law union | Witham |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Rivenhall from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Rivenhall (St. Mary and All Saints))
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 Rivenhall 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: