Stoke by Nayland
Prior to 1000AD there is substantial evidence from artefacts such as worked flints, axes and arrow heads, to show occupation of the area in prehistoric times by the first farmers.
However, one of the earliest written documents referring to Stoke is an Anglo-Saxon will of about 1000 AD. Stoke was the family burial ground of the Saxon Earl Aelfgar. He has two daughters, Aegelfled and Aethelfled. These noble-women left a rich bequest in their wills to ‘The sacred place in Stoke where my ancestors were buried.’ This was interpreted by the historian, Cyril Hart, to indicate that there would have been a substantial collegiate church here in the period 951 – 1002 that would have benefited from this endowment. The village in the late Anglo-Saxon period would have had settlements of scattered farms complete with field systems and under the control of manorial lords before the Normans arrived in 1066. Edward the Confessor rewarded pro-Norman local barons with local estates. One such was Robert Fitzwymarc, Sheriff of Essex, and father of Swein of Essex, who features in the Stoke entry of the Domesday Book. So, at 1086 in Stoke there was a manor and the Lord was Swein of Essex. The land was engaged in mixed farming – pigs, sheep, cattle, horses and goats. Also teams of 8 oxen per plough and the area would have been well-wooded. Domesday entry for Thorington ‘Gifard holds this from Robert’. The same Gifard who built Giffords Hall? There is evidence of Norman buildings in the courtyard of Giffords Hall. In 1287 Sir William Gifford had The Warren in Wickhambrook.
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Population at that time is estimated to be around 540. By the early 1200s Stoke was an established ‘Towne’ with William de Tendring, Lord of the Manor granted ‘Free Warren’ by the Crown (1258) which gave him exclusive rights to fishing, fowling, hawking and hunting. In 1276 a Royal Grant allowed the holding of a weekly fair and market centred on the present village green. The 15th century finds Stoke by Nayland becoming more prosperous with many tenant farmers occupying the parish lands and paying rentals to the Manors of Stoke. Though not directly involved in the wool trades to the extent of say Lavenham there were a number of wealthy merchants here. There are also records of cloth makers, a die house a an least two tenter fields where cloth was stretched to dry across a frame containing sharp hooks – hence the expression ‘on tenterhooks’.
William de Tendring III died in 1408, leaving Alice as his heiress. In 1398 she had married Sir John Howard, Earl Marshall of England bearing the Crown at the Coronation of Richard III. John Howard dies in 1485 alongside the King at the Battle of Bosworth.
He founded a dynasty that still holds the Dukedom of Norfolk and the, now ceremonial, post of Earl Marshal. The present Duke of Norfolk carried out his duties at the late Queen’s State funeral and at the coronation of Charles III. And of course, two of his great granddaughters, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, daughter of Lord Edmund Howard went on to marry Henry VIII and become Queen, albeit briefly and Anne Boleyn’s daughter took the throne as Elizabeth I. Catherine must have lived in Stoke when she was a small child. Henry VIII and his Dissolution of the Monasteries and Religious Houses had an effect across the country and specifically in Stoke. The grand vicarage house and large garden was sold off and the vicar got a small house in Back Street (also called Puttock Street now named School Street). Puttock being an ancient word for the Red Kite. Red Kites can now be seen in great numbers in the area. Nine Stoke residents were persecuted in Queen Mary’s time for ‘not attending Church to receive after the popish manner, the Sacrament’.
The 17th century is a period from which many documents have survived.
Both sets of Almshouses are documented in the 1600s. Those bequeathed by Lady Anne Windsor were for ‘four poor needy, or impotent women of the Parish’. Those by the churchyard were originally left to the Parish by Thomas Purslowe for ‘the residents of poor parishioners to be placed therein by the Minister and Church Wardens’. These were rebuilt in 1875 by Sir Charles Rowley in memory of his daughter Emma.