Bob Delderfield’s History File
January 1996
The Gunpowder Plot
The 1995–96 Pound Wood coppicing season began on November 5th and it therefore seemed appropriate that the new site should be called “Gunpowder Plot” recalling that well known event which took place 390 years ago. However, there are also other connections between the Daws Heath Woods and the plotters of 1605.
Coppicing, as we all know, is an ancient art of woodland management and involves the planned and regular cutting of the underwood, which in the case of Pound Wood is don-iinated by hombeam. Apart from the obvious local uses of underwood such as fencing, the main commercial value to the wood’s owners was in converting it into charcoal. It is quite likely that in the middle ages charcoal from Pound and Tile Woods went up the Thames by barge to feed the iron smelting industry in Kent and the outskirts of London but from the 16th to 19th centuries, Thundersley charcoal played a significant part in the gunpowder industry of West Essex at Waltham Abbey and the Lea Valley.
At one period a six-wheeled wagon with five horses collected 200 sacks of charcoal weekly from Thundersley, taking them on the turnpike roads to the factory via Rayleigh, Billericay and Romford. Apparently, the charcoal of the Thundersley area was especially suitable for the manufacture of gunpowder. According to die Rev. Maley, Rector of Thundersley in his The Ancient Parish of Thundersley: It caused Thundersley to play a part in the Gunpowder Plot, for the charcoal was taken from Thundersley to the Gunpowder Factory at Lea Bridge, the first factory for making gunpowder in all England. This factory provided the powder for the plotters in Eastwood [should be Eastbury] House, Barking, only a few miles away, and shipped by Guy Fawkes in small barges plying up and down.
Essex has an additional link with the Gunpowder Plot because it was William Parker, Lord Monteagle of Great Hallingbury Hall, who received the somewhat cryptic letter which uncovered the plot. His response led to the failure of the scheme and the capture of the plotters. For this he was given a handsome pension of £700 a year.
A not totally unrelated incident, on a local and more domestic scale, occurred in about 1920 when Doris Staines, our entertaining informant about old Daws Heath, was only 12. “Woodside”, the substantial house which stands on the corner of St Mchael’s Road, was then occupied by the six Mitchell sisters who were regarded by the locals as “old maids”. With the coming of November 5th, several local children were building a bonfire on the little triangle of grass which still sits at the junction of St Michael’s Road and Bramble Road. When the easily available wood produced only a measly pile, Doris’s two elder brothers, knowing of the Mitchell’s woodstore behind the coach-house, removed 100 faggots (bundles of small wood for domestic use in wood-buming stoves and ovens) from said premises without the knowledge of the owners. When the now very large bonfire was lit and was burning merrily, the Mitchell sisters could be seen at the upstairs windows thoroughly enjoying the blaze, completely unaware of their contribution to its success. The next day Mr Rolph, the Mitchell’s groom and gardener, going to fetch wood, discovered the large space where the faggots should have been. On this occasion the police were called in and Doris remembers: “This time there was trouble. The bobby came after us. But it was a smashing fire!”