A lot of the ex-legionnaires were from various Germanic tribes and in 280 AD we hear that the coastal area of Anglia was a military command called The Saxon Shore. In 289 Britain declared Brexit and the forts in that area became part of the defence against Rome, in collaboration with “Pirates” i.e. Franks and Saxons, who already comprised a sizeable portion of the people living in the area. This Brexit did not last long and by 296 Britain was back under Roman rule. It was another two hundred years before Rome finally pulled out and the mass migrations of Angles and Saxons began. Beadwan then became mispronounced as Badovan, thus putting the bad in there.
Even so, Great Baddow was definitely more bad than great. There is some indication of Saxons passing through Manor Farm, though their shop was not open then, so the main action was over at Prittlewell where in 2003 the grave of King Saebert, or his brother - nobody is sure - was dug up when a road widening scheme came across a mound of mud.
A Saxon Shore Roman Fort
The Royal Tomb in Prittlewell
He had been buried with a great sword and, what appears to have been a significant treasure, a Byzantine spoon engraved with the name of the previous owner. Nobody knows why. Saxons may be our most significant cultural source, but they are mostly an archaeological mystery.
King Saebert was the King of the East Saxons, hence the name Essex. And hence the reason for the three blades on the county logo. They are Seax. When a Saxon hit manhood they were awarded a Seax, which are not quite swords, more machetes, but good for slitting throats, skinning a goat and prising the heads off mead pots. Consequently, there has been a very long tradition of keeping bees in Essex, hence streets like Beehive Lane, Honey Close, Honeypots, and the Lathcoats Farm orchards.
Lathcoats Farm house and orchards
The story of the Saxon invasion was that the British in Kent, on losing Roman legions to protect them, hired a couple of mercenaries called Hengist and Horsa who have various stories attached to them but essentially, they either decided that they were not being paid enough, or the British were weak, and so ousted the Romana British king Vortegern, thus setting off the trigger that made us English and not Welsh. Hengist and Horsa were probably not real people, as those are just names for Horses, but something or someone set off the overthrow of the old establishment and it was probably some uppity immigrant.
A medieval artist's interpretation
of the arrival of Hengist and Horsa
In 604 AD Saebert was the first Saxon king to be converted to Christianity. His sons weren’t impressed and kept to the old ways. In fact, Christianity kept coming and going and ironically it was not until the Viking’s converted to Christianity in 878, as part of the treaty between King Alfred and Earl Guthrum, the Viking warlord, that it really stuck. If Gudrun said it was so, then it was so. And if not him, definitely the much later King Cnut!
St Mary's church, Great Baddow
Consequently, we can assume all settlements in the region had a church of some sort, and so our first indication of a Saxon settlement here, is St Mary’s church. Though if it was 878AD it was probably more of a hut than anything else. And probably not called St Mary’s as the cult of the Virgin was not popular until the 12th Century. In the 9th century the Vikings had their own ways of dealing with Virgins with the result that the population began to rise and more farmlands began to be developed. Being bad sometimes pays.
In the 11th century, the area came within the remit of Algar, earl of Mercia. He died in 1059 and was succeeded by his son Eadwine. The story of Eadwine is nicely convoluted. He fought beside Harold Godwinson against Harold Hardraada, but as saxon chiefs were wont to do, fell out with and refused to join King Harold at Hastings. Given that even under Edward the Confessor, Normans already held lands in the south, Eadwin was probably not bothered whether Normans ran the show instead of the land greedy Godwin family. On close inspection the Godwins, despite our making Harold to be some sort of hero, were little better than a bunch of pirates who had come to power by supporting King Canute’s vikings.
When William hacked Harold to pieces, apparently parading his severed manhood around on the tip of a spear, Eadwine asked London to make him king. Harold’s last standing son was not keen on that, so Eadwine decided to go in with William, who offered his daughter in marriage. When the marriage did not happen and William kept on calling Eadwine an ugly, uncivilised, drunken idiot, Eadwine joined the resistance, expecting to be king if all went well. It didn’t. He died in battle - supposedly heroically, but we don’t care, because he never came to Baddow.
Although William had won the battle of Hastings, the rest of his reign was constantly troubled by uprisings. Hereward the Wake’s revolt, just up the road from here, was just one of many. All over England there were the Silvatici, guerrilla bands, that attacked any Norman they found wondering around the forests. One can see the dawnings of the Robin Hood legend in these heroics, or banditry depending on whose point of view you take.
Entry for Baddow in the Doomsday Book
Despite such local hostility, we find in the Domesday Book that Roger God Save The Ladies was given lands in Essex encompassing the Baddow area.
Pontland's Park Country Hotel
We would like to think his name meant that he was something of a randy rogue, but it was probably a name connecting him with the acquisition of the bulk of the place by La Trinite’ Monastery of Caen, which had a nunnery that his family sponsored. The surname is still found in Essex in the forms of Godsalve and Godsafe, a family that at one time even held the estate of Pontlands.
Whether they were any relation to Roger is a matter of conjecture, but under the path to St Mary’s Church it is rumoured that there is a fragment of a vault with “God Save The Ladies” or “god Save Our Lady” written on it. Could this be a reference to his family? Could it be Roger’s tomb? Or just a reference to the Church! I still like to think he was a randy rogue: God Save The Ladies! Hurrah!
The History of Great Baddow
Chapter 1. Origins.Chapter 2. The Saxons.
Chapter 3. The Normans.
Chapter 4. The Name's De Baddow, Hugh De Baddow.
Chapter 5. The End of Feudalism.
Chapter 6. The Rise of the Gentry.
Chapter 7. The Civil War.
Chapter 8. The Rise of Money.
Chapter 9. The Publican Revolution.
Chapter 10. The Rise of the Genteel.
Chapter 11. Death and Religion.
Chapter 12. Battling the Bad in Baddow.
Chapter 13. A Happy Ending.
Chapter 14. The End of an Era.
Chapter 15. The Finale.
Chapter 16. Conclusion.