Chelmsford
 Abbeys |
The county town of Essex is located among heavily cultivated farmland dotted with lovely unspoilt villages. Although the town has lost much of its rural peace through the demands of 21st century industry, nevertheless its roots are still planted firmly in the soil. The Chelmsford livestock market, which first came into existence about AD 1200, remains one of the most important of its kind in East Anglia.
In the 1st century AD, the Romans built a small town on a site about halfway between London and Colchester, calling it Caesaromagus, traces of which have been discovered in the Moulsham district of Chelmsford. The Roman settlement was later built upon by the Normans, and the present town grew from the medieval manors of Moulsham and Celmeresfort. The latter two were linked together in about 1100 by a wooden bridge spanning the River Can.
The present day bridge was designed by John Johnson in 1787, who also, incidentally, constructed the classical Shire Hall on Chelmsford High Street in 1791; both bridge and hall are among the town's oldest structures. Johnson also helped restore the parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, which has been Chelmsford Cathedral since 1914.
Chelmsford Cathedral is one of the smallest in England, and evidence would seem to indicate that a Saxon church existed on the present site during the Dark Ages. There is further evidence for an early Norman structure similarly sited, with stones from this building period reused in the walls of the 15th century church tower, when the entire edifice was rebuilt. An inscription dated 1424, in letters of flint, was built into the wall proclaiming this reconstruction. Whilst the church retains the traditional character of the Perpendicular period, everything bar the tower, chancel and south porch was heavily restored early in the 19th century. This was due to careless labourers digging a grave beneath the church floor in 1800 between two pillars; that same night the pillars slipped into the prepared grave bringing down most of the church as both roof and walls collapsed.
The church was rebuilt by 1803, designed by the ubiquitous John Johnson, who rebuilt the nave arcade in the original style, but added a clerestory and inserted plaster ceilings and wooden galleries. In 1899, the ceilings of the aisles were replaced with carved timber replicas of the former construction. The building remains, basically, a 15th century parish church with some striking later additions, but it is the many old tombs and monuments that attract most attention. Among these are a fine monument to Thomas Mildmay, who died in 1566, and his wife Avice. Another monument celebrates a descendant, Benjamin Mildmay, who through marriage became Earl Fitzwalter and died in 1756. In 1914, Chelmsford was chosen as the seat of the bishop of the newly established diocese of Essex.
All Saints' Church, in the Springfield district of Chelmsford, has a Norman base to its tower and fragments of Roman tiles and bricks built into its walls.
Chelmsford has two particularly fine museums, the largest of which is the Chelmsford and Essex Museum in Oaklands Park, established about 1835. It is active in all disciplines, but strongest in local history, including many Roman finds from recent excavations - the collections of drinking glasses and of British coins in unusually fine. The Essex Regiment Museum has been absorbed into the larger institution and contains a superb display of the story of the raising of the regiment and its companies. It also houses the regimental archives, constantly in demand by military historians and genealogists.
The Chelmsford Industrial Museum primarily covers science and industry and contains a cogent reminder of one of the greatest developments of the 20th century, the radio. The world's first radio factory was set up in Hall Street, Chelmsford in 1899, by Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937). From a later factory in New Street, he started transmitting Britain's first radio programmes of music, news and conversation in 1920, two years before the formation of the BBC.
The construction of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation in 1797, and the later arrival of the railway in 1843, made Chelmsford a suitable centre for industrial development. The coming of the railway commercially doomed the canal, and now the latter is a place for pleasure boating and fishing. Like the canal, the 18th century Moulsham Mill, a former working water mill, has long ceased to be a commercial asset, but is now given over to local craft shops.