Few persons would imagine that the name of this small
place has been spelled throughout the manuscript records is no less than thirteen different ways;
yet it is, viz.:- Vang, Vange, Fang, Fange, Fangy, Fanges, Phanges, Fenge, Fring, Vung, Fange-st-Noke,
Wyinge and Fjangge. Historians of Essex have not written much concerning Vange, probably because it
did not lend itself to the building of princely mansions for the great; and partly, no doubt, because
of its unhealthy situation, in the marshes of the Thames, liable at times, to inundations. In fact,
Dr. J.C. Cox, F.S.A., in Essex dismisses the parish from his thoughts with three lines only,
viz.: 'Vange (two miles from Pitsea) is a small village on a creek of the Thames. The church (All
Saints) is a small 11th or 12th century building with a wooden bell turret.' Yet there is a great
deal of interesting matter to be recorded about the parish notwithstanding.
The church, in very early times, was built upon the top of a high circular mound, but the clay
foundations was treacherous, and hence the building placed on this mound showed many cracks from time to time, and has
numerous iron ties to keep its walls and roof together. For the same reason a tower of any size could not be erected, so the
structure has to content itself with a small wooden tower, with pointed centre. The parish, unlike many in Essex, such as the
Thurrocks, the Rodings, the Ockendons, etc., does not seem ever to have been cut off from a larger one, but to have been, from
time immemorial, a place to itself. It was named Phenge in Norman times, and this may possibly mean Fenge, because of its
Fens, which, until the sea walls were built, must have been an appropriate name. This old parish stands between Nevendon and
Basildon, joining on to the parish of Pitsea on the east. It lies in Barstable Hundred, Billericay Union, West Ham Archdeaconry
and Chelmsford Diocese, nine miles north east from Tilbury, seven from Billericay and about two from Pitsea railway
station. In former days it grew wheat, beans and clover on its heavy loam, with clay subsoil. The area of Vange was 1,670
acres and its population - even in 1881 (merely 152, with about 30 or 40 houses) was small, but of late years, its growth in
population has been rapid, totalling in 1931, over 2,301 souls; and the dwellings numbering over 775. Fresh streets and roads
have been made, which will soon be covered with shops and dwellings. There is a fine War Memorial in grey granite in the shape
of a cross, bearing the names of 21 men who fell in the Great War, 1914-18; a Free Church called "The Gordon Hall," doing a
splendid work under an hon. superintendent, Mr. Stanley M. Barr; also an R.C. Mission.
Once, in pre-Norman times, Vange boasted of two small manors, but about 1066 the two became
one, possibly through intermarriage or by purchase. In Domesday book, the first manor is thus described, viz.: 'Turold's son
holds Phenge of the Bishop of Bayeux, which two freeman held for five hides and half [fol. 31]. Always two carucates in demesne,
and four of the men [a carucate of land was 'as much as a team could plough in a year']. Six Villeins, nine Bordars, one servant,
half a hide of wood. Pasture for a 120 sheep, one Fishery, now one mill, two horses, four beasts, four hogs. Then 67 sheep,
now 170. Of this land a freeman held 30 acres, which, in King William's time, have been added to the said land, and he knows not
how. Then worth 100 shillings, now eight pounds.'
The second manor is thus described. viz.: 'the same Serlo hold Phenge, of Ralf Piperell, which a freeman
held for a manor and one hide; who, since King William's time was made one of the men of the Predecessor of Ralf Piperell, but
he did not give him his land [fol. 102]. But when the King gave the land to Ralf he seized it with the rest, in which was one
caracute, now none. Pasture for 30 sheep, then worth 20s., now 10s.'
In order to form a correct idea as to size of these manors we must try to understand the peculiar
terms used in feudal times. For instance, a hide of land contained 120 acres, which would to-day be designated a small farm. Bordars
were Cottars who rendered to their lord certain produce instead of rent, such fowls, eggs and small livestock [see Ellis's
Introduction to Domesday, vol. 1, pp. 82-83]. Villeins were lower down in the social scale and supposed to do the most
servile of labour. Thanes were farmers who possessed at least 600 acres, and if a Thane prospered so that he possessed
40 hides of land (i.e., 4,800 acres) he was entitled the rank of Earl. Land, after the Conquest, was secured in this way, Viz.: if the
King desired to honour one of his Norman retainers he gave the retainer a certain portion of land, on condition the recipient
guaranteed to fight for him in his wars, and provide a certain number of his own tenants to do the same. Besides this the King
frequently insisted that the great landowner should build a church on the land, in order that religion might be taught.
This church he was to see supplied by a Rector, the Rector's salary to be the greater tithes. All these
details having been settled, the tenant stripped himself of all his armour, knelt down, joined his hands, placed them within the
hands of his lord the King, and repeated this formula: 'I am your man for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will be faithful and
loyal to you through life and in death, so God help me.' Then the King kissed him, and this kiss was a sign that the land, or 'fief,'
became his and his heirs for ever. Of course, there were some legal formalities to be observed, such as the handing over of a
spur, clove, Peppercorn, hawk, rose or twig annually to the Crown as a token that the land was held from the Crown. One of the
patrons of Vange viz., William Wetenhale, held Vange with the advowson 'by the service of one silver needle of the price of two
pence.'
Thus King got all the land into his own hands, and in 1066, at Salisbury Plain, 60,000 of the great
landholders of England swore allegiance to him. It has been computed that, besides the 60,000 mentioned above, there were
in the country 90,000 Cottars and Bordars under them, and about 100,000 Villeins. Below these again were 30,000 serfs who
were little removed from slaves. It was noticed that Turold's son held Vange from William's half brother Odo, the Bishop of
Bayeux. Now, this same Bishop was a most covetous cleric, and possessed in Essex a loan some 39 manors, but Thorold or
Turold was not one whit behind his lordship as a land grabber, for we read of him that he seized manors in Chadwell, West
Horndon, Basildon, Stifford, Thurrock, Rainham, and twelve hides of land [1,440 acres] in Stanford-le-Hope. Turold was one of
the most unscrupulous of men. Besides all the property before mentioned he stole 30 acres of land in Mucking (once owned
by the Abbott of Barking), seized more land Thorrington, 30 acres in Fobbing (once possessed by the Count of Boulogne),
and tried hard to seize land in Hanningfield belonging to the Abbott of Ely.
From the foregoing we see that the head landlord of ancient Vange was not a pleasant character to
deal with, and also that his tenants in the two manors of ancient Vange consisted of six Freeman, six Villeins, nine Bordars
and one servant. Between them they seem to have possessed, according to Salmon's History, about 300 sheep, half a hide
of woodland (i.e. 60 acres), 'one fishery, one mill, 2 horses, 4 cows and 4 hogs.' Thus, out of a full 1,670 acres in the ancient
parish, only 720 appear under culture, the remaining 950 being possibly Marshland, including some common ground. From
the earliest period a great portion of Vange must have subject to inundation, owing to its proximity to the tidal river Thames,
and attempts were made during the centuries past to redeem some of it from the river by the erection of sea walls but again
and again these sea walls were broken down by the violence of the high tides, and the owners of the land put to enormous
cost to repair the damage.
THE SEA WALLS.
Dugdale, the great authority on 'Inning' (or erecting these walls) mentions that, if the Crown gave or
sold any lands abutting the sea walls, along the line of the river, the owners of these lands would be held responsible to keep
their portion of such walls 'made up' from time to time. This, however, did not work very well, because the English were not used
to such specialised work. They tried to repair it with rushes and marsh mud, not knowing how to get a solid 'core'; hence
breaches became very frequent to the great damage of the shipping and transit trade. Finally the Crown appointed a Sea Wall
'Commission' to see into the matter, and the owners of the lands where the breaches occurred, were obliged either to repair the
walls or else forfeit their lands altogether. Then the Commissioners advised the Government that expert Dutchmen, used to this
kind of wall building, should be sent for, and given the lands which were forfeited, as payment for putting up stouter walls. This
was in 1620, but the walls had been giving trouble from the time of King John, and even before that time; for instance in the days
of William II, we know that the sea overflowed the estate of the famous Earl Godwin, and drowned thousands of men and cattle,
and afterwards forming that death-trap of the coast, known as the Goodwin Sands. Much in the same way breaches of the sea wall
have often taken place at Dagenham, 1621, West Thurrock, Canvey Island, Vange and other places alongside the riverbank.
In 1707, a breach took place at Dagenham and Havering 100 yards wide and 20 feet deep; whereby, Gough
says, '1,000 acres of rich land were overflowed and nearly 120 acres of land washed into the Thames forming a sand bank near a
mile in length half across it.' This breach cost many thousands of pounds sterling to repair.
In 1621, or thereabouts, a famous Dutch engineer had been sent for. He arrived in this country with a band
of several hundred of his fellow countrymen, to carry out the vast work of 'inning' the Thames again. His name was Cornelius
Vandenanker, and right well he accomplished his work, thus reclaiming several thousands of acres from Dagenham to Canvey. Many
thousands of tons of chalk from Purfleet and Grays quarries were used to form a 'core' and in places no less than three walls were
constructed, one within the other, considerable distances apart, to minimize the possible damage in case of future breaches; more
than this, 'counter walls' were built at right angles to the long main wall, as supports to it in case of flood pressure, and likewise to
act as confining walls while the main wall was being repaired. Vandenanker having accomplished his work, and thereby amassing
a great fortune (i.e., by the sale of the marshes he redeemed) resided in Essex for some years, and numbers of his Dutchmen
stayed and married in the county. This was especially true in Canvey Island, where their offspring can be easily traced. Palin - author
of Stifford and its neighbourhood - makes frequent mention of these Dutch settlers. In the parish of Downham a mural
monument of the church has the following inscription: 'Here lies x x the wife of Cornelius Vandenanker x x she left one daughter
Cornelia she departed this life 9th April 1692.' This Cornelia married Cromwell Disbrow, who was closely associated with Purfleet
in his day. From what we read in Domesday Book about Vange it does not appear that there was any
church there as early as 1089, and indeed the very small number of inhabitants there at the time - twenty-three all told - would
scarcely justify the building of a church. The inhabitants evidently got a living by catching and selling fish, rearing sheep on the
dry parts of the marsh, and by fees charged for grinding corn at their windmill.
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