PRITCHETT MEMORIALS
St. Marys - Little Hallingbury - Essex
Two very strange tombs are in the northern section of the graveyard of St Mary The Virgin - Little Hallingbury ..
One is wood, the other stone, both feature wording on the cross sections which are supported by posts at both ends ..
The Church, (Virgin Mary,) a small neat building, with a square tower and shingled spire.
The rectory, valued in 1831 at £430, is in the patronage of the Governors of the Charter House; and incumbency of the Rev. C.R. Pritchett, M.A.. who has a good residence, and 27A. of glebe.
The tithes were commuted in 1840, for £351.17s. per annum.
Name: Charles Richard PRITCHETT
Birth: 14 JUL 1785 in Balsham, Cambridgeshire
Death: 17 JUN 1849
Burial: 22 JUN 1849 Little Hallingbury, Essex
Location of the gravestones in St Marys churchyard.
The son of the Rector of Little Hallingbury, and once running his business from rented offices at No 40 North Street, Bishops Stortford , Mr Pritchett’s considerable wealth enabled him to acquire land and build the large, twin gabled Tudor style house that still stands on the north side of Chantry Close.
He had an abiding fascination for the Tudor period, and to make this house as authentic as possible, constructed it with a thatched roof and laid out beautiful gardens that included a tennis court. His passion for antiques was equal, accumulating anything he could from period houses that were being restored or demolished, and even exchanging new furniture for old to satisfy his obsession.
When the Great Essex Earthquake struck in 1884 he wrote to the Herts & Essex Observer, describing the effects he had witnessed as its far-reaching tremors shook trees and buildings in this area. Mr Pritchett is also said to have designed and installed the town’s first electric generator at Oak Hall, and it was often argued whether it was he or Mr Harry Featherby who owned the first De Dion motor car in Bishop’s Stortford in the early 1900s.
Aside from his eccentricity, Mr Pritchett was an architect of considerable merit. Locally, he designed the first All Saints Church at Hockerill (destroyed by fire in 1935), New Cemetery at Apton Road, and gained particular praise for his design of the church and school at High Wych near Sawbridgeworth.
In old age he became a rather sad and unkempt figure gradually going into decline, as did his beloved Oak Hall estate. He sold part of his land to a family in Thornfield Road to start up a poultry farm, but after his death the house and grounds became the property of the Army and was used as a German prisoner-of-war camp in both the First and Second World War.
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