William Byrd and Fremland in Essex

 

In preparation for local celebrations of William Byrd, research is under way for a talk to be given at Stondon Massey church near to the date of the composer’s 400th anniversary of his death.

Byrd, a recusant Catholic, spent the last 30 years of his life in semi retirement at Stondon Place in Stondon Massey to be close to the Petre family of ingatestone Hall. It is known that he visited several local gentry homes as a musician performing some of his own illegal masses and liturgical works.

Both Philip Brett, expert on the life of William Byrd, and Antonia Fraser, who writes about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, refer to a possible visit to Fremland, the home of Sir John Tyrrell, where Father Henry Garnet a senior Jesuit priest was present at Corpus Christi. Garnet is executed the following year for being complicit in the plot because he heard, through confession, of the intentions of the conspirators. Byrd may have been present on that occasion.

Brett suggests that Fremland is only 11 miles from Stondon Massey. But local knowledge suggests the parish has never existed, and this is confirmed by the Essex Place Names Project database. However, research a few years ago came across a place called Fremnalls in Downham which was demolished to make way for the Hanningfield Reservoir in the 1950s. A further examination of the Essex Place Names Project revealed references to Philip Morant’s History of Essex dated 1768 which names Sir John Tyrell as the owner of this house which he sells in 1627.

Linking these random facts we can be confident that the house where Garnet knew about the treason was Fremnalls.

The photograph is of Hanningfield Reservoir taken appropriately from a bird hide.