remembering the Magna Carta

Today (28th April), an item was posted on the Magna Carta 800 web-site titled ‘How to teach … the Magna Carta’, which presents an item posted in The Guardian online: ‘… This summer marks 800 years since the signing of a document that would become a cornerstone of the British constitution: the Magna Carta.
> The charter, sealed by King John at Runnymede on the banks of the River Thames, forms the basis of many freedoms we have today. To mark the anniversary, the Magna Carta Trust will send every UK state primary school a souvenir copy of this historic document later this month …’ – at http://magnacarta800th.com/articles/how-to-teach-the-magna-carta/ .

The anniversary of the signing of the charter is on the 15th June 2015 (for the 15th June 1215). The Magna Carta is such an important document in English history that it is being celebrated with a range of events and projects this year.

One of the 25 ‘barons’ who were named as sureties of the Magna Carta was William de Lanvallei III, the Lord of Walkern and Datchworth in Hertfordshire, Blagrave in Berkshire, and Great Hallingbury and Great Bromley in Essex. He also held the manors of Lexden and Stanway at Colchester. He was related to several of the Magna Carta barons. Other Essex sureties were Sir Robert de Vere of Castle Hedingham and Geoffrey de Mandeville, later the 2nd Earl of Essex. William de Lanvallei was born in 1180 at Great Bromley. He was a patron of St John’s Abbey in Colchester and was involved in the First Barons’ War of 1215-1217, which was caused by the king not observing the terms of the Magna Carta. William de Lanvallei regained his family’s holding of the Constableship of Colchester Castle in 1216. It is thought that he lived at Lexden Manor*, which was the richest estate in Colchester. He died in 1217 and may have been buried at St John’s Abbey. Another William de Lanvallei founded the Crouched or Crossed Friars in Colchester in about 1245 (in modern Crouch Street). After the de Lanvallei family, Lexden manor was held by the Fitzwalters. The manor was probably the later Moat Farm and then the Lexden Lodge of today. Lanvalley Road and Fitzwalter Road in Lexden commemorate the families which once held Lexden manor.

The Lexden Tumulus in Fitzwalter Road is on land which was once was part of Lexden manor (see map on page 21 of Colchester Archaeological Report 11). Moat Farm also included ‘Moat Farm Dyke’, part of the Iron Age defensive system of Camulodunum at Colchester. In 1982, members of the Colchester Archaeological Group (CAG) walked the site of known Roman tile kilns at Lexden Lodge (see CAG Bulletin, number 16, page 29) and collected samples of tile and pottery fragments from the surface of the ploughed field. The CAG had excavated a Roman kiln here in 1969/70 and concluded that there were probably several other kilns on the site. In 1992, the Trust investigated the moat of Lexden Lodge during drainage work (see CAT Report 4/92e). In 2007, we undertook a watching brief and excavation on part of the site of the Crouched Friars. We have conducted several investigations on the site of St John’s abbey in recent years: in 2011, we uncovered some of the remains of the abbey church (see CAT Report 601).

Interestingly, Lexden Lodge was for sale in February 2015. It was described in the New York Times: ‘… Situated on a moated island and with a famous dike where Boudicca, queen of the British Iceni tribe, is said to have hidden her troops before storming nearby Colchester, the equestrian property Lexden Lodge is considered to be one of Essex’s archaeological treasures.
> Set in 10 acres of land, the current house, a former manorial hall dating from the 15th century … An incarnation of Lexden Lodge was listed in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book of 1086, giving the property a much earlier provenance …’ – at www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/greathomesanddestinations/old-manor-steeped-in-english-history-is-for-sale.html?_r=0 .

Read more about Magna Carta and the anniversary at http://magnacarta800th.com .

The image shows the de Lanvallei coat of arms.

* Lexden manor is described in the Victoria County History, volume 9 – ‘… The site of the medieval manor house was probably within the moated inclosure where a house known as Lexden Lodge survives. In 1313 the main house, kitchen, granary and chapel stood within the inner courtyard, two barns, a byre, dairy and small garden within the outer courtyard. The existing house, apparently of the 16th century, was probably an addition to an earlier and more substantial building, of which nothing remains. The eastern side of the moat was apparently widened in the early 19th century...
> A chapel in or for the park recorded in 1201 was presumably that located in the inner court of Lexden manor house …
> The park inclosed by the lord of Lexden manor before 1237 occupied much of the north-east corner of the parish between the river on the south and Bergholt Road on the north. It extended eastwards towards the town at North Street and westwards towards the manor house on the site of Lexden Lodge …’

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