2007/4 p4
Epsom advertisements, 1665 and 1711
From The Intelligencer of Monday 12 June 1665:
“Any that desire to go to Epsam by Coach, or from Epsam to Lambeth, may be furnished every day from the Red Lyon at Lambeth by Eight in the morning, and from Epsam by Three in the Afternoon: by Tho. Fisher and Tho. Ryder, whose stand in Epsam is at Master Billets, a Barber”.
From The Spectator of Saturday 31 March 1711:
Fine Brazil SNUFF, both for Colour and Smell, at 3s 6d per Ounce, and 50s per Pound. As also another sort, newly come over, which I can afford for 2s 6d per Ounce, or 35s per Pound. The finest sort of plain Spanish at 8d per Ounce, and 8s per Pound; with all other Fine SNUFF whatever, may be had at SAM’s Coffee-House, Ludgate Street; or at his Sister’s Shop, two Doors on this side the King’s Head in Epsome, where she can supply any Gentleman or Lady with the same; as also Tea, Coffee and Chocolate at Reasonable Rates, as well there as my self can do in London, with Encouragement to those that sell.
Barbara Abdy
(From copies originally made by A.W. G. Lowther in July 1962)
Epsom advertisements, 1665 and 1711
2007/4 p4
Dissenters in Epsom
Dissenters in Epsom in 1667:
Memorandum that on 25 Aug. last, Francis Ewell of Ebsham, came before Christopher Buckle and Richard Evelyn, esq., JPs at Ebsham, and it appeared that the said Ewell, being then 16 years old and more, had on that date allowed… Knowles, —, Thomas Bill, late of Allhallowes, London, merchant, Benjamin Cole, late of Hammersmith, in Middlesex, merchant, John Cross, late of Great St. Ellens, merchant, Nicholas Holloway, late of Shoreditch, John Vipers, late of St. Mary, Whitechapell, Middlesex, Humfrey Jones, late of St. Giles without Cripplegate, Thomas Egg, late of Bishoppsgate, and John Penton, late of — with other (unknown) malefactors and disturbers of the peace, to the number of twenty besides his own family to congregate at his house for the exercise of religion in a form other than that prescribed for the English Church etc. and the above persons were each and all convicted and fined 5s by the said Justices.
Signed by the Justices and endorsed. Conventicles taken before Mr. Buckle and Mr. Evelyn.
From Session Roll XXVII of Surrey Quarter Sessions, Kingston 8 October 1667,
Source
Surrey Quarter Sessions Records: Order Book and Sessions Rolls 1666–1668, ed Dorothy Powell (Surrey County Council, 1951).
Roy Hayman
Dissenters in Epsom
A Pig Pot from Epsom
2008/2 p3
A pig pot from Epsom
During excavation of the site of 106/110 High Street, Epsom, by the Society way back in 1980, an unusual pottery vessel was recovered from an area of chalk foundation.
Although only the lower part of the vessel remained it was recognised as some form of casserole shape, though its actual form was uncertain. It was suggested in the article on archaeological work in Epsom published by the London Archaeologist 4x that it was of Border ware. However at the time it was thought that no examples of this distinctive form were known from the Surrey/Hampshire production area. Eventually the vessel was identified as a type known in Germany as a Schweinetopf or pig pot from its vague resemblance to a pig, and the Epsom find was assumed to be an import from the Rhineland. However, more recently the re-evaluation of the waster material from the Farnborough Hill excavations of 1968/72, just published by MoLAS, has identified a few fragments of this form: so the wheel has turned and it seems likely that the pot from Epsom is a product of the Surrey/Hampshire Border ware industry.
This type of cooking pot is, however, extremely rare in England. There were only three sherds from Farnborough Hill and six examples so far recognised from London sites, although intriguingly there is a complete example with its lid in the Museum of London and another, less complete one, in the Ashmolean.
The examples from Farnborough Hill are dated to the later sixteenth century and stratified finds from London to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. In the Rhineland this type of cooking pot is dated to the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The Epsom find was not securely dated, but was found in a small scoop cut into a rammed chalk floor that underlay the early seventeenth century building at 106 High Street, and may have been put there by the mid seventeenth century. Interestingly the pot seems never to have been used.
The occurrence of this most unusual vessel in Epsom can be seen as further evidence of the significance of the town in the spa period. This form of cooking pot never really caught on in cookery terms in England against the ubiquitous pipkins of the sixteenth/seventeenth century and, as such, is a rather exotic item for any household to own. But then we know that Epsom was quite an innovative and well-connected place in the seventeenth century.
Steve Nelson
