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uh and this is the slide we want to start with
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so welcome um from sunny essex we're gonna take you on a pictorial
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journey through the history of the new tool uh but first i thought to make sure
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everyone's on the same page we say essex is here from the coast to
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the capital to the east of london now i think you probably all knew that but just to be sure
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do you know where molden is molden is at the head of the blackwater
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estuary it's a very old town there was a battle of moldon in 991
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which we lost but there's a statue to the man who led it
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boats from malden used to fly up and down the east coast uh the thames barges with their
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brown sails um just note where leia is
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for a second because we'll come back to that during the presentation
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what are moot halls well moot is the saxon word and it means a place of assembly
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and originally the things were moved hills ring-shaped earthworks where the
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anglo-saxon leaders would would meet and make decisions some of them acquired a permanent
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building so hence it became a moot hall 15 places in england still have mood
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halls they include old brewer colchester daventry kessick music catholic on time
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steeple bumstead and of course malden so a few facts about malden it's in the
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high street it's hidden in plain sight lots of people walk past it they don't
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see what it is they don't know what it is they don't realize how much there is to see and what the history is it's from the
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15th century it was a private house it was a courtroom it's been a prison it's
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been a council chamber and a police station currently the town of malden owned the building and they promote educational
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visits from schools we're going to take you on a complete tour of the building
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um the committee room on the ground floor the cellar the prison yarmouth
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now you might think the prison yard's boring but there's lots to see there um the county court under the courtroom on
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the first floor uh the jewellery room the balcony the council chamber on the second floor
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and the moonament room on the second floor and then we'll go right to the top and no one is going to have to walk up
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any stairs this is a schematic of the building and as you'll see on the ground level we
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have the the the police station common room on the first floor the main streets
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court up against the council chamber then views from the top the bells
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you're going to see some marvelous photographs of the walls and the brickwork in this building uh down to
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the exercise yard and there's the underground cell as well so i'm going to hand over to julie now
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who is supposed to say the expert on the building um julie why was the moon tool
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built hi mike thanks for that um the moot hall was built as a brick
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extension to a timber manor house that was already on the site um a young upstart lawyer by the name of robert
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darcy had rolled into the town and got involved with a legal dispute with
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bishop of london and regained the right for the town to have a a moot hall and its own
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governance on the riding on the back of that he became the king's s cheetah for essex
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which meant he dealt with uh property that was in limbo because um
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perhaps uh courtier had died and there was no obvious claimant or that claimant was under age
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so basically he dealt with children and wealthy widows one of whom he married a woman called
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alice fitzlangley he married her in 1417 and then set about spending her money on this
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elaborate brick tower which was added to the existing timber manor house on the
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site which would have taken up and as you can see the space where the brick tower is and the end of the
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portico you can then see a grey building and then a building beyond that
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and those are all um part of the land that would have been
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the the what was called the darcy mansion at the time
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so um if you'd like to move on to the next slide
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um this shows that the brick tower although this is a refaced front
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um the building has always been this this section has always been in brick um was
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made by flemish bricklayers in we think about 1420
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and what you can see here is the front of the building the portico which is a later edition i'll talk about that
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minute um and the clock which is linked to the glock um bells which you can see
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hanging in the victorian belfry um and there is a second wing just slightly off
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to the left it's offset and what you can't see from this angle but we will show in a minute is there is actually a
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brick stair turret which is off to the right as you look at the building um as
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this case you can actually see we have our christmas decorations up um we do it is always a center for the
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malden's town decorations and we always have a beautifully decorated tree and lights it looks absolutely glorious it
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is the center of modern civic activities you can move on to the next one if you
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like okay so this is on the outside of the building this notice board is part of
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the um the information that's under the portico
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um and is the town council are the remnants really of the borough corporation that ran
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malden from 1171 when we first received our borough arms which you can see
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there at the top of the sign in 1974 we became the malden district
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council the town council then became more of a parish council but they are fortunate or otherwise to
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look after a number of uh beautiful old listed buildings and the moot hall being probably the best one of
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the lot it is grade one listed and you can see on this um you can see a number
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of other buildings mentioned uh all going back a long way in history to the
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13th century so uh yeah that that's the properties that are
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also in the portfolio of the town council and the um and the care of local
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people if you'd like to move on to the next one
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let's go inside well the first thing you see when you come in is this rather forbidding door
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um probably originally an external door and it is now an inner door there is a
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um a little porch area which supports a newer staircase that goes up to the
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upper floors when that was put in the doors were reconfigured as you can see it is a
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laminated door with multiple layers of pine on this side which faces the street
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and would originally have been opening onto the street uh the um planks are
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vertical um on the other side you'll see that they run diagonally and they've been riveted together this elderly strap
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hinge is is absolutely beautiful we think the door dates from 1576
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when the building was taken over by the town borough corporation and became the
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moot hall as you said place of assembly when it was
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purchased by the corporation and ceased to have any involvement with the darcy
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family there was an occasion where there had a preacher in the prison in the 1660s
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and he made so much fuss they actually added this hatch to allow the preacher john horrocks to preach to the town at
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the time through the hatch 500 people would gather to hear him uh from
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inside the moot at the hall prison if you'd like to go to the next one
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so we go into the committee room the downstairs room um it's in this format
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probably from about 1920 if you'd come in during the 19th century this was a prison and then a police
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station certainly by the 1880s it was divided up into cells metal cells a bit
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like the sort of thing you'd see in the wild west there were certainly two cells down here um but that was all removed in
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1912 when the new police station was built elsewhere in the town uh so the
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the format that it has now we we have the bricks which you can see on the walls and then it's just been tidied up
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a little with some early 20th century paneling um beautiful committee table
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and some of our artifacts that we show when we do our tours here i'll tell you about the scum skull and
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the manacles shortly you can see off to the side to the left there is the access to the mayor's
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parlor which is a ceremonial room still used on occasion by the mayor of malden
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when they are robin and beside that slightly to the right there is an access
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out to the rear of the building um through a little tiny door that goes
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uh well we'll show you where that goes in a minute mike if you'd like to go on to the next one
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thank you so this is the inside of the door because it's a prison door
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it's um received a lot of attention from board prisoners in its time
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and if mike can go on to the sec the next one you can see that it has a lot
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of graffiti on it there are a number of different marks we have what are known as apotropaic marks which are religious
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or um symbols uh of superstition i'm not sure we can see any on this particular
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picture but obviously you can see uh initials here but you what you can also see is the door is a bit of a palimpsest
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of graffiti uh door has been drawn on so many times and a lot of them
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are boats so within this particular picture you can see if you can go back just for a
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moment mike sorry you can actually see a very old boat
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which is the larger keel and rigging that you can see but tucked inside it is
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a tiny and beautiful picture of what is known as ahoy which is very much a local
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boat very familiar on the river in the 18th century this was been stylistically
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dated to about 1725 but clearly other boats have been laid over
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the top of it i can see at least two other keels possibly three on that picture now you can go back where you
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were mike sorry about that it's okay and again you can see here we've got
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multiple boats drawn over the top of each other uh so here is quite a clear one and i
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think this is intended to be a barge because there are some signs of uh a lee board but if you look in the
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top right corner you can also see a small witch mark and a podrapic mark where you have two circles overlapping
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circles we found this symbol in a number of places in the moot hall they are always on doors or entrances in and out
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of the building they're designed to keep the witches away and i believe they've worked so far
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but what you can also see in the bottom just in the bottom left is you can see the tail end of two m's or inverted v's
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um and this again that's it so that's a sign for mary mother of god and when you see the v's the other way up it is virgo
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vergara means the same thing so that's um a religious symbol but doing the same
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thing somebody is asking for protection and we've seen these symbols all over the building um it's richly decorated
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and and we're very lucky okay i think we can go on from there
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what we got next next one please ah yes the murder painting uh this came
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to us in the second decade of the 21st century um
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this painting actually represents a relatively famous
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murder case that came to the moot hall this is actually the
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uh inquest into the death of a man called william belsham william belsham
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was bludgeoned to death in a cow shed just outside the town and it didn't take long for the men and
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women of the town to realize who had done it this guy who is seated who goes by the name of william seymour
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this event took place in october 1814 and um the watch committee had raised
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funds to help catch the man who you can see seated there um and they celebrated
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the catching of the villain by having themselves created into this painting um
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it is the coroner's inquest it took place on the first floor in the courtroom which you will see again
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shortly though this painting hangs downstairs in the committee room and on the next piece of um
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image you will see some segments of um paper that were found when we had the
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painting restored it was in a terrible state when it first arrived we had it restored and what you can't quite see
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because it's terribly tiny is the larger fragment on the right hand side contains an account of the murder and the chase
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and the apprehension of william seymour he was eventually hanged in march 1815
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for his part in this murder and you may have noticed the skull on the table
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rather grizzly it is a 3d print not the real one but that is william seymour's skull because after the he'd been hanged
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he was returned to malden and the local doctor dr may um
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actually chopped him up for medical science and um the skull was kept we've since had it sculled the skull
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scanned and um and he's at the moot hall the original one is in the malden museum and i've
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completely forgotten the word for chopping someone up to analyze them after they've died but i'm sure it'll
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pop back later next one please
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anatomized there we go knew it would come back so here we are we can see william seymour's 3d printed skull and
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also some of the collection of manacles that we hold at the moot hall rather grizzly um but the kids love them
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they're fascinating and you can see here the third doorway on the back wall of the committee room
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and that is the archway that goes through to our pride and joy which is the spiral staircase
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uh probably added a little later than the hall was originally built it was certainly in place by about 1440
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and is one of very few brick spiral staircases from the early 15th century
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um it is absolutely beautiful all brick and this spiral continues all the way up
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to the entrance to the roof although
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it is sealed off at just above this level and you can't access the whole building but you can access the upper
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floors once you're up there going through the new modern staircase which was
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later added it is an incredible testament to the bricklayer's art as you can see and it's
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called a new staircase because it rotates around this central column which goes as i said all the way up to the
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basically to the flagpole and also has this integral hand rubbed brick
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handrail that you can follow which is inset in and original to the staircase
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it is truly magnificent we're very proud of it next one mike
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so going back into the committee room and coming back to this door this is the
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door that goes through to the cellar sometimes known as the dungeon uh i think one or two guides in the past may
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have had a bit of a game with this there's no evidence that the cellular had been used as a dungeon but it was a
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strong room uh built for darcy's uh treasures to be stashed the strongest
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room in a fortified manor house this particular door is very very
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special it dates to about 1420 you can see the strap hinges on it which tell us
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it's original and also the graffiti is upside down because at some point in the 20th
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century it has been hung the other way up you can actually see damage in the top right hand corner where the wood had
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rotted and the hinges were falling out so they've been very uh reused recycled they've just turned it upside down and
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hung it the other way um so again you'll see virgo for ghana engraved on that door as well so here's
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the medieval strap hinge it is beautiful handmade obviously at the time
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very rare and if you open that door you step down
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into a passageway now the passageway has been cut through the thickness of the
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wall this tells you how thick the walls are um and he's actually been cut through to
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give access out to the uh to the prison yard um but actually cuts
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right through the dome of the vaulted cellar leaving just this small hatch that you
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can see to the left hand side that hatch takes you down into
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the vaulted cellar it's rather damp and dreary and quite unpleasant
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um for theatrical purposes we keep a few um manacles down there
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as i said there's not really any evidence that it was a dungeon as such
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um but who knows i would imagine if somebody was really naughty they could have been popped in there for a little
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while um again you can see it is uh bricklined vaulted cellar semi-subterranean in that is half in and
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half out of the ground so the ground level comes about halfway up
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the wall of the cellar with a small vent this would probably originally have been
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built by darcy would have kept his wine his valuables possibly any food he wanted it's kept stored um over a period
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of time it's been used as a coal seller at one point it was filled with sand um
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presumably never used for it at that time there are there are accounts of it being filled with sand currently it is
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as you see excavated and has a dirty great waste pipe going straight down the middle of it from the mayor's loo
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but there you go um and if you'd like to go on to the next one
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the prison yard so you can access the prison yard as i said through that passageway that cuts through the old
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cellar roof there is a possibility there are more sellers to be found um if the building
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has changed over the over the years we're not really sure what else may be under there but when you come out you
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come up through a set of steps into the uh the cellar yard um you will see from the picture on the
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right that we've had to raise the roof uh sorry raise the pediment wall on more
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than one occasion the first occasion was in the 1880s after a rather a dramatic
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escape uh somebody was taken out to use the loo which you can see in the corner is um the elegantly named piecewise
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we'll say more about that in the moment there used to be a wooden framework that went across the roof and you can just
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see some scarring in the walls where the wooden framework was attached uh it was then raised up by about six or seven
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courses um and then raised again and spiked and then the top half a dozen courses
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which are in the slightly lighter brick were added only a few years ago i was giving a talk on one occasion and the
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people who live in the house next door had built a deck and all their washing fell down on top of me
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so it was and we've had wine glasses and barbecues and all sorts come over so it was raised again for safety because the
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people have a higher level deck now in their garden and so that's the prison
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yard um if we could go to the next one so the prison yard was laid out in 1836
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after prison visitors the prison reform act had come in in 1835 um the police station had been created
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so we had borough constables and it was decided that we needed to have some form of external space for exercise and
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the call of nature as you can see here um it's um
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it's very very basic but it is covered in graffiti and if you could go on mic to the next one
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there are a series of interesting almost every brick is covered with something this one in particular as you can see a
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rifle with a bayonet so presumably a soldier malden was a uh barracks town
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uh from the early 1800s onwards we had a barracks in the town and soldiers are like sailors they're always getting
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themselves in trouble uh so um it's likely that a soldier would have been uh
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done this they would have had lamb bones and things we obviously wouldn't have had blades they were removed we've got
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records of who came in with knives and things but they were always removed from them and
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and we can move on there are some other examples this one is actually s gribbins of 1852
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his full name appears uh also in a kind of cartouche somewhere else but you will
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notice this isn't mike's bad photography this is written back to front he was writing in mirror writing and he's done
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it the same with his name uh in full um so yes we don't know why but he used
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mirror writing he may have been left-handed or some form of dyslexia or just like to be different we don't know
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and the next one is a guy called george amy and george starts off small and his first graffiti
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is about three feet off the ground and but over the years he must have grown up he is a serial offender we've
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started to find his name in some records we are researching the prison records and the court records and george does
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grow up and his top one is about six foot six off the ground and i think that's the one that yep that one there
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so um he was clearly a regular visitor to this prison yard i think we've got
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one or two more mike some of them give us a bit of an address so here's a robinson of putney
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um and he's again it's a palimpsest over the top you can see other graffiti below
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and here we're just gonna come on to you can see he's drawn over the top of some more and this one is a is an otter
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footprint so it shows that the bricks when they were wet um there was obviously wildlife running
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around um we've found evidence of brick clamps uh elsewhere in the town we do have london clay
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so um i'm guessing there was a riverside brick clamp for the bricks to be made
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and um a rather naughty otter has gone paddling across the bricks um but it's
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nice that to think that probably otter was alive probably in about 1835 1836
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something like that so recorded forever we go on mike
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thank you now this is a view in the prison yard looking back towards the the
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building so it's the opposite view that you would see from the front here you can see the stair turret
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and um off to the right and you can see the rear range um you can see a noticeable
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uh area of damaged brickwork this was some rather unsympathetic repairs that were done in the 70s
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uh within the thickness of the walls on this side there is a rather large a couple of
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fireplaces with with big chimneys and the chimneys uh had been cut through the
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thickness of the brick and they were starting to go a bit so this repair was done
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um also if you're interested and if you can see it just behind me is a similar view
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of the moot hall from a painting done in the 1950s which actually shows a couple
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of extra chimneys on the side of the building that aren't there now so again this building has changed
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several times and you can see the shadow uh coming up the right hand
25:04
side and into the damage where there was an old um vent or flue and i wonder if that's
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caused some of the brick damage that you can see there's just the shadow of the fixing on it right in the bottom right
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corner okay onwards [Applause] yeah okay so now we're going to come
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upstairs so to get upstairs because of the um because of the building of the prison
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downstairs they sectioned off the spiral stair and in 1810 there was a lavish
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refurbishment of the building to celebrate some uh regaining of charter privileges the first thing they did was
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put a portico on and put this very um glamorous regency staircase in glamorous
25:49
for the time bearing in mind everybody had been stumbling up and down the old brick staircase for the past 300 years
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so this went on in 1810 and it takes us up to a regency
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um courtroom built in 1810 stroke 11 by the notable
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malden carpenter and timber merchant john sadd the sad family became regular members of
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the ruling classes in malden and we have many uh sads s a double d who were
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counselors alderman and mayors they were non-conformists themselves and
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this has been laid out using the basic idea of a box pew construction
26:36
you can see here the well in the center where the uh clerks and the lawyers would sit um across the back is the
26:43
magistrates bench um and the curtain which i know mike will talk to you a little about you can
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just see in the top left corner the bar arms the three lines of england and
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a ship because when we received our charter in 1171 we received it from the plantagenet king
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henry the seventh second and the three lines were his emblem and
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the ship because it is um given to us in the charter that we will provide a ship
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whenever we are in time of need and ships from malden have been to the siege of calais they were in the armada
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against the spanish in 1588 and indeed uh cromwell had a ship called the jersey
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built at malden in 1651 so not only the king but the lord protector has
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demanded a ship in time of need if you'd like to go on
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um it didn't move hang on that's okay
27:48
oh dear why didn't it move
27:56
oh it's gone now there you go that's it okay so you can see a little more here of the courtroom um again you can see
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the borough arms these were actually they're a silk banner stitched by
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the mrs crone hermann crone the splendid new named herman chrome was one of our
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mayors in the early 19 sorry in the early 1910s and his daughters stitched
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this on silk uh as a banner that that went on the mayor's barge i think the mayors would love to have a barge now
28:27
and they don't get one now um you can also see the gasoline this is all part of our listing um in that this is a
28:34
converted gas lamp that is now uh electrified um but it all adds to the
28:39
sort of stately nature of this rather forbidding courtroom
28:45
it feels very dickensian because of the ebonized wood and i would imagine it was
28:50
quite a terrifying place to be you can see off to the right the staircase that
28:56
the door to the staircase which takes us up uh to the to the rest of the um
29:02
the next floor um mike if you can just move it on one for us and there you'll see a small step this
29:09
is in the prisoner's dock and i think mike would like to tell you a little about this well one of the things that
29:15
the guides do is they ask you why on earth is there a step there and there's a step there because
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children couldn't be seen by the judge um and so i i had to
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prepare a couple of ice creams to my friend molly to to pose um for this and just peer over the edge
29:36
um and you see the judge there is going to send her to australia that's phil our
29:42
caretaker at the moot hall and he's going to send molly to australia for for some petty crime that she's committed
29:50
but molly's mum is going to save her because molly's mom
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is hiding behind the curtain and she's offering a 10 pound note to the judge
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and that's why the curtains there so that people couldn't offer money or inducements to the judge
30:07
now that's all very humorous but let's be serious a second you see the visitors book here from
30:14
uh 19 from 2015 17th of october raymond
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bradbrook from australia came and he was very pleased and honored to be here well
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he was pleased and honored to be here because um before raymond bradbrook
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somebody called berry bradbrook was actually sent to australia from this courtroom
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and julie's done quite a bit of research into barry and what's happened to him and we're going to just talk about that
30:44
for a few minutes now you may remember i mentioned the word leia on the map there well leia bretton
30:52
is next to leia hay where where um it was on the map and berry
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lived there and he was born in 1823 and he came to malden for the summer
31:02
fair in in 1837 and undercover of the hustle and the
31:08
riotous behavior of these events at the time he stole the silk handkerchief
31:13
um from mr boldeston but he wasn't very good and he got caught
31:19
and so on the 16th of october he found himself in the quarter sessions in that
31:24
very dock probably standing on the on the stall there so that he could be seen
31:30
by the judge we don't know but swiftly was found guilty and sentenced to 14
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1-4 years of transportation to australia remember he was only 14 when he was
31:41
sentenced jones for chronicle which is still newspapers around as the essex chronicle
31:48
um reported that barry was taken from the springfield jail springfield jail is
31:54
still there in chelmsford um to the prison hall fortitude and later to the prison ship
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uranus but the the recording in malden at the time mr walford petitioned to have his
32:06
sentence reduced and it was to seven years just in a handkerchief so back he went
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to the fortitude along to australia where he was freed in 1845
32:19
and we believe that barry was a pulling hand on a whaler um he seems to have moved to adelaide
32:26
where in 1846 he owned the green road system of general dealers um he owned the butcher's shop note how
32:33
they spelt weymouth in 1847 and the year after he married
32:38
harriet ultimately he became a farmer and a landowner in athelstan and and purchased 33 acres
32:47
of prime market garden they had three children and barry died in 1865.
32:53
that's one of those um accidents of history with with raymond coming back over here we would never have known that
33:00
if you hadn't told us so we're still in the courtroom and we've turned 90 degrees to the left from
33:07
the dock so back to you julie thanks mike um i i i will just add i think it's
33:13
a terrific story the story of barry bradbrook because there's hope in it uh despite the fact that he uh left england
33:21
never saw his mother again he did see his family because at least one other brother uh managed to get themselves
33:28
transported as well uh to join him out there because it was the cheapest way to get to australia as long as you were
33:34
prepared to do the time um and they found it quite a dynasty out there there is still a brad brook road
33:41
in in adelaide uh and there are still brad brooks out there so uh you know they
33:49
done good which i think is quite reassuring because you know we always think these stories
33:54
of transportation have such dreary ends and for many i guess they did but for barry you know he probably did a
34:01
lot better than he would have done if he'd stayed in in leia so yes on to the the
34:08
rest of the courtroom so if you'd stood in this courtroom in 2005
34:14
uh you would have seen the fireplace that you're looking at now but where the bricks are you would have seen a rather
34:20
large and quite um bland painting of george
34:25
iii um george the third we found out was nobly holding up the ceiling uh because
34:31
what had happened was um the sole plate at the top of the wall had rotted the cross beam had sagged and uh the ceiling
34:39
was now wedged against the rather large plaster frame that was the painting and
34:44
you can't quite see from here but the top of the fireplace still bears the marks where the painting had got so
34:51
firmly wedged as part of a big refurbishment of the
34:56
moot hall that took place in 2006 due to some somewhat sinister cracks
35:02
appearing uh the painting was removed the scaffolding went on and when the plaster was removed they found this
35:09
ornate um trefoil headed arches um above the fireplace what this really
35:17
is is a decorative over mantle to a large fireplace um which was
35:23
much larger than the one you see there now um the bricks were ruddled there's still some sign of it uh in here where
35:31
the bricks were painted red and the mortar was painted white and that tells us this is darcy's great chamber because
35:38
he was showing off his brickwork um this makes this building and i have to get
35:44
this right the earliest decorated it's got twiddly bits
35:50
secular it's not religious brick building in east anglia possibly britain
35:56
um we'll go for that we'll we'll take that um so they couldn't put the painting of george
36:03
back because the bricks far more exciting um and give us an even more important status in
36:10
our listing what you can also see on this victorian fireplace which sits below the brickwork
36:17
um are you can just vaguely see it there are three masks of a lion's face they're
36:23
all slightly different and those masks again represent the three lines of england and in between
36:30
you can see two bundles of staves with an arrow at one end and an axe at the
36:35
other and these are the roman symbol the fascist from which we get the word fascist but in this case it is the
36:42
symbol of the state authority over the individual and no doubt anybody who was unfortunate
36:49
enough to be in that doc would have no doubt about the authority of the court
36:55
over them let's move on there we have a close-up here of the the
37:02
arches they would have been more symmetrical obviously there's been some damage and you can see the plaster on
37:08
the inside there to us they look quite plain you wouldn't have brick as your
37:14
decorative choice necessarily but this was very very important stuff
37:19
at the time and the darcy family were at the forefront
37:24
of this kind of decorated brick building very important
37:29
and onwards so here we have oh
37:36
was a fireplace there but it's gone that's fine we've already discussed the fireplace so then we have a couple of
37:41
extra pictures that are in in the courtroom the first is a rather unusual one um you may think you are looking at
37:48
charles ii and indeed you are looking at the face and the hair of charles ii but
37:54
you are looking at the body of george the first the first of the hanoverian kings
38:00
um this is by the school of godfrienella and for reasons known only perhaps to
38:06
some 18th or 19th century maldonian they have modified it to look like charles ii the
38:14
merry monarch i mean i do know that george first wasn't the most popular of kings and but there you go they painted
38:20
his face differently and the next painting my particular favorite artifact
38:25
in the building this rather cheeky girl whose eyes follow you around the room is our elizabethan lady
38:32
she is wearing the garments of um the court she has the three ostrich feathers
38:38
in her hair she has the cult of the virgin queen attire in that she's
38:43
wearing the large farthing gale the beautiful ropes of pearls and the
38:48
fan in her hand she's white leaded um her skin is white leaded
38:53
so she dates probably to about eight fifteen ninety
38:58
um we think she could be best rock morton whose father was the mp
39:04
for malden in the 16th century um if she is best rock morton she was
39:09
subsequently married to walter riley matched queen elizabeth the first disgust she threw them in the tower for
39:16
the uh for the cheek of it um and their first child did die in the tower um
39:21
this is believed to be by robert peake the elder but we are contacting bendor grosvenor to see if we can have a fake
39:28
or fortune done on it just to find out who she really is we'd really like to know there are a few other contenders
39:35
she's beautiful and i do tell my guides that should they decide um to evacuate the building up for any emergency i've
39:41
got to try and get this one off the wall first let's go to the next one
39:49
have we frozen again here we go
39:55
okay so back we come again to the murder painting uh you will notice that the uh
40:01
the gentleman is in irons poor old william belsham um and he is sitting on
40:06
a windsor chair we call it the murder chair and if we just skip there we go um we
40:13
believe this to be the chair um let's not the truth get in the way of a good story anyway and we we tell all
40:21
our visitors that that is the murderer's chair so this is the room off to the side of
40:27
the courtroom so it is above the mayor's parlor um which we talked about earlier
40:32
um it is now used to host uh small wedding receptions we serve drinks in here it has a beautiful 17th century
40:39
interior the paneling is 17th century we have our bust of samuel toughnell our mp
40:46
uh on the sideboard there and the most revolting victorian red brick monolith
40:51
of a fireplace which did replace a beautiful 15th century brick inglenook fireplace
40:58
which would have been there the remnants are hidden behind it and this is the fireplace where the chimneys are
41:05
collapsing or had collapsed and caused the repair work on the outside of the rear range
41:11
so yeah that's the jury room they would have sat around the benches deciding their verdict magistrate might retire
41:17
here for a decent lunch halfway through and there is um access to a guard robe
41:23
tower that you can't see in the pictures so there's always been a bathroom of sorts there we think it was probably
41:30
originally mrs darcy's sitting room because there are windows on three sides and would have been an escape for her
41:37
away from the great chamber just uh just the other side of the door um
41:42
the other side of the courtroom has access out onto the portico balcony this
41:48
view looks down the high street towards the river and shows that maldon is very much a
41:54
georgian looking town although all of these are false fronts and it is actually very much a medieval town at
42:02
heart when we get to the roof on the from the next floor you will see that all of these are false fronts and that
42:07
the buildings have all been gentrified in the early 19th century at the same time as the moot hall had its portico on
42:17
here's the clock beautiful clock given to the town by the mp george
42:23
courthold in 1881 he was also persuaded to provide the bells as well which
42:28
you'll see in the belfry um originally the clock was powered by clockwork mechanism and a gas light
42:36
inside of the opal glass of the front um so some poor soul had to lean out of the
42:42
top window lift the flap and light the gas it is now you'll be pleased to know all run by nice modern clean electric
42:50
um but there it is our town clock and about to be done up and have its gold gilded um details added back in it was
42:57
painted over black when the old queen died and we've decided it's about time
43:04
we put them back um hoping of course that the present queen doesn't require the same treatment should she pass away
43:10
anytime soon and we can go on to the next picture so we go up again up the wooden
43:16
staircase this is the wooden steps have been put over the top of the brick stairs they're still there underneath
43:24
and you can see above the paneling uh the bricks still sweep around in this
43:29
beautiful um pattern um what you can also see
43:34
is that we have added in oh my goodness sorry i've just got to stop my stupid
43:40
phone from ringing i do beg your pardon [Music]
43:46
oh what an amateur i'm so sorry um so what you can see is the remnants of
43:52
the old gas mantles uh on the wall and a beautiful insert
43:57
into the um embrasure of the window of some scrap pieces of medieval glass
44:03
um that have been inserted in to give us these nice little stained glass touches
44:09
which uh the morning light facing east that catches the morning light beautifully and it really illuminates
44:14
the stair beautifully on to the next thank you again you can see the gas
44:22
mantles um and the slightly less appealing modern emergency lighting there and some more of the medieval
44:28
glass and the curve of the vaulted uh staircase as it goes around as you can
44:34
see it is incredibly complicated um and um it's a miracle modern bricklayers
44:39
have said they don't know how they did this um incredibly technical piece of brick laying there
44:46
okay so we come into the council chamber the seat of power in malden from 1576
44:54
until well 1974 when the borough was dissolved to make way for malden district council but
45:01
it remained the town council's meeting place until the end of the 1990s when a
45:07
new modern town hall was built also of brick just around the corner on market
45:12
hill what you can see here is the horseshoe um desk uh the early counselors the
45:18
young councillors would sit at the bottom of the desk um and gradually make their way to the front where they could
45:24
join the alderman's table and of course you can see the mayor's chair right at the top um with the mayor's robes uh
45:31
hanging there beside the arms of queen and to one side and the arms again of
45:37
the borough to the other side um again beautiful paneled room uh probably early
45:43
victorian probably um when and the clock and you can also
45:48
see some of the charter cases um if you'd like to move on to the next one
45:54
so here we have um our previous mayor this is uh councillor mrs flo shaunicy
46:01
and our um now our mace bearer the tradition is that the mace bearer carries the mace in
46:07
front of the mayor in order to fend off any uh malefactors that may wish to come
46:12
along uh our our mace is uh beautiful um
46:18
it's made of several pounds of silver guilt um dating from 1689 it was commissioned
46:25
by our first mayor samuel pond um just after
46:30
we were given permission to have um a mayor previous to that it just been alderman
46:37
we didn't keep our mayor for very long before we fell out with the authorities and lost our charter for some years it
46:43
was returned in 1810 and the mace has taken part in all civic ceremonies since
46:48
that time um it's laid in front of the mayor's table um and forms the um
46:57
validity if you like of the uh the council in session and so there we go that's
47:03
that's how the mace works uh also in the courtroom we are sorry in the council chamber we have this
47:09
beautiful portrait of queen anne the last of the stuart monarchs she died in 1714 having having had and lost 14
47:17
children um it was her leaving the throne without an heir and
47:23
that caused the stewart dynasty to cease and the hanoverians to come in we know
47:28
that queen anne had a hunting lodge out at wooden walter which is a village just outside malden which was broken up after
47:35
her death and we believe that that's when this portrait but also by the school of godfinella um was purchased um
47:44
by a couple of older men and presented to the town in the cartouche that you can't quite see from here you can see it
47:51
you can't read it it actually is dedicated to the town of pamela dunham which is actually colchester but it was
47:57
believed at the time that the the roman um settlement of camelot dunham was malden
48:04
and that malden was a corruption of camilla dunham um they did believe if
48:09
they knocked down the church next door they would find the temple of claudius but that has since been proved to be at
48:14
colchester castle so we're very glad that they didn't um if you'd like to move on
48:20
here we have one of um quite a number of uh charters these are um
48:27
20th century copies the originals are held in the record office and but they do somewhat pleasingly have the holes
48:34
and marks of the drawing pin so obviously the 13th century originals were held into these cases with drawing
48:41
pins originally which i find quite amusing um each king in turn would ratify the
48:49
rights of the borough to be a to be a borough the rights to collect um fees
48:55
from the port to hold a um a courtroom um to have the right to a gallows a
49:03
tumble and a pillory um it defines the boundaries of the borough and also the right to have a
49:10
market um all of these would be ratified by each king and if there was a change of
49:15
circumstances uh somebody would be sent to petition the king perhaps for improved rights and privileges which is
49:22
why we have two from uh queen mary the first we have one from her in her own
49:27
name and then two years later we have one in the name of philip and mary uh because she had married philip of spain
49:33
so we gave we saw that as an opportunity to gain some extra privileges um if you'd like to move
49:43
it's on sorry there we go so this is a rather
49:50
beautiful clock and we have a pair of these late 17th early 18th century long
49:55
case clocks in the shinwasuri style this one they both work they both still chime and
50:01
they have the most beautiful quarter chimes as well um this one is by edward hunsden of chelmsford and though he did
50:08
have a shop in malden too if you'd like to move on
50:14
here we have our portrait of dr thomas plume he may not be familiar to many of
50:20
you if you're not local um we still have a plume school in malden he um founded the plumium a
50:27
professorship of astronomy um and also when he died um he was a
50:33
bachelor uh clergyman and he left his own library
50:39
to the town in a purpose-built building that he had built some years before he died
50:45
the the library is still in place um it was it was open to the public in 1704
50:51
when he died and uh his will instructed that his portrait should never hang
50:56
in the library it should always be elsewhere and was left to the pond
51:02
family um of whom the first mayor samuel pond um and it came here to the moot
51:07
hall um which it hangs happily in the council chamber where his father was a was an um
51:15
an alderman of the town so we call him plume in the gloom because he doesn't photograph terribly well and there's
51:21
actually quite a lot of detail there but it is very hard to see it but it has been cleaned rather too much
51:28
so we can't do any more to it and but we're very proud to have him and the last thing here is these
51:34
constable staves these are the staves of office that the constables would parade with um
51:41
we think that possibly the silver one on the far right is a forerunner of the
51:47
earlier mace because it is a silver head the one to the left is a pewter head as
51:52
these are early forms of mace and then we have the constable staves which were decorated
51:58
for the um coronation of george the fourth in um so uh yeah and we again have another
52:06
representation of the bar at arms
52:11
a muniment room mike am i doing this for you i'll i'll do you do this
52:19
um movement is a legal term for a document a title deed or other evidence that
52:25
indicates ownership of an asset i mean today i guess we have deeds of our house
52:31
but the words derive from munamentum meaning fortification bulwark and thus
52:37
movements of title were written evidence that the owner had to defend his estate
52:45
but where would you keep them whether you would keep them somewhere safe wouldn't you julie
52:51
you certainly would um one of the few meaning rooms that i've heard of apart from ours is the um the rare collection
52:58
of documents at westminster abbey which has a monument room but in morden's case we have a muniment chest
53:06
and and this rather elderly example actually dates stylistically to around
53:13
the late 1400s there's a very similar one at leomani um
53:19
this one has three locks as you can see and only one of them um well all of them
53:24
have been damaged one of them has actually been um yeah they've been yanked open because when we lost the bar
53:31
charter uh in 16 late 1600s the town clerk
53:36
uh mortgaged all the documents in order to raise money they even mortgaged the moot hall um and uh no town clark would
53:45
do that now i hasten to add and i happen to know there is a former town clerk here tonight and so um they would never
53:52
consider doing such a thing but you can see that the locks have all been forced open uh for this nefarious activity to
53:58
go on it's a it's a medieval iron-bound six-plank chest it is only made of six
54:04
pieces of wood and um it is extremely heavy uh so if it
54:11
if it was brought here in 1576 when the borough moved to the building um it
54:17
hasn't moved very far but it could equally have belonged to darcy and have been there all along um it's not easy to
54:26
move and there it is there's the lid we have here the burra seal um this is a
54:34
beautiful little mechanism made by mold and ironworks we have a great tradition of the ironworks in malden again there's
54:40
a reputation representation of the ship from the borough arms this was a wind-up mechanism so you
54:47
would impress the seal into a document or possibly i don't know if it could be used on wax perhaps uh to to ratify any
54:56
documents um so that still has it it would have been used until 1974
55:01
when the borough became the district council and a new seal was created
55:08
and we have uh one little artifact that's uh been hanging around in the moot hall for heaven knows how long um
55:15
it has a label on it that says admiral six bar um and we don't know we just call it the
55:21
admiral's hat box um maldon did have a court of admiralty so did an admiral come in with his hat in a
55:28
box and go out with it on his head and leave the box behind or was it used originally to store a
55:34
mayor's hat they are very similar we don't know but it's rather lovely and
55:39
currently has gone walk about so we we are on the hunt for the hat box at the moment
55:46
and we have very close links to the town of malden's felt wrong m-a-l-d-e-n uh in
55:52
america in massachusetts and uh there have been regular visits between uh the
55:57
two towns um this is a copy of the declaration of
56:03
independence for the town of massachusetts malden in 1776
56:08
um uh rebellious colonials the lot of them obviously
56:13
um and now we go up to the roof and we start with the door that
56:18
confounds uh all our visitors uh this is actually a sash door uh there's no room
56:25
really for an opening door on on the site of this staircase so they've rather
56:31
cunningly put a sash door in as you can see it right this slides up and regularly trick my visitors with that
56:37
one and that takes us into the very very steep staircase that goes from the top
56:43
floor to the roof again guarded by one of these witch marks
56:48
of the two interlinked circles designed to confuse a witch who is so busy following the circles that they cannot
56:55
escape and cannot get into the building this one is right at the top of that staircase and there you are looking down
57:02
the staircase as you can see it is very steep not for the faint-hearted um but
57:08
it does get you up to the roof where you have the most spectacular views and i
57:14
think mike is going to take it off from there you come out of the the doorway there
57:19
um in the staircase onto the to the top and you can see for miles and miles which
57:25
i'm going to prove to you shortly we managed to get the mayor to come up there for us as well and you can see to
57:32
the right it's high tide um and the molded estuary the black water estuary is going out
57:39
um another view across there um there are the bells and people think
57:44
that it's the church bells ringing but it's not it's our bells and a close-up of the bells if you're
57:50
interested in bells a longer view towards bradwell out to
57:55
the sea and you can see how the estuary bends around there that one's not quite at
58:01
high tide um now here you can see the end of the
58:06
promenade if you follow my little arrow there we get to the statue of brithnorth
58:12
who lost the battle of malden in 991 you can also see some of the malden
58:19
uh sorry some of the thames barges on the height key there a different view
58:25
and look in the same direction um we mentioned the guides like tricho
58:30
and the guides will ask you where these three towers are and most people think well there aren't
58:35
any towers tower blocks anywhere near here because we're in the middle of the country um the the tower blocks were actually on
58:42
the sea from the south end 10 miles as the crow flies 25 miles by
58:47
road and about about an hour round by road
58:52
um the high street down again at high tide as you guys
58:57
julie said the the buildings all the crusades at the front and and their medieval houses at the back
59:04
the church top of the high street um this this little glass window affair
59:11
here is called the belvedere and the the ship owners used to build these so they
59:16
could watch their men working on the key um rather than have to walk down to the key
59:22
in the cold wet so they could spy on them effectively
59:27
oh looking down from the top summer so um um apologies we have a little bit
59:35
over time but if you're if you're ever in essex you can book a visit to the moot hall uh and i'm gonna stop showing
59:42
my sheets screen and go back over to fiona
59:50
sorry about that i rather took longer than i should didn't i it's hard to shut me up when i'm talking about the move
59:55
ball you're muted
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