Mucking;- Essex

admin sinfulldude · Mucking;- Essex

(was written and posted by madmart former forum's ADMIN )

If you visit Mucking today all you will find is one farm, four buildings and a church. The church is now a private home and the rest of the buildings are owned by a private company and used as offices (apart from the farm which is still a farm).

To look at the village now you would not think that it is one of the most important historical locations in Essex.
Prehistoric men were the first residents to settle in Mucking and work the land. The local museum has a wonderful collection of flints and tools from excavations that have been carried out over the years.

Next come the Romans, they built a large villa in Mucking and again worked the land. Being on the banks of the River Thames and only a few miles down stream from the Medway, which is the second landing site of the Romans in Britain in 43AD, it is hard to say how long the Romans stayed in Mucking but it seems the British worked the land with the Romans and there was a smooth transfer over to the British as the Romans pulled out of Britain.

The Roman villa at Mucking

The next residents and perhaps the ones to leave the most behind in Mucking were the Saxons.
There is evidence that the Saxons moved into old Roman buildings in Mucking before building their own. Crop marks show just how large the settlement of Mucking was and excavations have found just under a thousand burial sites in the area along with foundations to the old buildings. Again items from the excavations can be seen in the Thurrock museum. But you can still see the Saxon church at Mucking today.

Mucking burial site

The name Mucking is Saxon and seems to refer to the location of the settlement being near a creek, the same can be said for Fobbing.
Years ago, the residents of Mucking asked for the name of the village to be changed and then felt it was too negative, their request failed and the name stayed.

The Crown Inn

By the 15th century Mucking was a important village along with Fobbing. Both had landing places for ships and both were used by smugglers, as with Fobbing there is said to be a tunnel system linking Mucking creek to the Crown Inn in the village of Mucking.
The Crown Inn was a very busy place which did not go down well with the local church and at one point it is said that members of the church spoke about Mucking, "that I would not admit to sacrament any of my parish which I knew to be common blasphemers or drunkards".
The Jaggs Family ran the Inn from about 1828 to 1845 but still lived in the village after that time. Philip Jaggs and his wife Harriett had two children George and Mary, it seems that Mary might of only lived until she was 25, there is a record of a Mary Jaggs death in the Mucking churches registry but I cannot say for sure that they are the same person. In 1841 Mary was only 10 years old.

When you look into the history of Mucking there is always one location that seems to pop up from time to time and this is Mucking Hall.
Sadly, the building was sold off and unfortunately burnt down a few years ago and is not much more than a pile of bricks now. But in its time it played an important part in the social life of Thurrock. Well-regarded members of society would be invited to dine at the hall, Joseph Conrad and Daniel Defoe would have been just some of the high profile names of society that could have been found there.
There is much information that I have left out of this history report and here is why, I hope to take the team back to Mucking and due to this I do not wish them to know too much about the history but here are two tales that I will let you think about.

When the Crown Inn was still a drinking house, a young man came to stay at the Inn. Soon the man became ill with cholera and died in the Inn. His bed for some reason was placed in the middle of the village and children would play on it and some died the same day.

The other tale is from the 1920-30s, it is reported by a local policeman. In his biography he talks of a gentleman that came to Mucking, this gentleman was an illegal abortionist, he carried out an abortion on a young lady but unfortunately killed her in the process and to cover his crime he hid her body in the marshes. Her body was found some time later.