Good work, Heather. Epping Green and Epping Upland are in Essex now and I'd imagined that they always were. Does this mean that they were in Herts at one time? Or are they listed under Herts because they're near the county? Colleen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Heather" <heatherachere@yahoo.co.uk> > Hello there > If you select Hertfordshire in the Gazetter on Old Maps uk site > http://www.old-maps.co.uk/GAZPAGES/GazCounty.aspx you will find a couple > of places in the county with Epping in the name. > Best regards > Heather > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Any problems, please contact the List Admin: Essex-UK-admin@rootsweb.com > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ESSEX-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internal Virus Database is out of date. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.2/1741 - Release Date: 23/10/2008 07:54

Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!! Ooh - who woke me up! Ah, hello Colleen, good to hear from you again. Right, just had a coffee and got my brain cell into gear (note the singular tense - if I had another one to rub it against then maybe I could make a spark). Sorry, but all these Epping places have been in Essex for as long as the county has existed. They all originally came under the one parish of Epping, with its historic settlement and medieval parish church at what is now called Epping Upland. What we now think of as Epping is an 18th century ribbon development along the old but locally major coaching road from Bishops Stortford to London, which road once crossed a relatively empty part of the parish of Epping - until the developers moved in. It was first called Epping Street or Epping Town, and now just Epping. Note that its parish church is late 19th century - yes, a replacement, but the first one was only early 19th century. This also shows what happens when a market town puts its market on the edge of its parish rather than in the centre of its settlement. Passing trade thus avoids the centre of the parish so much that it eventually becomes an isolated hinterland. Epping Upland was named thus because it became the upland part of the parish, the agricultural backwater if you like; the place where local market produce was - er, produced. It's an unfortunate name though, as Epping itself means 'upping'! In a county of modest hills and bumps, the great ridge that Epping sits on (along with Epping Forest) is quite a feature in the local topography, and any small settlement on it would have been considered to be 'up the hill' by anyone from the parishes in the richer farmland that surrounds the ridge, such as Waltham Abbey (which has a hamlet called Upshire on the side of the ridge, just below Epping), Loughton (which the London coaching road continued through until the mid 19th century, thus meaning that to travel from London to 'Upping' would involve climbing the extremely steep hill that still leads from Loughton to the Wake Arms roundabout*), Theydon Bois (with a similarly steep hill leading towards Epping, whether you go via the Wake Arms or via Ivy Chimneys), and so on. (Only the road from the north has no steep uphill gradient.) * The present main road (the old A11) leading through the middle of Epping Forest didn't exist from the Wake Arms to the Robin Hood until the mid 19th century. Epping must have been settled by unsociable hermits, and when its eastern edge got developed and full of hustle and bustle, all the hermits moved west, even further upland from the parish's main road, thus making a new 'Upping' away from the old (new) one. Or something like that. The element 'ing' means 'place belonging to the people from' (e.g. Hertingfordbury (see below) was 'the place of the people from Hertford', meaning that it had been settled by people from that town), so Upping would mean 'the place of the people from Up' - or possibly 'from the upper shire', i.e. modern Upshire, which very much shares its farmland identity with modern Epping Upland and modern Epping Green (which, as you can no doubt now see, was another part of the original centre of the pre-18th century parish), all these three places surrounding the fertile head of the Cobbing valley. Therefore those miserable hermits that first settled Epping probably came from Waltham Abbey via Upshire. Oh dear! ___________________ It is very unlikely for the various Eppings to have been mistakenly put into Herts, except possibly in more modern times. Back in parochial-manorial days, a deed recording the sale of property would certainly correctly identify the 'umbrella' area that the property was in; it might use odd spelling but would go to great pains to specify the parish or manor, and then the county, with great precision. Such information would have been of the utmost importance in a time before Land Registry codes and National Grids. I've got your number! So far, the enquirer hasn't given us any further info, so either they were mistaken about it being a Herts placename and the 'epping' element places it in Essex (Lindsey Street in Epping is a very ancient lane and has had that name, variously spelt, for centuries - so could "Liewseppinge" mean something like 'Lindsey [Street] (or a place called Lindsey on that lane) [in] Epping'? Or could it mean something like 'Lower Epping' at as time when the parish of Epping hadn't yet split its separate ways - or was possibly just beginning to, which might mean that this could be a new reference to the distinction by name between different parts of the parish at an early date? Perhaps the fact that Lindsey Street leads towards Epping Upland and Epping Green is of some significance here - it must have once been of equal status to the main coaching road, in the days before Epping Town took off. Or the enquirer was accurate about it being in Herts, which means that we've all made a boo-boo over the Epping element. I will try to follow this thread. Firstly, as to where in Herts it might be. I'm a bit wary of Liewseppinge being "possibly not too far distant" from Hunsdon, as recent work I did on the residences of landlords holding property in 18th century Waltham Abbey showed that only a quarter of them lived within 20 miles or so of the parish, about half had London addresses, and one or two even lived as far away as Scotland and Ireland. You didn't need to be local to invest in property. Next, looking for something like 'eppinge' in Herts. I looked high and low, even looking at all Herts names that contained just the 'ing ' element, but I can't get 'eppinge' out of any of them, even allowing for mistranscription. Perhaps the only one that might half-fit, and then with a great struggle, would be Hertingfordbury, which Skeat says has in the past been called Hertfordingbury, so could possibly have been just 'Hertfording' in some texts (my guess). But I think not. I tried pasting Liewseppinge into Word using a range of old medieval-style fonts, to see what it might have looked like in the original document, and the best I could come up with was '[Lt?]Wapping'. But that's not in Herts! Then I tried the 'ie' fragment but all I got was 'field'. In response to another lister's response, 'Eppinge' is also a surname, but that didn't help either. I think it most likely that some small corner of Epping in Essex was being referred to, unless the info we have been given is partially incorrect. We really need the enquirer to take a photo of the word he's tried to transcribe, along with the rest of the sentence it's in and even maybe the whole paragraph, and then upload it to a server in the sky so that we can all have a look. Fingers crossed! Lawrence -----Original Message----- From: essex-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:essex-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Colleen Sent: 28 October 2008 01:01 To: Heather; essex-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Ess] Place name in Herts. Good work, Heather. Epping Green and Epping Upland are in Essex now and I'd imagined that they always were. Does this mean that they were in Herts at one time? Or are they listed under Herts because they're near the county? Colleen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Heather" <heatherachere@yahoo.co.uk> > Hello there > If you select Hertfordshire in the Gazetter on Old Maps uk site > http://www.old-maps.co.uk/GAZPAGES/GazCounty.aspx you will find a couple > of places in the county with Epping in the name. > Best regards > Heather > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Any problems, please contact the List Admin: Essex-UK-admin@rootsweb.com > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ESSEX-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- Internal Virus Database is out of date. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.2/1741 - Release Date: 23/10/2008 07:54 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Any problems, please contact the List Admin: Essex-UK-admin@rootsweb.com ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ESSEX-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.549 / Virus Database: 270.8.3/1748 - Release Date: 26/10/2008 19:53 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.549 / Virus Database: 270.8.3/1748 - Release Date: 26/10/2008 19:53