The Legacy Of A Landscape

Located between colchester and braintree in the north of the county, coggeshall is home to a number of significant buildings including paycockes house, the abbey and the clock house. And, while marks hall mansion no longer stands, Petra Hornsby explains why it still leaves a lasting legacy within coggeshall’s landscape.

- Petra Hornsby

LIKE many other towns in East Anglia, Coggeshall began as a Saxon settlement and went on to find prosperity through the wool and textiles trades. As well as some charming individual houses and terraces, which are always pleasing to the eye, the town is home to some stunning architectural features, including its famous Clock Tower.

While Marks Hall Mansion no longer exists, the legacy of the estate remains as strong as ever and today the Marks Hall Gardens & Arboretum are a popular visitor attraction. The estate was once known as Mercheshala during Saxon times and, following the Norman invasion and subsequent conquest, was the home to the Merkshall family.

Robert Honywood bought the house in 1605 and immediately made changes by tearing down the timber frames and building a brick structure in its place. The house was handed down to various members of the Honywood family until it was sold at auction in 1897 to Thomas Phillips Price, a Welsh landowner and a liberal MP in Wales. Phillips Price had inherited a fortune through his unmarried uncle who had made his money from mining. It is thought Phillips Price had become familiar with Essex as his sister had settled in the county after her marriage. With his career as an MP over in 1895, Phillips Price became a county councillor and Justice of the Peace for Essex.

Perhaps one of the attractions of the Marks Hall estate was its deer park. Phillips Price had a particular interest in trees and woodland and, after his death in 1932, his wishes were revealed as he left the estate to the nation, ‘for the advancement of agriculture, arboriculture and forestry’.