This month we begin a five-part series prepared for us by Freddie Cooper on Cozenton Farm. He knew the area well as a boy and has uncovered some of its past history. Although his memories relate specifically to his uncle’s farm, life would have been very similar on other properties in the area and so help build a valuable social history of Rainham. I am sure many people will find it fascinating reading.
THE RAINHAM WE LOST
Most of the Manor houses and large family properties around which Rainham developed have been demolished during my lifetime. Many were lost because the land on which they were built, together with the surrounding areas were worth far more for development and until recently there was little demand for large properties which probably needed domestic assistance. l’m thinking of places like Berengrave House, Cozenton Farm and Longley’s opposite, The Limes, Mardale House, Marlborough House. The Russells, The Old Vicarage and Pond House. Perhaps some of these would have been listed and preserved today. The farmland too has nearly all gone for housing which has caused the population to rise from 3,693 in 1901 to around 40,000 today (1999) and includes Hempstead, Wigmore and Parkwood which were all part of the area administered by Rainham Parish Council until 1929.
The property with which I was personally acquainted was Cozenton Farm in Berengrave Lane which was owned by my uncle Mr David Richardson and where l spent some of my school holidays. Actually l had to visit the farm twice a day to collect milk from the age of 7 to about 13 (1924-31). Milk didn’t keep for long prior to pasteurisation so Jim Vickers from Roberts Road, who had similar duties, walked the 1.5 miles with me every moming, come rain or snow, before the family could have breakfast. Cozenton was part of the Manor of Queencourt which comprised some 485 acres of arable, pasture and marshland on both sides of Berengrave Lane. It was originally owned by the Crown and given by Queen Alianore, wife of Henry lll to the Master and Brethren of St Katherine’s Hospital near to the Tower in 1273. lt included a water mill beside Rainham creek, believed to be along Motney Hill Road.
Like most of Rainham, by last century Cozenton was owned by the Hothfield Family (Lord of the Manor) and in 1887 an area of 29 acres 1 rood and 8 perches was bought by a consortium of Rainham businessmen. W.H. Wakeley, S.J. Brice, Marshall Harvey, James Smart, George Whayman, William Finnes and R.J. Passby for £1,550. These men were also the Directors of The Rainham Freehold Land and Allotment Co. Ltd, to which they sold a smaller area of the farm in the following year for £1,800. I know of these transactions because a Mrs Jarvis of Twydall kindly sent me the Abstract of Title which was found among a relative’s effects. Many of the old abstracts are no longer required since the introduction of Land Registry and this manner of tracing ownerships is going to be lost. I think that the farm previously covered a far larger area than when I knew it in the 1920s and 30s. I remember reading of a High Court case held in 1911 in which Street Farm was described as part of Cozenton. The wooden faced building now occupied by Lee Langton on the corner of Holding Street is part of the farm house of Street Farm which was last occupied by the late Alderman W.H. Holding until he built ‘Wilelda’, No.36 High Street, beside the alleyway opposite.
Freddie Cooper
May 1999