Braintree District Museum |
A Brief History of Braintree
The history of the Town begins at least 4,000 years ago with the earliest concentrated settlements near the River Brain in the Skitts Hill area and also around the present crossroads at the junction of the A120 with the north/south route from London to the East Coast. This latter area became the focus of the Roman Town. Saxon development moved the focus of the Town yet again, but it was the importance of the road routes through Braintree and Bocking which led to the proliferation of inns which served pilgrims on the route to Walsingham and Bury St. Edmunds.
In 1199 the Bishop of London obtained a market charter for the Town. Braintree, with its weekly market and annual fair, thrived as a place of importance. In the 16th century, Flemish Protestant immigrants brought weaving prosperity when many of the houses and former inns became homes to woollen weavers whose skills made the Town famous.
As religious intolerance and financial hardship took its toll, many people from Essex emigrated to the new world, including a group from Braintree who sailed on ‘The Lyon’ in 1632. The settlers established Braintree, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut.
The Town’s population suffered too in The Great Plague of 1665 which claimed 865 victims from a population of just 2,300, but the success of the wool trade in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century brought renewed prosperity and growth.
Woollen weaving was superseded by silk manufacture and the establishment of Samuel Courtauld’s factory in the 19th century brought the Town its greatest prosperity. Agriculture was flourishing and, with the building of the Corn Exchange in 1839, plus the arrival of the railway connection to London in 1848, Braintree was a thriving agricultural and textile town with Warners joining Courtaulds at the end of the century.
Engineering grew in importance during the 20th century with both Lake and Elliot and Crittalls becoming world famous – the latter for their metal framed windows.
The Town benefitted from the wealth of the Courtaulds who gave many of the Town’s public buildings including the Town Hall and School (now the Museum), hospital and public gardens which have changed very little from their original layout when established in 1888 from Sydney Courtauld’s original gardens.
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