146
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
VISIT TO VALENCE HOUSE, DAGENHAM
(683RD ORDINARY MEETING).
SATURDAY, 14TH MARCH, 1931.
In response to a kind invitation from the Chairman and Officials of the
Urban District Council of Dagenham, a visit of inspection was paid to
Valence House, an old-time manor house now occupied by the Council as
its offices, on the above afternoon. Thirty-two members attended.
Assembled in the grounds shortly after 2.30 o'clock, the party was
photographed in a group by a press photographer and then entered the
building and proceeded to the Council Chamber. Here a number of prints
and watercolour drawings of Dagenham and its neighbourhood had been
arranged along the walls by the Librarian, Mr. O. G. O'Leary, together with
various Essex antiquarian books; a collection of coins and sundry speci-
mens of local antiquarian and geological interest, belonging to our member,
Mr. F. W. Allen, who is Clerk to the Council, had also been laid out for
inspection.
At 3 o'clock, in the absence of the Chairman of the Council, Mr. H. R,
Hill, J.P., who was to have received the party, but had been summoned
away on official business, Mr. Allen formally welcomed the visitors and
made some interesting remarks on the phenomenal growth of Dagenham
during the last decade. He stated that in 1921 it had a total population of
only 9029, while now it exceeded 100,000; a rate of increase which re-
minded one of the mushroom-like growth of some American cities during the
nineteenth century. The status of an Urban District was only attained
in 1926, when the speaker took up his duties as Clerk; the newly-constituted
District Council had been exceedingly active during its four years of
existence, particularly in the wise provision of open spaces for recreation,
for which purpose, by means of a Private Act in 1928, no fewer than 320
acres have been acquired. Valence House itself had been restored by the
Council, resulting in the discovery of some excellent old oak panelling.
Mr. S.J. Barns then read a historical account of Valence House. After
recalling the fact that the Club had already hurriedly visited the house, as
long ago as 1887, under the guidance of the late Mr. Walter Crouch, whose
cousin, Mr. C. H. Crouch, was one of the party to-day, Mr. Barns pro-
ceeded:—
On the occasion of the Club's inspection on Saturday, June 18th, 1887,
Valence House was described as "a most interesting example of a mediaeval
"manor house, with its outbuildings, pleasure grounds, kitchen garden,
"and lawn, with old cedars—all enclosed within a moat."
Many changes have taken place in the intervening years, indeed the
Royal Commission for the Survey of Historical Monuments only records
the existence of a homestead moat, so that the investigators apparently
found nothing antedating the year 1714. Shawcross describes it as "a
"pleasant and elegant residence enclosed by spacious grounds with a
"moat, now partly filled up on its west side, and another on the east
"boundary. Formerly there was a wood, known as Valence Wood, on
"the south side ; this has disappeared, and the only reminiscence of its
"existence is in the name of the lane, Wood Lane, which separated this
"manorial estate from that of Parsloes. Local tradition has it that the