Elms and Churches
Elms have had a long association with Essex churches: the sombre brooding atmosphere created
by a row of big old elms seems very suited to the churchyard. The often quoted rhyming couplet:
Elm hateth
Man and waiteth
is a quaint reference either to the ability of elms to drop large boughs often without warning on
hot. still, summer days, or possibly its association with coffin boards, in the past commonly
made of elm wood. John Vaughn, writing in 1909 'Lighter Studies of a Country Rector' (Lucy
& Gould, 1911), noted:
The elm and the yew tree are in thought most frequently associated with
churchyards, and in certain parts of England they are undoubtedly the commonest
churchyard trees. ...In Essex especially, the land of elm trees, many an interesting
church is guarded by ancient elms, in the hollows of which the jackdaws build
their nests, and from which the moping owl issues at eventide for its silent flight
over the glebe. The stately church of Finchingfield associated with memories of
Stephen Marshall, the famous Puritan preacher in the days of the Commonwealth,
is sheltered by some magnificent elms, which may have witnessed the changes of
that stirring time. In the same neighbourhood, the peaceful churchyard of Black
Notley is separated from the adjoining cornfields by a long line of ancient elms,
which stand sentry over the pyramidal tomb erected to the memory of our
illustrious naturalist, John Ray.'
Julia Cartwright writing in the National Review of 1892 (Lucy & Gold, 1911) writes of the
elms of Danbury:
'Five miles east of Chelmsford, half way between that town and the ancient
borough of Maldon, famous in Saxon annals, is a range of hills rising to a height
of at least six hundred feet above the sea. On the south-east crest of this ridge
stands the church and village of Danbury, the centre of this rural district. It would
be hard to find a lovelier situation. The old roofs creep up the hillside and cluster
round the still older church with the lofty spire which has been for centuries a
beacon to the weary wanderer by land and to the storm-tossed wanderer at sea.
Tall lime-trees grow up to the church doors; majestic wych-elms bend their
graceful boughs over the grassy mounds where once the standard of the Black
Raven flew.'
An avenue of elms once led to Great Saling Church. Most of these elms are now gone.
Perhaps the classic churchyard elm was the great English Elm pollard in Waltham Abbey
Churchyard (see Plate 18 and page46 ). Another elm pollard, now dead, was found at Farnham
Church near the Essex/Herts border (Rackham, 1986). Often the suckers of these elms linger
on. In St. Mary's Churchyard, East Ham, now a Nature Reserve managed by the Passmore
Edwards Museum, there is a large area of English Elm suckers many of 20 ft. high which grow
in and around the graves to the east of the church. Some suckers were incorporated into a new
hedgerow planted around the church. A single Wych Elm is also present in the churchyard. In
other churchyards the mowing of the grass between graves and constant attention keeps the
suckers at bay. A few churchyards are, however, devoid of elm: one example is Fyfield.
The Church Elm at Dagenham was a tree that stood on the site of the present public house
of that name. It was a way marking tree, showing where the road from Five Elms turned
eastwards in the direction of Dagenham Church (Fig. 7). The name 'Cherchehelm' is first
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