Little Hadham

Hadham Hall

Hadham Hall, an ancient manor house situated 0.8 miles (1.3 km) south-east of the village on the Stortford Road, was the family seat of the Capell (or Capel) family, also of Rayne in Essex. It was bought by Sir William Capel, who served twice as Lord Mayor of London in 1503-4 and 1510. the family seat remained at Rayne until the 1570s when Henry Capel built a new house at Little Hadham. In 1578, Sir Edward Capel welcomed Queen Elizabeth I as a guest at Hadham Hall; an account of the time records her visit to "Mayster Kapel's, where was excellente good cheere and entertaynement." Arthur Capell (1608–1649) was a noted member of Parliament who he was raised to the Peerage of England as Baron Capell of Hadham in 1641. In 1627 Arthur Capell married Elizabeth Morrison, heir to the Cassiobury Estate in Watford, and the Capell family became closely associated with Cassiobury. Capell supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War, and was condemned to death by the Parliamentarians and beheaded in May 1649. One of Capell's last requests was for his heart to be buried with the body of King Charles I, and after his execution, Capell's heart was preserved it in a silver box.

In 1661, after the Restoration, Arthur Capell's son, also called Arthur Capell, became the 1st Earl of Essex. The new Earl commissioned a lavish reconstruction of his father's Tudor mansion at Cassiobury c.1677–80, and he moved the family seat to Cassiobury. Meanwhile, the silver box containing the late Arthur Capell's heart had remained in the safekeeping of the Bishop of Winchester, and he presented it to the new King Charles II. In 1703 a heart in a silver box was found at Hadham Hall, suggesting that the King sent the heart to Capel's son. It was later taken to Cassiobury, but since the dissolution and sale of the Cassiobury estate, the whereabouts of Capell's heart are now unknown. A memorial stone to Lord Capell is in St Cecelia's Church in Little Hadham.

After the move to Watford, Hadham Hall fell into disrepair and was partly demolished, although it was retained by the Capell family and the estate continued to be farmed by tenant farmers. The Capell used the hall to entertain important guests such as King William III, who visited in April 1698. The hall was refurbished around 1720 in the Queen Anne style. In 1900, George Devereux de Vere Capel, the 8th Earl of Essex, sold the Hall and accompanying land to a London merchant, William Minet, who set about restoring the hall. In 1948 Hadham Hall was sold to Hertfordshire County Council who converted the building in to a school. The school closed in 1990 and merged with the Margaret Dane school to form Birchwood High School in Bishop’s Stortford. Hadham Hall, now a private residence, is a Grade II* listed building.

The Angel

One of its notable features is "The Angel", a former pub once inhabited by the folk rock group Fairport Convention and after which their album Angel Delight was titled. Violinist Dave Swarbrick, guitarists Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol and Dave Pegg, and drummer Dave Mattacks were resident in the building, along with their wives and the band's road crew. Members of the band supported the local community by playing at charity concerts to raise money for the church organ or the Police Orphans Fund. Nick Drake also visited the premises when making his first albums (Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention played bass and drums respectively on these). The band's residence there ended in February 1971 when a lorry crashed into the Angel, severely damaging the property and destroying Swarbrick's bedroom. The lorry driver was killed in the accident, but nobody else was hurt.