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Local Tales
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Thomas Hawkes burned to death in 1555 during the Marian Persecutions rather than allow his son to be baptised into the Roman Catholic Church. Responding to Edmund Bonner, the Bishop of London, who urged him to return to Catholicism, he is reported to have said: "No my lord, that I will not, for if I had a hundred bodies I would suffer them all to be torn in pieces rather than I will abjure and recant."
As he burned, Hawkes threw up his hands and clapped them three times, a sign to his friends that the pain could be endured. Hawkes' death and the circumstances leading up to it are recorded in detail in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs
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Mary Honywood of nearby Mark's Hall, in an age of religious uncertainty, dashed a wine glass to the floor declaring, "I shall be damned as surely as this is smashed". The wine glass rebounded, unbroken and she lived to the age of 93 years, having 19 children. She is commemorated in the church for having a total of 365 descendants at the time of her death.
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Coggeshall is supposedly located at a crossing of ley lines.
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The town clock was built to celebrate Queen Victoria's jubilee in 1887 and the clockhouse was at one point a school for the poor children of the town.
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Coggeshall is one of the many sites claimed to be the burial place of Boudica.
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One of the latest recorded witch-hunts in England took place in Coggeshall. It is known from the diary of Joseph Bufton, a resident of the town, that in 1699 the widow Common was tried three times for witchcraft, each time by 'swimming' - binding her limbs and putting her in the river to see if she would sink.
She was found guilty on each occasion but died, probably from influenza, before she could be hanged. Another account is found in the records of the Reverend James Boys, the Vicar of Coggeshall.
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During the Napoleonic Wars Coggeshall was required to raise a company of men for the defence of the country. This they did, although the Coggeshall Volunteers famously consisted of 20 officers and only 3 privates.
One resident of the town, the schoolmaster Thomas Harris, was so amused by the situation he was inspired to write a short, satirical play entitled "The C*******ll Volunteer Corps". In the play he lampooned the surfeit of officers ("As the Corps at present consists mostly of officers no more will be admitted; but should any neighbouring Corps be in want of a few it may be accommodated at the rate of one officer for one private, and in every dozen so exchanged an officer will be thrown in extra. God save the King"), the quality of the troops and the courage of their commanders (in the event that the nearby town of Colchester was invaded the corps would move to defend Braintree, and if Braintree were to be attacked they would defend Colchester, etc.) The play was so popular it reached four editions.
Unfortunately, despite Harris' insistence that it was not so, many of the town's citizens believed that they were being personally caricatured and, taking offence, withdrew their children from his school.
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Mr. Nunn, a former blacksmith, is well known for his local deeds. Knowing the Grange Hill to be too steep for horses with heavy loads, proceeded with others to lower the top and was removed by the police. His most famous deed is the construction of an iron bridge that spans the Blackwater.
