French Family Association
The Official Website of the Surname French
Chart #EB, Home of Thomas French
Photos of Halstead, Essex
This page updated by Mara French on 10/11/10. Send any corrections or additions to this chart to marafrench@mindspring.com. Revisions: 2010.
NOTE: Please make any corrections or additions to this chart that you can and send them to Mara. Refer to this chart by chart number and revision date so that your information will be understood. Refer to each family member by their number. Additions are greatly appreciated. This chart has been widely distributed and is constantly being updated. You will be notified of the next revision.
Contents
Ancestry of Thomas French, FFA Chart #EB
Ancestry of William French, FFA Chart #E2
St. AndrewÕs Parish Church in Halstead
In this map of Halstead at the very bottom right, you see Stanstead Hall where Thomas French lived. To the far left on the bottom, you see Letches Farm which is also mentioned in a court case below. Then just NW of Stanstead Hall is Greenstead Hall or Greenstead Green, also mentioned on this web page. You will see the footpath going from Stanstead Hall to Greenstead Hall. If you follow this path all the way to High St., which is the main street in Halstead, you will see a walkway to Gatehouse Yard (red line). This wooden archway between two buildings still exists today and was the entrance to the road that lead to Stanstead Hall. Needless to say, nothing existed between the archway and Stanstead Hall in the 16th century. See photos of the Gatehouse Yard below, taken by Mara French in Jun 2010. The brick buildings are of a much later century.
The Gate House Yard
The Gate elaborately carved in wood on High Street (the Main St.) in Halstead is the gate and path leading two miles south to Stanstead Hall at the time when Thomas French lived there. See FFA Chart #EB. The map shows the Gate House Yard. On the map above, you can see how the path goes from Gate House Yard toward Parsonage Road and then down BallÕs Chase to Stanstead Hall.
This Gateway was originally the entrance to Stanstead Hall, about 2 miles south of High St. where this Gatehouse Yard still exists in the center of Halstead (see map above). The brick cottages behind the gate were built centuries later. Photos by Mara French in Jun 2010.
Looking out onto High St., the main street in Halstead, from the Gatehouse Yard.
St. AndrewÕs Parish Church in Halstead
Register of baptisms, marriages, and burials in Halstead at St. Andrew Church above from 1564-1631 is online. Go to http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/.
Halstead, Essex, England, was basically the center in which
DNA Group 6 Test Result Ancestors with the Surname French resided. This view
was taken from atop St. Andrews Church where many Frenches
were baptized, looking down High St., the main street in Halstead. Photo below
shows St. Andrews Church from where the above photo was taken.
(Look at street center lines and parking lines)
Stanstead Hall
Stanstead Hall today. Manor House is 3 stories with about 20 rooms. The dark-wooded barn with the red roof on the back road is the oldest building on this 14 acres; it was used as a carriage house. I was fortunate enough to spend time here (inside and outside) and even have tea with the Australia couple living there at the time. Before them an English lady lived here and was getting a divorce from her Californian husband when I visited. After the Australian couple, a French couple resided here when I visited the third time. Note the moat around the manor house.
The carriage house of Stanstead Hall.