Thorpe le Soken, United Kingdom

History

Since 2002, archaeological investigations ahead of construction work have uncovered traces of Palaeolithic (early Clactonian 424,000-400,000 BC), Mesolithic, early Neolithic and Roman rural settlements.

Thorpe-le-Soken's contiguous history can be traced back to Saxon times. In c. 970, King Æthelstan confirmed the grant of Eduluesnaesa – combined estate of Kirby, Thorpe and Walton – to St Paul’s. Soken meaning a jurisdiction with separate taxation and managerial responsibilities.

The old manor house, Thorpe Hall, was owned by the Leake family, and rebuilt in the 1820s by the wealthy lawyer J.M. Leake (d. 1862). It was later leased by Frederic Foaker, owner of Sneating Hall at Kirby-le-Soken. Thorpe Hall was the home of Viscount Byng of Vimy (Governor General of Canada 1921–6), and his wife Evelyn Byng, Viscountess Byng of Vimy, who relandscaped the gardens.

Between 1690 and 1720 Thorpe housed a community of several dozen Huguenot refugees fleeing persecution in France, who are thought to have stayed at the large house still called Comarques. The house is now home to the Adams family. (Source: Huguenot Society records.)

This was also the home of the famous Midlands author Arnold Bennett just before and during the First World War. (Source: contemporary issues of Essex County Standard, Arnold Bennett's Correspondence.)

From the History section of Thorpe-le-Soken on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.