Chrishall Village Museum & Archive is run by volunteers from the Chrishall Archive Group. We collect, preserve and share the history of Chrishall, a small village in North Essex, and the surrounding area.

Our aims

Our aims are to:

• collect, record and preserve documents, photographs and artefacts relating to the history of Chrishall and the surrounding area
• raise awareness of, and encourage interest in, local history through displays, talks, publications and our website
• welcome residents and visitors, and help them discover the history of the village
• provide regular opportunities to meet, share memories and talk about Chrishall’s past

The collection

The archive holds more than 6,000 catalogued items about Chrishall and its people over almost 400 years.

For family historians

• Parish registers: indexed entries for around 1,500 baptisms (1661–1812), 580 marriages (from 1665) and 1,770 burials (1674–1920)
• Wills: nearly 200 wills of Chrishall people from the 1600s to the 1850s, from yeomen and husbandmen to widows and weavers, many naming whole families
• Obituaries and newspaper notices of births, marriages and deaths

Photographs
More than 1,000 photographs from the early 1900s to the present day, including the church, farms and cottages, Building End and the Green, school classes, cricket teams, steam ploughing and traction engines, and the buses.

Maps
Over 25 maps from 1610 onwards, including the 1808 Enclosure Map, which shows the village’s fields and their owners.

Newspapers and court records
Around 190 newspaper reports from the 1830s to the 1990s, ranging from farm sales and ploughing matches to poaching, petty theft and village celebrations.

Personal stories

• Letters written by Joan Draper, a wartime evacuee who came to Chrishall in 1940
• Joseph Hagger’s papers from the First World War and the Royal Observer Corps
• Irene Cranwell’s notes on village life, shops, pubs and farming
• Records of the Methodist Chapel and the Women’s Institute, including WI minutes from 1941–42

Sound and film
Recorded interviews with villagers, and film of village life, including Halloween 1971, maypole dancing and school films.

Objects
A small collection of artefacts, including William Cranwell’s stool, which he sat on to play the clarinet in church before the organ arrived, and a local gleaning bell.

You can browse lists of collection items when you visit. If you’re researching your family or a particular house, get in touch before you come and we’ll have the relevant material ready.

Help us grow the collection

Do you have old photographs, documents or memories of Chrishall? We’d love to hear from you. We can copy items and return them to you, or look after them in the archive. There’s also a suggestions box at the museum, so if there’s something you’d like us to research or display, let us know.