Parish News - June 2024

Parish Clerks

Gt Maplestead

Lt Maplestead

Pebmarsh

Gestingthorpe

Village Halls

Gt Maplestead

Pebmarsh

Gestingthorpe

Footpaths

Gt Maplestead

Lt Maplestead

Pebmarsh

Gestingthorpe

Gt Maplestead Task Force

Playing Field Carpet Bowls Autumn Show

Book Club

Pebmarsh

Youth Club

Ladies Club

Card Making Carpet Bowls

Gestingthorpe

Tower Bell Ringing

Cricket Club

Book Club

All Villages

Maple Leaves

WEA

Knitting Group

Handbell Ringing

Benefice Choir Scouts Guides

Neighbourhood Watch

Gt Maplestead

Lt Maplestead

Gestingthorpe

Parish News Representatives

Gt Maplestead

Lt Maplestead

Pebmarsh

Gestingthorpe

Useful Village Contacts

Ann Crisp

Paula Sillett

Shelley Boydell

Kevin B Money

Liz Newton

Kelly Thompson

Steve Bagby

Steve Harris

Geraldine Holloway

Michael Sharp

Penny Bagby

T.B.A

Joe Newton

Janice Chaplin

Carol Brownlie

Alison Cantor

Carol Parker

Pauline Andow

Sandra Beaney

Pauline Andow

Jim Crayston

Valerie Fullman

Chris Ponty

Penny Bagby

Angela Davis

Jean Bowers

Carol Brownlie

Margaret Crudgington

Gill Peskett

Stuart Carter

Kathy Hoy

Ian Johnson

Bill Piper

Helen Skerratt

Ann Harris

Jenny Bishop

Luke Brown

Penny Bagby

01787 460 216

07975 571 253 07927 775 989 07810 781 509

01787 461 308 07919 897 592 07840 367 182

01787 462 818 01787 476 530 07725 909 986 07840 367 172

01787 461 308 01787 469 600 01787 461 527 01787 462 537

01787 269 996 01787 228 790 01787 222 220 01787 228 790 01787 222 241 01787 462 755 07494 883 632 07840 367 172

01787 236 007 01787 460 181 01787 461 527

01787 476 259 01787 462 786 01787 461 149 01787 280 200 01787 461 109 01787 473 933 01787 237 297 01787 462 818

07906 083 999 07919 375 341 07840 367 172

anncrisp@greatmaplesteadpc.co.uk littlemaplesteadparishclerk@gmail.com pebmarshparishclerk@gmail.com gestingthorpepc@gmail.com

lizatlucking@hotmail.com pebmarshvillagehall@gmail.com gestingthorpevillagehall@gmail.com

steveharris@greatmaplesteadpc.co.uk geraldineholloway2017@gmail.com michael@broomhills-farm.co.uk pbagby1@gmail.com

joenewton@greatmaplesteadpc.co.uk bobandjanicechaplin@btinternet.com carolbrownlie@gmail.com acantor56@outlook.com

taximother@googlemail.com

jim@craystonfarms.co.uk pbagby1@gmail.com

angeladavis99@outlook.com jean.bowers@wea.ac.uk carolbrownlie@gmail.com

gillpeskett43@gmail.com i.johnson057@btinternet.com billpiper204@gmail.com helenskerratt@gmail.com

ann66harris@gmail.com jennyarchitect@icloud.com lhwbrown@hotmail.co.uk pbagby1@gmail.com

Editorial

This month we are continuing our series of articles featuring fascinating facts about interesting parish people or things with a look at the lasting legacy of Juliana Fitz-Audelin. In 1185 she bequeathed her landholdings in Little Maplestead to the Order of St John, thereby establishing the parish’s long-standing association with the Knights Hospitallers. This historic link is being celebrated with a Service of Thanksgiving for the Order’s invitees at 4.00pm on Sunday 2nd June at the Round Church.

If you have a story to share about your parish or the people who lived or live there, please e-mail it as a Word document of about 400 words, with any accompanying pictures, to the editorial address on Page 31.

You will notice that some more advertisers have now signed up and are featured in this issue. Please support them – and always mention Parish News when you do: without them there would be no magazine.

Alongside the essential advertising that funds the magazine, remember that Parish News is a vital community amenity, which exists to inform, entertain and be mutually beneficial for all those living and working in the four Parishes. Your contributions – for example, news from your villages and village halls, notification of upcoming events, Parish Council reports, gardening and nature notes, pictures, past memories and so on – are all important ingredients of this mix.

So, please get writing and snapping!

Marie Curie Fundraiser – a Vote of Thanks

All of us at Marie Curie would like to thank everybody who kindly volunteered for the 2024 Marie Curie Great Daffodil Appeal in Sudbury in April, which raised just over £3,725 – an amount that could help fund 17 nights of Marie Curie’s end of life nursing care.

Collections in the town and at Waitrose, Tesco and Roy’s were also boosted by the Phoenix Suffolk Community Marcher’s brilliant performance. Our base was kindly provided by the Sudbury Institute Club and we would like to thank Superdrug for all the fundraising they do on behalf of Marie Curie.

Special thanks go to everyone who made this year’s annual charity collections possible and to our Sudbury Fundraising Group for looking after everything so well. Anyone interested in volunteering next year and wearing our famous daffodil hats please contact Jayne from our fund-raising group. E-mail:jayne.l.williamson@gmail.com or telephone: 07843 415 664.

Cover Picture of the Northern Lights over the Maplesteads: Ann Crisp

Letter from the Reverend Beverley Vincent

How do you like birthdays? Do you try and forget when yours is, or do you love a big celebration every year? Do you like presents, or would you rather have experiences? Christians have just celebrated the birthday of the church at Pentecost. It is celebrated fifty days after Easter, which of course means it moves around each year.

‘The Holy Spirit descended like a violent wind and tongues of fire rested on them’. It’s the moment from which a confused, frightened group of people with little hope changed into an inspired, energised group of people who had the confidence and courage to go and tell the world that they had found something wonderful.

It was the birth of the Christian church.

Birthdays can be a time for re-evaluating, looking back and planning forwards. What do you see when you look back, how have you changed for better and worse over the years, what do you want to achieve in the future? What has given you a sense of being fulfilled?

It’s good to take stock and work out where next – for yourself, your family, or an organisation you are part of. To look back at the times where we have not taken care of ourselves or others; where we have allowed ourselves to become indifferent or self-centred.

Take time to reflect on the things we have done well, the talents we have made best use of, the times when things worked well, or we did the right thing that resulted in our wellbeing and that of those around us. We can ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit to help us change and move forward in hope and courage and energy like those first Christians. The Spirit hasn’t gone away, we can still be inspired to encounter God in new ways, through that gift.

Perhaps the beginning of summer is a good time to take stock of ourselves and the things we belong to – the hope of better weather, the abundance of nature around us and longer days somehow make us feel that new things are possible. If you decide to make changes, begin a new healthier eating regime, or to take up a pastime that will enrich you, or some exercise, or if you think it’s time repair a relationship or to take yourself in hand in other ways, I wish you every success.

And if June is your birthday month too, I wish you a very Happy Birthday!

Rev’d Beverley

The Round Church and the Knights Hospitallers

On Sunday 2nd June 2024, at 4.00pm, a small procession will take place at the Round Church for a Service of Thanksgiving. This will mark the long association of Little Maplestead with the Order of St John (the Knights Hospitallers), which dates back to 1185 when Juliana Fitz-Audelin bequeathed her landholdings in the parish to the Order. A preceptory (L’ Hôpital) was soon established – probably where Maplestead Hall now stands – and a church was constructed, on the site of the present church, for the Hospitallers to worship in. They rebuilt the church in 1335 and this was the last round church to be built in England.

The origin of the Hospitallers is not precisely known. They were certainly looking after pilgrims in Jerusalem by the time of the 1st Crusade in 1099. By 1144 a principal ‘House’ was established in England, at Clerkenwell; other houses, known as Commanderies or Preceptories, were then set-up. Little Maplestead was the Order’s administrative centre for their land holdings in Essex (and some holdings outside Essex too); eventually they would also acquire some of the lands held by the Knights Templar, when the Templars were disbanded in 1307 (Cressing Temple, for example).

The Hospitallers were to have an influence at Little Maplestead until the Reformation in 1540, at which point the order moved to Malta where they became known as the Knights of Malta. However, in 1831, they were reestablished in England, receiving their ‘Charter of Incorporation’ in 1888 from Queen Victoria. Today the order is more widely associated with the St John’s Ambulance Association, the international first aid charity.

As for the Thanksgiving Service, we are not sure when that was established. There is evidence for a service in 1919 but after that there was a hiatus of some 30 years, as the next was not until 1949; it has, however, continued regularly since then. The one for the Order’s invitees being held on 2nd June continues to reaffirm the long association between Little Maplestead and the Hospitallers – a tradition that hopefully will continue for many years to come.

For a detailed history of the order of St John and the Round Church you can visit the Church website at: www.theroundchurch.org. The Hospitallers themselves have a museum at St John’s Gate, Clerkenwell – their website is: www.museumstjohn.org.uk

Mark Townsend

An Inter-Village Challenge and a Place for Events

Gardening Corner

We are starting to see summer colour in our gardens. My recommended plant of the month – Penstemon –is a vibrant plant, with flowers ranging from pink to deep red; it also has the advantage of being a perennial that the slugs tend to avoid.

In the vegetable garden, continue to sow spring onions, radish, lettuce and beetroot. Pot-grown courgettes, marrows, runner beans and French beans can now be planted out in their intended area in the vegetable plot. If you are growing outdoor tomatoes remember not to place them near potatoes as both belong to the same family and are susceptible to blight. Tomatoes grown outside need to be given support in the form of a sturdy cane or stick, tied in regularly and ‘stopped’ once they get to the four or five truss stage, as the weight on the cane or stick will be immense – tomatoes are quite a heavy fruit.

Continue feeding clematis with a soluble mix every two to three weeks according to rainfall – and haven’t we had a ‘wet’ start to the season!

If you are cleaning a garden pond remember to leave any mud and rubbish by the side of the water for a few days to give small invertebrates and amphibians time to crawl back into the water. Also, when water butts become empty it is good practice to clean them out to wash away any sludge in the bottom of the container.

Dahlias and gladiolus will need supporting before they become too tall. There are some excellent metal support structures on the market or you can use twigs and off-cuts from tree pruning for dahlias and bamboo canes for gladiolus. Both these plants have a habit of collapsing if we have a summer storm and/or heavy rain.

Anyone with a ceanothus in the garden (what a picture this shrub has been with its deep, rich blue flowers) should now give it a gentle prune, clipping it into shape. Avoid hard pruning, cutting into old wood.

Roses are at their best about now, although this has been an early season. Continue to dead-head, thereby prolonging the flowering. Look out for any suckers coming from the base of the plant. Suckers are normally light green and tend to grow higher than the parent plant. Try and break suckers off at the base of the rose bush: this will help stop regrowth. If you cut back with secateurs, the suckers tend to regrow – bush and floribunda roses are particularly prone to this type of reversion.

And remember to keep an eye on hanging baskets: they can dry out. If they do, take the baskets down and place them in a bucket of water for an hour – it works wonders!

The Arborist

Pebmarsh Forest School & Quiz Night

At St John the Baptist in Pebmarsh, we offer a Forest School provision for all the children. Our wonderful Forest School leader, Holly Hilder, has worked with the Parish Council to develop a site behind the park and Village Hall for the children to enhance their experience.

Years 5 and 6 were the first to go and explore the new area. Complete with a campfire, mudslide and plenty of trees to climb and swing from the children had a wonderful time and could not wait to return.

On your walks you may see this site marked out; we would please ask you to leave the circle of logs for the enjoyment of the children as they have kindly been donated by Holly and we wouldn’t want anything to happen to them. You can’t miss them as they are sprayed pink.

If you would like to come and support our wonderful little school we have an adult only Quiz Night on Friday 7th June (for details see left) and also our Summer Fair on Saturday 22nd June.

Please feel free to contact the school office for any further information admin@st-john.essex.sch.uk

Artisan

Concert Report and Forthcoming Events

Church Warden’s Report

Pebmarsh Church enjoyed hosting a concert organised by Halstead Rotary Club, which was well-attended and very entertaining. If anyone gets the chance to listen to the Hedingham Singers it is well worth it. The refreshments were good too. Thank you to Halstead Rotary for your generous donation to our church.

Our swifts have arrived and I’m eagerly awaiting to see if they will take up residence in our newly installed swift boxes.

We are looking forward to our church notice board being replaced with the kind help of the Friends of Pebmarsh Church – all the relevant permissions are now in place. Our wall is finished and uncovered which is a relief after eight years and very patient neighbours, who have had to garden around the mess. We will keep you posted on the next project in next month’s Parish News.

Sarah Burgess – Pebmarsh Church Warden

Nature Notes

April was wet but mild, although a frost about a week before the end of the month was a reminder that there can always be a sting in the tail. May to date has given us the first really warm days and a clear sign of the coming summer. Through the second half of April the common migrants started showing up, with a Cuckoo at Hulls Mill sounding so close it could have been on my shoulder but I never saw it. Swallows and House Martins were about the farm buildings on Lucking Street in Great Maplestead by the end of the month and Whitethroats were giving their scratchy calls from hedgerows on every lane.

One event not mentioned in previous reports was the invasion of Waxwings, beautiful berry-eating birds that breed in the far north of Europe, Asia and North America. In winter they move south, in our case into northern and central Europe. They periodically ‘irrupt’ and turn up in Britain, and this year was a case in point. Followers of Look East will have seen them in parts of East Anglia and followers of Winter Watch will have seen them all the way down to the South Coast.

Distressingly, I never found any in the patch but a friend in Greenstead Green with a berry-laden mountain ash in his garden had a single bird spend a week there until the tree was bare. On another occasion I saw about fifty in Colchester. It may be many years before they return.

It has been nice to see small Tortoiseshell butterflies on the wing locally after a poor year for them last summer. They should be common all over the country and there is no shortage of their foodplant, stinging nettles. The caterpillars come together and spin a covering web to feed under, moving on when they run short and repeating their tent-building. When larger, this behaviour changes, and they no longer cover themselves. They move away from the foodplant to pupate, and the brown chrysalis may be found hidden under an eave or even inside an empty shed. The adults overwinter so butterflies seen in spring are those that have woken up after hibernation. These individuals mate and lay their eggs with the new generation flying by the end of June. It is astonishing that every different species has its own foodplant, its own rhythms and strategies for survival. This also explains why a bad year for one may be good for another and why the numbers of individual species fluctuate from year to year.

Patch Patroller

Summer Fun in Gestingthorpe

Talking/Summer Events

Gestingthorpe ‘Gathering’ Coffee Mornings

Come and join us in the Village Hall and have an enjoyable time chatting with friends over a hot drink and delicious cakes.

We would love to see you and we guarantee a warm welcome and lovely home baked cakes accompanied by a steaming cup of tea or coffee.

If you haven’t yet been to a coffee morning, please come along.

Our coffee mornings during June, July & August will be held from 10.00am to 12 noon

June : on the Fridays of 14th and 28th

July : on the Fridays of 12th and 26th

August : on the Fridays of 9th and 23rd

Funds raised go towards the upkeep and running of our Village Hall.

Summer Solstice Soirée

Saturday 22nd June 6.30pm to 10.30pm

Gestingthorpe Village Hall

Cash Bar selling Beer, Wine & Soft Drink.

Gestingthorpe Grill* will be open serving Sausages & Burgers. The Village Beacon on Church Green will be lit at 8pm.

Annual Summer Picnic

Sunday 23rd June Noon to 3pm Games & Picnic Lunch on the Playing Field Bring your own picnic, Beer/Wine glass & blanket. Beer, Wine & Soft Drink on sale from the pavilion

*Note: Due to the Grillers being in action at the Soirée, there will be no (Bacon Rolls) Grill on 15th June, as previously advertised. The next Grill will be on 13th July.

Books and Book-keeping

First Tuesday Book Club and Book Exchange

The Gestingthorpe Book Club meets on the first Tuesday of each month in the Village Hall. Our meetings are very informal with lots of chat, laughs, wine & nibbles.

We are currently reading The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr by Frances Maynard. If you would like to join us, our next meeting is Tuesday 4th June at 7.30pm.

The Book Exchange will be open on the 14th & 28th June from 10.00am to 12 noon. The bookcase is located next to the big window in the small hall. Bring a book to swap or buy a book for £1.

All proceeds to the Village Hall Funds

Contact Penny pbagby1@gmail.com or 07840 367 172 for further details.

Navigating Some Dates for your Diaries

Hedingham Heritage Society

Thursday 6th June

‘The River Stour and its Navigation’. James Lunn, from the River Stour Trust, will be giving a talk about our neighbouring river and its navigation. This dates from 1705 and is one of the earliest river navigation improvements of the modern age. It remained in use for commercial traffic for over two hundred years, connecting the industrial town of Sudbury with the Stour estuary port of Mistley and the major ports of Ipswich, Harwich and London.

7.30pm – Castle Hedingham Memorial Hall

Thursday 4th July

In a change to our original programme, Jan Cole will now be coming to give a talk on ‘Sir John Hawkwood and the White Company’.

7.30pm – Castle Hedingham Memorial Hall

Our Battle of Britain meeting has been rescheduled for Thursday 3rd October. Do join our local and natural history society. Annual membership for 2024 is £15.

Members come free for all walks and talks : Non-Members - £5. Everybody is Welcome. Contacts: Rob: 01787 460 664 : Trudi: 01787 462 889 E-mail: hedinghamheritage@gmail.com or visit www.hedinghamheritage.org.uk

An App(arent) Conundrum

Since its launch by Essex County Council in May 2023, the Carbon Cutting Essex platform has seen over 250,000 actions taken to help tackle climate change.

The Cutting Essex mobile app has helped thousands of residents learn various simple ways of reducing their carbon footprint while earning points and winning prizes.

The app’s main features include:

 monthly themes which focus on different areas around climate action

 weekly fun and interactive activities, including quizzes, blogs and videos

 prize draws, donations and discounts

 a community wall to enable users to share best practice with others

 pledges that residents can take to make positive changes to their lifestyles

Councillor Peter Schwier, Climate Czar and Cabinet Member for Environment, Waste Reduction and Recycling, said: Carbon Cutting Essex is a fantastic tool that we can use to make small changes to our lifestyles, which all add up to make a difference. I am delighted to see so many users benefitting from using the platform. I would encourage everyone to download the app and let’s all play our part in protecting the future of our planet.”

Ironically however, the use of mobile phone apps themselves also has an adverse effect on climate change and global warming.

A study by Greenspector – a company specialising in measuring energy efficiency in IT applications – has found that mobile phone apps contribute to at least 6% of ‘digital’ carbon dioxide emissions.

Key findings from their study are that:

 Mobile phone apps, on average, account for around 0.75 grams of ‘CO2 equivalent’ emissions. Some 5 billion smartphones world-wide, averaging three hours use per day, equates to 6% of digital CO2 emissions.

 50% of all apps continue to process or send data after they close: for example, trackers, analytics and other permissions – the things that apps have access to on smartphones after they are downloaded – are not only annoying but also energy-hungry, resulting in more frequent recharging.

Greenspector estimate that, on average, 44% of apps that are downloaded have more than five trackers, while nearly three-quarters require more than 10 permissions, so smartphone users need to carefully consider whether the apps they are downloading actually require to access all the functions they are seeking – not just for privacy, security and battery performance reasons but also out of concern for their carbon footprint and climate change

Individually, smartphones provide remarkable levels of convenience and connectivity; collectively, by measurably contributing to CO2 emissions, and especially when using apps, they are having an adverse environmental effect.

So, the conundrum is: while the Cutting Essex app is helping to tackle climate change, using it may also be contributing to the problem…

Parish News Information

Advertising/Announcements/Articles

The 2024 Parish News Business Advertising Rates for the year (10 issues, pro-rated as applicable) and for monthly single issues are shown below, along with copy deadline dates for each of the remaining 5 issues.

Contacts:

Advertising

Articles

Please submit by e-mail, preferably as a Word document attachment with separate images: ½ page: 150-160 words Full page: 400-420 words

Ann Harris ann66harris@gmail.com Editorial Parish News Team parishnewsmaplestead@gmail.com

The Parish Representatives, to whom articles and event announcement submissions should be sent, are listed on the Inside Front Cover.

The Vicar:

The Four Parishes Benefice

The Reverend Beverley Vincent

The Rectory Church Street

Great Maplestead 07944 200 132

Halstead, C09 2RG khvicar@gmail.com 01787 460 273

The Churchwardens:

Great Maplestead

Paula Sillett 07975 571 253 sillett92@gmail.com

Denise O’Connell 07795 170 048 niciedenise@gmail.com

Little Maplestead

Gestingthorpe

Alice Nolda 01787 469 688

Peter Nice 01787 460 126 peter.427nice@btinternet.com

Pebmarsh

Jim Crayston 07957 870 340 jim@craystonfarms.co.uk

Sarah Burgess 01787 269 092 sarahburgess@btinternet.com

Church Services in June