Hempstead, Essex

Description
Hempstead, a village and a parish in Essex. The village stands 7 miles E from Saffron Walden station on the G.E.R.; is an ancient place, and has a post office under Saffron Walden; money order and telegraph office, Radwinter. Acreage of the civil parish, 3591; population, 560; of the ecclesiastical, with Great Sampford, 1163. Winchlow Hall, of which there are no remains except a very fine example of a moat, was the seat of the Harveys, one of whom was Dr Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. The living is a vicarage, annexed to that of Great Sampford, in the diocese of St Albans; joint yearly value, £157. The church, a building in the Gothic style, the tower of which was very fine, and fell in January, 1892, consists, as restored, of chancel, nave, N and S aisles, and S porch. The tower is not yet rebuilt. At the NE corner the Harvey chapel contains seven good marble monuments, besides the sarcophagus into which Dr Harvey was removed from the vault be- neath the chapel in 1883. Hempstead was formerly a chapel of ease belonging to Great Sampford. Though Dr Harvey's remains were removed from the ancient vault beneath the Harvey Chapel, yet at a later period the vault was extended by Sir Eliab Harvey for the use of his family under the whole of the chancel. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel.