Moulsham Street

Bro came this afternoon and together we completed several home based tasks including taking my Gary Hodges prints to the art framers in Moulsham street for new glass and frames before I hang them at home, as they are all, after twenty years in Istanbul, a little the worse for wear.

Having successfully completed all goals for the day, we rewarded ourselves this evening with dinner and a couple of pints at the Gardeners pub in Springfield. 

Weather wise, yet another day of opaque grey with intermittent sunshine, and oh-so bitterly cold. Tortie is now in my kitchen - it's too chilly for her in the garden - she's very lethargic and not eating so hoping the warmth of indoors will encourage her to stay awake and get an appetite.  

Moulsham street is a charming old street, which today boasts an eclectic collection of small independent shops and world cuisine restaurants, in an historically interesting area of Chelmsford. If you have time, please read on.......

Moulsham Habitation at Moulsham can be traced back to Roman times, and  Moulsham Street follows the Roman road southwards to London. After the Norman Conquest, the area known as Moulsham was owned by the Abbot of Westminster whilst the land, Chelmsford, on the other side of the River Can was owned by the Bishop of London. Rivalry between them resulted in the growth of Chelmsford into a prosperous trading centre, while Moulsham became the poor relation, for the destitute and socially unacceptable including a leper colony and gaol. A C13th Dominican friary and the manor of Moulsham were purchased by the Mildmay family in 1538. In 1563 the family also acquired the adjacent manor of Chelmsford from Queen Elizabeth I and effectively controlled both Chelmsford and Moulsham for almost 300 years until the land was sold in early C19th when both were amalgamated by the Victorian expansion and development of the town with several industries in the area, including, the world's first radio factory in 1898, set up by Guglielmo Marconi. By the late nineteenth century Moulsham Street had also become a busy shopping street. (adapted from Wikipedia. More information here )