year. Elizabeth's Injunctions issued somewhat later
required the churchwardens in every parish to provide
"a Bible of largest volume," together with the
paraphrases of Erasmus and a decent cup and cover.
This order was not obeyed throughout the country,
so that Archbishop Grindal was compelled in 1576
to issue Articles of Enquiry. It would seem that the
churchwardens of South Benfleet were defaulting
in this respect for a bequest to the Parish Church made
by a certain John Letton, who died in 1576, was paid
over by his executors to the churchwardens to be used
for the purchase of "a large byble, a communion
cuppe and all other there necessarie bookes." This
communion cup is still preserved by the church, and is
regarded as one of the finest of its type in Essex.
THE APPLETONS.
Some time after the Domesday Survey the parish
of South Benfleet came to be divided into three manors
—the manor of Westminster Abbey and the manors
of South Benfleet Hall and Jarvis Hall. The last two
comprised the lands held by Sweyn and were often,
in fact, held by the same owner. South Benfleet
Hall, stood formerly on the north side of the parish
church, but was in ruins a century ago and nothing
now remains. The manor of Jarvis Hall passed,
after the time of Henry of Essex, to the de Woodham
family and was at one time held by John de Coggeshall;
later it was held by several members of the Tyrrell
family, from whom it passed by marriage to the
Appletons, the best known holders of the manor, in
the Sixteenth Century. The Appletons secured the
disafforestation of the manor by compounding with
a payment of £500 to the Crown, and built a manor
house of red brick on Jarvis Hill in the days of Elizabeth.
In the middle of last century a part of this old manor
house was still being used for barns, but at present
nothing remains, except some of the original bricks
which have been used in the construction of a modern
villa, Appleton House, which stands on the site of the
15