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Beech Grove, HALSTEAD, CO9 3NZ

Sible Hedingham fire station, 1 Rectory Road, Sible Hedingham, Halstead, Essex

This pub is on Swan Street, to the right, at the junction with Rectory Road to the left. Historically it has always been known as The Sugar Loaves, as evidenced by old Ordnance Survey maps, but by 1953 when this photograph http://www.francisfrith.com/sible-hedingham/photos/ye-olde-sugar-loaves-1953_S276005/ was taken by Francis Frith, it had been rusticated into Ye Olde Sugar Loaves. Since then the old timber framing has been exposed again and the name changed back to the original. At one time Swan Street boasted six public houses but this is the sole survivor. The 1881 Census lists the following occupants of The Sugar Loaves: Elizabeth Foreman, head of the household, widow, aged 60, born in Longdon, Worcestershire, a publican Harriet Ryland, boarder, widow, aged 80, born in Longdon, Worcestershire, formerly a post mistress Albert Joseph Ryland, grandson of Elizabeth Foreman, aged 6, born in Graham Tower, New Zealand, a scholar Sarah Ann Smith, unmarried, aged 16, born in Gestingthorp, Essex, a general servant & domestic In past times sugar did not come in granules supplied in packets or in cubes, but instead in the form of a cone called a sugar loaf. The sugar would be broken off the loaf with a small chopper which looked like a meat cleaver. Metal sugar snippers would then be used to cut the sugar into smaller pieces. These lumps would then be placed in a basin for putting into tea or other hot drinks.

The construction of most of the current church took place between about 1340 and about 1370. The site was most probably that of a previous Anglo Saxon church. The tower is later and is capped with a cupola. The church may contain the remains of Sir John Hawkwood, who was Sible Hedingham’s most famous son. He spent most of his life fighting as a mercenary in Italy, which is where he died, in Florence, in 1393 at the age of 73. King Richard II ordered that Sir John’s remains should be brought back to Sible Hedingham, and buried in St Peter’s. It is not known whether that actually happened, but there is a cenotaph in his honour inside the church.