Stephen Nunn sets off on the trail of radical Puritan preacher George Gifford ... and ends up in the village pub.

DURING the 1960s, Maldon Town Council published an annual “official guide”.

I have a number of editions in my collection and, year-on-year, they all seem to follow a standard format – information on municipal matters, history and recreation, as well as adverts for local businesses and shops.

Then there is a section quaintly headed ‘Maldon Notabilities’.

There are some familiar names, such as our great benefactor Dr Thomas Plume, the so-called ‘Fat Man’ Edward Bright, and Protestant martyr Stephen Knight, but also an unusual entry to someone called George Gifford.

He is almost forgotten to us today and certainly wouldn’t be listed among the town’s famous sons in any modern work – so who was he?

The guide book says he was once vicar of All Saints’ and “an eminent preacher and writer”.

Sure enough, I found him listed on the framed clergy roll in the church’s D’Arcy Chapel.

It would appear that he was admitted to All Saints’ on August 30, 1582, but lasted less than two years – having been “deprived of his living” in January 1584.

Of his writing, it would appear that he produced no less than 22 published works (copies of two of his books of sermons are still preserved in the Plume Library).

As well as general theology he also wrote about the discovery and punishment of witches.

Born in 1548, not here in Maldon but in Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire, George Gifford gained both a BA (1570) and an MA (1573) from Christ’s College, Cambridge.

He married Agnes Leonarde in 1572, served briefly as a teacher (an undermaster) at the Brentwood School around 1574, and was ordained in 1578.

In 1581 he relocated to Maldon where, it has been said, “he brought dissension to the borough”.

Although he was “a skilled and diligent preacher... using the everyday language of his congregation in his sermons”, his reforming, somewhat extreme approach, divided opinion – not least amongst the church hierarchy.

As a so-called Puritan he (and his ilk) believed that the Reformation had not gone anywhere far enough and that the established church needed to become more Protestant, removing any last vestige of Catholic practice.

He became so influential (and therefore potentially quite dangerous) that he was eventually banned from preaching and discharged from the priesthood.

However, he appears to have been tolerated, for he continued as a “lecturer”.

He died in Maldon, was buried here in May 1600 and was still remembered years later as a “faithful preacher of the Word of God” – “the leader of the presbyteries”.

Even less well known (and not mentioned at all in those Sixties guide books) is that George and Agnes Gifford nurtured equally devout sons.

In 1614, one of them, Oxford-educated Samuel, became vicar of the nearby village of Althorne.

He continued there (and as rector of Snoreham) until his eventual death in 1638.

And so, knowing George’s former church (All Saints’) very well, a few months ago I decided to go in search of Samuel’s old pulpit.

Although St Andrew’s, Althorne, was “restored” by the Victorians and is today suffering very badly with subsidence, it is still essentially the late 14th to early 16th-century structure which Samuel would have known.

Inside, he would have been equally familiar with the 15th-century piscine, the early 16th-century brasses to members of the Hyklott family and the richly carved font of about 1400.

He would have heard the ring of the Thomas Harrys, late 15th-century bell, and perhaps even its partner (which was cast by Miles Graye the same year that Samuel died).

In many respects it is a timeless picture and, having reflected on the Gifford dynasty and their links with Althorne, I had had enough of theology and as part of my trip all those weeks ago I decided to visit another “church” – you’ve guessed it – the local pub.

The Huntsman and Hounds in Green Lane (actually in the parish of Latchingdon) is a 16th-century thatched building that also existed in Samuel’s day.

It was largely re-built in the 18th century and known then as ‘Boswell’s’.

By the mid-19th century it had become a beerhouse called the Fox and Hounds and eventually changed to the Huntsman and Hounds in the 1880s.

David Sharp was the landlord from the 1850s through to the 1890s.

I have fond memories of Ernie Canning’s tenure there (1951-1982) and, since then, Jim McGrane has been “mine host”.

Contrary to popular belief, the Puritans liked a good drink – one of the reasons the Mayflower stopped at Plymouth on in 1620 was because of their “victuals being much spent, especially our beere”.

And so I felt quite comfortable settling down with a pint of real ale in the convivial surroundings of the Huntsman and reflecting on the life and times of those two reforming clerics of Maldon and Althorne.