ST PETER’S FASCINATING TIMELINE 1089 – 2017
St. Peter Ad Vincula |
World Matters |
1089 Domesday Book records a priest in Coggeshall. | |
1140c Queen Matilda founds Savigny order at Little Coggeshall. Abbey built. | 1139 – 1148 England’s first Civil War. |
1240c St Nicholas Chapel built by Abbey Gatehouse. | 1215 Magna Carta. |
1324 – 26 Main part of church built on present site. | 1337 Start of the Hundred Years War.
1398 Geoffrey Chaucer wrote Canterbury Tales. |
1420c Church enlarged and dedicated to St. Peter Ad Vincula (patronal day 1st August). Henry III grants Lammas Fair rights to the town. | 1415 Battle of Agincourt.
1455 – 85 The Wars of the Roses (the second English Civil War). |
1461 Thomas Paycocke (butcher) buried in St. Peter’s. Extensive gifts to the church. Grave no longer marked. | 1476 Caxton sets up first English printing press.
1485 Battle of Bosworth Field. |
1518 Thomas Paycocke buried at St. Peter’s (right front marble). |
1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses confronting the Church of Rome to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg on 31st October 1517. |
1519 Robert Paycocke buried in St. Peter’s (left front marble). | 1520 The Field of the Cloth of Gold. |
1538 The Abbey was dissolved and land sold off. St. Nicholas Chapel becomes a barn, later a cowshed. | 1549 Cranmer produces the Book of Common Prayer. |
1570 – 1650 Church expanded and restored. Heyday of the local wool trade. | 1588 Armada defeated.
1599 – 1602 Shakespeare’s Hamlet written. 1605 The Gunpowder plot. 1620 The Pilgrim Fathers sail to America. |
1580 Thomas Paycocke III buried in St. Peter’s. A substantial amount of money given to the church. | 1642 – 1649 The third Civil War. The reigning king, Charles I, was put on trial and executed.
1660 The restoration of the Monarchy. |
1665 The Guyon Charity starts distribution of bread and tokens. | 1666 The Great Fire of London.
1667 John Milton publishes Paradise Lost. |
1787 St. Peter’s bells rung to celebrate King George III’s birthday. | 1787 The first performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. |
1841 Revd. W.J. Dampier installed as Rector and determines to restore the seriously neglected church. | 1830 Liverpool to Manchester railway line opened.
1835 Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist is published. 1841 Thomas Cook organises his first excursion, a rail journey from Leicester to Loughborough. |
1851 Revd. Dampier and Curate, E.L. Cutts, set up restoration fund. | 1851 The Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. |
1852 Restoration of St. Peter’s started. | 1852 Duke of Wellington dies. |
1855 The newly carved doors installed. | 1854 – 1856 The Crimean War.
1859 On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin published. |
1863 Church re-seated. ISPEBRCC* gives £150 to seat 1110 people (including 565 poor). | 1861 Death of Prince Albert.
1861 – 1865 The American Civil War. |
1865 East window presented by and for the Hanbury family. | 1865 Abraham Lincoln assassinated. |
1871 New pulpit, altar rail and choir stalls commissioned and delivered. | 1871 F.A. Cup first played. Stanley meets Livingstone at Ujiji, Tanzania. |
1876 Revd. Dampier retires. | 1876 The telephone patented (Bell). The phonograph invented (Edison) |
1880 New reredos given to church in memory of Revd. Dampier’s death. | 1880 First Test Match played between England and Australia. |
1885c 12 Apostles and 4 angels given to Church. | 1885 First performance of The Mikado by Gilbert & Sullivan.
1885 – 1886 Daimler/Benz patent the world’s first petrol-powered automobile. |
1933 Underground Sacristy discovered. Honywood/Waters memorial and Honywood/Philips hatchment installed. | 1933 Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. F.D. Roosevelt becomes President of the USA. |
1940 Sept. 16th church bombed. NW corner and aisle destroyed, tower damaged. Most of stained glass demolished. | 1940 Evacuation of Dunkirk and Battle of Britain. |
1954 – 1956 Church rebuilt and restored under aegis of Revd. Norman Brown. | 1954 Roger Bannister runs first sub-four-minute mile.
1955 Diary of Anne Frank is published. |
1956 Church re-hallowed at Michaelmas. | 1956 Rock ‘n Roll sweeps country.
Look Back In Anger by John Osborne is first produced. |
1981 Clock installed in memory of Fredrick Norman Brown. | 1981 Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer. |
2000 Two bells added to the peal making it the heaviest in the country. | 2000 The Millennium Dome is officially opened by the Queen. The Queen Mother celebrates her 100th birthday. Rower Steve Redgrave wins his fifth consecutive gold medal at the Olympics. |
2002 New extension with meeting rooms, kitchen and other facilities opened by Ven. Martin Wallace, Archdeacon of Colchester. | 2002 Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Rowan Williams elected Archbishop of Canterbury. |
2006 Coggeshall Prentice Youth Work Trust established to serve the children and young people in Coggeshall and the surrounding area. | 2006 Facebook opened to the public. Western Union discontinues its telegram service. |
2009 Carving and installation of new organ casing by Andrew Beckwith, a Coggeshall woodcarver. Andrew gave the carved panels, which he crafted, as a farewell present to St. Peter’s when he retired to the north of England. | 2009 Barack Obama inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America. |
2015 Completion of organ rebuild. | 2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain’s longest reigning monarch having served for 63 years. |
2016 A new sound and vision system was installed. The storm drains were replaced to stop the erosion of the foundations and the movement of the North East corner of the building. | 2016 The country took the momentous step after 40 years to leave the European Union.
Tim Peake successfully completed his International Space Station mission and returned home safely after six months in space. |
2017 The North and South aisles and the Nave were redecorated, and a new lighting system to highlight the apostles in the Nave roof area was completed. | 2017 500th anniversary of the year Martin Luther made his 95 Theses known to the world.
Sir Mo Farah, CBE, wins his third consecutive gold in the World Athletics Championships 10,000m track race held at the London Stadium. |
* The Incorporated Society for Promoting the Enlargement, Building & Repair of Churches and Chapels.
Written & researched by Donald Tosh 2000. / Barry Gibson 2002 – 2017.


















