The History of The Moot Hall
Please find below an article I have written regarding a place called The Moot Hall in Maldon, Essex, England. I have investigated this place in the past and thought you might like to feature the story/report on your website.
The Moot Hall in Maldon is a place I had the pleasure of visiting for myself, and had a couple of anomalous experiences that I was lucky enough to investigate at the time they happened. Before I tell you about the paranormal side, I would like to share with you the buildings history, and its numerous uses over they years.
The Moot Hall hasn't always stood at its present location; it was in fact a bit further up the road on the corner of the high street, on a row of shops adjacent to the also historic blue boar hotel. Moot is a Saxon word meaning place of assembly, the hall was started in 1435 at the request of Robert D'arcy when he had a brick building constructed on the site. It was raised in height to form a tower like building later in the fifteenth century; it was completed as such in 1576.
King Henry VIII granted Maldon rights as a court of admiralty in 1528 and the crowned matrix of the seal is still held within the walls of the building to this day.
The corporation of Maldon purchased the building from Thomas Eve in 1576 for a price of just £55. Eve, a linen draper and freeman of the borough, worked to render the building useful as a moot hall, the present balcony now replaces a front gallery that was built onto the hall.
Maldon has had a mayor every year since the town's local government was changed in 1687. The second floor of the building now houses the town's council chambers where meetings were held regularly to decide the town's key developments. This came into use in 1687, with a mace being made later in the same year. The town records were also kept at the hall, until they were moved to the Essex records office in nearby Chelmsford.
The first floor held the town courthouse with the ground floor the police station and prison cells. The courthouse was in use up until the 1970's and the ground floor prison cells have a small exercise yard to the rear where names of convicts have been scratched into the walls, and the dates they were held are also visible. The police station was in use for Maldon's own police force from 1839 until 1889 when it became the county police forces station until 1914 when the new police station was built in west square.
Read More:
The Moot HallThe Moot Hall - The Haunting
The Moot Hall - The Second Visit
The Moot Hall - Paranormal Case Study
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