Old houses up for sale are not exceptional in south Essex, but Rochford's Kings Hill has a history - and a whipping post - all of its own, says TOM KING

One of the oldest and most fascinating houses in south Essex has come on the market.

The sale of King's Hill, Rochford, is a reminder of the extraordinary story of the Whispering Court.

The story has all the smack of legend, like Canute and the waves or Alfred's burning of the cakes. Yet in all its essentials it seems to be true.

The story of the making of the Whispering Court was handed down by oral tradition in Rochford for centuries. It was only, finally, captured on paper by local historians in Victorian times.

The exact date and the lord of the manor at the centre of the tale are uncertain. What is clear is that a long line of Rochford lords of the manor were absentee landlords.

They preferred foreign military campaigns and life at court to the duller business of looking after the marshlands around Rochford, or the interests of their tenants.

For years the land-leases around the town lapsed. The lord was supposed to renew them on an annual basis, but the lord wasn't there for years on end.

One night, though, the rover returned. His lordship finally arrived back to the home-town he hadn't set eyes on for years.

He came late at night, and retired straight to bed. There were few servants to attend to him because the town had been severely stricken by the Black Death.

Some hours later, the lord was woken by the crowing of a cockerel. This was odd, since it was the middle of the night. Something, however, had clearly woken the bird.

Rising quietly, the lord made his way to his bed-chamber window. Below, in the courtyard, a group of dispossessed tenants were gathered. They had come to present a petition, but as they muttered among themselves, their mood grew angrier.

The lord listened as they plotted to kill him in his bed. Daggers were drawn.

Under normal circumstances, any self-respecting lord of the manor would have hung the lot of them on the spot.

Thanks to the plague, however, the lord had few men to back him. Or perhaps he felt that he couldn't afford to deplete the population even further. Either way, bluff was called for.

Striding out into the courtyard, he berated the tenants for their disloyalty. There and then, as a permanent reminder of their mutiny, and his largesse, he instituted the Whispering Court.

Every year, on the Wednesday after Michaelmas, Rochford tenants had to gather at his manor. They then had to pay homage for their lands, not in a loud, clamorous voice, but in a humble whisper.

As a reminder of what would happen if they did raise their voices in anger, a whipping-post was erected in the yard, with the promise that any future rebels would be flayed alive. "It will be whipping for you, not whispering," he told them.

In the early 15th century, the post and the court were moved, for reasons unknown, from the manor to King's Hill. Perhaps it was because King's Hill was then quite a new house - only about 100 years old!

The court survived as a genuine and official land tribunal until 1900, when the lordship of Rochford became redundant and the local land holding system was reformed.

Long before its demise the Whispering Court had become, like so many old ceremonies, a focus for riot and drunkenness. A feast would be held at the King's Head in the market.

Just before midnight, the tenants, accompanied by a procession of hangers-on, would make their way to King's Hill.

Here they would gather by lamplight round the whipping post for the renewal ritual. The original whispers evolved into stage-whispers and from there into drunken roars.

The Whispering Court is gone, but the Whispering Post survives in the garden at King's Hill and it is a condition in the deeds of the house that the Post must be preserved in situ, and maintained.

The presence of the Whispering Court was a reminder of just how important Rochford once was.

For a century and a half, the old place has slumbered as little more than a suburb of Southend. Yet long before Southend even existed, Rochford was a town of immense fame and importance.

The highway from London into Essex was the Rochford Road. For several centuries, kings and queens made their way to Rochford Hall for entertainment and country sport.

It was Henry I, the great law-making king, founder of the jury system, who set up the original local court on which the Whispering Court was based.

King's Hill survives as a largely unaltered medieval timbered house. It can be glimpsed from East Street, at the end of a drive.

For the best view, however, walk down Old Ship Lane to the garden entrance. This was the gateway used by the Whispering Court at the end of its procession from the inn.

According to Mrs Lucinda Waller, the current owner, King's Hill is a happy house, with no unquiet ghosts, not even whispering ones.

"But there is something about it that can come as a bit of a surprise," she says.

"King's Hill is so close to the centre of Rochford where, let's face it, there's quite a lot of noise.

"Yet the house is so quiet. I can never quite explain why."

Desolate - Back in 1970 Kings Hill was forlorn and boarded up, left. Now however, the house that has been central to the history of Rochford since the 1400s, has been lovingly restored

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