Cromwell the lead thief

We start with Cromwell and a secret tunnel. At journalism college, we were always told the first paragraph of a story – the intro, as it’s known in these circles – was the most important paragraph of the whole article. After all, if you don’t grab your reader early on, they’ll turn the page and the rest of the story is never read at all, no matter how good it might be.

Bearing that in mind, you have to admire whoever came up with the intro: “Did Oliver Cromwell steal the lead from the roof of Oxhey Chapel when he stayed in Watford on his journey from Uxbridge to St Albans?” Resist that if you can!

I can’t imagine anyone turning the page in December 1963, when the story, headed “Cromwell legend – and a secret tunnel too”, was first published and it certainly gripped me 51 years later.

The story was accompanied by the picture at the start of this article, which is said to be a “red-brick tunnel which has recently been unearthed on a nearby building site” and which was apparently a secret passage which ran from the back of the chapel.

I’ll leave the rest of the story to be told by “well-known local historian” Mr E.J. Rogers, of Oxhey Avenue, Oxhey. He wrote a letter to the Watford Observer of December 13, 1963, as follows:

“It is surprising how local hearsay over two or three centuries is generally remarkably accurate and often concerns a specific incident, if not quite the same as the original. I have been unable to follow the interesting day-to-day restoration of Oxhey Chapel but I was delighted to read that the builders have found traces of an older lead roof under the existing red-tiled one. And so an old Oxhey Place local tale has, to my mind, virtually been proved true.

“The tale was that Oliver Cromwell stole the lead off the roof when he stayed in Watford on his journey from Uxbridge to St Albans, and a few years ago the stables he commandeered at Watford were actually pointed out. The story of the Oxhey Chapel lead was strongly told when I was a boy, not only by the small local farming population, many of whose names at that time would be traced back 100 years to a local association, but also by the Blackwell family from Oxhey Place mansion and the Sedgwicks in the adjoining farmhouse.

“Way back in 1916, I remember Mrs Sedgwick telling a group of boys, who formed the small Sunday School at the chapel, of a secret passage which ran from the back of the chapel but which had been filled in some years ago.

“During the last few days on a nearby building site which is being excavated on the ground where the old Blackwell mansion used to stand, an arched red brick 17th Century tunnel, about 6ft below the surface and about 4ft 6ins high and 2ft wide, has been unearthed.

“It does not appear to come from the chapel but it might well come from the old farmhouse, or be an interconnecting passage between that and the mansion.

“I remember examining the chapel roof in 1916 and wondering how Oliver could find enough lead worth stealing on it, for only a lead flushing over the gutter showed in one place and as this appeared modern it was a bit of a mystery.

 “But if the original low-pitched roof was entirely lead covered it is another story and well worth a Roundhead journey out from Watford with a forage waggon.

“There is no doubt the old tale is true. Lead is very durable and the old 17th Century lead, which had a lot of silver in it, particularly so. Why should the old 1612 lead roof be stripped before the end of the century and 17th Century tiles be found on the new roof above?

“A repair in the lead roof, if necessary, would only mean running a bit of new lead into the old, and an entire roof could not be involved by ordinary standards of wear-and-tear. Only a violent and disruptive action could involve the stripping of the whole. The cost of an entire new roof of red tiles above the old would be considerable and the estate owner on whose land the Chapel stood obviously did not think in terms of lead again!”