Treasures of the Muniment Room

MUNIMENT ROOM - The Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Dedham.

Gerard Rendall is something of a forgotten figure today. This should not be the case.  His achievements were many and varied and Dedham owes him a debt of gratitude.   He accumulated a considerable archive of books, papers, other records and memorabilia relating to Dedham.  Towards the end of his life he determined to bequeath this collection to the village.  He had the room above the north porch of the church converted into a muniment room.  The bookcases, panelling and furniture were all designed by architect Marshall Sisson and built by Heals.  The archive remains accessible to scholars and to local people interested in the history of Dedham and its endeavours.  

Amongst the wealth of Holy, prayer, offices, historical and theological books, records and maps from the last three centuries are nuggets of local, social history which will fascinate those with an interest.
 

Three examples are:

• The Choir Register of St Mary’s Church Dedham
• The Constitution and accounts of Dedham Parish Nurse Association. (1915-31)
• The Rent Book for Princel Cottages from 1957

Originally David Jewell and Bob Foster produced three draft posters for potential use in the church to publicise some of the contents of the Muniment Room and these form the basis of these pages on the Treasures of the Muniment Room.  Each of the examples shown above are seperate web pages and can be accessed by the links on the sidebar.  The scanned documents are shown on the pages as medium sized icons, you can access a full size version of the image by clicking on the icon, the image will be displayed under a new tab.

Page updated - 27/09/2024 

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