PLACE NAME
A house called Beehive was for many years the seat of two powerful local families the Fullers and the Osbastons. In the early 17thCentury, Francis Fuller was clerk of the courts, responsible for holding a record of any contracts or documents that could be used for the enforcement of a fine or duties. After he died in 1636, the property was acquired by Francis Osbaston, high sheriff of the county of Essex who in turn left it to his nephews. In 1693 it was sold to John Lethieullier who bought the nearby Aldersbrook manor a year later too. On Chapman and Andre’s 1777 map and Cary’s 1786 map Little Beehive is shown with a complex of adjoining, ancillary buildings and Daniel Lysons in The Environs of London: Counties of Herts, Essex & Kent records that by 1796 it was in use as a farmhouse in the forest, though by 1799 it had been demolished. However, the name for the area has remained to this day.
