Dick Nunn - champion of the people

Henry Nunn, (known as Dick), was born in 1836 in Coggeshall. His father, Joseph, was a blacksmith by trade and, in time, Dick became an apprentice. In 1854 his father died from tuberculosis, so Dick, at the age of 18 became head of the family who had moved into a cottage in Swan Yard, just opposite the smithy where he remained for the rest of his life.

Dick grew up to be a man of very strong opinion and a born campaigner who saw himself as a champion of the working man. In 1887 Dick called a cottage, which stood at the church gate, "an eyesore and a disgrace to the beautiful and sacred edifice". He proceeded to pull it down and continued even after an official warning from a solicitor sent by the lord of the manor. He was taken to Witham Court but the case was withdrawn.  This cottage and its neighbours were knocked down in the 1930s, and the site is now the Woolpack car park. It seems that Dick knocked down 8 cottages as "unfit to remain in existence".

To commemorate the episode he erected an iron sign on the cottage next door. It was the episode of Grange Hill that landed the campaigner in prison. Dick had several times written to the newspapers about Grange Hill and the cruelty inflicted on animals drawing heavy loads up the incline, and it was one of his earnest  desires to see the hill levelled. When the authorities took no action, he set about the task himself and, with four labourers, began to reduce the level of the road at the brow of the hill. After much arguing with the surveyor and police he was forced to stop, but swore he would be "back in the morning!" The next day Dick was arrested spent a week in Chelmsford prison until his trial. Dick was bound over to be of good behaviour.

Dick Nunn must have been one of the earliest campaigners for public rights of way. He was determined to keep open the local paths and reopen those that had fallen into disuse. It was his efforts to reopen a path that led him to build the footbridge that to this day is named after him. When the bridge collapsed in 1875 the path was closed and remained so for 17 years.

In 1892, Dick took matters into his own hands by building a bridge which was mounted on two trolleys and wheeled from the smithy in Swan Yard through the fields and fixed into position over the river. The opening was a very grand occasion with several speeches made from the centre of the bridge to the large crowd standing in the meadow below. Mr. Beaumont declared the bridge open and said that henceforth it would be called "Nunn's Bridge". The crowd was invited to pass over the bridge and give a toll to help recompense Dick for the cost. Seven hundred and three people were counted over and a total of £12 15s. 5d. was collected, but whether this represented profit or loss is not known.

Dick was regarded with great affection and when he died aged 60 in 1896, shops and houses were closed and shuttered and hundreds of townsfolk turned out to pay their respects at his funeral, following the town band to and from the church.

 Copies of the articles about Dick Nunn's exploits from the Coggeshall Almanack are on show and pictures of Coggeshall folk celebrating the centenary of Nunn's bridge . The bridge is still in use today.