page vi note * The mansion house took its name from William Skrene, of Writtle, constituted Serjeant-at-Law 10th Henry IV. It passed afterwards to the Farmers, and Sampfords, by one of whom, Richard Sampford, it was alienated to Richard Weston, who became a Justice of the Common Pleas, and whose son, of the same name, afterwards Lord High Treasurer, was created Earl of Portland in 1632–3.
“The manor of Skreens” (observes Morant, History of Essex, vol. ii. p. 73) “has been all along in families that have raised themselves by their merit and eminence in the law, a circumstance attaching to no other estate that we know of in this county.” There can be no question that Chief Justice Bramston, who purchased the estate from the Westons, as well as his two brothers, one of whom was a Judge and the other a Master in Chancery, kept up the charter; but it is only right to state that at a much later period Thomas Gardiner Bramston, Esq., the last possessor of Skreens, so endeared himself to his brother magistrates as a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, and by his unwearied attention to the interests of the county, that after his lamented death they caused his Bust, executed in marble by Ternouth, to be placed in the Grand Jury Room at Chelmsford, with the following inscription :—
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED
BY THE MAGISTRATES OF ESSEX, TO THE MEMORY
OF THOMAS GARDINER BRAMSTON, ESQUIRE, OF SKREENS,
WHO DURING TWENTY YEARS
PRESIDED AS ONE OF THE CHAIRMEN OF THEIR QUARTER SESSIONS,
AND IN THAT AND EVERY OFFICE
CONNECTED WITH THE GENERAL INTERESTS OF THE COUNTY
EVINCED SO CLEAR A JUDGMENT,
DISPOSITION SO CANDID AND CONCILIATING,
SO UNWEARIED A PERSEVERANCE
INVESTIGATING THE CLAIMS OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE,
AND SUCH INTEGRITY OF PURPOSE IN MAINTAINING THEM,
AS INSURED TO HIM THE CONFIDENCE
OF THOSE WITH WHOM HE SHARED HIS PUBLIC DUTIES,
AND AFFORDED A BRIGHT EXAMPLE OF A CHARACTER
GUIDED BY THE PRINCIPLES OF A TRULY CHRISTIAN MIND.
HE DIED THE 3D OF FEBRUARY, 1831,
THE 61ST YEAR OF HIS AGE.
