SHEERING, or SHERING, is a pleasant village, on the Dunmow road, 2½ miles North East of Harlow. Its parish, which contains 544 inhabitants, and 1,594 acres of land, extends westward to the North Eastern Railway and the river Stort, which separates it from Hertfordshire. The Pincey Brook bounds it on the east and south, in its course to the Stort. In old records it is called Sceringa, Snaring, Cherring, etc. In the Confessor’s time it belonged to three Saxon freemen; and at the Domesday Survey it was held by Peter de Valoines, who married Albreda, sister to Eudo Dapifer. Their grand-daughter carried the manor in marriage to Robert Fitzwalter, and it remained in the barony of Fitzwalter till 1432, when it passed in marriage to the Ratcliffes, one of whom was created Viscount Fitzwalter, in 1525, and in 1529 Earl of Sussex. Their last male heir, in the direct line, sold Sheering to the Earl of Middlesex, who sold it, in 1635, to Thomas Hewit. In 1723, it was sold by Lady Filmer, to Robert Chester, Esq., one of the South Sea Company Directors, on whose forfeiture it was sold by the Company to Samuel Feake, Esq., who erected Dorrington House, now the seat of T.C. Glyn, Esq., the present lord of the manor. This handsome mansion occupies a delightful situation, in the vale of the Stort, about a mile South West of the church.
Sheering Hall, an ancient farm house, is the residence of Mrs. Pavitt. The estate called Quickbury, or Cowickbury, belongs to Hankin Turvin, Esq., and was formerly held by Bermondsey Priory, Southwark, and afterwards by the Jocelyn, Hunt, Pettit, and other families. In 1745, it was left to George Lord Carpenter, from whom it has descended to its present owner. Mrs. Mills, Jobn Barnard, James Glasscock, and several smaller owners, have estates in the parish, partly copyhold, subject to certain fines.
The Church (Virgin Mary), is a plain ancient building, with a nave and chancel of one pace. Chapel-field, on the north side of the road leading to Netherton, is the site of an ancient free chapel, which was dedicated to St. Nicholas, and was founded, in 1279, by Christiana de Valoines, with an endowment for the support of two chaplains; but no traces of it are now extant. The rectory, valued in K.B. at £13.13s.4d., and in 1831 at £435, is in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, and incumbency of the Rev. Thomas Littlehales, M.A., who has 22 acres of glebe, and a handsome modem residence, in the Elizabethan style. The tithes were commuted in 1840, for £507 per annum. For teaching 12 poor children, schoolmistress has the dividends of £105, new three and a half per cent. stock, left by the Rev. Francis Tutte, in 1815.