The Connection to de Tey Family

One of the most puzzling things about the History of Belchamp Walter is the village name and the connection to Walter de Tey

Having taken the association of the Walter name with the naming of the village as accepted I attempted to fill-in the back story and research the family name of de Tey and the region of Essex that they are likely to of lived.

An open Internet search for Walter de Tey results in listings on geni.com, not a particularly reliable source as much of the information seems to have been derived and uploaded to a database from unspecified sources. The date of birth that geni.com attributes to Walter is 1250-1270.

I have found references to a Walter de Tey marrying Isabel de Steyngrave as a second marriage, the first being Simon de Pattishall. I am assuming that the marriage was late 13th Century or early 14th. Taking a date of 1300, as Walter would have been 30 to 50 years of age.

Query from the Parish Council - Mrs Smith - October 2001 - Clerk to the PC

The connection seems to hinge around the reply from Essex County Council which repeats the information from P.H. Reaney in which he has Walter de Tey in a table of different names that could be associated with the name of Belchamp Walter.

Reaney takes his information from an 1847 Tithe map, Reaney takes his information from Morant who states that Walter de Tey was a descendant of William de Beauchamp. William was a descedant of Walter de Beauchamp, one of Henry I's "New Men" and royal forrester. I think that it more likely it was this Walter the village was named.

William's father Walter has other rights to the village name as the village was named Belchamp William before it was called Belchamp Walter (Walter or Water Belchamp and William Belchamp - although Belchamp William appears on Manoral documents of the 18th Century when the Manor was in the hands of Thomas Ruggles on the death of John Rayond I)