The New Murrey and Blue blog

“….Cornburgh, originally from Cornwall and later of Gooshayes (Essex), was yeoman at the Lancastrian, Yorkist, and Tudor courts and a man of considerable power….”

The above extract is from this article I confess I had never heard of Avery Cornburgh (died 1487) who was apparently a close friend of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk. It was completely by accident that I stumbled across this book about the itineraries of his pilgrimages through Europe to Jerusalem. Not that pilgrimages were the main part of his life, because the itineraries may be imagined. It’s not known for sure.

But it is known that this gentleman was very much part of the court scene for three kings: Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII. That’s quite a feat….and I can’t understand why I’ve never happened upon his name before now.

Following this link will enable you to download a paper all about Avery Cornburgh, whose name alone is noteworthy. He seems to have been here, there and everywhere, a little like the Scarlet Pimpernel, and he must have been made of medieval Teflon to have slipped easily from one reign to the next with his career intact.

Anyway, the above links are interesting, and after reading them I do know about him.

The above illustration is of a house (the white one) in Romford that once belonged to Avery Cornburgh, and is now a coffee house. You’ll find more about this property at this site, in which it’s described as “….Formerly the Chequers, was built by Avery Cornburgh in 1486 as a chantry for the Church of Edward the Confessor. It became an Inn during the reign of Henry VIII, but reverted to the Church in 1908 and is now known as Church House….”

You can see more about the coffee shop here