Dial House is a farm cottage situated in south-west

Essex, England Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

that has been a self-sustaining anarcho-pacifist open house since 1967. The house is located in the countryside of

Epping Forest Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the London ...

in Ongar Great Park. It has been used as a base for a number of cultural, artistic, and political projects ranging from

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

events to helping found the

free festival movement Free festivals are a combination of music, arts and cultural activities, for which often no admission is charged, but involvement is preferred. They are identifiable by being multi-day events connected by a camping community without centralised c ...

. Perhaps the best-known manifestation of the public face of Dial House was the anarcho-punk band

Crass Crass were an English art collective and punk rock band formed in Epping, Essex in 1977, who promoted anarchism as a political ideology, a way of life, and a resistance movement. Crass popularised the anarcho-punk movement of the punk s ...

. Following the

DIY punk ethic "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...

, Crass combined the use of song, film, sound collage and graphics to launch a critical polemic against a mainstream which they considered to be built on foundations of

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

, and

consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...

History

Early history

Dial House, a large rambling farm cottage, was built in the 16th century.

Oliver Rackham Oliver Rackham (17 October 1939 – 12 February 2015) was an academic at the University of Cambridge who studied the ecology, management and development of the British countryside, especially trees, woodlands and wood pasture. His books incl ...

describes Ongar Great Park as possibly having been the "prototype deer park", mentioned in an "

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

will of 1045".Rackham, Oliver; ''Woodlands'', Collins, 2006, During the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

, Dial House was the home of the writer

Primrose McConnell Primrose McConnell (1906 – 29 May 1991) was an Irish missionary in Haiti. Life Primrose McConnell was born Frances Elaine Beckett in 1906 in Foxrock, Dublin. Her parents were Edith Alice (née Park) and George F. Beckett, an architect. She ...

, a tenant farmer and the author of ''

The Agricultural Notebook ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

'' (1883), which is recognised as a standard reference work for the European farming industry. By 1967 Dial House stood derelict, its acre of garden a bramble-smothered wilderness. Dial House is

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

References

External links

'Dial House under threat'
{{coord, 51.7122, 0.1893, type:landmark_region:GB-ESS, display=title Crass Houses in Essex Social centres in the United Kingdom Intentional communities in the United Kingdom Legalized squats Squats in the United Kingdom Epping Forest District Grade II listed houses Grade II listed buildings in Essex