“My interest in the Argents has been on going for years. Over 50 years ago with Uncle Harold (less than 7 years my senior) we wondered where they had come from. There were just scraps of family myths. They had once owned much land, they used to do the Kings dirty work, once the King ran away and left them to fight. These myths seemed to relate to an East Anglian family called de Argentan or Argintine who had come to the country in 1066 with William the conquerer. The family were barons who had manors at Steeple Bumpstead (and many elsewhere) and used the name Argent informally before the year 1100 and so we wondered more” [extract from a letter of Albert John “John” Argent dated 5 Aug 2003 to P H Whaite]