MARK OF HANS CHRISTOPH LAUR, NUREMBERG, CIRCA 1620

Recorded history for Copt or Copped Hall in Essex begins in the 12th century when there was already a building on the site belonging to the King's huntsmen, the Fitzauchers. The property passed through various hands until Sir Thomas Heneage. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is said to have been written for Sir Thomas' wedding to the Countess of Southampton and first performed in Copped Hall's long gallery. In 1739 it was purchased by Edward Conyers, whose son, John, demolished the Elizabethan structure and drew up plans for a new Palladian mansion with the architect John Sanderson. The new house was completed in 1758.

Further aggrandisements were carried out by John Conyers' son, also John (b.1755), upon his inheriting the property in 1775, for which he employed the celebrated architect James Wyatt. He had married in 1773, Julia Katherine Matthew, daughter of William Matthew of Antigua. The Lady Henrietta, or Harriet, Conyers of the inscription on the present cup was the wife of the elder John Conyers and mother of the younger, as well as of two daughters and a second son. She was the daughter of Thomas, 1st Earl of Pomfret and his wife Henrietta Louisa Fermor, Countess of Pomfret (d.1761), a diarist and daughter of John Jeffreys, 2nd Baron Jeffreys and granddaughter of Judge Jeffreys. Lady Henrietta Conyers' death on 26 November 1793, aged 67, was recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1793, pp.1150-1: 'She... died lamented by all who had the happiness of knowing her.'