The ghost of Sir John Jocelyn, known for his love of horses, is reputed to appear riding a white horse on the old carriage drive every 1 November. The town's prosperity came from the maltings, some of which now house antiques centres. Among the maltsters were George Fawbert and John Barnard; in 1839 they set up the Fawbert and Barnard charity to fund local children and their education, funding a local infant school that still exists today. By the time of the Norman conquest, or soon after, Sawbridgeworth's rich farming land was fully developed for cultivation as was possible with the means available at the time: it was the richest village community in the county. It is, then, hardly surprising that many important medieval families had estates here. The land was divided among them, into a number of manors or distinct estates; the Lord of each manor had rights not only over this land but also over the people who farmed it. The number of manors increased during the Middle Ages, by a process of subinfeudation, that is the granting out of a part of an existing manor to a new owner so that the new manor was created. Many manors sprang from the original Domesday Book holding of the de Mandeville family. The first came to be called Sayesbury manor, from the de Say family who inherited it from the de Mandeville's in 1189. The many important people who held these manors built themselves houses with hunting parks around them; when they died their tombs enriched the parish church, so that today St Mary's has one of the finest collections of church monuments in the country. During the Second World War RAF Sawbridgeworth, which is not in the civil parish, operated Supermarine Spitfires, Westland Lysanders, North American Mustangs and de Havilland Mosquito, among other types - for a complete history of the airfield, see the book "Where the Lysanders were ...", by Paul Doyle, published in 1995 by Forward Airfield Research Publishing. The Walter Lawrence & Son Ltd joinery works, located between the canal and the railway, built over 1,000 Mosquito fuselage shells and wing skins for de Havilland during the Second World War. Subsequently, it reverted to making joinery and doors for the building trade. The joinery works was closed in about 1982 and houses were built on the site. Sawbridgeworth was the birthplace of composer Bernard Rose (1916–1996) and the actor Stephen Greif (1944–).