Earls Colne, Essex
Historical Description
Colne, Earl's or Great, a village and a parish in Essex. The village stands on the river Colne, adjacent to the Colne Valley branch of the G.E.R., 1 mile NE from Colne railway station, and 3½ miles SE by E of Halstead, and it has a post, money order, and telegraph office of the name of Earl's Colne, under Halstead. The parish comprises 2965 acres; population, 1720. A Benedictine priory, a cell to Abingdon, was founded here in the time of Henry I., by Aubrey de Vere, and given at the dissolution to the Earl of Oxford. A seat of the Earls of Oxford called Hall Place, with a park of 700 acres, also was here. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £320. The church was built in 1532, has a tower, partly of flint, and contains monuments of the De Veres, removed to it from the priory. There are Baptist and Quaker chapels, a literary institute with reading-room, a free grammar-school, and six almshouses. There are large agricultural implement works here, giving employment to about 200 men, a silk winding factory, some mailings, and brick and tile works.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Essex | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Earl's Colne St. Andrew | |
Hundred | Lexden | |
Poor Law union | Halstead |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Earls Colne from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Colne, Earl's (St. Andrew))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Essex is available to browse.
The Essex pages from the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 is online.
Maps
Online maps of Earls Colne are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers covering Essex online: