Great Baddow, Essex
Historical Description
Baddow, Great, a village and a parish in Essex. The village stands near the river Chelmer, 2 miles ESE of Chelmsford station on the G.E.R.; has a post and telegraph office under Chelmsford; and is a pleasant place, with a considerable number of genteel residences. The parish comprises 3898 acres of land and 12 of water; population of the civil parish, 2019; of the ecclesiastical, 1486. There is an extensive brewery here. The manor belonged to Algar, Earl of Mercia; was given by William the Conqueror to the Abbey of Caen in Normandy; passed, in the time of Henry I., to the Earl of Gloucester; and went through a series of proprietors, to the family of Houblon. Baddow Hall is now the residence of the Greene family. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St Albans; gross value, £324 with residence. The church is a building of brick and rubble in the Early English style. There is also a Congregational chapel. Richard de Badew, the founder of Clare Hall, Cambridge, was a native.
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 | Baddow St. Mary | |
Hundred | Chelmsford | |
Poor Law union | Chelmsford |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Churches
Church of England
St Mary (parish church)
The church of St. Mary is an edifice of brick and rubble, the older part of which belongs to the Decorated period, the clerestory and additions to the aisles being of the early part of the 16th century; it consists of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower with spire, containing a clock and 8 bells: there is a monument of marble and alabaster on the south wall to Mrs. Amy and Mrs. Margaret Gwyn, 1753: the east window is a memorial to the late Mr. W. Packer and his family: there are 400 sittings.
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 Great Baddow from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Baddow, Great (St. Mary))
- Kelly's Directory of Essex, Hertfordshire, and Middlesex, 1914
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 Great Baddow 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: