Saling, Great (St. James)
SALING, GREAT (St. James), a parish, in the union of Braintree, hundred of Hinckford, N. division of Essex, 5 miles (N. W. by W.) from the town of Braintree; containing 349 inhabitants. It comprises 1651a. 11p. of land, chiefly arable, and is intersected by a rivulet which rises in the parish of Great Bardfield, and falls into the Blackwater; the soil is various, but generally fertile. The village is pleasantly situated on a green of triangular form, comprising about five acres. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7, and in the gift of the Rev. Bartlet Goodrich: the tithes have been commuted for £34 to Guy's Hospital, £55 to the impropriator, £35 to the vicar of Felstead, and £141 to the incumbent of Great Saling. The church is supposed to have been erected in the reign of Henry II., and contains monuments to the Yeldham, Goodrich, and Sheddon families. Formerly, the two parishes of Great Saling and Little or Bardfield Saling were one district; and at the time of the Domesday survey they belonged to the same lord: Saling had also been held undivided in the reign of Edward the Confessor.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.