In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Earls Colne like this:
COLNE (Earls, or Great), a village and a parish in Halstead district, Essex. The village stands on the river Colne, adjacent to the Colne Valley and Halstead railway, ¾ of a mile SW of Colne r. station, and 3¼ SE by E of Halstead; and it has a post office, ‡ of the name of Earls-Colne, under Halstead, and a fair on 25 March. The parish comprises 2, 959 acres. Real property, £6, 048. Pop., 1, 540. Houses, 334. The property is subdivided. 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 Rochester. Value, £494. Patron, H. H. Carwardine, Esq. 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 chapels for Baptists and Quakers, a neat recent institute with reading room , a free grammar-school, two other public schools, and six alms-houses.
Earls Colne through time
A Vision of Britain through Time includes a large library of local statistics for administrative units. For the best overall sense of how the area containing Earls Colne has changed, please see our redistricted information for the modern district of Braintree. More detailed statistical data are available under Units and statistics, which includes both administrative units covering Earls Colne and units named after it.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Earls Colne, in Braintree and Essex | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/6640
Date accessed: 20th May 2013
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