Bures is a village in eastern England that straddles the

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

border, made up of two

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

es: Bures Hamlet in Essex and Bures St. Mary in Suffolk.

Division

The place is bisected by the River Stour, the county boundary from the end of its estuary to near its source. The village is most often referred to collectively, as Bures. On the respective banks are two

es: Bures Hamlet in the Braintree district of Essex, and Bures St. Mary in the Babergh district of Suffolk. The village is a post town and its pre-1996 (obsolete)

postal county The postal counties of the United Kingdom, now known as former postal counties, were postal subdivisions in routine use by the Royal Mail until 1996. The purpose of the postal county – as opposed to any other kind of county – was to aid the ...

was Suffolk.

Landmarks and amenities

On the

left bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrai ...

is the medieval-core church of St Mary the Virgin housing eight bells with the largest weighing 21 cwt. They were augmented from six to eight bells in 1951 by Gillett and Johnston of Croydon. In terms of the ecclesiastical parish, and thus history before the invention of civil parishes in the 1870s there is no division, save as to county; all falls into Bures St Mary, which extends to a similar distance on each side of the river. The Bures Dragon

Approximately 1 mile (1.6km) east of the village, on the edge of the Dedham Vale AONB, is a chalk outline of a

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

, which was created as part of the

Diamond Jubilee A diamond jubilee celebrates the 60th anniversary of a significant event related to a person (e.g. accession to the throne or wedding, among others) or the 60th anniversary of an institution's founding. The term is also used for 75th annivers ...

celebrations in 2012. The shape of a dragon relates to a legend from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

that tells the story of the knight Sir Richard Waldegrave, whose servants attempted to kill a dragon, but failed due to its tough hide. St Stephen's Chapel, Bures, Suffolk, August 2022

St Stephen's Chapel, Bures, Suffolk, August 2022

A viewpoint of the dragon can be accessed on a public footpath, close to St Stephen's chapel, the oldest building in the parish. The

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

dedicated the site to St Stephen on

Saint Stephen's Day Saint Stephen's Day, also called the Feast of Saint Stephen, is a Christian saint's day to commemorate Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr or protomartyr, celebrated on 26 December in Western Christianity and 27 December in Eastern Chri ...

in 1218. The village is served by

Bures railway station Bures railway station is on the Gainsborough Line, a branch off the Great Eastern Main Line to , in the East of England, serving the village of Bures, which straddles the counties of Essex and Suffolk. It is down the line from and from Lon ...

. Bures United F.C. is a football team with several sides.

References

External links

Bures Parish ChurchBures-online Community Web SiteBures at WarBures United FC
{{Babergh Villages in Suffolk Villages in Essex Babergh District Braintree District