Great Saling is a village and former

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 authorit ...

, now in the parish of The Salings, in the Braintree district of the English county of

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 Grea ...

. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 282. It is near the town of Braintree. The hamlet of Blake End was part of the parish. The village had on its

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combi ...

what was reputed to be the largest

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

tree in England. With a girth of 22 feet 6 inches and a height of 40 metres, the elm was identified by the botanist R. H. Richens as an '' Ulmus × hollandica'' hybrid, before it succumbed to

Dutch Elm Disease Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by a member of the sac fungi (Ascomycota) affecting elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced into Americas, America ...

in the 1970s. The village features the first aerodrome to be built by the Americans in this country. Work on Andrews Field aerodrome https://andrewsfield.com/ was started in July 1942 and built in under a year. The aerodrome is named after one of the famous generals of the American air force, Frank M. Andrews. The runways were built with the hardcore that came from the ruins of the London blitz. The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

is dedicated to St James, and is in the

Diocese of Chelmsford The Diocese of Chelmsford is a Church of England diocese, part of the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers Essex and the five East London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, and Waltham Forest (most of which wer ...

. It is Grade II*

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

. Image:Smooth leaved elm at Saling.jpg, The Great Saling elm

References

Villages in Essex Former civil parishes in Essex Braintree District {{Essex-geo-stub

See also

References