Sutton is a village and

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 ...

in the District of Rochford in

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 ...

, England. It is located between the

River Roach A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wa ...

and the adjoining

Borough of Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

, and includes the hamlet of Shopland. It has a population of 127, increasing at the 2011 Census to 135, the smallest in the District, although at the time of the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

it had a flourishing village with its own market and fair.Rochford District Council : District Tour
/ref> The place-name 'Sutton' is first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as ''Suttuna''. The name means 'southern town or settlement'. The place-name 'Shopland' is first attested in a list of c. 1000 AD of the manors of St Paul's Cathedral in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS. 383), where it appears as ''Scopingland''. It appears as ''Scopelanda'' in the Domesday Book of 1086, and as ''Scopiland'' in the Feet of Fines in 1208. The name means 'island with a shed', the first element being the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''sceoppa'', or the

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

''schoppe'', meaning 'shop' or 'shed', the origin of the modern word 'shop'. The area is known locally as Sutton with Shopland. Most of the civil parish of Shopland was amalgamated with Sutton in 1933. When St Mary Magdalene's church in Shopland was demolished in 1957 following wartime bomb damage, artifacts were removed and went to Sutton Church and others. Shopland churchyard is rededicated every year. Sutton Road (B1015) is approximately long and runs from the

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key ...

Public House on Southend Road in Rochford to Southchurch Road in

Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

. Sutton is rural with large farms, and is bordered by industrial estates on its northern (Purdeys Industrial Estate) and southern (Chandlers Way/Temple Farm Industrial Estate) borders.

Church

All Saints' Church is of

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

origin and is listed at Grade II* on the National Historic List for England (NHLE). The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

and

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

date to the early 17th century. The bell turret dates to the 14th and 15th centuries. There are various 1869 and later repairs and restorations. The church is built of ragstone rubble, with Reigate stone and

Barnack stone Barnack is a village and civil parish, now in the Peterborough unitary authority of the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England and the historic county of Northamptonshire. Barnack is in the north-west of the unitary authority, south-east ...

dressings. It has a red plain tiled roof and a cedar- shingled bell turret and spirelet. The church is unique among Essex churches inasmuch that its south door is of a rare rebated or interlocking type, with only five other churches in the county having similar doors. This door was faced to the south in 1869. Other examples can be found at the churches located in

Castle Hedingham Castle Hedingham is a village in northern Essex, England, located four miles west of Halstead and 3 miles southeast of Great Yeldham in the Colne Valley on the ancient road from Colchester, Essex, to Cambridge. It developed around Hedingham ...

and Elmstead. When the nearby Shopland church was demolished in 1957, due to partial ruin from the Second World War, a

medieval 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 ...

coffin lid and brass, dated to 1371, of Sir Thomas Stapel,

Sergeant at Arms Sergeant ( abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other un ...

to Edward III, was moved to All Saints' Church in 1971. The brass shows Stapel dressed in the armour he would have worn at the

Battle of Crécy The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France between a French army commanded by King PhilipVI and an English army led by King EdwardIII. The French attacked the English while they were traversing northern France du ...

in 1346. All Saints' Church was declared redundant and permissible for secular use in 2015, and the brass and slab were moved again to St Andrew's Church in nearby Rochford, Essex in 2018, where they were set into the internal north wall of the tower.Monthly Bulletin
Monumental Brass Society, October 2018, pp. 764–65.

References

External links

Sutton Parish Council
{{authority control Villages in Essex Civil parishes in Essex Rochford District