Aldham 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 authority ...

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 ...

, England. It is located west of

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

. The village is in the borough of

and in the parliamentary constituency of

Harwich and North Essex Harwich and North Essex is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Bernard Jenkin of the Conservative Party since its creation in 2010. History The seat was created for the 2010 general election follow ...

. The village has its own parish council. The

ancient 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. ...

covered but local-government boundary changes reduced this to by the mid-twentieth century. The village borders Fordstreet,

Marks Tey Marks Tey is a large village and electoral ward in Essex, England; it is located six miles west of Colchester. Facilities Marks Tey is one of a group of villages called the Teys, also including Great Tey and Little Tey. Its main features includ ...

and the River Colne to the north. The parish is geographically on an incline, with the land sloping from around in the northwest down to around near the

Roman River The Roman River is a river that flows entirely through the English county of Essex. It is a tributary of the River Colne, flowing into its tidal estuary below Colchester. The lower end of the Roman River is also tidal, with tidal water flowing ...

, where it is susceptible to flooding. The 2001 census gave the parish population as 513, decreasing to 491 at the 2011 census. It is from the

A12 road This is a list of roads designated A12. Entries are sorted in alphabetical order by country. * A012 road (Argentina), a road around the city of Rosario * A12 motorway (Austria), a road connecting Kufstein and the German Autobahn A 93 to Landec ...

, a major trunk road.

History

There have been

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

finds in the area near Fordstreet and also pottery that may indicate Roman settlement. The village was founded in 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 ...

, and by 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 manusc ...

of 1086 there was a population of 12 with four households. The population rose in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and by 1671 there were at least 55 households in the village.

Church

Aldham's parish church is dedicated to St Margaret and St Catherine and is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The church is first mentioned in 1145. The original church stood by Old Church Farm to the west of the village. By the middle of the 19th century, it had become very decrepit; the floor was damp, the walls had to be supported by large brick

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es, and stout wooden posts had replaced some of the pillars. In 1853, it was decided to build a new church in a more central location, modelled on the old one (but enlarged) and re-using as much of the original fabric as possible, notably the whole of the 14th-century south porch. Although located near the geographical centre of the parish, only a few cottages were in close proximity to the new church, with the majority of the buildings in the parish on the main road at Fordstreet. However, since that time, there has been much building near the church and the area has become known as "Aldham Village" to differentiate it from Fordstreet. Since 1951, the parish has been held jointly with Marks Tey.

Notable residents

Philip Morant Philip Morant (6 October 1700 – 25 November 1770) was an English clergyman, author and historian. Education He was educated at John Roysse's Free School in Abingdon (now Abingdon School) and Pembroke College, Oxford, eventually taking his m ...

- historian of Essex, was

Rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

from 1745 to 1770. His profile appears on the village sign. *

Damon Albarn Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual ...

(1968- ) - musician, lead singer of Blur and co-creator of "virtual" rock band

Gorillaz Gorillaz are an English virtual band formed in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, from London. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: 2-D (vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (guitar, ...

spent part of his childhood in Aldham.

References

External links

* {{authority control Aldham_Village_Website_ -->

_External_links

*_ {{authority_control Villages_in_Essex
Borough_of_Colchester.html" ;"title="Villages in Essex">Aldham Village Website -->

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Essex
Borough of Colchester">Villages in Essex">Aldham Village Website -->

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Essex
Borough of Colchester