Little Wigborough 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

Great and Little Wigborough Great and Little Wigborough is a civil parish in the City of Colchester district of Essex, England, about from Colchester. The parish includes the villages of Great Wigborough and Little Wigborough and the hamlet of Stafford's Corner on the B102 ...

, in the

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. Colch ...

borough 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 ...

, England and forms part of Winstred Hundred Parish Council. Little Wigborough is located between Peldon and

Great Wigborough Great Wigborough is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Great and Little Wigborough in the Colchester borough of Essex, England. The place-name 'Wigborough' first appears in the ''Domesday Book'' of 1086, where it appears as ...

. In 1951 the parish had a population of 45. The parish church is dedicated to St Nicholas. It is a Grade II* listed building dating from the 15th century.

History

The place-name 'Wigborough' is first attested in 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 ...

of 1086, where it appears as ''Wicgebergha'' and ''Wigheberga''. Little Wigborough is first referred to in the ''Valuation of Norwich'' of 1254, where it appears as ''Wigeberwe Parva''. The name means 'Wicga's hill or barrow'. In the early hours of 24 September 1916, the German Army Zeppelin L33 was returning from a bombing raid on London, when it hit by an anti-aircraft shell and further damaged by Royal Flying Corps aircraft. It made a forced landing in the village, close to New Hall farm. The crew tried to burn the wreckage but they were only partially successful. They were arrested by the local special constable as they walked away from the scene. A pen drawing with pencil of the

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

by the Scottish artist Adam Bruce Thomson is on display at the

Scottish National Portrait Gallery The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Co ...

. On 1 April 1953 the parish was abolished and merged with

to form "Great and Little Wigborough".

Geography

Most of Little Wigborough’s official village area is Copt Hall Marshes, a marshland and National Trust Nature Reserve to the south of the village. The village boundary stretches to the north up to Abberton Reservoir. However, it does also have an exclave, to the west of the village, which includes Maldon Road and stretches to Salcott Creek in the south. The reasons for this exclave are unknown. Boundary Map of Little Wigborough AP/C

Retrieved 5 February 2023

References

External links

* http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/search?q=Little+Wigborough * https://merseamuseum.org.uk/mmwig.php - contains additional history of Great and Little Wigborough {{authority control Villages in Essex Former civil parishes in Essex Borough of Colchester