Boxted 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

City of Colchester The City of Colchester is a local government district with city status in Essex, England, named after its main settlement, Colchester. It is, with 194,394 people according to Office of National Statistics estimate for mid 2022, the most populous ...

district of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England. It is located approximately north of

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''. Colchester occupies the ...

and northeast of the county city of

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Colchester and Southend-on-Sea. It is located north-east of London ...

. The village is in the parliamentary constituency of North Essex. There is a Parish council. The village was the site of a series of skirmishes between Parliamentary and Royalist troops in July 1648, known as the Battle of Boxted Heath.

History

Two historic manors are located in the parish: Boxted Hall and Rivers Hall, which are both mentioned in the Domesday records. Boxted was split into two settlements, "Boxted" and "Boxted Cross", during the plague when non-infected villagers moved across the valley from 'Old Boxted' to escape infection. A timber-framed cottage called Songers is reputedly the oldest private dwelling in Essex dating back to 1280. In 1630 the village vicar, George Phillips, and many other Boxted residents emigrated to America as part of the Great Migration. Phillips subsequently founded a church at Watertown on the

Charles River The Charles River (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ), sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Hopkinton to Boston along a highly me ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. Other Boxted residents went to

Ipswich, Massachusetts Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,785 at the 2020 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A res ...

Description

Today Boxted can be easily reached from Colchester along Boxted Straight Road, which is often mistaken for a Roman road, but is in fact a relatively modern road based upon an old heathland track; many other local roads are much older. Parts of the Boxted parish - such as Old Boxted - are within the Dedham Vale conservation area where development of buildings etc. is tightly controlled. Old Boxted is not developing as fast as Boxted Cross, which contains a broad mix of modern housing developments and has now extended considerably along Straight Road. Recently the school has moved from Old Boxted to Boxted Cross. At Boxted Cross is a village hall overlooking the George V playing fields wher
Boxted Lodgers
football team an
Boxted Cricket club
play. In 2017 th
Boxted Runners
was founded by Vanessa Dolling, a local running group catering for all abilities. By 2018 they had grown to a membership of over 100. They held the firs
Boxted 10k
event in 2018 raising over £6,000 for the local Primary School. Boxted Heath to the southern end of the parish is mostly divided into nearly 70 small holdings which were originally built by the Salvation Army in the early 20th century under an initiative to create a land settlement or colony. These small holdings replaced the Priory farm that was here in the 19th century, although the old farm house and some outbuildings still remain. No public houses are trading in the village since the Wig & Fidget closed in about 2005. The Cross Inn ceased trading in the mid-1980s and was converted into residential usage. The Queen's Head (Queen's Hd Rd/Ellis Rd corner) closed in 1972 and was demolished after several years as a retirement home. Most of the other pubs - such as the Fox (near the church) and Thatchers (Mill Rd) - closed much earlier.

Notable residents

Richard Blackmore Sir Richard Blackmore (22 January 1654 – 9 October 1729), England, English poet and physician, is remembered primarily as the object of satire and as an epic poet, but he was also a respected medical doctor and theologian. Earlier years He ...

- poet and physician, is buried in the sanctuary of St Peter's Church.

References

Bibliography

*Thompson, Roger, ''Divided We Stand, Watertown, Massachusetts, 1630-1680'', Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...

, 2001. *Thompson, Roger, ''Mobility & Migration, East Anglian Founders of New England, 1629-1640'', Amherst:

, 1994.

External links

Boxted Village Times
{{authority control Villages in Essex Phillips family (New England)