Gestingthorpe

Belchamp Walter is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is located approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) west of Sudbury, Suffolk and is 35 km (22 miles) north-northeast from the county town of Chelmsford. It is near Belchamp St Paul and Belchamp Otten. The village is in the district of Braintree and in the parliamentary constituency of Braintree. The parish is part of the Stour Valley South parish cluster and has a population of 198 (2011 census).Belchamp Hall is a country house in the village which stands near the church. It was the filming location for the fictional "Felsham Hall" in the "Lovejoy" television series.

Belchamp Hall is a Queen Anne style country house in Belchamp Walter, near Braintree, Essex, England. It is a privately owned Grade II* listed building.It is constructed of red brick in two storeys in a double-pile plan form with a gabled peg-tile roof with attics. The front facade has nine bays with a parapet. The central bay projects and is surmounted by a pediment. The house was built c.1720 in place of an original Elizabethan house and offers good views across the valley of the Belchamp Brook to the village of Bulmer. The interior panelling is Elizabethan or Jacobean, probably from the original building. Numerous family portraits by well-known artists decorate the walls. The surrounding parkland, significantly reduced in size since 1741, is itself Grade II listed.

Wickham St Paul is a village and civil parish located five miles north of Halstead in the district of Braintree, Essex. The village, in which some of the houses surround a large open green (with cricket pitch and swings), contains a church, a public house, a part-time post office and a grocery store, part of a large farm shop and pick-your-own establishment. The United Kingdom Census 2001 listed Wickham St Paul to have a population of 330.

Belchamp Otten is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is located approximately 4.3 miles (7 km) west of Sudbury, Suffolk and is 23 miles (37 km) north-northeast from the county town of Chelmsford. It is near Belchamp St Paul and Belchamp Walter. The village is in the district of Braintree and in the parliamentary constituency of Braintree. The parish is part of the Stour Valley North parish cluster

Bulmer is a village and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 568, increasing to 584 at the 2011 Census. The village is about 4 miles (6.4 km) south-west of Sudbury in Suffolk. The settlement of Bulmer Tye is located to the south of the village. Mr and Mrs Andrews, the subject of one of the most famous works of the painter Thomas Gainsborough, are buried in the churchyard whilst a memorial to them hangs within the church itself. The village is home to Bulmer Brick and Tile Company.

Great Maplestead is a village and a civil parish in the Braintree District, in the English county of Essex. In the sixteenth century the Deane family were Lords of the Manor of Great Maplestead. Later in the century the manor passed by marriage to Sir John Tyndal, Master of the Court of Chancery. It was here in 1618 that Tyndal's daughter Margaret Tyndal Winthrop married John Winthrop, a crucial figure in the founding of Massachusetts. In the 1870s the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales said that Great Maplestead "took its name from maple trees, which anciently flourished on or around its site; and has the repute of being a very healthy place".

Little Maplestead is a village and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England.

Belchamp St Paul is a village and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. The village is 5 miles (8 km) west of Sudbury, Suffolk, and 23 miles (37 km) northeast of the county town, Chelmsford. The parish is northwest of Belchamp Otten and Belchamp Walter, in the parliamentary constituency of Braintree, and part of the Stour Valley. It had a population of 331 (2011 census). The parish includes the hamlet of Knowl Green. Arthur Golding, the 16th-century poet, grew up at the manor and is buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's; a memorial to him is within the church. General Sir Timothy Creasey KCB OBE, a British Army officer who became General Officer Commanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the commander of the Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces, is buried in the churchyard. The church has a ring of 6 bells. https://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?tower=16317The Half Moon public house was the location for a number of pub scenes in the BBC drama series Lovejoy.Belchamp St Paul is the scene of the climax of M.R. James' ghost story Count Magnus.

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 Castle, the ancestral seat of the de Veres, Earls of Oxford. The first earl, Aubrey de Vere III, finished the initial building of the keep and established a Benedictine nunnery, Castle Hedingham Priory, near the castle gates. Hugh de Vere, fourth earl of Oxford, purchased the right to hold a market in the town of the crown in the mid-13th century. He also founded a hospital just outside the gates of the castle around 1250. The village's main attractions are the well preserved Norman Hedingham Castle, the Colne Valley Railway, Kirby Hall and its many timber-framed medieval buildings. The church of St. Nicholas is late Norman and Gothic, building having commenced around 1180. The fine double hammerbeam roof is attributed to Thomas Loveday, who was responsible for work on St John's College, Cambridge. Its Romanesque wheel window and cemetery cross are remnants of the Norman church. The church has a ring of 6 bells. https://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?tower=11865 The village was served by Sible and Castle Hedingham railway station which was opened by Colne Valley & Halstead Railway Company in 1867. The station closed in 1964 and was dismantled and rebuilt in 1974 on a new site to the north west of the village by the Colne Valley Railway Preservation Society. Castle Hedingham Pottery was an art pottery studio run by Edward Bingham at Castle Hedingham from about 1864 until 1901.

Belchamp was a rural district in Essex in England. It was formed under the Local Government Act 1894 from that part of the Sudbury rural sanitary district which was in Essex (the rest going to form the Melford Rural District in West Suffolk). The rural district contained the following parishes: Alphamstone Belchamp Otten Belchamp St Paul Belchamp Walter Borley Bulmer Bures Foxearth Gestingthorpe Great Henny Lamarsh Liston Little Henny Middleton North Wood Pentlow Twinstead Wickham St PaulOriginally, the rural district also contained part of the parish of Ballingdon, the rest of which was in West Suffolk. The Essex part of the parish was transferred to West Suffolk (and the borough of Sudbury) in 1896. Belchamp rural district was abolished in 1934 under a County Review Order, and merged into the Halstead Rural District.

Halstead was a rural district in Essex, England from 1894 to 1974. It was created by the Local Government Act 1894 as a successor to the Halstead rural sanitary district. In 1934 it was greatly enlarged by adding the areas of the disbanded Belchamp Rural District and Bumpstead Rural District. It was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972 and now forms part of the district of Braintree.

Hedingham Castle, in the village of Castle Hedingham, Essex, is arguably the best preserved Norman keep in England. The castle fortifications and outbuildings were built around 1100, and the keep around 1140. However, the keep is the only major medieval structure that has survived, albeit less two turrets. It is a Grade I listed building and a scheduled monument. The keep is open to the public.