Layer Marney

Layer Marney Tower is an incomplete early Tudor country house, with gardens and parkland, dating from about 1523, in Layer Marney, Essex, England, between Colchester and Maldon. The building was designated Grade I listed in 1952. The large gatehouse tower is much the most striking element to be completed and to survive. Constructed in the first half of the reign of Henry VIII, Layer Marney Tower is in many ways the apotheosis of the Tudor gatehouse, and is the tallest example in Britain. It is contemporaneous with East Barsham Manor in Norfolk and Sutton Place, Surrey, with which latter building it shares the rare combination of brick and terracotta construction. The building is principally the creation of Henry 1st Lord Marney, who died in 1523, and his son John, who continued the building work but died just two years later, leaving no male heirs to continue the family line or the construction. What was completed was the main range measuring some three hundred feet long, the principal gatehouse that is about eighty feet tall, an array of outbuildings, and a new church.

Smythe's Green is a hamlet on the B1022 road, in the Colchester district, in the county of Essex, England. It is located in between the villages of Tiptree and Birch.

Layer Breton is a village and a civil parish in the City of Colchester district of Essex, England. According to the 2011 census there were 144 males and 143 females. Layer Breton is part of the Layer parishes with Layer de la Haye being the neighbouring village to the west and Layer Marney neighbouring Layer Breton to the East. Layer Breton also touches parishes Birch and Great and little Wigborough. The village has a church dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, rebuilt in brick in 1923 on a new site nearly a mile to the north of the old one. The village was among those which suffered damage from the 1884 Colchester earthquake.

Oxley Meadow is a 3.2-hectare (7.9-acre) nature reserve in Tolleshunt Knights, near Tiptree in Essex. It is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.The site has two meadows which are rich in flowers, including many green winged orchids and adderstongue ferns. There is also a variety of common butterfly species, and hedgerows provide nesting sites for birds such as the lesser whitethroat.There is access from Park Lane.

Tolleshunt Knights is a village and civil parish in the English county of Essex. The Parish has a Parish council, and lies within the area of Maldon District Council. It borders Tiptree, Layer Marney and Salcott cum Virley within the Colchester Borough Council's District and Tolleshunt D'Arcy also within Maldon District. Prior to Tiptree Parish Council being established in 1934 much of the Tiptree Heath area was within the boundaries of Tolleshunt Knights. The village is also the location of the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, an Orthodox monastery founded by Archimandrite Sophrony in 1958. From 1904 to 1951 the village was served by a small station on the Kelvedon and Tollesbury Light Railway. Tolleshunt Knights also has a village hall. Notables residents of Tolleshunt Knights include the Cottee Family who have inhabited the small village and it’s neighbouring village, Tiptree, for over 400 years. They finally decided to settle in the village after leaving the Kingdom of France, they later decided to Anglicise their surname to the more English sounding Cottee from the French Lescot.

The Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist is a monastic community for both men and women, directly under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It is located in Tolleshunt Knights, near Maldon, Essex, in England, and is the oldest Orthodox religious community in the UK. The religious community was founded in 1958 by St Sophrony of Essex, under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Anthony, Metropolitan of Sourozh and ruling Russian bishop in England, with six monastics from a number of nations; soon after, in 1965, the monastery moved under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The community is distinctive in that it is a double monastery, consisting of both women and men living the monastic tradition of a Christ-centred prayer life. Currently, there are just under 40 monastics in the community, the majority of whom are nuns, with a smaller number of monks.After the death of St. Sophrony in 1993 the Archimandrite was Father Kyrillos. Since his retirement in 2019 the Archimandrite has been Father Peter (born 1977).

Royal Air Force Birch or more simply RAF Birch is a former Royal Air Force station in Essex, England. The airfield is located 2 mi (3.2 km) northeast of Tiptree; about 43 mi (69 km) northeast of London Opened in 1942 it was used by both the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces. During the war, it was used primarily as a reserve transport airfield. It was closed after the war, in late 1945. Today, the remains of the airfield are located on private property and used as agricultural fields.

The Kelvedon and Tollesbury Light Railway was a locally promoted railway company, intended to open up an agricultural district that suffered from poor transport links. The enactment of the Light Railways Act 1896 encouraged the promoters to persuade the dominant main line railway, the Great Eastern Railway (GER), to participate in the construction and operation of the line. The line opened from Kelvedon to Tollesbury in 1904. At Kelvedon it had its own station close to the GER main line station. All the stations had minimal buildings—in most cases old coach or bus bodies served as waiting rooms, and the passenger rolling stock consisted of conversions of old vehicles. Passenger business was never dominant, but the area around Tiptree experienced major growth in the culture of soft fruit and of jams. The GER took over the original company, and built an extension to Tollesbury Pier on the River Blackwater estuary; this opened in 1907. It was hoped that this would lead to numerous commercial possibilities: the development of housing and of yachting facilities in addition to the increased use of the pier as a transport terminal, but these developments never materialised, and the pier extension railway closed in 1921. The entire line closed to passenger traffic in 1951, and the goods activity was truncated to serve the Studwick Road (Tiptree) siding only, for the jam factory. That too closed in 1962, and there is now no railway activity on the former line.

Hardy's Green is a hamlet in civil parish of Birch in the Colchester district, in the county of Essex, England. Nearby settlements include the large town of Colchester.

Birch is a village and civil parish in the City of Colchester district of Essex, England. It is located approximately 5 miles (8 km) south-west of Colchester and 17 miles (27 km) north-east of the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the parliamentary constituency of North Essex. There is a parish council.The parish incorporates the hamlet of Heckfordbridge. It is only 2.5 miles (4 km) from Abberton Reservoir. The parish church of St. Peter and St. Paul is a Grade II listed building, but has been derelict since it closed in the late 20th century. In 2023 it is threatened with demolition as the Church of England cannot afford to repair it. According to the 2001 census, Birch had a population of 817, increasing to 873 at the 2011 Census.

Oxley Green is a hamlet on the B1023 road, in between the villages of Tiptree and Tolleshunt D'Arcy, in the Maldon District of Essex.

Virley is a village and civil parish in the Colchester borough of Essex, England and forms part of the Winstred Hundred grouped parish council. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 61. The village is about seven miles south of Colchester. Virley is among the villages which suffered damage from the 1884 Colchester earthquake; the village church of St Mary's was largely destroyed in the quake, though some ruins remain.