Layer Breton

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.

Layer Marney is a village and civil parish in the City of Colchester district of Essex, England, near Tiptree. Layer Marney has a Tudor palace called Layer Marney Tower and a church called Church of St Mary the Virgin.

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.

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.

Heckfordbridge or Heckford is a hamlet in the civil parish of Birch, in the county of Essex, England. The settlement is on the B1022 road, between Colchester and Tiptree. near to Colchester Zoo.

Colchester Zoo is a zoological garden situated near Colchester, England. The zoo opened in 1963 and celebrated its 60th anniversary on 2 June 2023. It is home to many rare and endangered species, including big cats, primates and birds as well as many invertebrates and fish species.

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 de la Haye (often spelled Layer-de-la-Haye; locally known just as Layer) is a village and civil parish in the City of Colchester district of Essex, England. In the 2011 census it had a recorded population of 1,767.

Abberton Reservoir is a pumped storage freshwater reservoir in eastern England near the Essex coast, with an area of 700 hectares (1,700 acres). Most of its water is pumped from the River Stour. It is the largest body of freshwater in Essex. Constructed between 1935 and 1939, Abberton Reservoir is owned and managed by Essex and Suffolk Water, part of Northumbrian Water Group, and lies 6 km (3.7 mi) south-west of Colchester near the village of Layer de la Haye. In World War II, the reservoir was mined to deter invading seaplanes, and it was used by the RAF's No. 617 Squadron ("The Dam Busters") for practice runs for the bombing of the German dams in the Ruhr. A project to increase the capacity of Abberton Reservoir to 41,000 megalitres (9.0×109 imp gal) by raising its bank height was completed in 2013, along with a new link to transfer water from Norfolk's River Ouse to the Stour. The reservoir is important for its breeding cormorants, wintering and moulting waterfowl, and migrating birds. It is an internationally important wetland, designated as a Ramsar site, Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Area, and is listed in A Nature Conservation Review. A small part of the site is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.

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.

Copford Hall is a manorial seat and Grade II listed country house, with gardens by Capability Brown, in the village of Copford, Essex, England, 46 miles (74 km) from London. The building was at one time owned by the bishops of London, and its grounds are described in Pevsner as "almost the beau idéal of what to the foreigner is an English landscape scene".The present house is a large, square red-brick building with stone dressing and ornamentation, the façade the result of alterations in the early 1800s. However, the majority of the structure dates back to 1720, and parts of the inside to the early 1600s. The extensive grounds include canals, fishponds and water features. On the lowest pool is a classical boathouse. Part of the possessions of the bishopric See of London before the Norman conquest of England, it came into the possession of the Crown and was sold by King James I of England to the Mountjoy family. It was purchased from them by John Haynes in 1626, who later went to North America where he served as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then as the first governor of the Connecticut Colony. His son, Cromwell's Major General Hezekiah Haynes, took it over in 1657. It passed to a cousin by marriage, Major John Haynes Harrison of the Essex Militia, who married the heiress daughter of Reverend John Fiske and his wife Sarah in 1783. Their children included Fiske Goodeve Fiske-Harrison. It was later owned by his descendant A. B. C. Harrison, Lord of the Manor of Copford, former High Sheriff and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Essex and, former MP for Maldon in Essex.

Abbotts Hall Farm is a 282 hectare nature reserve in Great Wigborough in Essex. It is the head office of the Essex Wildlife Trust, which manages the site. It is also part of the Blackwater Estuary National Nature Reserve, Site of Special Scientific Interest, Ramsar site, Special Protection Area and Special Area of Conservation, It is an important archaeological site, and includes a Scheduled Monument, Great Wigborough henge.This is a working farm which is managed to encourage wildlife. Seawalls have been breached to create marshland, which has many fish, insects, invertebrates and plants which provide food for migrating birds. A new lake has also been constructed, and fields provide additional habitats for fauna such as skylarks.There is access to some areas and footpaths across others.