Birch, Essex

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Copford Green is a hamlet within the civil parish of Copford and the district of Colchester in Essex, England. It is near the A12 and A120 roads, and is 3 kilometres (2 mi) south west of Colchester. The parish church of St Michael's & All Angels, with sections dating back as far as 1130, is adjacent to Copford Green, as is the manorial house of Copford Hall.

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.

Stanway is a village and civil parish in Essex, England near Colchester and within Colchester Borough. 'Stanway' is an Anglo-Saxon name for the 'stone way' of the Roman road, now the A12. Stanway is about 3 miles (5 km) west of Colchester city centre on the B1408 (former A12), near the junction of the A12 and the A1124 at Eight Ash Green. Colchester Zoo, The Stanway School, Graham Coxon and Damon Albarn, founder members of Blur, met at the local school, The Stanway School. Stanway is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.The £4.3m A12 bypass opened in 1970. Local pubs include the Princess Charlotte (the first pub in the UK to be named after Princess Charlotte of Wales) and the Swan on London Road, and Live and Let Live on Millers Lane. There are five schools – three primary schools,Lexden Springs School and The Stanway School which has academy status, and describes itself as a "Humanities and Maths & Computing College". Four of the five schools are close together, on adjacent roads with the third primary behind the Tollgate shopping centre. An ever-expanding shopping district comprising The Tollgate Centre and Stane Park occupies an area close to the A12, these centres are home to national retailers such as B&Q, Sainsbury's, Homebase, Next and Marks and Spencer (having closed its city centre store in 2022). Further shops and businesses such as the Co-op, Halfords and Hatfields occupy the Peartree road area,

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 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.

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.

Copford is a village and civil parish in the City of Colchester district of Essex, England. It is 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of Colchester, and the hamlet of Copford Green is found a short distance to the south. The poet Matthew Arnold noted he was struck by "the deeply rural character of the village and neighbourhood."