Bures St Mary

Bures is a village in eastern England that straddles the Essex/Suffolk border, made up of two civil parishes: Bures Hamlet in Essex and Bures St. Mary in Suffolk.

Bures Hamlet is a civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 749.The parish covers the western part of the village of Bures, the eastern part being in the Bures St. Mary parish in Suffolk. It also includes Daw's Cross. Bures railway station is in the parish. The civil parish of Bures Hamlet rises from the west bank of the River Stour, in the county of Essex – the ancient Kingdom of the East Saxons, although it remains in the ecclesiastical parish of Bures St. Mary, Suffolk – land of the South Folk of the East Angles. This anomaly was first recorded in the footnotes to the Domesday Book of 1086 which correct the allocation of Bures lands between the counties. The most populated part of the parish is the Hamlet itself, which flanks the river between the 20m and 25m (65’ and 81’) contour lines. Named when no more than a few scattered cottages, the Hamlet now rivals its parent Parish in size, with a population of some 765 people. The rest of the parish of Bures Hamlet is undulating agricultural land with scattered patches of woodland, some being remnants of the ancient forest and later deer parks. Much of the parish lies between the valleys of the River Stour and Cambridge Brook. There are no other major settlements, but a few clusters of cottages by ancient greens and crossroads, and some isolated farms. The highest point in the parish is on the southwest corner of the parish boundary at 73m (237’). There are wide views into the Stour Valley from many parts of the parish. An extensive network of public rights-of-Way provides off-road access to many parts of the parish. In addition, minor lanes that are relatively traffic-free intersect much of the parish, and while care must be taken in case vehicles are using the often winding and high-banked lanes, these can combine well with paths and bridleways to provide round and linear routes.

Bures railway station is on the Gainsborough Line, a branch off the Great Eastern Main Line to Sudbury, in the East of England, serving the village of Bures, which straddles the counties of Essex and Suffolk. It is 6 miles 76 chains (11.18 km) down the line from Marks Tey and 53 miles 45 chains (86.20 km) from London Liverpool Street, between Chappel & Wakes Colne to the south and Sudbury to the north. Its three-letter station code is BUE. The platform has an operational length for four-coach trains.

Mount Bures is a small village in England on the Essex and Suffolk borders. It takes its name from the mount or motte believed to have been built shortly after the invasion by William the Conqueror in 1066. The Gainsborough railway line that runs through the village is believed to have been opened in 1848. A few miles down the line from Mount Bures is the Chappel Viaduct. The Thatchers Arms in Mount Bures was thought to have become a brewhouse or public house to quench the thirst of the navvies working on the railway line and the viaduct in the late 1840s. A bunker from the Colchester Stop Line, a series of bunkers built during World War II, can be found at Mount Bures. Sergeants Orchard is a nature reserve managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust south of the village.

Sergeants Orchard is a 3.2-hectare (7.9-acre) nature reserve in Mount Bures and north of Chappel in Essex. It is owned and managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.The site was left to the Trust by the owner of Sergeants Farm in 1995. It consists of an old orchard in a long narrow field, another narrow field to the west and a larger one to the east. The western field has been planted with fruit trees and the eastern one with a conservation grass mix. A rare bee, Bombus muscorum, has been found on the site.There is access from a footpath between Fordham Road and Balls Chace

Lamarsh is a village and a civil parish in the Braintree District, in the county of Essex, England. It is near the large village of Bures and the village of Alphamstone. The village is west of the River Stour. It has a pub, a village hall and a church called The Friends of Holy Innocents Church. The civil parish's name, Lamarsh, comes from the phrase "Loamy marsh". This is derived from the Old English terms lām and mersc, which translate into loam or clay and a marsh respectively. In the 1870s, Lamarsh was described as: "LAMARSH, a parish, with a village, in the district of Sudbury and county of Essex; adjacent to the river Stour at the boundary with Suffolk, 2½ miles NW of Bures r. station, and 4 SSE of Sudbury."

Smallbridge Hall is a Grade II* listed English country house in Bures St. Mary, Suffolk, near Colchester, England. The house is partially surrounded by a moat and stands on the bank of the River Stour. The present building is one wing of a large two-storey red-brick Elizabethan mansion. It was heavily restored once c.1874 and again in 1932.

Tiger Hill is a 21 hectare Local Nature Reserve between Bures St Mary and Leavenheath in Suffolk. It is owned by [a group of landowners and declared under a LNR Deed agreement by Suffolk County Council and managed by the Tiger Hill LNR Management Committee. The site is in the Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and most of it (excluding a narrow strip of land in the north) is part of the Arger Fen Site of Special Scientific Interest.This site has woodland, heath and fenland, and fauna include badgers, bats and rare and endangered dormice.There is access from a road and a footpath, which go through this site.

Holy Innocents Church is an Anglican church in the village of Lamarsh, in Essex, England. The building has a round tower and dates from the 12th century. It is a Grade I listed building.

The Sudbury transmitting station is a facility for telecommunications and broadcasting transmission at Sudbury, England. It consists of two guyed masts, one, the original, being 165.8 metres (544 ft) high, and a second mast (no longer in service) at 103 metres (338 ft). They have antennas attached at various heights. It is situated 14 miles WSW of Ipswich at a site height of 70m. All 6 Digital TV MUXES are transmitted from Sudbury using an omnidirectional pattern at an ERP of 100 kW. Originally Sudbury was a B group transmitter but in order to accommodate the digital transmissions it went E group then, at its 700MHz clearance in August 2018, it ended up a K group (or wideband). However, most B group, E group and wideband aerials will continue to work fine on it (see graph). It broadcast television and radio services to central and southern Suffolk and most of Essex, however southern areas of the county received a better TV signal from the Crystal Palace TV transmitter. This includes cities and towns such as Ipswich, Chelmsford, Colchester, Southend, Clacton-on-Sea and Haverhill. Signals can also be received as far as north Kent.

Royal Air Force Wormingford, or more simply RAF Wormingford, is a former Royal Air Force station located 6 miles (9.7 km) northwest of Colchester, Essex, England. During World War I Wormingford was a landing ground designated for use by aircraft operating against Zeppelins. Reopened as a military airfield in 1942, it was used by both the Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). During the war it was used primarily as a fighter airfield. After the war, it was returned to agriculture. Today, the main runway is used by the Essex and Suffolk Gliding Club, although the concrete has been removed except where the old NW-SW runway crosses.

Alphamstone is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is located 3+3⁄4 miles (6.0 km) south of Sudbury in Suffolk and is 20 mi (32 km) northeast from the county town of Chelmsford. 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. The parish is 1,709 acres (2.67 sq mi; 692 ha) with a geology of fertile clay-soils, and is at an elevation of 216 feet (66 m) above sea level. The population is included in the civil parish of Lamarsh. The village is a mile west of the River Stour, which forms the Essex-Suffolk county-border in the local area. The village has one parish church, the C of E St Barnabas. It was built in the thirteenth century and went through restorations in the 16th and 19th centuries. The churchyard also features seven sarsen stones, potentially once a prehistoric stone circle. In 1831 the population of the village was 244 inhabitants. It is about 2 miles (3.2 km) from the nearest railway station at Bures on the Sudbury Branch Line. Its nearest significant road link is the A131.