Thorrington

Frating Abbey was reputedly an abbey in the village of Frating, in Essex, England. There is no evidence however that there was more than a farm here belonging to either St Botolph's Priory, Colchester, or to Wix Priory from around 1125. The current house, and first to be named Frating Abbey Farmhouse, dates from the mid-nineteenth century, built by Mr Boghurst. It replaced a manor house called Wheelers, mentioned twice in Feet of Fines in 1547 and 1564. Deeds for the Manor of Kirby Hall in 1814 included the Manor of Wheelers with mansion and 200 acres in Great Bentley, Frating and Thorrington. The first edition of the Ordnance Survey map showed the location as Wheelers from 1805. The first mention of Frating Abbey as an address is from 1853 in a letter written to the editor of the Essex Standard and General Advertiser.

Thorington railway station (also Thorrington railway station) was a station in Thorrington, Essex on the line (now called the Sunshine Coast Line) from Colchester to Walton on the Naze and Clacton, opened in 1866 and closed in 1957. The station was situated in between Alresford and Great Bentley. It was closed due to its close proximity to the much busier station at Great Bentley, just half a mile down the track.

Brightlingsea Regent Football Club is an English football club based in Brightlingsea, Essex. Formed by a merger of Brightlingsea United and Regent Park Rangers in 2005, they are currently members of the Isthmian League North Division and play at North Road.

Great Bentley is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Tendring district of north Essex, England, located seven miles east of Colchester. The parish includes the hamlets of Aingers Green and South Heath. It is home to the second largest village green in the country, at a size of 43 acres (170,000 m2), behind Duncan Down and has won 'Essex Village of the Year' and 'Daily Telegraph/Calor Gas Village of the Year' awards. Great Bentley railway station provides the village with frequent rail services along the Sunshine Coast Line to London Liverpool Street, Clacton-on-Sea, Colchester and Walton-on-the-Naze. Great Bentley is scattered round an extensive level or common, of 43 acres (170,000 m2), on the eastern side of the vale of a rivulet, seven miles (11 km) east-south-east of Colchester. The parish contains 2500 inhabitants, and 3,188 acres (12.90 km2) of fertile land, including hills and valleys, and extending southward to the Flag Creek, a tidal creek which connects with the Colne, near Brightlingsea. The population of the civil parish reduced to 2,253 at the census 2011.Great Bentley is the second largest village in the Tendring district, with a population of 2,381. The village has road, rail and bus links. Contenders for the title of largest village green in England include West Auckland and Old Buckenham. Frampton on Severn has also been cited, but at 22 acres (89,000 m2) it does not match Great Bentley..

Great Bentley railway station is on the Sunshine Coast Line, a branch of the Great Eastern Main Line, in the East of England, serving the village of Great Bentley as well as the nearby settlements of Brightlingsea, Frating, Thorrington and St Osyth. It is 60 miles 66 chains (97.9 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between Alresford to the west and Weeley to the east. Its three-letter station code is GRB. The station was opened by the Tendring Hundred Railway, a subsidiary of the Great Eastern Railway, in 1866 with the name Bentley Green. It was renamed Great Bentley in 1877. It is currently managed by Greater Anglia, which also operates all trains serving the station.

Frating is a village and small civil parish of the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is about 8 kilometres (5 mi) east of Colchester and 15 kilometres (9 mi) northwest of Clacton-on-Sea. The parish includes the settlements of Frating Green and Hockley. The parish church (dedication not recorded) is now a private house. The living was a rectory shared with Thorrington. The village hall is the Frating War Memorial Hall and Institute which celebrated its 100th anniversary in September 2022.Great Bentley rail station is two miles away and is served by Abellio Greater Anglia services to Colchester, Walton-on-the-Naze, London Liverpool Street and Clacton-on-Sea. There is one public house; The Kings Arms.

Brightlingsea () is a coastal town and an electoral ward in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, on Brightlingsea Creek. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 8,076. The town is an active though small port.Its traditional industries included fishery (with a renowned oyster fishery) and shipbuilding. With the decline of these industries, the town is largely a dormitory town for Colchester. Brightlingsea is a limb of Sandwich, one of the Cinque Ports. The town retains an active ceremonial connection with the Cinque Ports, electing a Deputy from a guild of Freemen. Brightlingsea was for many years twinned with French oyster fishery port Marennes, Charente-Maritime, but the relationship fell into disuse. In the mid-1990s, the port of Brightlingsea was used for the export of live animals for slaughter, leading to a protest campaign dubbed The Battle of Brightlingsea.

The Battle of Brightlingsea refers to a series of protests by animal rights supporters held in Brightlingsea, England, between 16 January and 30 October 1995, to prevent the export of livestock through the town. During this time period, early 1990s, this action had been talked and argued about among individuals. The name was first used by the media in The Independent newspaper, after Essex Police used riot control measures against demonstrators.By 1995, members of the public had become increasingly concerned about the conditions in which animals were reared, transported and slaughtered. Some examples of the farm animals that were being exported to continental Europe were cattle, veal calves and sheep. British exporters had been forced to use small ports such as Brightlingsea to transport livestock after the country's three main ferry operators introduced bans on live cargo. This followed mounting public pressure about the suffering of sheep and cattle packed into huge transport vehicles for excessive periods. There were 2 national campaign groups trying to help this cause; the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Compassion in World Farming. They had called for a ban on all live exports by limiting journeys to eight hours. At the time, European regulations allowed for journeys of up to 24 hours without food or water. They used different tactics to highlight this issue, and eventually succeeded in influencing public opinion so that ferry companies took action. As a result of the ferry company ban, however, the transportation of the cattle was moved to the small, independently operated port of Brightlingsea.The demonstrations, which were composed largely of local residents, ended on 30 October, when exporters announced they would no longer transport animals through the town because of the extra cost and logistical chaos caused by the daily protests. In practice, the export of live animals continued from other small ports, halting only in February 1996 when the European Union banned all meat exports from Britain over fears of "mad cow disease" entering the European food chain. The ban was lifted in 2006.

Brighlingsea Naval Base was an installation of the British Royal Navy located at Brightlingsea, Essex, on the East Coast of England. In both wars it was part of the Nore Command, which had its HQ at Chatham, and in the Second was part of Harwich Sub-Command. It existed from late 1914 to 1921, and from early 1940 to 1947, Brightlingsea is a coastal town in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, on Brightlingsea Creek.

Brightlingsea railway station was located in Brightlingsea, Essex. It was on the single track branch line of the Wivenhoe and Brightlingsea Railway which opened in 1866 and closed in 1964.

Cindery Island is at the mouth of Brightlingsea Creek (off the town of Brightlingsea) on the east coast of England in the county of Essex.

Howlands Marsh is a 29.9-hectare (74-acre) nature reserve north-east of St Osyth in Essex. It is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust. It is part of the Colne Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest Special Protection Area and Ramsar site, and the Blackwater Flats and Marshes Nature Conservation Review site.This site is marshy grassland, which is low lying and hummocky, and divided by water channels. There are also areas of saltmarsh, which has sea wormwood and golden samphire. Breeding birds include reed warblers, skylarks, lapwings and reed buntings.There is access by a footpath from the B1027 road.