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Downham, Essex

Village in Essex, England

Field	Value
country	England
official_name	Downham
coordinates
civil_parish	South Hanningfield
shire_district	Chelmsford
shire_county	Essex
area_total_sq_mi	3.36
region	East of England
constituency_westminster	Rayleigh
post_town	BILLERICAY
postcode_area	CM
postcode_district	CM11 1
dial_code	01268
os_grid_reference	TQ728960
static_image	St Margarets Church Downham - geograph.org.uk - 124041.jpg
static_image_width	250px
static_image_caption	St Margaret's Church

Downham is a small village in the civil parish of South Hanningfield, in the Chelmsford district of Essex, England. It is located approximately 7 mi south of the county town of Chelmsford. The nearest towns are Billericay, 3 + 1/2 mi west-south-west, and Wickford, 2 + 1/4 mi south-east.

History

There is evidence of Roman remains in the village suggesting it was originally of pre-Saxon origin, though it is not in the Domesday Book of 1086. The hilltop parish church is dedicated to St Margaret. The oldest section of the church is a 10ft by 11ft square redbrick tower from the late 15th or early 16th century. However, Christians have been recorded as worshipping on the site for over one thousand years. The nave of the church was restored in the nineteenth century, using some material from an earlier 13th-century building, and the interior was refurbished in the 1970s after a fire in March 1977. An ancient Field Maple lies north of the church. The village is home to Downham Hall, which was once the home of the De Beauvoir family; the building which currently stands is smaller than the original 17th-century mansion.

Downham was an ancient parish in the Barstable Hundred of Essex. When elected parish and district councils were established in 1894 the parish was included in the Billericay Rural District. In 1934 the parish and rural district were both abolished. The northern part of Downham parish, including the village, was absorbed into the parish of South Hanningfield. The southern part of the parish, which included the edges of Wickford, was transferred to the Billericay Urban District. At the 1931 census (the last before the abolition of the civil parish), Downham had a population of 833.

Geography

Downham has approximately 200 households. The village has an elevation of 188 ft above sea level, and the parish had an area of 2152 acre. The village is close to Hanningfield Reservoir, with its southwest bank being half a mile north from the village centre.

References

"Downham, Essex".
{{usurped
(1923). "'Downham', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, Volume 4, South east". His Majesty's Stationery Office.
[http://www.downhamchurch.org.uk/history.html History of Downham Church]
"Relationships and changes Downham AP/CP through time". A Vision of Britain through Time.
"Population statistics Downham AP/CP through time". [[A Vision of Britain through Time]].
"Statistics". www.ramsdenheath.info.
William White (of Sheffield.). (1848). "History, Gazetteer, and Directory of the County of Essex White". author.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

villages-in-essex former-civil-parishes-in-essex

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