Essex Place Names

Essex Review

Extract from No. 226  Volume LVII (April 1948)

Essex Place Names

By Margaret Seals

Written in reply to Theodora Roscoe’s Buckinghamshire Place Names.

Come, travel through our Essex land

In mighty Caesar’s train,

And read in history’s living page

Of Saxon, Norman, Dane.

For Romans lived at Fingringhoe,

Near Colchester’s great camp,

And many a little village church

Still bears the Norman stamp.

There’s Margaret Roding, Stow Maries,

Mountnessing and Marks Tey,

Great Baddow, Foxearth, Colne Engaine,

And Layer-de-la-Haye.

See Shelley, Norton Mandeville,

The Lavers, Netteswell –

The ancient Cluniac Priory

That stands at Prittlewell.

There’s Tollesbury with its oysters

And Tolleshunt with its Knight;

Matching’s Marriage Feast Room,

The Notleys – Black and White.

Recall that Saxon children played

In Saffron Walden’s lanes,

And Maldon’s hero Brihtnoth, fell

In victory o’er the Danes.

Pass through our fields aglow with grain –

Or seek the North Sea’s tide,

Our place names, with our ancient bells

Sweet music will provide.