History of Little Wigborough

St. Nicholas' Church, Little Wigborough
©Robert Edwards
Photograph by kind permission of Robert Edwards,
contributor to the Geograph Project

History of Little Wigborough >> White's Directory 1848

White's Directory of Essex 1848

WIGBOROUGH (LITTLE,) is a small village, on it declivity, overlooking the salt marshes and the estuary of the Blackwater, 8 miles South by West of Colchester, between Great Wigborough and the Mersea and Satcott creeks. Its parish contains 114 inhabitants, and 1152A. of land, including about 134A. of low marshes and saltings; the latter covered by the tides at high water. Copt Hall, an old mansion, near the church, gives name to a mansion belonging to the Charter House, London, to which it was sold by Sir John Cotton; but part of the parish belongs to Edward Bean, T.N. Abdy, and Oswald Copland, Esqs., and a few smaller owners, mostly copyholders. Copt Hall was anciently held by the Septvanz family, and it afterwards passed to the Boudons, Boys, Bucklands, and Cottons.

The Church (St. Nicholas,) is a small plain building, with a square tower. The rectory, valued in K.B. at £10, and in 1831 at £252, is in the patronage of the Charter House, and incumbency of the Rev. Richard Pain, M.A., of Aspley, Bedfordshire, for whom the Rev. J. Bowyer, of Great Wigborough, officiates. The parsonage is a small old building, let as a cottage, and the glebe is 21A.3R.6P. The tithes have been commuted for £225.10s. per annum. Edward Harvey, Esq., occupies Copt Hall; and the other farmers are, Edward Bean, (of Peldon,) Mary Thorrington, and William Byford, parish clerk and beerhouse keeper.