CLACTON (LITTLE)
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales...., by John Marius Wilson. circa 1866
CLACTON (LITTLE), a parish in Tendring district, Essex; 7 miles SE by E of Wivenhoe r. station, and 11 SE of COlchester. It has a post-office under Colchester, and a fair on 25 July. Acres, 2,966. Real property, £5,098. Pop., 584. Houses, 130. The property is subdivided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £115. Patron, F. Nassau, Esq. The church is very good.
Transcribed by Noel Clark
KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF ESSEX 1933
LITTLE CLACTON is a parish 2½ miles south from Thorpe station on the Tendring Hundred branch of the London and North Eastern railway, 3¼ from Clacton-on Sea and 15 from Colchester, in the Harwich division of the county, Tendring hundred, petty sessional division and rural district, Colchester, Clacton and Halstead joint county court district, St. Osyth rural deanery, Colchester archdeaconry and Chelmsford diocese. The church of St. James is a small and ancient structure, built by the founder of the monastery at St. Osyth in the 12th century: in it are traces of the Norman, Early English and Decorated styles of architecture: it consists of chancel, nave, south porch and a western turret of wood containg 3 bells; one bell, which is the oldest in Essex, dates back to 1437; it bears upon it the inscription "Sancta Margaretta, ora pro nobis;" the other two bells' dates are 1652 and 1742: on the north wall of the nave are two brasses in the memeory of William Hubbard, who died at Bovill's Hall, June 24th, 1586: also in memory of his three wives, Ruth, Jane and Joyce: on the south wall there is a list of vicars, the first one being John Russell, who was instituted in 1321: the bells were rehung at a cost of £90 in 1914: the brasses were unearthed from the vestry cupboard and placed on the wall in 1915: on the south wall there is a memorial to the memory of the eighteen men of the parish who fell in the great war; this takes the form of a beautiful oak tablet: the church affords 200 sittings. The register dates back to 1538. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £300, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Chelmsford, and held since 1932 by the Rev. Max Sewell Wontner, hon. C.F. There is a Methodist chapel, erected 1851, and rebuilt in 1898, with 120 sittings. The charities are of the yearly value of £32, and arise from the rent of a farm at St. Osyth heath and known as "Hubbard's" charity. The manor is vested in trustees of the late W. F. Nassau esq. The trustees of the late Thomas Lilley esq. are the chief landowners. The soil is mixed; subsoil clay and gravel. The chief crops are barley, wheat and oats. The area is 3,009 acres; the population in 1931 was 1,132.
COOK'S GREEN is a mile and a half east, CLAPGATE, a quarter of a mile west; HONEYPOT LANE, 1 mile north-east
Post, M. O., T. & T. E. D. Office. Letters from Clacton-on-Sea
Police Station, 4 Church villas