White Notley

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White Notley
Essex
White Notley in 2005.jpg
Church in White Notley
Location
Location: 51°49’60"N, 0°34’60"E
Data
Population: 522
Post town: Witham
Postcode: CM8
Dialling code: 01376
Local Government
Council: Braintree

White Notley is a parish in Essex. The settlement (which includes the outlying hamlet of The Green) lies equidistant between the towns of Witham and Braintree amongst arable farmland, four miles in each direction. White Notley has a small primary school, Public House, railway station, Post Office, Village Hall and a 10th-century church. The village has a population of approximately five hundred inhabitants, with the 2011 Census recording the civil parish as having a population of 522.[1] Railway service is provided at the White Notley railway station on the Braintree Branch Line.

History

Remains from a settlement dating to the Bronze Age have been found in the centre of the village, including pottery and tools. Extensive remains from the Roman age have been found, including a Roman villa and tombs, yielding artifacts such as pottery, glassware and remains of buildings. On the same site fragments of pottery typical of that manufactured by the Ancient Britons have also been found. When the bridge over the River Brain was rebuilt in the 20th century, Roman horseshoes and a harness were discovered.

White Notley and the larger neighbouring village of Black Notley (located three miles to the north-west) formerly constituted one township – Notley. The name is supposed to have been derived from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "knut" and "ley" (meaning "nut pasture") and is mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086 A.D.) as Nutle[i]a. The hazel trees for which the Anglo-Saxon settlement was named still proliferate around the village and in the hedgerows of the surrounding fields. It is close to the location of the former Knights Templar Preceptory of Cressing Temple.

The religious centre of the village is St Etheldreda's church, built on the site of the earlier Roman temple, on what is now named Church Hill, opposite the 16th-century White Notley Hall and adjacent to the 17th-century Vicarage (Old Vicarage since 1987). The church is principally of 10th-century construction, with much Roman brick and stonework in its fabric, from the villa and the earlier temple. The niches on either side of the nave arch are thought to be a survival from the temple itself. Of note is a small mediæval stained glass window in the vestry, which depicts St. Etheldreda, and is set in a stone frame reused from an early insular Roman Christian Chi-Rho burial marker.

Football club

The local football club, White Notley F.C., was formed on 12 May 1950,[2] and joined the Essex Intermediate League Division Two in 1988.[3][4] In the 2006-07 season they were members of the Essex Olympian Football League, but then transferred to the Essex and Suffolk Border Football League.

References

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about White Notley)