LOCATED between Great Totham and Tiptree, the Braxteds (both Great and Little) although in the ancient Witham Hundred, are firmly part of the family of the Maldon district.

Deriving from the language of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, the Old English ‘braec’ means ‘newly cultivated land’.

So despite the discovery of some Roman remains in the area, it couldn’t have been that long-established as a working settlement by the time of the Norman Conquest.

It appears in their Domesday Survey (of 1085/86) as ‘Brachesteda’ and ‘Bracteda’, and its previous Saxon lords, Aelfric and Thoriorn, had given way to the new Norman regime in the form of Hugolin (on behalf of the Bishop of London) and Richard and Guthmund (via Eudo the Steward).

It wasn’t until the 13th Century that the ‘Great’ and ‘Little’ division was established – ‘Magna’ (Great) in 1206 and ‘Parva’ (Little) in 1254.

Over the next hundred years, individual farmsteads appear in the written record – John atte Hathe’s Heath House (1327), John atte Noakes’ Noakes Cross (1371), Walter Fabian’s Fabian’s Plantation (1327), John de Kellevedon’s Kelvedon Hall Farm (1311) and Sewal Tredegold’s Thread Gold Farm (1319).

Later on (in 1523) Widow Porter was at Porter’s Farm and Gersescrofte (1451) eventually became Jacey’s Barn.

Then we have named sections of the woodland that first appeared in the Domesday survey – Leewode Grove (1391) and Westhalle Wood (1308) amongst them.

Some 2,000 acres of Braxted’s farmlands and woods were subsumed by one of the area’s still most famous landmarks – Braxted Park, necessitating the relocation of the village.

Formerly known as Braxted Lodge, the house in the park probably started life as a hunting box.

The lodge was then bought in the early 17th Century by the D’Arcy family (descendants of the Moot Hall clan).

They sold it in 1692 to the Whitcombs and then it passed to the Cornelisens.

Peter Du Cane, a Coggeshall wool merchant, then had it remodelled in the 18th Century into the country house that we largely know today, complete with a later 4½ mile long enclosing wall and its magnificent avenues of ancient elm trees.

Subsequent changes were made circa 1804-06 under the direction of the renowned Essex architect John Johnson.

The arcade was enclosed around 1830, a 15-acre lake was dug and the Adam-style west wing was reworked as recently as 1947.

As Pevsner puts it, all in all it is “exceedingly beautifully contrived”.

Its smaller, but equally special, neighbour is All Saints’ Church.

This is principally Norman, but has later alterations of the 13th Century (the tower, lancet windows and chancel), and 15th (the south porch).

The choir stalls and north transept pews of 1893 are the work of renowned clergyman, architect and painter Rev Ernest Geldart (1848-1929).

As good as they are, if you want to see some of Geldart’s best work you need only travel a short distance to the church where he was rector from 1881 until ill health forced his retirement in 1900 – the parish church of St Nicholas, Little Braxted.

Again, Little Braxted church is an attractive Norman building, of just 45 feet in length and with later additions.

Its real jewel, however, is the Victorian north aisle, built by a Mr Gorsell, of Maldon, but richly embellished in stencil work and paintings by Rev Geldart.

The aisle was officially opened on Harvest Festival Sunday 1884 to the gasps and amazement of a packed congregation who were suddenly able to experience something of the grandeur of pre-Reformation worship.

Even today, St Nicholas’ is capable of taking your breath away.

The setting of the church is just as idyllic and includes the meandering waters of the Blackwater, 16th Century Little Braxted Hall and a stunning picture of mill with adjoining Georgian miller’s house.

And because my mind tends to drift, whenever I stand near that special spot, I think of young Corporal Dunrow (service number 658365) who, at 10am on Tuesday, October 21, 1941, crash-landed his Tiger Moth (TZ262) a quarter of a mile south of the church.

The trainee pilot had run out of fuel and was lost, a long way away from the RAF Training School at Cambridge.

Thankfully he was unhurt and his aircraft largely undamaged.

That brief war-time snapshot is just part of a 1939-45 heritage of the two parishes which includes V1s, V2s, mines, bombs and other explosives.

So why not go and explore the Braxteds for yourself.

If you do, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

And on the way home you could call into our final place on this brief tour – Little Braxted’s pub, the Green Man.

I remember enjoying clear and refreshing pints of IPA and home-made hot-dogs there back in the 1970s.

Since then, this Grade II, 17th Century hostelry, with a list of landlords dating back to 1832 when Thomas Shelley was behind the bar, has been stunningly refurbished and the interior is a really clever blend of old and new, with oak beams and log fires to keep you warm in the winter months.

And so I say an amen to all the saints, including St Nicholas, to that and a cheers to Aelfric, Guthmund, Du Cane, Geldart and all those figures from the past who have made the unique landscape and buildings of Bracteda what they are today.