The classic view of the village - the green, the pond, the cottages, the road climbing up to the church. The view looks equally good from close to the pond or from the far side of the green. The photos on this page span about 90 years, the first one (above) is 1905 or earlier. The Green Man - the pub seen just in front of the church - is the original one which burned down that year. The horses and carts in and around the pond remind me of my mother relating how her father would take her on her summer holiday, taking a train to Braintree and there hiring a horse and trap for the journey to Finchingfield. The horse would drink from the pond as one appears to be doing here.

The next picture dates from the 1930s and shows the rebuilt Green Man (slightly to the right of the church). The house on the far right, once a workhouse and probably being used as a butcher's shop at this time, features on the Buildings page.

Now we move on to the 1950s. This is how I remember the village when visiting it as a child. Notice the agricultural machinery parked outside the Fox. Today you're more likely to find tables and chairs there. The motor car has still to arrive in force, though the horses and carts are a rare sight.

This picture was taken in August 2002. The green looks a bit damp, but not as bad as it was some months earlier when severe flooding affected several buildings around the pond. The large house beyond the brick one on the left is called Mildmay. Sue Loxton got in touch to say that her grandparents lived in that house and she spent a lot of time in the village when she was young. Her grandfather worked in the large barn in the garden with his neighbour and brother making and tuning organ pipes and her aunt lived in a flat in the almshouse in the Guildhall (seen on the previous page). Sue also remembers being able to see an enormous model railway layout through a window of the Georgian fronted house next door!