Wickham Bishops, Essex

Description
Wickham Bishops, a village and a parish in Essex, on the Blackwater river and the G.E.R., on which it has a station, 2 1/2 miles S of Witham. The village stands on high ground, and commands some beautiful views of the surrounding country. It has a post and telegraph office under Witham; money order office, Great Totham. The parish comprises 1607 acres; population of the civil parish, 473; of the ecclesiastical, 469. The manor belonged from time immemorial to the Bishops of London, and it once had a palace of theirs. It is now the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. A beacon, erected in the early part of the 19th century, at the time of The threatened invasion of Napoleon I., stands on an eminence adjoining the parish. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £265 with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of St Albans. The church, erected about 1850, is a building of Kentish rag and Caen stone in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, N aisle, N porch, and a western tower with lofty spire. The old church, a small but ancient building of stone standing some distance from the village, is now disused.