St Anns, Great Leighs (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
St Annes; Leigh

In the civil parish of Great and Little Leighs.
In the historic county of Essex.
Modern Authority of Essex.
1974 county of Essex.
Medieval County of Essex.

OS Map Grid Reference: TL727171
Latitude 51.82637° Longitude 0.50585°

St Anns, Great Leighs has been described as a probable Uncertain.

There are no visible remains.

Comments

These are probably references to the same possible castle site. There is a pub called St Annes Castle at Great Leighs marked site of St Ann's Hermitage on 1881 OS map at the ref given. A pub by the name St Anns seems to have been on the site since the mid C17, but the 'castle' part of the name seems first recorded on the 1st edn OS map. A castle field place-name is also recorded from an 1839 Tithe map. There is also a Rochester Farm at TL726168, which is not a known Roman site, other than being on the Roman road to Braintree. So, perhaps, a misidentification of a now lost Roman fort. However, this is a high status landscape with a priory site (now occupied by a C16 castellated house called Leez Priory. The priory of Augustinian Canons was founded before 1200) and it is a possibility that a castle existed here, on a river crossing of a major road, founded before 1200. Gubbion's Hall (TL736177) may represent a later successor on a new site.

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 5964 (pub only).

Books
- King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 148
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co) p. 256
  Moore, James, 1798, List of the Principal Castles and Monasteries in Great Britain (London) p. 13 online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

Data >		County HER
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio