Little Leighs - Wikiwand

Village in Essex, England

Human settlement in England

Great and Little Leighs

Little Leighs
Church of St John the Evangelist
Little Leighs Location within Essex
Civil parish	Great and Little Leighs
District	Chelmsford
Shire county	Essex
Region	East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	CHELMSFORD
List of places UK England Essex 51°49′25″N 0°29′33″E / 51.8235°N 0.4926°E / 51.8235; 0.4926

Little Leighs is a village in the civil parish of Great and Little Leighs,^[1] in the Chelmsford district of Essex, England. Little Leighs lies beside the River Ter, just south of the village of Great Leighs and west of the A131 road.

The name Leighs comes from the Old English leah meaning a clearing in a wood.^[2]

In Saxon times there appears to have been a single vill called Leighs. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Lega in the Chelmsford hundred of Essex. The vill was at that time split between two owners.^[3]^[4]

No church or priest was mentioned at Leighs in the Domesday Book, but it subsequently came to be administered as two parishes, Great Leighs and Little Leighs. The church of St John the Evangelist at Little Leighs dates back to the early 12th century.^[5]

In 1949 the parish was merged with neighbouring Great Leighs to form a new civil parish called "Great and Little Leighs".^[6]^[7] At the 1931 census (the last before the abolition of the civil parish), Little Leighs had a population of 158.^[8]

References

↑ "Great & Little Leighs Parish Council | Home". Archived from the original on 12 March 2007.
↑ "Great and Little Leighs". Key to English Place-Names. University of Nottingham. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
↑ Powell-Smith, Anna. "[Great and Little] Leighs". Open Domesday. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
↑ The Domesday Book online. "Essex L-O". Retrieved 14 May 2016.
↑ Historic England. "Church of St John the Evangelist (Grade II*) (1122132)". National Heritage List for England.
↑ "Few voted at battle of Leighs". Essex Newsman. Chelmsford. 29 March 1949. p. 1. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
↑ "Chelmsford Registration District". UKBMD. Retrieved 26 December 2021.
↑ "Population statistics Little Leighs AP/CP through time". A Vision of Britain. Retrieved 11 October 2020.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Little Leighs.

Great and Little Leighs Parish Council
Churches at the Leighs and Lt. Waltham
The War Memorials at the Churches of Gt. & Lt. Leighs and Lt. Waltham

v t e Towns, villages and hamlets of the City of Chelmsford
Contiguous with Chelmsford Broomfield Chelmer Village (Chancellor Park) Great Baddow Melbourne Moulsham Springfield Widford
Towns	South Woodham Ferrers
Villages and hamlets	Bicknacre Boyton Cross Boreham Chalk End (Pepper's Green) Chatham Green Chignall St James Chignall Smealy Cooksmill Green Danbury Downham East Hanningfield Fanner's Green Ford End Galleywood Galleyend Good Easter (Tye Green) Great Leighs Great Waltham Highwood Howe Green Howe Street Little Baddow Little Leighs Littley Green Little Waltham Margaretting (Margaretting Tye) Mashbury North End Pleshey Ramsden Heath Rettendon (Rettendon Common, Rettendon Place) Roxwell Runwell Sandon South Hanningfield Stock West Hanningfield Woodham Ferrers Writtle (Great Oxney Green, Newney Green)
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex List of places in Essex

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