Wormingford

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Wormingford
Coordinates: 51.9581° N 0.8194° E
OS grid reference	TL938325
Parish	Wormingford
Shire county	Essex
Region	East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	COLCHESTER
Postcode district	CO6
Dial code	01787
Police	Essex
Fire	Essex
Ambulance	East of England
UK Parliament	North Essex
European Parliament	East of England
List of places: UK • England • Essex

Wormingford is a parish in Essex, United Kingdom.

The ancient parish of Wormingford on the south bank of the river Stour, 6 miles north- west of Colchester and 8 miles south-east of Sudbury, Suffolk, covered 2,322 acres (929 hectares). The Stour forms the northern boundary, and the eastern, southern, and western ones follow mainly field boundaries, but sometimes cut through fields. Detached fields totalling 15 acres in Little Horkesley, were transferred to that parish in 1889.

Most of the parish lies on a relatively high plain which drains northwards to the river Stour and southwards to the river Colne. From the Stour the ground rises southwards to reach a height of more than 225 ft. (70 metres) in the south-west. A band of alluvium runs beside the Stour and there are river terrace deposits south of that, then, as the ground rises, bands of London clay, and sands and gravels. Most of the higher south part of the parish is boulder clay, good farming land, with a small pocket of sands and gravels running south-east from Wood Hall. Wormingford Mere of 12 acres is a natural feature formed by the Stour.

The main road from Colchester to Bures and Sudbury (B1508) runs from south-east to north-west across the parish. Minor roads connected the parish with Assington (Suffolk) across Wormingford bridge, with Fordham, and with Little Horkesley and Nayland (Suffolk). Other minor roads and tracks and a network of footpaths link the scattered farms and houses.

The ford from which the parish takes its name (originally Withermund's ford) was probably that over the river Stour by the watermill, at the bottom of Church Road, where there is a sand bank in the middle of the river. A ford further east near Garnons has also been suggested, but seems less likely. The Church Road ford was replaced before 1802 by a bridge, called a horse- bridge in 1812. About 1821 Messrs. Jones, who leased the river tolls, built a new bridge, apparently a narrow wooden footbridge. It collapsed in the winter of 1895-6 and was replaced by an iron bridge in 1898.

The modern form of the place name, recorded from 1254, gave rise to two stories of dragons, (worm meaning serpent or dragon). The first, apparently unsubstantiated, is that a crocodile escaped from Richard I of England's menagerie in the Tower of London and caused much damage in Wormingford before being killed by Sir George Marney. There is a stained glass window in the local parish church (St Andrew's) which depicts this event.[1]

The second, written in 1405 by John de Trokelowe, a monk, told of a dragon who threatened Richard Waldegrave's territory near Sudbury but fled into the Mere when pursued.

A large number of scattered archaeological finds from all periods from the Neolithic suggest that settlement was first on the flood plain, along side the Stour, before woodland on the higher ground further south was gradually cleared. Prehistoric tools were found in the complex of ring ditches and other crop marks near the Mere in the north-west of the parish; when a Bronze Age barrow nearby was destroyed in 1836 'hundreds of urns in rows' were found.

The artist John Constable of East Bergholt (1776-1837), had Wormingford associations, his relatives farming at Wormingford Hall and Gernons. John Nash R.A., who lived at Bottengoms, painted in and around the village from 1929 until 1977.

[edit] Wormingford Air Field

Main article: RAF Wormingford

Originally a relief airfield for bi-planes in WWI, the airfield was expanded by Richard Costain Ltd and helped by a number of sub-contractors during the period 1942/43. Earmarked for an Eighth Heavy Bomb Group, nothing ever came of this and at the end of November 1943 the yet to be completed station was handed to the Ninth Air Force for use by one of its Fighter Groups. On the last day of November the 362nd Fighter Group arrived at Wormingford.

The Group was assigned to the 70th Fighter Wing. They did not fly their first mission until 8 Feb 1944. Their operational status at Wormingford was a short one and they left on the 8th April 1994. During their stay the 362nd had mounted over 30 missions, losing five aircraft.

The next group to move in was that of the 55th Fighter Group with their P38’s having come from Nuthampstead in Hertfordshire. The 55th role as a fighter group was to be a short one due to some of the disadvantages of the aircraft. However the 55th would later become renowned for ground strafing and ground attack bombing. On D/Day the P-38 groups were given the task of acting as convoy escorts for the armada of ships moving to and from Normandy. The 55th was selected to serve with the occupation forces in Germany and in July 1945 they left Wormingford for Gielbelstadt airfield in Bavaria. The old airfield is now used by the Essex and Suffolk Gliding club for more peaceful forms of flying.

[edit] References

Excerpts from:

• 'Wormingford: Introduction', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: *Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 295-99.
• [2]. Date accessed: 06 September 2006.

[edit] External link

• [3]