Great Leighs

Great Leighs sits halfway between Chelmsford and Braintree and has spent about nine centuries refusing to commit to either. Its round-towered church stands a mile from the village it supposedly belongs to, and most of the houses turned up after the millennium, so the heritage is mostly something residents drive past on the way home. The Castle on Main Road began as a hermitage for pilgrims walking to Becket's tomb at Canterbury. Today's pilgrims drive to Chelmsford and call it a commute.