On Saturday the 20th May 2017, I had a spare hour or so before I had to pick my son up from a birthday party. So I headed down to Blackmore (one of my favourite Essex Villages) for a quick walk with my dog Ben.

I parked up in Blackmore and headed out crossing Ingatestone Road onto a footpath that is part of St Peters Way ( a long distance path).

The village was recorded in the Domesday Book as 'Phingaria' which was a Latinised form of its original Anglo-Saxon name, Fingreth, meaning 'the stream of the people of Fin'. It is thought that the name Blackmore was introduced in the Middle Ages as a reference to 'Black Marsh' or 'Black Swamp'.

The Priory Church of St Laurence church marks the site of a former Augustinian Priory, dissolved during the reign of Henry VIII in 1525. The church is the original building (but without the chancel, which was destroyed at the time of dissolution) and is now the parish church. It has one of the last remaining all-wooden steeples in England. The site still shows signs of the original moat. The village itself is believed to have migrated to a location closer to the chapel of the Priory from around Fingrith Hall during the mediaeval period.

Jericho Priory, on the site adjacent to the church and still within the moated area, was built in the 18th century on the site of an earlier 16th-century building which was believed to be the country retreat of Henry VIII and where, in 1520, his 'natural son', Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, was born.

Other old buildings in the village include the 15th- 16th-century Bull Inn, a traditional Essex timber-framed house, and Fingreth Hall, in the north of the parish, where Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Elizabethan era lived.

I missed the signs for St Peters Way and wandered off the path and ended up at Howletts Hall.

Howletts Hall has been a family farm since 1870 .

Set in 500 acres of beautiful farm and woodland. It is a place of natural beauty and wildlife. You can taste the thought, care and respect of nature in our top quality venison and game.

Established in 2000 by Peter Maclure, and born through his passion for Venison & Game, Howlett Hall has established a reputation for supplying wild game, much of it provided through Peter's own skills as a marksman, game stalker and butcher.

So Ben and I wandered back onto the path and back up to passing a beautiful property called Stoney Lodge near Bell Grove and Beggars Hill.

Stoney Lodge

Just before Beggars Hill after exiting the posh white gates at the above property we turn right into the woods at Bell Grove.

Ladder up to a hide used for shooting.

We exit onto Blackmore Road and walk up the road for a while before taking another footpath.

We turn right onto a footpath that will lead us back to Blackmore.

The sun was shining down on a meadow of lovely buttercups as the sky grew more menacing grey as rain was looming before long.

The path leading to Blackmore

Again we cross Ingatestone Road as we leave the path and back into Blackmore.

The village is surrounded by countryside and has been named Essex best kept village of the year, for 1982, 1984, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2003, and Essex Village of the Year 1997. The village green has a small pond at its eastern end. To the east of the village itself is a cottage which was built in 1345.