Fingringhoe is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, England, located five miles south-east of

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colc ...

. The centre of the village is classified as a conservation area, featuring a traditional village pond and red telephone box. The ''Roman River'' flows nearby before entering the River Colne. It has been noted frequently on lists of

unusual place names Unusual place names are names for cities, towns, and other regions which are considered non-ordinary in some manner. This can include place names which are also offensive words, inadvertently humorous or highly charged words, as well as place ...

. The village's name actually derives from its geographic circumstances: it sits at the confluence of the smaller Roman River and the River Colne. A "hoe" refers to a jutting out piece of land while "finger" describes an elongated finger-like land extension. "Ing" is a common toponym in the UK referring to "peoples". As such, the name refers to the "people living on the land jutting out into the river".

Geography

Fingringhoe Wick

Fingringhoe is locally known for its salt marshes, which provide habitats for many birds and salt-water animals. These form part of the Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve managed by Essex Wildlife Trust.

History

Roman port

During the 1st Century AD Fingringhoe was home to a river port which serviced the nearby provincial capital of

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...

at Camulodunum (modern

Middle Ages

A manor located at Fingringhoe was donated by

Henry I of England Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in ...

to the Norman abbey of Saint-Ouen at Rouen.Véronique Gazeau, ''Normannia monastica: Prosopographie des abbés bénédictins (Xe siècle-XIIe siècle)'', Publications du CRAHM, Caen, 2007.

Trivia

Fingringhoe is mentioned in Lemon Jelly's " Ramblin' Man" and is in the top 20 list of "rude names" from the book '' Rude Britain''. Fingringhoe is one of many British towns and villages referenced in Karl Marx's ''Das Kapital'' as part of "Illustrations of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation". In 2009, an unexploded World War Two bomb was disarmed in the village.

Monuments

St. Andrew's Church

A prominent feature in the centre of the village, the north wall of St. Andrew's Church dates back to the 12th century.

References

External links

Essex Wildlife Trust

Fingringhoe Primary School

Villages in Essex {{Essex-geo-stub