Weeley 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 ...

in Tendring, east

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. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 1,768. It is served by

Weeley railway station Weeley railway station is on the Sunshine Coast Line, a branch of the Great Eastern Main Line, in the East of England, serving the village of Weeley, Essex. It is down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between to the we ...

on the

Sunshine Coast Line The Sunshine Coast Line is the current marketing name of what originally was the Tendring Hundred Railway Line, a branch off the Great Eastern Main Line in the East of England. It links to the seaside resorts of and, via a branch, . The line i ...

. It has bus links to

Clacton-on-Sea Clacton-on-Sea is a seaside town in the Tendring District in the county of Essex, England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District with a population of 56,874 (2016). The town is situated ...

and

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 name came from the Old English "Wēo-lēah" meaning "willow wood / clearing". Weeley is first mentioned in a document from c.1050 when Eadgyva granted Wilgelia alias Wigleya in penance to St Paul's, London. In 1086, Eudo held Wileia. In c.1100, William 11 confirmed Eudo's holding of the manor. The parish church is St Andrew's, Weeley, which shares a priest with neighbouring Little Clacton. There is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

voluntary aided primary school, also dedicated to St Andrew, which traces its foundation to the early date of 1797. Weeley has two claims to fame in military history. During the Napoleonic Wars, between 1803 and 1815, it had a large barracks accommodating up to 3,000 men, initially from three Scottish Highland battalions. In the 2nd World War it was the base of a small secret squad, or "Auxiliary Unit", led by local squire Roger Weeley, and prominently featured in the first book published on the subject, by David Lampe, in 1966. (Eastern Command and many other army records in WO series at National Archives, Kew; J P Foynes "East Anglia versus the Tricolor 1793-1815; David Lampe "Secret Army" 1966). Weeley has two small local parks, and was host to the Weeley Festival in August 1971. Other local facilities include a village hall, a

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold ...

, famously attended by Chelsea manager José Mourinho and a

Premier Inn Premier Inn is a British limited service hotel chain and the UK's largest hotel brand, with more than 72,000 rooms and 800 hotels. It operates hotels in a variety of locations including city centres, suburbs and airports competing with the like ...

. Weeley has a

personal weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include temperat ...

in the village, which provides 24/7 live weather conditions and weather forecasts for the area.

References

External links

Weeley Weather UK
Villages in Essex Civil parishes in Essex Tendring Anglo-Saxon paganism {{essex-geo-stub