Weeley is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Tendring Tendring is a village and civil parish in Essex. It gives its name to the Tendring District and before that the Tendring Hundred. Its name was given to the larger groupings because it was at the centre, not because it was larger than the othe ...

, east

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, 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 wes ...

on the

Sunshine Coast Line The Sunshine Coast Line is the current marketing name of what originally was the Tendring Hundred Railway, 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 is par ...

. It has bus links to

Clacton-on-Sea Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and seaside resort, resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District, wi ...

and

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''. Colchester occupies the ...

. The name came from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

"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 II confirmed Eudo's holding of the manor. The parish church is St Andrew's, Weeley, which shares a priest with neighbouring

Little Clacton Little Clacton is a village and civil parish in the Tendring district, in the county of Essex, England. Village It is located on the Tendring Peninsula, close to Clacton-on-Sea. The population of the parish at the 2011 census was 2,822. The vi ...

. There is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

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 Weeley Festival was a British rock festival that took place in August 1971 near the small village of Weeley outside Clacton in Essex. History Weeley Festival was organised by Clacton Round Table as a small charity fundraising event for around ...

in August 1971. Other local facilities include a village hall, a

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

, famously attended by Chelsea manager

José Mourinho José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix (; born 26 January 1963) is a Portuguese professional Association football, football Manager (association football), manager and former player, who is currently the head coach of Süper Lig club Fenerba ...

and a

Premier Inn Premier Inn Limited, a subsidiary of Whitbread, is a British limited-service hotel chain with operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. As of 2025, the company owned and operated over 800 h ...

. 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 tempera ...

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