In recent years, the vault beneath the chancel of Debden church has been open to the public during the Church Christmas Fair.

The story of this scheming, philandering killer, Samuel Herbert Dougal and his callous elimination of Camille Holland, in order to get hold of her money, has been retold so endlessly in numerous books and articles, even novels and plays, that one would think there was nothing left to say on the subject.

Our search gradually revealed the history of another family in Church Street, one that produced one of our finest watercolour painters, John Sell Cotman.

Molehill Green, a hamlet which is part of the parish of Takeley, bordering on Broxted, was envisaged to almost completely disappear if the proposal to build a second runway for Stansted Airport had gone ahead

Until 1974, a forbidding brick wall ran along the Ashdon Road on the north side of the Common, largely concealing an even more forbidding and austere building.

This is the intriguing story of one of the Miracles associated with Edward the Confessor, the last of the Saxon kings, and of its connection to a long-forgotten chapel in the village of Clavering in NW Essex

Lorry drivers like driving through old towns and enjoy the nuisance value they create.

John Collin, who was born in 1740 and died in 1783, was an attorney and banker from Saffron Walden.

The story of Hart’s is well known: of how Henry Hart, a carpenter’s son from Linton, was apprenticed as printer in 1814 to George Youngman in Market Hill, Saffron Walden; and of how he bought his own printing press in 1836 and set up a stationery shop.

During the years 1884-1977 Saffron Walden College for Mistresses had a distinguished history

Clavering Castle, which lies next to the Parish Church, is a large moated site designated by English Heritage as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, of Saxon or medieval origin.