Halstead

Halstead is a town and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. It lies on the River Colne, north-east of Braintree and north-west of Colchester. At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 13,529. It is twinned with Haubourdin in the Nord department of France.

==History== Halstead is an ancient community that developed initially on the hill to the north of the River Colne. Archaeological evidence indicates that Halstead has been occupied since the early Bronze Age. The sites of Iron Age and Roman settlements, including a villa, were discovered in the vicinity of Greenstead Hall, where Saxon pottery was also found. A Romano-British villa also lies in a field to the south of the River Colne at Blue Bridge, indicating early settlement in the fertile river valley. The name Halstead derives from the Old English gehæld / hald (refuge, shelter, healthy) and stede (site, place or farm), meaning "healthy farm" or "place of refuge". After the Norman Conquest, in the Middle English of the 11th century, hald was written and spoken as halt, holt, or holð. Halstead is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Haltesteda and thrice as Halsteda in the Hundred of Hinckford, where it was mainly held by many freemen as feu in 1066, at the time of King Edward. In 1086, Halstead was one of the largest 20% of settlements recorded in Domesday, and had four owners. Most of the manor of Halstead had been granted by King William to William de Warenne as tenant-in-chief and lord of most of its wealth, and about one-third of the manor of Halstead was possessed by Richard, son of count Gilbert as tenant-in-chief.