The name is derived from an Anglo-French combination meaning "bad water".
At the heart of the town in the old village there are over 30 listed buildings. The local council had multi-storey housing, shops, and offices built on the old village green, during the 1960s. These were voted the most ugly buildings in the area in about 2000.
According to information in the village church of St Mary, the rebel leader Jack Straw led an ill-fated crowd (the "men of Essex") from the churchyard[?] to London, in one of the risings in the 1381 Peasants' Revolt.
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