Mistley & Manningtree

Mistley & Manningtree are attractive small ports at the head of the river Stour. 

The main high street in Manningtree offers a selection of independent and boutique shops as well as the more familiar named shops.  A good variety of eating and drinking establishments are on offer in the local area providing a warm welcome to visitors and food and beverage options to suit all tastes.

Manningtree is the smallest town in England by area and was once a centre of the cloth trade in Tudor times and later a flourishing port for barges, carrying mixed cargoes down the coast to London. It contains an impressive group of Georgian buildings. It is believed that the reference to Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV as “that roasted Manningtree Ox” relates to the practice of roasting a whole ox at the town’s medieval annual fair.

Matthew Hopkins was an English witch-hunter who self-proclaimed the title of Witchfinder General, although the title was never awarded by Parliament.  In the early 1640s, Hopkins moved to Manningtree and acquired the Thorn Inn in Mistley.  During this dark period in history, turbulent years of the English Civil War and Religious changes, parts of eastern England were subject to witch hunts between 1644 and 1647, presided over by Matthew Hopkins.

Mistley contains many pleasant Georgian and Victorian houses. In the 18th Century local landowner Richard Rigby MP attempted to develop Mistley into a fashionable spa town, symbolised by a swan. He hired the architect Robert Adam, to design and remodel the existing church.

The Mistley Towers are all that remain after the centre section of the medieval church was demolished in 1870. They are the only known surviving remains of any of the churches designed by Robert Adam.

The local Grade II listed Methodist Church, is reputedly the oldest functioning church in Essex.  The church of St Mary and St Michael is Grade II listed and set within the Mistley countryside.

Old Knobbley is an English oak tree, aged over 800 years old with a trunk circumference of around 9.5m and just 4.3m high.  Located on Furze Hill, a woodland path leads to the site of this ancient oak.

The Mistley Kitchen is a renowned cookery school situated in one of the Georgian Town houses.

For local information and accommodation details contact:
Visitor Information Centre (located within Clacton Town Hall, CO15 1SE) on 01255 686633.