History
The Windmill on Margaretting Road - c1910
Formed as the ecclesiastical parish of St Michael and
All Angels in 1874, the then scattered groups of dwellings,
farm houses and beer houses have grown into a well
established and thriving village community of just under
6000 parishioners.
It still retains some lovely old character properties –
Walters Farmhouse, the Methodist Chapel, the
old village school (now the Galleywood Youth Centre)
and many traditional rural Essex cottages and
farm houses, with the names of many Galleywood's
families and farms living on in the road names –
Ponds Road, Pyms Road, Pavitt Meadow and
Pryors Road, to name but a few.
Galleywood has an excellent network of footpaths, many
hectares of green belt land and plenty of open countryside
to explore. The Common, home of the historic racecourse
where racing took place from 1759 –1935, made famous
by the racehorse 'Golden Miller', and more recently being
designated as a Local Nature Reserve.
St Michael & All Angels Church was built in 1873 on a site
84 metres (277 feet) above sea level and is unique as the
only church in the country to be built in the middle of a
racecourse.
Pipers Tye has a unique collection of old cottages and
a renovated village pump, and leads on to an ancient
piece of woodland, The Spinney, off Brook Lane.
The Civil Parish of Galleywood was created in 1987
when Galleywood separated from Great Baddow Parish
and the new Galleywood Parish Council was formed
with nine Councillors, with the Council Offices
established at the Keene Hall.
The past is being kept very much alive in the village
through the excellent volunteer work of the Galleywood
Heritage Group in cataloguing, indexing, and publicly
exhibiting the Ron White Photographic Archive,
purchased by Galleywood Parish Council in 2004
and also by the well attended talks organised by the
For further reading - 'Glimpses of Galleywood'
may be purchased from
Galleywood Parish Council Office
at £1.00 per copy.
