HATFIELD-BROAD-OAK, or Hatfield-Regis, a village, a parish, and a sub-district in Dunmow district, Essex. The village stands on an eminence, at Pinceybrook, 4½ miles ENE of Sawbridgeworth r. station, and 5½ SE of Bishop-Stortford; is an ancient place; was formerly a market town; and has now a post office‡ of the name of Hatfield-Broad-Oak, under Harlow, and a fair on 5 Aug. The parish is divided into the fonr quarters of Town, Brunsend, Heath, and Woodrow. Acres, 8, 810. Real property, £10, 941. Pop., 1, 960. Houses, 405. The property is subdivided. The manor belonged anciently to the Crown; was given, after the Conquest, to the De Gernons; passed to the Bruces, the Bohuns, the Staffords, the Riches, and the Barringtons; and belongs now to the faniily of Lowndes. The seat occnpied by the Bruces, and that occupied by the Barringtons, are now farm houses; and the former is moated, and belongs to the Earl of Roden. Barrington Hall was begnn about 1740, but not completed till 1864; and is now the seat of G. A. Lowndes, Esq. Down Hall, the seat of Sir John Sylwin, and Gladwyns, are good mansions. A Benedictine priory was founded in the parish, in 1135, by Aubrey de Vere; and given, at the dissolution, to T. Noke. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £180.* Patron, Trinity College, Cambridge. The church is later English, and good; has a lofty tower; and contains a fine effigies of Robert de Vere, third Earl of Oxford. The vicarages of Hatfield-Forest and Hatfield-Heath are separate benefices. There are an Independent chapel, a national school, and charitics £177. The snb district contains seven parishes. Acres, 21, 381. Pop., 4, 554. Houses,

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))