FELSTEAD, a village and a parish in Dunmow district, Essex. The village stands near the river Chelmer, and near the Braintree railway, 3½ miles ESE of Dunmow; and has a st. on the railway, and a post office‡ under Chelmsford. The parish comprises 6, 247 acres. Real property, £10, 784. Pop., 1,804. Houses, 401. The property is much subdivided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £500.* Patron, Earl Cowley. The church is partly Saxon, has a tower, and needs restoration. There is an Independent chapel. A free grammar school for boys, natives of Essex, is here; has an income of upwards of £2, 000 from funds left by Lord Rich in 1554; and, since a settlement in chancery in 1852, has been under the control of a board of trustees.

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