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Revision as of 13:12, 8 July 2006 by 82.34.69.64 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)This article refers to the town in Essex, England. For the village in Somerset, England see Witham Friary.
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Witham (pronounced Wittam) is a town in the county of Essex, in the south east of England. The population (2001 census) is 22,500. It is part of the District of Braintree. The town is served by Witham railway station, situated on the London Liverpool Street to Norwich main line. The station is also the junction with the Braintree branch line to Braintree and Braintree Freeport. Another branch line, now dismantled, went from Witham to Maldon East and Heybridge.
Freeport is a large out-of-town shopping centre, supplied with its own station, and free bus from Braintree. All passenger services are operated by the National Express Group franchise 'One' Railway.
Witham is situated on the A12 trunk road between Chelmsford and Colchester. The town expanded greatly in the late 1960s and 1970s when the Greater London Council built 3 large estates there for families from London to move to. A one time famous resident of the town is the author Dorothy L. Sayers.
Witham is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. The parish of Witham appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. http://www.gyford.com/domesday/
Witham has a small town centre, with a number of small shops, enough to provide for the town. There is a Tesco and a Morrisons superstore situated in the town. The Morrisons supermarket site was once the factory site of 'Crittal Windows', until 1994 when the factory was closed, moved to Braintree and Safeway Superstores (since taken-over by Morrisons) purchased the site.
There are two secondary schools in Witham, The John Bramston School, and The Rickstones school, both achieving a slightly below average 5 A*-C GCSE rating, averaging around the 40% mark. Templars, Chipping Hill, Holy Family, Howbridge and Powers Hall serve the primary age children of this comunity.
The town started life on 'Chipping Hill', where the old forge still exists to this day. As the years went by, the hamlet grew to become 'Witham' and St Nicolas Church (a unique spelling) serves a congregation of around 150 people each Sunday.
Witham, and parts of the Braintree district hold one of the best recycling schemes in the UK, with compulsory recycling, reaching over 50% recycling.
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