Coggeshall

Coggeshall, a town of Essex, on the Blackwater, 44 miles NE. of London. It has a school, founded by Sir Robert Hitcham (1636), remains of a Cistercian abbey (1142), a good Decorated church (restored 1868), and some manufactures of silk, velvet, and lace. It is supposed to have been the Roman Canonium, and the remains of a Roman villa have been found. John Owen was minister here. Ralph de Coggeshall, abbot here (1207-18), wrote a Chronicon Anglicanum (of the period 1161-1224), edited by J. Stevenson in 1875. Pop. 3830. See Beaumont's History of Coggeshall (1890).