It is located approximately 7 miles (11 km) south of the county town of Chelmsford.

[4] The hilltop parish church is dedicated to St Margaret.

[5] However, Christians have been recorded as worshipping on the site for over one thousand years.

The nave of the church was restored in the nineteenth century, using some material from an earlier 13th-century building, and the interior was refurbished in the 1970s after a fire in March 1977.

[8] The village has an elevation of 188 feet (57 m) above sea level, and the parish had an area of 2,152 acres (3.36 sq mi).