Purleigh is a village on the Dengie peninsula about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Maldon in the English county of Essex.

[5] At the time of the Domesday survey of 1086, the manor of Purleigh was held by Eustace II, Count of Boulogne (d.1087).

Having previously been possessed by the Grey and Capel families,[6] in the late 15th century the manor was acquired by Hugh Denys, Groom of the Stool to King Henry VII.

It then passed, probably by sale, to William Neale, described as a "clerk" in a decree of the High Court of Chancery dated 29 January 1741, in an action brought by the nieces of Mary Dennis and by Cassandra Cuming, the daughter of Elizabeth Dennis and the representatives of the infant James Cuming.

[11] James was executor of the will of his mother Margaretta Bonnell, his father's second wife, and sister and heiress of a moiety of the estate of Edmund Waterson of Graces in Little Baddow in Essex,[12] who by his last will ordered his personal estate to be invested in land in Suffolk[13] James's siblings, John and Sarah Bonnell, authorised him to pay £4,000 (out of the total moiety of £14,735 5s.)

An elaborate white marble monument exists to Capt John Bonnell and his family in the Monoux Chapel of Walthamstow Church.

[16] James Bonnell purchased Pelling Place and adjoining land including Beaumont Lodge in Old Windsor, Berkshire.

Initially based on a 10-acre plot, as the group grew the colony began to rent local cottages with land attached.

For a time the colony sheltered some of the Doukhobors, forced to leave Russia to avoid political persecution.

[36] Rev Robert Francis Walker[37] who was a curate, from 1819 to 1854, and a well-known translator of Christian books from German to English, is buried in the churchyard.