It lies on the Roman road called Stane Street, about two miles (3 km) to the west of Braintree, which is the nearest town.

Rayne Hall was for a long time the home of the Capel family, who became Earls of Essex.

A number of the churchyard memorials are made of cast iron: these were manufactured at the former foundry in The Street at around the end of the nineteenth century using a common mould into which individual letters were inserted to spell out the details.

[3] Further west along the main road ("The Street"), there are: an Indian restaurant, another pub, the Welsh Princess, the site of the former Rayne Iron foundry (redeveloped for housing and offices in 2009), the Post Office stores, and what was a pub called The Cock, now renovated and operating as a bar and restaurant called 47 The Street.

Rayne also won first, the regional, and then national, Calor Village of the Year Competition 2006/7 in the ITC Category.