With a history going back to medieval times the village is now part of the Colchester Borough Council seat of West Bergholt and Eight Ash Green.

Prehistoric, Iron-Age, and Roman material from West Bergholt Hall, St. Mary's church, and nearby sites suggest that the area may have been continuously settled.

The Sackville family came to England during the time of the Norman Conquest[17] and Robert was a member of the Royal Court and close friend of King Henry[18] fighting for him at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106.

During the Reign of King John, Jordon Sackville got on the wrong side of the King (Jordon was a rebel Baron and said to be an assistant to one of the twenty-five Peeres of the Reamle to see the Magna Carta signed) and had all of his land removed, including the Bergholt Manor, even though his father and previous Lord of the Manor, Geoffrey Sackville, was knighted by John.

Although then his grandson, also called Jordon, assisted in the Barons' Revolt against King Henry III, claiming that he was not fit to rule the country in his 60s and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Evesham in 1265.

[23] During Andrew's reign as Lord of the Manor Bergholt had become one of the poorest parishes in the Lexden Hundred by 1327 with the highest individual taxpayer be assessed being 7s.

[27] During his time as Lord of the Manor, the local MP and Speaker of the House of Commons, John Doreward waived 200 marks that were owed to him from Parliament in returned to be granted with several royal licenses, to found a chantry in Stanway church, to augment the income of the chaplain at Bergholt and to alienate his manor of Tendring to St John's Abbey in Colchester.

[35] This purchase was probably hoped by Dister to be a quite lucrative move with the village undergoing a population boom during this period, when baptisms were nearly double the burials,[36] although some historians believe that many people most likely migrated to Colchester.

[41] His most serious offence, which he managed to escape, was not reading out King Henry VIII's latest religious doctrine, which carried the penalty of death.

The motto on the arms reads "Exurgat Deus Dissipenter Ininice", this is the opening line of Psalm 68[42] (Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered).

[43] There is evidence that the village was sympathetic towards the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War as Gregory Holland, inducted as vicar in 1613, was threatened with removal in 1644 as a royalist and conformist, and for ungodly behaviour.

However, in 1650, Reverend Gregory Holland was called before the Committee for Scandalous Ministers for preaching Royalist sermons during the Civil War, along with drunkenness and swearing in Church.

The result of this hearing was that he was allowed to continue in his post as vicar at Bergholt, but that the parishioners elect him a curate, who would pay him the majority of his stipend.

He was exiled to Holland, along with the rest of the Royal Family, and because of his large gambling debts his property was sold to his political enemy Sir Harbottle Grimston, 2nd Baronet, Recorder and MP for Colchester.

[49] In 1556 a member of the parish, Agnes George, part of the Stratford Martyrs, was out of favour with Queen Mary, for refusing to attend church until the service was no longer conducted in the Roman Catholic tradition.

In another hunt for heretics in the parishes of North Essex, twenty-two Protestants, including Richard George, were interrogated at Colchester and were sent to London, bound in chains and rope, for trial.

Bonner, fearing that sending too many to the stake would cause unrest and maybe riots, came up with a compromise of a confession of faith that pleased both Catholics and Protestants, which they all signed.

In 1540, the son of John Abell, Lord of the Manor of Cooks Hall, Bergholt, was executed at Smithfield on the orders of King Henry VIII.

Thomas Abell who was brought up at Cooks Hall in the village, was chaplain to Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, whom the King wanted to divorce to marry Anne Boleyn.

1725 is the first year that records of the village's largest pub appear – The White Hart, which is still in use today, although frequent fines for unlicensed brewing, breaking the assize of ale, and permitting the playing of illegal games such as tennis, suggest that several alehouses existed in the later 15th and earlier 16th centuries.

[57] The White Hart was a popular meeting place for farmers taking sheep and cattle to market, which caused the creation of the cluster of buildings known as the Crescent next to the pub.

The beer was such a favourite with the men that he started selling it around the village and local area and in 1859 expanded the operation to two new breweries run by his two sons.

Alfred Diss, builder of the new Methodist Chapel (1878), Ebeneezer Villas (1884), and possibly the small Gothic Cottages (1880s), employed 9 carpenters, 9 bricklayers, and 8 labourers in 1881.

[66] Overseers, rangers or drivers, of that common, first recorded in 1632, were in 1651 instructed to drive the heath at least three times a year and to impound illegally grazed cattle.

The maximum amount of land a single man was allowed to cultivate, without disturbance to his daily work, was ten rod measurements, which is still in use today.

[75] One of the first fires occurred in 1843 at Hightrees Farm, which killed a horse, a calf and several poultry, as well as burning away 11 acres (4.5 ha) worth of hay and damaging the farmhouse.

However, in 1843 Robert Woodward was found guilty of fire raising after an undercover policeman in the White Hart and his lover came forward with evidence.

The Essex County Standard reported that although the bad weather effected the amount of cricket that could be played, with delays on the first two days, there was considerable interest in the game.

The vicar at the time, Reverend William Sims, had already applied to the Church of England for funding for the building of a school for the poor, but by 1833 he had raised only £55 of the £300 needed and appealed again.

Parts date from the 11th century and the astute observer will find reused Roman bricks in its fabric, and ancient graffiti from pilgrims who have visited over the years.