Little Bardfield

Little Bardfield is a village in the English county of Essex. The parish of Little Bardfield comprises the village of Little Bardfield and two hamlets: Hawkspur Green and Oxen End, which are all surrounded by farmland. Little Bardfield is a small scattered village on the South West side of the vale of the river Pant. In 1774, Mrs. Sarah Bernard, widow of the Rev. Thomas Bernard, by will, directed her executors to cut down all the timber in Halsted Grove. With the proceeds of this, they erected a School and 5 terraced Almshouses. A minor road winds through Little Bardfield which connects Thaxted (3 miles to the West) to Great Bardfield (1 mile to the South East). It has a small ancient tiled Church (called St. Katharine's) with a tower and two bells and there is a village cricket club.

There are no shops or pubs in Little Bardfield itself, although Great Bardfield has a school, village shop, 2 pubs and a butcher. Little Bardfield used to have a pub called the Spread Eagle, but this was converted to a house over 15 years ago. The former old school house was also converted into a house. There is a villager living next to the former school house who sells free range eggs and organic vegetables from his garden.

There is a timber bus shelter, village sign and a red telephone box towards the village centre. Due to the rural nature of Little Bardfield, there are no street lights in the village and it is not connected to the mains gas or mains sewage. Lots of wildlife is regularly seen in and around Little Bardfield, including owls, hedgehogs, pheasants and deer.