Braughing is a large village strategically situated by the rivers Quin and Rib, among the chalk hills of East Hertfordshire, which are capped here with boulder clay, flint, sand and gravel. The land was probably marshy in pre-Roman and Roman times, which is why evidence of occupation has been found on the higher ground in the locality.

There is some evidence of the presence of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age hunters and fishers in this area. Settled occupation seems to have begun in the Iron Age about the third century BC. Trade contacts existed between Italy and Gaul and the Braughing/Puckeridge area during the later years of the first century BC. Artefacts found at Gatesbury and Skeleton Green (north of Puckeridge) confirm this. The Roman settlement at Wickham Hill has never been completely excavated, but enough can be gleaned from crop marks and the minor excavations that have been done to tell us that Braughing was an important Roman town. Its importance is probably due to being near the junction of several important routes -Ermine Street (A 10), Stane Street (A120) and others.

After the Roman occupation came to an end in about the fourth century AD the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons, the earliest form of the Braughing name being the Anglo-Saxon Breahinga - meaning the people of Breahha (Breahha was probably a local leader). There is a theory that Braughing was at the centre of a huge Anglo-Saxon estate covering the area from the Icknield Way in the north to the southern border of Standon. Later, Braughing gets a mention in the Domesday Book (1086) as Brachinges.

 In the autumn of 1595 the funeral of Mathew Wall, a resident of Green End, was interrupted when the coffin-bearers, carrying his coffin to church, slipped on leaves in Fleece Lane and dropped the coffin. Then they heard a knocking sound coming from within -Mathew, not dead at all, had been woken by the crash! He went on to live many more years, in the course of which he married. When he finally died, he left provision in his will for Fleece Lane to be swept on 2nd October each year, and for the funeral bell to be tolled, followed immediately by a wedding peal. The ceremony is still carried out every year on 2nd October, which we now call Old Man's Day. School children bring brooms to sweep Fleece Lane; there is a short service at Mathew's grave and the bells are rung.

Since the medieval period, Braughing has gradually declined in importance. It became a self-contained agricultural village, with many specialist shops and numerous different trades being carried on. What is now the B1368 (Green End) was once the main route to the North, via Cambridge, and so there was continuous traffic passing through the village.

Traffic of a different kind came to the village in the nineteenth century with the advent of the Buntingford branch railway. It was while the railway was being built that a corner of the Roman town was first uncovered, near the station. The line was a victim of Dr Beeching and closed in 1964, to everyone's regret.

From being a centre of government, both secular and religious, in Saxon times, Braughing is now a beautiful village, full of character - which it derives from its history and inhabitants, both past and present.

(c) V High 2000