Brentwood Stadium

Brentwood is a town in the Borough of Brentwood, in the county of Essex in the East of England. It is in the London commuter belt, situated 20 miles (30 km) east-north-east of Charing Cross and close by the M25 motorway. In 2017, the population of the town was estimated to be 54,885.

Brentwood is a suburban town with a small shopping area and high street. Beyond this are residential developments surrounded by open countryside and woodland; some of this countryside lies within only a few hundred yards of the town centre.

Since 1978, Brentwood has been twinned with Roth in Germany and with Montbazon in France since 1994. It also has a relationship with Brentwood, Tennessee in the United States.

History

Etymology

The name was assumed by some in the 1700s to derive from a corruption of the words 'burnt' and 'wood', with the name Burntwood still visible on some 18th-century maps. However, brent was the middle English for "burnt". The name describes the presumed reason for settlement in the part of the Forest of Essex (later Epping Forest) that would have covered the area, where a major occupation was charcoal burning.

Early history

Although a Bronze Age axe has been found in Brentwood and there are clear signs of an entrenched encampment in Weald Country Park, it is considered unlikely that there was any significant early settlement of the area. At the time, most of Essex was covered by the Great Forest. It is believed that despite the Roman road between London and Colchester passing through the town, the Saxons were the earliest settlers of the area.

The borough was on a crossroads, where the Roman road from Colchester to London crossed the route the pilgrims took over the River Thames to Canterbury. A chapel was built in or around 1221, and in 1227 a market charter was granted. Its growth may have been stimulated by the cult of St. Thomas the Martyr, to whom the chapel was dedicated: the 13th-century ruin of Thomas Becke