COGGESHALL (GREAT), a market-town and parish in the Witham division of the hundred of LEXDEN, county of ESSEX, 16 miles (N.E.) from Chelmsford, and 45 (N. E.) from London, containing 2896 inhabitants. This place is supposed by some antiquaries to have been the Roman station Ad Ansam, and by others the Canonium of Antoninus, with the distance of which latter from Casaromagus its situation precisely corresponds. Numerous vestiges of Roman antiquity have been discovered here, among which were a silver coin of Domitian, a glass lamp, an urn containing ashes and bones, and some Roman pottery of red earth, which were found in an arched vault constructed of Roman brick j and at Westfield, about three quarters of a mile from, the town, was discovered, by the plough, a large brazen pot, enclosing a smaller one of earth, within which was an urn -wrapped in stuff like velvet, containing bones and fragments of bones enveloped in silk. The present town appears to have .risen from the establishment of an abbey, in 1242, by King Stephen and his queen Matilda> for monks of the Cistercian order, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, to the abbot and monks of which King John granted several privileges, among which, probably, was the power of life and death, as inferred from the ancient name of one of the streets, which is still by some called Gallows-street. Henry III. gave them a grant of free warren, a weekly market, and an annual fair for eight days. The revenue of the abbey, at the dissolution, was £298. 8.: the remains, which exhibit specimens of early English architecture, are now occupied as a farm-house; the exterior has some lancet-shaped windows in good preservation, and in the interior are some good windows and vaulted roofs plainly groined. Near the abbey is au ancient bridge of three arches, built by King Stephe^ over a canal cut for conveying water from the river to the monastery, which has been recently repaired. The town is situated near the river Blackwater, and consists of several narrow streets, indifferently paved, lighted by subscription, and amply supplied with water from springs in the neighbourhood, the principal of which is called Peter's well. The manufacture qf baize and serge, which was formerly extensive, is still continued on a more confined scale; but the principal branch of trade at present is silk-weaving, which has been established within the last ten years. The market is on Thursday: a fair is held on Whit-Tuesday, for cattle and pedlary. Coggeshall anciently comprised the parishes of Great and Little Coggeshall, now consolidated: in the latter, which is now only a hamlet to the former, were two churches, built by the monks; one for their own use, which has been entirely demolished, and the other for a parochial church, of which the remains have been converted into a barn. The living is a vicarage, in the archr deaconry of Colchester, and diocese of London, rated in the king's books at £11.3.4., and in the patronage of Peter Du Cane, Esq. The church, dedicated to St. Peter, is a spacious handsome structure in the later style of English architecture, with a large square tower; the aisles are embattled, and strengthened with empannelled buttresses. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, and West leyan Methodists. A school, under the direction of the Master and Fellows of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who appoint the master, was founded in 1636, by Sir Robert Hitcham, Knt., who bequeathed to them, in trust, lands at Framlingham and Saxted, in the county of Suffolk, producing £ 300 per annum, for educating from thirty to forty boys, with whom a premium of A10 each is given for apprenticing them: about £50 per annum is paid to Levington, and £ 9 to Nacton 5 the remainder is distributed among the poor. A Lancasterian school for boys was established here in 1811, and another for girls in 1826. There are six unendowed almshouses 5 and among the charitable bequests for the benefit of the poor is one of £70 per annum; called wood money, given by Thomas Pycocke, Esqi, in 1580.