Brantham is generally acknowledged, along with Flatford, Dedham and East Bergholt, to be part of "Constable Country". The artist chose a cottage in the village overlooking the Stour as a subject to one of his sketches 'Fisherman's cottage in Brantham with a view of Mistley Hall' in 1796. The drawing, which is in the V&A museum in London is one of the earliest dated drawings by Constable of which the whereabouts are now known. The Tudor didactic poet Thomas Tusser settled at Katwade (now Cattawade) and is believed to have written his most famous work "A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie" at Brantham Hall. The lord of the manor of Brantham in the 15th century was 'shire knight of Suffolk' Sir John Braham (d.1420). The village's oldest pub, the Brantham Bull, is a 16th-century grade 2 listed building. Some of the beams from the building are thought to have come from the wreckage of the Spanish Armada, and over the centuries the building has also been used as a court house and a prison. Witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins, once hanged a lady by the name of Nancy on the green outside the front of the building. A passage used by smugglers used to run from the pub's cellar out to the River Stour. Brantham is about half a mile from Manningtree station. A long railway cutting runs past the village. At one point near Brantham Bull, it is the deepest railway cutting in Suffolk. There was once a siding to Marsh Farm, where fresh fruit and vegetables were loaded for London, and a siding going into the old BX Plastics factory (now derelict) for loading and unloading materials. The former was disused by the end of the 1930s. The BX siding was active until the early 1960s for coal deliveries. Greater Anglia planned t open a train depot on the site a former Imperial Chemical Industries factory. However the project was put on hold after the council raised concerns about the time that a nearby level crossing would be blocked for. There is a Methodist church situated in Gravel Pit Lane.