Gosfield  Gosfield is a village in the Braintree district of Essex, England. It is located around two miles west of the town of Halstead. Places of note include the following:  Gosfield does not appear to have enjoyed either a long or distinguished history. It did not warrant its own entry in the Domesday Book of 1086 (an omission that does not necessarily mean that there was no settlement in the parish in the 11th century). In addition the listed building description for the parish church, the Church of St. Katharine, suggests that the present structure is not earlier in date than the 15th century. Nevertheless the village does have a history. The parish certainly did witness human activity well before the 11th century A.D. The Historic Environment Record (HER) for Essex records several cropmark features in the civil parish that are almost certainly prehistoric. These include a circular monument some 30 metres in diameter that may have been either a late Neolithic henge, or more likely, a Bronze Age round barrow. Without excavation it is not possible to say what exactly the cropmark indicates. The HER also records that the Roman road that linked Colchester (Camulodunum) the capital of the Trinivantes, the original capital of the Roman province of Britannia, and the site of a legionary fortress, with Caistor St Edmonds (Venta Icenorum) the capital of the Iceni, runs through the village. Part of this Roman road is followed by the village's main road. The HER also indicates that early medieval (the period between the end of Roman rule and the Norman Conquest) metalwork has been discovered in the parish. This does not necessarily mean that Gosfield was a settlement during this period, only that the area was used in some capacity before the Norman Conquest. The majority of these finds may be associated with hunting. This ties in with the placename evidence, as the 'field' element of the name suggests that the settlement originated as an area of cultivated land within an area of woodland or heath. The Victoria County History (VCH) entry for Hedingham Priory states that a charter of 1191 the Earl of Oxford granted a wood in Gosfield to the priory. This may be the earliest documentary mention of Gosfield. It suggests that Gosfield may have come into the possession of the De Vere family not long after the Norman Conquest. An Aubrey De Vere appears to have been one of William the Conqueror's supporters who accompanied him from France in 1066.