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Great Warley (also known as Warley Abbess, Warley Magna, Warley Wallet or West Warley) is a village and former parish located 2.3 miles (3.7 km) south of Brentwood, Essex and 5.9 miles (9.5 km) north west of Romford. It is situated to the far south west of the county, on the B186 near to the Greater London boundary and the M25 motorway.
Warley, in the Domesday Book of 1086, was at the time, one settlement which had been split under separate manors, Warley Abbess and Warley Franks:
Little Warley in the east by a stream that passes through Bulphan Fen on its way to the Thames. The parish was part of the Hundred of Chafford and from 1836 the Romford Poor Union before the change in 1875 to the Romford Rural Sanitary District. It also came under the Brentwood Petty Sessional and County Court.
Great Warley Common at one time ran from the village and connected with the outskirts of Brentwood, as shown by Chapman and André's 1777 Map of Essex. The common, along with Little Warley common, were owned by George Winn, who started selling off the land for development, including 116 acres for Warley Barracks and another 172 acres for residential development. In 1855, the new ecclesiastical parish of Christ Church was setup, with northern parts of Great Warley, along with parts of South Weald and Shenfield parishes to serve the new residents. The old church at St. Mary's had been reported as totally inadequate for the growing population in 1851, with the rector's sister in law, Sarah Clay donating £1,000 to build the new church. By 1876, 1,416 people lived in the parish, though 1,004 were in the new church parish of Christ Church. This area would become a suburb of Brentwood and was named Warley to distinguish it from the villages of Great Warley and Little Warley. In 1858, the chancel at St. Mary's collapsed, so remodeling work commenced under the guidance of Samuel Sanders Teulon which was completed in 1860. However, with the village centre moving further away from the church, it fell into disrepair, and a new "Interim" church was built from wood in the grounds of "Fairfields", home of Rector Bailey. The first service was in 1892 attended by 140 parishioners, although the old church was continued to be used for funerals.
From 1894 the Great Warley parish formed part of Romford Rural District and covered an area of . Vision of Britain - Great Warley area history In 1901 it had a population of 1,900. Vision of Britain - Great Warley census population Great Warley Parish Council was the parish council from 1894 to 1934. In 1904, a replacement St. Mary's church opened after a local resident Eveline Heseltine donated the site and £5,000 towards it's cost. The parish was split in 1934 with of its former area transferred to the Brentwood parish in Brentwood Urban District. The remaining area was transferred to Hornchurch Urban District which in 1965 was transferred to Greater London to form part of the London Borough of Havering. In 1993, following the first periodic review of Greater London, the boundary between Brentwood and Havering was locally realigned to the M25 motorway in the west and the London, Tilbury and Southend line in the south by the Essex and Greater London (County and London Borough Boundaries) (No.2) Order 1993. OPSI - Essex and Greater London (County and London Borough Boundaries) (No.2) Order 1993 This transferred almost all of the remaining part of Great Warley in Greater London back to Essex.
Consecrated in 1904, the listed building parish church, St Mary the Virgin is noted for its Art Nouveau interior, and replaced the original St. Mary's church that was eventually taken down in 1923. A little further to the south is The Kilns Hotel in the building locally known as The Brick House which dates back to the 16th Century and is Grade II listed.
In 2024, work was started on Hole Farm Community Woodland, a 100 acre woodland and visitor centre developed by National Highways and Forestry England due to open in 2025.
Warley Place is a nature reserve and is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries this site was the home and garden of the leading horticulturalist, Ellen Willmott, described by Gertrude Jekyll as 'the greatest living gardener', who planted many plants from all over the world, some of which still survive. The site remained derelict after Willmott death, after a development for the site failed until the site was leased to the Essex Wildlife Trust in 1977, who uncovered the structure of the garden. The site has been Grade II listed since 1987.
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