The Wormingford Dragon, portrayed in the stained glass window of St Andrew's Church
- Credit: Liz Trenow
The best-selling novel The Essex Serpent, which was recently filmed locally for a major movie, was apparently inspired by the 17th century account of a ‘monstrous serpent’ near Saffron Walden.
But this is not the only story of mysterious creatures from the county. There is another, much earlier, myth of a serpent or dragon that terrorised the villagers of Bures and Wormingford near Colchester. Indeed Wormingford, originally Withermundford, was renamed in honour of the legend, ‘worme’ being a medieval term for a dragon. It was first reported in 1405 by a monk who thrillingly described: ‘an evil dragon of excessive length with a huge body, crested head, saw-like teeth and elongated tail. . . arrows sprang from its ribs as if they were metal or hard stone’.