The Origins of our historic village start with st, Osyth in the 7th century. it takes its name from Osyth, the grand - daughter of King Penda of Mercia. Legend tells that at her wedding, her bridegroom, Sighere, king of the East Angles, left the feast prematurely to chase a white hart so she took herself off to a convent. In remorse the King gave her this village, know then as Chich, where she built her own convent on land where the present Priory now stands. In the year 653 marauding Danes sacked the nunnery and beheaded Osyth who had refused to give up her Christianity.

The Augustinians founded THE PRIORY in 1118 under the direction of the Bishop of London, Richard Belmeis.  The first prior William de Corbeuil, went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1123 at the time of King Stephen and Matilda. The village originally developed by the creek, which would have been used to import stone for building the priory and the Church, as well as other goods. A tide mill was served by the mill pond but was demolished in the 1960's. A fair was held on the Bury, the greensward outside the front of the Abbey, which, in the 14th century rivalled Colchester in importance. The area between the Abbey wall and Church was the Market Place, later encroached by buildings.

A guildhall was also built about 1500 and it stands in Spring Road. Many houses in the village are timber framed, some still showing the old oak beams and posts whilst some have plaster, brick or typical Essex weatherboarding exteriors. The extra hard Gault bricks were used to denote status.

With the dissolution of St Osyth Abbey in 1539 its extensive holdings passed to Thomas Cromwell, until he was beheaded, and then to Jane Seymour whose cousin, the first Barron Darcy of Chich, became keeper and eventually owner.  In 1553 He demolished the Abbey  Church and built the 'chequer board' towers still dominating the grounds. His son was Knighted at Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1559 and entertained her twice at the Priory on her Royal 'progresses'. The first and second barons and their wives have splendid tombs  in the church, topped with reclining effigies. The Priory, as it became Known, descended through this family for 300 years. In 1641 the then owner Countess Rivers, a Roman Catholic, was chased from her home and the place ransacked.