Witham
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Template:GBdot Witham (pronounced Wittam) is a town in the county of Essex, in the south east of England. The population (2001 census) is 22,500. It is part of the District of Braintree.
The town is served by Witham railway station, situated on the London Liverpool Street to Norwich main line. The station is also the junction with the Braintree branch line to Braintree and Braintree Freeport. Freeport is a large out of town shopping centre, supplied with its own station, and free bus from Braintree. All passenger serviced are operated by the National Express Group franchise 'One' Railway.
Witham is situated at A12 trunk road between Chelmsford and Colchester. The town expanded greatly in the late 1960s and 1970s when the Greater London Council built 3 large estates there for families from London to move to. A one time famous resident of the town is the authour Dorothy L Sayers.
Witham is twinned with the town of Waldbrol, Germany. The parish of Witham appears in the Domesday Book of 1086.
Witham has a small town centre, with a number of small shops, enough to provide for the town. There is a Tesco and a Morrisons superstore situated in the town. The Morrisons supermarket site was once the factory site of 'Crittal Windows', until 1994 when the factory was closed, moved to Braintree and Safeway Superstores (since taken-over by Morrisons) purchased the site.
There are two secondary schools in Witham, The John Bramston School, and The Rickstones school, both achieving a slightly below average 5 A*-C GCSE rating, averaging around the 40% mark. Templars, Howbridge and Powers Hall serve the primary age children of this comunity.
The town started life on 'Chipping Hill', where the old forge still exists to this day. As the years went by, the hamlet grew to become 'Witham' and St Nicolas Church (a unique spelling) serves a congrigation of around 150 people each Sunday.
Witham, and parts of the Braintree district hold one of the best recycling schemes in the UK, with compulsory recycling, reaching over 50% recycling.