Great Leighs once had a lion's head over the outlet. In 2008, Great Leighs became home to the first new racecourse in 80 years, when the nearby Essex County Showground was converted into a state-of-the-art horse-racing venue. Great Leighs Racecourse held its first race meeting on 20 April 2008 and staged its first meeting fully open to the public from 28 to 29 May 2008. However, the course had its temporary licence revoked on 16 January 2009 and did not seen racing again unto 11 January 2015. Great Leighs Great Leighs is a village in the City of Chelmsford district of Essex,
Great Leighs War, Andrew Clark, kept a voluminous diary of the war detailing activities, opinions and rumours in the village and nearby. An edited version of the diary was published in 1985 under the title "Echoes of the Great War". In the 2014 BBC series "Britain's Great War", Jeremy Paxman visits St Mary's Church, Great Leighs, and he describes the early loss of Captain Alan Tritton and brothers Privates Richard (Dick) and Arthur Fitch. He speaks with their niece, Valerie Frost. There is a spring by the side of the road at Cole Hill on Boreham Road, near Great Leighs Church. It