The second of three caches placed for the Essex/Suffolk Border-cache and Piffle #2 event 19/07/11 (GC2YXE0), to create a short circular walk starting and finishing at the pub.
The village of Mistley, delightfully situated on the south bank of the estuary of the Stour, owes it beauty and importance to the late Rt. Hon. Richard Rigby, who, in the latter part of the 17th century, built fifty of the best and handsomest of the original houses, with several granaries, warehouses, a large malting-house, and the spacious quay, which forms an extension of the port of Manningtree. Mistley Hall, which was long the seat of the Rigby family, had a beautiful and well-wooded park of 700 acres, and was a handsome mansion, on an elevated site, commanding charming prospects of the vale and the estuary of the Stour, but it was taken down about 1840. On the death of the late Lieut.-Col. Rigby, his estates descended to Lord Rivers, in the right of his lady.
Mistley Hall was sold in lots, in 1844, mostly for meadows etc. but some houses and other buildings were built within the bounds of the park. This included Mistley Place another grand mansion. Mistley Place was originally the seat of the Norman family, it then became a boys' school in 1910. The school flourished until the Second World War, when it moved away from a 'Danger Area' and did not return. It was unfortunately demolished soon after the war ended.