Hatfield Broad Oak, or Hatfield Regis, is a village in the Uttlesford district of NW Essex, 11 miles NW of Chelmsford and 6 miles NE of Harlow. The village is concentrated around a loop of minor roads with the church on the N side of the High Street, surrounded by a large churchyard. St Mary's, large as it is, is only the remains of the Benedictine Priory church begun in around 1135 by Aubrey de Vere, the second of that name (c.1085-1141). His church had a crossing and a cloister on the N side of the nave. Nothing remains of the original east end beyond the W crossing arch, which was blocked to form the eastern termination of the shortened church. The only physical evidence of the cloister is the high placing of the N aisle windows. The church was rebuilt after a quarrel between the priory and the villagers in 1378, and thereafter a wall was built separating the nave, which was the parish church, from the crossing and eastern arm, belonging to the priory. The latter was demolished at the Dissolution, so the present east facade consisits of the W crossing arch with its late-14thc infill, flanked by the two chancel chapels.

The church as it was rebuilt after 1378 consisted of the present aisled nave, chancel and N chapel. The W tower, S porch and S chancel chapel are additions of the early 15thc. Towards the end of the 17thc the brick N vestry was added to the nave, and in 1708 the S chancel chapel was enlarged to house the parish library. Construction is of flint pebbles with some 17thc. and 18thc. brickwork and some old ashlar. the N vestry is of brick; the dressings are of Barnack and clunch, patched with cement, and cement render has been applied to the nave clerestory and parts of the N nave wall. The church was restored by R. C. Carpenter in 1843. There is no Romanesque sculpture surviving in its original location in the fabric. Reports of a waterleaf capital, suggesting a date of c.1175 for the W crossing arch are erroneous (see Comments), but this arch has been treated as a feature below despite its later date. The W crossing arch infill contains many moulded stones and shaft sections re-used in the fabric, and among them are 3 chevron voussoirs, also recorded below.

Hatfield Broad Oak was recorded amng the king's lands in the Domesday Survey. It was held by Harold in 1066 as a manor of 20 hides. A church is recorded as holding 1 hide and 30 acres that were taken away from it by Swein after he lost the shrievalty

In 1141 King Stephen granted Hatfield Broad Oak to Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, but after his death in a revolt in 1144 it was forfeited it to the crown. Thereafter it was let to a series of tenants: Richard de Lucy, justiciar from 1157 to 1179; Walter of Hatfield from 1179 to 1190, and his son Walter in 1191. Catherine of Hatfield in 1192 and Pain of Rochford from 1200-1214.

As for the church, between 1102 and 1107 Henry I gave the tithes to St Botolph's, Colchester, then c.1135, Aubrey II de Vere, Lord Great Chamberlain, founded a Benedictine Priory here as a cell to the abbey of St Melaine at Rennes. He gave the church to Hatfield Priory, although it is not clear how he came into possession of it. The rectory and the advowson remained with the priory until it was dissolved in 1136.

The confusion over the dating of the crossing piers must be attributed to Pevsner; a rare lapse indeed. He described the sole surviving capital as a waterleaf, dating it to c.1175. What seemed from the ground to be leaves are the two faces of a keeled moulded capital typical of the early 13thc. Unfortunately the slip was repeated in the most recent edition (Bettley (2007)) and found its way into the List Description of 1967 too.