Writtle lies 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Chelmsford, Essex, England. It has a traditional village green complete with duck pond and a Norman church and was once described as 'one of the loveliest villages in England, with a ravishing variety of ancient cottages'. The village is now home to Writtle College, one of the UK's oldest and largest land-based colleges and a partner institution of the University of Essex, the grounds of which once housed a Royal hunting lodge, later the possession of the De Brus and De Bohun families. The suggestion that Writtle is the birthplace of Robert the Bruce, as well as his father Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale, is contested though its possession and use by both is incontrovertible. Today Writtle hosts the annual southern V Festival within the grounds of Comyn's Hylands Park. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 5,632.