The place-name 'Wigborough' is first attested in the
Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as
Wicgebergha and
Wigheberga. Little Wigborough is first referred to in the
Valuation of Norwich of 1254, where it appears as
Wigeberwe Parva. The name means 'Wicga's hill or barrow'. In the early hours of 24 September 1916, the German Army
Zeppelin L33 was returning from a bombing raid on London, when it hit by an anti-aircraft shell and further damaged by
Royal Flying Corps aircraft. It made a forced landing in the village, close to New Hall farm. The crew tried to burn the wreckage but they were only partially successful. They were arrested by the local
special constable as they walked away from the scene. A pen drawing with pencil of the
Zeppelin by the Scottish artist
Adam Bruce Thomson is on display at the
Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Little Wigborough was an
ancient parish in the
Winstree or Winstred
hundred of Essex. As well as the area around the village itself, the parish historically had an
exclave to the west which included Maldon Road and streched to Salcott Creek to the south; this exclave was ceded to Great Wigborough in 1889. In 1953 the parish was merged with its neighbour Great Wigborough to form a new civil parish called Great and Little Wigborough. At the 1951 census (the last before the abolition of the civil parish), Little Wigborough had a population of 45. Great and Little Wigborough now shares a
grouped parish council with the neighbouring parishes of
Peldon,
Salcott and
Virley, called the Winstred Hundred Parish Council. ==Church==