Editing Halstead, Kent (section)

== History ==
[[File:St Margaret's Church, Halstead.JPG|thumb|left|St Margaret's Church]]
The name Halstead is derived from the Old English ''hald'' (refuge, shelter) and ''stede'' (site, place), meaning 'safe place' or 'place of refuge'. The [[St Margaret's Church, Halstead|parish church]] is dedicated to [[Margaret the Virgin|St Margaret]]. Halstead Community Primary School is located in the village.

Botanist and photographer [[Anna Atkins]] lived since 1841 to her death at Halstead Place, where she is buried. Author [[E. Nesbit|Edith Nesbit]] spent some of her adolescence in Halstead during the 1870s and her book ''[[The Railway Children]]'' is thought to be based on her time living in a house, Halstead Hall, whose garden is about a mile and a half from the railway line.

The parish is adjacent to [[Fort Halstead]], a government defence research centre that is thought to have developed [[Operation Hurricane|Britain's first atomic bomb]].