Thaxted is a small town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, with a population of around 2,600 people.

Notable buildings in the town include Horham Hall, Thaxted Guildhall dating from around 1450 and John Webb's Windmill built in 1804. Thaxted is also a centre for morris dancing.

The composer Gustav Holst was a long term resident and sections of his most famous work, The Planets, were written there. The town has given its name to the tune of I Vow to Thee, My Country, the main theme from the Jupiter movement, which also has been used for other hymns.

Thaxted was the venue for the founding of the "Morris Ring" in 1934. The Morris Ring is the National Association of Morris Dancers. "Morris" being a traditional form of English folk dance.

The author Diana Wynne Jones, writer of Howl's Moving Castle and many others, was raised in the village.

The name Thaxted, given in the Doomsday Book of 1086 as Tachesteda, is Old English for 'place where thatch was got'. Once a centre of cutlery manufacture, Thaxted's importance went into decline with the rise of Sheffield as a major industrial centre. A light railway, known as the Elsenham & Thaxted Light Railway was eventually opened in 1913, though the terminus itself never approached more than three-quarters of a mile from the town, as the cost of earthworks across the River Chelmer eventually proved too great. With the growth of road transport, the line was eventually closed to passengers in 1952 and closed altogether in 1953. Cutler's Green, a small hamlet (place) about a mile to the west of Thaxted retains it's name in memory of the trade that produced the area's early wealth.

Thaxted is also the name of a hymn tune originating from Gustav Holst’s orchestral tone-poem, The Planets. The English-sounding tune was developed by Holst for the piece and has since been used at such events as the funeral of Lady Diana.

Towns in Essex