Little Oakley is a village in Essex, England, on the western outskirts of Harwich. The parish population at the 2011 census was 1,171.It is the site of a fourth-century Roman villa, excavated between 1951 and 1975.Just north-east of the village is Little Oakley Channel Deposit, a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is the site of former channel of the River Thames during an interglacial period about 575,000 years ago.