How does Cressing Temple reflect what was going on in the wider world? Cressing Temple is located in North Essex and the two surviving Medieval barns have never been out of use since the 13th Century when they were built under the Knights Templar military Christian order who at the time took part in the…
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Fisons Plc was a British pharmaceutical, scientific instruments and horticultural chemicals company established by Edward Packard in 1843. In 1863 he was joined in business by his son, also named Edward, who was developing the business and rationalising the UK’s fertiliser industry. The business was incorporated in 1895 under the name of Edward Packard and Company Limited. In 1919 the company…
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St. Mary’s is located at the top of the hill in Benfleet highstreet. After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, a small church was built on the site of the current one (c.1067). Its western wall still forms part of the church today. In the 1100s the church as we know it was built…
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Located in the heart of Billericay, Norsey Wood is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) with history spanning the centuries. Discoveries such as a Neolithic axe head and a Roman cemetery are just a couple of finds to be looked into, following the first investigation in 1865 by J E K Cutts, with…
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Warley Hospital was the first County Asylum to be built in Essex, following the passing of the County Asylums Act. The first patients were first admitted in 1853; 130 out of a capacity of 300 although by the turn of the century the site had expanded and accommodated just short of 2,000 patients. Psychiatric Hospitals…
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This heavily-defended concrete strongpoint has been described as the ‘monster’ pillbox, and is potentially the largest in Britain. It is located in the flat expanse of farmland east of Burnham-on-Crouch and Southminster on the very isolated yet peaceful Dengie Peninsula along the Essex coast. Built in 1940, this blockhouse would have been armed to the…
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Moated sites are as the name suggests – wide ditches full of water that would have surrounded an island which would have had a domestic or religious building on it. They were mostly built during the medieval period around central and eastern England, often to show wealth and status in the countryside. The Howbury moated site…
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Victoria Avenue in Southend began to be developed in the post-war period as a centre for tall brutalist offices and civic buildings. These remained largely undeveloped until the mid-2010s when work began to revitalise the ugly structures. Liam remembers having his driving theory exam in Baryta House further down the road in 2015, only to…
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Sometime roughly around 1622, a Canvey land owner known as Sir Henry Appleton called upon expert Dutch engineer Cornelius Wasterdyk Vermuyden to reclaim Canvey’s constantly flooding marhsland. Whilst it is traditionally thought that Vermuyden was directly responsible for Canvey’s reclaimation as he was other parts of England’s south-east coast, it is now thought that an…
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Behind Fairleigh Court in Leigh on Sea remains an impressive set of six Anderson shelters. Anderson shelters were issued free to all householders earning £5 a week, and cost £7 for those earning more. They were issued from February 1939 prior to British declaration of war, and throughout the Second World War. When the war…
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