Laindon

Basildon is one of eight New Towns which were set up around London between 1946 and 1949, immediately after the Second World War. However, the drift from the overcrowded cities (especially London) and into the countryside is not a new idea; it has been a phenomenon of the entire 20th century. Sir. Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) was the principal founder of the English garden city movement. His plans outlined the creation of new towns of limited size, planned in advance and surrounded by a belt of agricultural land. As he declared in 1904: ‘I venture to suggest that while the age in which we live is the age of the great closely-compacted, overcrowded city, there are already signs, for those who can read them, of a coming change so great and so momentous that the twentieth century will A Momentous Meeting at Laindon School On a bleak night in October 1948, the Rt Hon Lewis Silkin, Minister for Town and Country Planning, came to address a packed meeting at Laindon High Road School, and the plans to turn Basildon into a New Town were set in motion. The residents flocked to hear what he had to say, and many stood outside the school listening to his speech over the tannoy system. ‘Basildon will become a city which people from all over the world will want to visit’, said the Minister, ‘a place where all classes of the community can meet together’. Lewis Silkin tried to reassure the residents that the intention was to build, not destroy: ‘In between the two towns of Pitsea and Laindon is a large area, and I propose to use it to form the nucleus of Basildon New Town’. The old village of Basildon was chosen as the town’s centre. Of course, not everyone agreed with him, and there was plenty of opposition to the plan from many local people who feared the threat of compulsory purchase of their homes and the disruption this would cause.
An extract from from"Basildon - A History & Celebration".

The bus station was built to incorporate a parade of shops, seen here beneath the canopy. This has now changed considerably. The taxi rank is here, and the bus station is covered; there is a new mural depicting life in Basildon. In the 1960s the Dave Clarke Five played in the Mecca in Blenheim House. The nightclub was later called Raquel’s - it closed in the 1970s.
An extract from from"Basildon - A History & Celebration".

Laindon and Langdon Hills had always been separate villages with long histories, and even appeared as separate entries in the 1086 Domesday Book. Laindon took its name from the River Lyge, a lost tributary of the River Crouch, which rose from the hill on which St Nicholas’s Church stands and is responsible for the extreme dampness of the graves dug in the churchyard. The Lynge, a road in Laindon, was named after it, but no longer exists. In 1777 Chapman and Andre refer to Langdon clay, a clear indication of the nature of the soil here. The first part of the name Langdon Hills means ‘long hill’, which it certainly is, and the highest point in Essex.
An extract from from"Basildon - A History & Celebration".

In the medieval manorial rolls there are references to ancient roads and lanes that carry the same names today. A field known as Joiners Hill on the south corner of St Nicholas Lane at the entrance from High Road is shown on the 1839 Laindon Tithe Map, and it is thought that the route via Laindon High Road and St Nicholas Way was used by many pilgrims on their way to Canterbury; it was a busy trade route from the 1500s. In addition to the difficulty of travelling over bad roads in the 18th and 19th centuries, murderers and thieves abounded, and farmers coming home from market would travel together for protection. In 1815 two Laindon men were robbed on their way home from Rumford (now Romford) market.
An extract from from"Basildon - A History & Celebration".

The Priest’s House, Laindon Attached to the west end of St Nicholas’s Church is a 17th-century or earlier timbered annexe known as the Priest’s House, which may have replaced the home of the chantry priest endowed by Thomas de Berdefeild in 1329. It is likely that the original building was a hermitage, for there is an ancient legend that tells of a wizard once dwelling at Laindon. The Priest’s House was used as a small schoolroom for children from Laindon and Basildon before Laindon Park School was built in 1877, and was the subject of a complaint by the Rev J R Fox Meek, curate of Laindon. He objected to 50 scholars being huddled into the ground-floor room, which also served as the schoolmaster’s home. This room is only 10 feet 9 inches by 15 feet. The children apparently used the belfry area of the church as a playground. Six farmers’ sons from Basildon were weekly boarders, sleeping in the attic, which had no window, only a glass tile. The schoolmaster, James Hornsby, was reputed to be a capable teacher; he was also a strict disciplinarian who used the cane and tied naughty boys to one of the beams. Living in the damp and draughty priest’s house may have contributed to the deaths of his three successive wives, although Hornsby lived to the age of 83 and died in May 1887. He and they are buried in two graves just to the west of their old home, underneath the window.
An extract from from"Basildon - A History & Celebration".