My Ancestors Lived Here

A Memory of Rayleigh.

I recently visited this 'dutch cottage' again (after taking my mum there in the 1990's) and the girl who lives there and is the also the guide, is full of good information about this. She was surprised when I said that my grandad used to walk from Canning Town, East London to here! His nan lived there for many years in the 1800's to early 1900's. When I checked the census for them, there was at one stage 9 people living here on the night of the census. It really is an amazing place to visit and it's free. I have an old photo of it that the girl hadn't seen before. My other ancestors also lived in one of the dutch cottage's on Canvey Island.