You are here:
Pitsea
Pitsea maps
Historic maps of Pitsea and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Pitsea maps
Pitsea area books
Displaying 1 of 18 books about Pitsea and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Pitsea
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Pitsea.
There are 9 shared memories to read.
Add your memory of Pitsea
or of a photo of Pitsea.
St Michaels Church,Pitsea
Born in Pitsea in 1938, I was christened there and visited the church during holidays from boarding school. The picture shown is a view of the back (south side) of the church. My maternal grandfather, father and one of my uncles are buried there. Dad was buried in a plot on the south side on the slope down towards the railway station. They don't know where the bodies are now becouse of land slippage. Station Lane was well known for the market, two or three shops about half way between the war memorial and the station. Just the other side of the railway bridge was Campbells Coaches (the local bus service). Beyond that was the Tilbury Train Line. and beyond that a short distance further was the creek where I used to take a canoe I made at school.
St.Michaels Church Hall, Rectory Road, Pitsea
If my memory serves me right, about this time , earlier and later, the Boy Scouts met in this hall.
Our Wedding Reception 23rd December 1961
We were married at St Michael's Church on a windy 23rd December 1961. How well we both remember that long walk from Pitsea High Road by Rectory Road up to the church. After the wedding we had to once more face that long walk down to the High Road to get into our cars for the short drive round to St Michael's Hall for the reception. The actual walk down from the church was longer than the drive to the hall but it was all worth while and after nearly 50 years we are still happily married.
Acknowledging Family
My father and auntie grew up in Pitsea at "St Ivels", Station Lane. My grandparents were John and Priscilla Gibbs and they were shopkeepers. My grandmother died in 1940 and my grandfather died the following year.... both are buried in St Michael's Church. I've heard wonderful stories about the area from my Dad whilst he was alive. I was wondering if there was anyone out there that remembered the "Gibbs Thrifty Store" in Station Lane.
Recollections of Pitsea From 1941 Onwards
Born in Northlands Drive, Pitsea in 1938, my first recollection was aged 3 years when I remember being put to bed in a cot under the kitchen table during an air raid. We had an Andersen shelter in the garden outside the kithchen window. It was always knee deep in water and neighbours also used it so there wasn't much room for little me. My father died in 1943 and I was sent to boarding school at 'Tilehurst', Ingatestone near Ingatestone Hall, in a house owned by Lord Petre. About a year later the school moved back to its own building at Snaresbrook. During the winter of 1946/7 I went with other boys to the Hollow Ponds on Wanstead Flats where 'daredevil' me went through the ice. Reflexes made me put my arms out so I didn't go right through. I got myself out and slid across the ice on my front to where it was safe to stand up and headed back towards the school back gate. There was... Read more
Brick House London Road
I was born in Brick House, London Road, in 1930. My father was Arthur Herbert Holmes, an architect and surveyor. He planned many shops and other buildings around Essex. My older brother Anthony James Holmes is buried in St Michaels Churchyard. He died as a baby. I left here in 1933 but I have happy memories of giving chickens a ride in my pedal car up and down the road. There was a small nursery on the north side of the road quite close to the house. The gate posts belonging to the house were still standing in the early 1950s although the house had been pulled down. Colin
Gran's Bungalow
Pitsea will always bring back happy memories for me. I was born in my gran's bungalow during WW2 & remained there till I was 3, when my mum took me & my brother back to London, where she had been bombed out. But I always went back to Pitsea, throughout my childhood, to stay with my grandparents. The freedom I felt there was wonderful (unlike London). I spent my days walking through fields, going to the market, going to buy fresh eggs, without any fear of walking alone. Sometimes we got the bus to Southend. Inever wanted to return to London. I did go back to live in the bungalow 20 years later, where I gave birth to my second child, delivered by the same nurse that delivered me (Nurse Holland) who lived in Kenneth Road. I returned to look at the old place a few years ago, but everything's changed. But my memories will stay with me for ever.
When The Reverend Nichols Was The Rector
Sadly I believe, St Michael's Church is little more now than a ruin of it's former self, nothing like it was in the 1940's when it seemed to stand proudly on the hill watching over and protecting the small village below as it had done since Norman times: even then the inscriptions on some of the tombstones weathered and worn away so that one could only make out perhaps a name or date and wonder whose last resting place it was.
We moved to Pitsea just shortly after war broke out into a small pebbledashed bungalow White Lodge, 9, Church Park Drive, on an unmade road with a small narrow pathway infront of the six or so houses, and a narrow channel dug next to the pathway where the water used in the houses was channelled. There was no proper sewerage in those days - a far cry from the home we had left in Margate but as children my brother and I were not particularly perturbed... Read more
