Rayleigh memories
Here are memories of Rayleigh and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Rayleigh or a Rayleigh photo.
My Memories of The Top End of Rayleigh High Street
I lived on the Lower Road between Hockley and Hullbridge between 1950 and 1967. Rayleigh was our local town. Before Woolworths was built, there was a garage on the site. I think it was called the Waterloo garage. My father bought a wartime ex-army Commer utility vehicle from them (in the very early 1950s). He used this for his mobile greengrocery round around Rayleigh. There was two way traffic in the High Street in those days! I was a Wolf Cub member of the Second Rayleigh Holy Trinity Pack in the Parish Church in the background at the top of the hill.
Rayleigh High Street
I was brought up in Rayleigh and have memories of the High Street since I was a small child in the 1950s, and remember going to the shops with my mother. I moved away years ago so these photos brought back a lot of memories for me.
Dutch Cottage
I also remember this charming little cottage from my childhood in the 1960's. Was so pleased to see it featured on BBC Breakfast this week & to hear it is open to the public once a week by the young woman who now lives there.
Dutch Cottage
I live 4 doors down from the cotttage and it is still going strong.
1957-1965
I used to walk from way down Eastwood Road to Crown Hill and down to The Sweyne School for many years. I always used to look at the Cottage with awe thinking how old it was and wondering at the history it had seen. I doubt that it exists today, because the vandals would have desecrated anything old in favour of a new parking lot or similar. They will only regret it when it is too late.
Roger Ball 2008
Small Person
As a boy i walked past the Dutch Cottage on my way to the high street , as a child i found it a bit eerie , i saw a small person coming out of there a couple of times which seemed to add to the afect . by the mid 70`s the cottage had lost it`s clean chocolate box cover look and had become dirty and in need of some TLC , i think this is due to the bus`s and lorry`s they all used Crown Hill back then , i`d be intrested to know what the cottage looks like now as i haven`t seen it since the early 80`s when i moved to Cornwall.
Beke Hall Rayleigh And Rawreth
Hi, I am looking for any information on Beke Hall, Rayleigh (sometimes spelt Beak - or with Farm in the title!). It is situated on the left side of London Road out towards Wickford and is first mentioned in 1523. The furthest back I can go, Beke Hall owned 140 acres covering all of little Wheatleys up to Great wheatleys. I am looking for any information from any era over the last 500 years! Anyone's memories of it in the 960s or wartime or anything anyone can tell me. The building itself is a white clapperboard Georgian-looking farmhouse but of course it also pre-dates Georgian times. Apparently it was one of five manors that owned most of the bottom of Rayleigh and all Rawreth. I would love to know if anyone was living in it in during the wartimes etc. Please please give any info you have.
Many thanks,
Smallholding in Eastwood Road
This memory is my mum's - in the 1940s she remembers her dad taking her (on his motorbike with mum in the sidecar) to a smallholding on Eastwood Road in Rayleigh - she thinks probably to buy 'day-old chicks' (her parents kept chickens). We are trying to find out the name of the business or the people who ran it as part of our family history investigations - my great-grandfather had previously married Rhoda, who I'm told was a sister of the owner, but it would be interesting to find out what her maiden name was so that we can find out a little more about the family. Any information about the people, the name of the business or even photographs of the smallholding, would be very useful.
Cottages
I would like to know if anyone out there has any photos of the row of cottages that were just in the Eastwood Road as you came into Rayleigh High Street, I would be very interested, as they were part of me childhood, I remember sitting upstair on the bus and it always felt if I put my hand out the window I could touch the windows of the cottages. I have been looking for photos for a long time, are there any?
Rayleigh
I too remember this cottage well as I used to walk past it every day going to Sweyne School. I found this site by accident but am glad that I did find it. As I now live in New Zealand it is good to see some photographs of my old home town which I grew up in (getting homesick now). Thank you for the pictures.
Memories of Essex
Childhood Memories
I remember buying a lollipop & a caramac bar from the little sweetshop opposite my school in Dark Lane most days after school (they also sold Tizer by the glass). Mr Pope the kindly school lollipop man. The fish & chip shop where a very old lady (I was 6 so anyone over 30 was old!!) called Emma worked. Fairy lights strung along Hart Rd by the shops at Christmas time. Thundersley Infants School being set fire to, so no school for a while (Hurrah!) then lessons in some kind of huts near the church for a couple of months
before finally being shipped by bus daily to a school near Hadleigh for 2 terms while our school was repaired. Playing for hours on the common, in the woods & in the play area which had the highest slide I had/have ever seen. It was so high the top was caged in for safety. I left Thundersley 36 years ago when I was 11 (I was Maureen Slattery back then)... Read more
Dark Lane School
I went to Dark Lane Primary and Junior school from 1976-1982 whilst living on Sandown Road Thundersley. I remember the various ways of getting to school, through the common, the woods, which were brilliant in early spring when the bluebells were out. The two sweet shops outside the school gate always seemed to do a roaring trade, especially with me, at the end of school day. The lollypop men and women were always friendly. I remember the grey and yellow uniform which we all had to wear, whilst the teachers are still etched upon my memory, Mr Riley, Mr Knight Mrs Davis all have made their respectives marks upon me. I also remeber walking down Hacks Drive and then along the main road to either the hardware store or Wavy Line shop with mum at the Woodmans Arms, before the hideous Sainsburys was built on Stadium Way. I also remember when it was very cold the sound of the gritters starting their engines from the council yard at the back... Read more
Bracken Lodge
My family lived at Bracken Lodge on the Little Common in the late 1950's
Is Bracken Lodge still a little smallholding ?
Bracken Lodge was rather spooky. We had many strange experiences while living there.
In short - it was haunted!!
Are the reservoirs still there?
I must come back someday.
Regards,
Michael Cockerill.
Cottage Opposite Hart Road Caravan Site
I remember a beautiful old, I think thatched, cottage situated opposite the entrance to the caravan site in Hart Road, Thundersley, opposite the phone box. It had brightly painted plaster figurines wearing very old costume (pargetry?), under the eaves and an inscription that read:
'Built before the battle of (either Trafalgar or Waterloo)', I can't be sure now exactly which, and a date. It filled the whole of the corner plot next to Triton Way and Hart Road. A very old and very lovely white-haired old man lived there alone after his wife had died. (I never saw or met her and I presumed she'd died a long time before). He was really tall and slightly stooped and had to bend over even further to enter the cottage, which had low ceilings, thick black wooden beams and a massive black-beamed fireplace. He used-to sell fruit from his orchard, tomatoes and other vegetables from a lean-to at the side of his cottage. I remember he very kindly gave me some windfall... Read more
Badger Hall, Thundersley, Essex Circa 1900
My Great Uncle and Aunt, Archibald “Arch” and Clara Meade, owned Badger Hall, Thundersley, around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. It was then described as having 22 acres of parkland and holding house parties and balls and being a centre of culture, in particular music and Greek. Unfortunately Arch kicked Aunt Clara out and she had to take up residence with her less well off mother at Leigh-on-Sea, otherwise I might now be a millionaire ! My refs are taken from two family books but both writers now deceased. I would be pleased to email anyone who can tell me more about the Meades at Badger Hall. Please contact me through the message service of this website.
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