Wickford
Wickford maps (2 available)
Map of Essex
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
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Wickford books (15 available)
Wickford memories
Read and share memories of Wickford and Essex inspired by Frith photos
My Memory
We left England that year for Australia. It was April, I was 12. All my friends left behind, playing in the park near the River Crouch. I don't remember names, it was long ago. I can see myself walking to different places, I wish I had more memories.
Contributed by Bernice Gracie
back in 1963
I was moved to Wickford with my family in December 1963, a hard winter, removal van had trouble getting up the unmade road. Coming from London, it was a bit of a sleepy village for me and especially for my teenage siblings. Had to wait for 2 weeks to be able to buy a number one record, from Eagans the music store. The chickens and sheep being sold in the market place located where the car park is now beside the community centre. Adrian then was selling records in the market out of cardboard boxes. Narrow pavements under railway bridge, where the little shops, the cabin owned by Mr & Mrs Gladdin selling cigarettes. I attended Market Road infant and junior ...read more here
Contributed by val ramsden
Flood
I was sent off to buy some bread by my mother. But crossing the river Crouch by the bridge was impossible. Wickford was under water. I don't recall the year. But the brand name of the bread was: Wheatchief. I used to buy sandpaper in Mays for my dad. And Egans, I thought they could fix anything, as well as selling records! But my Saturday haunt was the library in the High Street. A little room it was, housing their cardboard pockets to place your chosen book-ticket into. Does anyone remember the little library in the High Street? I went back to Wickford a fews years back, and well, the only thing recognisable was the cycle shop at Halls Corner - ...read more here
Contributed by Nicole Laine
Gigneys Shop
My wife's maiden name is Gigney and I know the family had busineses in Wickford and Stanford le Hope.
Can anyone supply more details? - one was a saddlers and general store. Do any photos exist of these shops? Indeed can anyone advise if they still stand or where exactly they were?
Contributed by John Teddyfoot
Willow Cafe etc...
Returning to Wickford after being in the USA for a few years I remember the Willow Cafe, Egans, Adrian's in a hut in Market Road, the livestock market where the Willowdale Centre is now. Dr. Rentons Georgian house in the High Street, Fish's, Stafford's Bakery in the Broadway, the Co-Op being opened by Dick Emery.
Going to school at Wickford Country Junior School and Beauchamps....my husband was in the same schools and same year....33 years later we met and married!
Contributed by Sue Burn
Living in Wickford
I lived in Wickford until 1963. My sisters and I would walk down London Road to the high street, first stopping at the little sweet shop and then looking into the windows of Prentice. I got my first 2 wheeler there in 1954.
We would go the pictures in what later became Woolworths, the site of my first Saturday job.
The Coop was in the high street and was the busiest shop.
My dad had Barclays account number 2.
Contributed by kathleen aguirre
Newly Wed
I had lived in Basildon and married a Dagenham man in 1975, we moved to a turning called Woodfield on the newly built Moody Estate off Nevedon Road. To go to the shops or rail station, we had to pass Hall's Corner. I remember a green grocers (where I left behind a bag of tomatoes I had just brought), a newsagent and art shop being there back then. I use to love going to the market just behind the shops. We moved to Ilford in 1981 (he wanted to move as the rail season tickets were getting expensive). I still hope to move back to Wickford one day.
Contributed by Ann Martin
Living in Wickford
Up until I was 4 years old we lived with my Grandad and my Aunt Ena at no 2 Deirdre Avenue (now no 9). My Dad and Grandad had a small holding and people came from all around to buy their fresh vegetables, these would be classed as organic nowadays. My Aunt Ena also helped out with the vegetables, when she wasn't working at the kiosk on Wickford Station. She later married the station master George Walker.
At that time there use to be meadows on either corner of Deirdre Avenue and a stream running down to London Road. In the summer the meadows were full of buttercups to run through and play in.
In 1949 when I was ...read more here
Contributed by Christine Bacon
Good old days?
I remember walking past this point on shopping trips with my mother, being dragged along (wasn't good at walking) or on my way to/from school. I was born in 1953 in Sugden avenue where bungalows had massive areas of land (maybe I was small) with them and even a caravan on one plot.
I also remember standing outside the pub with a bottle of coke and an arrowroot biscuit (dog biscuit, wonderful biscuit by Meredith & Drew if only they were still around)
My Mother & Father both hairdressers used to work in the town, my father worked in a shop on the righthand side going up high street towards the pub.
My Grandmother lived at the top of ...read more here
Contributed by Jim Pitt
This church was completed about 1964
Saint Andrew's was built and completed in 1964.
Contributed by S Winfield
Extracts From Wickford & Essex books
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".
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".
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".
Built on the site of the Old Rectory, the Basildon tractor plant was finally completed on 20 February 1964. It
covered 60 acres of the 100-acre site, and had 1,360,000 square feet of buildings. Its most recognisable feature
was its distinctive 125ft-high water tower holding 200,000 gallons (right); nicknamed ‘the onion’, it is still
regarded as a local landmark.
An extract from from"Basildon - A History & Celebration".
Picturesquely perched on top of its steep
knoll and surrounded by a sea of 20th-
century housing, the church of St Nicholas,
Laindon, possibly dates from the 12th century.
It incorporates the stout original timbers of
its 14th-century belfry with broach spire,
weather-boarded outside in true Essex style.
The timber is about 700 years old, and the
bell turret rests on an arched frame of timber.
It is rumoured that the timbers supporting
the belfry came from ships of the Armada,
but they are more likely to have grown in the
nearby woods. The chancel and south aisle
were added later. From Saxo-Norman times
Basildon was closely associated with Laindon,
and Laindon parish was always described
as Laindon-cum-Basildon. St Nicholas’s and
Holy Cross, Basildon have similar curious
primitive 15th-century carvings on the
spandrels of their porches.
An extract from from"Basildon - A History & Celebration".