Brentwood
Brentwood photos (171 available)
Brentwood maps (2 available)
Map of Essex
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
Personalised maps
Create an historic map centred directly on any postcode!
Brentwood books (15 available)
- 1 photos on Brentwood appear in 6 Frith books - View photos of Brentwood
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Brentwood and Essex
Brentwood memories
Read and share memories of Brentwood and Essex inspired by Frith photos
i remember this as st faith's hospital for epileptics
i remember this not as brentwood hackney schools but as st faith's hospital for women and children with epilepsy and other mental disorders. my father worked in the administration offices until he died in 1959 and my mother worked there as a nursing auxiliary after that. i remember going to children's parties (both for the patients and staff's children and have photos of my brother and I and parents at these functions. I remember one Matron, a Miss Hopkins, who was a lovely kindly lady and friend to my parents. She gave me a gold cross and chain which i still have to this day. it was her own cross and chain and i can remember feeling ...read more here
Contributed by Janet Aldridge
My House
I live in this house now, have restored it to original and I love the place. How unbelievable to find 2 pictures on this site.
Sam
Contributed by SAM STOCKMAN
In Loving Memory
I remember going regularly to Brentwood Cemetery. My Father would take us to visit the grave site of my baby Brother Barry who died at 8 months. My Sisters & I would help my Father maintain the grave. Lots of pretty floweres. I always remember the quietness, stillness, the total peace on our visits. May you continue to rest in peace Dear Brother Barry.
Contributed by bernie ling
a cup of bovril and a bag of crisps after a swim!
I used to go to Brentwood swimming pool with my school St Martin's for girls and can remember going when it reopened for the new year - easter and it was absolutely freezing! I was not much of a swimmer so can remember it being torture for me. i also used to go with my friends during the summer when we would have a swim and afterwards, after dodging the boys flicking their wet towels (i am sure you know who you are out there!!) which was horrible because if it caught you it hurt like hell, we would queue up at the kiosk and buy hot bovril and a bag of crisps. i can remember there being ...read more here
Contributed by Janet Aldridge
Social life at the pool!
I was five years old when this photograph was taken and would have occasionally been taken to the pool by my mother. My older sister would have come too. As we got older it was a great place to hang out as teenagers and we would often go for a swim after school and then walk home to Shenfield (saving the bus fare to buy a bag of chips at the fish and chip shop opposite the Green Dragon in Shenfield). We went to the Ursuline Preparatory School (The Grange) and then on to the secondary part at 11. The swimming pool was always cold but as teenagers we were more interested in posing and looking for boys than doing much ...read more here
Contributed by Anthea Hilson
Grandmother's childhood home
Probably more years than just 1910. My Grandmother Rose Smith (nee Holloway) grew up here. She was one of 10 children to John and Alice Holloway. She met my Grandfather, Sidney Fraser Smith, who was a Sergeant Instructor in Small Arms at the Barracks nearby. When she lived here the Holloway family had a pet black sheep, a monkey, ducks and chickens, with many fruit trees in the orchard, which is sadly now a car park! John would send Rose down to the Thatchers Arms with a jug to bring back some of the opposition's beer for him to try out. I have a framed picture of the Headley with the Holloway pony and trap outside which ...read more here
Contributed by Zina Preston
Family drinks
I used to live near this lovely pub which had a gorgeous garden. I was only a little girl when I used to come here with my Grandad and he had his whisky while I had my orangeade and a packet of Smith's crisps with the little blue salt bag inside where we sat in the garden. There was a pond in the garden, I used to watch the fish and there were also ducks. This was a favourite pub of my Dad who was a regular every Sunday lunch with a neighbour and friend. Quite a lot we would come to the Black Horse as a family and sit in that lovely garden. Dad with ...read more here
Contributed by Jillian Lofts
Highwood Hospital. Ingrave Rd. Brentwood. Essex.
I was in a hospital called Highwood Hospital, in Ingrave Road. It was for children who had TB. I remember lots of friends there, the girls were separated from the boys. We had open air wards where we slept, unless it was very cold. Most of us were in our early teens. I was on a ward called Firs 5, I found out years later that it was the only hospital of this type in the country, as the chidren had adult type TB. I was there for about a year, and was completely cured. We did live quite near in a village called Hutton, we lived on a estate which was newly built, and we had moved from London to ...read more here
Contributed by Joan Saville
Extracts From Brentwood & 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".