Pitsea, Pitsea Road c.1955

Photo ref: P145048

More about this scene

Many people approached their houses by grass tracks, and drew water from a well or carried buckets to a standpipe (sometimes a half-mile away); they cooked by paraffin or coal and lit their homes by hurricane lamps. Over a large part of the area, modern toilets were unknown; cesspits and earth closets were common. Such rural conditions could be quite enjoyable in the dry, summer months. However, the winter brought difficulties. Because the heavy clay soil prevents drainage, the grass tracks quickly turned into quagmires and became impassable to motor vehicles. Horses were widely used to deliver coal and other provisions, but even this method of transport was not always successful, since the horses sometimes stuck in the mud, injured themselves badly and had to be shot. An enterprising spirit developed among the plotlanders. Whenever a problem existed they would often pool their resources, with whole families working together to provide such things as footpaths or stepping-stones on the unmade roads. On dark winter nights, they would light their way home by means of a candle in a jam jar, while they jumped from one stepping-stone to the next. In contrast to these townships, Basildon remained a small village almost isolated from the other communities because of the lack of proper roads. Its social centres were the old Bull public house, situated on Bull Road (now Clay Hill Road), Holy Cross Church, and Fairview Hall in Timberlog Lane. In fact, Basildon was in the midst of the scattered, poor-quality development of shacks and un-made roads, which stretched from Pitsea to Laindon.