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Wickford
Wickford maps
Historic maps of Wickford and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Wickford maps
Wickford area books
Displaying 1 of 18 books about Wickford and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Wickford
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Wickford.
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Fox & Hounds Ramsden Bellhouse
I just found the Ramsden Bellhouse site and wrote in the guest book. My memories of Wickford are shopping there, watching cricket, catching the bus. I worked in London and more than once getting off the train in Wickford I would take the bus in thick fog with the conductor walking in front . After arriving at Jackson's Corner Farm I would alight and had to walk home to the pub from there, no street lights of course. My father bought the Fox in I think 1950 when we moved from Hornchurch. He collapsed and died on New Year's Eve 1960 while dancing with my mother at the White Horse Ramsden Heath, I don't notice any mention of the Fox now, Is it still there? It was a Mann Crossman & Paulin pub. I live in Arizona and sadly never get back home any more. I am amazed at the growth of Ramsden.
Highcliffe Road
My grandparents moved to 49 Highcliffe Road in 1947. They were one of the first families to move into the new council houses. There they raised their six children, three of whom went to Beauchamps School. My mother and her sister both went to Chelmsford Grammar School after passing the 11 plus & 13 plus respectively. I remember visiting with my mum and walking from their house down to the park at the end of the road. My grandfather kept greyhounds and was a gambling man. It all ended with the death of my grandmother in 1995. I have not visited the house since then, but last walked my dogs in the park around 2004 with my dad who lived in Wickford until his death in 2008. I must say that the area hasn't improved in my eyes, but I guess that's nostalgia for you.
Sweet Shop
Just along from Halls corner past the police station on your right are two shops. One was a sweet shop run by my great grandparents - Orrock. This must have been in the 1940s as I remember my mother telling me about it. My great-grandfather died before I was born but I remember my great-grandmother as she lived to a ripe old age of 96 passing away in 1991. She seemed to me to be a matriarch and everyone gravitated towards her including my grandfather who lived in Highcliffe Road and would walk the 2 miles to visit his mother every day. To this day there are family members living in the building although they do not run the shop.
Sugden Avenue to Broadway
I remember walking through here many times as child and adult. We used to walk from Sugden Avenue where I grew up and where my parents had bought a small bungalow in 1957, down to the town in bare feet! It used to take around 25 minutes to walk it. We must have been a bit wild, living in Sugden was like living in a rural area and kids were allowed more freedom in those days. The railway station is a stones throw away from the broadway and Castle pub and I used to take the train to Southend every Saturday with a friend to look around the shops.
As a teenager I used to catch the works bus from here. It picked up all the workers for Matchbox Toys in Rochford.
Weddings And Funerals
I used to walk past this church on the way to visit my grandparents in Highcliffe Road. There was a path which lead up behind the church and onto a back road to Highcliffe. My schoolfriend Jill married in this church in 1980. My great-grandfather was buried here in 1949 under the yew tree, my great-grandmother joined him in 1991 and grandfather's ashes were placed here also in 1991. There are numerous graves which relate to members of the Wickford community including one elderly lady who lost both her sons during WW2.
Highcliffe Road
My parents moved to Wickford in 1955, we had a bungalow built in Highcliffe Road, by local builders the Gunnets, and my sister was born there in 1956. It was a lovely place to live, across the road and a short walk where a few shops. A general store, a butchers and a newsagents, which then was run by a Mr Lovekin. The other way up the hill was the Hilltop Stores run by Mr and Mrs Usher, their son was Brett, I remember them because he became an actor, and us girls loved going in the shop just to see if he was home ! He was rather good looking, or so we thought. My mum got on well with them and they were a lovely family. I seem to remember there was a market garden opposite, and a bus stop. Nearby the store was a ramshackle bungalow owned by a lady who I ashamed to say we all thought was a witch... as in the genre of children,... Read more
Wickford as A Boy
A part of my boyhood was spent on a smallholding just outside of Wickford, the smallholding was called Littlemead. When I first went to Wickford my uncle Ted picked us up from the railway station in a pony and trap, the horse was called Lady. At Littlemeade there was no running water, no electricity, no gas, the source of heating and cooking was a black range in the main room. All I can remember of the location was that when we left Wickford we went to the top of a hill and turned right, it was quite a long drive before we went over a railway bridge and very quickly turned right down a lane to where there was a prefab. Littlemead was beyond this across two more fields. Quite close by was a windmill as I remember and a big house owned by someone called "The Major". We had dogs pigs cattle and of course Lady. Another thing I remember is that a public footpath to Wickford... Read more
Childhood Memories
Although I am relating to a time a little earlier, around mid and late 1940s, the scene in the photo still resembles the countryside as I remember it. Wantz Corner branched off in three directions, and for me, all leading to aunts, uncles and cousins, living in the area, fields to roam and play all day, haystacks to build tunnels in (I can't ever remember being chased away by a farmer), and of course school. I lived in a little unmade road called Gordon Road just a short distance from there, off Swan Lane (my front garden was a corn field) , the road in the photo, going straight up was then called Churchend Lane, and when I became older I went to a Youth Club situated just a little further on around that bend (it was only in a Nissan type hut but they had table tennis and I think a dartboard, and you could get a soft drink). I also recognised the railing on the right... Read more
