A Historic Timber Framed Hall In Beautiful Gardens One Could Not Wish For A Nicer Branch Library.

A Memory of Southend-on-Sea.

This beautiful Grade 1-Listed building was the closest Library to where I lived near Southchurch Park, and I spent many hours inside during the 1940's and 1950's exploring books, or in the landscaped grounds.
As I became a teenager and also more interested in History, I was fascinated to discover that the "old farmhouse" where my father used to be invited to play with the Farmer's sons [since - during the Edwardian Era,- they all went to Southchurch Hall School less than half a mile away], - was also a 14th Century medieval moated manor house, which had been a possession of the See of Canterbury for centuries.
My father told me that - because the farming family who'd had the lease of the Farm for centuries - since the Dissolution, anyway - had lost their immediate Heirs during the Great. War, and decided to give up farming, the Church put the Estate on the Market, - and so the Dowsett family bought the Hall, and the farm fields were sold off to local Developers [Including two local building Firms, [Thorby's and John Wilson's Builders], creating the "garden suburb" bounded by Ambleside Drive to the North,, the Kursaal and the Corporation Gas Works, and Shaftesbury Avenue to the South, and Lifstan Way and Colbert Avenue to the East. That area now includes both parts of the present Southchurch Park. Until the late 1920's - all that area was the Southchurch Hall Farm Estates, - green fields all!
One day i hope to be able to re-visit the Hall, and see how well Southend Corporation have changed it from a Branch Library into a Museum.