West Horndon

West Horndon is a village in the south of the Brentwood borough of Essex on the boundary with Thurrock and in the East of England. It is located 20.6 miles (33.2 km) east north-east of Charing Cross in London.

1 Locale
2 Transport
3 History
4 Nearest places
5 External links

[edit] Locale

The village is surrounded by open countryside and an industrial estate. It is the first area east of London to not be continuously built up. There are hills rising as high as 100 metres covered in trees, arable fields and fenland of London clay.

There are several streams running down from the hills into the Mardyke which drains the fens out to the Thames at Purfleet. There was a time when it was planned to make the Mardyke into a canal but it was never brought to fruition.

Thorndon Avenue is a long straight road leading to the heart of the modern village of West Horndon. Half way down is the junior school with playing fields at the back and opposite is the modern church of St Francis. At the centre of the village is a village hall which was built around 1961.

[edit] Transport

West Horndon railway station is a station on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway main line from London to Southend. The Railway Hotel, behind the station, was once a coaching inn. North of the town and parallel to railway is the A127 Southend Arterial Road. West Horndon is east of junction 29 of the M25 motorway.

[edit] History

The current St Francis Church in West Horndon, 2003

Originally there were three manors in the area of West Horndon, Tillingham Hall being the one which had most of the land in its borders. In 1066 Alwin, a free woman held it, but by 1086 it had passed to Swain of Essex in the hundred of Barstable. Following this the Tillingham family held the hall for several hundred years.

It was eventually sold to Sir William Bawd, who conveyed it to Coggleshall Abbey, where it remained until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It is thought that the Abbey began to restrict the rights of the commons, for there were many proceedings in the manor-courts against the ordinary people, supposedly trespassing on the land of the lords. After they acquired the commonland it was mostly left as wild heath and woods, much as we see it today, the later lords of the manor having much pleasure hunting to hounds through it, even as far as Southend.

The church of All Saints is built entirely of brick, the present one being the third on this site. The village of Torinduna (Thornhill) referred to in Domesday was built around this hill. The Saxon church was built around AD 807, then rebuilt in the Norman style by the Neville family about 1200.