Laindon

Laindon is a township in the west of the Basildon district of Essex, England.

It is north of Laindon railway station on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. South of the railway station and line is Langdon Hills. Laindon and Langdon Hills are part of the Basildon post town.^[1]

Until its abolition in 1937, there was a Laindon parish. In 1931 it covered an area of 2,049 acres (8.29 km²) and had a population of 4,552. 100 years earlier, in 1831, the population was 412 and the area covered was 4,680 acres (18.9 km²).^[2] Three detachments of the parish were removed in 1880 and 1889.

To the south-west of Laindon, the Dunton Plotlands was an area of small plots of land used as weekend cottages or smallholdings during the mid twentieth century.

Puckles Charity School

John Puckle, who died in 1617, left his farm for the maintenance of an Oxford or Cambridge University graduate as a schoolmaster for teaching the poor children of Laindon and Basildon. It is not known when the school opened. The first known schoolmaster was Hugh Peters. It moved to another building before 1685, and was probably closed for some time up to 1703. From 1715, Samuel Weald was the schoolmaster. James Matthews, who died in 1809, was schoolmaster for 31 years. In 1831, the stipulation that the schoolmaster must be a graduate was rescinded. James Hornsby, after whom James Hornsby High School is named, was schoolmaster for 48 years until its closure in 1877, when St Nicholas School was opened kon'.^[3]

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