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THE HISTORY OF THE PARISH OF
SOUTH OCKENDON ESSEX ENGLAND
BY M.
J.SAUNDERS
South Ockendon - Richard
Benyon
THE
PARISH of South Ockendon is situated in the south east of Essex about twenty
miles east of London. It sits approximately 75 feet above sea-level in the
Chafford Hundred Some eight miles S.E. of Romford, four miles N.N.W. of’
Grays, Thurrock; and approximately three miles north of the Lakeside
Shopping complex.
Traditionally an agricultural community, the
continuing move towards more modern farming in the second half of’ the
twentieth-century have brought about a drastic decline in the need for
agricultural labor. Today a great deal of local employment, and indeed,
employment from outside the area is provided by the diversity of
industry which now exists in South Ockendon area. The two largest employers
in the area are the motor manufacturer, Fords, who opened its plant in South
Ockendon in 1956, and Blue Star Engineering, whilst a great number of other
residents commute daily to work, particularly to the City
A branch line off the Fenchurch Street -
Southend line, which opened in July 1892, serves South Ockendon.
Until recently Ockendon station sat alone mid-way between Upminster and
Grays on this single-track line, however, a new station, Chafford Hundred,
has been built between Ockendon and Grays for commuters residing in the
newly developed settlement of Chafford Hundred and for visitors to Lakeside
- which incidentally another source of local employment.
The program of reconstruction brought about by
the Second World War has seen South Ockendon expand from a small
agricultural settlement to a much larger and densely populated conurbation
on the outskirts of Greater London. ‘Prefabs’ were erected to the south and
south-west of’ the village to help re-house Londoners who had lost their
homes during the war and this growth continued into the fifties when the
London County Council (“L.C.C.”) built the adjoining Belhus housing and
industrial estates which extended westwards to Aveley. The impact of this
influx of town dwellers into the local community and their eventual
integration into the local community was enacted by the villagers in Glyn
Morgan’s, “The Pageant of Ockendon”, staged on the village green on 6 June
1953.
The ‘prefabs’ were eventually replaced with
more permanent housing stock in the early I970s, since when South Ockendon
has continued to expand with the construction of further private housing
estates on land previously occupied by the mental hospital, the original
Benyon school buildings and Mardyke School. Sadly, the work of developers in
the 1960s literally tore the heart out of’ the
village replacing buildings on the west side of North arid South Roads with
a development entirely inappropriate for the historic setting of the ancient
village Green and church of’ St. Nicholas.
Held by the thegn Frehert at the time of the
Conquest, the manor of South Ockendon had by 1086, passed into the hands of
the tenant in chief Geoffrey de Mandeville and descended with his family for
nearly three hundred years. Although originally a single lordship, Ockendon
was divided into two lordships in Saxon times - North and South Ockendon. In
1471, South Ockendon was again divided by way of a marriage settlement into
two manors - the Bruyns and the Groves.
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