The populous Upminster hamlet of Hacton seems to be one of three clusters of medieval settlement in the parish, the other two being the village centre and Corbets Tey. The area was to the west of the Gaynes manor estate and centred around where Little Gaynes Lane met Hacton Lane as it climbed up from Hacton Bridge towards Aveley. Continue reading
Corbets Tey Village
During much of the Victorian era the hamlet of Corbets Tey supported three alehouses, and boasted a full range of local services including a Post Office, butcher, baker, a grocer and drapers, as well as two carpenters, a blacksmith, wheelwright, a boot and shoemaker and for a while a boys’ boarding school. Continue reading
Posted in Upminster Buildings & Places
Tagged Bearblock's Cottages, Cabbage Corner, Corbets Tey, Henry Suckley Charity, High House Corbets Tey, Huntsman & hounds, John Saunders' boarding school, Keelings, Mary Freeman Shepherd, Michael Fallet, Rev James Bearblock, Sir George Wharton, Smithy Corbets Tey, The Anchor, The George
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Upminster Common Revealed – Part 2 – Gaynes Common and south from the Four Want Way
Gaynes Common – otherwise known as Mill Common or Upminster Common – lay to the west of Nags Head Lane and north and south of what is now known as Shepherds Hill. This common extended to almost 70 acres in 1842, and was where the tenants of the Manor of Gaynes could exercise their rights as commoners which included grazing their livestock. Continue reading
Posted in Upminster Buildings & Places
Tagged Derham's spring, Four Want Corner, Gaynes Common, Gaynes Mill, Greathouse, Harold Court, Harold Wood, Ivy Lodge Farm, Martin's farm, Northlands or Hawes Farm, Padfield's Dairy, Pages Farm, Pinchon family, Poddies Farm, Shepherd & Dog, Sir William Clarke Hall, Upminster, Upminster Common, Upminster Windmill
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Edna Clarke Hall (1879-1979): Artist of Upminster Common
A renowned artist, once described as the “most imaginative artist that we have”, lived quietly near Upminster Common for over 75 years, unknown to most of the people of Upminster. The talents of Edna Clarke Hall – Lady Clarke Hall from 1932 – were largely ignored for decades after she was forced to give up painting in 1951 but in her later years her work was once again celebrated. Continue reading
Upminster Common Revealed: Part 1 – Bird Lane and around Tylers Common
To the Victorian Census Enumerators the whole area to the north of Upminster parish – north of the line of what is now the A127, the Southend Arterial Road – was referred to as “Upminster Common”. In earlier times the whole of this part of Upminster was all common land governed by Upminster’s two manors, Gaynes and Upminster Hall, but over time much of it was progressively enclosed and farmhouses, cottages and small holdings were developed.
Upminster’s lost brickworks
A century ago visitors approaching Upminster from the north down Hall Lane would have noticed several lofty chimneys and other industrial buildings behind what we now call the Strawberry Farm (but then known as Chapman’s or Potkiln Farm). This was Upminster’s brickworks which at its peak in the 1890s employed over 20 men and lasted into the 1930s. Continue reading
Upminster’s Cosy Corner (137 St Mary’s Lane)
Older residents recall with nostalgia Upminster’s Cosy Corner Café, which was a distinctive feature of the Bell crossroads until it was demolished by Hornchurch UDC in January 1957 in the name of “progress”, to make way for road widening and improvements to the junction. Continue reading
Posted in Upminster Buildings & Places
Tagged Bert Cockman, Cosy Corner, Edward Oakes, Old Butcher's Shop, Upminster
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Eldred’s smithy
Visitors passing through Upminster and local people going about their business could not fail to see, hear and smell the popular working smithy at the heart of the village, adjacent to the Bell. For much of its existence the business was operated by members of the Eldred family, but while the Georgian Bell premises survived for almost two centuries, the adjacent smithy had a much shorter life span. Continue reading
The Bell Inn
The Bell Inn dominated the crossroads at the centre of Upminster for around 200 years until its demolition in the summer of 1963, to be replaced by a featureless parade of shops with an ugly car park above. These days it may well have been saved and given an imaginative renovation that breathed new life into the premises but in the early 1960s the conservation movement had not taken hold and we can only look back with nostalgia at what might have been. Continue reading
St Mary’s Lane, North side: Part 2 – from Garbutt Road to the Cosy Corner Crossroads
The article follows on from the last one which covered the eastern part of the north side, from the Cranham boundary to Garbutt Road. We therefore pick up the story at the west side of Garbutt Road, and continue westwards, towards the Bell/Cosy Corner Crossroads, a road frontage stretching some 400 yards which by the mid-1930s had been developed into houses and shops. How do a former “Public Enemy No.1” and a famous magician have links to here? Read on! Continue reading
Old Upminster 