South Woodham Ferres is better know as a modern new town rather than a
settlement with any history. Never a traditional Essex village, its origins lie
firmly in the railway age. Nevertheless, as this fascinating book reveals,
though its life as a village spans little more than a century, it does have a
history and careful research by the author and fellow members of the South
Woodham Ferres Local History Society over the past 20 years has uncovered a
wealth of intriguing detail about the birth and development of the place.
From a local historian's point of view, this relatively recent time scale has
two particular advantages. Firstly, photography was already well established and
the Society has been able to collect a unique pictorial record of the entire
past of the town. Secondly, the reminiscences of older residents, combined with
documentary evidence, have made detailed and informative captions possible.
After the railway station opened in 1889 the unproductive fields of two
adjoining farms in the Crouch valley were divided by new estate roads and
parcelled into hundreds of individual building plots which were offered for sale
to Londonders who desired a new life in the country. The 1920s and '30s in
particular saw a marked increase in population, the growth of a thriving
community life and the establishment of many new businesses. A valuable
feature of this informative book is a section devoted to a series of maps and
photographs which illustrate in detail how some of the present day housing
estates relate to the former 'plotland' development. These provide a
particularly development. These provide a particularly helpful insight into the
dramatic changes of recent years.
A significant contribution to the published history of Essex and an
invaluable photographic archive, the book will be warmly welcomed throughout the
area, not only for the light it throws on the making of South Woodham Ferres but
also for the human interest of the lives and work of the pioneers who made it.
The more a place has changed the more we enjoy seeing what it was like before -
and this vivid, visual account of South Woodham Ferres will satisfy everyone's
interest in its past.
Contents:
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Railway, River and Roads
Plotland Development
Education and Community Life
Inter-War Years
Shops and Businesses
Wickford-Burnham Road
Hullbridge Road
Around the Village
Toward the New Town
The New Town
