IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
York Road, SOUTHEND-ON-SEA, SS1 2RU

Taken from York Road looking up Cheltenham Road.

The further east you go along York Road, the newer the houses become. The two semis nearest the camera date from around the time of the First World War and those beyond from a bit later. The mixture of semis and bungalows in the same block seems very characteristic of the C20 development of Southend. This shot was taken between Cheltenham Road and Leamington Road.

This part of York Road - between Honiton Road and Cheltenham Road - was built at the turn of the C19/C20 with fairly large semi-detached properties such as these, many of which are now multi-occupied. Before its connection with Southend High Street was severed several decades ago, York Road was a busy through route between Southend and Thorpe Bay and enjoyed a frequent bus service.

This centralised church has been targeted for "development" as part of the Pier / Palace Hotel refurbishments. It stands next to the Palace Hotel. http://www.echo-news.co.uk/display.var.1096397.0.revamp_shows_off_church_treasures.php

Southchurch Hall, now a museum, stands in a delightful little park almost hidden by the surrounding terraced streets.

Southchurch Hall is a moated medieval manor house surrounded by earthworks. It comprises a late 13th or early 14th century timber framed building with a central hall open to the roof, which is to the left of the photo, and an extension on its west side dating from around 1560 to the right. Throughout the medieval period the Hall and its land was owned by Christ Church, Canterbury. In the early 1920s it was operating as a farm but was under serious threat of destruction from the rapid expansion of Southend. Fortunately, a group of individuals actively sought to preserve the threatened building and its earthworks. The Hall was eventually presented to Southend Borough Council by its then owners, the Dowsett family. It was extensively but sensitively restored in the late 1920s and opened to the public as a branch library in 1931 with the earthworks forming part of a public park. Following local government reorganisation in 1974, when libraries were placed under the control of Essex County Council, the Hall was converted to museum use, which it is used for today. It is also now a non-religious wedding ceremony venue.

This is the rear of the manor house with the chimney on the left being the chimney on the right in Image

Taken from the corner of Southchurch Hall Close. The road is named not after Southchurch Park which is some distance away but after the small park which surrounds Southchurch Hall just out of view to the right.

Southchurch Hall Gardens is a small park much of which is occupied by natural and man-made mini-lakes. The most notable feature of the park is Southchurch Hall, a C13 manor house and now a museum.

Ducks on the large duck pond in the gardens of Southchurch Hall.