Everything about Essex England totally explained
Essex is a
county in the
East of England. The
county town is
Chelmsford, and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of
Langley, close to the
Hertfordshire border, which reaches 482 feet.
Divisions and environs
The area under the control of the county council, or
shire county, is divided into a number of local government districts. They are
Harlow,
Epping Forest,
Brentwood,
Basildon,
Castle Point,
Rochford,
Maldon,
Chelmsford,
Uttlesford,
Braintree,
Colchester and
Tendring.
Thurrock and
Southend-on-Sea are
unitary authorities which form part of the county for various functions such as
Lord Lieutenant but don't come under county council control.
Essex Police also covers the two unitary authorities.
The ceremonial county, the area including the unitary authorities, has boundaries to the east with the coastline of the
North Sea; to the south with the northern bank, or estuary, of the
River Thames and
Kent; to the south west with
Greater London; to the west with
Hertfordshire across the
River Lee and the
Stort; to the north west with
Cambridgeshire; and to the north with
Suffolk, mostly marked by the
River Stour.
History
The name
Essex derives from the
East Seaxe or East Saxons. The
Kingdom of Essex was traditionally founded by
Aescwine in
527 AD, occupying territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating much of what would later become
Middlesex and Hertfordshire, though its territory was later restricted to lands east of the
River Lee. It is through this origin as one of the 'Saxon' kingdoms that Essex is specifically not part of the region known as
East Anglia (the latter comprising
Norfolk,
Suffolk, and
Cambridgeshire), settled by tribes calling themselves 'Anglian'.
Colchester in the north east of the county is Britain's oldest recorded town, dating back to before the Roman conquest, when it was known as Camulodunon, and was sufficiently well-developed to have its own mint.
Essex County Council was formed in 1889. However, the
County Borough of West Ham, and from 1915 the
County Borough of East Ham, formed part of the county but were not under county council control.
Southend-on-Sea also formed a county borough from 1914 to 1974. The boundary with
Greater London was established in 1965 when the former area of the East Ham and West Ham county boroughs and of the
Barking,
Chingford,
Dagenham,
Hornchurch,
Ilford,
Leyton,
Romford,
Walthamstow and
Wanstead and Woodford districts
Essex became part of the
East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part of the
South East England region. In 1998 the districts of
Southend-on-Sea and
Thurrock separated from the
shire county of Essex becoming
unitary districts.
Population and settlement
The pattern of settlement in the county is diverse. The
London Green Belt has effectively prevented the further sprawl of London into the county, although it contains the
new towns of
Basildon and
Harlow, originally developed to resettle Londoners following the destruction of London housing in
World War II but since much expanded.
Epping Forest also acts as a protected barrier to the further spread of London. Much of the
Epping Forest district, consisting of the residential towns of
Chigwell,
Waltham Abbey,
Loughton and
Buckhurst Hill, is more developed and forms part of the
Greater London Urban Area.
Because of its proximity to
London and the economic magnetism which that city exerts, many of Essex's settlements function as
dormitory towns or villages where London workers raise their families. Essex is known for being the origin of the political term
Essex man, and of the
Essex girl joke.
Part of the south east of the county, already containing the major population centres of
Southend and
Thurrock, is within the
Thames Gateway and designated for further development. To the north of the Green Belt, with the exception of major towns such as
Colchester and
Chelmsford, the county is rural, with many small towns, villages and hamlets largely built in the traditional materials of timber and brick, with clay tile or thatched roofs.
Transport
The main airport in Essex is
London Stansted Airport, serving destinations in Europe and North America;
Southend Airport,
(External Link
) once one of Britain's busiest airports, is undergoing redevelopment, but still has limited passenger flights to destinations such as the
Channel Islands. There are several smaller airfields, some of which owe their origins to air force bases built during
World War I or
World War II. These are popular for pleasure flights; examples include
Clacton Airfield
(External Link) and
Stapleford Aerodrome.
(External Link)
The port of
Tilbury is one of Britain's three major ports, while the port of
Harwich links the county to the
Hook of Holland and
Esbjerg. A service to
Cuxhaven closed in December 2005. Despite the
road crossing to
Dartford in
Kent across the
River Thames, a pedestrian ferry to
Gravesend, Kent still operates from Tilbury during limited hours, and there are foot ferries operating across some of the county's rivers and estuaries during the summer months.
The
M25 motorway and
M11 motorway both cross the county, and the
A12 and
A13 trunk roads are important radial routes from London. There is an extensive public transport network.
(External Link)
The main rail routes include:
two lines from the City of London to Southend-on-Sea, operated by c2c from Fenchurch Street (including a route via Tilbury) and National Express East Anglia from Liverpool Street,
the Great Eastern Main Line from Liverpool Street connecting Harwich and onwards into Suffolk and Norfolk
the West Anglia Main Linefrom Liverpoool Street linking to Stansted and onwards into Cambridgeshire.
The Epping Forest district is served by the London Underground Central Line.
The routes operated by National Express East Anglia (formerly known as 'one') and c2c, are both owned by National Express.
Economy
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Essex at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of Pounds Sterling.
| Year |
Regional Gross Value Added |
Agriculture |
Industry |
Services |
| 1995 |
11,422 |
282 |
3,424 |
7,716 |
| 2000 |
14,998 |
205 |
4,335 |
10,458 |
| 2003 |
18,588 |
258 |
5,158 |
13,172 |
Industry and commerce
The Lakeside Shopping Centre at Thurrock was one of England's first out-of-town shopping centres; it remains popular despite congestion on the nearby M25 motorway and direct competition from Bluewater Shopping Centre.
Industry is largely limited to the south of the county, with the majority of the land elsewhere being given over to agriculture. Harlow is a centre for electronics, science and pharmaceutical companies, while Chelmsford is the home of Marconi (now called telent plc and owned by Ericsson of Sweden since 2005), and Brentwood home to the Ford Motor Company's European HQ. Loughton is home to the production facility for British and foreign banknotes. Chelmsford has been an important location for electronics companies since the industry was born, and is also the location for a number of insurance and financial services organisations, and is the home of the soft drinks producer Britvic. Other businesses in the county are dominated by light engineering and the service sector.
Colchester is a garrison town, and the local economy is helped by the army's personnel living there.
County Council
The county council was formed in 1889, and sits at County Hall, in the centre of Chelmsford. Before 1938, it regularly met in London near Moorgate, which was easier to access than any place in the county. It currently has 75 elected councillors. Before 1965 the number of councillors reached over 100. County Hall, which dates largely from the mid-1930s, and is decorated with fine artworks of that period, mostly the gift of the family who owned the textile firm, Courtaulds, was recently (2007) made a listed building. Essex County Council is currently controlled by the Conservative Party. The chairman of the county council 2006-08 is Gerard McEwen of Norton Mandeville near Ongar.
Education
Essex has an essentially comprehensive education system with 16 independent schools and 80 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges. There are eight selective schools with two in Colchester, two in Chelmsford and four in Southend-On-Sea, all being single sex.
County emblems
The County's coat of arms consists of three Saxon seax daggers arranged on a red background; the three-seaxe device is also used as the official logo of Essex County Council.(External Link).
The traditional county flower of Essex is the Cowslip, locally known as the paigle or peggle, and frequently mentioned in the writings of Essex bucolic authors such as Samuel Bensusan and C. H. Warren. As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose the Common Poppy as the county flower. .
Samuel Bensusan and others have suggested that if Essex had a county bird, it would be the Lapwing (known locally as the peewit) whose lonely cry characterises the Essex marshes known as saltings.
Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire and a Yellowbelly from Lincolnshire; the traditional nickname for a person from Essex is an Essex Calf, so named because the county was famous for rearing beef cattle for sale in London meat markets; calves from the county were famed for their large size and known as 'Essex lions' (External Link).
Towns and villages
See the List of places in Essex
Places of interest
Abberton Reservoir
Arena Essex Raceway
Audley End
Colchester Castle
Clacton-On-Sea
Colne Valley Railway
East Anglian Railway Museum
Epping Forest
Harlow New Town
Hedingham Castle
Ingatestone Hall
Mangapps Railway Museum (Burnham-on-Crouch)
Mistley towers
St Peter-on-the-Wall
University of Essex (Wivenhoe Park, Colchester)
Waltham Abbey
Colchester Zoo
North Weald Airfield
Southend Pier
Marsh Farm Country Park
Kelvedon Hatch (Secret Nuclear Bunker)
Twinning
Jiangsu, the People's Republic of China
Picardy, France
Thuringia, Germany
Henrico County, VirginiaFurther Information
Get more info on 'Essex England'.
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