Chadwell St Mary
Chadwell St Mary is an area of the unitary authority of Thurrock in Essex, England. It lies east of the centre of Grays, its post town, and north of Tilbury. At the 2021 census the Chadwell St Mary built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics had a population of 10,685.
Chadwell St Mary, historically sometimes just called Chadwell, was an ancient parish. The parish included both Chadwell St Mary itself and the area to the south where the port town of Tilbury developed from the 19th century. In 1912, the parish became the Tilbury Urban District. That urban district and the civil parish of Chadwell St Mary were abolished in 1936 on the creation of the larger Thurrock Urban District, which in turn became the modern borough of Thurrock in 1974. Chadwell St Mary remains the name of one of Thurrock's Church of England parishes.
Geology and topography
The southern part of the parish was historically a natural salt marsh adjacent to the River Thames, which is tidal and saline at this point. Decaying vegetation together with mud and silt from the river were deposited from the end of the most recent ice age until the marshes were reclaimed sometime before the 14th century. These sedimentary deposits reach a depth of or more and are interleaved with a number of peaty layers.About north of the river, the land rises steeply to a ridge about above sea level, on which most of the Chadwell's housing is built. This provides excellent views over the marshes and out to the Downs of Kent. This is one of the finest gravel beds in the country and has been extensively worked. The higher ground extends north for roughly another mile. The north west of Chadwell lies at the end of the chalk outcrop.
To the north of the built up area, is Old House Wood, a tree covered area, named on Ordnance Survey maps. It is an area of local nature conservancy importance. The eastern and northern edges of the wood are part of the boundary between the traditional parishes of Chadwell and Orsett. This boundary is marked with a bank and ditch.
Despite its name, Terrel's Heath, on the western side of Chadwell, is an area of woodland. It is designated as a site of importance for nature conservation.
Biggin is a late medieval hamlet on the edge of the marshes that was part of the traditional parish and remains so ecclesiastically.
History
Not much is known of occupation in Chadwell until the Saxon period of British history. Artefacts found show that the area was inhabited in the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Before the building of new housing in the 20th century, it was a dispersed settlement.It is known that there was a sizeable non-military Roman settlement to the south of the road between Chadwell and West Tilbury. A Roman oven was found in this location in 1922 containing three complete pots, fragments of others and a small clay lamp, all of which were given to Colchester Museum. In the early Roman period, sea-levels dropped, making the marshes inhabitable and there may have been a Roman settlement on the site of what is now Tilbury Docks.
An archaeological investigation during the construction of new facilities for Chadwell Primary school discovered a complete site of a Saxon sunken floored hut from the 6th century.
Toponymy
The place-name 'Chadwell' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Celdewella. It is generally understood to mean 'cold spring'. The 'St Mary', referring to the parish church, was later added to distinguish this Chadwell from Chadwell Heath, near Romford.An alternative theory for the origin of the name Chadwell is that it refers to a well where either Chad or his brother Cedd, both Christian missionaries in the 7th century, baptised their converts.
The purported site of "St Chad's Well" was recorded on the 1864 Ordnance Survey map near the southern end of Chadwell Hill, close to where the modern roundabout with Marshfoot Road now stands. Writing in 1871, William Palin, rector of nearby Stifford, said that the well was still visible then. Arthur Astbury, writing in 1980, suggested that the well may have been a Roman feature linked to an adjoining road. Historic England's modern records list the well as a medieval feature, and note that no trace of it was found on the ground in a survey in 1953.
Chadwell Church
The original Chadwell parish church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and this is the source of the suffix "St Mary" in the modern name. It is a grade I listed building located at the crossroads overlooking the marshes. There was a church in Chadwell before the Norman conquest. The present church has a number of Norman features and probably dates to the 12th century. The tower was built in the early 16th century. The church contains an early memorial brass to Cicilye Owen, the wife of Thomas Owen of London, who was a merchant tailor. The church has an extension on the south that was built at the beginning of the 20th century. There is now a second Anglican church in the parish – Emmanuel.Manors
The Domesday Book records, that at the time of the survey, the Bishop of London and Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux held the two manors in this parish. Later the land was divided into four manors, Chadwell, Ingleby, Longhouse and Biggin. The location of Chadwell Hall, the manor house of the manor of Chadwell, is marked by flower beds on the western side of Chadwell Hill. The manor of Ingleby was bought by Peter Symonds in the 1580s and was bequeathed by him to found Christ's Hospital in Winchester.Peter Symonds Charity
In addition to founding the school in Winchester, Peter Symonds left annual payments for a number of charitable purposes, including the poor of All Saint, Lombard Street and Chadwell in Essex. Payments to Chadwell from this charity seem to have stopped around 1740, but in 1794, the rev William Herringham, rector of Chadwell, succeeded in obtaining £52 in arrears. Herringham and other local landowners increased the available funds which were then used to give clothing and coal to the poor.Buildings
In addition to the church, the listed buildings in Chadwell include Biggin Farmhouse, Chadwell House, Chadwell Place and Sleeper's Farm. In Sandy Lane there is one of the few examples of an Art Deco "Sunspan" house. This was designed by Wells Coates and exhibited at the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition in 1934.Chadwell in the World War II
During World War II, Chadwell was at risk from enemy action both because of its proximity to Tilbury Docks and because German bombers used the Thames to navigate to London. A number of buildings were destroyed or damaged in the Battle of Britain or the Blitz. As part of the air raid protection scheme for London, there was an anti-aircraft battery on former heathland just south of the Greyhound pub that was manned by Canadian soldiers. There were also anti invasion fortifications erected in 1940–41. Immediately after the end of the war, prefabs were erected on the ground north of the church.Administrative history
Chadwell St Mary was within the Kingdom of Essex, which was one of the kingdoms in the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy and which became the shire and subsequently county of Essex. From 870 until 917, Essex was within the Danelaw.Chadwell is a traditional Church of England parish. It was part of the Orsett deanery and the archdeaconry of Essex. It was within the Diocese of London until 1845 when the archdeaconry became part of the Diocese of Rochester, transferring again to the Diocese of St Albans in 1878. In 1914 it became part of the newly established Diocese of Chelmsford.
Chadwell St Mary was an ancient parish in the Barstable Hundred of Essex. From 1835, the parish was included in the Orsett Poor Law Union, a group of eighteen parishes which collectively administered their responsibilities under the poor laws. Poor law unions subsequently formed the basis for the rural sanitary districts created in 1872, which in turn became rural districts in 1894, with Chadwell St Mary becoming part of the Orsett Rural District.
As part of the 1894 reforms, Chadwell St Mary was also given an elected parish council. It was commented upon at the time that all the parish councillors elected at the first election lived in the nascent town of Tilbury which was growing up around Tilbury Docks at the southern end of the parish, rather than in the older village of Chadwell St Mary or the rural parts of the parish. Tilbury Docks became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1903, but remained part of the civil parish of Chadwell St Mary.
In 1912, the civil parish of Chadwell St Mary was removed from Orsett Rural District and converted into the Tilbury Urban District, with the town of Tilbury having become the largest settlement in the parish. Tilbury Urban District Council therefore replaced the Chadwell St Mary Parish Council. In 1936, the Tilbury Urban District and the single civil parish of Chadwell St Mary that it contained were both abolished on the creation of the new Thurrock Urban District. At the 1931 census, the Chadwell St Mary civil parish and Tilbury Urban District had a population of 16,825. Although abolished as a civil parish in 1936, Chadwell St Mary remains an ecclesiastical parish in the Church of England.
Thurrock Urban District was reformed to become a non-metropolitan district with borough status called Thurrock in 1974. Thurrock Borough Council became a unitary authority in 1998, taking over county-level services in the borough which until then had been provided by Essex County Council. Thurrock remains part of the ceremonial county of Essex for the purposes of lieutenancy.