Hockley
| Hockley | |
| Essex | |
|---|---|
 St Peter and St Paul, Hockley | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ826924 |
| Location: | 51°36’5"N, 0°38’11"E |
| Data | |
| Population: | 9,616 (2011) |
| Post town: | Hockley |
| Postcode: | SS5 |
| Dialling code: | 01702 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Rochford |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Rayleigh |
Hockley is a large village in Essex, sitting between Chelmsford and Southend-on-Sea, or, more specifically, between Rayleigh and Rochford. It came to prominence during the coming of the railway in the 1890s,[1] and today Hockley Station serves the village.
At the 2011 census, the village had a population of 9,616.
The name 'Hockley' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Hocheleia. The name means "Hocca's woodland clearing or glade".[2] Today, there is still a large wooded area named Hockley Woods.
Parish church
The Church of St Peter and Paul has a nave which was possibly built before the twelfth century, a thirteenth-century chancel and a fourteenth-century tower, the upper half of which is octagonal and was built at a later date. It is a Grade II listed building.[3] The church is to the north-west of the village centre,
The tower holds three bells, manufactured by Miles Gray in 1626, by James Bartlett in 1684 and by John Hodgson in 1657.
About the village
The Spa Pump Room is found close to the church. The building was built as a spa to a design by James Lockyer in 1842, after Robert Clay found a medicinal spring there in 1838.[4]
Hockley is also the site of the former Bullwood Hall prison which closed in 2013.[5]
Plumberow Mount, a Roman burial mound, was excavated in 1913 by Mr. E. B. Francis. At the time, there was a summer house on the top of the mound, and so trenches were cut on three sides. The excavation found a Roman coin of Domitian and some Saxon pottery which may indicate a secondary burial. The oval mound is 14 feet high, and 76 feet in diameter, with a flattened top, where the summerhouse was located. Since 2005, a metal fence has surrounded the mound to protect it from erosion, and a number of trees which were growing on or near it were cut down at the same time.[6]
In 2009, the sixteenth-century Hockley Pendant was discovered in a field at Hockley.[7]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Hockley) |
References
- ↑ "Hockley Parish Council website: History". Hockley-essex.gov.uk. http://www.hockley-essex.gov.uk/.
- ↑ Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 1960. p. 243 ISBN 0198691033
- ↑ National Heritage List 1112667: Church of St Peter and St Paul, Hockley (Grade II* listing)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1112670: Hockley Spa Rooms (Grade II listing)
- ↑ Danny Shaw (10 January 2013). "BBC News - Seven prison closures in England announced". Bbc.co.uk. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20969898.
- ↑ Megalithic Portal: Plumberow Mount
- ↑ "Boy, four, unearths 16th Century gold pendant in Essex". 2010-11-17. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-11776113.