Hutton, Essex

Hutton
Essex
All Saints' church
Location
Grid reference:	TQ631950
Location:	51°37’48"N, -0°21’29"E
Data
Post town:	Brentwood
Postcode:	CM13
Dialling code:	01277
Local Government
Council:	Brentwood
Parliamentary constituency:	Brentwood and Ongar

Hutton is a village which has been swallowed in development to become an area of Brentwood in Essex. Brentwood town centre lies three miles to the west. The area is split between modest housing estates and the largely affluent Hutton Mount.

History

The first police officer of the Essex Constabulary to be killed whilst on active duty was Robert Bambrough, who was drowned in a pond in Hutton by the criminal whom he was escorting from Billericay Magistrates' Court on 21 November 1850.

In 1931 the parish had a population of 2,142.

Hutton Poplars

Opened in 1905, a training school or residential home situated near the village of Hutton for destitute children was named 'Hutton Poplars' from the district of Poplar in the East End of London. Capable of housing anything from 400-700 children at any one time. Like much of London during the Victorian era the Borough of Poplar faced high poverty levels. As the 19th century drew to a close the workhouses and orphanages in the borough were trying to cope with significant overcrowding. The chairman of the Board of Guardians for the region, George Lansbury, saw an opportunity to expand their operations into the Essex countryside, and convinced the Board to acquire a hundred acres of land situated between Hutton and Shenfield on the Rayleigh Road. In 1906 the Board completed work on a self-contained community with its own stores, school, indoor swimming pool and an array of ancillary buildings alongside the accommodation for the staff and a significant number of orphans living in small groups.

The cost of the project caused uproar in the Houses of Parliament when it first opened. Some MPs complained that with their parquet flooring and central heating the buildings were more of the comfort levels of a public school like Eton than an orphans' training school.

The placement of such an establishment was controversial with the local residents. The hostility dragged out some time, with the children referred to as "outsiders" and thought best avoided by the local residents. Towards the end of the 20th century this attitude is regarded as having mellowed.

Hutton Poplar remained open until 1982. The buildings then witnessed various fates. A new housing development on the old site was modelled largely on the original layout, with houses forming an oval around central open spaces. The Essex Dining Hall remains as a traditional village hall.

Hutton Country Park

Hutton Country Park is a local nature reserve based on former farmland, acquired from Tarmac in 1997 to protect it from development. The park is in two sectors divided by the railway, the northern boundary is formed by the River Wid, the western boundary by Wash Road, the southern boundary by housing development off the Rayleigh Road and the eastern boundary remains contiguous with farmland.

Church

Hutton All Saints' Church is a small Grade II* listed ancient structure, with a wooden steeple, containing five bells. It has a more modern subsidiary church, St. Peter's, built in the 1950s as a dual-purpose church and hall – a daughter church of All Saints', to serve the newly developing housing estates in the centre of Hutton.