North Ockendon
| North Ockendon | |
| Essex | |
|---|---|
 North Ockendon village | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ595855 |
| Location: | 51°33’36"N, -0°18’36"E |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Upminster |
| Postcode: | RM14 |
| Dialling code: | 01708 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Havering |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Hornchurch and Upminster |
North Ockendon is a village and ancient parish in Essex at the edge of the metropolitan conurbation. It is located just over 18 miles east-north-east of Charing Cross and consists of a dispersed settlement within the Metropolitan Green Belt. Its own civil parish was abolished in 1936.[1] The area to the south is South Ockendon.
History
The ancient parish of North Ockendon has a shape elongated east-west, thus contrasting with a series of perpendicular parishes to its north and west. With the adjoining parishes this formed a large estate that is at least middle-Saxon or, perhaps, even Roman or Bronze age.
North Ockendon is the location of Stubbers, a former stately home which was demolished in 1955 and the grounds of which is now used as an activity centre.[2]
Elizabeth Kucinich, wife of the U.S. congressman and presidential candidate, was born in North Ockendon in 1977.
Geography
To the east is a small area of fenland, which extends into Bulphan and the rest is clays and Thames alluvials. The land is very low lying. The field boundaries are wholly rectilinear. To the far north, beyond the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, it borders the villages of Great Warley, Little Warley and Childerditch, the settlements of West Horndon and Bulphan to the east and South Ockendon to the south.
The parish church of St Mary Magdelene has a probably re-used Norman nave door on the south side of the nave. Its tower was used in the first accurate measurement of the speed of sound, by the Reverend William Derham, Rector of Upminster. Gunshots were fired from the tower and the flash thereof was observed by telescope from the tower of the church of St Laurence, Upminster; then the time was recorded until the sound arrived, from which, with an accurate distance measurement, the speed could be calculated.
Transport
The nearest railway stations are at Ockendon and Upminster. Buses directly link the area with Brentwood, Grays, Upminster and Romford, as well as Lakeside Shopping Centre.
References
- ↑ Youngs, Frederic (1979). Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England. I: Southern England. London: Royal Historical Society. ISBN 0-901050-67-9.
- ↑ History of Stubbers
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about North Ockendon) |