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
(147 metres).
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.[1] Thurrock and Southend-on-Sea are unitary authorities which form part of the county for various functions such as Lord Lieutenant but do not come under county council control.[2] Essex Police also covers the two unitary
authorities.[3]
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.[4] 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.[5] Southend-on-Sea also formed a county borough from
1914 to 1974.[6] 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[5] was transferred to form the London
boroughs of Barking, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, and Waltham Forest; an area similar to that known as Metropolitan
Essex.[7]
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, [1] 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 [2] and Stapleford Aerodrome. [3]
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. [4] The main rail
routes include two lines from London to Southend-on-Sea, operated by c2c and several routes operated
by 'one' including a third route to Southend, the Great Eastern Main Line and the West Anglia Main
Line. The Epping Forest district is served by the London Underground Central Line. The routes operated by 'one'
and c2c, both of which are owned by National Express, connect to Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street
stations in the east of the City of London.
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 British Pounds Sterling.
| Year |
Regional Gross Value Added[8] |
Agriculture[9] |
Industry[10] |
Services[11] |
| 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.
Education
Essex has an essentially comprehensive education system. However there are four selective schools with two in Colchester and
two in Chelmsford, all being single sex. They produce exceedingly good A level results, far outstripping any nearby independent
schools, and often in the top ten for English state schools and are the top four in Essex (and the East of England), being in a
league of their own. Nearby Southend on Sea also has selective schools. Due to Uttlesford's good results, it can be safely
concluded that this district also has the highest house prices in Essex, although house prices will vary considerably within
individual districts. Chelmsford is the largest district by school population, and Maldon the smallest (with only two secondary
schools). At GCSE, Epping Forest is helped by the
Davenant Foundation School in Loughton, and
Brentwood is helped by the single sex Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School; these schools
produce results similar to selective schools. At A level, the best performing comprehensive is St
Martin's School in Brentwood, followed by the St John Payne Catholic Comprehensive School in Chelmsford. Essex's worst
performing school is the Barstable School in Basildon with 13% of pupils achieving 5
grades at A-C including Maths and English, followed by the Alderman Blaxill School in Colchester with 14%.
Essex has a comprehensive and selective education system. There are eight selective schools with two in Colchester, two in
Chelmsford, two in Southend on Sea and two in Westcliff on Sea, all being single sex. There are selective streams in several
other schools in the county. Examination results are much higher than the UK average, particularly in the selective schools.
Average score at GCSE by council district 2006 results (%)
- Uttlesford 58.8
- Chelmsford 57.5
- Brentwood 55.0
- Rochford 53.4
- (Southend on Sea Unitary Authority 49.9)
- Colchester 48.4
- Epping Forest 44.4
- Castle Point 42.6
- Braintree 40.2
- (Thurrock Unitary Authority 38.5)
- Basildon 36.9
- Tendring 36.3
- Maldon 32.6
- Harlow 32.4
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.[5].
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. [citation needed].
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' [6].
Towns and villages
See the List of places in Essex
Places of interest
Twinning
References
- ^ Essex County Council - District or Borough Councils
- ^ OPSI - The Essex (Boroughs of Colchester, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock and District of
Tendring) (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996
- ^ OPSI - The Essex (Police Area and Authority) Order 1997
- ^ Vision of Britain - Essex ancient county boundaries map
- ^ a b Vision
of Britain - Essex admin county (historic map)
- ^ Vision of Britain - Southend-on-Sea MB/CB
- ^ British History Online - Metropolitan Essex since 1850, (1966).
- ^ Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
- ^ includes hunting and forestry
- ^ includes energy and construction
- ^ includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured
See also
External links
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