The Milton Conservation Area has a strong but not unique in Southend, late-Victorian and early-Edwardian architectural quality, which can be seen in all of its streets, but what stands out is that they embody within a relatively small area a well preserved cross section of Southend’s typical architecture in its time of early growth.
Notes:
1. Rochford Cricket Club was founded in 1881 following a meeting in the Cherry Tree Inn and was known as the Broom Hills Cricket Club. The first President was Reverend George Wilson Keightley (Harold Rankin’s father-in-law) and vicar of Great Stambridge Church; and Vice President Alfred Mottram Rankin. Early team members included Phillip Benton, farmer of Great Wakering and noted historian who wrote much of the definitive history of South East Essex. The club changed its name to the Rochford Cricket Club at the AGM of February 1886. After the Second World War, when cricket restarted, the club was known as A.M. & H. Rankin Limited Cricket Club, but the type setters at the Southend Standard clearly got fed up with this and soon shortened it to Rankin’s Cricket Club. https://rankins.hitscricket.com/pages/page_3249/history.aspx
2. The water for the pumping station in Milton Road was drawn from a borehole 906 feet deep. When it opened in 1865, it served 1,700 local residents in what was then known as Cliff Town, and daily pumped out 1,600 gallons of water, which equated to around one gallon per person per day. It was originally run by a private company but was taken over by the Southend Waterworks Company in 1871.
3. Hamlet Mill was mainly built with oak and had sails 36 feet long and was capable of grinding 20 loads per week. It had three floors carrying two pairs of capital French stones, flour and clearing-off machines. A brick roundhouse with an oven and bakehouse were attached, along with five stables and a coach house. The Mill was demolished in 1878; an article appeared in the Essex Weekly News advertising the ‘materials from the Hamlet Mill which had been pulled down and included 10,000 bricks, two tonnes of iron and many good sound oak beams.’ The site is now occupied by a small parade of shops.
4. At the time of the map of Milton by Messrs Chapman and Andre dated 1777, Southend-on-Sea didn’t yet exist, save for the small hamlet of South End positioned on the sea front, east of where the Kursaal now is. It was known as the ‘South End’ of Prittlewell.
5. The Blizzard of January 1881 (17–20 January 1881) was one of the most severe blizzards ever to hit the southern parts of the United Kingdom, with snowfalls beginning on the 17th in the southwest, and the low pressure system deepening as it moved through the Channel. A gale developed over southern parts with heavy blizzards, with Essex experiencing six to nine inches of drifting snow. The severity of the frosts (c-11C) was remarkable and they were probably second only to those that occurred during February 1895 in intensity and length.
References:
Southend-on-Sea and District Historical Notes, John William Burrows, 1909.
The Graphic, 17 April 1875.
The Southend Standard, 11 April 1884.
Lawn Tennis in 1881. Routledges Sporting Annual. London: George Routledge and Son’s. 1882.
Symons’s Meteorological Magazine, 1881.
The Southend Standard, March 1881.
The Southend Standard, January 1881.
The Southend Standard, July 1880.
Essex Weekly News, 4 January 1878
The Chelmsford Chronicle, 15 September, 1797.
The Domesday Book 1086 (Mildentuna).
Photos:
‘Penny Farthings’ courtesy of The Museum of Hartlepool.
Southend Water Works in 1923 courtesy of Maurice Smithson.
The earliest known team photo of a Rochford/Rankins Cricket Club Side (c1907) https://rankins.hitscricket.com/The Cricketer’s Hotel (Author’s Collection).
Victorian Cyclists
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012_01_01_archive.html
Hamlet Mill (showing post design) from a painting by N.E. Green, c.1860.
Chapman and André’s Map of Milton, 1777.
Park Crescent courtesy of Louisa Hennessy.
Rest of photos by the Author.
South End Park was an area of around 6 Acres which is now covered by Milton Road London Road St Vincent’s Road and Park Road which is where the entrance was it was bordered on four sides by Park Road Park Terrace Park Crescent and Avenue Road Avenue Road was once called mil Lane and was a country byway hedged with primroses and violets leading from Milton to prittlewell the park was privately owned by Builder and contractor William I Stewart who charged a six P entrance fee and advertised it as the only public park in Essex it was already well established by the 1860s with Cricket and croquet being played there in the summer and football and rugby during the winter months the cricket field and its Pavilion was situated opposite the cricketer hotel and Stables the park was a very popular place with the town’s residents and crowds flocked to use the many sporting facilities including a trotting ring lawn tennis courts a luncheon Marquee an accommodation for dancing skating athletic sports and Gymnastic exercise as well as for those who preferred a quiet stroll along the green Lawns with numerous beds of flowers the park was illuminated at Night by a significant number of oil lamps suspended at intervals which were lit during the evenings to the southeast of the park wealthy young ladies would come in their carriages with their chaperon and park while suitable gentlemen on Horseback would parade cards would be exchanged so references could be sought at the time the price of £1 per carriage and 15 Shilling 75 for a man on Horseback was a prohibitive amount except for the very wealthy the Rochford hund men’s and women’s Club laor Tennis tournament moved to the park from the grounds at Rochford where it was founded in 1881 and played at Southend Park Until 1886 the Rochford 100 Cricket Club played there in 1867 before moving to the cricket field That Was Then in North Road and from there moved to the cural it was this club that became the South End Cricket Club in 1895 and played from South Church Park in 1875 the park is known to have had a 7t wide Cinder track which was used for trotting and Penny faring races a natural spring channeled into an area of about an acre surrounded by an artificial Bank fed a fishing lake in the southwestern Corner which supported carp tench and goldfish anglas paid an extra 1 sh killing a day to fish in the lake and Spectators paid thpp to watch from the prominade the Lake froze over sufficiently in the freezing winter of 1880 to 1881 to permit ice skating the 1870s and 1880s were the boom period for building in Victorian South End and the eastern half of the Milton estate which stretched from The High Street to Avenue Road and from the railway line to London Road was one such area Mr the steward began making improvements and enlarged the lake and planned to create two extra lakes in the shape of parallelograms to form an 800 foot long ice rink for winter and a boating Lake for summer but the plan didn’t go ahead and in their place installed large Banks of shrubs and Evergreens intersected with gravel walks with seats and rustic summer houses many Fates and gallers were held in the park including an annual Grand agricultural Galla with fireworks and cycle races and other spectaculars boating was permitted on the lake and he also widened the cinder track to 15 ft with easy corners on an 86 ft radius which measured just over three laps of the track to the mile for bicycle racing competitions a special contest marked the opening of the bicycle route on the 13th of March 1881 with three silver cups to be awarded as first second and third prizes to the winner applications were open to all of England and information was to be had of Mr H Dennis of the Park Tavern in Cliff town and Mr William Stewart of 28 Park Street towards the end of the 1800s the times of gentility were disappearing and the park had fallen into disrepair and was subject to vandalism after the Southend Corporation refused the offer to purchase the park for £800 in 1881 and with the price for land beginning to rise with the population explosion of South End Mr Stewart sold the land privately in two lots which at the time of sale included Hamlet Mill the post windmill which stood at the bottom of Park Road at the junction of Avenue Road opposite Park Road Methodist Church and some farm buildings for £2,800 to be used for building new housing these farm buildings included the old Vincent’s Farm which housed the water pumping stations in its southwest corner for the town’s first Waterworks which was located across the road in Milton Road and the water was stored in what is now Milton Gardens the football and Cricket fixtures transferred to Marine Park which in 1901 became home to the cural one of the world’s first purpose-built amusement parks the second part of the sale on the 29th of June 1869 was for the land bounded by scratton Road London Road High Street and Avenue Road and included the cricket field opposite the cricketers in the field was sold to Thomas daet who was the first mayor of South End from 1892 to 93 for £300 Hamlet Mill advertised as being in goodw workking order was sold to Mr Thomas Arnold for £1,000 it was from the land that was sold at this sale that the park estate was built the South End standard reported in 1884 that where the only buildings on the land were Milton Hall the old Millhouse in Avenue Road a little low Cottage and some Farm premises between 300 and 400 houses had been built on what was now known as the park estate today the names of the streets give the few Clues to where this once Premier Park used to be