Essex ( ) is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom
, although it is counted as one of the Home Counties. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford
.
History
In pre-
Roman Britain the territories
of
Suffolk and Essex were home to the
Trinovantes tribe, which had grown
wealthy through intensive trade with the
Roman Empire, contemporary to the decline of
Atlantic sea trade as roads and better in-land trade-routes were
established in Romanized
Gaul. Catuvellaunian
and Trinovantian territory was the first to be annexed by the Roman
Emperor
Claudius in AD 43 when he began his
invasion of Britain (Cunliffe, 2001).
Colchester
was the capital of the province of Britannia, but
was attacked and destroyed during Boudica's
rebellion in AD 61. Sometime after the destruction, London
became the
capital of the province of Britannia.
The name
Essex originates in the
Anglo-Saxon period of the
Early Middle Ages and has its root in the
Old English Ēastseaxe (i.e. the
"East Saxons"), the eastern kingdom of the
Saxons.
The East Saxon lands bordered those of the
Angle peoples of East Anglia
(the latter comprising Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire).
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. 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 Camulodunum
, and was sufficiently well-developed to have its
own mint.
Subsequently the Kingdom of Essex was subsumed into the
Kingdom of England and Essex eventually
became the
historic
county.
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. Vision of Britain - Essex admin county (
historic map) A few parishes were
transferred to other counties at this time; parts of
Haverhill, Kedington, and Ballingdon-with-Brundon
went to
Suffolk, and Great & Little
Chishill and Heydon to
Cambridgeshire.
Southend-on-Sea
also formed a county borough from 1914 to
1974.
The
boundary with Greater
London
was established in 1965 when East
Ham and West
Ham county boroughs and the Barking
, Chingford
, Dagenham, Hornchurch
, Ilford
, Leyton
, Romford
, Walthamstow
and Wanstead and Woodford
districts were transferred to form the London boroughs of Barking
, Havering
, Newham
, Redbridge
and Waltham Forest
. 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
were separated from the shire county of Essex becoming unitary districts.
The
highest point of the county of Essex is Chrishall Common near the
village of Langley
, close to the Hertfordshire
border, which reaches .
Governance
The county of Essex is divided into a number of local government
districts.
They are Harlow
, Epping Forest, Brentwood
, Basildon
, Castle Point, Rochford
, Maldon, Chelmsford
, Uttlesford
, Braintree
, Colchester
, Tendring, Thurrock, and Southend-on-Sea. The last two boroughs are
unitary authorities which form part of the
county for various functions such as
Lord Lieutenant but do not come under county
council control.
Essex Police also
covers the two unitary authorities.
The Ceremonial County of Essex, an area including the unitary
authorities ennumerated above, is bounded:
County Council
The
county council was formed in 1889, and it meets at the County Hall,
in Chelmsford. Before 1938, it regularly met in London near
Moorgate, which had been more convenient than any place in the
county. It currently has 75 elected councillors. Before
1965, the number of councillors reached over 100. The
County Hall, which dates largely from the
mid-1930s, and is decorated with fine artworks of that period,
mostly the gift of the family who owned the textile firm,
Courtaulds, was made a
listed building in 2007. The Essex County
Council is currently controlled by the
Conservative Party.
The chairman of the
county council 2006-08 was Gerard McEwen of Norton Mandeville near
Ongar
, and since
May 2008, Elizabeth ("Bonnie") Hart, of Hockley.
In November 2008, the council advertised in the European Journal
for a private sector "delivery partner" to provide a wide range
(and potentially all) of its services. The value of such a contract
could amount to £5.4 billion. The arguments advanced in favour of
such a step include better service quality and greater efficiency.
However, critics including the council's opposition leader have
complained of zero consultation before launching this procurement.
The council nevertheless hopes to choose a partner before the
elections scheduled for June 2009.
The County Council has until recently had a partnership with the
British Telecom company which has generated a debate locally about
the effectiveness of such arrangements. In January 2009, the
council's cabinet decided to terminate this contract early. The
trade union Unison has questioned the council's competence in
managing major private sector contracts. Press reports indicate
that BT are considering taking legal action against the council.
Unison estimate that the cost to the taxpayer of early termination
could be as much as £50m.
The political composition of the county council is as
follows.
Population and settlement
The plaza of the new town of
Basildon.
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.
Because
of its proximity to London and the
economic magnetism which that city exerts, many of Essex's
settlements, particularly those on or within driving distance of
railway stations, 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.
Parts of
the south west of the county such as Buckhurst Hill
and Chigwell
are contiguous with Greater London and are included in the Greater
London Urban Area
. A small part of the south west of the county
(Sewardstone
), is the only settlement outside Greater
London to be covered by a London postal district postcode
(E4
).
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.
See also List of places in
Essex
Transport in Essex
The main
airport in Essex is the London Stansted Airport
, serving destinations in Europe and North
America. Southend Airport
, once one of Britain's busiest airports, is
undergoing rebuilding, but it 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 or flying lessons.
Examples
of these airfields include the Clacton
Airfield, the Earls Colne Airfield
, and the Stapleford Aerodrome
.
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. Plans have been put
forward to build the UK's largest container terminal at Shell Haven
in Thurrock and although opposed by the local authority and
environmental and wildlife organisations now seem increasingly
likely to be developed.
Despite
the existence of the Dartford Road Crossing
to Dartford
, Kent
, across the
Thames River, a ferry for pedestrians
to Gravesend,
Kent
, still operates from Tilbury
during limited daily hours, and there are ferries
for pedestrians that are operating across some of Essex County's
rivers and estuaries during the spring and 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.
The main
railroad routes in Essex include two lines from the City of
London
to Southend-on-Sea, operated by c2c from the
Fenchurch
Street railway station
(including a route via Tilbury) and the National Express East Anglia
from the Liverpool
Street station
, the Great
Eastern Main Line from Liverpool Street connecting Harwich and
onwards into Suffolk County and Norfolk County, and the West Anglia Main Line from Liverpool
Street linking to Stansted and onwards into Cambridgeshire. The
Epping Forest district is served by
the
London Underground Central Line. The routes operated by
National Express East Anglia
(formerly known as "One") and
c2c, are both
owned by
National Express.
There are
also a number of branch lines including; the Sunshine Coast Line linking Colchester to the seaside resorts ofClacton-on-Sea
and Walton-on-the-Naze
. And the Crouch
Valley Line linking Wickford
to a number of riverside communities via South
Woodham Ferrers
and Burnham-on-Crouch
to Southminster
.
South Essex Rapid Transit
South Essex Rapid Transit (SERT) is a proposed public transport
scheme which would provide a fast, reliable public transport
service in, and between, Thurrock, Basildon and Southend. SERT
buses would have priority at traffic lights and would also have
dedicated lanes where possible. A planned opening in 2012 is
dependent on approval of £53 million from central government as
well as additional funding from other sources.
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 Pounds
Sterling.
| Year |
Regional Gross Value Added |
Agriculture |
Industry |
Services |
| 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, which 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 a 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
Education
in Essex is substantially provided by three authorities being
Essex County Council and the
two unitary authorities, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock. In all there are some 90 state secondary
schools provided by these authorities, the majority of which are
comprehensive, although one in Uttlesford, two in Chelmsford, two in Colchester and four in Southend-on-Sea are clearly selective. There are also two
Public Schools providing
secondary education in Essex.
County emblems
The County's
coat of arms comprises
three Saxon
seax knives (although looking
rather more like
scimitars) arranged on a
red background; the three-seaxe device is also used as the official
logo of Essex County Council having been granted as such in
1932.The emblem was attributed to
Anglo-Saxon Essex in Early Modern
historiography. The earliest reference the arms of the East Saxon
kings was by
Richard Verstegan,
the author of
A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence
(Antwerp, 1605), claiming that "
Erkenwyne
king of the East-Saxons did beare for his armes, three [seaxes]
argent, in a field gules". There is no earlier evidence
substantiating Verstegan's claim, which is an anachronism for the
Anglo-Saxon period seeing that heraldry only evloved in the 12th
century, well after the Norman conquest.
John
Speed in his
Historie of Great Britaine (1611) follows
Verstegan in his descriptions of the arms of Erkenwyne, but he
qualifies the statement by adding "as some or our heralds have
emblazed".
The traditional
county flower of Essex
is the
cowslip (
Primula
veris), 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. In 2002, the
Common Poppy (
Papaver rhoeas) was
named the county
wildflower after a poll
of residents (which excluded the cowslip) by the plant conservation
charity
Plantlife.
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'.
Culture
In the 1980s and 1990s the term
Essex
Girl became a popular pejorative punch-line in British popular
culture. The term being similar to the American,
Jersey Girl.
Sport
Essex is home to two
Football League
One clubs, and , and
Essex
County Cricket Club.
Cultural references
"
Essex Dogs" was the title of a 1997
Blur song.
Essex Boys was the title of a 2000 film
starring
Sean Bean about the demise of a
group of Essex gangsters.
Essex Wives was an 2002 LWT
reality TV series starring
Jodie
Marsh.
The satirical puppet show
Spitting
Image once produced a song titled "Essex is Crap",
claiming it was the only UK county with no redeeming features, and
describing it as "a boil on the bum of the nation" and "where page
3 girls buy their mum a bungalow".
Architecture
Over 14,000 buildings have
listed
status in the county, and around 1000 of those are recognised as of
Grade I or II* importance.
The buildings range from the 7th century
Saxon church of St Peter-on-the-Wall
, to the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club
which was the United Kingdom's entry in the
"International Exhibition of Modern Architecture" held at the
Museum of
Modern Art
in New York City in 1932.
Image:St_Peter-on-the-Wall_ext.jpg|The
church of St Peter-on-the-Wall, Bradwell-on-Sea
.Image:Royal Corinthian Yacht Club
Burnham-on-Crouch.jpg|The Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Burnham-on-Crouch.Image:Thaxted guildhall.JPG|Thaxted
Guildhall dating from around
1450.Image:AudleyEndHouse.JPG|The 17th century
Audley End
House
in Saffron
Walden
.Image:Snowykeepsm.jpg|The Grade I listed
Hedingham
Castle
.
Rivers
River
Blackwater
/River Brain
/
River Can
/River Chelmer
/ River Colne
/ River Crouch /
River Lee / River Roding
/ River
Stort
/River Stour
/River
Thames
Places of interest
Notable persons
Sister counties and regions
See also
Notes and references
External links
;
.Jun2005.jpg/180px-Finchingfield(ChristineMatthews)Jun2005.jpg)
(The site of the Battle of Ashingdon in 1016)
.png/13px-Museum_icon_(red).png){kind=icon}
(Largest village green in
England)
Historic market town site of the Battle of
Maldon
(Wivenhoe Park, Colchester)
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