St John's Mission Church (or St
John's Hall), Bowers Gifford, once sat on the southern side
of London Road, a little under three hundred metres east of Church
Road. The church (not chapel) is shown on post-war OS maps with St
Margaret's C of E Primary School behind it in a more modest-sized
building than the present one. It has to be assumed that the church
was there to serve the school in its early days but was later
removed. The land is now a car park.
The former Elim Pentecostal Church is
close to the border between Bowers Gifford and North Benfleet, on
the west side of Pound Lane, five doors north of the Kelly Road
junction. The congregation of the nearby Pitsea Mission Church
(Congregational) moved to their new Rectory Park Drive Chapel in
1927, leaving their old building empty at Gun Hill (see links). The
Elim Pentecostal congregation bought it in the 1940s. Their old
building is now (2019) The Benbow Club.
Pound Lane Mission Church, Bowers Gifford,
stands at the north-west corner of the Pound Lane and Osborne Road
junction. The mission was founded in 1905, although whether or not
in this building is unknown. This was a period of plotland
development at such local places as Laindon, Vange, and here, and
several missions were established to keep the newcomers spiritually
satisfied. The mission was certainly located here from the 1930s, as
shown on OS maps.
All Saints Church, North Benfleet, sits on
the southern tail of North Benfleet Hall Road, off Pound Lane and
immediately east of Basildon. The building's oldest parts date to
about 1200. It was largely rebuilt in random stone in the 1600s, and
underwent restoration in the nineteenth century. The west tower was
added in 1903 and this encloses heavy timber-framing with braces and
trellis struts from the earlier belfry. The nave's north wall has a
Norman window.
In the porch is a memorial stone for John Cole,
one of Wellington's Foot Guards at Waterloo in 1815. The church
became surplus to requirements with a parish merger of 1989. The
last services were held in October 1994, and the church was declared
redundant. It remained unused until 2013 when it became home to
All Saints Orthodox Church. This began in 2009 as a missionary
endeavour of St Helen's Orthodox Church, Colchester. All Saints
gained its own parish in 2015.
