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Churches of the British Isles

Gallery: Churches of Essex

by Peter Kessler, 22 May 2020

Basildon Part 9: Churches of Vange to Lee Chapel South

Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, Vange, Basildon, Essex

The Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, Vange, was at the south-east corner of Paynters Hill and Woodleigh Avenue, both now lost. Just inside the gated entrance of Ryedene Place is as close as it is possible to get to the old site. Paynters Hill is now London Road. The chapel opened in the 1950s to provide mass for the Catholics of Vange. It was apparently swept away about 2007, probably excess to requirements with St Basil the Great handling services.

Swan Mead Christian Fellowship (Assembly of God), Basildon (South), Basildon, Essex

Swan Mead Christian Fellowship (Assembly of God Church), Basildon (South), stands on the western side of Church Road, about seventy metres south of Osborne Road and a little further from the railway line. A short line of private residences existed on this site in the post-war period. Later demolished, perhaps in the 1960s, this modern hall-like building was put up in their place. The Assembly of God church was a division from the Church of God in Christ in 1914.

Kingswood Baptist Church, Basildon (South), Basildon, Essex

Kingswood Baptist Church is on the northern side of Codenham Straight, roughly midway between the Codenham Green and Clay Hill Road junctions. Initially to be named Kingswood Baptist E B Walling Memorial Church, it was built in 1958 as Basildon new town was in the early stages of development. The initial mission was started by Baptist churches in Southend on Sea, when the site was the corner of a field which included cows standing up to their knees in mud.

Salvation Army, Basildon, Essex

The Salvation Army hall in Basildon lies on the western side of Fauners, around fifty metres north of the junction with Cherrydown West, a short way south of the railway line and almost due south of St Martin's Church. During the immediate post-war period, the OS 1:10,560 map of 1949-1969 shows a series of small detached dwellings on this alignment, probably wooden-framed bungalows. Development in the 1960s swept them away and allowed the hall to be built.

Ingaway Evangelical Church, Lee Chapel South, Basildon, Essex

Ingaway Evangelical Church, Lee Chapel South, is on the western side of Ingaway, about sixty metres south of the junction with Great Gregorie. Its origins lay in the 1924 founding of Ebenezer Gospel Hall (see links). In the early 1960s  the new town of Basildon began to encroach upon the hall and a compulsory purchase meant its closure. In 1962 the present plot (ironically Plot 666!) was purchased and the prefabricated church building was completed by 1963.

Lee Chapel, Basildon, Essex

Lee Chapel, the origin of the district name, was actually two separate chantry chapels. The first was originally in its own small grounds behind Lee Chapel Farm (shown on this late Victorian map), but the area is now a park on the edge of the westernmost end of Sporthams in Lee Chapel South. The second Lee Chapel was somewhere close to Westley Hall, but a precise location has been lost. Both would have been closed by the Reformation and all trace of them has been lost.

Four photos on this page by P L Kessler (from 2011).

 

 

     
Images and text copyright © all contributors mentioned on this page. An original feature for the History Files.