Hockley

Last updated

Hockley
St Peter ^ St Paul Church - geograph.org.uk - 2748970.jpg
Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul
Essex UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Hockley
Location within Essex
Hockley
Interactive map of Hockley
Population9,639 (Parish, 2021) [1]
15,425 (Hockley and Hawkwell built up area, 2021) [2]
OS grid reference TQ826924
Civil parish
  • Hockley
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town HOCKLEY
Postcode district SS5
Dialling code 01702
Police Essex
Fire Essex
Ambulance East of England
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Essex
51°36′05″N0°38′11″E / 51.6014°N 0.6363°E / 51.6014; 0.6363

Hockley is a large village and civil parish in the Rochford District of Essex, England. It is located between Chelmsford and Southend-on-Sea, or, more specifically, between Rayleigh and Rochford. It came to prominence during the coming of the railway in the 1890s. [3] At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 9,639. The urban area has grown to be contiguous with the neighbouring village of Hawkwell; the Office for National Statistics now classes them as a single built up area that it calls "Hockley and Hawkwell", which had a population of 15,425 in 2021.

Contents

Recently the local residents have nicknamed the village ‘blockley’ as a result of extremely poor road closure planning by Essex County Council. It is an extremely common occurrence of having at least one (but normally two or three) sets of temporary traffic lights on the main road between Rayleigh and Hockley. It is a well supported view that Essex County Council does not properly view applications for road closures in the area and as such many applications are accepted, when in fact a high percentage of applications could be rescheduled to cause a much reduced inconvenience to tax paying residents. Hockley is also famed for having a higher than average amount of potholes that always occur in similar locations, suggesting that previous attempt to fix are either not properly reviewed on completion, or inadequate materials are used to fix the many holes, due to poorly managed maintenance contracts.

Hockley railway station serves the village.

History

The place-name 'Hockley' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Hocheleia. The name means "Hocca's woodland clearing or glade". [4] Today, there is still a large wooded area named Hockley Woods. Notable buildings in the village include the church of St Peter and Paul, which has a nave which was possibly built before the twelfth century, a thirteenth-century chancel and a fourteenth-century tower, the upper half of which is octagonal and was built at a later date. The tower holds three bells, manufactured by Miles Gray in 1626, by James Bartlett in 1684 and by John Hodgson in 1657, and the building is Grade II* listed. [5] The church is situated to the north-west of the village centre, where Grade II listed Spa Pump Room is situated. The building was built as a spa to a design by James Lockyer in 1842, after Robert Clay found a medicinal spring there in 1838. [6] Hockley is also the site of the former Bullwood Hall prison which closed in 2013. [7]

Plumberow Mount, a Roman burial mound, [8] was excavated in 1913 by Mr. E. B. Francis. At the time, there was a summer house on the top of the mound, and so trenches were cut on three sides. The excavation found a Roman coin of Domitian and some Saxon pottery which may indicate a secondary burial. The oval mound is 14 feet (4.3 m) high, and 76 feet (23 m) in diameter, with a flattened top, where the summerhouse was located. [9] Since 2005, a metal fence has surrounded the mound to protect it from erosion, and a number of trees which were growing on or near it were cut down at the same time. [10]

In 2009, the sixteenth-century Hockley Pendant was discovered in a field at Hockley. [11]

Governance

Hockley has a parish council consisting of two wards (West Ward and East Ward) [12] and is part of Rochford District Council [13]

The parish historically included Hullbridge, which was made a separate civil parish in 1964. [14]

References

  1. ↑ "2021 Census Parish Profiles". NOMIS. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 31 March 2025. (To get individual parish data, use the query function on table PP002.)
  2. ↑ "Towns and cities, characteristics of built-up areas, England and Wales: Census 2021". Census 2021. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 17 October 2025.
  3. ↑ "Hockley Parish Council website: History". Hockley-essex.gov.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  4. ↑ Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, p.243.
  5. ↑ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1112667)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 22 March 2011. Church of St Peter and St Paul, Hockley
  6. ↑ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1112670)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 22 March 2011. Hockley Spa Rooms
  7. ↑ Danny Shaw (10 January 2013). "BBC News - Seven prison closures in England announced". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  8. ↑ "Plumberow Mount". Geograph. 27 July 2006. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  9. ↑ Historic England. "Plumberow Mount (419159)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  10. ↑ "Plumberow Mount". The Megalithic Portal. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  11. ↑ "Boy, four, unearths 16th Century gold pendant in Essex". BBC News Online . 17 November 2010. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  12. ↑ "Hockley Parish Council | Councillors". Hockley Parish Council. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  13. ↑ "Rochford District Council". www.rochford.gov.uk. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  14. ↑ Langston, Brett. "Rochford Registration District". UK BMD. Retrieved 30 November 2025.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.