Great Baddow is an urban village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in the Chelmsford borough

Chelmsford (borough)

Chelmsford is a local government district and borough in Essex, England. It is named after its main settlement, Chelmsford, which is also the county town of Essex.-History:...

 of Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, England. It is close to the county town

County town

A county town is a county's administrative centre in the United Kingdom or Ireland. County towns are usually the location of administrative or judicial functions, or established over time as the de facto main town of a county. The concept of a county town eventually became detached from its...

, Chelmsford and, with a population of over 13,000, is one of the largest villages in the country.

Great Baddow (Baddow meaning 'bad water') was named after the River Baddow (now known as the River Chelmer

River Chelmer

The River Chelmer is a river that flows entirely through the county of Essex, England.The source of the river is near Debden Green, a village near Thaxted. The source of the River Can is also nearby. The River Chelmer flows past Thaxted, south through the district of Uttlesford around the...

) which runs a mile or so east of the village. The centre of Great Baddow is now a Conservation Area

Conservation Area (United Kingdom)

In the United Kingdom, the term Conservation Area nearly always applies to an area considered worthy of preservation or enhancement because of its special architectural or historic interest, "the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance," as required by the Planning ...

 and contains over 30 listed buildings.

Development

During the early part of the 20th Century Great Baddow grew through ribbon development

Ribbon development

Ribbon development means building houses along the routes of communications radiating from a human settlement. Such development generated great concern in the United Kingdom during the 1920s and the 1930s, as well as in numerous other countries....

 towards Chelmsford

Chelmsford

Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...

 and Galleywood

Galleywood

Galleywood is a village surrounded by countryside in Essex, about 30 miles from London, and close to the town of Chelmsford. It is off the A12 which connects to the M25 in London...

. In 1936 Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company

Marconi Company

The Marconi Company Ltd. was founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 as The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company...

 opened the Marconi Research Laboratory in Great Baddow (now BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre

Marconi Research Centre

Marconi Research Centre is the former name of the current BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre facility at Great Baddow in Essex, United Kingdom...

), bringing together their various radio, television and telephony research teams in a single location. As the electronics industry developed the campus expanded during the 1940s and 1950s to include research into radar, general physics, high voltage, vacuum physics and semiconductors. Great Baddow expanded considerably in the 1950s with the construction of Rothmans Estate, which provided housing for workers at Marconi's and English Electric Valve Company

English Electric Valve Company

The English Electric Valve Company or EEV, is a specialist component and sub-system designer, developer and manufacturer. As e2v it has 6 European and US manufacturing facilities and its HQ in Essex, England....

 in Chelmsford. The village has continued to expand over subsequent years.

The Vinyards, located in the centre of the old village, was once a fine Georgian house set in attractive wooded grounds which later became a hotel. It was demolished in the 1960s prior to the advent of conservation legislation, to make way for the construction of the Vinyards shopping centre and the Marrable House office block, both constructed with a 'scale, form, layout and architecture' that Chelmsford Council now considers to 'jar with its historic surroundings'. Despite this the shopping centre continues to thrive and, since refurbishment in the 2000s, the flats above are highly regarded and sought after properties. It is expected that Marrable House, described at the time of its construction as 'one of the worst examples of town and country planning in the country' and subsequently once voted as one of England's ugliest buildings, will be demolished and replaced with a more sympathetic mixed use development. A corner of the grounds of the former Vinyards mansion were retained and form a green area to the west of the Vinyards development. A library was also opened on the western edge of the development in September 1981, replacing the former building in Bell Street.

In 1967 a fire station

Fire station

A fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...

 was opened in Great Baddow to replace the former station which occupied a converted hut in Brewery Fields, Galleywood

Galleywood

Galleywood is a village surrounded by countryside in Essex, about 30 miles from London, and close to the town of Chelmsford. It is off the A12 which connects to the M25 in London...

, once part of the Galleywood race course complex.

Great Baddow has five pubs – The White Horse, The Blue Lion, The Kings Head, The Beehive and The Star. The former Baddow Brewery, owned by the Baddow Brewery Co Ltd, built in 1868 and extended in 1878 by George Scamell, is now a Grade II building. Great Baddow is also home to the Pontlands Park Country Hotel and the Baddow Antique Centre.

Schools

The village is home to Great Baddow High School

Great Baddow High School

Great Baddow High School is a secondary school in Chelmsford, Essex, England. The ages of pupils range from 11 to 16 years old, and students in sixth form ages from 16 onwards. In September 2002, the school was awarded specialist Sports College status, where children benefit from a wide range of...

, situated on Duffield Road. The school is a sports college and shows exceptional performances in this field. As well as the high school it is also home to Baddow Hall Infant and Junior Schools, Beehive Lane County Primary School, Larkrise Primary School, (formerly Rothmans Primary School), and Meadgate County Primary Schools.

Geology

Great Baddow lies to the south east to central Chelmsford, on higher ground that is thought to mark the edge of the main ice mass during the Anglian glaciation

Anglian glaciation

The Anglian Stage is the name for a middle Pleistocene stage used in the British Isles. It precedes the Hoxnian Stage and follows the Cromerian Stage in the British Isles. The Anglian Stage is equivalent to the Elsterian Stage of northern Continental Europe, the Mindel Stage in the Alps and Marine...

. An outcrop of glacial sand and gravel 3 km long and 0.8 km wide is located beneath the village, which used to be extracted from several pits in the area, including Beehive Pit (now beneath Harbeard Tye), Baddow Hall Pit (now beneath Baden-Powell Close), to the south of the A1114 Princes Road (now in the grounds of Moulsham High School) and on what is now an area of open land off Waterson Vale. Smaller pits were also located off the Galleywood Road (near what is now Hollywood Close) and off Pitt Chase. The area is overlain with head, while the lower levels of the sand and gravel are mixed with London Clay

London Clay

The London Clay Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian age which crops out in the southeast of England. The London Clay is well known for the fossils it contains. The fossils from the Lower Eocene indicate a moderately warm climate, the flora being tropical or subtropical...

. A Sarsen stone

Sarsen

Sarsen stones are sandstone blocks found in quantity in the United Kingdom on Salisbury Plain, the Marlborough Downs, in Kent, and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Hampshire...

 from the Beehive Pit used to stand outside The Beehive pub.

History

In Saxon

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

 times the Manor

Manor

-Land tenure:*Manor, an estate in land of the mediaeval era in England*Manorialism, a system of land tenure and organization of the rural economy and society in parts of medieval Europe based on the manor*Manor house, the principal house of a manor...

 of Great Baddow was held by the Earls of Mercia

Earl of Mercia

Earl of Mercia was a title in the late Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Danish, and early Anglo-Norman period in England. During this period the earldom covered the lands of the old Kingdom of Mercia in the English Midlands....

, and in the 13th century by Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale whose widow launched a legal challenge over its ownership on his death in March 1295. After passing to the Crown, Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 later granted it to Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...

. During the reign of Edward VI

Edward VI of England

Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...

 it was held by the Paschals, before being sold to J.A. Houblon in 1736.

According to information in the local church of St Mary, the rebel leader Jack Straw

Jack Straw (rebel leader)

For other uses, see Jack Straw Jack Straw was one of the three leaders of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, a major event in the history of England.-Biography:Little is known of the Rising's leaders. It been suggested that Jack Straw may have been a preacher...

 led an ill-fated crowd (the "men of Essex") from the churchyard to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, in one of the risings in the 1381 Peasants' Revolt

Peasants' Revolt

The Peasants' Revolt, Wat Tyler's Rebellion, or the Great Rising of 1381 was one of a number of popular revolts in late medieval Europe and is a major event in the history of England. Tyler's Rebellion was not only the most extreme and widespread insurrection in English history but also the...

.

In 1731 Jasper Jeffrey founded Great Baddow Free School, and in 1830 two National Schools

National school (England and Wales)

A national school was a school founded in 19th century England and Wales by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education.These schools provided elementary education, in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England, to the children of the poor.Together with the less numerous...

 were built. By 1933 there were 7 daily schools, 2 daily and Sunday schools, and a further 2 boarding schools.

Great Baddow is recorded as having had a population of 1,445 in 1801, a figure that had risen to 2,022 in 1841. White's Directory of Essex 1848 reports Great Baddow as being 'one of the handsomest villages in Essex' having 'many scattered farms and neat houses', also noting that it had an annual pleasure fair on May 14.

Following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834

Poor Law Amendment Act 1834

The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, sometimes abbreviated to PLAA, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Lord Melbourne that reformed the country's poverty relief system . It was an Amendment Act that completely replaced earlier legislation based on the...

, responsibility for the poor of Great Baddow was removed from the parish and transferred to the Chelmsford Union on 10 August 1835.

The Post Office Directory of Essex 1851, which lists the principal residents and trade persons of the parish of Great Baddow, includes 24 farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s, 8 beer retailers, 4 shoemakers, 3 blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

, 2 dressmaker

Dressmaker

A dressmaker is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Also called a mantua-maker or a modiste.-Notable dressmakers:*Cristobal Balenciaga*Charles Frederick Worth...

s, and notes that the vicar

Vicar

In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...

 is residing in the Vinyards.

The Great Baddow Mast – a former Chain Home

Chain Home

Chain Home was the codename for the ring of coastal Early Warning radar stations built by the British before and during the Second World War. The system otherwise known as AMES Type 1 consisted of radar fixed on top of a radio tower mast, called a 'station' to provide long-range detection of...

 radar

Radar

Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

 transmitter tower, originally sited at RAF Canewdon – was moved to the outskirts of Great Baddow around 1954 and is used by BAE Systems

BAE Systems

BAE Systems plc is a British multinational defence, security and aerospace company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that has global interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE is among the world's largest military contractors; in 2009 it was the...

 for equipment testing.

Nearby villages include

• Galleywood
  Galleywood
  Galleywood is a village surrounded by countryside in Essex, about 30 miles from London, and close to the town of Chelmsford. It is off the A12 which connects to the M25 in London...
  
  
• Sandon
  Sandon, Essex
  Sandon is a small village just off junction 17 of the A12 in Essex, adjacent to Great Baddow and close to Danbury. It was known for an ancient oak tree covering most of the village green...
  
  
• Danbury
  Danbury, Essex
  Danbury is a village in Essex, England. It is located northeast of Charing Cross, London and has a population of 6,500. It is situated on a hill above sea level.-Origins:The village was built on the site of a megalithic hill fort noted for its oval shape....
  
  
• Little Baddow
  Little Baddow
  Little Baddow is a large thriving village to the east of Chelmsford, Essex. The name Baddow comes from an Old English word meaning 'bad water', although this probably refers to the meadow area in Great Baddow as opposed to any water mass in Little Baddow...
  
  
• Rettendon
  Rettendon
  Rettendon is a small village in the Borough of Chelmsford in Essex, England about south east of the county town Chelmsford. Situated near the River Crouch the village was once owned by the Bishop of Ely. The A130 formerly passed through the village...
  
  
• Moulsham
  Moulsham
  Moulsham is a suburb of Chelmsford, Essex, England. It is located to the south of the town centre and has two distinct areas: Old Moulsham and Moulsham Lodge.-History:...
  
  

External links

• http://www.ingreatbaddow.co.uk/ Business and Community Life in Great Baddow. Replacing Great Baddow On-line, which goes offline on 30 January 2011.
• The Great Baddow Blog - News From Around Great Baddow
• Great Baddow Parish Council
• Website for the Great Baddow Team Ministry - includes a history of the village
• Great Baddow Online - Website for the village community
• Pictures of Great Baddow Pubs in the 1970s
• The Beehive Public House
• Baddow Life - The Life of Great Baddow