West Tilbury is a village situated on the top of a river terrace overlooking the river Thames. The modern town of Tilbury

Tilbury

Tilbury is a town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. As a settlement it is of relatively recent existence, although it has important historical connections, being the location of a 16th century fort and an ancient cross-river ferry...

 is mainly in the traditional parish of Chadwell St Mary

Chadwell St Mary

Chadwell-St-Mary is a dispersed settlement in the unitary authority of Thurrock in Essex, England. It is one of the traditional parishes in Thurrock and former civil parish. It is a few miles east of the town of Grays and is located north of the modern town of Tilbury which was part of the parish...

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Location and administration

West Tilbury is a former Church of England parish in the unitary authority of Thurrock

Thurrock

Thurrock is a unitary authority with borough status in the English ceremonial county of Essex. It is part of the London commuter belt and an area of regeneration within the Thames Gateway redevelopment zone. The local authority is Thurrock Council....

, Essex, England. West Tilbury is one of seven conservation areas in Thurrock.

Archaeology

The 30 metre gravel terrace within the parish produces numerous examples of pointed handaxes of the Lower Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age); some evidence of Mousterian (Neanderthal) tools have been found close to the village centre. A massive presence of post-glacial peoples Maglemosian along the northern stream valley abutting Mucking parish is indicated by the finding of flint production-cores and blades, together with the characteristic tranchet axes of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Occupation continued through the Neolithic, doubtless closely associated with the nearby Orsett causewayed enclosure. These early farmers appear to have been more prevalent upon the upper slopes (gravels) above the aforesaid valley than their Middle Stone Age predecessors. A continuity of field systems throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages is apparent. A Claudian period rectangular defensive enclosure on Gun Hill was excavated in the late 1960s (finds at Thurrock Museum). A most important migration period (c.600 AD) grubenhaus - a sunken floored hut - was examined, also in the late 1960s during gravel extraction. It indicates the early Anglo-Saxonisation of the area from c.450 AD onward and is similar to the numerous other grubenhauser 2 kilometers away on the Mucking hilltop.

Landscape and geology

West Tilbury lies in the extreme south of Essex, fronting the Thames. About half of its land surface is Thames alluvium (clay), the inland portion rising as a gravel ridge (about 30 metres OD). Upon its northward border with Mucking parish there are limited sandy loams. The substratum is Thanet Sand, which in turn overlies a considerable depth of chalk. A post glacial stream valley transects the gravel ridge along the north parish edge, revealing slight surface yellow sands (Thanets), over a generally gravely agricultural surface. Some large nodules of flint, and erratic Bunter pebbles surface on the valley bottom. The rich soils of the southward Thames alluvium have been reclaimed from a former natural (tidal) saltmarsh state, being gradually embanked from the medieval onward. An Inquisition of 1362 refers to one marsh on the manor as already within a ‘wall’. The last major ‘inning’ or reclamation for agricultural land came in the 1720s. A significant creek once ran inland to near the Domesday manor centre at Hall Hill, but this was blocked off, apparently in the mid 16th century. Its inlet, known to rivermen as Bill Meroy Creek

Bill Meroy Creek

Bill Meroy Creek is a small waterway flowing into the Thames to the east of Tilbury Fort in West Tilbury which marked the eastern boundary of the area in which duty had to be paid on coal entering London.-Location:...

, allowed the access of small vessels to the Marsh Farm (near Tilbury Fort) to within living memory. Now sealed behind concrete tide defences, its course is easily traceable by the walker.

Hedges and woodland

Upon the reclaimed marshland, the traditional division of fields (called ‘hopes’) was by drainage ditches (‘water-fences’). These soon develop effusions of phragmites reed, bramble, and wild sloe but are periodically redug and so do not develop into lasting hedges. The upland fields were formerly criss-crossed by lofty columns of elm. This tree is now decimated, but a continuously reviving (cloning) scrub prevails within hedgerows of more mixed character. In places, very ancient fragments of hedgeline survive, giving beautiful ranges of hazel, spindle, field maple, oak, ash and with representative ground flora such as red campion, stitchwort and bluebell. Regrettably, the introduced herb called ‘Alexanders’ (Smyrnium olusatrum) is now colonising most of West Tilbury’s lanes, to the detriment of the richer mosaic of small plants.

Several notable but very small and vulnerable areas of ancient woodland can still be seen. Known as Ashen Shaw, Rainbow Shaw and Shrove Hill, each adheres to the parish boundary, a noticeable feature of many ancient woodlands in the district. The former takes its name from its outline, being set on the northern edge of West Tilbury in a curve around the stony hill summit. In spring its canopy of wild cherries in blossom is a continuing delight. Its ancient coppice stools include Field Maple, Ash, Crab Apple, Hornbeam and Oak (Q.robur), while the woodland floor is prolific with violets, native bluebell and wild arum. Pignut is also present. Shrove Hill, upon the west boundary with Chadwell, is so called from ‘shrough’, an old word for rough woodland. Another tiny parcel of wood is Coopers Shaw – the latter an Elm thicket of more recent origin. The local word ‘shaw’ derives from a medieval term for woodland which was usually managed as coppice.

History

The original part of the village, around the old church of St. James, has been a site of human habitation for many hundreds if not thousands of years. In 1973, excavations at Gun Hill revealed paleolithic and neolithic flint tools, Bronze Age features, Romano-British finds and early Saxon grubenhaus

Grubenhaus

A Grubenhaus is a type of sunken floored building built in many parts of northern Europe between the 5th and 12th centuries AD...

. Further inland, a settlement was formed in 1257 when a market charter was granted to Richard de Tilleburi and a 'fair green' was laid out for use as a market.

Part of Tilbury Fort

Tilbury Fort

Tilbury Fort is on the north, Essex, bank of the River Thames in England and was built to defend London from attack from the sea, particularly during the Spanish Armada and the Anglo-Dutch Wars...

 is in West Tilbury. The fort and hulks moored in the river were used for Jacobite prisoners after the failed "'45" rebellion.

Queen Elizabeth I reviewed her troops here in 1588, delivering her Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

The Speech to the Troops at Tilbury was delivered on 9 August Old Style, 19 August New Style 1588 by Queen Elizabeth I of England to the land forces earlier assembled at Tilbury in Essex in preparation of repelling the expected invasion by the Spanish Armada....

. (Many have mistakenly assumed that the Tilbury mentioned as the site of the speech refers to the town around the docks about a mile and a half to the south west. This is not the case as Tilbury town was not built until the docks were constructed in the late 1800s on what was open marshland.) It is believed that the main Spanish attack was expected in Essex, but ships were used to construct a bridge allowing troops to cross the river and prevent the attacking Spanish army from capturing London if it landed in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

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In the eighteenth century, water from West Tilbury was bottled and sold for its medicinal properties.

Agriculture

Unusually for south Essex, West Tilbury continued to operate some open field farming well into the 19th century. Although they were in the open field, individual holdings were freehold. There were occasional disputes as to the location of these holdings. In due course, the two institutional land owners - the Sir John Cass Foundation and the town of Henley on Thames - erected markers to define their holdings.

Earlier agricultural regimes over the parish embraced mixed farming (cattle, grasses, cereals, beans) upon the ‘upland’ gravel heights, where, before present demands upon the water table, numerous surface springs, brooks and ponds existed, and intensive marshland sheep husbandry (producing ewes’ milk and cheeses for the local and wider markets). In the 21st century, the agricultural picture is one of interesting variety within a wholly arable framework, with rotations which include oilseed rapes, barley, potatoes, springreens, salad onions and some maize corn across the high, lighter soils, and rape, potatoes and wheat upon the low lying clays. A few runner beans and small herbs such as coriander are cultivated on suitable loamy patches near the village centre.

Village Hall

West Tilbury Village Hall was opened in 1924 by Captain E. A. Loftus, in remembrance of those local men who gave their lives in the Great War of 1914-1918. The names of these men are recorded on a memorial tablet in St. James's Church, in the village hall and on the village hall website (see below for web address). Located in Rectory Road and on the southern edge of the great common field, the hall was built using funds raised within the village and by donations from local landowners. The hall is available for hire and thereby continues to serve the wider community to the present day as the hub of village activity. West Tilbury Village Hall is a registered charity supported by local residents and their fund raising activities.

Parish Church

Bede's

Bede

Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

 History of the English Church talks of a minster church established by St Cedd at Tilaburg. A case has been made that this was West Tilbury, however, majority opinion favours East Tilbury

East Tilbury

East Tilbury is a village in the unitary authority of Thurrock borough, England and one of the traditional parishes in Thurrock.-History:In Saxon times, the location on which the church now stands was surrounded by tidal marshland...

. The West Tilbury parish church was dedicated to St James (The Great) whose saint's day is 25th July, upon which the West Tilbury fair was held annually. Most of the windows appear to be 14th century. It is now a private dwelling. William Laud

William Laud

William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...

, later Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed rector of West Tilbury in 1609.