Jesus Harry Christ, was ever a town more aptly named (except maybe Grimsby). Pitsea, this reeking eastern suburb of the infamous Basildon, truly is the pits.
To fully understand the seething underclass of this godforsaken region, one must picture the analogy of flies on s**t because, ladies and gentlemen, Pitsea ITSELF is a chav. Yes, it is a genuine, literal Chav Town. To understand this, one must look at its (scant) history and see what the past few decades has made of it.
Pitsea was, for hundreds of years, a ramshackle village in a swamp, with a church on a hill its only landmark, and a couple of fairly inconsequential manor houses, Pitsea Hall and Chalvedon Hall, at each end. Then, in the second half of the twentieth century, came Basildon New Town, swallowing up its eastern neighbour and forever damning this already unsightly and unhealthy place to charver purgatory. Dante himself could not have written about modern Pitsea, it’s well beyond the power of his darkest visions. The manor houses remain, one in the middle of housing estates that seemed to have been constructed to blend in with their glass-strewn pavements. It is, of course, a pub these days, infested by both Chavs and Travellers. They are easy to tell apart – Chavs slash, Travellers stab. The other Manor House, picturesquely situated next to a sewage outlet pipe on the marshes and overlooking what used to be a municipal tip, is – naturally – a pub restaurant.
The church on the hill – and the view from it – succintly allow the visitor to see what is rotten in the state of Pitsea.The church itself was declared redundant and ripped down a few years ago, all save the tower. Local pride in the only piece of medieval history, you think? Of course not. It was spared so that it could become a mobile phone mast for Orange. Telling metaphor, isn’t it? A charming medieval building, now denuded and devoted to the worship of the Chavs’ favourite gadget.
The view to the west will show you the marshes, flyover and infamous Tilbury Loop railway line. To the south, a landfill site infested with seagulls, a Country Park built on the site of an old Great War munitions dump – yes, only in Pitsea! – and a distant view of the bright lights and noxious gases of the Coryton Oil Refinery and Storage Tanks.
Still, there’s always the north view, to the cheesy market, the Tesco Extra, the ex-car park now built over with FarmFoods, McD’s, KFC… you get the picture. Oddly, some of the buildings in Pitsea broadway are mock-Tudor, built in older, more naive times. There is plenty to mock in Pitsea. From this description, you can guess at the type of sub-humans who choose to actually live here. At nights they come out, lurking around the desolate market stalls with their near-vertical baseball caps, indecipherable accent that makes Estuary sound like Queen’s English, and permanent markers with which to daub their baffling squiggles on every available surface. Including – and I’m not kidding – on dogs**t bins. A rational human can only speculate, to the point of migraines, why anyone would possibly wish to mark these as a territorial possession. They hoot and shriek like rabid chimpanzees, they look toward the A13 Flyover that towers over Tesco and wonder why cars seem to accelerate as they pass their town, and occasionally they complain to the council about the swarms of flies that invade from the landfill site during hot summers.
Not so much ‘avoid like the plague’, as ‘avoid – it IS a plague’
I was born in Pitsea,theres nothing wrong with it,fine pair of pert buttocks,fine pair.Now let me tell you all about Pitsea,Pitsea to me is a fine place,full of fine people with healthy pert buttocks,eye their a firm buttocked lot the people the people from Pitsea.Ciderman Im known as in Pitsea,everyone knows me,everyone gives me a cheery hello when they see me on my bench drinking cider,hello Ciderman they say,here have some spare change,go buy yourself a flagin of cider so you can get pissed all day while we go to work ha ha.Oh yes Pitsea and its lovely old stupid thick lovely people,always giving me money the lovely old stupid pert buttocked people they are.What I like about Pitsea is nobody moans when I take a watery dump in the middle of the high street,or piss all over the place,mainly down my legs,or vomit over their lovely small Pitsea children.Eye its a lovely place is Pitsea with its thick lovely gormlus dopey old lovely old pert buttocked no hoper people.
My husband’s family have lived in Pitsea since before the war and many were married, christened and buried there. It is so tragic to see the once rural village get swallowed up into what is now an extension of Greater London including its trouble makers and drug problems. The last insult was tearing down the church without any respect for the feelings of the real Pitsea people. Not Londoners, those born and brought up there. What a disgrace, glad we moved away long ago!
Well Mrs Anon at least hopfully you soon to will be buried in Pitsea,then youll have nothing to moan about.
i am moving to pitsea soon near the tesco and nobody will f**k with me, i will clear the palce up. i am bought up out of canning town so i will bring the east london way to essex
Great Mr dacy,I to live near Tescos on the bench outside,theres another bench further down I take it you will be living there then?I have a spare peice of bubble wrap you can have(yes have)incase of rain.It will be nice to have someone to clear the place up as there are lots of cider bottles laying about and cans and things.Do you know Irish Tony from Canning town?I bet you do,he sits on the bench with Wino Willy and the gang near the tube station.Im looking foward to seeing you,and dont worry I promise not to f**k with you,thow if it gets cold I wouldnt mind a cuddle.
s**tsea?
nobody dishes Pitsea,NOBODY do you hear me,I have a new mate coming,he was brung up in a slum in Canning town,and nobody will f**k with him,hes going to bring his slummy east London ways with him,hes a real bum,hell show all the bums in Pitsea how a real bum behaves.NOBODY will f**k with him NOBODY do you here,anyone sits on his bench without asking him first then hel f**k EM UP……f**k EM UP he will……hes from Canning town after all……and he knows Wino Willy and the gang……burp
Observing Stamp’s agenda for urban geography and applying that to the history of Pitsea will assure some interesting revelations, including the apposite land it once had available to provide an arms factory and accommodate pillboxes during the Second World War, and how being situated on the Thames Estuary made it ideal for exporting produce. But with the inclusion of my third point, I can reveal how Pitsea has always been something of a plaything for London, an extension for its own purpose, an experiment and dumping ground, a place that jumps when London tells it to jump.
With its mention in the Domesday Book, it is acknowledged that Pitsea existed as far back as the Norman Conquest, but according to the Rochford Hundred Field Archaeological Group managed to go unnoticed by local historians. As T.C. Chisenhale Marsh’s translation of the Domesday Book relating to Essex explains ‘Pitsey is rather inland for land,’ one possible reason as to why there is little to no pre-Norman history on Pitsea, other than blind speculation.
It’s the legitimacy of this view that lends itself to the common perception that Pitsea is a kind of product of Basildon new town, a residential remainder. Its geographical location, however, does form its name, emanating from pic (point) on sea. The proximity of the point to the estuary rendered it quite ideal to install a public a railway line, especially given the uselessness of all the surrounding boggy marsh, made even more useless by its agricultural ineptitude, of which more in a moment. The Fenchurch Street line was initiated in 1852, eventually reaching Pitsea in 1854 and commenced proper commercial use by 1st July 1855, joining all other sites linked by marsh and creek, Benfleet, Leigh-on-Sea and Standford-le-Hope.
Most of the designated area for Basildon new town (all the areas once under the jurisdiction of Billericay, with its then Member of Parliament Bernard Braine) – and the south east of England – is covered with London clay, a marine deposit, well known for the fossils it creates and the immense thickness (150 meters) – able to support the deep foundations and tunnels found in and around Essex – of the Ypresian age (which span from 48.6 to 55.8 years ago), which on the geological timescale (time that is used by geologists, palaeontologists and other earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth) is the earliest stage of the Eocene sub-epoch (which span from 55.8 to 33.9 million years ago). Owing to this, much of the said area is agriculturally unsuitable. And since 40% of the area swallowed up by Basildon new town was originally planned to be agricultural heaven, a re-think was made necessary.
Pitsea and Vange were not part of the 40% of designated land for Basildon new town composing of London clay, instead they were composed of alluvium, the product of a heavy amount of dropped solid rock particles due to fast river flow, but still this meant agricultural incompetence. Production through farming and foods ceased to exist as a consequence, so another method of capital squeezing was needed (this couldn’t be any more apparent, and simultaneously a slap in the face, by the presence of a budget priced, chain supermarket called Farmfoods in Pitsea today).
The commercialisation of Pitsea was not a problem for anyone with political punch near town. Dennis Hardy and Colin Ward in their book Arcadia For All note that the landowners near the railway routes were usually shareholders or board members of railway firms; they profited from diminishing farmlands and the volume of traffic that the development of the railway would bring.
They, too, were probably happy to see the methods used by The Land Company, possibly the brainchild of Protheroe & Morris, who operated from the same address in London and the South East, and their estate agents who used techniques of wooing potential plotland development buyers with free railway tickets or cheap fares refunded to purchasers, not to mention the utterly frivolous champagne auctions they used to hold. It is noted that East London families would go out to the country for a cheap outing and come back property owners. Pitsea was soon turned into a place for Londoner weekend homes – hard to believe now. It wasn’t until 1925 that local entrepreneur Harold George Howard decided that Pitsea was going to be “something really special”. It was he who designed the Tudor style buildings around Pitsea in the thirties, the Railway hotel public house (now a place of brick throwing target practice for local bored youths, sheet metal instead of windows, grand ideas of a neolithic historical museum by idealistic councillors), the cinema (which has since been a successful bingo hall, now closed down, posters advertising local carnivals, shelter for rained-in early morning bus users), Tudor Mansions and Tudor Chambers with its cab firm, kebab shop, and betting office, and finally, Anne Boleyn Mansions used by Lloyds bank.
His legacy lives on in the row of houses bordering the park that bears his name (Howards Park), and one cannot criticise him for his earnest effort. But even he could not have helped what was to happen to the area next, despite the efforts of many men. The German forces’ bombing of East London meant that many families were forced out of their obliterated homes, seeking a safe haven in nearby towns with land to accommodate them (and incidentally, if there is one good thing to be said about the digging up and destruction of East end history for the purposes of the 2012 Olympic games, it is that excavators uncovered an unexploded bomb near to Bromley-by-Bow Tube station). It is precisely here that a parallel with settler hegemony, like that of the state of Israel, can be drawn: the Second World War brought about ghastly deaths and forced evacuations of many innocent people, but how to deal with populating another area of land was mishandled, with Israel it meant making second class citizens out of the existing Arab population, forced into suppression by the Nakba of 1948, with Pitsea, the re-accommodation of innocent people affected by the war gave legitimacy to the compulsory purchasing of over 10,000 homes, some weekend homes, some freehold owners, all for the good of Basildon new town.
After the Second World War the Tory government only had the iconography of Churchill as muscle for their election campaign, needless to say it was Clem Attlee’s Labour government that won in 1945, bringing in many of the institutions we take for granted now such as the NHS. Owing to the housing problem after the war the Labour government introduced two new acts taking control of the issue; namely the Town and Country Planning Act and the New Towns Act of 1946/7. It was the idea to create new homes where possible, but the destruction of existing homes seemed a little counter-productive. It was here that the Residents Protection Association (RPA) took force, which campaigned against the creation of a Basildon new town on the basis that it would destroy existing homes.
The Labour initiated acts generated much enthusiasm at first since it set out to clean up the district, finish unmade roads, fix unconnected sewers and deal with the cramped conditions many people lived under. However in the 1951 elections, due to the first-past-the-post system, and in spite of the fact the Labour party fielded a record number of votes (even to this day), Churchill’s Tories made it back into government. The first thing that Mr. S.A. Perry did, an owner of a London printing firm and a staunch ally of the RPA, was to write to Churchill on the 24th of September 1951 asking him to shelve the New Town plans. He received a reply from Churchill’s secretary on the 27th saying the Tories were not opposed to the act or the forming of a new town, but “the socialist Town and Country Act of 1947 imposed a most unjust basis for compensation”. After much campaigning, and even fielding George Ross, member of the RPA committee and author of The Brink of Despair: A History of Basildon 1915 – 1986, as candidate for the council, with modest success, it was realised that the slogan “Down with the New Town” had become obsolete when in the early fifties buildings were beginning to fall down.
The Rt. Hon. Hugh Dalton MP, Minister of Housing, approved the first Master Plan for the new town, August 1951.
The corporate logic over the introduction and overspill of Londoners had spelt the destruction of many people’s homes and had turned Pitsea into a consumer plot. There is something distressingly logical that Pitsea is the site of the biggest Tesco in Europe straddling over 125,000 square feet of floorspace. The new Masterplan for the area, approved in April 2007, and entitled the Regeneration, will provide Pitsea with 20,000 more square metres of retail space, which among many other things includes an opening up of Station Lane, the path that reaches the train station, which will include a French Market (and if there is one thing Pitsea is not crying out for, it is a French market). It will also fill space with 500 new homes, many of which are flats on the cusp of Station Lane itself, for the sole purpose of designing trendy flats appealing to 20/30-somethings, in order for easy access to the city; an act of blatant London subservience.
No wonder there is an ink daubing of “EC2” on the fence that blocks the site where these flats will occupy; far from being a sign that East end gangs are rearing their ugly heads in Essex, it is a signalling gesture that the re-colonisation of Pitsea through corporate regeneration is imminent.
The sum components of the Pitsea regeneration seemed designed entirely in order to make access out of it easier for part-time lodgers in trendy flats. Why else would Station Lane be such a focal point, why a French Market, why when housing prices in London are so, that millions of pounds are spent creating another bubble just waiting for 15 years of equilibrium elsewhere, before a burst threatens to cause ruin. House prices soar in London, (and so what is the thinking? Thus) let’s just move the problem to the towns, then when house prices soar there maybe the city and suburbs will be affordable again. I smell a rat – the rat of London, telling Pitsea to jump, and jump it does.
Guy Debord’s great work Thesis on Traffic opined that planning and architecture, rather than being designed to accept the automobile as its central theme, should instead phase it out in the aim of reintroducing civil society as the foreground of urban life, social relationships included. Now, in urban planning, the problem isn’t just the automobile, it is area designed only to point to the most efficient way out. As such the opening out of Station Lane spells the antiquatedness of civil society in Pitsea (like it needed any more of a reason). The problem today of urban regeneration is that it is held hostage by the infectious capital centeredness of the city; more precisely it is the influence with which the surrounding area has on the town itself. Practical geographers, under the jurisdiction of Sir Dudley Stamp, take heed.
Excellent essay Carl! Jeez, how long did that take you?
ARCADIA FOR ALL and BRINK OF DESPAIR are well worth reading for insights into the area’s development in the first half of the 20th century. It’s hard to imagine Pitsea before that, although names like ‘The Barge’ and ‘Timberlog Lane’ stand as testament to an important local industry.
oi m8 wot is this guy sayin he no nutin bruv pitsea is my townn dont mess blud
Mr Nappy,I dont mean to be rude,but why dont you just talk normaly,have you got some kind of speech impediment?Has being on the dole all your life and watching to much tv and basically lying about playing with yourself done this to you?
My Family have lived in Pitsea for decades and still continue to be there including my parents, and alot of friends. I left Pitsea 15 years ago to live in Winchester Hampshire and I live abroad now so I have been away from the area for a while, however when I can I manage to go back home. Which I enjoy becuase it’s always good to remember where you have come from and it is great to see old faces. I went to chalvedon school aswell and yes there was drugs in the past, the present and no doubt in the future but lets be realistic here you can find drugs anywhere you live. I just think it depends on who you are and what life you want to choose for yourself. I have found when people ask me where I am from you can see it in their faces that they think that they are better and that they are of a higher class, which always amuses me. Also i have grown up with parents that have been unemployed for years and some people find this difficult to understand. My parents may not of worked for years due to their own private circumstances, However they have drummed it into their children since a young age if you want something you have to go out and earn it yourself, which they have not done too bad with one child that runs his own succesful business and another with a degree that works and lives abroad. What i am trying to say is never judge a book by its cover it does not matter where you come from as long as you are a good person and you know who you are. I am proud to say I am from Pitsea, I am proud of my parents and my upbringing . I am proud of my roots and I will never understand why one thinks that they are better than the other just because of where their property is.
My family have come from pitsea since about the middle of the 16th Century, I grew up there, that was before they built all the Pitsea estates, so I think I have the real skinny on the place. I went to Chalvedon, its a school that did the right thing by me, it prepared me for life in the Parachute Regiment you need to be able to fight, learnt that at school, you need to fast on your feet and quick witted; learnt that on the school rugby field. Learnt about life and death, two of my classmates killed another in the underpass outside the school, school taught me how to survive in a pool full of sharks, theives lairs and scum and pitsea had and still has massive piles of them, no drugs jeez girl you must have walked around with your eyes shut, common in school during the early to mid seventys epidemic during the late 70′s. Get out while you can, failure is not an option.
Russ,are you Russ of the famous Russ family that dates back to the 16th century?are you?are you a Russ,a famous Pitsea Russ?A family noted for its extra large head characteristics caused by interbreeding,everyone in Pitsea knows you and your family.All your relatives walk around with their massive emtey heads hanging down to one side becouse their necks arent strong enough to hold them up.
I was brought up near Pitsea in a rural area near the end of WW2.Back then a lot of the menfolk were in the forces fighting overseas.I lived in an area called the plotlands,where hundreds of Londoners had wooden holiday bungerlows. A lot of these poor people had to leave London as their homes had been distroyed by German Bombs. The only place they could go to were their plotland homes. As a child I remember that these people were very poor with very little money. They had no electricity,gas,or water and no flush toilets. Lighting,heating and cooking was all done by paraffin oil lamps and stoves,and the water had to be collected in jugs from a stand pipe at the end of a very muddy unmade road. Some of these familys had too many children too look after,a lot were dirty,smelly,had fleas and underfed,remember they had no running water! To earn a few pennys a lot of the kids would steal anything they could get their hands on,can you blame them! if you`ve got nothing, you`ve got nothing to lose! These children grew up and got married, and most stayed in the Pitsea area. They in turn had children,who also grew up in the Pitsea/Basildon area. And these children are todays `Chavs`!
and they still are very poor with no electricity or gas or flushing toilets.
I agree that pitsea is a s**t hole but i dont think its rite that you are dissing all the people that live here. i mean i have lived in pitsea all my life but ive turned out alrite and so have all of my friends. I admit there are lots of chavs here but its not as bad as other places in England!
Yeah I mean it might be a s**t hole but its our s**t hole aint it ay?
The only memories of it I have it was always miserable weather there… O.o
Proper s**theap.x
shut up u dik ed
Bootifulbev is my new hero!! Go, Bev go!!
Basildon
Transport fantastic? Yes, I suppose the fact that it has so many exits is a good point, notwithstanding that Pitsea railway station was recently labelled the worst for crime in Essex. The Horse & Pony Sanctuary is also a good point, although somewhat soured by its position opposite the rubbish tip and the fact that its founder recently received a conviction for fraud. Same old, same old.
whats wrong with pitsea i see nothing its upcoming all over
yeah its a up and coming eh………….its a up and coming sorta……sorta……well sorta s**thole realy……but its definatly getting a bigger up and coming s**thole than it used to be…….ay?
I grew up in Pitsea, and although i now live in Cambridge, and odd visits back to Pitsea make me feel glad i have moved away, at the time i had a great time growing up in Pitsea, when i grew up there ( 85 – 2001) i did not see a designer label, a single drug or use a single swear word! I think that it is all about how you are brought up, not where you are brought up and unfortunately, BAsildon and pitsea are a mecca of single parent families and job dodgers, having worked for the DSS for a while i have to say there are a lot of lazy people in pItsea, but those who do work, if htey want to wheel spin along southend seafront in their spare time, thats up to them!
As for good points in Pitsea, some people class the Tesco extra a good point (me being one of them, as i now live in a small cambridgeshire village miles from any shop!) the schools are fantastic, transport is fantastic (there is no public transport for me) proximity to London is a good point, the shurch on the hill was beautiful before they ripped it down, i went inside often (as a child) and it was a great adventure, and yes it is a phone mast now. one last good point, if you actually get to know some of those people who live in Pitsea, you will meet some great characters, and anyone who hassles you is usually all mouth and no trousers!
but each to their own, we may not like where you grew up, care to enlighten us?
HAHAHAHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAHAHAHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!! HOW F*CKING ACCURATE!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!
GROW UP LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT
but Im only five
grimesby, home of the original chav invaders, chavs were created from the dogs**t in grimsby doggypoo bins and devolved from there, you must be a DALBY
well ur obviously 2 gd 4 pitsea init ya cock!!
grimsby, how wud u no wether it was aptly named or not? have u ever bin there, av lived in grimsby and immingham (the town next to it) all my life and i dnt think u shud b sayin f**k all about it wen u probably havnt set foot on our streets once so stop listenin 2 the w**kers hu are postin up massages about grimsby n stop tlkin s**t bout ne towns in general u shud b proud of where u come from, dick ed.
oh come on dessyGAY,dont make us laugh,Grimsby ha ha ha ha,oh my sides are splitting,just the name Grimsby makes me want to laugh.All those people walking around in 70s flares and wellingtons…….Grimsby…ha ha ha aha ha