Basildon is best known as a post-war New Town, but the history of the area stretches back many centuries. Long before the New Town was designated in 1949, the district contained older villages, farms, cottages, churches and other buildings. Some survive today, while others have been altered, demolished or absorbed into the modern town.
This section of Basildon.info brings together those older buildings with important structures from the New Town period. Use the navigation above to explore listed buildings, historic pubs, farmhouses and cottages, town centre landmarks and buildings that have since been lost.
The creation of modern Basildon did not begin with an empty landscape. Basildon, Laindon, Pitsea, Vange, Lee Chapel, Langdon Hills and Nevendon already had their own histories and buildings. Historic England records surviving examples across the present Basildon district, including old houses, cottages and farm buildings, showing how much of the area's story predates the large-scale development of the twentieth century.
One example in Vange is the pair of cottages at 1 and 2 Paynters Hill. Historic England describes them as early nineteenth-century timber-framed and weatherboarded cottages and records a tradition that old timbers from the former rectory were used in their construction. Buildings such as these provide a surviving link with the settlements that existed before the New Town.
After Basildon was designated a New Town on 4 January 1949, a very different type of building began to appear. New housing, shops, public spaces and civic buildings were constructed on a large scale, creating a planned modern town alongside the older settlements.
Some buildings from this period have themselves become historically important. Brooke House in Town Square is one of Basildon's best-known examples. Built between 1960 and 1962, the 14-storey residential block was designed by Anthony B. Davies, chief architect and planner to the Basildon Development Corporation, with Sir Basil Spence acting as consultant adviser on the town centre. Its raised concrete structure was deliberately designed as a prominent landmark above the surrounding low-rise shopping centre.
A listed building is included on the National Heritage List for England because of its special architectural or historic interest. The wider Basildon district contains buildings and structures from several periods, ranging from medieval and post-medieval sites to twentieth-century examples.
The Listed Buildings page can be used to look at these protected buildings in greater detail, including their dates, locations and the features that make them significant.
Before the rapid expansion of modern Basildon, much of the surrounding landscape was rural. Farmhouses and cottages therefore form an important part of the area's earlier history. Surviving examples help show the character of the district before housing estates, industrial areas and the New Town centre transformed the landscape.
The Farmhouses & Cottages section will concentrate on these older homes and agricultural buildings and explain what is known about their origins and later use.
Public houses were often important meeting places within the older communities that eventually became part of modern Basildon. Over time some survived, others changed names or uses, and many disappeared as roads and neighbourhoods were redeveloped.
The Historic Pubs section will record these buildings and their stories, including former names, locations and what happened to them.
Basildon's planned town centre produced a distinctive collection of twentieth-century architecture. Buildings such as Brooke House, together with the pedestrian squares, shopping areas, public art and associated structures, were part of the Development Corporation's attempt to create a recognisably modern centre for the New Town.
The Town Centre Landmarks section will explore these buildings and structures individually, including those that remain and those that have been substantially changed.
Not every important building has survived. Redevelopment has repeatedly changed Basildon and its older settlements, leaving some buildings known only through photographs, maps, documents and people's memories.
The Lost Buildings section will provide a place to record buildings that have been demolished or replaced, explaining where they stood, what they were used for and, where known, what occupies their former sites today.