Part 5 looks at later twentieth-century religious buildings and how Laindon's church landscape changed as the old plotland district became part of Basildon New Town.
After Basildon was designated a New Town, large parts of old Laindon were rebuilt. Plotland roads disappeared, residents moved into planned housing estates and several small churches and mission buildings were demolished. At the same time, new congregations and purpose-built churches appeared to serve the changing population.
A purpose-built church for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was constructed on Laindon Link in 1972. Contemporary chronology records that construction began in January and that the first service was held on 6 August 1972.
The building was registered for marriages shortly before opening. Its reported construction cost was about £32,000, and local building missionary David Sneddon was closely involved with the project.
The Laindon Link building remains a functioning place of worship. Its survival contrasts with many of the earlier timber mission churches that vanished during redevelopment and gives the later New Town period its own layer of religious architecture.
Laindon's religious history is unusual because buildings from very different periods exist within the same modern district. Medieval St Nicholas continues to serve the Church of England parish, while the Catholic community worships at the modern St Therese church and later congregations occupy twentieth-century buildings.
St Peter's Mission Church, St Michael's Mission Church and their associated plotland landscape have disappeared. The old Catholic timber chapel also vanished after replacement, while some smaller independent religious buildings changed use or were removed.
Other congregations adapted rather than disappearing. Manor Mission grew out of worship in a rented hall; Catholic worship moved from a private house to a timber chapel and then to a modern church; and St Nicholas remained in use despite enormous changes to the population and surrounding landscape.
The churches reveal the development of Laindon in a way few other buildings can. St Nicholas represents the medieval rural parish; the mission churches and Manor Mission reflect the plotland era; St Therese records the arrival and growth of a Catholic community; and the Laindon Link church represents the religious diversity of the later New Town period.
Many of these buildings were never used solely for formal worship. Sunday Schools, children's activities, social gatherings, clubs, charitable work and community events made churches and mission halls important meeting places in districts where purpose-built public facilities were often limited.