Part 2 of the history of Laindon's historic buildings, looking at two major houses that survived for centuries before disappearing during the twentieth century.
Laindon Hall stood close to Church Hill and St Nicholas Church and was one of the great losses from old Laindon. Local historical research described it as a large medieval farmhouse, around 500 years old, with a white-weatherboarded exterior and a commanding position beside the church and surrounding farmland.
The house formed part of Hall Farm and had survived through centuries of agricultural change. Historic photographs show a substantial traditional building with farm structures, gardens and fields around it, helping illustrate how rural this part of Laindon remained before New Town development transformed the landscape.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s Laindon Hall had fallen into a very poor condition. It stood empty for several years with windows boarded and was repeatedly vandalised. Small fires were started around the property and local historians warned that the building was becoming increasingly vulnerable.
Basildon Historical Society, led by Rodney Legge, campaigned for the hall to be preserved. There were discussions about its future involving Basildon Council and Basildon Development Corporation, but no rescue scheme was agreed in time.
On 15 April 1964 Laindon Hall was destroyed by fire. Contemporary local-history records describe it as a fifteenth-century farmhouse and note that it was empty at the time. The loss became a lasting symbol of the destruction of older Laindon during the redevelopment period.
Although the house itself vanished, traces of the old site, garden planting and landscape survived for some time. The contrast between the medieval hall and the later development around it demonstrates how quickly Laindon's appearance changed in the 1960s.
Another major lost building was Great Gubbins, also known in later years as the Old Manor House. The site lay around Manor Road, broadly in the area later associated with Laindon's modern shopping development.
Great Gubbins was one of the historic manors of Laindon. The name is connected with the Gobion family, who held the estate during the medieval period. Records of the manor stretch back to the Domesday era, although the building that survived into modern times had been altered and rebuilt across many generations.
An 1837 sale described a substantial brick and tiled farmhouse with garrets, bedrooms, parlours, kitchen, cellar, brewhouse, dairy and other domestic rooms. The cellar was considered particularly ancient and may have preserved fabric from an earlier manor house.
When the property was offered for sale again in 1893 it was described as an old moated manor residence with numerous bedrooms, reception rooms, service rooms and extensive outbuildings including stables, loose boxes and carriage accommodation.
The sale of Great Gubbins land helped open the area to further development. Part of the estate became connected with the Manor House Estate and, for a short period in the 1890s, land nearby was used in an ambitious attempt to establish a racecourse close to Laindon station.
The Old Manor House survived well into the twentieth century. Local-history accounts record the Sloper dairy family among its final occupants. The house was eventually destroyed by fire and demolished in the late 1960s, removing another building that had represented the much older manorial landscape of Laindon.