Long before modern Pitsea developed, the London Road/High Road already supported houses that had been adapted into shops and purpose-built local businesses. This older strip was heavily altered by the A13 Vange and Pitsea bypass and associated New Town road works. Some roads and buildings vanished completely, making surviving directories and photographs especially important.
Building: 1800s; demolished 1965.
John Willsner is associated with the property, while around 1913 Charles Arthur Tew and Horace Harold Tew traded as bakers and grocers. A cobbler also operated here. The building no longer survives; its part of old London Road was transformed by later road construction.
Howard's Dairy shop: 1937–c.1962; building demolished before November 1967.
Known as the Broadway Dairy, it sold dairy produce and groceries. Howard's Dairies was a major local concern founded by Harold George Howard and operated numerous shops and delivery rounds across the Basildon area.
Documented before 1918; confectionery/tobacco trading into the mid-20th century; demolished before November 1967.
Edward William Bostock is recorded as a tobacconist and confectioner, with Margaret Bostock and Robert Heath also associated with confectionery trading at the property.
c.1910–1960s; demolished before November 1967.
Edmund Joseph King ran a butcher's shop from a semi-detached property. The site was among land affected by compulsory purchase and redevelopment.
Cottages dated 1721; demolished 1965. Springer's shop c.1920–1964.
Frederick Charles Springer operated a “Fancy Repository” selling fancy goods from a single-storey side annexe. The neighbouring Telegraph Cottages were among the oldest recorded properties on this stretch.
1950s–1964; demolished before November 1967.
Sidney Jones sold stationery and tobacco. The shop was another of the properties removed as the old road pattern disappeared.
c.1897–1964; demolished before November 1967.
One of the area's long-running businesses. Herbert John Cook was a draper, outfitter and sub-postmaster. The premises served as a Post Office and Telegraph Office from around 1897 until after 1917 and its shop frontage was enlarged over time.
From 1947 into the 1960s; later demolished.
Harry Frederick Bedwell supplied cycles from a converted semi-detached property on the old Broadway.
Recorded before 1949 into the 1960s; later demolished.
Arthur Clayton's Corn Stores served the practical needs of a still partly rural and suburban community.
c.1890s building; trading documented c.1900–1960s; later demolished.
Charles William Sheldrick sold groceries and provisions; Alfred Starling later ran Broadway Stores as an ironmonger's, followed by Percy Rowlinson's hardware business. The succession shows a single property changing from food retail to household and hardware trade.
Barclays c.1938–1964; hairdressing c.1950s–1960s; demolished before November 1967.
Barclays later moved to No.12 Broadway North. Broadway Saloon also traded from Georgian House as a hairdresser. The property disappeared during the remaking of the High Road.
The original streetscape described above cannot be matched shop-for-shop with today's buildings because the bypass and later junction works changed the road alignment itself. Brackendale Avenue and Sunnyside Avenue lost their old junctions with the A13, and whole groups of properties were cleared. Modern roads, landscaping and later development occupy land that once formed this continuous line of homes and shops.