Vange is one of the oldest communities within modern Basildon. Its story includes an ancient parish church, old inns, farms and cottages, a brick-making industry and wharf, the unusual Vange medicinal well, and a particularly important place in New Town history as the location of some of Basildon's first Development Corporation houses.
Vange appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 under the name Phenge. At that time it was a tiny rural settlement within the Barstable Hundred, with a population estimated at only a few dozen people. Through later centuries the spelling varied considerably, with forms including Phenge, Phenges, Fange and Vane.
The historic parish lay between Pitsea, Basildon, Langdon Hills and Fobbing. Much of the land was low-lying and connected with the marshes and creeks leading towards the Thames. The old settlement was never a large compact village; instead, farms, cottages, inns and the parish church were spread along London Road and the surrounding lanes.
In the nineteenth century Vange remained very small. An 1848 directory described a parish of only 169 people, while the later Imperial Gazetteer recorded a population of around 160. Farming, small trades and work connected with the creek and wharf were important parts of local life.
All Saints Church in London Road is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the Basildon area. Historic England describes it as a small ragstone and flint church of Norman origin, and it is protected as a Grade II* listed building.
The church contains fabric dating from the late eleventh or twelfth century. A blocked Norman window survives in the south wall of the nave, while the font is also twelfth century. Later medieval alterations include fifteenth-century windows, a south doorway and a rood-loft staircase.
At the west end is the distinctive weatherboarded timber bell turret with its shingled pyramidal roof. Inside, the church preserves medieval roof timbers and later wall monuments, making it an important record of Vange's religious life across many centuries.
As Vange expanded during the New Town period, All Saints became less convenient for the main population. The newer St Chad's Church opened in Timberlog Lane, now Clay Hill Road, in 1958. Services at All Saints gradually reduced, the last regular service was held in 1994, and the building was declared redundant in 1996.
The church later passed into the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, which carried out substantial conservation work to protect the roof, timberwork and interior.
St Chad's was built to serve the rapidly growing population away from the old parish church. Its foundation stone was laid by Lady Whitmore in December 1957, and the church was dedicated on 17 December 1958. It was formally consecrated the following year.
The building represented a very different period in Vange history: All Saints belonged to the medieval rural parish, while St Chad's was created for the much larger twentieth-century community emerging around the New Town.
Education in Vange began in a very small schoolroom close to the old rectory. A purpose-built school was established in London Road during the nineteenth century, and the present historic school building opened as a Board School in 1885.
The school later became Vange Council School and was enlarged as the local population increased. Additional accommodation was provided during the early twentieth century, including further expansion in 1928. The school survived the transformation of the surrounding area and remains an important link with old Vange.
The Five Bells is one of Vange's best-known landmarks and the oldest surviving public house in the Basildon district. A building existed on the site in the seventeenth century, while the name Five Bells is first recorded in an alehouse list from 1769. It also appears on Chapman and André's map of Essex published in 1777.
The pub occupied an excellent position on the old road between London, Stanford-le-Hope, Pitsea and Southend. Travellers, local residents and agricultural workers all used the inn, and a neighbouring building served for many years as a blacksmith's forge.
The Five Bells survived enormous changes to the surrounding road system, including the creation of the A13 and later junction alterations. The building is Grade II listed and continues in licensed restaurant and public-house use.
Another important Vange public house was The Barge. A beer house at the site was known by 1840 and had earlier carried the remarkable name The Man With Seven Wives. The name Barge Inn reflected Vange's connections with the creek, wharf and river traffic.
The Barge became a familiar landmark close to the junction of the old High Street and Timberlog Lane. It remained a pub for generations before closing in 2015. After standing empty for several years, the building was acquired by the South Essex Islamic Trust and converted into the South Essex Islamic Community Centre, which opened in 2022.
Vange Hall once stood at the centre of a substantial estate. In 1880 Robert Leabon Curtis acquired the manor together with around 350 acres of land extending across the railway.
Curtis developed the Vange Brickfields, taking advantage of the local clay. A deep well and large pit were created on the estate, and brickmaking became a significant local industry. The former pit later became part of the landscape of Basildon Golf Course.
The works had a specially constructed wharf on Vange Creek, allowing bricks and other goods to be moved by barge. This connection to tidal waterways explains why the wharf and creek were so important to nineteenth-century Vange despite the village being several miles from the Thames itself.
Vange Hall itself was eventually demolished, and much of the estate was absorbed into later development. The names Vange Creek, Wharf Lane and Brickfield Road preserve reminders of the old industrial and riverside landscape.
One of the strangest episodes in Vange history was the promotion of Vange Well. In the early twentieth century Edwin Cash, a London publican who owned land around Hovells Farm on the Vange Hall Estate, promoted naturally occurring mineral water as having medicinal qualities.
Several wells were sunk, with the surviving structure known as Vange Well No. 5 built during the early 1920s. The small domed building was designed in a classical style and stood in what Cash promoted as the 'Vale of Health'.
The Vange Water Company sold bottled water under the name Farmer Cash's Famous Medicinal Vange Water. Advertising claimed that the highly mineralised water could help conditions including rheumatism, lumbago and stomach complaints. Such claims reflected the popularity of spa and medicinal-water treatments at the time rather than modern medical evidence.
The business eventually disappeared, but the unusual Well No. 5 structure survived in woodland near what is now the Langdon nature reserve. It remains one of the more unusual physical relics associated with historic Vange.
Before New Town redevelopment, Vange had its own busy stretch of shops and businesses along the old London Road and High Street. Local recollections describe bakers, grocers, a Co-operative store, post office, garages, small shops, a fire station, working men's club and other local services.
Much of the road was still lined with unmade side streets and individually built houses. The village therefore combined an old rural core around All Saints and the Five Bells with a busier twentieth-century community nearer the High Street and railway.
The old London-to-Southend road passed directly through Vange. Increasing traffic made this route increasingly unsuitable, and major road schemes eventually changed the area dramatically.
The first phase of the Vange and Pitsea A13 realignment was completed in 1973. Homes were demolished and the new dual carriageway altered long-established road patterns. Further changes around the Five Bells junction later removed more of the old roadside landscape.
Basildon Aviary and Wildlife Zoo opened in London Road, Vange, in April 1973. The site occupied land close to Vange Primary School and the former rectory.
The zoo housed birds, mammals and reptiles and became a familiar local attraction for almost three decades. It finally closed in November 2001 after concerns about animal welfare and the condition of the site.
Vange has a particularly important place in the history of Basildon New Town. The Development Corporation's first housing contract was awarded in September 1950 for 39 houses in Vange.
On 18 June 1951, the first new Development Corporation tenants moved into Nos. 61 and 63 Redgrave Road. John and Betty Walker and their family moved into No. 61, with Eric and Marjorie Hawkridge moving next door. Further families arrived as additional houses were completed.
The new homes offered facilities that many families moving from overcrowded or temporary accommodation in London had previously lacked, including bathrooms, gardens and modern kitchens. Redgrave Road therefore became one of the symbolic starting points of the New Town.
The first child born to a family living in the new town was also associated with Redgrave Road later in 1951, strengthening Vange's place in the earliest chapter of Basildon's post-war development.
Vange's war memorial dates from 1922. It originally stood at Paynters Hill off London Road before being relocated in 1972 to the grounds beside St Chad's Church overlooking Clay Hill Road.
Modern Vange has been transformed by the New Town, the A13, housing estates and major road construction, but several strong links with the old parish remain. All Saints survives as a nationally protected medieval church, the Five Bells still occupies its historic roadside position, Vange School preserves Victorian educational history and the Vange Well structure survives as an unusual reminder of an early twentieth-century commercial venture.
Street names and surviving routes also preserve the older landscape. Wharf Lane recalls the creek and river trade, while the Five Bells junction remains one of the best-known local place names. Redgrave Road represents a completely different part of the story: the beginning of purpose-built housing for Basildon New Town.