Pound Lane Estate

Just before opening 1956
July 2015
Ken Porter

I was born in Pound Lane in 1944. My parents’ bungalow, No.19 (Kia Ora), was on the western side of the road next to a cornfield, it’s still there.

I remember quite clearly in my early years helping or should I say getting in the way of the farmers at Harvest time. In the early 1950s the field went out of cultivation and I with friends made clay camps in the field and for a couple of years held our annual 5th November Guy Fawkes bonfires next to our bungalow where the majority of children from Pound Lane attended.

We used to start collecting the wood towards the end of the school summer holidays. In our spare time we stood on the corner of Pound Lane and St Nicholas Lane collecting ‘penny for the guy’. As we got older we used to venture down to the fountain at the ‘Hiawatha’. We only ever spent the pennies on fireworks.

By 1954 the Pound Lane estate had come into being and I recently came across a report in the Southend District Times, Basildon & Laindon dated 29 August 1956 informing us that three new shops in Kathleen Ferrier Crescent on the estate were to open within the month.

One was to be Tobacconists and Newsagent, another Grocery and Provision Merchants with the third still not let. Today the shops are Premier Convenience Store and Tattoo shop – sign of the times.

The report also informs us that the number of houses when the estate is complete will be in the region of 450.

So it was the end of our bonfires next to the bungalow but we soon found another spot on the opposite side of the road and children from the estate then also came.

We would like to hear from anybody out there with memories of growing up on the estate.

Ken Porter

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  • I was born at 26 Kathleen Ferrier Crescent in 1970 and I remember these shops being a newsagents, Mace store and a greengrocers at the end. My mum and dad’s names were Ellen and Maurice Whitelock both are no longer with us.
    I remember Helen Haywood from Laindon Park Primary.

    By Jenny Whitelock (23/04/2023)
  • I have a little more information on working at Booths.
    Half day Wednesdays and Sundays off. Never away at closing time, washing counters, putting loose bacon,sausages in big fridge and other odd jobs.
    Only a few items were wrapped, i.e.; tea, cereals, sugar ,other things were loose and needed weighing, rice, biscuits bacon sausages, dried fruit.
    Then needed to be manually added up and money put in till and give the right change.
    I lived in Langdon Hills at the foot of Crown Hill and went home for my lunch break by bicycle,
    by the time I got home it was almost time to go back. The return journey was better all downhill.
    I still remember a lot of the customers names.

    By Ellen English (12/12/2021)
  • Hi Ken, I recognised the photo of shops in Kathleen Ferrier Crescent.
    I left school at 15 and started work in 1959 in the middle shop. It was Booths grocers, I left in Dec 1962 to get married.
    The paper/sweet shop I believe was Goodchilds and the greengrocers was run by a man named Bill, can’t remember surname. He was an extra in films.

    By Ellen English (12/12/2021)
  • My mum and dad surname Matthews used to own the greengrocer shop back in 1970’s that is now the tattoo shop, they use to live above the shop with my brother and sister until the 1980s when they moved to Pitsea. I would love to hear any stories from their time there as sadly my mum and dad are no longer around or any photos of the shop so I can pass the memories of their grandparents on to my children .

    By Colette Matthews (07/12/2021)
  • I lived at 12 Pound Lane a few years ago. I was born in that house in 1970 and sadly my family and I moved in 1981. The most amazing people lived on my street from young to old. I loved Laindon Park Primary School and had many friends. The shops were great, naturally the sweet shop. Sooo many sweets. I look back now and see progress of houses but sad that it’s changed so much. My mum and dad ran a majorrette troup back then called the Shooting Stars. Sadly I have lost touch with everyone in the area.

    By Helen Haywood (25/10/2018)
  • I own the Tattoo Studio and have done for 19 years now.  Before me the shop had been many things including Grocers, Hairdressers, Video Rental, Pet Foods and Greengrocers.

    By Ian Knell (28/02/2016)
  • Hi Don.  Pretty close, my sister’s name is Jillean, now Jillean Hipsey, became England Netball Captain, was in the Guinness Book of records for the first to have 100 caps. Now lives at Maylandsea. Cheers. Ken.

    By Ken Porter (13/08/2015)
  • Although 3 years your junior I also recall the Pound Lane estate being built where there had once been a “playground” that used to be a magnet to us youngsters. I thought that Laindon was now ruined when the estate was built, little did I know of what would ensue in future! Barrats the barbers on the High Road had a wall between his part of the shop and the other part where his wife sold wool and knitting patterns. On this wall were numerous old photographs of Laindon and Langdon Hills that fascinated me, as I found it hard to comprehend that areas could have changed so much.

    Within not too long a period these areas had changed dramatically which helped me to understand how those photos had actually recorded history. Shame that a town should have been turned from the thriving, bustling and friendly community that it was to the faceless, characterless entity that it became and still is. Ken, your name rings a bell, with a sister named Gillian ?

    By Don Joy (Smith) (12/08/2015)

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