Hi Colin, That is really interesting, I never knew that when we came out of our gate and walked down to Laindon by what we used to call [The Back Way] ie Nightingale Ave I'm sure it was one straight route, mind you after many years the memory can play tricks and it is about 55 years since I did it.

I have never heard of Radcliffe Rd, again in the mists of memories I'm not sure all roads/avenues had named signs.

I am pretty sure Nightingale didn't have one, locals knew the roads just because we lived there. Did Victoria Ave and Woodgrange Ave go all the way down like Nightingale and Radcliffe? 

Having access to old maps and records really clarifies things for us.

Editor: I will be putting up some maps of the area shortly to assist

Without giving it any attention I always thought of Langdon Hills as up the hill and Laindon as down the hill. Where was the precise boundary between the two? 

Of course there was, on the High Road, Langdon Hills Primary School and Laindon station less than a mile apart. 

The boundary had to be somewhere between the two but where exactly? 

Presumably it jogged around a bit to follow the road layout but which roads? Did the boundary change over time? Is it the same today?

Editor: I have just put up a new page that shows the parish boundaries around Laindon Station Link

Nightingale Avenue ran northwards from Lee Chapel Lane to Milton Avenue, at this crossroad junction the route continued as Radcliffe Road, it then crossed Osborne Road and terminated at the junction with Salisbury Ave.

Nightingale Ave ran parallel all the way from Lee Chapel Lane to Osborne Rd just before the station.

My grandparents Herbert and Daisy Bragg moved from London to Hope Cottage, Nightingale Avenue, in 1906 with my father (b1902). In my father's papers he recalls being very relieved when their horse drawn pantechnicon came over the railway bridge with their furniture. 

Hope Cottage was behind Cottis's bakery. A Mr Hopkins preceeded Mr J.G. Cottis and he used to bake a Christmas turkey for the family in the bread oven, all as part of his service. Bill Britton was Head Baker there for many years and youngsters used to watch him knead the dough. My father spent a very free and happy childhood in Langdon Hills.

Editor: I thought Nightingale Avenue only came down to Milton Avenue which was further up the hill than the Cottis bakery

Ellen, thank you, all your photos have been nostalgic for me because my time spent in Laindon as a child was probably the best of my life. The place was perfect during the time we lived there from 1957 through to 1963. 

I always used to imagine how it was before we moved there and your photos showed some of that, especially this one and the ones you posted around December last year. I can't remember any bad times at all but that's probably the rose coloured ray-bans syndrome. 

The little Langdon Hills school is looking a bit faded now when I last drove past it. It was from there that a lot of my friends came to Laindon High Road School when I went there in 1958. 

The thing is nothing can take away our memories even though they have erased all traces of some of our vast Laindon childhood playground. 

I do hope you are keeping well and would love to speak to you at some forthcoming event or memory day - there are lots of things to recall!! 

I will try to get out some of my mother's photos of Laindon but as she is 86 now she can't always find everything!

Hi Richard, I must thank you, for each time I have submitted an old photograph or comment you have always posted lovely comments. I wholeheartedly agree with your views on the right hand side of Langdon Hills coming down towards the station. I find it very sad that the left hand side is virtually unchanged, and I remember waiting in the playground at the front of the school for the bell to go home and looking at the properties opposite which are still there today. We were definitely pillaged and robbed of our homes and the lovely community atmosphere. 

Last year my niece, [Lynda’s daughter] came down from Cumbria and I gave her a copy of the picture of our home where Lynda and I were born. She asked me to show her where Nightingale Ave was. We went up Lee Chapel Lane, lots of memories flooded back, Nightingale Ave was first turning on the right and there is a slight slope where the turning was. So very strange to see it now. 

I remember very well there was a gas light on the entrance to Nightingale Ave that was lit every night by Mr Giess [not sure of the spelling of his surname] who with his wife were very good neighbours when my mother and father lived next to them when they were first married. They lived at the very very bottom of Lee Chapel just before the turning up to the Chase, The Chase stretched right to Dry Street and we walked and played down there often. 

My husband and I spent the first year of our marriage in “White Cottage” which was idyllic, the saddest part of leaving was having to find homes for our pets as you were not allowed to take them into flats. We had to have one of our two dogs put down as he was a bit of a handful to re-home with someone. Hope to meet you sometime maybe at a memory day.

I drove home this sunny evening from work in Stanford-le-Hope through Laindon. At the approach to Laindon Station I am always appalled at the monstrous estate on the right hand side. I wonder who in his right mind would have passed this for planning and how they ever got it through to construction. Compare this with the beautiful scene on Ellen's photograph and tell me which you prefer please?

Ellen, what a fantastic old photograph its lovely. Really, this couldn't be anywhere else but Langdon Hills could it? I love the way the unmade road undulates up and down whilst the houses sit solidly along the way. I like your mention of the Cousins family, I wonder when Lesley will write on this site?