Road Names of Laindon

I am not sure how many of you are aware that the local Echo, every couple of weeks have a short article on Basildon Road Names and more often and not they are of Laindon Names. In addition I have taken a personal interest in local road names ever since the local authority asked for names of local veterans who died in the two World Wars for the Redrow development at the back of the College and Hospital off Dry Street.

The latest article by the Echo was of Beecham Court named after Sir Thomas Beecham, English conductor and impresario.

Beecham was born into a rich industrial family in Lancashire in 1879. His grandfather was the inventor of Beecham’s Pills. He began his career as a conductor in 1899 and from then on until his death in 1961 was a major influence on the British music scene.

In appreciation of his services to British music he was knighted in 1916. With his colleague Malcolm Sargent, Beecham founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra and he also established the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra which he conducted until his death.

Beecham Court is part of the Pound Lane Estate.  This sparked my interest because the Pound Lane Estate as it was locally known grew up around my parent’s bungalow in Pound Lane to my great dismay in the early to mid-1950s. Our bungalow number 19 (Kia Ora) had corn fields at the back and on the south side where as a child we used to hold our annual Guy Fawkes bonfire and most of the children of the street attended. Plus there was the annual haystack nearby which we used to climb all over. So you can understand at our dismay when this facility was suddenly taken away from us.

When it was my time to go to the Laindon High Road School it was through this estate I would walk to get to the school, down Elgar Close, along Kathleen Ferrier Crescent past Tallis Road in to Holst Avenue before turning left in to the High Road.

It did not occur to me then and it has only registered in recent years that all the road names, courts, crescent were in fact names of well-known musical people.

Below is the list of the road names on the Pound Lane estate:

• Arne Court……………………………………Thomas Arne – composer
• Beecham Court………………………………Sir Thomas Beecham – conductor
• Boult Road……………………………………Sir Adrian Boult – conductor
• Byrd Court……………………………………William Byrd – composer
• Elgar Close……………………………………Edward Elgar – composer
• Fonteyn Close……………………………….Margot Fonteyn – Ballet dancer
• Holst Avenue………………………………..Gustav Holst – composer
• Kathleen Ferrier Crescent…………………..Kathleen Mary Ferrier – Opera Singer
• Purcell Close………………………………..Henry Purcell – composer
• Tallis Road…………………………………..Thomas Tallis – composer
• Vaugh Williams Road……………………….Ralph Vaughan Williams – composer