Southend Park - Southend-on-Sea's first Park.

The Milton Conservation Area has a strong but not unique in Southend, late-Victorian and early-Edwardian architectural quality, which can be seen in all of its streets, but what stands out is that they embody within a relatively small area a well preserved cross section of Southend’s typical architecture in its time of early growth.
Notes:
1. Rochford Cricket Club was founded in 1881 following a meeting in the Cherry Tree Inn and was known as the Broom Hills Cricket Club. The first President was Reverend George Wilson Keightley (Harold Rankin's father-in-law) and vicar of Great Stambridge Church; and Vice President Alfred Mottram Rankin. Early team members included Phillip Benton, farmer of Great Wakering and noted historian who wrote much of the definitive history of South East Essex. The club changed its name to the Rochford Cricket Club at the AGM of February 1886. After the Second World War, when cricket restarted, the club was known as A.M. & H. Rankin Limited Cricket Club, but the type setters at the Southend Standard clearly got fed up with this and soon shortened it to Rankin's Cricket Club. rankins.hitscr...
2. The water for the pumping station in Milton Road was drawn from a borehole 906 feet deep. When it opened in 1865, it served 1,700 local residents in what was then known as Cliff Town, and daily pumped out 1,600 gallons of water, which equated to around one gallon per person per day. It was originally run by a private company but was taken over by the Southend Waterworks Company in 1871.
3. Hamlet Mill was mainly built with oak and had sails 36 feet long and was capable of grinding 20 loads per week. It had three floors carrying two pairs of capital French stones, flour and clearing-off machines. A brick roundhouse with an oven and bakehouse were attached, along with five stables and a coach house. The Mill was demolished in 1878; an article appeared in the Essex Weekly News advertising the ‘materials from the Hamlet Mill which had been pulled down and included 10,000 bricks, two tonnes of iron and many good sound oak beams.’ The site is now occupied by a small parade of shops.
4. At the time of the map of Milton by Messrs Chapman and Andre dated 1777, Southend-on-Sea didn’t yet exist, save for the small hamlet of South End positioned on the sea front, east of where the Kursaal now is. It was known as the ‘South End’ of Prittlewell.
5. The Blizzard of January 1881 (17-20 January 1881) was one of the most severe blizzards ever to hit the southern parts of the United Kingdom, with snowfalls beginning on the 17th in the southwest, and the low pressure system deepening as it moved through the Channel. A gale developed over southern parts with heavy blizzards, with Essex experiencing six to nine inches of drifting snow. The severity of the frosts (c-11C) was remarkable and they were probably second only to those that occurred during February 1895 in intensity and length.
References:
Southend-on-Sea and District Historical Notes, John William Burrows, 1909.
The Graphic, 17 April 1875.
The Southend Standard, 11 April 1884.
Lawn Tennis in 1881. Routledges Sporting Annual. London: George Routledge and Son's. 1882.
Symons's Meteorological Magazine, 1881.
The Southend Standard, March 1881.
The Southend Standard, January 1881.
The Southend Standard, July 1880.
Essex Weekly News, 4 January 1878
The Chelmsford Chronicle, 15 September, 1797.
The Domesday Book 1086 (Mildentuna).
Photos:
‘Penny Farthings’ courtesy of The Museum of Hartlepool.
Southend Water Works in 1923 courtesy of Maurice Smithson.
The earliest known team photo of a Rochford/Rankins Cricket Club Side (c1907) rankins.hitscr... Cricketer’s Hotel (Author’s Collection).
Victorian Cyclists
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Hamlet Mill (showing post design) from a painting by N.E. Green, c.1860.
Chapman and André’s Map of Milton, 1777.
Park Crescent courtesy of Louisa Hennessy.
Rest of photos by the Author.