RAWRETH

KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF ESSEX 1933

RAWRETH (or Raurehithe) is a village and parish near the river Crouch, over which is a bridge of one arch, called Battle Bridge, communicating with Rettendon; it is on the high road from Rochford to Chelmsford and London, 7 miles north-east from Pitsea station on the London Midland and Scottish railway (Tilbury and Southend section), and there is a station at Battles Bridge on the Maldon and Wickford line of the London and North Eastern railway, the parish forms part of the urban district of Rayleigh, and is 8 miles north-west from Rochford and 31 from London, in the South Eastern division of the county. Rochford and petty sessional division, Southend county court district, and in the rural deanery of Wickford, archdeaconry of Southend and Chelmsford diocese. The church of St. Nicholas, rebuilt in 1882, from designs by the Rev. Ernest Geldart, rector of Little Braxted 1881-1900, at a cost of about £2,500, is a building of stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle with chapel, and an embattled western tower containing 2 bells: the chapel on the south side is subject to the control of the tenant of Beeches Farm, who has the same rights in it as in the case of a faculty pew: there are 136 sittings and 50 seats for children. The register dates from the year 1539. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £680, with 44 acres of glebe and residence, in the gift of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and held since 1916 by the Rev. Henry Iselin M.A. of that college. There are wharves at Battles Bridge, partly in this parish and partly in Rettendon. The Master and Fellows of St. John's College, Cambridge, who are lords of the manor of Rawreth Hall, and Sion College, London, who hold the manorial rights of the manor of Beeches, are the principal landowners. The soil is heavy loam; subsoil, various. The land is principally arable. The area is 2,746 acres; the population in 1931 was 663.

Letters through Wickford, nearest M. O & T. office