Maldon

[edit] Maldon waterfront on the River Blackwater Maldon is known for its many Thames sailing barges Maldon is on the tidal River Chelmer by the Blackwater Estuary. It is on the A414 10 miles (16 km) east of Chelmsford and 49 miles (79 km) north-east of Charing Cross, London, via the A13 road. Essex is a county built on London Clay, overlain with pockets of gravel deposited by riparian action; the lowest land is made up of river alluvium and salt marsh. At Maldon, the railway cutting (now a road cutting) provided a reference section for geologists. There are three landslips on the north-facing river cliff of the Blackwater at Maldon. The middle slip is called the West Maldon Landslip, which was caused by repeated rotational slips of the bedrock London Clay, which is trying to reach a stable angle. Hythe Quay at the confluence of the Chelmer and Blackwater, which flanks the northern edge of the town, was an important port. Both Hythe Quay and Cooks Yard are home to a large number of Thames barges, sailing vessels which attract many visitors. The River Blackwater, that was diverted into the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, re-emerges into the Blackwater Estuary, through locks at the Heybridge Basin, the stream bed passes down Heybridge Creek. Here it delineates the border between Maldon Town and Heybridge Parish Council.

[edit] There are three tiers of local government covering Maldon, at parish (town), district, and county level: Maldon Town Council, Maldon District Council, and Essex County Council. The town council is based at the Town Hall on Market Hill, which was built in 1998. Administrative history[edit] Maldon Moot Hall on the High Street Maldon was an ancient borough. Its date of becoming a borough is not known. It had burgesses listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, indicating that it was already a borough by then. Maldon's earliest known municipal charters date from the 12th century; some sources say the first charter was granted in 1171, others say there was an earlier charter of 1155. From 1332 the borough also served as a constituency for parliamentary elections as the Maldon parliamentary borough, electing two members of parliament. The borough was run by a corporation, also known as the town council or borough council. In 1576 the corporation bought a 15th-century house at 39 High Street and converted it into the Moot Hall, serving as the corporation's meeting place and offices. The corporation's functions included running the parliamentary elections. In 1768 most of the corporation's members were removed from office following legal action taken by the town's former MP, Bamber Gascoyne, who had lost his seat at the 1763 election. The removed members were not replaced, and so the corporation ceased operating. For the next 42 years the remaining freemen of the borough ran the borough's parliamentary elections, but no corporation existed to exercise local functions. The borough was eventually awarded a new charter in 1810, allowing the corporation to be re-established. The borough covered the combined area of the three parishes of St Mary's, St Peter's and All Saints'. As well as the town itself, the borough boundaries also included extensive parts of the Blackwater Estuary. The borough was reformed to become a municipal borough in 1836 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country. The borough was enlarged in 1934 to take in Heybridge to the north of the river, which had formerly been a separate parish, and Osea Island from the parish of Great Totham, alongside several other more minor adjustments to the boundaries with neighbouring parishes. At the same time, the urban parishes within the borough were united into a single parish of Maldon matching the enlarged borough. The borough of Maldon was abolished in 1974, being replaced by the larger Maldon District which also covers extensive surrounding rural areas. The area of the former borough became unparished as a result of the 1974 reforms. Two new civil parishes were subsequently created in 1987 covering the area of the pre-1974 borough: Heybridge north of the River Blackwater and Maldon to the south of the river. The parish council for Maldon adopted the name Maldon Town Council. Although now a separate parish again, Heybridge is classed as part of the Maldon built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics.

[edit] Rail[edit] Maldon East railway station in 1851 Maldon was previously served by two railway lines. Today, the nearest railway stations to Maldon are Hatfield Peverel, Witham and North Fambridge. Hatfield Peverel is the closest railway station to the north of the town, whilst North Fambridge is closest to southern parts of the town. Maldon's first railway link was a branch line to Witham opened in 1846. Later, a second line linked Maldon with Woodham Ferrers on the Crouch Valley line between Southminster and Wickford. Whilst Wickford is itself on the line between Shenfield and Southend (thus providing Maldon with another route into London Liverpool Street), a short-lived spur line at Wickford also gave direct access towards Southend. Edward Arthur Fitch, writing in about 1895, states that from London's Liverpool Street station to Maldon East via Witham there were eight trains on weekdays and three on Sundays and that, via Wickford, there were five trains on weekdays and none on Sundays. The fastest train took 85 minutes via Witham and 82 minutes via Wickford. Maldon West railway station was opened in 1889 by the Great Eastern Railway. The line between Maldon and South Woodham Ferrers closed to passengers in 1939, the Maldon and Witham line closed in 1966. Bus[edit] Regular bus services in and around the town are operated primarily by First Essex and Hedingham; key routes include the 31 from Chelmsford, the 75 from Colchester and the 90 from Witham.

[edit] Maldon Sea Salt has been produced in the town since 1882 by the Maldon Crystal Salt Company; it is also the location of the first Tesco store to be designated as a "supermarket" in the country, established in 1958. Maldon's Hythe Quay is the residence of a number of Thames sailing barges, these are among the last cargo vessels in the world still operating under sail, albeit now used for education and leisure. Some ten to fifteen of the surviving fleet count Maldon as their home port, and many others are regular visitors alongside at the Quay. An annual sailing barge race ends with a parade of sail and prize-giving at the quay. Cooks Yard, where barges were once built, is still working at the end of Maldon Quay.

[edit] The town holds the charitable Maldon mud race where competitors race across the Blackwater estuary at low tide, along the bank and back through the water. The race generated over £55,000 for charities in 2014. Maldon also hosts the international Maldon Festival, which takes place each year in late June and July. The town holds an annual "Taxi Day" which sees mentally and physically disabled children from London driven to Maldon in London Black Cabs for a fun day of activities and a meal. The event dates back to 1952 when a London cab driver visited the Elizabeth Fry Special School (formerly Grange Road Special School) in Plaistow. He wanted to do something special for the young patients he saw there. He wrote to every one of Essex's seaside towns to arrange an outing and the only town that was willing to help was Maldon; thus, Taxi Day has remained a tradition ever since. Maldon is twinned with the Dutch town of Cuijk. The charter between the two towns was signed in 1970 to cement the relationship. Cultural references[edit] Maldon from The Eastern Counties Railway Illustrated Guide, 1851 Maldon and the surrounding area are the setting for a series of books by the prolific author Samuel L. Bensusan. Bensusan's stories recall a lost way of life among the towns and villages in the area, and along the local coastline and marshland. In Bensusan's books, Maldon is called Market Waldron. Maldon has been the setting for numerous television productions, including Lawless Heart (2001) starring Bill Nighy, and BBC1's The Murder Game (2003) where numerous Blackwater Estuary locations were used including Green's Flour Mill at the bottom of Market Hill and Steeple Marshes. An episode of the TV series Lovejoy featuring Ian McShane was also filmed there. In H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1898); Maldon is the town from which the narrator's brother and two female companions manage to escape across the Channel. Maldon is a location mentioned in "The Rose Garden", a short ghost story by M. R. James, and published in More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911). Maldon and its clock tower are featured in the young adult novel Timekeeper by Tara Sim (2016). Maldon is the hometown of two Marvel Comics superheroes: Brian Braddock, the original Captain Britain, and his twin sister Betsy Braddock, longtime member of the X-Men as "Psylocke" and Brian's eventual successor as Captain Britain. It is also the home of their older brother, the X-Men villain Jamie Braddock. Many early Captain Britain stories took place within their fictional childhood manor in Maldon, first seen in Captain Britain #8 (1976). Media[edit] Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from the Sudbury TV transmitter.[citation needed] Local radio stations are BBC Essex on 103.5 FM, Heart East on 102.6 FM, Radio Essex on 107.7 FM, Greatest Hits Radio East on 100.2 FM, and Caroline Community Radio, a community based radio station that broadcast on 94.7 FM. The town is served by the local newspaper, Maldon and Burnham Standard.

[edit] Maldon has a non-League football club Maldon & Tiptree F.C. who play at the Drewitt-Barlow Stadium. There are youth football teams in Maldon, among them being Maldon Saints. The town has a cricket club, with several adult and colts' sides, who play at two grounds: The Promenade Park, Maldon and the main ground at Drapers Farm, Heybridge. The ground includes a dual-lane enclosed all-weather net facility. Overseas players from Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka have coached cricket in local primary schools as part of the "ECB Chance to Shine" programme. Drapers Farm is also the home of Maldon Rugby Union Football Club which was founded in 1947 by Tommy Harries, who was the landlord of the King's Head public house in Maldon High Street. The inaugural meeting was on 28 August 1947 at the Blue Boar Hotel. Maldon RFC run several senior male sides and one female side as well as all youth age groups from under 7s to under 18s. Blackwater Leisure Centre is the town's main leisure destination, located in the town's leisure quarter, adjacent to Madison Heights, with a 4 lane 25m swimming pool, 100+ station gym, group cycling studio, group exercise studio and sports hall with indoor courts. Two short-lived greyhound racing tracks existed at Sealey Farm on the Fambridge Road (opening on 3 September 1932 and closing the same year) and around the former Spital Road football ground in 1931. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club) and they were known as flapping tracks, which was the nickname given to independent tracks.

[edit] Essex and England cricketer Sir Alastair Cook (born 1984) played for Maldon Cricket Club throughout his early years. Brought up in nearby Wickham Bishops, his brothers played for the club as well. Cook remains closely associated with the club, being an Honorary Life Member, while acting as a huge role model for the club's young players. Cook made his Essex debut in 2003, before making his international debut, aged 21, in 2006. Singer/songwriter and TikTok star Sam Ryder, born 1989, represented the UK in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest with his song "Space Man", where he came 2nd with 466 points. Private David Embleton (1853–1912) won a Victoria Cross, in his army name of Frederick Corbett, in the Arabi Pasha Rebellion in Egypt on 5 August 1882. He was buried in an unmarked grave in London Road Cemetery, Maldon, but in 2004 the regimental association provided a memorial and in 2005 the Essex Society for Family History provided another. He served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. Although awarded the VC for standing by a wounded officer, he subsequently forfeited his VC after committing theft against another officer in 1884. Edward Bright (1721–1750) was the "fat man of Maldon", a grocer who, at 47.5 stone (665 lb; 302 kg) was reputed to be the fattest man in England. His coat could encompass seven men. After his death, etchings of a painting of him were much sought after. His chair resides in Maldon Moot Hall. John Cook (1918–1984) was a prolific 20th-century Anglo-American composer, organist and church musician. Sailing barge Thalatta, whose home port is Maldon, was built in 1906. John Kemp (1926–1987): John Kemp's work on the preservation of Thames sailing barges in the 1960s was critical to re-establishing Maldon as the foremost sailing barge port in the country. John Kemp was responsible for the creation of the East Coast Sail Trust, a schoolship scheme for young people using the sailing barges Thalatta and Sir Alan Herbert, operated from Maldon. He was author of three books and chronicler of the Maldon and Essex coastal scenes and the unique character of the marshland folk, especially in the Maldon and Burnham Standard, Essex Chronicle and Essex County Standard newspapers. Myra Sadd Brown (1872–1938), Suffragette, women's rights activist and internationalist was born in the town. John Strutt (1842–1919) was a British mathematician who made extensive contributions to science. He was born in Langford Grove, Maldon, inherited the title Baron Rayleigh in 1873 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904, in part for discovering the inert gas argon. Horatio Gates (1727–1806), the English general who fought for Britain in the French and Indian War and the rebel side in the War of American Independence, was born in Maldon.[citation needed] Ethan Lawrence (born 28 September 1992) is an English actor, born in Maldon. He is known for playing the roles of Joe Poulter in the BBC series Bad Education and James in the Netflix black comedy series After Life. Virginia Crosbie (born 8 December 1966), former Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn, was born in Maldon before attending school in Colchester.

[edit] Maldon is twinned with: Villeparisis, Île-de-France, France Cuijk, North Brabant, Netherlands

[edit] Byrhtnoth statue marking the Battle of Maldon in 991, in which Byrhtnoth died High Street Tugboat Brent moored on the River Chelmer Market Hill Promenade view north, with St Mary's Church at left

[edit] Beeleigh Abbey Brightlingsea Burnham-on-Crouch Chelmsford Danbury Great Totham Hazeleigh Heybridge Langford Little Totham Maylandsea Mundon North Fambridge South Woodham Ferrers Steeple Tiptree Tollesbury Tolleshunt Major Tolleshunt Knights Tillingham Cold Norton Witham Woodham Mortimer Woodham Walter