The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County

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These developments were intended to address the chronic housing shortage in London but were not intended to become dormitory towns, rather it was hoped the towns would form an economy independent of the capital. To some observers, it seemed as if a new kind of English person was taking over – and his rapid ascent, bypassing the traditional requirements of public school education and deference to hierarchy, seemed to threaten the very fabric of the establishment. It was awesome to see that transformation,” he told me on a warm late-summer afternoon in his vast back garden in Great Leighs, an Essex village not far from where he grew up. The villages of Wanstead and Woodford saw the French family setting up a brick making works adjacent to the road from Chelmsford to London, now known as Chigwell Road.

The invention of Essex - PressReader The invention of Essex - PressReader

The Municipal Borough of Leyton, the Municipal Borough of Chingford and the Municipal Borough of Walthamstow were abolished and their area transferred to Greater London to form the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The reactionary Express columnist James Wentworth Day put it more simply: “Essex is becoming the dustbin of London. Still, the rise of manufacturing in these newly metropolitan Essex hubs did not create prosperity for everyone. While Essex man was valorised by politicians for challenging class boundaries, Crouch suggested that the persistence of the Essex caricature actually proved the opposite – that snobbery was still alive and well. By the 70s, the constant destruction of weatherboarded cottages and the concreting of country lanes was causing consternation among some commentators.

The dream of selling your council house, making loads of money and paying lower and lower taxes didn’t work out for everyone – but that didn’t discredit the power of the Essex myth. Essex really is special, because of its refusal to indulge in conformity, and Burrows's book conveys the reality of the place in a way that amplifies its uniqueness. Although Essex man voted Conservative, many Conservatives viewed him with a mixture of fear and horror. But beyond the sensationalist headlines lies a strange and secret place with a rich history: smugglers and private islands, artists and radicals, myths and legends. The art historian Nikolaus Pevsner once suggested that the county’s image problem predates the Roman invasion.

The Invention of Essex’ 3rd Author Talk with Tim Burrows ‘The Invention of Essex’ 3rd

And, as with most islands, it has always been easy for those looking in to assume that they know exactly what happens there. Essex types are often recruited as comic staples of reality shows such as Love Island, First Dates, Big Brother, X Factor – and, of course, the show that re-energised the stereotype in 2010, The Only Way is Essex. Essex was inundated by the North Sea flood of 1953, with scores of casualties, and today great concrete sea walls keep the tide at bay in places such as Canvey Island. Being a relatively stone-less County, it is unsurprising that some of the earliest examples of the mediaeval revival of brick-making can be found in Essex; Layer Marney Tower, Ingatestone Hall, and numerous parish churches exhibit the brickmakers' and bricklayers' skills in Essex. Essex is depicted as wholly white and extremely Tory, but the reality is obviously more complex than the myth.After a chance encounter with a loutish, Essex-based City worker on a train into Liverpool Street, he exacted revenge through a gross caricature depicting vomiting at the station. It is embraced by politicians who celebrate it as the home of no-nonsense, “real” people – David Cameron hired the ex-Basildon Echo reporter Andy Coulson as his head of comms – but also mocked for these same qualities, often by the very same political classes who praise its authenticity.