EAST TILBURY
KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF ESSEX 1933
EAST TILBURY is a parish, on the banks of the Thames, 1½ miles east from Low Street station on the London, Midland and Scottish railway (London, Tilbury and Southend section), 4 east from Tilbury Fort, 6 east from Grays, 14 south-east from Romford and 25 from London, in the South Eastern division of the county, Barstable hundred, Orsett rural district and petty sessional division, Grays county court district, and in Orsett and Grays rural deanery, West Ham archdeaconry and Chelmsford diocese. The church of St. Katherine, formerly dedicated to St. Margaret, is an ancient building of flint and stone of the Transition Norman and Lancet periods, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle, north porch and a wooden belfry: the temporary spire was removed during the alterations which took place in 1906, and a temporary structure was made to contain the bell, cast by William Oldfield in 1629: the lofty stone tower of the church and the south aisle are said to have been battered down by the Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter, in 1667: in the chancel, which retains a piscina, is a tomb to Henry Knight, gent. of Tortworth, Glos. ob. 11 Jan. 1721, and another inscribed to John Rawlinson, ob. 13 Sept. 1698: there are also in the church the remains of three stone coffins: the church was restored in 1906, and a memorial window erected to the late Robert Hamilton Williams, of Buckand: there are 250 sittings. The register dates from the year 1627. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £208, with residence, in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and held since 1917 by the Rev. James Reuben Fellows, who is also rector of West Tilbury and resides there. Here is a Methodist chapel. This place was sometime the seat of St. Cedd, or Ceadda, second Bishop of London, in 656, who died in 659, and, according to Bede, this was also the seat of a monastery, founded in 630, under Siegbert, king of the East Saxons, by St. Cedd; here also are remains of earthworks and also of the old sea wall, as well as an ancient ferry over the Thames. There is no manor. The soil is loamy; subsoil, gravel and chalk. The chief crops are wheat and barley. The area is 2,113 acres of land, 8 of inland and 886 of tidal water and 312 of foreshore; the population in 1931 was 353
Post Office. Letters from Tilbury, Essex, which is the nearest T. office. West Tilbury is the nearest M. O. office
Police Station