Open Lab - Pitsea

The Pitsea and Vange Treasure Hoard

The Pitsea and Vange Treasure Hoard is a collection of all the things that are special to people in Pitsea and Vange – whether it’s a stamp collection, special teddy bear, or something else entirely, we have heard about it!

Collected over many weeks, we met with different community groups, schools, and spoke to people hanging out in different places, and asked them what is most special to them. This website showcases the things people shared with us.

We also hosted an in-person display at The Place – Pitsea Leisure Centre from 3-11 March, 2023, where we had lots of visitors and exciting conversations. The Treasure Hoard continues here, and with those people who continue to share their special things throughout the years. We encourage you to share this site with your friends and family, ask about what’s special to them, and continue to share your special stories and collections with them!

Community Spotlight Stories – Click Here to View

Pat, Malcolm, Laurie, Tracey, Pauline, Barbara, Margaret, Geraldine, John, Chris & Sheila were so generous to contribute their stories and special collections.

Read on to find out about what they shared!

Creative Workshops – Finding out what’s special to us

We visited Ryedene, Northlands, and Greensted Primary Schools, ran half-term workshops at Wat Tyler Country Park, practiced wellbeing with The Craig Tyler Trust, and spoke to Pitsea residents at various meetings across the ward. The students and adults participating told us what was special to them by drawing pictures! The drawings have found different homes across Pitsea and Vange – in the schools, with the groups who created them, and more.

Can you spot yours?

Basildon Heritage Booklets

Volunteers have written lots of different information booklets about Pitsea and Vange (and the other wards of Basildon too!). They’ve shared these booklets with us – take a look and contact Basildon Heritage to find out more.

Eversley Park Play – Museum of Imagination

These objects were all collected by attendees of Eversley Park Play on 28 January 2023. We catalogued them – tracking what they are, what they’re made of, and the (imaginary?) stories of how they came to be in the park. Many thanks to Jay and the ATF team for letting us join in on the ParkPlay fun!

Pitsea Market Finds

These two blue elephants – salt and pepper shakers – were found by Sam, one of our facilitators, at Pitsea Market, along with this little pug. They’ve stayed with the project throughout, even when the salt shaker was blown over by a gust of wind and had to be glued back together!

This piece of ceramic was found in the underpass – it has writing on it, but we can’t quite figure out what it says. What do you think is the story behind this find?

Pitsea & Vange Stories

We spoke to over 1600 people to find the treasures for our hoard, and all had exciting stories to tell. Was this your story? Do you know someone with a similar story? What are your memories of Pitsea and Vange?

11 February, 2023 – Wat Tyler Country Park Green Centre

“Our parents weren’t on the poverty line but they didn’t have extra money, so we grew up thinking we had the most impulsive parents ever, cause all of a sudden they’d say ‘we’re going to see Nan and Grandad in Manchester.’ Then depending how much money Mum had we’d either go to Laindon Station, because we could get a taxi there, or we went to Pitsea cause we had to go on the bus. We used to get the train from Pitsea to Fenchurch Street, then we’d get the night train. We thought it was a great adventure but it was actually just cheaper. We didn’t know till years later that that was why.”

“I used to walk through Church road to the pictures and [my mum] used to give us enough money to go to the pictures in Pitsea, but she used to give us enough money to get the bus coming back if it was a bit later or getting dark. But we never ever used it on the bus, we used to go and get chips and sweets.
When I got married in 1974 first of all I went to my husbands family in Rayleigh and then we got the flat in Vange and we lived there for 4 years until I had my daughter, and then we lived in Felmores, which was brand new! The neighbours all looked after the place.
There used to be a farmhouse where the park is now, and two sisters lived there, and locals used to say that they were witches.”

“Back in the 50s [my friend] got all this memorabilia of the shops that used to be here and different things that people wrote. She moved to Scotland to be with her family and then phoned me one day and said ‘Sue would you like it?’ I’ve lived here all of my life and I’m interested about its history… All the water you see when you drive up the A13, I used to go there and swim in the creek. My mum used to give me a jam sandwich and a bottle of milk and we’d be over there all day, nobody bothered then. Nowadays the thought of my great grandchild who’s 10 going out with a bottle of milk and sandwiches on her own? It’s horrendous.

“I’ve got a glass goblet that dates back from about 1820, I don’t have it out because I’m terrified it’ll get broken! It was my great-great-great-great grandfather’s. He got it by a postman back in Eastbourne. There was a set of them with a little gold disc and a picture with him holding it.”

“At the end of the road they built a bail hostel, so that was meant to be the stop for people who came out of prison and they didn’t have anywhere to go, mainly young people. And so they put them in there and if they didn’t reoffend, then they were allowed to go home. But my daughter and the two boys of her age that lived on the end of the road, they all used to play out together, and there used to be a football play area at the top and then all the kids from the bail hostel played with them. All of a sudden there was this huge thing, a local politician said ‘it shouldn’t be there, you can’t put them close to a schools,’ and I thought I’ve never had any trouble with that place, so I asked around the street and everyone said ‘no, they were absolutely fine.’ They had one incident, which was actually the police’s fault, because they wouldn’t let this guy see his dad who was dying so he flipped, and it wasn’t his fault – he was upset! Then they were wanting it moved and I didn’t understand… they were mixing with the community just like you want them to do. It’s still there fortunately!”

This crown and plaque are from the Basildon and Pitsea Carnival Association, generously loaned to us by Stuart!

The Pitsea Carnival was first held in 1921. In the year 2000, Pitsea Carnival was combined with Basildon Carnival (est. 1958) to create the Basildon & Pitsea Carnival Association.

7 February, 2023 – Heart of Pitsea Walking Group – Ann

“They were a very good employer, they employed people specifically built the factory for the new town venture so people from East London was sent. And the company was called Carrera’s, amalgamated with the other company Rothmund’s and there was always them and us, two parts of it. They manufactured cigarettes but they were excellent payers, looked after people – we had our own doctors on site, nurses on site, they had chiropody. We were so looked after and I worked for them for 16 years and we had overseas factories…and we had factories in Northern Ireland – which, one of my jobs was to go to Belfast. They were very forward thinking. Under license we made product for Mary Dunhill, that’s a cigarette company, who used to sponsor the British equestrians and of course when advertising got banned Mary Dunhill, who owned the company, couldn’t sponsor them anymore. They weren’t allowed to advertise and that was 3000 jobs when it closed, disappeared. It was heartbreaking. At the same time we had Yardley’s manufacturing some well-known tweed. During that era they closed, it started to affect the financial and employment of the local people.
Basildon New Town is having its 70th anniversary, it’s changed, and it’s changed very fast. In my lifetime I watched the station be built – we didn’t have a railway station. Pitsea had one of the first stations built, it used to go Pitsea straight on to Laindon.”

8 February, 2023 – Greensted community members

“I dunno whether if it is silver, and I can’t remember if it’s a bell or if it is a thimble… it’s got a little tiny thing on the top like a cross, something like that. I think my Jean bought me that when she went to Spain, cause that’s where all that sort of thing comes from innit. But other than that all the others [bells and thimbles] have just got pictures on them and writing where they are from. But all what I’ve got is actually what Jean’s brought me back, Pat’s brought me back, [Chris brought me back one from Sandringham], all the others I bought no matter where I’ve been in different towns.” – Sheila

“We had a big dining table, it was almost probably from about here to this chair, it was a big old brute. And I remember my mum getting under the table, shielding me, and all of a sudden boom! All the glass windows, the glass came in everywhere. If we weren’t under that table… you know the room was covered in glass and all the table top. Why that memory comes back is mum was on the floor holding me, covering me over, that vision is always with me.”

16 February, 2023 – Germaine

Germaine is a Pitsea local, who shared her love of Michael Jackson with us. She used to impersonate him, at birthday parties and get togethers – and was even featured on This Morning! Watch a video of her interview here.

Tales from Pitsea Market

“Tommy Campbell was the bloke who had these big track ups over at Canvey, he was the one that saved the animals and all that. I know me Dad’s auntie and uncle, they used to own the Railway pub, years ago. I used to drink in there.
My dad years ago, you know the Carry On films – Joan Sims… Well when she was younger, her dad was the station master at Pitsea Station, my dad used to work for him. He said where we used to put the lanterns out, she used to come along and nick all of the lanterns.”

Michael shared his favourite joke:

What can a cow do that is utterly impossible for every single woman in the world to do?
A cow can stand up to his chest in water without getting his bum wet!