Vange

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Village in Essex, England

title: "Vange" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["populated-places-in-essex", "former-civil-parishes-in-essex", "basildon-(town)"] description: "Village in Essex, England" topic_path: "general/populated-places-in-essex" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vange" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Village in Essex, England ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox UK place"]

FieldValue
official_nameVange
static_imageThe Barge Public House, Vange - geograph.org.uk - 995977.jpg
static_image_captionThe former Barge public house
coordinates
population10,401
population_ref(Ward, 2021)
os_grid_referenceTQ725875
shire_districtBasildon
shire_countyEssex
regionEast of England
countryEngland
post_townBASILDON
postcode_areaSS
postcode_districtSS16
dial_code01268
constituency_westminsterSouth Basildon and East Thurrock
::

| official_name= Vange | static_image= The Barge Public House, Vange - geograph.org.uk - 995977.jpg | static_image_caption= The former Barge public house | coordinates= | area_total_km2= | population= 10,401 | population_ref= (Ward, 2021) | os_grid_reference= TQ725875 | shire_district= Basildon | shire_county= Essex | region= East of England | country= England | post_town= BASILDON | postcode_area= SS | postcode_district= SS16 | dial_code= 01268 | constituency_westminster= South Basildon and East Thurrock | website= Vange is a southern suburb of Basildon in Essex, England. Vange was historically a separate village and parish. It was a small village until the first half of the 20th century, when it saw significant plotlands development. In 1949 the village was included in the designated area for the new town of Basildon, since when the area has seen further extensive development. It now forms part of the built up area of Basildon. It gives its name to one of the wards of the Borough of Basildon. At the 2021 census the ward had a population of 10,401.

History

The name Vange means "fen district".

In the Domesday Book of 1086 there were two estates or manors listed at the vill of Phenge in the Barstable Hundred of Essex.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Vange_Church.jpg" caption="[[All Saints Church, Vange]]" alt="A small stone church with a red tiled roof and a wooden bellcote"] ::

No church or priest is mentioned in the Domesday Book, but Vange became a parish. All Saints Church appears to have been built shortly after the Norman Conquest, in the late 11th century or 12th century. It has been altered and repaired many times over the centuries since then. It is faced in ragstone and flint, with some areas of alternating brickwork and tufa. It has a small timber bell turret.

In the 1840s, Vange was described as a small village at the head of a creek with a wharf for barges. The parish at that time had a population of 169. The manor house of Vange Hall stood on the hill to the north of the village; it has since been demolished and the site forms part of Basildon Golf Club.

Nearby Pitsea railway station opened in 1855, encouraging development in the area. The main road through Vange is High Road / London Road, later numbered as the A13 until it was bypassed in the 1970s and became the B1464. High Road was developed with shops and businesses from the late 19th century. In the first half of the 20th century it was a busy shopping centre, at a time when the facilities in neighbouring Pitsea were relatively limited. The railway station was renamed "Pitsea for Vange" in 1932, but reverted to just being called Pitsea in 1952.

The area's heavy clay soil made for poor quality agricultural land. The late 19th century and early 20th century was a period of wider agricultural depression, and many farms in the area were sold for development as plotlands, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. People bought individual plots on which to build a house, but there was very little provision of infrastructure and many of the houses were of a poor quality.

When elected parish and district councils were established in 1894, Vange was included in the Billericay Rural District.

Most of the rural district, including Vange, was converted into the Billericay Urban District in 1934, which also covered Billericay, Wickford, Laindon, Pitsea, and surrounding rural areas. The civil parishes within the urban district were thereafter classed as urban parishes and so ceased to be eligible to have parish councils. The parishes within the urban district were united into a single parish called Billericay in 1937. At the 1931 census (the last before the abolition of the civil parish), Vange had a population of 2,300.

In 1949, Vange was included in the designated area for the new town of Basildon. Billericay Urban District was renamed Basildon Urban District in 1955 and was reformed to become the modern Basildon district in 1974. As part of the new town's development programme, the plotlands around Vange were gradually replaced with modern housing estates, and almost all the pre-new town shops and other buildings along High Road were demolished.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/St_Chad's_Church,_Vange,Basildon-geograph.org.uk-_7270306.jpg" caption="St Chad's Church"] ::

A new church dedicated to St Chad was completed in 1958, in a more central location to modern Vange than the old parish church of All Saints. All Saints was declared redundant in 1996, and it was transferred to the Churches Conservation Trust in 2003.

Some of the cleared plotlands were left as open space, and now form the Vange Hill Local Nature Reserve, which covers 30 acre lying next to Basildon Golf Course.

One of the few pre-new town buildings to survive on the High Road is the former Barge Inn.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/The_Five_Bells,Vange-geograph.org.uk-_1066951.jpg" caption="The Five Bells, London Road"] ::

The only pub left in Vange is now the Five Bells on London Road, which dates back to the early 18th century.

Vange Marsh, to the south of Vange, is a wetland habitat.

References

References

  1. "Vange ward".
  2. "Vange". University of Nottingham.
  3. "Vange".
  4. "Essex T–Z".
  5. {{NHLE
  6. (2007). "Church of All Saints". [[Churches Conservation Trust]].
  7. (1848). "History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Essex".
  8. "Georeferenced Maps". Ordnance Survey.
  9. "High Road, Vange: Shops, houses, businesses and public buildings".
  10. Butt, R. V. J.. (1995). "The Directory of Railway Stations". Patrick Stephens.
  11. (2011). "Basildon Borough Historic Environment Characterisation Report 2010–2011". Basildon Council.
  12. (10 May 1895). "New Parish Councils". Essex County Chronicle.
  13. "Relationships and changes Vange CP/AP through time". A Vision of Britain through Time.
  14. "Population statistics Vange CP/AP through time". [[A Vision of Britain through Time]].
  15. {{London Gazette. (7 January 1949)
  16. {{cite legislation UK. (1972)
  17. {{cite legislation UK. (1973)
  18. "Built Up Areas (December 2022) Boundaries". Office for National Statistics.
  19. "All Saints Church, Vange".
  20. "Vange Hill Local Nature Reserve".
  21. {{NHLE
  22. "The Five Bells, London Road, Vange".
  23. "Vange Marsh".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

populated-places-in-essexformer-civil-parishes-in-essexbasildon-(town)