Lake Meadows

How the park came about

History of Lake Meadows

The land which is now Lake Meadows was originally part of the Petre Estate owned by Lord Petre of Ingatestone Hall. On this land stood Hill House, a hunting lodge for Lord Petre’s estate on what is now Stock Road, and seventy acres of the surrounding land which formed Hill House Farm. Early in the 19th Century the Petre Estate started to sell off parcels of land.

On 12th April 1831 a Major Thomas Jenner Spitty, formerly of the Essex Rifles Regiment of Militia, purchased the seventy acres of Hill House Farm from the Petre Estate. In the 1840’s he bought another parcel of land from the Estate to the south-west of Hill House, and these forty seven acres eventually became Lake Meadows.

Aerial photo of Lake Meadows looking South West

In the 1870’s there was a run of disastrously unfavourable seasons with delayed growth in spring and wet and late harvests. This combined with increased imports of food at lower prices, particularly cheap corn from the Americas, meant that the income for farmers dropped significantly and caused mass unemployment among farm workers. As a reaction to this Major Spitty employed many of the local jobless farm workers to dig out a lake on the land which is now Lake Meadows. Spitty was keen on shooting and he thought that a lake on his land would encourage more wildfowl to the estate to enhance his shoot.  Thus during 1893 and 1894 many local unemployed agricultural workers dug out the lake by hand, being paid a shilling a day for all the hard work.  When finished the lake was known as  “The Moat. By this time the time Major Spitty had moved from Hill House to Hurlocks in the High Street and he had a lookout tower on the roof so that he could, through a telescope, monitor progress on the lake without leaving home. The lake as originally built was larger and deeper than we see today and was reputed to have been up to twenty feet deep in places. The lake did as Spitty had hoped and attracted wildfowl such that he was able to hold elegant shooting parties on his Hill House Estate and Lord Kitchener of Khartoum is said to have been a regular visitor.

The lake as it is today

On 26th January 1898 Major Spitty died and the beneficial ownership of the land passed to his wife. However as he had no children his will specified that on the death of his wife the land was to pass to his niece, Cornelia Gertrude Scudamore  Reade, the widow of Canadian born Surgeon General Herbert Taylor Reade V.C.. Mary Ann Spitty died on 29th April 1908 and the land passed to Cornelia.

Cornelia died in 1916 and as she was childless the Estate was held by Trustees as specified in Major Spitty’s will for the benefit of a number of named individuals. The Trustees sold the Estate the following year to John Robert Spurling, the owner of Norsey Wood. He later started to sell off parts of the Estate in smaller lots and in 1921 thirty seven freehold plots were sold to developers which would become the Lake Avenue and Caterwood we know today. At around the same time a further portion of land was sold to St John’s School and forms the premises we see today in Stock Road and  Hill House Farm was sold to William Alexander Cater, after whom the Cater Museum in the High Street is named.

In 1936 Lake Meadows passed into the hands of the newly formed local authority, Billericay Urban District Council and it became public parkland. Over the years the park has hosted a number of events including the Coronation Pageant of 1953, the Christ (an Easter Passion Play) of 1982, Firework displays and Summer Concerts as well as being used by local residents for every day. The lake still attracts large numbers of wildfowl with many geese visiting at various times of year so things have not changed since Major Spitty’s original vision.

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  • The land was actually bought, not by Major Thomas Jenner Spitty, but by his father Captain Thomas Spitty. That year, 1831, the younger Thomas was not of the age of majority, so he was unable to undertake any legal transactions to make such a purchase. The land subsequently passed to the Major in 1858, on the death of his father.
    The lake was dug out sometime prior to 1874. The Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, surveyed in 1874 and published in 1881, shows the lake, as it is now, was in existence by that date. Both the Essex Records Office and the Ordnance Survey confirm that whatever was included in the map in 1874, would have been ‘on the ground’ at the time and not added to the map later.
    The men who dug out the lake by hand were paid one shilling and given a free meal. A shilling was equal to the equivalent of the Poor Law payments at the time.

    Editors Note: The details in the article were taken from the Spitty family Genealogy Page, however that does not mean they are correct and this comment may well be the right version. What we do know however is that Thomas Jenner Spitty was not afraid of acting in a legal capacity although below the age of majority. When he was only 18 (the age of majority being 21) he took action in court over his maternal grandfathers will using a third party to do so in his name, so it is possible he did the same with the purchase of the Lake Meadows land. As Thomas Jenner Spitty lost this case I am not sure where he would have got the money for the land purchase so the comment would appear to be the correct version. One thing is certain and that is the lake is shown on the OS map. I have avoided using army ranks as this confuses things as Thomas Jenner was a Captain around the time that Lake Meadows was purchased, another thing to confuse the issue.

    By Rosie Novis (24/09/2022)

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