DID YOU KNOW…. Before Sunnymede School was built the school land was intended to be part of a housing estate. Rather than be a cul-de-sac, a road was going to run from The Meadow Way along the school boundary (parallel to The Rising). This was going to be Lilac Avenue.
Another road was going to run from the end of The Meadow Way through what is the school playground to join Mons Avenue. This map is dated 7th September 1931 – I’ve got ones going back to 1928 but because they are heavily coloured, they don’t scan as well.
This article and comments were originally posted on our Facebook site Billericay Life & Times on 30 July 2017
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I too did my first ever swimming badges in the freezing raised pool at Sunnymede – a “width” and a “length” That would have been ’76 or ’77. My 4th year teacher was Mrs Dunmore, Mr Cox was still head then. I also went back recently and saw that “Jacksons ditch” as we kids used to call it, is now completely underground from where it appeared at the end of Crown Road, all the way to Outwood Common, running along the bottom of the school playground on its way! Who else player “Pooh Sticks” at lunchtimes? – @Tracey Rolfe – are you Simon’s Sister?
I remember the swimming pool, did my width and length certificates. Liked it when the policeman came in to do the cycling tuition. I lived in Outwood Common Road, I used to ride my brown pony round Outwood Common. One of my teachers was Mrs. Hunter.
Jules,
I don’t have any photos of the outdoor pool but my father was one of the parents who built it in 1960s. It wasn’t dug into the ground, instead having raised sides with ladders to climb over the side. There were 2 changing rooms, one for each sex.
The water was freezing (I doubt if it was heated!) and about waist height. I passed my first swimming certificates in the pool. I’m not sure how long the pool was used. I was at Sunneymede school about 1964-71, and I can remember at some stage in the junior school we were taken each week to the indoor swimming pool in Hutton at Hutton Poplars (the children’s home for children from the East End – now a housing estate).
I loved my time at Sunnymede and went back there regularly to visit Mr Cox. Teachers I remember; Mr Brierley who lived on Stock Farm (told my parents I was good at maths “for a girl”, also taught us sex education- very brave!), Mr White who also ran orchestra and choir, Mrs Stevenson top year .
Does anyone have any photos of the outside pool at Sunnymede, for the life of me, I can’t remember it.
My father had an allotment on the land before it was developed to be Sunnymead School in the 1950s.
Does anyone have any early pictures of The Rising? We have recently moved here and I would love to see some.
I have just Googled Jacksons Lane and see that Meadow Rise is where I got lost.
I came back to Billericay last year and got very lost looking for Jacksons Lane. I left in the 1960s and then I used to enter it at the bottom of Crown Road over a bridge and then Jacksons Lane went on through Sunnymede and then on to Outwood Common Road. I think I found Crown Road was a Cul-de-Sac so I thought Jacksons Lane must be further along Norsey Road over the bridge. It would be interesting to see a map how it was because I cannot remember where Jacksons Lane started.
On that map, Greens Farm Lane is shown as Jacksons Lane. When my parents bought 35 Meadow Rise in the late 60s, it was also called Jacksons Lane. Over the years the road names have altered slightly. And Jacksons Lane is much shorter!
So glad the school went there instead – I loved my days there!
You would have walked up Jackson’s Lane, Crown Road, the length of the High Street into Laindon Road and past the Catholic Church on your left, the Gas Works on your right and then you would have come to your infant/Primary School.
Interesting, but long before we came to Billericay. We used to Live in Meadow Rise, not on that map. Wonder where our kids would have gone to School?
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