Wakering & District
Natural History Society

Village Map

The map started as a challenge from the then Chairman of the Parish Council, Maurice Sherman. The Society was paid each year to coppice the Osiers at the end of Wakering Common, but instead of payment the Council said they would fund a project if we could come up with an idea.

While visiting my brother at Christmas 1993 he showed us a map of the next village, Shelford. As soon as we saw it we said, "that has to be the project". We purchased a map to show the committee and suggested we did a similar project for Wakering.

After finding out what problems we were likely to encounter we set about doing ours in a totally different way, and also to keep it completely within the village, even the printing. In December 1994 the Parish Council were advised of our intentions and were told that we could hopefully have it ready by August 1996.

The following year (1995) was used to take photographs of the buildings that would go round the outside border and to decide on what wildlife would fit in between them. A mock up was made using the photos and was shown to the committee for approval. Society members who did some art work were invited to do some of the paintings, as were a few non members, but the bulk of the paintings were done by the two local art groups. All the buildings were painted from the photographs on a white background, this was done for ease of scanning, at the printers. The painting all started in January '96. At the same time a start was made on raising funds for the project which was to cost an estimated £6000 for printing 1000 copies.

Essex County Council provided the definitive maps with all the footpaths on, which we had to get right to get the grant. The maps were good for footpaths but were not up to date with the development and site plans had to be obtained from Rochford Council. Armed with all these maps Gill Threadgold drew the central Parish map freehand and painted it according to the cropping of 1995. Peter Jeffries was asked to produce the history of the village and Carol Smith was presented with a list of over 1300 surnames to be hand written onto a given space.

The list of names was taken from the Electoral roll of 1995, this had to be hand written as the Council would not allow them to go out of the office or to be copied. I did this over three days, the first two I sat in full view of the desk with all its comings and goings but the last day was busy and I was behind a partition and overheard one of the office workers say "that old man is not in today, I reckon he just came in for a warm". The receptionist was trying to make gestures to her as I peered round the corner, to her acute embarrassment, then I explained what was happening. Somehow two surnames seem to have escaped the system but should have been there, they are White and Wilkins. While admitting some errors, John Mead was omitted from the list of artists and one of the buildings was accidentally flipped over, at the printers, has anyone noticed?

A Project Involving the Members

By the end of May most of the paintings were finished and were taken to Mayhew McCrimmon's for scanning along with a full size sheet of paper with all the positions of the pictures marked on it. During the next two months there were numerous visits to the printers to iron out little problems. Things were getting close, our Treasurer was getting very worried, so much so that a special meeting was called, that made him even more nervous as the members wanted to back it fully, it wasn't so bad when I agreed that my name go on the invoice instead of the Society's, especially when I suggested having 2000 printed, but the second thousand was only going to cost £373.

The presentation evening was booked for August 9th. All the artists and sponsors were invited, the latter to receive a map as a thank you for sponsoring us. On the 2nd we gave the go ahead for printing after seeing the second draft copy of the map, but on the 7th a fault was found in the printing of the history, luckily they hadn't started printing having run out of paper. I began to sweat. On the 8th still no maps or tubes to put them in, took a proof to Star Frames for framing to have the next evening. On the day of the presentation at 4.00pm we finally got just 100 maps in tubes which was enough for the evening. The unveiling of the map surprised even the artists, it was a superb record of how the Village was in 1995 and the whole team from the village could be justifiably proud of what they had achieved.

Artists : Ann Bacon, Betty Belcham, Pamela Bridge, Yvonne Bridge, Vera Chapman, Elizabeth Colbert, Betty Dobson, Elizabeth Donaghy, Arthur Golding, Les Groves, Fred Harris, Janet Heard, Irene Hillsdon, Jane Hollywood, Pauline Huxter, Marianne Ings, Diane Jeffries, Jacqueline Johnston, Beryl Jones, Joan Kemp, William McArthur, John Mead, Elsie Morley, Peter Smith, Janet Taylor, Lucille Taylor, Gill Threadgold, Graeme Ward and Sandra Williams.

Sponsors : Great Wakering Community Association, Great Wakering Parish Council, Mayhew McCrimmon, Morley Nurseries, Rural Action Project, Rural Community Council of Essex, Star Frames, "The Anchor", "The Exhibition Inn", "The White Hart", and Threadgold Farms.

We are now into selling our second thousand. The maps are hanging in houses all round the world, as well as here in Great Wakering. They are an archive of the year 1995 with all the buildings and crops at that time.

The Village Map can be purchased from myself or any member of the committee. The price is £5, exclusive of postage which will obviously depend on destination. Current postage costs (Sep 2006) for delivery within the UK are:1st class £1.27; 2nd class £1.09. Please ask for postage costs outside the UK.

Map size 850 x 615 mm

John Threadgold (chairman)

E-mail address: john.threadgold@care4free.net