THIS week in Down Memory Lane we visit Little Thurrock.

I noticed in one of the museum files we had recorded that the small parochial school building and school masters’ house built close to St Mary’s Church, in Dock Road, was opened on October 7, 1872, just 130 years ago and still used, but not as a school.

The hall is used for community activities and the school master’s house with its clock tower – to remind pupils to get to school and church on time – is privately occupied.

Checking further it appears we have little other archives or photographic record of these buildings in the past.

I note that in the 1874 Post Office Trade Directory Mrs Charlotte Hammond is recorded as the school mistress, while other notables are the Rev Cornwall Smalley, MA, JP, Rectory, who would have delivered lessons on religious instruction at the school, William Evered, parish clerk, Mrs Allen and Golden Allen, farmer, Terrells Hall, Richard Bright, market gardener, Mrs Mary Cook, farmer, Mrs Lucy Fordham, marker gardener, Robert Ingram, farmer and landowner, William Law, Ship public house, Mrs Mary Ann Miller, beer retailer, Thomas Pearson, brick maker, Isaac Spooner, Bull public house, James Waters, baker and grocer and finally William Wiffin, shopkeeper.

It was quite an agricultural community, but there was also brick making from the locally hand dug brick earth clays, while the Broadway and Dock Road had its pubs and shops to serve the local community.

My photograph was taken during a local history field trip guided by museum staff to Thameside Junior School. If you have any photographs, records or memories of the church school, please contact me.