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| Your guide to the district of Maldon and its history |
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Maldon is a town on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England and is the seat of the Maldon district which includes the starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation at Heybridge Basin. |
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 Promenade Park
This park has been a summer haven for generations of families living in or visiting Maldon and is now especially popular with the introduction of the new splash park |
 Heybridge Basin
Located at the sea end of the Chelmer and Blackwater navigation, the Basin contains many resident and visiting craft. A good starting point for walks along the sea walls |
 Hythe Quay
Ajacent to Promenade Park and home to many of the surviving Thames barges. This old port is now a great attraction for visitors and locals |
 Beeleigh
Where the Rivers Chelmer and Blackwater converge at the start of the man made cut of the Navigation. This area is also home to Beeleigh Abbey and mill |
 Fullbridge
Once a thriving port and industrial area and the home of Sadds timber and the railway station. You can often see a Thames barge under repair by the quay
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Maldon Museum
Located by the gates of Promenade Park it houses a large collection of displays depicting the history of Maldon
Museum of Power Langford
The old water pumping station exhibits includes working examples of power sources of all types and chronicles the major roles that they have played in history
Combined Military Services Museum
Huge range of exhibits conveying the history of warfare and weapons from the middle ages to the present day
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The railway to Maldon
Opened in 1848 and finally closed in 1964. The story of the Witham to Maldon railway
Beeleigh Abbey
Beeleigh Abbeywas contructed in 1180 on land granted to the Canons by Robert Mantell
E H Bentall & Co
From a plough designed by a farmer to once the main industry in Heybridge
Medieval Maldon
Maldon is not one of England's better known medieval towns. It was not a major player during the period when medieval urbanization is best documented, its importance lying in a mistier period of the Middle Ages, and consequently little attention has been paid it by historians. Yet, as a town relatively late in maturing, it provides an interesting comparison to larger towns. Read the History of Medieval Maldon by Stephen Alsford here
The ancient town of Maldon is situated on the River Blackwater where it joins the River Chelmer and was an early Saxon settlement, possibly even Roman.
King Edward the Elder fortified the Borough in 916 against the Danish assaults. In 991 the famous Battle of Maldon took place on the outskirts of the town near the causeway to Northey Island. A large force of Vikings, fresh from their sacking of Ipswich, sailed up the Blackwater and encamped on Northey Island. The Saxon Earl of Essex Brythnoth, with his Saxon force, met them on the causeway and finally gave battle on higher ground inland. The battle, it is said, lasted several days with the Saxons finally defeated with the death of Brythnoth.
At the time of the Doomsday Book in 1086 Maldon and Colchester were the only two Boroughs recorded in Essex.
A Saxon port of some significance, Maldon became even more important in Norman times culminating in the granting of a Royal Charter to the town in 1171 by Henry II. The first mayor of Maldon was elected in 1687 during the reign of James II where previously two bailiffs had been the Chief Officers of the Borough.
Over the years Maldon continued to prosper as an important port and centre of admiralty jurisdiction, placing tolls on goods entering the Blackwater and arriving at Maldon. At the time of the building of the Chelmer and Blackwater Canal in 1797 the population of Maldon was approximately 2,358 and at the arrival of the railway in 1847, Maldon’s population has risen to 5,888.
This revolution in transport marked the decline of the ‘Thames sailing Barge’ of which there were hundreds operating on this coast with many based at Maldon’s Hythe. The canal has not seen commercial traffic for many years and the railway, which had taken a lot business from the canal, was lost with Beeching’s cuts in the 1970’s.
The manufacturing and timber industries originally attracted to Maldon’s river and the canal at Heybridge have now gone and very little trace of their existence remains. Many of the surviving Thames Barges still have their home at the Hythe where they remain a great attraction to visitors to Maldon.
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