Cataloguing Essex building plans

Posted on December 19, 2025 by admin

This year our volunteers have catalogued over 1000 building plans, primarily from Canvey Island and Southend-on-Sea. Thanks to Annabelle, Ashley, Elizabeth, Freya, Issy, Patrick, Olivia, and Sophie for this monumental achievement!

What are these building plans?

At the ERO we look after hundreds of thousands of building plans, created and collected by architects, owners, and local authorities. The building plans we’re currently cataloguing were submitted to local authorities in the early 1900s. During this period, councils were responsible for making sure that buildings conformed to local bye-laws (for the more detail, see Roger Harper’s Victorian Building Regulations (LIB/690 HAR)). To build a new building – or alter an existing one – you had to send in an application form and your plans to the surveyor of the local council. These were then kept by the council and eventually made their way to us.

What can the records tell us?

Each application will usually include an application form and at least one plan. The application forms are different for each local authority. In this example, from Rochford Rural District Council, the form asks the applicant:

Where the building is: the street name and sometimes the property name, but not always a number
What it is: a bungalow, hotel, casino, or even a simple tool shed
The name and address of the owner, architect, and builder
Various dimensions
The number of rooms
The materials used to build the property

Application form for Eugene E. Lawrence’s bungalow on Trevia Avenue, Canvey Island, 1921 (D/UCi 2/1A/3008)

The forms can also tell us about the application process – on the reverse of this form, the surveyor reminds the applicant that all plans must be drawn “on tracing linen” to a scale of not less than one inch to every eight feet, and submitted “seven days at least” before they are examined by the council.

The plans usually feature:

Elevations and sections: drawings of the building from the front, side, or back
A floor plan: a drawing of the building from above, showing the different rooms
A block or key plan: a drawing of the site from above, showing nearby properties and roads

Alongside the form and plan(s), sometimes the packet also includes letters between the council surveyor and owner, architect, or builder, and certificates documenting the inspection or completion of the building.

Letter from Miss Jessie McNaughton of Arcadia Tearooms to ‘the surveyor’ stating that the kiosk would “enable me to sell my sweets and tobaccos outside the tea room as they are affected with the steam of cooking inside… I was quite ignorant of the fact that I had to submit a plan being as it is portable and only for the summer months…”
(D/UCi 2/4/1981)

If you’re trying to find out more about the building you live in, or the building your ancestors lived in, a building application is a great way to start.

Together, the plans can also reveal a huge amount about how Essex developed over time. Take Canvey Island as an example…

Tell me more about Canvey!

*Captivating Canvey: An Isle of Delight in the Mouth of the Silvery Thames* c.1927 (LIB/E/CANV55)

People have lived on Canvey Island since the Roman times, when it was home to a large salt-making industry. The Saxons then introduced sheep farming, with the sheep taking refuge from flooding on the ‘red hills’ left by the salt industry. In the 1600s, Canvey’s landowners instigated a Dutch-led project to build a sea wall around the island, making the land more productive. The population of Canvey really took off, though, in the early 1900s, when it became a popular place to visit. Plots of land were sold off to Londoners wanting to escape the city – for the weekend, or for life – and the island community grew from there, reaching several thousand by 1931.

We look after over 70 boxes of building plans for Canvey alone, with each box including 50 to 150 plans. These document the construction of modern Canvey on an incredibly granular level.

Types of buildings

Many of the properties built on Canvey from the 1900s to the 1930s were bungalows (which, sadly, is partly why Canvey was so badly affected by the 1953 North Sea Flood).

We especially loved the range of names people gave them – some of our favourites included The Nook, Maybemaydo, Itsowers, Tarry-A-While, and Waiting.

*The Haven* on Haven Road, for Mr and Mrs Delviso, 1931 (D/UCi 2/4/1293)

In amongst the many applications for bungalows are applications for other buildings – shops, kiosks, huts, sheds, pubs, and (a rare treat!) cinemas and hotels. There are even some applications for caravans, like The Maple Leaf, pictured here.

Coffee stall on the high street, 1931 (D/UCi 2/4/1325)

Canvey’s architects and builders

We will be sharing more blog posts about the characters we found in the records, but in the meantime, here are a few of the names we became familiar with. Many of the people listed below are explored in more detail on the Canvey Community Archive website, a wonderful resource for all things related to Canvey’s history.

Architects

Captain W.H. Gregson, who worked on Canvey from at least 1902, and was based at the Lake House (later the Dr Feelgood Music Bar)
Alfred G. Loe, who worked on Canvey from around 1912, initially from his home in Walthamstow and later at his bungalow Carradene
Eugene E. Lawrence, who self-built his bungalow on Trevia Avenue in 1919 (shown above) and went on to design over 200 properties on the island
A.G. Millns, who self-built on Roggel Road in 1920, and ended up designing over 100 properties on Canvey
Thomas McLaren, who worked from the Clock House, where he also ran an emporium selling stationery, photographs, fancy goods, and maps of the island (some of which he drew up himself)

Advert for A.G. Millns, surveyor, valuer, & architect

Builders

Alfred Wainwright, master builder, who built properties on Canvey from around 1907
Roland George Francke (based at Inglenook, on Fairlop Avenue) and William Johnstone (at Rudyard, on Arcadia Road, and then the Clock House), both active from the mid-1920s
H. Price Powell and Hubert Redman, who worked as builders and estate agents from the 1920s
Frederick Fisk, who specialised in brick buildings in the early 1920s and went on to own and build a number of properties, including the Maison Wyck estate
Susan Fielder and her son Horace Fielder, who bought land on Canvey and, from the mid-1920s, went on to build over 1,000 properties on the island

Adverts from Captivating Canvey, c.1927 (LIB/E/CANV55) and The Guide to Canvey Island, c.1930 (LIB/E/CANV56), as well as a letter from Frederick Fisk, 1937

A special mention also goes to…

The surveyors of Canvey Island Urban District Council – H.J. Sidwell, C.R. Butcher, and especially P.G.W. Stokes, whose rigorous enforcement of the bye-laws goes against the assumption that Canvey Island was like the wild west of planning at this time. In one letter regarding a bungalow on Van Diemens Pass (D/UCi 2/4/1359), Stokes wrote that:

“…the whole position [of the building] is unsatisfactory and I suggest you call at this Office as soon as possible and put the matter in order.”

That doesn’t mean that the owners and architects didn’t push back – in another letter, the architect Eugene E. Lawrence argues against Stokes’ “unreasonable” disapproval of some of his plans, “given his representatives had seen exactly what they constituted” (D/UCi 2/4/1154).

There were also an unusually high number of applications, especially in the early 1900s, from individuals who owned, designed, and built their own properties – including the enterprising friends Henry Perkins and Alfred Barnes, who bought two ex-army huts at Hornchurch in 1921 and applied to re-erect them on Hornsland Road, Leigh Beck.

Letter from Alfred Barnes on behalf of himself and Henry Perkins, and plans of the army huts, 1921 (D/UCi 2/1A/2936)

What information can be found on the catalogue?

When cataloguing archive material, it is always difficult to decide what information to include on the catalogue, and what to leave out – bearing in mind that, in Canvey’s case, there are over 70 boxes to get through.

Using the application for Twilldoo, on Lottem Road, as an example, the information we have put on the catalogue includes:

Reference: D/UCi 2/4/1209
Title: Building plan and application for addition at ‘Twilldoo’, Lottem Road, Canvey Island
Description: Owner: Mrs Mate, ‘Twilldoo’, Lottem Road, Canvey Island. Architect: Wilmot Marks, ‘The Arcade’, High Street, Canvey Island. Builder: W. Johnstone, ‘Rudyard’, Beach Road, Canvey Island.
Extent: 2 items
Dates: Submitted 27 Jul 1931; disapproved 31 Jul 1931 (poor Mrs Mate – some of the plans were indeed disapproved)

Packet, application, and plan for addition to *Twilldoo*, 1931 (D/UCi 2/4/1209)

How can I find a specific plan?

To search for a specific plan, go to Essex Archives Online and search for ‘building plan’ and the street name you’re interested in.

The results will be organised by the ERO reference. If you know when the building you’re interested in was built, you can organise the search results by date, which might make it easier to find if there are a lot of results.

If you search the catalogue and don’t find what you’re looking for, we might still have the plan – it might just not have been catalogued yet.

For Canvey Island, we have catalogued:

All of the individual plans relating to Canvey Island that were submitted to Rochford Rural District Council between 1902 and 1926:

21 January 1902 – 16 February 1915 (reference D/UCi 2/1)
3 October 1916 – 30 March 1912 (reference D/UCi 2/1A)
2 October 1923 – 23 March 1926 (reference D/UCi 2/1B)

Some of the individual plans submitted to Canvey Island Urban District Council from 1927 onwards (all reference D/UCi 2/4):

2 March 1927 – 19 October 1927
23 June 1931 – 18 January 1932
29 May 1933 – 15 July 1933
21 January 1935 – 12 February 1935
7 July 1936 – October 1936

We are in the process of cataloguing more boxes, so this will be updated in due course. In the meantime, if you’re looking for another year, or a specific street, you might be able to check the council’s registers of plans. You could also use our search service to look into it for you.

What if I’ve found the catalogue record for the plan I’m interested in, but want more detail?

You would be more than welcome to view the building plan in person, in our searchroom. Find out more about visiting us on our website.

Alternatively, if you’ve found the catalogue record for the plan, you can order a digital copy. This can be done through an online form.

Would you like to find out more about the history of your house? Take a look at our guide to house history!

Paper buildings: a volunteer project dedicated to conserving the architectural plans of Frederic Chancellor

Posted on June 9, 2023 by admin

We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all our wonderful volunteers who regularly donate their time and expertise to help with our archives and sound collections and assist in the conservation studio.

The conservation volunteers have just entered the final stages of the Chancellor Project under the guidance of our Senior Conservator, Diane Taylor.

Frederic Chancellor (1825-1918) was a prolific architect with offices in Chelmsford, Essex and London. He was the first Mayor of Chelmsford and served seven terms in the role between 1888 and 1906 and was on the Town Council from 1854-1917. His home, Bellefield House, New London Road, Chelmsford, has a blue plaque for him. Chancellor is credited with working on at least 700 buildings, over 500 of which are in Essex. He worked on all types of buildings from private houses to public buildings such as the Felsted School and the Corn Exchange on Tindal Square in Chelmsford which was demolished in 1969 to make way for the High Chelmer redevelopment. He was also involved with most of the churches in Essex.

Although there was public demand to see his plans, their condition made them unsuitable for production, highlighting the need to make the entire collection more accessible through cleaning, repair and suitable packaging. Since 2014, 535 bundles totalling over 8500 individual plans have been processed and are now available to consult in the ERO Searchroom – a fantastic achievement made possible with a grant from The National Manuscripts Conservation Trust and the support of the amazing volunteers.

Chancellor’s plans are beautifully produced, and many of them are highly coloured. Most are on paper, but there are some on fragile tracing paper, tracing cloth and some are blueprints.

When the plans arrive in the Conservation studio they are carefully removed from their packaging, unrolled, given a unique number, and recorded on a spreadsheet – this enables them to be tracked through the treatment process.

Bundles of rolled plans wrapped in brown paper in brown boxes — Bundles of Chancellor plans before treatment

Every plan is surface cleaned by volunteers who are fully trained to identify problems such as pencil inscriptions, and delicate and crumbly paper, which will make cleaning difficult. Once clean, the plans are humidified so that they can be flattened. Flattening the plans is a time-consuming process which takes at least two weeks. Plans with sufficient damage to warrant repair – around 37% – are treated by the conservation staff and assisted by a trained volunteer.

Close up of a hand lightly cleaning a plan using a smoke sponge — Lightly cleaning a plan using a smoke sponge

Five ladies cleaning an outsize plan which has been unrolled on a large table in the conservation studio — ‘Many hands make light work’: cleaning an outsize plan

Close up of a hand lightly cleaning a plan using an eraser — Lightly cleaning a plan using an eraser

After flattening and any necessary repairs, the plans are stored in folders or plan chests depending on their size. To date, 36 small boxes, 25 large boxes, 4 tubes, and 48 A0 plan chest drawers have been filled with completed Chancellor plans. This project could not have been so productive without the continued dedication of volunteers who have gifted 7996 hours of time so far. A wide range of people have worked on the plans including retired people with an active interest in history; newly qualified archivists; those exploring a potential future career in archives, whether as an archivist or conservator; work experience students and interns.

Large, shallow green archive boxes stored on metal racking in an archive repository — ‘Large’ plans boxed and stored

Our volunteers are committed to completing the sequence of Essex plans which will take us to an estimated total of 10,000 plans being preserved for future generations and made available researchers to consult which will be a fantastic achievement.

The Chancellor plans in this project can be found on our online catalogue here: Chancellor, Architects of Chelmsford, although his plans can be found in other collections throughout the ERO’s holdings.

You may be interested in our previous posts on Cleaning Tracing Paper in the Chancellor collection and Creeksea Church: a hidden Victorian gem, Creeksea being one of Chancellor’s churches.

Call for volunteers: Essex Ensembles Assembled

Posted on April 26, 2022 by admin

Do you have an ear for music? An investigative streak? An interest in audio archives? Or, even better, all three?

We are looking for volunteers to help catalogue recordings of the Essex Youth Orchestra (EYO) and Colchester Youth Chamber Orchestra (CYCO) from the 1960s to the 2000s.

The recordings have recently been digitised as part of the ‘Essex Ensembles Assembled’ project, funded by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC).

The next step in the project is to make information about the recordings available on our catalogue, Essex Archives Online, and (rights-permitting) share some the recordings online.

Ideally, we’d like volunteers to listen to the recordings, identify the pieces performed, and write time-coded descriptions for our catalogue. For those less familiar – or a bit rusty! – with classical music, some of the concert programmes are available to help.

If you are interested, please get in touch with our Sound Archivist, Kate O’Neill.
We would especially love to hear from you if you were involved with the EYO or CYCO yourself. You can volunteer remotely or here in the Searchroom at the Essex Record Office, so you’ll be able to get involved whether you’re based in Essex or further afield.

Essex Festival poster, nd.
Harlow Playhouse concert poster, 1972

About the Essex Youth Orchestra

The Essex Youth Orchestra (EYO) was founded in 1957 and continues to this day as Essex Music Services’ flagship ensemble. The EYO has consistently maintained an excellent reputation for the very high standard of its performances, in part down to its history of distinguished conductors, such as John Georgiadis.

Essex Youth Orchestra perform Holst’s ‘Brook Green Suite’ in Thaxted Church on the 75th anniversary of the Thaxted Music Festival, 28 December 1989 [SA 1/927/1]. Recorded by BBC Essex.

There are over 50 recordings of EYO performances in the Essex Sound and Video Archive. They feature a range of composers, from Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach to those with a local connection such as Holst, Britten, and Gordon Jacob. The EYO regularly performed at local festivals and on tour, with concerts in the USA in 1972, Israel in 1976 and East Germany in 1982.

The first performance of Gordon Jacob’s ‘Sinfonia Brevis’, performed by Essex Youth Orchestra at Saffron Walden County High School, 5 April 1975 [SA881].

Tenth anniversary concert programme, 1967
Israel concert poster, 1976
Chamber concert programme, 1973
Italy concert poster, 1985

About Colchester Youth Chamber Orchestra

Colchester Youth Chamber Orchestra (CYCO) was founded in 1982 to provide talented local musicians an opportunity to play in an ambitious chamber orchestra. It also featured notable musicians, with trumpeter George Reynolds conducting from 1984. It closed in 2007.

Colchester Youth Chamber Orchestra performing at the Colchester Rose Show in July 1984 [SA645]. Do you recognise the piece being performed?

The CYCO archive was deposited at the Essex Record Office in 2012. Alongside programmes, posters, and press clippings, the archive includes twenty recordings of CYCO performances, from concerts at the annual Colchester Rose Show to the first performance of Alan Bullard’s ‘Colchester Suite’.

Presenter Liz Mullen explains the inspiration behind Alan Bullard’s ‘Colchester Suite’, commissioned for Colchester Youth Chamber Orchestra in 1983 [SA645]. From ‘Folio’, Anglia Television’s arts programme.

The aim of the Essex Ensembles Assembled project

The project aims to preserve recordings of the Essex Youth Orchestra and Colchester Youth Chamber Orchestra and make them available for future generations to enjoy. It is funded by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings.

As an aural record, the recordings provide a unique insight into the changing nature and repertoire of youth orchestras in Essex over the past fifty years, and give a platform to local musicians, conductors and composers.

They also capture music-making that is often lost to posterity, with performances by the Second Essex Youth Orchestra as well as the First, and the occasional wrong notes and coughs from the audience.

Nevertheless, as a whole the recordings reveal a high standard of performance, and demonstrate what young people can contribute to music in Essex and beyond.

Conductor John Georgiadis and four Essex Youth Orchestra members talk about their involvement with the orchestra on the EYO’s 30th anniversary in 1987. Recorded by BBC Essex [SA 1/1291/1].

Collage of black and white photographs of the Essex Youth Orchestra in concert and on outings. — **A collage of photographs from an Essex Youth Orchestra concert programme.**

A day in the life of an Essex Sound and Video Archive volunteer

Posted on April 23, 2019 by admin

Andy Popperwell shares his experiences volunteering for the Essex Sound and Video Archive

Photograph of volunteer smiling at camera

Nineteen (boxes) times fifty-six (tapes) is a thousand and sixty four. That’s an awful lot of open reel tapes, even if they’re five-inch ones. This is the estimated number of remaining tapes to be processed from a collection of 79 boxes, formerly the property of the late Chris Bard, who presented Sunday morning programmes on BBC Essex for many years (Accession Number SA459).

My name is Andy Popperwell and I’ve just become a volunteer in the Sound Archive at the Essex Record Office. My task is to review these tapes and help to decide which ones should enter the Archive and which ones shouldn’t. The key criterion is whether they have relevance to Essex. Some do; some don’t.

I’ve made a start, and the range of material is fascinating. Everything from Polish Christian radio stations after the fall of communism to ecumenism in Essex villages.

Photograph of an open reel tape on player

Learning the archive protocols was the first step. I spent many years as a Studio Manager (Sound Engineer) in the BBC World Service, working on high-speed current affairs in 40 languages, where the pressure was to get the interviews edited as quickly as possible and into the live programmes, 24 hours a day. Here, in the calm atmosphere of the Archive, it’s a question of treating each tape reverently, making sure that temperature and humidity are appropriate and learning how to do a ‘library wind’. This means that, after listening carefully and making notes about the content, each tape is wound back at slow speed so that it’s neatly positioned on the spool and there’s no chance of physical damage.

Photograph of volunteer working at tape player

It’s great to be learning new skills while at the same time using my previous experience to help with the work of the Archive. I’m also a volunteer at Copped Hall, on the edge of Epping Forest. It’s a 1750s mansion which was destroyed in a huge fire in 1917, and we’re restoring it. Apart from general labouring, I’m setting up Copped Hall’s own sound archive, trying to record the lives and stories of those who have worked over the last 25 years to rebuild the old place. Do come and visit us on one of our regular Tour Days – third Sunday in the month.

Both these volunteering opportunities are feeding into my other big interest: I’ve returned to being a student, doing a Masters by Research at London South Bank University. I’m interested in what Essex in general and Copped Hall in particular sounded like in past times. I hope that, as well as expanding my brain, it will be possible to use my research to recreate the soundscapes of the past, and specifically the 1750s, when the Hall was built. The Essex Record Office has a huge quantity of fascinating material to help with my research, including, for example, little pieces of paper with rhymes and poems which the Conyers family, owners of Copped Hall, wrote for each other in the middle of the eighteenth century (Catalogue Reference D/DW Z3). Handling these documents is a real privilege, and a unique connection with the past.

Finding our way through the National Grid

Posted on June 2, 2015 by admin

Lawrence Barker, Archivist

The ERO has a fine collection of late 19^th and early 20^th century large scale OS maps (1:2500 County Series) available for public consultation in the Searchroom. However, we wanted to extend the collection to include later 20^th century National Grid maps of the same scale. Some mid-Essex maps are available to view but many, among various collections which have been donated to the ERO over the years, remain to be made so.

Just a few of the maps awaiting sorting and cataloguing

A Map Project involving volunteers has been underway for three years to achieve this and has reached the stage where, having identified and listed our remaining maps and their locations, assessing duplication and condition, we are now ready to select those which will be added to the Searchroom collection. The task is complex though, and involves the volunteers spreading out maps around the Searchroom whilst we are closed on Mondays so they can be sorted.

Spreading out maps in the Searchroom ready for sorting

Our team of volunteers comprises Michael and Jane Thomas, who are NADFAS members, John Longhurst, and Andrew Morton who acts as leader bringing his expert knowledge of maps as a former land surveyor usefully to the task.

The sorting and listing of the 20th century National Grid maps is a long term project that will take a few years, but we are looking forward to the end result of making our map collection ever more accessible.

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