Canvey Island

“CANVEY-ISLAND, a chapelry partly in the parishes of NORTH-AND-SOUTH-BENFLEET, BOWERS GIFFORD, LAINDON, PITSEA, and VANGE, in the hundred of BARSTABLE, and partly in the parishes of LEIGH, PRETTLEWELL, and SOUTHCHURCH, in the hundred of ROCHFORD, county of ESSEX, 6 ¼ miles (E. N. E.) from Leigh. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Essex, and diocese of London, endowed with £800 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the Rector of Laindon. The chapel is dedicated to St. Catherine: divine service is performed by the vicar, or curate, of South Benfleet. This island, situated near the mouth of the Thames, is about five miles in length and two in breadth, and contains three thousand six hundred acres: it is encompassed by branches of that river, but there is a passage over the strand at low water, the river being on the south side two miles wide. Numerous flocks of sheep feed here, though the low grounds are subject to inundations, one of which spread so suddenly, in 1735, that many of the sheep and other animals were drowned before they could be driven to the high grounds. Several of the inhabitants are engaged in the fishery. A fair is held on the 25th of June.” [From Samuel Lewis A Topographical Dictionary of England (1831) - copyright Mel Lockie 2016]