Peldon
A parish of five hundred and sixty-eight people on the neck of land between Abberton Reservoir and the causeway to Mersea, with a Grade I church and a long memory of the day the ground moved.
The place
Peldon is a small parish in the district of Colchester, five and a half miles south by west of the town. The 2021 census counted five hundred and sixty-eight people in it, up from five hundred and fifty-nine ten years earlier. The Office for National Statistics files the ground the campsite stands on as rural hamlet and isolated dwellings, which is an accurate description of a lane with a few houses on it running down to a reservoir.
Its position is the interesting part. The parish sits on the narrow strip between fresh water and salt: Abberton fills its northern edge, and the road south out of the village runs to the Strood, the causeway on and off Mersea Island. Almost everyone crossing to Mersea passes through it without stopping.
The parish boundary, with Abberton Reservoir along its northern edge, the village and the campsite marked. Drawn from Ordnance Survey data by way of OpenStreetMap.
St Mary the Virgin
The parish church is Grade I listed and considerably older than it looks from the road. Its origins are Anglo-Saxon and it generally dates from the eleventh century, with a nave from the twelfth, a tower from the fourteenth and a roof from the sixteenth. Four hundred years of rebuilding are stacked in one small building.
The earthquake
On the morning of 22 April 1884 an earthquake measuring 5.1 struck this part of Essex. It is usually called the Colchester earthquake, but Peldon took the worst of it: around twelve hundred and fifty buildings were damaged across the area, and by contemporary accounts every building in Peldon sustained some damage. For a British earthquake that is close to the upper limit of what is on record.
It is still visible. The Peldon Rose, a fifteenth century inn, carries the damage to this day, and is separately rumoured to have been connected by a smugglers' tunnel to Ray Island out in the marsh. Whether or not the tunnel was ever there, the cracks are.
Every building in Peldon sustained some damage.
Contemporary accounts of the Colchester earthquake, 22 April 1884
Nearby
The Plough is the pub nearest the campsite, a seven minute walk from the gate, with a large beer garden. Colchester, five and a half miles north, has a decent claim to being the oldest recorded town in Britain and still has its castle and a good deal of the Norman town wall.
One more thing happened in this corner. On 24 September 1916 the German Zeppelin L33, damaged during a raid on London, came down at New Hall Farm at Little Wigborough, a couple of miles west. Its crew walked away and gave themselves up on the road.
Census and administrative figures are from Office for National Statistics data. The church, the earthquake and the inn are from published reference sources.
| Parish population | 568 at the 2021 census (559 in 2011) |
|---|---|
| District | Colchester, Essex |
| Ward | Mersea and Pyefleet |
| Constituency | Harwich and North Essex |
| Parish church | St Mary the Virgin, Grade I listed; Anglo-Saxon origins, 12th century nave, 14th century tower, 16th century roof |
| Earthquake | 22 April 1884, magnitude 5.1; around 1,250 buildings damaged across the area |
| The Peldon Rose | 15th century inn, still showing earthquake damage |
| Distance to Colchester | Five and a half miles, south by west |
| Classification | Rural hamlet and isolated dwellings |
Census and administrative figures from Office for National Statistics data; the church, the earthquake and the inn from published reference sources.