Debating meetings at the Victory Hall consisted of gaiety and wholesome nonsense mixed with sound common sense, attended by a mass of interested people, especially when the speaker was a well known personality. Most nights after dinner - a ...

Sing songs were very pleasant to remember, we had quite a few customers who had nice baritone and base voices, it was never difficult to get together and enjoy ...

Mr Trim used the Victory more as a home as he used to run a small farm and also let out mechanical machinery to farmers who could not afford their own. When we took over, we soon realised that it ...

1917

The Hon. Kenneth Watson then O.C. Devon Regiment stationed at Salisbury, a very kindly and considerate man. His troops regarded him with great respect and affection, as so they should, although it does not always follow that kindness received is kindness returned. ...

PYEFLEET HOUSE
Researched & compiled by Geoff Gonella

The building
Pyefleet House is the last-but-one house on the Strood before Mersea Island. Over the years it has also been named 'Strood Villa', 'Strood Close' and 'The Vicarage, Peldon.' At the t ...

454276 Private
H.W. Dines
Labour Corps.
4 November 1918 age 34

Harry Wi ...

For hundreds of years there has been an ongoing battle trying to defend the Essex coastal marshlands against inundation by high tides. Although we focus on the 1953 floods, being within living memory, they were preceded by previous inundations notably, in the last hundred ...

Egyptian Vulture. Photo from Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton and Hove.

There are numerous references to the rare sighting (and shooting) of an Egyptian Vulture ...

The congregation outside Peldon Chapel around 1945.
Photo: Pat Wyncoll (the little boy in the foreground)

We are often led to believe that the tides cover the Strood more often than they used to and are getting bigger. I think the ever increasing amount of traffic could give that impression. The ...

The following article was written by J.H.G. Sunnucks for Mistral Magazine in 1995

1995 saw the 30th anniversary of the opening by Miss Akhurst of the first "sheltered" accommodation on the Island. There must be many varied memories of how it all began, but this is how the ...

We continue the history of Orleans, the large house by the Monkey Beach in West Mersea.

At the end of the 19th Century, Orleans belonged to Thomas Gilbert a wealthy gentleman who was a JP, Churchwarden, Captain of ...

Recently, a lady visitor to Mersea noticed while walking along the Monkey beach, an ornamental metal gate in the wall of New Orleans garden. She wanted to find out about the old house Orleans which stood in the grounds ...

MEMORY LANE From Ron Green and Tony Millatt - Mersea Island Museum.

In our May item for Mersea Life, we referred to an old newspaper cutting concerning The Nutshell and Little Timbers in The Lane. In another cutting, dating from 1906, we find an interesting tale concerning ...

Three members of the Highways ...

Our Museum is getting a constant flow of interesting old pictures etc. Out of the blue, Chris Burrows from Whitstable has emailed this fine image of the 'old' Victory. Comparing it with a postcard of ...

Mrs Margaret (Peggy) Brunt née Calver passed away in Boston Butterfly Hospice on Saturday 11th February - her daughter's birthday. She was a teacher at West Mersea School during the war. Ron ...

Travelling eastwards along the road from West to East Mersea you see a turning to the left named "Meeting Lane"; if you go down the lane you will not now find any clues as to where meetings were held ...

Many people walking down The Lane have been surprised to see a little mission hall tucked in among the houses in the oldest part of the island. They wonder at the name, "Old City Hall", a somewhat grandiose name for such a small hall; however, the name is more apt than it at ...

Situated in East Road on the corner of Seaview Avenue is the Assembly Hall, an attractive boarded and tiled building opened in 1910 when Mersea Island was discovered and thought to be a desirable ...

It was in the year of the battle of Trafalgar that a local landowner and oyster merchant, Mr Bennett ...

The Wesleyan Chapel in Mill Road, West Mersea. It is now known as the Methodist Church.

Wesleyan Methodism began here, as far as can be traced, in 1832. At that time a Welsh ...

A piece of World War 2 shrapnel recently landed back on Mersea - in the Museum letterbox. It came from John Simons, whose family came to live with relatives in East Mersea to escape the bombs coming down around the Chatham Dockyard in Kent. The shrapnel had originally arrived in ...

The shop best remembered as ...

One wartime event on the Island, perhaps not ...