Burnham, Essex

Description
Burnham, a village and a parish in Essex. The village stands on the river Crouch, opposite Wallasea Island, 9 miles NE from Southend, and has a station on the Southminster branch of the G.E.R. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office (S.O.), dates from old times, includes a good, street, is a seaport and coastguard station, and has a customhouse, a convenient quay, and a ferry. The river Crouch is famous for its oyster beds, and oyster culture and fishing form an important industry. Fishing, chiefly for herrings, is also carried on, and a good business in boat-building, sail-making, and corn and coal dealing. Several vessels from 50 to 200 tons are employed here. The parish includes also the hamlet of Ostend. Acreage, 4526; population, 2360. The land is marshy. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St Albans; gross yearly value, £424 with residence. The church is a building of stone and flint in the Late Perpendicular style. Its tower was formerly very lofty, serving as a landmark for ships at sea, but having been blown down it was rebuilt at a lower elevation. There are Baptist, Catholic Apostolic, Congregational, and Primitive Methodist chapels, a public hall erected in 1887, and a workmen's reading-room.