The King John School

Benfleet Urban District was an urban district in the county of Essex, England. It was created on 1 October 1929 from the parts of Rochford Rural District containing the civil parishes of Hadleigh, South Benfleet and Thundersley.Since 1 April 1974 it has formed an unparished area of the borough of Castle Point.

Unified Seevic Palmer's College, trading as USP College (previously known as Seevic and Palmer's Colleges Group), is a large general further education college in Essex, England. It was established in August 2017 from the merger of Palmer's College in Grays, Thurrock, and Seevic College in Thundersley, Benfleet, and traces its history back to the establishment of Palmer's as a charity school in 1706. Seevic College was established as a sixth form college in 1972, with Seevic originally being an acronym for South East Essex Sixth (VI) Form College. Seevic and Palmer's now make up two of the college's three campuses, with the XTEND Digital Campus in Canvey Island forming its third campus. There were 3,588 students enrolled to the college as of November 2021.The Seevic Campus offers adult education courses for learners of any age. Both campuses offer a special needs department for anyone with a learning disability. The Palmer's campus opened its special needs department in September 2018, following the success of the Seevic Campus one which has been running for several years and has over 94 students in the department. In 2018 Seevic merged with Palmer's College as part of a government initiative. From September 2018 the colleges were renamed USP College with a new logo. It was announced in March 2019 that USP had purchased local apprenticeship provider ITEC Learning Technologies which would increase the number of apprenticeship training options USP could offer.

The Deanes (formerly The Deanes School) is a co-educational secondary school located in Thundersley in the English county of Essex.

Thundersley is a town and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Benfleet, in the Castle Point borough, in southeast Essex, England. It sits on a clay ridge shared with Basildon and Hadleigh, 31 miles (50 km) east of Charing Cross, London. In 1951 the parish had a population of 6482.Its main parish takes in Daws Heath to the east which is also part of the current Victoria local government electoral ward. The two areas have Anglican churches. A third Anglican church is in the secular ward of St John's, which is commonly conflated on maps with South Benfleet which it adjoins and it is separated from Thundersley by a narrow green buffer. Between the two wards is the main ward of St Peter's, which loosely resembles the very longstanding church parish. One ward is partially in Thundersley, Boyce which includes Thundersley Green and various short streets next to the town itself.

Hadleigh is a town and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Benfleet, in southeast Essex, England, on the A13 between Thundersley, Benfleet and Leigh-on-Sea with a population of 18,300. In 1951 the parish had a population of 5,209. It has a squared bypass to the north (the A127 'Southend Arterial Road').

The Church of St James the Less, is a grade I listed church in Hadleigh, Essex.The church is of predominantly Norman construction with the chancel and nave dating to the 12th century.

Thundersley Great Common or Thundersley Common is an 8.9-hectare (22-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Thundersley in Essex. It is managed as public open space by Castle Point Borough Council.The site is in two separate areas, and has a variety of grass and heath habitats. There wet and dry heathland, both unusual in Essex, and have locally uncommon plants. Heather and gorse are dominant in areas which are not mown, and ponds which dry up in the summer provide an additional habitat.There is access from Common Approach and Kingsley Lane.

Hadleigh Castle is a ruined fortification in the English county of Essex, overlooking the Thames Estuary from south of the town of Hadleigh. Built after 1215 during the reign of Henry III by Hubert de Burgh, the castle was surrounded by parkland and had an important economic and defensive role. The castle was significantly expanded and remodelled by Edward III, who turned it into a grander property, designed to defend against a potential French attack, as well as to provide the King with a convenient private residence close to London. Built on a soft hill of London clay, the castle has often been subject to subsidence; this, combined with the sale of its stonework in the 16th century, has led to it now being ruined. The remains are now preserved by English Heritage and protected under UK law as a Grade I listed building and scheduled monument.

Hadleigh Farm is an educational working farm and cross-country cycling venue located in Hadleigh, within the borough of Castle Point, in the county of Essex. The men's and women's mountain biking events of the 2012 Summer Olympics took place at Hadleigh Farm on 11 and 12 August.

Castle Point is a local government district with borough status in south Essex, England, lying 30 miles (48 km) east of central London. The borough comprises an area on the mainland and the adjoining Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary, which is connected to the mainland by bridges. The council is based in Thundersley. The borough's other main settlements are Canvey Island, Hadleigh and South Benfleet. The neighbouring districts are Southend-on-Sea, Rochford, Basildon and Thurrock.

Little Haven is a 37.2-hectare (92-acre) nature reserve in Thundersley in Essex. It is owned by the Little Haven Children's Hospice, and leased to the Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT).This site has diverse habitats of woodland, meadows, scrub and hedges. The main trees are sessile oaks, hornbeams and sweet chestnut, and plants such as wood sorrel and are indicators of ancient woodland. The reserve is one of only 25 in the courty where the rare heath fritillary is well established. The hedges provide nesting sites for migrating birds such as whitethroats.There is access to the site by a footpath from St Michael's Road through Tile Wood, a neighbouring EWT nature reserve.

Daws Heath contains a large area of woodland in eastern Thundersley, part of Castle Point near Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England. It is traversed by the Daws Heath Road and St Michael's Road. Daws Heath provides a semi-rural escape for local towns and villages and their residents as they walk, cycle or drive out of Castle Point, as Daws Heath Road has fields and woodland on both sides of the road with a small scattering of houses. Going down Daws Heath Road it is not uncommon to see rare-breed cattle, sheep and horses. Daws Heath is surrounded by Greenbelt and Woodland which are a buffer to stop the local villages merging by development. West Woods, nearly 80 acres (320,000 m2) of mixed woodland, was purchased from the Church of England in 2009, securing continued public access to these woods; public support in the Daws Heath area is very strong especially on green belt and woodland preservation. The area has established neighbourhood watch schemes, Church Groups and Greenbelt Protection Groups. Daws Heath contains The Deanes, (a secondary School), and is linked to a local Sixth Form College in Thundersley (SEEVIC), now part of USP College. Daws Heath extends from the north side of Hadleigh towards the A127 London-Southend arterial road, and from where it adjoins Thundersley proper at the west end of Daws Heath Road eastwards to Belfairs Park, Leigh-on-Sea in Southend borough. Ann's Mini Market is the heart of Daws Heath which brings the local community together. The Glazebrook Family is well known in Daws Heath and they are viewed as key members of the community. Although new to Daws Heath, the Merrison's have also played a large role within the community. In fact the two eldest sons from each family could be seen horse riding along Fairmead, Morfcroft and Daws Heath Road. Some even called them the four musketeers. Daws Heath was described in books as a "wild and lawless place: both travellers and local inhabitants had to endure thieves and highwaymen," (Thundersley - A Pictorial History by Terry Babbington) and "a hotbed of lawlessness right down to living memory." (Southend-on-Sea & District by J.W.Burrows, dated 1909). Burrows continued......"The settlement of this...district is attributed to some discharged soldiers who served in the Peninsular War. Upon the heath land they built themselves small huts, and by some means or another managed to obtain a precarious livelihood. Here possibly smuggled goods were concealed until a favourable opportunity enabled the owners to dispatch them to London or through the bye roads into the centre of England." Charcoal burning was an important industry here in the 16th century, supplying gunpowder factories. This probably included the Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills which produced gunpowder from 1660. More recently the Essex Wildlife Trust has revived charcoal burning in Pound Wood. The Wildlife Trust has done much work in Pound Wood and Tile Wood/Starvelarks Wood (next to Little Haven Children's Hospice), making them more accessible to visitors. The nearest public house is The Woodman's Arms on the Rayleigh Road (A129) junction with Daws Heath Road. The artist Alan Sorrell was a resident of Daws Heath.