Garrold's Meadow

Pound Wood is a 22.3 nature reserve in Thundersley in Essex. It is owned and managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.Much of this site is ancient woodland, with some old secondary woodland. Trees include sweet chestnut, aspen and the wild service tree. There are a number of dells and ponds.There is access from St Michael's Road, which separates the site from Tile Wood, another Essex Wildlife Trust nature reserve.

Tile Wood is a 6.5-hectare (16-acre) nature reserve in Thundersley in Essex. It is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.The wood is ancient, having been mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon period. The main trees are sessile oak, hornbeam and sweet chestnut. Ground flora include wood sorrel, bluebells and wood-rush.There is access from St Michael's Road, and the site is adjacent to two other nature reserves managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust, Little Haven and Pound Wood.

Great Wood and Dodd's Grove is a 36.8-hectare (91-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. It is also a Local Nature Reserve called Belfairs. Essex Wildlife Trust runs the Belfairs Woodland Centre and manages the site together with Southend-on-Sea City Council.This is a small remnant of the ancient Hadleigh Great Wood. It is coppiced oak woodland on sands, gravels and clay, and one of the largest areas of old woodland in the south of the county. Bramble and honeysuckle are the main ground plants. Other plants include the rare broad-leaved helleborine. The site has toilets, a café and trails.There is access from Poors Lane, which runs through the site.

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.

Belfairs Academy (formerly Belfairs High School) is a non-selective secondary school with academy status in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

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.

On 15 October 2021, David Amess, a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for Southend West, died after being stabbed multiple times at a constituency surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church Hall in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old British man and Islamic State sympathiser, was arrested at the scene. He was found guilty of murder and the preparation of terrorist acts in April 2022, and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order.

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').

Rayleigh Weir Stadium was a speedway, greyhound racing and stock car stadium in Weir between Rayleigh and Thundersley in England. It is not to be confused with the Rayleigh Greyhound Sports Stadium that existed in O’Tooles Meadow on Down Hall 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.

HM Prison Bullwood Hall is a former Category C women's prison and Young Offenders Institution, located in Hockley, Essex, England. The prison was operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

Belton Hills is a 22 hectare Local Nature Reserve in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. It is owned and managed by Southend-on-Sea City Council.This steeply sloping site has large areas of scrub, and there are some rare plant and invertebrates species. Plants include Deptford pink (flowering June-August) and bithynian vetch (flowering May–June), and a survey in 2001 recorded 667 invertebrate taxa.There is access to the site from Marine Parade and Belton Way.