South Benfleet

The Battle of Benfleet was an 894 battle between the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons commanded by Edward the Elder and Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, the son and son-in-law of Alfred the Great respectively. The battle was part of a campaign started by the Vikings in 892 to raid and potentially occupy lands in England, having been defeated by the armies of France. As part of this campaign the invaders were supported by those Vikings who had settled in England following an earlier invasion launched in 865. The battle was a victory for the Anglo-Saxons who successfully captured a number of women and children, as well as capturing or destroying the Viking ships. After their defeat the Vikings continued to raid England until they disbanded in 895 after being forced to abandon a series of camps. The rest of Alfred's reign was peaceful, and he was succeeded by Edward as King of Wessex in 899. In time Edward would become the ruler of Mercia, uniting the two kingdoms.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the parish church of South Benfleet, Essex. The church dates to around the 12th century, and predates the neighbouring Hadleigh Castle, which lies to the east a few miles away. The church was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1952.

Benfleet railway station is on the London, Tilbury and Southend line, serving the towns of South Benfleet and Canvey Island, Essex. It is 29 miles 11 chains (46.9 km) down the main line from London Fenchurch Street via Basildon and it is situated between Pitsea to the west and Leigh-on-Sea to the east. Its three-letter station code is BEF. It was opened in 1855. The station and all trains serving it are currently operated by c2c.

Castle Point is a constituency in Essex represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rebecca Harris, a Conservative.

The Appleton School is a secondary school and sixth form with academy status located in Croft Road, Benfleet, Essex, England. It currently accommodates 1,600 students from school years 7 to 13, and roughly 100 teachers.

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.

Cornelius Vermuyden School is a secondary school with academy status for boys and girls ages 11–16. Located on Canvey Island, Essex, the school is named after the Dutch land engineer Sir Cornelius Vermuyden (1595-1683) who reclaimed large areas of fenland in England, and supervised the construction of the sea walls around Canvey in 1623. The school is a specialist arts and maths and computing college.

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.

Canvey Island is a town, civil parish and reclaimed island in the Thames estuary, near Southend-on-Sea, in the Castle Point district, in the county of Essex, England. It has an area of 7.12 square miles (18.44 km2) and a population of 38,170. It is separated from the mainland of south Essex by a network of creeks. Lying only just above sea level, it is prone to flooding at exceptional tides and has been inhabited since the Roman conquest of Britain. The island was mainly agricultural land until the 20th century, when it became the fastest-growing seaside resort in Britain between 1911 and 1951. The North Sea flood of 1953 devastated the island, killing 58 islanders and leading to the temporary evacuation of the 13,000 residents. Canvey is consequently protected by modern sea defences comprising 2 miles (3.2 km) of concrete sea walls.Canvey Island is also notable for its relationship to the petrochemical industry. The island was the site of the first delivery in the world of liquefied natural gas by container ship and later became the subject of an influential assessment on the risks to a population living within the vicinity of petrochemical shipping and storage facilities.

The Church of St Margaret is a 14th-century grade II* listed church near Bowers Gifford, Essex. As is common with many Essex churches, it features a wooden bell-cot surmounting a stone tower.

Canvey Island Urban District was an urban district in the county of Essex, England. It was created in 1926 out of the civil parish of Canvey Island, previously in the Rochford Rural District. Since 1 April 1974 its former area has formed part of the Borough of Castle Point.

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.