St Lawrence Bay

St Lawrence is a parish in the Maldon district of Essex in the East of England on the Dengie peninsula. The village of St Lawrence Bay, which takes its name from the parish, is situated on the south shore of the Blackwater Estuary, 4 miles (6.5 km) from Southminster and is also known by local residents as “Stone”. The village contains areas known as Ramsey Island and St Lawrence Bay. The village has a single access road leading down to the estuary shore and has seen recent expansion and the construction of new housing due to its riverside location and proximity to Southminster railway station, which provides a fast commuter service to Liverpool Street Station in the City of London. Also with bus links via the D1 allowing for access to Bradwell-on-sea and Maldon where other bus links are available. There are a small number of businesses in the village including two pubs called “The Stone” and "St Lawrence Inn" and a single shop which also provides Post Office services. In the summer the population of the area swells due to tourism, with the presence of Waterside Holiday Park which holds many open days for local residents and its visitors, plus with many second homes the area becomes a retreat for many. The Blackwater Estuary also provides a good location for water sports and there are two clubs which provide facilities on the waterfront; Stone Watersports Club and Stone Sailing Club. In 2012 St Lawrence opened a village hall which hosts various social clubs. The area also has many more outdoor pursuits from rambling to triathlons and road cycling. The village is protected from flooding by a sea wall which was reinforced in the nineties due to increased flood risk in the east of England. This provides a footpath along the south bank of the estuary with good views of the surrounding countryside. Also located at intervals along the sea wall are Type 2 pillboxes that were built to defend the estuary during the Second World War.

MV Ross Revenge is a radio ship, the home of Radio Caroline, as well as having supported Radio Monique and various religious broadcasters. Funded by the Icelandic government, she was constructed in Bremerhaven in 1960 and served as an Icelandic commercial trawler until 1963 when she was sold to the Ross Group fleet, notably taking part in the Cod Wars of the 1970s. Following her decommissioning, she was purchased by Radio Caroline and outfitted as a radio ship, complete with 300-foot (91 m) antenna mast and 50 kW transmitter. Her broadcasts began on 20 August 1983; her final pirate broadcast took place in November 1990. She ran aground on the Goodwin Sands in November 1991, bringing the era of offshore pirate radio in Europe to an end. She was, however, salvaged, and is now maintained by the Caroline Support Group, a group of supporters and enthusiasts.

Steeple is a village on the Dengie Peninsula in Essex, England. It is situated just east of Maylandsea and Mayland, on the southern side of the River Blackwater estuary. A hamlet, within the village of Steeple, on the banks of the River Blackwater is called Stansgate.

Tollesbury Pier railway station was a short-lived terminus of an extension of the Kelvedon and Tollesbury Light Railway, serving Tollesbury's pier on the River Blackwater in Essex. The station was opened in 1907. The station was 10 miles 8 chains (16.25 km) from Kelvedon Low Level railway station. The c. 1.5-mile extension from the existing terminus at Tollesbury to Tollesbury Pier never brought the expected traffic. During World War I the pier was used for troop training on the river and was subsequently closed to passengers in 1921. The government took over the pier during World War II and erected defences along it.

The White House Farm murders took place near the village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, England, United Kingdom, during the night of 6–7 August 1985. Nevill and June Bamber were shot and killed inside their farmhouse at White House Farm along with their adopted daughter, Sheila Caffell, and Sheila's six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell. The only surviving member of June and Nevill's immediate family was their adopted son, Jeremy Bamber, then 24 years old, who said he had been at home a few miles away when the shooting took place.Police initially believed that Sheila, diagnosed with schizophrenia, had fired the shots then turned the gun on herself. But weeks after the murders, Jeremy's ex-girlfriend told police that he had implicated himself. The prosecution argued that, motivated by a large inheritance, Bamber had shot the family with his father's semi-automatic rifle, then placed the gun in his unstable sister's hands to make it look like a murder–suicide. A silencer, the prosecution said, was on the rifle and would have made it too long, they argued, for Sheila's fingers to reach the trigger to shoot herself. Bamber was convicted of five counts of murder in October 1986 by a 10–2 majority verdict, sentenced to a minimum of twenty-five years, and informed in 1994 that he would never be released. The Court of Appeal upheld the verdict in 2002.Jeremy protested his innocence throughout, although his extended family remained convinced of his guilt. Between 2004 and 2012, his lawyers submitted several unsuccessful applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, arguing that the silencer might not have been used during the killings, that the crime scene may have been damaged then reconstructed, that crime-scene photographs were taken weeks after the murders, and that the time of Sheila's death had been miscalculated.A key issue was whether Jeremy had received a call from his father that night to say Sheila had "gone berserk" with a gun. Jeremy said that he did, that he alerted police, and that Sheila fired the final shot while he and the officers were standing outside the house. It became a central plank of the prosecution's case that the father had made no such call, and that the only reason Jeremy would have lied about it—indeed, the only way he could have known about the shootings when he alerted the police—was that he was the killer himself.

Tollesbury railway station was on the Kelvedon and Tollesbury Light Railway, serving the village of Tollesbury, Essex. The station was 8 miles 42 chains (13.72 km) from Kelvedon Low Level railway station.The station was opened in 1904 by the Great Eastern Railway. It was closed, along with the rest of the line, on 7 May 1951.

Tollesbury is a village in England, located on the Essex coast at the mouth of the River Blackwater. It is situated nine miles east of the historic port of Maldon and twelve miles south of Colchester. For centuries Tollesbury, the village of the plough and sail, relied on the harvests of the land and the sea. The main trade and export of Tollesbury, which still thrives to this day, has long been oysters.

Woodup Pool in Tollesbury, Essex (also known as Woodrolfe Pool) is a salt-water pond or lake used as an open-air swimming pool or amenity pool.

Tollesbury Wick is a 242.8-hectare (600-acre) nature reserve east of Tollesbury in Essex. It is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.This is coastal freshwater marsh which is grazed by sheep, and is worked by traditional methods which encourage wildlife. Areas of ungrazed rough pasture have badgers, and field voles and pygmy shrews are hunted by hen harriers and short-eared owls.There is access from the sea wall only to a footpath to a bird hide.

Asheldham is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is located about 14 km (8.7 mi) southeast of Maldon and is 26 km (16 mi) east-southeast from the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the district of Maldon and the parliamentary constituency of Maldon & East Chelmsford. The village is part of the combined Asheldham and Dengie Parish Council. It is on the Dengie peninsula, and is about 12 miles by road from Maldon. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 150, reducing to 142 at the Census 2011. The former parish church, dedicated to St Lawrence became redundant in May 1973 and was converted into use as a youth church and residential centre for the Chelmsford Diocese. With a chancel, nave and tower dating from the 1300s, it is a Grade II listed building. A Ham class minesweeper, HMS Asheldham, launched in September 1953 was named after the hamlet. Archeological excavations into Romano-British field systems, Anglo-Saxon graves and medieval buildings have taken place in the village.

Dengie is a village and civil parish in the Maldon district of Essex, England, with a population of 119 at the 2011 census. It gives its name to the Dengie peninsula and hundred and to the Dengie Special Protection Area. The place-name 'Dengie' is first attested in a manuscript of between 709 and 745, where it appears as Deningei. It appears as Daneseia in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name means 'Dene's island' or 'the island of Dene's people'. The 14th-century church of St James is the parish Church for the village. Dengie Flats, offshore, was used as a bombing and strafing range by the RAF and USAAF during the Second World War, and also attracted many crash-landing aircraft bound to or from the nearby RAF Bradwell Bay airfield. Between 1942 and 1945 Dengie was also the site of a 10-cm "Coast Defence" radar station used to warn of enemy ships and low-flying aircraft and doodlebugs. (Sources—RAF record books at National Archive; USAF Missing in Action records;J P Foynes "Battle of the East Coast 1939-1945") Dengie marshes were once used to film an episode of Doctor Who.