SOUTH BENFLEET AS SEEN FROM RAILWAY STATION.
South Benfleet.
Some Historical Notes with a Guide to the
Parish Church.
THE traveller passing through South Benfleet
Station will catch glimpses of an old-world fishing
village at the head of a narrow creek, with a grey
church tower rising above the red-tiled roofs of quaintly-
built houses on either side of a straggling main street.
If he approach the village by road, either from Hadleigh
House by Shipwright's Wood and the Round Hill,
or by Jervis Hill, he will realize that the one-time
fishing village is growing into a residential district,
but still retains many of its most picturesque features,
and the labour of walking will be richly rewarded
by a delightful series of panoramas—hill, valley and
woodland, all mingling with the salt marsh and the
riverside, and beyond, the flat stretches of Canvey
Island and the Kentish shore.
The Parish of South Benfleet (having an area of
nearly two thousand acres, and a population of about
2,500) is bounded on the north by Thundersley;
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