BASILDON, or Basseldon, is a small village and chapelry, ecclesiastically united to Laindon parish, and distant 4 miles S.S.E. of Billericay. It contains 180 souls, and 1627 acres of land. It was made a chapelry to Laindon at an early period, and is in the three reputed manors of Barstable, Botelers, and Battleswick, belonging to the Slater, Moss, Archer, Offin, and other families. Barstable gives name to this Hundred, and had anciently a village, the foundations of which have often been ploughed up in the town field.
At Domesday Survey, it belonged to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and was held, with the Hundred, of the King. The Church, or chapel, is a substantial building, with a nave, chancel, and an embattled tower, crowned by a spire. The living is a perpetual curacy, consolidated with the rectory of Laindon, and, in 1859, the present rector built here a handsome Rectory House, as already noticed.
The poor have the interest of £200, left, in 1862, by Samuel Leake Gibbons.
The FARMERS are Alfred and Daniel Archer, Benjamin Moss, Abm. Offin, John Peasegood, and Mary Skipworth.
Walter Shead, shopkeeper.