Tag Archives: Landermere

Landermere: the pre-Henderson days

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Frederick Kempster English Giant

Jo has reminded me that Landermere did actually exist (!) before the advent of the Henderson era in 1954, with previous inhabitants including:

  • The quay was purchased by Richard Rigby in 1781, who built Gull Cottages and the King’s Head.
  • Sir William Withey Gull, physician to Queen Victoria and at one time suspected of being Jack the Ripper – the cottages are named after him, and there’s a placard on the end cottage showing that it once belonged to him. He is buried in the village churchyard.
  • There was also Sir Basil Spence, architect of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral; and Frederick Kempster, also known as the English Giant, who stood 7’9″ tall, regularly visited Landermere and in fact one of the best-known photographs of him (above) shows him shaking hands with someone at the first floor window of the King’s Head (now Steve & Lis’ bedroom!)

Thanks Jo – does anyone know of any other previous Landermereites?

Welcome to Landermere

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Landermere Quay, where the land meets the sea, is a tiny hamlet near the village of Thorpe-le-Soken in the Essex marshes.  Easier to access by sea than by road, it’s been home to my mother’s family – the Hendersons – since the 1950s when my great-grandparents bought the smugglers’ pub (The Kings Head) and the fishermen’s cottages (Gull Cottages) as a suitable home for my grandparents Nigel and Judith Henderson, who had until then been living in Chisenhale Road, Bethnal Green, with their three children Jo, Justin (my mother) and Ned.  Their fourth child Stephen was born when they were living at the Kings Head.

The family moved to Landermere when Justin was eight – at this stage Jo would have been nine and Ned a baby.  Steve was born three years later.

Justin died in 2007 so I can’t ask her for any more stories, but I have memories of her telling us that when she was a child there was a pony, possibly a Shetland; and multiple cats (the ones Mum used to talk about especially were called Bouncer and Camilla).

I do know that there were other families living at Landermere.  Judith (my grandmother) was an anthropologist who was involved in the Mass Observation project in the East End after the second world war.  Her project was called Discover Your Neighbour – and her part revolved around the family who lived next door in Chisenhale Road, Leslie and Doreen Samuels and their seven boys.  When Nigel and Judith moved to Landermere, they took the Samuels family with them and gave them one of the cottages to live in – it’s still owned by Peter Samuels (one of the seven sons) now.

Nigel was one of the foremost artists of the Independent Group, and his colleague and friend Eduardo Paolozzi also moved to Landermere with his wife Freda; between them they formed Hammer Prints, which was run largely from the Kings Head.

There are lots of other stories about Landermere from before I was born – hopefully I’ll dredge the memory banks at some stage – but if you have any memories or photographs of Landermere you’d like to share, please let me know and I’ll happily publish them.