Arfter all the recent discussions about Hockley, perhaps it’s worth mentioning that this isn’t the first era in which peopled have had big ideas involving Hockley.
As page 61 of “Visionaries and planners: the garden city movement and the modern community” by Stanley Buder explains, in the 1890s Ebenezer Howard , the creator of the Garden City concept, was involved in attempts to create a “New Jerusalem” here in Essex. In fact, near Hockley:
“In 1893 a suitable site of nine hundred acres was located near Hockley in Essex, and negotiations were entered into….”
But the idea came to nothing, through lack of finance.