Maldon Facts for Kids

This page is about the town in England. For other uses, see Maldon (disambiguation).

Quick facts for kids Maldon
Maldon viewed from the north east
Maldon
Population	14,220 (2011)
OS grid reference	TL848070
Civil parish	Maldon
District	Maldon
Shire county	Essex
Region	East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	MALDON
Postcode district	CM9
Dialling code	01621

Police	Essex
Fire	Essex
Ambulance	East of England

EU Parliament	East of England
UK Parliament	Maldon
List of places UK England Essex 51°43′54″N 0°40′33″E / 51.7318°N 0.6758°E / 51.7318; 0.6758

Maldon ( locally) is a town and civil parish on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is most renowned for Maldon Sea Salt which is produced in the area.

Sport
Transport
Notable people
Images for kids
See also

Sport

Maldon has a non-League football club Maldon & Tiptree F.C. who play at the Wallace Binder Ground.

There are many developed youth football teams in Maldon, among them being Maldon Saints. The town has a vibrant cricket club, with several adult and colts' sides, who play at two grounds: The Promenade Park, Maldon and the main ground at Drapers Farm, Heybridge. Recent improvements to the ground include a dual-lane enclosed all-weather net facility. Overseas players from Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka have coached cricket in local primary schools as part of the "ECB Chance to Shine" programme. Drapers Farm is also the home of Maldon Rugby Union Football Club which was founded in 1947 by Tommy Harries, who was the landlord of the King's Head public house in Maldon High Street. The inaugural meeting was on 28 August 1947 at the Blue Boar Hotel. Maldon RFC run several senior male sides and one female side as well as all youth age groups from under 7s to under 18s.

Blackwater Leisure Centre is the town's main leisure destination, located in the town's leisure quarter, adjacent to Madison Heights. With a 4 lane 25m swimming pool, 100+ station gym, group cycling studio, group exercise studio and sports hall with indoor courts.

Two short lived greyhound racing tracks existed at Sealey Farm on the Fambridge Road (opening on 3 September 1932 and closing the same year) and around the former Spital Road football ground in 1931. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club) and they were known as a flapping tracks, which was the nickname given to independent tracks.

Transport

Maldon East railway station in 1851

Maldon's first railway link was a branch line to Witham opened in 1846. Later a second line linked Maldon with Woodham Ferrers on the Crouch Valley line between Southminster and Wickford. Whilst Wickford is itself on the line between Shenfield and Southend (thus providing Maldon with another route into London Liverpool Street), a short-lived spur line at Wickford also gave direct access towards Southend.

Edward Arthur Fitch, writing in about 1895, states that from London's Liverpool Street station to Maldon East via Witham there were eight trains on weekdays and three on Sundays and that via Wickford there were five trains on weekdays and none on Sundays. The fastest train took 85 minutes via Witham and 82 minutes via Wickford.

Maldon West railway station was opened in 1889 by the Great Eastern Railway. The line between Maldon and South Woodham Ferrers closed to passengers in 1939, the Maldon and Witham line closed in 1966. The nearest railway stations to Maldon are now Hatfield Peverel, Witham and North Fambridge. Hatfield Peverel is the closest railway station to the north of the town, whilst North Fambridge is closest to southern parts of the town.

Notable people

Essex and England cricketer Sir Alastair Cook (born 1984) played for Maldon Cricket Club throughout his early years. Brought up in nearby Wickham Bishops, his brothers played for the club as well. Cook remains closely associated with the club, being an Honorary Life Member, while acting as a huge role model for the club's young players. Cook made his Essex debut in 2003, before making his international debut, aged 21, in 2006.

Singer/songwriter and TikTok star Sam Ryder, born 1989, who is set to represent the UK in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest with his song "Space Man".

Private David Embleton (1853–1912) won a Victoria Cross, in his army name of Frederick Corbett, in the Arabi Pasha Rebellion in Egypt on 5 August 1882. He was buried in an unmarked grave in London Road Cemetery, Maldon, but in 2004 the regimental association provided a memorial and in 2005 the Essex Society for Family History provided another. He served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. Although awarded the VC for standing by a wounded officer, he subsequently forfeited his VC after committing theft against another officer in 1884.

Edward Bright (1721–1750) was the "fat man of Maldon", a grocer who, at 47.5 stone (665 lb; 302 kg) was reputed to be the fattest man in England. His coat could encompass seven men. After his death, etchings of a painting of him were much sought after. His chair resides in Maldon Moot Hall.

John Cook (1918–1984) was a prolific 20th century Anglo-American composer, organist and church musician.

John Kemp (1926–1987). John Kemp's work on the preservation of Thames sailing barges in the 1960s was critical to re-establishing Maldon as the foremost sailing barge port in the country. John Kemp was responsible for the creation of the East Coast Sail Trust, a schoolship scheme for young people using the sailing barges Thalatta and Sir Alan Herbert, operated from Maldon. He was author of three books and chronicler of the Maldon and Essex coastal scenes and the unique character of the marshland folk, especially in the Maldon and Burnham Standard, Essex Chronicle and Essex County Standard newspapers.

Myra Sadd Brown (1872–1938), Suffragette, women's rights activist and internationalist was born in the town.

John Strutt (1842–1919) was a British mathematician who made extensive contributions to science. He was born in Langford Grove, Maldon, inherited the title Baron Rayleigh in 1873 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904, in part for discovering the inert gas argon.

Horatio Gates (1727–1806), the English general who fought for Britain in the French and Indian War and the rebel side in the War of American Independence, was born in Maldon.