our history
Springfield & history. Find out about where you live............
Why “Springfield”?
It’s a fairly wet place – there were springs on the Green, and the reason that Pollards Meadow, the park near the Tulip pub, was never built on was because the ground was too wet. There was a fishery and three watermills at one time, and the Chelmer and Blackwater canal forms one of the boundaries of the parish.
The boundaries of ‘old’ Springfield follow the River Chelmer from Mill Lane to Baddow Meads, then lead North along Fordson Road and along White Hart Lane. The parish is one of the largest in Essex.
Springfield – home over the centuries
There were people living in Springfield in prehistoric times. Archaeologists found the remains of a settlement at Brook End, now on the edges of Chelmer Village.
In Roman times the road from Chelmsford to Colchester was made, to allow the Romans to march their armies eastwards at the fastest speeds possible. Springfield Road still follows the line of the old Roman road, from the town sign up as far as Aldi and beyond. If you follow it on a map, you can see how straight it is – one clue as to its Roman origins. There were Romans living in a villa along Stump Lane. 
After the Romans left Britain the land was owned by a number of rich and powerful men. Some of their names live on in the names around Springfield. Lawrence de Brok owned what is now Brook End in 1279 and Baddow Meads were owned by Godfrey de Sandford (Sandford Road). John le Duk and Edmund Lyon lived in Springfield (Springfield Lyons), and Nabbotts Farm is named after William Nob, who farmed there. Another big landowning family was the Tyrells.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the village was lived in by some very wealthy people, who built the big houses that still exist today. Springfield Place, Springfield Dukes, and the old Priory, were all built around the church and the Green. Oliver Goldsmith the poet is said to have lived in Dukes Cottages on Springfield Green in the 1770s.
From the 1770s onwards, smaller houses were built in the village as homes were needed for the labourers who built and worked 
on the canal and railway. Some of these houses can still be seen in Church Lane, Arbour Lane and on Navigation Road. Navigation was an old name for a canal.
Houses were built outwards from the town into the nineteenth centuries – some houses on Springfield Road have dates built into their walls.
Springfield Park Estate was built soon after the Second World War, and the 1950s saw 
the building of the Bodmin Road estate. Since then, Springfield has grown to include North Springfield, Chelmer Village, Beaulieu Park and Chancellor Park, with thousands of homes ranging from flats and starter homes to larger ‘executive dwellings’.
Pictures:- Picture 1 & 2: Springfield Basin at the end of the Chelmer & Blackwater Canal. Picture 3: Dukes Cottages, said to be once home to poet Oliver Goldsmith. Opposite All Saints Church. Picture 4 Springfield Place off Springfield Green. Picture 5: Old railway worker cottages.
Move onto page 2