Basildon is probably not the first place you would think of when listing potential romantic walks. However, due to parental responsibilities I found myself in Festival Leisure Park, fondly called "Bas Vegas" by the locals, so I took the opportunity to find some of the places you normally wouldn't see unless you were travelling on foot. (By the way, if you type "Bas Vegas" into Google Maps, it knows where you mean and takes you straight there).
I moved to Billericay in 1994 and remember Festival Leisure Park being built in the late 1990s, but I don't recall what was there at all before that. Amazingly, at that time there was a 1,500-seater leisure centre called Festival Hall which sat where the leisure park is now. Festival Hall opened in 1982 and only lasted 14 years, being demolished in 1996 to make way for the new development.
A wide variety of events from pop concerts to boxing contests were staged there - the Prodigy played there in 1992 and Muhummad Ali also famously visited it. Now of course there's no trace of it. The hall itself was on the site of the former Aquatels Zoo and Ecology Centre (Basildon Zoo). I don't remember any of this!
My walking route tonight took the pedestrian subway under Cranes Farm Road into Ghyllgrove, a road that takes you down to the centre, but this part of it is totally bereft of traffic and people walking around, despite being heavily built up.
I walked up to Broadmayne and then backed up towards Whitmore Way, just grabbing a quick photo of the tower ner the fire station. I still don't know what this is.
After walking up Whitmore Way I ended up on Church Road, which was once the main centre of Basildon before the plotlands and New Town came along. The earliest known reference to Basildon can be traced back to the Domesday Book of 1086 when the area was then referred to as Behoter. It's thought to derive from an Anglo-Saxon settlement called Boerthals Hill that stood on or around the Holy Cross area of Church Road.
When Basildon District Council was formed in 1974, Beorthals Hill was considered as the council territory's name. Someone somewhere must have piped up and pointed out it's not the easiest thing to spell. I'm relying on cut and paste myself.
The Holy Cross church sits halfway up the road and when you're outside it you feel like you're miles away from the nearest town, not smack bang in the middle of a new town with 120,000 people. Traffic actually flows really well through the town and manages to completely avoid lots of places like this.
Walking up Church Road takes you back to Cranes Farm Road but not before you get a glimpse of a newer estate, which seems to have been built with a more European design in mind both with the houses and the precinct - and looking through the houses gives you a great view of Basildon from up high that I never knew existed.
I then walked down Cranes Farm Road back to the exciting bright lights of Festival Leisure Park, but I wasn't done yet.
You can walk along Festival Way, past the leisure units and a David Lloyd gym, and then the road narrows and comes out at possibly the most well hidden hotel and pub in the whole county - a Premier Inn and The Quays pub. I can imagine most locals have no idea they're here - they are really are well hidden.
Past the hotel and pub, you come to Waterfront Walk which eventually takes you around the back of the cinema and returns you to the voluminous car park, which is always 99% full. But not before walking past the lake tucked away behind the leisure park, which may be called Aquatels Lake, but I'm not sure. 15 years ago, when I was really bored one Saturday, I hired a jetski and rode around the lake for a couple of hours. Now I just go for walks. The lake looked great in the sunset though.
3.07 miles in 1 hr 2 min 14 sec (ave 2.96mph)
Calories burned 508; steps taken 6,887; elevation 81 ft
6 deg C, cloudy
