History of Brentwood

Brentwood, High Street and Town Hall 1895
Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.

Feature articles

Fog descends on Brentwood causing a tragic accident in which nine railway workers die. >>more

White's Directory of Essex 1848

BRENTWOOD, a small but improving market town and chapelry, in South Weald parish, has a station on the Eastern Counties Railway >>more.

White's Directory of Essex 1848 - list of inhabitants.

More local history sources

Books featuring Brentwood from Abebooks. Just click the logo. The search terms are already formatted for Brentwood.

Search for Brentwood census returns at ancestry.co.uk.

1841 England Census | 1851 England Census | 1861 England Census
1871 England Census | 1881 England Census | 1891 England Census
1901 England Census

High Street, Brentwood
Reproduced courtesy of Footsteps.
Quality reproductions of old photographs.

The Essex Record Office: an excellent starting point for research. The ERO has an online catalogue by the name of SEAX and a database of Parish Records held in the ERO. Access to both via their home page.

Excellent detailed information on the history of Brentwood appears in the Victorian Counties History Volume 8 (1983) on the British History Online website.

Brentwood Council web site with pages on the history of Brentwood.

Brief archeological history of Brentwood on the Essex County Council's Unlocking Essex.

Web site for St Thomas' Church with a brief history of Brentwood.

1881 Ordnance Survey Map from the British History Online web site (Essex: 067, Ordnance Survey 1:10,560: Epoch 1.0).

Ordnance Survey - type the place name in the gazetteer search box to view detailed map of Brentwood.

Images of England web site which has a photographic record of England's listed buildings - from the grandest house to the humblest cottage. Enter the town or village in the search box. Photographs are accompanied by a detailed architectural description of the property.