Chipping Ongar
Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox UK place Chipping Ongar (Template:IPAc-en) is a market town in the parish of Ongar, in the Epping Forest District of Essex, England. It is located Template:Convert east of Epping, Template:Convert south-east of Harlow and Template:Convert north-west of Brentwood. At the 2021 census the built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics (which excludes Shelley) had a population of 3,967. The Royal Mail uses Ongar as the name for the post town covering the area; the name Chipping Ongar is not used in official postal addresses.Template:Efn
Toponymy
The name "Ongar" means "grass land"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (cognate with the German word Template:Wt). "Chipping" is from Old English Template:Wt, "a market, a market-place", akin to Danish Template:Wt and Swedish Template:Wt; the same element is found in other towns such as Chipping Norton, Chipping Sodbury, and Chipping Barnet.<ref>A.D. Mills, Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 83.</ref>
History
In Saxon times there was an extensive estate and parish called Ongar, with its main settlement and parish church at High Ongar.<ref name=Rippon/> Ongar gave its name to one of the Hundreds of Essex. Ongar Castle was built in the late 11th century, after the Norman Conquest, Template:Convert south-west of High Ongar on the opposite side of the Roding valley. A church dedicated to St Martin was built adjoining the castle around the same time,<ref>Template:NHLE</ref> and Chipping Ongar was laid out as a new market town adjoining the castle and St Martin's during the 12th century. The new town of Chipping Ongar became a separate parish, after which there were two parishes called Ongar: High Ongar and Chipping Ongar. The territory ceded to the new Chipping Ongar parish was modest, only covering Template:Convert immediately around the castle and town, whereas High Ongar parish retained Template:Convert covering an extensive rural area.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Rippon>Template:Cite book</ref>
St Martin's Church dates back to the late 11th century and shows signs of Norman work. A small window in the chancel is believed to indicate the existence of an anchorite's cell in medieval times.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Gothic Revival architect C. C. Rolfe added the south aisle in 1884.<ref>Saint, 1970</ref> St Andrew's Parish Church in Greensted, Template:Convert west of Ongar, is believed to be the oldest surviving wooden church in the world.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Ongar Castle was demolished between 1558 and 1603.
The missionary and explorer David Livingstone, prior to his expeditions to Africa, lived in Chipping Ongar on the High Street in 1838 to "receive instruction from Rev. Richard Cecil, the Ongar Congregational minister, while training for the ministry".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Ongar railway station was opened in 1865 on a branch line of the Great Eastern Railway. It was built as a through station to allow for a subsequent extension of the line to either Great Dunmow or Chelmsford, but the extensions were never built and Ongar station always served as a terminus. The branch line was transferred to London Underground in 1949 and became part of the Central line. For much of its time as part of the London Underground the last stretch of the line from Epping to Ongar mainly operated as a shuttle service separate from the rest of the line. With green belt policy having been introduced in this area after the Second World War diverting new housing development to other areas, London Underground did not see the economic case for investing in improving this line where usage was low and likely to remain so. The line from Epping to Ongar closed in 1994 and subsequently became a heritage railway, the Epping Ongar Railway.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1965 the parish of Chipping Ongar merged with its neighbours Shelley to the north and Greensted to the west to form a new civil parish called Ongar. The new parish also took in the Marden Ash area south of the town from High Ongar parish.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Shelley and Greensted, like Chipping Ongar, had also formed part of the ancient Ongar parish before becoming separate parishes in medieval times.<ref name=Rippon/> At the 1961 census (the last before the abolition of the civil parish), Chipping Ongar had a population of 1,673.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Several of the small private-sector businesses that operated through to the closing decades of the 20th century have closed down or relocated as the economic focus of the region has been redirected, especially since the opening of the M11 motorway in the 1970s, to larger towns in west Essex, especially Harlow and Brentwood. Local planning policies have focused increasingly on residential development, and Ongar, like very many of the smaller towns in the green belt around London, can be viewed primarily as a dormitory town for commuters to London, Brentwood, Harlow and Chelmsford. However, the single-track railway branch line that connected Ongar to Epping (and thereby to London), operated by the London Underground, was closed in 1994. Ongar has a range of retail shops.
Jane Taylor (1783–1824), who wrote the words of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", is buried at the United Reformed Church in Ongar.<ref>Pearson, page 33. N.b. contributor has not indicated whether of 1998 or 2004 edition.</ref>
There is a memorial window to Father Thomas Byles in St Helen's Catholic Church. He was parish priest in Chipping Ongar from 1905 and perished on Template:RMS in 1912, refusing to leave in a lifeboat and staying to pray with the remaining passengers.
Ongar Grammar School in Chipping Ongar, a private school for boys, was opened as a boarding school in 1811 by William Stokes M.A. By 1845 the school was known as 'Ongar Academy' (not connected to an academy school in the 21st-century sense). It was a private grammar school by 1874, Chignell Grammar School by 1882, and was closed in 1940,<ref>"Chipping Ongar: Schools" Template:Webarchive, in A History of the County of Essex vol 4, Ongar Hundred, ed. W R Powell (London, 1956), pp. 169-171. British History Online. Retrieved 2 March 2018</ref><ref name=PO1874>Post Office Directory of Essex 1874</ref><ref name=Kellys1882to1914>Kelly's Directory of Essex 1882 p.219</ref> before the introduction of secondary education under the Education Act 1944 and the Tripartite System.
RAF Chipping Ongar (also known as Willingale) is a former World War II airfield. The airfield is approximately Template:Convert northeast of Chipping Ongar. Opened in 1943, it was used by both the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces. During the War it was used primarily as a bomber airfield. It was closed in 1959 after many years as a reserve airfield.
Education
Chipping Ongar Infant School, originally housed in Victorian school buildings off the High Street (behind Budworth Hall on the site of today's Sainsbury's), was re-located in the mid-1980s, merging with Chipping Ongar Junior School at Greensted Road, at the southern edge of the town, forming Chipping Ongar Primary School.Template:Citation needed A further primary school, Ongar Primary School, is beyond the northern end of Chipping Ongar in Shelley. Also within Shelley is The Ongar Academy, providing secondary education for Ongar.
Geography
Chipping Ongar is at the convergence of several old roads, between Chelmsford and Epping on an east–west axis and between Dunmow and Chigwell (beyond which is London) on a north–south axis. To the southeast lies Brentwood, on the old road to the former River Thames ferry crossing at Tilbury, though the building in the 1970s of the M11 and M25 motorways means that Ongar is no longer directly on a principal route for petrol tankers (and other less prominent vehicles) travelling from the current Dartford Crossing and the Thames Estuary oil refineries.
The civil parish of Ongar, which has a town council, includes from north-to-south Shelley, Chipping Ongar and Marden Ash, with Greensted to the southwest.
The central part of Ongar High Street comprises a widened main street of the type found in many older English towns whose status as market towns is believed to have originated during the (little chronicled) Saxon period. This historic thoroughfare is lined with over 70 listed buildings and protected by the Chipping Ongar Conservation Area, one of the first to be designated by Essex County Council nearly 50 years ago. The wide high street is used to permit some 'no charge' short-term parking that benefits the local shops. The high street does, however, retain a very narrow stretch, with shops and houses either side very close to the road due to pavements that are barely adequate for two people to pass each other.
Much of the surrounding countryside is occupied by large mechanised farms devoted, for the most part, to arable agriculture. During the 20th century the proximity of London encouraged dairy farming, but the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were characterised by the removal of hedges and an increase in average field sizes as cattle numbers diminished. This policy was gradually reversed from the 1990s with schemes to replant hedges and trees. The subsoil is of heavy clay, rendering the land too soggy in winter for sheep.
Transport
Road
Ongar is less than Template:Convert from Central London, Template:Convert from M11 Junction 7 Harlow and Template:Convert from M25 J28 Brentwood. The A414 runs from Chelmsford, through Ongar, to Harlow.
Parking restrictions operate throughout the town centre where a 20-minute no-return 2-hour scheme applies. Three pay-and-display car parks are available with a total 530 capacity.
Local residents have previously called for lowering of the current national speed limit between The Mulberry House and the Four Wantz roundabout on the A414 Chelmsford-bound. However, Essex Police's senior traffic management officer, Adam Pipe, deemed lowering the speed limit "inappropriate, as drivers would feel Template:Convert is not adequate and would not comply".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Bus
The main destinations served by buses are Brentwood, Chelmsford, Harlow and Epping. Routes are operated by Arriva Shires & Essex, First Essex, Trustybus, Stephensons of Essex and SM Coaches. Epping Ongar Railway also operate a limited number of heritage bus services between Ongar and North Weald and also Epping on weekends and Bank Holidays.
Railway
Since the closure of the Central line branch between Epping and Ongar in 1994, there is no longer a commuter train service to/from the town. The Epping Ongar Railway operates steam and diesel heritage services on the former Central line track, from North Weald Station on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays every hour to Ongar Station. It first operated (Sundays and Holidays only) between 2004 and 2007, and then after refurbishment again with the additional Saturday trains from May 2012.
The nearest London Underground station to the town is Epping, Template:Convert away, the terminus of the Central line. The closest railway station is Brentwood, also Template:Convert away, which is now served by the Elizabeth line. Harlow Town Station, a National Rail station operated by Greater Anglia, is Template:Convert to the north west.
In popular culture
YouTube personality Lewis Brindley, of The Yogscast, was born in Chipping Ongar, in 1983.<ref>Template:Cite podcast</ref>
Wally Hope, experimental philosopher and free festival organiser died at the home of family members in Chipping Ongar on 3 September 1975.
The headquarters of the minor political party the English Democrats is located here.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Twinning
Chipping Ongar is twinned with Cerizay in France.
Sources
References
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