Plotland garden

Return to Third Avenue and continue to the top of the hill. Turn left at the crossroads and enter a plotland garden via a gap in the hedge on your left. Plotlands Trail marker 5.

The curved brick wall ahead of you marks the bay window once part of 'Hawthorn' home of Burke family from Barking between 1932 and 1983. As weekend visitors the family slept in an ex-army bell tent before building the bungalow. A flag pole in the garden allowed visitors arriving from London by train to see if the family were home before getting off at Laindon Station. The 110 x 209 ft plot is marked in the corners by a Monterey cypress, an oak and a willow.

Return to the grassy track and turn left along Hillcrest Avenue.

As you walk along note that the ground rises and falls every 4-5yards. These are stech marks, remains of the ridge and furrow patterns created by horse drawn ploughs during the pre-plotlands agricultural era. This land was known locally as 'Three horse land' because its heavy clay soil required three horses to pull the plough. The soil and the steepness of the hill were the main contributing factors to the sale of land in the 1920's.