Chalkwell Park is a recreational

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

Chalkwell Chalkwell is a suburb of the city of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. It is situated on the north bank of the Thames Estuary and is in traditional terms still part of Westcliff-on-Sea. The ward of Chalkwell is bordered ...

Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in south-eastern Essex, England. It lies on the nor ...

, in

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England. It covers and contains several flower gardens, two children's playgrounds, a skateboard/

BMX BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation. History BMX began during the ea ...

park and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

and

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

fields. The cricket pitch was formerly used by

Essex County Cricket Club Essex County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Essex. Founded in 1876, the club had minor county status until 1894 w ...

. The arts and music festival Village Green was held on the grounds of Chalkwell Park annually in the summer. The festival often received more than 25,000 visitors each year, but has not been run since 2019 due to the covid pandemic. The park is also home to NetPark, which claims to be the world’s first digital art park. The park is home to the annual fair that accompanies the Southend Carnival.

History

Chalkwell as a suburb started in the early 20th century as a housing development on the former farmland of the Chalkwell Hall estate. The name is believed to be derived from chalk pits dug by farmers to neutralise acid soil. The current hall stands on the site of previous halls and was built in 1830. In 1903,

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council Southend-on-Sea City Council is the local authority of the city of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. Southend has had an elected local authority since 1866, which has been reformed several times. Since 1998 the council ...

purchased the land for £20,000 and opened a park. A small garden of remembrance commemorating those who lost their lives during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

was opened in the park on 30 April 1952. In the 1950s or earlier, a small petting zoo was established in Chalkwell Hall containing at various points in time

peacocks Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus ''Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred to ...

monkeys Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

and in the 1970s, a

Himalayan black bear The Himalayan black bear (''Ursus thibetanus laniger'') is a subspecies of the Asian black bear. It is distinguished from '' U. t. thibetanus'' by its longer, thicker fur and smaller, whiter chest mark. The species is considered an ecological ind ...

named ''Lulu''. The last inhabitants were four peacocks in an enclosure which were eventually relocated to a private estate where there was more space. The hall also serves as a

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

house run by the charity, Metal. Chalkwell Hall was designated as a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

in 1974. In June 2025, one child died and several others were seriously injured after a tree collapsed in the park.

Cricket ground

The cricket ground was first used by the

, 1st XI in 1934 for

County Championship The County Championship, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Rothesay County Championship, is the only domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890, it is organised by the England and Wales Cri ...

matches and in 1970 for

List A List A cricket is a classification of the Limited overs cricket, limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competit ...

matches. The ground has not been used by the club 1st XI since 1976. The ground has hosted 69 first-class matches and eight

matches:

Game information

Game statistics – first-class

Game statistics – one-day matches

Club cricket

Chalkwell Park is home to Westcliff-on-Sea Cricket Club and Leigh-on-Sea Cricket Club. Westcliff-on-Sea have played there since 1907 and moved a

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

to the ground in 1910. Leigh-on-Sea started out as Chalkwell Park Cricket Club and played their first match here in 1907 against

South Benfleet South Benfleet is a town in the Castle Point district of Essex, England, 30 miles east of London. It is adjacent to the village of North Benfleet. The Benfleet (SS7) post town includes South Benfleet, Thundersley, New Thundersley and Hadleigh, ...

. They built their first pavilion for the 1922 season and a later replacement that forms the core of their current building opened at the start of the 1954 season.

References

Cricket grounds in Essex Parks and nature reserves in Southend-on-Sea Grade II listed buildings in Essex Essex County Cricket Club {{England-cricket-ground-stub