Property News · May 3, 2013

Let's move to Chipping Ongar, Essex


It’s got an amusing name, a metropolitan gloss… but at heart it’s just a lovely old townWhat’s going for it? Chipping Ongar sounds like a euphemism dreamed up by Carry On scriptwriters. As in, “Ooh, he got me right in the Chipping Ongars.” It is not. It is a place. A very pleasant, not to say very well-to-do place at that, which I’m sure would not forgive any association with Sid James. But such is the burden of having an amusing name (I should know). This market town is one of many spots that gives the lie to the one-dimensional reputation of Essex, a reputation tedious to all concerned. Yes, this is where Jade Goody once lived. Yes, it has a metropolitan gloss to its market town-ness that reveals its modern-day role as a dormitory town. But Ongar also has woody castle mounds, an incredible Saxon wood church and a railway station with a roaring fire. Until a couple of decades ago, the Central line extended as far as here, creating the slightly surreal experience of seeing a tube train crossing fields of cows. Now the Epping Ongar Railway keeps the route alive at weekends and on bank hols. John Betjeman once said that only one job would drag him from poetry: manager at Chipping Ongar railway station. He knew his lovely old towns, did Mr Betjeman.The case against The A414: boy racer territory. Traffic can be chronic during rush hour and the school run. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…Let’s move to Chipping Ongar, Essex

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