Rochford

Rochford in the county of Essex, United Kingdom is a quaint, attractive and well cared-for town to the north of Southend and sufficiently separated from both it and Rayleigh to preserve its own identity. The compact town centre has remained relatively free of branding by national retailers and has avoided the brasher aspects of the tourism trade that have affected Southend.

It is close to a railway station from which electric trains run to both Southend and Liverpool Street Station in the business district of central London. In consequence it has long been popular as a dormitory town for commuters.

To the south of the town an extensive golf course runs to the edge of the former RAF airfield of Rochford now rather optimistically badged as "London Southend Airport" despite the sparsity of scheduled airline flights. In reality the airfield is primarily used for recreational flying, pilot training in both light aircraft and helicopters, and for the maintenance and modification of airliners. This maintenance work is relatively major in scale and ranges from professional re-painting through the renewal of seating, upgrades to avionics, the installation of hush-kits on engines, to the conversion of passenger airplanes into cargo carriers. The jobs involved are clearly skilled trades within an internationally competitive industry and important to the local economy.

On May 30, 1555 John Simpson was burnt at the stake, one of the protestants known as the Marian martyrs.

During the early years of the 21st century a fierce debate centres on the idea of relocating an ancient protected church further from the end of the main runway so that heavier aircraft (including passenger carrying airliners) could use that runway without compromising modern safety rules even during conditions of low visibility. Aircraft arriving for maintenance can be contrived to arrive and depart lightly loaded and in good weather, so a tall obstacle near the runway threshold is less of a safety issue. Some such engineering work has recently been attracted from Lasham in Hampshire.

The simple modern terminal sometimes comes to life when weather or other incidents cause aircraft to divert in quantity from either Stansted or London City Airports over a limited period. It is also popular with film-makers who want the building to represent the air terminal of somewhere less inclined to interrupt actual travellers during daylight hours. Generally it functions as a cafe/lounge for spectators and private pilots. Some busy pubs and retail warehouses front the road between the air terminal and the traditional town centre. A preserved Avro Vulcan may be seen from that road. There is no longer a museum at this airport which was once reverborated to flying car ferries such as the piston-engined Bristol Freighter.