Chair of Thurrock Local History Society Susan Yates continues her occasional series of articles.

WHEN I was a child every year we would visit Cornwall for our annual holiday taking in the beach and seeing relations.

My aunt and uncle lived in Bodmin, a historic Cornish town with its ancient buildings and very Cornish atmosphere. I always loved driving across Bodmin Moor its bleak and stark terrain was how I imagined the World looked when Stone Age man roamed the earth.

No houses, no fields, no fences, no hedges, nobody for miles just rough untouched terrain interrupted by the occasional standing stone or henge and a few wild animals hunted by the locals for food.

So when in July 1964 the Aveley elephants were discovered on the Kenningtons estate I was very excited. They were actually mammuthus primigenius and palaeoloxodon antiquus, a wooly mammoth and a juvenile straight tusked elephant.

Although they died approximately 50,000 years apart their skeletons were actually found separated by a mere 10 inches both having got stuck in what was then marshy ground held fast by their enormous weight and probably being eaten whilst still alive by the smaller animals residing in the area laying there trapped and helpless until they died.

Just one of many prehistoric finds in Thurrock and the most complete mammoth skeleton found at that time, which was why it was displayed in the Natural History Museum.

A few hundred yards away by the River Mardyke and the M25 is Mitchell Woods.

Most people have heard of the Deneholes at Socketts Heath but few know of those in the woods at Aveley cut in the chalk under roughly 260 feet of sand and gravel. At the end of a tunnel 30 to 35 feet long are three chambers. Each one about 5 feet wide and a roughly eight feet high still bearing the marks made by the picks wielded to create the passage. There is still much of prehistoric Thurrock around. Many remember the discovery in 1987 of over 2000 potins which formed one of the largest collections of Iron Age coins ever found in England. Known as the Thurrock Potins they are now on display in Thurrock's Local History Museum. About 500 yards from the church at Chadwell St. Mary is an Iron Age villa/farm dating from 50BC to 50AD it was discovered surrounded by an enclosure ditch. Outside the ditch was an east west coffin burial (Christian). Other items of the period were also uncovered. Another Iron Age Enclosure was discovered at the Orsett Cock south west of Barrington's Farm west of the old A128. Sadly, the roundabout, built about 1960, has damaged this triple ditched Late Iron Age enclosure contained Iron Age spearheads, possibly deposited in some form of ritual, I don't suppose we will ever know for sure. One of the most important excavations in both Thurrock and England was that at Mucking which revealed a site ranging from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age to Roman and Saxon times. The finds included an Iron Age Hill Fort, a smithy, houses, cemeteries, pottery, wells and traces of a windmill. Visible today from the RSPB reserve on Aveley Marshes are the remains of a Neolithic Forest. Also in this area Neolithic, Mesolithic and Paleolithic flint tools, scrapers, cutting tools and hand axes have been found probably deposited in an old branch of the River Thames. The course of the river back then was very different to its current route being much wider with its bank much further north. In South Ockendon approximately 200 metres from South Ockendon Hall and the site of the old smock mill is 'The Mount' which is believed to be a Roman barrow. It measures 150 feet in diameter and is about 17 feet high. Finds here included a Roman mortarium and the rim of an Iron Age dish. Thurrock's history is extensive and varied and we are lucky to have a museum which houses so much and displays our heritage in chronological order from Stone Age times to the 20th century, from Bronze socket head axes to Dinky toys and from Belhus Mansion's stained glass to Seabrooke's Brewery. The next meeting of Thurrock Local History Society's will be on 18 February at 8pm at St John's Church Hall, Victoria Avenue, Grays.

The topic is 'Essex Spas' and the presentation will be by Dr Emma Cannell.