Aveley

Aveley has given its name to the Aveley Interglacial period around 200,000 years ago. Important evidence of the local flora and fauna of the period and some signs of occupation by Neanderthal humans have been found there. In the Domesday Book of 1086, the name has various spellings – Alvithelea, Alvileia and Alvilea. The name means the wood clearing of a woman named Ælfgȳth. A variation, in 1418, is Alvythele. Aveley was an ancient parish in the Hundred of Chafford in Essex. When elected parish and district councils were established under the Local Government Act 1894, Aveley was given a parish council and included in the Orsett Rural District. In 1929, Aveley and the neighbouring parishes…

In 1964, amateur geologist John Hesketh found the remains of a late form of steppe mammoth in a clay pit on Sandy Lane. The Natural History Museum excavated the site and uncovered the most complete mammoth skeleton found in the UK, along with a junior straight-tusked elephant found beneath it. The animals were separated by 50,000 years and were originally thought to date back 100,000 and 125,000 years respectively, but recent dating techniques show they died 200,000 and 250,000 years ago. The skeletons were on display from 1970 to 1990 in the Natural History Museum, before being stored in the museum's palaeontology department for a number of years. They are currently being exhibited in the…