Hockley

The place-name 'Hockley' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Hocheleia. The name means "Hocca's woodland clearing or glade". Today, there is still a large wooded area named Hockley Woods. Notable buildings in the village include the church of St Peter and Paul, which has a nave which was possibly built before the twelfth century, a thirteenth-century chancel and a fourteenth-century tower, the upper half of which is octagonal and was built at a later date. The tower holds three bells, manufactured by Miles Gray in 1626, by James Bartlett in 1684 and by John Hodgson in 1657, and the building is Grade II* listed. The church is situated to the north-west of the village centre, where Grade II listed Spa Pump Room is situated. The building was built as a spa to a design by James Lockyer in 1842, after Robert Clay found a medicinal spring there in 1838. Hockley is also the site of the former Bullwood Hall prison which closed in 2013.

Plumberow Mount, a Roman burial mound, was excavated in 1913 by Mr. E. B. Francis. At the time, there was a summer house on the top of the mound, and so trenches were cut on three sides. The excavation found a Roman coin of Domitian and some Saxon pottery which may indicate a secondary burial. The oval mound is 14 feet (4.3 m) high, and 76 feet (23 m) in diameter, with a flattened top, where the summerhouse was located. Since 2005, a metal fence has surrounded the mound to protect it from erosion, and a number of trees which were growing on or near it were cut down at the same time.

In 2009, the sixteenth-century Hockley Pendant was discovered in a field at Hockley.

Hockley has a parish council consisting of two wards (West Ward and East Ward) and is part of Rochford District Council

The parish historically included Hullbridge, which was made a separate civil parish in 1964.