Bowling Alley House on Wickhay Green dates back to Elizabethan times, when a 1593 lease described it as recently built near the bowling alley, a popular form of entertainment at that time. The lease was granted by the lord of the manor Sir John Smythe to Thomas Heath, a sawyer, and included instruction to preserve Sir John’s game and to have always in readiness bow and arrows, and sword and dagger, to use at Sir John’s lawful commandment
Early in the 20th century, a sanatorium was established behind Bowling Alley House for the open-air treatment of TB patients. People would come and stay in a number of small chalets built of wood and canvas in order to benefit from the fresh country air of Little Baddow. The sanatorium didn’t survive – transport being one of main difficulties.
In the 1930s, Bowling Alley House was occupied by a man called McLaglan who lived there with his mother and ran a small engineering works from his shed. Contemporaries recall that he was none too particular with his language, and children would go there after school just to hear him swearing; he would go on solidly for five minutes at a time.
Over the centuries the property was much modified and by the time it was demolished in the 1970s little of the original structure remained.