Tillingham is a small pretty village and civil parish with 1,015 inhabitants in 2001, increasing to 1,058 at the 2011 Census. Located 8 miles (13 km) from Burnham-on-Crouch and 3 miles (4.8 km) from Bradwell-on-Sea, on the Dengie Peninsula which is a Maldon District part of the ceremonial county of Essex in England. It is one of the villages that make up the ancient Dengie Hundred, which is bounded by the North Sea, River Blackwater and River Crouch.

The Peculiar People, now officially known as the Union of Evangelical Churches, is a Christian movement that was originally an offshoot of the Wesleyan denomination, founded in 1838 in Rochford, Essex, by James Banyard, a farm-worker's son born in 1800. They derive their name from a term of praise found in both the Old Testament and the New Testament of the King James Bible, in Deuteronomy, in 1 Peter, and in the Epistle of Titus.