The Echo is celebrating its 49th birthday this month.

The paper was originally part of Westminster Press, owned by Pearson, and was under the editorship of Jim Worsdale.

To mark the paper's birthday, we are releasing these photos from the 1970s taken at the Echo's headquarters in Chester Hall Lane, Basildon.

The paper is still based in the same building, and is now owned by Newsquest, with Chris Hatton as editor.

The photo show the old printing presses that were also in the building until the 1990s.

They also reveal the previous method of producing the paper, which involved cutting and pasting parts of the article into a mock-up which was then printed.