Lancashire enjoyed all-round perfection on the second day of their trip to Chelmsford, achieving a first-innings lead of 160 runs before closing on 114/1.
James Anderson (3-56) and Stephen Parry (3-28) spearheaded a strong bowling display as Essex were dismantled for 159, with only Ravi Bopara (46) showing any form of long-term resistance.
Alex Davies (50*) and Haseeb Hameed (46) compounded the host's misery by adding 83 runs for the opening stand, taking the overnight lead to 274 runs.
Two late wickets from Anderson and Kyle Jarvis (2-49) had pegged Essex back to 39/2 by the end of the first day and by lunch they had stumbled to 97/5, showing no real intent to take the game to the opposition.
Jarvis enticed Chopra (15) to play at a wider delivery which caught the edge and sailed through to Davies at 49/3. Davies was called upon again when the other overnight batsman fell, this time Westley nicked a rising delivery from Anderson.
In his first four-day appearance since facing Yorkshire towards the end of the 2014 season, Parry struck with the final ball of his first over, as Dan Lawrence edged to Liam Livingstone for a brisk 37.
Bopara opened his shoulders after lunch, but Wheater soon became Parry's next victim when he was trapped lbw for 1 at 99/6. Any hope of achieving a batting point soon rested on the shoulders of the experienced Bopara, but he joined a long line of players to fall short of a half-century when he picked out Parry at mid-wicket attempting to flick Anderson off his pads.
Wickets continued to tumble even after Anderson's spell finished, as McLaren had Simon Harmer (4) plumb lbw with his first ball of a new spell, with Essex indebted to a 48-run partnership from Bopara and their skipper, Ryan ten Doeschate (19).
The South-African seamer stuck again with the first ball of his next over to see the back of the Essex captain, with Davies claiming his fifth catch of the innings. Parry concluded a woeful effort from the hosts when he had Jamie Porter out lbw for 1, as he finished with figures of 3-28 in 14.4 overs.
Lancashire opted not to enforce the follow-on and instead consolidate an already formidable lead in the Chelmsford sunshine. Davies and Hameed were happy to rotate the strike and make the most of a degree of fortune, particularly Davies, who was put down by Westley on 10 and ten Doeschate on 26.
The wicketkeeper-batsman capitalised and would enter the close with a 113-ball fifty to his name, hitting eight boundaries against a dejected seam attack. Neil Wagner's hostile short-pitched approach reaped little reward and an otherwise inexperienced attack without Graham Napier and David Masters began to waver towards the end of the day.
Hameed, who fell three runs shy of a half-century yesterday, again failed to convert a typically solid platform into a fifty, edging Aaron Beard behind to Wheater. Davies struck two boundaries in the final over of the day to reach fifty with one ball to spare, while Livingstone was happy to shoulder arms to a generally wayward line to finish unbeaten on 13.
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