If you aren’t going for a meal at the World’s End pub or are visiting the nearby Tudor fort, there’s not much of a reason to want to visit riverside Tilbury. Corrugated iron warehouses, stacked containers, parked cars and towering cranes dominate the landscape, but there is little […]
‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’. The Canvey Island amusement arcade may have borrowed its name from the popular Nevada gambling resort, but there didn’t seem to be many parallels between the two. In the United States people come in their droves to watch lavish live shows, but at […]
Arriving at ‘Greenhithe for Bluewater’ you could be forgiven for thinking that this station on the Kent side of the Thames estuary provides access to the sprawling shopping centre and nothing more. As soon as you get off the train, successive signs usher you to shuttle buses that […]
With numerous attractions on the banks of the Thames, Rosherville Gardens promised Londoners that it was the “place to spend a happy day”. Visitors would arrive in Kent by paddle steamer at the specially-built landing pier and within a few minutes they would find on offer everything from […]
The edge of Swanscombe Peninsula is a pretty desolate place. Tilbury docks, Grays and Dartford Bridge can be seen across the Thames, however here on the southern side there is little development. We encountered a handful of people walking their dogs, yet in the more isolated parts of […]
‘CATCH A BEER ON THE PIER!’. After walking for 1.33 miles (2,158 metres) to the end of Grade II listed Southend Pier – the world’s longest – you may feel like tempted to take up the Royal Pavilion’s offer. While the stroll was a bracing, but highly enjoyable […]
The best way to understand why London’s East End docks closed for good in the 1980s comes if you take a 40 minute train journey east from Fenchurch Street. At the Port of Tilbury, piled up one of top of another are vast containers which are awaiting onward […]
With rubbish strewn on the roadside, lorries thundering by to waste incinerator plants, distribution centres and oil storage depots, this is hardly the most picturesque part of London. Exploring on a Saturday morning, there are not many souls about as I weave my way around this desolate area […]
By Oliver Clark When I told a friend I was planning a visit to Tilbury Fort over the Christmas holidays the reaction was a bemused ‘where’s Tilbury?!’ Unfortunately if people have heard of the town of Tilbury on the Essex coast at all, it’s probably for the wrong […]
Past In The Present 