My uncle, who has both developed my interest in the Island’s history, and took a similar route to the BTP boys today, followed up to get a plaque placed in Canvey Library to commemorate the victims of the Canvey Floods of 1953. Here is a radio clip with him being interviewed about the occasion. The plaque is now in the entrance of the Bay Museum, as it was replaced by a newer one outside the library.
Wow, a lot of tags!! “Canvey, our little Thames town” is probably going to be the most iconic BTP words that you’ll ever hear! On June 3rd 2012 Liam and I will be down the sea front as part of the Town Council Diamond Jubilee event. The event is a giant picnic event, where everyone can bring a bite to eat, or visit the local food shops and sit down and listen to the band music play! With confirmation from the various choirs, it’s guaranteed to be a great day out for all the family! The event times are 1pm until 6pm and it’s being organised by the town council; Geraldine Vallis in particular. But wait…..it gets even better!! Beyond the Point will be there! We could say it in posh terms “Visit our exclusive one off, road show!!” We will be in the heritage marquee promoting the website and the work that we do with our own stall which will feature a selection of our top finds (including the Stephens Inks thermometer), our best pictures, and an exclusive DVD which can only be purchased there and then! For all of our budding BTP readers, you can keep an eye on our countdown to the left <<<
With 20+ copies available, make sure you get one! Titled “Canvey Island – A comprehensive documentary” this documentary DVD will feature information, interviews and images from Canvey Island throughout the ages! This 1 hour (approx) DVD will be on sale for £4.99 and it has been filmed in full High Definition! We haven’t done any BTP visits over the past couple of months as we’ve been out every weekend filming this and this weekend will be the last, with Liam just needing to do a final interview! We’ve been all over the island and after hours of filming and editing it will finally be ready! You can view the trailer below! You can also keep up with us via Twitter and Facebook!
Get your DVD!!
Continuing on around Gunner’s Park (part one can be seen here http://beyondthepoint.co.uk/2012/04/21/shoebury-batterygarrison-visit-part-1-the-ranges-jetty-and-gunners-park/) we came across yet another smaller gun mount building. This one appeared to be newer than the others, although I belive it was just used more through the second half of the 20th Century, although was of WW2 origin, being built over an older building.
This shows the whole building – to the left the old probably Victorian part, with steps used to get ontop. The WW2 part is right.
Filming!The actual gun would have been most likely mounted ontop of the building, which featured a flat concrete circular surface, referencing to the possibility. Inside it featured an old electrical light and the three-pronged light switch. It also had a large semi-circular recession probably to angle the gun ontop.
The gun mount ontop
An interesting shot inside
Two possible shelf holders inside
So we opened up the cover and woh, and hairy surprise lurks whithin 
An old strip light label, dated 1963 if I can remember rightly
The boys are at home! Inside the building
We then carried on walking and managed to find a gap in a fence to climb down into a gun ‘pit’-style mount – I had to have a hand getting up again though! It would have held a 9.2″ breech loading gun (it shot bullets which were 9.2″ wide and were loaded directly into the barrel at its base).
A nice view from the top focused on a crisp stick
Me taking a photo of the pit. These chain links may have held the gun in, and the square compartments could have held empty or new shells.
We should have been able to just walk into it but water flooding covered part of the floor near the entrance.
After this, we then walked abit of a way to the bunker to rule them all, so big in fact that it resembled a medieval castle! It was a WW2 construction, known as the Heavy Quick Firing Battery, and would have housed a gun in each of the three circular mounts ontop which project down the buildings face. It featured mechanical lifts inside to hoist the shells in a continuous magazine to the top.
A cracking image of a wartime pose – it has hardly changed
A frontal shot of the building today
A great beast in the distance
A closeup
The rear
Note one of the doorways has ‘store’ intactly engraved into it
Back a few years ago, before the park was developed into a public area, there was no shuttering on the building and access was as simple as stroll in. We could clearly not get inside, but here is an image courtesy of The Coalhouse Fort Project before it was sealed off of the shell lifts which still remain inside:
Keep an eye out next time for more bunkers and a Victorian treat!
In the footsteps of giants…
For my pictures go here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.334559163232954.78255.238743826147822&type=3
And for Joe’s go here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.334429693245901.78232.238743826147822&type=3
And for a YouTube documentary, go here, although wind obstructed the sound (subtitles have been put in)
Anglian Water
A slightly different visit this time, to the Anglian Water treatment works by Thorney Bay. As someone mentioned on our Facebook Page “I think this is a real treasure on the island, so glad your covering it!”. We visited the site last month, accompanied by someone that I know, who works for the company. The site that lays at the southern end of Thames Road, was officially opened in 1967. Following historical info from CanveyIsland.org.
Canvey Island, situated on the North side of the Thames Estuary above Southend, is at a level of 8 ft. below normal tides. In about the year 1620 it was drained and dyked by Dutch engineers who were given land in recompense of their services. Some of the original Dutch houses have been preserved and many roads bear Dutch names. The flat terrain dictates the subdivision of foul drainage into small zones, each having its own pumping station to lift the flow to the next zone until it reaches the main pumping station at Long Road: sewage, therefore, tends to be septic on arrival. There is also some infiltration of saline ground water. The Long Road pump station was constructed thirty years ago to pump the sewage through an 18 in. rising main to a 24 in. outfall main laid through the sea wall and extending 500 ft. into the river. New pumps have been installed in the pumping station and a new 24 in. rising main laid in parallel to the existing 18 in. main. Both these rising mains now discharge to the treatment works which are situated at such an elevation that the effluent will discharge to the River at all states of the tide through the existing outfall pipe. – This was included in the brochure from it’s official opening.
Today, the site is still used on a daily basis. (For those of you that like ‘technical bits’ then you’ll love this as it explains what the site does.) You can see some of the site in our short video below, of some clips of the site. Canvey Island Sewage Treatment Works is an “Activated Sludge” treatment site taking in and treating all the waste water flows from Canvey Island. It is fed from the Terminal Pumping Station in Long Road which is in turn fed by many smaller pumping stations all over the island. The flow enters the site and first passes through large screens to remove mainly rags but also any other large objects which would cause problems to the process should they get through, any flows during storm conditions which the works is not capable of treating overflow a weir and after screening is discharged to sea. Next the flow passes through a grit collector which removes all the smaller heavy objects which would cause blockages and wear to pumps, pipework etc. These 2 parts of the treatment process are known as Preliminary Treatment.
Anglian Water - Canvey Island Site
In the morning, we set east over to the Southend district – not Castle Point but without a doubt local stomping ground. Covering the World War Two defences seen here on the seafront - http://beyondthepoint.co.uk/2012/02/12/shoebury-southend-part-1/ - we set off to Shoebury. We were yet to realise that this was our best adventure to be yet, and still is – the trip was carried out in January, us having only got round to writing about it now. We headed to the now a public nature reserve known as ‘Gunner’s Park’ which was almost a history-enthusiast’s Disney Land theme park – I can almost imagine a visitor’s map of the park with the various bunkers jotted around it instead of attractions! The fields and grassland areas themselves were once firing ranges for the troops stationed at Shoebury Battery, living in the Garrison, which has now been refurbished into an expensive housing area now, in which you can have an air-raid shelter in your garden. In this post we will cover the western area of the site, being the ranges, along with a supplies jetty. The best is yet to come, so keep an eye out over the next few weeks.
We entered the site along the road leading into it. In the old fence was a War Department Ordnance Survey sign featuring the British military crows foot emblem. Although the site was also strongly active in the Victorian and Cold War era, most of the buildings seen in these following posts originate from the Second World War.
A War Department Ordnance Survey marker used in WW2
When we walked inside, we used a Google Map satellite printout to locate the first sight to see. When we came to it in the bushes, we found it to be a large circular concrete base with a road leading off it, maybe a road area or building base? We then saw the closed off area which was a major firing-range for small arms, with a massive mud mound built up to stop bullets venturing astray.
The range mound
The road area
We then came across a sand-bag water pit, which we weren’t sure as to whether it was contemporary or not, caused by the concrete sandbags. The truth is that it was the old sluice for the ‘camp’, with the cement-filled sandbags solidifying when in contact with water. We also found an old metal object on the upcoming jetty. In the bag it went until we saw the following sign:
Don't risk it!
The sluice lined with cement sandbags
The jetty was only short, yet still of considerable size. It was made of concrete, although it appeared another wooden one would have stood East of it, being indicated by some wooden posts coming out of the beach. A flock of birds took sanctuary on the beach below, all facing the same direction, with their heads tucked into their wings.
Ahh - the BTP Boy's softspot
A View From The Jetty
The jetty featured metal rails running down it, embedded in the concrete. These tell us that it must have been used to cart supplies to the battery from boats and ships. It also had a partially sealed off hole leading to steps to go underneath the top of the jetty, possibly for maintenance.
These steps only say two words - no thanks!
Abide with sea
The end of the jetty
A great shot of the rails
After visiting the jetty, we then followed the seawall along to the next part of Gunner’s Park, which featured the actual concrete constructions. The first was this gun battery building located ‘on’ the wall. Although most of these bunkers were shuttered with metal recently when the park was developed, this one had a small hole in it’s metal mesh which we are lucky to fit through due to our age! No matter what befalls this building as time goes on, it will be soon inaccessible for us, as it certainly was a tight squeeze! Assuming the gun would have perched on the roof, as a sea defence, a metal circular runner was visible inside, perhaps to mount/control the gun. On our way out we were surprised to find a host of pigeons nesting above the entrance, watching us the whole time.
The gap
The First Battery
Peekaboo!
Inside
Keep checking out Beyond the Point for the next installment, as like I say it gets better. For our images of the whole trip go here for Mine:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.334559163232954.78255.238743826147822&type=3
And here for BTP Joe’s:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.334429693245901.78232.238743826147822&type=3
And check out our YouTube documentary for video footage – it does have bad audio due to the wind, although the subtitles do help.
BTP Liam and I are currently filming as I mentioned in my last post. On Thursday we interviewed Graham Stevens about the Canvey Island floods of ’53 and when we met up with him, he gave us a folder of documents. The folder had several fantastic documents in it of the Occidental site and jetty showing that the jetty, isn’t complete currently and that there were plans to make the jetty longer at the end. Some of the other maps and plans show the piping for the various containers, Gas Liquid Chromatography maps (it’s makes it sound better than GLC maps!!), diagrams of the various administration offices and the height comparison to a worker. You can see the images below, that BTP Liam and myself spent combining from several photocopied segments of the documents. (You can click on the images to make them bigger)
I doubt that you can read it but it says 'Foster Wheeler', which after researching, I found out that they are a 'global engineering and construction contractor' and 'a power equipment supplier'.
Inside the front cover
The divisions in the folder labeled 'RHS - #'
The first map of the site with the locations of the drums
Map 2 which shows you the plan for the Occidental Jetty; showing that it was planned to be longer. You can also see other small jetties that are coming off of the sea wall.
In this map, map 5, you can see the whole area with the proposed piping route going away from the site, north.
Map 7 shows you the the proposed administration buildings and workshops. You can see the scale difference between the people and the buildings. It's a shame it's not here!
You can view the rest of the images at our Forum Topic. The images above belong to Graham Stevens but were scanned and cropped together by Beyond the Point. With great thanks to Graham!!
