We are soon to release our DVD documentary on Canvey Island and we gave Janet Penn a copy to write a review! Janet kindly wrote an article on the Canvey Island Archivewebsite. In the article she said:
Well done boys, do I see a TV careers in the offing?
BTP Joe filming for the documentary
Janet may very well be right! On May 18th I submitted a video on Organ Donation as part of an NHS competition to promote the National Organ Donation Week. The shortlist was announced at the start of the week and I am proud to say that the video is in it!!!? In the 2 minute documentary we tried to get the message across that you should consider organ donation today and sign up and tell your family. Our friend, Luke Whitlam, is an dying boy who is desperate for an organ donation and he’s only wish is to go to school. At the same time, myself, is dreaming of becoming a proffessional athlete as I admire football. (A lot of acting required!!). Whilst playing football my ball goes into the road, where I run after it and get hit by a car. As I was signed up on the organ donation register Luke was able to recieve the gift of my organs and go to school; his dream come true. Luke said:
Organ donation is very important because you just have to sign up and signing up saves lives. I think our video showed that and got the point across.
We are very proud of our success and achievement towards this video. You can watch out video below and please watch as the winner is partly chosen by the number of views the video gets!! The judges will decide on a winner and the results will be announced publicly on 4th July in which Luke and myself and invited to the Official Awards Ceremony!! The prize is £1000’s worth of film equipment so you can expect an awesome monster film this year is we win!!
Back to our Canvey DVD:
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!
Editors note from 2016: Please note we have since sold the entire run of our DVDs which was around 40. They sold at £5 each except for a few we gave away as trials – this money has since been spent on making BTP what it is today which we are grateful for. We will not be producing the DVD again as we have progressed so much since in our film-making techniques. We will not however rule out a future remake, and you can see almost everything featured in this film on our site via respective articles.
Below follows the film script which is a solid overview of Canvey’s past in chronological order, covering the main areas of Canvey’s history in turn. Some elements such as the reknown Dr. Feelgood, or numerous historic buildings, were however not included due to our knowledge and constraints.
Canvey Island
From Ancient Times to the Modern Era
Throughout the centuries, Canvey, our little Thames island, has been bustling with activity ever since the Roman invasion of Britain. Due to its key position on the mouth of the Thames, it has always been highly valued in the history of human expansion. Used as a salt-gathering point by the Romans, as a stronghold of defence in the Second World War, as a seaside resort by the entrepreneur Fredrick Hester, and almost as an Oil Refinery spot in the second half of the 20th century, Canvey Island has been in the spotlight throughout time because of its coastal location. Sometimes though, the seas were not all a good thing for Canvey, when in 1953 the North Sea flood ravished its landscape.
When Britain was invaded by the Romans in AD 43, taking over Celt rule, settlements were established across the country. A Roman road was excavated and found travelling from Chelmsford to Benfleet adjacent to the most northern point of Canvey Island, suggesting it would have continued down across Canvey. The Romans are estimated to have worked here from around 200 years, up until 250 AD. Several Red Hills have been discovered throughout the island, and here we are roughly on the site of one of them east of Canvey Road. Red Hills would have been remains of the salt making process utilized from sea-water. Pottery, soil, and ash were piled up into mounds for use making the salt. Salt-making fires would heat the pottery and soil in these mounds turning them red, hence the name ‘Red Hills’.
Another example of Roman architecture on Canvey lies just of its boundary. In Vange Creek between Coryton and West Canvey, lies the two tiny islands Upper and Lower Horse. Lower Horse is no more than marsh with a small abandoned boat on its shore. Upper Horse is however far more intriguing. Rumor and expert knowledge suggests a Roman Fort once lied on its spot. Although its sea-walls were built up further in the Victorian era, a strange enclosure shape can be observed from satellite imagery, with several ‘strips’ of ground inside it. Only the earthen walls can be seen today, which harbor mainland grass rather than marsh-land vegetation, which can faintly be made out from where I’m standing.
As well as salt gathering, Canvey was used as sheep farm-land, from the 5th Century, under Saxon ownership, to the coming of the Dutch in the mid 16th Century due to a falling trend in dairy product popularity, as meat took over the scene.. A now rarer breed of sheep, being of a long-tailed variety, was farmed on Canvey. When William the Conqueror invaded Britain in 1066, he took England over and ordered that a mass census be carried out, recorded as the Doomsday Book, explaining each town and city, and what people roughly owned there, as far as land, buildings, and livestock, were concerned. Canvey Island was described in this book as being a ‘sheep farming parish under the control of nine parishes’. In this era, Canvey was split into several sections, each of the nine parishes which surrounded Canvey owning 1-2 sections of Canvey’s land each.
In 1623, a Canvey land owner known as Sir Henry Appleton, ordered expert Dutch engineer Cornelius Wasterdyk Vermuyden to reclaim Canvey’s constantly flooding landscape. He set about constructing dykes, seawalls, and a drainage and sluice system made from hollowed-out Elm tree trunks for pipes. Many dykes are still used, even if modified, and the seawall is still prominent in many parts of the island. Here I am at the point of Canvey island in which the Dutch seawall can be witnessed along with the original chalk layer and wooden stakes. With the now stable, solid, and secure, land, Canvey was used for growing crops and also for cattle. Along with Vermuyden, many Dutch inhabited Canvey and the surrounding area. In 1627 a petition was put out by the Dutch wishing for a house in which Dutch religious services could be carried out in. In 1630, this was agreed to and a small Chapel was constructed on the then highest point of the island.
Other Dutch buildings on the island today include the renown Dutch Cottages. With one as a house amongst Canvey village, the other is here at Canvey Road, which is restored and maintained as a museum featuring exquisite Canvey artifacts gathered throughout its intense past. This fine example was built in 1618, and it is entirely original apart from its nurtured thatched roof.
Tensions soon arose between the original inhabitant of Canvey and the Dutch, who came to Canvey as refugees from Spanish Catholic persecution, at times massacring Englishmen on their own soil. The Anglo-Dutch ‘Battle of Canvey’ took place in 1667 and a Dutch fleet landed on our shores near the Lobstersmack, pillaging houses and buildings. The Lobstersmack itself is Canvey’s oldest remaining building, an as been here since roughly 1510 – not having changed much structurally. It was used as a smuggler’s inn and used for the handling of contraband such as alcohol in its early days. In its Victorian days, it was known as ‘the World’s End’ after being so far from civilization n Canvey. It is mentioned as a Thames-side inn when a boat passes by it in Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations.
The other previously mentioned Dutch Cottage can be seen here in the village acting as a private house, which was built in 1621, a few years after the one at Northwick.
In the Victorian Era, the Dutch sea defences of Vermuyden were upgraded into more prestigious earthen mounds. Still not containing a ‘wall’ as such, it did feature a flattened path along it’s top. A piece of it can be seen here in the Newlands, broken up when the roads were built. It was larger and taller than the Dutch one, although still was nothing more than piled earth, and could have been breached easily if the tides took their toll.
Towards the second-half of the 19th Century, Victorian Canvey was undergoing true establishment as a village, rather than just farmland. With a new church, St. Katherine’s, built in 1975, a village well constructed in 1879, and numerous other houses such as these remaining ones here, Canvey Village was the heart of the Island in the Victorian Era. The well was replaced by this island in the road seen here today. Most of these village buildings were erected under the eye of Reverend Henry Hayes, the island’s first vicar of 1881, building a vicarage, post office, and school.
St. Katherines church hasn’t always lied on this spot however. The Dutch Chapel, aforementioned, stood vaguely on this site. In 1712 it was becoming dilapidated, and with a now anti-Dutch mindset the local residents, the church was rebuilt by a certain Mr. Edgar as an English church known as St. Catherines. With floods raging in over the Dutch seawall, the church was damaged overtime by the moisture. Then in 1745, the church was rebuilt again under the name of St. Peters, funded by Daniel Scratton of Prittlewell. Like the previous church, it was constructed using timber, and red roof tiles. In 1862, a losing battle was fought in trying to restore the church’s interior with new seating and stained-glass windows. It was rebuilt under the devotion to the previous St. Katherine in 1875. Some components from the old church were used. The church was later left derelict through the 60s and 70s, but was planned as a heritage centre in 1979, before work started in the early 80s. Now standing as Canvey Island Heritage Centre, it lies as a public museum, the building being original though restored.
In the 1890s, an entrepreneur named Frederick Hester saw Canvey as an ideal hotspot for a seaside resort, much like Victorian Southend. He began to plan and buy land across Canvey from 1897. He spilt the land into small plots which were advertised to mainly Londoners, who wanted to get away from city life and breath ‘sea air’. He lived for a time in the Leigh Beck area, one of his houses being ‘Marlborough House’ which lied just over the wall here. Around 1902, Hester developed tourist greenhouse gardens in the Winter Gardens area of Canvey, which is now named accordingly to the Vermuyden Summer and Winter Gardens that Frederick Hester Established there. Here on Shellbeach can be seen stakes from Hester’s leisure pier, built to a much shorter length and grandeur than he had hoped for. He used solidified concrete barrels from the sunk ship the SS Benmore as foundations for the jetty.
Here we are at St. Katherines’ church, which holds these two busts of William Shakespeare and Robert Burns, which were on display in the entrance to Hester’s Winter Gardens, known as ‘Poet’s Corner’.
Here in the churchyard is the grave of Hester’s brother FWB, who died in 1911 due to an unfortunate tetanus infection from a cut on a bread-cutting machine.
This seemingly insignificant wall was a cattle-grid from Hester’s time, replacing a wooden one. Its metal spikes were cut off later due to safety regulations, but their stumps can just be seen in the wall. This area was known as ‘Temple Bar’. Hester ordered the construction of a monorail – a tramway drawn by a horse and cart. He planned to replace it with an electrical variant, although this never materialized. Its path can be followed today. Despite Hester’s efforts, he was left bankrupt in 1905, and the resort’s components fell to either the market, or natural decay.
In the 1920s to 50s, much of Canvey’s land was owned by Lt. Col. Horace Percy Fielder, both a pioneer and soldier, and nonetheless a Canvey icon. He was born in 1906 into a housing development business, and put great effort into Canvey Island both pre-war, post-war, and throughout the Second World War itself. In the 1930s he was elected for various different roles for years in a row in the Canvey Urban District Council, and set up Thorney Bay Holiday Camp, along with estates of housing across Canvey. His most common house-type which remains can be found all over the island, such as this one here, trademarked by its sloping roof which suddenly becomes less-steep at the front. These were built in the 1930s. Lt. Col. Fielder also led Canvey’s Territorial Army in the 30s before the War struck.
In 1939, Britain and France declared Germany, and the Second World War had begun as we commonly know it. The Nazi conquest had ravished Eastern Europe throughout the 1930s, hence the war actually having begun in truth before its widely known date. By 1939, the Germans were already in control of France and parts of Scandinavia, and were ready to launch an attack on Britain, with the prime spot for an assault being the Southern and Eastern coast. It soon materialized that their plan was to take Britian by literally ‘chopping of its head’ – London, from which the Thames provided a direct route for an enemy landing. It was suspected that both landing craft and paratroops – the German Fallschirmjager, would enter the country. Millions of coastal and inland defences were built, from pillboxes, anti-aircraft batteries, anti-tank obstacles to countless others. Canvey Island was incredibly heavily defended in the war, as it was part of the ‘key’ to London – once Canvey, Tilbury, and the adjacent areas on the Kent side of the river, were captured, London was vulnerable.
The Blitz occurred from September 1940 to May 1941, concluding with the Battle of Britain, which should have been the final blow to a hard-hit nation. Here we are at Deepwater Road, the site in which Canvey Island took its most hindering blow from German bombing. It occurred on the 24th of June, 1944, when the threat of invasion was now over, yet we were still bombed to keep us softened up. The V1 Rocket-Propelled Flying Bomb, known as a Doodlebug, was flying over to bomb inland, when British fighter planes met it in the air, and tried to tip it wing-to-wing, as was an incredibly skilled yet popular tactic. It was successfully knocked off course, but rather than soaring off into the sea, it dropped straight down onto houses which stood roughly here on Deepwater Road. It crashed right onto a Mr. Scott’s house, hitting the bungalow of Ray Howard, located right next to it. Ray Howard is a Canvey councilor, with a passion for the Island, and he lost both his two brothers and his cousin when he was very young that midday.
It was Canvey that served three purposes in the defence of Britain. The first was to shoot down these bombs, such as V1s and V2s, as well as enemy bomber planes, which would have bombed London and other local towns. Here we are in the Little Gypps area of Canvey, which was once home to a Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, given the ‘codename’ TN7 Furtherwick. One stands also at Northwick Road, being TN8 Northwick, and there is also a TN9 Hadleigh in the Downs. Its concrete gun-mounts were too tough to demolish, so earth was simply dumped on top, forming this now also fairly ancient children’s playground, in which the hexagonal gun-mounts can be seen protruding from the grass.
Its second purpose was as stronghold inland to fire upon an enemy landing. Pillboxes, which are fairly small firing bunkers, were constructed all over the Island and surrounding area, in order to be used to shoot upon Germans landing on the shores and scouring through our fields. Most sharp curves in the seawall mark the spot of a pillbox, although only one remains at the side of the Roscommon Way extension, here. This is a rare sort to be found in Essex. The other pillboxes were mostly demolished with the building of the current seawall in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Its third purpose would have been to protect London or even Canvey itself from a seaborne invasion, in which Canvey would have aimed on the Thames to fire up any enemy craft going down the river. Scars Elbow in the Thorney Bay area of the island would have done just this. Although the Deadman’s Point battery, just west, had existed into the era of the First World War. The Scars Elbow battery was extremely grand, and the land before it, now Thorney Bay residential camp, would have held troops in an army camp who worked on the guns there. Many of the structures here lasted proud up until the 1990s when the major ones were destroyed, although another batch of buildings were bulldozed around a decade before. Only a handful of structures remain today, most notably two of these magazines, which were simple concrete buildings which would house rounds to be fired from the large guns on the seawall. This one is situated within the Thorney Bay site, and would have been known as ‘Canvey Fort’ back in the day, working as a reminder to how significant a role this battery would have played in the defense of the Thames and South Essex.
An interesting yet iconic landmark of Canvey once was the Concrete Barge, a rotting behemoth on the shores near Canvey Point Sailing Club. It would have been a large concrete barge reinforced with iron which found its way here after an eventful life on the Normandy Front. In World War Two, the allied forces pushed the Nazis back through their stolen France in the D-Day invasions of June 6th 1944. To save the need to venture back to England to pick up supplies, so-called Mulberry Harbours were set afloat in the seas of the English Channel. These were concrete floating harbor platforms carrying supplies and more for the allies. One lies broken in half in the Thames visible from Southend. Ferro-Concrete Barges were attatched in their masses to these harbours to both carry supplies and keep the greater harbours afloat. When one became damaged, it ended up here on our Canvey shores, but was sneakily demolished by the Sailing Club overnight being described as an ‘eye-sore’. They never quite got their way however, as the base of its hull lies here in place today, and is still quite significant.
A final World War Two tribute which must be paid is to the American pilots who crashed on their B-17 ‘Flying Fortess’ Plane crashed on a mission to bomb the enemy. The wreck landed at the centre of the end of Canvey Point, a thin extension of marshland at Canvey’s Eastern most region.
To move away to Canvey Island’s more domestic history, we find ourselves back here at Thorney Bay. Whilst still a caravan controversial housing area, it was once a caravan holiday camp, set up by Lt. Col. Fielder, who owned the camp and saw a future use for the military buildings when the war was over. It lasted well into the 1980s and is the reason for many loyal islanders to live across the Island today. It featured a shop and caravan housing for rental, and the military remnant were used by the many children to play on. The coastal location was also fantastically popular.
Here we are at the Canvey Newlands – a low area of Canvey, which was reclaimed from marshland many years ago, hence the name, being possibly the most recent extension of Canvey’s landmass, albeit having been here for decades. This is roughly were the North Sea Floods breached Canvey Island’s seawall, being only the Victorian earthen mounds described earlier. Places such as Coryton, Shell Haven, and Foulness Island were also dramatically hit, although Canvey was not only the most densely populated, but also the worst hit. We have with us Graham Stevens who is the vice-chairman of Canvey Island Community Archive, who lived through the floods himself.
-(insert Graham Steven’s talking about the floods in general, and his memories of it)-
After being threatened by the War, and now the floods, Canvey was a true soldier through history, but things were about to get worse, and the very meaning of warfare had evolved radically. By the end of World War Two, the Cold War had began – a threatening-game played between the USA and Soviet Russia, with countries such as Britain playing as smaller superpowers involved. Britain is arguably the third most major contestant of the Cold War, and took a high risk of being attacked by nuclear bombs, whilst maintaining a fine arsenal of its own. Together, the world was at risk of literally blowing itself up, but the affairs greatest futility was its greatest sanctuary – Mutually Assured Destruction, meaning that if one country released its bombs, then it would be executing itself by giving the go ahead for others to release theirs on it. The simplest type of nuclear bomb was the atomic bomb, which these houses at Miramar Avenue and Long Road were built to withstand. We only know they were listed in the late 1940s as ‘atomic bomb proof’ and it is speculated that they would have given only simple protection from radiation. The bombs soon developed into hydrogen bombs however, which would have outmatched these houses without a second look. Note some of these houses have had second floors and roofs added at a later date.
Another building on Canvey built to defend against the Soviets is Canvey Degaussing Station, now the Bay Museum, which holds a spectacular collection of military history artifacts. It is located just before the seawall, looking over Thorney Bay itself. Now Martin Daniell, co-runner of the museum, will talk about its history and purpose.
-(interview with Martin)-
Canvey Island holds another final nuclear defense – an ROC post. As previously mentioned, the Royal Observer Corps used a spotting platform at Leigh Beck to look at for enemy planes in World War Two. Their most well known role however was through the Cold War, when thousands of ROC Observation Posts were built across Britain in the 1950s, including one on this spot on Canvey. They were one room underground bunkers designed to house a few observers in case of a nuclear explosion. They would monitor results from the equipment attached to the bunker, such as a pinhole camera onto which would require replacement daily. Above ground only a cube-shaped concrete hatch and a few ‘pipes’ would be visible. Now decommission, many posts remain intact for public entry, although this one on Canvey had its inside scorched and its above ground features demolished in the early 2000s. The entrance shaft hole was capped with concrete only a few years ago, but somewhere underground, the room remains.
Whilst at risk of radiation, the air and what it could carry was a threat to Canvey in another light, perhaps more severe. The petrochemical industry was expanding, as after a war-time standstill in advancement to anything but military hardware, the country and even the world took up its skills to the full. In the 1960s, Canvey’s coastal location was too tempting for the massive company United Refineries, now known as ENI, as it was sometimes referred to back in the day. An oil refinery was planned in 1964 to be completed by 1967, costing then a total of 15 million. It would have roughly been built around the land in this direction just south of Canvey Way, in this site which is now an RSPB Bowers Marsh nature reserve. ENI were caught supplying the Soviets with oil, as the Cold War was at its height. This company soon had its dreams shattered when it had to abort the process due to a lack in need for the black stuff on the market, backed by the complaints of further surveying the refinery, deeming it hazardous to the local residents to begin construction, and pressure from mass protest.
Another company soon showed its face – Occidental Petroleum, now known as OXY, who gained permission to construct a refinery on Western Canvey, north of the Lobster Smack, grander than its predecessor. Construction began in 1974, and it was set to cost then 60 million pounds, of which this mile-long jetty took up one sixth of the budget. Perhaps the most structurally detailed remain of the site, it now remains as an enormous wreck, popular amongst fishermen for its access to deep water for bass.
The huge landmass here, now a Brownfield nature reserve named ‘Canvey Wick’ would have been the are for the refinery. It has such popularity with nature due to the sand placed here to cover the farmland that existed before by Occidental. Everything from drums to a chimney were built, beginning as early as 1974. Yet again the oil crisis of 1973 rocketed the prices sky high, and the company stopped construction around 1978. It now remains as an alien landscape, combining a weird mixture of concrete stockpiles and asphalt oil drum bases amongst tall trees and unique wildlife. Here is an example of the kind of concrete remain found in the site – here one of many bridges built over ditches in the land to make vehicle access easier. Many drums and the chimney existed up until around 15 years ago, when Sainsbury’s, a relatively nearby supermarket, now Morrison’s, brought the site up and arranged the removal of the drums, and the demolition of the chimney by Fred Dibnah – TV presenter and reknown steeple-jack – to knock it down in 1997. Soon after, millionaire Peter De Savaray planned the redevelopment of the site into a new and more prosperous holiday camp, with activities such as yachting on the waters there. Unfortunately it was declared a nature reserve, as it has stayed since, halting any idea of change to the site. A careers site has been planned with hopes to lower levels of unemployment directly north of the site, skimming yet not touching any of the truly fascinating remnants from another world.
In 1991, the Cold War ended, with the new Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, who saw the flawed system as it was, and eventually pushed for the people’s escape from oppression. It seemed all wars were over, being the last major war for the world to have fought – in line with the world wars one and two. With a world perhaps relieved from any sort of Sword of Damocles for the first time in a century, it was ready for casual improvement. Another site thrived on unnatural soil – Canvey Heights. The highest open space on the island is now a nature reserve, but was once a tip up until around two decades ago. With technology developing faster in the latest 30 years more than it previously had done since the industrial revolution, Canvey took both the brunt of building, but with all the bells and whistles that came with it. Land around Thorney Bay and Sixty Acres was developed in the era of the Cold War’s conclusion into housing, and now further developments are taking place.
Completed just a few months back, this Roscommon Way extension, totaling 18 million, cut through farms and fields with a subtle yet sinister purpose. Chemical storage is set to be placed near the fields around Haven Road, and the road is proved to have been emplaced to secure the approval of this site by means of prematurely building access to it. It does however take wildlife into consideration, and takes some pressure of traffic to an extent.
Furtherwick Park school, one of the three secondary schools on Canvey, was demolished not long ago, dating from 1956 as the island’s oldest secondary school, even though primaries, such as Leigh Beck, date from the 1930s and still stand strong. Furtherwick Park was replaced by a new Castle View school, one existing near Sixty Acres, between the Newlands and the bridge to Benfleet. It was partly demolished and relocated here in the high street, providing deluxe and immense facilities of cutting edge caliber. Although the gardens are still in progress, the building is essentially complete featuring an open un-fenced security system, instead using clever glass and construction methods to provide an attractive asset to increase schooling numbers on the island. The old site still holds some school buildings, although the majority of the land is home to the construction of a skills campus by construction company Skanska.
The seawalls, built laboriously in the 1970s, give Canvey an incredibly defense against future flooding, not being covered by water any further than the paths at the bottom of it in found in most places of it. The older seawall, featuring corrugated iron with concrete ontop is still dominant in the wall, as it was simply just placed ontop of it, using the older wall as the basis for the walkway along it stretching Canvey’s shores. In some places however, walls from the Victorian era even are still used against the sea, such as the area between Canvey Way and the Benfleet bridge, buffered by the large stretch of marshland and only thin waterways beyond it. These walls we have from the seventies will presumably never be needed to be upgraded until at least half a century from now, but we know that when the time comes, it will mark the island’s past to be once again looked back on as we have now over the documentary. Who knows what the future holds.
We would to say thank you to the Canvey Island Community archive and The Bay Museum for allowing us to feature their members on the documentary, and to the magazine Love Canvey for promoting this DVD. We hope that the investigation has placed Canvey’s History in perspective with that of the wider world, and that it has helped you to appreciate and realize the historic town we still live in. If you have found the portrayal of historical remains on Canvey particularly interesting, then please visit our website which focuses on this at Beyond the Point .co.uk, in both Canvey and the greater south-east Essex. If you think you live in a modern world, every aspect of it is because of the past – our past – the past of Canvey Island.
