Disguised Observation Post We started at a disguised defensive post, which when we visited in 2012 was next to the derelict Esplanade House. When we revisited in 2017, the site has been demolished and replaced with a Premiere Inn – luckily the pillbox-like structure has survived! The brick wall appears to be of classic Southend Victorian origin,…
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Top: EKCO Southend premises c.1940 & 2008 Bottom: Aerial view of the site in 1934 & 1970s Priory Crescent was until recently home to a vast factory complex constructed by the locally-founded EKCO electronics company. In 2008 it was demolished after several decades of switching hands, and now a modern housing estate is nearing completion…
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Photos from Dave Bullock. Above ground photo by Nick Catford. Nick Catford from the amazing site Subterranea Britannica visited the site in 1997, 1998, and 2000. He records: When first inspected in 1997 the post was in reasonable external condition with all surface features intact but with some land erosion around the access shaft. The…
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It’s been apart of the Kent skyline for almost 40 years although in mid-2016 the time was up for this iconic structure when it demolished in a matter of seconds. Thousands of people watched as the demolition was streamed online, live from the BBC helicopter. At 11am on September 7th, experts detonated the 801ft chimney,…
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North of Butlers Farm in the Shopland, Sutton rural area north of Southend lies what was once thought to be a Romano-British burial site by local historians. The mound is roughly 5ft x 16ft in size and is similar in shape to other local barrows which exist on Foulness Island and Mersea Island; both dating…
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Wakering Camp was constructed potentially around June 1944 as a ‘Diver’ battery – a late-war heavy anti-aircraft 3.7-inch gun battery of at least eight guns, established to defend against V-1 flying bombs. It was one of two in Great Wakering, with another four at Foulness. There were at least 43 huts, and in July 1944…
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The Brentwood police station perimeter lies derelict on a plot of land quarantined by a construction fence. The structure is slowly falling into disrepair whilst it awaits development in the near future. We decided to try and work our way into the complex to discover what was inside before it goes. It was built in…
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Nore Fort was a set of towers out in the very mouth of the River Thames, between Great Wakering and Sheerness. The fort designed by Guy Maunsell as a sea-platform anti-aircraft battery, and was built in 1942 during the Second World War. Nore followed an ‘Army’ style of fort; cuboid metal platforms on stilted reinforced-concrete…
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In the Second World War, access to the River Thames was controlled by two defensive ‘booms’. The first at its very mouth ran from Shoeburyness to Sheerness, whilst the second lesser-known but still substantial boom ran from Scars Elbow Battery on Canvey Island to St. Mary’s Bay in Kent. This was a kind of floating…
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Canvey’s list of historic pubs have declined over the years, most have been converted into retail space (Silver Jubilee and the King Canute) however the Jellicoe hasn’t been fortunate enough to survive. The pub, and once a hotel, is thought to date back to the late 1920’s or early 1930’s and even survived the floods of…
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