Posts Tagged ‘Frederick Hester’

Canvey Island Guide Book & Flying Fortress Propeller Images

Posted: June 13, 2012 by BTP Joe in Various
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Hello everyone! It’s been a while since our last post because we’ve been busy with the stall in which we made a satisfying profit on the day. We met loads of wonderful people and many people bought our Canvey Island Documentary DVD, including our local MP, Rebecca Harris. You can buy yours now, here!

After an hour or so of scanning an old Canvey guide book, the page by page images can be seen in the gallery below! Canvey was seen and promoted as a holiday spot quite thoroughly over the past century but particularly in the early 1900′s when a popular man, Frederick Hester, was on the scene. (Read more here) Hester spent hundreds trying to re-vamp England and extensively promote it to Londoner’s; a place where they could go to breath sea air. Hester started to build a pier (which was planned to be 3 stories and bigger than Southend pier) and of course the Winter Gardens Tram line. Hester Unfortuantly became bust though and later died in 1934. Below are the images of the booklet. Image 1 is page 1, Image 2 is page 2 e.t.c (Hover over the image to view what number!! Sorry they’re not in order, WordPress is being stupid!!)

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As well as these images I also have a few more delights with thanks to Shirley Gartshore! ;) Below are images of the B17 Flying Fortress propeller which belonged to the plane which crashed at Canvey Point. You can read a very detailed account by Janet Penn here.

And now one last picture but this time a slightly different one. This photo below shows a crashed lorry but in the background on the right, we can see the Thorney Bay War defences from Tuesday 14th June 1977. If you zoom in and look just behind the lorry, you can see a long building which is the army huts in the Thorney Bay Camp. That’s all from me for now and expect a post by BTP Liam soon! I would like to ask please, for you support, in supporting myself in a competition that I recently entered. All you need to do is click the link here and watch the vid!

Tuesday 14th June 1977

Canvey Island – Our Little Thames Town

Posted: May 17, 2012 by BTP Joe in Event Review, Local Event, Other Websites/Organisations, Up-Coming Event, Website Update
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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 <<<

Canvey Island Documentary DVD by BeyondthePoint.co.uk

The DVD

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!

That’s all from us, make sure you visit us on the day!

Get your DVD!!

1930s Shooting Book Mentions Canvey in ‘The Modern Fowler’ by J. Wentworth Day

Posted: April 10, 2012 by BTP Liam in Case Study, Various
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My grandad, who has helped with many articles for Beyond the Point, is a devout air-rifle collector, and owns several books on the matter (or shotgun shooting) both old and new. This older one, from the 1930s, is a commentary/diary of a man who shot birds across Essex and beyond. He mentions shooting at Canvey Island ‘point’ and Foulness Island. He took shelter behind ‘concrete barrels’ at the point, which we can now explain as being ‘Hester’s pillars’ (a ship, the SS Benmore, sank off Canvey shores, and it’s concrete-filled barrel cargo solidified as it hit water, being used by many builders across Canvey in the early 20th Century, most notably Fredrick Hester, who developed a tourist resort on the Island. Times never change, as the shooter says how there were less birds in the 30s than ‘the good times’ showing how things never change – it must be human nature how we complain that nature is disappearing in recent years.

It also mentions Foulness Island, but also a fairly well-known gunsmith who lived in a houseboat known as ‘Seabrink’ at Canvey point called ‘Charles Stamp’ of which my grandad once met years ago.

Here are the notable pages and cover/cover pages:

Visit to Hesters’ Wall and Pier

Posted: March 7, 2012 by BTP Joe in Event Review, Local Event
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Seaside Town

Hello all! Do you know wbout Frederick Hester, the man who promoted Canvey in the early 1900′s to make it a fantastic seaside town? In the early 1900′s an entrepreneur had a dream of turning Canvey into an Island holiday resort. His name was Frederick Hester. He was born in Fulham in 1853, the son of George Hester and Catherine (nee Potter). Frederick married Sibyl (nee Brewster) and they had seven children together, some of which were to help their father in his Canvey project. “F.W.B. Hester” in the poster below was Frederick’s estate agent son, Frederick William Brewster Hester, who was born in 1876 and named after his Mother & Father. He was to play a big part in his Father’s project and remained on Canvey all his life. Many changes were going on in these days. For example the expansion of the LT&SR railway line from Fenchurch Street to Southend-on-Sea. Frederick took advantage of the Benfleet Station, which is virtually on the Island as it was potentially an ideal holiday resort for Londoners to get out of the crowded city and get a glimpse of how life is different here, compared to the noisy and busy London.! Posters like this one would have posted around London to try and promote the Island.

Hesters' advertisement for Canvey-on-Sea

As you may of read in our previous post, he built a tram line in the Island. Of course, their version of a tram was a horse and cart!  BTP Liam and I walked through where it would have been. You can watch what we did at Beyond the Point TV Although it was just a horse and cart, Hester did have plans to make it a proper railway line with electric. He started building a generating station but it wasn’t ever finished or used. The images below show what remains of the wall that would have been for the ticket office to Wintergardens Greenhouses, which would have been a tropical experience. It was obviously built in Hester’s time and it’s the place where you would pay for a ticket. You can see a few metal spikes in the wall, which would have been bigger for security purposes. They were cut down in around the 80′s due to health and safety reasons.

The Ticket Office Wall

The Ticket Office Wall

One of the spikes on the wall

Frederick Hester dreamed of Canvey being the next Southend-on-Sea or even better by building a two and a half kilometer two-storey Pier which he planned would reach the Chapman Lighthouse. The photo below shows his pier with a Thames Barge unloading materials onto a small locomotive that ferried the materials to shore – Frederick certainly planned on joining the Pier with his railway that ended in this area. Marlboro House, the first building the Hester’s built on Canvey, can be seen on the far left.

Hester's Pier

His pier can be seen in the image below (curtsy of the CCA and CanveyIsland.org.uk) Only 122 meters were built and it was later taken down and replaced by the Chapman Sailing Club.

Hester's Pier

The pier today, a picture from when we filmed our guide to the jetty

Little Gypps (TN7 Furtherwick) Anti Aircraft Site and Hester’s Wall + Monorail Walk

Posted: December 28, 2011 by BTP Joe in Case Study, Event Review
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Christmas 2011 has gone and 2012 is soon approaching with New Years Eve just around the corner and BTP Liam and I can promise a fantastic new year, here at Beyond the Point with new features coming soon one of them being Beyond the Point TV turning HD for a BTP 1 year on special but you’ll have to wait until June for that! Recently we visited Little Gypps TN7 site followed by a walk along a once ambitious route by Frederick Hester.

Part of the Octagon

In the Little Gypps area of Canvey Island there was once a WW2 Heavy Anti Aircraft base there called ‘TN7 Furtherwick’. There were six gun emplacements, four octagonal positioned in a semi circle facing east and another two that were square. Each section had an bomb proof shelter for the gun crew and an ammunition recesses. On the South an on-site Magazine Bunker was positioned and south of that were around 20 various accommodation huts. On site the two square emplacements have been demolished but the four octagonal structures and the central positioned command post have been buried under large mounds of earth and grassed over for a play area which doesn’t look much older than the gun site itself. The area is not obvious being hidden behind housing on all sides.

According to Dave Bullock’s Article ‘Most of the accommodation area including barracks was demolished and replaced with housing but the large 120ft brick built guard house was used as an ECC Activity Centre, only recently being demolished around 1998.’

Here’s a good site showing all Heavy Anti-Aircraft Batteries - http://www.anti-aircraft.co.uk/HAA_gun_sites_map.html

Joe inspects parth of the gun mount which appears to have slits in, but are pssibly just the way it was built.

Square 'Gridded' Foundations

One of the two holes on one of the octagonal areas, I'm guessing to 'screw' the gun in.

The old path to the entrance, showing what looks like a gate 'runner' which can be seen to extend further due to disturbance in grass growth.

The whole area, with the probable old paths tarmacked into a playing area, now a remain in itself!

After we visited Little Gypps we went on to walk along Fredrick Hester’s Tram lime; a mechanism used to promote Canvey to make it the ‘next Southend’ in the early 1900′s.

Promoted in London and originally called ‘Winter Gardens’, glass houses, were put in place on Canvey. Filled with the prettiest of plants, it was almost a mile in length, with their own rolling transport. For the time, it was paradise. A tramway, simply a horse and cart were driven at first but it was later planned to be properly laid and electrified. Rails and a generating station had been started. The tramway was planned not only from the Benfleet ferry across to Shell Beach via Winter Gardens, but a branch line was to lead to the Salvation Army quay on the Hadleigh side of the Ray and thence on to Leigh-on-Sea and the railway connection. Four new tramcars arrived by train to Benfleet station, but only one of them actually made it to the island. (It arrived by steam traction engine and returned pulled by three horses.) None of this came cheap and Hester eventually ran out of money. The tramway never turned electrical and it took until 1931 before a bridge was built granting access onto and off of the island.

There is a documentary on BTP TV that we filmed on this exhibition! (scroll to the bottom of BTP TV)