The Bata shoe factory and estate was built in East Tilbury the 1930s by Czecheslovakian entrepeneur Thomas Bata. It was modelled on the original factory in Zlín, now in the Czech Republic, and hence survives as an unusual piece of Czech industrial Modernism here in Essex. The factory was converted into the Thames Industrial Park…
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Along Salt Lane in Cliffe lies an overgrown pair of air raid shelter tunnels installed to protect industrial workers of the Alpha cement works in WW2. It is suggested that the two shelters remaining today were actually two entrance-ways into a larger shelter capable of holding hundreds of people, although they seem to be of…
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Also known as ‘Curtis & Harvey’s Explosive Factory’ this massive site feels somewhat like the Wild West and is accompanied by loads of sheep. It covers an enormous area of the southern Thames Estuary once threatened by Boris Johnson’s plans for an airport, but now remains as a private farm known for its historical significance….
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Now an overgrown brownfield site, this was once the factory for one of the leading fireworks companies in the whole of the UK. Joseph Wells was the founder of ‘Wells Fireworks’ and established it in Dartford in 1837. He learnt his trade as an explosive lighter man, working along the Thames. The company rapidly became…
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In April 1959 proposals were revealed for a new County Library premises, which had been approved by the council but needed funding of £144,000 plus almost £20,000 for archives. Meeting notes from the time reveal that signification improvements in concrete structures since the Second World War meant that pre-cast concrete buildings were becoming more common,…
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Built during the Cold War, in the late 1980’s, this was one of three bomb-proof control centres constructed by Southern Water, although the only one in Kent. Should World War 3 have happened, the water for the South-East could have been controlled from here, although once construction was completed this bunker was never actually kitted…
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The Corringham Light Railway was a line built in 1899, opened in 1901, as part of access to the Kynochs munitions factory on the site of what is now Coryton. It went from the London Fenchurch/Tilbury/Southend line at Thames Haven down to Corringham and Kynochtown to allow for transport to and from the munitions site…
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Many comprehensive histories of the mills have been written online, so here is just a very brief overview of their past, present, and future. The grain mills at Silvertown are perhaps one of the last substantial remnants of London’s docklands and a symbol of their decline in the light of the area’s very contrasting redevelopment….
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The refinery c.2014 (BTP) and 2016 (Slayaaaa) prior to the demolition of its many towers The refinery was built over Coryton village (Kynochtown) and Kynoch’s munitions factory (the site of which still remains just north of the refinery – see here). The explosives factory operated from the late 1890s up until 1919 serving through the…
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As the world entered the 20th Century, technology was advancing at a rapid rate and communication between the UK and America was already wired with a transatlantic submarine cable. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi was an expert in radio transmission and developed the first system which allowed wireless transmission from Cornwall to New Foundland, US. Following…
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