Posts Tagged ‘Occidental Refinery/Jetty’

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!!

Fantastic New Occidental Plans Found!!

Posted: April 14, 2012 by BTP Joe in Case Study, Event Review, Various
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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!! 

Occidental Refinery Plans from a Refinery Hazards Book

Posted: March 31, 2012 by BTP Liam in Case Study, Various
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I recently bought a book off Ebay (several are still on there and have been for along time – if you don’t want tobuty one there are also several down Canvey Library) called ‘Canvey: An investigation of potential hazards from operations in the Canvey Island/Thurrock area’. Although arguably the most boring book of all time, with 90% of it containing graphs and statistics on the possible harm the Shell, Coryton, Occidental, and United Refineries, and one small one in Standford-le-Hope, plus the Calor gas terminal on Canvey, could do if an explosion or disaster happened there, mainly to the surrounding population.

It did however contain something more than worth its price (despite only 7 pounds) which was a very detailed map/plan of the middle portion of the Occidental Refinery. It has great detail from road, bunds (blast mounds or something), drum dimensions, the construction jetty, and more. This is exactly what we are looking for. If we had the entire refinery in his format, then the mystery of the place would be more or less solved.

It also contains a fold-out map at the end showing the locations of these refineries:

The Occidental Refinery Jetty under Construction – New Picture

Posted: February 16, 2012 by BTP Liam in Case Study, Various
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Yesterday, I went to Canvey library and picked up a book known as ‘Coryton – the History of a Village’, by Winifred N. Scott. It is about the village of Coryton before the company Mobil came in and built the infamous refinery there, forcing out the residents and demolishing the village meanwhile. Albeit fairly interesting, I wouldn’t have gotten this book out, until there was one image that caught my eye. On page 41 there is an aerial image from 1981, showing the refinery with the Occidental Jetty making a show in the background – nothing special I thought. The page before, however, shows an image from 1974, in the Occidental refinery’s early days, showing the Jetty under-constructing, not seen before! It clearly, although in the distance, an image of several poles sticking out of the water, being the ‘legs’ of the jetty, with nothing adjoining them together. Towards the start of the poles, part of the top walkway can be seen on the jetty, and out in the water, where the end should be, there stands a single pole mounted on something like a buoy, perhaps marking the jetty-to-be’s ending point, or simply just a passing boat in a coincidental place. From the ironwork of the jetty, we’ve found that it was commissioned by Occidental to be built by the intrepid iron-mongers ‘Dorman Long’.

The whole image

 

The jetty in the making

Top Five Fortnight – No. 4 – Google Earth

Posted: January 7, 2012 by BTP Joe in Other Websites/Organisations, Various
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Today’s post marks number 4 of  Top Five Fortnight which will be five posts, which should take up a fortnight’s worth of posts on Beyond the Point. Each post will countdown to the no.1 resource tool/information centre relevant to Beyond the Point and all fans of this website. Not only is it to direct you to some great links, but also to say a thanks to those sites who have supported us, or given us pleasure viewing. For tonight, at number 4, it’s Google Earth. Google Earth provides us with the satellight images as mentioned in the ‘About Us’ section. The free downloadable software allows you to explore anywhere on earth – literally; from America to Australia, to the deepest oceans to Mars and the solar system!

Below you can see the Occidental Oil Refinery. Views like this help us to navigate around the site as some structures are only visible from above. The top screenshot is from 2006 – Google’s latest view and it shows the refinery as how it looked then (which is overgrown and not in very good condition.) The image below that is from 1999 (the oldest view you can get) which shows it clearer as there was less overgrowth. The older view is good for many aspects as you can tell how things have changed and you can also see the concrete barge!

Google Earth 2006

Google Earth 1999

There are many other good things about Google earth and I strongly reccomend that you download it, after all it is free! You can do so many things on there, too much to write about on here but if you want a fantastic tool, this is it!

This is Beyond the Point 2011

Posted: December 31, 2011 by BTP Joe in Case Study, Event Review, Up-Coming Event, Various, Website Update
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Beyond the Point 2011

This year has raced by and has seen the birth of a new blog and archive called Beyond the Point. It’s hard to think that we started just 5 months ago in July and since then we have bought you 52 blog posts (including this one) with 78 tags! Along with setting up the website we have a bought a Facebook group, forum and a popular YouTube channel to you. It has been an extremely popular year, well few months, with over 4000 website views and audiences from as far as New York. As you can see in the previous blog post, we have finished exploring the Occidental site and we have vastly increased our knowledge and have created some detailed blog reports which will help to archive and record this fascinating site.

What does 2012 bring?

The sign for the pillbox by the newly completely Roscommon way extension

We have already started by putting up signs that will give people a slight insight into what is around them. For example this sign which was the first to be put up at the pillbox situated alongside the newly completed Roscommon way extension. We also have signs ready for the ‘big OJ’ (Occidental Jetty as BTP Liam would say) and the concrete barge. For the more ‘business’ side of Beyond the Point we will getting sponsors/supporters for the site and we are going to try and increase our presence with the press. We will also be heavily adding to our fantastic new interactive map which will include a vast selection of historical locations. In addition to this another interactive map will be released which will be Canvey today, a ‘tourist’ style one.

With a special thanks to Janet Penn, Dave Bullock, Martin Lepley, Robin Howie, and those at the Bay Museum, for all their interest, support, and help.

After a fantastic 2011 Beyondthe Point Liam and myself wishes you a happy and healthy New Year!

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