Two Tree Island was reclaimed from the Thames in the late 1700’s and was used as farmland until 1910 when a sewage works was constructed on part of the site. These sewage works were used for the majority of the 20th century. During the North Sea Floods of 1953 two of the sewage workers had…
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A pillbox can be found, which is located on the very eastern most point of Two Tree Island (just before the marshland), facing out at the invader coming down the Thames. It was in poor condition, suffering a gaping hole in it’s roof, and the concrete around it flaking away with the lightest touch. Despite…
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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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Gravesend West Street Pier is the only remnant surviving of Gravesend West Railway Station. This station served as the terminus of the Gravesend West Line, with the platform and station situated on the raised structure that continued out onto the pier in the River Thames. The first station on the line after Gravesend West was…
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What was Rosherville Gardens? The far western section of Gravesend on the River Thames is known as Northfleet. Whilst today this lies as an industrial wasteland, it was once the site of an extravagant pleasure garden set at the foot of the cliffs of a disused chalk pit during the nineteenth century. Tourists would travel…
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At Hampstead Heath in North London lies Kenwood House. Constructed across the 17th and 18th centuries, the house now stands as a symbol of traditional British elite culture. However, only across the road lies the enormous manors built by a new elite class, decaying in a state of neglect. Nicknamed Billionaires Row, this busy road…
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Left abandoned in Rainham, several concrete barges were placed here at Coldharbour Point as flood defences in 1953 and have formed part of the coastline ever since. Used primarily in the Second World War, these steel and concrete ships are also known as ferro cement barges, or FCB’s. Barges of these type were particularly important during…
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The Quick-Firing ‘Wing Battery’ just south-west of Coalhouse Fort inland of Coalhouse Point was constructed in 1893 to counter enemy torpedo boat technology which presented itself as a new potential threat to shipping in the Thames. It would have housed four 6-pounder quick firing guns each capable of unloading 25 rounds per minute. These were…
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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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The desolate expanse of Cliffe on the Southern side of the Thames has seen little use over history beyond agriculture, defence, and the cement industry. The construction needs of the Industrial Revolution called for cement development, and ‘artificial’ Portland cement which we still use today emerged in the mid 19th Century as a development from…
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