Canvey Island was a fairly quiet area in the 1930s, so when it became heavily militarised to defend against air, land, and sea on the approach to World War Two, it must have come as quite a shock. Arguably, this was one of the changes the island saw which transformed it into the town it…
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Beyond the Point has been fortunate enough to get a special tour around Fort Amherst, situated in Chatham, back in 2017. With thanks to our tour from volunteer Bill, we got to see both public and private parts of the site including some which are due to be done up later this year thanks to…
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East along from Shoebury’s Gunners Park where the old ranges were, along the seawall by the Garrison, lies several WWII coastal defences built to protect this major military site during wartime. We visited these in 2011 and 2018, when the photography below was captured. No.2 Searchlight Emplacements The pair of Coastal Artillery Searchlight Emplacements housed…
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The ranges at Shoeburyness have a long ever-changing history, from the 1840s until present day. The ‘old ranges’, now Gunners’ Park near the Garrison, were in heavy operational through the Victorian and Edwardian eras and wartime up until probably the early Cold War. These ranges also saw use as coastal defences in the Second World…
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At the eastern end of Gunners Park; the site of the old Shoebury ranges, lie the area’s two oldest ancient and modern military installations. These are the 1852 Powder Magazines and the Viking rampart from AD 894 (some kind of defensive earthen wall) which is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. This ancient earthwork was created possibly…
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We visited these structural remains in 2018 and 2020 . The first visit consisted of an initial exploration with photography to identify if these remains existed following prior research. The second visit consisted of a return to film them (video below), joined by Exploring with Em & Stu. Amazingly, we are perhaps the first to…
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The New Empire theatre had what might initially appear to be an Art Deco-style frontage. However, it was in fact built in a vaguely Neo-Classical style in 1896 by Frederick Marlow. He owned a public hall previously on site which became the original Empire Theatre in 1892, but this burnt down in 1895 hence its…
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RAF Bradwell Bay was rebuilt in 1940 over the site of an interwar 1936 aerodrome. The surviving concrete runway was built in 1941. The airfield served as a night fighter base and saw the regular arrival of damaged or low fuelled aircraft which it had to tend to. It was notably equipped with FIDO (Fog…
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The Canvey Archive has a large collection of memoirs, photographs, and by CloudScout” href=”https://beyondthepoint.co.uk/historic-locations/canvey-island/the-second-world-war/b17-crash-site/#48142577″> shared is here: http://canveyisland.org/documents/DHB_v2_Med_Res.pdf On the 19th of June 1944 a formation of B17 Flying Fortress American bomber planes were heading back to their base in Kimbolton, and it was pilot Lt. Lloyd Burn’s 29th mission. The Heavenly Body II was the…
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Situated on the opposite side of the River Thames to Tilbury Fort, New Tavern Fort was one of several built to protect to London and the surrounding area. Built on the site of ‘New Tavern Inn’, construction started in the 1780’s and lasted some 13 years. In the following century, between 1865 and 1879, the…
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