Lower Wyburns Farm, Rayleigh, Essex

Sunshine and very warm temperatures have been forecasted for the next week; there were no surprises this morning. We headed further east after breakfast,  toward Southend-on-Sea and beyond to Shoeburyness, an area of the Essex seaside resort that hosts the Ministry of Defence. Seeing the signs for this, Chris realised that it was here that his father must have come in the 1950s when he was seconded down to “Southend”; he had an important role in military communications long after he was “demobbed” after the war.

We were keen to explore the seashore and followed the road around until we arrived at Gunner’s Park, parked up and walked across a green wasteland to the sea wall and the remains of battlements. We encountered signs that explained the metamorphosis of the area and the special feature that was drawing the crowds of school children arriving one crowd after another.

This area was closed to the public for nearly one hundred and fifty years, emerging from a modest seaside settlement to a garrison town, leaving a legacy of military history and habitats for a great number of wildlife. Here are the remains of two brick buildings, Experimental Casements built in 1872-3, with guns for coastal defence.  The Shoebury Garrison was a training school for the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Royal Field Artillery, where new weapons were tested. It was also the site of the first British War Dog School, established in 1917, where dogs were trained and sent to France and Belgium, and also used as guards and sentries on the home front.

The mudflats beyond the sea wall extend north into Foulness and the Maplin Sands, the whole area 11,000 hectares extending almost three miles out to sea. This provides an important area for over-wintering waders and wildfowl.

The rather dodgy looking Barge Pier is currently playing host to a sculpture installation titled “Wave”, which is a reincarnation of the ceramic poppy sculpture we saw at the Tower of London in 2015. At the Tower there were 888,246 ceramic red poppies displayed,  one to  honour  every death in the British and Colonial forces of the First World War.  This one here at Shoeburyness opened mid-April and will remain in place until late June. We were delighted to have happened upon this rather beautiful and bizarre sculpture.

We returned to the car having had a really good dose of morning exercise, and drove westward along the shore until we reached Southend’s pier. We parked up and set off out along the pier.

Southend-on-Sea has been a day tripper’s delight for over a century, since the first Thames paddle steamers thrashed down the river to land Londoners at the world’s longest pleasure pier.  The resort is actually on the Thames Estuary, and when the tide goes out it, it leaves a vast expanse of mud stretching about a mile from the sea front in places, hence the need for the pier to stretch so far out from the shore to accommodate the steamers.

Southend is typical of English seaside resorts, a den of fun and frivolity, noise and colour; everything I find repulsive. 

Fortunately for us today, the fun fairs were quiet. I am not sure if this was because the fair takes a day of rest on Mondays or if they are not kicking off until the May Bank Holiday, but for us, it was a bonus.

One has to pay for the privilege of walking out onto the pier, £1 if you happen to be an AOP (Old Age Pensioner) and double that if you are younger. Should you wish to take the electric tram that runs the length of the pier, either both ways, or just one way, there is obviously a greater fee. 

The pier opened for the first time in 1890 and at 2,158 metres, it is the longest pleasure pier in the world. Reading this, both Chris and I immediately thought of the six kilometre commercial sugar pier at Lucinda in Queensland, Australia. (We visited this immediately after massive cyclone damage wrecked by Cyclone Yasi in 2012.)

The pier at Southend has had its own share of disaster stories; most seem to be have been caused by out of control vessels. In 1881 the West Kent Barge cut the pier in half, in 1898 the pleasure boat “Dolphin” blew into the pier, in 1909 the barge “Alzeina” hit the pier, in 1921 the “Violette” wedged herself under the pier, in 1933 the barge “Matilda” waltzed into the pier, in 1959 fire destroyed the pier and in 1976 there was a fire at the pier head. In 1986 the pier was cut in half by the tanker “Kings Abbey” and in 2005 the pier caught fire yet again. These are but a few of the tales of woe spelled out in the information panels set up in the little beach huts on the pier.

We managed to make the foot journey to the end and back again, then picnic up in the garden above the Western Esplanade, all inside our two hour parking ticket. We paid for a further two hours, now immune to the shock of parking costs (the four hour parking cost us £5.80 – about NZ$11.90), and headed up the cliff side lift into the High Street. We were delighted to find the retail precinct a pedestrian-only area, wide and vibrant, and were encouraged to do more shopping that we have indulged in for many months, if you exclude shopping for superstore provisions. 

After exhausting our debit card, we headed for Prittlewell Priory, but were distracted when I found we were near Southchurch Park. I had noted a Hall of that name when doing my touring research homework yesterday; it was an opportunity we should make the most of.

Southchurch Hall , a Grade I listed medieval moated house has had a varied history, as have all the old remaining buildings of yesteryear in this country. The land on which it stands was given to the monks of Canterbury in 823 AD and the tenants of the Hall subsequently inherited the family name “de Southchurch’, a custom that survived until the death of Peter de Southchurch in 1309.

The current hall was built in the early thirteenth century and has a Tudor and a 1930s extension. The Hall was home to farming families until the 1920s. In 1930 it was extensively restored and presented to the town of Southend by the Dowsett family. 

We wandered through the gardens where there were a number of locals gathered in a manner that suggested habit rather than a random visit such as ours. Circling the Hall we came upon a notice that advised the Hall was open to the public on the weekends, not Mondays. 

We travelled on, back through the centre of the town and west a short distance until we arrived at the Priory, these days more a park than a Priory. The Priory has stood here for nearly nine hundred years. The oldest continuously occupied building in Southend, it has been a monastery, a private house and a museum.

The thirty acre park and Grade I listed Priory were bought by a local jeweller and philanthropist, R A Jones, and donated to the people of Southend in 1917. This seems to have been an extremely generous action, but I am suspicious of his motivation; so often these recorded good deeds had more to do with dodging death duties or the like.

The buildings were not open and I am not sure when or if they ever are, however we wandered about the lovely extensive gardens, even spotting a bold water rat making its way hither and thither without fear of the noisy family parties. It made me shudder with revulsion; I loathe rats and mice.

There was still one more destination on my list of attractions to see, but the afternoon was by now well advanced, so we decided to head home. As we arrived back at the farm, another camping party was making their way through the gates; there are now four of us here and we have yet to see the proprietor. No doubt he will turn up at some stage; we have yet to pay and the rubbish bin in the loo is desperately requiring attention.