Essex! It's better than you think.
In fact, my last two visits to the county have been rather wonderful. Last July the TADS took a stroll round Canvey Island and from its Eastern edges you can see across to the Southend pier, the world's longest. An idea took hold that it may be possible to walk from Benfleet to Southend and then walk down that pier and when it was announced that Southend would be made a city, in the wake of David Amess' horrific murder in October last year, that idea began to become a reality.
A very enjoyable one too. Though the day didn't start on such a high for me. I'd been stressed and feeling low and was looking forward to getting out but once I'd taken the Overground from Honor Oak Park to Whitechapel there didn't seem to be any Hammersith & City line tubes to take me to Liverpool Street - where I needed to be - and soon.
My phone said I could take the new Elizabeth Line - something I'd been looking forward to doing in less urgent circumstances - so I hastily descended seven floors deep to a near empty platform. An announcement said the oncoming train wouldn't be stopping but, luckily, it did and I was in Liverpool Street with about five minutes to spare.
I ran up two very long escalators, grabbed my tickets from a machine, and then went to the gate. One minute to spare. The gate didn't work. Nor did the next one I tried. I asked a guard for help. He casually, and in his own good time, opened the gate for me. I legged it to the train, jumping on about five seconds before the doors closed, and walked down to meet Pam, Mo, Neil, and Bee. I think I finally got my breath back four hours later.
The journey from there, at least, was uneventful and we met with Shep, Adam, and Teresa at Benfleet (Shep had driven and Adam, who's not had a booze drink for months - sensible man, was driving Shep's car back). Luckily there was no sign of the dreaded Benfleet Bagface as we made our way up to a bustling Cafe Max for brunchington.
I had a very unimaginative scrambled egg on toast but, as you can see above, others were far more adventurous. In Benfleet, in 894, the Vikings fought the Saxons and it is the latter people who gave the place its name back in the 5th century. Benfleet comes from Beamfleote ("tree stream"). The Saxons won the Battle of Benfleet under King Alfred and his commander Edward the Elder and son-in-law Earl Aethelred of Mercia.
Benfleet's main sights now are a water tower built in 1903 and the much older (approx. 12c) Church of St Mary the Virgin. We weren't to waste much time on them and soon, after astonished looks and comments from one of the friendly staff at Cafe Max, were heading across Boyce Hill Golf Club, Underhill Road, and Shipwright Drive and into the wide, expansive, very green, and slightly confusing (initially) Hadleigh Country Park.
The sun was properly out so I was pretty pleased to stop and buy a bottle of water and even happier when I somehow managed to get us moving in the right direction. Hadleigh Counry Park features mountain bike trails, a reservoir, an Iron Age roundhouse, and a salt marsh that is home to dragonflies but it's on its periphery you'll find the star attraction.
Hadleigh Castle (once painted, on a far gloomier day, by Constable) looked majestic in the afternoon sunshine. It's a ruined fortification that was built after 1215 during the reign of Henry III by Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent. Edward III, later that same century, extended it because he was concerned about a potential French attack.
Now, like me, it's an old and dramatic ruin - but it's a good one. From Hadleigh Castle you can see the sea (or estuary, your choice, it's kind of both) and also see how far there was to go. Southend Pier looked some way away but the gentle downhill slope was pleasant to walk after some surprisingly challenging hillage (for me at least) earlier.
There was a lot of pollen in the air and the hayfever sufferers in our group were sneezing away so it was a pleasure for all of us to pass two very photogenic buoys into the lively Leigh-on-Sea where we knew we'd take our first pub stop.
I don't know if it was the jubilee or the beautiful June sunshine but Leigh-on-Sea was definitely showing its best side. I remarked that it almost looked like some mocked up Disney version of Main Street UK and the pub terraces were busy - but the one at The Peterhead was huge so we took a couple of tables there. Predictably, a two pint mistake was made and it didn't even feel like a mistake. Teresa the Squeezer's Aperol Spritz glistening in the sun as laughter and chat was had.
Leigh-on-Sea claims, on Wikipedia as its own the likes of Phil Cornwell, Phil Jupitus, David Lloyd (born there), Lee Brilleaux, Vivian Stanshall, Helen Mirren (bought up there), and the old Half Man Half Biscuit favourite Peggy Mount. It was at Leigh's Belfair Methodist Church where Amess was murdered.
Grim things happen in the nicest places as surely as nice things happen in grim places. It was hard to leave The Peterhead but when we did it was so nice to see kids, and even a few adults, splashing in the sun dappled waves and playing in the sand as we passed through Chalkwell and Westcliff to Southend proper.
That pier wasn't looking that much closer but it was starting to look very long. Debate began as to who was going to walk down it, who was going to catch the train, and who was gonna go the pub or have coffee. In the end we all decided to walk down it and take the train back.
Before that, though, we got to eat some nice doughnuts (thanks Trugnug), sang Just Can't Get Enough in tribute to the recently departed Fletch of Depeche Mode, admire some of the beautiful architecture of Southend (everything from Victoriana to Modernism via Art Deco), a cute funicular railway (the Southend Cliff Railway - 1912), and a frankly terrifying looking funfair ride called Axis that swung you upside down, very high up, and kept you there. Twenty to thirty years ago I'd have loved it (and my friend Bugsy would still have loved it) but now it just looked horrific. I noted that not many of the riders looked over thirty years of age!
Then we bought our tickets for the pier - and began the long walk down. It's wooden - and you can see through - which made me a bit uncertain. The wind, too, was blowing up pretty strong so it was a relief to finally reach the end. It's roughly 2k each way and as there was nothing much to do the other end we almost immediately headed back - only to miss the train.
Shep and I decided to walk back while the others waited, with coffee, for the train. Construction of the pier began in 1829 but it wasn't open to the public until a full sixty years later. During WWI, German POW ships were moored off the pier and in WWII, the Navy took over the whole pier and briefly renamed it HMS Leigh. The railway was opened in 1986 by Princess Anne but, for me, the main thing you need to know about the pier is that it featured in the end credits of Minder.
It's hard to know WHY Southend felt the need to build such a long pier but it made for an experience. Southend-on-Sea's motto Per Mare Per Ecclesiam is Latin for "by sea, by church" so it's understandable they'd want to make the most of that (you can see right across to Kent from the start, let alone the end).
Notable Southenders include Russell Kane, Rhys 'Spider' Webb of The Horrors, Sam Duckworth (Get Cape Wear Cape Fly), Angie Best, Roy Hay (Culture Club), Simon Schama, Maajid Nawaz, Peter Taylor, Robin Trower (Procol Harum), Frank Matcham, Daniel Dax, and - last but not least - Wilko Johnson.
It features in Jane Austen's Emma, Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and is twinned with Sopot on the Baltic coast of Poland (home of Klaus Kinski, fact fans). The city began life as a few fishermen's huts south of Prittlewell but its status as a resort grew in the 19th century following a visit from Princess Caroline of Brunswick (wife of George IV from 1820 until she died, aged 53, just a year later). Later it became home of the Access credit card and the Kursaal amusement park as well as the spiritual home, along with Canvey Island, of the 70s pub rock scene.
Shep and I stopped for a sneaky pint in The Royal Hotel and then headed through the town centre to meet the others in Keralam - a tasty South Indian joint near the station. The food was good, the beers - for those that indulged - were too, and, as ever, the company was the best.
People left in dribs and drabs and I finally took the train back to Liverpool Street with Neil and Bee from where I walked to London Bridge and took one last train to Honor Oak Park. It had been quite a tiring day but it had been another great day for TADS. Thanks to Pam, Mo, Neil, Bee, Shep, Adam, and Teresa for making it so (and in some cases contributing photos to this blog). I'm looking forward to doing it all again (in Portsmouth) next month. The pier there is very short.
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