Often the best value travel comes from a rover ticket, and this is an absolute bargain.
The Senior Rover allows unlimited train travel on the c2c network beyond London, i.e. all the stations on this map, for the measly sum of £7. It can only be used after 9.30am on weekdays, not at weekends, and a £10 option also exists allowing travel into London too.
Full terms and conditions here.
The catch is you have to be over 65, which I'm not, OR you can be over 60 with a Senior Railcard, which I am. So I headed out to Upminster yesterday morning, bought myself a Senior Rover and went on a proper south Essex safari.
The man in the ticket office at Upminster didn't ask for proof I was eligible, merely glanced at a flash of railcard, maybe even didn't look at all.
I gave the ticket a really good bash by visiting all the stations around the central loop. That's Upminster down to Grays, then out to Pitsea, then back to Upminster... ten stations in total. And because the trains run every half hour I spent 30 minutes in each location, attempting to walk to somewhere interesting within half a mile of the station and then back again. Let's see how I did.
Ockendon → Little Belhus Country Park
Rather than walk towards the medieval church or the postwarestate I headed west, past the Next depot, toward the former landfill site. It's now Little Belhus Country Park, a half-open partly-decontaminated scrubland sprawling down to the M25. A few hardcore paths stretch off to a big loop round a reptile-friendly wetland area, although I didn't manage to get that far, only to the scattered logs, stacked tyres and fenced-off turbine. It's all a bit bleak frankly, also I'm a bit nervous of a park that says "keep to the designated path at all times", although it might be a decent dog-walking loop if you've already done all the nicer local circuits. If nothing else the daisies are great at the moment, there must be tens of thousands across the lumpy crust of hard-baked topsoil, and essentially there is nothing else.
My Senior Rover opened the ticket gates no problem.
Chafford Hundred → Thames View Hill
Almost every visitor to the station crosses the slalom overpass to enter Lakeside, the quintessential shopping mall. I aimed in the opposite direction instead, deep into the estate past whorls of 80s housing. Follow the correct arm off the roundabout and you reach the foot of a low sandy cliff, this because Chafford Hundred was built across a humpy landscape pitted with quarries. I only had time to climb Thames View Hill, a brief golden ridge on a thin tongue of woodland, estimated ascent 30 seconds. Here was the promised panorama, although the only sliver of Thames was a tiny patch of grey beneath the arc of the QE2 Bridge and everything else was concealed behind Barratt-style rooftops. Nice pylons though. And if you do ever fancy an unexpectedly weirdwalk round cliffs and gorges, give the mall a miss and spend a couple of hours exploring the real Chafford Hundred instead.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates. A member of gateline staff let me out, no questions asked, and someone in the ticket office pressed a button to let me back in.
Grays → Grays Beach Riverside Park
Again I walked in the less-travelled direction - across the level crossing, past the council offices and down towards the riverside. This being the Thames estuary there are huge floodgates designed to protect adjacent flats from flooding and these were closed, forcing a longer walk past bleak grey tower blocks and speculative newbuilds. Four can-clutching gentlemen lay sprawled at the far end of the car park, the local derelict-looking pub not yet being open. But eventually I reached the waterfront and the unexpectedly upbeat Thurrock Yacht Club, its sleek craft either stashed on the quayside or bobbing in the estuary opposite Broadness. The 'beach' in the Beach Park is an elliptical sandpit and has a better view of a renewable biomass power plant than of the Thames... and yet somehow I'd much rather live here than at our next stop.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates. The bloke on the gate said he'd never heard of it and was bemused it didn't show a destination, but I talked my way through (and back in again).
Tilbury → Civic Square
Normally I'd head past the port to the cruise terminal, Windrushjetty and Tilbury Fort but that was too far to hike in the time available. Instead I walked to the heart of the real Tilbury, the shops at Civic Square, at the centre of the lowly web of streets built for dockers and portworkers. I passed bleach-blonde mums with pushchairs, baked-bronze blokes in t-shirts, hopeful ladies standing in the doorways of their empty shops and vaping teens loitering outside shuttered takeaways. By contrast Civic Square looked well-scrubbed with recently-revamped parking spaces, bright paving and pedestrianisation continuing apace around the war memorial. It's all part of a £23m grant from the last government's Town Fund, not that it worked because they came third at the General Election behind Labour and Reform. To better understand downtrodden Britain, come to Tilbury.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates but another gate was open so I just walked out. By the time I got back the gateline was staffed again, and he knew exactly what I was clutching.
East Tilbury → Bata Factory
East Tilbury is something else altogether, accessed across sweeping marshes stalked by lines of pylons and preparatory works for the Lower Thames Crossing. An outpost of Modernisthouses exists between Coalhouse Fort and Mucking Landfill, located here because in 1932 Czech shoe magnate Thomas Bata chose this site for his first British factory. Once 300 high streets had a Bata shoeshop but foreign imports inevitably led to the factory closing in 2006, and the landmark buildings are now marooned inside a private industrial park. I got inside in 2016 as part of the inaugural Essex Architecture Weekend, but on this occasion got no further than Thomas's statue on a parched lawn outside his main office and leather factory. If you do decide to follow in my footsteps read the council's Conservation Area plan first and enjoy exploring properly.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again and I was beginning to feel somewhat oppressed. Nevertheless the member of staff opened the adjacent gate and let me out without checking what I'd used.
Stanford-le-Hope → town centre loop
Finally somewhere I'd never been before, despite our housekeeper once living close by. This old estuary town boasts a medieval church atop a rare hill, also a knotweed-choked stream flowing out towards Mucking Flats. The town centre is formed by a triangle of streets, the High Street now trumped in importance by the curve of King Street. Here tattooed limbs are on display outside the coffee shop, the clock outside the former jewellers is stuck at noon, the butcher sells proper meat and the bakery doesn't need a name because everyone samples its loaves and iced buns anyway. The sandwich shop by the war memorial is new and does brisket-loaded nachos every Tuesday, this because we've nudged towards slightly more aspirational Essex. As for the weatherboarded pub on Church Hill, the semi-orange Rising Sun, the chalkboard outside ignores menus and ales, instead confirming "The colour is 'Salsa Mix' so please stop asking".
There are no gates on the eastbound platform, only pads, so my Senior Rover proved unnecessary.
Pitsea → Pitsea Mount
This is where I switched lines and turned back towards London so I didn't have 30 minutes to wait, I had either less or more. I chose less because I once went to the 24 hour Tesco beyond the flyover on a date and have no burning desire to return. I briefly climbed the scrubby hill overlooking the roundabout, the one place round here that's not going to flood one day, and looked out towards the row of giant cranes at London Gateway Port. If I'd had more time I'd have walked down to Wat Tyler Country Park, a recreational island amid the estuarine marshes, but maybe I'll do that next time I buy a Senior Rover because there's a very obvious follow-up to today's post ticking off all the stations from Pitsea out to Shoeburyness.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. I pushed through the sidegate instead, and on the way back in the bloke in the ticket office gestured that I should push through the sidegate again so I did.
Basildon → Town Square
The new town of Basildon gained its station in 1974, conveniently located by the shops, so I got to do a full circuit of the town centre to see how much had changed since I was last here in 2018. The anchor department store is now a shell with DEBEN half-written on the roof. The whimsical mechanicalclock inside Eastgate is increasingly ignored. Freedom House has been demolished and replaced by a less thrilling modern development primed with restaurants and a cinema rather than shops. Brutalist Brooke House survives, its V-shaped supports overlooking a blanker East Square. The Market has been relocated to not many cabins in St Martin's Square. An entire block opposite Greggs has been flattened because housing will be more useful than retail. Effectively the town centre's still busy but the 20th century is inexorably being replaced by the 21st as regeneration funding allows. Oh and the WH Smith has unapologetically evolved into a TG Jones, this in the last few days, but I think that's happened everywhere.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. On my way out of the station the bloke at the gateline insisted I inserted my ticket again before nodding and beckoning me through. On my way back in a different bloke looked at the ticket after he let me through and said "ah, zones 1 to 6, you want that platform up there", despite the text very clearly saying 'excl. Zones 1 to 6'. Staff training at c2c is clearly inadequate.
Laindon → Langdon Hills
Laindon predates Basildon and is much less interesting, sorry, especially close to the station. I crossed the railway to the former plotlands at Langdon Hills, looping round a most peculiar housing development at the foot of Marks Hill. Six rising walkways weave past what look like the front doors of tiny wooden shacks, but they're actually two-storey three-bed townhouses with more rooms, a small garden and parking downstairs, separately accessed. So unexpectedly spacious are they that one of the houses on Puckleside has been painted blue and named The Tardis, complete with blue plants beside its blue gate and a police box and lamp outside the front door. I would never ever have thought to walk this way had I not been on a ridiculous ten-stage Senior Rover challenge, so my apologies if the obscure blue front garden I've uploaded to Flickr is yours.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. I was waved through both times. The code which flashed up on the gate was '07', which I looked up later and it means "magnetic code unreadable", suggesting the stripe on the back failed in the five minutes between Ockendon and Chafford Hundred. I think this means my gateline travails were atypical and a Senior Rover should normally work seamlessly.
West Horndon →
By this point I was a bit tired so merely hopped out onto the platform and hopped back in before heading home. Don't worry, I'll be returning to West Horndon as part of my One Stop Beyond feature (assuming I can find anything here to write about).
