Yesterday's forecast was for clear skies and temperatures nudging 30 degrees, so I slapped on the suncream and steeled myself for a sweaty seaside promenade. Instead a sheet of high cloud spanned the Thames estuary, thickening later to bring showers, but everyone who'd come to enjoy a summer's day carried on regardless. So here are 16 postcards from Southend.
Nearest station:Southend East
✉ Southchurch Hall is an extraordinary survivor, just five minutes south of Southend East station. This unlikely medieval manor house finds itself set adrift amid a grid of uncompromising suburban terraces, surrounded by ornamental gardens and a square moat. It looks wonky because it's from 1354 and pristine because it was substantially rebuilt in 1930 when the council first got their hands on it. It now forms a key part of Southend's heritage portfolio and is free to pop in, so long as you don't arrive too early in the day or in the week. Inside is an unexpectedly large timbered hall, the illusion only ruined by the fire extinguishers by the stairwell, which I guessed correctly is often hired out by the council for weddings. Other rooms nod to different eras - a Tudor Kitchen, a Stuart solar, a Victorian bedroom - and are bedecked with wooden artefacts of dubious intrinsic provenance. It's all very brown. A small gift shop provides a selection of pocket money souvenirs, also a panelled backhistory, and if you thought Southend was all bawdy beach fun then at least these fifteen minutes aren't.
✉ The Kursaal remains closed while its current owner works out what to do with it. The seafront entertainment complex had been hanging on as a bowling alley and casino but they closed in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Several shonky amusement arcades remain nearby.
✉ Behind the Kursaal, on land once occupied by on its outdoor entertainments, is the surprisingly enormous Woodgrange estate. Its blocks of terraced flats were knocked up in the 1970s and given unlikely names reflecting the site's provenance including Coaster Steps, Ferris Steps, Skelter Steps and Swingboat Terrace. They're from the "oh, bung all the car parking in a pillared space under the flats" school of architecture and have a poor social reputation locally. Calling one of the blocks Crystal Steps probably doesn't help.
Nearest station:Southend Central
✉ Adventure Island continues to pack them in, partly because it's free to enter but also because we've reached the increasingly desperate second half of the summer holidays. The sunken garden is rammed with rides and attractions, many of them textbook examples of vertical rides within a minimal footprint. A day wristband costs £25 but an annual pass is currently available for £50 which seems excellent value if you're local and like screaming in midair. Yesterday's influx included scouts from Stanford-le-Hope and guides from Wickford, while the youngsters in blue Love Fun t-shirts turned out to be summer staff keeping the funfair ticking over.
✉ It's never too early to be thinking about Remembrance, so the people of Southend are being invited to knit poppies and pop them in a box ready for November. The plan is to line the 1.3-mile long pier with red handmade poppies (crocheting is also acceptable) to create a poignant yarnbomb tribute. So far they've received 17974 poppies, and I guess they can always space them out more if numbers fall short. Postal donations are also accepted.
✉ Southend's Edwardian cliff lift is now free and has been since August 2023. Donations are welcomed. While I was watching it a family nipped inside for a descent to beach level while a pair of pensioners puffed up the steps alongside, and I don't think either of them realised the true benefits are in an upward direction.
✉ The town's floral clock sits atop the cliffs near the Queen Victoria statue. The flowers are pristine but the clock presents a problem because it's flat and numberless so it's not possible to work out where the 12 is. All I can say is that the angle between the two hands was totally wrong for twenty past twelve so I assume it's broken.
Nearest station:Westcliff
✉ The famous Cliffs Pavilion, the epitome of 60s leisure chic, is currently undergoing major refurbishment. The hexagonal sunken forecourt has been replaced by a worksite, what used to be the main upper entrance is now closed and finding a way in involves thinking "hang on, seriously, round here?" A slew of crowd-pleasing tribute acts are lined up over the coming months, also the actual Jack Dee, Tim Peake and Level 42, while Rylan returns to play the part of the Fairy Godfather in Cinderella this Christmas. Where else would he go?
✉ It's nigh impossible to walk past a Rossi's ice cream kiosk without buying two scoops of lemon ice, or maybe that's just me. BestMate instead plumped for one scoop of Creme Egg and one of Biscoff, which the menu outside felt it necessary to explain with the footnote 'Taste Like The Biscuit'.
✉ Southend's open-topped buses are running again, linking Leigh-on-Sea to Shoeburyness until mid-September. The route number is 99 so they've gone big on ice cream cornet imagery, hence this particular vehicle is called the Bubblegum Beachcomber. £5.50 return, £3.50 single.
Nearest station:Chalkwell
✉ There's a fine sewage-tinged scum at present in the water lapping against the edge of Chalkwell beach. I was surprised to see so many families gambolling on the mudflats as the tide bubbled in, but I don't think the worst of the detritus makes it as far as the sandy patch artificially delivered to the edge of the esplanade.
✉ The biggest change since I was last in Southend is that a bronze statue of murdered MP Sir David Amess has been added to the shoreline near the Lifeguards base, overlooking the promenade where he used to walk his dogs. It's not a convincing likeness - his grin is insufficiently broad - but close enough and a touching tribute to the unwitting harbinger of city status.
✉ The new house facing the railway at 88 Undercliff Gardens is a jarringly modern townhouse, all curves and bright white surfaces. A flat roof replaced a pitched roof, and in a bold architectural statement a glazed teardrop now faces the estuary. Because I've subsequently read the planning application I know there's also a zen pebble garden up top, and that the council initially rejected it then swiftly relented. I suspect the neighbours hate it.
Nearest station:Leigh-on-Sea
✉ Is there a fibreglass animal parade in Southend this summer? Yes of course, it's called Waddle-on-Sea and it's all about penguins. To think, people used to get excited about this kind of thing.
✉ Leigh-on-Sea's Old Town is a proper watering hole these days, with a chain of traditional fishermen's pubs along the narrow High Street. The largest is The Peterboat whose outdoor beer terrace crams them in, seemingly with space for half of Essex, although the tables weren't fully occupied after a recent cloudburst. For the more discerning drinker, a waiter will scuttle across the road carrying a rosé and a white wine from The Crooked Billet.
✉ For fresh seafood you want Osborne's but pick your outlet carefully. Their cafe in the old town does sit-down king prawns, pints of cockles and crab sandwiches (add £2 for salad leaves, coleslaw and tortilla chips on a soft white roll). But for slightly more wholesale prices try the fishmongery shed on the way to the back way to the station - still not cheap but BestMate was pleased to be heading home with a pack of octopus arms, thankfully not locally caught.
