Somewhere famous: The Royal Opera House
OK, so the actual Royal Opera House is in Covent Garden, but they have to make all their scenery somewhere, and that place is Thurrock. Previously they made it all in a big shed on the Bow Industrial Park, but that had to be demolished for the Olympics, and a more extensive facility has been created at High House Industrial Park in Purfleet. You can't miss it. As the name suggests it's on a hill, or at least the kind of unfloodable mound which passes for a hill round here, close to the point where HS1 ducks under the QE2 bridge. You also can't miss it because it looks like a slice of an enormous beer barrel, its ribbed roof rising above the neighbouring chimneytops with the ROH crest at its shallow peak.
Officially the Bob and Tamar Manoukian Production Workshop, this mega-studio and costume store has been built in the grounds of a Queen Anne manor, namely High House, which has been sympathetically restored as part of the new development. This includes the octagonal brick dovecote, one of the largest and finest in southern England, while one outbuilding has become a cafe with a walled garden out back. Rising alongside is a Creative & Cultural Skills' Backstage Centre, a kind of campus for production and rehearsal skills, hence I saw spotted several behind the scenes workers and students milling around the site. It's not clear whether the public are allowed to wander in off the street like I did, even for a coffee, but if you want to explore the interiors properly (and see the latest sets and scenery destined for the Royal Opera House stage) officialtours are run on Fridays, and they look really interesting. by train: Purfleet
Somewhere pretty: Chafford Gorges
The last thing I expected in a flat marshy area was tall chalk cliffs, but I should have thought again. The land between the Thames and the A13 rises to a height of over 100 feet, and has been repeatedly carved out over the centuries for mineral extraction. This has left gaping scars in the landscape, mostly deep chalk quarries, hence the network of man-made cliffs that threads across the area between Ockendon and Grays. The largest redundant quarry was Mill Wood Pit, which boasted post-industrial biodiversity of national importance, alas now lost, because in 1989 it was decided to cover the area with housing.
The new estate was called Chafford Hundred, a dense swirl of high-gabled houses, now numbering over 5000 in total and very much the place for the aspiring Essex family or upcoming yuppie to set up home. But suburbia didn't quite fill the entire area so a number of other quarries and pits have been left as nature reserves, a kind of undevelopment zone which all the major roads have to divert around and between. The most important scientifically is Grays Gorge, where chalk extraction ended in the 1920s giving alternative habitats plenty of time to establish. One footpath head around the rim, with the occasional gap to peer over, while another heads down 100 zigzag steps to the 'lower shelf' where wooded scrubland surrounds a central lake, and rare orchids can be found at this time of year if you know where to look.
Lion Gorge has a much better name, and sheer drop descents to a linear lake brimming with roddable fish, for those Men of Essex who enjoy a hooked dangle. Wouldham Cliffs create a lofty divide between the upper and lower halves of the estate, the only direct connection being an almost insignificant footpath of breathy steepness. From the top you can look east over Chafford Hundred's tightly-packed rooftops, or south over a cluster of oil silos towards Grays and the distant Thames. I met almost nobody at any of these places, but dozens at Warren Gorge because that's the ex-quarry with a car park and a visitors centre... and I'd say the least interesting of the lot. But if a geological and ecological safari ever appeals, you could do a lot worse than come explore Thurrock's artificial cliffs. by train: Chafford Hundred by bus: 370
Somewhere else pretty: Davy Down
Just north of Chafford Hundred, where the A13 crosses the Mar Dyke, an old pumpingstation is the focus of the Davy Down Riverside Park. Built in the 1920s to extract drinking water from a borehole, the original diesel pumps have been preserved and can still be seen on Thursday afternoons and intermittent open days. The rest of the park includes meadows, wetland and woodland areas, ideal for species spotting or a good runaround, as well as the photogenic 14-arch Stiffordrailwayviaduct. And yet the entire acreage was woefully underused on Saturday afternoon - one lady walking a dog, a couple entwined on the grass and a couple of volunteers in overalls - as if the local population would much rather be indoors elsewhere than engage in outdoor recreation... by bus: 370
Somewhere retail: Lakeside
Where Thurrock prefers to go for entertainment is a giant shopping complex by the M25. Lakesideopened in 1990 across a former gravel pit and quarry, bringing mall culture to the unsuspecting Essex populace, who duly lapped it up. The main retailcathedral is half a kilometre long, from House of Fraser down to Debenhams, with an even larger outlet park alongside and served by a five-figure number of parking spaces. For many families this is a full day out, circling the shopping levels and pausing for refreshment, be that a McFlurry in hand or a proper sit down meal. The preponderance of "eateries" is striking, with the more expensive chains lined up facing a pedalo lake and fake steamboat along the refreshed Boardwalk.
A few years ago the mall was renamed intu Lakeside, an over-chirpy brand whose exhortations to shop and enjoy are plastered everywhere. But they know their target audience well, ambling from fashion outlet to department store with broad smiles and several carrier bags dangling. There's a bright airy feel, plus upgraded Italian porcelain flooring to give the place a smarter ambience, but Lakeside is still seen as the downmarket partner of Bluewater across the Thames, as the continued presence of Poundland, Wilko and Spudulike confirms. And still half a million visitors flood in each week, to browse and consume at Thurrock's flagship commercial theme park, and why visit anywhere else? by train: Chafford Hundred by bus: 370, 372
I began my orbital tour around the capital three years ago in Dartford, and finally I've reached journey's end across the Thames. And that means Thurrock (or 'Furruck' as the locals call it), a marshy district with a drab reputation... and when the main town's called Grays, that really doesn't help. The majority of Thurrock's 150,000 population live in the southwest quadrant, between the A13 and the river, so that's where I spent most of my time. As usual I attempted to seek out some interesting places I hadn't blogged about before, and the day was less grim than you might have anticipated.
Somewhere to begin: Thurrock Museum
Yes of course Thurrock has a museum, because a lot has happened on the low-lying banks of the Thames estuary over the centuries. From mammoths in Aveley to Queen Elizabeth's pre-Armada speech, they're all covered here, plus Anglo Saxon artefacts from the UK's largest ever archaeological excavation at Mucking. You'll find the museum upstairs in Grays at the Thameside Complex, a very 80s-looking block which also doubles up as the town's theatre, the town's library and the purveyor of cheap coffee and pastries for those who don't venture past the box office.
A lot is packed into the cluster of galleries, first historically, then thematically, and finally geographically, with a decent case of exhibits for each of the disparate settlements which make up modern Thurrock. For example there's a fascinating look back at Kynochtown, the village serving the gunpowder factory since replaced by Shell Haven Refinery since replaced by Thames Oilport, and there's another corner focusing on the lost grand mansion at Belhus near Ockendon. Don't expect modern presentation, the labels and panels look like they're about the same age as the building, but they were a damned sight more informative than a shiny push-button 21st century upgrade might be. Open six days a week, it's free to look around. by train: Grays
Somewhere grey: Grays
This town used to be called Greys Thurrock, where 'thurrock' is a shipbuilding term and the opener signifies ownership by Sir Henry de Grey, one of King John's favourite courtiers. The town clings to the estuary on the outside of a bend in the Thames, with the majority of older housing to the north of the railway and more of the modern stuff on the low-lying shore. This isn't so much the territory of white van man as white truck man, with the majority of local business being distribution-based, to transfer and/or process goods arriving at Tilbury or the newer docks. If London house prices scare you, Grays is highly commutable and still has decent-sized stock whose six-figure prices start with a 2.
The pedestrianised high street runs from the Old Courthouse down to the river, with a level crossing partway down, and a selection of not quite thrilling shops along the way. Looming over all is the tower of the State Cinema, an Essex behemoth which itself achieved cinematographic fame when it was used as a location in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The cinema closed on its 50th birthday in 1988, and has since briefly been a nightclub, but more recently an empty leaking shell with a very uncertain future. Its car park, however, is thriving, having been taken over by an enormous Morrisons which draws the denizens of Grays inexorably within. A lacklustre market up a side alley sells golden delicious, e-cigs and geraniums, while ladies who grew up long ago in East London pick over racks of fancy £10 shoes.
Beyond the railway the High Street descends past the parish church to a freshly redeveloped zone housing South Essex College, and almost no old buildings whatsoever apart from a couple of blokey pubs at the very foot. I wanted to walk further but the flood gates were firmly shut, protecting the flats on the waterfront and the cul-de-sacs behind, so instead I headed past the yacht club to the exciting-sounding Grays Beach... which turned out to be a drained swimming pool filled with sand. Stepping up onto the river wall I enjoyed the sweeping estuarine panorama, probably only because the sun was out, from the edge of Tilbury Port past the tip of the Swanscombe peninsula round to the distant QE2 bridge. The Thames is big out here, and immutably grey. by train: Grays
Somewhere famous: St Clement's Church, West Thurrock
It is the most astonishing place to find a medieval church. From Purfleet to South Stifford the landscape to the south of the railway is almost exclusively industrial, right down to the estuary, sprawled with logistics hubs, warehouses and oil depots. Lorries thunder down feeder roads, pylons stride across the former marshes, and if you'd ever wondered where the Daily Mail is printed now its base in Rotherhithe has closed, it's here. Head south from the A126 roundabout to the Co-Op Distribution Centre, turn left into Procter & Gamble's site ignoring the sign saying 'Private Road', then right along the footpath up the side of the Fairy Liquid plant. However wrong it feels, keep walking, and a couple of hundred metres down is a church you know well.
St Clement's survives in a small green oasis, which is mostly churchyard, surrounded on two sides by factory premises and on another by the employees' car park. Viewed from one angle it looks like any flint-towered Essex church, but from the front it's impossible to miss the giant red processing plant behind, with tanks and silos and steaming chimney rising into the sky. Inexorably engulfed since the mid 20th-century, the church became redundant in 1977 and was adopted by P&G ten years later, who've reversed the dereliction and restored the interior, plus encouraged wildlife to thrive in the graveyard outside. I briefly met a couple of rabbits. Annoyingly I missed the one weekend a month when volunteers open up and allow the public inside (June 3rd/4th is the next), and I also struggled to take a decent photo into the sun, so I'd recommend visiting in the afternoon rather than the morning.
If you haven't yet remembered where you've seen this church before, think back to the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral, because this is where the funeral was shot. John Hannah reads Auden's Stop All The Clocks inside, and then a pivotal conversation takes place at the front gate, with industrial chimney duly billowing in the background. The scenes in which the family set off to the church were filmed at the crest of a dead end in West Thurrock, whose pre-war pebbledash terraces are now bedecked with sequential satellite dishes. And whilst it is possible to follow a short path down from St Clement's to the Thames, Hugh Grant's waterfront scenes were actually filmed in Grays because the backdrop was better.
I followed the path through a narrow strip of mostly nettles to reach a couple of benches on a raised wall overlooking the river. A large cruiser sped by, cranes drooped, mud rippled. This is the sole break point from a truly remote footpath which runs three miles along the waterfront from Purfleet, and which I really want to walk one day, but I think best in company rather than alone, and preferably when the tide's not in. A tattooed jogger appeared from nowhere, scrambled up over some rocks and headed off along the wall, so it must be possible. And yes, that is the tallest electricity pylon in Britain rising close by, one of a pair comprising the 400 kV Thames Crossing, transferring power 600ft up to a similar mast in Swanscombe. I wrote about that in 2014 when I started my round-London circuit in Dartford... and this is an excellent connection to confirm, job done. by train: Chafford Hundred/Grays
Beyond London (17): Thurrock (part 1)
