This is the Easternmost station in London, which is Upminster.
It sits at the top of the Easternmost high street in London, which is Station Road, in London's Easternmost town centre. Here we find the Easternmost department store, which is Roomes, the Easternmost Wimpy, the Easternmost Brewdog, the Easternmost Pizza Express and the Easternmost Caffè Nero. The Easternmost Travelodge is imminent on the site of the former Easternmost carwash. Here too is the Easternmost M&S Food Hall and round the corner in St Mary's Lane is the Easternmost Waitrose, both of which are important for middle class reasons. Upminster also has London's Easternmost record shop, which is Crazy Beat Records, the Easternmost Iceland and the Easternmost library. If you're looking for vinyl, frozen party food or a classic hardback, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost shopping parade in London, which is in Cranham.
I thought the Easternmost would be the main shopping parade by the District line depot, indeed the two run parallel, but this parade on Avon Road nudges marginally further East. It contains London's Easternmost fish and chip shop, the Easternmost pharmacy, the Easternmost hairdressers and the Easternmost launderette. It used to contain London's Easternmost post office but that closed in 2020 when McColls sold up and the unit is currently occupied by London's Easternmost tanning shop. London's Easternmost post office is now down the road inside Cranham's Tesco Express, which I believe is also London's Easternmost supermarket. If you want freshly baked sausage rolls, a funeral planned or a plate of pie and mash, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost pub in London, which is also in Cranham.
It's The Thatched House, which is two minutes further down St Mary's Lane than the pub which would otherwise take the title which is The Jobber's Rest. They like their pubs out here in Cranham, ideally with full-on table service including pie of the day, king prawns and a special menu for dogs. Jaxon's at the golf course also does Essex-friendly sit-down meals but it's not a pub and it'll be trumped by one further Easternmost restaurant we'll get to later. If you count marine dealers selling outboard motors then Boating Mania opposite The Jobber's Rest is London's Easternmost shop, or alternatively you might count the gift shop at the Thames Chase Forest Centre, but my vote is with Sea Fish, the chippie in the previous paragraph. If you want cod wrapped in paper and slathered in vinegar with a gherkin side, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost village in London, which is North Ockendon.
North Ockendon is famously the only inhabited part of London outside the M25 and really ought to be in Thurrock. But it isn't and thus contains London's Easternmost church, which is St Mary Magdalene, the Easternmost car lot and the Easternmost reptile showroom. The most convincingly Easternmost business is Fenlands Nursery, a mini garden centre brimming with attractive shrubs and plants where you pay for your wares in an open shed. North Ockendon is also home to London's Easternmost bus stop, which is Home Farm Cottage, and boasted London's Easternmost pub until The Old White Horse closed in 2022. If you want to buy begonias, flash your Oyster or bemoan the decline of pub culture, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost road in London, which is Fen Lane.
Fen Lane starts in North Ockendon and heads, appropriately, almost due East. It starts at what looks like London's Easternmost postbox but is in fact trumped by another to the north on St Mary's Lane, along with London's Easternmost kennels, the Easternmost koi dealer, the Easternmost crocodile sculpture and the road to the Easternmost sewage treatment works. But Fen Lane is the real deal, the sole road to the farthest flung part of London which amazingly is still a 40 minute walk away. It passes the Easternmost care home, which is Ladyville Lodge, also the Easternmost run of bungalows and the Easternmost cluster of front garden gnomes. If you want neighbours, Sadiq as your Mayor and a trig pillar in an adjacent field, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost golf course in London, which is Top Meadow.
Top Meadow has 18 holes, was built on the site of a former gravel pit and is 40 years old this year. More to the point it also has several bedrooms and a bespoke dining suite so doubles up as London's Easternmost hotel and Easternmost restaurant. It marks the edge of the village of North Ockendon, beyond which everything is fields, as Fen Lane slopes gently down London's Easternmost hill. It looks idyllic out there, or at least scenically agricultural, although all this may be swept away in the near future to enable the creation of Europe's largestdata centre. An incredible 200 acres of digital storage is planned, I suspect solely because this is the very very edge of London so almost nobody will notice. If you want environmental damage, 1000 jobs and the hum of network servers, there'll be nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost house in London, which is Home Farm.
It's hidden behind a gate because most properties out here are, especially the former farms which are few and far between. The gate is also the end of London's Easternmost public footpath, which is number 233 to Berry Farm, which I suspect is also one of London's least trodden. Of the houses up the drive the Easternmost is actually a 4-bedder called Bolyngtons, which receives London's Easternmost polling card and whose back garden includes London's Easternmost goalposts. There are two further houses along the road before London peters out - one former farmstead and one newbuild under construction - but although they back onto Fen Lane they're actually in Essex so they don't count. If you want a roadsign indicating a double bend, a final pylon and a track leading to a solar farm, there's nowhere Easter.
The is the Easternmost bridge in London, which crosses the Mardyke.
We're now almost two miles down Fen Lane from the last T-junction in North Ockendon, a ridiculous distance to have walked and yet somehow remain within Greater London. The Mardyke is the longest river in Thurrock, a good 11 miles all told, and the drainer of considerable fenland hereabouts. It's name means "boundary ditch" so you'd expect this bridge would mark the edge of Greater London, but not so because the boundary deviates away from the river here to accommodate two further fields. If you see that row of trees in the near distance, behind the tallest tree closest to the road, that's the actual edge of London along the line of a less significant ditch (currently dry). If you want a hedgerow, some discarded fast food wrappings and a concealed gas pipeline, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost edge of London, which is on Fen Lane.
A ditch passes beneath the road almost unseen but you can't miss the cacophony of signage indicating you're passing from one jurisdiction to another. Both sides have street signs naming the local authority, although the Thurrock one has suffered some serious vandalism and been bent back on itself. Thurrock have also erected signs warning about court injunctions and automatic numberplate recognition, suggesting they're joyless souls, but at least they have an official 'Thurrock' boundary sign whereas Havering's has vanished since I was last here in 2008. Speed limits change too, from 50 on the Thurrock side to a positively nannyish 30 in Havering, and you can also see the divide in the tarmac where maintenance responsibility changes. Havering's side is definitely potholier. If you want to stand somewhere in London, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost point in London, which is a ditch beside Bulphan Fen.
The precise spot is just down there in the water, where the dry ditch beneath the road meets a broader trench which carried the main flow of the Mardyke before the fens were drained. To get here you have to walk on towards Bulphan for a couple of minutes and then back down the Mardyke Way, a waymarked path which starts at Harrow Bridge and continues 7 miles to Davy Down. The banks on the Thurrock side are thickety with long grasses and a brief grass dip where you can step down to the water's edge at the precise boundary turn. The banks on the London side are denser with overhanging foliage and currently blossom, with one of these being London's Easternmost tree at London's Easternmost point in London's Easternmost corner. If you want to experience how utterly ridiculously remote East London gets, there's nowhere Easter.
