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Greenhithe, Swanscombe & Broadness – 2006

Greenhithe, Swanscombe & Broadness: On 25th August 2006 I travelled by train with my Brompton for a day riding and photographing this area on the River Thames in North Kent. A few days later I posted the following account on My London Diary, along with quite a few pictures from the ride.

Greenhithe, Swanscome & Broadness - 2006 — *Broadness moorings – in 2025 now under threat* *– see the bottom of this post*

My London is a pretty flexible area, and takes in all of the Greater London area and everywhere else within the M25, as well as obvious extensions including the area covered by the Thames Gateway plans for a mega-city covering a much wider area than the present boundaries. One of the growth axes is the high speed rail link from France, with stations at Stratford and Swanscombe (as well as Ashford, Kent close to the tunnel mouth.)

The areas around Stratford and Swanscombe are both places I’ve photographed at intervals since the early 1980s, and I made a couple of visits to them again close to the end of August 2006. Swanscombe, best known for the early human remains – Swanscombe Man – found there, is in the centre of what was a major cement industry (a little of which still remains) with some dramatic landscape formed by quarrying.

I started my visit there at Greenhithe, still a Thames-side village at its centre, but now dwarfed by new housing developments and the huge shopping centre in a former quarry at Bluewater. This time I gave that a miss and took a look at the housing development on the riverfront. This is a prestige scheme that has retained ‘Ingres Abbey’ and the core of its fine grounds, where there is now a heritage walk.

The grounds, in a an old chalk quarry with high cliffs, were provided with follies and landscaped in the 18th century by Sir William Chambers and later by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, but the 17th century house at their centre was demolished in 1815 when the navy had plans for a huge riverside dockyard. After these plans were dropped, it was sold to a London alderman and barrister, James Harman who built a large ‘gothic revival’ private house there in 1833.

Harman had hoped to attract other wealthy Londoners to develop parts of the extensive grounds for their own villas in this scenic area, hoping it would rival riverside developments as those in Chiswick and Richmond, but failed to attract any takers.

Part of the site to the east was later sold for the building of the Empire Paper Mills, and the Navy again took an interest in the area, mooring the training ship HMS Worcester in front of the abbey in 1871, and also acquiring some of the estate. The Thames nautical training college continued in use until 1989, and had some large concrete buildings from the 1970s.

Harman’s dream has been partly completed now by the developers, who have won awards for their handling of this ‘brownfield’ site. The house and the various follies were listed buildings and have been retained (fortunately for the developers, neither the paper mill nor the training college gained listing.)

Although the architecture of the new housing is perhaps pedestrian (although not suburban), the abbey and its surroundings immediate have been restored (although most of brown’s parkland is now under housing.) The development is high density, but there are quality touches in the street furniture. The spacious lawn in front of the house (offices for a high-tech company) has its impressive steps, but the housing is terraced town houses with balconies rather than gardens.

*About all that remains of the cement works at Swanscombe*

From here I cycled on to the open emptiness of Swanscombe marsh. In the distance were the heaps of spoil from the Channel Tunnel Rail Link which burrows under the Thames here. The piers for the former cement works are now derelict and closed off, used only by a few fishermen. The Pilgrims Road no longer leads up to the village, cut off by the work on the link.

Past the giant pylons carrying the grid across the Thames, I came to the saltings on Broadness Marshes and was rather surprised to see these still in use as moorings. The tide was high as I walked down beside them, and a boat made its way out. Another was being worked on near the landward end, but otherwise the place seemed deserted.

More pictures on My London Diary beginning here.

Save Swanscombe Peninsula SSSI

Recently the Broadness Cruising Club in the saltings have discovered that the owners of the Swanscombe Peninsula have “registered the land our boats are moored on and our jetties and boat sheds are built on as their own” and are trying to get rid of them from the site, restricting their access. The club has been there for over 50 years and is now fighting for the right to stay with a fundraiser for legal costs.

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Darent Valley Path & Thames – 2015

Darent Valley Path & Thames: The route we took on Saturday 4th July 2015 was new to my wife and son, but one I’d taken quite a few times before, both on foot and on my Brompton, but this time I left the bike behind and walked with them.

Or rather more or less with them, as I often stopped or walked a few yards to one side or other to take pictures, and then had to scurry after them to catch up. Walking with a camera is very different from walking. My son does have a camera (one of the Fuji fixed lens X100 series) but takes far fewer pictures than me – and did much less running about.) But his captions are often rather more droll than mine, and seldom constrained by the 5W’s – Who What Where When Why.

It was a bad day for this walk, hot and sunny with virtually no shelter between Dartford and Greenhithe along the banks of the Darent and Thames. But I’d heard that there would be a boat sailing up Dartford Creek, a rare occasion at the time and decided it would be good to photograph it.

This route is now one end of the Darent Valley Path, a 19 mile path which ends at Sevenoaks, most of which I’ve walked or cycled on other occasions, and the part beside the Thames is on the England Coast Path.

The Darent used to be navigable at least up as far as Dartford, where barges brought in and took out cargoes. Close to Dartford is a half-lock which holds back water above it when the tide goes out, long out of use but now slowly being restored to bring the waterway back into regular use.

*A fixed low bridge impedes navigation. This bypass was built as University Way, but the University never came so they renamed it Bob Dunn Way*

There used to be a lock which craft could go through when then the tide was high enough downstream, but that was replaced by a fixed barrier. Boats can still go through in either direction close to high tide when their is enough water for them to clear the sill.

*The yacht arrived later than expected and I had to run back to photograph*

*it coming under the flood barrier. It was too late to get under the bridge on the same tide.*

As well as the Darent, barges also went up the River Cray which joins the Darent downstream from the half-lock. This too is being brought back into leisure use.

By the river in the centre of Dartford was the industrial estate dominated by the pharmaceutical manufacturing plant of Burroughs Wellcome who took over a former paper works here in 1889. In 1995 this became Glaxo Wellcome, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. The works was wound down from 2008 by the then owners GlaxoSmithKline with manufacturing ending in 2013. Much of the site was empty by 2015 and now has large blocks of flats.

On the west side of Dartford Creek had been paper mills, but the last of these, owned by Wiggins Teape closed in 2009 and there was by 2015 housing on the site.

*QEII bridge and Littlebrook Power station, River Thames, Dartford*

When the third Dartford Bypass was built around 1988 barges were no longer bringing esparto grass and other raw materials for the paper works up the river and no thought was given to navigation. Boats that can lower masts or without them can creep under the road for a short time on a rising or falling tide when there is enough water to allow them to float but not high enough for the bridge to block their transit.

Much of the land to the east of the creek was marshes, which made it a suitable location for the Wells fireworks factory, long closed. But I think it or an adjoining site was now in use for clay-pigeon shooting, and for much of this section of the walk we sounded under gunfire.

There had once been a pub, Longreach Terrace, and a ferry to Purfleet on the Thames close to the the mouth of Dartford creek, but both were long gone. It was here too that smallpox victims were brough ashore to the islolation wards of Orchard Hospital, demolished around 1975, part of the Joyce Green Hospital which was demolished around 2000.

*The Purfleet to Zeebruge ferry goes under the QEII bridge*

Further downstream on the banks of the Thames we passed Littlebrook power station – the final plant there, Littlebrook D, had ceased operation only four months earlier – before going under the Dartford QEII bridge and past Crossways Business Park. I had meant to climb up the hill to Stone Church, but missed the footpath and ended our walk in Greenhithe. But I was too tired anyway – and had stopped taking pictures on this last part of our walk.

More at Darent Valley Path & Thames.

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Ray-Jones & London May Queen – 2005

Ray-Jones & London May Queen: The very first London May Queen event I photographed was on Saturday 14th May 2005. Previously I had thought that such events had died out years earlier. They had been recorded in the late 1960s and 1970s by photographers including the late Tony Ray-Jones whose work in his book ‘A Day Off‘ published posthumously in 1974 (and earlier publications in Creative Camera magazine and elsewhere) had a great influence on myself and other young photographers in the UK.

Ray-Jones had won a scholarship to the USA to study design at Yale in 1961 and there he had been greatly influenced by the work of Robert Frank in his book ‘The Americans’ published in France in 1958 and in the USA the following year as well as the work of a younger generation of American photographers Frank’s work had inspired. After Yale Ray-Jones worked for several years in the USA and attended workshops with the legendary art directory Alexey Brodovitch.

He returned to the UK and as well as taking photographs promoted his US-acquired views on photography with an evangelistic fervour. In this he found an ally in the Bronx-born photographer John Benton-Harris, another ‘Brodovitch Boy’ who had settled in London – who I later became friends and worked with. After Ray-Jones died tragically young from Leukaemia in 1972 it was Benton-Harris who made the prints that were used in ‘A Day Off’, printed very much in the style of the time.

Among the several images in the ‘Summer Carnivals’ section of the book were several from May Queen festivals, including a large group photograph of over twenty young girls all wearing crowns in front a maypole. The caption ‘May Queen gathering, Sittingbourne, still used on the Getty site, 1968′ was incorrect (as were some others as the photographer was no longer alive and they were captioned by others.) Possibly the least characteristic image of the book it was actually from the crowning of the 1968 London May Queen on Hayes Common in the London Borough of Bromley.

From two of my close photographic friends following in the footsteps of Ray-Jones and Benton-Harris photographing English Carnivals with an Arts Council grant I found that these events were still taking place and I decided to find out more. It was hard to find information but I was finally able to find the date and time of the 2005 crowning.

I arrived at Hayes Common with some trepidation. Since Ray-Jones had taken his pictures there had been several decades of warnings from the government and media over “stranger danger” and panic over men pointing cameras at young girls was rife. Although this was a public event, before taking any pictures I went to find the organisers and explained what I hoped to do. I had for some years been part of a group of photographers, London Documentary Photographers, organised by Mike Seaborne at the Museum of London and had ID from them as well as a Press card which, unusually for me, wore visibly on my jacket for the event. This possibly wasn’t a good idea as the organisers were worried that some of the older girls taking part might be embarassed to have their pictures in the local press. They were less worried about me posting them on the web or elsewhere.

The children – many girls but with a few brothers among them – were almost all eager to have their pictures taken, and their mothers (and there were a few fathers too) were also happy to have a record of the day. From this first event I got requests to photograph other events in the London May Queen cycle the following year and for years later, though I was often busy elsewhere and unable to do so.

A few days after the event I put the pictures on-line with a long explanation about the event and an invitation to the mothers to ask me if I had other pictures of their children and for larger files they could use to make prints. I’d also given out copies of my business card to many of thembut made it clear I would be happy to provide digital images without charge.

Here – with minor corrections – is what I wrote in 2005.

Merrie England and London May Queen Festival
Hayes Common and Hayes Village, Kent, 14 May 2005

The ‘Merrie England And London May Queen Festival’ was founded by a master at Dulwich School, Joseph Deedy in 1913, making this year’s festival the 93rd. [Later I was told he was from Whitelands College where John Ruskin had started a May Queen festival in 1881 – still continuing at Roehampton University as a May Monarch.]

The tradition of May Queens is much older, coming from pre-Christian times, as the Goddess Of The Spring, who the Romans called Flora. It was a traditional time for young women to come to the villages from the farms to find a husband, and the maypole is a symbol of virility.

Deedy’s folklorique version is rather different from this with an uplifting script, still read by the participants as a part of the festival. Some of the texts are on the back of the signs carried by the attendants of the London May Queen, the ‘Joy Bells Of Merrie England’ representing ‘Music’, ‘Company’, ‘Beauty’, ‘Light’…

The London May Queen is also attended by ‘The Prince Of Merrie England‘ (also female) along with the Fairy Queen, Bo-Peep and Robin Hood. The event is also attended by a couple of dozen ‘Realm Queens’ each also with her attendants: a Prince, Banner Bearer, Crown Bearer, Pages, Fairies and Flower Girls, from half a dozen to twenty or more girls, all dressed in the particular Realm Colours and with their own Realm Flower. At its peak in the 1920s and 1930s there were 120 realms with well over a thousand children taking part in the event on Hayes Common.

The various positions are decided entirely by seniority in the organisation – children can join when they are three and continue until their sixteenth birthday. Many of the mothers I talked to at this and later May Queen events had been May Queens or taken part in the ceremony in their childhood; one of the organisers was May Queen in 1932 and her grandchildren were taking part in 2005.

As well as the Hayes festival, there is another a week earlier in Beckenham, where most of the realm queens are crowned. The queens and realms also take part in other fêtes and carnivals, take flowers to the elderly and attend flower services in churches in their areas. Almost all the realms come from the surrounding areas in surburban Kent and Surrey (now mainly in Greater London.)

The children process, [in their realms in alphabetical order] from the Common to Hayes village, where there is a short ceremony, ‘Little Sanctum’ outside the village church.

The procession then continues around Hayes, returning to the Common. This is rather a long walk for some of the younger children.

Back at the Common there is a short ceremony using Mr Deedy’s words read by the Fairy Queen, Bo-Peep, Robin Hood and others, before the London May Queen is crowned by the Prince Of Merrie England. The realm queens are then presented to the London May Queen, and have their pictures taken as a group in front of the maypole [as in that Ray-Jones picture.]

The London May Queen then goes around the field with her main attendants as Flora, with baskets of flowers which she throws to the realm children.This is followed (after the rather lengthy raffle draw) by dancing round the maypole in a fairly energetic and undisciplined fashion.

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Punch, Morris, Nakba & London May Queen – 2012

Punch, Morris, Nakba & London May Queen: Saturday 12th May 2012 was an unusually busy day for me, rushing from Covent Garden to Westminster and then out to Hayes Common. There were two very different events I was determined not to miss, the Nakba Day protest at Downing Street remembering the anniversary of the eviction of around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Israeli forces in 1948 and the crowning of London’s 100th May Queen taking place on Hayes Common on the edge of London, around a hour’s travel away. And a couple of other events I could fit in too.

I wrote all of these up on My London Diary and you can read those accounts there on the links in this post – as well as finding many more pictures, so I won’t repeat myself too much here.

Punch Celebrates 350th Birthday – Covent Garden

Punch, Morris, Nakba & London May Queen - 2012 — ‘*Professors’ had come from around the world including Uncle Shiro the only Japanese Punch*

Punch and Judy professors from around the country and around the world brought their booths to Covent Garden this weekend to celebrate 350 years since Samuel Pepys first recorded a performance there in his diary.

His was the first recorded performance of the “Italian puppet play” and though Punch was then called Pulcinella and has obvious earlier roots in Italy it is regarded as the start of Punch and Judy in England.

The fun was only just starting when I left for more serious matters in Westminster. More about the day and many more pictures at Punch Celebrates 350th Birthday

Morris Men Occupy Westminster

Pavements across Westminster were filled with gaily dressed men with bells on them leaping and dancing as twelve Morris sides performed in around twenty sets over the day in Central London on the Westminster Day of Dance.

The performances were taking place at various locations in the City of Westminster, including the Victoria Embankment, St Margarets Westminster, Westminster Cathedral and Tate Britain, with the various Morris sides rotating between them throughout the day.

I left as the morning sessions ended and the Morris Men had a break for a doubtless mainly liquid lunch (dancing really is thirsty work) before the afternoon sessions which, after a euphemistically named ‘Tea Break’ were to conclude with a mass performance south of the river in Lambeth by the National Theatre.

Nakba Day Protest at Downing St

*This was a family protest – young protesters hold a Palestinian flag and placards*

Nakba Day is generally commemorated on 15 May and remembers the eviction of around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Israel forces in 1948. This London protest opposite Downing St was on the nearest Saturday.

At the time of the protest around 2000 Palestinians were on hunger strike in Israeli jails in protest against ‘administrative detention’ which allows them to be detained for consequtive periods of up to six months without any charge or trial.

Israel was still displacing Palestinians from their homes – and is currently in 2025 planning to clear them entirely from Gaza, either killing them through starvation, bombing or military eviction. Back in 2012 they were planning to forcibly displace around 40,000 Palestinian Bedouin from the Naqab desert, threatening to demolish the homes of around 85,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem and to forcibly evict 2,000 from the West Bank.

Unfortunately I had to rush away while people were still arriving for the protest as I had promised to photograph the crowning of London’s 100th May Queen and was only able to take very few pictures to accompany the text.

More at Nakba Day Protest in London.

London Crowns 100th May Queen – Hayes, Kent

*The Merrie England Children Dance around the maypole with the newly crowned Queen at its centre*

The 100th London May Queen was crowned at the Merrie England and London May Queen Festival on Hayes Common, Kent, part of an unbroken tradition stretching back to 1913. 20 other Queens and their realms took part.

The ceremonies at Hayes Common, now a part of the London Borough of Bromley, continued even during both World Wars, though they were then carried out inside the local church as it was feared the procession around the village might attract unwanted attention from the German air force.

I’ve written often here and elsewhere about the London May Queen organisation and events, including a long account in my book London’s May Queens. [You can read a little more about this book – also available much more cheaply as an e-book – on >Re:PHOTO and can read the text and see many of the pictures at the book link.]

But there is one section of my post in 2012 which adds something to the story, so I’ll repeat it here.

“Whitelands College in London started its May Queen festival rather earlier in 1881 at the prompting of John Ruskin, and this still continues at the college (now part of the University of Roehampton) although since the college now admits men, some years they have a May King in place of a queen. Talking to one of the organisers of the event yesterday I learnt that Deedy had worked at Whitelands – contrary to the published information on him.”

Fortunately I arrived at Hayes Common just in time – though rather out of breath having run from Hayes Station – for the start of the procession around the village before the crowning.

Text and many more pictures at London Crowns 100th May Queen.

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May Queen in Chislehurst – 2006

May Queen in Chislehurst – 2006. Chislehurst has maintained the tradition of crowning the Chislehurst May Queen on the first Saturday of May each year since 1923 and last Saturday held its ceremony to crown its 2025 Queen. I was busy elsewhere this year, but spent an enjoyable day photographing the event on Saturday 6th May 2006. Here is the post I wrote back then (with the usual minor corrections) with a few of the pictures – and links to more on My London Diary

Chislehurst May Queen Ceremonies

Chislehurst, 6 May 2006

May Day celebrations were traditionally times (known as Beltane) when the New Year and Spring was celebrated, and young men and women danced together, and a Queen of the May was chosen to lead the event. Cromwell banned them as sinful pagan events, and although they came back with the restoration in 1660, in most places the traditions slowly died out or were made more formal.

There was a revival of interest in old customs in the Victorian era, with various ‘Merrie England‘ events being organised. Some schools had maypoles and learnt the dances and many Sunday Schools had their May Queens who often took a leading part in Whit Walks.

In 2005 I photographed the Hayes Merrie England And London May Queen Festival, which began in 1913 and is probably the largest as well as the oldest continuing event of its type (Brentham had its “gaily dressed maidens” dancing around a maypole in 1906, but it isn’t clear if there were festivals in all of the early years. Certainly there appear to have been none in 1927-30.)

Chislehurst got its first May Queen in 1923, when the organisers of the Merrie England Festival at Hayes, which had been going for around 10 years, asked Agnes Everist to organise a new ‘realm‘ with her daughter Olive as the May Queen. Agnes continued to organise the ceremonies until 1945, when the ceremony was delayed until June to be a part of the World War II Victory Celebrations. Her grand-daughter and Olive’s daughter Beryl was May Queen that year, but sadly Agnes died 2 days later.

The Everist family continued to organise the festival for some years, but others then took over. Any girl five or over who lives or has grandparents who live in Chislehurst can join the retinue. They then work their way up the ranks, with the oldest girl of the year of joining having the choice of being Queen or Prince. Several months of twice-weekly rehearsals are required, and as well as the festival they also perform at other events over the year.

*The retiring May Queen puts the crown on the new May Queen’s head*

The procession is led by a Banner Bearer, and each of the ‘realms’ that takes part in the Hayes festival is also identified by a distinctive colour. The May Queen and Prince walk under a hoop garland held by two of their retinue, while others hold the Queen’s train. Before the crowning, the retiring Queen and Prince are at the head of the procession with the Queen and Prince elect in the middle, but after the crowning they change their places. Also in the procession are three attendants carrying the basket of flowers, the crown on a cushion and the sceptre and scroll. At the rear of the group is a decorated cage or lantern on a pole.

*The new May Queen and Prince take their place under the hoop garland for the return procession*

Chislehurst is one of the few may queen societies that still dance round the maypole properly, and they performed 4 different dances during the event with surprising precision.

*And the May Queen cuts the cake with the Prince*

At the end of the day the various groups marched off down the road for tea and cakes in the Methodist hall, along with a little more ceremony. I stayed until they had cut the cake, then had to run to the station to catch my train home.

You can read more about the May Queen tradition and London May Queen in particular in the preview of my book, London May Queens. The book is available as a PDF or more expensively in print

You can find out more about the Chislehurst May Queen Society at their web site. There are more pictures from the 2006 event, including the other local groups that take part in the event on My London Diary.

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Dartford 1995 Again – Panoramas

Dartford 1995 Again – Panoramas: Part 9 of my occasional series on colour pictures I made in 1995.

*Victoria Industrial Park, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-252*

I enjoyed another walk in Dartford on Sunday May 7th 1995, beginning by taking black and white pictures of buildings around the centre before walking out to the northwest along Victoria Road.

*Philips Norman, Cash & Carry, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-251*

I went on to photographing in the industrial areas between Burnham Road and the Dartford Creek – the tidal River Darent.

*Burnham Trading Estate, Lawson Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-263*

Here I was able to make my way down to the west bank of the river and make more pictures.

*River Darent, Riverside Wharf, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-121*

At this wharf there had once been a fairly small dock which had been filled in but its gates were still there. I think it had perhaps been a dry dock used for ship repairs,

I think this is a site cleared for the development of a large housing estate, now on Lawson Road and Eleanor Close.

This long, empty road was University Way, a northern by-pass for Dartford, named in hope of a university that never arrived. Bob Dunn had been a Tory junior education minister who had campaigned for this development. MP for Dartford from 1979 to 1997 when he lost his seat to Labour, he died in 2003, only 56, and the road was renamed in his honour.

The bridge that takes Bob Dunn Way across the Darent was not built with navigation in mind, and makes it difficult for boats of any size to proceed up to Dartford. There has been for some years work being carried out to encourage navigation here, but boats have to look carefully at the tide tables to pass under the bridge. The Dartford and Crayford Creek Trust was founded in April 2016 to work to improve the navigation.

*Roundabout, Hythe St, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-363*

I walked back much the same way to this roundabout and went up Hythe Street in the centre of this picture.

*River Darent, Nelsons Row, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-243*

Hythe Street tok me to Nelson’s Row where I was able to cross the River Darent. There is also a public slipway here, cleared in recent years by volunteers.

*Pipe Bridge, Riverside Path, River Darent, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-232*

A few houses on the opposite bank are in Kenwyn Road. Past them you can see the derelict half lock which keeps some water in upstream when the tide flows out. Volunteer have put in considerable work to improve this lock in recent years and to revive navigation on Dartford Creek. In the distance is the Dartford Paper Mills site – closed in 2009 the site has been redeveloped.

*Half Lock, Riverside Path, River Darent, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-223*

Boats can navigate through the lock when the tide is high enough for them to get over the cill of the lock which holds back sufficient water for the river to be navigable upstream to the centre of Dartford.

*Dartford Fresh Marshes, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-361*

I turned around here and walked back to Dartford and the station. I’d made an early start to the day on the first train into London and there was still time to stop off on the way home and take a few pictures in Woolwich where I intended to return the following week.

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1995 Colour – More from Dartford

1995 Colour – More from Dartford: The eighth part of my series showing colour images I made in 1995 continues with panoramic and normal images around Dartford. An earlier post 1995 Colour Part 4 – Around Dartford looked at some of the panoramas I made on a walk in March 1995 when I walked along the Darent and Thames Path to Littlebrook and Crossways. I returned to Dartford in April and May and made some more pictures.

Bow Arrow Footbridge, Dartford Tunnel Approach, Dartford, 1995, 95p4-1072 — *Bow Arrow Lane Footbridge, Dartford Tunnel Approach, Dartford, 1995, 95p4-1072*

Bow Arrow Footbridge, Dartford Tunnel Approach, Dartford, 1995, 95p4-1073 — *Bow Arrow Lane Footbridge, Dartford Tunnel Approach, Dartford, 1995, 95p4-1073*

I think this picture was taken on Cotton Lane. You can see the QEII bridge clearly and there are two lines of pylons. The storage tanks gleaming in the distance are on the north bank of the River Thames. There is no longer a rail siding here.

*Philips Newman, Cash & Carry, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95c5-764*

*Industrial Estate, Dartford, 1995, 95c5-763*

I think this is probably on the Burnham Trading Estate, Burnham Rd, Dartford, where I also made several black and white images.

*Willding Yard, Eastwood Metals, Lower Hythe St, Dartford, 1995, 95c5-762*

Still more pictures from around Dartford in later posts.

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1995 Colour Part 4 – Around Dartford

1995 Colour Part 4 – Around Dartford: More of my panoramic images. These were taken in and around Dartford in Kent in March 1995 on a walk which took me from the centre of the town and along by the River Thames to an area close to the QEII Dartford Bridge. All these were taken on Sunday 19th March 1995. Dartford is a part of the Thames Gateway area around the Thames Estuary.

Dartford

I walked up Hythe Street and then turned right to a path that led me to a bridge across Dartford Creek.

*Bridge, Dartford Creek, Nelsons Row, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-533*

Dartford Creek is the tidal creek of the River Darent and was once important navigable creek to wharves in the centre of Dartford. Work has now been going on for years to restore the half-lock and make the creek navigable again. I made more panoramic images along the footpath beside the creek later in the year, but on my first visit was keen to get to the River Thames and left the Creek to walk up Joyce Green Lane and Marsh Street to the River Thames.

Littlebrook

The first power station at Littlebrook was coal fired and opened in 1939 and was joined by a second in 1949 and a third in the 1950s with the final station Littlebrook D shown here opening in the 1980s. The earlier stations had been converted to burn oil by 1958 and were all decommisioned by 1981 when the final station began to be put into use. This continued to produce power until 2015 and was finally demolished in 2019. You can read much more detail on Wikipedia.

*River Thames, Dartford Bridge, QEII Bridge, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-631*

Google’s map now shows Littlebrook Beach as a ‘tourist attraction’ but I’m fairly sure I was the only person there on the day I made this picture.

*Jetty, Littlebrook Power Station, Dartford Bridge, QEII Bridge, River Thames, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-643*

*Littlebrook Jetty, Dartford Bridge, QEII Bridge, River Thames, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-661*

*National Power, River Thames, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-663*

Crossways

As I walked along the path beside the river taking these and rather more black and white images I kept looking for a gate or gap in the fence betweent the riverside path and Crossways I could go through, but there was none. It was only when I got to Stone Marshes that I was able to leave the river and then walk along St Mary’s Road and into Crossways Business Park.

The area has been considerably expanded now, with a new major road to Greenhithe as well as new housing and commercial development.

*Lake, Crossways Business Park, Crossways, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-733*

The lake now has much new development around it, including a pub, The Wharf on Galleon Boulevard, close to where I made these pictures

*Lake, Crossways Business Park, Crossways, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-721*

*Lake, Crossways Business Park, Crossways, Dartford, 1995, 95p03-723*

I walked back into Dartford taking quite a few more black and white images but no more panoramas. The black and white pictures from this walk start here.

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Thames Day – 2005

Thames Day: I probably won’t be going to Thames Day which takes place this year next Sunday 22nd September 2024, organised by the Thames Festival Trust and the City of London Corporation as “An exciting day of free family activities, Thames Day celebrates World Rivers Day and the significance of the river Thames to the nation’s capital city.”

Thames Day is a part of the larger Thames Festival which began in 1997 when it included a high wire walk across the Thames, and until 2012 organised activities on and around the river between Tower Bridge and Westminster Bridge.

“In 2013, Thames Festival was relaunched as Totally Thames, a month-long season of river and river-related events along the whole 43 miles of the River Thames riverfront in London, from Hampton Court Bridge in the west to the Dartford Crossing in the east.”

Back in 2005, it was the London Mayor’s Thames Day and I spent much of Sunday 18th September photographing some of the range of activities taking place, though I left before the fireworks. Here’s what I wrote at the time, along with some pictures from the day.

“Thames day reminds London of its river, and its heritage, as well as providing some free entertainment. Some of the activities that make it up perhaps lack visual interest, and it didn’t help that the day was grey and dull. The flotilla of boats disappointed, although the sight and smell of a coal-fired screw steam tug in the upper pool brought back some memories.

The river police also were obviously having a good day, showing off the fairly impressive speed of their launches, and it was good to see the river looking almost crowded at times.

The barge race seemed rather false, relying more on weight and fitness of a crew rather than the traditional skills of watermen, who often managed such vessels single-handed.

Then there were various performances, including a large and enthusiastic children’s choir in The Scoop, and some Japanese drums and dance.

It livened up the day for lots of Londoners (and tourists) and the fireworks (i didn’t stay for them) will have given them some evening entertainment too.”

More pictures on My London Diary.

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No New Coal Rally and March – Rochester, Kent 2008

No New Coal Rally and March: On Sunday 3rd August I took a train to Rochester in Kent to photograph a rally in the town of Rochester from which people were marching to the Climate Camp was at Kingsnorth on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent where E.ON were intending to build the country’s first new coal-fired power station in 30 years.

I wasn’t able to attend the Climate Camp itself as I was leaving for Glasgow early the following morning so I left the marchers on their way to the site, seven miles away.

There was a large police presence at the rally and for the march, and later at Kingsnorth a number of protesters were arrested, with others assaulted by police who carried out a repressive action against the campers.

Press who had gone to cover the event were stopped and searchers, some multiple times and were subjected to both obvious and secret filming, as well as being pushed and shoved by police who demanded unnecessary personal information. Months later Kent Police admitted they had been wrong to film journalists, but claimed it was hard to tell them from the protesters – despite the fact that they all wore or showed the police-recognised UK Press Cards.

E.ON’s proposals to build a new and highly polluting power station at Kingsnorth had gone largely unnoticed in the media until the Climate Camp brought the issue to national attention. The over-reaction by the police helped to raise its profile, as did the trail of the Kingsnorth Six, activists arrested for causing an alleged £30,000 damage to one of the chimneys of the existing coal-fired in October 2007 and charged with criminal damage.

The activists claimed they had “lawful excuse” for their actions in that they carried it out to help prevent the much greater damage that a new coal-fired power station would cause by accelerating climate change.

Their trial heard evident from five defence witnesses, one of them Professor James Hansen, a former climate change adviser to the US White House, who stated that the social cost of emitting a tonne of CO2 was around £50. He estimated that a new coal-fired power station would cause around £1 million worth of damage per day it ran.

In truth the activists had not actually damaged the chimney significantly, but had simply painted the word ‘Gordon‘ on it, but they were acquitted in September 2008 because the jury found the damage they did to the smokestack was outweighed by the harm done to the planet by emissions from the power station.

E.ON was forced to abandon its plans largely because of the substantial public protests and criticism much of it arising from the publicity given to the Climate Camp and the trial.

The UK establishment were appalled by the verdict, and we have recently seen part of their reaction to this in the recent trial of Just Stop Oil activists who were judged to have committed contempt of court for attempting to introduce similar issues in their defence and then given draconian sentences for their peaceful protest. The law is meant to protect the interests of the rich and powerful not the planet.

You can read more about the rally in Rochester and the march towards Kingsnorth on My London Diary. One Climate Camp Caravan had started from Heathrow a week ago and another, the Stop Incineration Climate Camp Caravan had been travelling from Brighton, both demonstrating at various related sites along their routes and they met on Sunday morning in the middle of Rochester for a ‘No New Coal’ Rally attended by around 300 people.

After the rally the protesters set off to march to Kingsnorth and I went with them across the Medway and up the long hill in Strood before leaving them and returning to Strood station.

More at No New Coal Rally an d March.

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Save Swanscombe Peninsula SSSI

Merrie England and London May Queen FestivalHayes Common and Hayes Village, Kent, 14 May 2005

Punch Celebrates 350th Birthday – Covent Garden

Morris Men Occupy Westminster

Nakba Day Protest at Downing St

London Crowns 100th May Queen – Hayes, Kent

Chislehurst May Queen Ceremonies

Chislehurst, 6 May 2006

Dartford

Littlebrook

Crossways

Merrie England and London May Queen Festival
Hayes Common and Hayes Village, Kent, 14 May 2005