The Last Post opens its doors for breakfast at 7:00, and the staff saw fit to inform us last night that alcohol isn’t served until 9 o’clock! However, we’re back downstairs for food opening time and the breakfast offering is just as competitively priced as everything else. The bill for the three of us totals just over £15, although this includes only a bacon butty for Ben who, in the light of yesterday’s digestive problems, thinks that he should take things easy – on the food front at least.
It was announced yesterday that Southend is to be granted City status in recognition of the campaigning for this which had been done by the local MP, David Amess, who died last Friday having been attacked and stabbed at a constituency surgery. When we leave The Last Post just before 8 to await a cab which we ordered over breakfast, the only noticeable difference in our surroundings is the fact that there’s been quite a bit of overnight rain. There’s still some drizzle in the air but, not for the first time, it seems that we’ve been fortunate in missing the worst of it.
We return to Little Wakering and resume our meandering around the creek at 8:20 in what are now dry but quite windy conditions. This initially takes us east, and then north around Fleethead to bring us back south to the Wakering boatyard opposite Potton Island and, beyond that, Foulness. Under our admittedly rather flexible rules regarding places separated from the mainland, neither of these will form part of our walk, in addition to which we haven’t sought permission from the MOD to visit Foulness. We therefore continue past the boatyard and towards another MOD installation, the Shoeburyness Firing Ranges. Around this time, John receives a phone call from The Last Post. They want to know what to do with a T-shirt and water bottle which have been left in one of our rooms – which turns out to be Ben’s. Our aim today is to get to Chalkwell, or perhaps Leigh-on-Sea, but this will take us through Southend and the pub isn’t too far from the sea front. We therefore say that we’ll call in to collect Ben’s belongings, although given the price of Ruddles and the proximity of Southend Central station, there’s a chance that this could affect our finishing point.
More immediately, we’re not too sure of the route which we’ll be able to take in order to get beyond the firing ranges. We’ve read that there are some paths through the ranges, but it isn’t clear when (if at all) they might be open. It becomes crystal clear as we approach the boundary fence: gates locked and no entry signs everywhere. We therefore have to walk on paths around the perimeter on the landward side of the installation until we regain the coast at Shoeburyness East Beach. Having done so, it soon becomes apparent that the current MOD properties/ranges are the most recent in a history of military defence structures in the area. Over a distance of no more than a mile, we pass a garrison memorial, gun emplacements and Victorian “quick firing batteries”, and in a small park there’s a cairn bearing a 19th century artillery shell which serves as a memorial to 7 Royal Artillery personnel who were killed in an accidental explosion during tests on gun fuses in 1885. Perhaps this feature of the area is not surprising given its location at the entrance to the Thames Estuary, and it wouldn’t come as a huge surprise to encounter a similar landscape on the opposite shore when we walk through Kent next year.
For the moment, we continue along the north side of the estuary past Thorpe Bay and on towards Southend and its pier which is apparently, at 1.33 miles, the longest pleasure pier in the world (but not extending into the open sea – cf Frinton pier: see day 136). The distance there from the East Beach at Shoeburyness is not much more than 4 miles, but seems longer because we are walking directly into the strong wind. The pier marks the point where we suspend our route westward to make the short diversion to The Last Post in the town centre and, rather than following Ben to the series of steps leading to the streets above the esplanade, John and Gary take advantage of the lift conveniently situated opposite the entrance to the pier. This is probably as good an indication as any of whether we’ll be resuming our walk today. Indeed after reaching The Last Post, retrieving Ben’s effects and ordering pints of Ruddles, the decision is quickly reached not to return to the pier. Of course we seek to rationalise this with comments such as we would only be continuing for a couple of miles or so, and therefore we won’t be affecting plans for the next walk. But clearly the truth is that, rather than spending another hour walking into a headwind, we’d far prefer to have a relaxing beer before wandering over the road to catch an early train home. So that is what we do.
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