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Canvey Island
Canvey Island photos
Displaying the first of 11 old photos of Canvey Island. View all Canvey Island photos
Canvey Island maps
Historic maps of Canvey Island and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Canvey Island maps
Canvey Island area books
Displaying 1 of 18 books about Canvey Island and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Canvey Island
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Canvey Island.
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I'm Only 15 And I Haven't Seen Canvey in Black And White Before
I have never seen Canvey Island when it got hit by the flood in 1959. I know what it did to Canvey but I was looking at the black and white pictures that my grandad showed me and it was different to what it looks like now and I'm only 15 - what a change.
Thorney Bay Beach Camp
My family and I stayed in a caravan at Thorney bay beach camp, oh my god what fun. There was nothing there so you made your own fun. Walking along the sea wall to the funfair every night, and eating saveloy and chips along the sea wall returning to to Thorney bay. I remember my last holiday there when I was 16 and I walked down to the store, bought the Sun newspaper and found out Elvis had died. I spent the rest of the day on the seawall watching the tankers coming and going to the refinery and crying. We would pick winkles and boil them up and sell them around the camp, they still had all the old war buildings and recreated the war.
The owner of the camp came by helicopter and asked if we wanted a flight.
The main bathrooms were right behind our caravan I can still smell them.
And I always knew that the holiday (a month) were over when that smell from... Read more
Essex memories
The Old Bridge to Canvey Island
The bridge that this photo was taken from used to open so that boats could get through it to the Yacht club. The Yacht club had to be moved downstream of the bridge before the new, non-opening bridge was built.
Crown or Half Crown?
The pub on the right of the road shown in this photo used to be called 'The Crown'. In the late 1960s/early 1970s a lorry driving down this hill jack-knifed and demolished the front of the pub. After the building was repaired, the name of the pub was changed to 'The Half Crown'.
Benfleet Yacht Club
The building shown on the right of this photo was Benfleet Yacht Club's boatshed. The clubship is the large, dark boat moored near it. When I was a child, we used to swim in the Creek from the slipway at the Yacht Club. We could swim whilst the tide was coming in, but had to get out as the tide turned before the stuff from the sewage outfall got washed downstream to the Yacht Club!!!!
Aggies
This is looking down Station Road, the station is at the bottom of the hill. To the right centre can be seen the smoke and steam of a train rising above the trees. I remember walking up here as a boy when it was still unmade. The large square building at the bottom of the hill was a kind of general store that sold all kinds of things as I remember. It was an off licence too and was run by an old lady during the 1970's known locally as 'Aggie'. Of course the road is now all made up.
The Crown PH
I remember that accident happening - I think it was in the late 60's. My Dad had the sweetshop in the High Road opp the Police Station - and I remember my uncle coming in and telling us. We were quite amused by the name change. I also remember the old jellied eel stand nearly opposite the Crown, which has recently been revamped. I used to play on the marshes as a child, and remeber seeing sticklebacks in the stream that ran at the bottom of Brook Road - it was so much more countrified then. Wish it was still so.
