Southend's prettiest buildings

Southend

Photographs of Southend-on-Sea, Summer 2002 by Martin Sullivan (11 pictures, 352 KBytes, approximately 2 minutes download time at typical modem rates, 2.5K/s).

This is Stuff, off-topic and possibly ephemeral.

From the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2003 I found my self doing a contract in Southend-on-Sea, a coastal town on the Thames estuary about 65km east from London. The jobs was a rather traditional Tuxedo and Oracle one and to do with the UK part of the management of tariffs on goods in transit between European countries. I am styled the Technical Architect, which sounds rather grand, but in reality translates to the dogs-body who gets it going. The client is therefore Her Majesty's Custom and Excise (HMCE).

As is now the tradition, I took some photographs and put them up the web so that the rest of you can see what an interesting place I was working in.

Southend's most remarkable feature is its extremely long pier (2.1km).

As one would expect it's rather a slog to walk the length of the pier so a train can be used to get from one end to the other.

There's a fog horn and a bell at the end of the pier and they occasionally run cruises around the Thames estuary from it.

From the end of the pier one can look back at Southend.

Southend is a sea-side town that grew up based on people taking day-trips from London, first on steamers to the pier and then by train. The "Kursaal" is a large entertainment complex with 10-Pin Bowling and an Ice Rink.

Further to the east at Thorpe Bay, things become more leisured. People own beach-huts and use them during the day when visiting the beach.

To the west of the town centre, large houses were built for the wealthy (now mostly converted into flats). To allow these people to visit the shore line a small funicular railway was built, the Cliff Railway.

Further west still is Westcliff, with the striking 30's architecture of the Cliffs Pavilion, a theatre.

Back in Southend things are less rarefied. Over the road from work is as ugly a 60's concrete building as you'll ever see, the Victoria Centre. The human spirit triumphs however and it's still possible to get ethnic food in there.

I work in Alexander House, over the road from the Victoria Centre and no less inspiring.

I'm working on the fourteenth floor of the tallest building in Southend. For somebody who normally gets to overlook the garbage-crushing machinery from a Portacabin in a car park, I can't fault the view.

Although the contract has now finished I make some further excursions to Southend, with a camera. I'll e-mail you if you are interested.