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Walking
Purfleet to Greys, exploring the Thames Path

by Ian Tokelove February 19, 2020

February 19, 2020

Walking the Thames path from Purfleet to Grays and exploring this wild & ragged edge of London. Nature flourishes along this…

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Remote London

Remote London is a website dedicated to the quieter, wilder side of Greater London and beyond. Places away from the crowds, where nature can flourish undisturbed. Places where you can walk and see few others.

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Walking the River Ebbsfleet, from Northfleet Harbour to its Springhead source
Yantlet Creek: a short walk between two estuaries, the Thames & Medway
Walking the River Crouch: Burnham on Crouch to North Fambridge
Walking MOD Shoeburyness and the Wakering creeks
Exploring Milton Creek, from Sittingbourne to the Swale
Walking the Broomway, Britain’s deadliest footpath
Walking the Mardyke and the lost fens of Essex
Walking the River Cray, from Dartford to Bexley
Gravesend: a circular walk exploring the Shorne & Higham Marshes
Estuary walk from Paglesham in Essex & the Beagle’s final resting place

ian.tokelove

In search of big skies & low tides, last weekend.

In search of big skies & low tides, last weekend. Beyond Gravesend, the Shornemead Lighthouse & the foundations of its predecessor. Nearby, the Higham Causeway, an ancient route across the North Kent marshes, dips to meet the River Thames.
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#RemoteLondon #ThamesEstuary #Estuary #Thames #NorthKentMarshes #EnglandCoastPath #Shornemead #ShornemeadLighthouse #Higham

Wildlife encounter on the seawall. This was out ne

Wildlife encounter on the seawall. This was out near Cliffe, walking the Thames foreshore in Kent. I’m pretty sure it’s a #stoat; it kept popping up and down to check on me, very cute – unless you’re a rabbit or small rodent!
They're speedy little nippers. Photographing landscapes is definitely easier.

Walking out across the Vange & Fobbing Marshes fro

Walking out across the Vange & Fobbing Marshes from Pitsea on Sunday. In these Essex flatlands, paths meander & merge with the water. Some routes track the old sea walls, sticky with thick mud; others are lost within the shimmering, flooded fields.
This walk was there-and-back to the Fobbing Flood Barrier, where a pair of peregrine falcon perched high on a narrow shelf, bathed in golden light. On the horizon, where the Essex marshes once met the Thames, the huge cranes of London Gateway and the industrial legacy of Coryton.
Out on the marshes, I didn’t see another human soul.
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#Estuary #ThamesEstuary #RemoteLondon #Essex #Pitsea #EnglishCoastPath #CoastalWalk #SaltMarsh #Creek #EssexLandscape #CoastalLandscape #VangeMarshes #FobbingMarshes #Fobbing #FobbingBarrier #FobbingFloodBarrier

Flat winter colours in a flat winter landscape. Wa

Flat winter colours in a flat winter landscape. Walking out from Faversham to the Swale on Sunday, as the tide drained from the creek.
Beyond the crunch of the shell line, across the mud and the water, the Isle of Sheppey seemed very distant.
Returning along Faversham Creek, low water had revealed sharp wooden stakes, presumably placed to slow tidal erosion, but reminiscent of fortification, or perhaps some nightmarish serpent from the Essex marshes.
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#RemoteLondon #ThamesEstuary #Estuary #Thames #EnglandCoastPath #Faversham #FavershamCreek #Swale

Deptford foreshore; the Thames turning under a col

Deptford foreshore; the Thames turning under a cold, grey Sunday sky. Quiet now, and still, just the breeze and the wash of passing clippers.
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#Thames #Deptford #RemoteLondon #UrbanRivers #RiversOfLondon #RiverThames #ExploreLondon #urbanlandscape #riversoflondon #TidalThames #ThamesForeshore

If you like your landscapes big, flat & wide, chec

If you like your landscapes big, flat & wide, check out the remote peninsula of Old Hall Marshes in Essex. Last Sunday we walked for five hours, out from the village of Tollesbury. The winter birdlife was stunning & we hardly saw another human soul.
Managed for wildlife by the #RSPB, Old Hall Marshes is a landscape of rich mudflats & saltmarsh, with large expanses of shallow, inland water & rough grazing, cut by reed-lined ditches.
The dead tree and the line of storm-snapped stumps stand closer to Tollesbury, where the land is returning to the sea - the seawalls having been deliberately breached.
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#OldHallMarshes #Blackwater #estuary #BlackwaterEstuary #ThamesEstuary #Essex #Tollesbury #RemoteLondon #EnglishCoastPath #CoastalWalk #SaltMarsh #Creek #EssexLandscape #CoastalLandscape @tinnedtuna1

The Orchard hospital, on the Dartford Marshes, was

The Orchard hospital, on the Dartford Marshes, was originally built to care for smallpox victims, in 1902. It later served the military and was largely destroyed by enemy action in 1944. What remained was repurposed as a pig farm, then forgotten & reclaimed by nature.
Last summer’s fires ripped through this site, and with the protective brambles burnt away, the buildings are easier to see, although it’s still easy to get lost here.
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#DartfordMarshes #Dartford #OrchardHospital #OrchardIsolationHospital #IsolationHospital #JoyceGreen #RemoteLondon

Copper-coloured hair, coiled & curving: the gleami

Copper-coloured hair, coiled & curving: the gleaming remains of torched tyres at the abandoned Wells Firework Factory, on the Dartford Marshes. With the rubber burnt away, only the rusting, steel wire structure of the tyres remains. Beautiful, in a way.
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#DartfordMarshes #Dartford #RemoteLondon

Wells Fireworks Factory, based on the Dartford Mar

Wells Fireworks Factory, based on the Dartford Marshes, closed in the early 80s and over time, the buildings were lost to nature.
For 40 years the buildings slept, entwined in bramble. And then the summer fires razed much of the site, leaving little but concrete foundations & the twisted, corrugated iron of fallen roofs.
A few buildings remain, but all are beyond repair. Nature is already recovering, brambles are breaking from the blackened earth, their stalks whipping out in a slow-motion bid to claim territory, amid fresh, green growth.
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#WellsFireworksFactory #WellsFireworks #PainsFireworks #DartfordMarshes #Dartford #RemoteLondon

Dartford Marshes #ThamesEstuary. A landscape still

Dartford Marshes #ThamesEstuary. A landscape still recovering from summer’s fires. I'll share more pics tomorrow, of what's left of the old Wells Firework Factory & the scattered buildings of the isolation hospital. There's a lot going on, out in this landscape.
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#DartfordMarshes #Dartford #Darent #RiverDarent #RemoteLondon #DartfordCreekBarrier #DartfordCreek

A few pics to remind us that 70 years ago, on this

A few pics to remind us that 70 years ago, on this night in 1953, a devasting storm tide hit our eastern coastline.
Numerous lives were lost (even more so in the Netherlands) and there was massive damage to homes, farms & industry.
In response, seawalls & huge defences, such as the Thames Barrier, now line the Thames and its estuary, providing protection, against a rising tide.
Pics show a high tide seeping through the riverwall at Greenwich, and the Barking Creek Barrier and Thames Barrier in action.
#NorthSeaFlood #ThamesEstuary #Thames #ThamesBarrier #BarkingCreekBarrier #Greenwich

Walking the quiet paths of Bow Creek, where the Ri

Walking the quiet paths of Bow Creek, where the River Lea meets the saltwater of the Thames. Once heavily industrial, growth is now residential & high-rise, but the riverside path remains welcoming and peaceful. @cody_dockers's café is a great spot to refuel, and there’s artwork to catch the eye, such as the shopping trolley sculpture by Abigail Fallis, a twisting double-helix of consumer DNA
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#RemoteLondon #RiverLea #RiverLee #Lea #BowCreek #ThamesTributary #ThamesTributaries #CanningTown #AbigailFallis #ShoppingTrolleySculpture #DNADL90 @tinnedtuna1

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