Tilbury

Elizabeth I came ashore at Tilbury on her way to rally an army, and this stretch of the Thames has been a place people land at on the way to somewhere else ever since. The cruise ships tie up, the containers roll out, and the passenger ferry to Gravesend stopped in 2024, so even Kent no longer drops in. Daniel Defoe ran a brick works on these marshes and came away writing about the Essex ague. The docks still pay the bills, which is more than most of the visitors ever did.