Southend-on-Sea
— — the longest walk over the sea in the world.
Not only on a wall.
“An Essex seaside town an hour east of London, where the Thames lets go of its banks and becomes the North Sea. The pier runs out 1.34 miles over the mudflats, the longest pleasure pier anywhere, with its own little railway to carry you to the end. At low tide the estuary becomes a pale brown plain that goes on for miles. — from the studio
Southend-on-Sea, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Southend-on-Sea sits on the north shore of the Thames Estuary in Essex, about 40 miles east of central London by rail. The borough was elevated to city status in March 2022 in memory of the local MP Sir David Amess. It runs along seven miles of seafront, from Shoeburyness in the east to Leigh-on-Sea in the west, with the High Street climbing inland from the pier head. Two London terminals (Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street) serve Southend in under an hour by direct train.
The pier reaches 1.34 miles (2.16 kilometres) into the Thames Estuary, making it the longest pleasure pier in the world. It was built so steamers could land passengers at low tide, when the shore retreats more than a mile across the flats. A narrow-gauge electric railway has run the length since 1890, with the current train carrying visitors out to the pier head café and lifeboat station. The estuary itself is the boundary where the river meets the southern North Sea.
Adventure Island, the free-entry fairground at the pier landward end, has run on the seafront since 1976. Old Leigh, the surviving fishing quarter at the west end, still lands cockles from the Maplin Sands and serves them from sheds on the cobbled lane. The Cliffs Pavilion programmes touring West End productions through the year. Trains from Fenchurch Street to Southend Central take about 55 minutes; the pier railway costs a few pounds and runs daily except in heavy winter weather.