Canvey Island

[Broucek]

We visited Canvey today to see Canvey Wick - an industrial site turned into a nature reserve. When driving back we passed a Station Road but as far as I know there's never been a railway on Canvey Island.

Does anyone have an explanation?

Thanks!

 

[Gloster]

There appears to have been a monorail promoted by a Mr Hester around 1902, although I don’t know the area so can’t check the route. It didn’t last long.

Source: a webpage about ‘The First Essex Monorail.’

Up to now I thought that the only place with a station road that never had a station was Chobham. There was a branch planned and it is even thought that they put up a station building.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

There appears to have been a monorail promoted by a Mr Hester around 1902, although I don’t know the area so can’t check the route. It didn’t last long.

Source: a webpage about ‘The First Essex Monorail.’

Up to now I thought that the only place with a station road that never had a station was Chobham. There was a branch planned and it is even thought that they put up a station building.

Frederick Hester proposed to build a seaside resort at Canvey Island, part of which was a tramway which was to be funded by the sale of plots of land.
He temporarily opened a horse-drawn monorail (along the route of the proposed tramway) in 1901.
In 1904 work began on the tramway and power station, but at that point the land flooded and potential buyers walked away.
Four electric tram cars arrived from Brush, Loughborough, but were returned unused. The monorail was dismantled (still in 1904) and the tramway route sold off to raise money to pay the contractors.
(Source The Tramways of East Anglia by R.C.Anderson and J.C.Gillham)
Like @Gloster I'm not familiar with the area, but looking at maps it appears that Station Road runs either parallel to or actually upon the tramway alignment, so I assume the name refers to the monorail/proposed tramway terminus.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Might this carriage once have run along the said Canvey Island tramway? Link is to a pic of an old 1900s era tram car body found in the back garden of a derelict bungalow on the island in 2015.

Tram Trailer

NowondisplayintheTransportMuseum

www.canveyisland.org

 

[AlterEgo]

As always, https://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php
Is your friend!

See also “Station Approach” at the north end of the line marked in yellow.

 

[Harpo]

I was tempted to mention Canvey in the thread about stations with dual names as it was ‘Benfleet for Canvey Island’ in the same way that Laindon and Pitsea had ‘for Basildon’.

Canvey had lots of day trippers in the past and there were trains outstabled at Benfleet to start there in it’s heyday.

 

[Broucek]

Thanks guys - I had no idea! So much great knowledge on here.

Funnily enough we commented on the high sea wall - makes sense if the area is vulnerable to flooding!

 

[Harpo]

Funnily enough we commented on the high sea wall - makes sense if the area is vulnerable to flooding!

Lots of the flat stuff in that area was reclaimed by Dutch engineers four centuries ago. Much of Canvey is around 2m below normal high tide level.

 

[Magdalia]

Funnily enough we commented on the high sea wall - makes sense if the area is vulnerable to flooding!

Canvey Island was one of the places worst affected by the 1953 flood see here:

Memories of 1953 flood live on in Canvey Island

Memories of the 1953 East Coast flood live on in Canvey Island, where 59 people were killed in a North Sea storm surge.

www.bbc.co.uk

When floods devastated large parts of the East Coast in 1953, Canvey Island in Essex was one of the places that bore the brunt.

Fifty-nine people died and 13,000 were evacuated from their homes after floodwater inundated the island on 31 January.

Parts of the reclaimed island in the Thames estuary lie below sea level, meaning the town must be ever-vigilant against the threat from the sea.

Sixty years on, a large sea wall protects the island but memories of the floods live on.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Might this carriage once have run along the said Canvey Island tramway? Link is to a pic of an old 1900s era tram car body found in the back garden of a derelict bungalow on the island in 2015.

Tram Trailer

NowondisplayintheTransportMuseum

www.canveyisland.org

It doesn't appear so. Four cars were delivered but were returned without being used. Two went to Llandudno and Colwyn Bay whilst the other two were cannibalised for spares; the body of one later became a cricket pavilion at an unknown location. The Canvey cars didn't have the small top lights above the windows.
From the only photo I've seen the monorail used an open-top vehicle.