Walking the Essex Coast - Grays to Rainham

The plan for this year is walk around the coast of Essex, or as much of the 3oo miles that is accessible. By Essex, I mean the ceremonial county of Essex which includes Thurrock and Southend which aren't part of administrative Essex. For this reason my walk starts on the Aveley marshes. If I wanted to walk around the coastline of the traditional county of Essex I would have to start at the mouth of the river Lee about ten miles upstream. However we are still waiting for the Thames Path Northern Extension to join up Island Gardens with Rainham Marshes. This means that despite living less than a mile from the mighty river Thames I can't walk by it in my old home town.

I picked a cold grey day in January to make a start walking from Grays to Rainham, a distance of eleven miles. Most of the route is industrial taking you past oil depots, factories and freight ferry terminals. Not very pretty but very accessible.

The highlight of the day was the visit to St Clements Church, always isolated from its parishioners hidden among the marshes, is now cut off by the railway and surrounded by factories. The church is where Gareth's funeral took place in Four Weddings etc. It is now in the care of Proctor and Gamble and I was very lucky to bump into the security guard who let me have a look around. Apparently it has connections with the Knights Templar, so I'm surprised Dan Brown hasn't been around looking for buried treasure.

On the way to the QE2 bridge there is an enormous graffitti wall and I met a couple of official artists at work, otherwise I didn't see a soul for about four miles. Less official graffitti artists have been at work on the bridge itself as one of the piers is accessible at low tide. The next town after Grays is Purfleet, site of a large gunpowder magazine, now a Heritage centre. Purfleet is separated from RSPB Rainham by a strange water feature that necessitates a half mile detour inland, although it looks as if a bridge is being built.

I had a rest at the RSPB cafe where I was hoping to enjoy a nice bacon sandwich but got a sausage one instead. The route from Purfleet to Rainham is a familiar one as it forms part of the London Loop and the last part along Havering River path was one our family's favorite Sunday afternoon walks, when falling into the Thames meant almost certain death, according to my mother. Aveley Marshes were formerly Army shooting ranges and now form part of the RSPB nature reserve. The foreshore is also accessible at this point and the views are quite extensive on a clear day.

On leaving Essex, the first thing you pass in Havering is a landfill site filled up with London rubbish brought by barge. On the day I was walking it was giving off the distinct smell of camphor like a Vics vapour rub. The landfile site is being landscaped and may one day become a country park. The only other thing of note on this stretch is the old wartime barges that were used as flood defences before the Thames Path comes to an abrupt halt just past the Tilda Rice factory. Alas here we wait for the path that should take us all the way to Olympic village.

It's about a mile back to Rainham from the Thames through a very unlovely industrial estate and over a enormous footbridge that crosses the Eurostar line to the 103 bus that carried me home.