Before I ever set foot on Canvey Island I’d thoroughly explored this dead flat offshoot of the Thames Estuary’s Essex shore in my imagination – washed up there on the tides of Wilko Johnson’s gritty lyrics and Lee Brilleaux’s gravelly bark.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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If the tough-looking, fist-punching Brilleaux was the voice and face of Dr Feelgood, Canvey Island’s crunchy home-grown R&B band, guitarist Johnson was its heart and soul, with a unique song-writing talent for depicting the mean streets and hard men and women of a place he called ‘Oil City’. It wasn’t the real Canvey Island, but it was a real enough place to me and thousands more fans of the ‘greatest local band in the world’.
Setting out across Benfleet Creek to walk a circuit of the Canvey seawalls, I found myself immediately in acres of green marshes where piebald horses grazed and skylarks sang overhead. This western sector of the island houses one of the most diverse bird reserves in Britain – marsh harriers over the reedbeds, lapwings in the fields, curlews on the muddy foreshore – more RSPB than R&B.
Where was the Feelgoods’ Oil City? I looked ahead and saw the burning flare stacks and mad scientist’s geometry set of Shell Haven oil refinery across the creek. Further round the island a giant black jetty, remnant of a never-built refinery on Canvey itself, rose out of the fields and hurdled the mud flats of Hole Haven to curve into the River Thames. ‘I’ve been searching, all thru’ the city,’ growled Brilleaux on Dr Feelgood’s debut album, ‘see you in the morning, down by the jetty.’ Here it was, as skeletal and ominous as I’d always imagined.
Now the Thames lay in full view, nearly two miles wide, the green and yellow escarpment of the North Kent shore rising on the southern skyline. A great concrete sea wall fifteen feet high keeps the tides out of Canvey these days – it was built after the East Coast flood disaster of 1953 when the island, lying below sea level, was inundated and 58 people lost their lives.
I followed the sea wall under the jetty and on above the white weatherboarded Lobster Smack pub, a notorious haunt of smugglers back in the day, where Charles Dickens had Pip and Magwitch hiding out in Great Expectations. On along the Thames shore among sunbathing Canveyites; past the Art Deco cylinder of the Labworth Café; round the eastern point of the island, a maze of ramshackle wooden jetties with a glimpse of Southend Pier far ahead.
The northern side of Canvey is all saltmarshes and creeks. I strolled the seawall path and hummed the tunes that brought the ‘Canvey Delta’ to life in my imagination, back when the Feelgoods ruled the world.
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START: Benfleet station, South Benfleet, Essex (OS ref TQ 778859).
GETTING THERE:
Train (www.thetrainline.com) to Benfleet
Road: M25 Jct 29; A127, A130 to Waterside Farm roundabout on Canvey Island; left on B1014 to Benfleet.
WALK (14 miles, easy, OS Explorer 175):
From Benfleet station turn left along B1014 onto Canvey Island; turn right (west) along the sea wall and follow it, and the outer edge of the island, anti-clockwise all the way round.
LUNCH: Lobster Smack PH, Haven Road (01268-514297; thelobstersmackcanveyisland.co.uk)
ACCOMMODATION: Oysterfleet Hotel, Knightswick Road, Canvey Island (01268-510111; oysterfleethotel.com) – friendly, welcoming and very helpful.
Dr Feelgood Exhibition: 10-29 May; Canvey Club, 162 High Street; free entry. Free guided walks: 10, 17, 24 May; 10.30, Lobster Smack Inn, Haven Road
Visitor Information: Southend-on-Sea TIC (01702-215620); www.visitessex.com.
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk