Thames Tributary Goresbrook - Dagenham riverside

Thames Tributary Goresbrook
The brook flows south into the Thames

TQ 4898181794

Heavily industrialised area leading to the riverside with busy working wharves

Post to the north Dagenham
Post to the west Barking Levels
Post to the south Dagenham Dock and Crossness Engines

Chequers Lane
The road is now blocked at the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Line.
Dagenham Dock Station. It lies between Rainham and Barking stations on C2C. A station seems to have been near this site by 1865 on the London Tilbury and Southend Railway Line but east of the junction and there is very little evidence for it. The current station is named after the tidal basin which was built in 1887 and in 1908, the dock company, Samuel Williams & Sons Ltd. financed a rebuild of the station and opened it to the public but on a changed site west of Chequers Lane. The station buildings are in the London Tilbury and Southend Railway’s 1880s style with a rustic air. It is now overshadowed by the motorway and alongside the CTRL line.
Hunts Waste Management
Hunts Diner
Tate and Lyle. Storage depot, part of United Molasses
British Bakeries, part of Premier Foods
Dagenham First Bus Garage. Site previously used by Maskell.
White Mountain Roadstone at No.1, Western extension of the lane
Exide Battery site. Dagenite Works. Pritchett & Gold as Peto & Radford It marketed produced accumulators called ‘Dagenite’ in works, built in 1910, opposite the Ford plant. It was a factor in Ford’s decision to move here. Site is now in use as a trading estate.

Choat’s Manor Way
The road is now mainly on a viaduct having passed over the CTRL
Small patch of salt marsh but much of the area was buried under landfill.

Choat’s Road
Road lies east/west on the line of what was Choats Manor Way. Some, otherwise nameless, roads run north of this.
Thames Gateway Park. Modern industrial units
Around the road is a capped and re-seeded rubbish tip forming a huge mound and the highest point in the area. There are some problems with methane within the tip, and there is some seepage from it at its eastern margin where it slopes to the Gores Brook. There is one central flat section of original grazing land left
Sewage works operated by Romford RDC and closed after the Second World War. The effluent went into the Goresbrook but it the site is now covered by landfill.

Dagenham Marshes
Dagenham Marshes were east of the Gores Brook. In the late 19th the farmers sold ice from here to the Barking fishing companies.

Gores Brook
The Goresbrook and associated ditches and streams form a complex network across the Dagenham and Barking levels.
The brook runs through the Ford works, and the banks here are mown, but there was a diversion to take effluent from the sewage works and also it receives run off from the Ford plant. Past Fords it turns westwards and runs along the railway line, where there are some reed beds, then disappears under the railway and emerges on the Barking Levels.
Island where the main branch of the Gores Brook divides into two arms. It is entirely covered by reeds and Plants here indicate that it is salt water.
The Gores brook enters the Thames through a sluice west of the CEMEX jetty. There is an outfall with tidal sluice gates
A tributary ditch runs along the north side of the railway westwards and a branch of this tributary ditch goes along the boundary of the Scrutton Farm Eco Park.
Run off from the Ford works is sometimes oily and is stored in a twenty metre deep pit, which is sometimes pumped out into the Goresbrook.

Hindmans Way
Modern industrial estate and unit
Oil Depot

Horseshoe Corner.
This was formed by a mediaeval breach in the sea wall. A breach in 1560 caused a still existing reed bed where reeds were grown for thatching.
After 1935 the area was used for coal storage for power stations by Williams & Sons.
The council used the area west of Horseshoe Corner as a tip in the early 1950's until1965. This was probably domestic refuse but it is unclear. To the west dumping started in the 1970s.

Thunderer Road
Named for HMS Thunderer, last big warship built on the Thames and fitted here. She was launched in 1911 and at 22,500 tons was the largest ‘dreadnought' afloat. The specially built Thunderer Jetty at Dagenham Dock was used as she was too big for the Royal Docks,
Thunderer Jetty. TDG Dagenham. Used for ocean-going vessel with an inner barge berth. The jetty has 31 dedicated jetty lines with road tanker loading points, There is a large complex of 200 tanks designed to hold petroleum products, solvents (including flammables), base oils chemicals, and food products. There is a laboratory, for testing, certification, etc,
CEMEX jetty for Dagenham recycling centre.

Sources
Bird. Geography of the Port of London
Grace's Guide. Web site
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Web site
Nature Conservation in Barking and Dagenham
Port of London Journal
Victoria County History of Essex. Barking and Dagenham

Comments

Dominic said…
Dagenham Dock station - much of the 1880s rustic buildings were demolished when the new A13 adjacent to the site was built, and replaced by rather more functional ones. A pity.

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