The London Stones and The Yantlet Line

Guest post by BK

Where does the river end and the sea begin? Seasalter and Whitstable always seem to be more part of the Swale Estuary than the North Sea, unlike Herne Bay which I would say was definitely sea. On the other side, Leigh-On-Sea, despite its name, seems decidedly esturine. Fortunately, we do have an official definition for The Thames and that is The Yantlet Line.

The Crown held the rights to fish within the UK until 1350. Licensing and the charging of duties on these rights provided The Crown with a good source of revenue. Richard I had run up huge debts financing his crusades, and so in 1197 he had to sell fishing rights in The Thames to The City Of London to raise money for the Third Crusade, showing that even 800 years ago The City was the place with the real money. These rights ran from the then tidal limit at Staines in the West to the start of the North Sea in the East.

These boundaries were marked by stone columns, the first thought to have been erected around 1285, whose replacements still stand today. The eastern boundary is marked by columns at Upnor and Grain in the South and Southend to the North. The line between Grain and Southend is called the Yantlet Line and marks the official end of the Thames Estuary. It is still used today in official documents regarding the jurisdiction of bodies such as The Port Of London Authority.

The Yantlet Creek ran between the Thames and The Medway and was a busy shipping channel from Roman times for boats travelling between the two rivers. It ran right through the Hoo peninsula, and so created the Isle of Grain. The decline in river traffic has led to its becoming silted up and so The Isle of Grain isn’t really an island anymore.

There are two stones at Upnor, an ancient one and its Victorian replacement. They are next to   The Arethusa Centre, a training and adventure centre for children. It is named after HMS Arethusa, the last British ship to go to battle under sail. Its figurehead is displayed outside, having recently been restored after being eaten by wasps.

The column in Southend is known as The Crow Stone and stands on the beach/mud at the bottom of  Chalkwell Avenue. It was erected in 1837 to replace an earlier stone that now stands in Priory Park. So officially, Leigh-On-Sea is actually Leigh-On-Thames but Westcliff-On_Sea is OK.

The Grain column stands on the East side of the mouth of the Yantlet Creek and so is inaccessible. The best way to get near to it is to walk from Allhallows.  Allhallows-On-Sea (yet another optimistic misnomer) is a park of fixed holiday homes, which seem to be in permanent residence, that is all that left of a grand plan to create a state-of-the-art holiday resort near to London in the 1930s.

I parked just outside and walked through the gatehouse without any problems from the security guard. I think that there may be a right of way. When you reach the ‘sea’, you then turn right and there is a very pleasant walk along the top of the flood defences with the river on one side and the marshes on the other until, after a couple of miles, you reach the creek. At this point you can see the column and a larger structure designed to mark the mouth of the creek for navigation, but you cannot get further without crossing the creek and there does not seem a way of doing this.  Intrepid souls with a good pair of wellington boots might try at low tide.

The land to the east of the creek was once part of the Grain Firing Point. This was an extension of the MOD’s artillery firing range at Shoeburyness intended to test long-range guns, such as those for battleships. The shells would be fired over the sea and land in the Maplin Sands. This activity wasn’t always popular in Essex. The Southend Standard reported in 1925:-

‘On the previous Tuesday evening The Borough was again subjected to heavy bombardment from the Isle Of Grain within the space of a few minutes an appalling vibration swept through the district.’

The site is now closed but access is still forbidden due to the dangers of unexploded ordnance.