Port of Tilbury

The Port of Tilbury stands on the north bank of the River Thames in Essex, forty kilometres downstream of London Bridge. It occupies a sharp bend where the river narrows to seven hundred and thirty metres and the surrounding land was once marsh. The original docks were built in the late 19th century to give deep-water berths for larger ships that could no longer reach the older docks near the City. Three branch docks—East, Central and West—extended from the main basin, and two dry docks lay between the tidal basin and the main entrance lock. The port’s importance grew when the East and West India Dock Company opened the Tilbury extension in 1886. A new lock, a third dry dock and later a mile-long branch dock were added in the 1920s and 1960s by the Port of London Authority. Container handling began in 1967, and the grain terminal opened in 1969. A memorial near the Dockmaster’s office remembers Captain Peter de Neumann, killed in 1972. Rolf Harris visited in 2004 to recreate Turner’s painting at the docks. Visitors find wide quays and long dock walls lined with cranes and warehouses. The London Cruise Terminal, rebuilt in the 1990s, handles cruise ships for Ambassador Cruise Line. Nearby, the old station building now serves luggage retrieval, while the river front offers views of deep-water berths and the working port.