"The Sad State of the 'Cliffs Pavilion!' Southend on Sea, Essex!

When I popped down to Southend last weekend, I was dying to see the wonderful Cliffs Pavilion, a place I used to dance at as a young child.  I also in the early 1960' visited the 'Cliffs' to enjoy the Saturday morning cabaret shows.  Well, the word wonderful in front of 'Cliffs Pavilion' doesn't exactly spring into mind anymore……for the place, not to put too finer point on it…. is a dump!

 I walked all around it to gather some feel of showmanship and grandeur but could only find, sweet and food wrappers and dishevelment.   It is quite sad to see a place falling down in front of one's eyes… especially when the money is being spent is on less important things.  Where I did see large amounts of money being spent…. is on the extremely large proportions of new road signage and one-way systems.  Goodness, now there's a subject I could get my teeth into, but just so you too get a feel of how ugly the 'Cliffs Pavilion is today…… I have posted up two photos.  Time for a paint job I feel!

This rubbish is right by the entrance to the Cliffs!

Not exactly stylish or classy!

A lovely Sunny Summer Sunday in Southend on Sea. Is this possible?

I know I have kept on about the disgrace of the Southend people and the Council for their hideous attempts at trying to make a silk purse out of a sours ear… (or better should I say, that they had a silk purse and then covered it in UPVC plastic!), so I thought I would show some nicer pictures of Barclay, my dog, in Chalkwell Park.  I haven't ventured into that Park since I was about 11 years old.  Then there was a fair going on over the summer and I had a photo taken with the singer Joe Brown.  Bet, none of you remember who his is??  I didn't at the time but my mother pushed me into his arms and yelled "photo Joe, please with me little girl!).  Joe was more than happy to oblige and for a moment I felt rather star struck.  Not at meeting Joe Brown but because everyone was looking at me whilst I had a picture taken.  I never did get rid of that feeling!

So on this fine, sunny July Sunday afternoon (yesterday) Barclay and I rambled through some of the nicer parts of this very large park.  I ventured into a small glade that had some children playing within it and it was absolutely stunning.  So peaceful and serene and my dog loved the coolness from the afternoon heat.  I took a few snaps and you can see here how lovely it was.  I must go back again sometime…when though … God only knows but soon I hope as Barclay will complain!

The Glade within Chalkwell Park

Barclay enjoying the coolness of the trees.

I then went to visit a very pretty church in Prittlewell and there's the name, Prittlewell Church.  It was a shame I could not get inside but given the roughness of Southend, perhaps it's wise that the doors were locked!  Again, I took some more photos' and these are just as lovely as the Chalkwell Park ones.  It is funny you know…. that when you walk about just in the grounds of such a beautiful location, one can actually believe they are somewhere foreign, Italy, Spain, the Orkneys but never once does the idea of natural beauty resonate or start with the word Southend!

The beautiful Prittlewell Church

So many dumps......So little time!!

I finally managed to get down to Southend today.  It was a beautiful day for a road trip and so I took along my dog Barclay for company.  The drive down was fantastic for a Sunday and the A13 lived up to its expectations of getting all the smelly traffic out of London as quickly as possible and onto the beaten track for Tilbury.  I saw some great motor bikers on the trip down who turned of at Laindon, so whatever was going on there, I do hope they had a great time.

                                                 Whoo...Hoo......What a way to ride!

It wasn't until I was on the Hadleigh Roundabout coming onto the London Road that the feeling of gloom hit me.  I was met with all the Second Hand Car Dealerships that line the road laboriously until you feel you have seen every type of naff signage a town could offer.  That length of road has to be the most ugly for tourist to see, from Hadleigh to Southend Town Centre you are hit with ugly signage, empty shops and buildings and a Theatre with a great ugly banner donning the latest production!  It all screams….get me the f**k outta here!

So, I therefore decided to turn off at the Leigh on Sea coastal Road that can lead you to the old cockle sheds near the station.  I didn't venture over to the sheds but continued along the quiet road going east, until I could go straight into Leigh on Sea High Street and look at an old building where I used to dance in my childhood.  It used to be called the Leigh on Sea Community Centre, now it is a college.  It's the horrible white naff PVR doors on the building that brought the lump to my throat.  Where on earth does everyone think that these actually look good or are aesthetic to any Victorian building they inhabit.  I took a few photos for nostalgia but felt empty inside when I looked for the other building along the high street I also used to dance in…..and that now was an empty space of bulldozed bricks.

I then headed on into Southend and would visit my old schools.  One of them was all locked up…..my Secondary School.  Not too sure why given that it's a pretty dull place.  But my Primary School was wide open and I had a field day taking shot after shot of all my old class rooms and looking at the building that held so many memories for me.  I felt a tear in my eye, and yes, I really did well up, much like I am now… for it was still the same… but different.  Yes, it was tired and old and knackered and the school had decided to spend thousands on a plastic new wing onto the end of the building rather than paint the doors.  But, it was my old school and for this particular moment, I was going to let Southend off with a light smack for having turned a beautiful old Victorian School into…..well, let me think….nothing great!  I haven't put any photo's in of my school as those a kinda private but you can look at the ones below to see just how awful my trip turned out to be when looking for some beauty.

                                                  London Road, Chalkwell.  Lovely!

                                                      Nice Shop Front!

                                           This is close to the Roots Hall area!  

                                            Stunning!!

Sadly, I had other places to visit and Southend didn't let me down in showing me the cronic decay that the High Street and surrounding area's had to offer!  Take at look above at what you see coming into the area of the Theatre near Chalkwell Park.  I rest my case!!

More tomorrow..............x

Time for a Visit!

Over the last week, I have been visiting websites and blogs and noticed that the information from many of these other sites regarding Southend-on-Sea, portray only the 'usual' info or photographs of the most obvious sites.  The civic centre, the train station, the seafront and all it’s bountiful surrounding’s i.e. the beach, the playgrounds and the amusements.  Very little information or detail has been taken of the back side of the town and I am therefore going to visit my old homestead next weekend with my camera and try and capture the side of Southend that could really do with rejuvenation and for certain hands to be dug deep into the pockets of the establishment for change.

Maybe, I will see that a lot has definitely changed, or maybe I will see that Southend-on-Sea never really was a place of natural beauty to begin with.  But, looking at all the old Victoriana images and records that relate to a time when it really was a place to be seen in…. I need to understand why the council and it’s resident’s allowed it to be turned into the carbuncle it became in the 1970’s and still remains as such today!

As you are aware I left the area in the very early 1980’s and left skid marks in doing so…. so why the sudden interest in blogging it or returning to it?  Well, mainly because I have opened up the can of worms within my home here in London, which began with a big box of sepia prints along with black and white shots full of family gazes.  Most of my paternal family grew up in the surrounding areas of Southend or Ilford and the maternal part of my family grew up abroad.  With this is mind, it is hard to imagine why a woman from one of the hottest countries in the world, would want to reside in such place, and of course that part will also be investigated.  It is hardly the Bahamas of the East End!  Whilst challenging my mothers' decision, I will also read her diaries and see how strange it must have felt to land on such bleak, cold shores from such blue seas and look at the most common of folk eating fish and chips!

The Victorians built Southend into a wonderful, prosperous image of stunning buildings and hope for many to enjoy the waters of elixir in the Estuary.  When looking at the shots and noting how a council could rip the heart out of such a thriving architectural beauty needs to be understood.  I will delve into the archives of the Council archives and library's and hopefully see what inspired the people of the 1970's to pedestrianise and cull the inner heart of it's town.

I show you a photo of Lonsdale Road a road stones throw away from where I used to live.  It shows how village like it was before the plastic facades and cheap tacky shop fronts took there hold.  The overkill of concrete and steel seemed to have found it's way into every nook and cranny that could be bulldozed over.  Now Southend is littered with the same ugly shops that we see in every town centre.  Cheap £1 stores, cheap clothing stores and even more cheaper food stores.  There is not a delicatessen or private owned business raising it's head amongst the naff boutiques.  The spacing between the left hand side of the high street over to the right hand side has a space a 50 ton truck could drive through and still not touch an item.  There are no trees or plants of any noticeable pleasure and the atmosphere so needed to raise spirits or hopes for the young…..is amply missing.

Time to bring this town to book!

What is this??   From 2006 this £400,000 monstrosity has blighted
the view of the sea along with the blighted Council's mind's!
"How did the people of Southend let them get away with this!"

I can remember when heading towards the entrance to Pier Hill, to make your way steeply downhill to the many shops of trinkets, amusements and candy floss stalls, was to be one of the most exciting moment's of a little girl's life.  The adrenaline rush was of such a high for one of five years old, that it's feeling would have to last me for the rest of the wintery months.  It was the grandeur of the place that had me in awe…. the large hotels and the glamorous people who had such style, made you feel that you were entering a world of fairyland!  The noise, the smell and that fact that it belonged to us, us 'Southender's' made any child of any age, Mum's and Dad's as well, dream that every day could be like this even when it was raining!  Those feeling's sadly were not to last for long!

Pier Hill.... the Entrance to the Seafront Esplanade....why so Ugly?

This has got to be one the ugliest designs of concrete you could get! 

I can remember quite vividly when I left my hometown of Southend-on-Sea, for the bright lights of London, way, way back in 1982.  It was a decision I had actually made whilst at the age of 5 years old, living in Rylands Road and doing dance lesson's at Maylin Dance School at St. Luke's Church.  When the day eventually arrived for me to pack my bags and go….I was more closer to twenty.  When I was five, the decision had been an easy to make…. I was in love with the movies and believed that was were I could obtain a life of glamour and success.  Dancing and singing on the stage and wishing I could be in the films like my heroes at the time.   We had of course the wonderful RITZ cinema down at Pier Hill where my father had taken me numerous of times and when recalling it now, I still in my head, cannot believe it no longer exists!  What idiot decided that to remove this wonderful cinema, was of a benefit to the people?  I will find out of course.

Whilst I rant, coming into my adolescence, was of an exact scenario……I was aghast over the years at the demolition of beautiful buildings, hotels and the lunatic thinking of putting in place, the pedestrianised shopping area right through the middle of the town.  Why?  This decision, of course had to include two major roads one, burrowed under the area and another circling around the area.   Both of these roads were ugly, cold and have major expense.   Southend was beginning not to grow in beauty; it was just beginning to grow in concrete.  The developers must have been rubbing their hands with glee, both then in the 1970's and just as importantly now with all the new developments recently made to shops and travel areas.   Southend is once again left with more ugliness, more money spent and less effort on design, aesthetics, planting and the collaboration of the Southend people as to what they actually like!

"My blog over time will give you my own views on the damage to Southend on Sea, from the Victorian age, up until today's date.  I will express my personal feelings on how things could have been done so differently in so many areas, and where they could have been improved instead of a bog standard respite to ease the masses"

Can Southend-on-Sea Get Back to Being a Beautiful Town Again?

So many shops look like this in Southend

And another one!

Why do all the shop facia's have to look like they were painted by kids?