Roman Excavations on Canvey have unearthed a collection of early man-made objects comprising axes from the
Neolithic era, and Iron Age pottery. The remains point to a community existing with a farmstead, a garrison, a burial ground, and the operation of a large salt-making industry (revealed by the existence of several
red hills). The discovery of a
Roman road found to terminate across the creek in neighbouring Benfleet suggests a means may have existed to facilitate the salt's distribution to
Chelmsford and
Colchester,
'Counus Island' In 1607 the
Elizabethan antiquarian William Camden noted in his work
Britannia (a topographical and historical survey of all of
Great Britain and
Ireland) that Canvey Island (which he called
Island Convennon) was documented in the 2nd century by the Alexandrian geographer
Ptolemy.), so any similarity between the names is mere coincidence. Without any suitable island matching Ptolemy's Counus Island, 20th-century historians White and Yearsley posit the documented island to have been lost or reduced to an insignificant sandbank by subsidence and the constant effects of the sea. Apart from the meat and wool produced from the sheep, the milk from the ewes was used for cheese-making. The period of transition from
Old to Early
Middle English often give rise to confusions of
orthography, leading, in this instance, to such variant spellings as
Canefe,
Kaneweye,
Kaneveye and
Koneveye. By the 12th century, Essex and subsequently Canvey were in the possession of
Henry de Essex who inherited the land from his grandfather, Swein, son of Robert fitz Wymarch. During the reign of
Henry II (1154–1189) the land was confiscated from de Essex and redistributed among the King's favoured nobles. The uniform flatness of Canvey suggests that these hills are likely to be the
red hills of the Roman saltmaking industry, or the early makeshift sea defences constructed by some of the landowners around their farms. In 1622,
Sir Henry Appleton (a descendant of John de Apeton) and Canvey's other landowners instigated a project to
reclaim the land and wall the island from the
Thames. The scheme was managed by an acquaintance of Appleton's – Joas Croppenburg, a Dutch
haberdasher of
Cheapside in
London. An agreement reached in 1623 stipulated that in return for inning and recovering the island, the landowners would grant a third of the land as payment for the work. It is believed that the peril of the
mudflats below such shallow waters off the Canvey Island coast prompted the
Romans to devise some form of beacon as a warning in the area. In 1851 a hexagonal lighthouse was constructed by the engineer
James Walker, a consultant lighthouse engineer at
Trinity House at the time. This all-iron lighthouse replaced a
lightship which had been moored in the area for the preceding four years. The lighthouse was demolished in 1957–1958 because of its poor condition.
Bare-knuckle boxing The Lobster Smack Inn saw many bare-knuckle fights in the 1850s. Sometimes the bouts were between local families, the best known being that between champion
Ben Caunt and Nat Langham. The fight arose from a family feud and Caunt took Langham to 60 rounds in September 1853. Langham was knocked down 59 times during the bout and because, it is said, of his sportsmanship Caunt agreed to settle their differences with a handshake.
Preventive service Historian Philip Benton reported about Canvey Chapel in 1867: "The seats are open and unappropriated, except one, which is set apart for the officer and the men under him of the Preventive Service; there being a station on the island for nine men, an officer and a chief boatman." The Preventive Men had their own special row of cottages close to the seafront near the old Lobster Smack Inn. That ancient pub was itself described by
Charles Dickens in
Great Expectations. So out of the way (and therefore the haunt of smugglers) was the inn behind the sea wall, in the 18th century it was known as 'The World's End'. In the 19th century, the isolation made it an ideal point for the meetings of pugilists. The row of Preventive Men's Cottages has survived against the odds. Today they are surrounded by a small housing estate.
Seaside resort During the
Victorian era Canvey became a very fashionable place to visit, and its air was promoted as having healing properties. This started in 1899, after the Black Monday floods, when an entrepreneur called Frederick Hester bought Leigh Beck Farm, and started what was to be called Southview Park estate. The properties sold very quickly so Frederick bought more plots of land, selling them as dream homes for London's Eastenders. Hester wanted to create Canvey as a great seaside resort for Londoners, and so built the first promenade, a pier and a magnificent winter garden and palace, which he planned to cover six miles (but only covered a mile), as well as a monorail system (initially horse-drawn then later electric). Also, concrete barges were used extensively just off the south coast of the island, partly as a sea-barrier and also as a mounting point for anti-aircraft guns. A concrete barge which had been beached on the east end of the island, remaining for many years as a point of interest for visitors and a play area for many generations of the island's children, was however not part of these defences and had been brought there by the Island Yacht Club, who have since demolished it as it was considered dangerous. Along with the
Coalhouse Fort at nearby
East Tilbury, Thorney Bay on the southern coast of the island was the site of a
degaussing station built to monitor the effectiveness of the equipment on board the allied ships passing along the
Thames. The structure is the last intact degaussing station on the north side of the river, and was still operating in 1974. Known as the Canvey loop, the building was occupied by the
Women's Royal Naval Service and used for monitoring merchant ships. The building has since been re-opened as a museum dubbed the "Bay Museum" and has
First World War exhibits on the ground floor and
Second World War exhibits on the first floor. An anti-aircraft battery was located at Little Gypps, called "TN7 Furtherwick" with had six gun emplacements. The site, known as the Gunny by locals, was designated a scheduled monument in January 2001. The
Commonwealth War Graves Commission records four civilian residents of Canvey Island Urban District died as a result of enemy action during the war.
Floods of 1953 On 1 February 1953, the infamous
North Sea Flood hit the island during the night and caused the deaths of 58 people. Many of the victims were in the holiday bungalows of the eastern Newlands estate and perished as the water reached ceiling level. The small village area of the island is approximately two feet (60 cm) above sea level and consequently escaped the effects of the flood. This included the Red Cow pub, which was later renamed the
King Canute in reference to the legend of the 11th-century Danish king of England commanding the tide to halt with the sea lapping at his feet. The King Canute pub was closed in May 2014. In 2016 a scheme to convert the building into retail space and apartments was proposed. After the flooding of 1953, a new seawall was built, which was then replaced with a significantly larger construction in the 1970s and 1980s, which was formerly opened by
Princess Margaret in April 1984.
Petrochemical industry The southern area of the Canvey Island West ward at Hole Haven has predominantly existed as
petrochemical site since the first construction of an
oil terminal there in 1936. In 1959, as part of a pioneering Anglo-American project designed to assess the viability of transporting
liquefied natural gas overseas, a gas terminal with two 1000-tonne storage tanks was constructed at the site alongside the oil terminal. The gas terminal built by the British Gas Council was designed to store and distribute imported gas to the whole of Britain via the facilities at Thames Haven and the local refinery at
Shellhaven in
Coryton. The first delivery of 2,020 tonnes arrived on 20 February 1959 from
Lake Charles, Louisiana, by a specially modified
liberty ship Normarti renamed the
Methane Pioneer. The success of seven further deliveries over the following 14 months established the international industry for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) by sea, but the discovery of
oil and gas in North Sea limited further British development. Canvey continued to receive 50 shipments of LNG per year from Arzew Algeria in the
Methane Princess and the
Methane Progress, until about 1982, British Gas closed the site in 1994. In 1964 the Italian company Agip Ltd were given an industrial development certificate to build a £15 million oil refinery in the north west of the island. The refinery was never built. In 1972
Occidental Petroleum began construction of an
oil refinery. Access roads, about 20 oil-storage tanks, a river jetty and a concrete chimney were constructed, but work was halted in 1975 pending a major design study review following the oil crisis of 1973–4 and
OPEC's increase of oil prices. On 28 March 1973 planning permission was granted to United Refineries Ltd to develop a site to the north of the Occidental refinery site for the construction of another oil refinery. An exploratory public inquiry was held in February/March 1975 into the possible revocation of the planning permission for the United Refineries development. The report of 30 April 1975 recommended revocation and further expert evaluation of the totality of risks facing people who lived in and around Canvey. In March 1976 the Secretaries of State for the Environment and Employment asked the
Health and Safety Commission to investigate the risks to health and safety of various installations on Canvey and the neighbouring part of Thurrock. The Commission invited the
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to carry out an investigation. From the
Canvey Report (1978) the following hazardous installations were identified: In 1978 the HSE concluded that the residents of the island faced a risk more than five times higher than those in neighbouring South Benfleet. On 27 July 1978 Castle Point District Council asked the Secretary of State "to revoke the planning permission granted to United Refineries Ltd in accordance with his Inspector's recommendation at the exploratory inquiry in 1975". The issue of risk was again highlighted in an attack by the
IRA in January 1979 on a storage tank at the island's
Texaco oil terminal. A bomb was detonated at a tank containing aviation fuel, but failed to ignite with the fuel escaping into a safety moat. The Occidental site was abandoned in 1975 leaving a half-built oil refinery, storage tanks, and an unused mile-long jetty that cost around £10 million of the approximate total of £60 million spent on the project. However, in the following years the disused and undisturbed site flourished as a haven for wildlife, and in 2003, the final storage tanks were removed in a clean-up operation, and the site was renamed as Canvey Wick and opened as a nature reserve. In September 1997, the celebrity
steeplejack Fred Dibnah was hired by
Safeway supermarkets to demolish the unused concrete chimney that was part of the abandoned oil refinery. Safeway had planned for the 2,500-ton chimney to be demolished on 18 September in front of a large crowd of invited guests. This would have been the first time Dibnah's demolition technique of pit props and fire (without explosives) had been attempted on a concrete chimney and it was also the tallest chimney he had ever attempted to fell. However the chimney unexpectedly collapsed the previous day whilst Dibnah and his team were making the final preparations for the controlled demolition; no-one was injured by the collapse. The incident is described in detail in various biographies and by Dibnah himself in his public speaking events afterwards. Dibnah later presented Safeway head office staff with brass paperweights (made from material salvaged from the chimney) stamped "The Great Canvey Island Chimney Disaster 1997".
The sites today Calor Gas Ltd now operate the former British Gas site. The site imports, stores, bottles and exports liquified petroleum gases (LPG), propane and butane. There were plans in 2005–7 to convert the plant back to the import of liquified natural gas (LNG) but the planning application was rejected. Oikos Storage Limited now operate the former London & Coastal Wharves Ltd. The site offers a bulk liquid storage facility for refined petroleum products. Neither of the refineries proposed in the 1970s were completed or commissioned. The Occidental site was demolished and the tanks removed, though the former river jetty is still extant, and was nominated for the Design Museum's "Lesser Known Architecture" display in 2013. ==Geography==