Gravesend

We are keeping to the Kent bank of the Thames Estuary as the river reaches Gravesend, beyond the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford. The town is now greatly expanded inland, but the core of this ancient port is still recognisable around the two piers and the Georgian parish church. Here, in a view now much changed, the photographer looks east towards the town piers and jetties.
An extract from from"Down the Thames Photographic Memories".

Anchored off Gravesend is the torpedo gunboat HMS ‘Gleaner’, built at Sheerness Dockyard in 1890 and sold off in 1905; by that time the faster torpedo boat destroyer, later abbreviated to destroyer, had superceded it. Sheerness, founded in 1665, closed in 1960, and Chatham Dockyards, founded in the 16th century, in 1984, finally severing the Royal Navy’s connection with the Thames Estuary.
An extract from from"Down the Thames Photographic Memories".

By the early 1890s, the Fiume Whitehead 18-inch torpedo had a range varying from 440 yds to about 900 yds. Close-range torpedoes could carry a warhead of about 220 lbs of gun cotton and travel at about 32 knots; long- range torpedoes carried a lighter warhead and at travelled at a slightly slower speed. When the Chilean ironclad ‘Blanco Encalada’ was attacked and sunk by two small boats armed with primitive torpedoes, the world’s navies began at last to take the torpedo seriously. The idea that small and relatively inexpensive, highly manoeuvrable, fast attack craft had the potential to wreak havoc amid a squadron of very big, very slow and very expensive ironclads, called for counter measures. One was the close-range quick-firing gun; the other was the first-class torpedo gunboat. HMS ‘Gleaner’ cost £63,798, and was completed at Sheerness in 1890. Displacing 735 tons, she was armed with 1 x 4.7-inch QF and 4 x 3-pdr QFs. Her speed of 20.1 knots meant that she could intercept most torpedo boats in service in 1890, though by 1892 the French were already planning 30 knot attack craft.
An extract from from"Victorian and Edwardian Maritime Album".

Gravesend has two Victorian piers: the Royal Terrace Pier of 1843 lies to the east of the slightly earlier Town Pier we see in this view. Reached via a cobbled yard in front of The Three Daws pub, and visually obstructed by the high sea wall, the pier is somewhat run down, unlike the Royal Terrace Pier. The Wealdway long distance footpath now starts here.
An extract from from"Down the Thames Photographic Memories".

The impressive facade of the Hotel Metropole, with the Ship Hotel next door, faced the end of the Jetty to greet the thousands of holidaymakers who travelled down on the paddle steamers. In the foreground is a ‘guess your weight’ machine, where you only paid if the proprietor guessed your weight correctly. He could do this by cleverly adjusting the weights to his advantage. Six houses to the left was the lodging house of Mrs Sophia Booth, where J M W Turner stayed between 1827 and 1851. From here he painted watercolours of golden sunsets over the sea to the west and the misty dawns to the east. Between 1939 and 1945 the Hotel Metropole and surrounding properties were demolished as part of the town’s Fort Road Improvement Scheme. The area as it was before demolition can be seen in the aerial photograph on pages 8-9. Three acres of rundown cafes, souvenir shops and a wooden arcade were cleared, and a new dual-carriageway swept down the hill offering a clear panoramic view of the sands and bay.
An extract from from"Margate Town and City Memories".