A little while ago I was at the London Cruise Terminal in Tilbury, and got to see something totally unexpected. Attached to the cruise terminal is the abandoned Tilbury Riverside Station.
Opened in 1854, the station was closed in 1992. The current building dates from 1924 and there are a couple of pictures of it in use in the 1950s here. It’s a very cool space with lots of history (see below for a picture of a metal roof beam damaged by a WW2 bomb), and lots of people who remember childhood trips on the train to catch the Tilbury-Gravesend ferry. The railway link was key in transporting people between London and the cruise terminal; the railway now stops at Tilbury Town station a few minutes further away and passengers have to catch a shuttle bus.
In 2012 the Thurrock Gazette published this piece on plans for renovating and reusing the station building and there is more information on the plans here, but the project bid was turned down by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Hopefully one day another source of funding will become available to do something to reuse this amazing space.
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