The Thames Boom

A Copy Free Feature

An Eastwards walk along the cliffs at Minster on the Isle-of-Sheppey from where you can view shipping in the dredged approach channel to the River Medway, and beyond the Yantlet channel into the River Thames

1. Looking east, Minster beach from the Leas

2. Minster beach, Looking west towards the Leas

3. Remnants of the Thames Boom from the cliffs with Southend tower blocks & pier beyond

The inshore area known as 'The Cant' is channel is marked by beacons which run west to east & is littered with WWII debris, wrecks

4. Note: Offshore dredged Channel Buoys

Other remains include the Thames Boom, a defence made from old ships strategically sunk in a boom across the Estuary from Minster (Sheerness) to Shoeburyness

5. Wreck remnants of the Thames Boom from the cliffs

This was primarily to control shipping movement in the early years of the Cold War

6. Remnants of the Thames Boom from the beach

Surviving sections of the Boom extend seawards from the beach, in an emergency the open central channel section would have been blocked by old ships & hulks moored close by

9. Original five hulk mooring poles go out from the shore for some distance

The Boom originally extended into the deep water shipping channel, across & slightly north of Shoebury East Beach, to the mean low water mark where around 2km of wrecks remain

12. Barges, redundant small craft, wooden hulks all were used to make the Boom

13. Shipping moving Westwards into the Medway

14. Return to the Leas

15. Minster foreshore at sunset

16. Yet more debris

August 2008