Grays is a Thames-side town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, sitting on the north bank of the river about 30 kilometres east of central London. It is a working town rather than a tourist destination, but it has a few things worth stopping for if you are passing through or exploring the Thames estuary.
Grays Beach Riverside Park offers pleasant walks along the river with views across to Tilbury Fort on the opposite bank — one of the best-preserved artillery forts in England, where Queen Elizabeth I famously addressed her troops before the Spanish Armada in 1588. The State Cinema, a striking 1938 Art Deco building on Clarence Road, is one of the finest surviving examples of its type in Essex, though it is no longer in use as a cinema. Just north of the town centre, the Grays Thurrock Chalk Pit is a Site of Special Scientific Interest that has yielded Ice Age mammal fossils — mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave lion — and is now a small nature reserve.
On the western edge of town, Chafford Gorges Nature Park is a 200-acre former quarry reserve managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust, with chalk grassland, orchids, and reptiles in a surprisingly dramatic landscape. The town is well connected by rail, with c2c trains reaching Fenchurch Street station in central London in about 35 minutes.