Southend Pier stretches 1.34 miles out into the Thames Estuary from the centre of the seafront — the longest pleasure pier in the world. The original wooden pier opened in 1830; the current iron one in 1889. It was built so long because the Thames mud here exposes vast intertidal flats at low water, and the pier had to reach the deep channel where steamboats from London could moor.
You can walk to the end (about 25 minutes one way) or take the Southend Pier Railway, a narrow-gauge electric line that runs the full length of the pier from a small platform near the shore. At the far end are a lifeboat station, a café, a small pavilion that hosts occasional events, and views back across the estuary to Kent and out to the Maunsell sea forts on the horizon. The pier is at its best on a clear, breezy day; in fog it becomes a peculiar, atmospheric place, with the shore disappearing behind you.