Sunday 23rd May 2021
The Crowstone’s copper plate – now turned green – records that it was erected in 1836 and marked the seaward limit of the River Thames as then controlled by the City of London, and that it replaced a stone of 1755, both standing together until the more aged of the pair was presented by the Port of London Authority to Southend Corporation in 1950 for preservation in Priory Park.
When raised at Westcliff 210 years ago this stone (now retired in land) also took the place of an earlier limit-mark. The Crowstone stationed alone on the foreshore is, in fact, one of a number to have occupied the same site, or one close by, and merits inspection in that it bears testimony to London’s conservancy of this eastward reach of the Thames as exercised over a period of almost seven centuries.
(source: Southend Timeline)
