Northfleet Harbour Marina ( Ebbsfleet International 's marina) please visit our new website http://www.northfleetharbour.org.uk/

Northfleet Harbour Restoration Trust has been set up to reverse the decline and decades of neglect of Northfleet Harbour and to bring it back into use, we will be looking to reopen the harbour to the River Thames by creating an opening in the flood wall that cuts across the entrance, once open the harbour will be home to employment, boat repairs, historic sailing ships, marina services, heritage interpretation, education and much much more.

The below gives a flavour of a truly unique historic asset which when restored will create a much needed maritime centre on the lower reaches of the Tidal Thames, currently the Lower Thames has very limited resources with no public slipways, small boat repair facilities, walk on walk off public landing stages, fueling, victualling, historic ship moorings, this Historic Harbour's restoration would change all that.

If you would like to help see this valuable but forgotten harbour back in use for boat repairs, training, education, marina usage, clubs, youth, historic vessels, traditional boat building, sail making, heritage, tourism and I am sure the list could go on, please get in touch and lend your support to Northfleet Harbour Restoration Trust, contact Conrad Broadley 0756 219 4757 broadley@btinternet.com. or visit http://www.northfleetharbour.org.uk/

Now is also time to register any interest in use whether as business,historic ship, community enterprise or leisure mooring.

The aims and objective of this newly forming Trust are at the bottom of this page, please any feedback most welcome.

Robins Creek in Northfleet is the site of the historic Northfleet Harbour and is an ideal location for what could be a very attractive and usable marina. It is less than 5 minutes from Ebbsfleet International Railway Station and just five minutes drive from the A2 and M25 with very good road links.

The historic harbour restored as a marina would be accesible at almost all states of the tide and could potentially be accessible at all states of the tide depending on the design of the lock gates needed. The location on the Thames would allow a very welcome stop off for travellors en route to London allowing them the ability to stop over, visit Gravesend or Paris then return to their boat and either leave on the low tide to go to London or leave at highwater to go to Ipswich or the continent.

All that is needed to deliver this facility is leadership and some imagination which is where the Trust steps in, we aim to work with all stakeholders secure vital space for marine based infrastructure and activity and reinstate Thames access.

The below picture is Northfleet Harbour as it is now in June 2011, cut off from the Thames by the sea wall flood defences and as a consequence this important historic harbour with its public slipway at the end of College Road has been allowed to silt over and become over grown as the below shows. The factories to the left of the picture have recently been demolished with the prospect of a mixed use development coming forward, the Trust is keen to work with the developer, the Port of London Authority, Gravesham Borough Council and the Environment Agency to help restore the harbour and restore some maritime pride to the area. (nb The little round dot shown in the middle of the picture surrounded factory building and highlighted by a red square is the William Aspdin beehive kiln a scheduled ancient monument)

This picture taken in the 1960's shows the huge scale of the site prior to it being shut off from the river and allowed to overgrow, it does not take a huge leap of imagination to see how easily this could be reinstated, regeneration in the true sense of the word, all the harbour walls in this picture are still 100% intact and could be used tomorrow if the tide could come in.

The following pictures show the current sea wall blocking off the historic harbour from the River Thames and on the right what a lock gate could look like if installed. (nb The example shown is a lifting sill)

This is the West sea wall of the closed off harbour, it is not hard to envisage sailors over the last two centuries climbing that ladder in the middle of the picture to access the docks here, there is no reason why we could not bring this all back into use with the investment of a lock gate or raising the walls by 3-4 feet all the way round the harbour..

Northfleet Harbour Restoration Trust

The aims and objectives of the Northfleet Harbour Restoration Trust are as follows;

1. Restore full use and access to the Historic Northfleet Harbour and its historic slipway.

2. Reintroduce spawning fish into the River Fleet and reopen the culvert along Thames Way between Ebbsfleet football Ground and the Railway line.

3. Celebrate the very rich and hidden heritage of Northfleet Harbour area by opening it up to the public and providing interpretation and educational resources. To enable this we will ensure a full archaeological investigation to explore the potential Roman and Saxon use of the harbour associated with the recent finds at Ebbsfleet, as well as to fully understand and interpret the modern industrial history from armaments and cement through to shipbuilding

4. Restore the Northfleet Mill Pond to create a vital environment to promote biodiversity, fish spawning as well as increasing the flood storage capacity of the River Fleet in the rare (& possibly unlikely) event that it should be needed.

5. Restore the 18^th Century tidal mill, this will perform several functions, it will aid the migratory fish’s transit, control water levels, provide interpretation for a valuable heritage asset and allow electricity to be generated for the use of the harbour and to feed into the national grid.

6. Provide a base for organisations like The Marine Volunteer Service, and Sea Scouts to operate from, promote educational resources for both heritage marine and boat building skills.

7. Create a base for historic vessels and ship builders and repairers, The Kenya Jacaranda has expressed an interest as I am sure would the Cambria and many other sailing barges that struggle to find a base on the Thames with the lack of space available.

8. Create much needed employment for the residents of Northfleet, there are no end of studies demonstrating the amount of work generated by ship and boat repairs and other marina service industries.

9. Create a marina the size of Gillingham Marina with pretty much full tidal access 24hrs of the day (the Gravesend Canal Basin is only accessible 2hrs a day and is less than a fifth of the size of the huge Northfleet Harbour)

10. Provide the only such facility between Ramsgate and London Docks (not even Greenwich has such an exciting and useful offer) and thus a much welcomed and much needed stop off point.

11. Provide an attractive destination for restaurants, shops, pubs and clubs and a major tourist destination as part of the neighbouring regeneration scheme.

12. I am sure the list could go on; Gravesham was once the marine capital of the Thames in the Victorian era and could quite easily be so again once Northfleet Harbour is back in use.

The following site gives a bit of background to Northfleets Historic Harbour

http://www.northfleetharbour.org.uk/

This link shows some of the rich heritage associated with the land in the vicinity

https://sites.google.com/site/riverthamesheritageopportunity/9-northfleet-riverside-heritage-trail

All enquiries to Conrad Broadley BSc Hons Dip Mgmt MIET

Phone 0756 219 4757 Email broadley@btinternet.com

Current research is uncovering the importance of this historic harbour to the early development of the cement industry, the following extract from wikipedia gives an idea of the key players, what is now coming to light is how much still survives of the harbour from these early years as both were linked very closely, the brick built harbour wall probably dates at the same time as the Aspdin beehive kilns, the brick sluice would have been in use at the time of James Parkers roman cement & hydraulic cement production, the other concrete walls will date from the earliest cement manufacture through the Victorian era.

The Romans first began to dig chalk from the area, but the making of cement came later. The industry requires plentiful water supplies, and chalk as its main ingredient, both of which were to hand. When in 1796, James Parker set up kilns on Northfleet creek to make his Roman cement, it was the beginning of a large complex of cement works along this stretch of the river.^[2] The manufacture of Portland cement began in April 1846 when William Aspdin, son of Joseph Aspdin, its inventor, acquired Parker's works and built new kilns.

Aspdin's works became Robins & Co in 1853, sold on to the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers (APCM) in 1900, which was taken over by the Lafarge Group in 2001. By 1900, there were nine cement works operating on the Thames between Swanscombe and Gravesend. The last remaining cement plant in Northfleet will cease operation by end of 2008 (extract from wikipedia)

Anyone with any knowledge of the early cement history would be most welcome to join us in this research and help complete the missing jigsaw in the development of the worlds most important building material.

please visit http://www.northfleetharbour.org.uk/ and give us your support

Chalk flint clay quarrying lime gravel sand

<script type="text/javascript">

var _gaq = _gaq || [];visit

_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-17991761-1']);

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {

var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;

ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';

var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);

})();

</script>