Entrance to Allhallows Leisure Park

Introduction

The photograph on this page of Entrance to Allhallows Leisure Park by Marathon as part of the Geograph project.

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Entrance to Allhallows Leisure Park

Image: © Marathon Taken: 29 Nov 2012

A footpath leads down from Avery Way in Allhallows-on-Sea through Allhallows Leisure Park to the Thames foreshore. This is the sign at the entrance to the Leisure Park. In the 1930s, the Southern Railway attempted to develop the area around the Thames Estuary as a holiday resort. They opened a short branch from the Hundred of Hoo Railway branch line to Grain. The terminus, Allhallows-on-Sea station, was north of the old village of Allhallows, and the new settlement grew up around the station which had opened on 16th May 1932. The railway named its resort ‘Allhallows-on-Sea’ in all its publicity. Allhallows-on-Sea was planned as the best holiday resort in Europe, and was to have the largest swimming pool in the UK with the first artificial wave generator in Europe, and an amusement park four times the size of Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The planned development never took place, partly because of the onset of the Second World War, and the station closed on 4th December 1961. There is now a holiday park that includes a 9-hole golf course, fresh water fishing lake, and a small entertainments complex with both indoor and outdoor pool.

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