The River Thames
From Source to Sea

Thames Estuary

Tilbury Fort Sign

Tilbury Fort over looks the River Thames
Looking towards London, Gravesend is on the left and the fort is on the right.

Tilbury Fort was built to protect the approach up the Thames to London from enemy ships. Replacing an earlier Tudor fort, it is one of the largest and best-preserved examples of seventeenth-century military engineering in England. It is now an English Heritage visitor attraction.


The ornate Water Gate of Tilbury Fort was built in 1683.		Fort with Tilbury Power station in the background.

Temporary fortifications existed on the site of Tilbury Fort during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to guard the Tilbury to Gravesend Ferry. The first permanent fort, a two-storey D-shaped blockhouse, was built during the reign of Henry VIII to prevent enemy ships sailing up the Thames to attack London. The narrowness of the river at this point brought ships close to the shore where guns were ranged along the river’s edge.

Map of Tibury Fort
Reconstruction drawing of the fort as it might have appeared in 1725.

In 1588 Elizabeth I visited her army camped near the fort in preparation for the expected invasion from the Spanish Armada.

Tilbury (Essex) Gravesend (Kent)

Westminster Bridge		David Beckham
London Eye		Thames Barrier
Waterloo Bridge		Woolwich
Blackfriars Bridge		Darford Crossing
Southwark Bridge		Tilbury
London Bridge	X	Tilbury Fort
Tower Bridge		Gravesend
Towards Greenwich		Southend-on-Sea
Canary Wharf		Isle of Grain
Greenwich		Sheerness
Millennium Dome
		Summary - from source to sea

Start of Voyage down the Thames	Contents Page	Introduction
Facts about the Thames	Flooding	Thames Basin
Pollution	Erosion	Tributaries
Industries	Rivers Homework Help pages