THIS week in Down Memory Lane we look at the transportation of cement from Thurrock by river.

The Tunnel Portland Cement Company Works, at West Thurrock, was once the bedrock of employment locally, alongside other similar cement works. The natural resources for cement manufacture were prominent in the area.

Chalk was abundantly available in West Thurrock and clay in South Ockendon and Aveley, although river clay was also used from the Thames off Canvey island and brought in by Thames barges.

Once the mixture of clay and chalk had been made in to a slurry it was put through the red hot rotary kilns and turned in to a clinker, this was then crushed in to dust and poured into a range of containers for transport.

Cement for local distribution and short storage life went in to paper sacks (Essex Paper Sack Company was situated next door to the factory, employing women to sew the multi-layered paper sacks).

However, cement for export was put into wooden barrels and a cooperage was on the site.

My featured painting, from a souvenir catalogue of the company made in the 1930s, shows a view out on the Tunnel Jetty, where a Thames barge is being loaded with barrels, perhaps being taken to other docks to be loaded on cargo ships travelling all over the world.

The Tunnel Portland cement Company Logo shows a tunnel entrance (perhaps made of cement), but strangely the first works here in West Thurrock was dug from ground once occupied by Tunnel Farm.