Southend-on-Sea, England, United Kingdom

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Southend-on-Sea, commonly referred to simply as Southend, is a large coastal town and unitary authority area with borough status in south-eastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary. It is home to the longest leisure pier in the world, Southend Pier.

Southend-on-Sea originally consisted of a few fishermen's huts and farm at the southern end of the village of Prittlewell. In the 1790s, the first buildings around what was to become the High Street of Southend were completed. In the 19th century, Southend's status as a seaside resort grew after a visit from the Princess of Wales, Caroline of Brunswick, and the construction of both the pier and railway, allowing easier access from London. From the 1960s onwards, the city declined as a holiday destination. After the 1960s, much of the city centre was developed for commerce and retail, and many original structures were lost to redevelopment. As part of its reinvention, Southend became the home of the Access credit card, due to it having one of the UK's first electronic telephone exchanges. An annual seafront airshow, which started in 1986 and featured a flypast by Concorde, used to take place each May until 2012.

Southend was granted city status by letters patent dated 26 January 2022 in memorial to the Conservative Member of Parliament for Southend West, Sir David Amess, a long-time supporter of city status for the borough, who was murdered on 15 October 2021. On 1 March 2022, the letters patent were presented to Southend Borough Council by Charles, Prince of Wales.

History Shortly after the declaration of war, the British government began the internment of German citizens and several thousand were held on three ships, the Royal Edward, Saxonia and the Ivernia which were moored off the pier until May 1915. The War Office selected a piece of land north of the town in 1914 for a new aerodrome, with Squadron no. 37 of the Royal Flying Corps moving in a year later. Many soldiers passed through Southend en route to the Western Front. The pier was frequently used to reach troop ships, with the Admiralty stationing a war signal station at the pierhead, and Southchurch Park was taken over as an army training ground. During the war, the public could still walk the length of the pier. As the war drew on, Southend also became an evacuation point for casualties and several hotels were converted to hospitals, including the Metropole into the Queen Mary Naval Hospital. Arthur Maitland Keddie, from the Keddies department store organised day trips for wounded soldiers from the Queen Mary Naval Hospital to Thundersley and Runwell. The town was first bombed by German Zeppelins on 10 May 1915 with the death of one woman, while a second attack happened on 26 May again with one death. Another bombing raid by Gothas took place in 1917 with a further 33 deaths. When peace was confirmed in 1919, official celebrations were organised by the town. A large Naval review off the Southend shore took place, with a twenty-one gun salute being fired on Peace Day on 23 July. The town organised a carnival, fetes and a firework display.

Between the wars After the war Southend continued to grow in both residents and visitors, with many moving out of London to live in better conditions. Its population in 1921 was recorded as 106,050, but as the census was postponed to the summer months due to a planned general strike, it was greatly inflated by holidaymakers. The Corporation purchased three former German U-boat engines to generate power for the tram network, siting them at Leigh, London Road and Thorpe Bay. During 1924, the Sunken Gardens at the side of the pier became Peter Pan Playground, a children's pleasure garden. The pier head was enlarged in 1929 with the Prince George extension, at a cost of £58,000, to manage the increasing number of visitors arriving by paddle steamer. A Southend icon, EKCO, opened their large factory at Priory Crescent on the site of a former cabbage patch in 1930. To cope with the increase demand for housing, estates like Earls Hall were built during 1930, with the Manners Way estate joining it just north along with a new road towards in Rochford in 1937. The London Taxi Drivers Charity for Children completed their first taxi drive to Southend in 1931, with 40 Hackney Carriages bringing children to the town, who were given 6d to spend on the seafront. At the 1931 Census the population of Southend was recorded at 110,790, however the town would grow further by absorbing South Shoebury district and parts of Rochford district in 1933. Southend tried their first autumn illuminations during 1935, following the example set in 1913 by Blackpool. The town became a favourite with motorcycle riders during the 1930s, with the phase, Promenade Percy, coming from this pastime. In the same year, the council purchased land on the Cliffs at Westcliff to build a 500-seater theatre and concert venue to be called Shorefield Pavilion with working starting four years later only to be suspended by the start of the war.

History: World War II Southend became an essential part of the British war machine. In 1939, the Royal Navy had commandeered Southend Pier, renaming it HMS Leigh, with the army building a concrete platform on the Prince George extension to house anti-aircraft guns. The navy also took over the Royal Terrace for its personnel. The pier was used by the navy to help control the River Thames, along with the Thames Estuary boom that was built at Shoebury Garrison during 1939, and organised over 3,000 East Coast convoys by the end of the war. HMS Leigh was attacked by the Germans on 22 November when they dropped magnetic mines and machine gunned the pier, but none of the mines caused any damage and the navy's anti-aircraft guns destroyed one of the German planes. It was the last time there was a concentrated attack on the pier. Southend Airport was requisitioned by the RAF at the outbreak of war, becoming a satellite of Hornchurch and being renamed RAF Rochford. The town was believed to be the most heavily defended place in Essex, ranging from 3+1⁄2 miles (5.5 kilometres) of anti-tank cubes on the seafront, machine gun and anti-aircraft posts, road blocks and barrage balloons.

On 31 May 1940, six cockle fishing boats: the Endeavour, Letitia, Defender, Reliance, Renown and the Resolute were joined by the Southend lifeboat Greater London at the pier on their way to assist at the Dunkirk evacuation. The town itself was first hit by German bombing in May 1940, when the Nore Yacht club was hit while 10 soldiers were killed near the airport. Southend High School for Boys was hit in a raid in June 1940. By June 1940, much of the town was sealed off, with all bar 10% of the population that were engaged in essential services, evacuated and only military personnel remaining. A cordon of 20 miles (32 km) was set up, with the town being designated part of the coastal defence area, but with the risk of invasion dropping, in 1941 it was reduced to 10 miles (16 km). By 28 October 1940, RAF Rochford had been renamed RAF Southend, no longer being a satellite of Hornchurch, although they still had Fighter Control at the base. A day later 264 Squadron arrived for night fighter duties equipped with the Boulton Paul Defiant. In the same month, a bombing raid damaged houses in the Fleetwood Avenue in Westcliff. During 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Shoebury Garrison twice for weapon demonstrations, with the Experimental Establishment carrying out numerous trials of weird and wonderful weapons. An air raid in February 1941 destroyed the London Hotel in the High Street, while the foreshore was often used by German bomber aircraft as a dumping ground for their bomb loads during the war if their primary target was not possible to hit.

In 1942, the area along the seafront from the Pier to Chalkwell was transformed into HMS Westcliff, a huge naval transit and training camp run by Combined Operations. The police helped the Combined Operations Service find the owners of the empty properties so they could requisition properties to billet their staff. HMS Westcliff was officially opened, in secret, by Lord Mountbatten in 1943. The well known jeweller R.A. Jones store was damaged by bombing in October 1942. An amusing moment during the war was Lord Haw-Haw announcing in his radio broadcasts that German forces had sunk the British ships HMS Westcliff and HMS Leigh. The town started to fall under constant V1 and V2 rocket attacks until December 1944, with one hitting the Pavilion on the pier. In 1944, while towing a Mulberry harbour caisson to Goole in Hampshire, it was found to be leaking so it was brought into the Thames Estuary off Thorpe Bay to be checked, but after being left by the tugs, it moved partially into the channel, and without support of the mudflat snapped in half and remains there to this day. Further disaster happened when in August 1944, the liberty ship SS Richard Montgomery, with over 6,000 tonnes of explosive on board, lost its mooring off the Isle of Sheppey, opposite Southend, in strong winds and wedged itself onto the mudflat, breaking its back. Prior to this, HMS Leigh had been the mustering point for 576 ships in June 1944 before they headed for Normandy and D-Day. Force L, the follow up forces that were to follow the initial D-Day invasion force were located at Southend.

Decline and regeneration After the war Southend soon opened up to visitors again, with pier officially being given permission to open by the Home Office in March 1945, although the Prince George Extension was still out of bounds to the public. The Chelmsford Chronicle reported that the public returned in their droves, with 79,000 visitors turning up in the first nineteen days, though it wasn't until 30 September that the pier was officially derequisitioned by the Navy. The town, which had been heavily fortified, slowly started to remove the defences during 1945, however the dust and noise attracted unhappiness with the holidaymakers, with two elderly ladies complaining to the police that it should be stopped while they were on their vacation for the week. Many of the fairground attractions only opened at weekend due many of the men who worked them still being enlisted. It wasn't until 1946 that the town started to return to normal, and by 1949-50 visitor numbers had returned with over 5.75 million visiting the pier alone. The visitors would have used the replaced pier railway, newly installed in 1949, or may have visited the newly opened Golden Hind replica containing waxworks by Louis Tussaud next to the pier. These numbers grew to a peak of 7 million the following year.

Southend would use the Kursaal and Pier as nodal attractions to promote the town to tourists during the 50s and 60s. On 31 January 1953, Southend seafront was affected by the North Sea flood, with Peter Pan's Playground left underwater. However the town was not affected as badly as other parts of Essex. The town however was more joyous in June, with the town holding a week of celebrations to commemorate the Coronation of Elizabeth II. This included an air race at the airport featuring aerobatic displays by supersonic jets, a military tattoo, a coronation ball at the Kursaal featuring Ted Heath and his Music and a grand fireworks display on the seafront. In 1956, the Great Eastern line was electrified which encouraged more Londoners move to the town, further making it into a dormitory town for the capital. On 14 April 1955, Air Charter inaugurated its first vehicle ferry service between Southend and Calais using a Bristol 170 Mark 32 Super Freighter. It was the sign of the future for tourism in the town, with the British public moving from UK holidays to foreign vacations that saw the start of the downturn on for the British seaside towns, though Southend still had strong numbers visiting.

Between 1948 and 1962, it was recorded that 22% of the town's population were working in holiday related industries. The council were concerned that the town was too reliant on tourism and being a dormitory town, that they decided to try and grow the commercial industry in the town, which coincided with plans in central government to de-centralise services, with Town clerk Archibald Glen wanting to re-imagine Southend as the garden suburb by the sea. The Miles Report of 1944 had already identified Victoria Avenue as the perfect location for office development, and the council in 1960 finally started work on a new Civic Centre on land previously purchased to build a new further education college. The Civic Centre would encompass a new police station that opened in 1962, a courthouse in 1966, council offices and chamber in 1967, a new College in 1971 and a Library in 1974. The planned fire station was dropped and was eventually built in Sutton Road. These replaced cramped facilities located in Alexandra Road and Clarence Street. The council in 1960 put forward a redevelopment plan, called Prospect of Southend to central government, to improve both the commercial and retail growth in the town, but the original plan and an amendment, which requested compulsory purchase orders, were both rejected by the Minister for Housing Development and Local Government. Part of the plans included redeveloping the area north of the High Street, which included the Talza and Victoria Arcades, had been discussed with developer Hammerson. Although the plans were rejected by central government, Hammerson started a programme of buying property in the area, and in 1964 the council accepted Hammerson's plans for the site. Hammerson had by this point had purchased 93% of the freeholds, with the council using Section 4 of the Town and Country Act 1962 to compulsory purchase the remaining properties. The development, which became Victoria Circus Shopping Centre, opened in 1970 and saw a large area of much loved Southend demolished.

Further developments put forward by the council included building a ring road around the town centre. First discussed by the council in 1955, plans were started to be developed in 1961, with the electrification of the London, Tilbury and Southend railway line acting as impetus as bridges over the line which were on the route of the planned ring road needed replacing. In 1965, the Ministry of Transport gave the council a grant of £869,986 to the planned cost of £1.2 million to build the North and East sections of the ring road. The council used compulsory purchase orders to buy up many of the properties along the planned route and work started in 1966, with the first section opening in 1967 with the first high pressure sodium street lamps in Britain. The West and South sections of the ring road were never completed. In the same year, work was started on dualing Victoria Avenue to Carnarvon Road, while part of the High Street was pedestrianised by 1968. By this point Victoria Avenue had seen further development, with offices opening along the section opposite the Civic Centre including Portcullis House in 1966, the first offices opened by HM Customs and Excise in the town.

In 1969, Southend-on-Sea Borough Police amalgamated with Essex Constabulary to become the Essex and Southend-on-Sea Joint Constabulary. This merger was campaigned against by the council and the local MPs. The town's decline as a holiday resort continued, with the visitor numbers on the pier falling to a million during 1969-70 and the attraction lost £45,000. The town saw the number of visitors had fallen from the 1950s by 73%, which was against the backdrop of more Brits travelling abroad, growing from just 1.5 million holidays in 1951, to 4.2 million by 1971. The pier slowly began to decline and with it the structure began to deteriorate. In 1971, a child's injury prompted a survey, leading to repairs and replacement to much of the pier railway throughout the decade. In response, the council allocated £370,000 over two years, starting in 1972, to ensure the pier remained maintained, however the pier head burnt down in 1976 and in 1978 the pier railway was closed due to its poor condition. Prior to the pier railway closure, the Kursaal closed the majority of the amusement park in 1973.

The town became one of the earliest to receive an electronic telephone exchange in 1971, and by 1972 Access, Britain's second credit card, opened their offices in the former EKCO site in Priory Crescent. A year later HM Customs and Excise opened the central offices for the collection of VAT. In 1972, Southend Air Museum opened its doors for the first time at Aviation Way. This was against the backdrop of the government planning to build a new airport on Maplin Sands at Foulness Island, which the council purchased a share in the consortium of developers hoping to shape the benefits for the town, but the airport plans were pulled by the new Labour government in 1974. During 1976, plans called Prospects 1976 was released to improve the town's ability to attract holidaymakers, including bastions with facilities at Chalkwell and Westcliff, but they never got off the drawing board.

In 1980, the town's reinvention as a commercial centre had seen it shrug off its tag as a dormitory town for London, however the future of the pier was in doubt and a campaign, which included Sir John Betjeman, pushed the council to keep the pier open. The pier may have been saved, now run by Lecorgne Amusements, but the town lost another attraction in 1983, when the Southend Aircraft Museum closed for the final time. However, in the same year the council put up £800,000 with the Historic Buildings Fund investing £200,000 in restoring the pier. Further invest saw a new narrow gauge railway fitted to the pier, which was reopened by Princess Anne on 2 May 1986. A contract was given to Brent Walker to run the pier in 1986, but in September of that year it was damaged by the ship Kings Abbey, destroying the lifeboat station. Two years later, management of the pier returned to the council. The seafront would see several plans put forward in the late 70s and the 1980s to build a marina on the seafront by numerous developers including Brent Walker, including an artificial island alongside the pier, though the council ended the plans after they were objected to by the RSPB due to loss of intertidal areas for wildlife was deemed too much. Plans were resurrected again in 2020 for a marina off the coast at Shoeburyness. In May 1986, the Southend Airshow was started, featuring a fly past by Concorde, and after the first year where entry was charged by the council, it would grow to become Europe's biggest free airshow. The final show took place on 2012, with the council announcing in January 2013 it could no longer afford to run the show. An attempt to revive the show for September 2015, as the Southend Airshow and Military Festival, failed.

The town started to regenerate its visitor attractions, with the Sealife Centre opening in 1993. In 1995, the owners of Peter Pan's Playground purchased the land East of the pier and started to expand, creating Adventure Island, being rated best-value amusement park in Britain in 2024. The Kursaal, was purchased by Brent Walker in 1988 with plans to redevelop the site as a water theme park, but the company entered liquidation and the site remained empty. The council purchased the Kursaal, and after a multimillion-pound redevelopment by the Rowallan Group, the main Kursaal building was reopened in 1998 with a bowling alley, a casino and other amusements. In 2003, during excavations for a road widening scheme at Priory Crescent, an Anglo-Saxon royal burial was found dating from the 6th century, with a display of the finds displayed at Southend Central Museum since 2019. The road widening was cancelled after a campaign known as Camp Bling. A year earlier there was a slippage on the Cliffs, which saw the bandstand close. The cliffs were stabilised in 2013, with the council planning to build a new museum at the location to host the Anglo Saxon discoveries, as well as the Central Museum and Beecroft Art Gallery, but in 2018 it was abandoned due to rising costs. The town's commercial growth during the 60s and 70s, declined with the departure of many of their former tenants, including HM Revenue and Customs in 2022, and many of the former offices have been converted to apartments.

Economy Tourism is still a key industry in Southend, with over 7,500 employed people in the sector, which counts as 15.9% of jobs in the city. In 2019, it was reported that 253,900 people had stayed, generating £53.4 million while over 7.3 million day visitors had contributed over £308 million to the economy. Rossi's Ice-cream is a famous Southend institution, having existed since 1932.

Aerospace is another key industry. Southend is one of EasyJet's 10 bases in the UK. In addition to flights, Southend has several aircraft maintenance firms including Inflite MRO Services, and in Ipeco, have a former London Stock Exchange listed international aircraft seat and airframe manufacturer headquartered in the city since 1960. In 2024, Ipeco was awarded The King's Awards for Enterprise for promoting opportunity.

Other manufacturing companies based in Southend include MK Electric, who relocated there in 1961 and in 2014 had seen the 100 millionth socket made at the factory, and Olympus UK & Ireland (formerly Keymed), who specialise in medical equipment and have been in Southend since 1969.

Another major employment area in Southend is Financial Services, with NatWest's credit card operations located in Thanet Grange. In 2006, travel insurance company InsureandGo relocated its offices from Braintree to Maitland House in Southend-on-Sea. The company brought 120 existing jobs from Braintree and announced the intention to create more in the future. However the business announced the plan to relocate to Bristol in 2016. The company however as of 2021 is still located in Southend. The building is now also home to Ventrica, a customer service outsourcing company.

Southend has industrial parks located at Progress Road, Comet and Aviation Way in Eastwood and Stock Road in Sutton. Firms located in Southend include Hi-Tec Sports.

As of 2023, large employers (those employing more than 250 people) made up only 0.4% of companies within the city, while micro employers (9 or less employees) make up 90.8%, which is 1.2% greater than the East of England average.

Electricity Southend-on-Sea County Borough Corporation provided the borough with electricity from the early twentieth century up to 1966 from the Southend power station in London Road. Upon nationalisation of the electricity industry in 1948, ownership passed to the British Electricity Authority and later to the Central Electricity Generating Board. Electricity connections to the national grid rendered the 5.75 megawatt (MW) power station redundant. Electricity was generated by diesel engines and by steam obtained from the exhaust gases. The power station closed in 1966 and in its final year of operation it delivered 2,720 MWh of electricity to the borough.

Gas In 1853, a new company, Southend Gas Company, was set up to build a coal gas works to supply Southend. The works opened on Eastern Esplanade in 1855, and helped with the development of the then fledgling town. The company was purchased by Southend Corporation after the First World War, with its own landing pier locally known as Southend Pier Junior. The company was nationalised in 1949 and was transferred to the North Thames Gas Board, who in 1960 added the brutalist Esplanade House to the site as offices. The site stopped producing coal gas in 1968, and the works was demolished. Esplanade House, was taken over by Access credit card operations in the 1980s, but by the 1990s they had moved out and the gas works site remained empty until it was demolished to make way for a Premier Inn in 2014.

Water Southend Waterworks Company was formed by Thomas Brassey in 1865, initially to provide water for the steam engines on the new railway line that opened in 1856, and to which Brassey was involved with. The company constructed the city's first deep borehole in Milton Road, which would be known as Southend No.1 Well, along with a reservoir to hold 300,000 gallons. In 1870, Brassey died, and a limited company was formed to take over the works. In 1879, the Southend Water Bill was passed to incorporate the company to allow it to raise the necessary cash to expand the supply to the growing town, and to be able to charge rates per home based on the properties value. The company created further boreholes in and around Southend, including Vange, where a treatment works was built to soften the water from the five boreholes located in Vange and Fobbing, with a first of its kind lime recovery plant. During 1896, the water supply was tested due to a rising issue with Typhoid fever in the town. The investigation, led by Dr. R. Bruce Low, concluded that the water quality was good, but it was poor sanitation, with issues with the identified with the town's sewer system and discharge onto the beach. The sewer system had been found to be wanting at a previous investigation in 1890 by Dr Thresh, and the town council was investing £35,000 to upgrade and improve the sewers. In 1907, the company's boundaries were extended by the government to incorporate the areas of both Leigh on Sea Urban District Council and Billericay Rural District Council.

By 1920, the limit had been meet by how much water could be extracted from the boreholes in the chalk, and in 1921 a joint application with neighbouring water firm South Essex Waterworks was raised to extract water from the River Chelmer and the River Blackwater at Langford. That scheme was rejected, but a further application resulted in the Southend Waterworks Act of 1924 which was passed by parliament allowed the company to extract river water at Langford. The supply at Langford was pumped to reservoirs built at Oakwood on the Belfairs/Daws Heath border. In the late 1940s, both Southend Waterworks Company and South Essex Waterworks jointly planned a new large reservoir in the Sandon Valley, south of Chelmsford. Work started in 1951, which included the demolition of the hamlet of Peasdown near South Hanningfield. Hanningfield Reservoir opened in 1957 at a cost of £6 million. In 1970, the Essex Water Order was passed by parliament which saw Southend Waterworks Company and South Essex Waterworks merge to create the Essex Water Company. The company became Essex and Suffolk Water in 1994.

Economy: Retail Southend High Street runs from the top of Pier Hill in the South, to Victoria Circus in the north. It currently has two shopping centres. The Victoria (built during the 1960s and a replacement for the old Talza Arcade, Victoria Arcade and Broadway Market) is located at the north end of the High Street. The Royals Shopping Centre is located at the south end of the High Street, was designed by the Building Design Partnership, with construction starting in 1985. The centre was officially opened in March 1988 by singer-actor Jason Donovan. The centre replaced the south end of High Street and Grove Road, and saw the demolition of the Ritz Cinema and Grand Pier Hotel. Prior to the opening, Morrissey filmed the video for his top ten charting track Everyday Is Like Sunday in the centre. Southend High Street mainly consists of chain stores, with Boots located in the Royals, while Next anchor the Victoria. However, since the covid pandemic the amount of empty shops in the city centre has increased greatly, with the High Street being called a ghost town.

A business that started in Southend during 1937 and is still active in 2024 is Dixons Retail, now renamed Currys plc.

The city of Southend has shopping in other areas. The Broadway in Leigh-on-Sea is known for its independent boutiques and coffee shops. Leigh Road in Leigh-on-Sea, Southchurch Road and London Road are where many of Southend's independent businesses now reside. Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff-on-Sea was once known as the Bond Street of Essex, and is full of historical buildings, having been made into a conservation area in 2021. The road hosts the In Harmony festival each year.

There are regular vintage fairs and markets in Southend, held at a variety of locations including the Leigh Community Centre and Garon Park. A record fair is frequently held at West Leigh Schools in Leigh on Sea.

York Road Market Demolition of the historic Victorian covered York Road market began on 23 April 2010, with the site becoming a car park. A temporary market had been held there every Friday until 2012 after the closure of the former Southend market at the rear of the Odeon. As of 2013, a market started to be held in the High Street every Thursday with over 30 stalls, with a further Saturday market being started in 2023.

Transport: Air London Southend Airport was developed from the military airfield at Rochford; it was opened as a civil airport in 1935. The airport was the UK's third-busiest airport during the 1960s, behind Heathrow and Manchester, before passenger numbers dropped off in the 1970s. In 2008, Stobart Group bought the lease for £21 million, becoming part of the Stobart Air division of the Stobart Group, who completed a rebuilding of the airport during 2010. It now offers scheduled flights to destinations across Europe, corporate and recreational flights, aircraft maintenance and training for pilots and engineers. It is served by Southend Airport railway station, on the Shenfield–Southend line, part of the Great Eastern Main Line.

Transport: Bus Local bus services are provided by two main companies. Arriva Southend was formerly the council-owned Southend-on-Sea Corporation Transport and First Essex Buses was formerly Eastern National/Thamesway. Smaller providers include Stephensons of Essex. Southend-on-Sea Corporation Transport had been started by the council as a Tram service in 1901, before moving into Trolleybuses and Motorbuses, before being sold off to British Bus in 1993.

Southend has a bus station, known as the Southend Travel Centre, on Chichester Road, which was developed from a temporary facility added in the 1970s in 2006. The previous bus station was located on London Road and was run by Eastern National, but it was demolished in the 1980s to make way for a Sainsbury's supermarket. Arriva Southend is the only bus company based in Southend, with their depot located in Short Street; it was previously sited on the corner of London Road and Queensway and also a small facility in Tickfield Road. First Essex's buses in the Southend area are based out of the depot in Hadleigh but, prior to the 1980s, Eastern National had depots on London Road (at the bus station) and Fairfax Drive.

First Essex run the Essex Airlink bus service from the Southend Travel Centre to London Stansted.

Transport: Rail Southend is served by two lines on the National Rail network: • Running from Southend Victoria north out of the city is the Shenfield–Southend line, a branch of the Great Eastern Main Line, operated by Abellio Greater Anglia. Services operate to London Liverpool Street, via Shenfield. • Running from Shoeburyness, in the east of the borough, is the London, Tilbury and Southend line operated by c2c. It runs west through Thorpe Bay, Southend East, Southend Central to London Fenchurch Street, either via Benfleet and Basildon or Tilbury Town and Barking. Additionally, one service from Southend Central each weekday evening terminates at Liverpool Street.

From 1910 to 1939, the London Underground's District line's eastbound service ran as far as Southend and Shoeburyness.

Besides its main line railway connections, Southend is also the home of two smaller railways. The Southend Pier Railway provides transport along the length of Southend Pier, whilst the nearby Southend Cliff Railway provides a connection from the promenade to the cliff top above.

Transport: Road Two A-roads connect Southend with London and the rest of the country: the A127 (Southend Arterial Road), via Basildon and Romford, and the A13, via Thurrock and London Docklands. Both are major routes; however, within the borough, the A13 is now a single carriageway local single-carriageway route, whereas the A127 is an entirely dual-carriageway. Both connect to the M25 and eventually London.

Education Southend has a mixture of secondary school offerings. The mainstream secondary schools are mixed-sex comprehensives, including Belfairs Academy; Cecil Jones Academy; Chase High School; Southchurch High School; Shoeburyness High School and The Eastwood Academy.

In 2004, Southend retained the grammar school system and has four such schools: Southend High School for Boys; Southend High School for Girls; Westcliff High School for Boys and Westcliff High School for Girls.

Additionally, there are two single-sex schools assisted by the Roman Catholic Church: St Bernard's High School (girls) and St Thomas More High School (boys).

Higher and further education The main higher education provider in Southend is the University of Essex which has a campus in Elmer Approach, that opened in 2007 and is on the site of the former Odeon cinema. The university has operated from the city since 2003 when they opened a new satellite campus at Princess Caroline House in the High Street. It also operates the East 15 Acting School Southend campus at the Clifftown Theatre.

In addition to a number of secondary schools that offer further education, the largest provider is South Essex College in a purpose-built building in the centre of town. Formerly known as South East Essex College, (and previously Southend Municipal College) the college changed name in January 2010 following a merger with Thurrock and Basildon College.

Additionally there is PROCAT, (an arm of South Essex College) that is based at Progress Road, while learners can travel to USP College (formerly SEEVIC College) in Thundersley. The East 15 Acting School, a drama school has its second campus in Southend, while the Southend Adult Community College is in Ambleside Drive. Southend United Futsal & Football Education Scholarship, located at Southend United's stadium Roots Hall, provides education for sports scholarships.

Secondary and further education The Science and Art Department formation in 1853 had seen the government push for education in art, science, technology, and design in Britain and Ireland. The movement did not arrive in Southend until 1882 when two evening classes were set up at the London Road Schools for Art and Physiology. By 1883 the classes were moved to Clarence Street in a building shared with the council.

The Technical Instruction Act of 1889 and 1891 allowed councils to provide evening classes for technical subjects. The local board set up the Technical Instruction Committee, and soon classes were started at the council offices in Clarence Road. They were extremely popular, and the following year the newly created Southend Corporation purchased further land in Clarence Road to build a Technical Institute. In 1895 the foundation stone was laid, but prior to it opening it was decided to also open a day technical school for about 20 pupils, influenced by the Bryce commission of 1894. The first headmaster was J Hitchcock from Woolwich and was supported by one assistant teacher. A one-day a week art school was opened, which by 1899 was a fully organised art college.

The Day Technical School soon outgrew the Clarence Road site, and in 1902 a new building opened at Victoria Circus to host them, the Evening Technical Institute and the School of Art. In 1907, Essex County Council formed a new Higher Education committee, who decided that education should be split into separate boys and girls schools. In 1912, a foundation stone was laid in Boston Avenue for a new girls school, and a year later the girls left the Day Technical School to the new Southend High School for Girls. The Day Technical School was renamed as Southend High School for Boys. In 1914, Southend became a County Borough, taking charge of all education in the town, including the High School, School of Art and the Evening class institute all located still in the same building. After the war the number of pupils increased, so in 1919 the School of Art moved out of the top floor to make room for the High School, into temporary wooden buildings at the rear of the building. In 1920, The Commercial School was a co-educational school opened for the town's rapidly expanding population in Bellsfield, a former large house located on Victoria Avenue. Two years later, the school's name changed from The Commercial School to Westcliff High School, and by 1926, boys attending the school had moved to the school's present site on Kenilworth Gardens, becoming Westcliff High School for Boys. The accompanying girls' school, Westcliff High School for Girls, remained on the Victoria Avenue site until 1930, following their relocation to the same site as Westcliff High School for Boys. The plans for the purchased land at the corner of Victoria Avenue and Carnarvon Road was changed in 1934 when it was decided to use this as the site of a new town hall.

In 1922, the School of Art grew by adding a School of Architecture The School of Art would become the nucleus of the newly formed Southend Technical and Commercial School. A Junior Technical department was opened at Fairfax Drive in 1929, but moved to Victoria Circus in 1934 to make way for Fairfax Senior Mixed School, and in 1935 the Technical and Commercial school was renamed Southend Municipal College, who took over the whole site after Southend High School for Boys moved to Prittlewell Chase in 1938. The college was restructured in 1963 to include in its teaching commercial and industrial skills for education in courses like plumbing, and renamed as the Southend College of Technology. The college became South East Essex College of Arts and Technology (SEECAT) in 1991, with the college formally merged with Thurrock and Basildon College on 1 January 2010 and was renamed South Essex College.

Sport Southend United is the only professional club in the city. The club was formed in 1906 and has played as high as English football's second tier and three time runners up in the EFL Trophy. It currently competes in the Vanarama National League, after dropping out of the Football League at the end of the 2020–21 season, after 101 years of participation. Southend Manor, the city's other senior club, plays in the Eastern Counties Football League, the 9th tier in the English football pyramid and are based at Southchurch Park Arena.

There are two rugby union clubs in the city, Southend RFC play in London 1 North while Westcliff R.F.C. play in London & South East Premier. The city has formerly been home to both the Essex Eels and Southend Invicta rugby league teams. The Essex Pirates basketball team that played in the British Basketball League, were based in the city between 2009 and 2011.

Essex County Cricket Club previously played in Southend one week a season until the club withdrew in 2011 after 105 years. The Southend Cricket Festival was held at Chalkwell Park and Southchurch Park, before moving to Garon Park next to the Southend Leisure & Tennis Centre. The only other cricket is local. The world record for the highest ever number of runs scored on one day in a male first class match was set by Australia at Southchurch Park in 1948.

The Old Southendians Hockey Club is based at Warner's Bridge in Southend. Previously, the city had hosted Greyhound racing, initially at the Kursaal football stadium, before the permanent Southend Stadium opened in 1933. The stadium was demolished in 1985.

The eight-lane, floodlit, synthetic athletics track at Southend Leisure and Tennis Centre is home to Southend-on-Sea Athletic Club. The facilities cover all track and field events. The centre has a 25m swimming pool and a world championship level diving pool with 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10m boards, plus springboards with the only 1.3m in the UK.

Southend has hosted a half marathon since 1996.

Southend Pleasure Pier Southend-on-Sea is home to the world's longest pleasure pier, originally built in 1830 from wood before being replaced in iron during 1889. The pier stretches some 1.34 miles (2.16 km) from shore into the Thames Estuary and is a Grade II listed building. Sir John Betjeman, English poet and broadcaster, once said that "the Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier". The pier has been home to a narrow gauge railway since 1846.

Kursaal The Kursaal was one of the earliest theme parks, opening in 1901. It closed in the 1970s and much of the land was developed as housing. The entrance hall, a listed building, was redeveloped to house a bowling alley operated by Megabowl and casino in 1998. However the bowling alley closed in 2019 and the casino closed in 2020. The building currently stands unused, and in May 2024, The Victorian Society listed the Kursaal amongst their 10 at risk sites that need rescuing.

Southend Carnival Southend Carnival had been an annual event since 1906, where it was part of the annual regatta, and was set up to raise funds for the Southend Victoria Cottage Hospital. In 1926, a carnival association was formed, and by 1930, they were raising funds for the building of the new General Hospital with a range of events, including a fete in Chalkwell Park. The parades, which included a daylight and torchlight parades were cut down to just a torchlight parade during the 1990s. The carnival has not run since 2020, although attempts have been made to restart the parade, however the accompanying fair returned in 2023.

Cliff Lift A short funicular railway, constructed in 1912, links the seafront to the High Street level of the town. The line runs on the site of a pioneering moving walkway, a forerunner of today's escalator. This was constructed in 1901 by the American engineer Jesse W. Reno, but soon proved noisy and unreliable due its exposed location. The lift re-opened to the public in 2010, following a period of refurbishment.

Other seafront attractions An amusement park Adventure Island, formerly known as Peter Pan's Playground, straddles the pier entrance. The seafront houses the "Sea-Life Adventure" aquarium.

As of May 2024, Southend has four Keep Britain Tidy Blue Flag awarded beaches at East Beach, Shoebury Common, Three Shells and Westcliff Bay. A modern vertical lift links the base of the High Street with the seafront and the new pier entrance.

Festival events The Southend-on-Sea Film Festival is an annual event that began in 2009 and is run by the White Bus film and theatrical company based at The Old Waterworks Arts Center located inside a Victorian era Old Water Works plant. Ray Winstone attended the opening night gala in both 2010 and 2011, and has become the Festival Patron. Southend is also home to Horror-on-Sea festival, again run by the White Bus Company, which was founded in 2013. The festival for independent horror films takes place over two weekends in January.

Since 2021, the city has hosted a Halloween parade in October, while the Leigh Art Trail runs during July. Two events that started in 2022 was Southend City Jam, a street art festival, and LuminoCity, a light festival, however LuminoCity was announced to be cancelled for 2024 due to budget cuts at Southend City Council. The Old Leigh Regatta takes place every September, while Leigh Folk Festival has run since 1992, though it took a break in 2024, returning in 2025. The Southend Jazz Festival has been run since 2020.

Between 2008 and 2019, Chalkwell Park became home to the Village Green Art & Music Festival for a weekend every July, but has not run since 2019 due to covid.

The London to Southend Classic Car Run takes place each summer. It is run by the South Eastern Vintage and Classic Vehicle Club.

The Southend Shakedown, organised by Ace Cafe, is an annual event that started in 1998, featuring motorbikes and scooters, which took a three year hiatus but returned in 2025. There are other scooter runs throughout the year, including the Great London Rideout, which arrives at Southend seafront each year.

Parks and nature Southend is home to many recreation grounds. Its first formal park to open was Prittlewell Square in the 19th century. Since then Priory Park, Victory Sports Grounds and Jones Corner Recreation Ground were donated by the town benefactor R A Jones. Other formal parks that have opened since are Chalkwell Park and Southchurch Hall along with Southchurch Park, Garon Park and Gunners Park.

Part of Southend's foreshore is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, while there are nature reserves at Belfairs and Belton Hills.

Conservation areas Southend has various Conservation areas across the city, with the first being designated in 1968. Nationally Historic England have 124 recorded listed buildings within the city.

The Royal Terrace (originally called the Terrace), built between 1791 and 1793, is one of the few examples of 18th century urban housing in Essex, and was called "Exceptional" in the 2007 architectural guide The Buildings of England. The Terrace has been Grade II listed since 1951. In 1973, the owners of the Royal Hotel at the end of the Terrace, put in planning permission to demolish the public house and replace it, which was rejected.

Southchurch Hall is a Grade I listed Medieval moated house located in Southchurch, built between c.1321 – 1364 with later extensions. In 1930 it was restored and presented to the people of Southend by the Dowsett Family. The Hall was listed in Simon Jenkins England's Thousand Best Houses.

St Mary's Church, Prittlewell is a Grade I listed church that has existed since Saxon times and is the oldest building in the city. Professor Stephen Rippon of the University of Exeter noted in a study "stone buildings in this period were extremely rare, suggesting Prittlewell was a "minister" church of some importance", and the church was mentioned in the Domesday book.

Southend-on-Sea War Memorial is a Grade II* listed obelisk situated in Clifftown, Southend. The structure was completed in 1921 to designs by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner praised the "remarkably subtly proportioned" base and pedestal of the memorial.

The White Hall is a Grade II listed former tennis club house in Clatterfield Gardens in the suburb of Westcliff-on-Sea. The building, along with its neighbouring house were designed by the Head of the School of Architecture at Southend Municipal College, Douglas Niel Martin-Kaye for the Thurston family. The building from 1934, is designed in the International Style and was to be part of a modernist development that failed to materialise beyond the two buildings. The building is now home to the Sunshine Nursery.

Porters is a medieval Manor house. The name comes from the family, le-Porters, who owned the land during the 14th century. The current house was built either in the 15th or 16th century made from red brick, with cross wings at the east and west ends gabled on the north and south fronts. At the end of the 16th century it was rebuilt with the space between the wings being filled in and a porch built on the north front. The property's first recorded owner was Humfrey Browne (died 1592). Between 1833 and 1835, Benjamin Disraeli stayed at Porters on numerous occasions. In 1912, Sir Charles Nicholson purchased the building to save it from demolition, living there until 1932, when it was sold to Southend Corporation who in 1935 opened it as the Mayor's parlour and civic house. The building was listed as Grade I in 1951.

Art, galleries, museums and libraries Southend Museums, part of Southend on Sea City Council, operates two historic houses - Southchurch Hall and Prittlewell Priory, an art gallery - Beecroft Art Gallery, and the Southend Central Museum and Planetarium. The museums service looks after around 50,000 objects including collections of archaeology, natural history, social history, fashion and textile, fine art and photography. Southend Central Museum is the home of the world-renowned Prittlewell Princely Burial artefacts.

Independent museums and archives include The Jazz Centre UK, a jazz cultural centre, that has operated out of the Beecroft Art Gallery since 2016 and Southend Pier Museum, located on Southend Pier.

Focal Point Gallery, based in The Forum, is South Essex's gallery for contemporary visual art, promoting and commissioning major solo exhibitions, group and thematic shows, a programme of events including performances, film screenings and talks, as well as offsite projects and temporary public artworks. The organisation is funded by Southend-on-Sea City Council and Arts Council England.

The Old Waterworks Arts Center operates on North Road, Westcliff in the former Victorian water works building. It holds art exhibitions, talks and workshops.

Metal, the art organisation set up by Jude Kelly OBE has been based in Chalkwell Hall since 2006. The organisation offers residency space for artists and also organises the Village Green Art & Music Festival. The park is also home to NetPark, which claims to be the world's first digital art park.

Southend has several small libraries located in Leigh, Westcliff, Kent Elms and Southchurch. The central library has moved from its traditional location on Victoria Avenue to The Forum in Elmer Approach, a new facility paid for by Southend Council, South Essex College and The University of Essex. It replaced the former Farringdon Multistorey Car Park. The old Central Library building (built 1974) has become home to the Beecroft Gallery and the Jazz Centre UK. This building had replaced the former Carnegie funded free library, that opened in 1906, and is now home to the Southend Central Museum.

Theatres There are a number of theatres in the city proving a variety of entertainment.

The Edwardian Palace Theatre is a Grade II listed building that opened in 1912. It shows plays by professional troupes and repertory groups, as well as comedy acts. The theatre has two circles and the steepest rake in Britain. The theatre was given to the town by its then owner Gertrude Mouillot in 1942 on condition that local amateur groups could continue to use the theatre. A smaller venue called The Dixon Studio was added in the early 1980s after a fundraising campaign by the Palace Theatre Trust led by John F Dixon.

The Cliffs Pavilion is the largest purpose built arts venue in Essex. Plans for a theatre, the Shorefield Pavilion, on the site started in 1935 when the borough council purchased the site to build a 500-seat theatre and concert venue, with work starting four years later on construction but was suspended by the outbreak of World War II. After the war, the site was known as Southend's white elephant until 1963, when work was started on building that could host shows, concerts and private functions. The building was opened by the actor, writer and director Sir Bernard Miles in July 1964, with the first show opening the next day starring Norman Vaughan and his troupe of dancers, the Swinging Lovelies. In 1991–92, the council extended the site, with a new Foyer Bar added and a balcony added to the auditorium, increasing the capacity to 1,600. The venue hosts a variety of concerts, shows and performances on ice, as well as pantomimes at Christmas. Artists that have performed at the Cliffs include Paul McCartney and Oasis, whose live DVD Live by the Sea was recorded at the Cliffs.

The Clifftown Theatre is located in the former Clifftown United Reformed Church and as well as regular performances is part of the East 15 Acting School campus.

Cinema and film Southend has one cinema – the Odeon Multiplex at Victoria Circus which has eight screens. The borough of Southend had at one time a total of 18 cinema theatres, with the most famous being the Odeon (formerly the Astoria Theatre), which as well as showing films hosted live entertainers including the Beatles and Laurel and Hardy. This building no longer stands having been replaced by the Southend Campus of the University of Essex. There are plans to build a new 10-screen cinema and entertainment facility on the site of the Seaway Car Park.

On film Southend has appeared in films over the years, with the New York New York arcade on Marine Parade being used in the British gangster flick Essex Boys, the premiere of which took place at the Southend Odeon. Southend Airport was used for the filming of the James Bond film Goldfinger. Part of the 1989 black comedy film Killing Dad was set and filmed in Southend, while Stephen Poliakoff used several locations in the city to film his 1981 film Bloody Kids.

Southend and the surrounding areas were heavily used and featured in the Viral Marketing for the Universal Pictures 2022 American science fiction action film sequel Jurassic World Dominion, with a number of the featured videos on the DinoTracker website filmed in the Southend area doubling for locations around the world. This is due to the fact that local resident and Jurassic World Franchise marketer Samuel Phillips utilised the area for both videos and imagery.

Culture: Music Southend's primary music venues are Chinnerys, formerly Ivy House, and the Cliffs Pavilion. Chinnerys is a 400-person capacity club which has hosted the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, The Charlatans and The Libertines. The Plaza, a Christian community centre and concert hall based on Southchurch Road that had previously been a cinema, regularly hosts concert performances.

Southend scene Southend has had a nationally renowned rock music scene since the 1960s. The Paramounts had chart success in the early 1960s, before morphing into Procol Harum. During the 70s, Southend was a big part for the Pub rock scene, with Paul Shuttleworth and Will Birch running a pub rock venue at The Esplanade, with other venues like The Top Alex, and influential acts like The Kursaal Flyers and Mickey Jupp. In 1989, an album The Southend Connection was released to celebrate the roots of the genre in the town. Later in the decade, Southend had a big punk rock scene producing notable bands The Machines, The Sinyx and Kronstadt Uprising. Media theorist Dick Hebdige stated that punk originated from "a whole range of heterogeneous youth styles: glitter rock, American proto-punk, London pub-rock, Southend R & B bands, Northern soul and reggae".

In the early 1990s, rock bands such as Understand and Above All had Kerrang! compare the Southend music scene to punk rock meccas New York, LA, Seattle and Washington DC. Between 2001 and 2006, the Southend scene was centered on the Junk Club, which was held in the basement of the Royal Hotel. It was run by Oliver "Blitz" Abbott & Rhys Webb of The Horrors, and the underground club night played an eclectic mix from Post Punk to Acid House, 1960s Psychedelia to Electro. The club was influential and featured nationally in the NME; Dazed & Confused; i-D; Rolling Stone; The Guardian and Vogue. Acts associated with the scene included: • The Horrors • These New Puritans • The Violets • Ipso Facto • Neils Children • No Bra • Ulterior

Videos and songs Southend has been used as the location for several music videos, by artists such as Oasis, Morrissey and George Michael. The city is mentioned in a number of songs including Elton John's track Bitter Fingers, Picture Book by The Kinks, and in Billy Bragg's hymn to Essex, A13, Trunk Road to the sea, a British version of Route 66, where the final line of the chorus is "Southend's the end".

Artists and bands Southend has had numerous bands and musicians that have originated from the town, including: • Busted • Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly • Danielle Dax • Eddie and the Hot Rods • Eight Rounds Rapid • The Horrors • The Kursaal Flyers • Mickey Jupp • Nothing But Thieves • The Paramounts • Procol Harum • These New Puritans • Tonight. • Wilko Johnson

Media: Radio In 1981, Southend became the home of Essex Radio, which broadcast from studios below Clifftown Road. The station was formed by several local companies, including Keddies, Garons & TOTS nightclub, with David Keddie, owner of the Keddies department store in Southend, becoming its chairman. In 2004, the renamed Essex FM, then Heart Essex moved to studios in Chelmsford. It is now part of Heart East.

The BBC Local Radio station that broadcast to Southend is BBC Essex on 95.3 FM from the South Benfleet transmitter.

On 28 March 2008, Southend got its own radio station for the first time which is also shared with Chelmsford Radio (formerly known as Dream 107.7 FM and Chelmer FM before that), Southend Radio started broadcasting on 105.1FM from purpose-built studios adjacent to the Adventure Island theme park. The station merged with Chelmsford Radio in 2015 and became Radio Essex.

Media: Television Southend is served by London and East Anglia regional variations of the BBC and ITV. Television signals are received from either Crystal Palace or Sudbury TV transmitters. The area can also pick up BBC South East and ITV Meridian from the Bluebell Hill TV transmitter.

Southend has appeared in several television shows and advertisements. It has been used on numerous occasions by the soap EastEnders with its most recent visit in 2022. Southend Pier was used by ITV show Minder for its end credits in season 8, 9 and 10, and since 2014 has been home to Jamie & Jimmy's Friday Night Feast. Advertisements have included Abbey National, CGU Pensions, National Lottery, the 2015 Vauxhall Corsa adverts featuring Electric Avenue, a seafront arcade the 2018 Guide Dogs for the Blind campaign and for the promo for David Hasselhoff's Dave programme Hoff the Record.

Places of worship There are churches in the borough catering to different Christian denominations, such as Our Lady Help of Christians and St Helen's Church for the Roman Catholic community. There are two synagogues; one for orthodox Jews, in Westcliff, and a reform synagogue in Chalkwell. Three mosques provide for the Muslim population; one run by the Bangladeshi community, and the others run by the Pakistani community. There are two Hindu Temples, BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir and Southend Meenatshe Suntharasar Temple, while there is one Buddhist temple, Amita Buddha Centre.

The Salvation Army has been based in Southend since 1887.