It’s so tragic to see this once great nation in a state of total decline . We have been sold out by traitors and criminals . Unless there is radical change it’s only going to get worse .
@@IStOLeuRAnDomS Nah go back to the 70s and the strikes and it was way worse before Thatcher, but I am not a fan of Thatcher anyway. From a personal view it was labour in 1997 who have done much more damge to the UK than anyone else to destroy the country, I absolutely dread another 4 years of them, as much as I dislike the tories.
I grew up in Southend. It has really gone downhill in the last 20 years. In the 80s and 90s it was a great place to live. Every shop was occupied. There was virtually no homelessness and there were loads of nightclubs. Every night of the week there was some club night going on. But, they've all closed down. Even the most famous club, Tots has closed. Its now the King Pin bowling alley which you might have seen in your drone shot from the car park behind the seafront. To be honest, it has improved a little over the last year or so. New shops have opened, but there are far too many takeaways and phone shops. This year we hosted the largest Street Art festival in Europe for the second year running and it was a massive success. I still live in the area, just not in the center. After viewing many of your other videos, my opinion of the town/city has gone up a lot. It still deserves to be on your list, but it is improving and there are plans to greenify the high street. Maybe worth a revisit in the future.
@@housinauthority5258 That's why all the clubs closed. They're more interested in gaming and becoming UA-camrs. That and the law changed to allow pubs to stay open longer.
I deliver stuff round Grays/Tilbury area quite a lot and the reason the area is choked with traffic isn't the M25 as such, it's the stupid interchange between the M25 and A13 and all the trucks trying to get round the nightmare (the slip roads are always at a standstill) caused by so many things being in a small space: the junctions themselves (not just M25/A13 but also M25/A1306, i.e. the old A13), Thurrock services, the Lakeside shopping centre (which has a lot of out-of-town big-box stores round about), several industrial parks around Grays and Purfleet, three lots of docks (Purfleet, Tilbury and London Gateway) and the oil depots off the A13. Then there are the other big towns: Basildon, Southend, even Chelmsford. Although the official London-Southend route is the A127, that road is old and slow and has side turnings and farm accesses while the A13 is almost a motorway; the A127 also runs straight into the Eastern Avenue, a slow 1930s suburban dual carriageway, while the A13 is pretty fast most of the way to the North Circular and even the Docklands (one pinch point at Alfreds Way). So all the traffic trying to get round the junction 30/31 traffic nightmare clogs up the local roads around Grays and Tilbury. Not the trucks -- most of the roads have weight limits -- but the cars. The M25 traffic stays on the M25.
@@keithgriffiths9864whilst I agree, theres something different about tilbury. The people “tilbs” mostly embrace its reputation and become part of the fabric. It has its own language, dress style etc 😂 (former tilb)
Very few houses in tilbury are flat roofed and I don't come across any gangs there - an extremely biased and inaccurate view the town has been badly neglected by Thurrock council, who have used it as a dumping ground for unwanted families from london - local resident's are very friendly
Actually, the dog is a bitch, and bitches squat to pee, she's peeing not crapping lol, you can tell by how she's squatting. I should know, I have one :) :P
Thank you for not tearing Jaywick apart too bad. With all the negative press the poor place has received over the years it has made the locals annoyed by those passing judgement but also the sense of community i saw was massively inspiring. Also its not just Essex that has used Jaywick as a dumping ground, i met people from all over the UK (Liverpool, Manchester, London, Lincoln, Great Yarmouth and more!) My mate moved there back in early 2000s and that was right into the worst part. He introduced me to loads of people there from all over the UK and all with tales to tell of previous hardships. I live in a small Northern Essex town and was amazed at how nice, respectful and friendly everyone was to me. They treated me like a local the first time i met them and were ALL lovely people. I was a little on edge initially after hearing about Jaywicks reputation and the fact that a little before i visited someone had been killed by being run over (possibly repeatedly and certainly purposely!) I soon learned that the `victim` was a suspected paedophile that had received some street justice! But i needn`t have worried as everyone was great and friendly. I really hope the government starts to actually look after Jaywick and its residents, they deserve some love!
I’ve lived in jaywick for for 38 years- love it and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I was born in grays. True what he says . Lakeside done it in . Was a nice town when I was a child. From what I hear it’s awful now.
@@splodge57They built the world's longest suspension bridge so people could escape Grimsby quicker. The problem is that it leads to Hull. Choose your poison.
Every time my wife and I visit Clacton we remember that we said "never again" on the previous visit. We have now finally learned our lesson, but it's a shame - it was fun 60 years ago when I was a kid.
Was surprised you didn't mention Bas Vegas when talking about Basildon. The name locals call Festival Leisure Park, a sort of out of town leisure park built in early 2000 (I think) with restaurants, bowling alley, multi screen cinema, night clubs etc. Fine during the day but would absolutely avoid at night unless you want trouble!
Basildon new town was developed after WW11 because a lot of Londoners were homeless because of the blitz, my parents and us 3 kids followed their extended family in 1955 from a two bedroom, no hot water, no heating, run down house and no job for Dad on his return from the war in Carshalton to a 3 bedroom house with running hot water and heating with the promise of work, lots of factories sprung up giving everyone the opportunity to work, it was a wonderful place to grow up with plenty of green spaces and safe clean streets, schools, doctors etc, the lack of long term vision by the local councils and greedy developers ruined the place by throwing up cheap, bland housing estates (one was nicknamed Alcatraz it was that bad) to cope with the sudden rise in population in 80s and 90s so the pride people had in their town started to decline, luckily I was offered a two year visa to work in Australia and never came back.
So glad Tilbury was number one. I had a friend who lived there, and every time I got off the train to see her, I always got a depressing feeling, the whole town always feels so grey. Fun fact: there is a pub in Tilbury called The World's End. It's located right by the old fort. This pub is not frequently used by locals because it is a 15-minute walk. Most of them give up after 5 minutes of walking this is based on personal experience.
I visited Tilbury many more times than I realised . Tilbury Riverside for the ferry across the River to catch the train to the North Kent Coast for many years as a kid where steam trains halted and cruise liners moored at the jetties , Tilbury kart circuit ( long closed ) and the World's End pub ( once a Bass Charrington house with a decent pint ) as a late teen and adult and Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts as a reenactor . I was quite surprised that this was actually a town as I never thought of it as anywhere people would actually live , shop and enjoy the normal amenities a town would offer . I guess I missed its heyday sadly and should of taken time out to discover more of its delights apart from those I mentioned ...
I spent the first 20 years of my life in Essex - just not the Turdtowns areas. I could spot most of the candidates a mile away, although (fortunately) Harlow is the only one I was anywhere near, and why anyone would want to live in that concrete carbuncle is a mystery that not even Miss Marple, Inspector Morse and Sherlock Holmes could solve if they all pooled resources.
We have Stevenage in Herts, blame them for Harlow 'coz they invented the New Town by looking at the Garden City 2 junctions north up the A1 and thought: "you know what would be great? Something like this designed entirely with a set square and built out of pebble dashed concrete. I mean, how else are we going fill it full of chavs?".
@@darthwiizius I'm fairly sure I went through Stevenage once... and fortunately I've never had to go there again. About all it'll ever be famous for is Lewis Hamilton. Harlow was a blight on my sight and mind for far longer.
@@baronthorsteinn Well a member of Jethro Tull comes from Stevenage, a friend of mind hangs out with him. I know the -chav infested shithole- town too well, I come from the aforementioned Garden City.
Was a medical rep so went all round Essex and the contrast between different areas is stark. Been to all these places many times but the ultimate lose your will to live feeling was in South Ockenden. (Just North of grays) soulless place.
Essex is a compound of all the failings of the UK over the last 30 years. Mismanagement and underfunding run rampant, while house prices remain absurdly high due to the locality to the city and, as such, ever-more housing developments threaten to bring towns on the commuter lines to bursting point. It needs serious investment if the seriously overstretched services are ever to catch up with the burgeoning population.
Used to live in Clacton and some of the places you showed were around the corner from where I resided. Even then Jaywick was considered as a Turdtown but at least it had an open air market at the time. I have to say though that some of the friendliest people you could wish to meet live in those chalets. I can say from experience that they all might not have much but they will help out their neighbours if they have it.
Yeah I live near and my parents used to live in Jaywick. It's apparently got a real community around it where people help each other. Beach is nice too, during the summer :P
I grew up visiting Harlow regularly as my Nan lived in Altham Grove, thought it was a nice place with local shops at the Stow and a playground in the park. Went back a few years ago and it was unrecognisable to me, visited the crem to bury my Dads ashes and some kind soul broke into my car. Not sure I'll be going back again.
Back in the old days, 70s it was a good place to grow up in. I used to visit my cousins who lived there and always lovely local shops, etc. We used to go up to the town centre on a Saturday and the place would be rammed. Us kids used to hang around Woolworths, in the photo booths, pick ‘n’ mix, go down the market, have burgers in the wimpy bar. I was so jealous of my cousins living there, as I lived in the back of beyond. They seemed to have everything on their doorstep, even a riding school and there were lots of green places. It used to have a country show each year in the town park and even a carnival. I loved visiting my cousins and begged my parents to move there, but they never did. Harlow offered so much to families back then. There are still lots of green spaces, trees and despite what you say, there is a lot of history there. The original Harlow, now has become Old Harlow and all the little hamlets which Harlow was built around are still there, but they have been incorporated into the New Town fabric, swamped. When I stayed with my cousins, Harlow was always referred to as Harlow New Town. Do your research a little more on the towns you so despise. There are always good points somewhere along the way and had you bothered to venture outside of the town centre, you would still see lots of trees everywhere, green areas, little copses and the town park is a real gem. Society has changed so much and don’t forget, it is always people who ruin a place. With the right combination of people - no drug addicts, drunks, thieves, people who continue to live off the State - every area can look lovely.
As a Grays resident i cracked up. Description was spot on. Moved here originally as it was closest thing to London I could afford. It kind of grew on me but unfortunately there is no saving the littering and dirtiness from a lot of the locals.
As a born and bred local to Grays, I escaped about 15 years ago, and even then it was well on the way to being a complete shite hole. It was killed stone dead when the final shops all disappeared over to Lakeside (I remember M&S closing and it being a massive issue); Woolies was literally the last hope and when you're in that state it's basically doomed. The cherry on the sewage is the complete incompetence and MASSIVE corruption of the council, which of course washes over into Tilbury as well.
@@richiedd4119 Yuuuuuup African, Pakistani, Ukrainian/Romanian with a few of the old schooler Englishmen and women. Hoping to move to Oxfordshire in 2 months !
@@peterharper3861 Yes! Christ Thurrock council literally has not fixed some major dangerous things like falling walls and brickwork, hazardous tree overgrowth etc and they are cranking up the Council Tax price (of course) as part of the CoL crisis. I think this type of corruption is pretty widespread in England unfortunately. You should see some councils in the capital... Brent comes to mind.
Thanks for another great review. I relocated to Grays from south London 5 years ago for the more affordable property and two regular train links to the capital. Initial impressions were of a carbuncle surrounded by a cultural desert! And as the video shows, it's certainly ugly in places with its peculiar juxtaposing of architecture and some of the commercial buildings looking shabby or in need of investment. The disused State Cinema, especially (a grade II listed building) would revitalise the whole town centre if only it could be restored to its original Art Deco grandeur. Like many places, Grays has its redeeming qualities too, such as a panoramic riverside walk, some relaxing green spaces, and an increasingly diverse and cosmopolitan populace. There’s a surprising range of restaurants such as Turkish, Indian and Nigerian etc. And as a non-driver, the compact town centre provides most household essentials. Compared with the various rentals where I’ve stayed in London, I find it generally friendlier, less polluted, and certainly less crowded and noisy. Overall, Grays kinda grows on you. So perhaps more of a wart than a turd? :)
I agree. Grays is more like average urban as opposed to a Turd. It’s has its redeeming qualities with excellent public transport links to wider areas and the City and good employment opportunities for those who want to work, especially the young. Lakeside is excellent for many needs. The town centre has hardly any boarded up areas and is busy not a ghost town like a lot of high streets. Ok it’s not safe at night (sadly the norm these days) and it has its poverty areas. But it is no where near as bad as many many other smalls towns or villages ie Ockendon, Chadwell, Aveley even Corringham ain’t much to shout about. Chafford Hundred which is technically outside grays (perhaps a property developer decision decades back)is basically centrally attached to Grays and relies on Grays (inc Lakeside)for its retail and commercial needs and it’s police station, but does have some nice gorges. Sadly the council has its incompetence in its leadership (like the country really). I think Grays is ok. Not a turd. With the forthcoming council cuts from its debts that may be at threat though. 😢
Aveley has some great attributes. Belus woods, Sir Henry's gastro pub and many woodland walks. I have relatives who live there and absolutely love the peace and quiet.@@NotMoreGames
@@carolemarriner1362 .......all very nice probably for the Retired or perhaps a 2nd home but otherwise nowhere to find gainful employment though - unless you're self-employed at something useful.
As part of a "how far can we get for £10" challenge we took a £2 route 724 fare from Heathrow to Harlow which must be one of the longest local bus routes. Harlow is architecturally a mess but the shops were not too bad.
@@TerraFirmaTyger Really, it was dead the last time I visited before covid. On a Saturday the Mall was empty and we vowed never to return. Whats changed?
As someone who’s stayed years in the old Soviet Union housing projects I can honestly say there is nowhere I experienced more depressing than Tilbury, I mean that with absolutely no sarcasm. If you’re familiar with Bald & bankrupt and his travels then you will know the places I’m talking about as I’ve lived in some of the villages he covered, and I can honestly say none of those places, including those in the Chernobyl radiation zones are as soul crushing as Tilbury, in fact quite the opposite, there is still real beauty there unlike the total despair of tilbury.
I grew up in West Thurrock. Grays was always dodgy but has gotten a lot worse. Jaywick has effectively been abandoned by the council. It is appalling how much the rent is for one of those "beach hut "properties. Bald and Bankrupt visited before Christmas and I think it is awful how it has been left to decay.
I grew up in West Thurrock, Grays, too. I was very glad to leave it. I think I was fortunate to be in the Rectory/Chadwell Road area. We used to play in the Celcon pit, and build camps out of breeze blocks.
My ex gf had a place in Grays, she lived in a block of flats, getting in and out of my car to get to the flats before being stoned by gangs of 12yr old kids was always a bit of a challenge.
@@grantmail4112 Oh my God, how awful. I'm sorry to hear that. Kids can be worse than adults at times. I hope you never experience this again, wherever you live. Be well, from Ruth x
@@ruth_southernstar Thanks Ruth, I agree, even though they were just kids it wasn't any easier. I know it's an old saying, but I really blame the parents more than the kids.. you just know if you spoke to their parents and told them what they were up to...the parents would punch you in the eye.
Excellent video as always. I personally would love to see a Lancashire version. The seaside towns of Morecambe and Blackpool (highest crime rate in the UK) would be in there for sure. Plus, you have Burnley, Blackburn, and Preston. Small county so easy to get around, too 😊
@@ruth_southernstar I grew up in East Tilbury but my partner and a lot of my work is in and surrounding Lancaster. Delivering parcels on Morcambe seafront and the surrounding roads is the closest I've come to receiving physical violence twice in the same day. You also have to constantly watch the floor because there is dogshit everywhere and on wet days it's a death sentence to slip on it. Probably still better than Tilbury town though.
Born and raised in Harlow. When I was young (60s-70s) it had a thriving industrial area along Edinburgh Way (chemicals, electronics, engineering, etc). By the 90s, it had largely gone, replaced by commercial zones. So where do people now go to work…..? Perhaps a sign or symptom of what has degraded the economy and culture?
Local councils are to blame, years and years of mismanagement all over the the country , even going bankrupt wtf , how have we let this happen to our country
Yes, but budgets are set by central government which in some places has been slashed by 76%. Anyone's quality of life would suffer with cuts to their income of that magnitude.
@paulb8603: All the councils going bankrupt are the Labour Party run ones since they like to spend other peoples money on woke and all that garbage and not the people or the towns and cities they run.
@@leehannaford9166 no not politicians, normal folk running things that affect our lives as much as if not more that useless politicians, remember who did you vote for four who works for your local authority , who spends our hard earned money and decides on what rubbish the spend it on . They work for us we should always remember that fact when dealing with local authority people , civil servants , say that out aloud , the don’t work for us civilians anymore all they want is our hard earned money
Fun fact - you know the film Four Weddings and a Funeral? Well, the funeral was filmed in Grays. It was deliberately chosen as the most barren, soulless and depressing locations imaginable. It was a good choice.
@@jilllawton8556 It is a handsome church. The contrast of that with the hulking, impersonal modern factory next door probably explains the choice of filming location, I'd imagine it was a lot more idyllic in your great-grandparents' day.
Great video! Pretty much what I expected from these places I thought Southend-on-Sea might have been saved from the list as it's now a city it includes Leigh-on-Sea, Thorpe Bay and Shoebury; but spot on with the city centre and the Kursaal Grays, described as it is named, the Lakeside shopping centre really has hurt the town, but its only a stop on the train to get there Clacton-on-Sea, expected to see it here to be honest, the further away you move from the sea away from the tourist areas and holiday parks, the grimeier it gets With Harlow it's all about those new builds; either by the Town train station or west of the town near the M11, no-one I know who lives there likes to go into the Town Centre, they'll stick to any amenties away from the centre if possible Basildon, just a new town feeling very old and eveything is leaving or has left already Jaywick, I thought you would leave it out or combine it with Clacton! It's the unfortunate statistic of the Index of Multiple Deprivation that puts it here Tilbury, never stepped foot in the town, yet trundling along by train, I do feel sorry for the people there as it looks grim Thought Harwich & Dovercourt might have had a mention as both towns are pretty run down, especially the Dovercourt area. However they are receiving Levelling Up money of about £6.7 million Looking forward to the next video! Another two counties you could look at is possibly Hertfordshire or Berkshire
@@bretton_woods My ex BiL lives in Leigh and that's a pretty fitting description as he loves it there. Not disapointed to see Tilbury as number 1. I had to spend 3 days there and the company rented an airbnb for us that turned out to be a grotty sub let in a council estate. It was the first and last time they attempted to save on hotels after that. An absolutely awful place to be.
Southend was our nearest resort when I was a kid as we used to live in Ilford (another place that has gone downhill very badly). I last visited Southend on a hot day last year when it was unbearably crowded. It used to have good shops back in the seventies, several department stores, but now the shopping centre is completely rundown. I may not bother for a while. although there are nearby beaches that are lovely. Clacton also a few years ago had good shops and a great outlet a few miles out of town that was well worth making a journey for. Now half the outlet has been turned into a car park and there are only half as many shops and Clacton town centre has been decimated. Jaywick has a beautiful beach reminds me of Sandbanks. I used to have a school friend in the sixties who lived in an Essex mansion and they had a holiday chalet there. The only time I visit Tilbury is to use the cruise terminal which is very handily placed as it is only an hour from home but I have never visited the shops apart from Asda.
Like most seaside towns, old guest housechanged into flats , those flats occupiedmostly by people who have moved there and have no intention of working.
I lived most of my life in a small town in Essex called Saffron Walden, which is a totally different world from all these places. It was a bit boring, but definitely didn't feel like it has anything to do with Southend or anywhere else on the other ends of the county. A lot of people say it should be in Cambridgeshire, as it's more connected with Cambridge (in terms of culture, transport and postcode) than with any of the other towns or cities of Essex.
Essex is incredibly diverse, and both Saffron Walden and Gt Dunmow are planets away from Basildon and even Chelmsford. Despite living in London for 45 years, for 44 of them I commuted out into Essex for work so I'm very familiar with the county. A lot of it deserves the reputation, as the wealthy ones are as anti social as the poor ones. Personally, I'd have added an 8th - Canvey Island.
I lived in Southend for a few years and yeah that place was so sketchy at nighttime. I worked just off the high street and was unable to go home one evening because someone decided to go around poking people with a sharp kitchen utensil. Fun times.
I grew up there as a teen, and contrary to the comments I've seen elsewhere here, in my opinion it's never been "a decent town" - I moved out as quickly as I could and stayed out! It was probably a bit livelier in the 70s and 80s, but it's always had a nasty, malevolent edge to it. There was a period where in the summer a lot of gangs from London would specifically travel up to Southend to start fights on the seafront. Not exactly the fault of the town's residents, but not a great thing to have to contend with nonetheless.
@@23Daves yeah I remember this, I think it still happens. I was reading the evening echo and the front page headline was about a massive brawl in Old Leigh, and that little f***ers from London were coming up just to cause trouble and then slink back.
As someone who has had the dubious pleasure of going to Tilbury docks regularly, I was waiting for Tilbury's name to come up on the list... not shocked it's top.
I worked as a housing Officer with council in around 2000, that estate was dire, worked in Hackney and Milton Keynes but that was one of the worst ever.
My sole visit to Tilbury was when I passed through there on a motorbike in the late ‘90s and had a brick thrown at me. The smell of menace was omnipresent.
Lived in (South) Essex for 10 years of my life. What a miserable place.. overcrowded, A12 is awful, M25 is awful, housing is overpriced, nothing to see or do unless you like shopping or sitting in traffic. Benefits are everything is almost on your doorstep, London (trains are expensive), shopping centres (Lakeside), entertainment. Glad I have left that place, it's a shame as North Essex is lovely. Oh, Canvey Island and Wickford got off lightly! Ask any local... 😂
Yup, i definitely agree on Wickford! What a shithole haha! My poor brother moved there and used to regale us with many a tale of just how backward it was (we lived in Braintree prior, a small Northern Essex town) It was like a different country compared to Braintree thats for sure haha!
@@raregrimebeats1352 I worked in Witham, commuting out of London, for donkeys' years. My business (which I sold to my employees) is now based there and when I visited a year ago, I actually thought it had improved a bit. Certainly more places to eat.
Basildon is best known for being the place where Depeche Mode grew up, knowing that fact you now understand why their music is so dark 😂 The only place in Essex I’ve been to was Clacton for a day in the mid 2000s, and I did not like it as for me it was your typical super tacky English seaside town with St George crosses everywhere
Not a particular fan of Depeche Mode but they did become a global success of sorts. You’re probably best staying in your ivory tower with your silver spoons.
My other Half's family live in Tilbury, the most depressing places I have to visit, litter everywhere, extremely gray all year round and nothing to do apart from set fire to bins. I may be a Sussex snob, but seriously, Tilbury deserves number one spot
I lived in Grays from 1990 to 2010. A commuter town into London which has truly deteriorated. The entire borough of Thurrock is totally run down. Some pretty impoverished towns, Chadwell St Mary, Ockendon and Purfleet. Even Lakeside Shopping Centre, the jewell in Thurrock’s crown is looking tired. Hard to see a way back
I mostly agree with you although I wouldnt say the entire borough of Thurrock is run down. There are two villages/small towns I can think of that are actually decent which are Orsett and Bulphan.
Would say hordon on the hill, even Stanford le hope/corringham are better than bulphan. Place would be even worse of/cut off if it weren’t for a petition to keep the only bus route going. The only shop is a community run corner shop in the community centre, only pub/bar (if you can call it that) is in the rough motel etc
I’d be interested to hear your take on Hampshire. Everyone thinks it’s a beautiful county because of places like Winchester or New Forest. However, you will find some right turd towns like Aldershot or Portsmouth
I always see Portsmouth flag up on these “worst places to live” lists. I just can’t buy that. Especially after the places I’ve been. Maybe I should visit and find out.
I have lived my entire live in Essex, in 2 places that fortunately weren't on your list. Southend has definitely gone downhill a lot, back in my childhood it wasn't perfect but it was a great family day out. No boarded up shops, you didn't feel unsafe. Now it's a bit like a ghost town, especially with the loss of department stores like BHS and Debenhams. A lot of the smaller towns surrounding Southend have either very small high streets or none really at all, so Southend is the place you have to travel to for the cinema, theatre, big shops etc.
Have you noticed that most of the Towns that are ‘Turds’ have been flooded by immigrants and have had no money spent on them for years? This is has happened in most working class towns across the whole of the UK not just Essex
It’s happened across many areas of Kent and London but apparently all these newcomers are exactly what the country needs…..doesn’t look like they are having the desired effect to me……
@nickgodfrey1148 I think it's the lack of funding and effective governance that should be your primary focus (not to say that mass immigration cannot and does not pose issues)
@@Gordon.Pinkerton I agree with you. It’s a combination of lack of funding and uncontrolled immigration. This government (and previous) are not interested in small towns with incompetent councils nor do they concern themselves with immigrants flooding into these same towns. It doesn’t concern them because it doesn’t affect them.
@@Gordon.Pinkerton The two things go hand in hand - massive increase in population with much of it going to poorer towns and no increase in funding to cope with it
Very true...the joke about Tilbury was that Policeman patrolling it (this is the days when there were Police on foot) always patrolled in pairs - back to back!! And that was in the relatively prosperous 1960s! Southend has always been an odd place - everything is back to front somehow! The interesting shops are (or were) outside the centre, and the suburbs are actually far more interesting (and attractive) than the centre! When there was a tram network (ie in the 1920s and 1930s) they used to tempt tourists with a scenic circular tour of the suburbs! It was advertised as a tour round the glamorous American style tree line boulevards! As for my home town of Grays....my mother still lives there and I've just returned from it. Its such a soul-depressingly dreary place, tatty and filthy yet hideously expensive. In the 1960s there were some quite smart upmarket suburbs, but these look as tatty as everywhere else now. Its a wonderful place to leave..........
Same here , I left Grays in early 80's , not Buckinghamshire granted but decent all the same . I had to detour through there last year , so I thought I'd have a shufti at all the old places . Broke my heart . It's like they go out of their way to turn these places into shtoles. Highlight ( ingrained in my mind ) must have been a 'long term tourist' clearing her throat loudly and fleming it into the street ( in full view of everyone) while her young daughter squatted over a drain 😲 . And , as we all know , it's only gonna get worse .... Be lucky matey .
Grew up in Basildon and upto the late 90s it wasn’t that bad. Nightlife from the past Infamous Raquels in Bas. Pink Toothbrush in Rayleigh. Pzazz in Grays And of course ToTs in Southend.
You should take in all the new towns as you travel and produce an episode on the idealistic future that never materialised but very quickly decayed and started falling apart with the one exception in North Buckinghamshire.
To be fair Livingston in Scotland isn't too bad for a new town. Good connections being right on the M8, two train stations and regular frequent bus services to Edinburgh and beyond have made it into something of a commuter town mainly for Edinburgh as it's 20 minutes away, but also for Glasgow which is only 40/45 minutes along the motorway.
I live in the North Bucks New Town you mention and think its great and done well for a new town. Would like to see Mr Ts review of it. Spent my youth in Hemel Hempstead which also isn't too bad and learnt from the mistakes of Harlow.
There's a couple of other decent New Towns. We have three up here in the North East and two of them are utter dives (Peterlee is probably one of the worst towns I've ever visited... and I've been to a lot) but Cramlington is relatively alright: it's a bit bland, but the average house price is £180k and the nice areas definitely outnumber the bad areas
I grew up in Harold Hill, and it wasn't a bad place to grow up , I remember the havering play leadership in the six week holidays , the Harold Hill carnival, wallys mobile shop . Hilldene shops used to have everything, then a couple of proper butchers , sports shop, barrowboy green grocers ( used to work there after school ) 😅 sainsbury, woolworths and many more . I moved away many years ago and when I've visited its certainly in need of a major refresh .
Harold hill is a london borough as its within the m25 , however, its actually essex hence harold hill romford essex rm is a romford postcode that is essex
@@ListenUp-py1qm you know the saying what are you when you assume? read back our convo. i didn't say i didn't know or disagree with you . i hoped for an intelligent debate . As i'm from Havering and possess a post 1965 birth certificate , i'm obviously very well aware of where Harold Hill is.
Harrow - "They built a water garden which due to its lack of surrounding greenary makes it look more like an open sewer" I died laughing after hearing that 😂
Actually the the original water gardens were quite pleasant when my mother used to take me there after shopping 64 years ago. Then the council "improved" it turning it into an extension of a carpark, so needless to say its a concrete shithole now plagued by the usual lowlife. Shame. No immigrants AT ALL then either.
I did some survey work around Tilbury and the surrounding area. The atmosphere genuinely felt like it was stuck in 1780 and that at any minute some marauding band of pillaging drunkards would emerge from the scrub along the Thames and accost me. There was also an abundance of deflated 'Happy Birthday' helium balloons around the landscape for some reason. Like all the broken childhood dreams and spirit of London's children float over to Tilbury to rot and perish.
I’ve lived in tilbury in the past and years ago it was a fairly decent place to live. The Olympic village sort of ruined it with outsiders moving in. They’ve also closed the police station which is like closing the sheriff office at the o.k. Corral.
I was born in Harlow in 1958, when it was a very new town. There was about half a dozen shops in the town centre. My mum, Bless her, used to have to walk to the Stow from Northbrooks. A long walk even today. Like many people my parents came down from East London for a better way of life, and the plentiful work. Mum did some nursing and dad worked with BOC. It used to be a really lovely place with a great olympic size swimming pool, lots of youth clubs and a great sports centre, which was generally affordable for those who wished to use it. Harlow also had a thriving market where most of my family worked at one time or another. And of course there was the Iconic Gilbeys distillery, which was one of the major employers in the town at the time. Enter the Tories! Decline and fall big time! Never the same again! No market at all now. Just an open air drug and alchol shitstop! Fortunately, I managed to escape in the early naughties, and will never return except for the occasional family visit. The current house prices are shocking and unjustifiable! The most recent builds were built for a fiver and sold for 500k! More fool those who've bought one! So Shame on the governments, all of em, and even more shame on the dirty bastards who've turned the town into nothing but a massive toilet that can't be flushed! Like many other places throughout England, it should be nooked, and most of the inhabitants with it! 😔😡🏴🇮🇪🙏
Your videos are great! We love your cultured approach and great commentary that is never dull or annoying but always informative. We left the UK 23 years ago to come to Italy and not for a moment looked back. I grew up in Hackney, Aveley and Dagenham then moved to the Bath area but by far the worst place we lived was Bristol. It would be an insult to toilets to call it one. Have you done Southmead? When we were there 30 years ago it was hell. Well done for doing these. We're avid watchers. I need to watch your one on Twerton tonight.. that place was always a dump.
I'm an Essex resident and have been to most of these places (except Tilbury). I couldn't agree more as this video was pretty much spot on for these areas. Clacton & Southend have a lot of potential. Basildon, Grays & Harlow all could be better but need a lot of regeneration work. Jaywick is what it is and could easily be improved but I've never had any problems or felt unsafe the few times I visited there. I've not been to Tilbury or had any need to visit there so I can't really comment on it.
My grandfather lived in Jaywick in the 80's and 90's. We didn't go often to visit as my dad snd his father didn't get a long so well. I was a child, so I only remember bits and pieces. It was like a ghost town every time we visited. He lived in a prefab bungalow that had a single bedroom in the roof, that was accessible via a hatch with a pull down folding ladder that was more like staircase.
@@ReadySaltedCrisps like he said in the video there's like 2 parts of Jaywick, I lived by the sea for only a couple years from when I was about 3 until I was 5, then I moved to the other part which is like all houses, bungalows and parks by the school. All I really remember from by the sea is the amount of times the water came over the sea wall in bad weather, which is probably why it was covered in sand all the time! If the tide was in it was touching the wall.
So far I think you have visited nearly every one of my childhood holiday destinations. To be fair, the descriptions as Turdtowns are accurate, even back when I was a child.- I'm in my mid fifties now.
As a northerner, I found this one fascinating Essex is always painted as this very rich county and as the sun always shines. This opens your eyes this is not the case. Keep up the good work i really find this channel fascinating.
South Essex is basically on fringe of London with good transport links into City, hence house prices, north of Chelmsford small villages and small towns, transport not so good, more rural, but still expensive houses especially towards Cambridge area
I love your channel mate. Love the Commentary.😂 Wifey and I paid our first ever visit to the UK from Oz in Sept/Oct. We loved most of the places we saw. Planning a return visit for 2025. Will have to visit some "Turd Towns."
Harlow not Harrow is on a main line trainline to London, next to the M11 and M25, close to Stansted (Which is why its expensive). Never seen anyone swimming in the "Water Gardens", the older Water Gardens maybe.
Ah, poor Harlow. Back in the 80s when I was a small child I genuinely loved that town - its beautiful park, its outdoor swimming pool, the kids play areas, the way the place didn't quite look like anywhere else I'd been before (I loved those slabs of concrete and that fantastic town centre clock you showed). The whole place just seemed like a novelty and actually features in my childhood memories in a good way. My older brother would drive me down there in his car as a treat and we'd have a fun day out. In those days I suspect it was a bit brighter, cleaner and greener, a bit more well-kept. I haven't been back since then and have been warned on many occasions not to bother. I think I'll stick with my memories. Sometimes you can't go back. On the other hand, the house I currently live in (in the Midlands) is on a Local Authority estate designed by the man who did most of the work on Harlow. My mind was blown when I found out, but once you're told, it does figure... it was cheap for a reason! I live in a tiny row of Harlow-esque houses in a really nice area and get to look at the huge posh residences I'm surrounded by from my window, which I just think is hilarious. They all get a much less flattering view for their money.
Ooh loved the outdoor swimming pool when I lived there in the 60s. I actually live in Old Harlow, but visited Harlow on Saturday for shopping, and remember it had a lovely market too❤
Yesssssss! I cheered when you said Tilbury is number 1! My family are from Tilbury and I grew up in Chadwell St Mary and Grays. But when ever I visited my grandparents in Tilbury as a child, I knew it was the roughest place with the roughest people. People let horses into their houses in Tilbury lol. But I do have some nice memories of it.
In Herts we have Stevenage, Harlow and Basildon's pappy, Hatfield and the modern parts of Hemel Hempstead. Oh and Watford has the worst town centre, it's surrounded by a ring road and after you've been there for the working day you get home and turn your bath water black.
Yes the other side of Essex is supposed to be very posh. Have thoroughly enjoyed you videos and noticed the improving in quality. Keep up the good work. As always we would like you to do Oxford or Oxfordshire.
Born in Tilbury 1957 moved to Chadwell St Mary 1960 moved to Australia 1973. Been back twice from Australia, not going back again. Were nice places when I was young, so sad what has happened to them
Never been to Essex but heard mixed things! Would definitely be interested to hear your takes on Berkshire. I’m sure you’ll have some choice words as for every Windsor or Twyford, you’ve got a Reading or Slough lol
I got the No.1 right!! I grew up in Tilbury, remember my family going to the local, The Bomb crater, such a dump of a town. I also lived in Grays, it had so much potential, just never realised, like most of these towns.
I found this channel yesterday, (or, yesturday), and have been binge-watching your excellent, and frequently hilarious, content. I had to subscribe, so please keep up the great work, and maybe consider doing your thing in the Manchester and Birmingham areas. 😁
I knew Basildon was going to get a good shafting. I grew up there after leaving London just after the war. I emigrated to Australia and after travelling the world I settled in Brisbane. Would I ever go back to the UK for a holiday. No way. The whole country is sliding into a dismal derelict dumping ground. I think I would get very upset. Still it was nice 65 years ago.
Totally agree with you on Basildon. An ex of mine lived there and worked in the SuperF**kOffMegaTesco in the adjoining village of Pitsea, so I had plenty of opportunity to see most of the place in the early-2000's. Back then, you could see a wide variety of abandoned burned-out cars on virtually every corner, as Basildon was pretty much Boy Racer Central. The only bright spot is comic store 'The Cartoon Shop' in Eastgate Shopping Centre, which is fortunately still there.
Basildon hit the headlines infamously as the place where Leah Betts took dodgy ecstasy pill in nightclub and died.The related Essex Boys murder nearby also. 😑
@@minnielee3399 I remember the Essex Boys stuff. My Ex, being somewhat older than myself at the time (I was mid-20's, she was 41!) if I remember rightly, knew one or more of the guys involved.
I was one of those homeless drug addicts in Southend. I used to sleep either buried in the sand, under the three shells, or by a footbridge on Southchurch Road. I wasn't either of those things when I moved to Essex, and got sober after I decided to leave, the only real conclusion being that Southend on Sea is to blame.
@@richlee509 because every corner you turn you're offered drugs of some sort? I used to know a group of people from there, about 8-10 people, all of them was off their heads on something all of the time
Would love to see Northamptonshire, most of the big towns in Northamptonshire give you an overwhelming sense of depression the second you enter, especially Northampton itself.
My parents lived in Northampton for a while, so I visited many times. Dear God, what a depressing place. I once house sat (well, cat sat) for them while they were on holiday, and was immediately so bored that I started leaving town every day for the day, just to be somewhere less depressing. One time for something to do I walked into the city centre from their house in the outskirts, about an hour's walk, and that was GRIM, just a neverending series of soulless suburban streets.
@@AlastairjCarruthers My dad's called Derek and he's from Northampton. Born in the slums 1933. They have been demolished and replaced by a multi storey car park (Swan street)
Would love it if you went over the Channel and did some French Turd Towns - Les Villes du Merdes! Be really interesting to see if they have similar run down places that we have. Would suggest Amiens for starters.
The Nord-Pas de Calais (now known as Hauts de France), is an area particularly ripe for les villes merdiques. Have a glance on google maps at Denain, Loos (the one that is a satellite town of Liile, in fact look at most of the satellite towns of Lille), Douai. I live not far from Saint-Lô, in Normandy which was 95% destroyed (yes, 95%) during the allied bombardments of 1944. Unlike, a lot of French rebuilt towns, they decided to go all 'Coventry' with Saint-Lô. It's not a rough town, but it is greyer than John Major and more depressing than the state of British politics.
@@motosnape I visited Douai for a few days 10 years ago, I cycled there beside the canals from St Omer and it was really lovely. I really hope it hasn’t gone down hill since then. I remember Henin-Beaumont nearby was pretty grim, a proper old mining town. Even then I wondered what people “did” in that area, it seemed like there were a lot of retirees which isn’t a good recipe for long term sustainability.
Had a day trip to Dunkerque last week, and hoped to do a good old shop and explore the area. It was a cheap ferry deal. There was a reason for this... utterly grim and felt very unsafe, grey and depressing, especially the big Auchan nearby.
I almost moved to Basildon with my batshit crazy ex as she'd taken a job down there after finishing uni. I've never actually looked up Basildon before, but seeing this has made me realise that it's the second-biggest bullet I dodged when we broke up. What a shithole!
Yeah, I watched that video. I'm a big fan! The people seem friendly enough, it's just the infrastructure of the place that makes it seem soi down and out.
Jaywick is kind of small, it looks really run down, that goes against the place. Not somewhere most people would want to spend their time, you have to feel sorry for any decent people that are stuck there without a way out.
Back in the 60s jaywick was a holiday destination for many poorer families,but like many places, it’s evolved into a slightly run down area due to lack of funds,councils rather build stupid great vanity projects,and new roads with the money,then ploughing back in to socialist revamped areas that need up grading ..
I’m just gonna be the one to say it: please do a London special, I know there’s not really many ‘towns’, so to say, but I feel like there’s definitely a few potential ‘turd settlements’ around the county/city, such as Lee, Neasden and Edmonton. If not then Hertfordshire would be a good one to do, given you’ve recently been doing a lot more nearby home counties to London-themed videos 🤷🏼♂️ Wouldn’t be surprised to see you put Potters Bar in on that list
@@RubbishGimpy well I grew up in West London most of my life but I’m planning on moving to South, so no 😂 I just happen to be familiar with some of these places due to completing certain jobs around there or just personal experience 🤷🏼♂️
North Essex is generally nicer on the whole. Ive lived in Tilbury and now Basildon my whole life and we travel to Chelmsford to shop even though it's further away, there's less trouble that way it seems. You can at least leave the stab vest at home!
Not sure if coincidence but I’ve been to them all. Southend is actually fun on a weekend especially summer, the night is so busy and full of lights, never felt unsafe Jaywick has amazing beach and friendly people and a lot of camp sites a few historic towers Clacton is a bit far so I didn’t see it as much as others but the roads there are amazing, a lot of older people and dog walkers on the beach, the cement separating the beach from the road is colossal, you need to climb if you want to see the beach in other areas Tilbury is extremely industrial, and busy at all times I wouldn’t recommend living there unless you have a business there Basildon I like the Sign BASILDON written hollywood style cheers me up everytime apart from that the town seems really clean, and wide roads, I wouldn’t mind living there Grays: almost identical to Tilbury (to me) And top Harlow, I always liked how new the city looks. I saw many gardens and flowers well maintained, with plenty of green spaces, with good roads, and plenty of old pubs So to me Top Harlow Southend Basildon Clackton Jaywick Tillbury Grays
I assume you missed Pitsea! That would have definitely been on my list, but to be fare, I’d rather be anywhere in Essex rather than Luton, Bradford, Burnley, cradley heath, Gateshead, Benwell Grange or Cumbernauld. They are a few places I’m not a fan of and I doubt they would like me lmao, however I’d like to visit Blackpool to see if it’s really as bad as folk say it is 🤷🏻♂️
I was born and brought up in Aveley, near Grays. Got out of there as soon as I was old enough! Would never go back to Essex. Astonishes me how many of my school friends still live in that little crap heap.
If u lived in Essex ,you’d also know there a many really beautiful villages to live and lovely countryside..although it’s one of most densely populated places to”live now .every area has less desirable parts to live.
It’s so tragic to see this once great nation in a state of total decline . We have been sold out by traitors and criminals . Unless there is radical change it’s only going to get worse .
Essex folk have got exactly what they wanted: Tories in power and freedom from the EU. Careful what you wish for!
@@peterm7548 Oh that damage was done and it started when Labour got into power in 1997
@@HarleyFirestorm so it wasn’t started by Thatcher no?
@@IStOLeuRAnDomS Nah go back to the 70s and the strikes and it was way worse before Thatcher, but I am not a fan of Thatcher anyway.
From a personal view it was labour in 1997 who have done much more damge to the UK than anyone else to destroy the country, I absolutely dread another 4 years of them, as much as I dislike the tories.
These places became Turds 30 years before Brexit..
They will only become bigger, giant turds - if you can imagine that being possible...
I grew up in Southend. It has really gone downhill in the last 20 years. In the 80s and 90s it was a great place to live. Every shop was occupied. There was virtually no homelessness and there were loads of nightclubs. Every night of the week there was some club night going on. But, they've all closed down. Even the most famous club, Tots has closed. Its now the King Pin bowling alley which you might have seen in your drone shot from the car park behind the seafront.
To be honest, it has improved a little over the last year or so. New shops have opened, but there are far too many takeaways and phone shops. This year we hosted the largest Street Art festival in Europe for the second year running and it was a massive success. I still live in the area, just not in the center.
After viewing many of your other videos, my opinion of the town/city has gone up a lot. It still deserves to be on your list, but it is improving and there are plans to greenify the high street. Maybe worth a revisit in the future.
Ask to King to visit this town to ramp up the activities....cakes or bread... his choice....
Let me guess you got your cultural enrichment,
Diversified out of fkkn contention,
Or just full of Londoners running from their "enrichment"
'nightclubbing' is becoming a thing of the past. Youngsters now don't go out like people did in the 80's and 90's
@@housinauthority5258 That's why all the clubs closed. They're more interested in gaming and becoming UA-camrs. That and the law changed to allow pubs to stay open longer.
It’s getting more enriched by the day, the prospects are grim.
I deliver stuff round Grays/Tilbury area quite a lot and the reason the area is choked with traffic isn't the M25 as such, it's the stupid interchange between the M25 and A13 and all the trucks trying to get round the nightmare (the slip roads are always at a standstill) caused by so many things being in a small space: the junctions themselves (not just M25/A13 but also M25/A1306, i.e. the old A13), Thurrock services, the Lakeside shopping centre (which has a lot of out-of-town big-box stores round about), several industrial parks around Grays and Purfleet, three lots of docks (Purfleet, Tilbury and London Gateway) and the oil depots off the A13. Then there are the other big towns: Basildon, Southend, even Chelmsford. Although the official London-Southend route is the A127, that road is old and slow and has side turnings and farm accesses while the A13 is almost a motorway; the A127 also runs straight into the Eastern Avenue, a slow 1930s suburban dual carriageway, while the A13 is pretty fast most of the way to the North Circular and even the Docklands (one pinch point at Alfreds Way). So all the traffic trying to get round the junction 30/31 traffic nightmare clogs up the local roads around Grays and Tilbury. Not the trucks -- most of the roads have weight limits -- but the cars. The M25 traffic stays on the M25.
Wow. Propa roads man. 😂😂😂😂
I'm glad you mentioned Purfleet. Purfleet is almost as soul destroying as Tilbury.
You’ve reminded me of home! Essex girl living in Wales!
@@keithgriffiths9864whilst I agree, theres something different about tilbury. The people “tilbs” mostly embrace its reputation and become part of the fabric. It has its own language, dress style etc 😂 (former tilb)
Very few houses in tilbury are flat roofed and I don't come across any gangs there - an extremely biased and inaccurate view
the town has been badly neglected by Thurrock council, who have used it as a dumping ground for unwanted families from london - local resident's are very friendly
Anyone catch at Basildon a white dog having a crap ? Great timing 😊
It's usually just the wimmin!
Yes lol
Brightened the place up
His actions spoke for us all
Actually, the dog is a bitch, and bitches squat to pee, she's peeing not crapping lol, you can tell by how she's squatting. I should know, I have one :) :P
Thank you for not tearing Jaywick apart too bad. With all the negative press the poor place has received over the years it has made the locals annoyed by those passing judgement but also the sense of community i saw was massively inspiring. Also its not just Essex that has used Jaywick as a dumping ground, i met people from all over the UK (Liverpool, Manchester, London, Lincoln, Great Yarmouth and more!)
My mate moved there back in early 2000s and that was right into the worst part. He introduced me to loads of people there from all over the UK and all with tales to tell of previous hardships. I live in a small Northern Essex town and was amazed at how nice, respectful and friendly everyone was to me. They treated me like a local the first time i met them and were ALL lovely people. I was a little on edge initially after hearing about Jaywicks reputation and the fact that a little before i visited someone had been killed by being run over (possibly repeatedly and certainly purposely!) I soon learned that the `victim` was a suspected paedophile that had received some street justice! But i needn`t have worried as everyone was great and friendly. I really hope the government starts to actually look after Jaywick and its residents, they deserve some love!
A lot of UA-cam coverage on jayrick lately, including Bald and Bankrupt, surprisingly calm!
I didn’t hate it but yes it is a mess there. I would go back to jaywick which is saying much more about it than other places I’ve been!
I’ve lived in jaywick for for 38 years- love it and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I was born in grays. True what he says . Lakeside done it in . Was a nice town when I was a child. From what I hear it’s awful now.
As a child in the 60s Jaywick was like heaven on earth to me. I loved it 👌🏽
Jaywick is only bad on the sea front in them huts the rest is ok I have family in jaywick and Clacton in the 80s was such a lovely place for a kid
Fun fact, the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy Grimsby was filmed in Tilbury because it's even worse than Grimsby.
Didn't think it possible for anywhere to be more grim than Grimsby.
@@splodge57They built the world's longest suspension bridge so people could escape Grimsby quicker. The problem is that it leads to Hull. Choose your poison.
Tilbury is not that bad .. grays and clacton is definitely worse
Every time my wife and I visit Clacton we remember that we said "never again" on the previous visit. We have now finally learned our lesson, but it's a shame - it was fun 60 years ago when I was a kid.
Clacton is fast becoming greater Jaywick, it's basically the dumping ground for all the problems of Essex.
Also not in essex but lowestoft. Jeez that is bad news
Never ever liked Clacton
@ThisWontEndWell it's been like that for years
@tenniskinsella7768 I live there and if it wasnt for my mum and mental health home,I would have drowned myself by now,that's how shit it is here
Was surprised you didn't mention Bas Vegas when talking about Basildon. The name locals call Festival Leisure Park, a sort of out of town leisure park built in early 2000 (I think) with restaurants, bowling alley, multi screen cinema, night clubs etc. Fine during the day but would absolutely avoid at night unless you want trouble!
I've been there at night no problems
No mention of 'basil-drain', which alot of people call it.
@@domhubbard2197 obviously I meant brain drain labour can't run anythingb
Yep grew up there and spent most weekends in Bas Vegas. Great if you’re up for a fight
Basildon new town was developed after WW11 because a lot of Londoners were homeless because of the blitz, my parents and us 3 kids followed their extended family in 1955 from a two bedroom, no hot water, no heating, run down house and no job for Dad on his return from the war in Carshalton to a 3 bedroom house with running hot water and heating with the promise of work, lots of factories sprung up giving everyone the opportunity to work, it was a wonderful place to grow up with plenty of green spaces and safe clean streets, schools, doctors etc, the lack of long term vision by the local councils and greedy developers ruined the place by throwing up cheap, bland housing estates (one was nicknamed Alcatraz it was that bad) to cope with the sudden rise in population in 80s and 90s so the pride people had in their town started to decline, luckily I was offered a two year visa to work in Australia and never came back.
So glad Tilbury was number one. I had a friend who lived there, and every time I got off the train to see her, I always got a depressing feeling, the whole town always feels so grey.
Fun fact: there is a pub in Tilbury called The World's End. It's located right by the old fort. This pub is not frequently used by locals because it is a 15-minute walk. Most of them give up after 5 minutes of walking this is based on personal experience.
I visited Tilbury many more times than I realised . Tilbury Riverside for the ferry across the River to catch the train to the North Kent Coast for many years as a kid where steam trains halted and cruise liners moored at the jetties , Tilbury kart circuit ( long closed ) and the World's End pub ( once a Bass Charrington house with a decent pint ) as a late teen and adult and Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts as a reenactor . I was quite surprised that this was actually a town as I never thought of it as anywhere people would actually live , shop and enjoy the normal amenities a town would offer . I guess I missed its heyday sadly and should of taken time out to discover more of its delights apart from those I mentioned ...
In the 1970s loved the real Dickensian feel of the pub - but it has now had awful trip adviser comments.
@@neilritson7445 i visited 3 times in 2019 and it definitely wasn’t the nicest places then. But nicer then the rest of Tilbury lol 😂
That's the nicer part of Tilbury as no locals go there haha, very nice in the summer
Tilbury dock area..they are grimy looking places
I spent the first 20 years of my life in Essex - just not the Turdtowns areas. I could spot most of the candidates a mile away, although (fortunately) Harlow is the only one I was anywhere near, and why anyone would want to live in that concrete carbuncle is a mystery that not even Miss Marple, Inspector Morse and Sherlock Holmes could solve if they all pooled resources.
We have Stevenage in Herts, blame them for Harlow 'coz they invented the New Town by looking at the Garden City 2 junctions north up the A1 and thought: "you know what would be great? Something like this designed entirely with a set square and built out of pebble dashed concrete. I mean, how else are we going fill it full of chavs?".
@@darthwiizius I'm fairly sure I went through Stevenage once... and fortunately I've never had to go there again. About all it'll ever be famous for is Lewis Hamilton.
Harlow was a blight on my sight and mind for far longer.
Lovejoy could..filmed in Essex!
How about Michael Barrymore?
@@baronthorsteinn
Well a member of Jethro Tull comes from Stevenage, a friend of mind hangs out with him. I know the -chav infested shithole- town too well, I come from the aforementioned Garden City.
Was a medical rep so went all round Essex and the contrast between different areas is stark. Been to all these places many times but the ultimate lose your will to live feeling was in South Ockenden. (Just North of grays) soulless place.
I lived in Grays growing up. S. Ockendon, Chadwell St Mary, Stifford Clays all big council estates. Russell Brand came from Grays
South Ockendon should definitely be on the list. A serious rival for Tilbury.
The two best bands originated from Essex
Depeche Mode are originally from Basildon and The Prodigy are from Braintree
Dr Feelgood - Canvey Island.
ua-cam.com/video/0DY5fb6L9c4/v-deo.html@@steveholmes11
You forgot Angela Rippons Bum and Take Oath. Legendary! (Tilbury).
Procal Harem.
Blur - Colchester 🤓
Essex is a compound of all the failings of the UK over the last 30 years. Mismanagement and underfunding run rampant, while house prices remain absurdly high due to the locality to the city and, as such, ever-more housing developments threaten to bring towns on the commuter lines to bursting point. It needs serious investment if the seriously overstretched services are ever to catch up with the burgeoning population.
Used to live in Clacton and some of the places you showed were around the corner from where I resided. Even then Jaywick was considered as a Turdtown but at least it had an open air market at the time. I have to say though that some of the friendliest people you could wish to meet live in those chalets. I can say from experience that they all might not have much but they will help out their neighbours if they have it.
Yeah I live near and my parents used to live in Jaywick. It's apparently got a real community around it where people help each other. Beach is nice too, during the summer :P
I miss Oscars
I lived in Clacton c2003 Jaywick resident were rough around the edges but lovely always willing to help
I grew up visiting Harlow regularly as my Nan lived in Altham Grove, thought it was a nice place with local shops at the Stow and a playground in the park. Went back a few years ago and it was unrecognisable to me, visited the crem to bury my Dads ashes and some kind soul broke into my car. Not sure I'll be going back again.
Harlow is bad. Really bad
Back in the old days, 70s it was a good place to grow up in. I used to visit my cousins who lived there and always lovely local shops, etc. We used to go up to the town centre on a Saturday and the place would be rammed. Us kids used to hang around Woolworths, in the photo booths, pick ‘n’ mix, go down the market, have burgers in the wimpy bar. I was so jealous of my cousins living there, as I lived in the back of beyond. They seemed to have everything on their doorstep, even a riding school and there were lots of green places. It used to have a country show each year in the town park and even a carnival. I loved visiting my cousins and begged my parents to move there, but they never did. Harlow offered so much to families back then. There are still lots of green spaces, trees and despite what you say, there is a lot of history there. The original Harlow, now has become Old Harlow and all the little hamlets which Harlow was built around are still there, but they have been incorporated into the New Town fabric, swamped. When I stayed with my cousins, Harlow was always referred to as Harlow New Town.
Do your research a little more on the towns you so despise. There are always good points somewhere along the way and had you bothered to venture outside of the town centre, you would still see lots of trees everywhere, green areas, little copses and the town park is a real gem.
Society has changed so much and don’t forget, it is always people who ruin a place. With the right combination of people - no drug addicts, drunks, thieves, people who continue to live off the State - every area can look lovely.
As a Grays resident i cracked up. Description was spot on. Moved here originally as it was closest thing to London I could afford. It kind of grew on me but unfortunately there is no saving the littering and dirtiness from a lot of the locals.
Me too. However I have moved around quite a bit. Now live in Somerset. My son lives in Saffron Walden and it is beautiful
Last time I went everyone was from Eastern Europe..
As a born and bred local to Grays, I escaped about 15 years ago, and even then it was well on the way to being a complete shite hole. It was killed stone dead when the final shops all disappeared over to Lakeside (I remember M&S closing and it being a massive issue); Woolies was literally the last hope and when you're in that state it's basically doomed. The cherry on the sewage is the complete incompetence and MASSIVE corruption of the council, which of course washes over into Tilbury as well.
@@richiedd4119 Yuuuuuup African, Pakistani, Ukrainian/Romanian with a few of the old schooler Englishmen and women. Hoping to move to Oxfordshire in 2 months !
@@peterharper3861 Yes! Christ Thurrock council literally has not fixed some major dangerous things like falling walls and brickwork, hazardous tree overgrowth etc and they are cranking up the Council Tax price (of course) as part of the CoL crisis. I think this type of corruption is pretty widespread in England unfortunately. You should see some councils in the capital... Brent comes to mind.
Thanks for another great review. I relocated to Grays from south London 5 years ago for the more affordable property and two regular train links to the capital. Initial impressions were of a carbuncle surrounded by a cultural desert! And as the video shows, it's certainly ugly in places with its peculiar juxtaposing of architecture and some of the commercial buildings looking shabby or in need of investment. The disused State Cinema, especially (a grade II listed building) would revitalise the whole town centre if only it could be restored to its original Art Deco grandeur.
Like many places, Grays has its redeeming qualities too, such as a panoramic riverside walk, some relaxing green spaces, and an increasingly diverse and cosmopolitan populace. There’s a surprising range of restaurants such as Turkish, Indian and Nigerian etc. And as a non-driver, the compact town centre provides most household essentials. Compared with the various rentals where I’ve stayed in London, I find it generally friendlier, less polluted, and certainly less crowded and noisy.
Overall, Grays kinda grows on you. So perhaps more of a wart than a turd? :)
I agree. Grays is more like average urban as opposed to a Turd. It’s has its redeeming qualities with excellent public transport links to wider areas and the City and good employment opportunities for those who want to work, especially the young. Lakeside is excellent for many needs. The town centre has hardly any boarded up areas and is busy not a ghost town like a lot of high streets. Ok it’s not safe at night (sadly the norm these days) and it has its poverty areas. But it is no where near as bad as many many other smalls towns or villages ie Ockendon, Chadwell, Aveley even Corringham ain’t much to shout about. Chafford Hundred which is technically outside grays (perhaps a property developer decision decades back)is basically centrally attached to Grays and relies on Grays (inc Lakeside)for its retail and commercial needs and it’s police station, but does have some nice gorges. Sadly the council has its incompetence in its leadership (like the country really). I think Grays is ok. Not a turd. With the forthcoming council cuts from its debts that may be at threat though. 😢
Aveley has some great attributes. Belus woods, Sir Henry's gastro pub and many woodland walks. I have relatives who live there and absolutely love the peace and quiet.@@NotMoreGames
....yes very true- at least a Turd, a Wart, and a Carbuncle CAN 'grow' on you.
@@carolemarriner1362 .......all very nice probably for the Retired or perhaps a 2nd home but otherwise nowhere to find gainful employment though - unless you're self-employed at something useful.
As part of a "how far can we get for £10" challenge we took a £2 route 724 fare from Heathrow to Harlow which must be one of the longest local bus routes. Harlow is architecturally a mess but the shops were not too bad.
an way better than hounslow feltham around heathrow now your talking proper dumps .
That’s the thing about Harlow. It looks like a dump but it has some of the best shopping around. It’s got everything.
Hounslow, Feltham and Slough. The only places where the birds fly upside down because there's nothing worth crapping on. 😁
@@TerraFirmaTyger Really, it was dead the last time I visited before covid. On a Saturday the Mall was empty and we vowed never to return. Whats changed?
@@maverickhistorian6488 What about Staines ?
Love these videos. The humour is right up my street.
As someone who’s stayed years in the old Soviet Union housing projects I can honestly say there is nowhere I experienced more depressing than Tilbury, I mean that with absolutely no sarcasm. If you’re familiar with Bald & bankrupt and his travels then you will know the places I’m talking about as I’ve lived in some of the villages he covered, and I can honestly say none of those places, including those in the Chernobyl radiation zones are as soul crushing as Tilbury, in fact quite the opposite, there is still real beauty there unlike the total despair of tilbury.
😂
I grew up in West Thurrock. Grays was always dodgy but has gotten a lot worse.
Jaywick has effectively been abandoned by the council. It is appalling how much the rent is for one of those "beach hut "properties. Bald and Bankrupt visited before Christmas and I think it is awful how it has been left to decay.
I grew up in West Thurrock, Grays, too. I was very glad to leave it. I think I was fortunate to be in the Rectory/Chadwell Road area. We used to play in the Celcon pit, and build camps out of breeze blocks.
Grays is alright. I live here. Grew up in Purfleet.
My ex gf had a place in Grays, she lived in a block of flats, getting in and out of my car to get to the flats before being stoned by gangs of 12yr old kids was always a bit of a challenge.
@@grantmail4112 Oh my God, how awful. I'm sorry to hear that. Kids can be worse than adults at times. I hope you never experience this again, wherever you live. Be well, from Ruth x
@@ruth_southernstar Thanks Ruth, I agree, even though they were just kids it wasn't any easier. I know it's an old saying, but I really blame the parents more than the kids.. you just know if you spoke to their parents and told them what they were up to...the parents would punch you in the eye.
Excellent video as always. I personally would love to see a Lancashire version. The seaside towns of Morecambe and Blackpool (highest crime rate in the UK) would be in there for sure. Plus, you have Burnley, Blackburn, and Preston. Small county so easy to get around, too 😊
Aah, the Lancashire Riviera. It also includes Fleetwood.
Brierfield and Nelson as well, Colne also
Brierfield and Nelson as well
I doubt very much Morecambe would be in that list.
@@ruth_southernstar I grew up in East Tilbury but my partner and a lot of my work is in and surrounding Lancaster. Delivering parcels on Morcambe seafront and the surrounding roads is the closest I've come to receiving physical violence twice in the same day. You also have to constantly watch the floor because there is dogshit everywhere and on wet days it's a death sentence to slip on it. Probably still better than Tilbury town though.
Born and raised in Harlow. When I was young (60s-70s) it had a thriving industrial area along Edinburgh Way (chemicals, electronics, engineering, etc). By the 90s, it had largely gone, replaced by commercial zones. So where do people now go to work…..? Perhaps a sign or symptom of what has degraded the economy and culture?
From home on laptops probly 😂😂
I can leave my house in church langley and be in Liverpool Street station in 40 minutes. You buffoons🤡🤡🤡🤡
Into London and working from home lol
Local councils are to blame, years and years of mismanagement all over the the country , even going bankrupt wtf , how have we let this happen to our country
Yes, but budgets are set by central government which in some places has been slashed by 76%. Anyone's quality of life would suffer with cuts to their income of that magnitude.
@paulb8603: All the councils going bankrupt are the Labour Party run ones since they like to spend other peoples money on woke and all that garbage and not the people or the towns and cities they run.
Politicians 😡
@@leehannaford9166 no not politicians, normal folk running things that affect our lives as much as if not more that useless politicians, remember who did you vote for four who works for your local authority , who spends our hard earned money and decides on what rubbish the spend it on . They work for us we should always remember that fact when dealing with local authority people , civil servants , say that out aloud , the don’t work for us civilians anymore all they want is our hard earned money
@@paulb8603 Local aurhorities have had far bigger cuts than central government. Why is it all their fault?
Fun fact - you know the film Four Weddings and a Funeral? Well, the funeral was filmed in Grays. It was deliberately chosen as the most barren, soulless and depressing locations imaginable. It was a good choice.
St Clements, my great grandparents married there.
@@jilllawton8556 It is a handsome church. The contrast of that with the hulking, impersonal modern factory next door probably explains the choice of filming location, I'd imagine it was a lot more idyllic in your great-grandparents' day.
they had to do extra takes on that particular scene - one of the locals nicked the coffin .
Great video! Pretty much what I expected from these places
I thought Southend-on-Sea might have been saved from the list as it's now a city it includes Leigh-on-Sea, Thorpe Bay and Shoebury; but spot on with the city centre and the Kursaal
Grays, described as it is named, the Lakeside shopping centre really has hurt the town, but its only a stop on the train to get there
Clacton-on-Sea, expected to see it here to be honest, the further away you move from the sea away from the tourist areas and holiday parks, the grimeier it gets
With Harlow it's all about those new builds; either by the Town train station or west of the town near the M11, no-one I know who lives there likes to go into the Town Centre, they'll stick to any amenties away from the centre if possible
Basildon, just a new town feeling very old and eveything is leaving or has left already
Jaywick, I thought you would leave it out or combine it with Clacton! It's the unfortunate statistic of the Index of Multiple Deprivation that puts it here
Tilbury, never stepped foot in the town, yet trundling along by train, I do feel sorry for the people there as it looks grim
Thought Harwich & Dovercourt might have had a mention as both towns are pretty run down, especially the Dovercourt area. However they are receiving Levelling Up money of about £6.7 million
Looking forward to the next video! Another two counties you could look at is possibly Hertfordshire or Berkshire
@@bretton_woods My ex BiL lives in Leigh and that's a pretty fitting description as he loves it there.
Not disapointed to see Tilbury as number 1. I had to spend 3 days there and the company rented an airbnb for us that turned out to be a grotty sub let in a council estate. It was the first and last time they attempted to save on hotels after that. An absolutely awful place to be.
Watch that 6.7 mil get eaten entirely up by the local council and about 100k actually being spent on improvements.
What about trying to find some nice places sure we have them icant stand this video personally
@@bretton_woods well that's a surprise because I thought it was named one of our nicest places once
Southend was our nearest resort when I was a kid as we used to live in Ilford (another place that has gone downhill very badly). I last visited Southend on a hot day last year when it was unbearably crowded. It used to have good shops back in the seventies, several department stores, but now the shopping centre is completely rundown. I may not bother for a while. although there are nearby beaches that are lovely. Clacton also a few years ago had good shops and a great outlet a few miles out of town that was well worth making a journey for. Now half the outlet has been turned into a car park and there are only half as many shops and Clacton town centre has been decimated. Jaywick has a beautiful beach reminds me of Sandbanks. I used to have a school friend in the sixties who lived in an Essex mansion and they had a holiday chalet there. The only time I visit Tilbury is to use the cruise terminal which is very handily placed as it is only an hour from home but I have never visited the shops apart from Asda.
Like most seaside towns, old guest housechanged into flats , those flats occupiedmostly by people who have moved there and have no intention of working.
I lived most of my life in a small town in Essex called Saffron Walden, which is a totally different world from all these places. It was a bit boring, but definitely didn't feel like it has anything to do with Southend or anywhere else on the other ends of the county. A lot of people say it should be in Cambridgeshire, as it's more connected with Cambridge (in terms of culture, transport and postcode) than with any of the other towns or cities of Essex.
Essex is incredibly diverse, and both Saffron Walden and Gt Dunmow are planets away from Basildon and even Chelmsford. Despite living in London for 45 years, for 44 of them I commuted out into Essex for work so I'm very familiar with the county. A lot of it deserves the reputation, as the wealthy ones are as anti social as the poor ones. Personally, I'd have added an 8th - Canvey Island.
Posh !
@@FTFLCY Dunmow represent
snobbery
Chelmsford not that bad.
5:19 Harrow and Harlow are totally different areas
I lived in Southend for a few years and yeah that place was so sketchy at nighttime.
I worked just off the high street and was unable to go home one evening because someone decided to go around poking people with a sharp kitchen utensil.
Fun times.
I grew up there as a teen, and contrary to the comments I've seen elsewhere here, in my opinion it's never been "a decent town" - I moved out as quickly as I could and stayed out! It was probably a bit livelier in the 70s and 80s, but it's always had a nasty, malevolent edge to it. There was a period where in the summer a lot of gangs from London would specifically travel up to Southend to start fights on the seafront. Not exactly the fault of the town's residents, but not a great thing to have to contend with nonetheless.
@@23Daves yeah I remember this, I think it still happens. I was reading the evening echo and the front page headline was about a massive brawl in Old Leigh, and that little f***ers from London were coming up just to cause trouble and then slink back.
@@23Daves "malevolent" being the right word . not even evil spirits go near the place nowadays .
As someone who has had the dubious pleasure of going to Tilbury docks regularly, I was waiting for Tilbury's name to come up on the list... not shocked it's top.
The Kursall estate was built on the wonderful long gone Kursall amusmant park from happier times.
I worked as a housing Officer with council in around 2000, that estate was dire, worked in Hackney and Milton Keynes but that was one of the worst ever.
My sole visit to Tilbury was when I passed through there on a motorbike in the late ‘90s and had a brick thrown at me. The smell of menace was omnipresent.
...and the brick was probably stolen ....
Lived in (South) Essex for 10 years of my life. What a miserable place.. overcrowded, A12 is awful, M25 is awful, housing is overpriced, nothing to see or do unless you like shopping or sitting in traffic.
Benefits are everything is almost on your doorstep, London (trains are expensive), shopping centres (Lakeside), entertainment.
Glad I have left that place, it's a shame as North Essex is lovely.
Oh, Canvey Island and Wickford got off lightly! Ask any local... 😂
Yup, i definitely agree on Wickford! What a shithole haha! My poor brother moved there and used to regale us with many a tale of just how backward it was (we lived in Braintree prior, a small Northern Essex town) It was like a different country compared to Braintree thats for sure haha!
Don`t get me wrong Braintree ain`t exactly a utopia but its shocking how much better it is in comparison in regards to a lot.
Witham got off lightly
@@raregrimebeats1352 I worked in Witham, commuting out of London, for donkeys' years. My business (which I sold to my employees) is now based there and when I visited a year ago, I actually thought it had improved a bit. Certainly more places to eat.
Witham not too bad a tad bland maybe but not a bad place
Can we get started with the Essex girl jokes plz?
Q: What does an Essex girl use for protection when having sex?
A: A bus shelter.
Next...😁
Q How does an Essex girl turn on the light after sex?
A. She opens the car door.
How do you know when an Essex girl is having a climax? The chewing gum falls out her mouth.
Q: What’s the difference between an Essex girl and an Essex boy?
A: Essex girl has a higher sperm count.
What's the difference between Essex Girl and a Walrus ? One has a moustache and smells of fish the other one is a Walrus
@@raythomas4812 🤣🤣🤣🤣
As an Essex boy, with friends and family in most of the places you visited, and myself living in Southend, I very much enjoyed this episode! 😂
Basildon is best known for being the place where Depeche Mode grew up, knowing that fact you now understand why their music is so dark 😂
The only place in Essex I’ve been to was Clacton for a day in the mid 2000s, and I did not like it as for me it was your typical super tacky English seaside town with St George crosses everywhere
I'm sure they're just being patriotic .... 😂
Not a particular fan of Depeche Mode but they did become a global success of sorts. You’re probably best staying in your ivory tower with your silver spoons.
@@rapidreflex5525 I’m from the valleys of South Wales 🤣🤣🤣
And Allison moyet
Bas vegas lol.
My other Half's family live in Tilbury, the most depressing places I have to visit, litter everywhere, extremely gray all year round and nothing to do apart from set fire to bins. I may be a Sussex snob, but seriously, Tilbury deserves number one spot
I lived in Grays from 1990 to 2010. A commuter town into London which has truly deteriorated. The entire borough of Thurrock is totally run down. Some pretty impoverished towns, Chadwell St Mary, Ockendon and Purfleet. Even Lakeside Shopping Centre, the jewell in Thurrock’s crown is looking tired.
Hard to see a way back
I mostly agree with you although I wouldnt say the entire borough of Thurrock is run down. There are two villages/small towns I can think of that are actually decent which are Orsett and Bulphan.
Would say hordon on the hill, even Stanford le hope/corringham are better than bulphan. Place would be even worse of/cut off if it weren’t for a petition to keep the only bus route going. The only shop is a community run corner shop in the community centre, only pub/bar (if you can call it that) is in the rough motel etc
I’d be interested to hear your take on Hampshire. Everyone thinks it’s a beautiful county because of places like Winchester or New Forest. However, you will find some right turd towns like Aldershot or Portsmouth
Portsmouth is pretty nice for the most part tbf but there are DEFINITELY some turd towns in Hampshire
Try Leigh Park or Paulsgrove.
Andover; Totton; Basingstoke;
I always see Portsmouth flag up on these “worst places to live” lists. I just can’t buy that. Especially after the places I’ve been. Maybe I should visit and find out.
I think Waterlooville deserves a visit!
Another excellent report and commentary Mr Turdtown. Thank you.
I have lived my entire live in Essex, in 2 places that fortunately weren't on your list. Southend has definitely gone downhill a lot, back in my childhood it wasn't perfect but it was a great family day out. No boarded up shops, you didn't feel unsafe. Now it's a bit like a ghost town, especially with the loss of department stores like BHS and Debenhams. A lot of the smaller towns surrounding Southend have either very small high streets or none really at all, so Southend is the place you have to travel to for the cinema, theatre, big shops etc.
I think Southend is OK I actually think its better now cleaner
If you haven’t lived in the place I don’t think you should comment
Have you noticed that most of the Towns that are ‘Turds’ have been flooded by immigrants and have had no money spent on them for years? This is has happened in most working class towns across the whole of the UK not just Essex
It's not a coincidence. There has been an agenda in play involving local councils and central government. It will all come out in 2024 I believe.
It’s happened across many areas of Kent and London but apparently all these newcomers are exactly what the country needs…..doesn’t look like they are having the desired effect to me……
@nickgodfrey1148 I think it's the lack of funding and effective governance that should be your primary focus (not to say that mass immigration cannot and does not pose issues)
@@Gordon.Pinkerton I agree with you. It’s a combination of lack of funding and uncontrolled immigration. This government (and previous) are not interested in small towns with incompetent councils nor do they concern themselves with immigrants flooding into these same towns. It doesn’t concern them because it doesn’t affect them.
@@Gordon.Pinkerton The two things go hand in hand - massive increase in population with much of it going to poorer towns and no increase in funding to cope with it
Very true...the joke about Tilbury was that Policeman patrolling it (this is the days when there were Police on foot) always patrolled in pairs - back to back!! And that was in the relatively prosperous 1960s! Southend has always been an odd place - everything is back to front somehow! The interesting shops are (or were) outside the centre, and the suburbs are actually far more interesting (and attractive) than the centre! When there was a tram network (ie in the 1920s and 1930s) they used to tempt tourists with a scenic circular tour of the suburbs! It was advertised as a tour round the glamorous American style tree line boulevards! As for my home town of Grays....my mother still lives there and I've just returned from it. Its such a soul-depressingly dreary place, tatty and filthy yet hideously expensive. In the 1960s there were some quite smart upmarket suburbs, but these look as tatty as everywhere else now. Its a wonderful place to leave..........
Same here , I left Grays in early 80's , not Buckinghamshire granted but decent all the same .
I had to detour through there last year , so I thought I'd have a shufti at all the old places . Broke my heart .
It's like they go out of their way to turn these places into shtoles.
Highlight ( ingrained in my mind ) must have been a 'long term tourist' clearing her throat loudly and fleming it into the street ( in full view of everyone) while her young daughter squatted over a drain 😲 .
And , as we all know , it's only gonna get worse ....
Be lucky matey .
Grew up in Basildon and upto the late 90s it wasn’t that bad.
Nightlife from the past
Infamous Raquels in Bas.
Pink Toothbrush in Rayleigh.
Pzazz in Grays
And of course
ToTs in Southend.
Back in the 70s I used to love going to ToTS .
Especially on a Thursday because the Hen nights were real fun 😜😜
And zero 6
You should take in all the new towns as you travel and produce an episode on the idealistic future that never materialised but very quickly decayed and started falling apart with the one exception in North Buckinghamshire.
To be fair Livingston in Scotland isn't too bad for a new town. Good connections being right on the M8, two train stations and regular frequent bus services to Edinburgh and beyond have made it into something of a commuter town mainly for Edinburgh as it's 20 minutes away, but also for Glasgow which is only 40/45 minutes along the motorway.
I live in the North Bucks New Town you mention and think its great and done well for a new town. Would like to see Mr Ts review of it. Spent my youth in Hemel Hempstead which also isn't too bad and learnt from the mistakes of Harlow.
@@kevinh96 Livingston is awful
There's a couple of other decent New Towns. We have three up here in the North East and two of them are utter dives (Peterlee is probably one of the worst towns I've ever visited... and I've been to a lot) but Cramlington is relatively alright: it's a bit bland, but the average house price is £180k and the nice areas definitely outnumber the bad areas
I grew up in Harold Hill, and it wasn't a bad place to grow up , I remember the havering play leadership in the six week holidays , the Harold Hill carnival, wallys mobile shop .
Hilldene shops used to have everything, then a couple of proper butchers , sports shop, barrowboy green grocers ( used to work there after school ) 😅 sainsbury, woolworths and many more .
I moved away many years ago and when I've visited its certainly in need of a major refresh .
@@ListenUp-py1qmwhere is it then?
Harold hill is a london borough as its within the m25 , however, its actually essex hence harold hill romford essex rm is a romford postcode that is essex
@@ListenUp-py1qm and deny you the pleasure of showing off once more
@@ListenUp-py1qm oh i'm definitely judging you.
@@ListenUp-py1qm you know the saying what are you when you assume? read back our convo. i didn't say i didn't know or disagree with you . i hoped for an intelligent debate . As i'm from Havering and possess a post 1965 birth certificate , i'm obviously very well aware of where Harold Hill is.
Harrow - "They built a water garden which due to its lack of surrounding greenary makes it look more like an open sewer" I died laughing after hearing that 😂
And why is he calling it Harrow???
Harrow, only one letter difference but like a different world.
@@splodge57Harrow is a dump as well
The water gardens smell like a sewer too! Especially during the summer, almost smells as bad as Edmonton
Actually the the original water gardens were quite pleasant when my mother used to take me there after shopping 64 years ago. Then the council "improved" it turning it into an extension of a carpark, so needless to say its a concrete shithole now plagued by the usual lowlife. Shame. No immigrants AT ALL then either.
I did some survey work around Tilbury and the surrounding area. The atmosphere genuinely felt like it was stuck in 1780 and that at any minute some marauding band of pillaging drunkards would emerge from the scrub along the Thames and accost me.
There was also an abundance of deflated 'Happy Birthday' helium balloons around the landscape for some reason. Like all the broken childhood dreams and spirit of London's children float over to Tilbury to rot and perish.
Pretty sure that Tom Hardy series (Taboo) was filmed there for that reason.
You've definitely got a way with words 🙂
I’ve lived in tilbury in the past and years ago it was a fairly decent place to live. The Olympic village sort of ruined it with outsiders moving in. They’ve also closed the police station which is like closing the sheriff office at the o.k. Corral.
I was born in Harlow in 1958, when it was a very new town. There was about half a dozen shops in the town centre. My mum, Bless her, used to have to walk to the Stow from Northbrooks. A long walk even today. Like many people my parents came down from East London for a better way of life, and the plentiful work. Mum did some nursing and dad worked with BOC. It used to be a really lovely place with a great olympic size swimming pool, lots of youth clubs and a great sports centre, which was generally affordable for those who wished to use it. Harlow also had a thriving market where most of my family worked at one time or another. And of course there was the Iconic Gilbeys distillery, which was one of the major employers in the town at the time. Enter the Tories! Decline and fall big time! Never the same again! No market at all now. Just an open air drug and alchol shitstop! Fortunately, I managed to escape in the early naughties, and will never return except for the occasional family visit.
The current house prices are shocking and unjustifiable! The most recent builds were built for a fiver and sold for 500k! More fool those who've bought one! So Shame on the governments, all of em, and even more shame on the dirty bastards who've turned the town into nothing but a massive toilet that can't be flushed! Like many other places throughout England, it should be nooked, and most of the inhabitants with it! 😔😡🏴🇮🇪🙏
I grew up near Tilbury and can confirm that it's the worst town in Essex. Amazing how all the worst town's in Essex are so close to each other.
no no no , South Ockendon should get all awards . It makes Tilbury look hupper class .
Tilbury is not near jaywick and clacton
Your videos are great! We love your cultured approach and great commentary that is never dull or annoying but always informative. We left the UK 23 years ago to come to Italy and not for a moment looked back. I grew up in Hackney, Aveley and Dagenham then moved to the Bath area but by far the worst place we lived was Bristol. It would be an insult to toilets to call it one. Have you done Southmead? When we were there 30 years ago it was hell.
Well done for doing these. We're avid watchers. I need to watch your one on Twerton tonight.. that place was always a dump.
I'm an Essex resident and have been to most of these places (except Tilbury). I couldn't agree more as this video was pretty much spot on for these areas. Clacton & Southend have a lot of potential. Basildon, Grays & Harlow all could be better but need a lot of regeneration work. Jaywick is what it is and could easily be improved but I've never had any problems or felt unsafe the few times I visited there. I've not been to Tilbury or had any need to visit there so I can't really comment on it.
Thanks for another TT! If you ever need showing round the best and the worst places in Beds, Berks and Herts - give me a shout!
My grandfather lived in Jaywick in the 80's and 90's. We didn't go often to visit as my dad snd his father didn't get a long so well. I was a child, so I only remember bits and pieces. It was like a ghost town every time we visited. He lived in a prefab bungalow that had a single bedroom in the roof, that was accessible via a hatch with a pull down folding ladder that was more like staircase.
One of my friends lived in one of those bungalows! I forgot they exsited until now. I moved out of Jaywick when I was 10
@@planetbea What was it like living there? I remember walking down some of the roads near the beach, and they were just covered in sand lol
@@ReadySaltedCrisps like he said in the video there's like 2 parts of Jaywick, I lived by the sea for only a couple years from when I was about 3 until I was 5, then I moved to the other part which is like all houses, bungalows and parks by the school. All I really remember from by the sea is the amount of times the water came over the sea wall in bad weather, which is probably why it was covered in sand all the time! If the tide was in it was touching the wall.
So far I think you have visited nearly every one of my childhood holiday destinations. To be fair, the descriptions as Turdtowns are accurate, even back when I was a child.- I'm in my mid fifties now.
As a northerner, I found this one fascinating Essex is always painted as this very rich county and as the sun always shines. This opens your eyes this is not the case. Keep up the good work i really find this channel fascinating.
There's quite a large north/south divide in Essex, you'll notice most of these are on the coast or nearer London
It seem Northern folk think it's all well off people and places down south.
We have some of the most deprived areas in the whole of the UK down here.
South Essex is basically on fringe of London with good transport links into City, hence house prices, north of Chelmsford small villages and small towns, transport not so good, more rural, but still expensive houses especially towards Cambridge area
Once you get past the London Thurrock Southend bits Essex is very beautiful and unspoiled. Thaxted. Uttlesford. All worthy of acclaim
Down here, you have northern wages, but southern prices.
I love your channel mate. Love the Commentary.😂 Wifey and I paid our first ever visit to the UK from Oz in Sept/Oct. We loved most of the places we saw. Planning a return visit for 2025. Will have to visit some "Turd Towns."
I remember a pub in Tilbury called The Ship being reported in the mainstream media as the roughest pub in England
The type of place where you Wipe your feet on the way out
Harlow not Harrow is on a main line trainline to London, next to the M11 and M25, close to Stansted (Which is why its expensive). Never seen anyone swimming in the "Water Gardens", the older Water Gardens maybe.
Tilbury doesn’t surprise me, went there in about 2008 and it was exactly as described then, pretty sure the welcome sign had bullet holes in it.
Ah, poor Harlow. Back in the 80s when I was a small child I genuinely loved that town - its beautiful park, its outdoor swimming pool, the kids play areas, the way the place didn't quite look like anywhere else I'd been before (I loved those slabs of concrete and that fantastic town centre clock you showed). The whole place just seemed like a novelty and actually features in my childhood memories in a good way. My older brother would drive me down there in his car as a treat and we'd have a fun day out.
In those days I suspect it was a bit brighter, cleaner and greener, a bit more well-kept. I haven't been back since then and have been warned on many occasions not to bother. I think I'll stick with my memories. Sometimes you can't go back.
On the other hand, the house I currently live in (in the Midlands) is on a Local Authority estate designed by the man who did most of the work on Harlow. My mind was blown when I found out, but once you're told, it does figure... it was cheap for a reason! I live in a tiny row of Harlow-esque houses in a really nice area and get to look at the huge posh residences I'm surrounded by from my window, which I just think is hilarious. They all get a much less flattering view for their money.
I lived in Harlow in the late 80's and I really liked it back then. It's not so good now though.
Ooh loved the outdoor swimming pool when I lived there in the 60s. I actually live in Old Harlow, but visited Harlow on Saturday for shopping, and remember it had a lovely market too❤
The best thing about Basildon is Depeche Mode 😂. Keep up the good work 👏
Yesssssss! I cheered when you said Tilbury is number 1! My family are from Tilbury and I grew up in Chadwell St Mary and Grays. But when ever I visited my grandparents in Tilbury as a child, I knew it was the roughest place with the roughest people. People let horses into their houses in Tilbury lol. But I do have some nice memories of it.
In Herts we have Stevenage, Harlow and Basildon's pappy, Hatfield and the modern parts of Hemel Hempstead. Oh and Watford has the worst town centre, it's surrounded by a ring road and after you've been there for the working day you get home and turn your bath water black.
Yes the other side of Essex is supposed to be very posh. Have thoroughly enjoyed you videos and noticed the improving in quality. Keep up the good work. As always we would like you to do Oxford or Oxfordshire.
I used to live in Southend , they are parts where they will not leave your car on bricks and someone will nick the bricks :)
Gotta love York Road, lol
Born in Tilbury 1957 moved to Chadwell St Mary 1960 moved to Australia 1973. Been back twice from Australia, not going back again. Were nice places when I was young, so sad what has happened to them
Never been to Essex but heard mixed things! Would definitely be interested to hear your takes on Berkshire. I’m sure you’ll have some choice words as for every Windsor or Twyford, you’ve got a Reading or Slough lol
It's like any other county, got it's good parts and bad. Go into tye countryside and the north of the county, tends to be better up there.
Bracknell is a shithole too
Essex is pretty grim in the cities, much better in the rural parts. Also the North of Essex further away from London is better than South Essex.
@@martinwebb1681noted, cheers!!
As others have said, some parts of Essex are really beautiful and lovely. County as a whole gets a bad rep, but to an extent that can be quite unfair
Came here from the Locus Podcast, love your channel x
As a former Southender, I think you summarised Basildon very well. ;-)
I got the No.1 right!! I grew up in Tilbury, remember my family going to the local, The Bomb crater, such a dump of a town. I also lived in Grays, it had so much potential, just never realised, like most of these towns.
Me too mate. 1962 through 1987 moved out because my mate was being threatened with being murdered and I didn't want to end up being collateral damage.
brilliant series, keep 'em coming! x
I found this channel yesterday, (or, yesturday), and have been binge-watching your excellent, and frequently hilarious, content. I had to subscribe, so please keep up the great work, and maybe consider doing your thing in the Manchester and Birmingham areas. 😁
I knew Basildon was going to get a good shafting. I grew up there after leaving London just after the war. I emigrated to Australia and after travelling the world I settled in Brisbane. Would I ever go back to the UK for a holiday. No way. The whole country is sliding into a dismal derelict dumping ground. I think I would get very upset. Still it was nice 65 years ago.
Harlow at 4? Not bad, thought it would be higher
Bald and Bankrupt and Backpacker Ben visited Clacton on sea and Jaywick recently. Interesting places.
I watched that.
@@Natez-vw4kdditto. Doesn't look that bad. It's like any seaside town it's dying a slow death because of cheaper holidays abroad.
You cannot defend the Jaywick inbreds¬@@awestruckbeaver3344
Turdtowns had a sly dig at them when talking about jaywick
My nan use to say, they wash their nets (curtains) in South Ockendon because there's nothing else to do.
Walk around the council estates of Pitsea in Basildon and you’ll be lucky not to break your ankle on a pothole somewhere.
ArmPitsea.
Totally agree with you on Basildon.
An ex of mine lived there and worked in the SuperF**kOffMegaTesco in the adjoining village of Pitsea, so I had plenty of opportunity to see most of the place in the early-2000's.
Back then, you could see a wide variety of abandoned burned-out cars on virtually every corner, as Basildon was pretty much Boy Racer Central.
The only bright spot is comic store 'The Cartoon Shop' in Eastgate Shopping Centre, which is fortunately still there.
The little Chinese shop on the second floor is also a good place. Used to get my karate gear in there.
Basildon hit the headlines infamously as the place where Leah Betts took dodgy ecstasy pill in nightclub and died.The related Essex Boys murder nearby also. 😑
@@minnielee3399 Also the birthplace of Depeche Mode
@@minnielee3399 I remember the Essex Boys stuff. My Ex, being somewhat older than myself at the time (I was mid-20's, she was 41!) if I remember rightly, knew one or more of the guys involved.
Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. @@AFCManUk 😒
What is the difference between Harlow and Basildon?
35 miles.
😂
I was one of those homeless drug addicts in Southend. I used to sleep either buried in the sand, under the three shells, or by a footbridge on Southchurch Road. I wasn't either of those things when I moved to Essex, and got sober after I decided to leave, the only real conclusion being that Southend on Sea is to blame.
How is a town responsible for peoples choices
@richlee509 I read that last line as being a joke, but hard to tell on the internet lol
@@richlee509 because every corner you turn you're offered drugs of some sort? I used to know a group of people from there, about 8-10 people, all of them was off their heads on something all of the time
@@richlee509It's a joke, buddy.
Would love to see Northamptonshire, most of the big towns in Northamptonshire give you an overwhelming sense of depression the second you enter, especially Northampton itself.
Kettering, Wellingborough and Corby are awful places too
Only ever went to Northampton once, once was enough, never again.
Wellingborough famous for its new super prison
My parents lived in Northampton for a while, so I visited many times. Dear God, what a depressing place. I once house sat (well, cat sat) for them while they were on holiday, and was immediately so bored that I started leaving town every day for the day, just to be somewhere less depressing. One time for something to do I walked into the city centre from their house in the outskirts, about an hour's walk, and that was GRIM, just a neverending series of soulless suburban streets.
@@AlastairjCarruthers My dad's called Derek and he's from Northampton. Born in the slums 1933. They have been demolished and replaced by a multi storey car park (Swan street)
Would love it if you went over the Channel and did some French Turd Towns - Les Villes du Merdes! Be really interesting to see if they have similar run down places that we have. Would suggest Amiens for starters.
The Nord-Pas de Calais (now known as Hauts de France), is an area particularly ripe for les villes merdiques. Have a glance on google maps at Denain, Loos (the one that is a satellite town of Liile, in fact look at most of the satellite towns of Lille), Douai.
I live not far from Saint-Lô, in Normandy which was 95% destroyed (yes, 95%) during the allied bombardments of 1944. Unlike, a lot of French rebuilt towns, they decided to go all 'Coventry' with Saint-Lô. It's not a rough town, but it is greyer than John Major and more depressing than the state of British politics.
@@motosnape I visited Douai for a few days 10 years ago, I cycled there beside the canals from St Omer and it was really lovely. I really hope it hasn’t gone down hill since then. I remember Henin-Beaumont nearby was pretty grim, a proper old mining town. Even then I wondered what people “did” in that area, it seemed like there were a lot of retirees which isn’t a good recipe for long term sustainability.
Had a day trip to Dunkerque last week, and hoped to do a good old shop and explore the area. It was a cheap ferry deal. There was a reason for this... utterly grim and felt very unsafe, grey and depressing, especially the big Auchan nearby.
A lot of northern France is like northern England, full of run down mining and industrial towns. It's grim up north!
Bethune not great either
I haven't lived in the UK in 20 years. Haven't been in 10. I fear some places from youth/childhood have changed for the worse :/
No people in history have ever benefited from becoming a min ority in their own homeland.
Dont get me started on ''Stanford-No-Hope'' (Standford-Le-Hope).
I grew up in Stanford. It was a great place to grow up ..
OMG ! I asked you to do Essex and you did ! And first up Southend 😂😂 you nailed it
I almost moved to Basildon with my batshit crazy ex as she'd taken a job down there after finishing uni. I've never actually looked up Basildon before, but seeing this has made me realise that it's the second-biggest bullet I dodged when we broke up. What a shithole!
Basildon and Harlow are bad Tilbury is definitely the worst place in essex
@@richlee509 in what way bad, mot of social housing and people not working, talking and bickering against every one , and doing drugs??
I really thought Jaywick would get that number-one slot!
A UA-camr called Bald and Bankrupt went to Jaywick a few weeks ago and honestly doesn't look that bad.
Yeah, I watched that video. I'm a big fan! The people seem friendly enough, it's just the infrastructure of the place that makes it seem soi down and out.
Speaking as someone from south Essex, Tilbury can't be out-turded.
Jaywick is kind of small, it looks really run down, that goes against the place. Not somewhere most people would want to spend their time, you have to feel sorry for any decent people that are stuck there without a way out.
Back in the 60s jaywick was a holiday destination for many poorer families,but like many places, it’s evolved into a slightly run down area due to lack of funds,councils rather build stupid great vanity projects,and new roads with the money,then ploughing back in to socialist revamped areas that need up grading ..
I’m just gonna be the one to say it: please do a London special, I know there’s not really many ‘towns’, so to say, but I feel like there’s definitely a few potential ‘turd settlements’ around the county/city, such as Lee, Neasden and Edmonton.
If not then Hertfordshire would be a good one to do, given you’ve recently been doing a lot more nearby home counties to London-themed videos 🤷🏼♂️ Wouldn’t be surprised to see you put Potters Bar in on that list
I'm guessing you live in North London then.😆
Add Wood Green, Hayes (Middlesex), Harlesden, Upton Park/East Ham to that list
@@RubbishGimpy well I grew up in West London most of my life but I’m planning on moving to South, so no 😂 I just happen to be familiar with some of these places due to completing certain jobs around there or just personal experience 🤷🏼♂️
@@J8rdz tbf I don’t know much about East Ham, but there’s an argument for the rest being included on that list 🤷🏼♂️
Stratford !
Great video as always, would love to see east and West Sussex
This episode & channel was mentioned in an article today about Tilbury in the Daily Mail.
As someone who grew up in Essex... How did Colchester and Chelmsford escape this list??!!
North Essex is generally nicer on the whole. Ive lived in Tilbury and now Basildon my whole life and we travel to Chelmsford to shop even though it's further away, there's less trouble that way it seems. You can at least leave the stab vest at home!
So many clinically obese people in Chelmsford town centre, it’s depressing.
Colchester isn't anywhere near as sketchy as Chelmsford or any of the other hell holes closer to lononistan
@MuckyFingerz16 the stab vest 😭😭 I think u probably still need one if u ever go on a night out in Chelmsford
@@kinglizardo9909 I can imagine so!
Not sure if coincidence but I’ve been to them all.
Southend is actually fun on a weekend especially summer, the night is so busy and full of lights, never felt unsafe
Jaywick has amazing beach and friendly people and a lot of camp sites a few historic towers
Clacton is a bit far so I didn’t see it as much as others but the roads there are amazing, a lot of older people and dog walkers on the beach, the cement separating the beach from the road is colossal, you need to climb if you want to see the beach in other areas
Tilbury is extremely industrial, and busy at all times I wouldn’t recommend living there unless you have a business there
Basildon I like the Sign BASILDON written hollywood style cheers me up everytime apart from that the town seems really clean, and wide roads, I wouldn’t mind living there
Grays: almost identical to Tilbury (to me)
And top Harlow, I always liked how new the city looks. I saw many gardens and flowers well maintained, with plenty of green spaces, with good roads, and plenty of old pubs
So to me
Top
Harlow
Southend
Basildon
Clackton
Jaywick
Tillbury
Grays
I assume you missed Pitsea! That would have definitely been on my list, but to be fare, I’d rather be anywhere in Essex rather than Luton, Bradford, Burnley, cradley heath, Gateshead, Benwell Grange or Cumbernauld. They are a few places I’m not a fan of and I doubt they would like me lmao, however I’d like to visit Blackpool to see if it’s really as bad as folk say it is 🤷🏻♂️
Part of basildon
Blackpool is a proper shithole. Best thing about it is pleasure beach
Quite right.😊
I was born and brought up in Aveley, near Grays. Got out of there as soon as I was old enough! Would never go back to Essex. Astonishes me how many of my school friends still live in that little crap heap.
If u lived in Essex ,you’d also know there a many really beautiful villages to live and lovely countryside..although it’s one of most densely populated places to”live now .every area has less desirable parts to live.
I know but this is about the turd towns not the good ones.
Basildon is where Depeche Mode come from.
Only good thing that town ever produced lol (huge Devotee here)
Excellent video as always !
I would love it if you went to Teesside and done a video .