The Maplin Sands are mudflats on the northern bank of the Thames estuary, off Foulness Island, near Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England, though they actually lie within the neighbouring borough of Rochford. They are valuable as a wildlife reserve, with a large colony of dwarf eelgrass (Zostera noltei) and associated animal communities.
A screw-pile lighthouse was built on the sands in 1838, which was possibly the world's first.
In the later part of the 19th century John I. Thornycroft & Company and Yarrow Shipbuilders used the sands for their Destroyers measured mile speed trials. The shallow waters resulted in a flow of water that could add up to a knot to the ship's speed. When the Admiralty found out they required that all future trials be carried out in deep water.
A plan to build a third airport for London on the sands was approved in 1973, but abandoned in 1974 in the wake of the 1973/74 oil crisis. The project would have included not just a major airport, but a deep-water harbour suitable for the container ships then coming into use, a high-speed rail link to London, and a new town for the accommodation of the thousands of workers who would be required. (See main article on Thames Estuary Airport.)
The Maplin Sands were at that time, and remain, a military testing ground belonging to the Ministry of Defence - see Pig's Bay.
Famous quotes containing the word sands:
“Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)