The Nore is a long bank of sand and silt running along the south-centre of the final narrowing of the

Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Its south-west is the very narrow Nore Sand. Just short of the Nore's easternmost point where it fades into the channels it has a notable point once marked by a lightship on the line where the estuary of the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

nominally becomes the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

. A lit buoy today stands on this often map-marked divisor: between Havengore Creek in east Essex and Warden Point on the

Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. ''Sheppey'' is derived ...

in Kent. Until 1964 it marked the seaward limit of the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...

. As the sandbank was a major hazard for shipping coming in and out of London, in 1732 it received the world's first lightship. This became a major landmark, and was used as an assembly point for shipping. Today it is marked by Sea Reach No. 1 Buoy. The Nore is an

anchorage Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...

, or open

roadstead A roadstead (or ''roads'' – the earlier form) is a body of water sheltered from rip currents, spring tides, or ocean swell where ships can lie reasonably safely at anchor without dragging or snatching.United States Army technical manual, TM 5- ...

, used by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

's North Sea Fleet, and to its local Command. It was the site of a notorious mutiny in 1797. The Great Nore is the cul-de-sac deep channel to the south of the Nore which opens out to the locally most deep water to the east, the Sheerness Approach.

Lightship and shape of shoal

The Nore is a hazard to shipping, so in 1732 the world's first lightship was moored over it"Trinity House: Lightvessels"PortCities London
in an experiment by Robert Hamblin, who patented the idea. This must have proved successful, as by 1819 England had nine lightships. The Nore lightship was run by

Trinity House "Three In One" , formation = , founding_location = Deptford, London, England , status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity , purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons , he ...

, the

general lighthouse authority A general lighthouse authority (GLA) is one of three agencies primarily responsible for aids to navigation in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. They are divided into regions as follows: *Trinity House: England & Wales, Channel Island ...

for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar. The early Nore lightships were small wooden vessels, often Dutch-built

galliot A galiot, galliot or galiote, was a small galley boat propelled by sail or oars. There are three different types of naval galiots that sailed on different seas. A ''galiote'' was a type of French flat-bottom river boat or barge and also a flat- ...

s. By the end of the 19th century a larger ship with a revolving light had been instituted, but after about 1915 the authorities ceased to use one. Sea Reach No. 1 Buoy, as at 2006, marks the anchorage-point where the №3 lightship stood, about midway between

Shoeburyness Shoeburyness (; also called Shoebury) is a suburb of the city of Southend-on-Sea, in the City of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. east of the city centre. It was an urban district of Essex from 1894 to 1933, when it ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

and

Sheerness Sheerness () is a town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 11,938, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby town ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. The earlier line crossing the deeper eastern part of the shoal where №1 lightship stood, the line between Havengore Creek, Essex and Warden Point, Kent remains the nominal (conventional) limit of the Thames with the North Sea.

Royal Navy

The Nore has been the site of a Royal Navy anchorage since the

age of sail The Age of Sail is a period that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th (or mid- 15th) to the mid- 19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the introduction of naval ...

, being adjacent to both the

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

and

port of London The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North Sea ...

and to the

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

, England's principal naval base and dockyard on the North Sea. During the

French Revolutionary War The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted French First Republic, France against Ki ...

it was the scene of a notorious mutiny, when seamen protesting against their poor pay and working conditions refused orders and seized control of their ships in May 1797. The mutiny ended in June, and while the ringleaders were punished, much was done by the Admiralty to improve pay and conditions for the seamen. In 1804, Jonathan Martin, would-be

York Minster The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, commonly known as York Minster, is the cathedral of York, North Yorkshire, England, and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The minster is the seat of the Archbis ...

arsonist, was stationed aboard the 74-gun here. From 1899 to 1955, the

maintained a

Commander-in-Chief, The Nore The Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, was an operational commander of the Royal Navy. His subordinate units, establishments, and staff were sometimes informally known as the Nore Station or Nore Command. The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of the Th ...

, a senior officer responsible for protecting the entrance to the port of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, and merchant traffic along the east coast of Britain. In the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the Nore Command principally had a supply and administrative function, but in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

it oversaw naval operations in the North Sea along the East coast of Britain, guarding against invasion and protecting trade.

Fort

Also during the Second World War a series of defensive towers known as

Maunsell Forts The Maunsell Forts are armed towers built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during the Second World War to help defend the United Kingdom. They were operated as army and navy forts, and named after their designer, Guy Maunsell. The forts were ...

was built in the Thames estuary to protect the approach to London from air and sea attack. The Nore was the site of one of these, the Great Nore Tower. It was equipped with a battery of

anti-aircraft guns Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

and manned by a unit of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. It was completed in 1943, but was abandoned at the end of hostilities. It was badly damaged in a collision in 1953 and dismantled in 1959–1960.

References

External links

map of Thames estuary, 1840
at thames.me.uk, showing position of Nore lightship

at bobleroi.co.uk {{coord , 51, 28, 30, N, 0, 46, 40, E, region:GB, display=title Sandbanks of England Geography of the River Thames Sandbanks of the North Sea Thames Estuary Roadsteads of the United Kingdom