The Twin of Tilbury Fort
After we had moved from East London to High House, Mark Allinson, the Thurrock Council Arts Officer, decided that he would give me an initial tour around Thurrock. The first place he took me to was Tilbury. So we got out, and he said, "This is Tilbury Fort." And, he said, "It is the same design as the one in Calcutta". That was interesting to me, because I've spent a lot of time in Calcutta. The irony was, when I moved to Essex, I thought, "I'm going to focus on my English history, and I'm going to stop keeping going back and forth to India the whole time. ". And yet in the first five minutes of going out into the Thurrock community, somebody mentioned Calcutta.
What he said was that the very special design of Tilbury Fort influenced the building of Fort William in Calcutta, nearly a century later. This got me thinking about the links between Tilbury and Calcutta. So I Googled it. I Googled "Calcutta, Tilbury", and it came up with houses for sale on Zoopla on Calcutta Road. I thought that was very funny. On Google images, it had those houses on Calcutta Road juxtaposed with streets from Calcutta in India. It sparked my interest in finding international connections, particularly ones between Calcutta and Tilbury.
From a story told by Ali Pretty
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What he said was that the very special design of Tilbury Fort influenced the building of Fort William in Calcutta, nearly a century later. This got me thinking about the links between Tilbury and Calcutta. So I Googled it. I Googled "Calcutta, Tilbury", and it came up with houses for sale on Zoopla on Calcutta Road. I thought that was very funny. On Google images, it had those houses on Calcutta Road juxtaposed with streets from Calcutta in India. It sparked my interest in finding international connections, particularly ones between Calcutta and Tilbury.
From a story told by Ali Pretty
Related Stories: 33
