Pig's Bay

Pig's Bay is the site of a large Ministry of Defence site, situated near Shoeburyness in Essex, England. The bay is in East Shoebury, a small beachland area in Shoeburyness. The main entrance to the site is at Blackgate Road, Shoeburyness. This is also the gateway to the island of Foulness, the fourth largest island off the coast of England.

Land was first purchased here for use as an artillery range in 1849, and the main use of the site is still as a weapons testing facility, now operated by QinetiQ. Large areas of land and tidal sands allow long range testing of tank and artillery shells over distances of up to 27 km. The site also has facilities for the disposal of conventional munitions.

One of the other uses of the site is the storage and scrapping of old railway vehicles. It has its own private railway network, stretching for somewhere in the region of six miles, which is linked to one of the sidings at Network Rail's Shoeburyness c2c electrical multiple unit depot by means of an unmanned level crossing across Shoeburyness High Street.

The site has also featured in a few episodes of the Channel 4 series Scrapheap Challenge.

External links

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