I think the tower here may have been a WWII Chain Home radar tower, but I know that now, it belongs to the Port of London Authority and amongst other antennae sprouting from it's steelwork, there is a radar sweeping the seas from 60 metres up.

Chain Home was the name of the radar system that was spread along the north, east and south coasts of Britain from 1939 onwards. They operated at three levels - above 15000 feet, beneath that and a third system which was designed to detect aircraft flying beneath 500 feet.

The first radar tower was built about 20 miles north of here, at Bawdsey in Suffolk. However, it was the development in 1940 of the 'Bootstrap' water-cooled magnetron in a hidden laboratory (which I have actually been in) under the seating of a lecture theatre in the University of Birmingham, which allowed aircraft and ships to carry their own radar systems.