Astral

I went to the island today and called in at Blue Town to take some photos. You were going to get the shot of the Red Lion but that lens flare annoyed me; it's in the extras bin. This is the oldest surviving pub but the plaque which makes this claim is coy about dates so I can't give you any firm stuff around how long it's been purveying fine ales. The building I've blipped is just along from the Red Lion and I though it looked smart with the blue flashings and I managed to get a couple of images despite the sun being in my face.

I think I've mentioned Blue Town before; it's part of but apart from Sheerness and across the road from the now derelict steelworks which was a big employer in the area. It's hard up against the dockyard wall and that is where the early inhabitants would have worked from the establishment of the Royal Navy dockyard in the mid-seventeenth century until the navy withdrew in 1960. The docks passed to Medway Port Authority and thousands of jobs were lost. Now the port is the largest in the UK for the import of cars - there are thousands parked around the port.