Whilst there's a station, Ebbsfleet isn't really a place yet. So far, it's a potential New Town for the north Kent 'Thames Gateway'. It's already served by the first High Speed train line (the one that doubles as the Javelin service for the Olympics). There's a masterplan which shows what the proposed Ebbsfleet development might look like. When looking at the Battersea Power Station plans, I noted that the architects / propagandists had sometimes greyed out undesirable features, such as train tracks that run alongside proposed apartment blocks. Here, the High Speed line is of course a draw for Ebbsfleet (indeed they've greyed out the roads) - but note the apparently vacant area in the far right of the image below...
Ebbsfleet International station itself is an almost featureless glass box, sitting amidst a somewhat Tellytubby rolling green countryside. The vista is only somewhat marred by the pylons lurking on the hilltops.
The station is served by allegedly-exciting Fastrack buses (Fast Rack? Fasttrack?), which run to Bluewater shopping centre in the west, and Gravesend to the east. So I went to both (which cost £6. Bloody provincial fares).
Approaching Bluewater, the road loops down into a huge chalk quarry pit. You are not allowed to arrive by foot. The shopping centre has something of a theme park feeling about it, being surrounded by huge expanses of car park. The front (if there is one - anyway, the way I went in) is strangely the weakest part, or, perhaps, that which has dated the most badly.
The silver wire-frame structure of standard PoMo shapes (pointy, pyramidy, towery) looks like a particularly pretentious greenhouse. Perhaps it is - it's called the Winter Garden, although any signs of greenery were hoarded off for refurbishment during my visit.
But just wait until you get inside (darling). Bluewater, dear reader, is awesome. It is perhaps the most attractive shopping centre I have ever seen.
Each of the sides of the sort-of triangle that makes up Bluewater is styled differently, and beautifully. For example, the 'Guidhall' side is lined with 'sculptures' of artisans (weavers, glaziers, poulters, and the like).
The 'Rose Gallery' side has excerpts of poetry embossed on girders up by the high, bright roof, beneath a trellis of roses.
A spur from the triangle, the 'Village', is darkly Historicist, all rich woods and glossy surfaces.
It leads to a water feature, some more ur-Tellytubby grass, and buildings wearing a dunce's hat and a Rubics cube.
Oh, PoMo, your jokes will never get old. No, wait...
Back inside, each of the centre's 'corners' has a skylighted dome with sculptures and light pouring in.
The whole effect really is lovely. There an almost high-Victorian thoroughness to the styling - everything that could be carved or emphasised or designed, is. Even the poles that are strung with Jubilee / Olympic / woohoo-it's-summer bunting are different on each side.
Then again, given this is PoMo, I wonder whether all the styling is supposed to be taken ironically. After all, there is no actual rose garden here, rather a post-industrial brownfield site topped with tarmac. None of the goods for sale were made by the artisans captured in the sculptures, rather mass-produced for the lowest price in far-East factories. Read differently, the massive Trajan simplethink poetry has a whiff of 1984 about it...
Repeat: I am happy in the dales of Kent.
Whilst the buildings are lovely, I've no doubt that shopping here is a vile experience on a busy weekend. Luckily, the bedraggled shopper can then take the Fas Track bus to a quiet place, the enticingly-named estuarine town of Gravesend. Mmm.
From there, on a hot summer's day, the lucky Kentish folk can bask in the sun and enjoy the views of Tilbury Power Station across the estuary.
There're two cast-iron piers. One is closed because it's a restaurant; the other is closed because it's owned by the Port of London Authority.
There is a statue of Pocahontas, because everyone in Kent loves Disney.
There are also signs of redevelopment. Fingers crossed it'll be completed soon.
