THIS week in Down Memory Lane I focus on the civil engineering and construction works of Christiana & Nielson Ltd, which was sited in Rectory Road, Grays.

The company moved to Grays in the later part of the Great War, with a contract to construct concrete barges in Tilbury Docks for the War Department and a new concrete dock entrance doors, which were completed on May 1, 1919.

Based in a collection of old Army huts in the Globe pit, new buildings were constructed and repairs and fabrication work was carried on for contracts in London and beyond.

After the Second World War, work for the Structural Department was established to prefabricate large steel fabrications for major civil engineering contracts, including early motorway construction and fly-overs and river crossing bridges, like the Medway Bridge at Rochester for the M2 in the 1960s.

The company developed many new techniques related to pre-stressed concrete, converted vehicles for special civil engineering projects, constructed 100ft long piles, concrete vibrators and special mini-jacks.

My featured photograph is of a souvenir badge on the launching and opening of the barges and new dock gates in 1919.

I note the barges are named with a concrete theme – Cretecoal, Cretecoke, Cretefuel, Cretacite and Cretell – suggesting these barges were to be used for delivering essential supplies to the regiments serving in the war, which was nearly coming to an end.

Thanks to June and Bob Hutson, of East Tilbury, for supplying me with further information on the company.

What I am not sure of is when the company left Grays?