Southend Pier

The actor and presenter starts his journey heading up the estuary to Southend Pier, where as a young man he'd drive to with friends. But the pier was original conceived in Victorian times to attract day-trippers from London - and tempt them away from nearby Margate. It's now the longest pleasure pier in the world and, as Tony discovers when he lends a hand replacing a girder, it requires a lot of maintenance.