Greenhithe is a village in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England, and the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. It is located east of Dartford and west of Gravesend. Area In the past, Greenhithe's waterfront on the estuary of the river Thames was used to build wharves for transshipping corn, wood and other commodities; its largest cargoes were of chalk and lime. This led in turn to the development of the cement industry at nearby Swanscombe. Greenhithe itself enjoyed a brief period of popularity during Victorian times as a tourist resort, with the building of Greenhithe Pier (now lost) in 1842. Its manor house has been fully restored and the village is accessible to the M25 motorway, High Speed 1's Ebbsfleet International station and, particularly relevant to its local economy, Bluewater shopping centre. History The social history of Greenhithe is bound up in terms of its rectory revenues and manors until the 20th century with its ecclesiastical parish, which is Swanscombe. It owes a great deal to its situation by the river Thames and expansion to the nearby Watling Street (the London-Dover Road) and it being a suitable landing place for ships. In Roman times known as Gretenrsce[Please edit.], and by 1363 Grenehuth, it appears in a History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent by Edward Hasted, compiled early as such major works date, in this case to 1778: Naval training and ship maintenance In the middle of the 19th century, the need was recognised for pre-sea training for potential officers in the Royal and Merchant Navies. This led a group of London shipowners to found the Thames Nautical Training College in 1862. The Admiralty was approached for a ship and allocated the "two-decker" . At the time the Royal Navy was starting to replace its fleet of 'wooden walls' with iron-clad vessels and there was a surplus of such wooden vessels, which included the 1473-ton, 50-gun Worcester. She had various berths before finally moving in 1871 to what became a base forever associated with the Worcester – the village of Greenhithe, where successive ships remained until the 1970s. Also, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were launched from Greenhithe in 1845, as part of the famous Franklin's lost expedition. The clipper Cutty Sark was given to the college in 1938, and was used as a 'boating station' moored off the Greenhithe estate. However, during the war years,