GRAVESEND

Fourth Portal at St Andrew's, Royal Pier Road, Gravesend, DA12 2BD

Welcome

The Past and Future always meet in the Present

Laserium set up at Fourth Portal Lab, Gravesend, for Funki Porcini performance, 26-28 January 2024..

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DRILLING FOR OIL
AN IMMERSIVE PERFORMANCE

Saturday, 31 August 2024, from 3pm

FREE

Join us for an evening of gentle participatory performance, projections and poetry around an oil rig sculpture, discussing fossil fuel exploration under our seas. Bawley Bay and Fourth Portal, with pre-event discussion. FREE | Participate if you wish or just enjoy! Licensed bar | Open to all ages

LEARN MORE

Our beautiful chilled-out Fourth Portal, nestled by the river Thames in Gravesend, is slowly teasing out the town's innovators, creators, entrepreneurs and curious.

Business Studies Master students from the University of Sheffield visited Gravesend and were fascinated by the Fourth Portal.

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FOURTH PORTAL - Creating Memories
Beautiful way to finish a Friday, kids and Granddad trying to find the badges on the stained glass

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The famous Neil, founder of one of the oldest online blogs covering the history of South East London, Transpontine.

South East London blogzine - things that are happening, things that happened, things that should never have happened. New Cross, Brockley, Deptford and other beauty spots. EMAIL US: transpontineblog at gmail.com Transpontine: 'on the other (i.e. the south) side of the bridges over the Thames; pertaining to or like the lurid melodrama played in theatres there in the 19th century'.

Darren brought Jack and Jasmine from Jasmine to enjoy the fair and see the Fourth Portal. The children decided to spend more time in the Fourth Portal :)

Tony was Chief Papermaker at the Empire papermaking factory in Greenhithe and provided a great lowdown on the entire paper and print factory set up from Northfleet to Dartford. He will become part of our print industry series of events.

Yunus, Aliyah, Abdul found the Fourth Portal amazing and Addul bought himself the Compact Etymological Dictionary from our bookshelf, which will prove useful when he starts Oxford studying Classics.

In comes Luna, pushing her pram all alone. She parked her pram and went upstairs to chill with a book on the bed. Mum and Nan arrive to say Luna decided she wanted to return to the Fourth Portal

Tia, Ellise, Olivia, Chloe, Nula, Jorja and Dylan are a growing band of teenagers returning to the Fourth Portal.

Chello player Clementine and daughter Camden are becoming regulars to the Fourth Portal and were fascinated by the pipe organ.

Gravesend fire eater Rebecca, who is off to Glastonbury to perform, stumbled on the Fourth Portal with local creative Jasmin who styles hair in the town. They both embraced the concept and the vibe before enjoying our CBD drinks sitting by the beach.

Darren took a few visits before finally deciding that the Kingfisher print by artist Kevin Gavaghan was certainly for his living room wall.

Curator of the Homage to the Homebrew Computer Club, Mark Gladwell, along with fellow enthusiasts Jon and Claudia and a busy room.

Fourth Portal engineer Graham explained the 3D printed monotype tape reader he designed, its purpose and how it will extract data using a mobile phone from punch holes to Ben and Sam.

Tess immediately began dancing on seeing herself on the virtual stage in the Fourth Portal Lucia House. On hearing the gramophone she danced in circles for the entire record.

Mo and Barry, who chaffaurs the Gravesend mayor had a good morning in the Fourth Portal, enjoying the coffee and Dawn Cole's work.

Franco Teez and Zoe loved the gramophone and everything about the Fourth Portal. Memories triggered the links to the future were apparent.

Photo captures the Fourth Portal really becoming a place where the generations just begin to talk.

Auto Engineer, Colín returned with a story from his time on the Thames and that of his father, a tugboat pilot. Possibility of Colin becoming involved with one of our emerging projects.

Badges, computer games, books and everything of intrigue were in the family frame of reference.

Ian and Harriet were in Gravesend for a wedding and spent a good chunk of the afternoon in the Fourth Portal. The Lindisfarne album had the now lost view of Newcastle from their home window of the riverfront.

It is not difficult to really begin liking people in Gravesend when people come in with such positive energy.

Chris, Lauren and Tonto live locally with Chris' parents Susanna and Stephen, visitors from Hong Kong. Lauren loved the idea of there being a refill station so close to home, having had the Fourth Portal recommended by Päivi from LV21. All found the place cool, particularly Tonto, who enjoyed the chews.

The former seafarers chapel has transformed into a relaxed social space and venue introducing advanced technologies surrounded by an eclectic array of furnishings, books and retro computers.

There are Macs free to use, fast internet, a licensed bar, coffee roasted in HMP Mount purchased directly from the growers, and much more, all under stunning stained glass windows.

Rethinking how materials are made, adapted and recycled will be a prominent component of the emerging technological revolution and is central to public engagement at the Fourth Portal.

For summer and autumn 2023, the Fourth Portal Lab focused on paper before moving on to textiles for winter and spring 2024.

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Fourth Portal stimulates knowledge exchanges by bringing technology, social gathering and innovation to life.

Using specially selected objects that coalesce with local history, rich conversations have emerged, leading to collaborations and learning.