Nore

The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of the Thames Estuary, England. It marks the point where the River Thames meets the North Sea, roughly halfway between Havengore Creek in Essex and Warden Point in Kent.

During the Age of Sail, it was the location of a Royal Naval anchorage and in 1797, the Navy suffered the second of the Great Mutinies here. The guardship, HMS Sandwich, a 90-gun ship of the line, is used as a final step in training Royal Marines of the Chatham division: all Marines must serve a tour aboard a guardship before their names are placed on the roster of men for sea duty. George Thompson spent some time on duty aboard HMS Sandwich in the aftermath of the Mutiny.

As it is a hazard to shipping, Britain's first lightship was moored at the Nore in 1732, in an experiment which led to the siting of lightships at eight other points around Britain's coast by 1819.