Wivenhoe has responded remarkably gracefully to the loss if its shipbuilding industry. The former shipyards along the upstream quay have been replaced by nicely-designed and scaled houses which blend well with the existing terraces of Regency cottages. The more industrial-scale development at Cook’s Yard downstream is a bit more love-it-or-loathe-it, but it’s clean and simple and gives plenty of open space from which to admire the River Colne.
This Essex town was once a centre of fishing and smack-building. Yacht-building also featured, along with winter lay-ups, as the fishermen found work crewing gentlemen’s yachts in the late 19th century. Nowadays yachts still find a berth in the half-tide mud along the Quay, and one sad smack, the Victory has lain there for years, steadily declining, its name becoming more ironic with every passing season. Mud is a big feature hereabouts – the Wet Dock at Cook’s Yard, now home to the remnants of the fishing fleet, presents a fascinatingly hillocky landscape of the stuff at low tide.
There’s a suitably quaint waterside pub, the Rose and Crown, and several more up the twisty little streets.
The Nottage Maritime Institute, seen here with local artist James Dodds is a major factor in the survival of Wivenhoe’s maritime heritage
But the pride of Wivenhoe, the relic and repository of its not-dead-yet maritime heritage, is the Nottage Maritime Institute, founded in 1896 by a yacht owner, Captain Charles Nottage, who recruited his crews locally and wished to provide them with a means of self-improvement. Nowadays it is part library, part museum, part night school, with RYA courses and much else besides. There are talks, film shows, and – getting back to Wivenhoe’s roots – boatbuilding courses, based on clinker dinghies and taught by Fabian Bush and John Lane. Peter Willis
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