Essex By The Sea

The cliffs at the Naze near Walton are erroding at an alarming rate! But locals are trying to slow the process by installing new sea defenses.

David Eagle has been leading this work and showed Owen what they have been doing to try and save the Naze.

Quirky and colourful beach huts line the Tendring coastline for as far as the eye can see between Clacton and Walton-on-the-Naze.

It's estimated that there's over 3,000 along this stretch of the Essex coast alone.

Each little hut, has many stories to tell, memories to recount and experiences to share.

Nancy Stevenson has written a book called "Beach Hut People" telling those stories of those who use beach huts along the Frinton and Walton coasts.

Owen met Nancy, on Frinton Greensward over looking the beach huts to find out more of Nancy's research.

Located off the coast of West Mersea and long black timber building with small windows hoovers above the water line. The Packing Shed is actually resting on Packing Marsh Island, where a for decades Mersea Island's oysters were procressed and packed before being sent to London for sale.

Now fully restored, the Packing Shed is an education centre, which is open to the public on certain days, telling the story of Mersea's oyster industry.

Alan and Bry Mogridge took Owen out on a small boat to vist the small island and to show him around the Packing Shed.

On June 22nd 1948, passengers aboard the HMT Empire Windrush began disembarking in Tilbury.

Most were from Caribbean countries seeking a new life here in the UK.

2023 marked the 75th anniversary of that voyage and the arrival of who have become known as the Windrush Generation.

The Port of Tilbury marked the anniversary with a special commuinty day at the old railway terminal where Owen spoke to Lucy Harris from Forth Ports.

Each year in Brightlingsea, a unique ceromony takes place which dates back centuries.

The Blessing of the Waters is a historic event that happens in the early summer before town folk and invited guests reclaim Brightlingsea Creek by performing the "din".

The event was held for the first time during the reign of King Charles III on Sunday 4 June 2023 when the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports' Brightlingsea Driot-gatherer, Roger Tabor explained to Owen why this unusal event takes place.

In a bid to make the River Thames even more cleaner, the Port of London Authority is trialing a new passive debris collector off the Essex coast.

Sited close to the DP World's London Gateway port, the collector is the largest of it's kind and is hoped to reduce the amount of rubbish that collects on certain parts of the river.

At the time of recording it had only been operational for a few weeks, but had already had positive effects on the river environment.

Emily McLean is a Water Quality advisor at the Port of London Authority and kindly arranged for Owen to visit the collector out in the River Thames before explaining back on dry land how it works and what it is hoped to achieve.

There's a part of the Essex coast that used to be deep below London.

When the Elizabeth Line was dug out, the soil removed to create the tunnels was shipped to Wallasea Island where the RSPB enhanced the landscape to create a haven for wildlife.

Owen went along to the island to find out more from RSPB Site Manager Rachel Fancy.

It turns out that the waters off the Essex coast in the outer Thames Esturary are one of the perfect places to site an offshore wind farm.

There's a number of them already, with plans for more in the coming years.

The Galloper Wind Farm has a state of the art control room and maintanance depot in Harwich, which is where Owen spoke with the General Manager; Sean Chenery.

The Essex Wildlife Trust are working with the local community in Tendring to help get small local projects up and running to improve habitats for wildlife.

With funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Nextdoor Nature will provide people with the advice and support they need to help nature on their doorstep, and leave a lasting natural legacy to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

In Jaywick, volunteers in the local community are improving a small park area with a pond by clearing litter, reducing algy in the water and making better habitats for the wildlife on this part of the Essex coast.

Adam Nixon from the Essex Wildlife Trust and Bradley Thompson who is the Chair of the Jaywick Sands Community Forum joined Owen on the sea wall near in Jaywick to explain more about the work they are doing as part of the Nextdoor Nature initative.

There are 58 Ships listed on a board at the Navyard Wharf in Harwich. They were all built in historic dockyard between 1660 and 1827 but very little is actually known about them.

Volunteers from the town's International Shanty Festival took it upon themselves to set up a project and find out more about these forgotten ships.

The project is a huge task, and still in its early days and so more volunteers are needed to help find out as much information as is possible.

Owen met two keen volunteers, Paul Turvey and Mick Verrier, from the 58 Ships Project at the Navyard Wharf to find out more.

Artists Trish Evans and Nick Humphreys, who are collectivly known as Instar, are taking a journey to discover the ocean, shining a light on the wonder beneath the waves and to creatively explore the impact of climate change and rising sea levels for communities and local people, by creating ARKADE.

ARKADE will be an art project over the winter of 2023/24 in Jaywick combining fruit machines and wildlife.

Trish and Nick explain more about the project in this episode of Essex By The Sea with Owen.

Along the coastline of Britain volunteers keep a look out. They are members of the National Coastwatch Institution and are there to help keep the coastline safe.

In Essex, there are two stations based in the Thames Esturary at Thorpe Bay and on Canvey Island.

Owen visited the station on Canvey to find out more about from station manager Grahame Harris.

More information about the National Coastwatch Institition can be found on their website - www.nci.org.uk

In Episode 37, Hugh & Madeleine from the Radio Lento Podcast joined Owen to explain how and why they enjoy recording sound scapes of the the Essex coast.

Residents along the Essex coast awoke in the early hours of 1st February 1953 to a storm surge sweeping across the land.

Over 300 people lost their lives in the UK.  Over a third of them were in Essex.  59 perished on Canvey Island alone.

Footage from the time show homes, holiday camps and buisnesses submerged with just the roof tops above the water.

Lesser told is the story of how farmland was affected with many animals dieing in the water or needing to be put down as they became trapped by the water with no escpade.

Cherry Borroughs has written her first book called "The Farmer And The Fury". This fiction book is based on true stories from people who remember that night, including Cherry's husband who was a child on his parents farm in February 1953 on Foulness Island.

Owen found about more about how The Great Flood affected rural parts of Essex from Cherry and how she found the process of writting the book.

Rowhedge on the River Colne was once a hive in maritime industry.

Today, there is significantly less in this now very nice riverside village.

Volunteers with the Rowhedge Heritage Trust are working to capture and tell the stories for future generations.

Nick Baker & Roz Watling joins Owen to tell him more about their work and what people can discover from their archive.

They also have a free exhibition planned for 13 and 14 May 2023 taking place in Rowhedge Village Hall.

If you think of a beach in Essex, Grays Beach is unlikely to be the one you thought of.

However, this 300m stretch of river front is set to be transformed by enthusiastic locals.

Standing tall way out into the Thames Estuary are strange looking towers.

These were built during the Second World War to defend the entrance to the river and London beyond.

The Maunsell Forts are named after their designer, Guy Maunsell who created two types used in the Thames Estuary.

Following the World War Two, the forts lived on. Rough Sands Fort, sited some 13 kilometres from the Essex coastline becoming home to a pirate radio station and the Principality of Sealand.

Flo McEwan is a Thames Estuary historian, photographer and she's the Duchess of Sealand.

Flo joined Owen to talk about the history of these magnificant structures that many have only ever seen in pictures.

Along the 350 miles of the Essex coastline, saltmarshes are a distinctive feature.

Some of them in the estuary of the River Blackwater are thought to be over 35,000 years old.

However the Essex Wildlife Trust say 100 hectares of saltmarsh are being lost around the UK per year.

Lauren Cosson from the Trust showed Owen the saltmarsh that was created at their headquarters in 2002.

The Essex coastline once had eleven Martello Towers built in the early 1800’s to protect Britain from invasion.

Five of the towers remain. Some are clearly visable while one is a little bit hidden.

Tower F has had a varied history. From a military fort, to a coastguard look out. Once a zoo and now the Tower Tea Rooms.

The owner, Paul Nash welcomed Owen to the tower to find out more.

Harwich is the eighth location in the UK to have a Tide & Time Bell installed.

The bell sits on the foreshore and rings by the ebb and flow of the tide.

The bell in Harwich was installed in October 2022, and Owen went to meet the artist Marcus Vergette, producer Peter Gingold and local co-ordinator Libby Scarfe on the day of it's unveiling.

In May 1940, over 800 private little ships were sent to war as part of Operation Dynamo. Their mission was to evacuate British and French troops from Dunkirk.

Some of those ships taking part in the evacuation were from the Essex coast. The six from Leigh-on-Sea; Renown, Reliant, Leticia, Resolute, Defender and Endeavour were volunteered for service by their crews who sailed them rather than being requisitioned by the Royal Navy.

In total 338,000 troops were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk, however some 250 little boats were lost and never returned.

One of the Leigh little ships that did return to Essex was Endeavour. This cockle bawley has since been restored and can been see just off the coast of Old Leigh as well as in the 2017 film 'Dunkirk'.

In this episode, Chris Burls from the Leigh on Sea Endeavour Trust tells Owen all about this little ship's big history.

If you go down to Shoeburyness or Southend-on-Sea, you'll often see kite surfers riding the waves out in the Thames Esturary.

But how do you get started in the sport?

That's where Simon Mudd of the Essex Kite Surfing School can help as he runs sessions to help newbies to the sport.

Owen met up with Simon at East Beach in Shoeburyness to find out more!

In years gone by hundreds of barges and smacks plyed their trade up and down the Essex coast line.

These vessels are much smaller in number now and now provide a variety of services as well as occassionally racing.

2022 was the 60th Blackwater Sailing Barge Match where over twenty vessels took part in full sail.

Cally Stubbs is a volunteer with the Blackwater Sailing Barge Match Association and explains in this episode the history of the boats and why they are still raced on the open water today.

Lobster stocks are dwindling off the Essex coast.

The Thames Esturary Lobster Hatchery, hopes to turn the fortunes of lobsters around by giving them a helping hand.

Thousands of lobster will be hatched in the hatchery before being released into wild.

Gary Humm runs the only centre of this kind on the Essex coast and took Owen on a tour of the hatchery and learning space which has recently been added thanks to financial support from the Harwich Haven Port Authority.

There are five small passenger ferries that operate around the Essex coast.

One of them carries passengers between Wallasea Island and Burnham-on-Crouch.

However in 2022, the operation was almost stopped following storm damage to the public pontoon on Burnham Quay.

Owners and operators, Michelle and Mark Philips took Owen for a ride across the River Crouch.

Brightlingsea is the only location in Essex with an open air public swimming pool.

The classic 1930's style lido is celebrating it's 90th anniversary during 2022. The large facility is now run by the community with many volunteers keeping the pools open for the public to enjoy over the summer months.

Mick Barry is a trustee and joined Owen pool side to talk about the success of the lido.

Royalty and the sea have deep connections to each other. For past jubilees boat pageants and naval reviews have taken place to celebrate the occassion.

In 2022 for HM The Queen's Platinum Jubilee, a boat pageant is set to take place off the coast of Harwich with over seventy boats taking part.

The parade will sail past Ha’penny Pier, round past Harwich beach, then turning towards the Suffolk coast, past the port of Felixstow before turning to sail past Shotly.

It's part of the Festival of the Sea, where events along both the Essex and Suffolk coastlines will take place.

Southend is not only home to the world's longest pleasure pier, but it's also home to the UK's shortest funicular railway.

Unusually for a funicular railway, the cliff lift at Southend has just the one car to take you on a smooth ride from Western Esplanade up to Clifton Terrace.

The cliff lift is run by volunteers, and more are needed to keep this 110 year old attraction going.

Nigel Gayner welcomed Owen on board for a chat all about the cliff lift's history and why he enjoys volunteering.

Burnham-on-Crouch is home to one of the first floating lifeboat stations.

The RNLI have a base in Burnham yacht marina, with volunteers called out to all sorts of shouts from people in difficulty along the Essex coast as well as inland along the River Crouch.

Volunteers Steve Harris and Nathaniel Head showed Owen Ward around the rare type of lifeboat house that's unique on the Essex coastline.

The Naze could be gone within the next few years.

That's the prediction of David Eagle who is the acting Chairman of The Naze Protection Society.

The society is aiming to slow the coastal errosion taking place around The Naze at Walton. According to their measurements, the errosion is happening at a fast rate than previous years and there's real worry the sea could break through within a year!

Up and down the coast of Essex hundreds of people belong to rowing clubs. Some of these boats were even made on the Essex coast as well.

The WivGigs Rowing club are based in Wivenhoe on the River Colne and can be found regularly rowing on the water and challenging other local rowing clubs to races.

Owen took to the water with the WivGigs Rowing Club to have a go and find why so many people take up the sport.

Over 400 years ago a small ship set sail from Harwich on a voyage to the new world.

The Mayflower left Harwich with a number of sailors from the town aboard, before eventually sailing to Massachusetts where the pilgrims wrote the Mayflower Compact.

During 2020 the town of Harwich was due to celebrate it's connections to The Mayflower, however due to the pandemic celebrations were postponed. Now a large interactive display forms part of the new Harwich Museum charting the history of the voyage and the people who were instrumental to the begining of the United States of America as we know it today.

Owen visits the museum to find out more from founder David Whittle.

During the early 1900's Southend was booming.  Tourists were visiting for day trips, while Southend and surrounding villages were expanding as more people moved to the area and commuted to work.

But then when war broke out in 1914 - Southend changed. People started to leave the town, hotels stood empty and the military moved in.

Many of the hotels in Southend helped with the war effort and became hospitals, treating wonded soldiers as they returned to Blighty from the continent.

Local historian, Chris Langdon tells Owen about this period of the towns history and how one hotel in particular is still helping those in need today.

The Essex coastline is extreamly varied and it's not just Essex By The Sea exploring what it has to offer.

Radio Lento is a podcast series created by Madeleine Sugden and Hugh Huddy. They record soundscapes which are perfect listening for escaping the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Described by some as "slow radio", Madeleine and Hugh's episodes transport you off to a different location each time you listen. Many of their episodes are recorded around the Essex coast as well.

Owen caught up with them to find out what draws them to the Essex coast and how they record such intimate audio of the Essex coast.

2022 marks the 200th anniversary of HM Coastguard, and one of the country's first was based on the Essex coast.

Stephen Robert Kuta has spent years researching his family history.  One of his relations is among the countries first coastguards and was based in Walton-on-the-Naze twice during his career.

Owen went along to Walton-on-the-Naze to find out more about Admiral Jonathan Webb.

Southend-on-Sea is set to host an amazing light display which will lauch a series of events to mark the Essex coastal town being made into a city.

Nine large-scale light installations from around the world will transform Southend.

LuminoCity will take place between 16 - 19 February 2022 with dazaling light installations stretching from Southend's Victoria Circus to the world famous pier.

Councillor Carole Mulroney, the cabinet member for culture and tourism on Southend Borough Council tells Owen Ward all about the light festival and other plans for the year ahead.

It's been described as the "undercarriage of Clacton", ranked in the top ten worst places to live and many have said it's the most deprived area of the UK.

But that's not how some residents of Jaywick see the place!

Danny Sloggett runs the Jaywick Sands Happy Club and joins Owen Ward in this episode to talk about the positives of Jaywick.

Electric vehicals are becoming more common on the streets of the UK, but electric trams used to glide along them over 100 years ago.

Southend's trams started in 1901 providing cheep transport for locals and daytrippers alike.

The network was centered around Southend High Street with routes stretching west to Leigh-on-Sea, north to Prittlewell and east to Thorpe Bay.

Owen Ward met up with Richard Delahoy, who's a local transport historian, on the old track bed in Thorpe Hall Avenue to find out more.

Until 1922 the only access to Foulness Island was along The Broomway.

The journey along the treachous six mile path is only possible at low tide and only recomended with a guide.

Broadcaster Ray Clark put his Wellington boots on and takes us on a journey out into the Thames Esturary.

Also in this episode is previously unheard audio from the archive and some outtakes as well!

Sailing along the the Essex coast dates back centuries, and it's a tradition that continues today.

Sandy Miller is a local photographer and has won a national award for a picture he took while out on the River Blackwater near Mersea Island.

Sandy joins Owen in thie episode to talk about the award winning picture and his passion for photos of the Essex coast.

Cobmarsh Island was twice the size 1923 compared with 2021 according to research conducted by CITiZAN: the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network.

Archaeologists and reserchers have been working on project looking at the changing coastline around Mersea Island.

Speaking to Owen Ward, Danielle Newman and Lawrence Northall have praised local islanders in their help with the project which has just been shortlisted for an award.

Essex may have the longest coastline, but it surprisingly doesn't actually have many lighthouses. There is one however near Grays.

The Port of London Authority has recently spent £380,000 replacing it.

Leading that project has been Peter Trent, the Port of London Authority assistant civil engineer, who had told Owen all about the project.

The Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in 1948 bringing migrants from the Caribbean.

Their stories have formed a large piece of artwork on one of the original walkways where these citizens stepped foot on British soil for the first time.

Artist Evewright - a decendent himself of someone who travelled to Britian on the Windrush - has created the temporary artwork on the 432 panes of glass.

He joins Owen in conversation about his work, the insperation behind it and how the journeys made on the Windrush has shapped British history and culture to this day.

Early on an autumnal morning, dozens of people gather on the Essex coast at Chalkwell for an early morning swim.

Recorded on the first World Bluetits day, in windy and wet conditions, Owen finds out what the appeal is of open water swimming with Lisa Monger from the Bluetits of Leigh.

If you fancy joining the Bluetits of Leigh - and other flocks around the Essex coast - can be found on Facebook.

If you’ve been to the beach at Chalkwell and looked out into the river you will probably have noticed an eight meter high obelisk standing out in the river.

This is the Crowstone and it was built in the 1800's, but in the summer of 2021 it was given grade two listed status.

Allan Brodie, the Senior Architectural Investigator at Historic England and author of The Seafront, joins Owen to discuss it's importance and why this landmark has been given listed status along with out seaside gems around the coast of Britain.

Britain's first cruise line to launch since the coronavirus pandemic begun taking bookings in the summer of 2021.

Ambassador Cruise Line is based in Purfleet and will begin premium cruise holiday sailing from Tilbury for great value prices.

Owen caught up with Commercial Director Chris Coates to find out more about this brand new cruise line based on the Essex coast and where they will be sailing to.

What better way to enjoy the sights of the Essex coast than by open top bus.

Route 68 in Southend is operated by Ensignbus and 2021 is the second year they have run the seasonal route popular with tourists and locals alike.

Normally, large red modern open top buses provide the service, but on occassions heritage buses are also used.

Owen found out more from driver Michael Botton before taking a trip on the open topper.

During the summer, a number of brightly coloured giant hares appeared in Southend. Attracting people for miles around, Essex By The Sea had to investigate to find out more.

Owen hopped down to Chalkwell Esplanade to meet Natalie Solomons who knows all about the summer fundraising arts trail.

Right in the top corner of the Dengie peninsular, lies an almost forgotten airfield. Over shaddowed now by the former Bradwell Nuclear Power Station, the former RAF base was once a busy war airfield hosting aircrew from many allied nations.

Eric Simonelli, if the deputy chair of the RAF Bradwell Bay research group, who are building a profile of what life was like for the crews stationed in this remote part of the Essex coast.

For over a decade, hundreds if not thousands of people have come to Harwich each summer to enjoy Essex's fastest growing combined Arts Festival.

Last year The Harwich Festival went online, but it's back this year!

Peter Davis is the Artistic Director for the festival and told Owen what people can expect for 2021.