Saturday 12 January 2002
Cutty Sark-Liverpool Street train-Manningtree-Mistley-Harwich (for the continent)-Great Oakley-Kirby le Soken-Walton on the Naze-Frinton on Sea (for the incontinent)-Betjemen-Clacton on Sea-train-Liverpool Street
All on OS Landranger map 169. Mostly flat and coastal. Undulates a bit.
Two of us met at the Cutty Sark, four more joined at Liverpool Street. So we did the 4 go half price deal and got day-returns to Manningtree for £7.80 each. We got the 10.15am and were there about an hour later, the Tottenham fans on the way to an Ipswich game mostly looked in need of bike rides, but behaved.
Manningtree is on the lovely Stour estuary, loads of birds. Two miles east is Mistley and big hop maltings warehouses and wharves and Mistley Towers (the twin tower remains of Robert Adams only church architecture). There’s a well-advertised and now open secret nuclear bunker here where Essex bureaucrats would have run to, had the cold war got hot, and emerged glowing to do the filing.
The B1352 ambles through good countryside with fine estuarine views to Ramsey and then it’s suburbs into Harwich.
Old Harwich is tiny but has loads. Trinity House moved its lightship/buoy build/repair depot here from Trinity Buoy Wharf at the mouth of the river Lea on the north bank of the Thames opposite The Dome about 20 years ago (and we often visit TBW and its 1,000 year music and artangels). It’s also got lovely old get you into the harbour lighthouses, a treadmill crane, the Electric Palace Cinema (1911..the oldest unaltered purpose built cinema in Britain), Christopher Jones house (Mayflower captain…he moved to Rotherhithe in 1611 and is buried in St Mary’s by the Mayflower pub not a mile from where I crunch this).
The view of Harwich Harbour from the Halfpenny Pier (1854) was wonderful in the blue sunny sky day. The Stour and the Orwell meet here. Felixstowe port and its containers (killed Tilbury and those unions) and Landguard Fort (Henry 8th and star-shaped, Tilbury’s brother) are opposite. I was going on about some 2 day £70 return ferry trip to Esberg from here and a fisherman overhead me and said that’s Denmark, nice town, good trip.
In summer ferries go to opposite Shotley and Felixstowe and on up the coast to Bawdsey and Orford Ness. Must do that.
Loads of pubs to eat in, but lunch for most of us in the Bear Café (built 1500…...usual smugglers tunnel in basement) was a literal pint of prawns (in a dimpled mug..increasingly rare, good) then local cod and chips.
After a mile of Dovercourt seaside we hit the B1414 and sun gave way to soggy mist as the road skirted round the 10 mile rural stretch round Hamford Water inlet, full of islands and odd side-roads to huge farms. And then it’s Walton-on-the-Naze. )(Naze=ness=promontory). Time pressure meant a walk round the amazing promontory that is The Naze was for next time so we turned right and passed the very surreal multichromeneon pier with deserted arcade.
And then from Walton pier there’s 9 (yup) miles of concrete beach-hut seaside cycling. The sand, sea and wooden groynes looked wonderful in the milky mist. Mostly with £1000 maximum fine no cycling signs. Crazy in deserted winter.
We skipped through Frinton…….."a truly gracious holiday resort which has attracted royalty….Connaught Avenue is the Bond Street of the East Coast…shop keepers maintain an old-fashioned tradition of friendly courteous service". Says the Essex Sunshine website. Must explore.
At unheard of Holland-on-Sea a really good cliff-top bike track oddly took over from the no-cycling signs, and so we hit Clacton…..and its 200 hundred metres of Las Vegas.
But luckily the rather good brief encounter station buffet kept us out of the cold until the train back to much warmer Liverpool Street.
B
(ed: a damage report is appropriate. Barry punctured loudly somewhere, cause not traceable. And again at Clacton station. On the train home, Forensics find burst sidewall (first puncture), and lump of glass (second). Roger’s tyre patch should see me through till new tyre purchase. Thanks Roger.