Harwich, Ferries and Ferry Crossings

Welcome to the Harwich (UK) section of FerryCrossings.org, the site for information about major UK and continental ports and the ferries between them. Our site includes an introduction to a number of ports and feature pages about the various crossing ways, lanes and routes and companies operating between them to help you plan your journey and discover interesting travel destinations along the way. You can even compare prices and save money on your ferry tickets with ads from selected major ferry lines.

Port of Harwich

Harwich. Harwich doesn't immediately jump to mind when you start thinking about places to visit either for a day or for a more extended break. However, there is a lot more to this ferry port than might be known. It's also from Harwich that you can take a ferry to Esbjerg in Denmark or to the Hook of Holland in the Netherlands. The busy town is to be found in north-east Essex on the estuary of the Rivers Stour and Orwell. Harwich was the only really safe anchorage to be found along the east coast from the Thames to the Humber and, as such, had an important role to play both in defence of Britain and in trade. It became a naval base in the mid 17th century and was strongly fortified in the early 19th century when the Harwich Redoubt and Bath Side Battery were constructed in response to the threat of Napoleonic invasion of Britain. These were defensive forts with heavy cannon protecting the harbour and waters. The earlier Beacon Hill Battery dated back to the 1500s and was in intermittent use until the early 1800s when it was given 10 big guns for the protection of Harwich.

Harwich and nearby Dovercourt have now become virtually one town as each has grown and overlapped the other. Dovercourt can claim the longer history as artefacts have been found dating back to ancient times and the Romans had a camp on Beacon Hill. They were followed by Saxons but after them came Viking invasions and, by the end of the 9th century, the area was part of the Danelaw. Dovercourt gets a mention in the Domesday Book of Norman times but the first known mention of Harwich isn't until the 13th century. In the 17th century this east coast was important in the fishing industry and the importation of coal from the coal fields around Newcastle. For much of the 17th century England was in conflict with the Dutch and Harwich was an important harbour for repair and maintenance. During the two World Wars the town played an important part. In the conflict of 1914 - 1918 it was used as a base for submarines and destroyers and in the 1939 - 1945 war it was a base for dstroyers, corvettes, minesweepers and trawlers, including Dutch, French and Polish boats.

Harwich was a town of comfortable commercial prosperity without the 'showiness' of some of the more 'glamorous' towns and, consequently, has an iinteresting architectural heritage. The entire older part of the town (excluding the commercial Navyard Wharf, is a conservation area. The Navyard Wharf accommodates cargo ships from Scandinavian ports, today, but in earlier centuries it was a naval shipyard, building Men of War, and was visited by Queen Elizabeth 1 in the mid 1500s. This part of the town is full of narrow alleys linking the later, more 'planned', streets of the town. Some seemingly 18th century buildings actually hide older buildings behind the facade. The Guildhall, dating from 1769 is a Grade 1 listed building. Many of the other buildings date back to the early years of the 19th century with their typical air of solid gentility and prosperity. Harwich boasts one institution that you won't find everywhere, and that is a purpose built cinema from 1911, one of the few that survive. It is a Grade ll listed building and is the subject of an enthusiastic restoration project. One of the town's decommissioned lighthouses houses a small maritime musem. Another houses The National Vintage Wireless & Television Museum. In a 19th century Victorian Lifeboat-house you will find an exhbition documenting the hisotry of the Harwich Lifeboat and also the have the chance to go aboard a lifeboat that was in use in the later 1900s. Local history and information can be found in the Victorian Ha'penny Pier Ticket Office together with an exhibition about the 'Mayflower'.