General

Wivenhoe is a town and civil parish in north eastern Essex, England, approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) south east of Colchester. Historically Wivenhoe village, on the banks of the River Colne, and Wivenhoe Cross, on the higher ground to the north, were two separate settlements but with considerable development in the 19th century the two have merged.

At the 2011 census the town had a population of 7,637, compared with 7,221 in 2001. The town’s history centres on fishing, ship building, and smuggling. Much of lower Wivenhoe is also a designated conservation area, with many streets being of particular architectural interest.

History

Wivenhoe developed as a port and until the late 19th century was effectively a port for Colchester, as large ships were unable to navigate any further up the River Colne, which widens here into its estuary. Wivenhoe had two prosperous shipyards. It became an important port for trade for Colchester and developed shipbuilding, commerce and fishing industries. The period of greatest prosperity for the town came with the arrival of the railway in 1863.

In 1884 the town suffered significant damage when it lay close to the epicentre of one of the most destructive UK earthquakes of all time – the 1884 Colchester earthquake. In 1890, there was a population of about 2,000 mostly engaged in fishing for oysters and sprats and in ship and yacht building. A dry dock was built in 1889 and extended in 1904, making it one of the largest on the East Coast; it was demolished in the mid-1960s. In the 1960s, Wivenhoe Park was chosen as the location for the University of Essex.

Notable Residents

Wivenhoe was also the home of actress Joan Hickson (1906–1998) who played Miss Marple in the BBC adaptations of Agatha Christie’s novels and children’s author, journalist, and writer Leila Berg (1917–2012). Berg was an advocate for the empowerment of children, particularly through literature, which prompted her to devise and launch the ‘Nippers’ series of early readers books published by Macmillan in 1968, which sought to address the exclusion of working-class and ethnic minority lives from children’s books. Wivenhoe also became the adopted home of Louis Claiborne. Claiborne served as a US Deputy Solicitor General from 1962 to 1985, presented oral argument in over 70 cases to the United States Supreme Court and is regarded as “one of the single most important lawyers in environmental law’s formative years in the Court.” Additionally, Claiborne was noted for being one of only a few American lawyers to have been admitted as an English barrister, and also for being one of even a smaller number of English barristers to have argued before the United States Supreme Court.

Colchester

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Clacton

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