Wells-next-the-Sea

Wells-next-the-Sea is a port town on the north coast of Norfolk, England.

The civil parish has an area of 16.31 km² (6.30 sq mi) and in

Wells is 15 miles (24 km) to the east of the resort of Hunstanton, 20 miles (32 km) to the west of Cromer, and 10 miles (16 km) north of Fakenham. The city of Norwich lies 32 miles (51 km) to the south-east. Nearby villages include Blakeney, Burnham Market, Burnham Thorpe, Holkham and Walsingham.^[3]

Origin of name

The name is Guella in the

The town has been a seaport since before the 14th century, when it supplied grain to London and subsequently to the miners of the north east, in return for which Wells was supplied with coal. Until the 19th century, it was easier to carry bulk cargoes by sea than overland. It was a significant port in the 16th century, with 19 ships over 16 tons burden operating out of Wells in 1580, making it the major port in the area. It had been, since the beginning of the century, an exporter of grain and an importer of coal.[5] Wells was also from early days a manufactory of malt. At its height, the town boasted up to twelve maltings which, in 1750, contributed a third of the exports of malt from the country, mostly to Holland, more than any other port save for Great Yarmouth.

Wells was also a fishing port: in 1337, it is recorded as having had thirteen fishing boats and nearby Holkham had nine. Its mariners brought first

Wells relies on the tides to scour the harbour because the town does not have a river running through it. The problem of siltation had preoccupied the merchants of the town for hundreds of years and occupied the attentions of various engineers, leading eventually to disputes which came to court in the 18th century. Sir John Coode, who had been knighted for his work on the completion of Portland Harbour, was recruited to solve its siltation problems in the 1880s; no attempted solution proved permanent. The growth of faster marine traffic, whose wake washes at the banks of the marshes, has widened the channel and reduced tidal flow further.

The North Sea is now a mile from the town; the main channel which once wandered through marshes, grazed by sheep for hundreds of years, was confined by earthworks to the west in 1859 when Holkham Estate reclaimed some 800 hectares of saltmarsh north-west of Wells with the building of a mile-long bank.^[7] This reclamation was claimed to have reduced the tidal scour though the West Fleet, which provided much of the water entered the channel to its north.

In the 19th century, malting assumed an industrial character dominated by merchants rather than hands-on maltsters. Eventually, the entire estate was acquired by F. & G. Smith who had maltings in Dereham and

Tourism, which had begun on a small scale a century before, became a major draw; it was based on the Pinewoods Caravan site much expanded post-war first by the Town Council and subsequently by Holkham Estates. As with many coastal towns, the number of second homes resultant on the tourist trade has increased dramatically over the last few years, reaching over 34% in 2019.[9]

Geography

The town has long thrived as a seaport and is now also a

The distinctive landmark of the seafront is the granary with its overhanging gantry on the quay, started in 1904 and finished in 1905. This has now been converted into flats, having ceased operating as a granary in 1990. The maritime tradition of the town meant it used to have a remarkable number of public houses for a town of its size although many of these have since closed. The northern end of the town used to be notable for parallel 'yards', narrow rows of cottages similar to the northern 'ginnels', which may derive from the rebuilding of the port in the eleventh century. (The original port is reputed to have been adjacent to the church.) Most of these remain though some have been lost to development and slum clearance. The North Sea flood of 1953 affected the northern edge of the town, breaching the beach bank and causing damage to houses on both east and west ends of the town. It also destroyed the Pinewoods caravan site. The pines themselves, which had been planted in the nineteenth century to stabilise the dunes and which fringed Abraham's Bosom, survived. Today there is a large moving floodgate next to the harbour car park and many of the houses have their own flood defences. It proved its worth in December 2013 when a flood exceeded both the 1953 and 1978 events, holding back the waters so that the west end of the town was unaffected.

A feature of the town is the area known as The Buttlands, a large green ringed by lime trees. Large elegant Georgian houses overlook The Buttlands, as do the Crown Hotel, Globe Inn and the Wells Catholic Church. If one exits The Buttlands down the hill at its south-west corner they can see Ware Hall, a medieval house which was rebuilt over a period of years from the 1970s by Miss May Savidge, who brought it in parts when she moved from Ware in Hertfordshire.^[11]

Governance

There are three tiers of local government covering Wells-next-the-Sea, at parish (town), district, and county level: Wells-next-the-Sea Town Council,

The urban district council was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, with the area becoming part of North Norfolk. A successor parish was established to cover the former urban district, with its council adopting the name Wells-next-the-Sea Town Council.^[22] The former council offices at 62 Mill Road were subsequently redeveloped for housing in the 1990s.^[23]

Transport

Railways

The coming of the railway in 1857 notably reduced the town's population, as mentioned in the 1861 census. Formerly, the town was served by

In addition to the two passenger railway routes in and out of the town, there was a tramway from the station to the quayside at Wells Harbour, whose rails are still visible today just beneath the modern road surface along East Quay. Locomotives were not allowed along the quay and wagons were hauled by horses. The line continued in a curve to the south-east to connect with the lines at Wells station and the track bed can be walked.

The Wells Harbour Railway^[25] was a separate 10¼ inch-gauge railway that took passengers from the harbour behind the sea wall towards the beach and caravan site. It was in operation from 1976 to 2021, when the lines were taken up.

Buses

Wells was located on the high-profile Coasthopper bus route between King's Lynn and Cromer, run by Norfolk Green. The operation was handed over to Stagecoach in 2015 but, in April 2018, Stagecoach ceased operations in Norfolk. The Coasthopper service was split into two sections at Wells-next-the-Sea: the section from King's Lynn to Wells was rebranded as the Coastliner 36, extended inland from Wells to Fakenham and taken over by Lynx; the section from Wells to Cromer was taken over by Sanders Coaches.

Lifeboat

The new Lifeboat station, replacing one which had stood since 1899, was opened in 2022 to house the new Shannon-class lifeboat named the Duke of Edinburgh, which came on station in October. It replaced the Mersey-class boat, Doris Mann of Ampthill, which had served since 1990, making it then the longest serving lifeboat in the fleet. The old lifeboat station, which was the subject of some support for its retention, was demolished immediately thereafter. A new longer launch slipway was built at the same time, with a new tractor and trailer obtained. This is necessary for the retrieval of the boat after a call-out and, if there is a call-out when the tide is out, a response can only be made by taking the boat across over a mile of sand for launch in Holkham bay. An Atlantic-class, rigid inflatable inshore boat is used for callouts along the coast; it has proved itself by responding to an increasing number of people cut off by the tide and carried out to sea while swimming or using paddleboards and inflatables.^{[citation needed]}

The earlier lifeboat house, built in the 1860s and now used as the harbour office, is at the western end of the quay.

In 1880, during the Wells lifeboat disaster, eleven of the thirteen crew drowned, leaving ten widows and 27 children without fathers. A memorial to the crew stands adjacent to the old lifeboat house.

Education

Various charity schools in the town included that set up by Christopher Ringer in 1678 when he left £600 in his will for the education of thirty boys and thirty girls in the town. A number of academies were established in the nineteenth century; none of these survive. A National School was set up following the closure of the town workhouse. A British School was set up in 1938 which became a Board School in 1875.^[26] A secondary school was built in 1929 when the original school became the primary school. The primary school closed in 1964 when the Alderman Peel secondary modern school was built in a different part of town adjacent to the old Heacham railway line. The old school buildings were used for some years as a field studies centre but have now been converted to social housing units administered by Homes for Wells, a community led housing association.^[5] Wells schools are now part of the Wensum Trust which administers 24 schools in Norfolk.^[27][28]

Media

The town receives television signals from the Belmont TV transmitter^[29] which broadcast BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and ITV Yorkshire programmes and the local relay transmitter that broadcast BBC East and ITV Anglia which is transmitted from the Tacolneston TV transmitter.^[30]

Local radio stations are BBC Radio Norfolk, Heart East, Amber Radio, Greatest Hits Radio East (formerly North Norfolk Radio), and Poppyland Community Radio, a community based station.^[31]

Local newspapers are Fakenham & Wells Times,^[32] North Norfolk News ^[33] and Eastern Daily Press.^[34]

Beach

The Wells-next-the-Sea beach, being subject to the ever-changing tides of Holkham National Nature Reserve, makes use of an old war siren to warn patrons of incoming beach floodings. The siren sounds around 5–10 minutes before the tide is predicted to take over the beach to allow users to vacate the area safely.

Storms

Wells has been subjected to flooding going back to the thirteenth century. In the twentieth century, the notorious

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  Beached boat at Wells-next-the-Sea
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  Signpost in Wells-next-the-Sea
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  The Wells Harbour mouth from the sea wall; the lifeboat house can be seen in the distance
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  Inland Wells, with view to Wells Harbour
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  Looking out to the quay on a sunny August 2006 day
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  The train from Wells arrives at Walsingham station
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  Huts on the beach
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  Grey seal on the beach

References

External links

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Wells-next-the-Sea.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wells-next-the-Sea.

• Alderman Peel High School
• Wells web cam
• Wells-next-the-Sea information and visitor guide
• Map sources for Wells-next-the-Sea
• Tide tables for Wells-next-the-Sea.
• Photographs more details and interesting facts about Wells-next-the-Sea
• Gallery of Wells-next-the-Sea – Photographs of Wells-next-the-Sea