The Strood crossing
Until the road over the Strood was widened in 1931, vehicles used a narrower tidal causeway. The crossing continued to be covered at high water, restricting road journeys between Mersea and the mainland.
Horse-drawn carriers
Local carriers transported passengers, mail and parcels to Colchester. Bernard Cudmore described his father's carrier-cart and mail-cart business in an interview recorded in 1979. The carts assembled on common ground near the Victory.
The 1894 trade directory recorded different travel days for Mrs Cudmore, William Rudlin and Percy Rudlin, with each advertised Colchester service calling at the Plough and returning the same evening. This was a timetable of separate competing carrier journeys, not a public bus schedule.
Kelly's Directory named Robert P. Underwood as an East Mersea carrier to Colchester in 1922. The 1925–26 edition named P. Henry Underwood and identified the Plough in Colchester as the destination.
Buses, taxis and private motoring
Motor buses began serving the Colchester–West Mersea route in November 1903, when the Great Eastern Railway introduced a service. A. W. Berry started a competing service on Christmas Eve that year and acquired the railway company’s operation in March 1905. A postcard posted in 1914 shows a motor bus, taxi and charabanc outside the White Hart; their operator is not securely identified.
George Rudlin’s carrier business later acquired a Chevrolet vehicle, photographed at City Road in 1938 with Arthur Death at the wheel. This motorised goods-and-passenger trade developed alongside, rather than replacing immediately, the scheduled Colchester buses.
Jack Saye worked as a bus driver and recalled the West Mersea bus depot, which closed in 1973. Joan Vince worked on the buses during the Second World War.
The changing roads
A railway was seriously discussed but never built. The first West Mersea Parish Council promoted plans for a line, a pier, a ferry connection and associated housing as part of a larger resort scheme. The council’s history records that the proposal was discussed for roughly a decade and reached Parliament. West Mersea Town Council: early council history.
The Strood was widened in 1931, but the regular interruption of road traffic at high spring tides continued. For the earlier timber causeway and its documented repairs see the history of the Strood; for the named carrier and bus businesses see Mersea’s carriers and Colchester route.