The Old City and The Lane
Old City was the waterfront neighbourhood at the lower end of The Lane and Coast Road. Its cottages stood close to sail lofts, workshops, public houses and the sheltered places where fishermen and boatbuilders worked. The narrow lane still preserves much of the older street pattern.
Older cottages
Among the surviving houses are Picaroon Cottage and Mariners Way at Nos. 1 and 3 The Lane, with seventeenth-century fabric and a doorway panel dated 1624, and Curlew Cottage at No. 17, recorded as an eighteenth-century fisherman’s cottage. More of the older timber-framed houses stand along The Lane.
The Old Victory and the Ship
The former Victory stood near the bottom of The Lane. A photograph from about 1905 shows it advertising Colchester Brewing Company ales with W. Trim as proprietor. The licence moved to the newer Victory on Coast Road in the early twentieth century. Another Lane pub, the Ship, had ceased trading before the City Hall meeting house was built on its site in 1930.
Shops and workshops in 1891
Henry John May’s will of 14 September 1891 is an unusually detailed record of waterfront property. It lists eighteen cottages, a blacksmith’s shop, a shipwright’s shop, stables and coachhouses on the north side of Mersea Lane. On the south side it lists another eight cottages and the Victory Inn, then occupied by George Brand. These were properties in May’s estate, not a count of all buildings in Old City.
May left a large part of this property to his grandson Willoughby John Bean, subject to an annuity for May’s widow Emma. The will shows how cottages and workshops formed part of a single estate even though many different households and trades occupied them.
Bert Cudmore later ran a small shop at 148 Coast Road. The Old City also included the working sheds and homes of the boatbuilding and oyster-fishing families.
The Old City green also served everyday domestic life. A photograph dating from around 1954 shows washing hung out on lines among the nearby fishing boats; Monday washing on the green was an established local custom. The scene belongs to a time when the Old City was still a closely occupied fishing and boatbuilding neighbourhood.
Buildings still standing
Historic England: Picaroon Cottage and Mariners Way · Curlew Cottage. These are private homes.