VCH Explore

Explore England's Past


The Gunfleet was the name of the large estuary fed by the Holland River or brook, which formerly ran into the sea between Frinton and Little Hollan

The Holland Brook, sometimes called the Holland River, has been rather overlooked as an important landscape feature of Tendring Hundred (the older

Responsibility for sea defence and drainage in coastal regions since the early thirteenth century had been allocated to ad hoc Commissions

Barton's Pans lie immediately behind the line of the sea wall built by the Tendring Level Commissioners across the mouth of the Gunfleet estuary.

Today, Holland Haven is the place where the Holland River (now the Holland Brook) once ran out into the North Sea between Clacton and Frinton in Es

The Gunfleet estuary was formerly known as the Gunfleet Haven, the word haven meaning a port or harbour for boats.  This name is used in customs do

The creeks and marshes along the Essex coast contain large areas of salt marsh.  These were used as land to graze sheep in summer, but were often f