Wisbech prior to drainage schemes, it sat on the river Great Ouse. The port is Cambridgeshire's only gateway to the sea. In 1631 Sir Cornelius Vermuyden built the Horseshoe Sluice at Wisbech at a cost of £8,000. In 1680 the trade of Wisbech had increased sufficiently for the port to be reckoned independent and no longer a member of King's Lynn. In 1720 the corporation was licensed to buoy the channel for the first time. By 1751 it was possible in a dry year to walk across the river bed under Wisbech Bridge. Ship building was carried out in the late
Wisbech by Country Life Ltd in 1952. There are two free newspapers distributed within the town, the "Wisbech Standard" (owned by Archant) and "the Fenland Citizen"(owned by Iliffe Media). Two free local magazines are published monthly - ‘The fens’ and ‘Discovering Wisbech’. According to a study looking into immigration patterns, Wisbech was once identified as the seventh "most English" town in Britain by Sky News However, on 16 February 2008 a report in the "Daily Express" titled "Death Of A Country Idyll" wrote about how the influx of Eastern European immigrants may have caused the increase of crime and other illegal