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 East railway station March to Magdalen Road via Wisbech following in September 1968. The section east of Wisbech was subsequently dismantled, but the rest of the route remained open for freight traffic (from Whitemoor Junction) to Wisbech in order to serve the nearby Spillers (later Nestle Purina) pet food factory, Metal Box products and a coal depot. The line was singled in 1972 with the lifting of the down line. Nothing remains of Wisbech East, the station site having been entirely redeveloped and replaced by the Octavia Hill Centre for the handicapped. The Centre was itself subsequently demolished and replaced by housing. The