This is episode 4 of our Heritage Harbours short series, celebrating the Heritage Harbour initiative which seeks to protect and revive historic ports, docks, canals and waterfronts that still retain a genuine working maritime character.

Ipswich holds a remarkable place in maritime history: it can claim links with Anglo-Saxon kings, the Hanseatic trading network, the circumnavigation of the globe, the founding of English America, and one of Britain's busiest modern commercial estuaries.

The story begins nearly 1,400 years ago, when the Anglo-Saxon kings of East Anglia established one of England's very first international trading ports on the River Orwell. Just a few miles away lies Sutton Hoo, where one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in Europe revealed the splendour of those early kings. But if Sutton Hoo tells us about royal power, Ipswich tells us where much of that wealth came from. Merchants here were trading across the North Sea centuries before England even existed as a united kingdom.

By the Middle Ages, Ipswich had become one of England's great commercial ports, trading extensively with the great merchant cities of northern Europe through the Hanseatic League—that remarkable alliance of trading towns stretching from London to the Baltic. Those connections helped bring timber, iron, grain and countless other goods to the town, while East Anglia's agricultural produce flowed in the opposite direction. Today, Ipswich celebrates those historic links as a member of the New Hanse, a modern network of towns that share this extraordinary trading heritage.

Fast forward to the Age of Discovery and the Ipswich area produced a quite remarkable trio of maritime pioneers.

First came Sir Thomas Cavendish, from nearby Trimley, who became only the second Englishman to sail around the world. Inspired by Francis Drake, he deliberately set out to circumnavigate the globe, raiding Spanish shipping as he went and capturing one of the richest prizes of the Elizabethan age—the treasure-laden Manila galleon Santa Ana.

Sailing with him was an Ipswich merchant called Thomas Eldred, the first known man from the town to circumnavigate the globe. Unlike Cavendish, Eldred wasn't an aristocrat or an adventurer. He was a businessman. Returning home, he became one of Ipswich's leading merchants and an early supporter of the East India Company, helping turn England's age of exploration into an age of global trade.

Then, just a few years later, came Bartholomew Gosnold, born at nearby Otley. Long before the Pilgrim Fathers sailed on the Mayflower, Gosnold crossed the Atlantic, explored and named Cape Cod, and went on to help found Jamestown—the first permanent English settlement in North America. In many ways, he helped lay the foundations of English America.

Today, Ipswich is proud to be one of the UK's Heritage Harbours, but this isn't simply a place that preserves its past. It's still a thriving commercial port, exporting grain from the fertile fields of East Anglia to markets around the world. It's a wonderful example of a harbour that has never stopped working.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is episode 3 of our Heritage Harbours short series, celebrating the Heritage Harbour initiative which seeks to protect and revive historic ports, docks, canals and waterfronts that still retain a genuine working maritime character.

Today we're in Bideford and neighbouring Appledore. For centuries these twin ports have been among the most important maritime communities on England's west coast. Bideford grew rich through overseas trade, exporting woollen cloth and importing goods from across the Atlantic and Europe. In the seventeenth century it became one of Britain's principal tobacco ports, its merchants closely connected with the emerging colonies in North America. Nearby Appledore developed as a centre of shipbuilding, producing everything from wooden sailing ships to modern commercial and naval vessels. Together, the two towns tell a remarkable story of maritime enterprise, innovation and – best of all I think - resilience.

That story continues today. While the age of sailing ships has passed, North Devon is once again looking to the sea for its future—through shipbuilding, green technology, marine conservation and heritage. This episode explores how those different strands come together.

We begin aboard the historic steamship Freshspring, where we meet John Puddy. As founder of the Steamship Freshspring Trust, John has led the rescue of one of Britain's most significant surviving post-war steamships. We talk about why preserving working ships matters, what they can teach us about Britain's maritime past, and how heritage can inspire future generations.

We then hear from Hannah Nash of the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere. Her work focuses on protecting the region's extraordinary marine environment while balancing the needs of wildlife, local communities and the maritime economy. We explore how conservation and maritime heritage can work together. Our third conversation is with Jack Partridge, an apprentice at the shipbuilding company Navantia who feature in one of the biggest shipbuilding stories of recent times – this is Spain’s state-owned shipbuilding company who recently acquired Harland and Wolff, one of the most important names in British shipbuilding history.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is episode 2 of our Heritage Harbours short series, celebrating the Heritage Harbour initiative which seeks to protect and revive historic ports, docks, canals and waterfronts that still retain a genuine working maritime character.

For this episode we've travelled to Exeter one of Britain's most remarkable maritime cities. It may sit miles from the open sea, but for almost a thousand years its fortunes have been shaped by ships, merchants, engineers and the River Exe. .

Exeter began life as the Roman settlement of Isca Dumnoniorum around AD 50. The River Exe connected the settlement with the coast and provided an important transport route inland. But Exeter's real maritime success came in the medieval period, when it became one of England's wealthiest provincial cities through the export of Devon wool and fine cloth to Europe. Merchants imported wine, salt, timber and luxury goods, while busy quays, warehouses and customs houses transformed the waterfront into the commercial heart of the city.

Yet Exeter's prosperity depended on one thing: access to the sea. Over time weirs built for fishing and mills made the River Exe increasingly difficult to navigate. By the sixteenth century larger vessels could no longer reach the city. Exeter faced losing the very trade that had made it prosperous.

Instead of accepting decline, the city fought back. In 1566—when Elizabeth I had been on the throne for less than a decade—Exeter opened one of England's earliest engineered ship canals. It was a remarkable feat of engineering that restored access to the sea and transformed the city's fortunes for another three centuries. The canal was later enlarged to accommodate larger ships and remains the oldest pound-lock canal in Britain still in use today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.