-  Image Collection

Ship Ahoy, Tollesbury. Gowers Postcard No.243 posted before 1910.
The 17th Century inn was formerly named 'The Crooked Billet', then variously as 'The Hoy' and the 'Ship Ahoy'. It was closed after the First World War. Once part of the Guisnes Court estate, it was a rendezvous for smugglers with their illicit cargoes. 
The building, along with Old Hall marshes, is now owned by RSPB, bought as a result of the Eric Morecambe Memorial Appeal in 1985.
Old Hall, Tollesbury. 
Ann Jones wrote (May 2014):
This was the home where my Great Grandfather Richard Banyard grew up. He was born in 1865. His parents were Richard Banyard and mother Sarah maiden name Walford, who also lived in Tollesbury. Young Richard was 8 when his mother died, and 14 when his father died in 1879 so we have not yet checked the census as to whether his father had already left the pub when he died. We do know that young Richard went to live with his uncle John Banyard who we think was a grocer in Tollesbury.
Photograph used in Tollesbury Past by Keith Lovell, plate 62.
</p><p><b>Read More</b>
<a href=mmresdetails.php?col=MM&ba=cke&typ=ID&pid=FGD_102&rhit=1 ID=1>Recollections from Fred Garrod </a></p> Before 1910. Photo: Cedric Gurton Tollesbury
Girl Guides - Camp 1934. Meal Time. 1934. Photo: Girl Guides
Hardy's Green, Birch. Stable Fields Cottage on right, now having a cedar shingle roof in place of thatch. On left are the cottages where Mr Patten, Les Polley and Sam Smith lived in the 1930s.
Photo 90B P.A. July 1994.
Water a penny a pail.
A curious incident can be seen in old world Essex village of Abberton, by motorists touring in this district on any week-day, where Mr Wright the waterman retails water at 1d a pail. Members of the Wright family have sold water in the village for over a hundred years.
Keeping a car clean would no doubt be an expensive proposition
[The above are from a typewritten note on the back of the photograph].
</p>
<p>From a handwritten note with the photo:
Mrs Elmer (hat), Mrs Hiskey, Mrs Sawkins (Douglas's mother ?), Mr Fred Smith [but this is doubtful - the man has been identified as Norman Wright by his daughter], Girl from Mersea (Milgate ?). 
Water from Radcliffe Sloosh spring, Spring Lane, Fingringhoe, [ By the pond - ] Near Whalebone.
Fred earned 12/6 a week.
</p>
<p>G.W. Rudlin carrier in the background - Arthur Death on the running board and George Rudlin inside.
</p>
<p>
Original photograph by L.G. Cosser, Sir Isaac's Walk, Colchester.
</p>
<p>The picture appears in Abberton and Langenhoe. A History in Photographs by Peter Wormell [ Figure 31 ], where the caption is.
</p><p>Fred Smith delivering the water (8 October 1927). Picture taken outside Pump Row (Moss Cottages). Fred later had a more modern water cart supplied by Lexden & Winstree Rural District Council. Piped water came in 1930. It coast £12,600 for seven villages. <i>Essex County Standard.</i></p> 8 October 1927. Photo: Peter Rudlin Collection
Victoria Esplanade and beach, West Mersea, looking to the Two Sugars Cafe --- formerly a World War 2 gun emplacement. c1955.
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Mersea Museum has a large collection of images, mainly of Mersea Island and the surrounding area. Those shown here are a small sample.
The images are divided into categories - click on a Category to view a selection.
Each year, a selection of the images with an accompanying audiocommentary form an audio-visual display that is run when the Museum is open.
If you can add to the information we have about an image, such as the names of the people, the place or the date, please Email us.
The collection is always increasing thanks to the kindness of may individuals. If you have photographs that are suitable for our collection, we would be pleased to hear from you. We can just take a digital copy of a photograph and return the original to you.
The images above are copyright Mersea Island Museum unless otherwise stated.


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