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Publications
The following books have been published by Mersea Island Museum or are
available through the Museum.
They are available in the Museum Shop or can be supplied by Mail.
You can pay us by bank transfer, cheque or with credit/debit
cards via PayPal. See CONTACT US for more details.
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Mersea in Turbulent Times
1500 - 1700
By Sue Howlett
On the eastern edge of Essex and the English mainland, Mersea Island was also on the margins of history during the momentous events of the 16th and 17th centuries. Yet, very occasionally, history encroached on the monotony of daily life for the farmers, labourers, fishing folk and families of East and West Mersea.
During the turmoil of the Reformation, two Mersea tenants faced persecution for their faith. In Queen Elizabeth's reign, a West
Mersea woman was found guilty as a witch, 'for murder'. In 1642, the Lady of West Mersea Manor fled for her life when her two grand houses were ransacked by rioting mobs. Priests were ejected from both Mersea parishes for failing to conform to the new religious edicts of Parliament. In the second civil war, East Mersea fort was held for the king, then captured and garrisoned by Parliament, and a military governor was imposed on the island during Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate.
Published by Mersea Island Museum Trust 2022.
Format: A4 (297 x 210), 86 pages with photographs and illustrations.
Paperback
Price: £10.00 from Museum Shop
or £13.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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The Secrets of the Mound
Mersea Barrow 1912-2012
Revised Edition 2024
By Sue Howlett
Mersea Mound or Mersea Barrow is a Roman burial mound
on the north side of Mersea Island. It was excavated by S.
Hazzledine Warren in 1912. In 2012 the contents of the tomb returned
to Mersea for the first time. They have travelled further since, but are now back on exhibition in the Museum.
The book covers the 1912 excavation and the later history of the Barrow.
It explores the recent interpretation of the Barrow,
and the many tantalizing mysteries which have been unraveled in recent years.
The recent analysis of the barrow's contents, producing further understanding of the buried
items, have made necessary this latest extended edition of the booklet.
Published 2024.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 84 pages with photographs.
Paperback
ISBN No: 978-0-9537322-5-8
Price: £8.00 from Museum Shop
or £10.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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A Short History of Mersea
Elsie M Karbacz
Mersea Island, the community,
land, buildings and monuments, local government, oysters and fishing,
farming, smuggling, World Wars I and II.
- Iron Age and Roman Mersea
- Anglo Saxon Mersea
- The Norman Conquest
- Medieval Mersea
- The Tudor Period
- The Stuarts and the Commonwealth
- The Hanoverian Period
- Victorian Mersea
- Fifty years and two wars later
- Modern Times 1950 onwards
6th Edition 2024 fully revised with additional material and photographs.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 64 pages with maps and illustrations.
Paperback
ISBN No: 978-0-9537322-4-1
Price: £7.00 from the Museum Shop
or £9.00 including UK post and packing by
Email.
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Anglo-Saxon Island
Mersea in the first Millennium
By Sue Howlett
Mersea Island has an Anglo-Saxon name, an Anglo-Saxon causeway and an Anglo-Saxon church.
It is named in documents from the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries
and, in the final years of Anglo-Saxon England, had a population of around 500.
And yet, although there are many remains left by the Romans who settled on
Mersea many centuries earlier, few traces have been found of the Anglo-Saxons who lived,
died and worked on the island during the six centuries before 1066.
This booklet considers the intriguing jigsaw-pieces of surviving evidence.
Sadly, these are too few to construct a complete picture of Anglo-Saxon Mersea.
But setting these pieces against the wider historical and regional
context helps us to make sense of some vivid episodes, glimpsed in startling
detail against the hazy, far distant background of the first millennium AD.
Published by Mersea Island Museum Trust 2010.
Format: A4 (297 x 210), 44 pages with photographs and illustrations.
Paperback
Price: £8.00 from Museum Shop
or £11.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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Mersea Island Golf Club
By Gordon Taylor and Roger Bullen
Mersea Island Golf Club no longer exists - it did not survive the
Second World War.
But, the Club House still exists as a private residence and some of
the course is now part of Cudmore Grove Country Park.
- The Lost Course of East Mersea Golf Club by Gordon Taylor
- From Golf Course to Battlefield by Roger Bullen
- Cuttings and Extracts from Club Handbooks
- The Evolution of the Golf Ball by Gordon Taylor
- The George Farthing collection of photographs
- Cups and Clubs from the Mersea Museum Collection
- 1950 Golf Course Sale
This Edition Published 2012.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 52 pages with photographs.
Paperback
Price: £6.50 from the Museum Shop
or £8.50 including UK post and packing by
Email.
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Fid Harnack
RSMA
By Sheila Carter and John Leather
Articles and pictures compiled by Mersea Museum
Fid Harnack was a well-known marine artist, who lived most of his
life on Mersea.
His paintings are classics of the coast in all its moods and attract
an international clientelle.
Frederick B. Harnack was born London 1897 and died West Mersea 1983.
Published 2008.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 16 pages with photographs and copies of paintings.
Paperback
Price: £4.00 from Museum Shop
or £6.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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SEAHORSE
History and recollections compiled by Mersea Museum
SEAHORSE as a houseboat was a prominent feature of Coast Road in Mersea
for many years.
She was built at Southampton in 1891, starting her life as a
gentleman's steam yacht and came to Mersea in the 1930s.
She was broken up in 2005.
Originally published as an A4 booklet in 2005.
This edition includes more of her history and has photographs of her
being broken up and replaced by SELBY LINDA.
This edition published 2008.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 32 pages with photographs.
Paperback
Price: £5.00 from Museum Shop
or £7.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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A BOYHOOD IN MERSEA
By Archie Smith
A Mersea Island Museum Trust Publication
Archie Smith was born in 1917 and raised in West Mersea after the
Great War of 1914-18 when the country was being subjected to huge changes.
With the increase in motorised transport on land and sea, hisome of
generation witnessed the end of a very different way of life.
His boyhood memories of daily life and local characters recapture
the atmosphere of early village life on Mersea Island.
Archie Smith was also a West Mersea councillor for many years and was the
first Mayor after the local government reorganisation in 1974.
First published 1980.
This revised and extended edition published 2008.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 48 pages with photographs.
Paperback
Price: £6.00 from Museum Shop
or £8.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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Old Spiery - Mersea's Fighting Parson
By Mary R Stevens
A Mersea Island Museum Trust Publication
The Reverend Charles Pierrepont Edwards M.C. was Vicar of West Mersea
1898 to 1946.
He was known as 'Old Spiery' and he blessed Mersea with his humour, kindness
and energy, but most of all with his abounding love.
He lived amongst the Mersea folk for almost half a century, caring for them
and sharing their joys and sorrows.
The start of World War I saw Old Spiery leaving Mersea to become a
chaplain in the Army.
He went to Gallipoli, where he was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts
in rescuing the wounded.
First published 1983.
This revised and extended edition published 2009.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 44 pages with photographs.
Paperback
Price: £5.00 from Museum Shop
or £7.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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The Memories of a Mersea Oysterman
By Leslie French
A Mersea Island Museum Trust Publication
Leslie French was born in Mersea in 1904.
He left school at the age of fourteen and went into his father's oyster
business until his father died.
He then became a 'fisherman in his own right' as he had his own oyster
smack.
Leslie describes life on Mersea in his younger days,
its history and its characters,
and he goes into much interesting detail on the oystering and fishing.
First published by Leslie French 1985.
Republished with pictures and a new Foreword,
by Mersea Island Museum Trust 2009.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 28 pages with photographs and paintings.
Paperback
Price: £5.00 from Museum Shop
or £7.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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Black Swan
Schoolboy memories of messing about in an old sailing punt
By John Rowley Skipper/Owner
A Mersea Island Museum Trust Publication
John Rowley was born in St Peter's Road, West Mersea in the mid
1930s and was introduced to mud and water at the Monkey Steps
beach. Later his playgrounds with his pals were Coast Road Hill, Hove
Creek, the main Hard and Cock's marshes.
At weekends and holidays he worked on the smacks Waterlily
little Mary and Mersea Lass, sometimes for pleasure,
sometimes for pocket money, with many ebbing trips to East Mersea.
His Black Swan is well remembered and later he raced
Atlanta in the Dabchicks.
First published 1996 by John Rowley.
This edition published 2009 by Mersea Island Museum Trust.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 24 pages with photographs.
Paperback
Price: £5.00 from Museum Shop
or £7.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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Barges, Canals and the Basin
Memories from Frank Thompson
A Mersea Island Museum Trust Publication
Frank comes from a Heybridge Basin family - a grandfather kept
the Jolly Sailor and like his mother, he was christened in the Jolly Sailor.
The articles in the book all have a connection to the Basin.
- Cannibal Island - the story of a village.
- On barging, the canal and its horses.
Idyllic summer days on the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation
- Rowing from Chelmsford to Heybridge Basin - by Don Rainbird.
- Regatta Days of long ago at Heybridge Basin.
- To Salcott for a Stack - barging with Jack Spitty.
- The barge UNITY of 1885 - her remains are still to be found in
Sampson's Creek.
- A Knotty problem from Frank - Who was Matthew Walker?
Published by Mersea Island Museum Trust 2009.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 36 pages with photographs.
Paperback
Price: £5.00 from Museum Shop
or £7.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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Sailormen
More barging memories and yarns from Frank Thompson
A Mersea Island Museum Trust Publication
Frank left school during the 1930s depression and worked in the City,
but whenever he could, he escaped back to Heybridge Basin.
After war time naval service he at last moved back to the Blackwater,
spending his holidays as third hand in trade under sail and in barge racing
crews.
He obtained a bargemaster's ticket from the Board of Trade.
Frank moved on to acquire new skills, working for his pal Jimmy Lawrence,
the bargemaster and sailmaker.
Frank recounts some of the adventures during his time working
on Thames Sailing Barges, trips, places, disasters and the characters.
- Barging Memories
- Forty Three Standards for Colchester
- The Grain Trade
- Racing Sailormen
- The Living Hythe in pre-war days
- A Knotty Story
Published by Mersea Island Museum Trust 2009.
Format: A5 (210 x 148), 48 pages with photographs.
Paperback
Price: £6.00 from Museum Shop
or £8.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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Not Just a Name
Mersea Island's Fallen of the First World War
Roger Bullen
Not Just a Name describes the background and service histories
of the fifty men from Mersea Island who made the supreme
sacrifice for their King and Country. This is the first time
their story has been told, making extensive use of Battalion
War Diaries, Trench maps, Admiralty archives and relatives recollections.
Format: A4 (297 x 210), 224 pages with many illustrations.
Paperback with 4 colour cover
ISBN No: 0-9537322-1-5
Price: £9.95 from Museum Shop
or £13.50 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
May 2019 an updated addendum is available with corrections and new information
(a correction has been added for the photograph of Harris William Hoy).
It will be included with the book in future.
View Addendum
(4Mb PDF file - opens in a new window).
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Zeppelin L33: A Night to Remember
Geoff Gonella
Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Airship L33 landing in Little
Wigborough in 1916.
Produced for Zepfest September 2016.
Format: A5 (148 x 210), 59 pages with photographs.
Paperback
ISBN No: 978-0-9558193-1-5
Price: £9.00 including UK post and packing by
Email
from the Museum.
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The Red Hills of Essex
Salt-making in antiquity
Published 1990 by Colchester Archaeological Group
Format: A4 103 pages.
Softback
ISBN 0 9503905 18
Price: £5.00 from the Museum Shop.
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