This is the story of East Anglia’s coast - Britain’s youngest with the oldest history.

The North Sea as we know it now only appeared around 10,000 years ago. Until then Britain was part of mainland Europe and the river Thames was joined to Germany's Rhine.

As the last glacier retreated north, the land between Europe and its westernmost peninsula which would became Britain began to flood, gradually forming the North Sea.

In 6100 BC, a great tsunami swept down this coast. Britain was cut loose from the rest of Europe and was now an island which could only be reached by water.

As Judith Ellis explains in her latest and last book on our coastal history: “This newly appeared east coast must also have been the place where early man first appeared from Europe in the long-distant past.

“Human footprints on the shore were first exposed at Happisburgh in Norfolk after an exceptionally low tide in 2013. They were dated by examining pollen sediments in the mud and were found to be about 900,000 years old,” she says.

Several years ago this former vet turned artist and author who runs her own bookbinding studio, Red Herring Publishing, in Aylsham set out from King’s Lynn to discover the maritime history of our coast – from Norfolk to Essex.

First we had Two Points East: A View of Maritime Norfolk, exploring Lynn, Wells and Stiffkey, the Glaven Ports, Sheringham, Cromer, Cromer, Happisburgh and the Lost Villages of the East Coast and Great Yarmouth.

Then, a year or so later, the journey continued south with Curlew Coast: Diversions on Maritime Suffolk. Another wonderful offering

It kicks off in Lowestoft before heading to Southwold, Dunwich, Woodbridge, Sutton Hoo, Ipswich, Harwich and Mistley….telling compelling stories along the way.

As Judith Ellis says. There are two Suffolks. One the gentle landscape painted by Constable and others, and the other, a wild and desolate place, where a grey sea, whipped up by fierce winds challenges the land in a never-ending battle for territory, which it is always going to win.

And now, the third in the series, River, Coast and Creek: An Exploration of Maritime Essex has just been published.

We have arrived at the River Stour which we explore before heading off to the River Colne, River Blackwater, the Crouch, the Roach and much more. Along the way we meet flying serpents, mermaids, sea monsters not forgetting Samuel Pepys.

“Essex has shown me three faces, three parallel worlds, side by side and yet so far apart,” says Judith.

The railway and the motorway are the first, cutting scars its second face, one of woodland, rivers and gently rolling hills.

“You have to try a little harder to find the third face of Essex, for there are few roads to take you there, but your efforts will be rewarded, for it is in the solitude of mudflat and saltmarsh, where sea meets land in an undefined, ever-changing transition, that you will find the true soul of Essex,” she says.

Red Herring Publishing is not a commercial venture but one which exists to publish her own books and offer free advice to anyone needing help in navigating the world of publishing.

She will be attending the Publisher’s Fair at the National Writing Centre, Dragon Hall, Norwich, on Saturday, December 3 where she will run an hour’s workshop on simple bookbinding techniques for writers.

All three books are now on sale from bookshops and also The Gallery, Cromer, Make Holt at Holt, Snape Maltings, The Oyster Gallery West Mersea, Firstsite, Colchester and French Marine, Brightlingsea.

 

Judith can also supply boxed sets of two or all three books. Contact her at judith@thebookstudio.co.uk or  www.thebookstudio.co.uk