Wells-next-the-Sea on the North Norfolk coast has been a port and a largely natural safe-haven for ships and boats for at least 600 years. Protected by rare salt marshes behind a sand bar, the Port of Wells was one of England’s major harbours in Tudor times and a thriving, busy centre for shipping and maritime industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when its stone quay was constructed, along with many of the large buildings and tiny yards and houses that still dominate the look and feel of the town.

Commercial shipping in Wells suffered with the coming of the railway in 1857 but the harbour continued to be busy up to the first world war. There was something of a revival in the 1970s and 1980s with ships of up to 300 tons regularly unloading on the quay. Indeed, commercial carrying arguably ended only in the late 1990s with cargoes of grain brought from Europe by the Dutch sailing ketch Albatros, said at the time to be the last commercial trading vessel under sail in Europe.

However, Wells retains a vibrant fishing fleet, with hard-working boats slipping out on one tide and returning on the next. They are joined by other visiting commercial and fishing vessels from all over the UK and Europe.