The misleading light - A day trip to Harwich

16 July 2026
Harwich peninsula is on the estuaries of the rivers Stour and Orwell rivers.

Apart from a rant about parking - the car parks just say "pay by app", that is the only option, but which app?  You have to find that yourself, then there's a 10p convenience charge.  On the plus side there are plenty of Public Conveniences, and they are all reasonably clean. The walk we had planned started at Ha'penny pier, but we ended up part way through it, so after a cup of iced latte and a cup of tea, the first thing we saw was this old lighthouse, which came to be known as the misleading light, when the estuary silted up. The plaque says: This high lighthouse together with the low lighthouse on Harwich green was built under the supervision of John Rennie senior in 1818. Now owned by Tendring District Council the high lighthouse was renovated by them in 1975 to commemorate European Architectural Heritage Year. The high lighthouse was built adjacent to the site of an earlier light installed over the town gate in 1665. When the high and low lighthouses were brought into line they acted as leading lights to ships entering Harwich harbour, they were bought by trinity house in 1836 but owing to the silting up of Landguard Point they longer guided the ships safely clear of the shoals and became no known as misleading lights: their use was discontinued in 1863 being replaced by iron lighthouses at Dovercourt.

This bell fascinated me, I tried to get a video with the loud bong.  It seems I'm not patient enough.  The idea seems to be that the bell is rung when the tide reaches a certain level - high tide? I recorded video for a while, a couple of times, each time I walked away it would 'bong'.  Oh, well!

Many of the monuments around Harwich seem to only open at weekends.  The Harwich Redoubt is open Thursday to Sunday.  It appears to be simply something at the end aof a long steep drive.  It is actually an amazing historic monument here is the site https://www.harwich-society.co.uk/maritime-heritage-trail/harwich-redoubt-fort/ We spent a long time looking around.  It's a clever idea, build a fort inside the top of a hill, then the fort is almost invisible from the water.

One of the many amazing views from the redoubt. The cranes in the distance are Felixstowe harbour.  The fort gives protection right across the 2 estuaries.

Walking along the suggested route, we were diverted by works on the cliff.  Many of the paths up the cliff lead nowhere - they are blocked halfway up, or at the top. This is very frustrating, but it bought us to this lovely park area filled with geranium flower beds.  Dad would have loved it.

You'll have to expand the picture to see it.  The tower is at Walton on the Naze.

This model ship was in the reboubt museum rooms, we were getting close to closing time when I spotted it, so there is no context.  I thought it was very clever.

The house of Christopher Jones, master of the Mayflower.  Because coming from Billericay, we always have to follow Mayflower links.1

We finished our day with a cup of tea on Ha'penny pier, where we were supposed to have started it.  Instead, we had started in Claires Coffeeshop, and had lunch in Deli 141, in the Dovercourt part of town. During our walk through that part of the town we had spoken to a man in a bright red turban (Sikh?), who had told us all the places to visit.  He should be a town guide - perhaps he was.

The is so much we didn't do or see.  Next time we must get one of the ferries from the pier, and visit some of the things that were closed.