Hythe Ghost Town
To the Hythe! …on possibly the dullest day of the year to date. I don’t pick these photographic moments deliberately. The cunning plan was to try and capture the area around the old Coldock warehouse as a snapshot of an overcast November morning. Nothing more, nothing less.
Nothing less proved to be closer to the truth when it came to the time to edit my images.
My attention has been alerted of late to a two-man team carrying out some work around the abandoned Coldock front. This is either a couple of engineers simply securing the site, or the slowest demolition of an old industrial structure in the history of civil engineering. Panel by panel has been painfully removed, often no more than one per day.
Safety or structural removal - either way, now was a good time to try and capture a little piece of Colchester industrial history on camera. The Hythe has a regeneration speedometer that is even slower than my cycling along the Wivenhoe Trail, but somehow I can’t see Coldock still standing in fifty years time.
A BIG project is certainly needed as a grand gesture to kick start the regeneration that is so badly needed. This type of showboat political and economic approach characterised the late ’90s New Labour era when it comes to the transition of a town. The outcome is a run of Buy to Let properties, all the way down from the Hythe following the muddy banks of the Colne.
It remains something of a paradox how the heritage of Coldock can lay dormant, whilst on the opposite bank of the river the new Reflections development is nearing completion. The marketing blurb and boardings boast of bright young things living some contemporary urban lifestyle, Colgate teeth to match the Coldock decay.
Betcha half of the properties will still be empty by this time next year.
The Hythe has a few near misses of late. The old warehouse adjacent to Coldock was granted planning permission for Halstead Antiques Center to move in. The space seemed perfect; the demand for housing local traders was assured by the company.
But with a chilly eastern wind blowing down the Colne, and serving as something as a metaphor for missed opportunities, Halstead Antiques Centre recently pulled out, citing “heating costs.”
Brrrrr.
I hope that the images below don’t misrepresent the area as it currently stands - the camera never lies, but a few little tricks in Photoshop certainly help to accentuate your argument. I wasn’t trying to shoot the latest cover for some chic, Hythe Tourist Board, simply aiming to present Coldock and the surrounds as it currently stands.
It’s not all black and white…
Full flickr feed.
17/11/2011 at 4:00 pm Permalink
Don’t write the old lady off quite yet, Jason. As you know, I’ve got a huge affection for the Hythe and all the psycho geography which goes with it.
I’m with you to an extent, on the unsold properties, matter.
What needs to be pointed out though, is that the Hythe is not some ghost town. It has an old, established and active community- and always has done.
You should really talk to Adrian May about this. He’s lived there for over two decades and loves the place. The vicar of St Leonards, Rev Ian Hilton is worth talking to, as well. John who lives on the old coal lighter by Ink Express has settled there after a life in the Merchant navy. He told me that he always though of the place with great affection. .
The regeneration project is no white elephant. It may be slow..it may even have been slowed up further by current economic circumstances..but it’s long term and ongoing.
My own feeling about the Hythe is that its soul, its psychogeography, if we must is — and probably its future is industrial, whatever that may come to mean. It is a place of work and I believe that anything that goes there and sets up to work will probably succeed. The Hythe needs to be walked around, explored and enjoyed. It needs to be populated. Believe it or not, I’ve occasionally toyed with the idea of moving there myself and don’t necessarily rule it out, if this place (Wivenhoe) gets much more up its own arty little fundament than it already has done.
Johnny Clarke’s lived at the Hythe for years, too. That combo of industry and art is a tried and trusted one. Let’s just see how the economic, industrial and artistic lines on the the map shift during the next decade, shall we? Lovely pics you’ve done though. They look strangely like some of the old Victorian ones which I have on file somewhere. Anyone else reading this: go and have a bit of a wander round the Hythe at one Saturday morning…walk through the Moors in the footsteps of old Mr Paxman. Stroll up Spurgeon Street behind St Leonards. Take a closer look at the buildings on Hythe Hill. Go and have lunch in Portafinos..it’s very reasonable. It’s not Beirut you know. It’s Colchester’s old engine room, that’s all.