Harwich Dockyard

HM Dockyard, Harwich
Harwich, Essex
Seventeenth-century dockyard crane on Harwich Green (moved there from the Naval Yard in 1930).
Site information
Operator	English Navy (1652–1660), Royal Navy (1660–1717)
Controlled by	The Navy Board (1652–1717).
Site history
In use	1326–1829

Harwich Dockyard (also known as The King's Yard, Harwich) was a Royal Navy Dockyard at Harwich in Essex, active in the 17th and early 18th century (after which it continued to operate under private ownership). Owing to its position on the East Coast of England, the yard was of strategic importance during the Anglo-Dutch Wars; however, due to a lack of deep-water access and the difficulty of setting off from Harwich against an easterly wind, its usefulness was somewhat limited and its facilities remained small-scale compared to the other Royal Dockyards over the same period.^[1] Nonetheless, it remained actively involved in repairing and refitting the nation's warships, as well as building them: of the eighty ships built for the Royal Navy in Britain between 1660 and 1688, fourteen were built at Harwich Dockyard.^[2] (Naval vessels had occasionally been built at Harwich in earlier times, but by private shipbuilders on or around the Town Quay).^[2]

After the Royal Navy withdrew from the yard in 1713, shipbuilding continued on the site under private ownership; over the course of the next century, through to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, just under forty more warships were built there.^[2]

The present-day name for the site of the former Dockyard is 'Harwich Navyard';^[1] for the past 50 years it has been run as a commercial port, however in 2018 plans were announced for it to be transformed into space for more than 300 homes.^[3]