Last month, a school ordered a copy of my Colchester Suite for their school orchestra, which prompted me to finish editing the typeset parts (having relied upon tattered manuscript copies ever since the first performance in 1983). I’ve already written ‘Pieces of the Week’ about two of the movements, Hilly Fields and Old King Cole, so I’ll say something about another movement, The Hythe.
Hythe means harbour, and The Hythe is (or was) Colchester’s harbour, at the point where the River Colne begins to widen on its way to the North Sea. It has been in existence as a port for over a thousand years, but its heyday was probably the eighteenth century, when it dealt with many European ports as well as UK ones, importing brandy, timber, tiles, iron, coal, tea, and many other goods, and exporting locally produced wheat, malt and barley to London. Alongside the harbour, many industries sprang up, coal-yards, granaries, maltings, brick, lime, and coke ovens, and shipbuilding. In the nineteenth century a boost to the port was given by the building of the railway, with a spur from Hythe station to the docks – but in the twentieth century the port was in serious decline and today the remaining warehouses have been converted into apartments and many new buildings and timberyards overlook the river too – and it’s also home to a very well-stocked Chinese supermarket!
At the time I wrote this piece, 1982, the port was still slightly operational, though it isn’t today. My piece is a picture of the Hythe of the past, and as you listen to it you can perhaps dream of a sailing ship slowly edging down the Colne, reaching the open sea, and heading south past Foulness, Southend, Canvey Island, and into the calmer waters of the Thames approaching the port of London (all in three minutes!).
You can hear it, with some pictures of the Hythe, here, and you can find more details of the complete Colchester Suite here.