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.