|
Little
Wick [38 High Street] is a listed property and one of the older ones in
the lower part of the village. It
adjoins what used to be the ancient Falcon Inn.
Although listed erroneously as Victorian, it is in fact very much
older and is thought to be at least as old as 1750.
The original building has beams, wattle and daub over a timber
frame with a Georgian front facade. Dr
William Dean, from whom Mark Paterson obtained the property around 1979, told
of a story that went around the village at the time that Little Wick was
occupied by a mistress of George II who used to visit the estuary in his
yacht and she would slip on board to see him.
It is known that the then King visited the area in his yacht but we
have no other information. Little
Wick has a sister larger house in the Vicarage which it echoes and the two
are divided by Alma Street from the High Street. During
the last war Little Wick was used as council offices and the garden
bordering Alma Street was a public lavatory. After
the war, Little Wick was purchased by Dr William Dean and became both his
home and surgery. His wife,
Marjorie, was very much into antiques and converted the front area of the
house by removing the hall partition and installing some fine carved
wooden pillars. These she brought from a London medical bookshop that was
being dismantled. This gave a
special elegance to area with its sweeping staircase.
She used this area as a showroom for the antiques she was offering
for sale. Although
Mark Paterson arrived after she had died, he was told she used to offer
visitors a glass of sherry there on Saturday mornings.
In the meantime Dr Dean had bought the much larger Wivenhoe Old
Rectory where he could indulge his passion for gardening and croquet. And
speaking of old rectories, Mark Paterson, as the new owner of Little Wick
came from Bishop's House [the old Frating rectory] where he had been,
having moved there from Canonbury Square in Islington. Mark,
a literary agent by profession representing Sigmund Freud and others,
escaped from London for a better quality of life and lower expenses. He
first had an office in Colchester's West Stockwell Street in the historic
house originally occupied by Jane and Anne Taylor [of Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star fame]. From
there, he rented a brand new office in Brook Street, Wivenhoe, carrying on
his business there for some twenty years as well as doing some publishing
and bookselling. It was during this time that, as Quentin Books, he
published Nicolas Butler's Story of Wivenhoe.
This was a huge book of more than 400 pages and 200 illustrations
and had an immediate success having to be re-printed at once. Mark's
agency business was merged with a London one and in 2003 he closed the
Wivenhoe Brook Street office and carried on his end of the business in
Little Wick. He also sought
to expand his second hand bookselling which involved specialties such as
psychology, marine, natural history, books about books, Essex and East
Anglia, political biography, and history. Mark
is a member of the Wivenhoe Society, TWITS, supporter of the Engine Shed
Project, the Shipyard Project, and also member of the Essex Wildlife
Trust, and many other organizations.
He is currently the Warden at the John Weston Wildlife Reserve at
the Naze. Mark
Paterson
|