An early Fire Station in Wivenhoe

Not in Brook Street but behind the Council Offices in the High Street

Peter Hill

Wivenhoe's fire station building in the yard behind what are now the Town Council offices
Photo by Toni Stinson
The Wivenhoe Fire Auxiliary Service
Photo provided by Clive Peck
Inside the building with names still visible against the pegs which have been removed
Photo by Toni Stinson
Inside the building with names still visible against the pegs which have been removed
Photo by Toni Stinson
Inside the building with names still visible against the pegs which have been removed
Photo by Toni Stinson
The firemen whose names are against the pegs
Sammy Oliver, one of Wivenhoe's first firemen
Uniforms in the new Fire Station, in Colchester Road
Photo by Peter Hill, taken in 2002
The Wivenhoe Fire Engine at an Open Day in 2002
Photo by Peter Hill

The Wivenhoe Auxiliary Fire Service was formed during World War II and was based on land behind what is now the Town Council offices in the High Street but which had been acquired a few years earlier, in 1936, as the King George’s Playing Field.

The names painted against the pegs are:

  • John Turner
  • Bob Oakely
  • Ernest Davis
  • Alfred Cox
  • Alan Chaney
  • Walter Frost
  • John Munson
  • James AE Muson
  • George Abrahams
  • Sammy Oliver
  • Fred Parker

Note:  The first fire station was in Alma Street, close by the Council Offices which were in a house called Little Wick which is on the corner of High Street and Alma Street. There was no fire engine as such; more buckets and a hand pump with a hose.

For a history of the Wivenhoe fire service, click here

 

 

This page was added on 05/01/2017.

Comments about this page

  • Whilst a pupil at the Old Boys’ School, I can recall seeing the firemen pulling the fire cart from this shed to a fire at the Broomy, now occupied by the Broomgrove estate. This would have been in approx. 1938/39, and was before the days of any form of motorised fire pump

    By Tony Forsgate (16/01/2017)
  • Hi Tony. Didn’t realise you went back this far !! Best. Peter

    By Peter Hill (16/01/2017)

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