Linnet's Cottage, Bradwell on Sea

Linnet's cottage is a small Essex weatherboard cottage on the sea wall at Bradwell on Sea built into the walls of the old roman fort of Othona.

The cottage was originally built during the Napoleonic wars to house the seaman who manned the important semaphore station installed at the adjoining St Peters Chapel.

Once the seamen departed the cottage was used by workers on the marshland, probably wildfowl related.

The Linnet family moved in to the cottage in the late 1870's and began to raise a family from a good living at wild fowling and fishing.

The 1881 census shows William and Rachel Linnett plus their children Eliza, Ellen, Thomas, Louisa, Grace, Walter and Fanny.

Quite how this family fitted into a house with two small rooms with two even smaller rooms is difficult to comprehend.

Walter went on to become one of the most famous wild fowlers and punt gunner that the district has produced.

Members of the Linett family lived in the cottage until the mid 1950's.

In the 1970's the cottage was turned into a bird observatory to enable viewing of the internationally important marsh and sea shore that prove a magnet for bird life.

For this purpose a wooden dormitory was added.