The Goldhanger Oyster
Beds
Oyster fishing has
been a Blackwater Estuary activity for over a thousand
years and for hundreds of years there has been oyster cultivation using man-made
beds. A large number of disused oyster beds are still visible on Osea Island. However, in the early 1980s a
temporary end came to this local industry when a disease curtailed production.
Oyster shells have always littered the foreshore at Goldhanger and shell are
still found in the gardens in Fish Street and Church Street. Up until the 1950s
there were two Fish pits close to Goldhanger
Creek. As well as large sea fish catches, they were said to used to hold eels,
shellfish and oysters waiting for a suitable market. Today oyster cultivation
is again a vibrant local industry.
In
1998 Clarrie Devall published a book entitled: “Maldon and the Tidal
Blackwater” and this map was produced....
extracts from...
The World Fishing Magazine, in September 2010 at...
http://www.worldfishing.net/news101/industry-news/maldon-oysters-granted-first-use-of-ozone
Maldon Oysters has
become the first UK shellfish producer to be allowed to use ozone as part of
its purification system following the completion of four years of ground
breaking research and development. Ozone is a pale blue gas that is made up of
three oxygen molecules, produced naturally by electrical discharge from lightening
or by the sun's UV rays upon reaching the Earth's stratosphere. ...By adding
very small amounts of this natural product to its purification tank system
Maldon Oysters found that it was able to not only improve shelf-life and
flavour, but it was also able to drastically reduce any virus the shellfish may
be carrying.
extracts from...
The Maldon Oyster Company website at... www.maldonoyster.com
The Maldon Oyster
Company was first established in 1960 and was originally run as a cooperative
between several local fishermen, under the leadership of Clarrie
Devall. During the hard winter of 1963, most oyster beds in Essex
were devastated by ice and the company became dormant for a few years, until Mr Devall started growing new stocks of
Pacific Oysters in Goldhanger Creek.
In the early eighties, Mr Devall
took on David Coward-Talbott as a partner and they successfully grew several
million Pacific Oysters on the traditional beds in Goldhanger
Creek and established some small quantities of native flat oysters
in the main Blackwater River.
The Maldon Oyster
Company now has a large area of the River Blackwater
under their management and has re-established a native oyster fishery as well
as being one of the largest producers of Pacific Oysters in the UK. Our new
modern purification and packing facility for bivalves, with a live holding
system for crustaceans, has been built at Cock Clarks near Maldon. With this
system we can hold oysters, mussels or even cockles in a temperature controlled
environment to achieve the optimum purification for a minimum of 48 hours in
summer and winter.
One of our primary
aims is to utilise this Essex estuary to its best advantage without harming the
delicate eco-system and its salt marshes. For it is an area swathed in natural
beauty, supports a wide variety of flora and fauna and plays an important role
providing wintering grounds for many migratory birds. The area is now enshrined
as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and is also protected and
registered under the European Union Shellfish Waters Directive (79/923),
whereby it has the distinction of being one of only a very few shell fish
growing waters in the UK.
The oyster beds at low tide to the east of Goldhanger
Creek in recent years
a recent aerial view of the oyster beds
YouTube videos that give a tour of the oyster beds...
|
Oysters Farm Goldhanger |
Maldon Rock Oysters |
HARVEST - Maldon Oysters |
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