Ferry Hook of Holland - Harwich

Hook of Holland – Harwich with Stena Line

This route links Hook of Holland with Harwich, operated by Stena Line. The two ferry terminals are about 195 kilometres (105 nautical miles) apart in a straight line. Use the search engine above for current timetables and fares, or use the Direct Ferries button at the top of the page to compare the sailings.

Founded in Gothenburg in 1962, Stena Line became a major force in British waters in 1990, when it bought Sealink British Ferries and doubled in size. It runs Fishguard–Rosslare, Belfast–Liverpool and Harwich–Hook of Holland, among other routes.

Hook of Holland

Hoek van Holland sits at the mouth of the Nieuwe Waterweg, the "New Waterway", a channel cut through the dunes and opened in 1872 to keep Rotterdam open to ocean shipping as the natural river mouths silted up. A short way along the waterway, the Maeslantkering storm surge barrier, completed in 1997, has two gigantic gates, each 210 metres long and weighing 6,800 tonnes, that swing across the channel in exceptional storm surges to protect more than two million people; there is a visitor centre beside it. The ferry terminal is linked to central Rotterdam by metro, in well under an hour.

Harwich

Harwich has been a naval town since the 1650s, and some of its working past survives. The Treadwheel Crane of 1667, once used in the naval yard and operated by men walking inside two giant wheels, is thought to be the only one of its kind in Britain. The Redoubt, a circular fort built in 1808 to guard against a Napoleonic invasion, stands behind the town, and the Electric Palace Cinema of 1911 is billed as the oldest unaltered purpose-built cinema in the country. The diarist Samuel Pepys, a senior Admiralty official, was twice elected MP for the town. About half an hour's drive away, the Stour valley around Dedham is the landscape painted by John Constable.