For obvious reasons, the great battleships of the Royal Navy were not built by Maldon shipbuilders. The size of these ships required major seaports like Portsmouth or deep estuaries like the Medway. This hasn't stopped Maldon from contributing to the vital smaller ships that the Royal Navy has needed.

As recently as World War 2, John Sadd and Sons built motor launches, torpedo boats, gunboats and landing craft for the Royal Navy. The town was listed as being responsible for supplying the King with one ship as far back as the Domesday Book. Henry II was entitled to one ship for forty days in return for Maldon's Royal Charter in 1171.

David Patient, in his fascinating book 'One of Howard's', describes the growth of larger shipbuilding facilities in the 17th Century. James Starling was a prominent local citizen in the latter part of this century, and he established a shipyard capable of building larger ships.

Starling's first warship commission in 1652 came (interestingly) not from the Royal Navy but from the Commonwealth Navy – the republican government established by Cromwell. War with the Dutch meant that the navy dockyards were fully occupied, and Parliament approved the construction of a number of frigates at private yards.

Starling was asked to build a Fourth Rate Frigate of 48 guns (some sources say initially 40 guns). First to Third Rate ships were battleships, designed to stand 'in the line of battle'. A Fourth rate was therefore the largest class of ship after a battleship, and 48 guns was a heavy amount of firepower for such a ship.

Named after the recapture of Jersey in 1651, the ship was 132 feet long on the gun deck and was 560 tons with a thirteen foot draught. This was huge by Maldon standards – current Thames Sailing Barges are about a hundred feet long but can float in just three feet of water and are a maximum of 120 tons displacement.

'Jersey' therefore must have been a big challenge for Maldon shipwrights. Sailing warships were often built on slips – ramps down which they could be slid into the water when ready. A letter to the Naval Commissioners of June 19th 1654 says, 'Will get the frigate out this tide, if the builder gets a good hoy and a couple of lighters'. David Patient notes that this suggests that the frigate was floated out from a dry dock, with the hoy to do the towing.

Jersey's masts were fitted in deeper water half a mile down the river, as she had to be as light as possible to float in the Blackwater. On 18th August she sailed for Harwich to be fully fitted out. Interestingly, her she was named HHS Jersey not HMS, as Cromwell was referred to as 'His Highness', not 'His Majesty'.

Jersey's early career was spent chasing Algerian pirates in the Mediterranean. She retained her name (but with the 'HMS' prefix) on the Restoration. Somewhat ingloriously she was captured by the French in 1691 in the West Indies, but a British squadron tracked her down three years later, driving her ashore and burning the hulk.

The frigate's most distinguished captain was Samuel Pepys, who noted it in his diary on March 13 1669. Pepys was no sailor – the appointment was an honorary one to enable him to sit on the Court-Martial of a sea captain. He was amused by this quirk of fate: 'which do give me occasion for much mirth, and may be of some use to me; at least I shall get a little money by it.'

A mystery remains: the location of Starling's shipyard, with its probable dry dock. As Patient explains, likely sites include the eastern end of the Hythe, and Great Potman Marsh, east of the present Causeway - but as yet, no remains have been found.