Crushed shell driveways in Harwich Port
Wychmere was a kettle pond with a horse racing track round it until the channel was cut in 1887.
Harwich Port has three harbors: Allen, Wychmere and Saquatucket. Wychmere is the odd one, a near perfectly circular kettle pond that was called Salt Water Pond and had a racing track around it in the mid eighteen hundreds, before the channel to the sound was dredged properly in 1887 and it became a harbor.
A kettle pond turned harbor tells you about the ground
Wychmere is a kettle hole, and kettle holes are where the groundwater surfaces. That is a useful thing to know when you are digging a driveway a few streets away, because the water table nearby is not far down either.
On the lower streets close to the harbors we plan for that. Deeper excavation, a base built to sit clear of seasonal wet, and grade that gets water away rather than trusting it to soak.
Village driveways, harbor traffic
The village itself is dense and walkable, with short driveways close to one another and a marked jump in traffic once the season starts. Saquatucket in particular moves a lot of vehicles in summer.
Short driveways taking heavy seasonal turning is the same combination we see in Dennis Port and Monument Beach, and the same answer applies: the turning is what moves the surface, and crushed stone resists it better than shell.
Crushed stone driveways in Harwich Port
Crushed stone is the more dependable surface on the lower streets near the harbors, where the water table is close to the surface and seasonal traffic is heavy.
Short driveways taking hard summer turning are exactly the pattern stone is better at. Further from the water, shell holds well.
Elsewhere in Harwich
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