A summer afternoon by the river

[davidwheeler]

It is June 1965 and a beautiful morning on the banks of the Severn at Purton. The sun shines on the dulled steel of the entangled Arkendale H and Wastdale H lying high on the mud bank in the middle, because the tide is out, but on the turn. We were here just after the accident, when the air was acrid, heavy with the smell of burning and the sound of the klaxons of the vessels passing along the canal rolled out across the water to the opposite shore, back and forth, back and forth until gradually fading away. While we were on the Stroudwater, three other tankers were lost: the Widdale H, the BP Driver, the BP Explorer. But today it is calm and quiet.

I am back again, to see if there are any new arrivals on the foreshore, to make a plan of where each vessel lay, to identify more if I can, and to work out what each hull had been. Particularly former sailing vessels, and even more, trows, my favourites.

I worked my way along the line, from above the dredgings pumping station, all the way down to the old railway swing bridge. There were all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some really shapely with counter stern, with elegant sheer to the hull, others clearly former sailing vessels, their chain plates still fastened to their sides. Some still had dead-eyes, although most of these had gone, removed by hacksaw. Some had decorative carvings on their bows, and deeply incised names on their sterns but these also vanished, cut out for trophies. Some stood huge above the close cropped grass - the foreshore was grazed in those days - others had sunk so deep that only bows and stern posts stood proud. One could just step into some of them, but others needed a hook and a rope to get aboard to look for deck fittings such as they were. In the main, winches with the foundry names embossed on them, cast-iron pumps and other bits not worth salvaging. But often the registered number on a deck beam, or the certified number of seamen carved above the forecastle. Some clearly made or altered for a specific purpose which I could not identify. One with massive reinforcement on its bow. Another heavily beamed with a tiny hatch. Some were plainly towed barges, unpowered, double ended. Some had clear deep-sea breeding, lying jostled among great bluff wooden box hulls. Every single one was different. Each in a different state of condition. I counted and plotted on my plan thirty three wooden vessels that day. And six ferro-concrete barges.

 

I am going to mention three of them, each in its way significant in the history of the waterway:

 

1.  'Dispatch', or by this time, 'New Dispatch'. One of the last of the wooden hulls to be hauled up onto the banks of the Severn at Purton. Paul Barnett of the Friends of Purton writes in his book Fore & Aft that the 'New Dispatch' was abandoned on the bank in 1961. I saw her afloat in the Old Docks in the late 1950s, and high above the shore line at Purton in 1961. John Anderson in his book Coastwise Sail published in 1934 writes this about her: " a sturdy old 2-masted schooner of 120 tons, built in 1888 at Garmouth, Scotland and her dimensions are 90'1" x 21' x 10'3". She is registered in Inverness but is owned in Gloucester, and now she trades between the latter port to Ireland (with salt). In 1932 this ship spent 38 days beating against gales and violent headwinds between Tralee and Gloucester. She is one of the very last Moray Firth sailing vessels left afloat. A recent collision deprived her of her beautiful figurehead." This presumably was recovered or remade since her figurehead is now in the museum in Gloucester. By 1935 she was marked as a lighter, and disappeared from Lloyds Register. But from 1939 to 1948 she made regular voyages under tow from Avonmouth to Gloucester. Mostly with wheat, or barley, or linseed but sometimes with steel or wool. Or ground nuts or even tea. Below is how I saw her in 1965. Below that, how she was when built. An important ship in her own right, she incorporated Fells Patent Knees and French roller reefing. Her original Lloyds survey report, a copy of which I have, records this: " She has 9 pairs of diagonal plates closely inserted to the outside of the frame and is built of good and sound material of the 8 year grade. For a further period of one year, the hull, beams, and the keelson have been salted in accordance with the rules. For a further period of one year, the vessel has been fastened with yellow metal and galvanised iron bolts. The workmanship is good throughout and the vessel has been built under special survey and in accordance with the rules." Classed A.1. Salted c.f. at Lloyds for ten years, the Dispatch is perhaps the finest example of a British merchant schooner lying at Purton. She was a deep-water schooner, her maiden voyage was to Morocco. An important ship in the history of Gloucester Docks and the Ship Canal. But she has suffered over the years and not just through wind and weather.

 

Right I am going to take a break now. I will come back and start on 'Monarch'..

 

[davidwheeler]

2.   'Monarch' - a Severn trow. Built by William Sims at his yard at Saul. 80'8" x 20'5" x 6' 7". Described by Graham Farr as probably the largest trow ever built. She carried grain from Avonmouth to Tewkesbury for her owner F A Healing. Reduced to a towed barge, she was beached at Purton in 1951. Still with her dead-eyes and chain plates showing her former rig as a ketch, she was prey to trophy hunters. Including me. By 1957 I had acquired a feeling for dead-eyes and I removed one from one of the starboard side main chain plates. When I next visited the site, a few months later, the other nine had gone, removed by hacksaw. I still have mine. What has happened to the Monarch since I do not know but by 1969, when my photo was taken, the arrival of FCB 75 right on top of her did her condition no good at all. A vessel of impeccable local connections.

 

3.  'Edith' - this Bridgewater trow was built in 1901 and worked locally within the Bristol Channel. According to Gordon Mote she was derigged in 1927 and converted into a fully motorised barge and as such she worked on the Lydney - Bristol coal trade until the early 1960s when she was towed up the estuary and hauled up onto the bank. She was one of the last wooden hulls to be so. When the photo was taken in 1965 her name remained on her counter stern but by 1969 it had gone, cut away as a trophy. The reason why I include 'Edith' is because her engine, a Kelvin K2, taken out of her in the 1960s and stored in a barn for thirty odd years, has been installed, since 1992 in a modern narrowboat. Perhaps even in two, one after the other. A beautiful engine. So 'Edith' does have a connection with the waterways. Or at least her engine does. But the lower photo, taken at Saul Junction drydock in 1953, shows clearly twin props. I am advised by people on this site who know, that a Kelvin K2 is not at all suited to adaptation to drive twin props. So a bit of a mystery there. Plus the K2 was not introduced until 1931. 

 

There are other vessels at Purton which have strong connection with the Canal. If you want to know more about the Purton vessels and others abandoned along the Severn, then Paul Barnett's Guide, obtainable via Friends of Purton, will tell you all about them. Paul knows infinitely more about Purton than I do, and virtually all the facts about it here come from him. He is a researcher. I was just a lad.

 

I will take another break. If you find that tedious, it is not half as tedious as I find this word processor.

[davidwheeler]

I will try to get through this in one go but age has done little for my fingers. It may take two more.

 

As I got back to the canal, one of the swing bridges was open and the 'Severn Trader' was passing through it. This little ship made the title page of the Motor Boat magazine of 6th January 1933: "Modern transport on the Inland waterways" was the headline. 'A New Type of Canal carrier'. " The only vessel that can be called typical of the trade on the Severn is the trow, which in almost every case is a cut-down wooden sailing barge". " the Severn and Canal Carrying Co Ltd determined to produce a vessel capable of going to sea sufficiently far to be able to serve the Bristol Channel ports and capable of navigating up the Severn as far as Stourport, which is the nearest point to Birmingham to which a sea-going vessel can possibly get. It is thought that this vessel will be the first of the typical Severn vessels, and she is therefore named 'Severn Trader'".

 

Behind her followed a Harker tanker, and others were in the distance. So I decided to go on to Sharpness and see them arrive.

 

That afternoon there was little activity in the docks. It was very quiet. Just a couple of ships, doing nothing. Near the lock entrance, the 'Sylvia', a Dutch ship of 500 tons, down, light, from Gloucester. At the quayside, the tug 'Addie'. This tug had been built by Isaac Abdela of Brimscombe on the Thames and Severn Canal. Originally steam, T3 cylinders (12,20, 17 in) 200ihp, single screw. She worked the Bristol Channel, then purchased by British Waterways in 1947. By then re-engined with a 6 cyl. Ruston & Hornsby diesel of 360bhp. She remained with BW until 1968. It is said that at some time she returned to Brimscombe for refurbishment after lying idle for some years. Impounded during WW11 for unpaid dues, she was pressed into war service. But by then she must have left the Thames and Severn which was, I believe,impassable by the mid 1930s. So something odd there. A well known tug on the canal and at Sharpness. Still in existence I believe in private hands but not as a tug.

 

And just round the bend in the docks there was, in those days, another interesting ship, the Soviet freighter 'Donets'. Of 2296 grt, 1395 nrt, and 297' x 42.8' x 18.6' draft, built by Wartsila Kon Crichton- Vulcan at Abo, Finland and ice-classed. Rather too late to have been one of the Russo-Finland reparation builds so perhaps constructed under the later Russo-Finland trade pact. I don't know. But in those days quite an unusual visitor, with timber from the Baltic. But also worth noting, the two timber lighters, 'Cam' and 'Painswick'. These two were part of the fleet of lighters operated by Mousell & Chadbourne. The 'Cam' built at Appledore North Devon by Robert Cock in 1905, and the 'Painswick in 1915, 67 tons and 56 tons respectively. Two of at least twelve lighters built at the famous Richmond Dock. Each with a long history, the 'Cam' still in some sort of existence lining the banks of the Severn above Sharpness Old Docks, the 'Painswick' cut up in Chepstow for onward use as secure storage on land. And perhaps still serving as such, somewhere.

 

I have got to stop again. Sorry about that. I will finish next time, for sure.

[davidwheeler]

This will finish it I hope..

 

Then suddenly the docks began to fill with barges coming in from the canal. The stillness of the afternoon shattered by the roar of diesels as the barges - they were all barges - marshalled themselves before the lock gates. The tidal basin no longer tidal, the sea lock gates closed at the top of the tide.

The level reached the dock, the lock with both sets of gates open. First to go through was the 'Sylvia', mooring to the nearest staithe on the left. Then the first of the big tankers, the 'BP Manufacturer', But the 'Sylvia' stern warp had not been made fast, and she swung out into the tanker's path. With her Voith Schneider props thrashing the tanker surged astern and away. Then the other tankers and dry cargo barges fed in through the lock gates and up towards the head of the basin, tying up to each other four abreast, on the left all big Shell/BP or Harker barges and others on the right five or six together, filling up behind, big Harkers with the 'H' emblazoned on the bows, grain barges, each slotting into its place, without confusion, all ordered and right at the rear, nearest the docks, the tugs with their tows alongside them. I don't know how many there were, twenty perhaps thirty, but the tidal basin so full of vessels of different shapes and sizes but all neatly marshalled, their engines rumbling and growling, one felt one could have walked across deck to deck from one side of the basin to the other.

 

Then the levels of tidal basin and estuary evened and the sea lock gates were opened and off they went, engines roaring, screws churning the water, the bows waves slapping against the staithes and the sea wall, a pack of raring hounds flat out round the end of the pier, racing away, the big tankers ahead, out into the estuary and on towards Avonmouth and the sea, a long line of boats fading away into the distance, one after the other, until finally the tugs and their tows dwindled into the distance, their bow waves streaming out across the estuary gradually lessening until gone and quiet returned. Just the 'Sylvia' on her own, making her stately departure after the crowds.

 

That was a sight!

 

And all the while, stationary along the railway line running parallel to the dock and basin, a line of rusting redundant steam locomotives. A sight itself, but a sad one.

 

Then I went home.

[Derek R.]

Windows on the past. I have no knowledge of the area or the craft that plied the waters there, but thank you David for the lessons.

[nealeST]

That was a fascinating read, beautifully evocative of a vanished world, you had me transported to a time and place I’ve never been.

[Ogwr]

Thank you David a fascinating glimpse into the past