by Geoff Body
In the earlier years, small smacks carrying coal, culm and other commodities not only used the coastal harbours but penetrated surprising distances up rivers and creeks. Barges and canal narrowboats took over where they left off and, increasingly as the waterways were steadily improved, penetrated well inland, reaching beyond Taunton, up to Ilchester and Westport, even quite near to Cheddar. Some commodities were transferred from sea-going vessel to barge at Combwich for their onward journey along the Parrett. In other cases this transhipment took place at Bridgwater to the extent that, even before improvement of the Parrett route, the volume of business moving along the river to and from Langport and beyond was around 50,000 tons annually. The barges used were of traditional design and had a carrying capacity of 15–20 tons. The restrictive bridge at Langport meant transhipment to smaller barges, of 5–7½ tons for movement beyond. The business on the Tone (and subsequently the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal), especially coal to Ham Mills, was equally significant. One variation in the general barge pattern was the tub boats of the Chard Canal.
This type of barge would have been a common sight on the River Parrett before the coming of the railway. While coal was the main upriver traffic, small cargoes of other goods would often have been added. (Roy Gallop)
Simple shallow-draught, low freeboard and wide, stable workboats were numerous in the Somerset Levels where narrow rhynes abounded, flooding was commonplace and road access was not always practicable. Their principal role was in the carriage of willows or of peat turves, but they were used for whatever was required, visiting market, moving goods and machinery, supplying fodder to livestock and being, in effect, completely general purpose. Most farms and growers had at least one and, until the advances in drainage and road construction, life would have been near-impossible without these water workhorses. Their simple design also meant that they could be constructed by local craftsmen, perhaps just the village carpenter.
The willow-carrying boats were the larger of the two types, anything up to 20ft in length, and usually about 6ft in the beam. The five oak planks used for the flat bottom at the centre tapered to one or two at each end, giving the boat a double bow which made it easy for moving through water vegetation and also had the big advantage of being capable of use without being turned. The low sides would be of elm, tar would be applied inside and out and the finished vessel was punted, towed or propelled with a single oar from the rear. A flat bottom permitted maximum versatility and the stability to be loaded high with the harvested willows. Most had two-plank sides which were secured to the bottom boards with inverted ‘knees’.
The boats used for turf, or peat, were similar to those which carried willows, but mostly slightly smaller and with a gunwale surmounting the elm plank sides. All these boats could be laden to a surprising height with a load of up to half a ton, and their versatility was not only proven but a matter of some pride. They would ‘float on dew’, it was frequently said.
The mixture of barges, narrowboats and overgrown flatners which carried the trade cargoes inherited a water movement tradition that dated back to the days of Glastonbury Abbey and waterways like the Pilrow Cut. In those times supplies for the abbey were carried by water and its officials used smaller boats to move around the abbey properties arranging, communicating, inspecting and conducting other abbey business.
Barges engaged in inland trade used the tide where it ran and were towed elsewhere. Stables existed at the junction of the Parrett and Tone rivers to supply the horses needed for towage beyond the tidal limit on these rivers, and a number of boatmen also lived in the area. Stuckey & Bagehot had a large fleet, other concerns owned several barges and quite a few were ‘owner-operated’. Canal companies were also barge owners, both for trading and for maintenance activity, the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal having at least two sizeable vessels of its own.
In versions of different length, these flatners performed many varied tasks on the waterways of the Somerset Levels. Although mainly used to carry willows or peat, they would also be used for coal, manure and a variety of other goods to and from isolated places. (Roy Gallop)
But trading vessels were not the only users of the waterways. It is clear from the reports of the opening of the Glastonbury Canal in 1833 that some private vessels were also in existence. The canal company’s own barge Goodland played a leading role in the ceremonial opening voyages and was partnered by a ‘beautiful yacht’, the Water Witch. A new yacht, the St Vincent, took part in a second celebration, but ran into trouble when she sprang a leak and the guests on board had to be rescued.
While the number of vessels without power was always far greater than those with engines of some sort, the wider rivers did lend themselves to the application of marine power when it became available. Towage was a prime area of opportunity with its potential for massive time savings. Keeping them clear of silt and weeds was another.
Silt was a constant problem for river and harbour authorities. Along the inland rivers it was the responsibility of the drainage authorities to control both silting and weeds. For centuries this had been the task of riverside landowners, but few saw it as their prime consideration and even when formal drainage authorities were established they had great problems in collecting the rates levied. The position slowly improved, but still based on the traditional use of workboats with rakes and cutting tools, later supplemented by bucket grabs.
Its length and use made the River Parrett a big challenge in this respect and prompted a search for something more efficient. A grab vessel was tried but sank and the commissioners eventually approved a scheme by Bridgwater engineer Frank Wills for an ‘eroder’ vessel. A three-year contract heralded the twenty-three-year career of Pioneer, a shallow-draught, low-profile steam vessel based on a 35ft steel barge and fitted with a compound steam engine for propulsion and for powering the jets which flushed silt from the banks and channels. Where this accumulated in quantity the vessel could be held in position by stern ropes fixed to either bank and the long jet focussed on the offending area, agitating the silt for flushing away with the outgoing stream. Pioneer was at work until 1917.
Bridgwater Town Council was responsible, through its Port & Navigation Committee, for the lower Parrett reaches where maintaining port access was highly important to the shipping trade but, at the same time, the Bath Brick manufacturers were fiercely protective of their slime batches near the town. After much debate the committee decided to acquire its own eroder, eventually obtaining the 58ft Eroder from the Wills company. She was a similar vessel to Pioneer, but considerably longer. Working on the river between the town and the sea the new vessel was not without its problems if the harbour master’s records are anything to go by. He penned many reports of poor steaming due to the use of low quality coal which also built up clinker on the fire bars and resulted in the loss of availability for clearance work. Quite a few other problems featured in the Bridgwater harbour master’s reports in the later years, not least the Great Western Railway’s habit of leaving chains lying about the quays.
One more eroder was still to come, in the shape of the 50ft Perseverance. Again from the Wills firm, she had three-cylinder Petter marine engines for propulsion and powering the six high-pressure water jets. Perseverance started work in 1933 and did her job well until made redundant by the post-war decline in Bridgwater shipping. She then worked as a combined silt remover and workboat at Watchet until the same fate overtook her there.
The benefits of mechanisation were even more apparent in the advent of steam towage. A group of Bridgwater and Langport shipping interests saw this and ordered their first tug, Endeavour, which was built in 1837. This could tow several large vessels upriver at one time and, coupled with the 1841 opening of the new dock, brought about a new era in the life of Bridgwater as a port. Not only was dependence on the tides greatly reduced, with a huge saving of the time spent waiting, but the services of the towing boats were no longer required and the need for transhipment at Combwich reduced. A second tug, Perseverance,
was ordered in 1840. The two, and later vessels like the Petrel and Victor, were of quite simple design and were not above undertaking other jobs, including the occasional passenger excursion.
A notable non-coastal vessel was the drag boat used to clear silt in Bridgwater Dock. Believed to have been designed by Brunel for the Great Western Railway on the same pattern as one used in Bristol’s floating harbour, this vessel was always known as Bertha. She was fabricated in Bristol around 1844 and assembled at Bridgwater to produce a functional rectangular hull of riveted puddle iron plates with timber superstructure and a tall funnel. A single-cylinder, double-acting steam engine working at 40psi powered a cross-mounted shaft with flywheel, chain drum and winch. The 50-ton vessel had a scraper blade at the stern which could be lowered to allow silt to be scraped into underwater heaps by attaching a heavy chain to the dock bollards and then winding it in. The chain was then moved to the adjoining bollards and a lighter chain was used to return with the scraper raised so that the whole process could be repeated on an adjoining, parallel or semi-diagonal course. After scraping the mud into the outer basin, sluices were opened to let in water to swirl the unwanted sediment into the centre before side culverts carried it away into the main stream. Bertha survived the dock closure and, after a period on display at Exeter, is currently under restoration at Eyemouth.
The drag boat known as Bertha moored in the inner dock at Bridgwater in 1968.
The Rexford at Highbridge was not only used for dragging the mud away from the wharf for clearance by the tide, but also acted as tug and general purpose workboat. This essentially local vessel, owned by a local ex-navy man A.E. Buncombe, survived until the scrapyard claimed it around 1950, but not before she had brought in Highbridge’s last visitor, the Phoenix. Watchet harbour’s silt clearance and workboat lasted even longer.
4. ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
Today the waters of the Bristol Channel are frequently empty of any shipping whatsoever. A few small private fishing and leisure craft appear, mainly at holiday times when they are joined by the surviving excursion vessels, MV Balmoral and PS Waverley. The MV Oldenberg occasionally strays from her routine of serving Lundy Island and the veteran MV Bristol Queen enjoys another chapter in a long career by providing summer sailings from Knightstone Harbour at Weston-super-Mare. The trading ships are represented by the intermittent but ongoing procession of small coasters and other freighters bound for Sharpness, a container ship heading for Newport or one of the huge coal, ore or car carriers taking on their tugs for entry to Portbury Docks. The latter group are ugly, functional monsters, heavily pregnant with hundreds of cars, shrinking Flat Holm Island in their passing and they would make an unbelievable contrast with the graceful ketches that once roamed the same waters. The replica Mathew has made the odd appearance and there are occasional unusual visitors like heavy lift or naval vessels, even the occasional full-rigged sailing craft.
What a different scene it would have been in the past, especially in the nineteenth century. The wind, tide and weather were still the gods and waiting upon their pleasure a focal part of practical sailing. As a consequence huge numbers of vessels might be seen anchored in the regular spots in King Road, in the deeper channels off Cardiff and near Stert Island, and might total anything from ten to sixty vessels, all forced to wait until the conditions were right. And the mixture would contain smacks, sloops, luggers, trows, ketches, schooners and hybrids, all revealing a variety of shapes and rigs depending on their builders, skippers and trades. The variety in cargoes meant vessels sat in the water in different ways and their depth needs would determine when they could take the flowing tide upriver.
Before the godsend of the marine engine, sailing in the waters of the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel required a very daunting mixture of skills. Any cargo sailing was invariably physically hard. It also demanded a feel for the effects of varying tide, wind and water flow and depth conditions which would vary from vessel to vessel depending on the hull profile, the load, the rig and each craft’s idiosyncrasies. Depths, rocks, tide races, shoals, whirlpools and landmarks were another lesson, along with the nature of differing cargoes and the peculiarities of each individual harbour. Weather, running repairs, the management of the ship’s rowing boat, handling the sails, winch, anchor and ropes and other gear – the list of skills to be mastered goes on. And not forgetting that essential ability to fry something appetising and make hot, strong, sweet tea. All skills traditionally handed down among families and picked up in the hard classroom of earning a living.
Traditionally crew members tended to be followers in their father’s footsteps but, as commerce expanded, new seamen might be drawn from the land, from the fishing community, from shrinking trades and even from the workhouse. Crews did not live on board unless forced to do so by their sailings, and the homes of the majority were in or near their home port. A crew would normally comprise skipper, mate and, possibly, a boy learning the trade, but larger vessels would often need the addition of a deckhand. Home life was hardly ‘normal’ for the hours were uncertain, the earnings unpredictable and the risk of injury, or even death, always present.
Loading and unloading vessels in the main harbours was well organised, but in isolated coastal locations the scene would have been more like this. (Dover Publications)
The channel trading activity was largely the province of single vessel owners but some traders like Ridler at Minehead and some of the larger manufacturing activities such as the Bridgwater brickworks either owned several vessels or controlled fleets they had contracted. Vessel ownership involved the costs of covering the original construction of the vessel and a return on that outlay, plus another group of costs associated with maintenance, e.g. sails, ropes and other chandlery items, also hull and cargo insurance, and then the actual costs incurred in carrying out a voyage. The latter would consist of payments for provisions, towage, harbour dues, trimming assistance and so on plus, of course, wages for the crew. Their earnings were in line with their status and responsibilities, those of the mate, for example, being generally slightly above the going rate of payment to an agricultural labourer. This difference between these two areas of employment widened steadily in favour of seamen and, even in their case, there were many variations between different owners and trades.
Vessel ownership might actually be part-ownership and involve as many as eighty shares. Those involved could range from farmers to tradesmen and often included shipbuilders who were willing to accept deferred payments to be made out of voyage earnings. Working vessels would have to carry some sort of cash float for paying dues, replenishing supplies and underwriting such contingencies as becoming windbound in some distant harbour, yet still having to eat. In some cases captains might also want to do a bit of trading on their own account and purchase a load of coal if it were offered cheap and could be sold for a profit. There is evidence that other transactions took place involving small extra cargoes and discreet payments, especially in the days before the revenue watchmen became well organised. An occasional ‘passenger’ might also be taken to visit a relative or to offer home-produced goods at some destination. Local migration among the families of seamen was quite commonplace.
Like the vessels employed in these waters, the actual freight movement varied greatly depending on the nature and size of the cargoes. Some vessels were owned by, contracted to or worked solely for one industry, e.g. bricks from Bridgwater and Combwich, and cement from Dunball. Many worked regularly on the same run, e.g. coal from Lydney, Newport, Cardiff and Swansea. Others carried any load they could get. Work that did not come directly from owners or a contract would usually be at the behest of an agent, but there was a lot of casual, short-term work and captains with no next load might try their luck anywhere that experience or rumour suggested one might be available.
Freight rates were a matter for negotiation and, for what would now be called ‘jobbing’, would depend on a cargo’s nature, value and urgency and the degree of availability of vess
els willing and able to carry it. No vessel wanted to sail empty and if getting an onward load meant trimming the rate, so be it. If the next load meant moving to another loading point, then the shorter the journey the better. The question of ballast also arose. Any vessel sailing empty in the Western Approaches or the Irish Sea, or in very bad weather, needed ballast to keep it low in the water and more stable, but not only was this a profitless cargo, suitable ballast had to be found, loaded and then removed before the next load. It might be anything from old metal to rocks, sand or rubble, but was to be avoided if any safe alternative was available. Occasionally, material suitable for ballast use might be purchased cheap and then sold at the next port of call. Ballast was also a sore subject for the harbour master at Bridgwater who was constantly complaining of it lying about on his wharves.
The early dependence on the post made the pre-planning of journeys difficult, and the advent of the telegraph system, eventually taken over by the Post Office, was a major development in freight shipping arrangements. Even so bad weather, crowded berths and other such difficulties could ruin arrangements, although it helped if the planned cargo came from or was intended for a warehouse, store or stack. Getting a profitable load factor depended heavily on agents and factors and on those harbours with a constant output or intake. Even then it could result in a voyage with as many as seven or eight different ‘legs’.
The distance factor became even more important when a vessel was far from home, like the Colthurst Symons schooner which had taken a load of bricks to the North East and then got stranded on the French shore by rough weather on the way home. She was eventually just left there, along with her cargo of coals from Newcastle.
Bridgwater coal merchants like Sully & Co. would arrange their requirements with the colliery factor and engage a vessel to bring the traffic from the port of origin and would then, after arrival, send it on by rail or have it discharged to stack for local sale. Small coal merchants, often farmers as well, would do the same in a smaller way and hawk the coal around local villages by horse and cart. Early in the nineteenth century, for example, Parson Holland of Over Stowey sent his man to Combwich when he heard a coal boat had arrived, to bring back a load of coal for the parsonage.
