by Geoff Body
Watchet Harbour pictured a few years after the Second World War and with two vessels lying at the East Quay. The one-time exports of iron ore from the Brendon mines were unloaded from wagon to ship at the West Quay.
After a severe gale in December 1900 and more severe weather in 1903, the damaged harbour was rebuilt by the Harbour Board of Commissioners in 1904 at an eventual cost of £25,000. Kelly’s Directory then described it in the following terms:
The tidal harbour has an area of 10 acres, and a depth of water at the entrance of 9 feet at low neap tide, and of 22 feet at high water (ordinary spring tides) over a large portion of this area; it is well sheltered from all winds, being protected on the west by the new pier and a breakwater 390 feet in length; and on the north-east by a pier 560 feet in length, which also forms a convenient quay for steamers and coasting vessels; steam cranes are supplied at nominal rates for discharging cargoes; the harbour thus inclosed [sic] is lined with substantial quay walls and a landing slip; in its fine seaward approaches, the depth of water at its entrance and its direct railway communication with the interior, Watchet harbour possesses advantages beyond any other small port in the Bristol channel.
In the first part of the twentieth century the port of Watchet depended primarily upon import movements of coal and Scandinavian wood pulp. When the iron ore bonanza ended it had become a much less important harbour than either Bridgwater or Minehead and then shared with them the inexorable move away from short sea movement of goods. Had it not been for the paper mills, coal, pulp and esparto grass it would not have survived. Indeed, for many years the paper mills’ small steamer Rushlight was a familiar arrival with its regular cargoes of coal, with Arran Monarch taking over this mantle and arriving regularly in the 1950s. The mills also used wood pulp from the Gulf of Bothnia and esparto grass from North Africa and some supplies also passed inland for other mills.
Low tide at Watchet Harbour in the 1950s with a collier sitting on the mud and a line of empty railway wagons on the East Quay. (Jane Lily)
There was more damage to Watchet Harbour from a gale-driven high tide at the beginning of 1962, and once again parts of it had to be rebuilt. However, a new era was dawning with the 1966 news that the West Somerset Shipping Company was to lease quay space with every expectation of developing new traffics to supplement the supplies for and products from the still important paper mills along the Washford River. Watchet’s seaborne trade did suffer a major setback when the paper mills converted to oil, but, new exports of motor parts and tractors, and later the addition of a small container facility on the East Quay along with warehouses and cranage, kept Watchet busy with a full range of facilities to handle the developing flows of Russian and Scandinavian timber and other cargoes such as wheat, fruit pulp, wines, cork and other general goods.
But Watchet’s reborn harbour could not withstand the universal rise of the bigger container ports, the growing size of road vehicles and the pressures on modest-sized industries and activities. Its mercurial links with the sea continued through a period of relative stagnation and the occasional entertainment of teams wrestling in the harbour mud, leading eventually to a complete remodelling to harness the harbour waters as a marina for the accommodation of leisure vessels.
The Watchet Harbour workboat-cum-dredger, which appears to be the same vessel that once worked in the Bridgwater waters as the eroder Perseverance.
Minehead
Centuries ago small local vessels probably worked into and out of the entrance to the modest Pill River which emerges into Blue Anchor Bay at the eastern end of what is now a small holiday area where the Somerset coastline approaches Minehead. The needs and produce of the Old Cleeve and Carhampton areas would not have occasioned more than the odd sailing, however, but there was doubtless some local fishing activity. Nearer Minehead itself, Dunster occupied a much different status as the seat of the powerful de Mohun family, and later of the Luttrells. Its impressive castle needed shipping access and its countless manors needed outlets for their produce. Oddly enough, we know of activity at a harbour at the mouth of the River Avill in 1183 because of a fine levied upon the reeve in connection with corn apparently arriving there illegally.
The Dunster vessel Mary was captured by the French in 1375; the port comes to notice again around 1418 and in the following century when wool is arriving from Milford. Vessels to and from Ireland called occasionally in the first half of the seventeenth century but the Luttrells, now in control of local affairs, were already investing in improved shipping facilities at Minehead to cater for increasing trade. There were also problems resulting from the gradual silting up of the tiny Avill affecting its former role as an access route to the castle.
Handy as it would have been to have small vessels coming up the Avill to the site of the mill below the walls of Dunster Castle, and to Gallox Bridge just beyond, there were other considerations for the Luttrell family. Other local trade could yield very useful sums of money from the dues raised on shipping and this would have been a significant factor in leading to the encouragement of more maritime activity through Minehead and in prompting the Luttrell investment in a simple jetty there around 1420. Primary customs income accrued to the Crown, but there were various other charges upon shipping levied for the upkeep of the port and the ancillary services provided and, as always, local people would also have found a variety of other ways to benefit from additional shipping business.
The first move to improve the age-old practice of loading and unloading vessels lying on the mud or shingle would merely have been a string of boulders from local cliffs, dragged into the shallows at low tide and levered into some sort of orderly position. By the end of the fifteenth century, however, this primitive jetty was proving totally inadequate for the growing trade with Ireland, France and across the Bristol Channel. There was more Luttrell funding for major improvements to handle the mainstream movements of livestock, produce, coal and yarn. Keelage charges of the period reveal that Aberthaw boats paid only half the normal 4d per vessel and salt only a quarter.
Under a charter of 1558 Minehead became a borough, but the council failed miserably to adequately maintain the harbour for which they were now responsible. Result, a long round of petition and counter-petition between the Luttrell family and the corporation before its eventual return to the care of the former in 1604 and the construction of a new pier by them, completed in 1616. The century was to be a busy and varied one for maritime Minehead.
A period of prosperity followed the completion of the new harbour with an increase in the traditional movements and in salt and wine as well. Local markets were being stimulated by goods brought over in quantity from the Glamorgan harbours, along with wool arriving to feed the growing activities of Exmoor weavers. The long-standing fishing activity kept expanding and Minehead now sent a fishing fleet to Newfoundland to supplement, and eventually to replace, the long-standing export trade in herrings. Along with Irish livestock, sea coal and the essential salt staple, together with outward cargoes of local produce, Minehead’s harbour proved a busy, useful and profitable place. In the 1640s a number of Minehead vessels were also kept busy taking troops and supplies to Ireland and frequently bringing refugees from that torn land on the return sailing.
There were interludes in this bustling peaceful activity when Minehead ships and men embarked upon decidedly dubious commercial enterprises. The town fitted out privateers to seek out French and Spanish victims in the five years of war from 1625 and a number of prizes were brought into the harbour by others operating under Letters of Marque. Similar activities took place in the War of Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714. By then the status of Minehead had been increased, albeit still under the aegis of Bridgwater, and there had been further harbour improvements in 1682.
Not that Minehead was without its own small local dramas for there was a great deal of smuggling activity in the town. Wine and spirits, cloth, tobacco and a host of other commodities were illicitly whisked ashore to be hidden in the c
ellars of houses near the harbour and of the older area around the church before being sold to an ever-eager clientele. Even the revenue men themselves occasionally had a hand in the activity.
Some thirty vessels were owned locally at the beginning of the eighteenth century and for some time the trade prosperity continued, helped by more pier extension and re-equipment works. Imports of Irish wool grew steadily, with some forty or so vessels working to and from various Irish ports. By the middle of the century the cloth imports were arriving almost daily to fill the quays and warehouse, with cargoes of yarn, hides, skins and produce also being discharged in quantity. The trade in salted herrings was booming, at one-time reaching a level of some 4,000 barrels a year being moved to Mediterranean ports, and now greatly expanded beyond the regular supplies to Bristol, to travel to destinations not only throughout the Mediterranean but even as far as the West Indies and South America. The itineraries tended to be triangular with return loads of produce for Bristol and then back to Minehead, often with imports transhipped at Bristol and brought home for local markets. Some imports also arrived after transhipment at Barnstaple.
The fortunes of Minehead’s port began to decline as early as the later years of the eighteenth century, the long-distance sailings tapered off, the Newfoundland fish business declined and even the age-old Irish traffic had dropped to warranting only three locally-owned vessels. Gone was the prestigious trade with Virginia and the West Indies and only the coasting business remained substantial. In the nineteenth century Minehead’s shipping activity slowed down even further and a note of 1829 reveals only two vessels still working regularly to Bristol and three or four to Wales. Such was the decline that in 1834 the town lost its status as a separate port and reverted to being encompassed in the coastal aegis of Bridgwater. The last vessel registered at Minehead, the sloop Harriet, came to a sad end when caught in bad weather while unloading a cargo of limestone from Porthcawl. More positively for the well-being of the town and its commercial activity, the first excursion steamer had arrived in 1824.
Minehead was formerly a busy and important harbour, as shown by this collection of several cutters and two larger vessels, probably ketches, moored alongside one another.
Toward the end of the 1800s the trade activity in Minehead Harbour had declined to but a shadow of its once hectic pace. Holidaymakers were now the income producers and many trippers were arriving by steamer and landing at the harbour for the short walk along the promenade and into town. Their numbers had greatly increased with the arrival of the railway from Watchet. Despite the great expansion in the overall national economy and the appearance of steam vessels, the number of ships working to and from the harbour had dropped to single figures, mostly smacks or sloops, and mostly on the lingering routes to and from Bristol and South Wales.
A factor in this situation was that, unlike its former rival at Bridgwater, Minehead had a relatively sparse hinterland. It did have a lifeboat station, one of the later ones, and it made a number of rescues, mainly of local fishing boats. There was also some local shipbuilding in a small yard west of the harbour, but that closed down in the early 1800s. The 80-ton schooner Perriton was built on the beach around 1881, but that ended another maritime activity.
By the 1900s small vessels were still using Minehead harbour, but only on an occasional and irregular basis. Somewhat larger vessels registered there continued working in the Bristol Channel with jobbing cargoes to and from Bristol, coal and limestone from South Wales and the odd loads of bricks, tiles and the like, but the volume of traffic on offer was declining, siphoned off by larger steam and motor vessels, railways and then road transport. Excursions steamers brought increasing numbers of holidaymakers instead.
An overall view of Minehead Harbour with a ketch moored at the quay.
Modern Minehead, its links with seafaring maintained by a collection of pleasure craft and a few surviving fishing vessels.
The Ridler vessel Orestes brought in the Welsh coal supplies until the middle of the 1930s. This traffic continued after the war in the hands of Captain Rawle, one-time Minehead harbour master, and owner of one of the last local trading vessels, the lovely 56-ton ketch Emma Louise. She had originally been built in 1883 by John Westacott and was the final vessel he built in the Barnstaple yard before moving to the Torridge. Starting her life as a 66-ton topsail schooner, Emma Louise was subsequently converted to a ketch rig in the quite common pursuit of cutting crewing costs. After getting new masts and a new 80hp engine in 1948 she was sold to new owners at Braunton and her work taken over by the iron ketch Mary Stewart which did five years on the coal run. But that, to all intents and purposes, was the end of the traditional cargo activity at Minehead, and the waters of the harbour became exclusive to fishing boats and leisure craft.
A build-up of shingle at the harbour mouth in the 1940s led to its closure in 1947 but this shingle obstacle was cleared. The harbour property then passed from the Luttrell interests to the urban district council in 1951 for a token payment of £2 and, as the memories of war died away and a measure of peacetime prosperity took its place, the harbour could move into its new leisure role and increasingly provide an anchorage for small yachts and motor cruisers. The harbour area still remains a microcosm of a fine little port with its walls intact, warehouse building still there and, behind, the inevitable limekilns which once had taken cargoes of limestone from Aberthaw and culm from Saundersfoot. All just sufficient to give a small impression of the trading activity that would once have taken place there.
Porlock Weir
On several occasions before the end of the first millennium, Danish raiding parties landed on the shores of Porlock Bay and attacked the small settlement at Porlock proper. Their long boats would have been drawn up on the shingle which was just a short march away. Five hundred years later they could have landed further along the shingle at Porlock Weir where new habitation was growing up around the entrance to a small stream coming down from the heights of Porlock Hill. There, nicely sheltered by the western arm of the bay, the tiny estuary was converted into a simple, but effective, little harbour. To supply the local area and distribute its produce small local vessels were sailing to and from the other Bristol Channel harbours, to other west coast ports and also to Ireland and Europe. Others fished the local waters.
The Pool at Porlock Weir where cargo vessels used to have to wait for sufficient water to enter the small dock beyond.
By the early nineteenth century the natural shingle bank had become the outer face of a small dock, enclosed by 30ft gates to retain the waters of the incoming tide and with a quay and warehouse facilities on the inland side. With a good depth of water and cottages nearby for mariners and coastguards, the small facility dealt with lime for the adjacent limekiln, culm to fire it and coal for the larger population at Porlock itself. It might have had a much busier existence had the plans to make it the terminus of a railway bringing iron ore down from Exmoor for the South Wales smelters ever come to fruition.
Two motor fishing vessels are moored just inside the tiny dock at Porlock Weir. The single gate of the lock entrance and the former coastguard cottages can also be seen.
Porlock Weir vessels were sailing across to Wales and Ireland as early as the 1500s and over the centuries a variety of small trading craft were based there. They ranged in size from the 37ft ex-Pill pilot cutter Auspicious to the 85-ton French-built schooner Flying Foam. Such vessels brought in Welsh coal, sand and cement and some more general cargoes. Their outwards loads were mainly local products, bricks, bark and pit props from the Exmoor estates. The smack John and William was built on the flat piece of land behind the harbour in 1858, but no other shipbuilding activity is recorded. Over the years a number of local men owned vessels, some operating from Minehead and some in joint arrangements with others, but Porlock Weir was essentially a small facility, catering for local needs and produce and having only a small share in the wider shipping activity.
The last traditional sailing into P
orlock Weir was in 1950 when the 71ft Democrat brought in a load of coal. Sadly she herself was nearing the end of her working life and sank while on a voyage to Jersey four years later. The long history of fishing is kept alive by a few local boatmen, but the attractive small harbour is now used mainly by yachtsmen and has accommodation and shops nearby to serve the needs of holidaymakers.
PART 3
Sail Gives Way
9. THE YEARS OF POWER
Attempts to apply steam power to ships date back to the 1770s. In this country a curious twin-hulled vessel with a two-cylinder atmospheric engine was tried successfully on Dalswinton Loch in 1788, achieving 5mph over a short distance. However, the real breakthrough was still fourteen years ahead. It came in the March of 1802 when a 56ft-long vessel, with a double stern and a single paddle wheel between, made a momentous trip on the Forth & Clyde Canal. The vessel was the Charlotte Dundas and it successfully towed two fully-loaded 70-ton sloops for nearly 20 miles in six hours and despite a contrary wind.
The great limitation of the sailing vessel was its total dependence on wind and tides and the success of Charlotte Dundas not only heralded an easement of this constraint but also pointed in the direction in which the early application of steam power was to go.
By the 1820s small paddle steamers were to be seen in all the major British estuaries, many of them originating from the growing Clyde shipbuilding industry. Slowly the early side-lever engines became more reliable and the idea of a stern paddle gave way to the side location of two separate paddles, a move which reduced linkage complications and increased vessel manoeuvrability. Bristol shared in the early haste to employ paddle steamers, initially in towing sailing ships up the tidal and navigationally tricky River Avon, a trend which was to spell the end of the traditional towage by hobblers whose homes and large rowing boats were centred on Pill.
