Broadland Memories Blog

I’ve not managed to track down the whereabouts of any other ex-Broads Tours passenger boats following my last post on Princess Royal but I have received a lovely photograph this week of one of the most famous tour boats to have worked on the Broads over the years.

S.S. Queen of the Broads by courtesy of Mick Middleton

The photograph on the left was taken by Mick Middleton in the mid 1970s and shows the S.S. Queen of the Broads heavily laden with passengers on the River Yare. Built by Critten’s boatyard at Cobholm Island, Great Yarmouth and launched in 1889, the Queen of the Broads was 74ft in length with an 13ft beam, was powered by a 70hp compound steam engine and could carry up to 180 passengers. A sister ship the Pride of the Yare was launched in 1892 and both steamers were owned by the Great Yarmouth & Gorleston Steam Company. The Pride of the Yare ran trips on the southern rivers whilst the Queen of the Broads ran daily trips between Yarmouth and Wroxham. The Pride of theYare was sold and moved up the coast to the River Trent at Nottingham in the late 1940s where she continued to work as a passenger ship until the early 1960s when she was scrapped. The Queen of the Broads remained in Norfolk and ran popular day trips on both the northern and southern rivers up until the mid 1970s. By this time she was under the ownership of Pleasure Steamers Ltd of Great Yarmouth. The increasing cost of maintenance and coal, and the fact that she apparently failed a hull inspection survey, led to her being withdrawn from service in 1976. By all accounts she was essentially a sound boat and the company had hoped to find someone who would preserve her but, unfortunately, no one came forward and she was broken up on Lake Lothing. A small part of the Queen of the Broads lives on though – her steam engine was rescued and is now on display at the Blackgang Chine visitor attraction on the Isle of White.

The launch of the new Queen of the Broads in 1977

The company commissioned the building of a new Queen of the Broads, designed by Lowestoft Naval architect John Perryman and built by R.J. Howlett Engineering Ltd of Rackheath. The image on the right shows her being launched at Norwich in 1977. She hit the headlines just two years later when 121 passengers became stranded on board overnight. Having set off for an evening cruise in June 1979, a thick sea fog suddenly descended as the Queen of the Broads crossed Breydon and she grounded on a mud bank. When the boat failed to return to Yarmouth at the scheduled time, the coastguard were alerted and the inshore lifeboat Waveney Forester was sent off to investigate. At first they decided to let nature take its course and wait for the cruiser to re-float on the next high tide, but in the end a second lifeboat was called and they decided to get the passengers off. Unable to get closer than 20ft away from the stricken vessel, wooden boards were laid between her and the lifeboats and the passengers literally had to “walk the plank”. The first mud splattered passengers finally arrived back at Great Yarmouth some ten hours later than they had been due to return! Most of the passengers, the oldest being 83 and the youngest just four and a half months, seemed to remain in good spirits throughout the ordeal but one complained about the fact that the Queen of the Broads had no ship to shore radio and that the passengers were still forced to pay for their tea at midnight! Another passenger was quoted as saying; “This was my first Broads trip ….. and my last!”

The Queen of the Broads is now part of the Broads Tours fleet at Wroxham and still runs regular day trips. In 2002 she underwent a major refurbishment, her overall length was extended by 14ft and an upper deck was added so that she is now capable of carrying up to 160 passengers.

I tend to get a couple of requests for information via email each week on various subjects, often it will be people who are tracing their family history or the history of their boat or riverside property. I can’t always help, but do my best to try to provide an answer or point people in the direction other online sources which may be of assistance. It’s also often useful to put these enquiries out to a wider audience via the various Broads forums, or here on the blog, as there is a vast amount of knowledge out there on all things Broadland!

Princess Royal at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff, March 2012

Last week I received an email from Ed Tuckey, a trainee boatmaster for the Cardiff Waterbus Company, about the passenger launch which he is currently helming – Princess Royal. Ed has sent me quite a few photographs of the boat but the one on the left shows her off nicely and was taken in yesterday’s lovely sunshine at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff from where she now operates. Apart from knowing that it had been built by Jack Powles & Co. of Wroxham c1955 they knew little about the history of Princess Royal, which was purchased from Norfolk about six years ago, and wondered whether I could supply any more information. When you think of passenger boats at Wroxham, there is one obvious name that springs to mind – Broads Tours! As is often the case once I start looking into one thing, I get led off on a tangent and end up discovering bits of Broadland’s history which intrigue me enough to try and dig a little deeper. As I have mentioned before, the blog often tends to be a useful notebook for me to collate  information together about various subjects which I usually try to do in some sort of chronological order …. in this case the most logical order seems to be to actually work backwards from that initial enquiry!

Vanguard 2 c1960

The first port of call when searching for information on the history of a Broads boat is always Craig Slawson’s Boats of the Norfolk Broads database. This seemed to indicate that Princess Royal may have begun life as Vanguard 2 as part of the Broads Tours fleet, the entry for which can be found here. I contacted Craig about it as he had her listed as having a GRP hull, whilst Princess Royal was of all timber construction – mahogany planking on oak. Unfortunately, Craig had no photographs of Vanguard 2 whilst she was on the Broads which made a positive identification rather difficult, but he did say that the mention of a GRP hull may well have been wrong, and would have been noted by going on the “look” of her. I searched the internet for possible photographs and initially drew a blank. I decided the best thing to do would be to make an appeal on the Norfolk Broads Forum for possible photographs of Vanguard 2 and, thankfully, a link was provided to a French website dedicated to Powles boats which included a rather small image of an old promotional postcard of Vanguard 2. Strangely, despite my earlier search, I then discovered a larger version of that image via a copy of the postcard for sale on Ebay ( seen above right). It looks as though she may have had a couple of modifications over the years, but the distinctive lines of Princess Royal and her wonderful, curved bow are clearly evident in that old postcard. The presence of a bulk head number may well confirm this identity if checked against the information held by the Norfolk Records Office in Norwich but, as yet, the owner has been unable to locate one. The general consensus of opinion seems to be that Princess Royal and Vanguard 2 are one and the same.

Vanguard 1 c1960

The finding of that old postcard, which must date from the late 1950s or 1960s, also led me to another which featured her sister ship – Vanguard 1 (see left). Whilst many of the Broads Tours boats had similar, generic styling, Vanguard 1 was noticeably different to number 2 although it too was built by Jack Powles and Co. Vanguard 1 is still working on the Broads, now under the ownership of City Boats at Thorpe St. Andrew and can regularly be seen running day trips along the Wensum and Yare. City Boats have her listed as being built c1950 – as these large craft must have taken a while to construct alongside the building up of the Powles fleet at that time, I would guess that the c1955 date for Princess Royal would be about right? It’s wonderful to think that over 50 years later, these vessels are still earning their keep providing sight seeing trips for fare paying passengers, albeit on opposite sides of the UK!

Her Majesty at Wroxham c1950

The search for the identity of Princess Royal, and the fact that these two vessels which were built by the same boatyard looked so different, made me want to find out a little more about the Broads Tours fleet. I knew that they had commissioned the services of other boatyards to build passenger cruisers, such as the 60ft Her Majesty which was built by Herbert Woods at Potter Heigham and was launched in 1950. The image on the right is a little grainy as it is a still taken from the 8mm cine footage my grandfather took on the Broads c1950, but it shows Her Majesty approaching Wroxham Bridge. There are a lovely set of photographs taken at her launch in David Holmes “Back to the Broads” book which was first published by Sutton Publishing Ltd. in 1998 which include a group shot of the yard workers who built her enjoying a celebratory half pint of beer, another of Broads tours owner Charles Hannaford with Herbert Woods, and another of launch party celebrity guests George and Beryl Formby. David Holmes mentions that the contract price for Her Majesty was £3,500 which included a Morris engine, and that the specification was for English oak for the hull, floor, stem and stern with mahogany planking. Her Majesty seems to have been unusual in that the majority of the Broads Tours fleet had white hulls with a varnished superstructure. According to the entry for her on Craig’s database, she left Broads Tours c1982 …. where did she go and does she still survive?

The Broads Tours fleet in the 1950s

Charles Arthur Hannaford was an ex-banker and an accomplished watercolour artist who, according to several sources, founded Broads Tours at Hoveton in 1935, just upstream of Wroxham Bridge beyond the Horseshoes Hotel (later known as the Three Horseshoes). He built up a fleet of passenger cruisers which ran various trips between Wroxham, Stalham and Potter Heigham. In the early 1950s he produced a small booklet of notes and illustrations called “The Charm of the Norfolk Broads”, secondhand copies of which can easily be found via the usual internet sources. On the back page is the fascinating image seen above left which shows the entire fleet at that time lined up outside the main Broads Tours building – it shows 16 passenger cruisers of varying size and two smaller launches. It’s astonishing to think that there were once so many trip boats at Wroxham! It also appears that no two Broads Tours boats were identical, presumably due to the fact that they were built by several different boatyards over three different decades! Identification of all those seen is probably impossible, but some of the notes and drawings in the booklet have enabled me to put names to a few of them.

Princess Mary as illustrated by C.A. Hannaford

“The Charm of the Norfolk Broads” was produced as souvenir for those who took trips on the Broads Tours boats and in it Charles Hannaford included a few details about their “principal” boats. He began; “It will interest you to reflect on the comparison between these launches and the actual forerunners of the present fleet that were used to carry the visitors of two or three generations ago – boats with gleaming brass (if smokey) funnels!” He then continued; “Here is Princess Mary – shall I call her the flagship? Originally a 50-seater but now, after being cut in two and lengthened, carrying 110 passengers.” From Hannaford’s illustration (above right) I believe that Princess Mary can be seen in the front row of the fleet photograph, third from the left. I’ve read mention of the fact that several of the older Broads Tours boats were lengthened in the same manner. The National Historic Ships register has an entry for Princess Mary which lists her as being built in 1923, approximately 64ft in length, and in the late 1990s she was running as a trip boat at Potter Heigham. I cannot recall seeing her in recent years so presume that she must have since moved from the Broads? Recent updates on her whereabouts are lacking – there is a link from that entry to the “Falkirk Wheel” website which certainly runs boat trips, but I cannot see any reference on there to Princess Mary …. did she move to Scotland?

Princess Margaret as illustrated by C.A. Hannaford

He describes another of the fleet, Princess Margaret, as being known as the “Children’s Boat. I don’t know why – except that she often carries family picnics and her skipper as a family man makes light of holding a baby.” The illustration shown appears to be that of the fourth boat from the right on the front row with the curved roof canopy. Princess Margaret has the registration number B930 and Craig’s entry for her on the database lists her as having been built c1902/1903. It seems that she left Broads Tours and became a private launch in the late 1950s and was certainly still on the Broads in 1989 – but where is she now? Marina is described as being “the widest boat of the fleet” and is illustrated passing beneath Wroxham Bridge. Hannaford notes that, “When the water is up the skippers of these big launches have little room to navigate and are clever with their steering.” In the drawing, Marina appears to be another all varnished boat. Looking at the full fleet photo above she is possibly the vessel on the far right of the back row? According to Craig’s records on the database, she left Broads Tours prior to 1994 …. where did she go? Marchioness is another mentioned by Charles Hannaford which seems to have left the fleet at the same time as Marina.

Hannaford goes on the describe Princess Elizabeth as being “beautifully proportioned. Surely a happy name for a ship in Royal Norfolk“. Princess Elizabeth, which was built by Pegg & Son of Wroxham in 1938, is easier to trace as she is also now part of the City Boats fleet at Thorpe St. Andrew along with Vanguard 1 and another ex-Broads Tours boat, Enchantress, which has since been renamed City of Norwich.

Finally, on the back page of “The Charm of the Norfolk Broads”, Charles Hannaford tells us that Her Majesty was launched by Lady Delia Peel in the early summer of 1950 but also writes; “There are now joined the Fleet two 80-seater Launches – ‘Princess Anne’ and ‘Princess Alexandra’ – that we have ourselves built.” This is quite interesting because, as previously mentioned, much of the fleet were built by other boatyards. Princess Anne also left Broads Tours before 1994 and I am unsure of her whereabouts. Princess Alexandra sadly proves that my post title of “Old Broads Tours boats never die” is untrue.  She was sold and moved to the River Ouse where she was apparently converted and used as a floating vegetarian restaurant for a few years at St. Neots. After being heavily damaged by a fire, she was hauled out onto the riverbank where she subsequently suffered further damage at the hands of vandals and was eventually broken up c2005. There is a very sad photograph of her on an old thread on the Norfolk Broads Forum.

On a happier note, whilst searching for more information about the ex-Broads Tours vessels, I happened to stumble across the details of a passenger launch called Ratho Princess which is currently operating from the Edinburgh Canal Centre but began life as The Prince, pictured in the 1950s Broads Tours fleet photograph second from the right on the front row. She worked on the Broads at Wroxham, Oulton Broad and Norwich over the years until being bought by Ronnie Rusack in 1993. She has since been fully renovated and a search on YouTube for “Ratho Princess” will bring up a recent video of her looking very splendid indeed! Since moving to Scotland she has led quite an interesting life, more details of which can be found on the Ratho Princess website.

George Smith outside the Horseshoes Hotel at Hoveton c1900

The Ratho Princess website records The Prince as having been built by Graham Bunn in 1924 for George Smith and Co. of Wroxham and says that she was subsequently sold to Charles Hannaford in 1936. George Smith & Sons is another familiar name on the Norfolk Broads, a hire fleet having been established at the Rhond in Hoveton c1920s (I think!). George Smith was the licensee of the Horseshoes Hotel at Hoveton from the 1890s up until c1912. Here he also established “Smiths Norfolk Broads Tours” as can be seen in the postcard of the Horseshoes on the right which dates to c1900 – I believe that the gentleman seen in that photo was George Smith himself. George and his sons ran a small fleet of passenger launches here and eventually began to expand into the holiday hire market with cabin yachts and eventually motor cruisers. There is an early postcard of the Smiths Broads Tours site on Brian Kermode’s Postcards from the Norfolk Broads website (scroll down that page) which shows it to be on the same site as Hannaford’s later “Broads Tours” business. Brian mentions that after their fathers death in 1927, George Smith’s sons disposed of the “Broads Tours” side of things to concentrate on the hire fleet at the Rhond. I wonder if it is likely that this didn’t happen until a few years after his death, and that side of the business, along with the existing fleet of passenger launches and the land and boatsheds above the Horseshoes were actually sold as a whole to Charles Hannaford in the mid 1930s?

The “Broads Tours” name lives on to this day, although it is now owned by the Norfolk Broads Direct Group along with the Faircraft Loynes hire fleet. Whether they have any records of the old passenger launches I don’t know, but I may try to get in contact with them when time allows. In the meantime, if anyone has any further information on the history of Charles Hannaford and Broads Tours or any of the old passenger launches then please do get in contact. Likewise, if you have any old photographs of the boats mentioned above, or the un-named boats seen in the 1950s fleet photograph, then I would be delighted to receive them.

Update 24/04/12 – further information on the whereabouts of Princess Margaret and Princess Mary can be found on an update blog post here.

I don’t usually include links to YouTube films in consecutive posts, but this is a little gem of a film with an interesting story. I happened to be alerted to the discovery of a collection of 9.5mm cine films in a West Country loft which were taken by an amateur cine photographer in the 1930s by the name of H.T. Cadd. How they came to be there is still somewhat of a mystery but, thankfully, the reels of film included the photographers name and the address labels revealed that he had lived at the Jack Hotel in Newbury, and the Bear Hotel in Hungerford during the 1930s.

The date range for the films were between 1934 and 1937 and it seems that H.T. visited many parts of the UK during that time. Amongst the collection was a short section of film which featured a regatta,  identified as being Potter Heigham. The films had been transferred to a digital format by Dave Smith who kindly sent me a copy on DVD. The entire collection of films were absolutely fascinating and included some very rare footage of motor racing at Brooklands and a military air display amongst the highlights, and the regatta sequence was quite obviously Potter Heigham.Whilst no actual yacht racing is seen, the film concentrates on the general scene of the many boats (and at least one wherry) lining the banks of the Thurne up to Potter Heigham Bridge, absolutely crowded with spectators. There is some lovely footage of a race between people in what look to be cut down barrels, being used in the manner of coracles and the contestants of the beauty pageant being paraded up and down the river on a barge. True “water frolic” stuff! The regattas were much more of a social event back then, and it’s likely that the whole village would have turned out to enjoy or partake in the fun. There is also a nice shot of Herbert Woods “Princess of Light” passing beneath the bridge with a holiday party on board.

Whilst watching the DVD I also managed to identify the location of some footage of a swing bridge as having been taken at Lowestoft, near to the harbour. Dave has very kindly given me permission to upload the regatta sequence and the Lowestoft footage to YouTube via the Broadland Memories channel. It’s quite short, running for just over three minutes in total, but it’s a lovely piece of Broadland’s history and I’m extremely grateful to Dave for allowing me to share it.

I posted about the wonderful selection of archive material to be found on the website of the Norfolk Wherry Trust a few weeks ago and revisited the site myself this week to have a further look. I happened to notice a link to videos which the trust have uploaded to YouTube and amongst them is this lovely piece of amateur cine footage taken by Mike Chapman in the 1970s which I had completely missed!

Filmed in 1974/75 during a weekend sailing trip on Albion, the film is quite short (about 3 1/2 minutes) but it’s a nice record of wherry chartering at that time. I’ve posted a few links on here in the past to old cine footage of the Broads which can be found on YouTube, all of which (and more)  I gathered together on the Broadland Memories YouTube channel under my “favourites”. I had to upgrade to the new channel design this week and have now organised all of these videos into playlists, divided into the eras in which they were filmed, which should make them easier to find. Also included is a playlist for old cine footage of other waterways which may be of interest to some.

My last post on boating during the Edwardian era and the book “Comfort in a Small Craft” prompted John Hopthrow to get in contact with me regarding one of the adverts I posted from that book.

The toilet on the Wherry Dragon 1955

John’s family owned the pleasure wherry Dragon during the 1950s and he has contributed greatly to the Broadland Memories website in the past with extracts from her original sailing logs and photographs of Dragon. The advert for the yacht sanitary fittings produced by John Downton and Co. included examples of three of the toilets they manufactured for marine use and John spotted one of those which looked very much like the toilet which was on Dragon. He sent me the photograph on the left from 1955 which does indeed look very similar to the “Solent” loo in that ad.  It looks quite an ornate affair which I suppose was only to be expected on such a luxurious pleasure wherry. I’m sure that the history of the development of boating bogs must be quite interesting, in fact when we visited the Museum of the Broads last year there seemed to be plans to create a display of marine toilets over the years which I will have to pop back to have a look at!

Interior of the motor cruiser Patricia c1963

I’ve uploaded some new additions to the main website this morning which include the photograph on the right which is an interior shot of the motor cruiser Patricia which was hired from Collins Pleasure Craft Ltd. of Oulton Broad c1963. Looking forward from the saloon, the photograph shows one of the two toilets which were fitted on Patricia, this particular model being in the bow. Interior shots like this seem to be quite rare other than those which were shot for promotional use for the boating brochures of the time …… look at all that lovely mahogany! The photograph comes from another set of images from the collection of Andrew Day which feature several holidays taken by an unknown family on the Broads between 1962 and 1968. Also uploaded today were a small set of photos from the Aylott family which were taken during a holiday on board Royal Oak in 1961 and some lovely memories from Brian Kermode of his first Broadland holiday c1960.

It’s the first proper test to make sure everything is now working as it should be with regard to the website on my rebuilt PC and seems to have been successful! The next job on my list is to remaster and add two sets of photographs from the 1970s to the website which I can hopefully start on next week.

The latest addition to my Broadland bookshelf is a little gem of a book titled “Comfort in a Small Craft – a Practical Handbook of Sailing and Cookery” by S.J. Housley. Revised a republished several times by Blakes Ltd between the 1920s and 1940s, my copy dates from 1911 and was presumably the first edition, published by John Murray of Albermarle Street in London.

Whilst its title gives no real indication, the book does appear to have been written as a guide on seamanship for beginners sailing on the Norfolk Broads as there are numerous references to the Broadland district throughout. The larger part of the text is given over to instructions on how to sail and the rules of the river, but it’s the chapters on ship-keeping and catering on board plus the period adverts on the back pages which really fascinate me. It does make me wonder how the Edwardian’s ever managed to find the time to get any sailing in though when you read the recommendations for keeping everything ship-shape!

1911 advert for Vim

Housley begins; “Nothing looks nicer than a white deck of a well-kept ship. But the keeping of such a deck involves daily labour and hourly vigilance. To keep a deck, as it can be kept at sea, becomes an impossibility in a tiny little craft, that is forever mooring alongside a dirty bank, having a muddy quant hastily cast down at odd times in her waterways, and washing-up after every meal performed on her counter. The decks of most small craft in Norfolk are covered with linoleum. Let us resign, therefore, the bucket, the twiddler, the squeegee, the slice of lemon and the oxalic acid to the salt sea sailor, and lay hold upon the mop. If your boat is a hired one – I have written this book in the hope of alleviating some of the discomforts of those who hire small yachts – you may find the brown linoleum on your counter black with grease from the washing-up. Powder it all over with the famous powder called Vim and scrub it with a brush. All will be right in ten minutes or so, and you can easily keep it so thenceforward. All you have to do is scrub the entire deck every morning – while breakfast is cooking, say, or while you are underway before breakfast – and swab the counter after every washing-up. If you have a really seamanly instinct, you will start swabbing on the port quarter, going round the ship the way of the sun; forward to the ship’s head along the port side and aft down the starboard side. Go over all the woodwork, inside the well too, in the same way with a wet cloth. Coil down all ropes again and log off for your breakfast. After breakfast you will wash up before anything else is done. To postpone washing up, for whatever reason, is a high crime and misdemeanor, with a not to be evaded penalty. After wash-up, swab the counter. Then take a dust-pan and brush and remove every single bit of dust, crumb, hair, fluff etc., from the bunks, the cabin-floor, and the well, and heave it overboard. Mind that no crumbs find their way below into the bilge. This must be done after every meal, without fail. It makes all the difference and does not take a minute.

But it will take more than a minute if the bunks have not been properly stowed. I assume that, when you turned out, you shook and folded all your blankets neatly, and your pyjamas, and stowed them; that your toilet tackle had been replaced in the little shelf allotted it, and that no purposeless hamper was left lying about; in fact that the necessary law- ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ – had been rigidly obeyed or enforced – with a rope’s end if necessary. All these things having been duly carried out, you should be ready to make sail within half an hour from the time you finished breakfast. If they have not been carried out, you will have a less pleasant time than you might have had, and a better one than you deserve.

After the ship is under way, you – or your crew, for I assume you are not sailing alone – will go over all the woodwork of the ship with a leather, to remove every water spot. This, again, takes very little time if it is done every day, but is irksome if postponed. Take your bottle of metal polish and your polishing cloth from their appointed place and polish every bit of copper and brass till it shines again; still going round the way of the sun. Again, a small matter if done daily. The quickest way is to go round twice, once to rub with the polish, once to polish it up after the polish has dried. Replace the tools where they should be. ‘Wood-work and brass-work’ being finished, you may call ‘spell-oh,’ rig up a pipe and remark that ‘this is a long ship.’ The satisfaction of having your ship really clean, like the satisfaction of being well dressed, confers a spiritual calm ‘beyond the power even of religion to bestow.”

Cooking on board 1911 style!

Blimey! Mr Housley sounded like quite a strict disciplinarian and I think I’ll stick with my modern day skipper who (I hope!) wouldn’t dream of taking the end of a rope to me if I’d missed a few crumbs in the galley! Speaking of the kitchen, in the next chapter Housley moves on to describe the utensils and tools needed in the galley. He wrote; ” In large yachts you will find miniature kitchen ranges. I am not concerned with them. I describe a comfortable minimum for a small boat. I have worked with two small tin spirit stoves and much satisfaction, but the fuel bill is alarming. I had rather be shipmates with a ‘Primus’ than any other stove. A man with two ‘Primus’ stoves may do anything, but one ‘Primus’ and a small spirit stove will work wonders. ” The image on the right shows advertisements from the book for  the Primus stove with its additional gimbal and the Clyde Cooker which came in four sizes and was apparently “The most complete stove for small craft yet produced.” Later in the same chapter, Housley describes the routine for washing-up; “Every vessel after cooking should be filled with water – river water will usually do – and replaced on the stove to boil. If the ordinary soda and water will not clean it thoroughly, a little ‘Vim’ will soon bring it to reason; or use a ‘Lian’ pot-scrubber, a god-send to scullery maids. Rinse it well in the river after washing, and stand it upside down to drain.”

Whilst I’m a great advocate of filling a saucepan with water and a squirt of Ecover as soon as the contents are dished up, and leaving it to soak, I think I’ll pass on using river water! Housley continued; “As before advised, you will have filled your wash-bowl with water and put some soda in it. Have a swab ready in the bowl. have some newspaper torn into convenient squares. Have two cloths ready, one for drying, one for polishing. Rub “the worst” off the plates, etc., with paper, which you will throw overboard. (having ‘an overboard’ is one of the advantages of life afloat.) Then scrub the plates quite clean with the swab, both sides, giving each one a good rinse in the river after washing. Do the same with the knives and forks. The crew should ‘stand by’ with the drying and polishing cloths to complete your work. If, after a day or two, you find your drying cloth becoming greasy, the washing has not been done thoroughly, and the washer requires to be severely reprimanded.”

Once again, the modern day equivalent of using paper towels to mop the worst of the muck off your pots, pans and crockery before attempting to wash up on board is a method I employ now …. but I can assure you that they don’t get tossed overboard! Although the paper will have long since disintegrated, I do wonder just how much Victorian and Edwardian rubbish might be found in the mud at the bottom of the rivers.

I had hoped that the cookery section may have included some detailed recipes but it’s more of a general guide to catering on board. Much as today, store cupboard essentials of tinned goods seemed to be a staple in Edwardian galleys but, predictably, Housley was not keen on having to rely on such things. He wrote; “There seems to be a popular superstition that the sailor in small craft must live on tinned tongues, corned beef, sardines and cheese. And it must be admitted that he does so with sufficient frequency to account for the prevalence of this delusion. There are only three tinned foods which I consider it desirable to have on board. 1. Halford’s curries. 2. Cross and Blackwell’s tinned beef-steak and kidney puddings and apple puddings. 3. Sardines, herringlets, and the like. And all these are only as ‘stand-bys,’ or to be used ‘for a change.”

Whilst part of the joy of a boating holiday is procuring fresh ingredients and local produce from what remain of the Broadland village shops where possible, to this day I suspect that many a galley cupboard contains Fray Bentos pies, a jar of Pataks curry sauce and a tin of sardines! As to Housley’s instructions for what to cook whilst afloat, there are nearly three pages devoted to cooking bacon and eggs, another three pages on making porridge and sundry advice on local delicacies such as Yarmouth kippers, horse mushrooms and some rather gruesome instructions on how to skin an eel. With the assistance of his hints, Housley noted that “a beginner can make himself comfortably independent of corned beef and the like tinned abominations.”

1911 yacht sanitary fittings advert

I couldn’t possibly end this look back at boating in Edwardian times without mention of the heads although, apart from the instructions to make sure “that your toilet tackle had been replaced in the little shelf allotted to it” (which did make me snigger), Housley seems to have avoided the subject of toilets. The advert on the left was also taken from the pages of the book and shows a range  of fittings from the “Yacht Sanitary Specialist” firm of John Downton & Co. of London. WC’s featured include the “Solent” and the “Midget”, the “Folding Lavatory” looks to be more of a wash stand and the “Galley or Pantry Pump” would have pumped water straight into the boat from the river. Very few boats had water tanks at this time and fresh water was stored in large stoneware bottles which looked as though they would have been incredibly heavy to carry when full! The toilet would have emptied straight into the river, and in fact continued to do so for many years afterwards, the fitting of holding tanks didn’t actually become compulsory until the 1970s. Of course, many yachts wouldn’t have had room to fit a holding tank even if they had been invented back then, and even today many classic sailing craft are exempt from the regulations that govern waste disposal from boats on the Broads for that very reason.

To sum up – things haven’t really changed that much have they?  100 years on, I think boaters tend to be a little less regimented and a lot more relaxed about the daily routine on board, but much of Housley’s advice in “Comfort in a Small Craft” still stands today.

I mentioned in the last post that I had received a good number of new submissions of photos and memories for the archive over the last few weeks, but I have also had quite a few emails from people who have contacted me to provide further information about images which are already on the website. I’ve got several captions in the photo galleries which now need updating!

Amanda Water Scooter at Potter Heigham in 1959 - by courtesy of the Aylott Family

I recently uploaded a set of 1950s photographs from the Aylott Family Collection that included the image on the right which shows Joan Aylott sitting on a rather strange looking water craft at Potter Heigham in 1959. Not the sort of vessel you would normally see on the Broads, I asked whether these were actually available to hire at this time. Earlier in the week I received an email from Chris Booth who remembered them being on hire at Potter Heigham in the late 1950s and he told me that it may well have been one of the water scooters which were produced by the Vincent Motorcycle Company at Stevenage. I did a little research and believe that this was almost certainly one of the Amanda Water Scooters which were introduced by Vincent c1956. The invention of the Personal Watercraft is often credited to one Clayton Jacobson of Arizona in the mid 1960s, but this example from Vincent predates that by a decade and was possibly the first ever PWC to go into production. Early models of the Amanda were fitted with 75cc and 100cc single cylinder 2-stroke engines of the sort that were often found in lawnmowers and they had a top speed of between 5-7 mph. It seems that they did export quite a number to the States and Europe and a 200cc model was introduced. Despite exhaustive testing which proved the Amanda to be a very stable craft, a tragic incident in which one of the company’s test drivers drowned during a trial resulted in a massive loss of confidence in the craft, the orders dried up and production ceased.

A gallery of further photographs of the Amanda Water Scooter can be found on the myvincent.co.uk website and this British Pathe film from 1956 shows the Windmill Theatre Girls putting some water scooters to the test at Ruislip. Many thanks to Chris Booth for solving the mystery!

New submissions to the archive have been coming in thick and fast over the last few weeks, more details of which will follow on here when I’ve finished getting the new computer up and running. In the meantime I thought I’d post a couple of the interesting items I received from one of those new contacts.

Trevor Curson worked for May Gurney and originally contacted me in regard to the 1970s photograph of the wreck of the Thames barge the Harold Margetts which I posted on the blog a while ago. Rather than lying on top of an old wherry, Trevor believes that this may have been the site from which Dee-dar, the last Norfolk Keel (the forerunner to the wherries) was excavated in 1985. Trevor remembers taking the members of the Norfolk Keel Trust up to the site in one of the May Gurney tugs to oversee the proceedings. I believe the intention was to restore the keel but, sadly, this didn’t happen and the remains sat on the riverside at Norwich for several years, deteriorating further, before finally being carted off on the back of a lorry. Trevor also mentioned that he had several old photographs that had been passed to him by one of the old boys who had worked at May Gurney for many years which he thought may be of interest for the Broadland Memories website. He very kindly loaned me his collection of photos and postcards which have now been scanned onto my computer.

J.S. Hobrough & Son advertisement card

The May Gurney site was taken over by the Broads Authority in recent years but had originally been the site of J.S. Hobrough’s civil engineering firm. Established by James Hobrough in 1854, the company passed to his son, James Samuel Hobrough, on his father’s death in 1901 and there are numerous photographs to be found of the piling, dredging and construction work which was undertaken by the company throughout Broadland during the early years of the 20th century. The image on the left was presumably an advertisement card for the company and, although I’m unsure of its exact date, I would guess it must be c1900 or possibly a little earlier. Along with illustrations of the range of work which Hobrough’s could do, the card also features a magnificent drawing of Hobrough’s dockyard itself. The yard was reached via Griffin Lane, a narrow track which visitors to City Boats base will be familiar with, leading off Yarmouth Road at Thorpe and passing behind the imposing buildings of the former St. Andrew’s Hospital. The yard was sold to May & Gurney Ltd of Trowse c1940 when J.S. Hobrough retired.

Many of the Broadland wherries ended their days at J. Hobrough and Son’s dockyard, bought when they were deemed to be no longer fit for carrying cargo, they were stripped of their gear and were often simply used as lighters for carrying coal and dredged mud. The keel, Dee-dar, had also been bought by James Hobrough Snr. but was sunk opposite Postwick Grove before the First World War. Hobrough’s wherries were destined to meet the same fate when they were no longer fit for purpose, many were sunk at various points along the River Yare to shore up the banks, the remains of others can still be seen in the wherry graveyard on Surlingham Broad.

The wherry Go Forward lying at Thorpe

Along with purchasing the dockyard, May & Gurney also inherited the remaining fleet of Hobrough’s wherries and the eventual disposal method remained the same, although I believe that some were either broken up or burnt at the Thorpe yard. On the right is another photograph from Trevor Curson’s collection which shows the former trader Go Forward lying sunk in one of the dykes near to the dockyard, presumably at the end of her working life. According to Roy Clark in his 1961 book Black Sailed Traders, Go Forward was built at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1898 and regularly sailed down the coast to Southwold with cargoes of bricks from Somerleyton, helmed by skipper “Rattler” Kemp. Somerleyton bricks were renowned for their quality and the remains of the brickworks, which closed in 1939, can still be seen from the footpath which runs north from the railway station. Once again, I’m unsure of the exact date of the photograph of Go Forward, but assume that it must have been early 1960s as Roy Clark mentioned that she was still afloat and being used by May Gurney in the late 1950s. It’s always a sad sight to see photographs of these once proud trading vessels having been discarded and disposed of in such a manner, but “them were different times” as they say!

The old Blake’s and Hoseason’s boating brochures provide an invaluable source of information for me when researching the boats and boatyards of the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads and also give a good insight into how boating holidays were conducted over the years. I am always keen to add more to my collection and have also been loaned a small collection which were scanned onto my PC for future reference. In the past I have also received scanned copies of some of brochures produced by some of the long gone agencies agencies such as Bradbeer’s, Helmsman and Pennant, all of which have now been the digital equivalent of very well thumbed! Many thanks to those people who have helped with this.

Freshfields Boating Holidays 1984

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a copy of the FreshFields Boating Holidays 1984 brochure which included the Richardson’s fleet at Stalham and is interesting on many levels. FreshFields was a division of the Rank Organisation who were a long established name in the British entertainment industry through their film production and distribution and the ownership of the Odeon chain of cinemas. During the 1950s and 1960s Rank began to diversify their business interests which included the formation of the Rank Xerox photocopying company and the purchase of several British radio and hi-fi manufacturers. During the 1970s they moved into the leisure industry, buying up holiday camps, hotels and boatyards in the UK and Europe and in 1974 had purchased the Richardson’s boatyard at Stalham along with their fleet of 244 cruisers. This was an era when many large corporations were moving into the leisure market, cashing in on the booming holiday industry, and there were various takeovers of boatyards on the Norfolk Broads around this time by the likes of Ladbrokes and Guinness. There is an interesting thread from a few years ago on the Norfolk Broads Forum which collates some of the information together, but it is a rather complicated and confusing topic that I still haven’t managed to get my head around and needs further research. As the 1970s progressed, the boat hire industry began to fall into decline with less and less people booking boating holidays. In a rather simplified version of events, many previously family run hire fleets were amalgamated by the various groups into “super fleets”, boats were redistributed around the system and some yards were closed. As the decline set in, and profits presumably began to diminish, it appears that the groupings began to be sold on to other large companies …. and this is where I start to lose track and get a headache!

It seems that Rank did little in the way of maintenance and upgrading of the Richardson fleet and, by 1984 there were only around 70 boats of the original 244 available to hire from Stalham. What makes the brochure so interesting is that, although produced by the Rank Organisation, by Easter of that year the boatyard had been sold back to Robert Richardson. The potted history of the yard on the Richardson’s website mentions that the boats were not in the greatest of condition and only 54 of them were of an acceptable standard for hire, which resulted in three or four years of hard work to bring them up to scratch again.

Fleetline/Seaway class 1984

As I mentioned in the introduction, the brochure provides a very useful record of the Richardson’s fleet at that time, but it was also bought with a certain amount of nostalgia as it was the brochure from which we booked our very first Broads holiday in August 1984. We were newly married (I was just 18) and we had no money but wanted to get away for a break that didn’t involve too much traveling. I’m not sure why we decided to go boating on the Broads, but I do remember it was very cheap for a three night break over the August Bank Holiday weekend, and so it was duly booked through our local travel agent. I’m very good at nagging people to write down their holiday memories for the website and I keep saying that I must do the same, although our memories are pretty scant. Much to my embarrassment these days, I do remember being reprimanded for speeding by a River Inspector as soon as we left the boatyard! The abiding memory was just how relaxing the weekend was and we were blessed with glorious weather. The boat we had booked for our trip was one of the Fleetline/Seaway class of aft-cockpit Elysian 27′s. Unfortunately, we didn’t take any photos of the boat itself so I don’t know exactly which one it was. There was a single berth in the forward cabin with a washbasin to port and a toilet and shower starboard. In the saloon, opposite the galley, the dinette made up into a double berth which is where we slept. My memories of the boat are borne out by Richardson’s own account of the poor condition of the fleet when they took the yard over again. It seemed to me at the time that it was stuck in a time warp and looked as though it still had the fittings, fixtures, curtains and upholstery with which it had been equipped when it was built in the 1960s and was in dire need of some TLC. We had a great weekend though, so much so that we returned to Richardson’s the following June for a longer break aboard one of the Petite Gem’s which was a lovely little boat, and testament to the efforts that I now know were going on to refurbish the fleet.

The Broads Barbeque - FreshFields 1984

Whilst on the subject of the FreshFields brochure, this advert for the Broads Barbeque on the back page caught my eye. Held every Friday night at the Dog Inn at Ludham between June and August, the FreshFields barbecue was advertised as THE place to spend the last night of your boating holiday as it was within easy return distance for handing back the boat the following morning. Live music was provided and the advert encouraged you to go “partying with all your fellow Broads lovers at a typical Broads pub” with tickets priced at £2.75 for adults and £1.75 for children. I’d never heard of the Broads Barbeque before and don’t know how long this ran for …. do you remember attending? I just love these quirky little aspects of Broadland’s history!

Not everyone who visited Broadland over the years came to enjoy a boating holiday. The seaside resorts of Norfolk and Suffolk became hugely popular destinations during the Victorian era when the expansion of the rail networks made travel to the region accessible and affordable. Towns such as Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Cromer saw mass development to provide accommodation and attractions for the burgeoning tourist industry as travellers began to discover the delights of the East Anglian countryside.

The rivers and broads were certainly part of the attraction and many of those who holidayed at the seaside visited the Broadland towns and villages, often taking to the water on one of the many passenger steamers which operated in the area. As both Yarmouth and Lowestoft are “gateways” to the Broads, I like to include them within the remit of Broadland history. Even today, a visit to the seaside is a must for many who book cruising holidays, as is the hire of a dayboat or a trip on one of the modern tour boats for those who stay in land based accommodation on the coast.

At Wroxham Bridge, August 14th 1909 - by courtesy of Stella van der Gucht

I was delighted to receive four photographs last week which were taken at Broadland locations by a family group who holidayed in Great Yarmouth in 1908 and 1909. The photographs belong to Stella van der Gucht and feature her grandparents Lily Child and Harry Caston and she hoped that I may be able to identify the locations seen. The photo on the right is one of the collection and shows the party onboard a passenger boat at Wroxham Bridge. Stella also sent me several postcards of the area which had been bought at the time of those holidays. Through our correspondence about the images, it transpired that Lily had written day to day notes about what they did and the places they visited in 1908 and 1909 on the backs of all of these postcards.

Holiday notes for August 14th 1909 - by courtesy of Stella van der Gucht

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to learn that I was rather excited by this news as the social history aspect of what I do with the archive is the thing which probably fascinates me the most. I always love reading people’s memories of the area and learning about how they holidayed. Naturally, most of the accounts I have on the website are written within living memory so to have something from the Edwardian era is just wonderful! Stella very kindly scanned the backs of the postcards, transcribing her grandmother’s notes as she did so, and I think they will make a very interesting article which will hopefully give a little insight into a turn of the century holiday in Norfolk. Lily and Harry visited many places including St. Olaves, Reedham, Filby & Ormesby Broads, Lowestoft and Cromer to name but a few, but the notes also include mention of what they did in the evening such as attending plays at the Aquarium theatre, concerts on the beach and the circus for example. It is going to take me a while to do the research so that I can include some background information on what they did and where they went, but it will make it’s way on to the website at a later date along with the photos and postcards. The image, above left, shows Lily’s handwritten notes for the day on which the Wroxham photograph was taken.

Wroxham Bridge 1905

She wrote; “Left Yarmouth for Wroxham at 9.20 by boat on the River Bure & Broads. Lovely trip. Arrived Wroxham at 1.20 & left there again for Yarmouth at 2.20. Took photos on the boat. Fine & sunny journey home. Went for walk with Harry by the sea in the evening.” Although she didn’t mention its name, the timings Lily gave for the boat’s departure, along with the evidence seen in the photograph, means that this was almost certainly a trip on the Queen of the Broads passenger steamer. Coincidentally, I happen to have an original advertisement dating from c1900 on the website which details the departure times and prices for the trips offered by the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston Steam Company who owned both the Queen of the Broads and her sister ship the Pride of the Yare. On the right is a postcard which was loaned to me by Trevor Curson which dates from 1905 and shows the Queen of the Broads moored at Wroxham in exactly the same spot that she would have been when Lily and Harry’s photo was taken.

As I said, there will be quite a bit of research to do on this before I can publish the holiday notes on the website, not to mention the backlog of other submissions I have to work through first, but it is a delightful find and I hope it will also be of interest to others. I finally managed to collect my rebuilt computer over the weekend and will now be spending the next couple of weeks trying to get everything up and running on it again so that I can start work on the 60s and 70s photos and slides which were next in line. Please keep your fingers crossed for me! A huge thank you to the Broadland Memories Technical Support Team (that’s Andrew!) for his work over the last few weeks on my PC and for the loan of a temporary replacement. Without him I certainly wouldn’t be able to do what I do with the website and I am eternally grateful!

I’ve upoaded another batch of 20 old postcards to the Broadland Memories website this morning which include six views of Coltishall and fourteen of Wroxham and Hoveton. Once again, there are quite a few Edwardian postcards amongst the collection but there are also images which date from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Holiday Villas on Daisy Broad c1930s

Amongst the new Wroxham additions is the postcard on the left which has puzzled me for a while. It shows three holiday villas which would have looked more at home in the Mediterranean but were actually situated on Daisy Broad, opposite Royall’s boatyard. I’m unsure of the exact date of the card, but the design seems to indicate that it was produced in the 1930s or 1940s. As yet, I haven’t been able to establish when these two storey villas were built but they were certainly very different to the holiday houses and bungalows which were being built elsewhere on the Broads at that time. The names I have been given for them may not have been the originals but they were, from left to right; Kia Manzi, Southernholme and Broadwaters.

The earliest reference that I have for the villas was in the 1958 edition of Hoseason’s boating brochure when Southernholme was listed a 5-6 berth holiday house. The entry on the right shows that the accommodation was spread over two floors with three single beds in two bedrooms plus a “Put-U-Up” double settee in the sun lounge on the upper floor, whilst downstairs there was a single camp bed in the sitting room, a kitchen and a garage. An internal staircase connected the two levels and the listing mentioned that there was an outside toilet alongside the property. In 1958 Southernholme cost between £11 and £23 per week depending on the time of year and was let with a 10ft rowing dinghy and a wireless!

I’ve been told that the properties began to sink, and later brochure evidence seems to confirm that this was indeed the case. Just two years on from the last brochure entry, Southernholme had been remodelled and was being let as a 5 berth, upper floor flat. As the 1960 Hoseason’s entry on the left illustrates, a small extension to the rear of the building had been built to house a staircase and a WC, whilst the single bedroom had been divided to create a small kitchen. Hire terms remained pretty much the same as they had been in 1958. By 1968, the brochure entry for Southernholme showed that the lower floor had been completely removed and opened up, the now one storey property sitting on the stilts which were created by removing the lower walls. It’s neighbour, Broadwaters, was also listed having undergone similar remodelling.

The brochure entry on the right dates from 1972 and clearly shows how the properties had sunk as the upper floors were considerably lower to the ground than in the 1930s photo. Broadwaters had been converted into a 4 berth flat with one double bedroom and a Put-U-Up in the lounge, a kitchen and a bathroom. Both properties cost between £19 and £38 per week and now came equipped with TV’s! I guess it’s a good illustration of the problems which can be encountered by building on what was essentially marshland. Whilst timber built properties can be “jacked up” every few years, the problems which arose with these more substantially built houses were obviously not so easy to rectify. I believe that Southernholme and Broadwaters were rebuilt c1995 and that Kia Manzi was demolished and a new house was built in it’s place, although the original name was retained. I think the original postcard might make an interesting subject for a “Then & Now” photograph later this year but, in the meantime, I would welcome and further information on the history of these unusual villas.

Note: An update regarding Kia Manzi was posted on the blog on 13th April 2012 which can be found here.

It sounds like a Sherlock Holmes novel but all will become clear! Rather than sit twiddling my thumbs whilst I await the arrival of my rebuilt PC, I decided to work on adding some more old postcards to the Broadland Memories website this week.

It’s been a while since I updated the postcard section – mainly because I have had so many photographs to get onto the website that I just haven’t had the time to sort through the past year’s additions. I’ve still got plenty more to come, but have dug out another 30 for now which I hope to upload to the website later today. West Somerton makes it onto the list with a selection of 5 images dating from between 1908 to the 1930s and there are 12 postcards of Norwich which include riverside scenes and an interesting selection of Edwardian images of the city centre. Finally, there are 13 new additions to the Oulton Broad section dating from 1910 to the 1950s.

The Viscountess Bury at Oulton Broad c1910

Amongst these is the postcard on the left which I’ve actually had on the computer for a couple of years. It shows a heavily laden passenger boat called the Viscountess Bury of which I knew nothing. Google is a wonderful thing and I soon found the information I was looking for, courtesy of the Steam Boat Association register. She was originally built as an electric launch in 1899 by Kirby Bowen at Eel Pie Island, Twickenham for use on the Thames. In 1910 she was bought by a Henry Miller of Oulton Broad who installed an engine and ran her as the passenger boat Viscountess Bury, as seen in the photograph which was presumably taken shortly after her arrival on the Broads.  The Steam Boat register has her listed as being 56 ft 2in in length with a 9ft beam. Clearly there were no health and safety issues in 1910 with the number of passengers you could load on to the top of a vessel of this size!

In 1923 she was sold to Leo Robinson who converted the boat for use as a pleasure cruiser and renamed her Enchantress. The forward, outside well was covered by a canopy and had seating running down either side, from here you entered the saloon which doubled as a sleeping cabin with a double and single berth. At one end of the saloon was a piano, possibly one of the small pianos which were found on the pleasure wherry’s, an example of which can be seen at the Broads Museum in Stalham. A corridor ran along the port side from the saloon leading off from which were three double cabins and a single cabin, each fitted with a wash basin. At the end of the corridor was the bathroom which was equipped with a “self emptying” WC and a full size bath with hot and cold running water. At the rear of the boat was the engine room-cum-crew quarters. The upper deck retained its guard rails and was furnished with wicker armchairs and tables “for having tea.”

1929 Blake's brochure entry for Enchantress

Blakes 1929 entry for Enchantress stated that she was “completely fitted with everything of first-class quality for living and sleeping on board“. The cost of a week’s hire in August 1929 was £30 which included the services of a skipper and a steward. By this time she had been fitted with a new paraffin fueled engine. Enchantress was part of the Leo Robinson fleet at Oulton Broad until the yard closed in the early 1960s – she had given almost 40 years of service as a hire cruiser. In one of the recent additions to the website, John Turner recalled stumbling upon the slumbering Robinson fleet during a holiday in the mid 1960s. On entering the deserted boatshed he said, “I was immediately confronted by the large profile of the sixty foot long Edwardian cruiser, the Enchantress, with her white enamelled hull with its clipper bow and counter stern, varnished wooden superstructure and stanchioned upper sun deck. I climbed aboard her easily from a trestle into her forward well and through the open door I entered her large, richly appointed saloon, the first sight of which must have thrilled her countless new hirers over the years. I worked my way aft past the individual white painted sleeping cabins; each with an electric bell connected to the crews’ quarters, and past a further cabin space housing a bath and marine toilet to the crews’ quarters themselves which also served as the galley and engine room.”

What happened next? Well, in truth, I’m not entirely sure. The entry for her on the Steam Boat Association website tells us that she was sold “as a wreck” in 1971 to a buyer from Cambridge. Where she had been for the intervening years I don’t know. Did she really languish in the old Robinson’s shed for that long? …… was she elsewhere on the Broads? …… or had she already been moved to the Cambridgeshire waterways before 1971?

Enchantress, pictured in December 2011 by courtesy of Fred Dawson

In 1978 Enchantress found another new owner, restoration was completed and she was fitted with a steam engine c1990. There is a photograph of her from 1992 on the SBA page linked to above in which she looked very smart indeed. So where is she now? Well it seems that she changed ownership again and a lot can happen to a wooden boat over the course of 20 years. I hadn’t found any recent references to Enchantress, or seen any other photographs ….. was she still around? My search for further information yesterday led me to the photograph above left which was taken at Kingston-upon-Thames in December 2011. Many thanks to Fred Dawson for giving me permission to use it on here. It’s unmistakably Enchantress and, although she does look somewhat sorry for herself at the moment, it’s wonderful to know that this 113 year old lady is still with us. She epitomised elegance and luxury in her day and it would be nice to think that further restoration is on the cards so that this beautiful, and historic vessel can be returned to her former glory.

If you can help to fill in the gaps in her history, or have any memories of Enchantress then please do get in touch.