I’m currently working on a few photographs and documents relating to H.T.Percival’s yard at Horning which were passed on to me by Nigel of the Ludham Community Archive Group. It is a small collection but includes a wonderful set of three photographs showing the boatyard in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s and a hire price list from the late 1960s.
Landing Craft under condtruction at Percivals boatyard, Horning 1940s
The collection also includes the photograph on the right which shows H.T.Percival’s in the early 1940s when the yard were engaged in the building of military craft for the Admiralty. The vessel shown is LCI(s) 537 which was a landing craft of around 110ft in length which was capable of carrying up to 100 troops. It was apparently one of three landing craft built by Percival’s which took part in the D-Day landings of 6th June 1944. Percival’s built many military boats during the war including various Motor Launches and Motor Torpedo Boats (MTB’s). The larger craft were not capable of passing beneath the bridges at Acle and Great Yarmouth, so Mr Percival set up a temporary yard at Yarmouth where the superstructures could be reassmbled prior to going into service. According to the author Charles Carrodus in his book “A Norfolk Village in Wartime” the yard at Yarmouth was heavily damaged during a bombing raid and Sandersons at Reedham became a temporary finishing point for the craft before the operation was moved to a more permanent base at Brundall. Staff from Horning would be transported to Brundall every day by lorry. Back in Horning, Percival’s went into a three year partnership with H.C.Banham where the workload of building military vessels became a shared operation, a fact which is seemingly born out by another image in the collection which shows the same landing craft seen in the photograph above moored outside Banhams boatyard. Mr Percival also took up duties as a special constable during the war and was one of the first on the scene after the terrible bombing raid on the Ferry Inn which I mentioned in a previous post on here.
By complete coincidence I recently came across a letter dated August 2nd 1940 which was sent to a C.Alston, who was serving in the RAF, from Mr Percival in regard to a boat called “Scoter”. The boat presumably belonged to Mr Alston and had been sunk at South Walsham – whether this had been done deliberately as part of the Broadland defences, or whether it had sunk by accident, is unknown, but Mr Percival provided quotes for towing Scoter to Horning, hauling it out and storage after cleaning if the vessel could be raised. It’s quite an interesting item and looks to be signed by Mr Percival himself (although the signature is somewhat of a scribble!). This and the other Percival’s items should be uploaded to the main website within the next week or so.
