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!
