Any Muddy Bottom

by Geoff Body

  Dunball Reach and our destination at last. A careful turn across the river would bring us alongside the railway wharf at Dunball with the bow pointing downstream and the stern nicely brought in line by the tide, a procedure which also took way off the vessel. Without our engine this river transit might have taken several tides to accomplish. What a difference it now made to the difficulties we used to meet in all those places with a tortuous approach or where the kedge or heavy anchor had to be rowed out on the ebb tide to help in getting off after the load had been discharged!

  This drawing from an old photograph shows the trow Mary in Dunball Pill. Mary was a frequent visitor to the River Parrett and her cargo would have been Forest of Dean coal, most likely from Lydney. As can be seen in the picture this trow had an open hold with no hatch covers. (Roy Gallop)

  It had been a good trip and our ketch would now settle nicely on the bottom which, for many years, was kept level by the crew of mud rakers employed by the railway. With everything made fast we could tidy up, cross the dock to the Greenhill Arms to relax in its cider room and then head for home. Tomorrow the wharf cranes would remove most of our cargo, either directly into railway wagons for transfer to the cement works or working forward to more distant destinations, or to the carts of the local farmer-cum-coal merchant. Thank goodness we no longer had to do this by the age-old shovel and basket method. Clearing the bottom dust ready for our next load was bad enough without having to ‘walk the plank’ with a loaded wheelbarrow!

  Our vessel had done us proud and, although she still had something of the solid look of her trow origins, she had taken well to her new life with ketch rig and marine engine and we both had a real affection for her.

  PART 1

  Coastal Sailing Trade

  1. FROM PILL TO PORLOCK

  Somerset has a long coastline which stretches from the mouth of the River Avon to the Devon border. South-west at first along the Severn Estuary, heading for Clevedon and Weston-super-Mare, it then forms the English shore of the Bristol Channel around Bridgwater Bay, before turning west to Watchet, Minehead and Porlock Bay until it finally reaches the county border with its Devon neighbour. Mostly relatively low-lying, there are also some inhospitable sections of low cliffs, both exposed to the prevailing south-westerly winds that sweep in from the distant Atlantic. Shelter from bad weather is limited and in simpler times placed a high premium on places protected by a headland or other natural feature.

  One major river, the Parrett, feeds into the Bristol Channel via Bridgwater and the same part of the coastline has several other significant watercourses, either natural ones like the River Brue or wide drainage channels such as King’s Sedgemoor Drain and the Huntspill River. Great changes began in the nineteenth century as part of solving the flooding problems of the Somerset Levels and a number of original river channels were modified in the process. North Somerset has its own drainage-driven network with rivers such as the Axe, the Yeo group and the Banwell, and numerous lesser waterways also drain the higher ground in the west of the county. Everywhere rhynes, sluices and floodgates are a noticeable and vital feature, essential to the balance between disposing of land water and resisting the dramatic tidal variations the coastline experiences.

  The estuary of the River Severn together with its seaward continuation, the Bristol Channel, is one huge seawater funnel which unites the flow of its rivers with the deeper waters leading to the Irish Sea. The influence of the Atlantic Ocean and this funnel shape combine to make the tidal range awesome, the second highest in the world. Added to this basic factor is the prevailing south-westerly wind, the two sometimes producing a combination in which huge seas pound on the headlands and drench the unwary on resort promenades. In earlier times there were frequent inundations of the coastal areas with great floods such as those early in the eighteenth century which swamped large areas of low-lying land and caused the death of both animals and people.

  The mouth of the River Axe at Uphill typifies the Somerset coast, displaying plenty of mud, a small pill wandering off and the gaunt heights of Brean Down in the background. If a nineteenth-century scheme had succeeded, a deep sea harbour would have been built at the end of the promontory.

  And, as if that was not enough, the funnel has a dog-leg shape which complicates the normal processes of sedimentary scouring and deposit which occur with the ebb and flow of every tide. As a result, not only do water depths vary from place to place, but are not consistent in any one location. In mid-channel the Holm islands produce their own minor water pattern and several areas of the channel reveal huge stretches of sand at the lowest water. Today, of course, the safe navigational course is well marked, but it was not always so.

  Emerging from the dramatic Avon Gorge and the following cliff section preceding Pill, the widening River Avon has docks on either side, the older Avonmouth Docks on what was originally the Gloucester side and the new Portbury Docks on the southern, Somerset side. Beyond the latter a short stretch of marshy land forms a nature reserve. Then, from the pier at the entrance to Portishead Marina and Battery Point at the north end of Portishead’s seafront, the estuary starts to widen. An inhospitable rock ledge fronting a stretch of low cliffs takes the Gordano Valley coastline to just beyond Clevedon.

  Beyond Clevedon is a stretch of low-lying green meadows whose small waterways emerge into Woodspring Bay. At their southern end the estuary of the Banwell River is followed by the coastline’s first major promontory, that of Middle Hope and Sand Point. The next inlet is the modest Sand Bay with Birnbeck and its island at the far end and separating Kewstoke village from Weston Bay and the bustle of the busy seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare.

  At the end of Weston-super-Mare’s long seafront lies Uphill where a ferry used to cross the mouth of the River Axe to give access to Brean Down, the long, high promontory which marks the gaunt expiry of the Mendip Hills. Still clearly pointing to its former outpost, now Steep Holm Island, this marks a turn of the coastline from south-west to due south along the sands of Brean and Berrow to the Brue and Parrett river mouths.

  Leading off the River Axe a small waterway curves round to Uphill village and former wharf. Like so many other similar Somerset locations, its waters are flood controlled by sluice gates.

  Summer brings countless families to enjoy the sands of Burnham-on-Sea opposite which Stert Point stretches out into Bridgwater Bay and forms one side of the entrance to the Brue and Parrett rivers. Beyond the point is the vast expanse of Stert Flats, once a serious danger to mariners before the main approach to the Parrett Estuary was properly marked. The coastline of the bay then takes a near right angle course west to Watchet and Minehead in a long section in which mud flats give way first to shingle and black rock shale and then to a further series of low cliffs. Behind the gentle pastureland of the coastal plain stand the magnificent Brendon and Quantock Hills, eventually to be displaced as a backdrop by the heights of Exmoor.

  Now in West Somerset, beyond the once-busy harbour at Watchet, are more low cliffs before the sands of Blue Anchor Bay, with Dunster just visible inland, and then the approach to Minehead. There, holiday activities have replaced an age-old involvement in seafaring still marked by the harbour at the western end of the long seafront. Here, steeply rising from North Hill, which shelters Minehead, comes the highest point along the Somerset coast, just over a thousand feet above sea level. Where these heights end is Porlock Bay with its shingle foreshore and tiny harbour at Porlock Weir. Some 3 miles further on the high cliffs become part of Devon and the end of the Somerset coastline.

  Another typical Somerset coastal location, this time Porlock Weir. The pool in the foreground has plenty of water at high tide for access to a tiny dock on the left.

  This coastline has shipping traditions that go back to the Phoenicians and the Norse and other invaders, and local fishermen have harvested its waters for as long or longer. Minehead, for example, shipped many a locally-caught herring to less well-placed destinations, not just Bristol, but even to des
tinations as far away as the Mediterranean ports and sometimes further. Every coastal dweller could depend upon the availability of fresh fish for the table. Minehead was also a licensed pilgrim port, provided vessels to carry supplies in earlier wars and was not above a bit of privateering.

  As the centuries moved on the skills of local boatmen became harnessed to trade, and small sailing vessels were kept busy taking county produce to wider markets and bringing both necessities and, increasingly, luxuries in the opposite direction. The vessels they used could often penetrate some way up river and the goods they carried could also move to and from the heart of Somerset after transhipment into barges to work further inland. Equally they might make landfall with a load of culm, the small coal used in estate limekilns, anywhere the bottom was suitable, and then unload the lot by basket and barrow to a lonely shore or the bank of a pill. As a more industrialised society emerged local vessels brought coal from South Wales and the Forest of Dean for both industry and domestic hearth.

  The seamen of Somerset became skilled in the use of tides and winds, which could be enemies or friends, and sailed regularly into and up the River Severn, to and from the ports of South Wales, up to Liverpool, to Ireland and Europe and often even further. These hard-working boatmen not only used their home harbour, but were adept at landing and taking on cargoes at any friendly beach or pill as well as trading almost anywhere there was cargo to be had. Their skills were legion and their vessels, some built locally, were long-lived and apt for purpose. Many had numerous owners and chequered careers; shipwrecks and other misadventures were commonplace. All these factors helped to breed the men and vessels who could be called upon in times of war and to steel them to deal with – or even join – the ranks of pirates and privateers and the murky world of smugglers and the customs men who attempted to catch them.

  2. THE TRADE ACTIVITY

  Trade across and along the Bristol Channel and the Severn Estuary has been going on for centuries. Its make-up has ranged from the age-old movement of produce and livestock to the coals, metals and building materials of the industrial age. The level of shipping activity this trade generated grew in-line with population growth and changed with the varying pattern of agriculture and industry. Until the advent of the canals and railways these waters were a quite vital artery along which small vessels and seasoned sailors linked local producers and consumers to the benefit of both. Overseas trade used the same waters and fishermen followed their craft along the whole coastline. Together they produced a breed of seamen and a tradition of seamanship that stood the nation in good stead in both war and peace. These same seamen showed a remarkable power to adjust to the on-going sequence of change and, despite the growth of the railway system and the huge upheaval it brought, like the effect on trade of the opening of the Severn Bridge and the Severn Tunnel, they adapted and continued to play a major transport role until the 1920s.

  The two controlling authorities for the Somerset harbours were the Port of Bristol whose influence stretched from Beachley to Uphill and Bridgwater which controlled the coast on to the Devon border, except for a period when Minehead also enjoyed this special status. Unlike some of the up-channel harbours, Minehead and its satellites at Watchet and Porlock Weir were right on the coast proper, a factor in establishing the sizeable fishing activity of Minehead itself which at one time was sending some sixty barrels of herrings a week to Bristol alone. These were also the harbours nearest to West Wales and the coast beyond, to Ireland and indeed to Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. They also had the advantage of direct access from the open sea as opposed to the upriver location of Bridgwater.

  Bridgwater, whose records embraced Combwich and Dunball, may have suffered from a tortuous and limiting approach and had no fishing industry, but it did have one special advantage: a large hinterland, accessible via the River Parrett and its tributaries,and up the River Tone to Taunton. Both were important access routes for trade to and from inland Somerset and both were supplemented by canalisation and improvements over the years. The River Brue gave access to Highbridge, but the 1833 inland link via the Glastonbury Canal was not a success and Highbridge Wharf owed its existence primarily to its railway ownership and connections. Steam coal and rails, together with timber, were its main traffic.

  The drawing provides a composite illustration of the principal traffic movements in the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary. (Roy Gallop)

  The Somerset coastal shipping activity was irregular and relatively limited until the huge national changes that followed the Middle Ages. Even so, the Bristol Channel was in regular use as a trade route by vessels from the eleventh century onwards and the early Somerset harbours would at least have had shipping contact with Wales and Ireland. If not great in quantity, the sea transportation of goods was certainly important, the more so because of the limitations of land movement over primitive tracks and through parts liable to winter inundation and flooding. A notable example is an early movement of church furniture from Bristol to Glastonbury which travelled by ship to Uphill and then on via the inland waters of the Pilrow Cut and Meare Pool. As Bristol grew in importance so its requirements for produce increased, and the limitations of land transportation by horse pannier or clumsy wagons prompted regular supply movements in small vessels whenever the weather permitted them to sail.

  By the end of the thirteenth century the habit of conflict with Europe, and what is now France, had taken hold and shipping was required to help to prosecute the various wars by carrying troops and supplies. The reality of an organised full-time navy did not emerge until the reign of Henry VIII so that the provision of vessels in wartime was done by requisitioning those normally engaged on more peaceful pursuits. Both Bridgwater and Minehead were called on to contribute vessels of 40 tons or more in 1295 and 1297, presumably because larger vessels from ports nearer the Continent had already been ‘enlisted’.

  More conflicts followed in the fourteenth century, sometimes demanding the diversion of simple trading vessels, at others confining their activities for fear of invasion. The two main Somerset shipping sources, always Bridgwater and Minehead, both suffered losses in actions from 1369, and the whole process of wartime requisitioning was steadily eroding English maritime strength and resources. For a time the growth in population, towns and commerce was slowed, but it was not to be denied and there was a slow but persistent stirring in the form of a wider vision of the world and its trade possibilities.

  Another trend was the rising distinction between the deep sea and coasting trade, as exemplified by the movements to and from La Rochelle. By 1480, for example, Minehead had three vessels working regularly on that route carrying fish and produce one way and wine and salt the other.

  The number of ships actually employed in the coasting trade tended to be small with no vessels exceeding 80 tons and the main goods movements being to and from South and West Wales and Ireland. Prominent among these were the flows of limestone pebbles and culm from West Wales to feed and fire the Somerset limekilns, woollen goods both inwards and outwards, surplus products of the Somerset estates and livestock for food and stock purposes. In any event no ships over 100 tons could have reached Bridgwater and nothing at all could pass along the Parrett at the lowest tide times. At this period Dunball Wharf was still in the future and Combwich, although nearer the open sea, did not amount to much more than a pill serving its own immediate locality. For the coasting business, even the regular sailings of produce to and transhipment of goods from Bristol, small single-mast vessels were still the norm, averaging around 40 tons and 45–50ft long. Many even smaller vessels were also to be seen, often carrying loads on an opportunist basis to and from wherever they were available.

  More military adventuring emerged from the sixteenth century. If it wasn’t the French or Spanish, it was the Dutch. The incentives were less territorial in origin now and more prompted by politics and such causes as the Navigation Acts designed to protect British trade. Whatever the reasons for each war they were now produci
ng an unwelcome maritime by-product. Collectively, they represented an opportunity for incursions by foreign privateers and by an increasing number of pirates. Many a Somerset vessel fell prey to one or the other. These various intruders prudently withdrew when the wounded pockets of Bristol merchants successfully persuaded the Navy Board to send a naval vessel, but they returned as soon as this deterrent was withdrawn and began to penetrate further and further up the channel. Not that our national record is much better in this respect, the Welsh especially being the subject of many indignant complaints.

  As time moved on and excise duties rose to pay for government over-spending, the Bristol Channel experienced its fair share of smuggling. Many of the local populace were either involved or complicit and local seamen could not have been immune from temptation, especially with more than a few venal customs officers about. Despite all these negative factors the wider world was changing. The sixteenth century began an era of world exploration with its tremendous stimulus to trade. There followed the rise of the merchant class, together with all the facilities it required to make profits – warehousing, agents, credit, insurance and the like.