by Geoff Body
Prior to the nineteenth century sailings were much less structured. The better weather season produced an increase in produce to be moved to the big city markets, but coal for industries and culm for kilns remained a constant need. Some seamen turned to farming or fishing in the winter or other slack periods, others had to weather the days when jobs were not available or sailing was impossible, perhaps turning to casual fishing as the short-term standby most allied to their trade. There were occasions when the freezing of the River Parrett stopped all Bridgwater sailings for so long that seamen were forced to beg in the streets of the town. Vessel repairs and maintenance arrears could also be attended to during the winter months.
Inwards cargo at proper wharves would be unloaded to quay for outside stacking or warehouse storage and would eventually need horse transport to get to its final destination. (Dover Publications)
Shipping aids and regulations as we know them today were unheard of in the earlier sailing vessel times. Movement was a daytime activity whenever that was possible, and navigation lights a relatively modern feature, although a masthead anchor light was used during an overnight wait. Not that it would have shone very far! Light regulations date from 1858 and initially required a single lantern at bowsprit or masthead.
A suitable wind and tide combination was critical, as was an adequate depth of water. The tide pattern and variations – high and low, ebb and flow, neap, spring and flood – were known, wind and weather were a matter of experience, and observation and water depths were part of the sailor’s essential knowledge. But there needed to be a constant check during every voyage against known bank or shore markers.
For a small trow with just a square sail making a trip depended totally on an assessment of when the tide would serve for getting away from the harbour and carrying the boat to its destination, assisted as necessary by a bit of sail use, warping or towing. It would require catching the ebb to emerge from the Parrett River and then a tangent course to use the incoming flood to move up-channel. Use of the sail would, given the right wind, make the process faster or paying for a tow might increase the permutations, but even with an engine a loaded vessel could make no headway against a typical 7 knot tide. Steerage way was essential, but might be hard to manage on a fast flood without some constant, sensitive and intuitive work on the rudder.
Navigation, or pilotage as it was referred to in coastal waters, was not sophisticated and would rarely involve more instruments than a lead line for the vital task of monitoring depths, and a compass, and sometimes not even a compass. Knowledge was the key, that vital understanding of the hazards of rocks, headlands, shoals and tide races and awareness of the various hills, church towers and other landmarks which would help a skipper to stay on a rough course. Seamen needed the ability to read the weather both early and when change was on the way and to know where to look for a sheltered anchorage if needed, for the ever-present element of waiting out a storm or for the tide to turn. Other, more subtle, skills derived from sheer experience, e.g. how to read the sound from the sails or those of water passing beneath the hull, the idiosyncrasies of harbours and other vessels and an eye for changes in trim, the sluggishness of too much water in the bilges or the odd habits of the boom or the risk of deck slime upsetting the unwary. Other vessels might not always behave as they should or as expected.
Before the wide availability of tide tables seamen would have to know and understand this most important feature of their sailing lives. The basic pattern of twice daily ebb and flow in a twenty-eight-day cycle would be ingrained, and they would understand the influence of the moon, if not that of the sun, and would link low pressure characteristics to the tendency towards higher than usual tides. Slack water periods at the top and bottom of the tide, and such variations as spring and neap tides would all be very real factors. For the brief high of a spring tide in a month might just make the difference to having enough water to get over a bar or reach the staithe up a small coastal creek. The wrong wind could rob a vessel of steerage way, missing a tide could mean a tiresome wait, while every so often a combination of bad conditions could mean dropping every anchor available and just hoping things would improve before the grub ran out. The fire hazard and being caught by the wind too close to a lee shore were two of the most frequent dangers.
The individual vessel rigs determined their speed and handling characteristics. The traditional trow was originally limited by its single square sail which supplemented tidal movement and added an extra measure of manoeuvrability, but it was never much more than a tidal barge. The ketch rig’s mizzen addition made it handier and faster. Their foresails would also add to the pulling power and a headsail with a ‘horse’ boom was a great boon for turning and extracting extra leverage from the wind. Topsails meant more speed but more work, and no crew was ever short of that. In light winds a topsail on a boom would be rigged above the mainsail and a flying jib used at the end of the bowsprit. Having the mizzen mast forward of the steering post helped in the balance of the boat and increased its manoeuvrability. When changing course or tacking, the jib fulfilled an important function in helping the vessel go through the eye of the wind, when disaster might otherwise result from being ‘caught in stays’ and losing headway off a dangerous coast or among shoals.
Sailing vessel rig was made up of standing rigging including shrouds to support the mast plus braces for the bowsprit, and of running rigging. The latter embraced the ropes and halyards used to hoist or lower sails to the required position, and other ropes that controlled the sails, the ‘sheets’. Along with anchor chains, mooring lines – warps – and the like, much was required in the way of the skills for handling them.
Spare sail would need to be carried, even if it was only something bought second-hand off a larger vessel. Among the essential equipment were the working kedge and heavy bow anchors together with their chains, mooring and other ropes and warps, fenders, planks, boathooks, wheelbarrow, shovels and baskets and, of course, a few basic tools. Also essential were some spare timbers and some nails, some waterproof sheeting or tarpaulin, together with needle and thread and other small items such as a caulking hammer, grease, lamps, fuel for the pressure stove and the like.
Bacon, potatoes, onions, bread, milk, water and tea would be the essential provisions. The ‘heads’ needed a bucket added to the essentials list for an earthy purpose sometimes alluded to as ‘bucket and chuck it’! The bilge pump might also need a bit of help from bucket work, especially when heavy seas were breaking.
Less obvious qualities required of our sailing forebears arose from the peculiarities associated with the varying different cargoes. Coal was a dirty product and when dropped into the hold from a chute or wagon tippler threw up a great cloud of dust that penetrated everywhere. The larger ports might have more sophisticated loading chutes to reduce the drop, the coal degradation and the dust, but they rarely offered a quick turnaround. Indeed, around 1880 it appears that the turnaround time for sailing ships loading in the docks at Cardiff could be as much as twelve days which pushed up the vessel’s costs enormously. Even when loaded, the cargo still had to be trimmed to ensure the stability of the vessel and while the shipper would arrange for the harbour team to do this at the larger coal ports, other cargoes and other ports might well mean that the trimming had to be done by the vessel’s crew. By the time this was done everyone would be not only tired but very dirty.
There would still be the unloading to come, which in many cases meant the work of shovelling into a basket and winching overboard or barrowing along some unsteady plank to the banks of a pill. Stone or sand might just be shovelled or thrown overside from the top of a load, but the lower the level became the harder the work. And when the area below the hatch had been cleared the remaining cargo might have to be moved to get it below the winch. A good team could unload 100 tons in a day, but where they had to be hired the cost might be as much as 2/6d a ton. At least one vessel, desperate for a load, is known to have got only 2/9d a ton for it. Bricks a
nd other heavy materials had to be stowed carefully and evenly or the first load might just embed the vessel in the mud, an unwelcome event which might mean serious delay in sailing or even damage to the hull.
The duration of an individual voyage was not the sole working period. On shore there was the presentation or disposal of the cargo to be arranged, along with the relevant documentation. Making small repairs, restocking with supplies and the like involved the host of chandlers, agents, provision stores, customs, port officials and the harbour master. Tackling dirt, vermin, a dirty fuel pump or frayed halyard … the list was endless.
Although the custom and excise function did not greatly affect local trading vessels, there were many revenue cutters and bases in local waters, including this watch house near the Hung Road at Pill.
Until the later years of the sailing vessel trade, paperwork was not a major factor in the crew’s lives. The revenue forces were generally concerned with bigger matters and the Letpass system sufficed for vessels on local runs, most of whom would be known to customs officers anyway and generally allowed to get on with their business without hindrance. Official oversight became more of a factor as a result of the Merchant Shipping Acts of 1894 and 1906 and their provisions relating to coastal trading vessels of over 15 tons burden. These required that such vessels had to be registered and the certificate of registry produced on demand, along with bills of lading and cargo manifests. It became an offence to overload a vessel dangerously or stow the load badly so as to be a danger, with masters and owners liable to prosecution if that occurred. Lifesaving equipment also had to be provided, although the local channel vessels had always carried a small boat for towing, mooring and other running about.
The whole picture was that of an incredibly skilful life of extremely hard work and great risks, all done for modest reward, but all making the past sailors of local waters unacknowledged masters, and often heroes, of their trade. It was a dangerous business, and many paid the price of their life for their dedication to the sea, but some continued the sailing that was their art right into their 80s, sometimes in vessels half as old again.
5. INLAND WATERS
As shipping business into Somerset’s coastal harbours grew, so did the proportion moving inland for the hinterland towns and villages, as did the inland produce flowing out to more distant markets. Until the growth of the railway system in the second half of the nineteenth century quite a substantial proportion of this onward movement passed by water, initially along natural rivers and then along canalised routes. From inland centres, especially Langport, distribution of coal, salt, building materials and the more general merchandise, could then be made by packhorse or wagon organised by a host of agents, merchants and chapmen. In terms of importance and activity, the River Parrett network and its River Tone connecting route to Taunton were the most significant, with lesser but quite wide-ranging movements along the River Axe. The River Brue did provide a way from Bridgwater Bay to Glastonbury, but it had significant shortcomings which the Glastonbury Canal attempted, with limited and short-lived success, to overcome.
Behind this general overview lie several qualifications. In early centuries the main one was the problem of keeping navigations clear of vegetation and with adequate depths. The obligation to do this lay with the landowner, but he had to be constantly balancing his need for water for livestock, his desire to keep the land moist but drained and use it productively, and the actual cost of clearing weeds and silt. Even the authoritarian abbots of Glastonbury had to balance the value of waterways for moving produce with the water demands of the mills for which they were also landlords. The mills themselves were in frequent conflict over their water needs and were not well-liked by fishermen either. In later years the drainage commissioners and the landowners who provided their funds also had rather different priorities.
Small vessels and varied cargoes penetrated for a limited distance up the minor rivers of North Somerset, notably the Yeo and Banwell. Inland water transport really came into its own in the low-lying area south of the Mendip range. There, the River Axe followed its meandering course via Lympsham, Bleadon and Lower Weare, then south of Axbridge and Cheddar and on to Clewer and Bleadney Bridge. As part of drainage improvements along the original course of the Axe, cut-offs isolated two loops on the first section, affecting the age-old Hobbs Boat ferry and the one at White House Farm on the road south from Loxton to Rooks Bridge. The Axe’s Yeo tributary ran closer to the Mendip heights of Wavering Down via Rackley and Cross and on to Hythe which may once have been part of a water route for access to Cheddar.
The coal wharf at Lympsham was the last to remain in use on the Axe after, first, the 1802 drainage legislation which resulted in a sluice at Bleadon and no access upriver from there, and then the 1841 arrival of the Bristol & Exeter Railway which crossed the Axe between these two villages. Previously, quite small boats had been active on the higher reaches since medieval times with simple wharves to serve the small townships, hamlets and farmsteads. Lower down, 11-ton coal barges brought their cargoes up to places like Cross and Weare.
The original course of the River Axe and once the site of the White House Ferry. (Roy Gallop)
The waterway pattern in this whole area used to be quite different to that of today. The River Brue once flowed north to join the Axe at Bleadney before being diverted more directly towards the sea during the thirteenth century. This was the period of the making of the Pilrow Cut which gave another route to and from Glastonbury via Mark to join the former great loop of the Axe south of Loxton. The waterway rights of the abbot of Glastonbury were the major influence in these changes, the great abbey having tremendous expertise in drainage, land reclamation and in using natural waterways for moving people and produce and keeping the abbey and its satellites supplied. Its inspections and communications were often by boat and its officials had specific duties such as the transport of the abbey’s wine supply.
In the period between the end of the Glastonbury Abbey influence and the cut-offs and other water control measures of the nineteenth century, the national population increased rapidly, raising the demand for food to feed it. Farming changed to reflect this with more land under cultivation, better ways of using it and a rising demand not only for the transport of produce but also in the appetite for goods that would formerly have been rare luxuries. Wines, spices, oats and pottery joined the staples of salt, livestock and fuel in reaching places that horse transport could not effectively or economically serve. Significantly, two early small canals were cut for the purpose of supplying manure for the land.
The Brue remained a secondary route, primarily because it flowed from and through sparsely-inhabited moorland, whereas the Axe served countless modest-sized communities, including Axbridge and Cheddar. As coal supplanted peat for non-domestic use, the activity along the Axe further increased. Wharf remains confirm small waterway loading and unloading points at places like Clewer, once the top of the tide, and Hythe. On the Yeo tributary at Rackley there was a papal reference to the ‘portu de Radeclive’ as early as 1179 and an attempt to create a township there, possibly to improve access for the upriver trade to Axbridge and Cheddar. Later, coal for Compton Bishop and for local farms arrived at the simple wharf at Rackley, which also handled incoming slates for some of the local houses. Odd cargoes of Shipham calamine may also have gone downriver, even cloth and corn for distant destinations.
The medieval town of Weare was founded in the late twelfth century and, as elsewhere along the Axe, the port connection is confirmed by several local field names. There was a significant early water route along the Axe and then south through Rooksbridge and Mark to Meare Pool via the Pilrow Cut. Pottery which originated at Nether Stowey has been found at Rooksbridge, but no trace of the probable wharf there. Bleadney seems insignificant now, but would have had a much better water flow when it had the water supply of both the Brue and the Axe.
The Glastonbury Canal, which made use of the lower section of the River Brue and th
en the South Drain, was eventually sold to the Somerset Central Railway which used much of its course for the railway trackbed.
The River Brue was used quite intensively for the short distance up to the railway wharf at Highbridge, but the Glastonbury Canal proved a doomed venture provoking the eventual suicide of one of its backers and the defaulting flight of another. It was based on a contrived route from a sea lock at Highbridge via the River Brue, the Cripps River and the South Drain to an awkward approach to Glastonbury along Cuckoo Brook and Mill Stream. The works at Highbridge were difficult and costly. Some sections of the waterway were not puddled properly and water leakage gradually restricted its use.
Although useful to their immediate communities, the River Brue and the River Axe and the latter’s connections were of relatively minor significance compared with the importance of the River Parrett, its River Tone link to Taunton and its several other lesser tributaries. These penetrated into the very heart of Somerset and provided an effective way of supplying its communities with the whole range of goods coming into Bridgwater and transhipped there into barges to complete their journey. These rivers also allowed the inland communities to export their produce on a scale that would not have been possible using packhorses or wagons.
The tides dictated movement on the lower Parrett as far as its junction with the Tone. Below Bridgwater the narrow pill at Combwich gave access to traffic for and from Cannington, Stogursey and the surrounding area while the wharf at Dunball not only provided a connection with the Bristol & Exeter Railway after its opening in 1841, but could also be used when depths, icing and other limitations prevented normal access to Bridgwater. On the other side of Bridgwater, upriver from the Parrett–Tone junction at Stanmoor, the barges had to forsake tidal movement for the use of towing horses stabled there, with this pattern being reversed in the downstream direction.