Any Muddy Bottom

by Geoff Body

  Viewed from the entrance from the River Parrett, the dock at Bridgwater is nearing the end of its working life, but still accommodates a fair-sized motor vessel. One of the sluices is visible to the left of the entrance lock.

  Traffic on the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal ended around 1906 and five years later the inland Parrett trade was virtually ended when a barge laden with bricks sank on the upstream side of the Town Bridge. However, as elsewhere, the sail, motorised and steam shipping using the port of Bridgwater still remained significant until the First World War although the shipbuilding activity at Carver’s yard just downstream of the East Quay and the modest dry dock had begun to peter out before the end of the nineteenth century. The ketch Irene was built there as late as 1907 and the services of surveying, repair and fitting out continued. But the port had silting problems; the ubiquitous railways ran everywhere and initially used the emerging lorry culture to expand their penetration by operating road collection and delivery services. Road transport was then to become pre-eminent in its own right, facilitating the demand for the immediacy benefits provided by smaller loads and quicker transits.

  The launch of the Irene marked the beginning of the end for Bridgwater’s shipbuilding activity. It had seen some notable achievements, not least the building of a schooner, the Ellen, achieved by Prosser virtually single-handed, rigging, ironwork and all. Altogether it has been calculated that some 167 ships were built in the town, not counting the many rowing and other small boats. The busiest period had been in the nineteenth century and, although the East Quay dry dock continued in use for repairs well into the twentieth, it provided its last service for a coaster surveyed there in 1940. Business activity and employment in Bridgwater was, in its shipping heyday, dominated by the seafaring trade, not just that of the dock warehouse, the railway wharves, coal and timber stacking and the huge Bath Brick loadings, but also by the daily activities of the chandlers, provision suppliers, bankers and the Customs House men on the West Quay.

  By the middle of the twentieth century outwards shipping traffic consisted almost entirely of bricks and inwards sand, coal and timber, most of it through the Dunball satellite. The end of an era was signalled in 1963 with an announcement by British Rail that it would close Bridgwater Dock if it could find no buyers for it. This began a long period of discussion and stagnation followed by the eventual rehabilitation of the canal, the creation of a small marina in the former ship dock area and the conversion of the dockside there to modern housing.

  The following tonnage, shipping and event list gives some idea of the fortunes of Bridgwater over the busiest period of its long history as an important port:

  Bridgwater Dock in 1999 with the old warehouse converted to dwellings and new buildings added around the main marina water area. An old crane has been retained with chains and an anchor by its base.

  1822

  Shipping trade of around 75,000 tons annually

  1827

  Bridgwater & Taunton Canal opened to Huntworth

  1829

  Shipping trade now 112,000 tons annually

  1840

  First steam tug into service

  1841

  Canal extended and enclosed dock opened; Bristol & Exeter Railway arrives

  1851

  First excursion by steam tug

  1855

  2,314 vessels, 112,395 tons (a)

  1856

  2,281 vessels, 110,994 tons – average

  48.6 tons

  1878

  3,864 vessels, 233,039 tons – average

  60.3 tons

  1879

  4,089 vessels, 243,915 tons – average

  59.6 tons

  1880

  3,677 vessels, 216,282 tons – average

  58.8 tons

  1886

  Severn Tunnel opened shortening rail journeys

  1891

  2,648 vessels, 166,768 tons – average

  62.9 tons

  1893

  2,373 vessels, 149,282 tons – average

  62.9 tons

  1903

  2,975 vessels, 163,960 tons – average

  55.1 tons

  1912

  1,586 vessels, 105,972 tons – average

  66.8 tons

  1913

  1,588 vessels, 104,512 tons – average

  67.1 tons

  1933

  817 vessels, 74,664 tons – average

  91.4 tons

  1953

  527 vessels, 52,776 tons – average

  100.1 tons

  1972

  667 vessels, 582,636 tons – average

  873.5 tons (b)

  1981

  432 vessels, 440,329 tons – average

  1019.3 tons (b)

  (a) [Despite the Parrett being frozen for a long period which reduced seamen to begging in the streets of the town]

  (b) [Made up of modern motor vessels at Dunball Wharf]

  Combwich

  Shipping activity began at Combwich sometime in the fourteenth century and, as far back as 1480, the Anne carrying cork, hides and fish on the Minehead–Bristol run called there, and corn was being exported. In later years Irish and other ships called regularly with coal, wine, iron, millstones, beans and oil. Salt was unloaded at Combwich for weighing and storage before being moved on to Bridgwater and a ship was built there in the 1690s. All this in a tiny creek, which was nevertheless the site of the first harbour and settlement along the course of the River Parrett. A ridge of hard rock formed a shallow ‘passage’ across the river which could be used by livestock and horse-drawn vehicles at low tide, and for centuries a ferry plied between the village on the south bank and the track to Pawlett on the other.

  In the eighteenth century coal and culm was being unloaded at a wharf in the pill and the shipping trade increased. Henry Leigh built up the harbour facilities and Henry Leigh the younger exported bricks and tiles from his yard south of the pill. The output of the two local tile- and brickworks became the main trade with sailings to Bristol, to Ireland, the South Wales ports and up the Severn. By the 1890s vessels were going as far as Sharpness and Bideford. Coal was the main return load, especially for the brickworks.

  The vessels ranged from small cutters, sometimes part-owned by local farmers, to 400-ton ships. In addition to those lying in the pill, others were unloaded at moorings in Combwich Reach and their cargoes lightered up the Parrett to Bridgwater and beyond. The larger vessels of the Stuckey & Bagehot fleet mainly used Combwich until the dock was built at Bridgwater in 1841. Some lightermen and hobblers lived at Combwich and dealt with Canadian timber which was barged or rafted upriver.

  This typical example of an early Bristol Channel buoy now sits in quiet retirement on the edge of the pill at Combwich. Its construction clearly owes much to traditional barrel-making methods.

  Low water in the pill at Combwich, once quite a busy little harbour. The relatively modern facility on the right was built to receive construction materials for Hinkley Point nuclear power station.

  There was considerable agricultural trade in the first part of the twentieth century including that of the Combwich & District Farmers Association which owned the ketch Emily lost in 1934. Colthurst Symons took over the Leigh brickyard and used the Irene to carry the brick output, but the brickyard closed sometime in the 1930s. Then shipping activity petered out and the pill slowly silted up. More recently, there was a short-term new lease of life for Combwich in the late 1950s when CEGB built a modern wharf to handle materials for Hinkley power station. It may again be used for this purpose but, in the meantime, Combwich is just a quiet anchorage for a few small pleasure craft with little evidence of its busy shipping days.

  8. WEST SOMERSET

  Much of the coast between the Parrett Estuary and the Devon border is quite exposed, with a shingle shoreline and low cliffs. The Brendon, Quantock and Exmoor foothills are gentle pastoral areas, producers of the fruits of agriculture and long-time consumers of coal and culm f
or the limekilns that fed the soil. Only minor activity took place at Stolford and Kilve – condemned as a dangerous landing place in 1559, but still with the traditional small limekiln burning stone from South Wales – while the purpose-built estate dock at Lilstock had to surrender to storms and the changes of the twentieth century.

  The older settlement at Watchet had a port of sorts, battered in its early years by gales and always inferior to Minehead, but coming into prominence with the South Wales demand for Brendon iron ore and later busy with wood pulp for the local papermaking activity. Dunster probably had a small harbour at one time, Blue Anchor beach hosted the occasional ship visitor and Porlock Weir had a contrived but cute little harbour and now hosts a few leisure craft. In between, Minehead has a long history as Somerset’s second port, sheltered by North Hill and having an on-going and very varied trade with West Wales, Ireland, Bristol and even deeper waters.

  Lilstock

  A few modest streams reach Bridgwater Bay in the long coastal stretch between Stert Point and Watchet, but the only working harbour was at Lilstock. Stolford certainly figured in one of the various channel-to-channel ship canal schemes and Kilve might have been important if a grandiose oil shale speculation had proved viable but, remote as it is, Lilstock actually hosted regular shipping visits for the best part of a century.

  Lilstock village, which never had more than a hundred inhabitants, lies a short distance inland, by the side of a small stream that curves around some higher ground to emerge from behind a pebble bank and add its waters to Bridgwater Bay. The shingle area foreshore represented a convenient spot for small sailing vessels to discharge their cargoes of coal and culm for Sir John Acland’s estate limekilns and for his home at Fairfield House. The house was only 2 miles away and the estate yielded the occasional return load of pit props for the expanding coal-mining activity across the Bristol Channel.

  When Isabel, the daughter of Sir John’s son Peregrine, was advised to live by the sea to aid her delicate constitution a small dwelling was built for her on the heights above the stream’s final course through the pebble bank. There she could entertain and enjoy the sea air, while on the bank itself a promenade was constructed to accommodate leisure outings in her coach. At the same time, around 1830, an enclosed dock was constructed between the promenade and the heights behind. The waters of the stream were diverted to flow into the dock at the western end and gates and sluices provided at its eastern exit. Local limestone was doubtless used to create the high quality surrounds provided for the dock, and other works from this period included a breakwater and a decent access road.

  This grassy hollow is the site of the former dock at Lilstock viewed from the turning area at the west end of the site.

  The waters of the stream enabled the dock to be flushed out as needed and gave a good measure of control over the water level inside. It became increasingly busy with the incoming cargoes of fuel and occasionally other commodities. There was a limekiln up on the heights to the east and a double one behind the dock approaches. This was a period of expansion for village and dock. A few dwellings were built just along from the harbour entrance, coastguards were stationed there from 1848, and then a customs officer from 1855. On occasions there could be up to as many as three vessels in the dock, some able to secure an outward load of estate timber, burnt lime or corn.

  Activity at the Lilstock port peaked in the second half of the nineteenth century when the village population reached ninety-four. Around this time also, the Admiralty had some thoughts of a canal link to Seaton, one of the many schemes mooted for linking the Bristol and English channels. The pier had become a fashionable spot, with carriages bringing parties for picnics supplied from a butler’s pantry and shelter at the end. Paddle steamers called on the way to and from Burnham, Cardiff and Ilfracombe, bringing Victorian tourists for a brief stay in the pleasant little spot.

  On the shingle foreshore at Lilstock the outine of the dock entrance quay and breakwater are still visible.

  The dock activity itself was sufficient to warrant a small warehouse behind the south wall, a building that also served to host special events for the local Lilstock community. Like the village church, the Limpet Shell beerhouse and the quayside houses, it has now gone.

  Refreshments could still be obtained from one of the original quayside houses until the last years of the First World War, but by that time declining trade and encroaching shingle, combined with storm damage around the turn of the century, had brought an end to the commercial use of the port. The pier was destroyed after that war and the houses gradually fell into ruins although a lime burner’s cottage was still in use in 1932. Another war brought a brief period of coastal use as a bombing range, but now only a few areas of masonry and overgrown limekilns mark what was once a busy little harbour.

  Watchet

  The Danes wreaked havoc on the small Watchet settlement several times in the tenth century, but its position at the mouth of the Washford River later enabled it to grow as a modest trading place. At this period various quite tiny vessels brought in necessities and took produce outwards, a progression periodically disrupted, however, by the gales to which an exposed location made Watchet vulnerable. Initially that exposed coastal location was shielded by little more than a rough stone breakwater which frequently needed rebuilding owing to storm damage.

  Despite its limitations as a harbour, seaborne trade at Watchet dates back to at least 1210 and there were shipping links with Bristol and South Wales in the following two centuries. There were also further destructive storms, but by the sixteenth century cargoes of coal, livestock and provisions were coming in steadily, possibly along with wine and salt from France, and local produce went regularly to Bristol to meet the needs of that city’s growing population and importance. The simple pier jetty suffered another round of damage in 1659 and took some time to rebuild. Over these early years the main shipping cargoes were irregular but ongoing, with inward movements of coal, salt, wine and livestock from Channel, Irish and French ports, the coal shipments always predominating.

  The former simple jetty was eventually improved after the storm damage of 1659 and soon some 150 vessels were being dealt with annually, a few of them owned by local people. In the second half of the seventeenth century Watchet was the main area port for bringing in Welsh coal, with Minehead occupying that eminence in the livestock activity. There was regular business with Ireland, kelp for Bristol’s glass industry was at this period a major export, with coal from Swansea, Neath and Tenby the major import. A number of seamen lived locally.

  Gales brought more damage to Watchet’s harbour and trade aspirations in 1701 and again in 1706. As lords of the manor and owners of the port, the Wyndham family invested in rebuilding, giving Watchet a new quay in 1708 and the town and the Wyndhams the benefit of increased trade and port dues. Prompted by wool merchants and their dissatisfaction with the cost of bringing in Irish wool through Minehead, there were hopes that Watchet might become a customs port, but the application to Parliament ran into determined opposition from Minehead interests. Bridgwater, too, objected in order to protect its involvement in the flows of Irish wool moving up the Parrett. Thus no great changes occurred except that the variety of cargoes increased, especially the commodities transhipped from the larger vessels serving Bristol. The range of ports served also widened, but the harbour facilities remained inadequate for any significant expansion in trade and the number of locally owned vessels remained in modest figures.

  That is until midway through the nineteenth century when everything was to change. The catalyst was the growing demand for iron, the resultant increase in the needs of the Welsh iron-makers and the transformation of earlier scratching for ore on the Brendon Hills into a serious mining activity. To enable the output to be shipped in bulk over to South Wales, the West Somerset Mineral Railway was formed and opened a line inland from Watchet to Comberow in 1857 and then extended it ¾ mile up a 1 in 4 incline to a summit near Raleigh’s Cross on top
of the Brendons over the next four years.

  Concurrently with this first legislation, another Act of 1857 facilitated the reconstruction of Watchet’s harbour, duly completed in 1861–62 to enable it to cater for much larger vessels. In place of the old practice of carting ore down from the mines to load on to vessels beached on the harbour mud, the railway now brought wagons of ore down to a rebuilt West Quay where they could discharge from a projecting jetty directly into ships lying alongside. Conventional railway facilities also arrived in the form of the Bristol & Exeter Railway’s line from Taunton which had a connection leading to shipment facilities at the new East Quay.

  Watchet became a thriving place with 40,000 tons of ore exported annually at the peak and up to a dozen vessels using the port in some weeks. It was home to twenty-one master mariners along with ten shipowners and several ancillary shipping enterprises. Other trades and activities had expanded with the wealth generated by the iron ore traffic and the first holidaymakers had arrived and demanded accommodation, entertainment and other such facilities, including steamer excursions.

  The new prosperity suffered a major setback at the end of the nineteenth century with the Welsh ironworks switching to imported ore, the rundown of the mines leading to their eventual closure in 1883 and then that of the railway in 1898. As if that were not enough, two major storms wreaked havoc on the town and harbour sinking several vessels and damaging others, and attempts to revive the Brendon mining proved unsuccessful.