A new initiative from the RYA and you can also enter a competition to have your own dinghy trail published
https://www.rya.org.uk/programmes/Pages/Dinghy-Cruising-Trails.aspx
A really good idea from the RYA and well done to all those who helped develop this idea.
I have always been fascinated with rivers. It comes of being a geographer I suspect. River geomorphology (and Hydrology) was one of my ‘A’ Level teaching specialisms and as a child I spent many a happy day pootling around local streams catching and releasing all manner of river organisms and small fish.
Rivers often reflect the character of the countryside through
which they flow and influence greatly peoples’ daily lives along their
riverbanks. They can even influence the design of the vessels that trade along
their waterways; and so it is with the Tamar where many of the local boats took
on a character and form best suited transporting the river’s agricultural and
mining resources.
Rising far away in the bogs of Eastcott Moor, near
Morwenstow, two miles from the Bristol Channel coast, the Tamar is one of those
geological freaks of nature that I have written about before, for it flowed
southwards instead of the short journey north. Now it forms the administrative border
between Devon and Cornwall for almost its entire length. Not having its source on Dartmoor, the Tamar is
less subject to the sudden run-off surges of storm water; it’s a geographical
oddity that has had an important bearing on its history and use as a trading
waterway.
The Tamar and her navigable tributaries have played over a 1000-year
role in the local agrarian and industrial economy and communities. The rough, hilly
but very fertile terrain on both sides of the river have been worked for tin,
from the times of Edward 1st. Ancient footpaths and bridleways
criss-cross the landscape leading down to the river’s shores, the only outlet
for much of the resources gained from this area over the intervening centuries.
From Weirhead, just below Gunnislake down to Devils point at
Plymouth, the river is tidal and navigable. The 14th century salmon
weir at Weir Head prevents further passage up river although records show that prior
to the weir’s construction, the Vikings sailed much further upriver to attack
the village of Lydford. For much of its history, two ports dominated the river’s
commercial life, Morwellham on the Devon banks in the upper river reaches and Saltash,
just above the entrance to the tributary river, the Lynher.
Morwellham’s growth was rapid. Mentioned as a quay in 1240 and
part of the Manor of Morwell, rich alluvial tin deposits in this area supplied
most of Europe, leading to the establishment of a Benedictine Abbey and the
growth of the stannary town of Tavistock. Vessels plied up and down the river to
Morwellham Quay, where in its heyday in the 19th century, it could
accommodate vessels of some 300 tonnes burthen. At this time, extensive
deposits of copper and arsenic were discovered and mining flourished in the
surrounding hillsides. Sadly, it was a short lived mining boom, over by the end
of the century.
Saltash was already far
more prominent some 200 years before Morwellham. In 1069 it was held by
Reginald de Valletort for William the Conquereror and Saltash borough gained jurisdiction
over the rivers Tamar and Lynher from her ‘Seigneurs,’ who in 1270 were recorded
as maintaining a ferry at Saltash. By 1337 the Burgesses of Saltash were paying
the Black Prince £10 per year for a ferry across Saltash Passage.
Those Burgesses new a thing or two about turning a profit. Sand dredged from the Tamar off Saltash was
always much in demand and the burgesses levied 12d annually on every barge
carrying sand; the same fee was levied on every boat carrying a fishing net as
well. However, by 1616, the Duke of
Cornwall grew wise to the profits that were being made and so took action to
recover the royalties owed him. By the reign of George IV, Saltash burgesses
were paying an annual rent of £18 to the Duchy, along with 100 oysters to the
King’s local auditor.
Within the ancient charters rewritten over time, the
boundaries of the Tamar remained clearly defined. The Tamar’s waters, attached
to the borough of Saltash, ran seaward to an imaginary line drawn across Plymouth
Sound from Penlee Point on the west to the Shagstone on the East; thence to
Prince Rock and Liara, to Old Man’s Beard in the Tavy and to Ogle (Okel) tor
rock above Calstock in the Tamar. They ran from Guddenbeak Point on the St
German’s or Lynher river to Crumble Tor rock in the Lynher and included all the
intervening bays, creeks and places as far as high-water mark.
The clever Saltash Burgesses hadn’t missed a trick. Saltash
was due one schilling from every vessel dropping anchor in the Port of Plymouth
in the area defined above; the fees to be collected as they passed Drakes
Island at the narrow entrance to the estuary.
A good description of Victorian life on the Tamar can be gleaned
from the writing of Mr G P Hearder in his ‘Guide to the Tamar’. In 1841,
he engaged two watermen to row him the length of the Tamar in a single day and
he recorded what he saw on his trip. Saltash beaches were full of ships and
ship-building yards; the women of the town out on the sands raking up cockles. ‘The
absence of clothing on their nether regions is a grotesque appearance’ wrote
Hearder.
Above Cargreen, he witnessed men in anchored boats using
rakes three feet long to separate the oysters from their gravelly beds, whilst further
upriver near Weir Quay, he watched a huge chimney belching enormous volumes of
smoke from the furnaces below it. An extensive
silver and lead refining plant was once established there and Hearder wrote
that his ears were assaulted by the noise of water wheels and the creaking of
engines that drained the mines. At the quayside, he witnessed three brigs and
assorted barges offloading limestone, coal and other commodities for the
surrounding countryside before loading back up with metalliferous ores.
Today, the smelting/mine office is a bungalow, the quayside
a small boatyard and the surrounding hillsides are disfigured by huge spoil
heaps and desolate decaying mine buildings.
An industrial archaeologist’s paradise and playground, Hearder’s
description of a thriving busy shipping lane and industrial landscape has all
but disappeared. The water borne folk who once battled daily with erratic
tides, merciless currents, fickle winds and thick squelching mud have long gone.
It comes as a surprise that records show that in the 1850’s,
a greater number of vessels carrying a higher tonnage of cargoes were being
handled along the Tamar than on the Mersey and into the Port of Liverpool. But this
was, to all intents and purposes, a short-lived boom. Stealthy, unannounced globalisation
was already rearing its head. Alluvial tin from Malaya, copper from America,
Australia and South Africa; all could be mined more cheaply, more quickly and
in greater quantities. The shallow limited deposits of the Tamar valley were
doomed to be left in the ground; only recovered by a very short-lived revival
in trade, when demand for sand, bricks and other building materials for the
extensions to the Devonport Dockyard soared in 1896. By 1907, when the Keynham
extension to the dockyards were open, this trade to cased to exist.
It is hard work and a very steep learning curve, this astrophotography malarkey.
Still, here is my very first effort a waxing gibbous moon, taken a bit early in the evening.
Camera details were:
Exploring the industrial archaeology of the river Tamar
I have over the years made many voyages up the river Tamar
and also the Lynher. However, more often than not, I have sailed up both rivers
as far as I can and in doing so, I have passed by many nooks and crannies’ that
are worthy of fuller exploration.
I had two articles recently published in the Dinghy Cruising
Journal outlining one such three-day trip back in 2019 and you can access those
articles here, if you are interested:
https://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk/community/article/dinghy/cruising-up-to-treluggan-pt-1
I also wrote another article for another magazine on what I
had learned as a novice sailor about dinghy cruising up tidal rivers, an
article aimed at beginners like me:
https://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk/community/article/dinghy/river-dinghy-cruising-tips
If you prefer visual, then my playlist of Tamar and Lynher
cruises can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbyXP5jYtlM&list=PL4ru7c7wAAWwY8eGzSKrRKQTFh7y3jTp8
So, with all that material available to encourage you to
bring your boat down this way for a cruise, why do any more about sailing the
Tamar?
Well, it’s the valleys unique industrial archaeology.
The Tamar valley and its associated tributaries are an UNESCO World Heritage
site. Everything from brick works to arsenic mines and much more besides. And
during a conversation up at Cotehele, with some local filmmakers about something
else entirely, I suddenly realised I had been missing opportunities when
voyaging the area to really explore this hidden and/or long forgotten history.
If you believe in co-incidences, then you will like this
one. A week after this conversation, a blog and vlog subscriber got in touch
with me as well to offer me an old copy of a book about the maritime culture of
the Tamar Valley. I could have it, if I promised to go and explore the salt
marsh areas opposite Cargreen.
We have been so used to learning about the maritime history associated
with the river Tamar, about boats like ‘Shamrock’ and the people who sailed her
or some of the famous boatyards such as that of ‘Goss’ up at Calstock, that as
Ian D Merry put it in his lovely Maritime Monograph and Report ‘The shipping
and trade of the river Tamar’ (Part 1 – No. 46, 1980)
“much information was also being uncovered not
only about the barges and other sailing craft using the river……..but above all
about the river’s influence on the pattern of life and shipping along its banks.”
“..the close interweaving of
land and shipping activities in the lives of the population along its tidal
reaches had a significance and interest setting them apart from other south
England riverside communities”.
I’m now part way through this lovely book/pamphlet and I
have to say it is a fascinating read and its helping crystallise some ideas in
my head.
The Tamar with its variable winds and tides, mudflats and
fringing marshlands, is a rich, complex river system where through history, a
mariner’s world and that of local farmers often combined. Many farmers were
part time bargemen or active shareholders in the barges that took their produce
down river to market. Often farmers had their own little boats to go off in search
of sand or seaweed for manure on their fields and many farms had their own
little quaysides. Some even acted as ferry points across the river from Devon
to Cornwall and back again. Whatever the case, as Merry observed “the
possession of a boat and the skill to use it was as essential to the Tamar
Valley farmer as knowing where his best field lay for the growing of wheat”.
It is these little quays that attract my interest. I’ve managed
to ground myself on the ancient remains of one of them already; trapping Arwen’s
rudder between some old Cornish boulders and rotting timber baulks that edged an
original old stone quay, on the way up to Treluggan. A sharp lesson learned about always keeping your eye out for
navigation hazards and not closing too close with a river shoreline!
Then, I haven't been up the Tavy yet to Bere Ferrers and Lopwell Dam; I haven't explored Millbrook and I still fancy seeing how far I can get up the rivers Polbathic and Tiddy. Then there are the Kingsmill, Wivelscombe and Forder Lakes as well.
With its steep valley sides, frequent reedy river margins
and lack of roads down to the water’s edge, there was always gong to be a close
relationship between farmer and sailor in the Tamar Valley. The river was always the easiest way of
getting into and out of the area. And then of course, there was the 19th
C discovery of metalliferous mines. As Merry says, the Tamar valley, already a notable
Middle Ages centre for lead and silver mining, became a major centre of copper
and arsenic production as well. And from that point on, local sailing transport
dominated the river right up to the end of WW2.
As is the way, one industry attracts another, the good old
geographical ‘multiplier effect’. Agriculture and mining led to shipbuilding; the
need for quaysides led to quarrying. A demand for local housing generated by
all these industries led to local brickmaking. With primitive quays and rocky, sloping hards,
local boats had to be rugged and thus Tamar barges were massively timbered
boats. By the 19th C two types of boat for the Tamar were being
built – the Tamar barges – heavy and stout and capable of coastal voyages; and
then lighter boats for ’inside the river’ work.
With all this in mind, an idea has begun to take shape. An
exploration series of mini voyages; piloting Arwen up the many muddy
creeks and tidal inlets to find the hidden brickworks, the crumbling farm
quaysides, the old arsenic mines and the ancient limekilns. Journeys, pushing
through small creeks in fringing reedbeds and up the tiny streams into the old ‘Lakes’.
Arwen’s centreboard is going to bounce on the
sandbanks; her rudder may get stuck in the mud. I’m going to miscalculate and
find myself ‘high and dry’ until the next tide. I will have to learn to work
the spring tides effectively. I’d better sort out the rowing position, because there
is going to be a fair amount of that. I may even need to fashion some form of ‘punt
pole’. I need to learn how to tow ‘Angharad’
my tiny ‘Stickleback’ canoe behind Arwen.
But, the glimpses of reed wildlife, the ruins of Victorian
industrial archaeology, opportunities for some stunning landscape
astrophotography with the milky way behind old chimney stacks; and meeting
people who still rely on the river for their economic survival. What great experiences
these will be. What a set of mini voyages. All those sailing skills to be
learned and mastered.
Over the next few weeks, I will study the maps, the charts
and old photographs, to work out an itinerary of places to visit by boat, canoe
and on foot. I’ll share these plans as they unfold. To be sure, it isn’t going
to be a one-year project. My initial guess is this will take a couple of
sailing seasons at least and my first inclination is to head up river to
Calstock and from there right up to Morwellham quay. From there, I will then slowly
work down the river in sections. It may
be over ambitious; I may give up part way through because I tire of it and
there are, let’s face it, other places to sail and adventures to be had (I’m
still working on my ‘grand voyage’ one sailing season – a complete voyage from
Penzance back around to Topsham, up the river Exe – stopping off at various
places and sailing up some river systems like the Fal and the Fowey).
Time will tell. But right now, this Tamar project has caught
my interest and its worth pursuing a little further.
Some interesting pictures of the old quayside of New Port on
the upper Tamar can be found here:
I am awaiting my new telescope. A new hobby I'm taking up. It will travel with me when we go motorhoming in Bryony.
But, and I know it sounds stupid, but what if it could accompany me upriver....the Tamar....in Arwen?
There are some lovely spots with minimal light pollution and some big open skies; some framed with stupendous viaducts; others with mill houses. There are some little marsh creeks, where there is sufficient hard ground or a hidden crumbling quayside where I could stand a tripod mounted scope securely. Certainly plenty of good spots for some landscape astrophotography at the very least.
Anyway, to this end, here are some posts I've written about my tentative footsteps into the world of astronomy. I will post blogs at a later date about my tentative steps into the world of marine landscape astrophotography when I have got my head around it. For now, most of my reading time is focused on getting to grips with the night sky constellations, lists of deep space objects and working out how to use a computerized GOTO mount system.
I also rashly signed up to some OU courses on astronomy as well!
You can find my first blogs about beginning with a telescope here at
https://wherenexthun.blogspot.com/2021/01/buying-your-first-telescope-what-do-you.html?m=1
https://wherenexthun.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-beginners-guide-to-telescope-mounts.html?m=1
https://wherenexthun.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-beginners-guide-on-understanding-how.html?m=1
https://wherenexthun.blogspot.com/2021/02/what-other-equipment-accessories-might.html?m=1
In the meantime, aside of reading 'Turn Left at Orion', I have also been reading a fascinating book about the history of the Tamar valley. It's made me think a deeper exploration of my local river system is required. I normally sail straight up the rivers to their headwaters, bypassing lots of interesting places.
So this year when lock down is lifted I intend exploring the marshes, lakes, creeks, tributaries, nooks and crannies of the river Tamar. Along the way I will stop off and take time to explore the history of this extraordinary place.
More in future posts but you can access videos of my recent cruises up the Tamar and Lynher here
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4ru7c7wAAWwY8eGzSKrRKQTFh7y3jTp8
Start with this short appetiser 😉😁 Here's to getting back out of lock down and back onto the water. Fair winds everyone.
I have just had the privilege of listening to John do a zoom talk to the Dinghy Cruising Association. It was about boat design and John took us through the steps and considerations he goes through when designing his boats.
It was a extraordinary talk and just showed what a greater thinker and designer he is. From the comments it was clearly very well received.
I love the navigator design. I just wish I could do justice to the design and sail Arwen better.
I think the talk was recorded and it will be available at some stage, probably on the DCA website.
If you are interested in boat design or John's designs, this is a talk worth listening to.
When lock down is lifted, I will get back in Arwen and endeavour to sail her better this year. It's understanding sail trimming that lets me down each time. The navigator is an excellent boat, if only her skipper could do better 🙄