Thursday, March 25, 2010

Purton, Gloucestershire


Strangers on the shore

The British have been building boats for millennia, and sailing them, and wearing them out. When boats are no longer sea-worthy, they end up on the shore, getting recycled in interesting ways. Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes lived in a hut made of an upturned boat, like the fishermen’s huts of Lindisfarne. Masts become maypoles. Figureheads are made into garden ornaments. Countless wood-framed houses are said to be built of ‘old ship’s timbers’. As the salmon-fishers at the end of Andrew Marvell’s poem Upon Appleton House knew (who ‘like Antipodes in shoes, Have shod their heads in their canoes’) there are many things you can do with a boat as well as sailing it.

Near Purton, on the eastern bank of the River Severn (there’s a Purton over on the western bank, too, just to confuse us all) old boats have been used in a remarkable way. The Severn, with its great tidal range, challenging currents, and acres of mudflats, is a huge changing ecosystem. It deposits silt here and washes away banks there. In some places the banks need reinforcing, and here, it is old boats that have been used over the years to bring some stability to the shore.

At Purton, more than just the river bank was at stake. The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, built to cut out some of the more difficult and winding stretches of the river on the way up to Gloucester, runs here parallel to the Severn and very close to its bank. In 1909, when the canal bank was threatened, a small fleet of old lighters was beached at Purton to reinforce the land and protect the inland waterway. As the years went by, more and more redundant vessels were beached here. Purton is now Britain’s largest ships’ graveyard.

Full or half-full of silt and tussocky vegetation, some 81 vessels reinforce the bank here. Timbers stick up from the ground; sometimes entire hulls remain, sometimes odd posts and tangles of ironwork. There are concrete boats too, and chunks of metal superstructure, and bits of old gearing.


They make a poignant collection ranging from Island Maid, built in Plymouth in 1863 and beached some time before May 1945, to the unpoetically named FCB 75, built in concrete by the Wates Building Group at Barrow in Furness in 1941 and beached in 1965. They were probably all as tough and utilitarian as FCB, but they had a job to do and they did it. And now they have another job, they do that too.

11 comments:

My Realitty said...

It is always so interesting to learn the foundation of a line of poetry. Because we are used to modern poetry we accept leaps in logic. Very interesting imagery. CM

Bucks Retronaut said...

I really like this post,and not least the shot of bleached and distressed timber.Others seem to as well,so much so that I`ve noticed increasingly that concrete is left bare and printed to resemble raw timber, cladding such contemporary buildings as David Chipperfield`s wonderful Rowing Museum at Henley.
Lovely stuff !
Thank you.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Bucks: Leaving concrete with the imprint of the wooden formwork into which it's poured produces what's know in the business as béton brut, something much used by Le Corbusier. It can look really good it it's handled well and, as with so much concrete, when the sun shines.

Bucks Retronaut said...

Form Following Function then PW?
My thanks once again for supplying pointers to what is fast becoming an obsession and slaking my continuing thirst for enlightenment.....it all seems so relevant to particular and special interests of mine......boats,cars,Arts and Crafts,design generally, and dare I say it, WOMEN !!It all seems so resonant, if not to say relevant.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Bucks again: Google Blogger seems to have eaten your last comment and I'm not quite sure why as I told it to publish it as normal. Sorry about that, but watch out for further posts, relevant to your interests!

Peter Ashley said...

I just love this. I will have to get the Unmitigated Naseby Thunderer out again immediately. I may well be lost down here for weeks.

Thud said...

Occasionaly in San Francisco they come across old sailing ships that were abandoned in the 49 gold rush,left by crews filled with gold fever I presume. After use as hotels they were often infilled and now prop up some rather snazzy buildings. I have a couple of objects over at my blog that the clever visitors here may be able to identify for me if possible.

Wartime Housewife said...

Good pics Wilco. While I'm here, as a subscriber, shouldn't I get notification of when you do a new blog?

Philip Wilkinson said...

Thank you, WTHW. Bit of a mystery, this subscriber business. It doesn't seem to be working for everybody, and I'm trying to find out why. Will post the results of my researches when I find out, but meanwhile please accept my apologies.

Bucks Retronaut: Your comment has now appeared! Google Blogger seems to be making trouble for all of us today.

Philip Wilkinson said...

WTHW: I've tried reinstalling the 'subscribe' thingy (it's further down the page now), and clicking the option to add the updates to your Google home page seems to work. But I'm not sure what you do if you don't use an iGoogle home page. I'll do more research.

Wartime Housewife said...

Thanks chuck.