Old Broads Boats

[trambo]

Not a buyer of postcards normally but can't resist anything Hearts. Postcard has no publishers name and I'm guessing mid 50s.

Need Vaughan to cast an expert eye and identify the moored craft.

Fred

[Vaughan]

The boat on quay is the Ace of Hearts and alongside her, the Five or the Six.  Behind in the basin is the Ten, or maybe the Queen.

The photo is before the old church spire was demolished (1954?)  It had been weakened by bomb damage in the War, probably when Hearts boat sheds were bombed.  It is also before the posts with hanging baskets were installed along the back of the Green, for the Festival of Britain in 1952.

Notice that the quay on the Green was made of railway sleepers and was partly just an earth bank, with osier bushes.  I preferred it that way!  The bit of quay further along was a staithe (yes, there were two) for the use of the coal merchants, in what is now the Buck car park.  You can just about make out the petrol pumps there, as the Buck was also a filling station.

[ChrisB]

1 hour ago, grendel said:

they wouldnt get through wroxham bridge with all those railings.

With only 7ft 6ins optimum on a good day they will not transit Osney either. You do on occasions, mostly summer see more air under Osney but that normally means there aint much under the keel. That is why they recon 7ft 6ins is optimum.

 

 

[webntweb]

Although there are only a handful of hire companies on the Thames these days, that bridge, which reminds me of Beccles road bridge, keeps the vast majority of their boats from accessing the last 30 miles of the navigation,

Most of that distance is beautiful, very much like the Bure between Belaugh and Coltishall lock.

Some of Star craft used to be available in a hire fleet.

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, Vaughan said:

 It had been weakened by bomb damage in the War,

By the way, this is why the bells of Thorpe church are now rung electrically by clappers, as the tower is not felt strong enough to ring them by rope and wheel.

Which means that certain bell-ringers have an unfortunate habit of playing tunes on them!

Campanology, it is not!

[Broads01]

I agree the Bates boats are beautiful and distinctive. This is available to hire from Benson

https://www.waterwaysholidays.com/boat/bernadette.htm

[Guest GreenJack]

Whilst I have no expertise or knowledge on the boats, I have been loving this thread

[Vaughan]

20 hours ago, trambo said:

Fred

It's hard to tell but the boat in the basin may have been the Two of Hearts and not the Ten. In which case we are looking at 3 of the 5 boats which were in the Hart's fleet when my parents bought the yard in 1946.

Here they all are, in a photo of 1947 :

 

And here, the yard in about 1949, when the gunboat "Morning Flight" was moored on the front quay near the office in Summer, and was towed across to the Thorpe Gardens for the winter as there was no running water on the island. Everything came from a stand-pipe, on the staithe.

 

Here is the Two of Hearts and I think this photo was taken before the war.

Over the years she was much modified, re-named "Gayheart" and was still in Blakes catalogue of 1975, described as a "value for money thoroughbred".  Can't say fairer than that!

The first boat my father built was the Knave of Hearts, in 1948. Notice the lovely old Bedford lorry on the Yarmouth Rd!

She was the first hire boat on the Broads to be built with a Diesel engine.

She was also the first to have a central saloon, with a sliding saloon canopy.

The table is shown in its folded position, as a card table.  Opened up and hooked into the bracket on the cabin side, it became the dining table. In the lower position, it became part of the "dinette" double bed.

This was perhaps the prototype of what we now regard as the classic Broads centre cockpit design.

Exactly the same interior layout as my own boat, all these years later!

[Vaughan]

This was taken from the scaffolding on top of the spire on Thorpe church, when it was being demolished in 1954.

"Nearer my God, to Thee" and all that!

You can see the white posts and hanging baskets along the Green, that I mentioned earlier.  Also interesting is the queue of traffic on the Yarmouth Rd.  So the traffic nowadays, is nothing new!  This jam would have been caused by the "Thorpe Narrows" which was a notorious bottleneck where lorries could only get through one way at a time and often got stuck.

Other than the boatyard itself, I don't suppose it looks much different now, than it did then. Apart from the Whitlingham gravel pits, of course!

The train going across the island is a rake of ex G.E.R. coaches hauled by a "Claud Hamilton" locomotive. It had probably come from Cromer as the Yarmouth and Lowestoft trains were usually longer.

In fact, it would have looked a lot like this :

 

[Lulu]

Vaughan, thank you for all these wonderful photos and history. Please keep them coming. This is a much needed distraction. Absolutely fascinating.

[marshman]

Vaughan - just an aside! Are all your photo records digitalized????

[webntweb]

20 hours ago, Broads01 said:

I agree the Bates boats are beautiful and distinctive. This is available to hire from Benson

https://www.waterwaysholidays.com/boat/bernadette.htm

This boat is owned by Bygone Boating and they have a 2/4 berth wooden forward drive (ex Johnsons of St Olaves I think), which is one of the very few Thames hire craft that will pass under Osney Bridge, Oxford which is very much like Beccles Road only about 6 inches more clearance. This bridge stops the bigger cruisers from accessing the top 30 miles of the Thames, which is very much like the Bure from Belaugh to Coltishall lock - plus quite a few pubs. 

The boatyard is at Benson and is a comfortable one week return to Inglesham, near Lechlade, at the junction with the disused Thames & Severn canal.

[Vaughan]

18 minutes ago, marshman said:

Vaughan - just an aside! Are all your photo records digitalized????

No, they are in boxes in my loft. Maybe that is something to think about!

[unclemike]

how about this taken 1970

[unclemike]

guess the name without using the database

here's another

[Vaughan]

Curtis's stores at Acle Bridge, I believe?

[unclemike]

and another

[unclemike]

last one

and the boat was vaughan?

 

[Vaughan]

And the second one, Chumley and Hawke.

[Vaughan]

Just now, chameleon said:

and the boat was vaughan?

Not sure, maybe one of Sabberton's.

[Vaughan]

2 minutes ago, chameleon said:

Tidecraft's stores in Brundall. Run by Jim and Peggy Cole, who son Jim had the Norfolk Yacht Agency.

[unclemike]

silver dawn dawncraft wroxham at acle

constellation 1  as you say chumley and hawke

glitterwake, geo smith

emperor of hearts at brundall stores

 

[Vaughan]

Sorry, perhaps I answered them a bit too quick?

I'm off to bed in a minute . . 

[Wussername]

Do wot?

Wu's the time in French France.

Best you wind the cat up and put the clock out.

[webntweb]

2 hours ago, Vaughan said:

No, they are in boxes in my loft. Maybe that is something to think about!

Sooner rather than later Vaughan - especially if any of them are slides.

This slide was only taken in 81 and stored in a cool cupboard in proper slide cases.

Fortunately Photoshop autocolour and a little bit of adjustment made it passable; not so unfortunately with even later slides.