Old Broads Boats

[LizG]

Yes, I think I can see that! So the "pub" on the other side would be Staithe House, with Stalham Yacht Station (now Simpsons) in front. So the Queen of Hearts is moored on the original part of Richardsons yard, later known as "Billy's hanger".

What about the trees in the back ground? That's why I suggested Wood's Dyke in Horning?

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[expilot]

Hi Vaughan

This postcard of Stalham (Cooke's Staithe) shows the shed in the background with its roof-lights and sliding doors.  The shed belonged to the late John Williams

Edited July 15, 2020 by expilot
Added note

[webntweb]

16 minutes ago, expilot said:

Hi Vaughan

This postcard of Stalham (Cooke's Staithe) shows the shed in the background with its roof-lights and sliding doors.  The shed belonged to the late John Williams

Looks like you've got it. The previous pic is undated but thought to be early 60s while your postcard has 53 in the bottom left corner. The small wooden boat shed seems to be the same with a later larger one replacing the very small one on the left of it. The unmade mooring on the right would be the made up one that Queen of Hearts is moored to. The tree behind the wooden shed seems to have grown rather quickly though.

[expilot]

In fact the Cooke's Staithe postcard dates from between 1910 and 1930.  The "A Richardson & Son"on the signage used to own John Williams' yard, but is not related to the current Richardsons of Stalham - nor the Richardsons of Potter Heigham.

[webntweb]

That explains the tree then.

[trambo]

15 hours ago, webntweb said:

Couple of Potter Heigham in late August 58. The railway bridge is still there and of course the Bridge Hotel but I can't see the Herbert Woods sign that's outside Phoenix's shed on Fred's pic.

By the look of the cruisers moored this is is mid 50s or early 60s. If the later the yard would have been under the management of Mick Richardson after he left the Broads - Haven Country Club.

I would hazard a guess that the moored dark hulled craft in the top photo is Fowlers  "Rippling Waters". The yacht bottom right has a Jack Powles look and the craft moored outside Richardson's in the bottom photo  is a Jenner's "Amethyst" class.

The Bridge Hotels adjoining Dance Hall can be seen in the top image behind Richardson's sheds..

Fred

 

[LizG]

11 hours ago, expilot said:

Hi Vaughan

This postcard of Stalham (Cooke's Staithe) shows the shed in the background with its roof-lights and sliding doors.  The shed belonged to the late John Williams

Superb photo - can't disagree with the location of the Hearts cruiser!!!!

[LizG]

1 hour ago, trambo said:

By the look of the cruisers moored this is is mid 50s or early 60s. If the later the yard would have been under the management of Mick Richardson after he left the Broads - Haven Country Club.

I would hazard a guess that the moored dark hulled craft in the top photo is Fowlers  "Rippling Waters". The yacht bottom right has a Jack Powles look and the craft moored outside Richardson's in the bottom photo  is a Jenner's "Amethyst" class.

The Bridge Hotels adjoining Dance Hall can be seen in the top image behind Richardson's sheds..

Fred

 

Was Mick Richardson originally based somewhere else in Potter?  They had a fire at some point - hence name of the boatyard - Phoenix Fleet (rising from the ashes)

[expilot]

Mick's boat hire business had two former locations, each on the banks of the River Thurne - one upriver from the bridge and the other downriver.

[chrisdobson45]

14 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Yes, I think I can see that! So the "pub" on the other side would be Staithe House, with Stalham Yacht Station (now Simpsons) in front. So the Queen of Hearts is moored on the original part of Richardsons yard, later known as "Billy's hanger".

I think you're right, a lasting memory of this location is of my dad borrowing a child's bicycle and riding it off the end of the mooring one summer's afternoon in the mid 1970's singing "Raindrops keep falling on my head..." There was enough space for three or four boats and we had been "adopted" by the son of the boatyard owners for the afternoon, hence where the bike came from.

Once second he was there, on the grass and the next there was a splash.

[webntweb]

2 hours ago, trambo said:

By the look of the cruisers moored this is is mid 50s or early 60s.

Fred

Fred, both pics are late August 1958.

[trambo]

28 minutes ago, webntweb said:

Fred, both pics are late August 1958.

1 hour ago, expilot said:

Mick's boat hire business had two former locations, each on the banks of the River Thurne - one upriver from the bridge and the other downriver.

If 1958 I don't think Mick Richardson was at the yard. Can exploit can put some approximate dates to events?

Fred

[webntweb]

1 hour ago, trambo said:

If 1958 I don't think Mick Richardson was at the yard. Can exploit can put some approximate dates to events?

Fred

I'll have to dig the negs out. They could have got mixed up as I scanned over 3,000 negs, prints and slides.

If I have mixed them up the only other date they could be is July 63, but wasn't the railway bridge gone by then.

[trambo]

19 minutes ago, webntweb said:

I'll have to dig the negs out. They could have got mixed up as I scanned over 3,000 negs, prints and slides.

If I have mixed them up the only other date they could be is July 63, but wasn't the railway bridge gone by then.

It could well be 1958 but I think Mick Richardson at that time was just running the Broad - Haven Hotel & Country Club. So the sheds were either still Herbert Woods or another concern. I do have a photo dated, if correctly, 1963 with the railway bridge intact.

Fred

[LizG]

4 hours ago, trambo said:

It could well be 1958 but I think Mick Richardson at that time was just running the Broad - Haven Hotel & Country Club. So the sheds were either still Herbert Woods or another concern. I do have a photo dated, if correctly, 1963 with the railway bridge intact.

Fred

And another Hearts Cruiser!

[LizG]

I suspect I have posted these before taken by a brother sometime between 1963 and 1965!  (Not strictly old boats of course)

[webntweb]

Is that the Haddiscoe/St Olaves swing bridge.?

[Vaughan]

Potter Heigham station, I believe?

[webntweb]

I see it now: middle pic is the railway bridge over the Thurne but the station is Potter Heigham not Potter Heigham halt.

[NorfolkNog]

9 hours ago, trambo said:

I do have a photo dated, if correctly, 1963 with the railway bridge intact.

I believe that the bridge was demolished in the early 60's (not sure of the exact date)  so i guess Its quite possible it could still have been there in 1963. 

Yes, the halt was just basically a pile of sleepers with a bench and a lamp. It was right next to the river. I think the line was single track but doubled through the main station. 

[Vaughan]

9 hours ago, NorfolkNog said:

It was right next to the river. I think the line was single track but doubled through the main station. 

The M&GN was single track pretty well all the way to Birmingham! The engines were fitted with tablet catchers so that the tablet for each section could be exchanged at each signal box without the train having to stop. This meant that holiday expresses such as "The Leicester" could run all the way from Yarmouth Beach to Peterborough virtually non stop. In the end it closed as it was too expensive to run. It had been built cheaply with level crossings instead of road over bridges and staff costs were too high.

It closed in 1959 (before the Beeching closures) and I have seen a ciné film of the last train from Yarmouth pulling into Potter Heigham. There is no trace at all of the station today, except the name "Station Rd" and if you stood where that photo was taken now, you would be flattened by a truck on the bypass!

[trambo]

Found this photo' by Roger Joanes. Looks a little staged.

Fred

[webntweb]

A local chap called Ray Woolston has written books on Stalham and also a couple of railway books including one named "A Look Back at the Old Railway Stations between Stalham and Great Yarmouth", which includes pictures of all the stations enroute (don't know about the halts). There is a picture of men dismantling Potter Heigham railway bridge and the caption states: "while working on the bridge with acetylene torches they discovered dynamite still in place from the war - which would have been used to blow up the bridge during an invasion".

One of the stations still exists, although not in its original position. Stalham station building was dismantled and reassembled at Holt on the North Norfolk Railway.

I'm trying to find a copy of the book but no success so far.

[NorfolkNog]

This will be the boy. Very interesting little book. If memory serves I bought it from the Jarrolds shop in Cromer.