Historic Boatbuilders

dom · January 14

I've been doing a bit of research into historic boatbuilders again this evening. Whilst doing so, I got to wondering who the oldest recreational boatbuilder was on the Broads.

Can anyone shed any light on who this might have been? There was a similar thread on boatbuilders on here 15 odd years ago and loads of yards mentioned going well back into the 1800s, but I suspect most, if not all were probably building commercial vessels.

The earliest examples I can see are Ernest Collins (Maidie) and Herbert Bunn in 1904 (slightly spookily, Herbert was actually buried on this day 1911, which made my hair stand on end a bit!).

Vaughan · January 15

John Loynes was hiring half deckers on the Wensum at Cow Tower, in about 1860 before he moved to Wroxham, where I think he built yachts. He was one of the founders of Blakes, in 1908.

guywilkes · January 16

John Loynes is often referred to as "the grandfather" of the Wroxham boat building and subsequent hire trade. He was was originally a carpenter in Elm Hill, Norwich and he built his first rowing boat in 1878.

By the early 1880s he had started letting boats from Wroxham and advertisements of the time show yachts of 13ft-20ft being offered for hire. Within a few years J Loynes and Sons were offering larger yachts with paid hands. By the early 1900's the yard by the bridge in Wroxham was well established. My River Class Cruiser is one of a handful of J Loynes wooden yachts left and is relatively young (built 1936!!). The 1937 "Blakes" catalogue states that it could be hired for £5 per week rising to £7 and 5 shillings at height of season with optional electric light being 7s 6d per week.

dom · January 16

I'd always been of the view that commercial boating (ie. trading wherries) went back hundreds of years, but holiday boating and racing started around the turn of the 20th century. That may well be due to the fact that the oldest racing yachts seem to date from around this time(?) and possibly the impression gained from reading Ransome's books too many times!

Since posting the question, I've got hold a copy of "Norfolk Broads and Rivers, or The Waterways, Lagoons and Decoys of East Anglia" by G.Christopher Davies in 1884. It's a fantastic read (with surprisingly little archaic language) and will no doubt prompt another question or two.

What's very evident from it is that the industry (and racing) seem to go back much further than we all think. By 1880, Wroxham week seems to be an extremely popular and busy event - including things like wherry quanting matches. There are suggestions that recreational boating had been going on for 100+ years and commercial letting for at least several decades.

There's some really interesting detail on boats - like lateen rigs having been very popular, but rapidly dying out by the 1880s. What it hasn't clarified so far is the scale and nature of boatbuilding. I wonder to what degree boats were imported from elsewhere back then. There's the odd mention of racing between "foreign" and local designs, but no particular detail. I'm on a bit of a search for other similar publications to try and find out more.

Bit of an excerpt, picked as I suspect @Vaughan might like it:

We....enter a reach of the old river, which is crossed by two railway bridges. This is Thorpe reach, and it curves past an ancient mansion, many smaller houses with beautiful gardens, and the pretty village of Thorpe. It is a reach which is not excelled for variety of attraction and warmth of colour by any reach on the Thames. The inn at the lower end of it, kept by Hart, is a place of popular resort on summer evenings. Close as this is to the city, the fishing is at times good. In the winter of 1879 there was a large aggregation of pike in this reach, either from the fact that high tides had driven the fish up, or because the reach had been dydled out, and the fish sought the clear hard bottom. Over 500 pike were caught in a very short time 50 from one spot a few yards square and recently very good catches have been made of pike running up to 18 Ib. in weight, and bream up to 5 Ib. This, it should be noted, is within two miles of the city.

Just to clarify, "dydled" is hand dredging with something akin to a landing net with finer mesh. It seems that large sections were dredged by hand in those days and spoil deposited directly on adjoining banks. I remember drag line dredging above Wroxham bridge in the 70s where they did the same. I find it laughable that horticulture is crying out for a peat replacement, but BA stuggle to dispose of dredging spoil which seems like a good option, possibly mixed with composted green domestic waste.

dom · January 16

1 hour ago, guywilkes said:

John Loynes is often referred to as "the grandfather" of the Wroxham boat building and subsequent hire trade. He was was originally a carpenter in Elm Hill, Norwich and he built his first rowing boat in 1878.

I think it's a very close race between Loynes and Herbert Bunn for the Wroxham title. Loynes is actually recorded as being in Belaugh in 1885-6, but the location is "near the bridge", so could be up towards the viaduct moorings. Herbert's a boatbuilder in 1881, but I've not managed to tie down the location where he worked as yet.

I suspect Herbert could well be an apprentice to another boatbuilder, which might change things entirely!