Welcome to our new members’ blog. From time to time members will post news, reviews, essays, photos and more replacing our much loved newsletter. Access the archive here
September 2024 Our first member’s blog
Thanks to Janet MacDonald for our inaugural blog post.
Around the Lake
I recently spent a few days in the Lake District, and though I’d share a few highlights of the visit with ACFA members.
Bowness-on-Windermere is home to the Windermere Jetty Museum, originally built to house the collection of boats made by local businessman George Pattinson, and is now run by the Lakeland Arts Trust. The museum opened in 1977 and has a variety of steam launches and other boats on display, including the catamaran Trimite, which broke the world water speed record in 1982, reaching a speed of 144.16mph.
The Trust aims to conserve and/or restore the boats in its care, in some cases making the decision to conserve the fabric, in others to return the vessel to operational use, but in each case determining its significance in order to guide any decisions.
A nice example of a restored vessel is the steam launch ‘Branksome’ (1896), which can be seen inside the museum, while outside is the hull of the twin-screw steam yacht ‘Esperance’, built in 1869 by T.B. Seath of Rutherglen, and which was the inspiration for Captain Flint’s houseboat in Swallows and Amazons. In the boathouse can be seen the ‘Swallow’ and the ‘Amazon’ as used in the 2016 film version of Arthur Ransome’s famous book.
Another boat built in Rutherglen was the steam yacht ‘Britannia’, owned by Col. John Ridehalgh. It was 107 feet long, and could carry up to 122 passengers. The model (below) was also made by Seaths.
Several boats were salvaged from underwater, including the ‘Esperance’, the hydroplane ‘White Lady II’ which sank in Windermere during a race in 1937, and the steam launch ‘Dolly’, raised from Ullswater in 1962, having sunk in 1895. Beatrix Potter’s flat-bottomed rowing boat sank in Moss Eccles tarn in 1950, and was brought up after 26 years at the bottom of the tarn.
August 2024
In the meantime here’s a photo of a survey team hard at work, unusually enjoying some sunny conditions, in the Halterburn Valley in the Scottish Borders.
