The Skylark and name plates at the Brighton Fishing Museum
The photos above show the figurehead of one of the legendary series of boats named Skylark used for ‘pleasuring’ off Brighton Beach, now found at the Brighton Fishing Museum, together with the beach punt Sussex Maid and a selection of name boards.
The Skylarks were very well known indeed, and there is still a generation of older men who call out ‘All aboard the Skylark‘ whenever a group of people board a train, bus or boat together.
We dropped by for a visit just after Christmas as part of a birthday treat (for me, actually). The museum’s well worth visiting, not least the boards explaining Brighton’s pleasure boat trade – despite its name, pleasure boating occupies just about as much of the museum as the fishing trade.
While we were there, I also took a few snaps of the exhibits outside the museum.
More exhibits at Brighton Fishing Museum
For some reason we also dropped by the marina where we didn’t find too much wooden boat interest, but did come across a boat for sale (the telephone number’s just about visible in the pic below, if anyone’s interested), a rather coyly-dressed double-ender (is it a Hillyard?) and a nicely looked after fishing boat.I guess that’s a better haul than might have been expected!
I wondered where that phrase came from!
my great, great, great, great, great, grandfather actully owned the skylark and he would shout all abord the skylark so that he could take the day traders out.
Lots of seaside towns had excursion boats called the Skylark, including Ventnor, Scarborough and Chalkwell. It must have been a familar name to attract tourists