Tag: London

Yachting archive to preserve sailing’s heritage launched by Clare Francis

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bnya_logo

Growing concern about loss of historically significant information has prompted the formation of a new charity, the British National Yachting Archive.

If you can remember web addresses, it’s at: http://www.bnya.org.uk.

The launch itself took place at the London Boat Show yesterday evening and was announced officially by Association of Yachting Historians president, novelist and sailor Clare Francis.

The new organisation says it hopes to:

• Promote the preservation of sailing’s heritage
• Establish a knowledge base of yachting heritage and provide public access
• Facilitate the presentation and display of yachting heritage at appropriate museums and other organisations
• Provide grants, bursaries and scholarships for those who would advance knowledge and understanding of yachting heritage

It also hopes to find homes for private collections, many of which have no future once their owner passes on and are frequently lost.

‘It also hopes to find homes for private collections,
many of which have no future once their owner
passes on and are frequently lost.’

The Archive will represent a broad definition of sailing including dinghy sailing and motor boating, as well as all the support industries. It will be a a virtual archive with web-based resources that identify and link to information wherever it resides, including clubs, classes, museums, businesses and the media.

As much of material is not stored or catalogued to archival standards, help and advice will be provided where necessary, and in the longer term, the BNYA hopes to digitise large amounts of material to facilitate easy access.

The BNYA is a membership-based charity, with membership fees used to further the work of the Archive and jointly fund grant-aided projects – chairman David Elliott says that there is a great deal of catching up to do, so membership needs to build quickly.

Some of the first research projects will be to collect oral histories, and the BNYA has a growing list of people it feels should be interviewed as soon as possible. That makes a lot of sense to me, as it seems clear that too many people have passed on without having their memories recorded.

Download a pdf explaining the BNYA’s background here.

Christmas 12th Night celebrations on the River Thames with the Lion’s Part

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holly-man-arrives holly-man-addresses-the-crowd

The Holly Man arrives and addresses the crown outside the Globe Theatre on
London’s South Bank. As usual, click on the thumbnails for larger photos

We travelled to the South Bank of the River Thames in London today to see the Holly Man land from a Thames waterman’s cutter and the doughty Lion’s Part perform their carols and Mumming Play. I didn’t get the name of the boat type correct to begin with – so thanks to Chris Partridge for his comment below.

I brought along my fiddle to lend a hand with the music, but by golly it was cold for a fiddler’s fingers. Julie meanwhile took these photos despite the considerable crowd.

The play was as topical and amusing as one could wish, and The Lion’s Part’s troupe of professional actors includes some very sharp performers. I was particularly impressed with their Doctor – the Doctor in these plays always has the best part, but this particular one seemed to have been born to play it.

See  similar intheboatshed.net post from last year: http://intheboatshed.net/?p=276


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The play in progress; the Turkish Knight; musicians and crowd

Thames shipwrecks: a race against time – programme 2

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The Dovenby

This summer the Port of London Authority and Wessex Archaeology is clearing a collection of shipwrecks from the Thames Estuary as part of a continuing programme to ensure that the river channel remains open to the world’s largest ships.

TV company Touch Productions has been on hand to capture the events as they happen, and the first of two Thames shipwrecks: a race against time programmes was shown on BBC a few days ago. For those who missed it I thought it would be good to mention some of the material here at intheboatshed.net.

The first programme focused on how the Thames has been fought over for centuries, and some of the ship wrecks that these struggles have left behind. In Programme Two, the TV company turned to the story of the British Empire, trade and shipping, with the Thames packed with thousands of ships and working boats.

The Dovenby

The Dovenby was sunk on her way back to London carrying guano. She was one of thousands of trading ships that made Britain the greatest trading nation the world had ever known. She and her self-made shipowner captain travelled the world, from Peru to Australia, San Francisco to Canada, at a time when 80 per cent of ships launched worldwide were built in British yards.

The programme examined the geophysics of the wreck, examined parts of her lifted from the sea bed, and showed the programme-makers having some fun sailing a Dovenby-like sailing barque.

Unknown Wreck 5051

This is a mystery ship, and one of hundreds that lie beneath the Thames. Various finds suggest that she sank in the mid-Victorian era, but what she was, what she was used for and who manned her remain unknown, although it is established that she had strong ties to the port of Woolwich.

The brick barge

The Thames barge is an icon famous in literature and paintings. For centuries, the barge was the main way of moving material from London to the smaller towns along the river. There were so many of these vessels that it was sometimes possible to walk across the Thames by stepping from barge to barge.

The programme looked at the lives of the people who lived and worked on these ships, the lightermen, the wherrymen and the thousands of others who lived on the river, and also the archaelogy of barges in general.

All that is known about the brick barge is that she sank on her way into London at the turn of the century, but the programme-makers took the opportunity to explore the history of barges on the Thames, for which we have some classic archaeological examples, including the 2nd century Blackfriars barge from the Roman era, a 15th century barge also found on the Thames, and the 17th century Shakespeare barge, which was also carrying bricks on the day she sank – although in her case the bricks were to be used in the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666.

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