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Category Archives: ports
Floating cows and snarling dogs: William Mitchell of Maryport
There is a self-portrait of William Mitchell (1823–1900) in Maryport’s Maritime Museum [1], painted in 1899. Most of Mitchell’s other portraits are rather lacking in life, but he clearly knew himself better than his other subjects: the lower part of … Continue reading
Posted in art and science, coastal heritage, ports, ships
Tagged Collingwood, Maryport Maritime Museum
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The African Steam Ship Company, and the story of a piece of china
The shore at Parton, just North of Whitehaven, is a good place to find tiny sherds of pottery and china. Many of the fragments are of ‘blue and white’, of which some are willow-pattern – lucky finds are glimpses of … Continue reading
Posted in coastal heritage, Found Objects, industrial heritage, ports, ships
Tagged china, Macgregor Laird, pottery sherds, transfer-ware, West Africa trade
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Where ships meet …
Goldilocks would have liked the tanker Zapadnyy’s cargo: molasses, at just the right temperature, not too hot and not too cold. Transporting molasses is tricky – it must be kept fairly fluid, so heating coils warm it to 24oC in … Continue reading
Posted in coastal heritage, ports, ships
Tagged molasses, piloting, sandbanks, Silloth, Workington, Zapadnyy
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Port Carlisle: canals and ships and trains
(September 2020: you can now also view two videos about Port Carlisle, made for the launch of my book The Fresh and the Salt. The Story of the Solway: links are on the website.) When the tide is out, Port … Continue reading
Posted in coastal heritage, industrial heritage, ports, ships
Tagged canals, emigration, memories, railway, steamers, wharf
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Lighthouses of the Upper Solway: a guest post by Captain Chris Puxley
For many years, Captain Chris Puxley was Harbourmaster of the Port of Silloth and a ship’s pilot, bringing ships up the Solway’s unpredictable channels from Workington. He has always been interested in the Port’s history and has written a book … Continue reading
Posted in coastal heritage, Guest Posts, ports
Tagged lighthouses, Silloth
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The ‘Sir John Fisher’: a trip in a lifeboat from Workington to Whitehaven
“Ann? Come and stand here.” You don’t argue with John Stobbart, Coxwain of the Sir John Fisher. He’s a tall, imposing man with a gruff voice, and he’s standing at the wheel of Workington’s lifeboat – which is currently suspended … Continue reading
Posted in ports, RNLI, ships
Tagged lifeboats, Whitehaven, Workington
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Snippets 9: ‘Seeing’ the Solway’s bottom
“Between Solway Buoy and Corner Buoy, it’s a critical region, the region that gives us the most trouble. At Corner Buoy there’s a narrow corridor – that channel is our window [to Silloth], to the East of it are big … Continue reading
Posted in ports, sea-bed & undersea, Snippets
Tagged Associated British Ports, bathymetry, multibeam sonar, Silloth
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Piloting a ship up the Firth to Silloth
You have probably never thought what it would be like to pilot a ship: to be in charge of, say, a cargo vessel with a hold-full of sticky molasses, that is about to enter the narrow dock gates of a … Continue reading
Posted in ports, sea-bed & undersea, ships
Tagged buoys, cargo vessels, ship's pilots, ships, Silloth, Solway
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The Walls of Parton
‘Are you looking for the old port?’ The man seemed to have appeared from nowhere, yet he was tall and strongly built, white hair sticking up straight, not easy to overlook. ‘Port?’ I was bemused – I’d been poking at … Continue reading
Posted in coal, coastal heritage, fossils, industrial heritage, ports, sandstone, slag-banks, stones
Tagged coal, fossil plants, sandstone, ships, Solway
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Solway Shore-walker 