Bristol Channel Shipping
Evocative memories of the ships that could once be seen in the Bristol Channel. The Bristol Channel outside the ports of Avonmouth and Portishead was a very different place in the years before the war. A former Bristol tug-man and sailor, who likes to be known simply as Seven Bells, painted a wonderfully evocative picture of the time when the Channel was one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
The Bristol Channel down to Barry Roads was a panoramic feast for ship-lovers on a weekend summers-evening he reminisced. 'Tramps' primarily British - outward bound with coal for the power and bunkering stations of the whole world.' ...
Flat irons so named for their appearance; Dandies, rust streaked deep sea trawlers out of Cardiff: French fruit schooners, elegant Fyffes- liners and four masted Bibby boats from Rangoon; New Zealand Shipping Company up to load steel at Newport or discharge meat at Avonmouth; the Paddy Henderson Line, Bristol City Line, Shire Line, Clan, Ellermans, Brocklebank, Osborne and Wahis, Campbell's White Funnel steamers, San tankers ( Eagle Oil ), BTC tankers; 'Most were sailing under the Red Duster' a never ending, changing scene.
Seven Bells, who came from Pill, started work as ship's boy with the Commonwealth Towing Company of Avonmouth on the steam tug Triton. -The Triton was a lovely craft, 129 ft long - a coal burner built by Cox & Co. of Falmouth,- he recalled. The other tugs in the company were the Steelopolis, Falcon, Mercia, and Wolflhound. Triton had very grand accommodation - a forward saloon with a beautiful mahogany table, two separate cabins, ornate with red cushions and tooled brass chandelier-style lights, for the captain and chief engineer. But the accommodation was never used.
The lifting of the port and starboard lights into their boxes taxed my strength to the limit, and when the extra masthead light ( to denote towing ) had to go up in its cage, it was only just possible for me to manage. We did all our ablutions on the stoke-hold plates in the warm, each with our own bucket. But after a long tide, how snug and cosy the wood panelled fo'c'sle was with the bogie bright red, the double burning oil lamp casting its warm glow, the rain lashing down and wind howling outside:
Deep water sailing ships were still common and the Triton would go 'seeking' as they reached Lundy and found themselves fighting adverse winds. There the masters were asked if they would 'take steam' - and most were happy to do so in the treacherous Channel.
Among them was the Viking, the last deep water square rigger into Sharpness; the Archibald Russell from Finland; and the five masted schooner Edna Hoyt. The Triton once met the Edna Hoyt by the English and Welsh Grounds lightship in thick fog, and was amazed to hear the sound of music. A venerable old gentleman - the captain - was sitting in a whicker chair, playing the banjo surrounded by his crew, all negroes, in various attitudes of repose singing spirituals. It was an astounding sight: Sadly, the Edna Hoyt and her musical crew were later lost in a Bay of Biscay gale...
Seven Bells later transferred to R & J. H. Rca's Islegarth which towed coal barges to Newport and ships into the Channel ports. -It was a hard tough life, especially for a boy; he remembered. Paraffin dynamo, copper navigation lights, brass lights in two small cabins, compass lights - all had to be highly polished. -The routine was away on the morning tide with the barge, back in the evening to Avonmouth Old Dock and so on throughout the week, weather permitting:
The coal barges - Axe, Char, Kenn, Tenie, Lynn, and Usk - were strongly built two-masters with a crew of five, which were used to bunker ( refuel ) the famous Elders and Fyffes liners. The barges carried 500 tons of coal so it took four barge loads to refuel a ship with a floating steam grab crane called Avongarth.
Despite the hazardous nature of their calling, I don't think one barge was ever lost although a couple parted tows in bad weather said Seven Bells. They did yeoman work during the last war, carrying all sorts of cargoes to the Channel ports, but with the loss of Fyffes from Avonmouth, their calling came to an end.
The Avongarth was towed back to Rotterdam where she originated, and a unique form of work for many people came to an end.
Bristol Channel Pirates
The Bristol Channel towns were once targets for pirates slavers and the dreaded corsairs from Algeria. While Bristol pirates were off plundering Spanish treasure ships, other freebooters were turning the tables by raiding the Bristol Channel.
The feared Algerian corsairs sailed up from the Barbary Coast ( North Africa ) to harass ships and even attack coastal towns. In 1630, for instance, corsairs landed near Weston-super-Mare and carried off men and women from a village.
They joined the 30,000 slaves from Britain, France, Spain and as far north as Iceland, who were used as slave labour in Algeria and Morocco. They got much better treatment, and sometimes freedom and honoured positions, if they agreed to become Muslims. One Minehead youth did just that before escaping and returning home in Moorish costume. It was hardly worth the effort - he was strongly criticised for his heathen attire and attacked in a sermon for changing his religion.
The corsairs, like pirates before and after them, used Lundy Island as a base. The Vikings had found it ideal for channel raiding years before, and a twelfth-century Lord of Lundy, William de Marisco, turned to piracy after his father quarrelled with King Henry II. Lundy flourished on pirate loot until 1242 when de Marisco was captured. He gained a dubious place in history as the first person to be hanged, drawn and quartered as a legal punishment
An Englishman called Salkeld actually staged a coronation ceremony at which he was to be crowned Pirate King of Lundy in the early seventeenth century. He was only stopped by the intervention of militia men led by the mayor of Barnstaple.
Salkeld's gang were mainly French pirates, who operated from Lundy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They did rather better than the Danish buccaneers who took refuge on Flat Holm and Steep Holm islands, off Weston-super-Mare, who starved to death when the weather stopped them from leaving.
