A Passage to

By Mark Wakelin

That Norwich is a fine city is well-known. That it was until quite recently a notable port is less widely remembered. The approach of a significant birthday provided an occasion which it seemed appropriate to mark, and what better way to do so than to remember Norwich’s link with the sea by visiting the port with a distinguished vessel, and holding a party on board?

The sailing barge Cambria was the last British merchant vessel to trade under sail alone under her well known owner/master Bob Roberts. She was, in her trading days, a regular visitor to the Port of Norwich, bringing about 180 tons of mustard seed to Colman’s and feedstuffs to Reads’ Mills. The last time she visited Norwich was in 1971, as part of a promotional tour when Bob Roberts was forced to cease trading and presented the barge to the Maritime Trust, just as her original builders, F.T. Everard & Co. had presented her to her long- term skipper about five years before. Under Maritime Trust ownership she was moored in St. Katherine’s Dock for public display but went progressively downhill until being moved to Sittingbourne, Kent. Successive efforts to preserve her failed for want of funds until, entirely derelict and flooding on every tide, the National Lottery came to her rescue. A grant of over one million pounds saw the start of a complete rebuild so that she is now fully restored and in full sailing commission, still with no engine. Truly she is a National Treasure!

Cambria’s owners, the Cambria Trust use her for charitable work based mainly at Faversham and Gillingham, Kent. Each year she has been taken on charter by the Sea-Change Sailing Trust, a charity based in Maldon, Essex, which provides seamanship training and character development using traditional vessels, especially for disadvantaged and socially excluded young people. In 2013 Sea-Change took Cambria on a very successful voyage to Wells-next-the-Sea, North , and another former barge port. For 2014 Sea-Change’s skipper Richard Titchener and Chair of Trustees Hilary Halajko were agreeable to making the Port of Norwich the destination for their summer voyage.

The last commercial ship to visit Norwich was in 1989, since when of course the A47 Southern Bypass has been built, in 1992, with the very much fixed and immovable Postwick Viaduct crossing the a short distance downriver of the City. With a fixed clearance of about 33 ft. (checked with a heavy hammer dangled on a long tape measure) it was clear that not only would Cambria’s lofty topmast, sprit and mainmast have to be lowered, but also her big ‘mulie’ mizzen, and her very long and heavy bowsprit would have to be brought inboard. Apart from the fixed bypass flyover, there are seven opening bridges across the rivers Yare and Wensum between Gt. Yarmouth and the turning basin near Norwich Station where Cambria must ‘swing’. While Haven Bridge, Breydon Bridge and Reedham Swing Bridge are regularly opened for river traffic, the same is not true of Trowse Rail Bridge, Carrow Road Bridge or the two new pedestrian bridges in Norwich’s riverside development. Pressure of rail movements over the fairly modern but only single track Trowse Bridge, coupled with a chronically unreliable operating system has meant that it can be opened only with seven days’ notice at 0200 – 0400 each day, with a gang of railway staff in attendance, and this has in turn meant that it is several years since the adjacent and venerable Carrow Road lifting bridge has been opened. By degrees Norwich’s historic link with the sea has withered, and its heritage as an inland port is dipping below the horizon of public consciousness. Clearly the skills of Network Rail’s and the County Council’s bridge engineers would be called upon to ensure that their recalcitrant structures would yield passage for the barge at the appropriate nocturnal moment. Inevitably this operation must have associated costs, but we felt it was something that needed to be done.

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Cambria never having been fitted with an engine, she would always have relied on towage to bring her the 28 miles upriver from , and a tug would be needed again this year. A plaintive letter to Trudi Wakelin Authority’s Director of Operations yielded the promise of the Authority’s tug Cannonbrook to tow the barge from Gt. Yarmouth to Norwich provided this entailed no overtime or weekend working.

The intention was that Cambria’s crew for the voyage would comprise largely young people with the benefit of sponsorship to subsidise their voyage costs. Very magnanimously the Crouch Harbour Authority agreed to 50% sponsor a number of berths on the passages up to and back from the Broads for youngsters from either the Maldon/Burnham areas, or from Norwich. Many letters were written to potential sources of young crew, and also to commercial organisations which might wish to be associated with the project or host a reception on board in Norwich.

The plan was that Cambria would depart from Maldon on Mon. 4th August 1914, but when they took over the barge at Gillingham the previous week Richard, Hilary and regular crew Stretch, Tom and Anna found her uncharacteristically sluggish and unhandy owing to a bumper crop of barnacles. Hasty arrangements were made to put the barge on the blocks at Pin Mill, followed by some hard graft with scrapers and shovels. The previous youth charter had agreed to move their departure point to enable this to happen. When the voyage crew boarded on Sunday 3rd August, anchored off the Clamp House below Pin Mill, she was clean as a whistle and getting underway the following morning she demonstrated the extraordinary handiness for which she was known: a yacht had anchored just downriver and outside our anchor berth, as yachts tend to do. There were light airs down river, and a swift ebb running, nonetheless Cambria broke out her anchor and gained way across wind and tide, hauling out into the channel well clear of the anchored boat, something very few yachts, much less sailing barges, could be expected to do. In those few minutes it was possible to see how the barge had earned her keep without an engine from her launching in 1906 until Bob Roberts was forced to yield in 1970. Like any sailing vessel, a barge must be clean to perform.

Among our crew for the passage was Capt. Phil Latham who escaped from office life when 19 years old to join Bob Roberts as mate in the Cambria for five years in the mid-1960s. Phil remained at sea until he retired, as Master for many years in Everard’s motor ships. Cambria’s nimble exit from the anchorage was no surprise to him, for he remembered her always as a handy and able vessel.

We sailed gently before a light north-westerly breeze down the Orwell, aiming to run the last of the ebb out of Harwich Harbour. Our breeze failed us however and backed southerly. We were unable to make ground over the young flood so it was down with the anchor on Harwich Shelf, and wait in the sunshine for the afternoon breeze which duly arrived and filled in nicely from just east of south. A couple of boards round Landguard Point and we were away, with the sprit well over the port rail for Orford Ness around high-water. Inside the river we could spy the gear of Mirosa on her holidays. Then a wonderful fair wind and tide past Aldeburgh and across Sole Bay at splendid speed, running through the Newcombe Channel into North Road at dusk. We finally anchored in Yarmouth Roads off Gorleston in the gloaming. Arrangements had been made with Great Yarmouth Pilot Richard Gavin for the Yarmouth pilot vessel to tow the barge into the harbour if needed, but we were well ahead of our anticipated ETA and when the ideal moment for entering Yarmouth arrived, that is on the last of the ebb stream about two hours after Gorleston low water, the wind obliged us by continuing to blow at about force three and just east of south, ideal conditions to take the entrance under sail. So enter we did, and sailed right up to our berth on South Quay, a sight not seen in Yarmouth pier heads for many a year. We arrived just on low water slack, and swung to moor head down ,

A Passage to Norwich by Mark Wakelin Page 2 then later swung again on the first of the ebb so as to be ready to move on through Haven Bridge when the tug arrived, which was arranged for Friday 9th August.

But before that there was work to do: first of all the mizzen mast must be lowered. Cambria is a big coasting barge, with a big barge’s ‘mulie’ mizzen, stepped in an open-fronted mast case just abaft the main horse. While smaller river barges often lowered their much smaller mizzen masts, it was unusual for a mulie mizzen to be lowered in trade. Firstly the mizzen gaff, boom and sail must be unbent and stowed on the main hatch. Then the mizzen mast itself must be lowered forward, supported on its way down by the topsail sheet from the peak of the sprit. The mizzen mast on Cambria is long enough to reach just forward of the mainmast when lowered so the mizzen must be guided to land on a substantial prop rigged just to port of the mainmast. This was achieved without mishap (although it clearly tested the strength of the topsail sheet), albeit we realised the real challenge would come when it was time to pull the mizzen up again.

Next the bowsprit: Cambria’s bowsprit is a mighty spar which, when stowed upright reaches almost as high as the hounds. It is too high for the fixed bridge and it would be asking for trouble to leave it down projecting over the bow and unsupported by the jib stay, because the mainmast also had to be lowered. So inboard it must come. We had some difficulty driving out the massive bolt which locates the bowsprit heel to the centre pawl post of the windlass, having first of course rigged tackles to prevent the bowsprit making an uncontrolled charge inboard under the very substantial load of the jibstay which was also supporting its outer end and the very heavy chain bobstay, footropes, netting and shrouds suspended therefrom. Then a delicate operation to ease the bowsprit inboard, balancing the loads on the jibstay and those on the preventer tackle, to bring the spar to rest with the outer end now supported on the bow rail and the heel now lashed securely on the jibstay winch starboard side of the mainmast. These tasks achieved, all hands repaired to the Mariners’ Arms!

The tug Cannonbrook was ordered for Friday 9th morning, with Haven Bridge booked for 1030. The tug arrived on Thursday afternoon, being able to pass under the bridge without opening near low water. Then followed a rather tense period of negotiation regarding liabilities during the towage operation. We had agreed to accept the ‘Towcon’ standard towage agreement which reasonably protects the tugowner’s interests and had been agreed by Cambria’s insurers. However, the Broads Authority had been advised to augment this with an additional agreement which would have left Cambria with substantial potential uninsured liability, which Richard felt unable to accept. A night of intensive texting followed, during which it seemed likely that the wheels may have fallen off our plans. However thanks to the persistence and goodwill of Adrian Vernon of the Broads Authority, and the willingness of their lawyers to compromise at very unsocial hours, a deal was reached about five minutes before Haven Bridge lifted, and away up the river we went!

The tug Cannonbrook is a venerable former London ‘Tosher’ tug, with a splendid Gardner 6LW diesel, precisely the right kit for lugging old sailing barges around, under control of her skipper Mark Bell, assisted by not one but two broads Authority ‘mud pilots’ – Robin Bowling who is soon to retire from that role and his ‘apprentice’ Cyril Varley whose day job is master of East Coast Sail Trust’s barge Thalatta. Robin and Cyril have worked together for years in coasting ships and their involvement was largely out of affection for the barge and in support of our aim of being able to get a rigged barge into Norwich. It went down in the log as a ‘training exercise’!

Because our arrangement with BA meant we would have to pay overtime rates if we used the tug at the weekend we had arranged with David Archer, proprietor of Reedham Ferry Inn, for the barge to lie there over the weekend. Alone among Broads landlords, David and his family have been in charge at the Ferry for more than sixty years, and David remembers routinely having to drop the ferry chains for the passage of ships on

A Passage to Norwich by Mark Wakelin Page 3 the Norwich navigation, and Cambria passing up and down the river past the pub. What better place to stop and celebrate that birthday, which by now had developed into an Engagement Party too! David and his team catered splendidly for our bash, the affair being greatly enlivened by appearance of the wonderful and strictly non-PC ‘Heaving Cleavages.’ The intention had been to have the band playing in a gazebo on the pub’s moorings, but the arrival of hurricane Bertha (or the remnants thereof) put paid to that plan, and the pub sportingly cleared the restaurant to allow the band to perform inside.

We had left the mainmast, topmast and sprit standing while the party took place, so first thing Monday morning it was down with the gear, converting the reasonably orderly scene on deck to the traditional chaos. Nonetheless Cannonbrook and her crew promptly arrived ready for us to run the last of the flood upriver towards Norwich. Now with everything down Postwick Viaduct posed no obstruction and we enjoyed an uneventful tow upriver to the ‘Bus Stop’ ferry staging at Whitlingham Country Park, close to Trowse Eye, there to await the hoped for opening of Trowse Rail Bridge in the wee small hours. While I am certain the Broads Authority staff would have been willing to muster at 0200 to take us into the City, that was not the deal, so we needed another tow through the Norwich bridges. We had arrangements for this but we were let down, and we were intending to tow the barge using the barge’s own dinghy which has a fairly big outboard, and hoping for a still night. To our great relief, Messrs Broom of Brundall came to our rescue, allowing us to borrow their yard tug Sweeper to pull the barge into Norwich through Trowse, Carrow, Novi Sad and Lady Julian Bridges. Without it we would have struggled. Broom’s reputation is founded on building fine modern motor yachts. We really appreciated their willingness to support our old commercial sailing barge and we think the late and much-missed Martin Broom would have approved!

At 0200 we got underway from Whitlingham, the night being thankfully calm and brightly moon-lit. At first Trowse Bridge proved reluctant to yield to its own electronic safety systems, but after about three quarters of an hour spent hanging on the bridge fendering the apprentice (David from Colchester) was able to apply himself to the winch handles and swing the bridge open, for such, we were told, is appropriate toil for apprentices. If he thinks that was hard work he should try a sailing barge!

Carrow Bridge rose silently and precisely on cue. Built as a job creation exercise in the 1920s it works well with its original machinery and will hopefully be maintained in working order. We wanted to go straight up to the turning basin and swing before returning to our berth on the former Corporation Quay, near the swimming pool and directly opposite Cambria’s old discharging berth at Reads’ Mill, so Novi Sad bridge had been left standing open for us. We towed dead slow up towards Lady Julian Bridge while the County Council’s bridge team ran – yes ran! – along to open the Bridge.

Lady Julian is the most recent of the Norwich opening bridges. It is quite an elegant structure and currently forms the studio backdrop to the local news programme on Anglia TV, but few people will know that the design of the bridge was intended to be reminiscent of a motor barge’s small derrick, when they used to carry their barge boat on the main hatches, formerly a frequent sight in Norwich port. Although recently-built, and, we believe never previously opened for the passage of a seagoing vessel, Lady Julian bridge was designed some years ago when there seemed a prospect that it might be necessary for sizeable vessels to access the turning basin, and although that sadly seems fanciful today, we can be thankful that the City Council kept the developers to their commitment to build a no doubt expensive swing bridge.

We completed our swing in the turning basin without touching the sides – just – and returned downriver to our berth, getting alongside at about 0400 Tuesday 12th August. We reckoned that the residents in the modern flats opposite might think ‘the musical clink of the pawls’ overrated at that hour so it was later that morning

A Passage to Norwich by Mark Wakelin Page 4 that it was hands to the windlass to raise the mainmast and sprit, and raise the topmast too, so that the public might come aboard a vessel which looked less as though it had been wrecked, with reduced risk of breaking their necks! We had learned that the Trust’s would be in Norwich on Wednesday 13th August, and open to the public as part of her regular summertime tour of the Broads, so we arranged that she should moor adjacent to us on the former Corporation Quay. She arrived on Wednesday morning, silently gliding under Carrow Bridge and instantly and soundlessly raising her unstayed and counterbalanced mast, thereby demonstrating the unique quality of the wherry’s design. Some well-crafted press releases ensured that she, and we received good and well-illustrated publicity in the local media and television, focussing on the theme “the last engineless trading wherry meets the last engineless British merchant ship in the Port of Norwich’. There was a particularly good photo in the Eastern Daily Press showing barge and wherry moored head to head opposite Reads’ Mill, to which they had both been regular traders. The press coverage resulted in very good attendance when barge and wherry were open to the public that day and we like to think we stirred some public reflection on Norwich’s important past as an inland port. Particularly interesting was a visit from Reg Dann, whose father was for many years Bridgemaster of Carrow Bridge, with several albums of rare photographs of vessels operating in the Port of Norwich.

Bob Roberts was quite a noted traditional singer and ‘box player’ and it seemed appropriate to hold a session of ‘Flying Folk’ on the barge. ‘Flying Folk’ is a well-established but utterly informal group of traditional singers and musicians who meet one Saturday each month in different, and it seems often obscure, pubs around the county to interrupt the locals’ conversation with bucolic songs and arcane melodies in return for sandwiches of varying quality. The weather remained accommodating and on Wednesday 13th upwards of fifty ‘Flying Folk’ regulars turned up to sing on Cambria’s deck, a sound not often heard these days around Norwich’s Riverside quarter. The City Council had been apprehensive that our unamplified vocals might disturb the residents of the posh flats in the converted mill building across the river, but the chairman of the residents committee, who visited the barge in the morning, invited us to sing just as loud as we liked!

On Thursday it was down again with the mast ready for departure early on Friday morning. Again with Brooms’ Sweeper on our head Carrow Bridge rose smoothly to the vertical, and this time the apprentice had done his work good and early so Trowse Bridge was open ready for us. We returned to the Whitlingham ferry jetty to await Cannonbrook’s arrival at 0500 to tow us downriver, which she did through a beautiful calm, sunlit morning with mist rising above the meadows opposite Bramerton and . Cannonbrook hustled us down river, aiming to hit the gap in the rail timetable which allows Reedham Bridge a theoretical opening window at about 1015, and then Breydon Bridge to lift at 1215. All was going well until the Reedham bridgeman announced he was, for a reason unspecified, unable to open at 1015. He would open at 1115. With a strong ebb under us our pilot’s hastiy decided to round up in the slightly wider reach above Chet mouth, which was a touch hairy but was achieved without mishap, so we were Hardley Cross! (Local joke – Ed.) At the appointed time we swung off the mooring again heading for Reedham Bridge, being assured that the next train was less than a minute late and the bridge would open. Just below Reedham Ferry the bridgeman announced ‘sorry, the train is eight minutes late – you’ll have to wait”. Not so easy with a 90 ft. barge on the end of your towrope and still a strong ebb stream running. Nonetheless Mark managed to swing us again in the bight just above Brit House. When the time came we swung off again with a slip rigged around the BA ‘no mooring in the bends’ sign – very useful!

The delays with the bridge had also frustrated the Green Wyverns’ cruise in company and when it eventually opened their fleet of beautiful broads sailing cruisers crewed by young people squared away for the bridge, with Cannonbrook and barge closing fast from behind. Predictably the yachts found fluking airs as they

A Passage to Norwich by Mark Wakelin Page 5 approached the bridge and Cambria, with no way of slowing, avoided collecting Sparklet as a bonnet mascot in Reedham bridge passage by the narrowest of margins. It takes more than this to faze the Green Wyverns!

The delays at Reedham, which really were very frustrating and demonstrated clearly how far we have strayed from the statutory position that the railway must not obstruct the river, meant that we missed the booked opening of Breydon Bridge, potentially critical as passage through Breydon Bridge and Haven Bridge may only and with good reason be made against the flood tide. We had to lie alongside the lay-by berth at Cobholm, rather uncomfortably as there was now a very fresh wind blowing across Breydon from the northwest. However the Yarmouth bridges were able to arrange a special lift at 1315, still in time before slackwater so that we were able to return directly to our berth on Hall Quay. Having mustered at 0500 in order to save our tide through the Yarmouth bridges, had Reedham Bridge spoiled that plan, it would not have been a case of Hardley Cross at all! (second local joke – Ed.)

Saturday saw the laborious resurrection of S.B. Cambria as a seagoing sailing vessel. Everything in reverse order: up mast, up topmast, re-rig bowsprit (quite a challenging operation) and re-insert heel pin, and lastly raise and re-rig the mizzen. This operation had been bothering us: the mizzen mast is a very heavy spar to lift almost vertical with the topsail sheet, even led to the winch barrels on the mast case. Further, because the sprit is well forward of the mizzen, the topsail sheet cannot raise the mast to vertical – the last 20 degrees or so can only be done by bending a line to the mizzen aft shroud each side and leading it to the leeboard winch via a snatch block stropped to the saddle chock (the very solid timber running across the stern of the barge). The geometry of this appears less than propitious. However, needs must, and actually we were greatly relieved that the topsail sheet quite readily lifted the mast as far as it would go, and more comforting still the shrouds, heaved in by the leeboard winches, quite ably restored the mast the last few degrees to the vertical. It is an astonishing fact that with the application of some basic seamanship the barge’s traditional hand powered windlass, mast winches and crab (leeboard) winches provide the means for a small (but it must be said necessarily fit) crew to rig and dismantle the vessels entire apparel without shore assistance.

Sunday and the crew enjoyed a very well earned rest. Phil had to leave us to catch the ferry back to his home in France. Stretch was due back, having spent the week as mate with another Sea-Change charter on the Reminder. Richard had arranged the pilot boat to assist us out of Yarmouth Harbour if necessary, against the last of the flood stream just after high water on Monday afternoon. However for the last three days the wind had been blowing at varying strength from a generally northwesterly direction which raised the engaging prospect that we might be able to exit Yarmouth harbour as we had arrived – under sail! We didn’t think we would be so lucky, but when the appointed hour arrived, 1500 on Monday 18 August, about an hour after Gorleston HW, Richard dropped both leeboards into the still vigorous flood stream and notwithstanding that the fresh wind was definitely ‘on’, Cambria unstuck herself from her berth and sheered spiritedly off into the river, with no assistance required from the waiting pilot boat. Rapidly ‘up topsail’ and she began to stem the flood. ‘Up foresail’ and a few cloths of the mainsail and she forged off down the harbour over the tide, between the moored rig ships. We ran right down the harbour without a gybe until Brush Bend just inside the harbour mouth. There we had a moment’s anxiety as a fresh gust of wind coincided with the barge’s head entering the set of tide round the bend and she hesitated to answer her helm, but only for a moment, and Pilot Richard Gavin steered her out through the powerful eddy off the south pierhead, before jumping for his launch.

Outside the harbour the wind remained a moderate northwesterly. As we had run down the harbour a hand on a rig support vessel had shouted that it was rough outside. There was a heavy ground swell running in the

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Roads, speaking of big waves to the north, but there was enough weight in the wind to keep our gear quiet as we ran south and out of the Newcombe Channel, finally exhausting our fair tide somewhere around Benacre Ness. Our progress through Sole Bay was a lot slower than on the passage north, a case of ‘sun down, wind down’, but when the ebb had done its worst we found fair tide again near Aldeburgh Napes and by midnight we again had a fresh wind, now with more west than north in it. Cambria picked up her skirts and cantered past Orford Ness, now unforgiveably denuded of its proper light to the eternal shame of the Trinity. We could not quite weather the Whiting Bank and, to avoid passing seaward of the Cork we put in a single board towards Woodbridge Haven, then across the Harwich ship channel at about 9 knots and into the Wallet. The wind freshened and backed so Cambria closed the Gunfleet below the Spitway and then it was quite a hard beat to the Colne Bar and eventually to anchor just below West Mersea Nass a little after 0800 on Tuesday 19th August.

Underway again on Tuesday afternoon and it was tack and tack up the Blackwater to be met by Nigel Cardy’s launch off Heybridge Basin at about 1915, to pluck us up to Maldon Hythe. And so our voyage was complete. We had proved it was still possible to get a rigged barge into the Port of Norwich. We had lots of help from people and organisations for which we are truly grateful, and of which we think they should be proud! Sadly the world will have to change beyond recognition before any seagoing cargo vessel will ever again visit the port, but we hope that other barges and other seagoing craft will again lend dignity to the city’s historic quays in the foreseeable future!

Since the visit Network rail have published their consultation for the strategy for the next fifteen years. It has achieved some notoriety in the media as the idea of getting to Norwich from London in 90 minutes appears to mean the closure of several rural level crossings cutting villages in two. What is less well-known is that six options are given for the future of the Trowse Rail Bridge. From the tale of the visit of Cambria, it will be apparent what a thorn in their side is the bridge to Network Rail, so it is unsurprising that four of the six options are for a fixed alternative. If you want anything other than small vessel to be able to continue to navigate into the heart of the City then please make your views known. Otherwise, at least it is appropriate that the last of the sailormen was the last vessel of any size to visit Norwich.

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