5
Black Water
As the deserted, grass-grown quaysides remember the busy tides of other days which brought a bustling throng of sailormen to moor along them, to lift their ringbolts and slip in the big bowlines of head and stern ropes and then to lumber them with dark coal or bright timber, straw in stacks or beer in barrels. The mud in the channels sighs as the receding tide leaves it to bubble and whisper. The ghosts of the old-timers haunt these places still.
– Last Stronghold of Sail, Hervey Benham, 1948
It was an unseasonably cold October morning when I arrived at Hythe Quay in Maldon, on the banks of the River Blackwater, a tributary to the Thames Estuary on the Essex coast. Snow was falling as I stood and watched a flock of white mute swans glide silently past the dark hulls of about a dozen Thames barges double-berthed alongside the wharf. The criss-cross of masts, wrapped and tied with red-ochre sails, stood out against the indistinct landscape behind of wide-open, heavy, grey skies and flat salt marsh fringed with clusters of sea-lavender. Despite the weather, there were a number of people sitting opposite the quayside outside the Jolly Sailor, enjoying the picturesque scene. Hundreds of visitors come to the historic maritime town every week to see the largest surviving fleet of Thames barges in existence. Seafood stalls, oyster bars, cafés and ice-cream parlours line the harbour now, replacing the docks and warehouses that once filled this busy working port, in its time an important landing place for cargo vessels transporting goods up to London.
I joined a small queue of other people who had booked the boat trip; we stood near a row of black weatherboard cottages on the harbour before making our way cautiously along a wooden gangway on to a beautifully restored Thames barge belonging to local company Topsail Charters. The wooden deck was covered in a slippery film of sleet by the time we got on board. Snow had started to settle on piles of rope coiled up on the hatches. I went straight down into the oak-panelled hold, which smelt of tar, wood and paraffin. Long tables lined with chairs ran along each side of the large, open space; a roaring log-burning stove stood at the far end. After being given a welcome cup of hot chocolate, we were asked to sit down around the fire for a briefing before we set sail.
Our skipper, Paul Jeffries, told us that Thistle had originally been owned by a coal merchant from Battersea. The barge had had a regular passage transporting ‘black diamonds’ from the Humber down to the London docks. Sometimes she might have carried a mixed freight, picking up extra cash delivering something specific to London – a piano, perhaps, or a single barrel of linseed oil. He described a tough working life on board, governed by the tides. Members of the crew were paid for by the freight, their income entirely at the mercy of the weather.
The first Thames barges were small lighters with sails and were used in the upper part of the river for moving goods to the London dockside from big ships moored further out. As the city expanded, barges started working down in the inner reaches and were built flat-bottomed so they could move easily around the tidal creeks and shallow waters of the Estuary. Gradually, the designs became more refined: the bows got smoother, the rigs grew larger, the lines became more seaworthy. The boats began trading across to the continent, down to Cornwall, up to the east coast, Newcastle and over to the Channel Islands. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were about two thousand barges working in the Thames Estuary and along the east and south coasts. They were highly economical, as they could sail without loading ballast with a crew of just a man (the skipper) and a boy (the mate). Most had a dog on board as well, for security, and some of the bigger coasting barges employed a third hand.
Every barge was slightly different, but they all had certain characteristics in common, such as leeboards on either side, a spritsail rig with a long diagonal spar holding up the mainsail, flat bottoms and red sails. Traditionally, these sails were dressed with a waterproofing and a rot-proofing material that contained a lot of grease, tallow and fish oil; red-ochre colouring was added to make them look more attractive. ‘The old dressing never dried. It used to stink and, when you were stowing the sails, you’d be as red as the sail. Synthetic materials are used now, which are more user-friendly,’ Paul explained. ‘We do a lot of events on the barge. I’m sure you can imagine we wouldn’t want people getting covered in red stains from dirty, smelly old sails sliding from side to side whilst they are in their wedding best!’
He led us back up on deck. Thistle’s mainsail had been set; the barge was rigged to depart. We were heading out on a two-hour nature cruise upriver, towards the remote Osea Island, which has become a haven for wintering birds, who migrate there every year in their hundreds of thousands to feed off the algae-rich saltings and tidal mudflats of the Blackwater.
By the time we slipped our mooring, it was snowing heavily. The majority of the group returned to the warm hold below, but I sat out on deck and watched as Paul effortlessly manoeuvred the heavy boat up the salty tideway. Soon, the tumble of old houses and pubs in the harbour and the steep spire of the medieval church of St Mary’s on the hill behind had been left astern.
The barge sailed almost silently along the narrow river, although the sound of the boat cutting through the water and the creak of old wood were ever present. There was barely any discernible movement up on deck, just a gentle rocking forward and aft. Thistle’s red sails billowed gently in the wind. The flat marshland landscape around us almost disappeared in the white mist. By the time we reached the spit at the far end of Promenade Park, I could make out through the fog only the outstretched arm of the bronze statue of the Anglo-Saxon leader Byrhtnoth, who fought against Viking invaders there during the Battle of Maldon in AD 991.
The course of the river twisted and turned. Soon, we reached Heybridge Basin, the entrance to the Chelmer and Blackwater Canal, where Dutch eel boats once sold live eels from boxes on the dockside and traders arrived in schooners filled with timber from Scandinavia. A few yachts and some old barges were moored in the basin as we passed by. I spotted one I recognized – an old coaster called Raybell, built over ninety years ago and long since fallen into disrepair. Her current owner, Rob Sargent, had been attempting to restore her single-handedly, making slow but steady progress during the past five years. Restorations like this are rare and ambitious projects. The passion and dedication of amateur enthusiasts like Rob are as vital to preserving the heritage of the Thames barges as initiatives such as those undertaken by Topsail Charters.
I sat up on deck, chatting with Paul Jeffries about the future of the Thames barges, as we sailed out towards the Estuary. I had told Paul about my book project before the journey, and he was keen to share his stories and considerable knowledge with me.
About a mile east from Maldon, on the banks of the Blackwater, we arrived at Northey Island; the site of the oldest-recorded battlefield in Britain, which was used by Viking raiders as a base during the Battle of Maldon. This uninhabited, wild place is cut off from the mainland at high tide. Access to the island is by private arrangement only. Birdwatchers are the most regular human visitors now, going there to see the great throngs of Brent geese who descend on the island every winter, along with redshank and plover. A low mist obscured the island from view as we passed, but we could hear seabirds calling in the distance.
Before the island became a nature reserve, it was one of many popular wildfowling spots along this coastline. Local fishermen and oyster-catchers once earned an extra living in the winter months by shooting marsh birds. Some made their own clinker-built punts, which they took out amongst the creeks; others walked out on the mud with eight-bore shotguns and a gun dog in tow to stalk the immense gatherings of Brent geese, widgeon, mallard and teal that used to arrive on the Estuary mudflats in hard weather. During particularly cold winters, the skies around these places would be darkened by thousands of wildfowl. Most fishermen-fowlers lived in the little villages dotted around the banks of the Blackwater, such as Maldon, Bradwell and Mersea, as well as in Wakering and Foulness, further down the Essex coast.
One such fisherman-fowler was Rob Smith, Thames Water chief sewer flusher. In his youth, Rob worked as an oyster dredgeman, picking oysters by hand at low tide from the Essex mudflats. His target was ten thousand oysters per tide. Occasionally, he wore gloves, but usually he would just plaster up his fingertips to protect them from the sharp edges of the shells. In the winter, he went wildfowling on the salt marshes. He comes from the small village of Wakering, from a long line of bargemen. ‘One of them, for bets, used to swim underneath four barges tied alongside each other. There must be some of that madness left in the bloodline, as that is just the sort of thing that I would do,’ he said. Once, in the middle of February, he shot two mallards, which fell into the middle of the creek. His dog was not with him, so he had to dive into the icy water and retrieve the ducks himself.
After sailing for about an hour, we reached Osea Island, which is surrounded by a long shingle beach covered in oyster beds with saltings beyond, home to Brent geese, shelducks, avocets and other waders. When wildfowling was at its height, there was an unofficial code of practice which meant the birds were never over-culled; in fact, the wildfowlers looked after these habitats: their livelihood depended on it.
Due to the thick fog and heavy snow, there was little to see, which was a bit disappointing, but the snow and mist made the landscape around us timeless and eerily beautiful. With help from his crew, Paul tacked round in the widest section of the river and, as we started to sail back towards Maldon, he told me more about his working life. Like Rob Smith, Paul had also grown up in Wakering. His family once owned a large fleet of barges there, which transported bricks from the local brickfields up to London. One of his earliest memories was of sitting in his grandfather’s shed, watching him carve toy barges from pieces of wood, then cycling with him down to the creek nearby, where they would sail the toy boats out across the water amongst the working barges. His grandfather had been full of encouragement for Paul to continue in the trade, although his grandmother thought it was a dangerous and dirty job and did not want him to have anything to do with it. However, Paul was always drawn to the barges and started working on them as a teenager, volunteering with a preservation society based in Maldon which owned several restored boats. He helped out at weekends, at first doing general maintenance, and eventually became a skipper, learning from the older men who had worked on the barges all their lives.
Now Paul runs Topsail Charters with his wife. They own three other barges apart from Thistle, including a grain barge called Kitty, and Hydrogen, one of the last-surviving wooden coasters. Their fourth, Reminder, is a riveted steel-hulled barge which became the champion in the Thames and Medway Barge Match when she was launched in 1929.
Paul told me that Thames barges started to disappear from the river from the 1930s onwards, as more goods were being transported by road and rail. Then the introduction of motorized Dutch coasters, which were faster and could carry more cargo, took further business away from the traditional commercial sailing vessels. Over the following decades, the majority were taken out of service. Paul recalled seeing the Cambria, the last of the working sailing barges, making her way up to Stambridge Mills when he was a child in the 1960s. Today, there are only about two dozen seaworthy barges left, and most of these have either been made into houseboats or restored and are being used as charter vessels, like Thistle. Yet Paul seemed tentatively hopeful about the fate of the Thames barges. ‘Enthusiasm and passion keeps the barges and the barge matches going today. Our biggest worry is finding people with the skills to sail them and pass those skills on. We’re fortunate that we’ve got a number of youngsters who’ve adopted us … We encourage them a lot, so, hopefully, that’s where the future is.’