About the Quay
A series of articles written by Ian Dowell about people and events associated with Exmouth Quay in bygone times. Each of the articles first appeared in Quay News, a quarterly publication prepared for the Exmouth Quay residents.
Memories of the Quay’s shipbuilders (July 2009)
by Ian Dowell
The wall which runs along the back of the Quay’s Shelly Road flower bed is a permanent reminder of the halcyon days of Exmouth’s shipbuilding industry. Some modern brickwork has been added to the top of the stones of the famous old Ropewalk wall, but, with a little imagination, residents can look along it and visualise the activity that went on all around.
The old Quay windmill’s 30 troubled years (July 2009)
by Ian Dowell and Andrew Nelmes
The dark clouds of the Second World War
The Docks story part 9
by Ian Dowell
You could walk across the docks on D Day barges
Some of the preparations for D Day took place in Exmouth docks and local boatbuilder Geoff Holman recalls seeing a mass of barges in the dock basin. “The private vessels were all moved out, apart from the fishing boats owned by Frank Rowsell, Will Horn and Will Newcombe. These men were quite old and the authorities decided to turn a blind eye and let them keep fishing as normal. Then the tugs arrived with lots of Thames lighters and you could walk right across thedocks on them.” He said warehouses backing on to Victoria Road were taken over for naval workshops and stores and the unpowered vessels were all fitted out with engines. One thousand of the Thames lighters had been requisitioned and taken to ports along the south coast for conversion and 400 participated in the Normandy landings. They provided fuel, water, food and repairs and maintenance to the hundreds of craft serving U.S. and British beaches and were also able to carry supplies from the ships to shore.The Exmouth lighters were involved in the operation in June, 1944, but quite a lot were lost on the crossing. “It was rough and they were not particularly seaworthy,” said Mr Holman.
Another wartime project was the construction of Pluto (“a pipeline under the ocean”), which was to be towed across the Channel for supplies. Mr Holman said long lengths of pipe were welded together around Mudbank and moored off Powderham. He said a tug took the structure away near D Day, but it wasn’t known if it was used.
Guns guard docks
The wooden floor of the pier was also taken up to prevent it being used by the enemy and the opening mechanism on the bridge was removed at night. At the nearby Docks Garage, naval ratings were based with owner, Harold Rowlands. They were known as "Rowlands' Navy" and would take a cruiser on night patrol. Mr Radgick said tank traps consisting of concrete cones with minature railway track sticking out of the top were were built on Mamhead Slipway but he doubted whether they would have worked. A floating boom was constructed at the docks entrance to stop ships at night but he understood its operation was hampered by the tides.
Enemy planes machine-gunned an old barge in Exmouth Docks on two successive days. Respected local boatman Geoff Holman said The Mistletoe, a single sail barge, was tied up at the entrance to the docks and in the event of an invasion would have been towed across as a block ship. “A group of Messerschmitts twice opened fire on the barge and the damaged vessel was later towed to Topsham,” he said. No one was injured. General “Ike” Eisenhower made a surprise visit to the American troops stationed in Exmouth. The Commander of Allied troops on D Day inspected the Ivy Division, but few Exmouth people recognised him. The Americans befriended locals, particularly the girls, and there is a record of the wedding on 15 April, 1944 of GI Ernest Hall of Kansas and Anna Hall.
Next in the series: The Windmill and the Ropewalk.
THE DOCKS STORY part 8: Batten down the hatches!
by Ian Dowell
Gale force winds batter the chalets that once stood on the site of the Quay development.
Harold Guppy built a chalet in the 1930's but moved the front door because it faced the sea and the family couldn't get out in bad weather. His daughter Jean Harris well remembers the water sweeping over the roof but says they weren't frightened ....... "it was exhilarating". Harbour Master Keith Graham recalls the exceptionally high spring tide that almost reached the swing bridge (see photograph below). "At one stage a steel boom was placed across the entrance, just below the bridge, to protect the docks shipping when a swell was whipped up by a south-easterly wind", said Keith, but when Robin Carter took over in the early 1980's, he filled in the pier and the boom was unnecessary".
The day the ice stopped the docks. This was the scene as ice floes trapped ships in Exmouth Docks in January 1963.
and Exmouth showed off its biggest ever snowman!
It had been a hard winter with freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls and the giant nowman seen here in the Strand Gardens was the biggest the town had ever produced. “There wasn’t solid ice in the docks as the weather was not cold enough for the sea water to freeze,”said respected boatbuilder Geoff Holman, “but it was packed with loose ice which had drifted in with the ebb tide after being swept down from the frozen fresh water areas beyond Topsham.” He said the skipper of the Jackonia was reluctant to move because he didn’t want the ice to damage the propeller. The fresh water from Exeter to Topsham comes down from Exmoor and this had frozen, including the canal. The Turf Hotel was also cut off and pilots had tried in vain to get supplies to it. He said the estuary tidal flow moved the ice with such force that navigation buoys were dragged along and left near the north jetty.There was ice all over the estuary and ships in the docks didn’t move for several days, said Geoff.
Ice floes can be seen spread out over a wide area and the navigation buoys in front to the jetty had been swept down on the tide. Each would have been attached to 12 hundredweight Trinity House sinkers, said Tony Smith, who runs A.S Mooring Services in Camperdown Terrace. Number 23 buoy, on the left, had come from the Starcross Sailing Club area and the other, 21, would have been positioned at the entrance to Lympstone. "I doubt if many of the other buoys would have survived that amount of ice", said Tony. It is understood that 20 years later, in the the mid 1980's, almost all of the navigation buoys were again dragged down the estuary by ice.
And the day Exmouth pier almost disappeared! The pier vanished underwater when Pam Phillips took this picture from her patio in April 1985.
Pam said it was one of the highest tides she could recall in her 28 years at Chalet 3, which was at the entrance to the docks. "Water swirled over the patio to our top step on many occasions and there was even seaweed on the windows, but the sea never came into our property", she said.
THE DOCKS STORY Part 7: Roll up for all the fun of the pier
by Ian Dowell
The docks were not tidal when the aerial picture on this page was taken and the dock gates, which were removed in 1933, can clearly be seen underneath the bridge. The large building to the right of the pavilion dome housed a dodgem cars track. Bill still runs a gentlemen’s outfitters in Exmouth, which was started by his dad in 1907.
Bill Sleeman, the man who has shared his memories of the pier with Quay News, has worked in his outfitters’ shop on the Exeter Road for 73 years. He was born above the premises and started as an errand boy at the age of 13 -- “everything was wrapped up in parcels and delivered in those days.” He said that the arrival of the railway in 1861 had triggered the development of the Quay area, as well as much of Exmouth. “People from Exeter were able to travel to Exmouth and see how beautiful it was and the town became a desirable place to have property. They saw the old fishermen’s huts on Shelly Beach had superb outlooks and snapped them up as sites for seaside chalets.”
After the construction of the docks in 1868, the surrounding area was developed and the pier pavilion was built in the mid-1880s and became an entertainments centre. It staged dances, concerts and roller skating and Bill said there was also a gymnasium, which was used by pupils from private schools in Morton Crescent. At one period, The Jollity Boys starred in Summer Follies and a fair sometimes visited and occupied part of the pier. Philip Harris, now 85, who lives in Halsdon Avenue, says children’s parties were held in the pier pavilion on Saturdays and he remembers being pulled from the audience to sing on stage. He said at one time the man who ran the dodgem cars lived on site in a caravan. Philip’s wife Jean said that as a child she and her friends would play underneath the pier around the huge wooden supports.
by Ian Dowell (July, 2008)
Mystery surrounds the lovely illustrations shown below. They were hand painted on a series of envelopes sent to a Quay resident 90 years ago. Windward Court resident Andy Hearn saw them at a stamp exhibition in London and was amazed to find they related to a chalet which once stood near his home. The envelopes were both postmarked "Richmond, Surrey, 1919" and had been sent to a Mrs Shapley at Bungalow 24, The Point.
The earlier was postmarked May 1st, 1919
and the later May 13th, 1919
The Docks Story. Part 5: I was taught in the docks says swimming star
by Ian Dowell
Water polo in full swing Construction of a swimming pool was started in 1889 at the bottom of Camperdown Terrace under the supervision of Thomas Redway, a ship builder who also owned a local brickworks, but he died suddenly and the project was never completed. A small pool was constructed on the seafront in 1893, but the dock remained popular until 1932 when the big open-air pool was built on the seafront near Gun Cliff at the bottom of Carlton Hill. This became a base for the Swimming & Lifesaving Society and was the scene of many of Philip’s triumphs. He had successes in the 100, 440 and 880 yards, but some of his major triumphs came in the annual Starcross to Exmouth swim. Astonishingly, Philip first won the marathon race at the age of 13, and he notched another four successive victories before the war intervened and the race was postponed. When it resumed in 1946, Philip lost his crown to a new local hero Bert Dart.
After the war, the pool was able to capitalise on the great British holiday boom, when thousands headed to the coast resorts after years of austerity. The pool was packed for Saturday night galas with swimming, diving and water polo. The water polo team was captained by “Journal” editor Bill Gorfin and they found the conditions an improvement on the docks, where they had often collided with flotsam. The pool closed in the mid 1980s, following the opening of the indoor pool in the town, and work on a bowling alley/restaurant is at last underway on the site.
THE DOCKS STORY. Part 4: docks drama
by Ian Dowell
Photo: the building slowly subsides
Chalet resident Pam Phillips remembers it well. “We were standing on the other side of the docks entrance and saw the whole building slowly collapsing over the edge,” she said. “About 20 people had been inside preparing for the party and were evacuated.” Miraculously, there were no injuries or damage to other properties. It took half an hour for the building to reach the position shown here and 36 hours later firemen stood by when it was decided to set fire to the wreckage to speed up the clearance work.
Photo: demolition begins
(These pictures were taken by the late Roy Knight and passed to Quay News by his friend, local historian Joe Radgick).
Exe Sailing Club official Mike Rice, who is editor of the club’s magazine, said at the time of the collapse a digger had been in operation outside the club, deepening the dock entrance. “It appeared that the steel piles had not been fully driven in and when the digger dug underneath, the piles collapsed into the dock entrance and the concrete raft on which the club was built slid after them.” The Exmouth Journal reported that disaster was averted by one hour. “It is probable that with everyone inside for the party, not all would have been able to escape,” said the Journal, “the weight of 100 people being slung against one side of the upper storey may well have plunged the clubhouse into the water, with almost certainly a large loss of life.” James Sampson, a St Andrew’s Road resident, who was in the area at the time, told the Journal he had heard cracking noises and saw the wall of the jetty burst open and the clubhouse slowly keel over. Club steward Harry Richards was in the clubhouse with other members waiting for the start of the wine and cheese party and said the first he knew of the problem was when a member came in and quietly asked everyone to leave. “I was the last to go,” said Harry, “it was too far to jump so I went down to the bottom room and got out through a window. When we were all on the quayside we turned and watched the building slide sideways towards the water.” Engineers and divers worked for more than a week to clear debris from the dock entrance and a mass of heavy cutting and lifting gear was rushed to the area. Efforts by engineers to cut through the piling was made difficult by corrosion and the large masses of concrete that were attached to the steel. The Exmouth docks were fully operational at the time and several vessels were trapped by the drama, although a 400-ton cargo boat “Kon Tiki”, which was loaded with scrap iron bound for Norway, was towed past the debris by local boatman Geoff Holman, using his private launch. The Journal reported there was only 4 ft to spare between the obstruction and the dock wall and the ship skipper kept his vessel rubbing against the wall until it was clear. The now homeless sailing club had two other sites: a store and a dinghy park near Belshers Slipway and an old houseboat “Tornado” and dinghy park on the site of today’s clubhouse. Members used the houseboat as a makeshift club and bought The Retreat next door and moved there until the houseboat was demolished and the present club built. This was opened in 1974.
THE DOCKS STORY - part 3
by Ian Dowell (Winter 2007/8)
Jean Harris’s family owned a chalet bungalow at the docks for 55 years and when it was demolished to make way for the current Quay development she was heartbroken. “It was as if we had lost a member of the family,”she said. “The chalet, which overlooked Shelly Beach, had a special place in our hearts and provided us with wonderful childhood holidays and memories all through our lives.” Jean, a charismatic 73-year-old who now lives in Halsdon Avenue, said many of the chalet families were friends as they had met year after year on summer vacations and she organised a farewell party for 60 of them when the bulldozers finally came. Jean told Journal reporter Marcia Sands at the time: “I wanted something my children would remember for years. We had a bonfire on the beach and played Finlandia and it was like a wake, with all the children throwing flowers into the sea. The students of Rolle College interviewed all of us and made a play about Shelly, which captured the sadness of it all. At the end they all lay on the floor like tomb stones.” The family owned No 45, which was on the site used in recent years by the Spinnakers’ Sailing School, and Jean often returns to the spot to gaze out to the estuary and remember. The chalets were dotted all around the dock basin and stretched to the edge of the beach. The local historian Bill Sleeman, who runs a gentlemen’s outfitters on the Exeter Road, said fishermen’s huts were originally on the site and the arrival of the Exmouth to Exeter railway in 1861 had created interest in developing the dock area. “Exeter people were able to come down to Exmouth and see how beautiful it was and the town became a desirable place to have property,” said Bill. “They could see that the huts used by fishermen to store their gear around Shelly Beach had lovely outlooks and they snapped them up to build seaside bungalows.” The properties were all privately owned on land rented from the dock company. He said he had been inside many of them, which were “little palaces,” although in the final years, after the leases expired, some were unoccupied and became dilapidated. Most of the chalets had wooden walls with iron or asbestos roofs, although there were a few corrugated steel Nissen huts. Two 120-year-old railway carriages were found in one property during demolition and an old barge, beached in the 30s, was also used as a home. (the owner had a church organ in it and had built a swimming pool outside). Jean Harris’s father, Harold Guppy, was an Exeter builder who bought the original chalet in 1934, the year she was born. He demolished it and built a chalet with three bedrooms in its place, although he later moved the front door because it faced the sea and the family couldn’t get out when the storms came. Jean said there was no heating and dampness was sometimes a problem “but if we needed warmth we lit the fire with wood from the beach.” In their early years, Jean, her sister Rosemary and brother David would come down from Exeter with their parents at Easter and wouldn’t return until the autumn. “We would play through the summer with the parents getting together to stage games, fancy dress parades and races on the beach.” Later, when Jean moved away to the Midlands, she was still a regular visitor with her family.
Photo: How Shelly Road used to be. Some of the 125 chalet bungalows.
Another ex-resident with many memories of chalet life is Pam Phillips, who now lives in theShelly Reach development and still has a view of the dock basin. Her love affair with the area
THE DOCKS STORY - part 2
by Ian Dowell (Autumn, 2007)
Photo: A man with a red flag waves down the traffic to allow a docks loco to cross Camperdown Terrace
Bert misses the locos and the atmosphere of the old docks. Now 81 and living in New Street, he tries to make a daily trip to the Quay in his motorized wheelchair to chat to some of the old characters who are still involved in fishing and boat building. “The docks was a hive of activity in my day,” said Bert “and timber and coal was big business.” For years all Exmouth’s coal came by sea and in the 1930s steel gantries were erected on the north quay with two huge grabs which allowed two colliers to be unloaded together. Today, Clipper Wharf and Sailmakers’ Court properties stand on the site. Bert said timber would come by rail from all parts of Britain, together with supplies by sea from around the world. He said the man on Sharps’ big circular saw, Harry Gooding, was a great character who was very skilful at his work. Sharps’ yard had been opened in 1883 and nearby Wilson’s yard followed 10 years later. Herring fishing was prolific in the 1880s and special trains took catches of often 50 and 60 tons to London, but this market ceased soon after the First World War. In later years, cargoes included grain, cement, starch, esparto grass (used for bank notes), animal feed, fertiliser, wood pulp and French apples for the Whiteways’ cider presses near Exeter. The coal gantries were demolished in the late 1960s and replaced with another landmark: the huge grain silos.
The construction of the docks had been completed in 1868 -- seven years after Exmouth had been linked to Exeter by rail in a venture that had taken more than 25 years to get off the ground. Shipping owners had long advocated the construction of a railway to Exeter as the bigger vessels were unable to negotiate the navigation channel and cargoes were unloaded onto lighters in the Bight and taken to the city. This enabled Exmouth to capitalise on Exeter’s manufacturing success, but then the coal boom created a need to get supplies to the huge Exeter gasworks and companies were aware that moving it by rail would be cheaper than continuing to use lighters and pilot boats and paying canal fees. Consequently, the case for a railway was overwhelming, but the dilemma was on which side of the River Exe it should run. Supporters of a line on the Exmouth side said Lympstone and Topsham would provide more business than the villages of Starcross and Exminster, but the equally-determined rival lobby said their line would be cheaper to construct. As the dispute raged, Exeter Corporation thwarted both groups by extending its canal to Turf in 1825 to speed up shipping and it was more than 30 years before the dream of a railway link to Exeter materialised. By then, supporters of a track on the Exmouth side had won the battle and the first sod was turned on the site of Exmouth station on 27th November, 1856, the line being opened on 1st May, 1861. Two years later, a Parliamentary Bill was put forward to authorise the Exmouth Pier Company to construct a dock and railway and in December of that year a group of the project’s backers successfully enlisted the support of Mr Archibold Scott, the general manager of the LSWR. An Act of Parliament on 29 July, 1864, gave the go-ahead and allowed the dock company to raise £60,000 by public subscription. Building commenced in 1865 and took three years to complete. The docks was created by converting a natural indent of the shore known as Shellpit and the railway ran from the jetty to Exmouth goods yard to link with the Exeter line, although some years later it was terminated near the Beach pub. The docks railway closed in 1967 and lorries took over the work.
EXMOUTH DOCKS HISTORY: Part 1
by Ian Dowell (Summer, 2007)
A fascinating photograph of six huge ships moored in Exmouth Docks is hung on the wall of the main bar in the Beach Hotel. It was taken in 1984 at one of the busiest periods in the docks history. “I have seen more in there,” says the current harbourmaster Keith Graham. “There were bungalows in the left hand corner when the picture was taken and once they were demolished there was room for more shipping.” He said the docks’ heyday was in the early to mid 1980s after Robin Carter took over the business. “He had lots of storage at Greendale Barton in Woodbury, and one year, astonishingly, 620 ships came through.” Keith said it was a work of art to manoeuvre the vessels in and out. “A pilot had to be on them as we often worked in inches and on one occasion we did 13 movements on one tide.” There were a few bumps. “In 1985, maintenance worker Ray Towel had just repaired the old wooden jetty and was walking away when a vessel made a wrong move at the harbour entrance and hit the jetty with her starboard bow,” said Keith. “We called to Ray to get back to the jetty as his work was ruined!”
Photo: Exmouth's working docks in its heyday in the mid-1980's
Sadly, the days of a busy working docks were numbered and six years later the last ship left, on New Year’s Day, 1990. “Closure was inevitable,” said Keith. “The ships got too big, with 3,000 tonners used around the coast. Most of those we took were 1,000 tons, with an occasional 2,000.” A man who remembers the halcyon days is boat builder Geoff Holman, who has lived in Camperdown Terrace all his life and was born two doors away from his present home. “I remember nine vessels in the docks,” he said. “It was Christmas and they didn’t want to sail.”
Geoff skippered the pilots’ cutter for 20 years and would take pilots out to board the ships to enable them to guide the vessels through the narrow channel to the docks.” When I began with the cutter in 1970 about 160 ships a year came in and the number rose annually to over 600 within 10 years. We brought two in and took two out every day.” Geoff said that well over 100 people worked at the docks, ranging from shipping agents and customs officers to pilots, dockers and lorry men who would transport more than 1,000 tons a day. “These were wonderful times. Grain, fertilisers, apples, coke breeze, gravel, bricks and cement were regularly handled, with timber from Finland and Russia for the saw mills at Wilson’s and Sharp’s. It was a close community. We all knew each other and there was a great spirit.” Geoff, who is 77, has been a boat builder all his life and retired 15 years ago. “I say retired,” he smiled, “but I repaired a steam boat the other week and built a 12ft wooden dinghy a year ago.” He comes from a well-known docks family. His father Walter built boats in the same workshop that Geoff has used and his grandfather’s brother George was killed in an accident at the docks in 1934 when a derrick used for unloading fell on him.
Brian Rowsell, another doyen of the docks, was Exmouth’s chief pilot for 18 years and had a 25 year stint in the lifeboat. He has fond memories of the area and recalls the day during the Second World War when his father, a fisherman, netted part of a German plane, with a machine gun attached, and brought the haul back into the docks. “We boys were all set to have a bit of fun with the gun, but the Civil Defence moved in and stopped us,” he said. Don Burns, an assistant harbour master, was one of the many lovely characters around the docks at its peak and Brian recalls the day he saw him dangling a rope with a grapnel in the docks. “He said he was trying to find his bike, which he had thrown in the night before in a fit of temper,” laughed Brian.