A sad sight.

What a dismal start to the day mizzle and drizzle and generally dull. By 1100 we decided to risk it and go for a walk in a period of slightly brighter weather. We walked up the tow path towards Purton to see the hulks on the banks of the Severn. On the way we could see the wrecks of the barges that brought the Severn Railway Bridge down. It is never nice for me to see the remains of ships after all these years, and I always think that what may have happened during my career quite a sad feeling this morning.

The wrecks of Wasdale H and Arkendale H still together after there fatal accident in November 1960.

Arkendale H in better times.

Just near were we are moored close to the old arm of the canal there are two or three wrecks close to the canal wall but further towards Purton are many more. Over 30 hulks have been deliberately beached there to help protect the canal from scouring from the River Severn.

This is the 'Harriet'. Her name can still be faintly seen on the stern here. She was built at Honey Street in 1905 of teak and oak. She worked on the Kennet and Avon Canal but mainly around Bristol Docks transhipping wood pulp and coal.

This is her sister ship just after launching to give you an idea of what she would have looked like until she was beached in 1964.

These are the proud remains of  the top sail schooner 'Dispatch'. She was built on Speyside in Scotland as far back as 1888. One of many hundreds that plied their trade before the age of steam. Her maiden voyage was to Morocco probably with salt cod from the Grand Banks and Canada. 

After mainly sailing the Atlantic with cod etc she was old to Wales and carried coal and slate from 1918. She also carried salt from Gloucester to Ireland. After surviving WWI is 1934 she has a couple of collision in the Atlantic and also a hurricane where the crew nearly starved as they ran out of food! In 1935 she was cut down and used as a towed barge and carried munitions etc between Bristol and Gloucester during WWII. She was laid up in 1958 and beached here in 1961.

This FCB 75. FCB stand for ferro concrete barge and they were constructed in 1941 for the war effort as they took much less hard to source materials and were quick and easy to build as they were fabricated. They were built at Barrow in Furness by Wates Building Group Company in 1941. There were two types the larger scantlined ones for estuary work and the smaller ones for canals. Most of the 273 built were the estuary ones but here at Purton six in total were sunk in the 1970's and they were the much rarer 2" stem head type. The hull was made up of 126 pieces  and stuck on to 42 ribs with quick setting cement.

As the best preserved example of this type of barge in 1990 one of the ferro concrete barges was to be saved. The one chosen was FCB 52 and was duly towed off. There is a similar barge at the Waterways Museum at Ellesmere.

After a bite of lunch we decided to move north as the clouds looked a bit higher and we wanted to near to Frampton on Severn on Sunday. Helen started baking and off we set. As all the bridges are worked for you Helen could concentrate on her baking, and stay warm as I had lit the stove to cheer up the depressing day, even though it wasn't particularly cold.

Smoking chimney approaching the first of the two bridges at Purton. They are planning to automate the bridge system somehow to save all the bridge keepers. I but it will be a long time before they get it working as well as the human controlled system does now.

At Shepard's Patch Bridge Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust is towards the estuary and you can see the observatory from quite a distance. It reminded me of the national Physics laboratory near Runcorn.

We passed through Cam Bridge and winded before Splatt Bridge and moored on the tow path on a spot where we could get through the vegetation on the bank. We will be close to Frampton village so that we can go to the open gardens tomorrow afternoon before heading back to Sharpness for our crossing.