A ship graveyard

• History

As we are still moored at Sharpness waiting for the (hopeful) go-ahead to head down towards Bristol, we took a walk today and discovered this fascinating site at Purton.

Plinth names all the vessels

This turned out to be a graveyard where old, no longer used ships were “beached”. Presumably their hulls were holed so that they would no longer float.

The ships still serve a purpose though, even now, as they help protect the shore of the Severn River from eroding and undermining the canal which runs right along side the river.

There is a fascinating collection of relics here, ranging from old, timber hulls to slightly more  recent (as in 1940s) concrete barges.

Old, wooden hull

F C B 75

Old concrete barge

Quite a few of the hulls had completely disappeared and just had name plates in their memory.

To see more detail on all the images, just click on them

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