An Annual Bulletin about Local History and the Trust – Issue No. 54 November 2022
A splendid display of nibbles, fruit and cheese delights met Emsworth Maritime and Historical Trust ‘s (EMHT) visitors from the P G Wodehouse Society (UK) as they entered the David Rudkin Room on Friday, 29th July. Margaret Rogers welcomed everyone and pointed out that a lot had happened in the Museum since the last visit by members of the Society. Museum volunteers had taken advantage of the enforced Covid closure by refurbishing the Main Room and moving the Wodehouse corner display into a central position. That display now shows to advantage a typically early 20th century town hall fireplace flanked on one side by a reorganised library of most of P G Wodehouse (Plum’s) works and on the other by a desk with a typewriter. There is also a touch screen panorama of the correspondence between Plum and his housekeeper Mrs Lillian Barnett which began in 1914 and only ended after 60 years in 1974 on her death.
EMHT Chairman Trevor Davies then used the opportunity of the evening to surprise Margaret, who is now retiring, by outlining how over the years she had been extremely helpful in various capacities to the Museum. He then handed over to her a collage of Emsworth photographs beautifully prepared by Bernie Gudge, giving her a memento of her years in Emsworth before she joins other family members in North Hampshire.
Members both from the Society and the Trust were then able to relax and happily chat and mingle for a couple of hours, exploring all the David Rudkin Room boards, Research Room cabinets and the Main Room exhibits. All agreed it was a good way to strengthen ties between the two and rounded off a very worthwhile visit.
Towards the eastern end of Hayling seafront there is a monument you may have noticed. It highlights the extreme bravery and hazardous operations that the men of the Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPP) undertook during WWII. At the height of operations over 150 servicemen were assigned to HMS Northney, previously The Hayling Island Sailing Club (HISC). This whole area and the building were requisitioned in 1942 by the War Office and all sailing activities suspended. A plaque inside the club pays tribute to the courage and sacrifice these men gave for their country.
The COPP leader was Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott, DSO, DSC, RN. Last year, HISC celebrated its 100th anniversary. One hundred flags were produced to commemorate the highlights of the club for each year. The years 1942–1945 focussed on the Combined Operations Pilotage Parties.
So why is this local story important?
In 1942 we, the Allies, experienced the humiliation of Dunkirk and Dieppe. One of the main issues was that the tracks of most of the Churchill tanks were caught up in the shingle beach and could not move further. Immediately afterwards the Allies began to study the beach geology of where they intended to land and put plans in place to adapt vehicles accordingly. Dunkirk and Dieppe taught us that the Royal Navy would have to land the Army not in heavily defended ports but across defended open beaches.
There were of course charts and maps, but these are generally to help vessels to keep away from coastal hazards not to help them onto the beaches. Anyway, the charts and maps were not reliable. It was agreed that a seaborne invasion could only be achieved by ‘hands on’ beach reconnaissance.
The COPP team was assembled in the winter of 1942 and put through very hard ‘conditioning’ training. Some of the preparation included night swimming using very elementary suits that were certainly not waterproof. In January the Solent is freezing.
So little was known at the time, and for years afterwards, about this section of the services. Nothing was ever mentioned by the press or on the wireless. All COPP work was classified as ‘Most Secret’. Once recruited, all the COPP teams signed the Official Secrets Act because, once briefed, they would know the clear details about future landings onto enemy occupied territory.
The first use of COPP was for the invasion of North Africa on 8th November 1942. This was reasonably successful although some of the beach surveillance did not detect sandbars and hollows that the landing craft ‘grounded on’, resulting in the Army leaping into water up to their necks.
On return from Gibraltar in November 1942, the organisation had to be reset-up and fully trained
with better communications, improved kayaks, and rubber suits. Offshore night training continued, and the pace quickened. In January 1943, 16 of the COPP team were drafted to the Mediterranean. Their equipment and kayaks were sent ahead. They were given plans for detailed beach surveys over three nights, both to the north and south of Sicily.
Sicily
On 27th February 1943, after a few weeks of practical runs and familiarisation procedures, four submarines sailed for their rendezvous at pre-allocated positions off Sicily.
On a dark night around midnight with the Sicilian coastline about four miles ahead, the submarines surfaced, and the two-man kayaks launched. After a final confirmation regarding the rendezvous timings, the 4 x 2-man COPP teams waved their farewells. The submarines withdrew to sea and submerged to around 60 feet for a few hours. The submarines were ‘on station’ between 1st and 12th March 1943.
In total darkness with minimum instruments, each team made its way to a prearranged beach. The ‘paddler’ was to anchor and hold station about half a mile from the coast and the ‘swimmer’ eased himself out of the kayak and swam to the shore.
Once the ‘swimmers’ felt the bottom of the coastline, they began their missions while the ‘paddler’ waited out at sea, cold and in the dark for some 3 – 4 hours, hoping to see a light from his returning teammate so enabling each team to return to their assigned submarine.
These activities were undertaken over three nights, and we know from first hand that of the 16 men who surveyed the Sicilian beaches, only five got back to Malta, five were lost (presumed drowned, no known grave), and six captured, never to be seen again. To this day we cannot comprehend such bravery.
In summary, valuable beach conditions were acquired and specific beaches chosen for the landings. The planners now knew the gradients of underwater approaches, obstacles, sandbars, rocks, beach consistency, land surfaces, mined areas, beach defences, barbed wire, beach exits, natural hazards, lookouts, sentry posts, mobile sentries with dogs, gun emplacements and enemy positions. These details were mapped and charted for the invasion we now know as “Operation Husky” which took place on 8th July 1943.
Italy surrendered to the Allies on 8th September 1943. Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1943 the Allies’ focus turned to fortress Europe. The Photo Intelligence Service were now examining the results of low flying sorties that extended from Norway to Spain. This would confirm that all channel ports were heavily defended. The coastline the Allies aimed to breach was Normandy (a chilling prospect).
Normandy
Around midnight on 31st December 1943 and in total darkness, two of the COPP team left their landing craft, and swam ashore to the French coast against forceful currents. In over two hours they managed to avoid sentries and mines and calculated the tidal stream. The real difficulty was that at every 50 yards they had to measure the distance and to ‘dig in’ with their beach augers to fill their sheaths with sand and shoreline material. After successfully signalling to seaward they were picked up at all speed, exhausted, wet, and cold. The first men to land on the invasion beaches of Normandy.
Two weeks later a proper beach reconnaissance was ordered and so a team embarked on the midget submarine X20 to return to Normandy. For this operation the submarine, originally designed for a crew of three, carried five men including two COPP swimmers. Conditions were very cramped.
By the end of May 1944, the order came to prepare for the Normandy landings and this time only midget submarines would be needed. These to act as beacons for the D Day invasion force. They sailed from Portsmouth on 1st June 1944.
X20 CO Lieutenant Kenneth Hudspeth, DSC and 2 Bars, RANVR was directed to Gold beach (off Port en Bessin) and onboard would-be S/Lt Robin Harbud RNVR, later to live in Emsworth and become Commodore of the Emsworth Sailing Club in 1981.
X23, CO Lieutenant George Honour, DSC, RNVR, was directed to Sword beach (off Colleville sur Orne). Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, (now twinned with Emsworth) is about halfway between the two landing beaches of Juno and Sword.
Without the fortitude and courage of the men from Combined Operations Pilotage Parties, many believe our planned invasions of enemy occupied territories from the sea would have been disastrous. This article tells a story which, for some reason, always seems be omitted from books and films that cover these invasions.
Europe was not the end of the COPP war. Many were re-assigned to The Far East including, S/Lt Robin Harbud RNVR to reoccupy countries held by the Japanese.
Sources:
Stealthily by Night, Ian Trenowden (ISBN 0 947554 54 8), 1995
The Secret Invaders, Bill Strutton and Michael Pearson (Hodder and Stoughton), 1958
The Cross and The Ensign, A Naval History of Malta 1798–1979, (ISBN 0 586 05550 9), 1994
Obituary of George Honour, DSC, RNVR Commanding Officer X23, Daily Telegraph, 3.6.2002, Godfather of Susie Barker
Obituary of Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott, DSO, DSC, RN, Daily Telegraph, 1992, whose idea led to the creation of COPP in 1942
Interviews with Mrs Susie Barker of Southleigh Road, the daughter of S/Lt Robin Harbud DSC RNVR
Combined Operations Pilotage Parties Memorial Fund COPP Heroes of Hayling Island
Standing tall along Bridgefoot Path in Emsworth is a wooden building on two floors. Painted black, it is now the headquarters of Zero West Watches. High up on the structure is a plaque giving a date of 1631. Is The Old Boathouse really that old? The Stuart King, Charles I, was on the throne. He became monarch in 1625 but quarrelled with Parliament and prorogued and later dissolved them.
We do not know for certain when the building was constructed but there is a reference to an aleconner in Emsworth during the 17th century. Aleconners were Crown Officers authorised to test and certify the quality of the beer brewed. While such an early date seems unlikely for our building, we can definitely date the premises back to the late 18th or early 19th century because at one time it was the stables and an access route to a brewery which stood in what is now the South Street car park.
This brewery can be traced back to 1794 when George Whicher is listed as the brewer and maltster. He had been in business since 1788, the same year in which he married Olive Mower. The couple had eight children, one of whom Sarah was long lived and died in 1897 aged 101. Seventy-six years earlier in 1821 Sarah married William Hipkin of Stoughton. William seems to have impressed Sarah’s father because the two set up a joint coal merchant business in the 1820s. Did this Hipkin go into the brewery business as well? It is possible because George died in 1848 and the brewery is recorded as being in business in 1855 under the name Whicher and Hipkin. Throughout the 19th century the brewery seems to have been known as the Crown Brewery. Albert George Hipkin took over between 1867 and 1884 and later it was run under the name of Hipkin & Co from 1885 to 1896.
Sarah and William are thought to have died childless, but Albert George Hipkin born in Sussex must have been a relation. He is described in the 1881 census as a brewer and maltster.
Hipkin’s brewery was a distinctive landmark with its tall chimney and another Bridgefoot Path building, which juts out into the Mill Pond, is the old malthouse, now the property of Emsworth Slipper Sailing Club.
Noel Kinnell and Arthur Hartley took over the brewery in 1896 and the complex became known as Emsworth Brewery or The Brewery, Emsworth.
The Kinnell and Hartley Brewery owned several public houses, including the Coal Exchange and Town Brewery. Mr Kinnell lived in Seafield, the mansion on the west side of the Mill Pond. The estate included a farm and its former dairy, now fronted by Fiscal House. The former Coach House is now the Envisage dentist.
Noel Kinnell was a wealthy man. The plaque in the Promenade wall opposite the Emsworth Slipper Sailing Club of which he was President reads: “This tablet records the gratitude of the inhabitants of Emsworth to Noel E W Kinnell, Esq, JP, CC, of Seafield Emsworth for his public spirited generosity in defraying the whole of the expense of the erection of this seawall & promenade after the purchase of the Mill Pond in 1925 by the Warblington Urban District Council of which he was for 25 years a member & for 6 years chairman.”
The brewery was sold in 1928 on the death of Mr Kinnell and it was subsequently demolished. The buildings in Bridgefoot Path remained and the old stables metamorphosed into premises for small workshops. Some people will remember Pinedemonium while others may well recall George Gray and his motor body business.
Andrew Brabyn and his partner Graham Collins at Zero West Watches, have remodelled the interior to display their innovative watches. The Old Boathouse is not only their shipping depot, R&D lab, customer service centre and design studio but it is their HQ developed during the Covid lockdown. Inside, besides the watches, there are pistons, pipes and bits of metal, some larger than others. At present these include a custom, British-built motorbike courtesy of Foundry Motorcycles and a complete salvaged Mk IX Spitfire Merlin engine doubling as a table. Atop the table is a model of a Dam Busters Lancaster bomber.
The Old Boathouse, Bridgefoot Path, which has stood for centuries is set for a bright future in the 21st century.
Sources
Brewery History Society, Kinnell & Hartley Ltd
Old Emsworth, David J Rudkin
Zero West Watches, www.zerowest.watch
Minute Book March 1947 – February 1992
This is a proper old fashioned minute book with manuscript entries up to 1964 and then typescript. It contains minutes of committee meetings and AGMs to 1961 and then only minutes of AGMs which include a short summary of speeches by the local MP – Sir Dymoke White, Mr Geoffrey Stevens, and then Sir Ian Lloyd. The final sets of minutes record the arrival of the new parliamentary candidate David Willetts. Here are some extracts from the reported comments of the successive MPs.
March 1947 Sir Dymoke White MP “gave a most interesting account of the Bills which were then before Parliament, their advantages and disadvantages: the situation in Palestine, Egypt and India.”
March 1949 AGM Sir Dymoke “touched briefly on the Empire and mentioned India, Ceylon, Burma and Malaya and how the present Government had mismanaged the affairs of these countries.”
April 1951 Committee Meeting “Capt. Parrick suggested old newspapers be prominently displayed at the Fete showing prices of commodities as they were in the good old days.”
March 1952 AGM “Mr Geoffrey Stevens MP gave a very good description of the atmosphere now prevailing in Parliament and illustrated how the experienced and sophisticated members of the Government were more than a match for the socialists who sought to discredit Conservative efforts to rescue the country from mass bankruptcy.”
March 1953 AGM “He (Mr Stevens) first mentioned the disappointment of so many regarding the Government’s decision concerning the ‘fringe areas’ and television for the Coronation and although the matter had been taken to the Cabinet level no success had been achieved. Mr Geoffrey Stevens also expressed uncertainty at the effect of the death of Stalin and said we should be well-armed. It was most necessary for the Government to provide adequate defence for the country.”
April 1957 AGM The speaker, Geoffrey Stevens MP, was asked how does the Government propose to tackle the problem of a vast array of goods unleashed into Britain from countries such as Italy with a low scale of wages and production costs. The Speaker replied that this problem would take time to settle itself – the Government is right in being prepared to enter the European Common Market. All said we are still the Bankers of Sterling – trade will follow the Bank and we shall be the bankers of the European Common Market.”
March 1959 AGM “Mr Stevens then gave an analysis of their attributes of the Government Front Bench viz Mr Selwyn Lloyd, Mr Macleod, Mr Maudling, Mr Heathcote-Amery, Mr Duncan Sandys and Mr Marples. In reply to a question from Mr Wilson as to why he had omitted to mention Mr R A Butler the Speaker regretted the omission and praised Mr Butler’s attributes.”
April 1959 Committee Meeting Argument about whether to run as Independent Candidates at Council Election “Politics did not come into Council matters – they would work as Independents.”
March 1960 AGM Geoffrey Stevens MP “His remarks were mostly centred round the forthcoming Budget and why there might be no remission of Income Tax, due perhaps to Doctors and Railway pay increases and also if tax reductions were made people might want to spend more and this might ultimately trend towards inflation.”
March 1961 Geoffrey Stevens MP emphasized the point that in view of the African situation “we were still a Great Power and a great Empire and that he deplored anyone who said their country’s days as a Great Power were ended. Our Queen was still head of the Empire.” (NB Empire” crossed out and “Commonwealth” substituted!)
March 1962 “Mr Geoffrey Stevens spoke on the Common Market and said that he was optimistic about the future of the European market if Britain joined in. He thought that the main object of entering the market would be a reduction of tariff barriers.”
March 1965 Mr Lloyd referred to … the Emsworth short by-pass and the South Coast trunk road. He said he was seeing the Minister concerning the latter with several other MPs. Col Jones asked if Mr Lloyd would raise with the Minister the possibility of extending the by-pass to the Eastern Road. This Mr Lloyd promised to do.”
February 1992 “Since his adoption two years ago Mr Willetts felt he had served his apprenticeship and was raring to go into the election.”
How can circumnavigator Alec Rose qualify for inclusion in The Emsworth Echo when there appears to be no strong connection with Emsworth? Well, his bones have lain interred in Warblington Cemetery for over three decades!
Born and raised in Canterbury, Kent he was bored working for an insurance broker. Alec Richard Rose dreamed of travel and adventure, like his brother. This dream began to be realised when he bought a one-way ticket to Alberta, Canada and found farm work. On returning home, aged 23, he married Barbara and worked with his father for six years. When his father’s haulage business was swallowed up due to nationalisation Alec used acquired skills to earn a healthy living on a small holding at Littlebourne, near Canterbury.
Two sons were born before and two daughters during the second world war. Joining the Royal Navy in 1940 Alec found himself serving in HMS Leith at Liverpool on convoy duty, attacking and dodging bombers and submarines in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. On being invalided out of the Senior Service he returned to the market garden trade growing vegetables, tomatoes, and flowers. Some years later he took over a retail business in Herne Bay, but his eyes were really set on sailing and adventure.
Alec met his second wife Dorothy while working on his first yacht Neptune’s Daughter. He had lived alone after the breakdown of his first marriage. The couple cruised the North Sea, English Channel and Bay of Biscay before settling in Southsea where he bought a greengrocer business in 1961. For two years there was little time for sailing but a desire to compete in the second Transatlantic Race was satisfied in 1964 with a new craft, Lively Lady, moored in Langstone Harbour. Although he came fourth Alec did not know until the end of the race.
Francis Chichester was preparing to sail the world single-handed in Gypsy Moth IV, a brand-new purpose-built craft. There was friendly rivalry, but it never was a real race between the two sailors. Indeed, Alec was invited onto Francis’ boat for drinks on 26th August 1966, the day before Chichester’s famous voyage began. Lively Lady was laid up in a shed. Gypsy Moth IV was custom built for the task but Alec, loyal to Lively Lady, settled for an upgrade.
The first attempt at circumnavigating the globe was abandoned early after a catalogue of mishaps and disasters. Alec Rose remained determined to succeed, in spite of these major setbacks.
The following year his successful world circumnavigation began. On 16th July 1967 Lively Lady sailed confidently from Langstone Harbour to Portsmouth, starting at noon. Her crew were Mr Rose and mascot, Algy. A throng saw them off. Passing the Nab Tower towards Ushant she crossed the Bay of Biscay to Cape Finisterre and the Atlantic.
They steered close to Madeira, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands. Alec crossed the equator to reach his first goal – The Cape of Good Hope in October. It would be another three months over the lonely Indian Ocean before he arrived in Melbourne, Australia in December 1967. Here a warm welcome awaited him from his son Michael and daughter-in-law Judy as well as dignitaries and a great crowd. In Melbourne he learned he had been given the Freedom of the City of Portsmouth. His departure in January was greeted by another vast crowd. It was a happy month for Alec Richard Rose.
After a significant break Lively Lady set off eastwards. The journey was eventful and the boat needed repairs, arriving unscheduled at Bluff Harbour, New Zealand on 1st February 1968 with a broken mast. Nearly two months later she had traversed the 8,500 miles of vast empty South Pacific Ocean stretching west-to-east and culminating in the challenge of Cape Horn. Lively Lady passed the International dateline Sunday 11th February 1968 while facing the fiercest wind, its ‘fury shaking the whole ship’. On one occasion Alec was overcome by fumes but mascot Algy was unhurt! He faced severe gales whilst recuperating and the yacht took severe knocks.
It was too cold to celebrate rounding the Horn with champagne. A hot toddy of lemon, honey and whisky sufficed. In early April 1968 the bad weather had then turned frustratingly from complete calm to stormy and back several times.
The final leg began, from south to north Atlantic and home to Portsmouth on 4th July 1968. At 8.00 am Lively Lady passed the Nab tower escorted by HMS Whitby and other craft, increasing exponentially in numbers. The journey had been equally hazardous as the Atlantic threw its worst. The ‘Great Adventure’ was ending where it had begun nearly a year earlier.
Admiral Sir John and Lady Frewen accompanied Alec’s wife Dorothy to meet and greet him at the Royal Albert Yacht Club.
Over 200,000 people lined the harbour to welcome the sailor who enjoyed an escort of scores of yachts and boats. He attended a press conference and a civic reception.
Detail of the preparations, journey and the aftermath may be read in the autobiographical account “My Lively Lady”.
Alec Richard Rose was knighted and given the Freedom of the Cities of Portsmouth and London. His legacy is commemorated by a pub restaurant in Port Solent, a lane in Portsmouth and a blue plaque in Osborne Road, Southsea.
The Group has decided to move on from being (primarily) a group of authors by running, in addition, public meetings on Westbourne local history topics. Admission is free to all meetings.
The first on 4th November demonstrated local and family history tools and others are planned for December, January and February. At the December meeting, Jim Clarke will lead a presentation/open forum regarding his project on lost shops and businesses in Westbourne. All input and contributions will be welcome. For more details email Jim at jim@clarkeuk.net
Watch for publicity or view:- https://westbournevillage.org/organisations-clubs/history-group/history-group-news/
Inconspicuous on the south side of St Thomas à Becket Church at Warblington is a sundial. In the 18th century few activities required accurate timekeeping (which was not easily available anyway). John Harrison’s clocks were developed for finding longitude at sea.
Sundials were a means of estimating the time. Mid-day was marked locally as the instant the sun appeared at its apparent highest in the sky.
It is the position of the shadow of the gnomon on the calibrated dial that gives the observer an indication of approximate local time, using the zenith of the Sun as a standard marker. Since time was unified nationally adjustments are made for longitude – unless the sundial happens to lie on the Greenwich Meridian (GM)!
The sun might be expected to reach its highest apparent position about four minutes later for every degree longitude the location is west of the GM baseline, or four minutes earlier for every degree east of the GM.
On 21st December 1120, close to the midwinter solstice Thomas à Becket was born. The annual date of 21st December is dedicated to St Thomas the apostle – after whom Becket was named.
On or near 21st December nowadays (and then) chances are that the sky would not be clear. If it were cloudless the shadow might be expected to lie close to the XII mark when the sun is at its zenith, as time will have reverted to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). In practice, the Sun would be so low in the sky that trees in the south would shade the sundial!
St Thomas day, St Thomas gray, The longest night and shortest day
There are no known photographs of the gnomon shadow of Warblington’s sundial at 12 noon on the midwinter solstice.
The sequence of photographs below shows the sundial around local midday GMT on 21st June 2020. The precise midsummer solstice was at 21.43 GMT, 22.43 British Summer Time (BST) 20th June 2020 at Greenwich.)
Note that a plumbline dropped from the base of the gnomon showed that the vertical exactly intersects the XII mark but misses the apex of the window underneath.
Warblington has a longitude 0°59′08″ W, 0ˑ983 degrees west of the GM, corresponding to local solar time being nearly four minutes later than GMT – 234 seconds (3 minutes 54 seconds), to be more precise. So why is the Warblington sundial showing six minutes late?
The orbit of the earth is elliptical (oval shaped), not perfectly circular. Its axis of rotation is inclined by an amount which precesses (wobbles, like a spinning top or gyroscope). Inclination varies between 22ˑ1 and 24ˑ5 degrees away from the axis of its orbit which introduces a further complication.
On midsummer’s day 2020 this obliquity was 23°26′12″ (or 23ˑ437°) which complicates matters. For precise work a correction has to be found using ‘The Equation of Time’ which is the variation in time shown by our clocks and sundials. A sundial can be up to 16 minutes fast and 14 minutes slow.
The introduction of clocks springing forwards for the summer and falling back for winter occurred during World War 1. It did not concern 18th century Warblingtonians.
In 2020 clocks were advanced from GMT to BST by one hour at 01.00 hours on 29th March and returned in October. Earth, Sun and sundials have no respect for this artificial time jump! Sundials will usually be an hour slow in the summer. Unless numbering on the dial is corrected to BST, sundials will give the wrong time in summer. If corrected for summer they will be wrong in winter.
In 1781 the church was actually dedicated to Our Lady – Mary, the mother of Jesus. The incumbent rededicated it to the martyr, Thomas à Becket in 1796, 15 years after the sundial was erected. Churchwardens would not have been aware of the pending rededication to Becket or the significance of his birthday.
reprinted from Issue No 21 of The Emsworth Echo, May 1996, edited by Strahan Soames
We have been pleased to receive from Alan Davis of Nutbourne the following account of an Emsworth Regatta. The date of the regatta is not stated but it must have been before 1905 because this is the year that Fred Davis, who wrote the account, emigrated to Canada; he died at Kamloops in British Columbia in 1955. His father, George Davis, was the miller at Nutbourne and at the Emsworth Quay Mill (now the Emsworth Slipper Sailing Club’s headquarters) and had eight sons, who could well have supplied the complete crew of the ‘Bulldog’ – see below – in which the author rowed. George Davis later opened a bakery and provision shop in Queen Street, Emsworth, and then another in the Square.
On a lovely summer’s day at the beginning of the century the folk from many hamlets with musical names in this delightful part of England were coming from Warblington, Woodmancote, Hambrook, Nutbourne and other places, travelling by country road, by sunken bramble-lined lanes and field paths. The gentlefolk and gaitered farmers mingled with the trippers who came by char-à-banc and train from the towns. As the visitors converged on Emsworth Square they were scrutinized by ranks of blue jerseyed fishermen, marching and countermarching in the space in front of the ‘Black Dog’; but in stormy weather the fishermen would be parading in the lee of the flour mill down by the water where they could keep a watchful eye on their boats. Just below the ‘Blue Bell’ and across from the ‘Sloop’ sits Captain Boutell outside his door, who likes to let the children peer through his telescope.
The incoming tide is entering the little inner harbour as the throng leave South Street at the ‘Anchor’ and cross the wooden bridge by the mill to the embankment which encloses the millpond. Here many linger to watch the nearly naked urchins dive into the deep water above the floodgates to retrieve coins thrown into the water by the bountiful holiday makers. It was one of those days to be long remembered: there was the balmy air, and there was the marvel of an incoming tide raising and swinging the boats at their moorings.
The Committee and the judges were on board a buxom looking barge, with lines of gay bunting fluttering from her masthead to stem and stern, and with the fiddlers on her deck playing the music of popular songs. The first races were for the youngsters. The boys and girls who at other times searched the mudflats at low tide for cockles and winkles now raced over the seaweed covered stretches of viscous mud with squares of board looped over their feet. The action resembled snow shoeing, but the resulting appearance of the contestants was something better imagined than described.
The races for four oared boats came next: of the teams competing the most favoured were the crews from the Coast Guards and from the navy men on leave from Portsmouth. The other two teams were made up of husky Emsworth tradesmen and of five young fellows from the Sussex side of the county line, being respectively dubbed the Hampshire Hogs and the Sussex Bulldogs. The boats were to circle a barge anchored about a mile down the harbour, but the Bulldog crew knew that on the return leg it was not possible to steer a straight course because of a slight curve in the deep channel.
Bang! They’re off! Soon the Coast Guards and the navy men have the lead with their powerful, precision-like strokes; but something then happens to the navy team.
The excitement and the drink have upset the balance of one of their oarsmen; he has caught a crab and bumped the oar of the next man. The boat swings to port towards the Coast Guards, who also swing to port and pull with all their power to keep clear. But it is too late: mingled with the noise of tangled oars and lurid oaths came the noise of a sharp crack of a Coast Guard’s tangled oar; and the two most favoured boats were out of the race which had scarcely begun.
At the turning mark the Hampshire Hogs were leading; and, as seemed natural, the cox headed straight for the starting point. The Bulldogs however swung a little to starboard. Both boats ran into the mud, but there was a delay in the Hampshire boat before the crew realised that it would take all of them to drag the boat into deep water. There was no wasted time for the Bulldogs: the crew went sharply overboard two to a side, and the cox did a quick backflip over the stern. Being in deeper water and nearer the channel they rushed the boat over the shallow spot, with their cox only climbing back in when he was waist deep.
The Hampshire men did their utmost to regain the lead. The sight of this final struggle, with the two coxes standing and swaying to pace their crews, brought cheers from the waving crowd until the Bulldogs were able to raise their oars in salute to the judges’ barge as they finished barely a length ahead of their opponents.
As so often when there is not sufficient wind to enable the boats in sailing races to show their qualities, the lethargic movements of the sailing boats and yachts in the light breeze created only mild interest; but the dun coloured sails of the fishing boats and the billowy whiteness of the yachts, as they dotted the sea, were outlined against the green shores of Hayling Island, providing a pleasing, restful sight.
Swimming and diving contests followed; and there was walking the greasy pole and the antics of the human seal pursued by his clowning hunters.
The carnival followed in the evening. Hundreds of lights were placed in coloured glasses round the millpond shore; and they glowed as an illuminated float bearing the Queen of the Carnival and her court led the procession of decorated boats and set pieces. The air of a popular march from a piano on the Queen’s barge set the tone for a spontaneous outburst of applause.
After an interval the floats of the Advertising Competition emerged from their station behind the ancient malthouse. And for the finale a grand display of fireworks from boats moored inside the procession of floats. Rockets formed fiery, hissing arches in the darkness, while Catherine wheels, fountains of fire and bursts of many coloured stars drew forth Ahs and Ohs from the young and old whose delighted faces framed the lozenge shaped millpond. And with the last flickering of the night lights, and with the flares exhausted, the crowds melted away.
Archaeologists from Chichester District Archaeology Society (CDAS) assisted by colleagues from the former CITiZAN (Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network) and the National Trust, have recorded wooden structures now exposed on intertidal sand flats, dissected by broad shallow channels, at East Head. The East Head structures were first reported to CDAS by local observers. They had been seen intermittently at extreme low tides for several years, but opportunities for detailed recording were rare. One unexpected outcome of the Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 was that outdoor fieldwork by a small archaeological team was often possible when other archaeological work had to be suspended. This site was an ideal target for work during a difficult time.
The wooden structures are the remains of two fish traps, formed of roughly circular post-and-wattle pounds between 5 and 7m in diameter with linear lines of posts and wattle panels, known as leaders, which would have funnelled fish into the pounds as the tide dropped. More recent coastal change has resulted in accretion of sandbanks, so they are, for the time being, invisible, though that may change at any time after storms. Even when they are exposed, investigation is only possible when extreme low tides coincide with daylight. Furthermore, work can be curtailed due to onshore winds.
Plainly fish traps needed to be accessible regularly when in use so as to permit collection of catches and for maintenance, so from the beginning of the work it was evident that the modern coast must have differed from that when the traps were built and used. The positions of the traps were fixed but the coastline was not.
Coastal change in Chichester Harbour was reviewed by the Museum of London Archaeology Service in 2004. They used a technique called map regression, (examining all known historic maps), to show that the sand spit of East Head has moved eastwards since 1786 by over 500m. The location of the East Head spit has changed since the fish traps were constructed and map regression shows that it has over-ridden the archaeological structures at least once. Furthermore, the posts of the traps are driven into intertidal mud containing biological remains (seeds and mollusc shells) characteristic of salt marsh creeks. This combined evidence shows that the traps were originally emplaced in a north-south flowing intertidal creek protected from high energy tidal influence by the spit and dunes. Near constant submergence since then, as the spit moved eastwards, has resulted in waterlogging of the wood and surrounding sediments. In these conditions the deposits are oxygen deficient (anaerobic) so bacterial decomposition was inhibited and consequently the wood is preserved.
Most fish traps known from the English coast are V-shaped structures of posts with attached panels of wattling, making fences which channelled fish to the point of the V as the tide fell, where they were concentrated and could be scooped into baskets. The ‘pound and leader’ forms have been reported in England only from the Solent region. In this form of fish trap, the catch was concentrated by the post and wattle fences of the leaders into the circular pound from which it could be collected using nets or by hand. The only examples so far recorded were at Ashlett Creek in Southampton Water, Binstead on the Isle of Wight, (recorded earlier by Dr Cooper and colleagues from the University of Southampton), Langstone Harbour and now East Head.
Fish traps are very rarely associated with datable artefacts so dating wooden structures on the shore is dependent on scientific techniques, primarily radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating of oak roundwood stakes taken from Ashlett Creek dated it to around 700 AD and the
Langstone Harbour trap dated to around 980 AD. Consequently, comparable Saxon dates were expected for the East Head structures. However, the samples returned post-Medieval dates, from around the mid16th century AD. This was a surprise as it gives a range for use of this type of trap of around 800 years. Indeed, the date range is extended further by 18th and 20th century structures of very similar type known from historical records and illustrations and by direct observation in Northern France.
The geographical and age distribution of this type of trap is surprising. It shows that coastal communities, living similar lives, were closely connected, so ideas spread. But why do we not see traps of intermediate date between the Saxon period and the 16th century? Perhaps we simply have not yet found them, though Dr Cooper’s suggestion that there was ‘archaeological’ transmission of knowledge is worth bearing in mind. Local workers tend to have good knowledge of what is present in their areas. Could 16th century fishers have seen the remains of earlier, Anglo-Saxon, fish traps and replicated them? Alternatively, it could be that there was independent invention of ‘pound and leader’ traps by coastal communities over several generations. Only further fieldwork will help to explain the transmission of the technique.
Plainly this is not spectacular archaeology but is much more related to everyday subsistence. The site provides a window into the economies of coastal communities besides evidencing changes in the coastline which have occurred over the last 600 years. However, the coastline continues to change, and erosion is continuing, so the record of intertidal archaeology is fragile. Volunteers and local residents regularly walking our coastline are very helpful in reporting new exposures of archaeology. CDAS will be very grateful to them for their continuing observations and reports.
This article is a summary of a report on the site which will be published in the journal Sussex Archaeological Collections. We are extremely grateful to the Council for British Archaeology, Southeast (CBASE) for funding the radiocarbon dating at this site.
Throughout his life ‘Plum’ had an endearing love of animals. He was surrounded by dogs in his family home and missed them tremendously when sent away to boarding school and College. But one of the great attractions on being able to have a house of his own for some ten years between 1904 and 1914 at ‘Threepwood’ in Record Road, Emsworth, was that he acquired his beloved dog Nance. She grew into a large, amiable, and friendly dog devoted to Plum and he was devoted to her. In the mornings he took her along with him on his walk to the station in order to send off his daily contribution to the ‘By the Way’ column in The Globe. One of his favourite evening strolls was to go with Nance along the Havant Road, perhaps to call in at his aunt and uncle’s house on the way and join a small circle of friends at a local hostelry for a convivial evening discussing events of the day.
Later, writing from America to his housekeeper Lillian about his somewhat unexpected and sudden marriage to his new wife, Ethel: “knowing me, you will understand the importance of marrying someone who was fond of animals. She is very anxious to meet Nancy. Our puppy is awfully nice, but no dog will ever be like Nance”.
Most of the later posed photographs of Plum and his wife, whether it be on one of his English sojourns, in France or at his American home in Remsenburg, show them accompanied by a dog: “The white dog …. is our Peke Squeaky, who is an absolute angel, and we have a cat which sleeps on my bed every night”.
Once settled in America, for some seven years the Wodehouses kept two establishments, one a duplex penthouse apartment on the 14th floor of a building at 84th Street and Park Avenue in New York City and a house in the hamlet of Remsenburg, Long Island, which later became their permanent home. He described the house on Long Island as “at the end of what is picturesquely known as Basket Neck Lane, and has 12 acres of grounds which lead down, through a wood, to a very attractive creek”.
Bill
The first animal to arrive at Remsenburg was Bill: “A foxhound has turned up. It came into the garden and sat down, looking on. It was in an advanced state of starvation, and so covered with swollen ticks that it took two hours to get them off and only the keenest eye could discern that there was a dog underneath. It took a vet working day and night to pull him round. The poor animal had hardly any blood left in him and had to be taken to the vet for transfusions. … We can’t imagine where he came from. He is a beautiful dog, and an expert here tells us that he is one of the famous Colonel Whacker hounds from Kentucky. There are one or two packs on Long Island so I suppose he must have strayed. It is clear he is a dog of impeccable breeding, obviously accustomed from birth to mixing with the smart hunting set – there are several packs on the island – and why he is not getting his nose down to it with the other foxhounds is more than I can tell you. I imagine that he just got fed up one day with all that Yoicks and Tally Ho stuff and felt that the time had come to pull out and go into business for himself. It is agreeable to be able to record that his only worry today is having to watch his calories, for he is putting on weight terribly. A fox seeing him coming would laugh his head off.”
Wodehouse’s life with Bill was not without its ups and downs, however. Writing to a friend he said:
“Life, always difficult, has been much complicated of late by the eccentricities of Bill the foxhound. We brought him up from Remsenburg, [to New York] having nobody to leave him with there, and he decided right away that city life was not for him. Alighting from the car, he flatly refused to enter our apartment home, evidently suspecting a trap. With a terrific expenditure of energy, I dragged him as far as the lift, and again he jibbed. I finally got him in, and then he refused to emerge. Assisted by the lift man, I got him out, and then he stoutly declined to go through our door, which he obviously assumed to the Den of the Secret Nine. When the time came to take him for an airing, he refused to go out of the door, into the lift, out of the lift, across the lobby and out of the front door, and on returning from our stroll showed the same disinclination to go through the front door, across the lobby, into the lift, out of the lift and through our door.
“This went on for about a week, when he suddenly decided that his fears had been ill founded and that there were no plots against his person. The only trouble is that he now wants to be taken for a walk every quarter of an hour or so, and I see no prospect of ever doing any more work. I take him for a mile hike before breakfast, a three miler in the afternoon and perhaps another mile after dinner. It’s doing wonders for my figure, of course, but it has made me practically a spent force as a writer.”
Guinea hens and kittens Their second arrivals came when Plum and his wife went to a man’s birthday party, and somebody had given him two guinea hens as a present. Ethel asked him what he was going to do with them, and he said “Eat ‘em”. Ethel was horrified and asked if “we could have them, so we took them away and built a large run for them in the garden, and they settled down happily”.
A few nights later their third visitor turned up. “We heard something crying in the dark and went out and there was a tiny white kitten about three Inches long. This was added to the strength.
“About a week after that I was walking to get the mail when I saw a car ahead of me suddenly swerve and it seemed to me that there was a small dark object in the middle of the road. I went up, and it was a black kitten. I picked it up and put it on my shoulder, and it sang to me all the way to the post office and back, shoving its nose against my face. We called it Poona.
“The fact that Poona being at a loose end and deciding to clock in and take pot-luck I can understand, for Long Island is full of stray cats walking through the wet woods waving their wild tails, but she, too, has been added to the menagerie, so the score now is one foxhound, two guinea hens, Squeaky the Peke, one of two we brought from New York, and two kittens, and we are hourly expecting more cats and dogs to arrive. I think the word must have gone round the animal kingdom that if you want a home, just drop in at Basket Neck Lane, where the Wodehouses keep open house. Bill, the foxhound and Poona, the cat are both strays who turned up from the great outdoors and seemed to be of the opinion that this was Journey’s End. The bright side is that all our animals get along together like sailors on shore leave. Bill, the foxhound has the most angelic disposition and lets the kittens run all over him, whilst Squeaky of course would never dream of hurting anything. A very united family, thank goodness.
“Our garden is a sort of country club for all the dogs within a radius of some miles. They look in for a bowl of milk and biscuit most afternoons, and there is never any shortage of birds, squirrels, tortoises and rabbits. On a good day the place looks like a zoo.
“I walk two miles to the post office every day to get the afternoon mail, accompanied by Poona the cat and Bill the foxhound, who generally packs up after the first furlong or so. (Someone tells me that this is always the way with foxhounds. They have to do so much bustling about in their younger days that when of riper years their inclination is so say ‘Ah, the hell with it’ and just lie around in the sun. But Poona and I are made of sterner stuff, and we trudge the two miles there and two miles back singing a gypsy song. This keeps me in fine fettle).
“I catch – or try to catch – Poona the cat each night. We let her out at about 10 pm for a breath of air, and once out she hears the call of the old wildlife and decides to make a night of it. This means that, unless caught and returned to store, she will hit the high spots till five in the morning, when she will come and mew at my bedroom window, murdering sleep as effectively as ever Macbeth did. And I have the job of catching her.
“When you are in your middle 70s you have passed your peak as a cat-catcher. There was a time – say between 1904 and 1910 – when it would have been child’s play for me to outstrip the fleetest cat, but now the joints have stiffened a trifle, and I am less quick off the mark. The spirit is willing, but the flesh doesn’t seem to move as it did. The thing usually ends in a bitter ‘All right, be a cad and STAY OUT’ from me and a quiet smile from Poona. And then the reproachful mew outside my window as the clocks are striking 5 am. And if I leave the fly-screen open so that she can come in through the window, she jumps on my bed and bites my toes. There seems no way of beating the game.
“Still though, things have brightened a good deal lately owing to Poona having been bitten in the foot by another cat – no doubt in some night club brawl – and being able to operate only of three legs. One more such episode, and the thing, as I see it, will be in the bag. I may not be the sprinter I once was, but I feel confident of being able to overtake a cat walking on two hind legs.”
Increasingly Wodehouse’s life in Remsenburg centred on animals ‘Dogs and cats – and of course Ethel – are the only people worth associating with’. His life and work had always been replete with livestock: parrots, gnus, snakes, pigs, cats, and any number of pekes, terriers, spaniels, poodles, Irish wolfhounds, and assorted mongrels.
All their lives the Wodehouses had been touched by the plight of stray cats and dogs. In Remsenburg their house had become an unofficial sanctuary for an ever-changing menagerie of homeless pets. New York families would come to the Hamptons for the summer holidays, often bringing a puppy to amuse the children. When the season ended, faced with taking a now fully grown dog back to a Manhattan apartment, the visitors would simply abandon the animals to scavenge among the dustbins of the nearest houses.
In 1966 Wodehouse invested several thousand dollars to establish a home for a hundred of these strays. Ethel, particularly, would spend long periods almost every day visiting the inmates, feeding, and caring for them, and even in extreme old age insisting on special Thanksgiving turkey dinners for the animals.
Sources:
Wodehouse on Wodehouse
Wodehouse – a Life by Robert McCrum
It’s appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy. I’ve read this post and maybe you could write future articles referring to this bulletin. I wish to read even more things about it!