The Port

The Fishermen

The fishing industry was one of the mainstays: whiting off Newtown, flounders in the creeks off Pennington; oysters, prawns and shrimps trawled for or netted in the sides of the lakes and creeks;

off Yarmouth and Freshwater, the lobster trade; and, on the face of the mud as the tide retreated, the whelks, periwinkles, cockles and mussels - ail this abundance was harvested by fishermen needing sturdy craft. Boat-builders became part of the Lymington scene.

The Port and its Natural Surroundings

The River thrived; by 1660 as much coal was being handled in Lymington as in London. The coal and general trading brought ships of 1300 tons displacement up to the Town Quay, vessels being able to work the double tides in the deep river. Trading with the farthest corners of the world, Lymington was a commercial port, albeit with its natural fauna and flora unspoilt. Spartina townsendii covered the marshes from Hurst to Chichester; coot flocked along the coast in the dead months, plover abounded. Man, his industry and the world of nature-all depended upon the double tides and their fierce scouring of the river bed.

High-handed vandalism: a fortunate paradox

Incredibly, in 1731 a merchant captain of Boldre, named William Cross, built a dam across the river. It was 500 feet in length, 30 feet wide and 20 feet deep.

By the time that the citizens of Lymington invoked the force of Law against him, the Captain had died. His widow and a tailor named William Lyne then exacted a toll upon all who crossed the 'dam'. At Winchester Assizes in 1739, Lymington Corporation lost the action against Widow Cross to demolish the causeway.

The ships that carried the bricks from the Walhampton brickyard to the West Country; the stone from Swanage for lime-making; the Salterns and the salt exports to America, Newfoundland, Holland and the Channel Islands; the sailing colliers and the timber ships; the oyster fisheries - all these industries depended upon the scouring of the tides. The ire expended upon Widow Cross was as nothing to the rage felt at the final indignity - a tailor levying the toll.

The Port that Died

The river inevitably silted up, soundings less than seven years later revealing an accretion of three to four feet of mud. Ships of deep draught could no longer use the quays; so died the commercial port of Lymington.