The First Yacht-Builders:

Thomas Inman, boat-builder, came from Hastings in 1821, when men's thoughts had turned from war to the delights of peace. Inman began to build boats-for-pleasure and so completed thechange in the character of the Lymington River. Inman's yard was later to become the Berthon Boat Building Company.

The Incursion of the Railway

The course of the river was to be affected still further by the encroachment of science. Watt'ssteam engine and Stephenson's exploitation of it brought the railway to Lymington. Significantly, Lymington in 1844 refused permission for the railway company to build its ferry quay next to the Town station. The pier station, and the fixed iron bridge to serve it, completed the siiting-up process in 1884. Now only small boats without masts could pass further up-river than the Town Quay. The course of the river has changed little ever since: the maintenance of even its present depth is a costly business.

From "The History of Lymington"by David Garrow, 1825: "It (the river boundary) was formerly distinguished by a boom, a little higher up and which is still standing, and known by the name of Jack-in-the-Basket. Jack owes its origin to some fishermen's wives who were in the habit of occasionally hanging thereon their husbands' baskets containing their dinners while they were out at sea engaged in trawling, to which beacon they repaired when the calls of hunger prompted them."

The Salt Industry

For centuries, the Salterns had brought wealth to Lymington. Along the foreshore from Milford to Oxey the industry thrived, each saltern served by its evaporation pans and a boiling house; by its windmill for pumping up the brine into the cistern; and by a creek up which a boat brought the coat to fire the boiling pans, before shipping away the resultant sa!t.

For years the marshes had seen a host of spinning windmill sails. The sea-salt industry vied with the rock-salt industry of Derbyshire, but Governments then taxed both salt and coal to render the cost of sea-salt sixty times its true value. The sea-salt industry then began to decline even before the course of the river was changed. Captain Cross's action merely sealed the fate of the Salterns.

Control of the River

Before 1951, the river was administered by the Borough Council through the River Committee whose members were appointed by the Council. The growth of yachting in the river and the necessity to finance dredging and other maintenance work, so that they did not fall on the rate fund, led to an application for a Parliamentary Order to set up a Statutory Body under the Ports and Harbour Act.

The Pier and Harbour Order (Lymington) Confirmation Act 1951 stipulates that the Harbour shall be administered by thirteen Commissioners, two being Yacht Owners who are also mooring holders,

Day-to-day control is exercised by the Harbourmaster and his staff; administrative control, by the Clerk and the Treasurer.

©RLymYC 2007