Lost Quays of the Tamar

A unique record is being made of the social and industrial past of the River Tamar.  The Weir Quay Boatyard has commissioned Lotte Attwood, a photographer who specialises in black and white photography, to produce a series of images entitled ‘The Lost Quays of the Tamar’.  “We want to document the dramatic transformation that has occurred on this remarkable river over the last 150 years,” said Mike Hooton, proprietor of the Boatyard, “but we also want to show new ways of looking at the river and encourage more people to explore its secrets.”

Upstream of the Brunel Bridge there are literally dozens of quaysides and harbour walls from the days when the Tamar River was one of the busiest industrial waterways in the country.  In the 1850s there were more trading ships and a greater tonnage of cargo landed here than in the Mersey and the City of Liverpool. 

The last trading ship left the Tamar in the 1930s but some quays still survive.  Of those a few are accessible to the public – Morwellham, Calstock, Cotehele and Halton Quay – others are in private hands – Holes Hole, Weir Quay and Pentillie – most have largely been washed away by the tides and currents of the River and the ravages of time. 

Each of these quaysides represents a commercial enterprise – a mine, market garden, brickworks, agricultural estate, boat builder – which flourished for 30 or 300 years and then economic conditions changed and they were deserted and finally washed into the River. 

If you travel upstream today and look closely on the Cornish and Devon banks, you will see evidence of the quays and of the roads and paths that led to them.  Towards the head of the tidal river, at Gawton and Okeltor and Newquay, the ruins of buildings are obscured by trees and undergrowth.  Here whole communities left the Tamar as once-rich mining seams dried up, often moving as one to the new mining territories of Australia and South America.

It is this total transformation of a bustling, thriving, industrious land into a hidden nature reserve that is the subject for Lotte Attwood’s photographic project.  Lotte trained at Salisbury Art College and for the last few years she has carried out a series of projects involving buildings that have been abandoned.  She feels inspired by the River – “it is a completely magical place” she says, “even the names are like poetry – Netstakes, Braunder, Pentillie, Double Creeks, Danescombe and Egypt Bay.  I am lucky to be able to capture these structures before they finally disappear.”

Lotte’s project may be followed on the Weir Quay website and some of her images will also be on-line at www.weir-quay.com.

If you want to see these places for yourself, the only way is to be on the River.  If you haven’t got a boat of your own, there are several operators who run trips from Plymouth to Calstock or you can get there by rail on the Tamar Valley Line.  Once in Calstock, seek out the Calstock Ferry & Motor Launch Company (01822 833331) who can arrange a cruise at any time depending on the tides.