Registration number 1926
Status Archived
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Details

Function Passenger Vessel
Subfunction Ferry
Location Unknown
Archive reason More information required
Current use Unknown
Available to hire No
Available for excursions No
Info required Yes

Construction

Builder Philip & Sons, Dartmouth
Built in 1951
Hull material Steel
Rig None
Number of decks 3
Propulsion Motor
Number of engines 1
Primary engine type Diesel
Boiler type None
Boilermaker None

Dimensions

Breadth: Beam
34.00 feet (10.37m)
Depth
12.25 feet (3.74m)
Length: Overall
145.00 feet (44.23m)

History

The Mersey ferry EGREMONT was launched by Philip & Son at nearby Darmouth on 12 December 1951 for the Wallesey Corporation, which operated ferry services across the Mersey to Liverpool from Seacombe and New Brighton. With her sister ship LEASOWE, she formed the Wallesey Corporation fleet. Named after a suburb of Wallesey, the ship reached a top speed of 13.38 knots during her sea trials and then left the Dart for Liverpool on 31 March 1952. She could make up to 100 crossings between Seacombe and Liverpool in twenty-four hours, and thirty-four trips between Liverpool and New Brighton in a fourteen-hour period. On 1 December 1969, the Wallesey ferry fleet merged with the Woodside (Birkenhead) fleet under the newly formed Mersey Passenger Transport Executive.

The white and black funnel of EGREMONT's original livery was repainted in primrose yellow and powder blue, and later became emerald green and black. In 1971, the ferry service from New Brighton was withdrawn.

EGREMONT continued in service until 1975 and was then laid up in Morpeth dock for a year whilst a buyer was sought. During this time, she sprang a leak, which damaged her engines and other equipment, rendering her inoperable. She was sold to Frederick Oldhand Ltd, who stripped out her machinery and sold her on to the Island Cruising Club (ICC), Salcombe, where she was to replace the ageing former naval patrol boats KIWI and WESTWOOD as the club’s headquarters. Club members converted her and she can now accommodate ninety people, including staff, with approximately one thousand people passing through her each season.

Opening for her first season in 1977, her hull was painted dark green, with white upperworks and a yellow funnel with black top. Latterly, she has had a black hull with a yellow band, and a white funnel, resembling her historic colours.

EGREMONT was moved to Sharpness Shipyard in late 2016 for repairs and conservation work as part of a long-term project.  Substantial repairs were carried out before funding ceased and the hull is largely finished with only some minor work left where dock blocks could not be moved.  The remainder of the ship has been stripped out pending a confirmed end use.

As a sizeable vessel and part-completed project, EGREMONT lends herself well to being re-purposed as a venue for watersports training, hotel accommodation, function / exhibition space, or a restaurant facility.  With only limited draught, she is ideally suited to a natural harbour or estuary. 

Records for this vessel are held by the Egremont Trust and Dartmouth Museum. These include a photographic archive and original build plans.

The ship was offered for sale or disposal in February 2019. She has not yet been scrapped as of August 2023, but a decision has not yet been made about her future.

We are lacking information on this particular vessel. If you have any information on this vessel past or present, please contact us.

Significance

What is the vessel’s ability to demonstrate history in her physical fabric?

Egremont was launched on 12th December 1951 by Philip and Son of Dartmouth as a diesel-engined ferry to serve the Mersey crossings between the Liverpool Pier Head landing stage and ferry stations on the Wirral shore of the river. Taken out of service in 1975, Egremont retains the hull form which was characteristic of Mersey Ferries of the 1950s and 1960s (as reflected in her sister ship Leasowe and later vessels such as Woodchurch and Daffodil). Her engines were stripped out when she was sold in 1975 to Fred Oldhand Ltd. In 1976 the engine and boiler rooms were converted to provide accommodation in her new role as the headquarters ship for the Island Cruising Club in Salcombe. Her profile aft of the bridge has been altered by the installation of new club accommodation. However, many of her original features remain, including hull, upperworks, superstructure and characteristic Mersey ferry funnel. Egremont is the only Mersey Ferry to be retained once taken out of service, with her subsequent function reflected in the conversion she has undergone. The remaining operational ferries – Mountwood, Woodchurch and Overchurch have undergone extensive refits after a period of neglect, and have all been re-named. Egremont is therefore the only ferry retaining her original name and after a brief foray into a different colour scheme,has now reverted in the main to her original Mersey livery.

This ship and enjoys considerable public access through those taking training courses run by the club, and is a major maritime presence on the Kingsbridge estuary.

What are the vessel’s associational links for which there is no physical evidence?

Mersey Ferries provided a vital link between the Wirral conurbation (comprising Bromborough, Birkenhead, Wallasey and New Brighton) and Liverpool. The service was at its height from the turn of the 20th century, through the 1930’s (when large estates of private housing were built on the Wirral) to the late 1960’s when Merseyrail modernised the over-ground and underground system serving both sides of the river. Thereafter the service slowly declined as a commuter link, but has now been given new purpose as a tourist attraction. Egremont was in active service over a period of intense change for Liverpool and the Wirral, when the ferries enjoyed iconic status through the 1960’s TV comedy series Liver Birds and the ‘Mersey Sound’ pop group Gerry and the Pacemakers’ film and hit song Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey’. Egremont has further important associational connections as a Philip and Son vessel, a company which built so many of these ferries and vessels of similar size, including three large 1950’s diesel pilot cutters for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, of which Pilot Cutter No. 2 Edmund Gardner survives as a museum vessel in the National Historic Fleet, presented in a graving dock at the Pier Head in Liverpool as part of Merseyside Maritime Museum.

 How does the vessel’s shape or form combine and contribute to her function?

Egremont displays the bluff bows and broad beam that are the mark of the renowned sea-keeping qualities of the Mersey ferries, designed to give stability in the strong tides and short steep seas that characterise this estuary crossing even in relatively calm conditions. She has wide, covered side-decks which protected passengers from the weather, internal saloons, and promenade deck (used by passengers to take exercise by walking anti-clockwise round the ship), the latter surviving intact within the club accommodation installed in the mid-1970s. The superstructure survives intact, with a prominent squat funnel, central covered wheelhouse, and enclosed flying bridges to give good visibility when coming alongside the landing stages. Therefore although there have been discernable changes to Egremont, overall she retains the form and character of one of the UK’s most recognisable and well-known estuary ferry services.

 

 

 

Key dates

  • 1951

    Built by Philip & Son of Dartmouth to serve as a diesel-engined ferry on the Pier Head (Liverpool) to the Wirral shore of the River Mersey

  • 1975

    Taken out of service and sold to Fred Oldhand Ltd.

  • 1976

    Engine and boiler rooms converted to provide accommodation in her new role as the HQ ship for the Island Cruising Club in Salcombe.  The bridge was also altered for the installation for new club accommodation

  • 2008

    She received a grant of £200 from the National Historic Ship’s sustainability fund for restoration

  • 2012

    Transferred from the Island Cruising Club to the Egremont Trust.  The commercial sailing of the Island Cruising Club (ICC) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Egremont Tust which teaches dinghy sailing.  She also continues to act as the base for the ICC which meets throughout the year at weekends

  • 2016

    Vessel is thought to be in poor condition undergoing maintenance in Salcombe

Grants

  • 2013-2014

    The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £294,800 for building the vessels fundraising capacity

  • September 2013

    The Egremont Trust has been awarded £34,800 from Heritage Lottery Fund Heritage Grants initiative. Source: Heritage Lottery Fund, Sep 13

  • 2008

    A Sustainability Grant of £2000 for dry docking was made from the Strategic Development Fund of National Historic Ships

Own this vessel?

If you are the owner of this vessel and would like to provide more details or updated information, please contact info@nationalhistoricships.org.uk