Navigation
The Tamar is navigable by sea-going ships of up to 400 register tons as far inland as Weir Quay, near Bere Alston, where the estuary narrows into the tidal river. Vessels of 300 tons sailed as far inland as Morwellham, 24 miles from the sea. A further 2-mile stretch to Weir Head, near Gunnislake, the tidal limit, was accessible to smaller passenger ships. In 1794 the Tamar Manure Navigation Company was formed to extend navigation inland for a further 30 miles, to North Tamerton in the river headwaters, but the project advanced no further than Gunnislake. Barges of up to 30 tons could then proceed as far as Gunnislake New Bridge, bypassing the weir through the new canal. The import of fertiliser and coal and the export of bricks along this short section proved profitable for many years. The section from Launceston to Tamerton was completed in 1826 as part of a separate project, the Bude Canal. A typical Tamar vessel was a sailing barge, built on the open river bank, of up to 60 tons, with a peaked, gaff-rigged mainsail and a fore staysail.
The initial importance of navigation on the river was to cross this natural obstacle between the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and the old ferry crossings were later to develop into the busy river quays of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In mediaeval times the transport of goods to supply the Benedictine abbey at Tavistock, four miles by track from the river port of Morwellham, was significant. Sea sand from the coast was imported to spread on farmland, until in the eighteenth century a dressing of lime was found to be more beneficial. Large quantities of limestone and coal were then imported to burn in the numerous limekilns on the river quays; the lime had to be made locally as it was not slaked before application and was too reactive for transport by water after burning. Later, street sweepings and other refuse from Plymouth and Devonport, together with bones for the newly discovered bone fertiliser, were carried inland to manure the fields. Other regular imports were timber from British Columbia and the Baltic, in large baulks for use as supports in the mines, and coal from Wales to supply the mine pumping engines.
Tavistock was one of the three stannary towns of Devon and large quantities of refined tin ore were exported through Morwellham from twelfth century until 1838, when the requirement to pay duty on the metal at one of the specified towns was relaxed. The opening of the Tavistock Canal, between Tavistock and Morwellham, in 1817 facilitated traffic. Later, the East Cornwall Mineral Railway provided an outlet through the quays of Calstock from the Cornish side of the valley. Other significant cargoes exported were quarried granite and, later, copper, lead and manganese ores, with their important by-product of arsenic. Arsenic was extracted from mispickel, once regarded as a waste product but later offering an important source of revenue as copper and tin extraction declined in profitability. The refined product was exported worldwide, in particular to the southern United States, where it was used as an insecticide in the cotton fields.
In the thirteenth century lead and silver output from the royal mines on the Bere peninsula (between the Tamar and the Tavy) was significant, and production continued intermittently until the nineteenth century. The Johnson Matthey smelting works at Weir Quay extracted silver and lead not only from local ore, but from ore imported by sea from Europe and as far away as Newfoundland. Fluorspar from the lead mine tailings was exported to France for use in the manufacture of glassware.
The development of the "Three Towns" (Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse) at the mouth of the river offered an important market for the valley's agricultural produce, needed in particular to serve the victualling requirements of the royal dockyard, and this was always carried by boat. In 1820 or 1821 the first paddle steamer on the Tamar inaugurated a service between Calstock and Devonport to deliver foodstuffs. In 1859 a rail connection from Plymouth to London was opened, and fresh produce could be landed at the Devonport steamer quays in the evening and be on sale in London by the next morning. The growing city population created a large demand for sightseeing cruises on the river and this was a significant source of traffic from 1823, with the launch of the Cornish steam packet Sir Francis Drake, until the outbreak of the second world war.
Mineral traffic on the river diminished towards the latter end of the nineteenth century, after the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway reached Tavistock in 1859 (so making the Tavistock Canal to Morwellham redundant for transport, although it remains in use as a source of hydropower) and as the copper and tin mines became exhausted. The decline accelerated from 1894 when the East Cornwall Mineral Railway, until then linked to the outside world only through the port of Calstock, was extended to the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway at Bere Alston. Tourist and market traffic on the river, using purpose-built or converted steamers, remained substantial until the Devonport piers were closed and the ships requisitioned on the outbreak of war in 1939. Pleasure craft still operate on the river from Devonport, but on a much reduced scale.
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