Part of the Acorn Archive

Hearts of Oak

 

 

CRETEHILL and CRETABODE

 

The Concrete Barges at each end of Cornwall.

 

CONCRETE BARGES       CRETABODE

 

Looking over the roofs on to Newlyn Harbour, 1936.

The buildings erected on the “hulk” can be seen;

a crane was set on the stern of the CRETEHILL.

 

At Newlyn, near Penzance

CRETEHILL 

ON 143031

Ordered as PD 19
Ferroconcrete dumb barge.
Launched 27th November 1918

Yard No 3 

By Scottish Concrete Ship Co., Ltd. Greenock
Completed 8th May 1919 as CRETEHILL
For The Shipping Controller, London, U.K

704 grt
178ft x 31ft x 19ft
Port of Registry : London.
1921  Transferred to Board of Trade , London, Pof R London .

1922  Crete Shipping Co., Ltd., ( Stelp & Leighton Ltd ., managers) London.

1925  Hulked.
1928  Sherwood Hunter Ltd., Newlyn.

Used by J H Bennetts, coal merchants, to supply steam trawlers, mostly from Lowestoft.

1940/2 Bombed by Luftwaffe; claimed as a cruiser having been sunk.

 

During the period 1940-1942,

867 bombs were dropped on the Penzance area,

with 16 people killed, 115 people injured,

48 buildings destroyed,

157 buildings seriously damaged

and 3,752 buildings damaged.

 

One of these raids included the attack on Newlyn harbour. The CRETEHILL had a large hole in her side, local children used to row their small boats in through the hole. She was known locally, simply as “the hulk”.

1949  15th March, declared “surplus to requirements”. The hull was filled with flotation bags and CRETEHILL was towed out and sunk off Newlyn harbour. The anchor is still in the harbour off the end of the William and Mary Pier.


Cretehill, 1939



 

Raymond Forward