Northumbrian Cobles & The Unit of Tigris Boatmen - South Side of the Tyne

This afternoon we crossed the River to South Shields, planned destination the Arbeia Roman Fort (any excuse for a go on the boats, though).

A huge fort, built to defend the Mouth of the Tyne and store supplies for garrisons right the way along Hadrian's Wall. We did some 'excavating' in the visitor centre, unearthing many 'shards', and possibly a sheep's skull, before climbing up inside the restored West Tower to learn more about the pre- and post-Roman history of the Lawes area. Too busy for ghosts - more likely to encounter those on the extant stretches of Roman road up country - as always struck by the cosmopolitan nature of the Roman Empire... Arbeia, overlooking the Tyne, takes its name from 'Bet Arbaye', the Aramaic name for the Tigris, the fort being staffed by The Unit of Tigris Boatmen.

Making our way back down towards the ferry landing I persuaded Vjollca into a tiny museum between boatyards, crammed with paintings, newpaper cuttings and boaty odds and ends but that was not all, as soon we found ourselves on a guided tour of the North East Maritime Trust's workshop, where work was progressing on the restoration of the Henry Frederick Swan, the original Tynemouth Lifeboat, and various Foy boats and Northumbrian Cobles. Although we were given a thoroughly technical explanation of the differences between scarf and clinker joints, et al, and shown why boat builders of the 19th c and earlier took their templates to the forests (timber already growing in the required shape without the need for jointed sections being stronger), the restorers describe themselves as 'romantics', insisting, for example, that the design of the Northumbrian coble derives from the Viking Longships and their bright colours from the boats on the Bayeux Tapestry. Also an explanation of the use of the three lighthouses along the river mouth - navigators must 'line them up' in order to negotiate the curve of the river and the spiky rock formations known as the Black Middens.

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/arbeia/

http://www.nemaritimetrust.co.uk/2011/02/henry-frederick-swan-restoration-on-full-ahead/
http://www.nemaritimetrust.co.uk/2010/08/and-now-for-something-very-different-the-boomerang-boat/
(For a photo of the fabulous 'Boomerang Boat'. Built for the 16th Biennale of Sidney, 2008, it explores the idea of turning and returning to the same point.)