More Postcards of the Month have been added for the last 3 months, one of which reveals an unlikely link between a Burpham property and a notorious share fraud of the 1800s, another card pictures a ship rebuilt in Littlehampton and connected to the Scottish Whaling Industry, while October celebrates the efficiency of the early postage system.
New Page.
A new entry has been added to the Bury page in Locations describing a series of postcards of the local shop and its manager and eventual owner Philip Grinsted. One of the cards also features as the Postcard of the Month. These are from the time when most local villages still possessed such an amenity, often run by an enterprising owner who was able to provide a wide range of merchandise.
Arun Boat Rally.
Also this month there was a report from the Wey and Arun Canal Trust of a substantial turnout of canoes and paddle boards for the Arun Rally from Pulborough to Pallingham which took place on Sunday June 23rd.
Added to the Sailing Vessels section of Vessels this month is a new page for “Ebenezer”, which was the last square rigged ship to be registered in Littlehampton. She was regular visitor to the port in the early 1900s, often unloading coal below the Town Bridge in Arundel.
The page for “Elisabeth of Marstal” in the section has been revised and a sequence of postcards following her arrival at Littlehampton is featured. She was well known as one of the few sailing craft left working cargoes in the 1930’s, the sunset age for such vessels.
Changes include the expansion of many of the pages to include stories that have appeared as “Postcards of the Month”, this should make it easier to scan the content. Some pictures and text will appear in more than one section and generally these will be linked so that stories can be followed across the website.
Postcard the Month will become more of an occasional feature, not necessarily occuring every month.
There were several events to celebrate and details are available on the Chichester Canal Trust website. Although it is not part of the Arun Valley I felt that it was worth highlighting as it did form part of the London To Portsmouth waterway route in the 1800s, in common with the Arun Navigation and the Wey & Arun Canal which feature on this site.
I recently added a number of excellent photographic cards to my collection from the late Eric Benham, who ran Collector’s Corner in Littlehampton, some of these will appear in the relevant sections, the first of which is the June 2021 postcard of the month, the “H.C. Christensen”.
Starting in February 2021 I shall be featuring a postcard each month, where I’ve been able to discover something interesting about the scene, sender or recipient. Postcards of the Month will appear in the Community Blog section, and I would be delighted to hear from anyone who can add to the stories.
Tony Pratt
A new section, ‘Presentations’, has been added to the site. It will be used for online versions of talks on local waterway history that I would normally give to various organisations around Sussex and sometimes beyond.
The first presentation is ‘Water Under the Bridge - Tales from the Arun’ which is delivered in seven short episodes. It uses postcard views from my collection, together with quotes from the senders and additional historic ephemera to shed light on the river in the early years of the last century.
The annual rally to the head of navigation organised by the Wey & Arun Canal Trust took place place again in 2021 and 2022, according to the reports in the Trust newsletters it was popular on both occasions and attended by a variety of small craft including canoes and paddle boards.
Details of future rallies will appear on the Wey & Arun Canal Trust website at the relevant time. The good news is that the Rally is returning in 2024, it will be held on June 23rd. For full details refer to the website as above.
On the right is a view from Frog on a previous trip, heading downstream under the new road bridge with Stopham Bridge in the background, taken a little after high tide.
For more views of the bridges and the river see the Pulborough video in that section.