22nd September 2026:
Paddle Steamers at Newhaven

Waverley made a rare call at Newhaven on the morning of Tuesday 22nd September 2026

Before Waverley arrived on the scene, Newhaven had a long history as a base for paddle steamers.

It was a railway owned port with railway owned repair and workshop facilities, including a grid capable of taking paddle steamers the size of Sandown and Ryde. So the railway owned Solent paddle steamers generally wintered there although if they needed serious underwater work which couldn’t be done on a tidal grid they went to a dry-dock in Southampton.

P & A Campbell used Newhaven as the base for their Sussex Coast operations although their steamers did not always come back there every night. If the weather was good enough, sometimes they anchored off the piers overnight especially at Hastings. For a steamer starting and finishing her days there it was a long haul back to Newhaven and out again the next morning. However they all had to come back to Newhaven to take on coal. The bylaws for most of the UK pleasure piers had a clause prohibiting coaling alongside them to prevent coal dust settling on piers’ customer amenities.

The last of their paddle steamers to be based at Newhaven was Glen Gower in 1956 – a terrible summer for weather with many cancellations. This was also the last year in which, on the few days when the trip wasn’t cancelled, you could have crossed the Channel by paddle steamer to Boulogne.

Sussex Queen ex Freshwater, which had often come to Newhaven from Lymington to lay up and for maintenance work in her railway days, turned up again in 1960 owned by a new company called Brighton and South Coast Steamers Ltd. She tried to revive paddle steamer sailings from Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings but was not a success. There were many issues and she did not return in 1961.

Owned by another new company, South Coast and Continental Steamers set up by Tony Mcginnity, Consul turned up on the Sussex Coast in late July 1963 trying to revive paddle steamer trips. She was late starting after issues with the Board of Trade. The weather was not great. And she suffered a series of mechanical issues particularly with her steam steering gear. The venture was not a success and she did not return either.

After that Sandown and Ryde continued to visit Newhaven for layups and refits until they were withdrawn in 1965 and 1969 respectively.

And that was the end of paddle steamers at Newhaven until Waverley turned up.

Tiny Point of Detail: In the heyday of excursion paddle steamers they carried two quite different logs: the captain’s daily record of events, and a trailing log — a small propeller on a length of rope towed astern and connected to a meter on the ship’s stern, recording the distance steamed through the water. Trailing logs were almost never used on short excursion work and the Solent steamers certainly didn’t bother with them on their regular services. But when they were on positioning runs for the longer coastal passages between Portsmouth and Newhaven, their operating instructions required that the log be streamed, and so it was — quietly whirring away astern to measure the miles run.