Category Archives: Pictures of the Month

Seventy years ago, in the summer of 1935, Londoners had the opportunity to sail down the Thames from Tower Pier every day, excepting Fridays, to Southend, Margate, Ramsgate or Clacton

Forty years ago in September 1965 three more UK paddle steamers were withdrawn from service, the Sandown (pictured above in 1965 at Portsmouth), the Princess Elizabeth and our own Kingswear

Eighty years ago, in the same summer that British troops were sent overseas on yet another military adventure, in this case to Cyprus, the antique paddle steamer Empress was withdrawn

Founded in 1959, the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society was very active in promoting paddle steamers and paddle steamer excursions in the 1960s, from the outset organising various charters and tirelessly

In the summer of 1895, a large, new paddle steamer appeared on the South Coast of England. With a flush deck extending almost the whole length of the ship, she

The start of the season on the Sussex Coast eighty years ago in April 1925 with the paddle steamer Brighton Belle taking advantage of Wednesday early closing day in Hastings

In a harbour where the water comes up towards and occasionally over the top of a quay at high tide there is a risk that any ship with anything sticking

One paddle steamer route from history is still very much with us today, although sadly no longer operated by a paddle steamer, the one mile crossing between Hythe Pier (pictured

Many will remember Capt Leonard Horsham pictured here with John Richardson aboard his beloved paddle steamer Medway Queen, of which he was master for her whole post war career. In

Tucked away in the delightful German town of Regensburg midway between Nuremberg and Munich is the wonderful paddle tug Ruthof / Ersekcsanad now open as a museum ship. Ruthof was

After Kingswear Castle returned to service in 1985, Brian Waters, one of the key volunteers who had played such an important role in restoring her, decided that he would like

With a huge passenger capacity of around five hundred each, the Dart paddle steamers Kingswear Castle, (pictured above at Dartmouth in the early 1960s), Compton Castle and Totnes Castle could,

Forty years ago, in September 1964, the new Forth road bridge opened and, inevitably, the four paddle driven ferries which had maintained the crossing between North and the South Queensferry,

Forty years ago this summer, in an era when routes were being closed and paddle steamers were making off for the breakers with ever increasing frequency, Weymouth suddenly found itself

The Duchess of Devonshire (pictured above unloading at Oddicombe Beach before the First World War) was built in 1892 for the Devon Dock Pier and Steamship Co services from Exmouth

One of the earliest navigational wonders to harness the power of electricity was radar. Developed during the period 1935 to 1940 in various countries as a military instrument for detecting

Pictured at Chalna in 1968 by Mike Ledger the paddle steamer Chinsura steams along the Pussur River in Bangladesh. Chinsura was one of six pretty much identical paddlers built for

This winter the Lake Zurich paddle steamer Stadt Zurich, built in 1909, has undergone a major refurbishment in the covered dock in the shipyard at Wollishofen on the south west

How to spend a week at Bournemouth in August 1899 on a variety of paddle steamer trips to admire various military installations. On Tuesday you could have paddled along the

It is a very commonly held view which I have heard very many people express over very many years, that paddle steamers were not permitted to use independently operating paddle