Category Archives: Pictures of the Month

Consul’s 1960 season based at Weymouth started on Saturday 4th June with a shuttle service for Portland Dockyard Navy Days leaving Weymouth Pleasure Pier on the hour every hour from

By 1957 the finances of P & A Campbell, paddle steamer operators, were becoming seriously troubled and economies had to be made to stay in business. One time flagship of

Despite the weather in 1955 being described in the accounts of Cosens & Co as ‘the best experienced for several years’ the financial results for the season were not great

From 1897 onwards for over thirty years the Joint Railway service run by the London and South Western Railway and the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway and their successor

After the development of the docks at Ipswich in 1842 the Eastern Counties Railway and its successor, the Great Eastern Railway, built several paddle steamers to sail up and down

Try travelling on international journeys without a passport today in the modern world and just see how far you get. In 1955 the winds of change were blowing in the

The three sisters Tattershall Castle (pictured), Wingfield Castle and Lincoln Castle spent their operational careers from the 1930s through to the 1970s primarily paddling backwards and forwards with passengers and

Chris Wood (pictured above left at the helm of the Fairmile B Poole Belle (2) with Neil “Smiler” Purdy, right) has not only enjoyed two highly successful professional careers simultaneously

1966 was the year that a new livery was adopted for the British Railways fleet with greenish-blue hulls and funnels in orangey-red with a black top adorned with the new

After the Second World War around sixty ferry and excursion paddle steamers were operational on the rivers, estuaries and coast of the UK. Although five were built for service after

The last excursions of the summer season 1932 for the Southern Railway Portsmouth based paddlers Whippingham (pictured) and Southsea were on Sunday 25th and Monday 26th September. On the Sunday

Italie being restored in the shipyard at Ouchy in 2015. For a video of Italie leaving the shipyard for its first test run click here.

Under the leadership of Capt Stanley Woods, seen here on the bridge of the Princess Elizabeth in 1965, the former Clyde paddle steamer Jeanie Deans was transformed into the Queen

Half a century ago, 1966 was the Embassy’s last season in service. Cosens had a busy winter in 1965/66 re-fitting not only the railway ships at Weymouth but also converting

After two poor seasons running from Torquay, which culminated in her being banned by the Local Authority, Princess Elizabeth retreated to Weymouth Harbour in September 1961 to lay up for

Built in 1914 Kingswear Castle’s sister Compton Castle ran up and down the Dart until 1962. For some years after that she was a static tea-shop at Kingsbridge during which

Cosens & Co was a dominant force in Weymouth from the middle of the nineteenth century for a hundred years. The business is remembered largely as the operators of elderly

In December 1958 Charles Henry James Kaile (left) retired as secretary and general manager of Cosens after a career of 56 years with the company and was presented with an

The paddle steamer Monarch, seen here approaching Bournemouth Pier on the 28th August 1954, spent most of her decade in Cosens’s fleet from 1951 to 1960 running backwards and forwards

Before the advent of Twitter, Facebook and TripAdvisor gave everyone an instant platform on which to express their views, paddle steamer passengers of an earlier age had only the humble