On Tuesday 12th April 1960 P & A Campbell’s Glen Gower arrived in the scrapyard at Boom near Antwerp on the River Scheldt in Belgium.
She left Penarth Dock on the afternoon of Thursday 7th April under tow of the United Towing Company’s Hull based tug Tradesman looking somewhat dilapidated having been out of service since the end of the 1957 season. She was also missing her foremast which had been taken off to find further service on Cardiff Queen. Although only twelve years old her foremast was already starting to show signs of rot and needed replacing. So a little bit of Glen Gower lived on for a few more years anyway.
Built for P & A Campbell in 1922, and like KC, Glen Gower was fitted with a second hand engine as built in her case taken from the paddle steamer Albion. So although by 1960 Glen Gower was only thirty eight years old her engine was sixty seven.
Glen Gower had proved to be a useful member of the Campbell fleet over her career serving on all their routes at one time or another and having a long term association with sailing on the Sussex Coast including across the Channel to France. In fact she was the last paddle steamer in the UK, and quite possibly anywhere else in the world, to hold a Class II Passenger Certificate for short International Voyages with which she made her last crossing from Eastbourne to Boulogne towards the end of the 1956 season.
Now that was all over. On Tuesday 12th April 1960 Glen Gower was in the Van den Bossch scrapyard in Belgium awaiting her fate.
Kingswear Castle returned to service in 2023 after the first part of a major rebuild which is designed to set her up for the next 25 years running on the River Dart. The Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle Trust is now fund raising for the second phase of the rebuild. You can read more about the rebuilds and how you can help if you can here.
John Megoran
This article was first published on 12th April 2021.
