Saunders boat yard

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night crawler

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Saunders boat yards is near South stoke and operated in the late 1800's to early 1900's before being sold to Hobbs of Henley who built boats there till the lat e1940's when the place was dismantled http://www.withymead.co.uk/saunders_boat_yard.html
Saunders went to live in the Isle of White where he carried on building boats but then joined with Roe to become Saunders Roe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe
http://www.bartiesworld.co.uk/hovercraft/saunders.htm

The place is now the Withymead nature reserve
http://www.withymeadnr.org/

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This building got my interest while I was looking for a pillbox in the area, I found out it was in a nature reserve belonging to Wythymead. After finding a link I emailed them to ask if it was ok to come round and take photo's what followed was an evy opener to me.

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This is the slipway that runs down to the Thames the winch and wheels are from pulling out boats. The used to build 65ft boats here and there are still some on the river today, one not far downstream.

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Winch and chain.

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The building is from the boatyard and was probably a house though it is a bit dangerous to go inside.

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This was a boathouse but as you can see its rotting away into the water

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An old oil can

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Even found a couple of cylinders which looked like fire extinguishers

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This is from across the river when I spotted the place first, the slipway would have been just to the right as I found out when I went dwon there.

Th eplace is open from Aprill to May at weekends and if you phone they can accomidate you going round. I may go back in th ewinter when all the greenery has died down.
 
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Wow, a very interesting find :exclaim: I'm curious to see what else is visible :confused: if all the vegetation could be temporarily removed :lol:
 
Wow- that's interesting! :)
Brings back memories too- when I was a kid we holidayed in the New Forest and were friendly with a Southampton family, the husband worked in the boatyard at Hamble.
At that time, early '70s, they were still building boats by traditional methods.
 

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