Apologies for the delay, life has been very hectic for the last few months. Johnfilmer has it. Lower Halstow it is.
Edith May was restored on the Gridiron located in the dock there and as far as I'm aware, is still based there off-season.
There was a plan to restore another historic vessel there, the Westmoreland, the last of the Brick barges which plied their trade between the various brickworks in Lower Halstow, Otterham Creek and Funton Creek. They used to take a cargo of approximately 80,000 bricks to London and return with rubbish. Children were paid to sift through the rubbish looking for partly-burned coal or coke to fire the brick kilns. At Lower Halstow, a lot of that Victorian and Edwardian rubbish is still there, on the so-called 'Glass bottle beach', made up of millions of tiny pottery and glassware fragments.
The plan to restore the Westmoreland at Lower Halstow came to nothing, something to do with the intention of building a visitors centre at Lower Halstow where the public could watch the restoration for which the local council declined planning consent. Apparently.
All the above may be nonsense, it's a long time since I was last involved in anything to do with the restoration and maintenance of historic vessels.
