history
Island Life - April/May 2010
The vital link
for commuters
By June Elford
The floating bridge at Cowes has served as
a vital link between East Cowes and West
Cowes since 1877. June Elford takes a brief
look at its history over the years.
“Foot passengers travel free - where else
The Horse Ferry was withdrawn in 1871
Chairman that “Her Majesty is entitled of
can you go today free?” asks Hayley as
after a steam driven chain ferry was
her crown to an ancient ferry across the
we watch passengers and vehicles board
introduced in 1859 and John Roberton’s
River Medina …” because she summoned
the Cowes Floating Bridge. Hayley is a
rights were bought by The Floating
him to Osborne to tell him it must never
pilot on Bridge Number 5 that operates
Bridge Company. After it made trial
happen again.
365 days of the year across the narrowest
trip across the river with the directors of
Meanwhile her subjects had to shelter
point on the River Medina.
the company onboard The Isle of Wight
in the Thetis Tower at Cowes, a neat little
Last November the Cowes Floating
Observer recorded that, “The bridge
building topped with battlements, or sit
Bridge, or Cowes Chain Ferry, celebrated
seems to have been so fatigued by its trial
patiently in the wooden waiting room on
its 150th anniversary with the launch of
trip that it has been at rest ever since.”
the East Cowes side of the river.
an exhibition about the ferry’s history at
Later the Floating Bridge Company was
the East Cowes Heritage Centre. The
taken over by the Steam Packet Company
in 1896 cost £2,772 and had its bows
mayors of East and West Cowes attended
(now part of Red Funnel).
adapted for the vessel to land closer to
and the event was commemorated with a
The 1882 chain ferry took two vehicles
The ferry built by Whites of Cowes
the shore. It was sold in 1925 to Uffa Fox
model ‘ferry cake’ made by Bunny Triggs,
standing side by side. It had “a great
who beached it on the Medina for use
a volunteer at the Centre.
rate of speed” and stayed in service until
as a combined houseboat and workshop.
The Centre runs a small permanent
1896 when it was sold as scrap for £100
Uffa, whose ancestor, William Roberton,
exhibition on the last 200 years of East
after the boiler had been saved for her
had been a ferrymen, would move the
Cowes history, plus temporary exhibitions
successor.
boat’s mooring to avoid paying rates
to highlight certain aspects of the town
But the service was not always up to
– like the excellent one on the Cowes
scratch and passengers, including Queen
Floating Bridge.
Victoria, were often kept waiting for
A ferry has operated across the river
between East and West Cowes since 1720
without warning his wife that her home
had been moved.
In 1901 the West and East Cowes
half an hour. Perhaps she felt it was
Urban District Councils took over the
time to remind the Ferry Committee
responsibility of the ferry and introduced
when the rights to ferry people across
in rowing boats were granted to the
Roberton family by the Island’s Governor.
By 1842 the Robertons also ran a flat
bottomed Horse Ferry winched to and
from across the river by a horse working a
windlass to take carts and horses across.
The same method was employed until
1973 to pull the ferry out of the water
into the repair yard and a 1957 photo
shows Kate, a twelve-year-old carthorse
harnessed to a giant wheel capstan,
hauling out a 120-ton boat.
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