MAID OF ORLEANS AND THE OLD SWING BRIDGE
Another classic photo from John Hendy
By Andy Gilbert
Maid of Orleans
Kind permission of John Hendy
Well-known maritime photographer John Hendy has kindly allowed Our Newhaven to use some of his many photographs of the harbour and its shipping.
This view is from Friday, 31st October 1975, and shows the 'classic' passenger steamer Maid of Orleans lying at the Railway Quay. She had been here for a month, having finished her final season on the Folkestone-Boulogne route at the end of September. The twin car ferries Hengist and Horsa - sister ships to our own Senlac - had made her redundant, just as the car ferries had sounded the death knell for the passenger steamers here at Newhaven.
In three days time, her stern would be damaged in a collision - I haven't yet been able to find out what hit her - and a couple of days later, after suitable repairs, would be towed away to Spain for scrapping.
Just astern of the Maid of Orleans at the very left of the photo, the harbour work barge Barrowhead is sitting on the gridiron, and our trusty tug Meeching (only just over 15 years old back then) is at rest at No.5 stage on the West Quay. To her right you can just make out the roof of the old Lifeboat House.
Just to the left of the Maid's lifeboats is the original gantry housing for the car ferry linkspan ramp, then painted in British Rail's Monastral Blue and bearing the Sealink logo.
The white walled building in the distance is the Cresta Yacht Club, and I would be playing the organ there the following evening as usual!
Look at bit forlorn in the foreground is the old swing bridge, now surplus to requirements, with the current bridge having opened a year earlier.
Apart from Meeching which, as Nore Crest is now almost in her 57th year (oh, and me, of course!), all the aforementioned things are long gone!