Builders: Ailsa Shipbuilding Co Ltd, Troon 1916
Propulsion type: Paddle: Compound diagonal
Owners: Royal Navy, New Medway Steam Packet Co Ltd, Southampton, Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. Ltd.
Service dates: 1928 - 1952
Tonnage: Net 379 Gross 798
Comments:
This superb image comes from the Cyril Perrier collection and was taken by Cyril on a trip "round the island". It shows Lorna Doone steaming away from Shanklin Pier on 29 August 1949. I am grateful to Cyril for allowing me to share it with you here. The image is previously unpublished. A record of Cyril's trip on that day is published below.
Built originally for use as a minesweeper as HMS Atherstone, she was based on a Bristol Channel steamer design, after the excursion steamers were found to be so good at minesweeping due to their shallow draught. After the war she was laid up, eventually being purchased by the New Medway Steam Packet Co Ltd, who refitted her for pleasure steamer use as Queen of Kent. In this guise she sailed from Chatham to Southend, Margate and then to Bolougne, Dunkirk or Calais. After an unsuccessful season to Dover in 1930 she sailed from Clacton to Calais in mid week. She was reconditioned in 1931 and was converted to oil burning. At the same time she was fitted with wireless. Requisitioned again in 1939 she again served as a minesweeper. Her mainmast was removed after refurbishment following the Second World War and she resumed sailings in 1947. Sold in 1949 with her sister ship Queen of Thanet (later Solent Queen) she was purchased by the Red Funnel fleet. She later sailed from Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Southampton and round the Isle of Wight. Scrapped in 1952, Lorna Doone II was reliable and popular, with an excellent record of time keeping.
I was 23 in 1949, and daringly in that August took my current girl-friend for a week's holiday in Bournemouth - separate rooms of course, anything else was then almost unthinkable. The lady was a Scots lass hailing from Kilbirnie, not so far from Ardrossan, so I felt fairly safe in assuming she wouldn't be frightened of a paddle-steamer trip. She wasn't. This was lucky, and we managed two; one to and from Swanage has faded from my memory as far as details of the ships are concerned. But on the 29th of the month Red Funnel Steamers advertised a round-the-Isle of Wight trip, by 'Lorna Doone' - the second one, that I had known as a child on holiday on the Kent Coast as 'Queen of Kent'. Indeed either she or her sister 'Queen of Thanet' had taken our family from Margate to Calais and back in 1936, the occasion when I had thrown the French beret my parents had bought for me overboard on the return....but that's another story. Looking back I was very fortunate to have this opportunity, as such a trip would only have been possible up to 1952, but my first reaction was sadness that 'Queen of Kent' had left the Thames, and even more at the demise of the original 'Lorna Doone' with which I'd been familiar in pre-war days. Still, it was a nice day, in good company, for my first post-war paddle-steamer trip. We sailed happily east towards the white-shining Needles - no Totland Bay, the pier there hadn't recovered from wartime severence - and on round St. Catherine's Point to Ventnor, and on to Shanklin. Now it is here that memory and photographic eveidence come into confusion. Two photos, carefully dated to that day, (and one of which is reproduced here) show 'Lorna Doone' leaving Shanklin in what is clearly a southerly direction. Yet I feel sure we continued round the Island via Ryde that day. So were we allowed time ashore while the ship ran a short cruise for the Shanklin public? Ryde sticks in the memory because there I saw for the first time a brand-new 'Balmoral': I didn't like her of course, she wasn't a paddler: grateful now though. Either 'Brading' or 'Shanklin' (also pretty new) was around also, but my eyes would have been for any ex-Southern Rly. paddler. Then later we met 'Princess Elizabeth' off Cowes; I don't think we called there, pier too busy probably. By now Mary was probably wondering if I would ever take any notice of her again - but soon we were back in Bournemouth, a lovely day out, time for dinner.... Cyril Perrier. February 2003