Following her construction using Forest of Dean sourced oak by Joseph Barnard at his Hempsted yard (Conway Jones 2008 per comms), the Rockby is understood to be have been primarily employed by the Gloucester based lighterage company, George Thomas Beard, for the transport of timber deals from Sharpness timber merchants to supply Gloucester’s inexhaustible hunger for construction timber and to Morelands Match Factory located on the towns Bristol Road. These duties are clearly illustrated in a recently discovered Graham Farr photograph which clearly shows the Rockby laden with timber deals, tied up along side timber warehouses at Canada Wharf in August 1934.
Very little is actually known about this vessel as it rarely appears in archives and was not required to be registered formally in the Gloucester Port Registers, possibly due to its use for inland waterways only (Barnett 2008). Its abandonment is one of only two such events which are officially recorded within documents held in the Gloucestershire Records Office. The Port Book includes the following entry:
Rocky (derelict)(lt) 17.01.1946 Avonmouth MT To Severn
Once located the Rockby very quickly filled with riverine silt, which appears to have been laid down evenly thus providing adequate support whilst affording effective protection and preservation of the timber. Furthermore the later location of the Severn Collier astride and on top of the Rockby may have in part damaged timbers but will have in the main, provided further protection from the elements.
And there she lies, slowly being reclaimed by estuary muds and sands. Today only her bow timbers break the surface of the swath, at peace. At least she would at be at peace if we overlooked recent anthropogenic destructive activity and the 2007 determined harvesting of her foredeck planks by a family of three generations to prepare a BBQ lunch, using a rare piece of Gloucestershire maritime culture as fuel.
Is this any way to treat a nations history?