# Port of Topsham, Devon



## davidwheeler (6 mo ago)

I don't hold out much hope but perhaps it is worth asking.
Does anyone remember Topsham, Devon as a commercial port?
Up to the very early 1970s, this small town on the left bank of the River Exe still had commercial shipping traffic, averaging around fifteen ships a year. Four with bulk Tuborg lager, for bottling in the plant on the Quay, half a dozen timber imports, a couple of shipments of potatoes from Ireland, and wooden barrels in, and those barrels filled with sprats, out. The lager stopped in I think in 1970, when all Tuborg lager was brewed under license in the UK, and the timber, when it became more efficient to import in packaged form on larger ships. I think the trade went to Poole. Or maybe Exmouth, still operating in those days. I am told that a single vessel docking at Exmouth could carry four or five times the quantity of timber, offloaded onto railway trucks and taken up to the Exeter Canal railway sidings.
But in 1980/81 I am told that there was a brief resurgence. I don't know anything about this save that a ship was used to export scrap from Topsham, and import various fruits and vegetables.
Does anyone remember anything of this?


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## shiploversa (Dec 8, 2019)

davidwheeler said:


> I don't hold out much hope but perhaps it is worth asking.
> Does anyone remember Topsham, Devon as a commercial port?
> Up to the very early 1970s, this small town on the left bank of the River Exe still had commercial shipping traffic, averaging around fifteen ships a year. Four with bulk Tuborg lager, for bottling in the plant on the Quay, half a dozen timber imports, a couple of shipments of potatoes from Ireland, and wooden barrels in, and those barrels filled with sprats, out. The lager stopped in I think in 1970, when all Tuborg lager was brewed under license in the UK, and the timber, when it became more efficient to import in packaged form on larger ships. I think the trade went to Poole. Or maybe Exmouth, still operating in those days. I am told that a single vessel docking at Exmouth could carry four or five times the quantity of timber, offloaded onto railway trucks and taken up to the Exeter Canal railway sidings.
> But in 1980/81 I am told that there was a brief resurgence. I don't know anything about this save that a ship was used to export scrap from Topsham, and import various fruits and vegetables.
> Does anyone remember anything of this?




























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