Lottery windfall gives Lydia Eva new lease of life
Volunteers behind a bid to restore the world’s last remaining steam herring drifter and use her as a floating museum dedicated to East Anglia’s once-rich herring industry are today celebrating a £750,000 windfall from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
A vessel of national importance, the Lydia Eva is a symbol of East Anglia’s herring industry and one of only 58 ships on the National Register of Historic Ships.
Built in 1930 she underwent two conversions before 1990 when the Lydia Eva and Mincarlo Trust was founded to return her to East Anglia and display her in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft as a museum and memorial to the herring fishery.
But since 2000, when a survey showed that the underwater hull needed extensive repair if she was to survive, she had been laid up in Lowestoft whilst a bid for the HLF grant was prepared.
This week the Trust, which also owns the diesel trawler Mincarlo, learned that the HLF had made an initial award of £31,800 to develop plans for her restoration, refit and redisplay and set aside a further £719,000 to get restoration work done. The full amount will be rolled out when the second application is approved by HLF.
The Trust now needs to find matching funds of £90,000 to allow the work to go ahead, but news of the lottery funding was warmly welcomed by chairman Alan Bagley.
He said: "This is fantastic news. The grant will not only allow us to fully restore a unique piece of east coast maritime history, it will enable us to open a floating maritime museum in which the nation as a whole can get a feel for the glory days of an important aspect of the history of North Sea fishing in the region - the herring fishery.
“We’ll be able to return the ship’s hull to a seaworthy condition, restore the boiler and engine to running condition and provide a new and up-to-date museum display in the hold.
“We will then be able to keep our pledge to exhibit both the Lydia Eva and the Mincarlo, in alternate seasons, in both Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft."
Mr Bagley added that the Trust had already received huge help with the project from other bodies.
He said: "Suffolk County Council awarded the museum £15,000 as match funding for the HLF bid. The Suffolk Museums Partnership was instrumental in developing the successful bids to HLF and SCC and is continuing to assist the museum as it launches a trustee recruitment drive to support the project and a fundraising campaign to raise the further £90,000 required for completion."
"In addition the Trust itself has contributed £30,000 to the project as well as hundreds of hours of volunteer time."
Robyn Greenblatt, HLF Manager for the East of England added: “We are thrilled to support the restoration of the Lydia Eva. This is a great project that will save a nationally important vessel, and another example of how HLF is helping to conserve and open up our maritime heritage in the East. Everyone, from kids to adults will be able to explore the past by actually getting out on the water and experiencing what it was like to be part of an industry that helped to shape the identity of East Anglia.”
The museum Trustees plan to open her to the public in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft in 2007.
As well as the match funding the Trust needs volunteers to work on the ships and new Trustees with the professional skills to help to manage the growing business of maintaining and promoting the Lydia Eva and Mincarlo. The Trust will appoint a Learning and Development Officer to work with local schools.
For further details contact Laurence Monkhouse on 01502 565234
or David Young on 01502 572920
Issued on behalf of the Lydia Eva Trust by TMS Media, 01493 662929.
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EDITOR’S NOTES
The Lydia Eva is the very last survivor of the thousands of steam herring drifters which, for most of the last century, followed the shoals of herring down the East Coast every year.
Countless millions of herring were landed to be sold and processed in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft and during the autumn the harbours were packed so tightly with steam drifters that it was said that you could walk from shore to shore across the ships, and each steam drifter supported more than one hundred families.
Now the great East Anglian fishing fleets have gone, the herring shoals have vanished, only memories survive together with a handful of traditional buildings and the Lydia Eva .
The Lydia Eva was built in 1930, towards the end of the great days of the herring fishery. She fished successfully throughout the 1930s before being sold to the Air Ministry for a second career as a salvage ship with the armed services during and after the war.
By 1970 no other steam drifter remained in existence, and when the Lydia Eva became surplus to Government requirements, she was bought by the Maritime Trust and converted back to her original state as a herring drifter. She was displayed first in Great Yarmouth and then in London.
In 1990 the Lydia Eva Trust was founded to return her to East Anglia and to display her in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft as a museum and memorial to the herring fishery. END