Name Lady Wakefield

In 2007, LADY WAKEFIELD joined the Ullswater 'Steamers' fleet to allow continuous winter sailings to be maintained and to accommodate daytime charters by groups and coach parties during the peak season.

This motor vessel had spent the first fifty-six years of her life as an excursion boat in south Devon, having been built in 1949 by Philip & Son, Darmouth, as BERRY CASTLE, for the River Dart Steamboat Company Ltd. She was a steel-hulled vessel with space for 150 passengers and cruised on the River Dart between Dartmouth and Totnes.

In 1972, she was sold and renamed GOLDEN CORMORANT, operating at Fareham and Rochester. In 1977, she returned to the Dart as TOTNES CASTLE, and was owned by Dart Pleasure Craft. Under the latter name, she was sold to Plymouth Boat Cruises in 1985 and ran a summer ferry service from Plymouth to Cawsand and occasional trips to Looe. In July 2005, she was sold to Ullswater 'Steamers', who wished to acquire a 'heritage' vessel in keeping with the others in their fleet. After a delivery voyage to Whitehaven, the vessel was transported to Ullswater by road; because of height restrictions, the superstructure had to be removed for this journey.

A two-year refurbishment on a slipway near Pooley Bridge was finished in March 2007, and she was recommissioned in a ceremony by HRH Princess Alexandra at Glenridding Pier on 17 April 2007. The name LADY WAKEFIELD honours the wife of Lord Wakefield, who acquired the Ullswater Navigation & Transit Company in 1953. Source: Paul Brown, Historic Ships The Survivors (Amberley, 2010), updated March 2011.