Hamble-Warsash Ferry Shelter

Hampshire, United Kingdom | C.1900

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Photo by: Tom Fake

The Hamble–Warsash Ferry’s less-than-incognito shelter was originally commissioned in the early 1900s by a nearby pub for storing kegs, but was later repurposed as an ideal waiting room for river crossers.

Since the ferry’s earliest journey in 1493, a regular service has assured safe passage between the waterside villages of Hamble-le-Rice and Warsash.

For the latter half of the twentieth century, the quarter-mile ferry ride was provided in a rowboat, on demand, seven days a week, rain or shine, morning to dusk, by ferryman Ray Sedgwick. Ray, a bushy-bearded, beloved Hamble local, took the helm starting in 1958, when he was twenty-one years old. He estimates (with the confident calculations of a fabulous storyteller) that over the course of his fifty-year tenure at the oars, he carried more than a million passengers across the river.

In 2002, the service changed ownership to Mike Lindsell and the means transitioned to two motorized boats, familiarly known as Claire and Emily (the latter named for Ray’s mother). Mike’s brother proposed that great success hinged on raising the ferry’s profile, and jokingly suggested painting them hot pink. Mike went for it, upping the palette game of the boats and their shelter and causing an uproar in the village, with residents writing letters of protest. But it didn’t take long for the unabashed pink ladies to win over people’s affection, and they remain cherished, über-recognizable symbols of the connection between the villages.

The charismatic Ray stayed on as a ferryman into his seventies, then finally retired. He’s never far, however, and on busy days he still helps out, ensuring that all of Claire and Emily’s passengers, or those waiting in this shelter, stay in the pink.

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