Tab.443.a.6(16)

Inscription: Signed in the plate, 'P. H. Emerson.'

Genre: Landscape Photography

View looking along the foreshore towards a sailing boat, with a flock of sheep grazing in the foreground: 'A few cottages clustering around a small tavern, 'The Fishing Buss,' whose name bespeaks its history, a cow-house, a quay in places decayed, a couple of condemned smacks' hulls lying alongside the quay or drawn up on the land, and occasionally a weather-worn 'billy-boy' moored to the quay—this is Blackshore, on the River Blythe ... Our plate shows the hamlet as seen from the cansey leading to the ferry between Southwold and Walberswick, and in the picture can be seen the newly-made horse-ferry, standing where it was left for weeks before it was launched in the muddy Blythe. Some sheep ar efeeding along the cansey, as is their wont in early spring, the shepherd following them. At the old decayed quay is moored the schooner 'Heart of Oak,' well known to Southwold and Walberswick fishermen, for in her more than one of them have sailed along the coast, and some we know have nearly met their deaths on her; but the sturdy vessel survived, and now she floats at Blackshore quay condemned as unseaworthy ... All the way from Blytheborough to Walberswick there is nothing but one tale of change and decay, of death and desolation. It can be read in the ruins, it can be traced in the river-banks, it can be felt in the waters. Slowly but surely the forces of Nature cane seen working; slowly but surely the workings of men's minds can be traced in the ruins. Death and decay to old beliefs are written on the crumbling ruins seen on these Stygian shores. But a flock of duck disturbs our reverie; deadly fire pours from our ready gun-barrels, and death meets death in the muddy waters of the sluggish Blythe.'