sheringhamsociety

Our AGM will take place at St Andrew’s Church Hall, Cromer Road, at 10.30 am on Thursday 25th April. Refreshments will be provided and there is no entry charge. This is a members-only event. Existing members will have received individual invitations via our most recent newsletter. Anyone interested in becoming a member is very welcome to come along to the AGM and join at the meeting. The membership fee is £5 for a single member, £6 for a couple at the same address and £7 for a family.

The Fishermen’s Lifeboat Museum (FLM) and the Peter Coke Shell Gallery (PCSG) reopened for the 2024 season on Saturday, 23rd March. For full details see our Opening Times page by clicking on “Opening Times” in the black box below the three illustrations above. We are fortunate in having two very contrasting venues. Some of our visitors will be entranced by the spectacular shell creations in the PCSG (see the video or the virtual tour, accessible via the aforementioned black box), while others will have a greater interest in the history of lifeboats and the brave deeds of their crews.

From now until the end of September it will be possible for visitors to complete Sheringham’s LIFEBOAT TRAIL, the logo of which is shown below.

The town is probably unique in the world in having not only its current lifeboat but five former lifeboats available for viewing (but check opening times before you plan your visit). A leaflet describing the trail can be downloaded by clicking on “Sheringham Lifeboat Trail” in that same black box above. The three locations on the trail are a short distance apart along the promenade. The current RNLI lifeboat can be viewed by starting at the west end of the promenade. Heading east, the Henry Ramey Upcher, the oldest of the preserved lifeboats, dating from 1894, can be found in its original shed within the Fishermen’s Lifeboat Museum. A little further on, four former RNLI lifeboats can be seen in Sheringham Museum at the Mo.

Unfortunately last year the opening hours of both the FLM and PCSG were occasionally restricted by the availability of volunteer stewards, leaving potential visitors disappointed; this situation is set to continue in 2024. If you live locally and can offer any help, even if it is only now and again, please email our secretary on secretary@sheringhamsociety.com.

There is no coffee morning talk in April. Instead we will be holding our AGM (see the notice above) to which all members are invited. Refreshments will be provided for which there is no charge. This is a members-only event, unlike our regular coffee mornings, and like them will be held at St Andrew’s Church Hall, Cromer Road (on the opposite side of the road from our former venue, St Joseph’s Church Hall). Anyone who is not a member already but would like to be can come along and join at the AGM.

For full details of time and place see the Events page above.

We are grateful to Clifford Willett for this Google review of the museum:

The highlight of this small free museum is a well-preserved late 19th century lifeboat. You’ll also find some artefacts from Sheringham’s fishing industry and info about local historical characters. I was in and out pretty quickly, but if fishing history is your thing, the volunteers seem happy to share their knowledge with visitors.

More recently Peter H of Nottingham gave the museum five stars on Trip Advisor, with lots to see and read there, highlighting the bravery of the lifeboat crew. A nice place for all ages.

Three members of the Emery family have come together to write a book about their family’s boat building business in Sheringham. The book, entitled “I Wanted a Boat – So I Built One” was published by Poppyland Publishing on 1st September 2022. The authors are justifiably proud of their family’s boat-building achievements and have delved into a mass of preserved photographs, records and memories which are reproduced in the book. The story starts in 1850 when Lewis “Buffalo” Emery built his first boat and finishes just over a hundred years later when Lewis’s great grandson, Harold, completed the last. In the years between, Emery boats had such a good reputation that they were acquired by fishermen up and down the East Coast, from Kent to Yorkshire.

For a chance to view Lewis “Buffalo” Emery’s handiwork, a fine testament to his skill, visit the Fishermen’s Lifeboat Museum at Sheringham where the Henry Ramey Upcher, the lifeboat he built in 1894, is preserved and is on display during the spring and summer. Group visits can be arranged at other times.

We are very grateful to Nelson Hammell, a visitor from the USA, for the review of his visit to the shell gallery recently posted on Instagram – “I had the best time this afternoon ….. what a very special visit”. For the full review follow this link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CeT5jYtNZg6/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Hot on its heels came a recommendation from the famous fashion designer, Lulu Guinness OBE, “If you don’t follow @petercokeshellgallery on Instagram you are missing out on so much wonder.” https://www.instagram.com/p/CedRo7GuxZ9/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Sheringham photographer Chris Taylor, who also forms part of the current RNLI lifeboat crew and is a member of the Sheringham Shantymen, had a long-standing ambition to find the remains of the SS (steamship) Commodore.

The SS Commodore, carrying a cargo of coal, was blown ashore just to the west of the town during a storm in November 1896. The Henry Ramey Upcher (HRU) lifeboat, preserved in the Fishermen’s Lifeboat Museum, described on this site, was launched to rescue the crew of 14 and three Sheringham fishermen who had been taken aboard to offer support. The HRU had been in service for just over two years. As the storm intensified the Commodore was wrecked and subsequently was blown up by Trinity House as it constituted a danger to shipping.

Chris knew roughly where the Commodore’s remains were but had never found them until he chanced upon them recently. His discovery made the local and national news and he was even interviewed on an American television station. Views of the wreck can be seen in the promotional video he has produced about the Henry Ramey Upcher lifeboat, see above.

The winter of 1896/97 was an exceptionally stormy one. In the January following the wreck of the Commodore the slipway from the RNLI lifeboat station (now Oddfellows Hall) was washed away in a storm, rendering the lifeboat station no longer usable. In the same month the Henry Ramey Upcher lifeboat carried out its most famous rescue, of the crew of the brig Ispolen, which was carrying a cargo of ice from Norway and was also wrecked off Sheringham.