Glasson Dock and The Stork at Condor Green

The other week on my way back from viewing the remains of the Space Tower ride at Morecambe, I stopped at a pub that I must have passed over a hundred times without ever stepping inside.

The Stork at Condor Green sits on a bend, thus enabling it to face the oncoming traffic over the humpbacked bridge over the River Condor. It places an obstacle in the road as far as drivers are concerned, for the road bends to the right in front of it and then sharply to the left to bypass it and carry on into Lancaster just three and a half miles away.

The pub and B&B haven't changed in appearance, certainly since the 1970s which is when I took my earliest photo of it in glorious monochrome and I suspect it has looked the same for a good many years prior to that. The old coaching inn dates back to the time of Charles II - I'm sure he must have popped up all the time to get away from Great Fires and the constant pestering of Sammy Pepys for "any juicy tit-bits for the diary, your majesty...?" The wrought iron figure of a stork with outspread wings sits now as it did then (the 1970s not the 1660s...) over the doorway to the pub.

I didn't have anything more exciting than a tuna sandwich but my eye caught various bits on the menu like "Bobotie" and signs hung on walls showing the way to the "Braii / BBQ" and asking the young barman confirmed that it is owned by a South African. Not sure about the bobotie and if I'm ever offered Rooibos tea I run a mile I'm afraid, but the sandwich was excellent as was the beer that I ordered with it and I think a second visit must be undertaken at some near point!

Not visited on this occasion, but a regular afternoon out haunt of the late 1970s was the nearby Glasson Dock. I suspect it doesn't get as busy as I remember it in those days and the floating cafe, the Ba-Ba-Gee, on the side of the marina is long gone.

Glasson Dock is not as old as it might appear. It didn't exist at all until the 1780s when the River Lune up to Lancaster started to silt up and they built this dock here just a short distance from the river mouth and the Irish Sea. A set of lock gates against the river ensured that ships could stay afloat in the dock when the tide went out and when the canal was built ten years later a branch was built with more locks allowing the passing of ships from sea into the canal system. Here we see the lock between the dock itself and the canal basin and marina.

You would normally expect to see a sizeable town grow up around a dock, but the fact that schooners could enter the dock and then sail along the canals to Lancaster or even Preston meant that there were no vast requirements for employment of men and Glasson Dock remains a small village.

And amongst my photos of 1977, here is Miss Franny standing guard over the MacLaren buggy which holds our baby, Gillian.

Glasson Dock

Back in 1982 a regular ride out was to the tiny port of Glasson Dock.

Getting up the River Lune to the docks at Lancaster was extremely difficult due to the low water in the river. A dock had been built at Sunderland Point on the north side of the river in the early 1700s, but it was decided that a dock should be built on the opposite bank at Glasson.

A pier was built in 1782, but the wall bulged so badly that it had to be rebuilt a year later at which time a second wall was built so that gates could be fitted to retain enough water at high tide to float up to 25 ships within the sea dock.

The sea lock was only opened for 45 minutes up to high tide and from that point ships had only about an hour to clear the river before the water drained so low by the tide that they would be in danger of bottoming.

When the Lancaster canal was built a branch was constructed to join with the sea dock via another set of locks. These were wide enough to let small ships through from the sea onto the canal to transport goods north or south along the canal.

The tiny watchman's building with its lookout tower was built in 1836. A large marina - the canal basin - is large enough to moor over 200 boats.

In the 1980s there was almost always at least one large ship in the sea dock. Coal is exported from here and incoming goods include fertilizer and animal feed.

A swing bridge over the canal between the sea dock and canal basin opens at set times for ships or boats to pass into the lock between the two, allowing mainly small masted pleasure craft to reach the sea from the marina. At these times cars have to take a circuitous route through the village to reach the road bridge on the landward side of the marina.

A closer look at the watchman's hut and the capstan linked to the "sea lock" gates - they actually lead onto the River Lune as has previously been mentioned.

There used to be a floating cafe-cum-restaurant moored on the seaward side of the marina. Named the Ba-Ba-Gee, you could eat with your feet at, or just below, water level and look out the windows at swans who would peck the glass, looking for titbits.

Large versions of the photos: buildings behind the canal lock, capstan, pier, ship, watchman's hut