The 'Castle Holme' in Surrey Commercial Dock

A painting showing two barques, the 'Castle Holme' and the 'Endymion', moored on the River Thames at Limehouse Docks, London. The 'Castle Holme' is shown port bow view and the smaller 'Endymion' starboard bow view. On the far left is the tower of St Dunstan and All Saints Church, Stepney. In the centre, immediately behind 'Castle Holme' is the Hawskmoor tower of St Anne's, Limehouse. On the extreme right, projecting above the piled jetty, is the mast and sprit of a Thames spritsail barge. The yellow block of colour between the two barques is supposed to represent a sawn timber cargo that has been unloaded. If this is true, and the painting is meant to be of vessels in an enclosed dock rather than in the river, then the most likely docks would be the Surrey Docks. Everett records that he first saw 'Castle Holme' in Surrey Docks in October 1921 and made a series of drawings of her. Barques were sailing vessels with three masts and were often used for the grain and nitrate trade to South American ports round Cape Horn. The 'Castle Holme' was built in 1875 for the Hine Brothers of Maryport for the wool trade with Australia and it was wrecked in the Baltic In 1924.

Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. Bequeathed by the artist 1949.