Two years on from our last Open Days, the 2021 ones coincide with Open House.
No need to book, but there may be limitations on numbers and the pop-up cafe that is usually in place in the pier house will be operating but in a more distanced mode. The pier house is of course well ventilated with doors open on three sides and the moorings are otherwise open air.
Sailing Barge “Will” is here and available for visitors to look at close up, as well as clamber round the deck (with care). She is a working charter barge, taking groups of people on private charters now, rather than the commercial trade of decades ago, when Thames sailing barges were the mainstay of shipment of goods in and around the Thames and the estuary, up the east coast and sometimes across the channel. Fully rigged and able to sail, the Will is the largest such barge built. Constructed 1925, measuring 97.6ft long (almost 30m).
