Beach

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Weston sea-front and cable
Copyright North Somerset Museum 2003 This material is scanned from the pictures held by the museum with their permission and, as such, is their copyright. There are four, clearly quite old, pictures showing a cable being brought ashore:
"Pulling the preliminary rope to which the cable was spliced" (Splicing a cable)	No Grand Pier in sight so this must be before 1903.So it could be the 1885 (first) cable or the one laid in 1901. This photograph is in "Weston-super-Mare in Old Photographs" by Sharon Poole and there it is stated to be the first cable. I do not know exactly where this was taken from but maybe one of these is the modern view:
Looking at the Grand Pier beach abutment.
Further along towards the Grand Atlantic Hotel.
"The cable floated by large canvas buoys and brought landward."
"Hauling in the land portion of the cable."
"The tackle and pulley wheel."
No caption but compare "The tackle and pulley wheel." above	Again1885 or 1901.
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No caption	These two pictures seem to be associated in the files but cannot be (I think) as there is a Grand Pier this time in the first but the second appears to show a very similar scene (same people even) to one of those above. This picture must show either the 1910 or 1923 cable. It is very difficult to judge where it was taken from but my best attempt so far is this:
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"Cable ship which laid WsMs 1923 cable" on back
	As it says - "Guarding Atlantic Cable Sea Front WSM" - but where exactly ? This is also in the Sharon Poole's book where it is stated to be from the First World War. (In which case they are guarding three cables but how near was their landing to this location and what is it?)
	This can be dated to 1967 and the incident reported in the newspapers at the time ! For the follow up to this see this exchange of letters and this newspaper report.
	Part of a chart from 1970 showing the beacon position.
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