Upstairs
The yard museum
Four rooms over the office, free, and the best small rope collection anywhere on the east coast.
Room 1 · The first rope
Thirty centimetres of the 1874 founding rope, kept in a case the Voss family had made for it. The label is in Jonas Garrow’s own hand and says only: first off the walk, good lay.
Room 2 · The jack
The 1919 hook frame, retired in 1971 and kept turning on Saturdays by the volunteers. Turn the handle yourself; it is geared so a child can move it.
Room 3 · The ledger wall
Facsimile pages from the proof ledgers back to 1891, with the crane numbers and the rope they belong to. The originals stay in the iron cabinet downstairs.
Room 4 · Wrecks and rescues
Rope that came back with a story: a tow bridle off the Coalwick Belle that held through the 1978 grounding, and a climbing line from the weir rescue that the family of the climber lent back to the yard.