Uphams Shipyard

Today I walked to Brixham on a glorious day to look for a plaque, which I found. I have passed it’s location many times but never noticed it. These lovely harbour side apartments in Brixham are built on the site of Upham’s Shipyard (J W and A Upham) which built many of the Brixham trawlers of the 19th and 20th Centuries. There is a plaque on the building which says the yard was requisitioned by the Admiralty during World War Two to build motor torpedo boats and motor gun boats for the British and free Dutch Navies. It also says that the replica of the Mayflower was built here in 1957 and sailed from Plymouth to Plymouth, New England, as a gift to the American people. This was the subject of a brilliant on line talk on Wednesday for the Torquay Museum Society, by John Scotney. Mayflower II was an amazing achievement.
The plaque was unveiled in 1999 and is dedicated to the memory of those generations of West Country craftsmen who made these fine vessels possible. The vessel has been restored to mark the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims arrival on New England’s shores in 1620.