Bru
Well-Known Member
It would be surprising if there hadn't at one time been public (land) access to the hard. Unlikely anyone could now prove it, though.
Well there was a timber yard and smithy on the site as early as 1873 along with a slipway and a hard. They were still there in 1897. By 1923, the smithy is still indicated but no timber yard. There's still a slip but no indication of a hard. The slip leads into the building overhanging the river bank as it does today
By 1972, the slip is no longer marked on the OS map but a narrow hard down to the LW line is indicated (albeit covering a much smaller area than the hard on the 1873 map). A boatbuilding yard is indicated for the first time but we know that Shuttleworths had been operating there much earlier
The jetty is therefore (relatively) modern, the present hard probably likewise albeit on the site of an earlier hard.
The only public right of way is a footpath through the boatyard to the sea wall. There's no vehicular right of way
My gut feeling is that there is unlikely to have ever been a public right of access across the hard. It has the look of always having been a private facility to service the original timber yard which then became the boatyard
I can't post the maps here for copyright reasons (which I disagree with as the older maps are well out of copyright but if "caught" my Old-Maps account would be down the khasi and I need it for a long term research project