no.5771

Esperance & Ferry Hotel From The Ferry

1910s

View of the front gardens of the Ferry Hotel on Windermere with customers eating outside below ivy covered walls. Steam yacht Esperance moored at the jetty with full load of passengers. Two gentleman rowing their ladies with admirable co-ordination. More rowing boats pulled up on the shore. Two motor cars parked with their passengers stood by the railings. ESPERANCE is the oldest boat on Lloyd's Yacht Register Built for HW Schneider and was his personal luxury water taxi from what is now the Belsfield Hotel, to Lakeside and his private carriage on the train to Barrow. From 1900, she was used to convey visitors and locals to the Ferry Hotel for afternoon tea and hotel guests were ferried to Wray Church for services. She was sold to become a houseboat in the 1920s and was Captain Flint’s houseboat in Swallows and Amazons. Her steam engines were scrapped before the war and a petrol engine installed. In 1941, she sank in 20ft of water but was salvaged. She has been recently restored at the Windermere jetty Museum.