"A fire which severely damaged the famous 19th Century ship Cutty Sark is being treated as suspicious by police.
The ship, which was undergoing a major restoration project, is kept in a dry dock at Greenwich in south-east London. An area around the 138-year-old tea clipper had to be evacuated when the fire broke out in the early hours."
"Speaking to BBC News, the chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, Richard Doughty, said he feared what would be lost in the blaze.
"When you lose original fabric, you lose the touch of the craftsman, you lose history itself," he said.
"And what is special about Cutty Sark is the timbers, the iron frames, that went to the South China Seas, and to think that that is threatened in any way is unbelievable, it's an unimaginable shock." He said the ship would be "irreplaceable".
He added that the Cutty Sark was not just an important part of maritime heritage but an important part of British identity."
I don't know about all this 'British Identity' stuff, but I fondly remember visiting the Cutty Sark when I was in primary school (and still living in London) in the mid 1980s.
It's a beautiful ship. Or should I now say 'was' a beautiful ship.
You can see images at the wikipedia page.
The above image taken from the wikipedia page as linked above.
It all calls to mind the famous painting by Turner, depicting the inglorious end of sail - The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up
No comments:
Post a Comment