The Lake District is an area of outstanding beauty that is now a World Heritage Site. It is a mountainous region in Cumbria that is famous for its lakes, forests and mountains as well as its associations with William Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter and John Ruskin. In addition to the area’s literary connections, there are a huge range of activities to choose from on any visit to the Lake District, as well as numerous incredible museums. EcoChoice had the pleasure of working on the quirkiest museum in the watery region, The Windermere Jetty Museum.
The Windermere Jetty Museum is the Lake District’s newest all-weather museum. It showcases the history of the people of Windermere and its famous lake, which is England’s largest natural lake. At the museum, visitors learn all about the incredible two-hundred-year-old boating history of the lake, the lake’s boats, owners and sailors. There are plenty of interactive activities for children to enjoy but the jetty museum was lacking one crucial thing: a jetty of its own! We supplied specialist FSC Cloeziana timber piles to be used for a brand-new jetty for the museum. The project to create a jetty was led by TMS Maritime, a leading UK specialist in marine civil engineering, ancillary floating plant and diving services.
Cloeziana timber is sourced from FSC forests in South Africa, but unlike many other trees, it naturally grows long and straight – much like a telegraph pole. What’s more, it’s also very hard and very durable, not to mention cheaper than similar timbers like Ekki and Greenheart. This makes Cloeziana the timber of choice for projects like the Windermere jetty.
It was a project that needed the expertise of TMS Maritime. An extensive programme of work needed to be carried out in order to improve and widen the existing slipways and jetties at the lake. Once the work would be completed the jetties and slipways would be used once more as an embarkation point for visitors to the jetty museum and for mooring boats.
A grand total of 148 timber poles were driven into the lake to create the base structure of the jetty’s boardwalk. The timber poles were 11m long and are naturally tapered so that they could be easily peeled deep into the ground. Our experience and the specialist knowledge of TMS Maritime meant that the whole project was completed in only 12 weeks. What’s more, the durability of the wood means that the jetty will last for decades! The museum now “perfectly showcases the elegance and craftsmanship of the precious boats themselves” by having its own extraordinary jetty.