This photo that Paul posted is causing me some problems. I'm trying to date it and identify the yards and possibly even the ships. What I am sure of is:
1) At the top left of the riverside is the Clelands yard, before its redevelopment. This was discussed at length in previous postings.
2) To the right of that is the site of the Tyne Iron Shipbuilding yard. This is confirmed by the map and photo at http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/TyneIron-WQ.html
3) The map identifies the Clelands Yard as Willington Slipways and next door is the Tyne Iron Yard. The date of the map is a bit old for my liking but the streets behind the yard tie in well with Paul's photo. The photo below the map on the Tyne Built site also confirms the location because the name of the yard is strung out between two of the cranes (Written facing away from the river). Note also the structures on the left of this photo with the curved roofs.
3) Now looking at Paul's photo we can see those same curved roofs in the Tyne Iron yard to the left of the tanker on the berth. I am sure this is a tanker and there is another in the river across the bottom of the berth.
Now my current speculation is as follows:
4) My feeling is that the two tankers are OILFIELD in the river and WELLFIELD on the berth. These are the only two "standard shape tankers" that Tyne Iron built as far as I can make out. This would date the photo as approx May-June 1923 as WELLFIELD was launched 08/12/1923 and OILFIELD completed in June of 1923. I think there was a bit of a post war slump at this time and construction could be slow (I've no proof for this just trying to tie the two tankers together).
5) Also in the river are a bunch of cargo ships, probably laid up. They do not look like the output from Tyne Iron as thay have the seperated bridge - funnel/engine room from the likes of Northumberland Shipbuilding down the river at Howdon as typified by http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/C-Ships ... r1918.html
But this is my problem.
6) So what is the other ship on the slipway to the right of the tanker? It looks as though it is in another yard. This is confirmed by the map and the street layout, especially the road leading down to the Willington Quay Landing Stage. But there is no landing stage visible on Paul's photo and the road looks partially covered. This should be the old Palmer's Willington Quay yard which closed in 1900. Then Eltringham's moved there in 1914. Their last ship was the DALEWOOD for which I don't have a launch date, but she was completed in 1921. So what is the ship?
7) Has the slipway been annexed by Tyne Iron?
OR
8) Another possibility is that it is a few years later and Tyne Iron has closed and Armstrong Whitworth took over in 1929. They built a couple of freighters with this seperated bridge/engine room structure, but only one tanker as far as I can see, the NINA BORTHEN launched 28/05/1930. Of course the tanker in the river could be from another yard or in for repair etc. I don't think they had the requirement for the berth in the yard next door, but???
Or is this a whole pack of cards which someone can pull down and explain for me. PLEASE.
On a similar note Paul posted a whole set of these aerial photos. Were they all taken at the same time? If so then the photo of the Walker Naval Yard could be earlier than I thought and the ship on the berth there could be the MONARCH OF BERMUDA rather than HMS NEWCASTLE. I had assumed that the MONARCH would have been on the longest/outside berth. This would make the photo mid 1930 and the NINA BORTHEN was launched 28/05/1930. The next and in fact last ship launched at the Armstrong Whitworth yard was the CWS PROGRESS on 05/01/1931. This is 6 months after the NINA BORTHEN launch and I would have thought plenty of time to re-use the same berth, so why go next door?
If anyone has managed to follow this ramble, I would appreciate their thoughts.