Hadleigh Castle - F355

Hadleigh Castle - F355

Postby Whickham » Thu Jan 18, 2018 12:08 pm

I "found" this photo on the web and as there doesn't appear to be a central place for shipbreaking on the Tyne other than here I thought I would add it "for the record"
Photo shows HMS HADLEIGH CASTLE being broken up at CW Dorkin's yard at Gateshead. Miramar and Tees Built have "Broken up at Gateshead 01/1959".
She was of course a product of Smith's Dock at South Bank in 1943.

Hadleigh_Castle-1943.jpg
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Re: Hadleigh Castle - F355

Postby E28 » Tue Oct 02, 2018 6:52 pm

A forlorn Hadleigh Castle awaiting the breakers torch on the Tyne mud.

I will not get too engrossed in the Castle class corvettes here other than Smith's Dock were the truly significant player in the design of the RN's earlier corvette class, the Flowers. They also used Smith's engines and boilers and when a slightly more capable single screw anti submarine Corvette was needed they did the Castle class too with Hadleigh Castle as lead ship.

And they did the larger twin screw twin engined River class Frigates.

Smith's Dock during the first years of WW2 contributed more than most in the war against the u boats and yet their exhaustive efforts and knowledge are relatively unknown.

Finally, launch dates i have for Hadleigh Castle differ between the 19th or 21st June 1943.
Thats all folks. Sean.
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Re: Hadleigh Castle - F355

Postby E28 » Sat Mar 18, 2023 8:30 pm

Smiths Castles were the first warship class to include an anti submarine mortar in the form of the a/s mortar Mk IV or squid, an ahead throwing weapon wielding 3 x 12" projectiles as opposed to simple depth charge rails or throwers. Ambuscade had run successful trials and it needed to be deployed against the u boat very hastily, the Castles were in design and selected.

Hadleigh Castle once commissioned spent her war on convoy work, her white ensign career ending in Jan 1946 when paid off in Pompey to enter the fleet reserve with a brief refit in 1949. Reserve is where she remained, latterly in West Hartlepool before being allocated for disposal through BISCO. None of the Castles retained by the RN served any meaningful post war service, decaying until the late 1950's.

Have you any idea where Hadleigh Castle actually is? 'tis in Essex just West of Southend having belonged to the Salvation Army and the predecessors of the current custodian known as the public works department, amongst others.

Here, take a gander, still much used and admired today by numerous groups and the public at large.
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/vis ... e/history/
Thats all folks. Sean.
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Re: Hadleigh Castle - F355

Postby Hornbeam » Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:25 am

I would agree with everything you have written E28, unlike the Canadians to our eternal shame we never kept a Flower Class Corvette preferably a Smith’s built one for preservation considering their important contribution in WW2, the only Memorial is to the Smith’s employees who were killed on the La Bastiaise during her Trials in Tees Bay when she hit a Mine.
One of the Tugs with the TCC the Francis Samualson aka The Sammy had the same Engineroom as the pre War built Smith’s Whalers which were the basics of the Corvette build programme, unfortunately for me her Chief Jimmy Y. never pulled a sickie whilst I was there so the opportunity was lost for me to experience such an historic Engineroom and all its quirks.
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