Buyers come forward in battle to save Churchill funeral barge for Britain
HOPES are rising that the barge that carried Sir Winston Churchill’s coffin during his state funeral can be saved for the nation after a Mail on Sunday appeal.
Two potential British buyers have come forward after we revealed how the 85ft Havengore could be sold overseas. Their identities are being kept secret but both are said to have a keen interest in preserving the teak and brass vessel.
In 1965, Havengore, a former Port of London Authority survey vessel, carried Churchill’s coffin up the Thames from his funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral to Waterloo Station, where a train took him to his burial plot in Oxfordshire. Dock workers famously lowered their cranes in a mark of respect.
Havengore’s owner Chris Ryland, 75, has been trying to sell the vessel for 18 months and reluctantly put it on the international market, with an asking price of £800,000, after failing to find a British buyer.
It is currently moored at St Katharine Docks in London.
Last week’s coverage in the MoS, however, led to renewed interest.
‘I’ve had several calls,’ Mr Ryland said. ‘One or two of them are people frankly who would like to do it but don’t have the resources. But there are two possibles. I need to keep their confidentiality but both are people with historic interest and financial resource.’
It comes as Arts and Heritage Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay last night joined former PM Boris Johnson and broadcaster Jonathan Dimblebly in calling for a British buyer. ‘I hope that this historic vessel, which enabled so many people to pay their last respects to him, can remain in the UK so future generations can be inspired by his legacy,’ he said.
Lord Parkinson has the power to place an export bar on an item deemed to be of national significance. This would give a potential British buyer the time to raise funds to keep it in the country.
Other high-profile figures have backed the campaign to keep the vessel in the UK. Downton Abbey dramatist Lord Fellowes said: ‘It seems to me its proper place is in an English public collection.’
Lord Dobbs, author of the House Of Cards novels, added: ‘I’d love to see Havengore as a floating museum…showing young people what their parents and grandparents went through.’
Lord Archer praised the MoS campaign, saying: ‘This is part of our British heritage and should not be allowed to leave the country.’