Morecambe Maritime Festival
August 16th 2025

Morecambe’s Heritage

Lancashire’s nobbies, a shallow-draft fishing boat, were ideal for the tidal waters of Morecambe Bay and were a common sight up and down the coast, often with their distinctive red sails.

Nobbies
White Star liner, Majestic

Morecambe’s tidal harbour, marked by its stone jetty, was soon replaced by the deep-water harbour at Heysham but soon found a new role as a shipbreakers’ yard. The shipbreakers formed a background to many a seaside postcard with ships from the Great War as well as the twin funnels of the liner Majestic.

Morecambe’s fishermen often turned to providing pleasure trips for holidaymakers in the summer season. This was not without risk as shown by the capsizing of the Matchless in 1894, caught in a gust of wind off Jenny Brown’s Point and resulting in the deaths of 25 of its 33 passengers.

Images and information provided by Morecambe Heritage