20th Century
With three masts and full rigging, green, black and red painted hull, planked decking, on stand, 27cm wide;180cm long; 120cm high
Estimate: | £400 - £500 |
Hammer price: | £850 |
The Norman Court was a composite built tea clipper initially intended to run the Asia Europe trade route. Built just as the Suez canal opened in 1869, the ship was design by William Rennie, built by A. & J. Inglis of Glasgow and like the Cutty Sark, one of the last of its kind with the advent of steam power on the horizon. It met it's fate in a spring storm off the coast of Anglesey in 1883 in Cymyran Bay, where the wreck still rests. Andrew Shewan was the captain, his father of the same name served as the original captain until 1873, and the former wrote a memoir entitled Great Days of Sail: Reminiscences of a Tea Clipper Captain, published in 1926, when he was possibly one of the last surviving tea clipper captains.