For a number of months, the Devil’s Porridge Museum has had an excellent exhibition on display focusing on the ancient local practice of Haaf Net Fishing. On Monday, Derek from D&G Council came to collect the exhibition and was surprised and pleased to see that it had grown in its time with us! Lots of people have come forward after visiting or hearing about the exhibition to donate objects, photographs or oral history testimonies. We’re really pleased to pass on these objects so that they can go with the exhibition as it travels to showcase the story of this interesting fishing technique and the unique social history and culture connected with it.
This months Object of the Month is a fishermans records book from Loch and Dornock dating back to 1899.
Thanks to Stuart Graham, now based in Annan, for loaning us the fisherman’s records for Loch and Dornocks Fishings. Stake net fishing and Haaf netting in Dornock and Eastriggs provided a living for many local men for hundreds of years, right up to the last quarter of the 20th Century when Loch and Dornock fisheries were purchased and closed down by a conservation trust purportedly to protect salmon stocks in our oceans.
Stuart’s great grandfather, David John Graham, was the bookeeper who kept the business’ daily account of the netsman’s hours of work and their wages. His grandfather Thomas (old Tom) and his father, William Shannon Graham, carried on the family’s fishing heritage.
The pages in the book in the years 1898-1900 show the names of the fishermen who toiled in the Solway. Perhaps they are from your family and you may have memories or photos of these or later generations who fished at Dornock. Please let us know.
The Devils Porridge Museum Podcast has been created as part of an intergenerational oral history project. The project is now available for you to listen to online.
Through conversations and interviews, our volunteers and others from the local community will be sharing their personal memories and stories with The Devils Porridge Podcast team.
This weeks Podcast is a collection of memories and stories by a group of Haaf Net Fishermen who were interviewed at the Museum earlier this year.
More episodes will follow over the coming weeks, so please come back and listen to more installments throughout the summer.
If you would like to get involved in the project to share your own stories and memories or if you would like to find out more about joining our production team please contact: Steven@devilsporridge.org.uk.
One of the Great things about having an exhibition on display is the things that it leads to. Our current exhibition in Haaf Net Fishing (which is on display until April 1st), has generated a lot of interest (from people in Cumbria as well as people on the Scottish side of the Solway). So far we have had object donations, objects on loan and on display for our Object of the Month Display and now we have had photographs and film footage shared with us.
The photo above shows a Haaf Netter at Loch and Dornock which is near the old HM Factory Gretna site and not far from Eastriggs, where the Museum is located.
These videos were shared with the Museum by Annan Museum and make interesting viewing:
This post was written by Lukasz, who volunteers with us every Thursday from Annan Academy.
The Museum currently has an exhibition on display which shows Haaf Net Fishing. On Monday 13th of January 2020, several fishermen visited the museum (see photographs below) one of them loaned us this interesting objects which we aim to put on display soon. These items belonged to his father and we are delighted to have them on loan.
Haaf Net Fishing is a Norse style of fishing that was adopted by the people of this local area of Solway Firth after Viking settlements and it involves the person going to the middle of the body of water with a big net than the person would place the net under the water then when a fish is caught the net is taken out of the water.
These objects (photographed above) are what was used to ‘knit’ the net used for this style of fishing because the people of the area had to make their own net out of hemp. The net would be knitted by the fisherman and his wife. This six objects are three knitting needles (bottom of photo) and three measures (top of the photo). One measure to make nets catching salmon (top left), one for nets for catching trout (middle top) and one for nets catching baby trout (top right).
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