The Ship Asunder: A Maritime History of Britain in Eleven Vessels
TOM NANCOLLAS
(PARTICULAR BOOKS, 336 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • tel 020 7799 4064

Britain’s ports, writes Tom Nancollas, are like empty sherry casks, “drained of a potency yet still fragrant with the scent”. There is more flavour than substance left of British seafaring. Stories and memories abound, but the stuff which made them – the hulls, the masts, the docks – is scarce. That long, withdrawing roar is the sound of our maritime past receding from our consciousness.

Fragments remain, however, and Nancollas seeks them out. The author of a lyrical study of Britain’s lighthouses, Seashaken Houses, he has an admirable stuff-first approach to his subjects. The Ship Asunder gathers 11 relics that tell us something about seafaring in these islands. His organising conceit is a vessel constructed with a prehistoric prow, Nelsonic ropes, the Lusitania’s propeller and other remnants from nautical history.