Fishing — Life on the Levels

- Martin Morgan, Black Rock Lave Net Heritage Fishery (Portskewett)

Where Britain’s longest river, the Severn, meets the sea, there are four fisheries, explains life-long fisherman Martin Morgan: the Usk, Wye, Severn Estuary and Black Rock, site of the last seine and lave net fisheries.

These wild and dangerous waters have attracted some dedicated fisherman, Martin’s grandfather among them. Famed for his gull egg collecting exploits on Chepstow cliffs, fisherman ‘Nester’ William Morgan had a rivermark named after him. “Nester’s Rock is only about 18 inches high, but Nester was quite small!”

Then there were the two brothers who were carrying their father’s coffin to Portskewett church when a fish rose in a neighbouring salmon pool. “Bob looked at Pete, Pete looked at Bob. Then Pete ran back to the house, fetched his waders and net and picked the fish up!”

While fishing the estuary Martin has stumbled on ship wreck canon balls and mediaeval fishing baskets, known as kypes or putts, buried in the estuarine clay. He’s witnessed the last of the putchers, “conical willow and hazel baskets set facing the ebb tide for salmon,” the wreck of The John which ran aground on Gruggy Rocks in 1942 and more seals and porpoises that you can shake a net at.

▶ Read more about the lave net fishing at Black Rock…

Life on the Levels

“Jason the lion loved ice cream”

“Everybody knew everybody else.”

“The church is dear to us”

“The Levels - a piece of land made by the sea”

“We have a good community here”

“You have to be careful”

“In the steelworks you had a job for life.”

“It’s a throwaway society.”

“Our life was the railways.”

“If we don’t teach our children, they won’t teach anybody else.”

“I remember the German bombers going over.”

“It was all coal.”

“My father was an Italian prisoner of war.”

“I’d do anything to be outdoors.”

“Some things are worth more than money.”

“I’ve been involved with the history for over twenty years.”

“We had nothing but we were happy."

“I’m a Leveller.”

“We spent half our life on the Moors.”

“In the old days you could see the horizon!"

“It’s all changed now.”

“Nearly every family had someone who went to sea.”

“There was noise and a vibrancy to Llanwern steelworks.”

“I grew up in Utopia.”

“We started finding material on the landward side of the seawall.”

Back to Life on the Levels

Life on the Levels Interview:

Martin is from the Black Rock Lave Net Heritage Fishery Group. He talks about the history of Black Rock and its current difficulties.

- Howard Keyte (Porton)

Howard’s cottage is just a few yards from the seawall. “When you’re sat by here at high tide on a rough day, the tide is about 10 feet above you then but we try not to think about that! You get used to it over the years, it is a lot safer now than it used to be. They did a lot in the sixties to improve it but you could see the horizon, in the old times. If you got a good high tide coming over and washing down the bank, it would go through the kitchen and out through the front door then!”

His parents, Charles & Evelyn lived next door at Porton House where he grew up. “My grandfather came here to Porton first in 1906 but then my father moved up from Whitson to look after him. Father was a carpenter and wheelwright in Whitson in those days.”

Living so close to the seawall, the three generations of Kytes worked on the fishing ranks at Porton that once stretched out into the estuary catching the precious salmon: “There were three ranks there were, there was this one about 300 yards up, there’s one about a mile out in the channel, that was Black Rock, … that was hard work… and one at Redwick. When the tide was out we would empty the baskets, and collect the salmon and carry them in sacks over our shoulders. Then we would take them to the fishery at Goldcliff. He’d then send the fish off to Billingsgate market in London. But it’s all gone now.”