On this day in Wembury — 7 May 1909
A letter published in the Falmouth Packet that week (reproduced and discussed in several West Country papers) reflected on the collapse of the Wembury Dock Scheme, a grand industrial proposal once intended to rival Plymouth as a deep-water commercial port. The writer, identifying himself as J. H. Polglase of Falmouth, argued that the failure of the Wembury plan — rejected by the House of Lords earlier that spring — was not an end to the idea of a major Channel harbour, but rather a redirection of ambition toward St Just-in-Roseland on the Fal estuary.
Polglase, writing as both an engineer and a Cornish advocate, noted that while Wembury’s promoters had “sound arguments from a shipping and commercial point of view,” their scheme was “impracticable morally and physically.” The terrain, the exposure to south-westerly seas, and the lack of rail connections doomed it. Yet the same commercial logic — the need for a new western deep-water terminal to serve the great ocean liners and trans-shipment trade — remained compelling. The focus, he claimed, should move westward to Cornwall, where St Just Creek offered shelter, deep water, and room for construction “at a minimum of cost.”
This commentary shows how Wembury’s unrealised dock became a stepping stone for rival projects, especially in Cornwall. The rejection of the Wembury Bill effectively cleared the way for renewed advocacy of the St Just and Falmouth schemes, which would dominate harbour debates into the 1920s.
In essence, the failure of the Wembury Dock did not kill the dream of a great western port — it merely displaced it. Wembury’s ambitious plan exposed the appetite for expansion along the Channel coast, but its rejection affirmed what engineers and geographers already knew: that the South Hams coast was too wild and exposed to anchor a major harbour. Cornwall, meanwhile, seized the narrative — turning Wembury’s setback into its own opportunity.
(Falmouth Packet and County News, 7 May 1909)