Listen to the track:
The Ballad of the Ocean Queen 1852
During one of the most violent winter storms to strike the English Channel in decades, the ship Ocean Queen, owned by Captain Sheppard of Lime Street Square, was driven ashore at Wembury. When daylight came the following morning, only fragments of her wreck were found along the shore. It was feared, and later accepted, that the whole crew, including the master named Hore and two passengers, had perished. RIP x
Verse 1
The hurricane of ’52 came roaring down the tide,
On the rocks at Wembury Bay the Ocean Queen had died.
Broken timbers on the shore, a story plain to see,
Of the storm that claimed her souls upon the rolling sea.
Chorus
Ocean Queen, eighteen fifty-two,
Every soul was taken, nothing we could do.
From London town to Devon’s shore so green,
The storm claimed all on the Ocean Queen.
Verse 2
Captain Hore stood at the helm, no ship could turn aside,
By morning light the coastmen searched, but only wreckage lied.
Still the cliffs remember her, and still the waves proclaim,
The Ocean Queen of Wembury Bay, they whisper out her name.
Final Chorus
Ocean Queen, eighteen fifty-two,
Every soul was taken, nothing we could do.
From London town to Devon’s shore so green,
The storm claimed all on the Ocean Queen.