By Alison WithersTHE rotting wrecks have all gone and visitors to a popular riverside beauty spot can enjoy the view across to the opposite shore.Clearing up the foreshore and hard at Pin Mill began in August with the breaking up and removal of the wooden barge, the Maid of Connaught, which had lain slowly crumbling away for as long as people could remember.

By Alison Withers

THE rotting wrecks have all gone and visitors to a popular riverside beauty spot can enjoy the view across to the opposite shore.

Clearing up the foreshore and hard at Pin Mill began in August with the breaking up and removal of the wooden barge, the Maid of Connaught, which had lain slowly crumbling away for as long as people could remember.

In all four wrecks were cleared away from the riverside, while a fifth - thought to be the former admiral's launch from the 1950s naval destroyer HMS Vernon - has become a long-term renovation project.

About 20 volunteers from the National Trust, Pin Mill residents and Babergh district councillors also spent a day shifting debris that had washed in on the tide and accumulated for many years.

Martin Atkinson, from the National Trust, said they had filled three large skips with glass fibre, metal, board and even an old window that had been washed ashort.

“There was a lot of debris that had washed ashore over the years and been piled up behind the old sea defences,” he added.

“It was very, very good. When we saw the size of the skips, we thought we'd never fill them with just manual labour in a day, but we did.”

But the removal of the rotting wrecks has drawn a few grumbles from artists, who said the clean-up had left them with nothing interesting to paint.

Tony Coe, owner of the John Russell Gallery in Ipswich, said: “So many people have painted the scene over the years. It's been done badly and well, but its character brings people from all over the world.

“I have to say it's looking a bit antiseptic now. It has taken away some of the character, but, environmentally, you can't just leave it to the degree that it upsets the environment completely.

“From a health and safety point of view, you have to make it cleaner and to encourage the general public as well as the people who live in and around there. For the artists, there will be the odd old boat there still.”

n What do you think of the Pin Mill clean-up? E-mail the Editor at eadtletters@eadt.co.uk, but include your postal address, or you can write to Letters to the Editor, EADT, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or fax a letter on 01473 324871.

alison.withers@eadt.co.uk