BOATS AT THE HALL - ALEX MOULTON AND RENATO 'SONNY' LEVI

13 Sept

Written By Alex Moulton Charitable Trust

The famous architectural critic Peter Reyner Banham once described Alex Moulton’s estate as “a wild Victorianised Jacobean manor-house … the stables are full of peculiar pieces of machinery thumping lumps of rubber to bits … and Moulton himself is apt to stroll into this scene with a canoe on his head, looking every inch the English bird-watcher.” Reyner Banham did concede that “appearances can be deceptive, however: some sort of nut he may be, but the kind of nut from whom the really creative ideas in technology come.”

Visitors to The Hall Estate today can still see how Moulton’s world was laid out, with all facilities to hand. In the stables mentioned above, the iconic small-wheeled, full-suspension Moulton bicycle is still made. Alex Moulton’s striking Boat House on the millstream that once fed the Kingston Mill still stands and, whilst most of the boats that he kept here have gone, there is a curiosity amongst those that remain.

Alex Moulton’s favourite vehicle was the kayak (or canoe if you prefer – Reyner Banham did), but he had a life-long fascination with steam engines and steam power. He built his own steam car whilst still at school, and his company, Steampower Limited, led research in modern steam car design in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He later acquired the steam boat ‘Alice’ (named after this grandmother) and greatly enjoyed using her on the Avon and further afield. Steam boat trips were a memorable highlight of Open Garden days at The Hall for many visitors in the 1970s and 1980s. In a typical Moulton refinement, the steam boat was fired using small nuts of Welsh coal that had been counted into paper bags before the journey. By this simple contrivance the stoker could keep his hands clean of coal dust.

In a great contrast to the gentle pleasure of the steam boat, Alex also had a penchant for power boating and owned two Fairey Marine powerboats (first ‘Querelle’ and later ‘707’) After some years he tired of this quest for speed and had become troubled by the profligate use of fuel involved with these fast and elegant boats. Coincident with the 1970s fuel crisis he sold ‘707’ and commissioned a new steam boat to replace ‘Alice’. The new boat was to be named ‘Beryl of Avon’ after his mother. The designer was Renato ‘Sonny’ Levi.

It is testament to Alex Moulton’s character and Sonny Levi’s skill and talent that ‘Beryl’ was ever built. This was far outside Levi’s normal commission, as he was justifiably known as the father of modern powerboat design. Levi’s work – in both hull shape and propulsion systems – was so advanced that when his pivotal design Surfury was first raced in 1963 it left its competitors standing as it could achieve speeds 5-10 knots faster than any other offshore boat at the time. It is perhaps no surprise to learn that when Richard Branson sought to break the Atlantic crossing record in the 1980s, he commissioned Sonny Levi to design the vessel itself. Levi’s other customers included Gianni Agnello, Roberto Olivetti, the Shah of Iran, and the Aga Khan.

Levi’s boats were usually propelled by engines of hundreds of horsepower. Alex Moulton was proposing something completely different – Beryl was to use the steam plant from Alice, with a maximum output of 2 horsepower. Levi did not baulk at this, although to an extent his reputation was at stake. Like Moulton, Levi designed from first principles and, having a full understanding the fundamentals involved, he was confident that he could produce a successful design. And he was right – Beryl emerged as a fine-lined, highly efficient sea-going steam boat. This was no slipper-sterned launch - Levi said that he wanted to “try out something new which would represent maximum efficiency … combining the best hydrodynamic profile with the least possible weight”. . As the American journalist Melissa Hubner commented: “The Levi trick is that his boats really perform and they always have and always will”. Beryl was built by Terry Hardick of Bath using Honduras Cedar and she was fitted out by Bert Hervin on the estate here. Bert was one of Alex Moulton’s long-standing employees, having been recruited when Moulton Developments was formed in 1956 - his workshop skills had been learnt whilst building Supermarine Spitfires in Trowbridge during the Second World War.

Alex Moulton kept Beryl for some years and eventually sold her to Lord Strathcona, who was then the President of the Steam Boat Association. Moulton and Levi did scope a design for ‘Beryl II’ in 1978 but this boat was never built.

And so what is the remaining curiosity? Down near the Boat House we find a small dart-like boat with a sharp vee hull. This boat had been abandoned many years ago and it is in poor condition, but its design and construction bear heavily on the work of Sonny Levi and of the kayak designer Jorgen Samson, both of whom were corresponding with Alex Moulton during the 1970s.

Sonny Levi enjoyed visiting The Hall several times in the 1970s and later, into this century. In many ways Levi and Moulton’s methodologies were similar, based on engineering fundamentals with a strong aesthetic flair (indeed Levi was a highly accomplished artist in his own right). Both men possessed the courage to be experimental and in most cases these experiments were very successful, and both were ceaseless in their quest to improve their designs. Their motivations may have been similar too, as Levi stated: “There are few milestones in the world of design, so each one tends to be extremely important. If one tries a new, different idea and it works, and there was a certain sort of logic to the idea, there is an enormous sense of inner pride.” – and one can almost hear Alex Moulton saying the same words.

Both Alex Moulton and Sonny Levi were Royal Designers for Industry (RDI) - the highest accolade that a designer can receive in the United Kingdom. Only 200 designers can hold the title RDI, and it is only awarded to those who have achieved ‘sustained design excellence, work of aesthetic value and significant benefit to society’.

The gardens at The Hall, Bradford on Avon are open on Friday afternoons until the end of September. Please see our Events Calendar for details.