Fragments survive of ocean liner 'Doric' which met its end in Newport

And that reminded us of this story we ran back in 2015 about the pub's interesting interior...

She was a ship built to cross the high seas in style. Owned by White Star Line, of Titanic fame, the Doric sailed between Liverpool to Montreal carrying passengers in luxurious comfort. But 80 years after she met her end in a Newport breakers yard, parts of this ship from a bygone age still grace parts of the city.

The smoking room in the liner Mauretania. Many of the rooms in the Doric would have been fitted out in similar style

The Doric belongs to an age before the Atlantic could be crossed in hours.

In the 1920s when she was built it would take at least a week.

To persuade the passenger to part with their money, shipping lines had to make their liners as comfortable as possible. Their boast always had to be that their ships were the most well-appointed, in which the luxury of the surroundings would make even the roughest crossing a pleasure.

As an architect who designed the interiors of great cruise ships of the time said, "we must make people forget they are at sea."

The Doric was no different.

The smoking room in the Doric, from the illustrated plans owned by ex-Cashmore's worker Tony Whitcombe

Built in Belfast by Harland and Wolff in 1922, she could carry 2,300 passengers and depending on the price of their ticket in either luxury or comfort. A crew of 350 attended to their needs on the journey.

While not a giant like her larger sisters, such as the Titanic, the twin-funnelled Doric shared her stately lines and wore the same colour scheme as the tragic liner. Her interior was every bit as swish as her stablemates.

Dining rooms were clad in oak and mahogany, marble was used extensively. Mirrors were delicately engraved. Even ashtrays were silver-plated or made of brass and embossed delicately with the White Star flag emblem.

The ship's maiden voyage on June 8, 1923, was from Liverpool to Montreal in Canada. She would sail the 2,385 miles in just under seven days at a steady 15 knots on this route she plied until 1932.

From 1933 the Doric began a more leisurely career and was used for only cruising, based at Liverpool, she was one of ten White Star liners transferred to the newly-merged company Cunard White-Star.

Her voyaging was to come to a premature end in September 1935 when she collided with the French ship Formigny off Cape Finisterre.

Her passengers were rescued and emergency repairs at Vigo in northern Spain were made, but on her return to the UK she was declared "a constructive total loss" or as cars might be called today, "a write-off". It is then, as her fate had been decided, that Newport entered the scene.

Cashmore’s was a Newport firm whose name would have been known throughout the world as the place where ships came to die.

A steel panel is hoisted from the Doric as she is broken up at Cashmore's

Despite the thousands of hours of toil by riveters in fixing great sheets of steel together and carpenters fashioning stylish fittings - a ship's life would end by a cutting torch at a place like this.

Newport was a natural place for a ship-breaker.

Local historian, Jim Dyer says that the Usk, with its high tidal reach, meant the largest of ships could be sailed upstream.

The yard's appetite was prodigious.

Mr Dyer said: "They scrapped more than 1,000 ships, of all sizes, famous warships, ocean-going liners, paddle steamers, tugs and coasters were pulled apart the metal and accessories all sold and recycled."

Sat on the banks of the River Usk between where the SDR and George Street bridges are today, the yard saw the end of liners like the fantastically-named Reina del Pacifico, the Empress of France and great battleships like HMS Collingwood and, of course, the Doric.

Another chronicler of Newport’s past was Jan Preece and he remembered how these leviathans would come up the river on their final journey: "When I lived on Raglan Street in Pill, you could see the great majestic shapes looming over the streets. You took it for granted, but at the same time it was so impressive."

Cashmore’s made its fortune from the scrap metal gleaned from these great ships; their fixings and fittings were small beer. The proceeds of the sale of furniture were often donated to local causes.

The Doric's oak-panelling and engraved mirrors would go to keep the Royal Gwent in those pre-NHS days.

Steve Williams landlord of the St Julians Inn in front of fittings from the liner "Doric" that was scrapped at Cashmore's in Newport

Many houses in Pill would give a home to a sideboard, a lamp or a door salvaged from a ship broken up at Cashmore’s, the Doric included.

By 1937 more than 280 ships had been broken up but many more would lie alongside the river bank on the Usk mud and be slowly dismembered.

It seems appropriate that further up the river the remains of one of Cashmore's most famous projects, the Doric, should be found.

Steve Williams is landlord of the St Julians Inn and is one of Newport's longest-serving landlords. But some of the fittings in his pub overlooking Caerleon stretch back much longer than that.

The walls of the lounge in the pub are clad with oak panelling saved from the Doric.

“The lounge was built on to the original part of the pub between the wars,” landlord Steve Williams says “and they clad it with wood taken from the wardroom on the liner”.

“Some of the bell pushes used to summon a steward are still there,” he adds.

He says it is a “special feeling” that this part of the great ship remains.

“You can't preserve something as big as a liner, but it's good that pieces of it have been kept and are still used here.

“I have seen a picture of the original wardroom on the Doric where the panelling came from, and it's laid out exactly like the lounge here. It has the same cosy feel.”

It should come as no surprise it looks so at home in a pub. When the architects were designing these palaces of the sea, they wanted to re-create the intimate feeling of a club or restaurant.

“Not many people are alive who would have seen the ship when it came into Newport,” Steve adds, “so it’s great that people can come and see a part of it here.”

Overlooking the Usk as it bends round towards Caerleon, The St Julians Inn is named after the patron saint of boatmen who was renowned also for the help he gave to travellers.

It’s also fitting, then, that fragments of the Doric survive here where that great liner travelled her last.