Plymouth's Gansey Gathering Sardine Festival(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)

Plymouth celebrates the sardines that saved the city

by · PlymouthLive

If you smelled something extra fishy coming from the Barbican this weekend, it might have been the sardine barbecue, the giant sardine, or the sparkling sardine flags waving their heads at Commercial Wharf.

It was Plymouth's first Gansey Gathering Sardine Festival on Saturday, June 20, reconnecting Janners with the sea. It was a celebration of traditional crafts, sustainable fishing and, of course, the humble little fish that once saved the city from starvation.

The 'gansey' part of the festival refers to the traditional fisherman's gansey jumper, a dense, nearly waterproof piece of knitwear that protected fishermen from the elements. Worn in the 19th and early 20th century, ganseys are a famed and treasured piece of history up and down the country, but were largely forgotten about in Plymouth until a combined art, craft and community project returned them to the streets of Plymouth.

Funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, The Box, and Plymouth Sound National Marine Park and run by The Conscious Sisters CIC and gansey expert Tina Barrett, knitters in Plymouth are being taught how to make their own ganseys in the traditional bottom-up, seamless style from more than 100 years ago. And around 100 of them were on display at the festival.

Ganseys make a wonderful winter staple - after the months of (at times) deeply frustrating work. They are a real labour of love, as this reporter knows first-hand after spending the better part of five months knitting one.

The festival also remembers how the humble sardine quite literally saved Plymouth from starvation.

The city had been brought to its knees during the English Civil War as one of the few remaining holdout Parliamentarian strongholds, while the rest of the South West was taken by Royalists. Set up in Plymstock, they blocked land-based trade into the city.

But the Royalists couldn't attack the city by force, and stubborn Janners held out, despite the rise of typhus in the city. The Roundheads controlled the Royal Navy, so Plymouth was largely protected by the sea. But food and fresh water were running short, particularly as Plymouth had seen an influx of refugees due to the war.

Then, in February 1643, the sea provided - a large shoal of sardines swam into Sutton Harbour, giving Janners the means to survive and helping them to stick out the siege for another three years.

The march of the ganseys(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)
It might have been a rather warm day, but the knitters wore their jumpers proudly(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)
Your humble reporter in her own lovingly crafted gansey(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)
One gansey knitter even matched with their dog!(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)
The gansey project is now on its third batch of knitters(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)
(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)
Sardine hats!(Image: PlymouthLive/Shannon Brown)