User Contributed Dictionary
Noun
Verb
to trow- To trust or believe
- To have confidence in, or to give credence to
Extensive Definition
A trow was a type of cargo boat found in the past on the
River
Severn in England and used to
transport goods. The mert could
be taken down so that the trow could go under bridges, such as the bridge at
Worcester
and the many bridges up and downstream. The mast was stepped in a
three sided frame open at the rear but closed with an iron pin or
rope lashing. From the top of the mast a forestay ran down to the bow
winch. To lower the mast the pin was removed and the winch
slackened off to let the mast fall towards the stern. The reverse
operation pulled the mast up. One such Trow, called "Joan", was
owned by a timber merchant called Oliver Luff. He used her to bring
timber from Tintern, Monmouthshire
into 'The Back' now called 'Welsh Back' in Bristol's Floating
Harbour, where he owned two timber yards. A pub, the Llandoger
Trow is situated in Bristol. Trows were sea-worthy, as with an
added keel they could take
90 tons of salt from Droitwich to
France
across the English
Channel. The flat bottomed Trows sailed on the sea by hauling a twenty foot log of
wood under the hull strapped with chains to give
'grip' and stop the hull sliding sideways.http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/jim.shead/Boats3.html
There are two traditional types of Severn Trow.
Prior to the 1840s the River Severn
was tidal up to Worcester. The
trows that were used on the tidal portion of the River were called
Downstream Trows whilst those that sailed north of Worcester were
called Upstream Trows and were smaller. An example of a Downstream
Trow, the Spry, is at the
Blists Hill site of the Ironbridge
Gorge Museums. During the summer the flow of water was often
very low and so the trows were pulled over the resultant shallows.
A rope was attached to the mast and the men who pulled the boats
were called bow hauliers. The men would enter into a contract with
the captain of the trow in the many pubs which were all along the
Severn riverbanks and there was a right of way along the
bankside.
A smaller version of the above (18 feet max) is
peculiar to the Fleet lagoon in Dorset. It is used
primarily for the transport of mackerel caught by seine net
fishing crews off Chesil
Beach. Once caught they are boxed and transported across to the
mainland by these flat bottomed boats. Unlike the River Severn
version the "Fleet" variant is only ever towed, rowed or punted and
has no mast or sail.
Trow may be pronounced as trō (rhyming with
"crow") or as trou (rhyming with "cow"). The former pronunciation
was the usual one throughout Worcestershire,
Shropshire and
Dorset.
While the latter exists regionally, dictionaries often give only
the former pronunciation.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trow