Estuary foot ferries, a rowed river crossing, Solent car and passenger routes and a Lake District steamer service, several of them older than the roads that bypass them.
The English crossings on this site answer to very different operators: a volunteer not-for-profit on the Torridge, Bantham Estate on the Avon, a riverside business at Shepperton, a Polruan boatyard's ferry company on the Fowey, Hovertravel, Red Funnel and Wightlink on the Solent, a family firm rowing across the Blyth at Walberswick, and on the Scilly run the company islanders set up in 1920. The estuary and river boats earn their keep by the walk or drive they spare you — round by Bideford Bridge, nine miles inland via Aveton Gifford, north to Walton Bridge and back, or the long road round from Fowey to Polruan.
What sets them apart is the tide. The volunteer boats between Appledore and Instow can only cross for roughly two hours on each side of high tide, and they issue a monthly sheet of windows in place of a timetable. Bantham keeps two fixed windows a day and ignores the water level; the Thames at Shepperton is non-tidal, and the boat shuttles on request. The Southsea–Ryde hovercraft exists because of low water, gliding over flats no ship can cross, while the Scillonian spends 2 hours 45 minutes on open Atlantic in what is her final season. Higher up the Kingsbridge estuary the water decides again, because the Lady Mary can only reach Kingsbridge when the creek holds enough of it. Others pay the tide no attention: Red Funnel's Red Jet keeps the same Southampton–West Cowes grid before and after the clocks change, and the harbour boat at Polruan has no timetable at all, just a departure from each side every ten to fifteen minutes.