Mr. William Pots came to stay at Moum in the early 1870-ies; he was the first of the many English anglers who fished at Moum/Heggum to do so. Mr. Frank Dugdale arrived in the middle of the 1880-ies. He left an important legacy, but unfortunately we don¹t know much about Mr.Dugdale. Martin Bjerken wrote in his book “Laksefisket I Namsen og de andre elvene i Namdalen”(The salmon fishing in the Namsen and the other rivers in Namdalen):
“He was an imposing and nice person, and he understood ideal angling and left an important legacy. It was he who persuaded the owner to build the big and graceful main building. He gathered many of the most outstanding persons of the English aristocracy at Moum, for cultivation of the most noble of all sports, the salmon angling. Mr. Dugdale also knew how to get in contact with the inhabitants of the district. Every year he hosted boat races and other sporting events with plenty of food and drink, and everyone was welcome. He also arranged dances after the district’s custom, where the local musicians played. These meetings were popular amongst the pleasures one could hope to be a part of “.
Of Mr. Dugdale’s guests in the 20 years he spent at Moum, we can mention the Earl of Aylesford, Captain Armstrong, the Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Zeatland, Lord Herbert van Tempest, Lord Wolverton, and Lord Edward Spencer Churchill. After Mr. Dugdale’s time, among others Major Norrie, Captain Oldfield and Lord Belper have been guests at Moum. George Bainbridge and his son Cuthbert came to Moum in 1935, after many years of fishing at Grong Gard. In 1937, when George Bainbridge was in his 87th year, he caught a salmon of 57 1/2lbs.
The Second World War became a watershed, and almost all of the pre-war anglers didn’t come back. (The currency restrictions were very strict in England after the war, and every Englishman was just allowed to bring 25 pounds with them to travel, and you didn’t get very far with that, even if the pound was worth 20 Nkr. at that time)
Cuthbert Bainbridge came back to Namsen in 1950, and he fished until 1956. The picture below is a detail from a salmon reel that belonged to Bainbridge. Gradually other nationalities filled the empty space left by the English anglers, and of those the Danes were in a majority among them.
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