The Portland Stone Trade

Project Nor - The Portland Stone Sailing Barge -1

Jottings Issue 2004/2

Model Making

A half-scale model of Project Nor was made on a drive in Longfield Road and then photographed from an upstairs window. Boxes, bricks, pieces of wood and other appropriate items found in the garage were used to simulate the cargo and known features of the wreck. Additional features were then drawn electronically onto the picture. This proved to be very useful coupled with the underwater video to rough in the main features of the site onto a survey drawing. It also allowed us to make decisions as to how the four datum lines around the site might be adjusted to simplify the recording of features and dimensions.

Looking down onto the model it suggested, by the way the cargo had “lozenged”, that she had gone down bow first with the starboard quarter hitting the bottom first and spilling the cargo in that direction.

DJC

Project Nor - Portland Stone Sailing Barge - 2

Jottings Issue 2004/3

Why was she armed?

During the survey of the ‘Project Nor’ wreck site several collections of lead shot, at the bow, stern and on the starboard side, all the same size, have been recorded (6 balls, total weight = 4oz or 292 grains each, suitable for a 24-bore carbine). Why should a humble stone “barge” carry carbines? A little research has revealed that sailing out of Weymouth in the 18^th century could be very hazardous.  

On 21^st June 1701 J Bartlett and others were making for Weymouth in his boat after mackerel fishing were chased into Portland Roads by a large ship flying Dutch colours. The Commander said he was French from Le Harve de Grace, that they were prisoners and that the boat must be ransomed or destroyed. Bartlett pleaded in vain that England and France had agreed not to molest fishing boats. A ransom of £10 “in drapery and hatts” was agreed on and a man kept as hostage until the goods were brought. The Commander was later identified as Cushart recently escaped from (South) Hampton goal.

Two generations later the situation appeared to be no better when on 9^th December 1780 Weymouth and Portland were forced to send a petition to the Admiralty for help against French Privateers, which within two months had taken “twenty vessels and more, between the Isle of Wight and Start point, mostly within two leagues of Portland”. The petition included an affidavit by Matt. Langrish, who, when commanding a sloop was taken off Portland by the ‘Civility’, privateer apparently English built, captained by an Englishman but with a French Commission! Captain Langrish was held on board for four days during which he saw four more vessels taken.

The petition apparently fell on deaf ears as the Admiralty were again petitioned for a Guard Ship for Portland Roads and Weymouth Harbour on 3^th April 1798. Gordon Lepard has also heard of an incident when even a stone barge was captured and the stone taken back to France where it was used in a building.

Clearly dangerous times, when the saying “to be forearmed is to be forewarned” had real significance!

DJC

Project Nor - Portland Stone Sailing Barge - 3.

Jottings Issue 2004/5

Adopted Wreck

Project Nor has now gone public with submissions to the Receiver of Wreck and ‘Adopt-a-Wreck’ papers submitted to Nautical Archaeology Society where we became the 50^th project to receive that status.

The picture to the left is a multiscan image of the stone cargo covering the shipwreck.

 After measurement, survey and photography a pair of cut Portland stone arches from the cargo, which had fallen forward over what appears to be the cooking area during the sinking, were raised to assist with the identification of the source of the cargo from mason’s marks (unfortunately none are visible) and geologist analysis and hence to the identification of the vessel. This will also have the benefit that it will enable a particularly interesting area of the vessel to be surveyed in detail. They are now outside Weymouth Museum awaiting a purpose built cradle that will sit them in their assumed configuration in a building. The local press were informed in order to realize our wish for public awareness of this important aspect of local historical trade and they responded magnificently with items on 20^th and 23^rd October.

RH & DJC

Project 'Nor'-  Portland Stone Sailing Barge - 4.

Jottings Issue 2004/7

Stone Arches Raised

At last our two stone arch sections have been landed safely at Weymouth Museum and the steel mounting frame for the sections has been constructed and galvanised ready for mounting the pieces. The frame was constructed by Bob Acton, proprietor of ‘On The Spot Welding’ Bob kindly provided the steel and expertise free of charge and his help, at a very busy time for him, was much appreciated.         Ron Howse

Another Portland Stone Wreck - Jottings Issue 2005/3

Known as ‘Site 5011’ by Wessex Archaeology this wreck lies in shallow water east of Selsey Bill in a gravel area called "The Park", located by the UKHO in 1976 and charted as an obstruction, in 1982 divers described it as a "very old wooden vessel".  Wessex Archaeology surveyed it without identifying it in 2002-3 but described it as approximately 15-16m long by 5.5m wide, carvel built fairly flat bottomed vessel with a single mast stepped in the forward third, probably representing the remains of a sailing barge which sank with a cargo of Portland stone. The interest in this wreck is its apparent similarity from their multi-beam sonar images with our own Portland Stone Wreck. A visit later in the year could be very interesting.

 A Short History of the Smack ‘Jane’ - Jottings Issue 2005/3

The ‘Jane’ was built by an unknown builder in Weymouth in 1818 and registered in Weymouth, its home port, on 18^th October 1818 as required by the Merchant Shipping Act of 1786 for vessels over 15 tons. Her dimensions when built were 52’ 1½” x 17’ 7” x 9’ 5” and she was rated at 65⁵¹/₉₄ tons.

The ‘Tide Survey’ was undertaken by George White, Sam Sharland (London) and James Blackman Giles. Eight years later in 1826 (also recorded as 1827) she was still rated “A1” by Lloyd’s Shipping Register but that she needed “repair”. The “A” rating refers to the quality of the hull and the “1” to the quality of her rigging and fittings. After twenty tears of use in 1838 it is recorded that she had “some repair”. Two years later in 1840 she was rated “AE1” by Waterford, Corstal. The “E1” was done by Cox, Shipbuilder’s of Bridport and referred to her strength and suitability to carry heavy cargo and infers that at least she had a double skin with a “ceiling” inside the frames to protect the hull from the cargo. 

On the 17^th August 1843 she had been “thoroughly repaired”, restored and lengthened by 12 feet to 64’ 0” x 16’ 5” x 9’ 3” and her new measured registered tonnage ‘burthen’ increased by 15% to 75³⁰⁸/₃₅₀₀ tons.  The formula that gives a tonnage with a fraction to the base 3,500 is assumed to be “deadweight tonnage” (exact formula has yet to be confirmed).

However it is also stated that the new tonnage was 94¹²/₉₄ tons but this is clearly not correct if it is calculated using the Builders Old Measurement, the formula adopted in Britain by Act of Parliament in 1773 and in use until the middle of the 19^th century, to calculate the tonnage of a ship as a figure on which port and harbour dues could be based. The tonnage equalled [(L-³/₅B) x B x ½B] x¹/₉₄, where L = the length in feet measured along the rabbet of her keel and B = the maximum beam in feet which appears to be correctly calculated for the other two tonnages. This may have been a typographical error and should have been 74¹²/_94.

The ‘Jane’ was described as a “smack, SD (Lloyds Register of Shipping abbreviation for a single decked vessel) with a square stern and a proven iron cable”. She had two masts, a main and a mizzen. The reference to her “proven iron cable” confirms her suitability for being able to be anchored with a heavy cargo on board.

 As it was described as a smack it is possible that its mainsail was a “smack sail”, a loose footed sail hung from a yard carried aloft. A Mr Fortree in a manuscript, held in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College Cambridge, entitled “Of Navarachi” to Samuel Pepys, the then Secretary to the Navy Board, describes the merits of the ‘smack sail’, illustrated here, as “good by a wind and handy to tack, always hanging behind the mast. But extending only from the middle of the ship and overhanging only one side, it can not stand so fair before a wind as a square sail; and also by wind it hath this inconveniency, that being boomed or spritted aloft and raised very high it is subject to cause a vessel to lean or heel so much as to put it out of trim that it will gripe and straine so hard upon the rudder or healm as to be a great hindrance to the way of the ship: besides to support this kind of sprit the mast must be more lofty whereby it must be the more wind tant, and so a proportional hindrance to the way of the vessel”. If this was the rig fitted to the ‘Jane’ this instability may have had some bearing on her ill-fated voyage in 1855.

It can probably be assumed that the mizzen sail would have been fitted mainly to keep the head to wind when at anchor.

During her life of over 40 years she had seven owners of which the last four owners or part owners were members of the Beale family as follows:

It was the Merchant Shipping Act of 1825 that laid down that the ownership of any vessel must be divided into 64 shares. Whilst the ownership of the ‘Jane’ passed through many hands it is also recorded that she had thirteen captains starting with the original part-owner:

During the captaincy and part-ownership with Elias Cox, Captain John Case Beale (junior), who lived with his wife Mary in No. 32 St Thomas Street, Melcome Regis (Weymouth), had a traumatic voyage that merited being recorded in the Southern Times of Saturday 3^rd March 1855 under “Local News” which was reported as follows:

“The ‘Jane’ of this port, Captain Beale, has lately met with a very singular chapter of accidents. It seems that when bound from the Channel Islands with a cargo of stone, she was overtaken by a squall, about midway between Barfleur and the Isle of White, and both her masts were carried away, the sea making a clean breach over her. In this situation, with several feet of water in the hold, the crew were taken on board by another vessel, it being supposed that the ’Jane’ must inevitably go ashore or sink. However, since the arrival of the crew in Weymouth, intelligence has arrived that the ‘Jane’ has been picked up and towed into Newhaven. It appears that after she was abandoned, the wind shifted and she drifted towards the English coast, when she was descried (SOED: to catch sight of especially from a distance) by another vessel, and taken to the port above mentioned”.

A computer model run by the Coastguard of the de-masted and waterlogged ‘Jane’ predicted the most likely course of the stricken vessel from a point exactly halfway between Barfleur and the Isle of Wight was ESE but with the most northerly prediction being about 12 miles south of Newhaven after a drift of only 2½ days over a distance of approximately 60 nautical miles at 1 knot. It therefore appears to be  reasonable to suppose that the exact point it was abandoned was probably nearer the Isle of Wight than Barfleur. Whilst we do not know at this time exactly when this incident occurred we can make a guess that it was several weeks before 5 March 1855 as the ‘Jane’ had drifted for approximately 2½ days and it could take perhaps a further two weeks to be reported back and get into the weekly ‘Southern Times’ putting the likely time of the incident in the first three weeks of February 1855. nb: Spring tides occurred around 3^rd February (full moon) and 17^th February (new moon).

The “cargo of stone” that the ‘Jane’ was carrying from the Channel Islands to an unknown destination that we shall assume was in England is most likely to have been granite, either the most common white form or it might have been the more valuable pink variety. Where was it destined for and for what building project? It has been suggested that at this time there was a large amount of pavement construction in England in the mid 19^th century and that granite was often used for kerbstones, could that have been the cargo of the ‘Jane’?

The ongoing research is concentrating on the records of Newhaven and the local weekly newspaper the ‘Sussex Express in the weeks before 5^th March 1855 for a report of it being towed in and how it got back to Weymouth as it continued to be registered in Weymouth for at least a further 4 years under the captaincies of William Brown and latterly Richard Rickman although neither of them appear in Weymouth’s ‘Burgess Rolls’ up to 1854, as well as finding a descendant of the Beale family in Weymouth. An approach is also being made to the Channel Islands to see if there is a record still available of its departure, cargo and destination. All additions, help or corrections are most welcome.

References:

Thanks for information and help from: Margaret Morris, Madelaine Davey, Maureen Attwooll and Peter Martin.     

A Significant Maritime Discovery on Bryher, Isles of Scilly. - Posted February 2007
Ed Cumming & David Carter

Prior to moving to the Isles of Scilly in 2005, Ed C had been involved in a small way with Project Nor.  He has maintained his membership and involvement with the Weymouth Group and has also joined a like-minded group on Scilly called IMAG, the Islands Maritime Archaeological Group.  One of his first tasks was to familiarise himself with the recorded wrecks around Scilly.  Apart from many significant sites, well known on the Islands, there was one that caught his attention straight away, and appears to have had little local attention until now. 

‘Charming Molly’ wrecked off Bryher in 1780 with a cargo of Portland Stone bound for Dublin in Ireland!!

The Isles of Scilly Museum Publication 3, March 1980, page 16 and the Shipwreck Index of the British Isles, Volume 1- Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon & Dorset, notes that the Weymouth registered 120 ton sailing brig ‘Charming Molly’, under the command of Captain Samuel Marder, was reported lost on Sunday 19^th November 1780. These references also refer to Lloyds List No.1,225 published on Tuesday 19^th December 1780 and further documentation describes it as “stranded near Bryher to became a total wreck”. 

None of the maritime historians/archaeologists on the islands appear to have investigated the wreck but it was suggested that I approach Brian Jenkins whose family had a long association with Bryher.

Stoneship Porth
Photograph Courtesy of Todd Stevens

I approached Brian and he remembered that there was an old stone trough in the corner of a field near the public well on Bryher, which he was sure his father had told him, had come from a wreck nearby. Possibly from an area near ‘Droppy Nose’ Point that Brian referred to initially as ‘Staunchy Porth’.  Within days, and having since spoken to his son, Brian phoned to say that according to a chart of 1898 the small bay on the South West of the island that he had referred to as ‘Staunchy Porth’ is in fact called ‘Stoneship Porth’.  Surprisingly it is still referred as to Stoneship Porth in the current issue of the Ordinance Survey Map.

South Bryher
  OS – Explorer 101 

Question now for the IMAG team; would we be able to find the trough and would it be made of Portland Stone?  Brian drew us a map of where he remember the trough was situated when he left Bryher about forty years ago. It was however several weeks before the weather was good enough for our quest to find the trough, but we finally set out for Bryher on Sunday the 14^th January 2007.

We soon arrived at the area, but not finding anybody around to guide us to the old well, we spent quite a time searching various fields before finding it. It is now covered with a manhole, pumping equipment and storage tanks.  Once located, we searched again for the stone trough.  It was exactly where Brian had said it was, but because it has now become part of a boundary wall, several of us had already passed it by.  Fortunately ‘sharp eyes’ Todd Stevens found its hiding place.   I was amazed it was still there after all these years, on the Mainland this would surely have disappeared into someone’s garden and all provenances lost. 

The dimensions are; 34” long by 24” wide by 15” deep.  The walls are approximately 4” thick.  Hopefully permission may be obtained to remove the trough at some stage for a closer examination.  It is certainly limestone and the chances of it having been recovered from the Charming Molly must be extremely high.  We know that there is a possibility that there may be a quarry mark on the stone.  What we are unlikely to determine is whether or not the stone was recovered as a trough or chiselled out locally.

During the summer it is our intention to search for signs of Portland Stone in the Stoneship Porth, but we realise that in this particular location (close to Hell Bay) we are unlikely to find any evidence of the wreck itself.

The only other information we have been able to gain about the wreck was from a historical tidal almanac.  This stated, on the day of the wreck, that it was neap tides with only a 2.87 metre difference between high and low water, low water occurred at 4.28 pm just 8 minutes before sunset.

This fact could mean that the cargo was lost in fairly shallow water.  Since building stone of this quality would have been a valuable commodity to the islanders, it may well have been salvaged.  So far though i.e. at the time of writing this, we are not aware of any Portland Stone structures on the Islands.  One gentleman who would have been interested in the cargo, Augustus Smith, fortunately did not arrive on the Islands till 1834. 

Close-up of the trough

A valuable addition to Bryher’s history. 

Portland Stone was in widespread use in Dublin in the latter half of the eighteenth century with many of the great public buildings built of it, notably the Customs House and the Irish Parliament building, now the Bank of Ireland building in College Green, which had its heyday before the Act of Union at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In A. E. Cocksedge’s handwritten papers “Ships Built at Weymouth” entry #51 describes a barque of 120 tons with a draught of 11 feet having been built in Weymouth in 1764 with the owner and captain as Samuel Marder called the ‘Charlotte and Molly’. It also adds that it is “Shown as Ch?ing & Molly, Lloyds 1775”.

It would appear certain that these two boats are one and the same but doubt remains as to whether she was the ‘Charming Molly’ or the ‘Charlotte and Molly’. Mr Cocksedge is now deceased and his notes are hand written.  For the time being we shall continue to call her the ‘Charming Molly’.

However there is no record in Cocksedge’s handwritten papers “Ships Registered in Weymouth” of a boat containing the words Charlotte, Molly or Charming being registered in Weymouth in the period 1775 to 1780, presumably if registered at Lloyds it was not required to register locally.

The 'Charming Molly' was one of five boats built in Weymouth in 1764, the others were a 70 ton sloop, a 90 ton brigantine and two brigs of 80 and 150 tons and one of only two barques ever built in Weymouth.  She was rated 'E1' in 1775 and 1779 that referred to her strength and suitability to carry heavy cargo and infers that at least she had a double skin with a “ceiling” inside the frames to protect the hull from the stone cargo. 

Samuel Marder appears in the ‘Weymouth Museum Records of Devenish and Groves Title Deeds’ on 5^th May 1796 under the assignment of leases for 52 St Thomas Street as a “mariner and late husband of Mary Marder”. Samuel was the son of John Marder and by using the parish records for births, marriages and burials it has been possible to put together a 'suggested' family tree for Captain Samuel Marder. Checks of the source documents are required to confirm this family tree but luckily there appears to be only one Samuel although there are several Johns, Janes and Marys.  If we have the correct Samuel, he obviously survived the wreck on Bryher.

 References:

Our thanks for information and help to: