‘Dolphin’ was the name for tent-shaped structures fixed in the river bed and used by sailing ships in the past to get in and out of the harbour when there was little or no wind. Ropes would be taken by rowing boat from the ship, attached to the dolphin then hauled by the ship’s crew, the process, known as ‘warping,’ being repeated to the next dolphin and so on.
One of the dolphins still existed at Kingston by early 1900’s and appears in one or two paintings as well as in this photo and on the 1898 map. Neil De Ville found this 1959 record of the remains of what was thought to be an early 17th century wooden lighthouse at Kingston Beach. Perhaps it was the dolphin but if the slipway they were working on was the one on the map then the dolphin looks too far away from the slipway to have been the piles they discovered.
History suggests that in the 17th century the opening of the river to the sea was then further away. Was the dating accurate; was it an early lighthouse; was it this dolphin or another?
GPO adds to the stroy:
I have an extract from a chart dated 1945, which the navigationally competent among you (lets me out) might find interesting.
There is a fixed light which might be in about the right place. I’ve highlighted it in red to make it stand out. I’ve also overlaid this on an aerial shot.
I would be the first to admit that, in 1959, a light that was still shown in 1945 shouldn’t be a mystery only 14 years later, but who knows? Had it been there for decades, or just for the war, for navigation in the blackout?
You overlook them for years then when you look properly………
These images are all seemingly of the same conical-shaped dolphin except that the first two include a straight square construction the other side of the river that looks from the map to be a different type of dolphin.
