Tag: RB

Roger Bateman articles, blog posts and pages

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Map from 1360

I’m fascinated by mediaeval history particularly concerning our area. Don’t know how long this resource has been on line but it provides a revealing glimpse of the places in c.1360 considered then to be more important. I’ve added the present day names and surprisingly (for me) it includes places like Stopham and Chiddingfold – Selsey at that time was an island! Shoreham is portrayed as quite a dominant town which of course it was then due to its shipbuilding industry but strangely the River Adur is not included. What it lacks in detail and proportion it makes up for by magically taking us back to a Tolkein-like middle earth seven hundred years ago (see the complete map shape of the British Isles) – an amazing feat for those times.
Well worth a visit – http://www.goughmap.org/map/

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Details hidden in photographs

Dating photos can often be difficult but sometimes there’s a clue that makes it easy. This photo of the High Street has a poster for a film on the side of one of the buildings that was released in 1921.
(enlargement and increased contrast of the poster since added to make it all readable)

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Dating photos

The two photos of Stow & Sons yacht-building sheds were almost certainly taken within a short time and distance of each other. There are a number of clues including the same yachts moored in front of the sheds but most significantly of all is the man working on one of the masts.
The large yacht below has been identified as the Rosalind built in 1904 by Stow but there is a date 26th August 1906 written in ink on the reverse. Built for owner Charles Hellyer and registered at Hull it voyaged widely but, significantly, Lloyds Yacht Registers record it returning to Shoreham for the vessel’s annual survey in 1906 and is likely to be the date of that photo.
Of all the photos we have of Stow yachts it is only the Rosalind that has a cranked, forward leaning mizzen mast so close to the stern. Amongst the vessels in the other photos the fourth yacht from the left also has a cranked mizzen mast (marked X) in a similar position and therefore more likely to be the Rosalind and of  a similar date.

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Old slipways

Until recently as you walked back to the town over the footbridge you could see the rails of a slipway in the grounds of the Sussex Yacht Club. Were these the remains of the 19th century rails in the last of Shoreham’s shipyards? It doesn’t seem so.  Maps show the original rails in Dyer’s Yard to have been at more of an acute angle to the riverside than the ones In the modern photo. The others to the right, also 19th century, were installed nearer to the time when the yachtbuilder Stow & Son ran the yard.

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Shoreham built ships

Having researched and recorded Shoreham built/registered ships I still pick up photos/postcards of them that turn up from time to time. These two recent, poor quality, acquisitions are of the Carbonaria (left) built in 1866 by William May and the other Commerce (right) 1862 by James Britton Balley, both at the old shipyard where Suters Yard was subsequently located. Some time ago I was told that the Commerce ended up as a mooring hulk on the Mersey at Liverpool and was given a photo of it that I’m also including here. The lack of detail makes it difficult to be sure that they are one and the same but if they are then the hulk must have had its gunwales removed.

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Bringing Shoreham’s old houses to life

With a bit of patience (and a lot of time) you can rebuild Shoreham’s old houses even when they were photographed in a ruinous state. Using a Pixelmator programme for Mac and a photo of Kingston Cottage (it once stood next to the Kingston Inn) you can create a close impression of what it looked like when it was once cared for.

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Steam on the Adur

One of our favourite walks over the years has been along the river bank from Shoreham to Bramber and for those of you that still tread its meandering path take a pause before you get to the cement works, look back eastwards across the river to the hills, imagine the same scene one hundred years ago and listen carefully. Within the noise of the traffic from the nearby Steyning Road you may hear the faint sibilant hiss of a steam engine and the churning of boat screws on water as the phantom river tugboat George V puffs by towing two barges back up river for reloading.
 
(A very rare postcard necessarily heavily reduced in resolution from our partnership collection with Marlipins Museum.)

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1913 storm damaged bungalows

A successful bid for a set of 1913 storm-damaged bungalows on the beach provided a bit of a challenge as none of the bungalows in them were identified. An extensive trawl through our collections eventually matched them all and even managed to identify a long standing mystery bungalow that by coincidence stood close by!
You’ll see what we mean:- http://www.shorehambysea.com/catty-brown-and-framnaes/

Continue reading “1913 storm damaged bungalows”

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Cosy Nook – Widewater

A bit of a coincidence this – looking through some of our collections and found a postcard from a Nelly Bayle to Mrs Daniels in Highbury. Nelly was staying at Cosy Nook in August of 1908, one of the bungalows that was damaged in the 1913 storm described in the earlier Catty Norman article and gives us a different take on the accommodation compared to the glowing compliments usually seen in postcards home. The lady doesn’t seem too impressed with Cosy Nook nor it’s ‘old carriages’ and you have to admit it did look quite plain. For her it was miles from anywhere and located as it was near the centre of Widewater beach I suppose it would have been a fairly long walk to a sufficient number of shops at Shoreham town or Worthing the other way.  She thought it ‘very primitive and quite down to the edge of the sea’ – something of a prophetic remark bearing in mind the subsequent storms.
37, Liberia Road was part of quite an attractive neighbourhood so perhaps Nelly was used to better things but of course she may not necessarily have lived there………. servant or companion perhaps? you could go on forever wondering couldn’t you!

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High Street 10 years on

2009 was the first part of the High Street Photo project to record the shop fronts of every shop. 

http://www.shorehambysea.com/street-photo-project/high-street/

Is the High Street a better place 10 years on?  Anyone fancy doing the same for 2019?

As for 100 years ago, this then and now slider demonstrates the evolution of the West End.