FIRST AND FOREMOST AN APOLOGY – THERE HAS BEEN A TOO LONG A GAP IN PRODUCTION. THIS IS BECAUSE I HAD A WEEK’S HOLIDAY AND THE NEXT DAY MOVED HOME FROM A HOUSE TO A FLAT AND AM ONLY NOW GETTING ON TOP OF EVERYTHING.
SINCERE APOLOGIES.
Bowen’s county map of the mid 18th century, as previously stated, includes a number of informative illustrations. The one shown above shows Hull’s Estuary-front at that time. As well as showing that the south section of the 14th century town wall still then survived it also shows a number of boats and ships on the Humber Estuary. Of course this is not a photographic snap-shot but rather a representation of the variety of sailing craft that plied the Estuary, it being the highway of trade of the day. The cluster of passengers on the small, four-oar row-boat presumably are crossing the Estuary on one of the ferry-boats from, maybe, Barrow Haven or Goxhill Haven – it is unlikely to be the Barton ferry boat which a somewhat later illustration shows to have been a sailing craft (the Barton to Hull ferry service was first ordered by Edward III in the 1330s, its jetty at the Hull end being at Blackfriargate Staith).
Bottom right a three-masted Royal Navy battleship is shown with two decks of cannon and flying a royal ensign. Three other three-masted ships are shown, these presumably trading vessels for as written below the illustration ‘This town is inferior to few places in England at present (mid 18th century) for Trade being very well furnished with Shipping and all sorts of commodities’. The seven single-masted vessels must also have been involved in trade (although one might be the Barton ferry) remembering that Hull was a trans-shipment port with larger ships having crossed the North Sea unloading and small craft taking the goods inland on the network of navigable rivers to inland ports such as York, Beverley and Gainsborough.
(to be continued).