Letters to barge owner James Smart of Chalford, Gloucestershire, in the period 1890 to 1905 refer to ‘lifts’ with the contexts implying a quality of stone from Chepstow.
For example quarryman William Davis offered 2 inch broken stone at 3s per ton, Lifts at 2s per ton and Rough at 1s 9d per ton.
Quarryman William Jones wrote ‘I heard Flora was on her way here for lifts yesterday, so prepared to load her away on a tide. But she passed up by here and I have had to put the stone in the Dora today as rough stone. So I leave you to judge what inconvenience I have been put to’.
Barge master Henry Watkins wrote [as well as road stone] ‘We shall have to bring 20 tons of lifts to make up one cargo’.
Can anyone please explain what was meant by the term ‘lifts’.