Peter Burgess
16 years ago
An excellent trip today to take some photos of interesting features. Many of my earlier photos were pretty bland, and a lot of others I have access to have been group shots, which although a nice record of fun trips, don't really show the features of the place. Together with fellow WCMS member Jase, we spent about three hours selecting shots and experimenting. Made use of a simple process, using a 'long shutter' setting and two ancient flash guns with a slave unit. Rather than describe each place we visited, visit the gallery for Chaldon Firestone Quarries in Surrey and look for yourselves. :thumbsup:
JR
  • JR
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16 years ago
Fascinating photographs Peter, thankyou. I must admit to being outside of my area of knowledge (such as it is) but I'm curious as to the infrastructure available to transport presumably heavy stone blocks to a market. I'm familiar with the techniques used in the Forest of Dean in the latter 18th and 19th Century. Tramroads and limited use of canals to transport stone to either the Severn or the Wye and hence to a port. Was it done in a similar fashion in the South East 150 -200 years earlier?

John 🙂
sleep is a caffeine deficiency.
Peter Burgess
16 years ago
Hi John. I'd like to know as well! The vast majority of the stone was taken to wharves on the south bank of the Thames, where it seems to have been stockpiled, and then taken on the river, either to the city, or upstream to Middlesex, or downstream to Essex and Kent. A small amount was used locally.

It wasn't until 1805 that a transport 'infrastructure' arrived in the form of the Croydon Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway, which took stone north to Croydon, where there was an end on junction with the Surrey Iron Railway to the wharf at Wandsworth, or after 1809 onto the Croydon Canal to Deptford.

Before 1805, the only way to move the stone was by cart on the old roads and tracks. Medieval traffic would have been either by ox team or by horse and cart.
carnkie
16 years ago
The logistics must have been immense. Before the inception of the Portreath Tramway it took about 1000 mules a day to carry ore into Portreath, each animal carrying between two and three hundredweight of ore into Portreath.
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
Peter Burgess
16 years ago
A significant proportion of Westminster Abbey was carried over the Downs and down to London in the 13th/14th centuries. Although it did take them about 100 years to do it!
And then there is Edward III's effort at Windsor Castle. That lot then had to be dragged up the river after it had arrived at the stone wharves.
ttxela
  • ttxela
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16 years ago
Disappointed I missed the trip 😞 it's been far too long since I made it down.
Peter Burgess
16 years ago
We are going again next Sunday. A chance to play with the camera settings to see if I can bring some colour back into my life. 😞
ttxela
  • ttxela
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16 years ago
I'll be in the Peak next Sunday 😉

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