MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Stanley]

If you think that this access tower at Ellenroad mill is leaning slightly you're right.
My question is why? Can anyone tell me?

[Tizer]

My first suggestion is that the photographer was leaning slightly the other way.
My second is that the tower is recovering from the pull of the the rest of the building that has been demolished.

[Stanley]

You've almost got it Tiz. Give it a bit of thought..... Clue, is it pull or push?

[chinatyke]

If I remember from your description elsewhere it was ground heave, the ground moved upwards when the weight of the mill was removed.

[Stanley]

Your memory is good China. That's exactly what happened. It was Norman Sutcliffe the demolition contractor who drew my attention to this and I in turn alerted the surveyors for Shepherd's the building firm and they re-surveyed the site and found it had heaved as much as ten inches in the centre of the site.
As the tower started to lean the site safety officer declared it unsafe and put a 200 foot exclusion zone round it which meant that Norman couldn't get near enough with his crane and 30cwt wrecking ball. He ignored the prohibition of course, demolished it in less than half an hour and informed the safety officer he was right, it had fallen over of its own volition!
Next one?

[Tizer]

Anyone want to suggest what this might be?

[chinatyke]

World's first photo of Archimedes' fishing tackle?

[Stanley]

I can see where China is coming from. Looks like an early attempt at propulsion by Archimedes Screw but I have no idea where unless it is in the Lake District as that doesn't look like a seaworthy craft. It could have been also an attempt to avoid weed fouling standard propellers as the screws would tend to be self clearing.

[Gloria]

It looks as though the screws are at the front!!!

[Tizer]

You're all getting close and Stanley's mention of `weed' is important - but Gloria is correct to say the screws are at the front!

[chinatyke]

...Stanley's mention of `weed' is important - but Gloria is correct to say the screws are at the front!

Which would fit in with weed clearing operations. Where were weeds a problem? Norfolk Broads?

Just another thought: were they reed cutters for thatching?

[Tizer]

Good thinking, China. It was designed to cut weeds to keep the River Tone clear so that barges could make their way from Bridgwater to Taunton. But how was it powered?

[StoneRoad]

That's a steam launch that has been modified to cut reeds / clear weed from a river / canal

[Stanley]

I agree about steam launch but I am not so sure you are right about the position of the screws. Surely they are at the stern?

[plaques]

I'm not too sure about it being steam driven. It may have been pushed along like a punt. The forward 'screws' acting more like shredders being driven by a manual pumping bar similar to what the old fire fighters used. But, I've been wrong before!

[Tizer]

But you're right this time, Plaques, well done. I knew it would be confusing - we can see a chimney and therefore assume that the boat is driven by a steam engine. On the contrary, the boat was pulled along the river by good old-fashioned horse power and the steam engine was there to power the weed-cutting screws fitted to the bow. I've gone back to the book from which I scanned the image and must make a correction to something I posted earlier - the boat is stated as being for cutting weed in the Bridgwater to Taunton Canal rather than the River Tone. However the Tone runs parallel and close to the canal and had barge traffic, so the boat could have been used on both waterways.

Weed cutting on the canal and river was originally done by hand with rakes which was slow and labour intensive. Some weed was so stout that they had to put two men on each side of the canal, pulling a chain back and forth which was fitted with scythe-like blades. Captain George Beadon, a naval man and inventor, designed the twin-screw weed-cutting boat in 1865. The screws were at the front and `turned in opposite directions to throw the cut weed to the side of the canal'. The photo shows it sitting on its own towing carriage which allowed it to be towed by horses to wherever it was needed. There are no records of how successful or otherwise the design proved to be. (The image and information come from `By Waterway to Taunton', Tony Haskell, Somerset Books, Tiverton, 1994.)

[plaques]

I think you are being very generous there Tizer. In all but one minor detail I was wrong. Judging by the performance of my lawnmower it wouldn't be long before the 'screws' were screwed up.

[StoneRoad]

Looking closely, I can see two funnels and sets of mechanical rods. So I assume one was for each screw.
I had thought one engine would be propulsion and the other turning the weed cutting screws.

Another look and I see the tow bar between the bits, on the rear of the foredeck.

[Tizer]

Thanks for making those extra points. Like you, I'd expected that the steam engine would have been used for both propulsion and cutting but the information in the book suggests otherwise. Having said that, the book is a bit vague and I get the impression that Captain Bleadon was more a sailor than an inventor. Down here in deepest Somerset the attitude to such things was, and often still is, a bit more laid back than up there in the industrial north!

[Stanley]

I still think it looks wrong. It could be that it is converted from an older boat and they found that it worked better if towed stern first.

[Stanley]

Can anyone tell me what this is?

[Big Kev]

Inside of a boiler?

[Stanley]

Too easy wasn't it. Quite right Kev, boiler tubes in a boiler that used to power a railway break down crane....
Try another one....



Richard Bell delivering milk in Thornton in Craven around 1900. What is the generally accepted name for the vessel he uses to get milk out of the kit?

[Whyperion]

I might refer to it as a ladle, but does it have a hinged lid on it which might give it another name ( some soup ladles are either a side tipping large spoon, others may have the outlet spout opposite the handle fixing, which is interesting.

[chinatyke]

I'd call it a ladle also. I assume it was an exact measure such as a gill or a pint. So is it a measuring ladle? Something from my old days in textiles: there were 4 nogs (noggins) to the gill and 4 gills to the pint and we had a set of copper measures which we simply called "nogs" - could this have been applied to milk measures also? Just thinking, there was another measure term, a jack, I can't remember what it was, but could this have been used?