SERIAC 2004
SERIAC 2004 (South East Region
Industrial Archaeology Conference) was hosted by HIAS on Saturday, April 17th, 2004 at Churcher’s College,
Petersfield. The Conference was attended
by about 210 I.A enthusiasts and after registering and coffee, settled themselves into Churchers huge sports
complex for what turned out to be a very successful and full day packed with a
wide range of I.A subjects.
Our Chairman, Roger Hedge opened
the proceedings by welcoming everyone to Churcher’s College, and wishing them a
very enjoyable day. He went onto
explain the changes that had taken place within HIAS over the last two years
and how the change from SUIAG to HIAS now properly represents more clearly all
of Hampshire. With this in mind, the
choice of Petersfield aptly demonstrates the Society’s intent in this respect.
Roger thanked Gerald for all his hard work in organising the Conference and for
being our long standing SERIAC representative.
This job is to be taken over by our secretary, Carol Burdekin.
Roger went on to give the
Conference a brief over-view of the
venue, Churcher’s College, with its
beginnings in the 1730s and as it is today with its high academic record and
excellent facilities including the sports hall we are in which was erected in 1993. As for Petersfield itself, it may not
immediately strike you as a town with much I.A, but because of its locality, on what was one of the
crossings of the coach roads from London
to Portsmouth and closeness to the South
Downs with its sheep grazing, created wealth and engendered a
textile industry. There was also a hop area, but sadly the kilns have all
disappeared along with the town’s several breweries.
One of the larger locally based
industries from WW1 to 1959 was a licensee of
ITS Rubber Company of Ohio
which produced rubber for the shoe and boot trade. Apparently the business was bought by
Colston, the washing machine people and in turn they sold out to Webber, makers
of car seat belts and other safety harnesses, but production was moved elsewhere
and the site closed.
Petersfield can also boast one of
only two specialised church and concert organ factories, the Willis Company, run by a local man Henry Willis who when he
retired moved to Lancashire! These are
some of the reasons together with being well placed for rail and road access,
which makes I.A relevant to Petersfield today and if I.A is
the history of the rise and fall of manufacturing and the like, then Petersfield has seen it
all!
Roger then handed over to Gerald who gave a brief
introduction before handing over to the Chairman for the morning session, John
Hone, who introduced the speakers and a brief synopsis of what they spoke about
is as follows:-
Milestones
- A Living History for the 21st
Century
Alistair
Penfold (Hampshire County
Museum Service)
Hampshire County Museum Service
has acquired, in its formative years, a collection of steam road vehicles and
agricultural machinery, representing 160 years of production and development of
Tasker & Sons, Andover. This collection formed the nucleus for the
development of a comprehensive Hampshire
history collection relating the development of road transport and its
manufactories. The inclusion of such
well known companies as Thorneycroft and Wallis & Steevens of Basingstoke
gave the collection such strengths that it was becoming imperative that proper
public access was made available. A site
at Basingstoke was offered to HCC to build a new museum
and the concept and designs for Milestones were born.
Shoreham Cement Works
Ron Martin, Sussex
I.A Society
Portland cement was patented by
Joseph Aspdin in 1724 and there were innumerable developments over the 125
years until the state of the art works was erected at Shoreham in 1949. The industrial activity on the site dates
from 1850’s and cement was manufactured on the site from at least 1898 until
the works closed in 1992. The raw
materials for the making of cement are chalk, which was dug from an adjacent
pit and clay, which was obtained from pits a short distance up the River Adur.
The other two components were gypsum for controlling the rate of setting of
cement obtained from Mountfield and coal, providing the fuel for burning, which
was brought in by rail to start with.
The works, as originally built, used the wet process with the chalk and
clay mixed together as a slurry in a set of wash mills, but this was later
converted into a semi-wet process in the 1980’s where excess water was removed
in a press house. The cement was fired
in two 350 ft long rotary kilns with the material slowly moving down the slope
and the pulverised coal being blown up from the bottom. The clinker, after
cooling, was held in a large store before being ground in rotary ball mills
after which it was stored in silos before being bagged for despatch. The works is considered a fine example of the
technology of the immediate post war period and is still largely intact.
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Things that Float,Fly or Fire, Industrial Archaeology of the Isle
of Wight
Robert
Martin ( Isle of Wight I.A Society)
Over the centuries, the Isle
of Wight has largely been dependent on two very different
industries:farming and tourism. Farming
has been followed by Islanders for many millennia and has consequently left its
mark in various agricultural remains.
Tourism is, by contrast, a recent development spanning no more than the
last two centuries, but equally leaving its imprint . Like elsewhere, the Island’s
industries have been shaped by three factors: geology, location and local
demand. Geology has given rise to the
search for alum, brickmaking, glassmaking, stone quarrying, lime-burning,
cement manufacture, coal mining and the supply of copperas and tobacco
pipe-clay amongst others.
The Island’s
geographical location has seen the development of salterns, shipbuilding,
aeroplane and hovercraft manufacture, lighthouses, mills, yacht-building,
prisons, as well as the construction of a fearful amount of military
infrastructure, such as fortifications, barracks and radar bases. Most industries until the 19th
century arose to serve a purely local demand and were therefore small-scale,
temporary and more artisanal than industrial in nature. However, the 19th and 20th
centuries saw the establishment of large industrial concerns, whose business was
national and even international in scope; cement manufacture, shipbuilding,
aviation, hovercraft, rocketry, lacemaking, electronics and wind turbines are
just some of the industries that have found a home on the Island.
We adjourned for lunch at 12.30 and
made our way over to the College’s refectory where the catering staff laid on a
hot meal of meat or vegetarian lasagne with garlic bread and salad, followed by
a typical school pudding of almond sponge pudding with custard [minus the
lumps]! Together with fresh fruit. By this time the sun had come out and those
who wished were able to eat their packed lunch outside in the superb College
grounds with panoramic views over to the South Downs. The delegates also had plenty of time to
browse round the various stands where about 10 exhibitors, mostly other I.A
Groups, had plenty of books and
publications for sale.
The afternoon session started at 2 p.m. with John Silman taking over as Chairman
and introduced our first speaker of the afternoon, Professor Ray Riley, who is
well known to most of us, and as always, very entertaining.
Ships, a neglected aspect of industrial archaeology, the Portsmouth Case
Professor Ray Riley (Hampshire I.A. Society)
Focusing on Portsmouth-built naval
capital ships in the 19th century, the first part of the paper
addresses the reasons for the neglect of ships by industrial archaeologists,
arguing that since ships either sink or are eventually broken-up, there is
little to be recorded. It follows
therefore that a discussion of ships that are no longer afloat is not strictly
industrial archaeology, but rather industrial or maritime history. Notwithstanding this admission, the second
part of the paper reviews the background to the slow introduction of steam into
the Navy, together with the technical and strategic reasons behind the
evolution of Portsmouth-built capital ship armament before 1914.
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The
Wey Navigation, its Place in the Development of River Navigation
Dr Stuart Chrystall (Surrey Industrial History Group)
While the major rivers of England
have been used for navigation, more or less in their natural state, since at
least early medieval times, the Wey was only the second river to be canalised
successfully. The route of the Wey Navigation,
as it exists today, is almost exactly the same as it was when it was opened in
1653, whereas many later navigations were extensively altered during their
lifetimes. Over half the distance from Guildford
to the Thames consists of artificial cuts while most
river navigations, as first built, closely followed the natural course of the
river. An examination is made of the
factors influencing the design of navigation and the extent to which later ones
copied, or more often did not copy, the principles adopted by the designer of
the Wey Navigation. In almost no case do
we know how the detailed route of a river navigation was planned. Suggestions are made, however, as to what may
have influenced the planning.
A Dream of Steam
Brian Gooding (Hollycombe Steam
Collection)
The Hollycombe Steam Collection
was opened to the public in 1971 by the late John Baldock who has been
collecting steam engines and steam-driven fairground rides for the previous
twenty years. After 1981 the collection
of fairground rides was sold to Madame Tussauds and moved to Crowlas in Cornwall
for an abortive theme park. In 1985, the
management of the much reduced collection was handed over to a volunteer
society which continues to run it to this day.
Gradually the fairground rides were re-purchased, along with some others
and, in addition, to numerous other attractions including three railways,
traction engines and steam rollers, Hollycombe now boasts arguably the world’s
largest steam-driven fairground collection.
In 1997, ownership of the collection passed to a charitable trust with
the help of an HLF grant. Subsequent
grants have provided a much needed storage building for the fairground artwork
in the winter and most recently, for a new educational/visitor centre plus
interpretational material, work on which starts in September with completion
early in 2005.
The Conference ended about 4.50pm when about two thirds of the delegates
made their way over to Hollycombe Steam
Museum at Liphook about ten miles
from Petersfield. The staff at
Hollycombe were present by special arrangement through HIAS, so we had about
two hours to enjoy the Edwardian Fairground, with at least three rides open and
the traction engine hauled ride. The
narrow gauge steam railway took us about
two miles along the track into the heart of the historic Listed woodland. Dating back to the early 1800s it has magnificent views over the Sussex Weald to
the South Downs
and Butser Hill [the highest hill in Hampshire]. There is a small cafeteria where a
selection of hot and cold snacks can be purchased and a Gift Shop selling a
wide range of souvenirs and traditional sweets. This is a delightful and unique
collection providing fun and entertainment for all the family not just us I.A
nuts. A suitable end to a very enjoyable
day.
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