As you can sort of see from the picture above, The Matthew, The Dawn Treader, well a replica of a medieval ship has arrived in Ramsgate harbour. This sort of medieval ship is what the whole of the history of this area and the Cinque Ports is about, as you see for a ship it isn’t very big, I don’t think any of these medieval ships were.By medieval I am talking about the time from about the year 900 up to the year 1500 when the historical period called Tudor started. During this time this country didn’t have a navy, so the monarch made tax and other concessions to the nobility who owned the land, under the condition that they provided ships for wars and other royal visits abroad.
Ruling was much more of a hands on business in those days, and this replica of a medieval ship is well worth a look if you get a chance.
Sorry that it is misty today and the ship isn’t easily accessible, I will try to get closer and get some better pictures.
There were some other pictures on the camera’s memory card from the last few days and I have published them on the web here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/311/id10.htm have a glance, I will too and make a few notes below.
First two are of the start of a new house being built on Plains of Waterloo, then some of the work going on, on the Pleasurama site, why they have started a year late at the other end of the site I am yet to find out. Then some of The Marina Restaurant restoration project, followed by some of the great wall of Ramsgate pictures, there are a few new ones and a lot of spaces now booked for more. Some of the empty shops in Ramsgate are having the paint and new incarnation treatment. The chap at the organ, a picture of a picture is Ken Stroud and I think he is playing organ Granville/Ramsgate Marina, from the shape of the arches, please correct me if I am wrong.
Just dealt with a bookshop customer wanted a book on dinosaurs, I didn’t quite know how to answer her question. “Haven’t you got one with photographs of dinosaurs in it?” In the shop assistant business one soon learns that you can’t please everyone.
Back to the photos, a bit of a cryptic note on the Maritime Museum, isn’t it about time TDC issued them with a lease?
Just sat down after fitting a new dishwasher, a new Chinese one was considerably cheaper than a new pump for the old German one, and read some of the local news, all was going well until this article http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/news/Witchcraft-casts-spell-growing-community/article-3301307-detail/article.html when I got to “Mr Doyle, who has his own cloak,”
I shall have to watch out for Saul, I can see “Mr Child, who has his own trousers,” is just around the corner.
Funny thing the occult books, we sell loads of them in the bookshop, no one has ever bought one back and said the spells in it didn’t work and yet no one has ever arrives by broomstick.
I may blog on if the mood takes me.
From David Redfern, Acol: The 'Matthew', has, as you point out, just arrived from Bristol. I was a director of the project to build the ship from 1994 to 1998, and I also sailed 3500 miles on the ship. She is 65' long on the water,and is typical of one of thousands of similar Portuguese style caravels that were the workhorses of European seas. The original Matthew sailed from Bristol in 1497 with John Cabot and 'discovered' north America, something his colleague Columbus didn't do. They both were at the same navigation school in Venice. The size of ships for a thousand years or so was governed simply by the length of a good piece of hardwood for the keel out of one tree, and similarly for the masts. The 'Matthew's keel is one giant log of hardwood and the main mast was donated by Prince Philip from the Sandringham estate and was one tree when it arrived in Bristol in 1996. The frames of the ship are all oak, and the planks are larch below the waterline and Douglas fir above. This is a very strong ship, and I was very grateful to the highly technical and intricate construction when sailing amongst the icebergs of Newfoundland. Readers are welcome to come down and have a look, although I can't say you could go aboard. On Thursday she will be converted into the Dawn Treader and then on Saturday go to London for the launch of the latest Narnia DVD. She will be back in Ramsgate on the 24th to be converted bacj to the 'Matthew' again before sailing to Cornwall.
ReplyDeleteHiya Michael
ReplyDeleteJust to say off thread, Dr Weightman, Head of Nuclear Inspectorate who will be conducting the nuclear safety review, sent me a pretty much immediate email reply saying he looks fwd to my copy report as a contribution to his inquiry.
I had summarised the content in my email to him.
Just finished copying and compiling the bound file and it is going to my MP to be handed to Chris Huhne.
WE do our best for Blighty Michael .....