SS Great Western & Bristol Docks

Map: Ordnance Survey County Series 1:2500 – 1886

SS Great Western – the largest vessel in the world.

19th July 1837 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 236 ft steamship, the Great Western, was launched at Bristol. She was the largest vessel in the world. On the same day in 1843, his ‘Great Britain’, the first Atlantic liner built of iron, was launched at Wapping Dock.The Great Western was an iron-strapped, wooden, side-wheel paddle steamer, with four masts to hoist the auxiliary sails. The sails were not just to provide auxiliary propulsion, but also were used in rough seas to keep the ship on an even keel and ensure that both paddle wheels remained in the water, driving the ship in a straight line. The first steamship purpose-built for crossing the Atlantic, and the initial unit of the Great Western Steamship Company. She was the largest passenger ship in the world from 1837 to 1839.

In 1838 after sailing to London, where she was fitted with two side-lever steam engines. the Great Western set sail for Avonmouth to start her maiden voyage to New York. The ship hadn’t gone far when a fire broke out in the engine room. During the confusion Brunel fell 20 feet, and was injured. The fire was extinguished, and the damages to the ship were minimal, but Brunel had to be put ashore at Canvey Island. As a result of the accident, more than 50 passengers cancelled their bookings for the Bristol-New York voyage and when the Great Western finally departed Avonmouth, only 7 passengers were aboard.

The Great western’s first voyage in April 1838 was set to be a race with the British and American Steam Navigation Company’s rival ship the SS Sirius but the fire delayed the Great western’s start. Even with a four-day head start, Sirius only narrowly beat Great Western, arriving in New York on 22 April. When coal ran low, the crew of the Sirius burned 5 drums of resin. The Great Western arrived the following day, with 200 tons of coal still on board. Sirius is often credited as the first winner of the Blue Riband (even though the term Blue Riband was not coined until years later) at 8.03 knots. However, Sirius only held the record for a day because Great Western’s voyage was faster at 8.66 knots.

Still capable of making record Blue Riband voyages as late as 1843. Great Western worked to New York for 8 years until her owners went out of business. She was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and was scrapped in 1856 after serving as a troop ship during the Crimean War.

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Map of the week – Dracula, Mercury, Gold, and a Fat Duck

Map: Ordnance Survey 1:2500 County Series from 1875 – Bray, Berkshire.

Down Place country house (1750) and Oakley Court, a castellated and turreted Gothic mansion (1857) were built on the banks of the River Thames between the towns of Bray and Windsor and went on to find fame and fortune as Bray Studios.
In 1951 Hammer Film Productions settled on the derelict Down Place as a way of avoiding the need to build sets and the large grounds were ideal for location work for their budget horror films. The following year Hammer decided to build a full studio in the grounds of Down Place, and name it Bray Studios, after the local town. Oakley Court was acquired in the 1960’s and became an ideal setting for many Bray productions.
Films included the 1950’s films The Quatermass Xperiment, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy. The 1960’s saw The Brides of Dracula, The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, The Curse of the Werewolf, and many, many more. The last Hammer production made at Bray was The Mummy’s Shroud, which wrapped on 21 October 1966.
Bray went on to produce many other films including the St Trinians series and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, as well as special effects and model work for TV and film. including Doctor Who, Space 1999, Alien, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Terry Gilliam’s 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Due to the size of its sound stages and it’s relative remoteness, Bray Studios also became a popular rehearsal studio where many artists fine-tuned their performances before going on tour. From Led Zeppelin in the 1970’s to The Kings of Leon in 2008, by way of Queen’s Freddy Mercury tribute concert, Cream, George Harrison, Radiohead and Amy Winehouse, the studios became home to many of the worlds top bands.

On the opposite side of the Thames lies Eton Dorney, the scene of rowing triumphs in the 2012 Olympic rowing events, where Team GB won four gold medals, two silver and three bronze.

The town of Bray is also famed for its culinary delights, boasting two of the four restaurants in the United Kingdom to have three Michelin stars, The Waterside Inn founded by the Roux brothers, and Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant.
If you have an interesting story and would like to see a historical map of your area then why not let us know by emailing us.

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Map of the week – “The man who posted himself”

It all began in 1898. Mr. Reginald Bray, a clerk from Forest Hill in South London, bought a copy of the Royal Mail guide that proudly proclaimed they would deliver anything as ‘small as a bumblebee and as large as an elephant’. Bray viewed these rules as a challenge and spent the next 40 years of his life experimenting with the limits of the British postal system.

(map shown: Forest Hill, London – OS County Series 1:2,500 – 1895)

He started with postcards. His first postcard was addressed to ‘any house in London’. He followed this with envelopes knitted from wool. He even tried sending two postcards with two addresses hoping for them to be forever forwarded from one address to the other.Bray then switched to parcels. He mailed, amongst other objects, a bowler hat, a turnip with the address carved on it, a rabbit’s skull, a pipe, a bicycle pump, a clump of dried seaweed and even his faithful Irish terrier, Bob.

Not satisfied with that, he had himself delivered, not once but three times, including being sent, along with his bicycle, by registered mail. An official form acknowledges ‘Delivery of an Inland Registered Person Cyclist’ to Bray’s home address for a charge of 3d a mile.

This is certainly not a facility provided by the Royal Mail today. However, one of the few living creatures still permitted to be sent through the postal system are live bees. It’s good to see that at least part of their original slogan ‘as small as a bumblebee and as large as an elephant’ still holds true.

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Vintage Rude Map Cards

Britain is awash with extraordinary place names, as anyone from Lumps of Garryhorn, Nempnett Thurbwell or Nether Wallop (to choose but three) will be well aware.
Cassini has decided that some of these are so spectacularly rude that they deserve wider publicity; and, to prove that they’ve existed for years and that they are real names, we’ve located each of them on a historical map and turned them into a unique set of greeting cards.

The cards were first seen at this year’s Spring Fair at the NEC in early February 2011. The interest and popularity of the cards at the show persuaded us to bring forward their publication.

Old Hag, Hairy Ness, Ugley and Boobys Bay are here; so are Brownwilly, Pratt’s Bottom,Sandy Balls, and many others too rude to publish here.

Each has a dated historical map centred on the unfortunate place name and a grid reference should you want to visit it for yourself. The inside is blank for further insults, or explanations. There are 24 cards in this first series, with more series planned for later in 2011. They’ll bring a laugh out loud, a smirk or a grimace – either way, they’ll entertain and appeal to everyone. So now, when you send a greeting card, you can say what you really mean…