IRON HEART World Tour II 2011-2012 - Beatle Buster SBG
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Gosport
Gosport is a military town. Effectively it grew up to support the Naval town of Portsmouth which is about ½ a mile away across the water. So we have a lot of interesting military architecture in the town.
These form one side of a square called Cooperage Green, they were built in the early 18th century to make all the barrels that the Navy in Portsmouth needed for meat, beer, water, gunpowder etc
Just about everywhere you walk in Gosport you will see these or very similar, railings put up in the mid 18th Centrury to keep people out of the military installations
This is the railway line that Queen Victoria had built between the Gosport railway station and her own private station on the sea front. It was from here that she caught the Royal Yacht to take he over to her house (Osbourne House) on the Isle of Wight. Towards the back of the photo, you may just be able to make out a tunnel, she was given permission to put a tunnel through the town walls which came in rather handy later on. She died on the Isle of Wight and when they bought her body back, it spent the night in this tunnel as it was easily defended at both ends.
One of the many gates into the military yards
This was the HQ of the Royal Engineers, whose job was to build and defend the towns walls from attack
And this is where the Officers lived. Creatively called “The Officer’s Quarters”
We have all the dangerous stuff over our side of the harbour. This is on the basis that if it explodes, it does not take the Navy out with it. These tanks are full of aviation fuel for our aircraft carriers. The fuel lines now go down to the sea front under Queen Vics railway, from there, small tankers take the fuel over to Portsmouth where it is transferred onto the warships
One of the literally 100’s of pubs that Gosport used to have, this like dozens of others is now shut down and falling into disrepair
This is “The Pump House”, underneath the building is a well that was sunk in the late 18th century to supply the Naval brewery with water to make the beer. We have the other well in our garden. I’ll take pics of that at some other point
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This is the well in our garden. It was built in about 1786 by an engineer called John Smeaton (he built the first Eddystone lighthouse), so he was an engineer of some repute. He had been called in by the Navy to sort out a way of improving the beer that was supplied to the Navy based at Portsmouth. At the time, we had 3 major Naval dockyards in England and the beer supplied to the Portsmouth ships was going bad, much qicker than from the other 2 dockyards (Chatham and Plymouth). The well is 50 feet deep from ground level to the bottom, with the surface of the water being about 12 feet below ground level, the diamater of the thing is about 8 feet with a ledge (that is what the ladder is standing on in the pics) about 3 feet below the surface of the water. When the brewery was going at full tilt, they could use all the water from the wll in one day - that is a shit load of beer.
From the ledge
One of my mad friends diving the well
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A few aerial shots to help you get your brains round the geography
So there's a house virtually identical to yours right next door?
Great stuff, by the way. More history lessons, please.
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Chris, yes. The house and indeed the whole of the green was built in 1830. Our house was built for the Superintendent of the victualling yard, Thomas Grant, the one next door was built for the Deputy Superintendent. In 1816 Thomas Grant, who was then the store manager of the yard invented a way of mechanising the process of making ships biscuits (making the process 7 times more efficient), he was awarded £16,000 (approx $25,000) in lieu of a patent. In today's money, that is a lot of loot. He progressed to become the Superintendent, and in fact was Knighted for his services victualling the Navy at the Battle of Crimea…..
