THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601050189
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
LOOKING INTO GOSPORT shipyard's past for me has been something like exploring a large, dark room with only a flickering candle.
Since all of Andrew Sprowle's original structures were destroyed in the Revolutionary War, all we have to shed any light on the subject are a few fragile documents that give us just a glimmer of what America's foremost Colonial shipyard looked like. What little we know about Colonial Gosport simply creates more questions.
For instance, we know Gosport was considered a ``careening'' ground for British merchant and war ships of the period. Careening was a common, but complex, operation that had ships ``beach'' along a river bank. Once parallel to the shore, the ship was ``heeved'' over to one side at an extreme angle by a series of block and tackle rigs attached to the vessel's mastheads.
Shipyarders, working at low tide, were then given access to remote areas of the hull where they could remove seaweed, barnacles and other marine growth. At this time, minor repairs to the ships planking and coppers could be made.
It's obvious that the act of careening also required a labor-intensive shifting of ballast, guns and other heavy equipment already onboard. For Sprowle to have offered such a service to the Royal navy, he must have had a considerable work force that had access to a sawpit, ropewalk, tackle shops and the all-essential ingredients of tar, pitch and turpentine required for caulking and wood preservation.
We know that Sprowle built four large warehouses on his property to contain various shops typical of an 18th century shipyard in addition to a ``a counting house, a smith's shop, a dwelling house, and a large crane with brass sheaves,'' said to have been imported from London.
So far, exact plans of the Gosport facility have yet to be found, but if they ever are, they will most certainly offer invaluable information about what Sprowle's shops contained. All we know for sure is that he built his business on a plan similar to that of the great Royal Navy shipyard at Portsmouth, England.
I have often wondered whether British naval archives at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England, contained any information about Sprowle or Gosport. Additionally, it is commonly held that Sprowle patterned his yard after the one in Portsmouth, England, which suggests that maybe in their archives there is mention or reference to ship repair in Colonial Portsmouth, Va.
Sooner or later, I determined, a trip to both Greenwich and Portsmouth, England, were due. Just last month, an opportunity to do that fell into my lap.
At a gathering of local writers at Christopher Newport University, I was seated at the same dinner table with an old friend, British naval historian Peter D.H. Tagg. Educated at Portsmouth, England, Tagg served in both the Royal and United States Navy and, with his recent retirement, became curator of the new Monitor-Merrimac Center. I had served as the center's historical consultant when Tagg was hired in his current position, and we often talked about Gosport's history.
Once we were together again, our conversation returned to the origins of Gosport.
Before our meal was finished, Tagg outlined a trip he had been planning for months. It included an invitation to a model ship convention at the Olympia Exposition in London, several days of naval historical symposiums in Greenwich, and a two-day study of the historic dockyard in Portsmouth, England.
Tagg added that to complete the tour, he was going to dedicate at least another day to visit the 18th century dockyard at Chatham, where many exhibit shops date to the early 1700s and probably most duplicate what Sprowle's would have looked like.
I don't know whether it was a look of envy or interest, but as he finished describing his trip, which he had set from Jan. 4-15, Tagg asked if I could join him.
A little overwhelmed at first, I asked if I could call him later that evening, given that some quick decisions on family plans, work schedules and plane tickets had to be made immediately. Fortunately, I was able to call him back that evening with an affirmative, and within two weeks my invitations and tickets were here.
Going to England this time of year can be a bit daunting, but the availability of scholars, artifacts and ``behind-the-scenes'' detective work necessary to ferret out fragments of documents that might bear tell-tale evidence about Sprowle and Gosport make it worthwhile.
The added dividends of walking aboard HMS Victory - launched at Chatham in 1765, later to become flagship of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 - the 1860 ironclad HMS Warrior, the great clipper Cutty Sark and visiting the exhibition of King Henry VIII's Mary Rose are considerable.
The good fortune of staying with members of Tagg's family while in England and ending our tour at Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon, Tagg's family home, make it all the more special.
While I was preparing to leave and studying up on naval history, Tagg promised, ``I can assure you that you will come home with a new perspective about both Portsmouth, Virginia, and Portsmouth, England, and who knows, you might even talk with a slightly different accent.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Andrew Sprowle built Gosport shipyard on a plan similar to the Royal
Navy Shipyard at Portsmouth, England, above.
On the agenda is a visit to the 18th century dockyard ropewalk at
Chatham.
by CNB