This chart was published in 1849, by which time my great, great grandfather had remarried and moved to ply his seafaring trade in Stornoway, and is the earliest of Admiral Henry Charles Otter 's charts of the Western Isles. He would have been in command of HMS Porcupine, one of several survey ships that he and Captain FWL Thomas used when creating these cartographic masterpieces.
Several features are worth remarking upon: Stornoway Meal Mill and the other Mill , the Ropewalk with its Ropemakers , the Jail with its occupants , Sandwick Widow's Row , and the Gas Works with its Plumbers .
The one that is most useful, though, is seeing the location of the 'other mill' with the associated Castle Stables for this suggests that the Carding/Sawing Mill was indeed located in the Castle Grounds and thus my conjecture that the address of the Miller, John Munro, being termed the 'Nursery, Bayhead' might suggest a link to the later 'Nursery cottage' seems to be given additional weight?
The chart is very beautiful and I'd like to think that a certain shipmaster in his late-twenties was able to purchase a copy in 1849 to assist him in the harbour, or just to have with him as a reminder of his wife who was pregnant with their first child back in Stornoway!
Update: I have had a go at Georeferencing the chart and it appears that the buildings labelled 'Stable and Mill' are pretty-much where the Woodlands Centre is today and where, interestingly, the Stornoway Amenity Trust. suggest that the Distillery (which I have mentioned in some seven previous entries) was sited?
No comments:
Post a Comment