Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Pearson’s Wharf had only 258 feet of river front- age when the Army arrived. No other mooring facility then existed on the Left Bank of the river below Sandwich town. Plans were put in hand at once to extend Pearson’s Wharf and to build a much larger wharf nearer the river mouth. Work started 2 June 1916. The tortuous course of the river made it necessary to make the “New Cut” from Stonar Cut to Minster Stream in order to get a straight line of frontage of sufficient length. A light construction was adopted of a type not previously used on large works. It consisted of 1853 sections of steel piling or “shuttering” driven into the ground by the usual type of steam pile-driver. The whole length of New Wharf 2374 feet and the New Cut Waterway in front of it were completed in 61 days. The first barge was brought alongside New Wharf on 16 September 1916. This was a remarkable piece of work for sheer speed although of course there were plenty of men available; many were unskilled or partly disabled soldiers back from service in France. The 120 ft waterway in front of New Wharf was later widened to 300 feet and extended north- wards to form “The Pool” where larger craft could manoeuvre with a 1500 ft berthing wharf for the use of the 1000 ton barges which eventually entered service in the summer of 1918. This wharf corresponded exactly with the proposed location of the “First Stage” wharf on the pre-war Sandwich Haven Wharves Syndicate plans.