Description

A new unused book.

About the book >.>.> For the time this was a major and impressive engineering feat which in essence had produced a large non tidal basin in the heart of the city at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Frome. The modern history of Bristol’s port may be said to have begun when ships in harbour floated upright at all states of the tide instead of healing over and lying on the mud banks of the two rivers at low tide as had been so for centuries past. However as the Dock Company discovered the Floating Harbour had its drawbacks. These were threefold: it had cost the Company ?590014 in all far more than it had anticipated; it was expensive to maintain; and access to it was a continuing problem. Much of the history of the port in the first half of the nineteenth century was dominated by wrestling with these drawbacks with but limited success. The burden of interest payment on the heavy debt incurred by the Company in constructing the Floating Harbour obliged it both to charge shipping using it high dues and to restrict dividends to its shareholders. In 1848 Bristol had the unenviable reputation of being the most expensive port in Britain. It was universally considered that only a sharp reduction in dues would enable the port to flourish. (SP)