INDUSTRIES 



the building of St. George's Chapel in the 

 sixteenth year of Edward IV. In the year 

 1556 in the book of accounts of 'y charges 

 of building and Erection of the Almes 

 Knights lodgings within the honour and 

 castle of Wyndesor ' we find an entry : 

 ' Timber for the upp lodgings was brought 

 out of several places following Ashinge, 

 Hurste, Bynfield, Water Cheley, Sunning 

 hill parke, Wokefield. Timber feld and 

 hewed out of Bagshot parke, Cranbourne 

 Chace, Mote parke, for the same lodgings.' l 

 For the building of Eton College timber was 

 brought in large quantities, oak from London, 

 Easthampstead, Foliejon Park, Sunninghill 

 and Windsor Forest, and elm from Maiden- 

 head and other places. 2 Berkshire woods, 

 the Forest and the Great Frith supplied the 

 great ' warfage of Timbre ' at Maidenhead 

 which Leland saw in the time of Henry VIII., 

 and Cranbourne and Mote Park yielded 

 timber for the works for supplying the castle 

 with water. 3 The corporation of Windsor 

 paid 4 13^. 4^. to Thomas Benet in the time 

 of Henry VIII. to buy timber for the bridge 

 at Windsor, and very numerous other pur- 

 chases were made in subsequent years for the 

 same purpose. The trees of the forest of 

 Windsor were extensively used for the ships of 

 the English navy. In a survey of the Great 

 Park made 27 February 1649-50 it is recorded, 

 ' The totall of the trees which are marked for 

 the use of the navy within the severall Walkes 

 of the said park are in all Two thousand six 

 hundred and foure trees.' * 



It will be understood from what has been 

 already stated that before the advent of rail- 

 ways and the extension of the system of 

 canals the river Thames was the principal 

 means of transit of goods and the great high- 

 way of traffic. As early as the reign of John 

 considerable quantities of wine and pro- 

 visions were transmitted to and from Windsor 

 by boats on the river. 5 The king in 1205 

 gave licence to William FitzAndrew to have 

 one vessel to ply on the Thames between 

 Oxford and London without any impediment 

 to him or his men on the parts of the bailiff 

 of Wallingford or the bailiff of Windsor. 8 

 Edward II. paid boats' hire for his son and 

 his knights and clerks from Windsor to the 

 Tower of London. Stone had frequently to 

 be conveyed by the Thames to Reading, and 



1 Ashm. MS. No. 1125, ff. 66, 66b. 

 3 R. R. Tighe and J. E. Davis, Annals of Windsor, 

 i. 338. 



3 Ashm. MS. No. 1125, ff. 68-71. 



4 Ann. of Windsor, ii. p. 242. 

 Rot. Claus. 7 John. 



8 Ann. of Windsor, i. 58, 



when the dwellings of the Poor Knights at 

 Windsor were built ' Cane ' or Caen and 

 other building stone were ' fetched from 

 Reading Abbey by water ' and conveyed to 

 Windsor. 7 Stone for the building of Eton 

 College was conveyed by the river, Caen 

 stone and ragg stone from the Boughton 

 quarries near Maidstone, Yorkshire stone 

 vi4 London, the cost of the freight from 

 London to Windsor being is. ^d. per ton. 

 Headington quarries near Oxford gave a 

 further supply, which the great river conveyed 

 to the site of the rising college. 8 In the time 

 of Henry VIII. both persons and goods were 

 usually conveyed by boat from Windsor to 

 London. ' The quality ' travelled by barges, 

 their servants and goods by boat. 



It must not be thought that the Thames 

 was then the placid stream that affords 

 delight to oarsmen. The dangers of the 

 Thames in winter, in times of flood and storm, 

 were serious obstacles to traffic, as the records 

 of the sessions of the county show, to which 

 we shall have occasion to refer later. No 

 less inconvenient was the stranding of the 

 barges in summer, when as Dr. Plot states ' in 

 dry times barges do sometimes lie aground 

 three weeks or a month or more as we have 

 had sad experience this last summer.' Pre- 

 vious to the Act of Parliament of 1624 

 providing for ' the opening of the river from 

 Burcote by Abingdon to Oxford ' the system 

 of flashing was used, stanches being placed 

 at the shallow places which penned up the 

 river, and when suddenly removed the barges 

 were floated by the sudden rush of the water 

 over the shallows below. The process of 

 working the boats up stream over the shallows 

 was difficult, as they had to be laboriously 

 hauled up with the aid of a capstan on the 

 bank. Dr. Plot describes the ' folding-doors, 

 floodgates and turn-pikes ' that were con- 

 structed after the passing of the Act at Iffley, 

 Sandford and Culham, but in spite of these 

 the river afforded an imperfect means of 

 inland navigation, and the old system of 

 ' flashing ' was continued at many weirs to a 

 late period, even as late as the beginning of 

 the last century. Wrecks were frequent and 

 numerous. Thus in the book of the County 

 Sessions of n April 1726 we find that ' Ben- 

 jamin and Joseph Tomkins exhibited their 

 complaints alleging that about the third day 

 of March last 1 30 quarters of malt was greatly 

 damaged by water by means of the casting 

 away or sinking of a certain barge or vessel in 

 the River of Thames at or near Purley, 



' Tighe and Davis, Ann. of Windsor, i. 606. 

 s Ibid. i. 336. 



375 



