ANCIENT MANNER OF CONSTRUCTING PIERS 



CUM-. IV. HABBOUB8 AND LIGHTHOUSES. 283 



washed away. Mr. Roberts gives the rough representa- 

 tion shown in the annexed cut, of the mode of con- 

 structing the ancient pier at Lyme Regis, and most 

 probably the same 

 method was pursued 

 elsewhere. 



The rocks which 



lay upon the shore 



n i 

 were noated over 



IT p , 



the line 01 the pro- 

 posed sea-work by means of casks, and dropped into 

 their places, after which or, in certain cases, before the 

 stones were sunk strong oak piles were driven into the 

 ground along either side to hold them together. Great 

 reliance was placed on timber, and especially upon oak. 

 The Cobb or harbour at Lyme Regis was so successfully 

 put together in this way, that Queen Mary ordered the 

 workmen to be impressed and forwarded to Dover, to 

 execute a similar work for the protection of the harbour 

 at that place. They were next employed at Hastings, 

 where they reared a pier of huge rocks edgeways without 

 timber. But the seas of the ensuing winter completely 

 overthrew the structure ; and again, in 1597, the workmen 

 erected another pier, using much timber in cross-dogs, 

 bars, and braces. The work was thirty feet high, " bew- 

 tyfull to behold, huge, invariable, and unremoveable in 

 the judgment of all beholders;" but on the next All 

 Saints day a storm upon a spring tide scattered the 

 whole, 1 and to this day Hastings is without a pier. 



Among the numerous fine natural harbours on the south 

 coast were those of Portsmouth, Plymouth, Weyniouth, 

 Falmouth, and Dartmouth, all situated at the mouths of 

 rivers or bays, as their names indicate. None of them 

 had piers until a comparatively recent date, the only 

 landing-places at Portsmouth and Southampton being 

 on "the Hard." The Cinque Ports, on the coast of 



1 Robert* '* * Social History of the Southern Counties,' 305. 



