Buckler’s Hard, Historic Riverside Village

[carojon]

A few weeks ago, I travelled up to Buckler’s Hard 18th Century Shipbuilding Village on the banks of the River Beaulieu in the New Forest, Hampshire.

Shipbuilding at Buckler’s Hard commenced in the early eighteenth century and under Master Shipwright Henry Adams, Buckler’s Hard grew to national prominence winning many Royal Navy contracts.

Over the following sixty years, Adams would supervise the building of forty-three Royal Navy ships at Buckler’s Hard, including three that fought at the Battle of Trafalgar, HMS Euryalus 36- guns, HMS Swiftsure 74-guns, and HMS Agamemnon, ‘Nelson’s favourite ship’ of 64-guns.

If you would like to know more then follow the link to JJ’s, where I’ve put together a post covering our day’s visit, including among other things a look at the river location, the historic village and the Maritime Museum, together with some of the famous named ships built there.

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2024/07/bucklers-hard-eighteenth-century.html

JJ

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

[AdmiralHawke]

My family groaned when I proposed taking them to a place with a naval museum, but they loved Buckler’s Hard when they got there.

It’s a special place and well worth a visit if you are anywhere nearby.

[OotKust]

Looks great!
Coming from a maritime (ie island) nation of tiny proportions, I’m sure I’d cope with such a museum, had I even known it existed. Wonder if they used any of the 3000 odd (I read…), 100-200 YEARS OLD  140 foot+ tall Kauri trees taken from nz in the 18th and 19thC?

However, despite being a colonial and raised under a default Westminster system, I do lack an understanding of ‘British’ naming and conventions.

Here it’s either a well-known Brit, sometimes Dutch or French named locale; others if not ‘colony’ wise important, would be native names adopted as we grew.

British English, just don’t get it… don’t start on Welsh or Gaellic!
-d

Swinging from left to right no matter where the hobby goes!

[Not Connard Sage]

A ‘hard’ is just a flat firm area by water that’s useful for dragging ships out of the water.

Unlikely they’d need foreign timber at Buckler’s Hard. Its location in the New Forest is a clue.

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[OotKust]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

A ‘hard’ is just a flat firm area by water that’s useful for dragging ships out of the water. Unlikely they’d need foreign timber at Buckler’s Hard. Its location in the New Forest is a clue.

Ok then.

However our country was pillaged, I mean harvested of straight trunk trees for the Royal Navy, so why wouldn’t they have reached there??
My family had a seaside property where there used to exist in 19thC a half mile long pier where the timbers were transported to ships tied up there – literally sometimes, as it was very shallow at low tide, on the Kaipara…

Swinging from left to right no matter where the hobby goes!

[Not Connard Sage]

Well long, straight timber (that stays straight) is obviously essential for masts and spars. Sitka spruce and Douglas fir were favoured, but anything similar would do I suppose.

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Guy Farrish]

The vast majority of oak for building the Royal Navy sailing ships was native. Masts and spars were American/Canadian and Baltic.

Kauri was spotted by Cook but not used until at least after the 1809 Boyd massacre and never really took off for the Royal Navy because of the distance and cost involved. The main cut of Kauri didn’t begin until after the navy was turning over to ironclads and steam. Some civilian ship use no doubt cut some trees and the Royal Navy did have a small contract later in the 1830s for spars, but it was local industry and exports to Aus and the US in the 1860s on that destroyed the main stands. San Francisco used a lot of Kauri to rebuild after 1906.

The Royal Navy m’lud is innocent.

[Not Connard Sage]

Guy Farrish wrote:

The Royal Navy m’lud is innocent.

 

Yebbut, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use the fact that the RN cut down a few trees to take a gratuitous post-colonial swipe at the UK. 🙂

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[OotKust]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

Guy Farrish wrote:

The Royal Navy m’lud is innocent.

Yebbut, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use the fact that the RN cut down a few trees to take a gratuitous post-colonial swipe at the UK. 🙂

Woof

Swinging from left to right no matter where the hobby goes!

[Author]

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