The Book Barn
White Chimney Row
Wesbourne
Hampshire
PO10 8RS
UK
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Packing and postage: £1.96This is the story of a single Hampshire street on the unspoiled Beaulieu river that saw the creation of an instant 18th-century shipyard, designed to rise and fall within the compass of little more than a century. Buckler's Hard, written by Alec Holland, curator of the village's maritime museum, details the story of the Adams family who created the shipyard. Gambling with health and eventually some wealth they built sailing vessels bearing merchandise worldwide, and warships that survived the battle of Trafalgar - Agamemnon, Swiftsure and Euryalus.
Today little remains of that great ship-building enterprise apart from the street of houses (one now the museum) that contained the homes of the masterbuilder, his shipwrights and their assistants. Not all the visiting yachtsmen who sail the unspoiled river know of, let alone think of, this unlikely but idyllic waterway as the birthplace of more than 50 warships. This book sets out to redress that situation and paint the historic background of one of England's loveliest rivers.
ISBN: 0-85937-398-3