After spending the night outside Cromwell Lock we penned up at 0800 and had breakfast whilst filling with water. We then set off for Newark.
There was plenty of room for all of us in Cromwell Lock. The Lock Keeper looking forward to another busy day.
After passing under the A1 you come to the Newark Branch. The Trent proper runs off to the left. At one time the Newark Cut was administered separately to the rest of the River Trent which couldn't have made things too easy.
We weren't lucky to find a space on the pontoon but the wall opposite the castle remains was free and so we could line our stern up with a ladder which made it easy getting on and off the boat.
Helen and Amy admiring the lovely narrow boat moored opposite the castle curtain wall. It does look good, from a certain distance at least! We had a nice day in Newark with Amy, and our tea at the Prince Rupert before seeing Amy off to the train for her very cheap trip back to Hull. It had been great having her and her assistance with the locks was much appreciated.
When we left the Chesterfield Canal we had heard that the Meadow Lane Lock had been closed due to some idiot trying to use it as a dry dock. As it was to be closed for several weeks, and as Newark was getting close to lock down status we decided to see if we could book into Castle Marina here in Newark as we had to be home for a week anyway. They accommodated us thankfully, but as we had a couple of days before we would enter we shoy off up river the next day. This is the entrance to Farndon Marina with the cruiser that has the wheelhouse that pivots down behind the boat for low bridges.
I'm sure that there are supposed to be visitor moorings on one of the pontoons at Fiskerton, but I reckon the locals must hide the signs as I have never spotted them. We went on and moored on the wall below the lock at Hazelford and had a very pleasant walk into Fiskerton and round the mill and back.
The evening on the Nabbs lock island was lovely and peaceful and is always like having the place to your self. The next day we returned to Newark and found our spot in the marina and then we were off home and didn't return for a month.
This blogs historical content has tenuous boating links but I thought that it was so interesting that it could have been about the present.
In Farndon there lived a man named Henry Lamb. He was a butcher at first but prospered and went on to become a farmer and grazier. As far as I can tell he had several children Thomas junior, John, Charles, William Susan and Charlotte. I'm not 100% sure of all theses relationships, but John was later working in the butchers shops, the girls seemed to marry well and all seemed well, except for Henry Jnr. I am thinking he was a bit of the black sheep of the family. In 1809 he was packed off to Manchester to be apprenticed to his uncle William Lamb as a chemist and druggist. The business was in Hanging Ditch which was a water course close to the Cathedral that is now culverted. In the basement of the Cathedral Centre ar the remains of the 1421 Hanging Ditch Bridge. After he had served his time he went into partnership with him until William died about 1815 and Henry took over. He later seemed to move away from the work as a druggist and into the manufacture of blacking paste that was sold as a waterproof boot and leather polish. He moved the business soon afterwards back to Farndon.
In December 1818 a case came to court, The King v Henry Cope, a grocer from Leeds. It was regarding the selling of counterfeit goods. The local customs and Excise man related to the court a visit to the wharf in Leeds where the 'Swift' was moored. Whether he they had been tipped off, or something else alerted them he was interested in a hogs head barrel that was marked as blacking. They broke it open and found many paper wrapped parcels and these turned out to be fake coffee, tea and tobacco. They then raided the shop and warehouse of the consignee, Henry Cope, and found many more parcels of the same items, along with invoices. The main witness was one John Proctor who told the court that he had worked for William and then Henry Lamb for several years including the move to Farndon. He moved to Fiskerton in 1817. He was able to describe to the court how these items were made, and may be of interest to foragers and home
brewers!!
To make fake black tea white thorn leaves are used. They are soaked in a solution of potash. when drained they are then soaked in a solution of cooperas which is iron sulphite that comes from iron pyrite. This gives the correct colour. It is then once more drained and dried in a kiln before being sold on. The leaves were collected locally by a couple of women and about four children. They were paid 31/2d per pound. John Proctor retold that there had been batches of about 2 hundredweight of white thorn leaves at a time.
To make green tea the leaves of the shumac tree are used and scorched in a cylinder before being coloured with 'Dutch Pink' and Prussian blue. The dye Dutch pink comes from the berries of the Buckthorn tree and gives a yellow dye. Prussian blue was the first man made pigment in the 1700's and gives a blue colour and was how blue prints got the name. It is today used as an antidote to heavy metal and radioactive poisoning. Mixing the two dyes gives the correct green colour and the right bloom on the leaves. Henry Lamb dealt in a round a ton of shumac leaves in the past 18 months we are told.
Fake coffee is made by roasting rye grains in a cylinder to prevent burning and mixed with a little real coffee. in the last 18 months we hear that 2 to 3 tons of this had been sold.
Tobacco was another lucrative fake commodity where safflowers or wild saffron. Safflower is a thistle like plant that was cultivated for its seeds to produce oil, and can also be used as a fake saffron. ( This goes on today). It is soaked in a potash solution to remove the colour and then pressed. It is then soaked again in a solution of cooperas, pressed and dried. Once sifted and cleaned it passes as tobacco. One to two tons had been made in the past 18 months.
The steeping was carried out at Farndon and the drying at Fiskerton. Proctor had no qualms about working in the trade as he said he didn't put the stuff in anybody's mouths. It seems that there was a middle man called Mr. Eyre's who acted as agent for Henry Lamb's Boot Blacking sales and the fake goods on the side. He was known to threaten people with telling the excise if they didn't pay on time. Henry Cope pleaded guilty and was already in prison as a debtor.During the raid they found receipts that were coded as L.E.H. for tobacco that was purchased by Cope at 2s/lb, and C.F.E. for coffee at 9d/lb.
All this time Henry Lamb had been advertising his blacking paste in the newspapers and stating that each jar should be checked to make sure it was signed by Henry Lamb to ensure it was genuine!! He also advertised the Mr. Eyre was officially acting as his agent and listed outlets in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria, Lincolnshire and Eastern England and Midlands where it could be bought for 6s or 1s sizes. Obviously doing good business.
I can find no record of Henry Lamb or Mr. Eyres being taken to court, and indeed the boot blacking was still being advertised as late as February 1821, but for a short time in November 1820 it was under the name of William Wright, although still called Henry Lamb's blacking.
Henry Cope was fined £1120 for fake tea, £100 for fake coffee and £200 for the counterfeit tobacco, £1420 which would be around £122,500 today, and the bloke was already in prison! To me this could be a story of today, maybe drugs and county lines and lorry consignments etc. Please forgive my indulgence by adding this tenuous boating story to my blog.
and we will all lock forward in the New Year to being able to choose how we want the new world to look. Cheers!!
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