The Nab Tower

 

The Nab Tower

The Nab Tower with the original red lantern and steel cladding, before 2013
                                            Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The Nab Tower was designed by Guy Maunsell or G. Menzies, choose your source accordingly, and was the first of eight towers intended to be located in the Straits of Dover. The Admiralty’s objective during the First World War was to close the English Channel to enemy ships and protect it from German U-boats. The proposed towers were to be linked with steel nets and each one equipped with two 4-inch guns.

By the end of the war, only one steel and concrete cylinder had been built and it sat on dry land in Shoreham Harbour on a honeycombed concrete base of eighteen compartments. (A second tower had been partially built, but it was demolished in 1924, six years after the end of the war. It took nine months to disassemble.)

In 1920 two or five tugs, according to the source of your choice, towed the tower to the Nab Rock, four miles off the Isle of Wight at the approach to the eastern Solent. The Nab Rock was marked by a lightship which had served its purpose since 1812. The tower was to replace the lightship. Once in position the eighteen compartments were flooded so that it sank to the seabed, where it has remained ever since, at a slight but noticeable angle.

During the war a pair of Bofors guns were installed to provide some defence to the Solent and saw active service, shooting down several enemy aircraft. The lighthouse also served as a Royal Navy signal station until some years after the end of the Second World War.

This is not the Nab lightship, but LV 78 that used to be anchored off Calshot Spit and is now a museum ship in Southampton.

The lighthouse was manned by lighthouse keepers until 1983, when it was automated and a helicopter pad built on the tower. In 1995 the lighthouse was converted to solar power. It is monitored and controlled from Harwich, in Essex.

In 2013 – 2015 renovation was commissioned by Trinity House, which has had responsibility for Nab Tower since 1929, though it only acquired the freehold from the Ministry of Defence in 1984. The external casing of steel had corroded badly and was replaced with concrete. The helicopter pad was removed and the height of the tower was reduced from 27 to 17 metres.

Image courtesy Hurst Castle

 The iconic red lantern was taken away and is now on display at the Lighthouse Museum Rooms at Hurst Castle. The museum is maintained by a group of volunteers known as the Association of Lighthouse Keepers. 

A new light with a range of 12 nautical miles was installed, which flashes once every ten seconds, as well as a new fog signal, which sounds one blast every thirty seconds.    

                                                      Hurst Castle 

                                    Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Hurst Castle was built by Henry VIII between 1541 and 1544 and was a formidable artillery fortress. Charles I was imprisoned there in 1648.                       

Nab Tower in current condition
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons       

Discoveries

 

Discoveries

It was not a job we intended doing and it could not be called serendipitous but it had to be done.

In our kitchen we have one of those useless corner cupboards, a space filler between two runs of cupboards. In fact, there are two. The upper cupboard is where we keep fuses and batteries for small appliances, sticking plasters and over-the-counter remedies like paracetamol and ibuprofen. It is adequate and only slightly awkward to access.

However, the base cupboard is another matter entirely. It is larger and difficult to get at. It is the place where pots and pans and ‘unique, must have’ appliances go to die. Well, the shelf shifted somehow and listed at an alarming angle. I mean, if you were on a ship and it did that, you would be seriously worried, worried enough to encourage all your ship mates to dash to the other side of the vessel. During the Battle of the Solent in 1545, the crew of the Mary Rose all rushed to one side of the ship, anxious to see Henry VIII, who was watching from Southsea Castle, and the ship capsized. Actually, that’s not true. It’s just an urban myth. No-one really knows why the ship sank, but nearly 500 men drowned. Most sailors then could not swim and died within sight of land.

*We could not remove the shelf, no matter how we tried. It remained sulkily in place, thwarting all efforts to release it. How was it fitted, then? It was put in place before the worktop was attached. Everything was removed from the cupboard and the business of identifying items began. 

Surprisingly, we discovered that most of it was still useful, though maybe not to us. I mean, cake tins and bun trays! I do not inflict my cakes on anyone. As for Yorkshire puddings, I dislike them and have never attempted to make them. A willing recipient was found for these extraneous bakeware items and a couple of other gadgets, bought in haste in an excess of enthusiasm, used a couple of times, then banished to everlasting darkness in the corner cupboard.

*We considered sawing the shelf in half, a messy business in a confined area, but the problem was solved when it slipped down to the bottom of the cupboard, saying, ‘I’m not coming out and you can’t make me.’ Everything we wanted to keep has been put tidily in the cupboard.

In the course of this exercise, appliances were tested to make sure they still worked and manuals were consulted. The manuals live in another cupboard and those applying to machines and gadgets long since defunct were binned. It’s quite a pleasure to look in the cupboards now, if you’ve got nothing better to do.

There are other cupboards . . . and drawers . . . but tomorrow is another day!

 

*When I say ‘we’ I really mean Barry.

ABC Wednesday Round 6 J is for Jane

Jane is a Hebrew name meaning 'God's grace' or 'God is gracious'. It is the feminine form of John and has been popular since the 17^th century. It was a favourite name of my mother's and she very much wanted to give it to me. Our surname was Mayne so it really wasn't advisable. Thus I was called Janice, a form of Jane. Two of my nieces, one of my daughters and one of my granddaughters have Jane as a middle name and I've known and liked many Janes.
The Jane for whom I feel great sympathy lived during the 16^th century. Lady Jane Grey was Henry VIII's great-niece (or grand-niece) born to his sister Mary's daughter in October 1537. Jane was an uncommon name at this time and it is thought she may have been named after Jane Seymour, Henry's third and most-beloved wife, who died shortly after giving birth to Prince Edward.
Lady Jane Grey learnt to speak and read Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian and English as a young child. She was strictly, even harshly brought up, rarely pleasing her parents who always expected more and better from her even though she was a clever and eager student. At the age of nine she left her home in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire to live at court under the guardianship of Catherine Parr who had married Thomas Seymour after Henry VIII's death. Catherine treated her lovingly and kindly and when she died after childbirth Jane was the chief mourner at her funeral. Jane remained one more year as Thomas Seymour's ward before he was executed for treason.
So Jane, now 12, returned to Leicestershire to become the ward of the Duke of Northumberland. He was the most powerful man in the country after the King (Edward VI, who was sickly and destined to die young.) It is probable that he influenced the dying King to change his will to name the Protestant heirs of his aunt, Mary Tudor, as his successors. Northumberland plotted with Jane's parents to marry her to his last unmarried son thereby protecting his position of power and securing the crown for his son, as Jane's mother had agreed to forego her own claim to the crown.
Thus Jane was forced into marriage with a man she barely knew, becoming at the same time the daughter-in-law of a man she disliked and mistrusted. The marriage took place in London on 25^th May, 1553. (It was a triple ceremony. Her younger sister and a daughter of the Northumberlands were married at the same time.) Jane was dressed in gold and silver brocade embroidered with diamonds and pearls. She was not quite sixteen.
Four days after Edward VI's death Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England. She had not sought the rôle of monarch but was powerless to resist the machinations of her supposed protectors, her parents and her guardian. The proclamation was greeted with silence and resentfulness by the people who were still grieving their young King and felt that Mary was the rightful heir to the throne.
It was the custom that English monarchs stayed in the Tower of London until their coronation, but Jane Grey remained there for the rest of her life. Her cousin, the Catholic Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, rallied support for her claim to the throne and rode triumphantly into London.

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (le Supplice de Jeanne Grey)

Painting by Paul Delaroche at the National Gallery of Art, London, 1833

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Parliament revoked Jane's proclamation and she and her husband were found guilty of high treason. The traditional punishment for women committing treason was to be burned alive or publicly beheaded on Tower Hill. Queen Mary allowed that her young cousin should have a private beheading on Tower Green inside the Tower of London. This very young woman maintained her composure until she put on her blindfold and then she panicked because she could not find the block for her head. She was helped to it and then beheaded. She was not yet seventeen and had been Queen for about nine days.

Thank you to the ABC Wednesday team for organising this meme. To see more Js please click here.

Replanting after fire

The contrast between healthy growth and bleakness is merely glimpsed in this photograph

Last July a swathe of Crowthorne forest was destroyed by fire. It's almost certain it was deliberately set but the swift arrival of several fire appliances extinguished it though the smell of burning was in the air long after the flames were doused. The Scots Pines looked very sad, blackened and burnt. These trees have a very high resin content which means that once alight they burn fiercely.

A few days after the fire Nature has not yet asserted her dominance but the sterility, though shocking, will be transitory.

At ground level green soon reappeared though the trees remained blackened skeletons as reminders of someone's folly.

Young saplings in the foreground, 5 or 6-year-old trees in the midground and mature pines in the background. 

However, the forest is a working concern managed by the Forestry Commission and in February the burnt area was cleared and replanted with Scots Pine. In just seven or eight years these saplings will be approaching 6' in height. For the present they are spikes of green hopefulness.

Newly-turned and planted soil offers enticing scents.

Crowthorne Forest is one of three local Sites of Special Scientific importance, areas which are selected and monitored by English Nature because of their particular flora, fauna, geological or physical features. Reputed to have been a tract of Henry VIII's hunting forest it is also part of the internationally important Thames Basin Special Protection Area. Three rare European ground or low shrub-nesting birds breed here - the nightjar, Dartford warbler and woodlark. It is also one of the most important sites in the country for dragonflies and damselflies. 24 of the 38 species in the UK breed here.

ABC Wednesday Round 6 C

C is for Catherine, Catherine and Catherine, variously spelt among others as Catharine, Katharine, Katherine, Katheryn – spelling wasn't standardised in Tudor times . . .
Henry VIII had six wives, three of whom were called Catherine. British children learning about the Tudors are taught a mnemonic to remember the order, names and fates of the unfortunate women chosen to be taken in marriage by the ever-fascinating King of England who reigned from 1509 until his death in 1547 at the age of 55, an advanced age for that time. The mnemonic runs, 'Divorced, beheaded, survived, divorced, beheaded, survived.' Of the three Catherines, one was divorced, one beheaded and the last survived.
Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish princess, was first married to Henry's older brother and after his death to Henry. After 24 years of marriage and only one surviving child, a daughter, Henry, desperate to father a living son and heir, sought to annul the union and, refused permission by the Pope, effectively founded the Church of England over which he assumed supremacy. Anglicans are commonly known as Protestants. To this day the reigning sovereign is recognised as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
Catherine of Aragon refused to accept the annulment and considered herself the King's rightful wife and Queen until she died in 1535.

This Royal Doulton figurine of Catherine of Aragon was designed by P Parsons and issued in 1990 in the series 'Six Wives of Henry VIII'
Henry's second Catherine, his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was probably in her early twenties when Henry noticed her at court and became enamoured. They were married in 1540 when Henry was around 48, corpulent and increasingly afflicted by various ailments, including a festering ulcer on his leg. Henry's frantic urge to produce a son who might be stronger than poor Edward had led him to suppose that a young woman could have a better chance of delivering a healthy boy. Catherine Howard was repelled by her husband's marital advances and sought light relief with the younger male courtier Thomas Culpeper. Ultimately, she was accused of treason – meaning adultery, which she never admitted – and was beheaded in 1542.

Catherine Howard, issued in 1992
The last Catherine, Catherine Parr, had already been married and widowed twice by the time she caught Henry's eye. Although she had wished to continue a relationship with Sir Thomas Seymour it was impossible to refuse the King's will and Henry married her in 1543. When he died in 1547 she married for the fourth and last time to her chosen love, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the former Sir Thomas Seymour. She died of puerperal fever a year later aged 36, six days after giving birth to a daughter.

Catherine Parr, also issued in 1992

Who would be a King's wife?

Thank you to the organisers of this meme for hosting this meme. To see more Cs please click here.

Weekend Wordsmith - I protest

'I protest,' she said,

'You accuse me unjustly -

I did you no wrong.'



He would not listen,

His heart was engaged elsewhere -

He wanted her gone.



She wept and pleaded -

He scorned her and turned away.

Her fate was thus sealed.



He showed her mercy

And allowed her a French sword

To strike off her head.



So Henry moved on -

His Jane bore him Prince Edward.

Anne was forgotten.


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