Victoria Pier, Douglas

Date(s): 1868

Scope & Content: On the back of this photograph Frowde writes, 'Plan of Fort and arcade buildings - see note on back. This postcard reduction of a picture taken by Mr Thos Keig, FRAS, in 1868, shews how the base of the Victoria Pier was built around - and inside, the circular wall of what was the rampart of the old Douglas Fort on the Pollock Rocks: at a time when the Douglas river joined the sea at that point. This was so even n 1789 as Fannin's Map of that date indicates. When the Victoria Pier was surfaced, the upper portion, protruding, of the rampart was levelled. When the arcade was built, the pencil sketch above will show that 1/4th the circle of the rampart was inside the area of the arcade. The SW corner of the buildings (Forrester's Kitchen) is right in the centre of the circle. So when the surrounding 'made' ground began to 'settle,' the arcade over the rampart walls 'stayed put,' and cracks appeared. Hence the closing of the roof of the Arcade'. Additional notes: 'The pier at its base was not much higher than the Pollock rocks at that point. I have calculated by the people by the Fort rampart in the photos, that the wall must have been at least 20 feet in height. Hence the elevation of the wall above the level of the pier built around it and inside it in the print. This excess was levelled with the new pier surface later, or , in the light of my experience on Nov 9th 1934, when I actually saw the wall, about a foot below the asphalt, when a water main was being laid in a 4 ft deep trench about 2 ft wide. Surface higher than then. The outer surface of the Fort wall proved to be approx 52 feet from the edge of the pavement on the SW corner of the Arcade. I had calculated the interior of the wall to be about 45 feet odd from the same point, and allowing for the thickness of the rampart, only about 2 1/2 feet of it visible, and possibly as much hidden, I was very near the mark. It is more than likely that the fort outer wall would be at least 8 feet thick or not far short of that'. Additional notes on reverse of photograph: 'Got this - but from a sensitive paper print. Plate gone west. Enlarge portion from L side of picture to beyond (just Castle Tap, and vertically, from base of Red Pier head upwards) whole plate size. See below. Hopeless'. : 'The man in foreground was Mr Callister, photographer, later on his own in Finche's Rd but at this time partner with Mr Keig. Callister's son and I were at the Grammar School together 1877 to 1884. The circle of the old Fort Rampart was still there, evidently, when the Victoria Pier was almost, if not wholly, half completed in its original length: the entrance to the pier was evidently built up around the fort wall, and the lower portion will still exist below the surface of the pier roadway at the SW corner of the arcade today'. : 'Had an enlargement made of this, but as the old plate had conked out it was made from an old sensitised paper print. A high power magnifier on this reduction from the actual plate is of greater service, shewing the top of the rampart still in situ when the pier was actually surfaced'. : 'Enlargement of this better than I thought - in docket 3. First life-boat house on Harris Prom in picture, also the Castle Tap at the Iron Pier'.

Language: eng

Extent: overall: 9 cm x 14 cm

Physical description: black & white print

Item name: photograph

Collection: Photographic Archive

Level: ITEM

ID number: PG/8224/1/53

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