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We’ve fished them for ages, writes Jake Tilson, but someone alive today will eat the last bite of toro. By Jake Tilson zesterdaily.com/zester-soapbox-articles/510-bluefin-tuna-...
The pioneering bike sharing project scheme at Fayoum University sets to revive cycling in Egypt, serves students who commute daily to the city from neighboring towns, changes lifestyles into healthier ones and reduces emissions & congestion.
Through the Sustainable Transport Project, 14 KM of separated bicycle lanes in Fayoum governorate were created, along with 12 bike stations across the city and campuses.
Op 5 oktober organiseerde Built Environment een bedrijvendag: een matchmakingsdag. Studenten en bedrijven kunnen met elkaar in contact komen voor stages, afstudeeropdrachten en ter oriëntatie op de arbeidsmarkt. Welke banen zijn er straks?
Sandquay in South Hams District is the historic Sandquay waterfront at Dartmouth, on the west bank of the River Dart. It is quite a different place from the sand-handling quay at Galmpton. Historic Environment records identify it specifically as Sandquay Shipyards, Dartmouth, South Hams, and the site has a remarkable history of reclamation, shipbuilding, naval activity and industrial development.
Sandquay, Dartmouth — its history
Sandquay lies on the western side of the River Dart, north of Dartmouth's historic town centre and below the area now associated with the Britannia Royal Naval College. Its waterfront today is considerably quieter than it was during its industrial heyday, but the site was once one of the most important shipbuilding and dockyard complexes in the South West.
Before the dockyard
The area was not originally the substantial waterfront seen today.
During the eighteenth century, parts of the site consisted of a steeply sloping shoreline and foreshore. The land was progressively reclaimed and levelled, with much of the infill apparently obtained from the adjacent hillside. Archaeological investigations have found evidence of this late-eighteenth-century reclamation, including the dressed local stone of the existing waterfront.
There was already activity here before the great dockyard was constructed. Surviving Seale family papers from 1780 refer specifically to obtaining stone for Sand Quay, while correspondence from 1783 mentions construction work, a quay house and a rope walk. This suggests that the waterfront was already being developed as an industrial and maritime site before the great dockyard was completed.
The name "Sandquay" itself is considerably older than the later shipyard. There may originally have been a landing place associated with the unloading of sand, possibly for agricultural improvement, before the area was transformed into a major dockyard.
John Seale's great dockyard
The crucial figure in Sandquay's development was John Seale of Mount Boone, a prominent Dartmouth landowner and businessman.
During the 1770s and 1780s, Seale embarked upon an ambitious programme to transform the waterfront. He wanted to create a modern dockyard capable of undertaking substantial shipbuilding and repair work.
The project was complicated by disputes with the Corporation of Dartmouth, including litigation over the reclamation and development of the waterfront. Nevertheless, Seale persisted.
The major dockyard was completed in 1793.
What Seale created was considerably more than a simple quay.
The complex included:
a substantial dry dock running parallel with the waterfront;
a wet dock;
four slips;
workshops;
offices;
a boiler house;
and steam-powered machinery.
Historic England's Historic Seascape Characterisation describes the complex as a dry dock complex comparable with those found at Plymouth, while the Dartmouth historic-town survey identifies it as having four slips and a wet dock.
The scale was extraordinary for Dartmouth.
By 1804, Sandquay had become the largest shipyard in the South West, employing approximately 68 shipwrights and 13 apprentices.
The Napoleonic Wars
The timing of Seale's investment proved particularly fortunate.
The dockyard was completed just as Britain entered the long period of war with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
From 1793 to 1815, there was enormous demand for naval vessels, repairs and maritime infrastructure.
Sandquay consequently became involved in Royal Navy work. The new dockyard's dry dock and associated facilities allowed vessels to be repaired and maintained on a scale that would have been impossible at the earlier, more primitive waterfront facilities.
Dartmouth's shipbuilding industry benefited considerably from this wartime demand. The Dartmouth History Research Group notes that the development of Sandquay's shipbuilding yards in 1792 helped compensate for the decline of Dartmouth's traditional Newfoundland trade.
Thus Sandquay was part of a much broader transformation of Dartmouth from a port heavily dependent upon overseas and fishing trade into a town with an increasingly important shipbuilding and naval-industrial economy.
A very sophisticated dockyard
The technology at Sandquay was impressive for the period.
The dry dock was served by a boiler house and Newcomen steam engine, making the site an early example of the use of steam power within a South West shipyard.
The combination of:
reclaimed waterfront + dry dock + wet dock + slips + steam power + workshops
made Sandquay a remarkably sophisticated industrial installation.
This is important because Dartmouth is sometimes thought of primarily as a picturesque medieval and Georgian port. Sandquay demonstrates that it was also a centre of advanced industrial engineering.
The early nineteenth century
Sandquay remained a busy shipbuilding site after the Napoleonic Wars.
The Seale family continued to have a significant interest in the property, although the management and leasing arrangements became complicated.
Surviving documents from 1804 show that Sandquay was then involved in a complicated dispute following the bankruptcy of shipbuilder Robert Newman. The Seale papers record negotiations over the surrender of the lease, buildings, quay and vessels under construction.
This gives us a fascinating glimpse into the day-to-day business of the dockyard.
Sandquay was not simply a piece of land with ships being built on it; it involved leases, tenants, contractors, buildings, slipways, vessels under construction and substantial financial obligations.
William Kelly and the arrival of George Philip
By the nineteenth century, one of the most important figures associated with Sandquay was William Kelly.
Kelly modernised the yard during the first half of the nineteenth century.
In 1854, an Aberdeen shipwright named George Philip came to Dartmouth and became Kelly's foreman shipwright. Philip was responsible for managing three slipways at Sandquay.
This was the beginning of one of Dartmouth's most important industrial dynasties.
When William Kelly retired in 1858, George Philip took over the yard.
The business became Philip & Son, with George's son Alexander subsequently joining him.
The name Philip & Son would become inseparable from Dartmouth's shipbuilding history.
Philip & Son
Philip & Son expanded considerably during the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Although the company eventually became most famous for its yard at Noss, across the Dart at Kingswear, Sandquay remained one of its important Dartmouth bases.
The company built an extraordinary variety of vessels.
These included:
sailing vessels;
steamships;
passenger vessels;
cargo ships;
tugs;
yachts;
launches;
naval craft;
and specialised vessels.
The Dartmouth Museum describes Philip & Son as having operated from both Noss and Sandquay and as being world-famous for the quality and range of its vessels.
The company was eventually incorporated as a limited company in 1905. By then it had developed well beyond a traditional wooden shipyard, undertaking increasingly sophisticated engineering work.
Sandquay Terrace
The industrial expansion of Sandquay affected the surrounding town as well.
Sandquay Terrace was built during the nineteenth century as housing associated with the shipyard workforce. Historic Environment records specifically identify it as housing built for shipyard workers.
This is an important reminder that the shipyard was not an isolated industrial installation.
It shaped the surrounding community.
People lived beside the yard, worked there, raised families there and depended upon the prosperity generated by shipbuilding.
Sandquay therefore became an industrial neighbourhood as well as a waterfront.
The Naval Establishment
Sandquay acquired another important role during the nineteenth century through its connection with the Royal Navy.
Historic mapping records an H.M. Naval Establishment at Sandquay, with facilities including:
a boat house;
quay;
pontoon;
recreation ground;
and racquet court.
This naval presence is particularly significant because Sandquay lies immediately below the area subsequently occupied by the Royal Naval College.
The waterfront therefore became increasingly connected with naval training and support.
The Royal Naval College
The Royal Naval College Dartmouth opened in 1905, following construction beginning in 1898.
Although the college occupies the higher ground at what became known as Dartmouth's Naval College, Sandquay remained an important part of the naval waterfront below it.
The development of the college added another dimension to the area's identity.
Sandquay was no longer simply a commercial shipyard.
It was part of a waterfront landscape incorporating:
commercial shipbuilding + naval activity + dock engineering + maritime transport.
The naval presence continued to influence the area throughout the twentieth century.
Philip & Son in the twentieth century
The twentieth century was the great age of Philip & Son.
The company operated from both Sandquay and Noss and became one of the most important employers in Dartmouth.
After the First World War, Philip & Son expanded its production of tugs and other specialised vessels.
In 1918, the company acquired the Noss yard after its rival Simpson, Strickland & Co. closed. This allowed Philip & Son to operate substantial facilities on both sides of the Dart.
Sandquay therefore became part of a much larger shipbuilding enterprise.
The two yards could complement one another, with different types of construction and repair work being undertaken at different facilities.
The Second World War
The Second World War brought another enormous increase in demand for shipbuilding.
Philip & Son was heavily involved in wartime production.
A surviving account of the company's history states that during the war approximately 600 workers across the Noss and Sandquay yards produced more than 200 ships and boats for the Ministry of Defence, including vessels such as harbour boom vessels for Coastal Forces.
The yards also undertook repairs.
Sandquay and Noss consequently became important components of Britain's wartime maritime-industrial effort.
The wider Philip & Son operation at Noss was bombed in 1942, while wartime work continued despite the danger.
For Dartmouth, shipbuilding was not merely an economic activity during the war.
It was directly connected to the national war effort.
The Floating Bridge
Sandquay also has an interesting connection with Dartmouth's Floating Bridge, the chain ferry linking Dartmouth with Kingswear.
The first steam-powered floating bridge was built in 1829.
A replacement was built in 1856, and in 1867 Philip & Son constructed a new steam-powered ferry.
Another ferry built by Philip & Son entered service in 1896.
The ferry was later laid up at Sandquay when the service ceased temporarily in 1908.
Philip & Son eventually acquired the ferry operation in 1918 and built a new vessel, which entered service in 1920.
Thus Sandquay's shipbuilding history extended naturally into the construction and operation of Dartmouth's own river-crossing vessels.
The floating dock
Photographs from around 1931 show Philip & Son's Sandquay yard with a substantial floating dock.
This illustrates how dramatically the facilities had evolved since John Seale's eighteenth-century dry dock.
The yard could now handle modern vessels, including steam and motor ships, rather than merely the wooden sailing vessels of the Napoleonic period.
The change reflects the wider technological revolution in shipbuilding:
wood → iron → steel
and
sail → steam → motor power.
Sandquay adapted repeatedly to these changes.
The end of shipbuilding
The decline of British shipbuilding after the Second World War eventually affected Dartmouth.
The industry became increasingly difficult to sustain in the face of international competition and changing patterns of ship construction.
Philip & Son nevertheless survived for many decades.
The company continued operating into the late twentieth century and finally ceased trading in 1999, after approximately 141 years of operation.
Its closure effectively ended Dartmouth's long tradition of large-scale industrial shipbuilding.
The last surviving industrial shipyard operation was consequently lost, and the waterfront began to be redeveloped for other purposes.
The physical transformation of Sandquay
The modern appearance of Sandquay is therefore deceptive.
Much of the old industrial infrastructure has disappeared.
One particularly significant change was the filling of a dock at the northern end of the former Philip's yard, which Historic Environment records say was filled around 1960.
The area has consequently transitioned from an intensely industrial waterfront to one associated more with housing, leisure and marine activity.
Historic Environment surveys now describe Sandquay and the adjacent Coronation Park area as principally residential and recreational.
Yet the underlying historic layout survives surprisingly well.
Archaeological significance
Sandquay is particularly important archaeologically because so much of the present land is man-made.
The late-eighteenth-century reclamation means that buried deposits can preserve evidence of earlier activity.
Archaeological investigation has identified imported pottery fragments and other material within the reclamation deposits, potentially reflecting the international character of Dartmouth's maritime trade.
The surviving waterfront itself may also retain eighteenth-century fabric.
Consequently, Sandquay is not simply an area where old photographs happen to survive.
The ground beneath the modern waterfront contains physical evidence of the process by which Dartmouth created its great industrial dockyard.
Sandquay and Dartmouth's maritime identity
Sandquay helps explain why Dartmouth became such an important maritime town.
Its position on the Dart gave it:
a sheltered deep-water harbour;
access to the English Channel;
suitable land for shipyards;
a workforce experienced in maritime trades;
and access to the naval and commercial markets.
John Seale exploited these advantages in the eighteenth century.
Philip & Son exploited them again in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Royal Navy also recognised the advantages of the site.
Thus Sandquay's history reflects the wider history of Dartmouth itself.
From dockyard to modern waterfront
The transformation of Sandquay can be divided into several broad phases:
Before the 1770s: a largely undeveloped or lightly developed foreshore, with some earlier landing and maritime activity.
1770s–1793: John Seale's reclamation and construction of a major modern dockyard.
1793–1815: major naval and shipbuilding activity during the Napoleonic Wars.
Nineteenth century: continued shipbuilding, dockyard expansion and the emergence of Sandquay as an industrial community.
1858 onwards: George Philip and subsequently Philip & Son become dominant figures in Dartmouth shipbuilding.
Late nineteenth century: increasing connection with the Royal Navy and the development of the Naval Establishment.
1905 onwards: the opening of the Royal Naval College reinforces Sandquay's naval importance.
1918 onwards: Philip & Son expands its operations to both Sandquay and Noss.
1939–45: major wartime production.
Post-war period: gradual decline of traditional shipbuilding.
1999: Philip & Son finally ceases trading.
Twenty-first century: the former industrial waterfront becomes predominantly residential, recreational and marine-leisure space, while archaeological and surviving historic features preserve evidence of its industrial past.
Why Sandquay is significant
Sandquay is historically important because it encapsulates more than two centuries of Dartmouth's industrial and maritime history in one relatively small area.
It began as a waterfront that had to be reclaimed from the river.
John Seale transformed it into one of the most advanced dockyards in the South West.
The Napoleonic Wars brought naval work.
Victorian shipbuilders modernised the yards.
George Philip established the business that became Philip & Son.
The Royal Navy established facilities alongside it.
The Royal Naval College subsequently opened immediately above it.
Philip & Son built hundreds of vessels and employed generations of Dartmouth people.
And after the shipbuilding industry finally disappeared, the waterfront was transformed yet again.
Leo Raudys, Senior Director of Environmental Affairs at Best Buy and NorthStar partner, gives the Keynote speech at the 2011 Student Sustainability Symposium held at the Institute on the Environment.
From a visit to the Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education (http://www.coyoteptmuseum.org/).
The pioneering bike sharing project scheme at Fayoum University sets to revive cycling in Egypt, serves students who commute daily to the city from neighboring towns, changes lifestyles into healthier ones and reduces emissions & congestion.
Through the Sustainable Transport Project, 14 KM of separated bicycle lanes in Fayoum governorate were created, along with 12 bike stations across the city and campuses.
NESC conference 'Environmental Data: Priorities & Innovation' - 24 April 2015 – Wood Quay Venue, Dublin.
The inauguration of a new solar power planet in the building of the "Tawasul School" in Establ Antar, implemented through the Egypt PV project.
The project is implemented by the Industrial Modernization Center (IMC) and the United Nations Development Programme in Egypt with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
The pioneering bike sharing project scheme at Fayoum University sets to revive cycling in Egypt, serves students who commute daily to the city from neighboring towns, changes lifestyles into healthier ones and reduces emissions & congestion.
Through the Sustainable Transport Project, 14 KM of separated bicycle lanes in Fayoum governorate were created, along with 12 bike stations across the city and campuses.