Granaries, Shipyards and Wharves - Cycling from Guildford

The RANDALLS and the BRENTS built many notable
vessels including several class prototypes for the Royal
Navy, but one of the most famous was Serapis which
fought American privateer John Paul Jones in the
Bonhomme Richard, in 1779.
This yard was split up into two sections, and it was
not until around 1850, when they were reunited
under the management of THOMAS BILBE & WILLIAM
PERRY that some of the former glory returned.
THOMAS BILBE installed the PATENT SLIP on which
DAME DE SERK rests. The slip was hydraulically
powered, each stroke of the ram drawing the cradle
out of the water until it reached the end of its travel.
The carriage holding the vessel was held by a ratchet,
while the ram was disconnected, returned to its
starting position, reconnected and the process
repeated. This device, with its engine house was in
use by 1860. The site of the patent slip had in fact
been a small shipyard in its own right between 1786
and 1794 when it was run by MARMADUKE
STALKARTT, one of the premier naval architects of his
day. The first two of the fastest Post Office sailing
packets of their era, designed by STALKARTT were
built here in 1788, and in 1796 he built an
experimental steam vessel, the Kent, unfortunately
not a success, for the Earl of Stanhope.
THOMAS BILBE specialised in a type of shipbuilding
known as composite construction. By combining the
strength and lightness of wrought iron frames, with
wooden planking which could be copper or Muntz
metal sheathed, it was possible to make hulls which
were fast, and did not attract marine growths in the
way that iron plates did. This was very much the top
end of the market, such vessels being used for opium
running, and in the intense competition to get the
first of the new season’s tea back to Britain. From the
1860s to the 1870s these sailing ships were the
aristocrats of the merchant marine. BILBE & PERRY
built nearly a dozen of the best, starting with Red
Riding Hood in 1857, and concluding with Argonaut
the last ship built here in 1866. The opening of the
Suez Canal in 1870, coupled with the development of
anti-fouling paint for iron hulls, heralded the end for
32 SOUTHWARK HISTORY WALKS