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Ancestor enquiry. We recently received this rather interesting email from Stewart Mold. “During my family history research I came across some letters written by my 3rd Gt Uncle John Mold to the bailiff for the Stowe Estates Thomas Beard. John Mold was a Builder/Carpenter and appeared to buy a lot of wood from the estate, in one of his letters dated Dec 6th 1841 he is enquiring to purchase 27 hundred ft to begin with of 4" planking as that would make up a boat load. This has been puzzling me for some time as I did not realise that there was a canal at Buckingham, until I came across your very interesting website. Is there any way in which you could verify for me, that when he says a boatload he probably meant to go off via the canal, would that amount of wood fit on a barge? What sort of paper work would be involved to send cargoes off by barges for instance? Should you be interested in a copy of the letter I could type it out and send it to you. This is the copy Buckingham Dec 6th 1841.
Sir, Today I taken the person into the park to look at the Beech and the only thing I could prevail upon him to say was that he would willingly purchase a quantity of 4 inch and 3 3/4 inch plank if cut out of the prime part of the butts up to the first branch only - the whole of the next part of the trees I shown him being too course and rough for his use. Should his Grace feel willing to allow a quantity of four inch planks to be cut out of the best part of the butts and would otherwise dispose of the remainder of the trees I would engage to take any quantity say 27 hundred ft to begin with as that would make up a boat load and if you have it sawn into planks and let us take what would do for our purpose only we could afford 5 1/4 ?? foot supplied for 4 inch plank and fetch it away ourselves. I am Sir, Yours Respectfully. John Mold. Almost as soon as the Navigator was issued I had this most interesting reply from Ed Grimsdale Re: Loads of Timber Stewart Mold enquires whether the timber ordered in 1841 could be transported by canal barge. The likely answer is "Yes" and that is based on the concept that a "load" was an old measure of wood that had an exact. Any form of transport on land, sea or canal would have been designed to move one or more "loads". So what was a load? The Ordinances of the Carpenters Co. of London set out their timber measures in 1607: A load was equal to; 50 "solid" feet of timber. (We use the word "cubic" instead of "solid") One load could be made from 30 rafters 50 bedsides 100 single quarters, etc.
Let's look at the enquiry made of Thomas Beard, Bailiff to Stowe Estates: 2700 feet of 4" wide planking of thickness 3/4" The volume of that is 2700 x 4/12 x 3/48 = 56.25 cubic feet So, Mr Mold was buying a traditional "load" of wood. Moving a load of wood across land had always been a fraught business. Roads were rutted and wood was both long and heavy. Short lengths were moved on wagons but longer lengths required tugs, pairs of wheels and axles that were strapped to each end of the baulks. Large teams of horses and oxen were needed and progress was slow. The risk of getting bogged down in mud was always a fear and in North Bucks an ever-present danger. Transport of timber across land was expensive. For instance, when St. Paul's Cathedral was rebuilt, it took a double team of Oxen 20 days at a cost of 20s a day to move the Duke of Newcastle's timber to London. That is why so much timber was imported from the Baltic States - water transport was cheaper by far. When canals came to Britain, they decimated the costs of transporting heavy, bulky goods across country. There is no chance that Mr Mold would NOT have used the Buckingham Canal link in 1841 if he was moving the timber to a town east, west or north of Buckingham. Furthermore, timber had been in short supply for hundreds of years in Britain. The Buckingham Canal opened up a new source of wood (from Stowe) that formerly would have been far too expensive to use outside of its local area because of the poor communications. Mr Mold was exploiting a new opportunity -he was a true entrepreneur! . Could it be that the advent of the Canal link at the start of the 19th century opened the woods of north Bucks to businessmen and their paid hands shouting,” TIMBER"! Ed Grimsdale
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