Trade and Industry

Connections between England and America as manifested in industrial or trade-related buildings

Dobroyd Castle

Todmorden, West Yorkshire
Listed at Grade II* in 1966

Dobroyd Castle in Todmorden, West Yorkshire © English Heritage Image Library An impressive country house in local stone and a castellated style, built 1866-9 by John Gibson for John Fielden, part of a dynasty of cotton manufacturers, and his wife Ruth, a former mill worker.  The grand stairhall features four carved Caen stone tympana depicting the cotton industry, on which Fielden's family's position was built.  These illustrate enslaved Africans picking cotton in America and second, a scene of cotton bales at port waiting to be loaded onto a ship. The third carving has Richard Arkwright inventing his water-powered spinning frame; and the last represents women at a loom, displaying the finished cloth.  These panels artistically and subtly reflect the views that this reforming mid-C19 cotton family held on slavery in the New World and the production of cotton in England.

Chesapeake Mill

Wickham, Hampshire
Upgraded to Grade II* in 2003

Former corn mill, built in 1820, in red brick and substantial timber from the USS Chesapeake, the building is considered the best survival of C18 reused ship's timbers in any building in Britain apart from the royal dockyards.  The five main spine beams to each floor, the floor joists, the roof timbers and most of the window lintels are of American longleaf pine, known to have originated in the American warship Chesapeake, captured by HMS Shannon 1st June 1813, brought to Portsmouth in 1819 and dismantled. The main spine beams give the width dimensions of the ship and both these and many of the floor joists are recognisable by their beaded moulding. Many timbers bear American carpenters' marks and some timbers have evidence for canvas partitions. Burn marks on the first floor timber are the marks made firing cannon and a timber on the second floor has the evidence of repaired damage which occurred during a naval engagement and suggests the timber came from the quarterdeck. The Chesapeake was one of four American frigates of 44 guns built at Gosport naval yard in Virginia and launched on February 28th 1799. She was finally captured after a famous duel with HMS Shannon in 1813 and served with the Royal Navy from 1814 to 1819 when the ship was sold to Joshua Holmes,a ship breaker in Portsmouth. Timbers from the Chesapeake were bought by John Prior who was preparing to build a new mill at Wickham.  The capture of The Chesapeake was a famous naval action for the Royal Navy and was famous in the United States for the dying words of Captain James Lawrence "Don't give up the ship".

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