File talk:Wp1871.jpg

Welsh Pony at Portmadoc Date: c1871 Photographer: Unknown photographer

 

The last van in the train

This is a "Sentry box Guards Van". A better view can be seen here
.

Basically a hand braked guards van in the style of a bug box.

There was a suggestion in a recent Heritage Group Journal that the sentry box was added later, but probably not long after they were built.

Source: Ed Harris FR Yahoo Group Message 41811

Timber in Foreground

The timber in the photograph, it was for shipbuilding purposes. Among the last builders of Porthmadog schooners was David Williams, who had his yard on the seaward side of the harbour station area. He had an area for laying out timber to season it, as shown in the photograph.

The schooners were built largely of local oak, with a good deal of it coming from the Maentwrog area, and in the photo both straight trunks and crooks for grown knees can be seen. Other timbers used were pitch pine (especially for the decks), yellow pine, and mahahogany and teak for the furnishings, but they were all imported..

The last schooner built, the ill-fated 'Gestiana' of 1913, came from David Williams' yard.

Source: Douglas Lindsay FR Yahoo Group Message 41818

The FR Archivist, Adrian Gray in FR Yahoo Group Message 41822 adds:

Though you now have all the information I would have given you I beg to differ from Doug in the matter of the timber in the photograph being for David Williams' yard. As I understand things David Williams' yard was not here, in front of the FR station but on the harbour side of the quay upon which Harbour station stands - almost in a direct line from the end of the loco headshunt.

If I can find a suitable photo on the wiki I'll put a link up.

Pedr Jarvis writes in FR Yahoo Group Message 41832 that he thinks:

the wood in that photograph is for Ebenezer Roberts' shipyard, which lay just over the wall from the ground frame. He lived nearby in 1871.