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The Downs (ship Anchorage)
The Downs is a roadstead (an area of sheltered, favourable sea) in the southern North Sea near the English Channel, off the east Kent coast in southern England, between the North Foreland, North and the South Foreland, near the town of Deal, Kent, Deal. From the Elizabethan era onward the presence of the Downs helped to make Deal one of the premier ports in England, and in the 19th century it was equipped with its own telegraph and timeball tower to enable ships to set their marine chronometers. The anchorage has depths down to . Even during southerly gales some shelter was afforded, though under this condition wrecks were not infrequent. Storms from any direction could also drive ships onto the shore or onto the sands, which—in spite of providing the sheltered water—were constantly shifting, and not always adequately marked. The Downs served in the age of sail as a permanent base for warships patrolling the North Sea and a gathering point for refitted or new ships coming o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Downs Anchorage
''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chatham Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham, Kent, Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham, Kent, Gillingham; at its most extensive (in the early 20th century) two-thirds of the dockyard lay in Gillingham, one-third in Chatham. It came into existence at the time when, following the English Reformation, Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, leading to a requirement for additional defences. Over 414 years Chatham Royal Dockyard provided more than 500 ships for the Royal Navy, and was at the forefront of shipbuilding, Industrial technology, industrial and British industrial architecture, architectural technology. At its height, it employed over 10,000 skilled artisans and covered . Chatham dockyard closed in 1984, and of the Georgian dockyard is now managed as the Chatham Historic Dockyard visitor attraction by the Chatham Histori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landforms Of Kent
A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great oceanic basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, structure stratification, rock exposure, and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, cliffs, hills, mounds, peninsulas, ridges, rivers, valleys, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceanic waterbodi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Ladies
"Spanish Ladies" ( Roud 687) is a traditional British naval song, typically describing a voyage from Spain to the Downs from the viewpoint of ratings of the Royal Navy. Other prominent variants include an American variant called "Yankee Whalermen", an Australian variant called " Brisbane Ladies", and a Newfoundland variant called " The Ryans and the Pittmans". Origins A broadside ballad by the name "Spanish Ladies" was registered in the English Stationer's Company on December 14, 1624. Roy Palmer writes that the oldest text he has seen is from the 1796 logbook of HMS ''Nellie''. After their victory over the Grande Armée, these soldiers were returned to Britain but forbidden to bring their Spanish wives, lovers, and children with them. The song predates the proper emergence of the sea shanty. Shanties were the work songs of merchant sailors, rather than naval ones. However, in his 1840 novel ''Poor Jack'', Captain Frederick Marryat reports that the song "Spanish Ladies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gay
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.. Early life Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, last of five children of William Gay (died 1695) and Katherine (died 1694), daughter of Jonathan Hanmer, "the leading Nonconformist divine of the town"Life and Letters of John Gay, (1685–1732), Author of "The Beggar's Opera", ed. Lewis Melville, Daniel O'Connor, 1921 (2022 reprint), p. 1 as founder of the Independent Dissenting congregation in Barnstaple. The Gay family – "fairly comfortable... though far from rich" – lived in "a large house, called the Red Cross, on the corner of Joy Street". The Gay family was "of respectable antiquity" in North Devon, associated with the manor of Goldsworthy at Parkham and with the parish of Frithelstock (where the senior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dover Patrol
The Dover Patrol and later known as the Dover Patrol Force was a Royal Navy command of the First World War, notable for its involvement in the Zeebrugge Raid on 22 April 1918. The Dover Patrol formed a discrete unit of the Royal Navy based at Dover and Dunkirk for the duration of the First World War. Its primary task was to prevent enemy German shipping—chiefly submarines—from entering the English Channel ''en route'' to the Atlantic Ocean, thereby forcing the Imperial German Navy to travel via the much longer route around Scotland which was itself covered by the Northern Patrol. History In late July 1914, with war looming, 12 s arrived at Dover to join the near obsolete destroyers already at anchor in the harbour, most of them built in the late 19th century. These destroyers formed the nucleus of the fledgling Dover Patrol, which, from its early beginnings as a modest and poorly equipped command, became one of the most important Royal Navy commands of the First World War. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish NavySmith, Charles Edgar: ''A short history of naval and marine engineering.'' Babcock & Wilcox, ltd. at the University Press, 1937, page 263 as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War. Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unatte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in European theatre of World War I, Europe and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, Middle East, as well as in parts of African theatre of World War I, Africa and the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I, Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare; the widespread use of Artillery of World War I, artillery, machine guns, and Chemical weapons in World War I, chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of Tanks in World War I, tanks and Aviation in World War I, aircraft. World War I was one of the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated World War I casualties, 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded, plus some 10 million civilian de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Downs
The Battle of the Downs took place on 21 October 1639 (New Style), during the Eighty Years' War. A Spanish fleet, commanded by Admiral Antonio de Oquendo, was decisively defeated by a Dutch force under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp. Victory ended Spanish efforts to re-assert naval control over the English Channel and confirmed Dutch dominance of the sea lanes, while it is also alleged to be the first major action to feature line of battle tactics. The battle was initiated when Spanish chief minister Olivares sent a large convoy of troops and supplies for the Army of Flanders, escorted by some 50 warships. Since 1621, Spanish naval activity in the Channel had focused on avoiding direct conflict with the superior Dutch fleet, while attacking their merchant ships from privateering bases in Dunkirk and Ostend. In a change from this policy, Oquendo was ordered to deliver the reinforcements but also bring the Dutch to battle; Olivares hoped victory would restore Spanish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Barton (privateer)
Sir Andrew Barton (c. 1466 – 2 August 1511) was a Scottish sailor from Leith. He gained notoriety as a privateer, making raids against Portuguese ships. He was killed in battle and memorialised in English and Scottish folk songs. Career Some of Andrew Barton's trading voyages to Flanders ports in the 1490s are recorded in the ''Ledger of Andrew Halyburton''. He was the oldest of three brothers; a younger brother, Robert Barton of Over Barnton, became Lord High Treasurer of Scotland. Andrew became notorious in England and Portugal as a 'pirate', though as a seaman who operated under the aegis of a letter of marque on behalf of the List of Scottish monarchs, Scottish crown, he may be described as a privateer. The letter of marque against Portuguese shipping was originally granted to his father, John Barton, by James III of Scotland before 1485. John's ships had been attacked by Portuguese vessels when he was trading at Sluis in Zeelandic Flanders, Flanders. James IV of Scotland, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thames Estuary
The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salinity). For this reason the limits of the Thames Estuary have been defined differently at different times and for different purposes. Western This limit of the estuary has been defined in two main ways: * The narrow estuary is strongly tidal and is known as the Tideway. It starts in south-west London at Teddington Lock and weir, Teddington/Ham, London, Ham. This point is also mid-way between Richmond Lock which only keeps back a few miles of human-made head (hydrology), head (stasis) of water during low tide and the extreme modern-era head at Thames Ditton Island on Kingston upon Thames, Kingston reach where slack water occurs at maximal high tide in times of rainfall-caused flooded banks. In terms of salinity the transition from freshwater t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strait Of Dover
The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait, historically known as the Dover Narrows, is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, and separating Great Britain from continental Europe. The shortest distance across the strait, at approximately , is from the South Foreland, northeast of Dover in the English county of Kent, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French département of Pas-de-Calais. Between these points lies the most popular route for English Channel#By swimming, cross-channel swimmers. The entire strait is within the territorial waters of France and the United Kingdom, but a right of transit passage under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows vessels of other nations to move freely through the strait. On a clear day, it is possible to see the opposite coastline of England from France and vice versa with the naked eye, with the most famous and obvious sight being the Whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
