WEST COUNTRY SHIPYARD PRACTICE IN THE DAYS OF WOODEN SHIPS

Abstract

Vernon Boyle is known to members of the Society for Nautical Research for his masterly article ‘The Bideford Polackers’ (M.M., Vol. XVIII (1932), pp. 109–24), published in the early days of a welcome revival of interest in regional craft. He also wrote the North Devon part of Devon Harbours (London: Christopher Johnson, 1952), and contributed a number of papers to learned societies in his native county, of which probably the most notable was ‘Arts and Crafts of an Old Seaport’ (Trans. Devonshire Association…, Vol. LXXX (1948), pp. 137–45). All were beautifully illustrated with line drawings, for he was a renowned artist in that and other media, and the text had an easy, readable style, none the less as complete and detailed as one would wish. Boyle collected material of North Devon and North Cornwall interest, architectural as well as nautical, and at the time of his rather sudden death in June 1954, had for two or three years been preparing some of his sea lore for a book which was to appear in our joint...