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22. Chart of Plymouth Harbour by Copper Plate Printing Office

22. Title: Chart of the Harbour of Plymouth Taken 1817. (Title above border centrally, Taken 1817 below this just inside border.)
Date: 1817[1].
Size: 480 x 360 mm.
Imprint(s): The Copper Plate Engraving and Printing Office, New Street, Stonehouse, Plmo.
Signature(s): None.
Location(s): P.[2]


Comments: The chart covers an area from White Sand Bay and Ram Head (Ad) to the Mew Stone (Ed) and the course of the river as far as Tor Point (Bb) and Keyham Lake. It shows depths in the Sound as well as the Breakwater but lacks a bottom border. Tor House has been included beside the title and above the top border (see illustration below). Magnetic north is included in the compass rose.

On the right is a sketch A of a dry dock with dimensions: Breadth 60 Ft, Depth 18 Ft and Length 160 Feet. This is explained in the Reference (Ea) as a dry dock at Tanchapel (sic); this should be Turnchapel (see illustration below). John Parker, also known as the 1st Earl of Morley, was the landowner at Turnchapel, and he improved the wharves at Turnchapel, an important site of repairs to His Majesty´s Navy, with a wet dock (c.1898) and a dry dock in 1804. In 1812 it saw the launch of the Clarence, a 74-gun ship-of-the-line.

The approach using Tor House is clearly explained: Tor-House and Black spot in a centre of a White Patch on the Garrison Wall is the leading Mark through Sedley´s Channel. In Cooke´s plans of Plymouth Dock (19 and 20) he had omitted all coastal features, but in this chart, we have a suggestion of coastal shading. The mud flats to the west are clearly shown, not dissimilar to those of his Falmouth chart (see next entry, 23).


Sketch of a Dry Dock - A.


Mud flats in the west and Tor House next to title.


[1] The date TAKEN 1817 may refer to date of engraving or that this is a later copy of one executed originally in 1817..
[2] From the collection of the late Francis Bennett.

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