If I’m reading this right, the excavated material was used as fill elsewhere on the Hard. I wonder how much of Gunwharf is reclaimed land.
The quote here about “infinite waste and plunder” along with this Victorian quote about merchants who “forwarded in their consignments a large proportion of bricks and rotten straw” makes me wonder if it’s possible to estimate the level of shrinkage the Navy suffered. Maybe by comparing the amount of time a consignment of food should have lasted with how long it really lasted?
Quote
Portsmouth, July 13
A vast Dock is making in the Yard, which is intended to receive ten sail of the line for equipment, which may be effected in much less time than by sending every article by boats to the vessels in the Harbour, as is the case at present, and by which the infinite waste and plunder that attends the present system will be obviated. The Dock will be 22 feet deep, and faced with cut stone. The excavation is removed to a part of the Hard near the Arsenal, for the purpose of making a gun-wharf and battery, which is, like the other, under the direction of General Benthams, and in considerable forwardness. A steam-engine is about to be erected in the Yard, for the purpose of pumping the water out of the Docks, which is at present effected by horses.
— The Observer, Sunday 15 July 1798
For another quote from the same letter, see 1797 A Career of Intoxication