Little Stanmore and Trunk deck ship

Little Stanmore is a locality in the London Borough of Harrow in London, England.

Contents 1 Toponymy 2 History 3 St Lawrence Church 4 References 5 External links

Toponymy

Little Stanmore was named to distinguish it from Great Stanmore, which is now known as Stanmore. The parish was also known as Whitchurch. Whitchurch is a common English place-name meaning 'white church', and probably referring to a church built of stone. The name has fallen out of use and is preserved in Whitechurch Gardens and Whitechurch Lane. History

Little Stanmore formed an ancient parish in the Gore hundred of Middlesex. It was grouped for relief of the poor and sanitary provision into Hendon Poor Law Union in 1836 and Hendon rural sanitary district in 1875. The parish became part of Hendon Rural District from 1894, and was abolished as a civil parish in 1934, becoming absorbed by Harrow Urban District. The population in 1901 was 1,069 and in 1931 it was 6,918. St Lawrence Church

The medieval St Lawrence Church was reconstructed by James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos in the baroque style. The architect was John James, who also worked on the Duke of Chandos' nearby house called Cannons (which was demolished in 1747). It is possible that James Gibbs oversaw the finishing touches to the church when he replaced John James as the Duke's architect in 1715. The interior retains early eighteenth-century paintings by artists such as Louis Laguerre and there is an organ played by Handel and restored in the 1990s to its original condition. In the churchyard is a tombstone to William Powell, supposedly "The Harmonious Blacksmith" who inspired one of Handel's keyboard works.

Trunk deck ship and Little Stanmore

A trunk deck ship is a type of merchant ship with a hull that was stepped inward in order to obtain more favourable treatment under canal toll rules then in effect. As those tolls were set by net tonnage, a measure of volume, and as the tonnage rules did not account for all of the cargo space of such vessels, they incurred lower tolls than more conventional ships of equivalent capacity. When the measurement rules were changed, the type was no longer built.

Contents 1 Background and design 2 Advantages and disadvantages 3 References 3.1 Notes 3.2 Sources 4 Photographs

Background and design

Trunk deck ships were influenced by (some would say copied from) turret deck ships. In 1892, the Sunderland, England firm of William Doxford and Sons Ltd. built its first turret deck ship. Inspired by U.S. whalebacks, one of which had recently visited Liverpool, Doxford built a ship which had a curved hull form which was stepped in above the waterline. The narrow part of the hull, called a turret, was part of the hold.

Four years after the first turret deck ship, the first trunk deck ship appeared. SS Trunkby, completed in 1896, was built by Robert Ropner at his shipyard at Stockton-on-Tees. This vessel was of "three-island" construction with a forecastle, bridge house, and quarterdeck, extending to the full width of a low-freeboard hull. A distinctive feature was a long "trunk" along the centerline, with a breadth of about half the vessel's beam, which connected the three elements of the superstructure. This trunk was stepped inward from the sides of the hull. That trunk was not a deckhouse or superstructure, but was part of the hull, and contained cargo space.

In hull form, trunk ships resembled turret deck vessels, differing mainly in eliminating the curves and joining the above-water horizontal part of the hull with the vertical strakes and sides of the trunk by right angles. The similarity was such that Doxford, builder and operator of the turret decks, sued Ropners for patent infringement. Advantages and disadvantages

As with turret deck ships, the design of the trunk deck ships was said to maximize strength while reducing the amount of steel needed for construction. Disadvantages included the narrow hatches atop the trunk, which inhibited efficient loading and unloading. The low freeboard meant smaller waves could board the ship, and the bridge and superstructure therefore had to be stronger to resist wave action.

Trunk deck ships had a low net tonnage (an approximate measure of cargo space) in comparison to their deadweight tonnage capacity (weight of cargo). Net tonnage is a computation of volume, and the method of measurement used at the Suez Canal to determine tolls was based on a measure of net tonnage which excluded some of the cargo spaces of these unconventional hulls. Trunk deck ships therefore paid less in tolls. In 1911 the toll measure changed at Suez, and construction of the type ceased.
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