Ropewalks and the linear city

Abstract

Sailing ships required miles of rope for rigging, and its frequent replacement. Most ports of any size had roperies or rope manufactures that transformed hemp or other materials through combing, twisting, and tarring to produce a strong product that would resist the stresses of strain and water. A ready supply of rope supported expanding navies and merchant companies, and competition for more efficient production spurred competition between port cities. To make long lengths of rope, uninterrupted straight areas were needed close to the waterfront. Sometimes these were covered spaces, sometimes streets or walks set aside for the purpose. Ropewalks shaped ports through the creation of linear demarcations against the irregular edge where water meets land. Rope manufacture was an essential industry for ports but also a frequent site of fires that often did great damage to dense urban areas. The importance of rope as a pre-modern industry is gone yet the traces of it remain in the extended port landscape.

Keywords:

• Maritime
• ship
• rope
• rigging
• manufacture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. An excellent history of a particular rope manufacture is Samuel Eliot Morison, The Ropemakers of Plymouth. A History of the Plymouth Cordage Company 1824–1949 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950).

2. See Ennio Concina, Navis. L’umanesimo sul mare (1470–1740) (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1990).

3. UNESCO, Naval Port of Karlskrona: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/871.

4. John Durham Peters, The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), pp. 101–109.

5. For example, John D. Fudge, ‘Masts, Cordage and Iron Guns: Maintaining a Tudor War Fleet in the 1540s’, Mariner’s Mirror, 92/2, 2006, pp. 204–220.

6. Christopher Heuer, ‘Our Literal Speed’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 50/1, 2019, pp. 219–225.

7. J. G. Coad, ‘Two Early Attempts at Fire-Proofing in Royal Dockyards’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 7/1, 1973, pp. 88–90, esp. 145–6; J. G. Coad, Historic Architecture of the Royal Navy (London: Gollancz, 1983).

8. George Biddlecombe, The Art of Rigging (1925) (Mineola NY: Dover Publications, 1990).

9. W. Salisbury and R. C. Anderson, A Treatise on Shipbuilding and a Treatise on Rigging Written About 1620–1625 (London: Society for Nautical Research, 1958).

10. Of the many useful texts on ships, see especially Richard W. Unger, ‘The Fluit: Specialist Cargo Vessels, 1500–1650’, in Robert Gardiner and Richard W. Unger (eds.), Cogs, Caravels, and Galleons: The Sailing Ship, 1000–1650 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1994), pp. 115–130.

11. On the history of rope, see Anthony Sanctuary, Rope, Twine and Net Making (Aylesbury: Shire Publication, 1980); W. Tyson, Rope: A History of the Hard Fibre Cordage Industry in the United Kingdom (London: Hard Fibre Cordage Institute, 1966).

12. On the earliest history of rope, see Tyson, Rope.

13. See Pamela Smith, From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).

14. Reasons for Leave to Import Tarr, Otherwise Than from the Places of the Growth (S.l: s.n., 1704).

15. Theodore P. Kaye, Pine Tar: History and Uses (San Francisco: Maritime Park Association, 1997).

16. On Rochefort, see Josef Konvitz, ‘Grandeur in French City Planning Under Louis XIV Rochefort and Marseille’, Journal of Urban History, 2/1, 1975, pp. 3–42; Donald Pilgrim, ‘The Colbert-Seignelay Naval Reforms and the Beginnings of the War of the League of Augsburg’, French Historical Studies, 9/2, Autumn 1975, pp. 235–262; James Pritchard, ‘From Shipwright to Naval Constructor: The Professionalization of 18th-Century French Naval Shipbuilder’, Technology and Culture, 28/1, January 1987, pp. 1–25.

17. Ennio Concina, A History of Venetian Architecture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

18. The history of the buildings at Chatham can be found in Coad, ‘Chatham Ropeyard’.

19. Duane Lucia and Tom Burgess, Ropewalks of the West End and Beyond: https://thewestendmuseum.org/ropewalks-of-the-west-end-and-beyond/.

20. [Boston] Mercury, August 1, 1794; quoted in Margherita M. Desy and Phaedra Scott, ‘Ropemakers for the Navy, Part 1’, USS Constitution Museum: https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2016/10/06/ropemakers-navy-part/.

21. See J. G. Coad, ‘Two Early Attempts’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 7/1, 1973, pp. 88–90.

22. See Tim Ingold, Lines. A Brief History (New York: Routledge, 2007).

23. National Park Service, Montrose Park. Cultural Landscape Report (Washington DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2004), pp. 12–17.

24. On the Legros prints of the corderies see, Frank E. Bliss, A Catalogue of the Etchings, drypoints and lithographs, by Professor Alphonse Legros (1837–1911) in the collection of Frank E. Bliss (London: Printed for private circulation, 1923), p. 350, I and 350, II. On Legros generally, see Elizabeth Prettejohn, ‘The Scandal of M. Alphonse Legros’, Art History, 44/1, February 2021, pp. 78–107.