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YARRANTON'S England's Improvement by Sea and Land. Part I. London, 1677. There seems a foundation of truth in the old English distich The North for Greatness, the East for Health, The South for Neatness, the West for Wealth. State Paper Office. Dom. Charles II. 1660-1.
He did, however, succeed in his own time in opening up the navigation of the Avon, and was the first to carry barges upon its waters from Tewkesbury to Stratford. The improvement of agriculture, too, had a share of Yarranton's attention. He saw the soil exhausted by long tillage and constantly repeated crops of rye, and he urged that the land should have rest or at least rotation of crop.
Harrison near the King's Bench, have wrought many, and know their goodness." As Yarranton's account was written and published during the lifetime of the parties, there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of his statement.
Yarranton's plan was to make the river itself navigable, and by uniting it with other rivers, open up a communication with the Trent; while Brindley's was to cut a canal parallel with the river, and supply it with water from thence.
While thus occupied, the restoration of Charles II. took place, and whether through envy or enmity Yarranton's activity excited the suspicion of the authorities. His journeys from place to place seemed to them to point to some Presbyterian plot on foot.
Some progress was made with this undertaking, so far in advance of the age, but, like the other, it came to a stand still for want of money, and more than a hundred years passed before it was carried out by a kindred genius James Brindley, the great canal maker. Mr. Chambers says that when Yarranton's scheme was first brought forward, it met with violent opposition and ridicule.
Chambers says that on the decline of his popularity in 1677, he was taken by Lord Clarendon to Salisbury to survey the River Avon, and find out how that river might be made navigable, and also whether a safe harbour for ships could be made at Christchurch; and that having found where he thought safe anchorage might be obtained, his Lordship proceeded to act upon Yarranton's recommendations.
From this we gather that Yarranton's business continued to be that of an iron-manufacturer at his works at Ashley near Bewdley. Thus the iron-miner says, "About 28 years since Mr.
He was even permitted to engage a number of skilled workmen, whom he brought over with him to England for the purpose of starting the manufacture in this country. A beginning was made, and the tin-plates manufactured by Yarranton's men were pronounced of better quality even than those made in Saxony.
Yarranton's labours were thus lost to the English public for a time; and we continued to import all our tin-plates from Germany until about sixty years later, when a tin-plate manufactory was established by Capel Hanbury at Pontypool in Monmouthshire, where it has since continued to be successfully carried on. We can only briefly refer to the subsequent history of Andrew Yarranton.
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