Rob Gore-Langton, in last week’s The Spectator, writes an article about North Cornwall in a slot that I had hitherto supposed to be advertorial. He writes amusingly: “David Cameron has body-boarded at Polzeath on recent holidays, his security detail bobbing like seals around him”. His honesty and editorial independence make North Cornwall sound an unappealing destination these days. His descriptions of holidays with his parents and grandparents in the 50s and 60s make it sound idyllic then.
He comments that the ancient bridge at Wadebridge is said to have been built on woolsacks, intriguing as the same is said of the magnificent railway viaduct at Drogheda in Ireland. It led me to this explanation on the Building Ireland website.
“A year into the build, construction was running behind schedule, facing technical problems and industrial disputes. It was all bad news for the building contractor William Evans as Matthews explains, “Evans began this work in 1852 and by early 1853 he had already got the arches done on the north side and at the same time he had his men working in the river constructing the two piers, numbered 13 and 14.”
These free-standing piers had to be built on solid bedrock. Workers built a cofferdam, pumped out the water and began digging through the mud and silt of the riverbed – 20, 30, 40 feet down and still no luck. To add to the problems, a storm on Christmas Day 1852 brought two cranes crashing down into the Boyne. William Evans couldn’t sustain the financial pressure and he was declared bankrupt. Despite the series of disasters, Evans committed to stay with the project until foundations for the pier were reached.
The free standing Pier number 14 caused the greatest problem. As the workers kept digging down, water was continually seeping into the cofferdam. In order to stop this, they needed something to plug the holes. The answer? Sheep’s wool. They bought up as much as they could get their hands on from all over the north east of the country. “This is where the myth comes from in Drogheda, even to the present day, that the piers of the viaduct are built on cotton wool”, says Brendan Matthews.
Endless bales of wool were stuffed in to keep the cofferdam watertight. And when the diggers eventually reached the bedrock, the cofferdam was left in position and mortar was poured in around the stone foundations. So it is truthful to say that wool helped build the foundations of the Boyne Viaduct!”
It is remarkable that it survived the attentions of the Explosives Department of the IRA.
