Phil Gyford

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Phil Gyford has written four articles:

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Phil Gyford has posted 773 annotations/comments since 27 December 2002.

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First Reading

About Navy Treasury

Phil Gyford  •  Link

When Pepys refers to going to "the Pay", he means the Pay Office at the Navy Treasury.

About Deals

Phil Gyford  •  Link

Copied from Nix's annotation on 23 June 1662:

From OED:

1. A slice sawn from a log of timber (now always of fir or pine), and usually understood to be more than seven inches wide, and not more than three thick; a plank or board of pine or fir-wood.

In the timber trade, in Great Britain, a deal is understood to be 9 inches wide, not more than 3 inches thick, and at least 6 feet long. If shorter, it is a deal-end; if not more than 7 inches wide, it is a BATTEN. In N. America, the standard deal (to which other sizes are reduced in computation) is 12 feet long, 11 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. By carpenters, deal of half this thickness (1 inches) is called whole deal; of half the latter ( inch) slit deal.

The word was introduced with the importation of sawn boards from some Low German district, and, as these consisted usually of fir or pine, the word was from the first associated with these kinds of wood.

1402 in C. Frost Early Hist. Hull (1827) App. 6 Mari Knyght de Dansk..xvj deles, iijm waynscots. Ibid. 18, iij dusen deles. a1450 Rature (in Hull Trin. House Records), Item for euerie hundreth of firre deales, xijd. 1558 Wills & Inv. N.C. (Surtees) I. 183 Ffyrdells of the biggest sorte..litle firdells..doble firr sparrs. 1583-4 Bk. Accts. Hull Charterhouse in N. & Q. 6th Ser. VIII. 217/1, 7 deals to seale the windows. 1595 A. DUNCAN Appendix Etymol., Asser, a deele or planke. 1604 Vestry Bks. (Surt.) 283 For fortie firre dales, xxiijs. iiijd. 1641 BEST Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 111 Robert Bonwicke of Wansworth demanded for everie deale a pennie, for bringing them from Hull to Parsonpooles, alledging that everie deale weighed three stone. 1762 STERNE Tr. Shandy VI. xxiii, A little model of a town..to be run up together of slit deals. 1820 SCORESBY Acc. Arctic Reg. I. 141 These huts, some constructed of logs, others of deals two inches in thickness. 1886 Law Times LXXX. 212/1 To there load a cargo of deals.

b. (Without a or pl.) Wood in the form of deals.

a1618 RALEIGH Obs. in Rem. (1661) 180 The huge piles of Wainscot, Clapboard, Firdeal, Masts, and Timber..in the Low-countries. 1627 CAPT. SMITH Seaman's Gram. ii. 14 Laying that Decke with spruce Deale of thirty foot long, the sap cut off. 1667 PRIMATT City & C. Builder 85, A handsom Door, lyned with Slit-deal. 1794 Builder's Price-Bk. 41 Whole deal dove-tailed dado. 1876 GWILT Encycl. Archit.

About St Anne (Blackfriars)

Phil Gyford  •  Link

There is a little information about this church here: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropi…

"No other London church has had so short a life as St Anne's. On Tuesday 4th September 1666 the raging furnace took it while still in its prime. Although the Great Fire left this area a devastated ruin, there was one tiny row of houses that remained almost untouched. To the west of the church, separated by Church Entry, was Fleur-de-Lys Court, and whilst the hungry flames roared about the walls of St Anne's they were prevented form leaping across to the Court by the intervening open space.

The church of St Anne was never rebuilt; its parish was amalgamated with that of St Andrew by the Wardrobe. Its graveyard, however, remains to this day; protected behind iron railings with a central gateway it is laid out with shrubbery and seating."

About Thursday 27 March 1662

Phil Gyford  •  Link

Just a gentle reminder...

If you're posting something specific to something that appears in the Background Info, such as the Guernsey here, please post the information to the relevant page.

By all means post anything that's particularly relevant to the day's entry here as well, but in the long term it's much more useful to have the information in Background Info.

Many thanks.

About Erratic updates

Phil Gyford  •  Link

Sorry about the delays back there - I seem to have cracked the automatic updating problem, so everything should, more or less, work like clockwork from now on...

About Imminent disruption to the site

Phil Gyford  •  Link

No, that won't be needed Bradford - the address will stay exactly the same, but there can be a little disruption while the whole internet gets to hear about which server the name should now point to. But thanks for the thought!