Alan Wills, of Windermere, reveals a link between Troutbeck and Capability Brown

The transportation of some Troutbeck slate to Worcestershire for one of Capability Brown’s architectural masterpieces was a routine struggle by 18th century standards, involving packhorses, a ship, smaller vessels, the press gang and probably horses and carts.

Croome Court, the home-to-be of Lord Coventry, was Brown’s first commission as an architect in 1755.

The 30 tons of best-quality blue slate from Troutbeck Park were to be used for the prestigious job of roofing the mansion.

Cheaper Welsh slate would be used to roof the service buildings.

The Troutbeck Park quarries were owned by Ralph Day of London and Maidenhead.

As Day’s tenant farmer at Troutbeck Park and Hird House, John Harrison augmented his income by helping at the quarries and by transporting slate on packhorses to a small dock on the shore of Windermere at Ecclerigg.

After he had taken the slate to Ecclerigg it was loaded on to vessels and taken to the foot of the lake.

Horses and carts were probably used for three miles and from there to a crane at Low Wood, Haverthwaite. There it was loaded on to lighters which carried it down to River Leven to the Leven Estuary.

Two of the lightermen were John Colton, who ferried 12 tons on May 1 and Elkanah Taylor who ferried 10 tons on June 7. It was then loaded on to The Kendal Merchant, captained by John Turner and bound for Chepstow.

Instead of unloading at Chepstow, Captain Turner sailed a further 20 miles up the River Severn to Newnham, prompting Day to complain that it would have been cheaper to have used lighters for the extra 20 miles.

Captain Turner had to explain that he gone overland from Chepstow to Bristol to arrange lighters only to discover that there was a shortage of crew members for them due to the press gang, which had even taken one of his own men. Details of the final leg of the slate’s journey are unknown.

A second consignment, this time for 14 tons, was sent in 1757. When the builder submitted his bill for roofing Croome Court with ‘best Westmorland slate’ from 1755 to 1758, Capability Brown deducted £4 alleging that the builder had overcharged.