GSC Forum

I don't know how long this has been exposed:

http://glassonsailing.blogspot.com/

we saw it yesterday, very easy to get to from the railway crossing at Hest Bank

http://www.geograph.org.uk/258467 tells all I could find out

On the Geograph opening page search for - Hest Bank - and all should be revealed

The Stone Jetty reappeared around middle of 2004. The full story can be found in the Hest Bank Library open, I understand, on Mondays and Thursdays.
To the best of my recollection the wharf was built by some folk from Slyne around 1820 as a 'half tide' berth together with a warehouse (now a white painted private house and listed building) near the Hest Bank Hotel. The plan was to ship goods in from Ireland and Liverpool and then distribute them inland using the canal system. The project failed and the warehouse was sold off in 1827. I believe that, despite the wharf, ships didn't like the shallowness of the Bay.

If you think that might have a daft place to build it you should know that sea/ canal transport was much, much faster than road. A fully laden wagon, pulled by a team of horses, could move a couple of tons an average of seven miles a day in good weather so a coastwise shortcut of only a few miles could be worthwhile. Adam Smith claimed that 'a single ship, manned by 6 - 8 men, sailing between Leith and London', could carry as much as '50 broadwheeled wagons attended by 100 men and 400 horses'

And I suppose that everyone knows that the big windows in the Hest Bank Hotel were illuminated to provide a navigational light for people crossing the Bay on foot, it was matched by a similar arrangement at Oversands.