Posted by Robert Dilley on July 18, 2004 at 16:21:08 from 216.211.55.71 user rdilley.
In Reply to: Re: Naze Experts Wanted - II posted by FrankLJ on July 18, 2004 at 01:16:23:
As the "Canadian visitor" I went back to my slide (taken 1988, not 1987). I now have a more sophisticated digital image manipulation program, so I re-scanned the slide and put it through a bunch of enhancements: brightness and contrast, mostly. The best I can do is:
This BUILDING and QUAY
was Erected for the
[missing]VERNORS of [???????????]
HARRISON F[????????????]
1852
The stone used in the Quay [????]
of LONDON BRIDGE built [???] in
1176
The question marks indicate sections I still cannot decipher. The italicised section is a best-guess where only bits are readable. The grammatical error in the second line is quite clear.
I seem to remember being able to read the plaque when we saw it, but that was 16 years ago and the memory has faded (I often have trouble remembering something I read yesterday).
I'll have another go at it later. I've had decades of experience of reading faded and damaged manuscripts from the 16th century; not to mention uncounted scrawls from students to whom a pen is an increasingly alien object (and grammar and spelling increasingly irrelevant requirements). However, I fear the stone was already pretty eroded in 1988, and the slide -- like my hair colour -- has faded over the years.