Posted by Roger Wardale on December 18, 2014 at 11:46:44 user RogerW.
In Reply to: Re: Auction of Ransome originals plus an AR response card from 1939 posted by Dave Thewlis on December 18, 2014 at 05:01:33:
To fill in a few gaps; Going back 100 years, the MacIver family that owned Wanlass How (the large house across the road high above Borrans Park) were keen on boating and had a couple of large launches. One, the 'Dodo' was a paddle steamer and was broken up in 1920. The large-windowed cabin was salvaged and used to build a sort of bathing hut.
Why do I think this hut was the inspiration for the North Pole? Because AR said so, He notes that Captain Flint prepared the North Pole in a bathing hut at the head of the lake.
The actual location is more difficult. Firstly, because there has been a fair bit of erosion (confirmed by large scale maps) at the head of the lake in the last 70 or so years, so the shoreline has changed and secondly Charmian Piper was remembering things that she did a long time ago. The best guess would be about 5 yards off shore 10 - 20 yards to the east of the stone shelter.
The hut, so far as she could remember was semi-portable and kept fairly close to the shore on the land immediately to the east of Borrans Park today. Borrans Park was, after all a council owned open space at the time. It seems that the MacIvers owned a stretch of land adjacent to the park.
As an aside: The MacIvers built and donated the stone shelter familiar to all visitors to the park, with its fine view down the lake, when they left the area at the start of WWII, I believe.
Is that completely incorrect marker still there in the park? More myth-making!
I spoke to a dozen or more residents who lived close by in the 1930s/40s and they each assured me that there never was any building in that part of the head of the lake. This was supported by local Land Registry records and large scale maps. Still Tars will believe what they want, I suppose.