The difficulties between France and Great Britain during the 18th century, like those between most nations at war, led to a need for geographical intelligence. Not only did countries need good quality surveys of their own lands for defensive purposes, but they also needed information on their enemy’s lands if they were to invade them. Therefore surveys were made in September and October 1768 by Paule St de Beville a lieutenant colonel of Dragoons of numerous ports around the south coast of England, when he included the River Parrett and River Avon. His surveys eventually found their way into the papers of William Pitt, First Earl of Chatham and are now at The National Archives of England and Wales.1
These surveys were ordered by the Duc de Choiseul, Minister of War and of the Marine, who was preparing France for an invasion of Great Britain in the 1760s. Choiseul believed that the only effective way to attack England was to concentrate his forces on London,2 but nevertheless by ordering surveys along the coast of southern England he was not limiting his options. Despite having a degree of responsibility for the French policy of providing instruction in hydrographic surveying and navigation3 (in France), he did not instruct Beville to record any hydrography. Therefore if he was hoping to use the final product for any type of navigation, when it came to an invasion, he would have had to overcome some serious inaccuracies in his intelligence gathering.
Beville had to determine the best places for an invasion. In addition to the main focus on London, action was considered against some of the ports along the coast. To achieve this Beville was instructed to
reconnoitre carefully the roads leading to these different ports; to observe the best places to attack and to hold, on these routes; the rivers to be crossed and the camps that could be used; in short, the means of keeping up communication between the different corps which would have to be detached for these expeditions.
With this in mind he sailed for England on 7 September 1768, arriving at Dover he made his way to London then on to Oxford. From there he travelled through Woodstock, Gloucester, and Bristol when he undertook his survey of the Avon. He visited Bath and Wells before heading for Bridgwater for his next survey, after which he visited Taunton before going into Devon.4
In the vicinity of the Avon on the 18 September he recorded an inlet below Portishead (which dominated the Channel) as a pecked line of little significance and the anchorage of King Road as ‘the place where vessels remain waiting for the tide so as to enter Bristol or which make ready to leave’. As he worked his way up the Avon towards Bristol he noted the ferry across the Avon at Shirehampton, and having passed St George’s and Kingsweston how ‘parts [were] made of very high, sheer rock which form the bed of the river, which is very narrow’. He noted on the Somerset side a ‘favourable camp on the Nailsey rise which is very high’ in front of which there was a ‘large valley where it appears a brook runs, the meadow there being flooded’. All of this area was overlooked by a ‘small turret where one keeps a look-out during the war’ on the hill above Kingsweston which he named the Mountain of the Spy.
In the Bridgwater area he noted, over two days on the 19 and 20 of September, the course of the Parrett from Bridgwater, selectively recording the coast between Stogursey and Brent Knoll. Following his map from the well cultivated land below Brent Knoll working to the south, he mistakenly recorded a Gros village to the south of the River Brue before reaching Huntspill; this is undoubtedly Burnham, which because his map was made in a hurry he placed it on the wrong side of the River Brue. Along the south side of the Brue he noted how the land was also broken up by hedges, but their depiction is highly generalised. Continuing towards the Parrett he noted the hamlets of Stretcholt and Pawlett Hill before reaching ‘Paulett’ itself, recording the low lying terrain. To the south of the Parrett, starting at its mouth, he did not record any of the islands lying off Huntspill but two further offshore as ‘small islands which do not appear inhabited, the largest is high and cut perpendicular all around’. At Steart Point he noted a ‘small castle belonging to George Parc and called Stratzum’ which he had seen on a map marked as Warmhouse. Again his recording was not particularly accurate as the building was the Warren House, which was recorded on Strachey’s map of Somerset in the 1730s. At Wall Common he found the coast to be ‘low land where one can unload between these two headlands’ and the ‘high hills’ at Stogursey were ‘much further away to continue unloading’. He also recorded a windmill on the Poldens.
Beville’s surveys were clearly made in haste. What Beville mapped was undertaken at the end of the day from memory, therefore sailing up and down Somerset’s main rivers with a sounding line would have attracted far too much attention to his activities. Subsequently in the Parrett he did not record the two islands by Huntspill but placed them offshore, neither did he note a major shoal in the river. Even worse was his survey of the River Avon as he failed to draw an island adjacent to King Road at the mouth of the Avon. This may not appear too much of a problem unless you consider how important an anchorage area was to all shipping using the River Avon to and from Bristol, as well as other vessels who used it in emergencies.
To survey the topography surrounding over twenty miles of river in only three days, including travelling from the Avon to the Parrett, explains why his surveys are far from accurate when compared to British mapping from the same period.5 However, such inaccuracies would have been of minor significance when his surveys were used for invasion planning, which fortunately did not materialise. If they had then the two rivers could have been of some importance had Somerset been chosen as a place for invasion.
1. TNA, MF1/54. I am very grateful to Rose Birley for kindly translating Beville’s description in French into English. The folio of 20 surveys Beville made have the endorsement ‘Plans qui accompagnent la reconnoissance faite en Angleterre aux mois se Septembre et Octobre 1768. Paule St. de Beville Lt. Colonel de Dragons’.
2. M.C. Morison, ‘The Duc de Choiseul and the invasion of England, 1768-1770’ in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Third Series, vol.4 (1910), 86.
3. A.J. Turner, ‘Advancing navigation in eighteenth-century France: teaching and instrument-making in the port of Rochefort’ in The Mariner’s Mirror 91:4 (2005), 535.
4. Morison, ‘The Duc de Choiseul’, 95, 97.
5. TNA, MF1/54/6-7. He also made a plan of Lyme Regis (MF1/54/11).