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This building was erected in the year 1687. John Bryan, Esquire, then Mayor ; and in quaint numerals the same date is repeated just below the tablet base. The vane is in the form of a ship, in gilt metal: a complete ship in miniature--cordage, blocks, twenty-six cannon, small spars, even a daintily-modelled figurehead: all are there. With the aid of a couple of stalwart constables I clambered up on to the leaden roof, so that I might examine more closely and carefully this splendid example of vane-craft. The ship itself, from the bottom of keel to the top of mainmast, measures over 6 ft., and from jib to spanker boom the total length is 9 ft. It is 18 in. in width, weighs 7-1/2 cwt., and revolves quite easily pivoted on a large bull's-eye of glass. It may be interesting to note that my sketch was made from one of the upper-most windows of the
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Bull Inn (the place where Charles Dickens once lived, and which he has immortalized in the pages of
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Pickwick ), which is immediately opposite. A little higher up the street is a large vane, richly decorated in red and gold, on the Corn Exchange. An inscription on its south-west face tells us that
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This present building was erected at the sole charge and expense of Sir Cloudsley Shovel, Knight, A.D. 1706. He represented this city in three Parliaments in the reign of King William the Third, and in one Parliament in the reign of Queen Anne.