The remains of the hulk believed to be the CHARLES PEARCE has infilled and become part of the bank. Runs of planking from the startboard side of the vessel are intermittantly visible amongst the vegetation. The stern has been undercut, has collapsed and is more exposed.

Event and Historical Information:
The CHARLES PEARCE was a wooden smack built at Penzance in 1848. Technical and configuration specifications are given 19.20 tons; 41.6ft length x 14.1ft breadth x 6ft depth of hold; smack, one deck, one mast, running bowsprit, square stern, carvel built, framework wood. It was transferred from Bideford to the port of Milford Shipping Register when it was sold by James Finch of Clovelly to David Jones of Tenby, saddler and hackney coach proprietor in 1858. The vessel was sold by the Jones family to Elijah Howells of Pembroke Dock, grocer, and Thomas Morris of Pembroke Dock, diver, in September 1893. When Thomas Morris died in 1904, his shares were passed by his executors to George Albert Morris, also a diver. The vessel was sold on 18 September 1923 to William Davies of New Cottage, Williamston, quarrymen, to begin its last phase of life as carrying stone, sand and gravel within the Haven. In 1926, the ship was fitted with an auxilliary engine and became a motor barge. The plan accompanying the transcript of an oral history interview with Mr Stanley Arthur (dated 1 June 1971) shows the vessel abandoned in The Gullam in association with two others - the ROSE ELLEN and the WILLIAM AND EMMA. The keel is orientated northeast-southwest. Nothing appears visible on modern aerial photographs, although the channels are now heavily silted and naturalised. Mr Arthur began working at The Croft Quarry and then in The Gullam in around 1919-20, continuing until callled up in 1939. The boats working from and owned by the quarries carried stone to Milford, Haverfordwest, Blackpool Mill, Hook, Angle, Sandy Haven and Dale. When tides permitted, two loads per week were taken to the Gas Works Quay in Haverfordwest. This was limestone for burning. At other times, loads of small stones used for road making (no larger than 2in, broken down by hand) were taken to Dale or Sandy Haven. Very large sandstone blocks were supplied for the building of Hobb's Point at Pembroke Dock. When entering the dock (all canals and cuttings inside the quarries were generally known as docks), the vessels were poled in barge fashion on the first of the tide, 15ft-20ft poles being used.

Sources include:
Field Visit, 11 March 2015
Notes on West Williamstone Limestone Quarries from oral testimony recording 1 June 1971, interviewees Mr Stanley Arthur and Mrs Arthur, Rock Farm, West Williamstone, interviewers M W D Brace and S A Holm, RCAHMW collections
NAW Aerial Photographs 2006-9
Port of Milford Shipping Register 1855 - 1878, Pembrokeshire Record Office T/SHIP/2/7, folio 39 and transactions folio 10

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, March 2015.