Port anD the Douro uP to Date 19community in almost every major city in England. Some were political refugees from the
Pombaline period but others were traders and entrepreneurs. One such individual was
Bruno Evaristo Ferreira da Silva who, through contacts in his native Oporto, obtained
consignments of Port wine along with other Portuguese produce and quickly built up a
thriving trade in England. According to Sellars, like the British in Oporto, Mr Silva ‘was
not able to master the language of his adopted country’ but it did not prevent him from
setting up a firm in 1798 which subsequently became Silva & Cosens, better known as
the producer of Dow’s Port.
Back in Oporto, the social gap between the British and the Portuguese is represented
by the Factory House. This gaunt but handsome building standing on the corner of
the then Rua Nova dos Inglezes and Rua de São João was initiated by John Whitehead,
Consul to the Factory, in 1785–6. Whitehead must have been a remarkable character:
a dilettante diplomat, geographer, astronomer and, above all, architect. He was born in
1726 at Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire (coincidentally the birthplace of the author
of this book, who also stood there as a parliamentary candidate in 1997), and came to
Oporto with his father in the late 1750s. Whitehead’s sister, Elizabeth, had previously
married William Warre, then one of the leading members of the British community in
Oporto. Warre was no doubt instrumental in arranging John Whitehead’s appointment.
Inspired by buildings in the north of England (and possibly helped by John Carr of York,
1727–1803), Whitehead drew up grandiose plans for a clubhouse that was completed,
albeit somewhat scaled down, in 1790. Much of the exterior architectural detail is similar
to the Santo António Hospital, Oporto, designed by Carr, and the interior arrangement
resembles English spa town architecture of the period, with communicating reception
rooms and a ballroom. Although on a much larger scale, the Crescent at Buxton in
Derbyshire – designed by Carr and completed in 1784 – shares a certain affinity with
the Factory House with its colonnade and heavy rustication at ground level. Certainly,
as James Murphy observed in 1795 in Travels in Portugal, the Factory House is decidedly
‘anti-moorish’ and still looks curiously at odds with other buildings on the Rua Infante
D. Henrique. At the time of its completion at the end of the eighteenth century, the
solid grey granite facade symbolised the confidence and permanence of the British Port
shippers in Oporto. It nearly proved to be short-lived.
a map drawn in Port
six weeks before fighting his last battle at trafalgar in 1805, Vice-admiral Viscount
nelson bought three pipes (1,150 litres) of Port for which he paid a total of £308 2s 0d.
this seems like a small fortune; forty years later, the finest vintage Port was only selling
at £63 a pipe. Port also featured in nelson’s battle plans. shortly before the Battle of
trafalgar itself, Lord sidmouth was visited by nelson, who apparently dipped his finger
in a glass of Port wine and sketched a plan of action on the table top.