Just across from the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth sits on the edge of the southern English coast in the county of
Hampshire that is a port city that holds a mystery that is rarely mentioned. Favoured from the Romans to
Horatio Nelson, Portsmouth boasts many of its residents that went on to make their mark in history.
![[Image: attachment.php?aid=8722]](http://rogue-nation3.com/attachment.php?aid=8722)
Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle are only a few of the renown scribblers from Great
Britain's only island municipality. In the geographical sense, Portsmouth was and still is an ideal naval
advantage and is seen as a collection of estuary lakes with raised land that are technically classed as islands.
Yet there's another resident of the coastal borough, someone who's passage didn't bring applause and wonder.
However I'd guess the man of the cloth who witnessed this strange figure would certainly draw a gasp of awe.
It was 1798, the year of Naploeon's antics, the birth of slave-trader Mary Faber and when The Cherokee nation
said warily that it was okay to use the Cumberland Gap. A time of busy wharfs and noisy taverns and when smoking
was forbidden on the docks due to the amount of stored wood and other valuable exports.
In the small rural parish of Farlington -that has sadly now been absorbed into the growing surroundings of Portsmouth,
someone called Henry Albert Brand listened to an account that would raise eyebrows and make one wonder what
their 18th century reality truly was.
Brand was a bookbinder and in his free time, he visited the hamlets and villages of Hampshire in order to chronicle
personal histories and local stories of interest. On 6th September 1798, an entry in Brand's private diary made a
reference to one of these tales that -as of writing this, has never been explained.
There's scant information about the incidents, but here goes.
With Autumn leaves decorating the country lanes near the small village of Farlington and the noon sun struggling to
warm the surrounding farmlands, an unnamed Vicar was conducting his duties by -presumably, making house-calls.
Looking through the fading foliage, the Priest observed:
"A human with metal skin who stood no more that 4 feet in height, with a sturdy, muscular body and a large bulky head.
His eyes were described as being like brightly polished shillings, “glistering” in the midday sun.
He had no mouth, no nose and no ears and he wore no clothes."
Brand provided a lengthy and highly detailed account of the panic this creature caused in the surrounding environs,
but this wasn't the only sighting of the phenomena known as 'The Copper Man'.
Continuing with his collecting of stories, Henry Albert Brand noted in a later entry that the creature had been spotted
again, near the now reclaimed land of Tipner Lake.
Today, this 'lake' is the north eastern section of Portsmouth Harbour.
This second account stated:
"A young farmer’s maid had been harvesting wild fennel when she beheld a man “of metal flesh” arise from the waters
of the bay and walk several meters, before retracing his footsteps and submerging beneath the still surface again."
Ludicrous some said about the accounts in the private diary, the ravings of a mad-man said others.
A man made of copper metal walking the countryside and frightening young milk-maids?!
Then came the discovery of a letter written by a Dr Geoffrey Bramwell, attesting to another panic in Portsmouth that
focused on a flying metal man.
In 1801, a group of a dozen or so Portsmouth townsfolk gathered at an open air marketplace near the city centre of
Portsmouth with the focus on exchanging goods and produce.
As the sellers were laying out their wares, a shriek of fear was heard from a local candle-maker, apparently a cry so
so loud that it caused a delicate hat-maker in the market to faint!
The cause of the screech...? the Copper Man was back.
From a nearby clump of trees, the bizarre creature emerged and 'like a golden bird', launched itself into the sky
and flew away. It's skin of copper shining in the morning sun and the residents of Portsmouth watching with mouths
agape.
And the ending to the tale? There isn't one, the Copper Man was never seen again.
Hampshire that is a port city that holds a mystery that is rarely mentioned. Favoured from the Romans to
Horatio Nelson, Portsmouth boasts many of its residents that went on to make their mark in history.
Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle are only a few of the renown scribblers from Great
Britain's only island municipality. In the geographical sense, Portsmouth was and still is an ideal naval
advantage and is seen as a collection of estuary lakes with raised land that are technically classed as islands.
Yet there's another resident of the coastal borough, someone who's passage didn't bring applause and wonder.
However I'd guess the man of the cloth who witnessed this strange figure would certainly draw a gasp of awe.
It was 1798, the year of Naploeon's antics, the birth of slave-trader Mary Faber and when The Cherokee nation
said warily that it was okay to use the Cumberland Gap. A time of busy wharfs and noisy taverns and when smoking
was forbidden on the docks due to the amount of stored wood and other valuable exports.
In the small rural parish of Farlington -that has sadly now been absorbed into the growing surroundings of Portsmouth,
someone called Henry Albert Brand listened to an account that would raise eyebrows and make one wonder what
their 18th century reality truly was.
Brand was a bookbinder and in his free time, he visited the hamlets and villages of Hampshire in order to chronicle
personal histories and local stories of interest. On 6th September 1798, an entry in Brand's private diary made a
reference to one of these tales that -as of writing this, has never been explained.
There's scant information about the incidents, but here goes.
With Autumn leaves decorating the country lanes near the small village of Farlington and the noon sun struggling to
warm the surrounding farmlands, an unnamed Vicar was conducting his duties by -presumably, making house-calls.
Looking through the fading foliage, the Priest observed:
"A human with metal skin who stood no more that 4 feet in height, with a sturdy, muscular body and a large bulky head.
His eyes were described as being like brightly polished shillings, “glistering” in the midday sun.
He had no mouth, no nose and no ears and he wore no clothes."
Brand provided a lengthy and highly detailed account of the panic this creature caused in the surrounding environs,
but this wasn't the only sighting of the phenomena known as 'The Copper Man'.
Continuing with his collecting of stories, Henry Albert Brand noted in a later entry that the creature had been spotted
again, near the now reclaimed land of Tipner Lake.
Today, this 'lake' is the north eastern section of Portsmouth Harbour.
This second account stated:
"A young farmer’s maid had been harvesting wild fennel when she beheld a man “of metal flesh” arise from the waters
of the bay and walk several meters, before retracing his footsteps and submerging beneath the still surface again."
Ludicrous some said about the accounts in the private diary, the ravings of a mad-man said others.
A man made of copper metal walking the countryside and frightening young milk-maids?!
Then came the discovery of a letter written by a Dr Geoffrey Bramwell, attesting to another panic in Portsmouth that
focused on a flying metal man.
In 1801, a group of a dozen or so Portsmouth townsfolk gathered at an open air marketplace near the city centre of
Portsmouth with the focus on exchanging goods and produce.
As the sellers were laying out their wares, a shriek of fear was heard from a local candle-maker, apparently a cry so
so loud that it caused a delicate hat-maker in the market to faint!
The cause of the screech...? the Copper Man was back.
From a nearby clump of trees, the bizarre creature emerged and 'like a golden bird', launched itself into the sky
and flew away. It's skin of copper shining in the morning sun and the residents of Portsmouth watching with mouths
agape.
And the ending to the tale? There isn't one, the Copper Man was never seen again.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.