'Holystoning' the Deck

New Zealand Tablet, 23 July 1908, Page 33

'Holystoning ' the Deck

It may interest our nautical readers (says the ' Sacred Heart Review ') to learn that ' holystoning ' the deck of a ship only dates back as far as the time of the Reformation. No doubt decks were scrubbed and scoured with some sort of a stone. long before that time, but it wasn't called a 'holystone.' Lest there be landlubbers among our readers who do not know what this term means, let us explain that to ' holystone ' the deck' is to rub it and scrub it with a piece of sandstone. a Why a piece of sandstone should be called a ' holystone ' must have puzzled many. Here is what the Protestant Episcopalian * Living Church ' says about it : — ' At the Reformation, when the Church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth parish, was despoiled, the carved stones of many of the monuments, both in the church and outside in the graveyard, were chopped off and sent, some to Newcastle to be turned into grindstones, and some on board the ships of the Royal Navy of the day to be used in scouring the decks, whence, it is interesting to know, the seamen's, term, " holystoning the deck," takes its origin. 1 This bit of information incidentally throws^an interesting light on the ways and means taken to insure the preaching of the ' pure Gospel ' in England.