I am just updating this thread to say that the webapge
http://brereton.org.uk/brinton/nelson-s ... #janupdate was updated a few days ago, with January's news about the investigation. This includes a markup of the 1805 plan of Merton Place stairwell, with the bits of the Brinton Hall staircase overlaid in colour - they fit very very closely!
Attention is now focusing on the coastal shipping business owned by Robert John Brereton and Randle Brereton of Blakeney. We are trying to find out the names of the ships they had registered in 1821, which would have been carrying goods between London and Norfolk.
A researcher has found the Blakeney registrations post 1826-1855 in the archives at Kew and this shows these owners had many ships first registered in this period, including two in 1826, the Blakeney Packet (57 tons) and the Blakeney Trader (88 tons). What we are looking for is records of registrations before 1821 so perhaps we could then find the shipping movements which
COULD have carried the staircase from London to Norfolk.
News is just in from a member of the Glaven Valley Historical Society who is studying the history of Blakeney Harbour that the Breretons had 10 vessels in 1827, and had been operating there since before 1817, but that records are scarce or absent for the period around 1821.
I wonder whether any of the maritime experts who scan these pages can offer some advice about where to most easily access Lloyd's List for 1821/2, apart from visiting the NMM.