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Bricks – such small and seemingly uninteresting things – have helped to build the way we live as society has evolved, from the feudal system of early Britain right up to today. Originally very expensive, bricks were only used by those who could afford them. This gradually changed with the Great Fire of London in 1666 when legislation decreed that the city must be rebuilt with non flammable materials, and bricks came into their own. A few centuries later bricks formed the infrastructure of industrial Britain as the need for canals and railways grew. But bricks are also associated with some of the worst slums this country has ever known, with poor bricks and sandy mortars indirectly causing misery for thousands of people. Our love affair with bricks continues today, with exposed brickwork being used to decorate both exteriors and interiors. But how are bricks made? What are they made of? Who made them and how have they changed through time? In Brick Carolyne Haynes answers these questions and reveals the surprising social history of bricks in Britain.
This book focuses on the contemporary fired clay brick to explore themes of home and house, homeownership, materiality, and sense of place. It investigates why, despite an increasing number of alternative materials, brick remains at the forefront of what people, in the UK in particular, expect homes to be built of, and how brick is indelibly entwined with what home means – something materially stable and financially secure, affording a located sense of place. Through observation of the building process and interviews with bricklayers, foremen, planners, developers, and homebuyers in England, Felicity Cannell traces the embedded meanings of a mundane, ubiquitous artefact, and reveals the te...
'Funny, occasionally filthy and ultimately fascinating.' - Richard Herring, comedian Go to any ancient building in the land and there will be interesting and exciting stories presented to the visitor. Tales of secret passages and hidden tunnels, strange marks and carvings left by stonemasons – all commonly believed and widely repeated, but are they really true? From ship timbers being repurposed on dry land to spiral staircases giving advantage to right-handed defenders, and from archers sharpening their arrows on church stones to claims of being the oldest pub in the country, Historic Building Mythbusting seeks to uncover the real stories. Buildings archaeologist James Wright explains and unpicks the development of these myths and investigates the underlying truths behind them. Sometimes the realities hiding behind the stories are even more engaging, romantic and compelling than the myths themselves...
This is the autobiography of Charles Franklin Gill, Jr. beginning in 1835 when the Gills and Haynes arrived in Richwood, Ohio and played a major role in the establishment and administration of the community. It continues with the arrival of the Foxes and LeMasters from West Virginia and the union of those two families. My story tells of my birth, childhood, moving to Reno, Nevada, college, Vietnam, and later my life in Saratoga, California as a businessman. I have included an extensive appendix containing articles in the Union County History archives and family trees of the Gills, Haynes, Foxes and LeMasters families. Part I is largely historical. I have attempted to make it readable with lots of photos. Part II is my story and I will let it speak for itself. These anecdotes and stories are derived from the sources stated in the appendixes as well as my own life experiences.
'An extraordinary history' PETER ACKROYD, The Times 'A lively account of (Bazalgette's) magnificent achievements. . . graphically illustrated' HERMIONE HOBHOUSE 'Halliday is good on sanitary engineering and even better on cloaca, crud and putrefaction . . . (he) writes with the relish of one who savours his subject and has deeply researched it. . . splendidly illustrated' RUTH RENDELL In the sweltering summer of 1858, sewage generated by over two million Londoners was pouring into the Thames, producing a stink so offensive that it drove Members of Parliament from the chamber of the House of Commons. The Times called the crisis 'The Great Stink'. Parliament had to act – drastic measures wer...
This is a genealogical history of the McKneely families of South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. There are two branches to this Scotch-Irish family with this unique spelling. One that migrated from South Carolina to Georgia and then on to Texas and other parts of the expanding United States of America. Then there is the branch that left South Carolina in the late 1700s and early 1800s with other families and settled in what at the time was West Florida. This area then was taken into the United States of America with the purchase of Florida from Spain and then became a part of Louisiana. The Louisiana branch resided in the Parishes called the Florida Parishes and stayed close to the area unt...
Covering the period between the two world wars, the Second World War itself and the fifteen years that followed, The Deaf Doctor focuses primarily on Marian’s formative years along with an account of her father, his pre-war way of life and his experiences in the Far East as an army doctor during the Second World War.
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