Victorian engineering architecture.

[Tim Hall]

....those Victorians certainly knew their onions when it came to building stuff, a lasting legacy for sure.

Would love to get round to seeing some of the stuff posted here - managed to get to the Science Museum last trip, fascinating heritage indeed....

The lasting legacy stuff is a bit self fulfilling though. After a hundred years, the bits that fell down, weren't designed properly or weren't built properly aren't here, so our view is somewhat filtered. Tay Bridge anyone?

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Originating from Stockport, for me it has to be Stockport viaduct, the UK's largest brick structure and at the time it was built, the world's largest viaduct.

Perhaps superceded, in length/numbers of bricks (no idea of dates), by the '99 Arches', as the main line, from Doncaster approaches Wakefield???


https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_davis_photos/16217670977

 

[Over The Hill]

I think you're right .
When was your place built ? The windows could be crittall .

Mainly built in 1883 and then extended in about 1900, but they moved the original windows around. A local historian thought the windows were made by Taskers of Andover a local foundary.
We have been here for 26 years and bought it derelict off the Methodist Church. Foundations are almost non existent as we are on chalk and they just took off 12 inches of top soil. Keeps me busy with jobs!!

 

[swee'pea99]

Have you visited the Kew Bridge Steam Museum in west London? Every once in a while (monthly?), they have all the engines running on steam, including a massive beam engine from a Cornish tin mine.

Suggested to my wife. She looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

 

[Paulus]

This viaduct near Mill Hill East on the Northern Line was originally built in 1866 for the Great Northern Railway. It is now the highest viaduct on the London Underground network. Built by an engineer named John Fowler.

 

[Globalti]

Engineering allows itself very little embellishment nowadays, all down to pressure to keep costs down I guess but perhaps in the nineteenth century engineers were self-taught and regarded themselves as creators and artists as well as engineers. The Arts & Crafts movement was influential in this; Morris and his pals reckoned that anything that was manufactured could also be made beautiful.

 

[Stephen C]

Here are some more pictures of the Levant mine that @vernon mentioned.
http://www.cornishmineimages.co.uk/levant-mine-gallery/
It's well worth going there if you like this stuff. The guy who guided us round was a fantastic enthusiast.

The mine levels go far out under the sea, one of them less than forty feet from the sea bed, "40 Backs". The sea broke in one day and flooded the horizontal level. In order to locate the leak, they pumped a lot of flourescent dye into the flooded level and watched where it appeared on the surface of the water.

A short walk along the coast brings you to the pumping engines on The Crowns: http://www.cornwallinfocus.co.uk/mining/crowns.php. You can get right down to the bottom building via metal hoops in the cliff face.

I can't imagine what it was like to work there in a proper storm!

 

[Globalti]

What happened to the machinery from those houses?

 

[MontyVeda]

Had to share this. This is the weir on the reservoir at Abbeystead, near Lancaster. Built in 1855, the engineers could have just built a straight weir but no, they built a stunning, perfect curved weir that channels the flow down into a smooth bowl and out of the bottom. Notice also the curved wall opposite, which has been given a completely unnecessary embellishment in the form of a strake below the parapet.

Abbeystead was the scene of a terrible gas explosion in May 1984 that killed 16 visitors who had come to the opening of the new pumping station.

it's a nice walk around the reservoir... and yes, the weir is most impressive. Imagine if those architects built skateparks!.

 

[vernon]

What happened to the machinery from those houses?

Scrap metal merchants.

 

[Cuchilo]

Mainly built in 1883 and then extended in about 1900, but they moved the original windows around. A local historian thought the windows were made by Taskers of Andover a local foundary.
We have been here for 26 years and bought it derelict off the Methodist Church. Foundations are almost non existent as we are on chalk and they just took off 12 inches of top soil. Keeps me busy with jobs!!

Sounds about right for the period crittall would have been the new fangled material .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crittall_Windows

 

[Stephen C]

What happened to the machinery from those houses?

I don't know I'm afraid, there was no evidence any machinery when we visited so it must've been removed when the mine stopped.

 

[Stephen C]

[QUOTE 4158006, member: 45"]Sometimes it was exported when the mine closed.[/QUOTE]
Now you mention it, when talking to a guide at the East Poole mine, he said they would often relocate bits, especially the cast-iron beams.

 

[Mr Celine]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

 

[MontyVeda]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

...or the first three!





taxi for one!