68: Return to Cheesewring
Building London first visited Cheesewring Quarry sited on the south east of Bodmin Moor in 2021 https://buildinglondon.blog/2021/08/15/7-cheesewring-quarry-on-bodmin-moor/ and returned recently. The Cheesewring quarry is near the village of Minions in Liskeard in Cornwall, once the centre of intense mining, of copper and quarrying. [1] The quarry supplied large amounts of the granite that was used…
67: Merrivale Quarry
Intro Merrivale Quarry, opened as Tor Quarry in 1874, sits above the hamlet of Merrivale on the western flanks of Dartmoor, [1] [2] and across the valley of the river Walkham from Foggintor [3] and Swelltor quarries [4] and like it’s neighbours played an important, though generally more recent, role in building London. Like Foggintor…
66: Haytor Quarry, Dartmoor.
Haytor ( aka Hey Tor ) on the east of the Dartmoor plateau in Devon, near Bovey Tracey, is one of the most famous of Dartmoor’s granite Tors, remnants of 260-290 million year old igneous plutonic intrusions, [1] and the Haytor quarries beneath the tor are famous for their role in building London. Haytor refers…
65: The cobbles of Dean’s Yard, Westminster.
Building London loves old paving. It’s may be only 2 dimensional, it doesn’t soar and it’s usually only one material but it can be quite beautiful as well as functional and utilitarian. The patterns seen at e.g. Albury Street in Deptford or Three Mills Island show that gloriously. But it can be both hard to…
64: The medieval Westminster Abbey precinct wall
And in full sight, next to the Jewel Tower, is another of London’s significant medieval structures, though this time while ‘just’ a wall, it’s the magnificent ancient precinct wall of Westminster Abbey[1]. The wall separates College Garden from Abingdon Green and around the corner up Great College Street, including 5 medieval gates. The lower sections…
63: The Jewel Tower
Building London’s blog post on the medieval Palace of Westminster really should have included The Jewel Tower [1] [1a] [1b] as it was and is historically part of the Palace. But it now stands isolated from the main Palace of Westminster, the other side of Old Palace Yard [2] and Abingdon Street. And it’s worth…
62: The medieval Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster [1] is perhaps the most important and exciting repository of building materials in all of London, though neighbouring Westminster Abbey, and the Tower of London might object! ThePalace of Westminster has both a world important medieval core of buildings including the extraordinary Westminster Hall, and after a fire in 1830 was…
61: Re-discovering Rennie’s London Bridge, at London Bridge!
When John Rennie’s, senior and junior, father and son, granite London Bridge of 1831 [1], widened in 1902-4 , was sold in 1968, demolished and the re-erected at Lake Havasu in Arizona in the early 1970s, and an apparently entirely new bridge built [2], the current London Bridge, significant chunks of the 1831 bridge were…
60: Barnack stone, one of the earliest stones to be shipped to London
Barnack stone, as mentioned in the previous Building London post, on London’s Roman wall, has been used in England since Roman times. It is a limestone from in and around the village of Barnack, now in Cambridgeshire, but historically in Northamptonshire. [1] Barnack stone generally refers to a rock from around 170 million years…
59: The building blocks of London’s Roman wall
The oldest visible walls in London are the remnants of the 3.2Km 2ndC Roman landward wall, [1] [2] that surrounded the city of Londinium, now known simply as London Wall. There are other Roman walls visible, at Guildhall and the Mithraeum and Amphitheatre at Guildhall but none so large or tall as in London Wall.…
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Building London - what London is made from and where it came from! 