Building London – what London is made from and where it came from!

A two part post on the Old London bridge … This blog has already done a couple of posts on the building stones that was used in the new London Bridge, the abandoned corbels on Dartmoor that were surplus to the widening in the early 1900s and the engraved pillar at Pickets Lock and there […]

“The streets are not paved with gold in London, they are paved with Leicestershire granite” From an ancient volcano and one of the most spectacular hills in the Midlands of England comes one of the most common materials used to build London, the ‘granite’ roads chips that we walk, cycle and drive over every day […]

Three Mills is an historic milling, distillery and industrial site on the Lower Lea, technically in Newham but with more links historically to Bromley by Bow in Tower Hamlets. It’s been the site of various tide and wind mills and distilleries since the 11thC and in the 1776, Grade I listed building House Mill, has […]

This post was originally just about how beautiful are the swirling granite setts of Albury and Lamerton Streets in Deptford. But then I saw they are under threat threat of ‘tidying’! So what was once just going be a homage became an historical investigation and a plea! First some history: Albury Street is one of […]

The Middlesex and Essex Filter Beds are nature reserves either side of the Lea Lea at Leabridge in east London, both built in the 19thC as part of the Lea Bridge Water Works of the East London Waterworks Co. and I’ve blogged about the Middlesex Filter Beds before for it’s magnificent granite Natures Throne at […]

In the previous post I, hopefully, have showed how important Kentish Ragstone is to building London, and, as part of the objective of this blog is to trace London’s building materials to their source, a few months ago I visited a number of abandoned quarries near Maidstone, and I have more visits planned.    The […]

London is underlain with rock, but it’s not the type of rock that we generally think of as rock. Most of London sits on up to 140m of clay, though a few areas in south-east London sit on chalk. And while technically rock, clay needs to be baked to become a building material, brick, and […]

I’ve become quite a fan of the Victorians/Edwardians in the course of this project, their fascination with science, building, innovation and categorisation. Less a fan of course of their racism, imperialism, colonialism, sexism, employment practices and their almost utter disinterest in protecting the environment of course! But you can’t have everything! [ NB it is […]

One of my absolute favourite London building material is the shiny blue glazed Scoria Brick of Teeside seen above at Stepney Green. Scoria bricks are a by-product of the Teeside iron industry and are not clay based like most other bricks. Iron makers were looking for a use for the waste scum or slag from […]

Upper Watergate Street connected, and still connects Deptford, the High Street and St Pauls Church, down the King’s Stairs, with the River Thames, once it’s key highway into London and out to the rest of the world. And I think it has the oldest paving anywhere in London, or at least the most unique! The […]