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

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  • December 30, 2021

    26: Granite setts at the Middlesex and Essex Filter Beds

    26: Granite setts at the Middlesex and Essex Filter Beds

    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 […]

  • December 27, 2021

    25: Kentish Rag Pt2 – Fox’s Quarry and the Loose Valley near Maidstone.

    25: Kentish Rag Pt2 – Fox’s Quarry and the Loose Valley near Maidstone.

    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 […]

  • December 26, 2021

    24: Kentish Ragstone – an introduction to the most important historical stone in London

    24: Kentish Ragstone – an introduction to the most important historical stone in London

    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 […]

  • December 20, 2021

    23: The John Watson Building Stones Collection at the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge

    23: The John Watson Building Stones Collection at the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge

    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 […]

  • December 17, 2021

    22: Stepney Green Scoria!

    22: Stepney Green Scoria!

    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 […]

  • December 12, 2021

    21: Upper Watergate Street. The oldest street surface in London?

    21: Upper Watergate Street. The oldest street surface in London?

    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 […]

  • December 10, 2021

    20: The Huggin Hill Roman, maybe, and Medieval walls

    20: The Huggin Hill Roman, maybe, and Medieval walls

    While searching in The City recently for the site of the hall of Gerard the Giant, see previous post, I noticed a small park the other side of Queen Victoria Street.I investigated, found it to be Cleary Park, noticed that the top of it was apparently right above the Circle Line, behind a big wall, […]

  • November 26, 2021

    19: A Jurassic tale of a giant’s crypt in the City of London and the Crystal Palace dinosaurs!

    19: A Jurassic tale of a giant’s crypt in the City of London and the Crystal Palace dinosaurs!

    I love this! A beautiful circle of history from Deep Time through an early medieval hall in the City of London and Gerard, its attendant giant, and back to the dinosaurs of in Crystal Palace! Our tale starts in the swamps of the Bathonian Age [1] in the middle of the Jurassic Period, in the […]

  • October 30, 2021

    18: Natures Throne and the Hackney Henge!

    18: Natures Throne and the Hackney Henge!

    Tucked between the two Leas in Hackney, the old river Lea the Saxons and Danes fought over [1], the boundary between Danelaw and Saxon Mercia [2], and the 18thC canalised River Lee Navigation, just south of Lea Bridge in the Middlesex Filter Beds Nature Reserve, stands an unusual granite sculpture called Nature’s Throne, surrounded by […]

  • October 13, 2021

    17: The Notting Dale Kiln

    17: The Notting Dale Kiln

    While I love the stone that has been used to build London, from the Cornish granite to the Collyweston slate, really it is brick that built London. The vast majority of houses built in the 17th to 19thC in London were built from the brickearth and the clay that lies at or near the surface […]

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