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John Blackwell (engineer)
John Blackwell (c. 1775 – 1840) was an English civil engineer, known for his work as superintending engineer of the Kennet and Avon Canal under John Rennie the Elder, John Rennie and later as the canal company's resident engineer. Career Blackwell was employed as an engineer on the Kennet and Avon Canal in 1806, working primarily as site agent on the Caen Hill Flight in Devizes, Wiltshire. While John Rennie the Elder, John Rennie designed the Lock flights, flight, it was likely that construction was undertaken by the Kennet and Avon Canal Company and its engineers. In 1808, shortly before the completion of the flight, Blackwell moved to work with Rennie on Crofton Pumping Station. The following year, the pair built the remaining locks on the canal—two pound locks Oakhill Down near Froxfield, which replaced an earlier single deeper lock. Original plans would have seen the lock be the canal's only staircase lock, staircase, although this proposal was never seen through. Blac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institution Of Civil Engineers
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a Charitable organization, charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, while the rest are located in more than 150 other countries. The ICE aims to support the civil engineering profession by offering professional qualification, promoting education, maintaining professional ethics, and liaising with industry, academia and government. Under its commercial arm, it delivers training, recruitment, publishing and contract services. As a professional body, ICE aims to support and promote professional learning (both to students and existing practitioners), managing professional ethics and safeguarding the status of engineers, and representing the interests of the profession in dealings with government, etc. It sets standards for membership of the body; works with industry and academia to progress ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lock Flights
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a chamber in a permanently fixed position in which the water level can be varied. (In a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined plane, it is the chamber itself (usually then called a caisson) that rises and falls.) Locks are used to make a river more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Over time, more and larger locks have been used in canals to allow a more direct route to be taken. History Ancient Egypt In Ancient Egypt, the river-locks was probably part of the Canal of the Pharaohs: Ptolemy II is credited by some for being the first to solve the problem of keeping the Nile free of salt water when his engineers invented the lock around 274/273 BC. Ancient China During 960–1279 CE, the natural extension of the flash lock, or s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claverton, Somerset
Claverton is a small village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish about east of Bath, Somerset, Bath at the southern end of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in Somerset, England. The parish has a population of 115. History The parish was part of the Hundred (county subdivision), hundred of Hampton (hundred), Hampton. Claverton Pumping Station was designed in 1810–13 by John Rennie the Elder, John Rennie to lift water from the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon to the Kennet and Avon Canal, using power from the flow of the river. Claverton Manor, on the valley slope above the village, is a English country house, country house designed by Jeffry Wyatville and completed in 1820. A Grade I listed building in extensive gardens, it has housed the American Museum since 1961. Claverton was recognised as being of special architectural and historic interest and was designated a Conservation Area in November 1981. Governance The parish falls within the unitary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel ( ; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", "one of the 19th-century engineering giants", and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, hochanged the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions". Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway (GWR), a series of steamships including the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering. Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. During his career, Brunel achieved many engineering firsts, including assisting his father in the building of the first tunnel under a navigable river (the River Thames) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gas Lighting
Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a fuel gas such as methane, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directly by the flame, generally by using special mixes (typically propane or butane) of illuminating gas to increase brightness, or indirectly with other components such as the gas mantle or the limelight, with the gas primarily functioning to heat the mantle or the lime to incandescence. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas lighting was prevalent for outdoor and indoor use in cities and suburbs where the infrastructure for distribution of gas was practical. At that time, the most common fuels for gas lighting were wood gas, coal gas and, in limited cases, water gas. Early gas lights were ignited manually by lamplighters, although many later designs are self-igniting. Gas light ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cromford And High Peak Railway
The Cromford and High Peak Railway (C&HPR) was a Standard-gauge railway, standard-gauge line between the Cromford Canal wharf at High Peak Junction and the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge. The railway, which was completed in 1831, was built to carry minerals and goods through the hilly rural terrain of the Peak District within Derbyshire, England. The route was marked by a number of roped worked inclines. Due to falling traffic, the entire railway was closed by 1967. The remains of the line, between Hurdlow railway station, Dowlow and Cromford, has now become the High Peak Trail, a route on the National Cycle Network. Background The Peak District of Derbyshire has always posed problems for travel, but from 1800 when the Peak Forest Canal was built, an alternative to the long route through the Trent and Mersey Canal was sought, not only for minerals and finished goods to Manchester, but raw cotton for the East Midlands textile industry. One scheme that had been suggested wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liverpool And Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It was also the first railway to rely exclusively on locomotives driven by Steam engine, steam power, with no Horsecar, horse-drawn traffic permitted at any time; the first to be entirely double track throughout its length; the first to have a true Railway signalling, signalling system; the first to be fully Public transport timetable, timetabled; and the first to carry mail. Trains were hauled by company steam locomotives between the two towns, though private wagons and carriages were allowed. Cable railway, Cable haulage of freight trains was down the steeply-graded Wapping Tunnel to Liverpool Docks from Edge Hill junction. The railway was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials, finished goods, and passengers between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Rail Transport In Great Britain To 1830
The history of rail transport in Great Britain to 1830 covers the period up to the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first intercity passenger railway operated solely by steam locomotives. The earliest form of railways, horse-drawn wagonways, originated in Germany in the 16th century. Soon wagonways were also built in Britain. However, the first use of steam locomotives was in Wales. The invention of wrought iron rails, together with Richard Trevithick's pioneering steam locomotive meant that Britain had the first modern railways in the world. Early rails A wagonway was used by German miners at Caldbeck, Cumbria, England, perhaps from the 1560s. A wagonway was built at Prescot, near Liverpool, sometime around 1600, possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to a terminus about half a mile away. Another wagonway was Sir Francis Willoughby's Wollaton Wagonway in Nottinghamshire built between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coalpit Heath
Coalpit Heath is a small village in the civil parish of Westerleigh and Coalpit Heath, in the South Gloucestershire district, in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England, south of Yate and east of Frampton Cotterell. Background Due to the expansion of Coalpit Heath and the neighbouring villages in the late 20th century, the borders of Coalpit Heath with Frampton Cotterell have become vague. The village contains three pubs, one post office, a 27-hole golf course (The Kendleshire), and a few local shops. The village also includes a parish church, and a local primary school, The Manor CofE VC Primary school. It was founded as a coal mining settlement. One pit was on Frog Lane at ST 685 815 (to the north east of the village). Other mines operated between Mays Hill and Nibley to the north and at Ram Hill and Henfield to the south. These were served by a railway line, closed some decades ago and no longer visible on the ground. In 1949 the coal ran out, and since th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collieries
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a "pit", and above-ground mining structures are referred to as a " pit head". In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine. Coal mining has had many developments in recent years, from the early days of men tunneling, digging, and manually extracting the coal on carts to large open-cut and longwall mines. Mining at this scale requires the use of draglines, trucks, conveyors, hydraulic jacks, and shearers. The coal mining industry has a long history of significant negative environmental impacts on local ecosystems, health impacts on local communities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Avon (Bristol)
The River Avon ( ) is a river in the southwest of England. To distinguish it from a number of other rivers of the same name, it is often called the Bristol Avon. The name 'Avon' is loaned from an ancestor of the Welsh word , meaning 'river'. The Avon rises just north of the village of Acton Turville in South Gloucestershire, before flowing through Wiltshire into Somerset. In its lower reaches from Bath (where it meets the Kennet and Avon Canal) to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol, the river is navigable and is known as the Avon Navigation. The Avon is the 19th longest river in the United Kingdom, at , although there are just as the crow flies between the source and its mouth in the Severn Estuary. The catchment area is . Etymology The name "Avon" is loaned from the Common Brittonic , "river", which survives in the Welsh word ''afon'' . " River Avon", therefore, literally means "river river"; several other English and Scottish rivers share the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salisbury
Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wiltshire, Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath, Somerset, Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. An ancient cathedral was north of the present city at Old Sarum Cathedral, Old Sarum. A Salisbury Cathedral, new cathedral was built near the meeting of the rivers and a settlement grew up around it, which received a city charter in 1227 as . This continued to be its official name until 2009 structural changes to local government in England, 2009, when Salisbury City Council was established. Salisbury railway station is an interchange between the West of England line, West of England Line and the Wessex Main Line. Stonehenge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is northwest o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
