Quarrying of limestone and converting it to quicklime was a major industry around the Irish Sea coasts for many centuries, and it is an aspect of these islands’ industrial legacy that has received little attention. David Johnson has spent years researching it in the field and in archive centres and has been amazed by its scale and geographical extent. Up to the nineteenth century, quicklime was shipped from Gower and south Pembrokeshire across the Bristol Channel to Devon, and limestone wa...

Ever since people began cultivating cereal crops 10,000 years ago grain had to be ground down, or milled, into flour to make bread. Up to the Roman period in Britain this could only be done using simple hand querns but, over time, technology improved by introducing circular, horizontal millstones powered by water or wind. Other trades needed the means to crush raw materials to produce their final product: vertical grindstones were used to crush bark for use in tanning, pulp softwood timber...

Across much of the country buildings have been made of brick, rather than stone, from the Roman period onwards. High-status buildings of the Tudor and Stuart eras were often built of clay brick, but it was only in the nineteenth century that the use of brick in rapid industrial and urban development saw a massive increase in brick production. Mechanisation of the various processes, along with the development of new kiln technologies, enabled this increase in output. Age-old clamp kilns wer...

Limestone has been one of the most indispensable building materials in Britain since the Roman period, when it was widely used for mortar. It was in the medieval era that lime began to be used in farming, alongside marl, as a means of increasing the output of both arable crops and livestock. The impact of limestone extraction in the Yorkshire Dales, once one of the most productive quarrying areas in Britain, has been huge. The area has thrown up many innovative entrepreneurs, and limestone...

For centuries lime was an essential ingredient in many aspects of life and work - such as farming, building and manufacturing - and the kilns in which lime was produced were a familiar sight across the country, not just in areas where limestone naturally occurred. The importance given to the industry is illustrated by the number of painters, notably Turner and Girtin, who chose to paint lime kilns either as the main focus or as an incidental element, and by the number of literary figures w...

From Roman times, rocks have been worked for a wide range of purposes, initially as building stone. As time passed, more and more stone was needed for high-status buildings like castles, halls and monasteries, as well as for bridges, dry stone walls and road-building. The Yorkshire Pennines have a varied geology with many rock types that proved suitable for building and other uses, and the landscape is dotted with old quarry workings, large and small, some of which can be linked to the med...

The exploiting of stone in Cumbria dates back to the Neolithic period when volcanic rock from the high Lakeland fells was worked to make hand axes. In Roman times sandstone was extensively quarried for building Hadrian’s Wall and forts like Carlisle. The industry expanded in the Middle Ages as stone was needed for high-status buildings like castles, tower houses and monasteries as well as for bridges and, later on, for dry-stone walls and road building. Cumbria has a wide variety of rock t...

Cumbria is a very varied county with coastal plains, river valleys, the Pennine edge and the Lakeland fells. It has a strong sense of cohesion and common ground. Farming in the county has improved over the centuries, and yet this is a subject curiously under-discussed in the existing literature. In this book, Dr David Johnson uses documentary and contemporary sources to argue that there has been visible improvement in Cumbria's farming. Starting with a discussion of the region's geology, t...

Drawing on a wealth of practical experience, both in the construction industry and teaching students, Chris March presents this study of construction management and the major aspects of controlling the building process.Covering the stages from the client's initiation, to the final handover of the building, March includes evidence from those currently working in the industry, and covers the key industry requirements: knowing that in today's market place, those entering the field mus...

From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling true story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the Enron scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever.It was the corporate collapse that appeared to come out of nowhere. In late 2001, the Enron Corporation—a darling of the financial world, a company whose executives were friends of presidents and the powerful—im...

The Australian Beekeeping Manual is the most comprehensive reference for both novice and experienced beekeepers in Australia. The accessible yet detailed text, supported by over 350 full-colour photographs and illustrations, covers all the key areas, including the beekeeping equipment needed, how to obtain bees, where to locate them in the garden, and the basics of colony management. There are also in-depth chapters on the lifecycle of the honey bee, extracting honey, creating a b...

A number one bestseller, this favourite New Zealand novel captures a real 19th century community.The bleak coal-mining settlement of Denniston, isolated high on a plateau above New Zealand's West Coast, is a place that makes or breaks those who live there. At the time of this novel - the1880s - the only way to reach the makeshift collection of huts, tents and saloons is to climb aboard an empty coal-wagon to be hauled 2000 feet up the terrifyingly steep Incline - the cable-haulage system t...