Heritage and Landscape

The Soho Manufactory, Mint and Foundry, West Midlands: Where Boulton, Watt and Murdoch made History

The Soho Manufactory, Mint and Foundry, West Midlands: Where Boulton, Watt and Murdoch made History by George Demidowicz, published by Historic England and Liverpool University Press in February 2022, provides a comprehensive analysis of the ground-breaking historic industrial complex, created to the west of Birmingham in the eighteenth century and associated with Matthew Boulton, James … Continue reading

Heritage and Landscape

The Architecture of Steam

The Architecture of Steam: Waterworks and the Victorian Sanitary Crisis by James Douet weaves for the first time architectural and social history with industrial and engineering progress to show how waterworks pulled nineteenth-century towns back from the Sanitary Crisis that menaced civilized urban life. To celebrate this new Historic England publication, the author has put together … Continue reading

Heritage and Landscape

The Built Environment Transformed: Illustration details

Taking a case-study approach, The Built Environment Transformed discusses the remarkable changes made to the built environment in textile Lancashire - essentially the eastern and central parts of the county – during the Industrial Revolution (c1780-c1850). Developments in industry, housing and transport are emphasised, drawing particularly on the physical evidence the sites provide. The illustrations … Continue reading

Heritage and Landscape, History

The Staffordshire Hoard in ten objects: a selection by Chris Fern and Jenni Butterworth

Warrior Treasure: The Staffordshire Hoard in Anglo-Saxon England is an accessible account of the Staffordshire Hoard research project and its findings. It tells of the discovery of the Hoard, the fundraising campaign to save it for the nation, and the scientific methods used to study it. To celebrate the publication of this book, authors Chris … Continue reading

Heritage and Landscape, History

The Enduring and the Ephemeral by Chris Elliott

Few things are as enduring as obelisks. Cleopatra’s Needles have a history that stretches over thousands of years and in 1878, when one of them was shortly to arrive in London, an anonymous correspondent wrote to The Builder magazine expressing the hope that it would remain “let us hope for long centuries,- erect on the … Continue reading