It is a measure of the prominence which civil engineering assumed in the 19th century that members of the profession achieved the status of household names. Indeed, they not merely achieved, but also retained it – witness, for instance, Isambard Kingdom Brunel polling second place in the 100 Greatest Britons television series of 2002, nearlyContinue reading “Introducing C.H. Driver (1832-1900), Architect to the Steam Age”
Tag Archives: Cast iron
Architect of a lost London: Thomas Edward Knightley (1823-1905)
To a greater or lesser degree, lasting success in any profession comes down to luck and architecture is no exception. Success has to be measured not only in terms of what an architect gets to build in his or her lifetime, but also of the subsequent fate of these achievements. Many posthumous reputations which deservedContinue reading “Architect of a lost London: Thomas Edward Knightley (1823-1905)”
French Architecture for Armchair Travellers – the éolienne Bollée and Clovis Normand
Tracing and unravelling all the routes by which France exerted an influence on Victorian architecture is such an enormous task that it would more than suffice to keep an architectural historian busy for the whole of an academic career. Some of the influence is very obvious, such as the enormous interest excited by the restorationContinue reading “French Architecture for Armchair Travellers – the éolienne Bollée and Clovis Normand”
A Celtic nation of shopkeepers
A few weeks ago I wrote about Llanidloes in central Wales (formerly in Montgomeryshire, now in Powys) and featured the splendid nonconformist chapels that are such a prominent feature of its townscape. I now want to turn my attention to another building type that does a great deal to define the character of the placeContinue reading “A Celtic nation of shopkeepers”
Less Eminent Victorians 