A Plea For Free Drinking Fountains In The Metropolis

Vilified by leading architectural modernists and Victorian critics alike, mass-produced architectural ornament in iron has received little sustained study since the 1960s; yet it proliferated in Britain in the half century after the building of the Crystal Palace in 1851 - a time when some architects, engineers, manufacturers, and theorists believed that the fusion of iron and ornament would reconcile art and technology and create a new, modern architectural language. Comprehensively illustrated and richly researched, Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain presents the most sustained study to date of the development of mechanised architectural ornament in iron in nineteenth-century architecture, its reception and theorisation by architects, critics and engineers, and the contexts in which it flourished, including industrial buildings, retail and seaside architecture, railway stations, buildings for export and exhibition, and street furniture. Appealing to architects, conservationists, historians and students of nineteenth-century visual culture and the built environment, this book offers new ways of understanding the notion of modernity in Victorian architecture by questioning and re-evaluating both Victorian and modernist understandings of the ideological split between historicism and functionalism, and ornament and structure.

Safe drinking water is essential to daily life. Meeting that demand with bottled water is a luxury too far, argues Emma Jones. She is not a lone critic of the packaged water industry. However, this author looks to history for solutions to a major sustainability problem: in the design, management and use of the city. With original stories from London's archives, Parched City tracks drinking-water obsessions through a popular architectural history tale.

Other than air, the only substance more vital to life is water. Our bodies brim with it, and if we’re deprived of it for even a few days, the results can be fatal. Our planet, too, is mostly water, with oceans across approximately seventy percent of its surface. But potable water has in many times and places been a scarce resource, and with Water, Ian Miller traces the history of our relationship with drinking water—our attempts to find it, keep it clean, and make it widely available. Miller’s history ranges widely, from ancient times to the present, exploring all the many ways that we’ve rendered water palatable—from boiling it for tea or distilling it as part of alcoholic beverages to piping it from springs, bubbles and all. He covers the histories of water treatment and supply, belief in its medicinal powers, and much more, all supported by fascinating historical illustrations. As access to fresh water becomes an ever more potent problem worldwide, Miller’s book is a fascinating reminder of our long engagement with this most vital fluid.

Compiled by paranormal investigator Della Farrant, this new book contains a chilling range of spooky tales from around Highgate. From haunted public houses and private homes taken over by malevolent poltergeists to a top-hatted fiend who hisses at passers-by and the ‘vampire’ sightings of the 1970s at Highgate’s world-famous cemetery, this collection of ghostly goings-on is sure to appeal to everyone interested in North London’s supernatural residents.Richly illustrated, Haunted Highgate is the ideal guide for anyone who wishes to delve deeper into the area’s mysterious history.