Croydon Canal
The Croydon Canal ran from Croydon, via Forest Hill, to the Grand Surrey Canal at New Cross in south London, England. It opened in 1809 and closed in 1836, the first canal to be abandoned by an Act of Parliament. History Authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1801, the canal was originally intended to extend northwards to Rotherhithe, but the simultaneous construction of the Grand Surrey Canal provided a convenient access route. It was long, and opened on 22 October 1809. The Croydon Canal linked to the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Railway (itself connected to the Surrey Iron Railway), enabling the canal to be used to transport stone and lime from workings at Merstham. The canal was never extended further south-west, as was initially intended, to reach Epsom. The canal was originally planned with two inclined planes but 28 locks, arranged in two flights, were used instead. To keep the canal supplied with water, reservoirs were constructed at Sydenham and South Norwood; the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Betts Park
Betts Park (also known as King George's Field) is a public park in Penge, London Borough of Bromley, in London, England. It is approximately 13 acres (5 hectares) and has a number of attractions, including part of the old Croydon Canal. It was opened in December 1928 and extended throughout the 1930s. Location Betts Park is in the Anerley area of Penge and is publicly owned. The park's main entrances are from Anerley Road. There are other entrances from Weighton Road, Seymour Villas, Croydon Road, and Betts Way. History The land where Betts Park now stands originally contained a semi-enclosed coppice on Penge Common known as Clay Copse. In 1827 the entire common was auctioned with lots sold for development. Residential houses and a church were erected encircling the coppice with the woodland divided into gardens, with the exception of a small area in the southeast corner believed to have contained the wagon home of Betty Saville, the last tenant of Penge Common, and an area in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reservoir (water)
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, through excavation, or building any number of retaining walls or levees. In other contexts, "reservoirs" may refer to storage spaces for various fluids; they may hold liquids or gasses, including hydrocarbons. ''Tank reservoirs'' store these in ground-level, elevated, or buried tanks. Tank reservoirs for water are also called cisterns. Most underground reservoirs are used to store liquids, principally either water or petroleum. Types Dammed valleys Dammed reservoirs are artificial lakes created and controlled by a dam constructed across a valley, and rely on the natural topography to provide most of the basin of the re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dacres Wood
Dacres Wood is a small local nature reserve in Forest Hill in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is owned and managed by Lewisham Council. The site is a remnant of the former Croydon Canal The Croydon Canal ran from Croydon, via Forest Hill, to the Grand Surrey Canal at New Cross in south London, England. It opened in 1809 and closed in 1836, the first canal to be abandoned by an Act of Parliament. History Authorised by an Act ..., which later became the garden of a Victorian house. The site's main conservation interest lies in its ponds and wetlands. In 1990 two ponds were dug and wetland plants introduced. The western part is mainly secondary woodland, which is probably the result of Victorian landscaping. An invertebrate survey in 1996 found the purple hairstreak butterfly, which frequents the tops of oak trees, and has been seen on only three sites in London. The entrance to the site is off Dacres Road at its junction with Silverdale. It is kept locked except when a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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West Croydon Station
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages (''ouest'' in French, ''oest'' in Catalan, ''ovest'' in Italian, ''oeste'' in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from the Indo-European root ''*wes'' reduced from ''*wes-pero'' 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin occidens 'west' from occidō 'to go down, to set' and Hebrew מַעֲרָב maarav 'west' from עֶרֶב erev 'evening'. Navigation To go west using a compass for navigation (in a place where magnetic north is the same dire ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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London Bridge Station
London Bridge is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Southwark, south-east London. It occupies a large area on three levels immediately south-east of London Bridge, from which it takes its name. The main line station is the oldest railway station in London fare zone 1 and one of the oldest in the world having opened in 1836. It is one of two main line termini in London to the south of the River Thames (the other being Waterloo) and is the fourth-busiest station in London, handling over 50 million passengers a year. The station was originally opened by the London and Greenwich Railway as a local service. It subsequently served the London and Croydon Railway, the London and Brighton Railway and the South Eastern Railway, thus becoming an important London terminus. It was rebuilt in 1849 and again in 1864 to provide more services and increase capacity. Local services from London Bridge began to be electrified in the beginning of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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London & Croydon Railway
The London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) was an early railway in England. It opened in 1839 and in February 1846 merged with other railways to form the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR). Origins The Croydon line and other railways The Surrey Iron Railway had been opened in 1806 between Wandsworth and Croydon; it was a plateway operating on the toll principle, in which carriers could move wagons with their own horses. However, the Surrey Iron Railway's terminal on the Thames was rather far west and sea-going vessels were discouraged from connecting with it.John Howard Turner, ''The London Brighton and South Coast Railway: I - Origins and Formation'', B T Batsford Ltd, London, 1977, Edge railways using locomotive traction represented a clear technological advance, marked particularly by the Stockton and Darlington Railway (1825) and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1830), and promoters put forward a scheme to link Croydon, then an industrial town, with London. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coal Tar
Coal tar is a thick dark liquid which is a by-product of the production of coke and coal gas from coal. It is a type of creosote. It has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psoriasis and seborrheic dermatitis (dandruff). It may be used in combination with ultraviolet light therapy. Industrially it is a railroad tie preservative and used in the surfacing of roads. Coal tar was listed as a known human carcinogen in the first Report on Carcinogens from the U.S. Federal Government. Coal tar was discovered circa 1665 and used for medical purposes as early as the 1800s. Circa 1850, the discovery that it could be used as the main ingredient in synthetic dyes engendered an entire industry. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Coal tar is available as a generic medication and over the counter. Side effects include skin irritation, sun sensitivity, allergic reactions, and skin discoloration. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coke (fuel)
Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content and few impurities, made by heating coal or oil in the absence of air—a destructive distillation process. It is an important industrial product, used mainly in iron ore smelting, but also as a fuel in stoves and forges when air pollution is a concern. The unqualified term "coke" usually refers to the product derived from low-ash and low-sulphur bituminous coal by a process called coking. A similar product called petroleum coke, or pet coke, is obtained from crude oil in oil refineries. Coke may also be formed naturally by geologic processes.B. Kwiecińska and H. I. Petersen (2004): "Graphite, semi-graphite, natural coke, and natural char classification — ICCP system". ''International Journal of Coal Geology'', volume 57, issue 2, pages 99-116. History China Historical sources dating to the 4th century describe the production of coke in ancient China. The Chinese first used coke for heating ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some iron ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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History Of The Internal Combustion Engine
Various scientists and engineers contributed to the development of internal combustion engines. In 1791, the English inventor John Barber patented a gas turbine. In 1794 Thomas Mead patented a gas engine. Also in 1794 Robert Street patented an internal-combustion engine, which was also the first to use liquid fuel (petroleum) and built an engine around that time. In 1798, John Stevens designed the first American internal combustion engine. In 1807, French engineers Nicéphore (who went on to invent photography) and Claude Niépce ran a prototype internal combustion engine, using controlled dust explosions, the Pyréolophore. This engine powered a boat on the Saône river, France. The same year, the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built and patented a hydrogen and oxygen powered internal-combustion engine. The fuel was stored in a balloon and the spark was electrically ignited by a hand-operated trigger. Fitted to a crude four-wheeled wagon, François Isaac de Rivaz f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Samuel Brown (engineer)
Samuel Brown (1799-16 September 1849) was an English engineer and inventor credited with developing one of the earliest examples of an internal combustion engine, during the early 19th century. Brown, a cooper by training (he also patented improvements to machinery for manufacturing casks and other vessels), has been described as the 'father of the gas engine'. While living at Eagle Lodge in the Brompton area of west London, from 1825 to 1835, he developed 'the first gas engine that unquestionably did actual work and was a mechanical success'. He set up two engines for demonstration purposes in the grounds of the Lodge. His obituary credited him with being the inventor of the gas vacuum engine and the screw propeller. Brown's Gas Vacuum Engines In patents dated 4 December 1823 and 22 April 1826, Brown proposed to fill a closed chamber with a gas flame, and so expel the air; then he condensed the flame by injecting water, and operated an air engine by exhausting into the part ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barge
Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. The term barge has a rich history, and therefore there are many other types of barges. History of the barge Etymology "Barge" is attested from 1300, from Old French ''barge'', from Vulgar Latin ''barga''. The word originally could refer to any small boat; the modern meaning arose around 1480. ''Bark'' "small ship" is attested from 1420, from Old French ''barque'', from Vulgar Latin ''barca'' (400 AD). The more precise meaning of Barque as "three-masted sailing vessel" arose in the 17th century, and often takes the French spelling for disambiguation. Both are probably derived from the Latin ''barica'', from Greek ''baris'' "Egyptian boat", from Coptic ''bari'' "small boat", hieroglyphic Egyptian D58-G29-M17-M17-D21-P1 and similar ''b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |