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Combe Hay Locks
The Combe Hay Locks is a derelict flight of locks on the Somerset Coal Canal near Combe Hay, Somerset, England. Twenty two locks raised the canal over approximately . The lock flight was predated in the immediate area by two other methods of canal lifts—first by a series of caisson locks, then by an inclined plane. The lock flight opened in 1805, and was in operation until 1899. History The route of the Somerset Coal Canal, after leaving its junction with the Kennet and Avon Canal at Limpley Stoke, roughly parallels that of the Midford Brook. At Midford, the canal followed the valley of the Cam Brook. At Combe Hay, the steep valley required the canal to climb a significant height——over a distance of . Caisson locks The first proposed solution to overcoming the gradient was by the use of three caisson locks. Adverts were printed in Bath periodicals in January 1796 to recruit stonemasons for building the locks. Construction of the first caisson lock began in 1796. The m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Somerset Coal Canal
The Somerset Coal Canal (originally known as the Somersetshire Coal Canal) was a narrow canal in England, built around 1800. Its route began in basins at Paulton and Timsbury, ran to nearby Camerton, over two aqueducts at Dunkerton, through a tunnel at Combe Hay, then via Midford and Monkton Combe to Limpley Stoke where it joined the Kennet and Avon Canal. This link gave the Somerset coalfield (which at its peak contained 80 collieries) access east toward London. The longest arm was long with 23 locks. From Midford an arm also ran via Writhlington to Radstock, with a tunnel at Wellow. A feature of the canal was the variety of methods used at Combe Hay to overcome height differences between the upper and lower reaches: initially by the use of caisson locks; when this method failed an inclined plane trackway; and finally a flight of 22 conventional locks. The Radstock arm was never commercially successful and was replaced first with a tramway in 1815 and lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fuller's Earth
Fuller's earth is any clay material that has the capability to decolorize oil or other liquids without the use of harsh chemical treatment. Fuller's earth typically consists of palygorskite (attapulgite) or bentonite. Modern uses of fuller's earth include as absorbents for oil, grease, and animal waste (cat litter) and as a carrier for pesticides and fertilizers. Minor uses include filtering, clarifying, and decolorizing; active and inactive ingredient in beauty products; and as a filler in paint, plaster, adhesives, and pharmaceuticals. It also has a number of uses in the film industry and on stage. Etymology The English name reflects the historic use of the material for fulling (cleaning and shrinking) wool, by textile workers known as ''fullers''. In past centuries, fullers kneaded fuller's earth and water into woollen cloth to absorb lanolin, oils, and other greasy impurities as part of the cloth finishing process. The original spelling was without an apostrophe, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bristol And North Somerset Railway
The Bristol and North Somerset Railway was a railway line in the West of England that connected Bristol with Radstock, through Pensford and further into northern Somerset, to allow access to the Somerset Coalfield. The line ran almost due south from Bristol and was long. Opened in 1873, it joined with an existing branch from Frome to Radstock, and was later worked with it as a single entity. In 1882 the Camerton Branch was opened by the Great Western Railway to serve collieries at Camerton; it was later extended to Limpley Stoke, on the Bath to Trowbridge line. It closed to passenger traffic in 1925. The line's primary traffic was coal, and travel to work commuting into Bristol. Both of these traffic sources substantially declined in the 1950s, with the Camerton Branch fully closed in 1951. Passenger traffic ceased on the rest of the entire line complex before the Beeching Axe in 1959, with complete closure of the line in 1973 following the closure of the last colliery in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camerton, Somerset
Camerton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, south west of Bath, lying on the Cam Brook. The parish has a population of 655. History The parish includes the hamlet of Tunley, which is the site of a hill fort that has been designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The village stands beside the route of the Fosse Way, and a Roman settlement was south-west of the current village. The parish of Camerton was part of the Wellow Hundred. Originally a farming village in North Somerset, its vicar from 1800 was the amateur antiquarian and archaeologist The Rev. John Skinner, who committed suicide in 1839. His studies led him to conclude, incorrectly, that Camerton was the location of the notable ancient British site of Camulodunum. Camerton Court was built by the Jarrett family, to a design by George Repton (son of Humphry Repton), in 1838–40, replacing an earlier Manor House. The village expanded as a result of coal mining on the Somerset coalfield in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cast Iron
Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impurities which allow cracks to pass straight through, grey cast iron has graphite flakes which deflect a passing crack and initiate countless new cracks as the material breaks, and ductile cast iron has spherical graphite "nodules" which stop the crack from further progressing. Carbon (C), ranging from 1.8 to 4 wt%, and silicon (Si), 1–3 wt%, are the main alloying elements of cast iron. Iron alloys with lower carbon content are known as steel. Cast iron tends to be brittle, except for malleable cast irons. With its relatively low melting point, good fluidity, castability, excellent machinability, resistance to deformation and wear resistance, cast irons have become an engineering material with a wide range of applications a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrought Iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" that is visible when it is etched, rusted, or bent to failure. Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile, corrosion resistant, and easily forge welded, but is more difficult to weld electrically. Before the development of effective methods of steelmaking and the availability of large quantities of steel, wrought iron was the most common form of malleable iron. It was given the name ''wrought'' because it was hammered, rolled, or otherwise worked while hot enough to expel molten slag. The modern functional equivalent of wrought iron is mild steel, also called low-carbon steel. Neither wrought iron nor mild steel contain enough carbon to be hardenable by heating and quenching. Wrought iron is highly refined, with a small amount of sili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lock Paddle
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water level can be varied; whereas in a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined plane, it is the chamber itself (usually then called a caisson (engineering), caisson) that rises and falls. Locks are used to make a river more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a more direct route to be taken. Pound lock A ''pound lock'' is most commonly used on canals and rivers today. A pound lock has a chamber with floodgate, gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound. In contrast, an earlier design with a single gate was known as a flash lock. Pound locks were first used in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), having been pioneered by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hairpin Bend
A hairpin turn (also hairpin bend or hairpin corner) is a bend in a road with a very acute inner angle, making it necessary for an oncoming vehicle to turn about 180° to continue on the road. It is named for its resemblance to a bent metal hairpin. Such turns in ramps and trails may be called switchbacks in American English, by analogy with switchback railways. Description Hairpin turns are often built when a route climbs up or down a steep slope, so that it can travel mostly across the slope with only moderate steepness, and are often arrayed in a zigzag pattern. Highways with repeating hairpin turns allow easier, safer ascents and descents of mountainous terrain than a direct, steep climb and descent, at the price of greater distances of travel and usually lower speed limits, due to the sharpness of the turn. Highways of this style are also generally less costly to build and maintain than highways with tunnels. On occasion, the road may loop completely, using a tunnel or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beam (nautical)
The beam of a ship is its width at its widest point. The maximum beam (BMAX) is the distance between planes passing through the outer extremities of the ship, beam of the hull (BH) only includes permanently fixed parts of the hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ..., and beam at waterline (BWL) is the maximum width where the hull intersects the surface of the water. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship (or boat), the more initial stability it has, at the expense of secondary stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position. A ship that heels on her ''beam ends'' has her deck beams nearly vertical. Typical values Typical length-to-beam ratios ( aspect ratios) for small sailboats are fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Bennet (engineer)
William Bennet (or Bennett) was an English civil engineer, noted for his work on canals. Nothing is known of his early life or family history, but details of his work from about 1790 until 1826 are documented. His major projects were for the Dorset and Somerset Canal and the Somersetshire Coal Canal. Early career It is thought that Bennet originated in Lancashire, as his first recorded projects concerned surveying of an extension to the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal from Bolton to join the Leeds Liverpool Canal, then being proposed, and surveying of the Bury and Sladen Canal, to create a link to the Rochdale Canal. The surveys were completed in 1792, after which he surveyed a canal from Accrington to Bury, which although it obtained an Act of Parliament in 1794 to authorise its construction, was never built. During this period he met Robert Whitworth, who employed him for a time, and was influential in his move to projects in the South West. Major Projects Whitworth had been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coping (architecture)
Coping (from ''cope'', Latin ''capa'') is the capping or covering of a wall. A splayed or wedge coping is one that slopes in a single direction; a saddle coping slopes to either side of a central high point. A coping may be made of stone (capstone), brick, clay or terracotta, concrete or cast stone, tile, slate, wood, thatch, or various metals, including aluminum, copper, stainless steel, steel, and zinc. In all cases it should be weathered (have a slanted or curved top surface) to throw off the water. In Romanesque work, copings appeared plain and flat, and projected over the wall with a throating to form a drip. In later work a steep slope was given to the weathering (mainly on the outer side), and began at the top with an astragal; in the Decorated Gothic style there were two or three sets off; and in the later Perpendicular Gothic these assumed a wavy section, and the coping mouldings continued round the sides, as well as at top and bottom, mitring at the angles, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilts And Berks Canal
The Wilts & Berks Canal is a canal in the historic counties of Wiltshire and Berkshire, England, linking the Kennet and Avon Canal at Semington near Melksham, to the River Thames at Abingdon. The North Wilts Canal merged with it to become a branch to the Thames and Severn Canal at Latton near Cricklade. Among professional trades boatmen, the canal was nicknamed the Ippey Cut, possibly short for Chippenham. The canal was opened in 1810, but abandoned in 1914 – a fate hastened by a breach at Stanley aqueduct in 1901. Much of the canal subsequently became unnavigable: many of the structures were deliberately damaged by army demolition exercises; parts of the route were filled in and in some cases built over. In 1977 the Wilts & Berks Canal Amenity Group was formed with a view to full restoration of the canal. Several locks and bridges have since been restored, and over of the canal have been rewatered. Name The official name of the canal is the "Wilts & Berks Canal" as ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
