London Coal Exchange
The London Coal Exchange was situated on the north side of Thames Street in the City of London, nearly opposite to Old Billingsgate Market, occupying three different structures from 1770 to 1962. The original coal exchange opened in 1770. A second building from 1805 was replaced by a new purpose-built structure constructed from 1847 to 1849, and opened by Prince Albert on 30 October 1849. This third London coal exchange was one of the first substantial buildings constructed from cast iron, built several years before the hall at the Great Exhibition. It was demolished in 1962 to allow widening of what is now Lower Thames Street despite a campaign by the Victorian Society to save the building. Cast iron decorations from the 1849 Coal Exchange building were selected as the model for the dragon boundary mark for the main entrances to the City of London. Background Coal had been imported to London by sea since at least medieval times. A coal exchange was established in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Bunstone Bunning
James Bunstone Bunning (6 October 1802 – 2 November 1863) was an English architect. He held the post of architect to the City of London from 1843 until his death, and is probably best remembered for his design for the Coal Exchange. Life Bunning was born in London on 6 October 1802. He was trained in the office of his father, the surveyor Daniel James Bunning, from the age of thirteen. He was then articled to George Smith. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1848., giving his address as Bernard Street between 1819 and 1823, and Guilford Street after 1832. He was a fellow of the Institute of British Architects, and of the Society of Antiquaries. Early career Bunning was district surveyor for Bethnal Green, (where he built the workhouse in 1840-2), and, from around 1825, surveyor to the Foundling Hospital estates. He went on to hold the same post with the Haberdashers' Company, the London and County Bank, the Thames Tunnel, the Victoria Life Office and the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dragon Boundary Mark
The dragon boundary marks are cast iron statues of dragons (sometimes mistaken for griffins) on metal or stone plinths that mark the boundaries of the City of London. The dragons are painted silver, with details of their wings and tongue picked out in red. The dragon stands on one rear leg, the other lifted against a shield, with the right foreleg raised and the left foreleg holding a shield which bears the City of London's coat of arms, painted in red and white. This stance is the equivalent of the rampant heraldic attitude of the supporters of the City's arms. Design The design is based on two large dragon sculptures, high, which were mounted above the entrance to the Coal Exchange on Lower Thames Street, designed by the City Architect, J. B. Bunning, and made by the London founder Dewer in 1849. The dragons were preserved when the Coal Exchange was demolished in 1962–63. The two original statues were re-erected on high plinths of Portland stone at the western bound ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bushel
A bushel (abbreviation: bsh. or bu.) is an imperial and US customary unit of volume based upon an earlier measure of dry capacity. The old bushel is equal to 2 kennings (obsolete), 4 pecks, or 8 dry gallons, and was used mostly for agricultural products, such as wheat. In modern usage, the volume is nominal, with bushels denoting a mass defined differently for each commodity. The name "bushel" is also used to translate similar units in other measurement systems. Name The name comes from the Old French ' and ', meaning "little box".. It may further derive from Old French ', thus meaning "little butt". History The bushel is an intermediate value between the pound and ton or tun that was introduced to England following the Norman Conquest. Norman statutes made the London bushel part of the legal measure of English wine, ale, and grains. The Assize of Bread and Ale credited to Henry III, , defined this bushel in terms of the wine gallon,. & while th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chaldron
A chaldron (also chauldron or chalder) was an English measure of dry volume, mostly used for coal; the word itself is an obsolete spelling of cauldron. It was used from the 13th century onwards, nominally until 1963, when it was abolished by the Weights and Measures Act 1963, but in practice until the end of 1835, when the Weights and Measures Act of that year specified that thenceforth coal could only be sold by weight. Coal The chaldron was used as the measure for coal from the 13th century, measuring by volume being much more practical than weighing low-value, high-bulk commodities like coal. It was not standardized, and there were many different regional chaldrons, the two most important being the Newcastle and London chaldrons. The Newcastle chaldron was used to measure all coal shipped from Northumberland and Durham, and the London chaldron became the standard measure for coal in the east and south of England. Many attempts have been made to calculate the weight of a Newc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thames Embankment
The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy land next to the River Thames in central London. It consists of the Victoria Embankment and Chelsea Embankment. History There had been a long history of failed proposals to embank the Thames in central London. Embankments along the Thames were first proposed by Christopher Wren in the 1660s, then in 1824 former soldier and aide to George IV, Sir Frederick Trench suggested an embankment known as 'Trench's Terrace' from Blackfriars to Charing Cross. Trench brought a bill to Parliament which was blocked by river interests. In the 1830s, the painter John Martin promoted a version, as realised later, to contain an intercepting sewer. In January 1842 the City Corporation backed a plan designed by James Walker but which was dropped due to government infighting. The government itself built the Chelsea Embankment in 1854 from Chelsea Hospital to Millbank. Started in 1862, the Victoria Embankmen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Great Fire Of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the wall to the west. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small, although some historians have challenged this belief. The fire started in a bakery in Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September, and spread rapidly. The use of the major firefighting technique of the time, the creation of firebreaks by means of removing structures in the fire's path, was critically delayed due to the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth. By the time large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm which defeated such measures. The fire pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City. Order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade I listed building. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present structure, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the city after the Great Fire of London. The earlier Gothic cathedral (Old St Paul's Cathedral), largely destroyed in the Great Fire, was a central focus for medieval and early modern London, including Paul's walk and St Paul's Churchyard, being the site of St Paul's Cross. The cathedral is one of the most famous and recognisable sights of London. Its dome, surrounded by the spires of Wren's City chur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Commission For Building Fifty New Churches
The Commission for Building Fifty New Churches (in London and the surroundings) was an organisation set up by Act of Parliament in England in 1711, the New Churches in London and Westminster Act 1710, with the purpose of building fifty new churches for the rapidly growing conurbation of London. It did not achieve its target, but did build a number of churches, which would become known as the Queen Anne Churches. Churches built Most of the churches were designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, with John James, Thomas Archer and James Gibbs also participating. *Christ Church, Spitalfields, Hawksmoor 1714–29 *St Alfege Church, Greenwich, Hawksmoor 1712–18 (rebuilding of an existing church) *St Anne's Limehouse, Hawksmoor 1714–30 *St George's, Bloomsbury, Hawksmoor 1716–31 *St George in the East, Hawksmoor 1714–29 *St George's, Hanover Square, James 1720–25 *St John Horsleydown, Hawksmoor and James 1727–33 *St John's, Smith Square, Archer 1713&ndash ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Doric Order
The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of columns. Originating in the western Doric region of Greece, it is the earliest and, in its essence, the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above. The Greek Doric column was fluted or smooth-surfaced, and had no base, dropping straight into the stylobate or platform on which the temple or other building stood. The capital was a simple circular form, with some mouldings, under a square cushion that is very wide in early versions, but later more restrained. Above a plain architrave, the complexity comes in the frieze, where the two features originally unique to the Doric, the triglyph and gutta, are skeuomorphic memories of the beams and retaining pegs of the wooden constructions that preceded stone Do ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Corporation Of The City Of London
The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United Kingdom's financial sector. In 2006, the name was changed from Corporation of London as the corporate body needed to be distinguished from the geographical area to avoid confusion with the wider London local government, the Greater London Authority. Both businesses and residents of the City, or "Square Mile", are entitled to vote in City elections, and in addition to its functions as the local authority—analogous to those undertaken by the 32 boroughs that administer the rest of the Greater London region—it takes responsibility for supporting the financial services industry and representing its interests. The corporation's structure includes the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, the Court of Common Council, and the Freemen and Livery o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coal Merchant
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 a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |