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Towcester Town Hall
Towcester Town Hall is a municipal building in Watling Street, Towcester, Northamptonshire, England. The town hall, which is the meeting place of Towcester Town Council, is a grade II listed building. History After significant population growth during the early 19th century associated with the town's role as a coaching stop on Watling Street, a turnpike road which had been paved by the engineer, Thomas Telford, local businessmen decided to form a company to develop a town hall and corn exchange: the site chosen was a prominent location in the market place which clearly defined its southern boundary. The foundation stone for the building was laid by the Earl of Pomfret, who lived at Easton Neston house, on 8 September 1865. It was designed by T. H. Vernon in the Italianate style, built by J. Wheeler with ashlar stone and was completed in 1866. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Chantry Lane; the central bay, which slightly projected forwar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Towcester
Towcester ( ) is an affluent market town in Northamptonshire, England. It currently lies in West Northamptonshire but was the former administrative headquarters of the South Northamptonshire district council. Towcester is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the country. It was the Roman town of Lactodurum, located on Watling Street, today’s A5. In Saxon times, this was the frontier between the kingdom of Wessex and the Danelaw. Towcester features in Charles Dickens's novel ''The Pickwick Papers'' as one of Mr Pickwick's stopping places on his tour. The local racecourse has hosted many national horseracing events. Etymology Towcester comes from the Old English ''Tōfeceaster''. ''Tōfe'' refers to the River Tove; Bosworth and Toller compare it to the "Scandinavian proper names" ''Tófi'' and '' Tófa''. The Old English ''ceaster'' comes from the Latin ''castra'' ("camp") and was "often applied to places in Britain which had been Roman encampments." T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Where extending above a roof, a parapet may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the edge line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a fire wall or party wall. Parapets were originally used to defend buildings from military attack, but today they are primarily used as guard rails, to conceal rooftop equipment, reduce wind loads on the roof, and to prevent the spread of fires. In the Bible the Hebrews are obligated to build a parapet on the roof of their houses to prevent people falling (Deuteronomy 22:8). Parapet types Parapets may be plain, embattled, perforated or panelled, which are not mutually exclusive terms. *Plain parapets are upward extensions of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Buildings Completed In 1866
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have governance, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments and subsidiary organizations. The major types of political systems in the modern era are democracies, monarchies, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy, and tyranny. These forms are not always mutually exclusive, and mixed governme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Northamptonshire
South Northamptonshire was, from 1974 to 2021, a district in Northamptonshire, England. Its council was based in the town of Towcester, first established as a settlement in Roman Britain. The population of the Local Authority District Council in 2011 was 85,189. The largest town in the district was Brackley, which had a population of 14,000 in 2008 followed by Towcester which has a population of nearly 10,000. Other significant settlements in size included Deanshanger, Bugbrooke, Roade, King's Sutton, Silverstone and Middleton Cheney. Many of the villages listed have populations exceeding 1000. Geography Elevations and shape The northern half of the district was generally higher than the south, reaching 192m AOD northeast of the centre of Aston-le-Walls, and 182m on the road east of Culworth, a village which also rests on top of the ridge following the general WSW line of the county and of the district but except for this is north of the district. This ridge is part of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rural District
Rural districts were a type of local government area – now superseded – established at the end of the 19th century in England, Wales, and Ireland for the administration of predominantly rural areas at a level lower than that of the Administrative county, administrative counties.__TOC__ England and Wales In England and Wales they were created in 1894 (by the Local Government Act 1894) along with Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), urban districts. They replaced the earlier system of sanitary districts (themselves based on poor law unions, but not replacing them). Rural districts had elected rural district councils (RDCs), which inherited the functions of the earlier sanitary districts, but also had wider authority over matters such as local planning, council house, council housing, and playgrounds and cemeteries. Matters such as education and major roads were the responsibility of county councils. Until 1930 the rural district councillors were also poor law gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Towcester Railway Station
Towcester was a railway station on the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway which served the town of Towcester in Northamptonshire, England between 1866 and 1964. It once served as an interchange for services to Stratford, Banbury and Olney. It also saw substantial traffic on racedays at Towcester Racecourse. Its closure came as the various interconnecting lines to the station closed one by one in the 1950s and 1960s. Passenger services ended in 1952, predating the Beeching closures. History Opening In 1863, the Northampton & Banbury Junction Railway (N&BJ), a forerunner of the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway (SMJ), received Parliamentary authorisation to construct an line from the London and North Western Railway's Blisworth station on their London to Birmingham line to Cockley Brake junction, at which point the new branch would form a junction with the existing Banbury to Verney Junction Branch Line. The public opening of the section of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfry (architecture)
The belfry is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the entire tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached to a city hall or other civic building. A belfry encloses the bell chamber, the room in which the bells are housed; its walls are pierced by openings which allow the sound to escape. The openings may be left uncovered but are commonly filled with louvers to prevent rain and snow from entering and damaging the bells. There may be a separate room below the bell chamber to house the ringers. Etymology The word ''belfry'' comes from the Old North French or , meaning 'movable wooden siege tower'. The Old French word itself is derived from Middle High German , 'protecting shelter' (cf. the cognate ''bergfried''), combining the Proto-Germanic , 'to protect', or , 'mountain, high place', with , 'peace; personal security', to create , lit. 'high place ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form ( native metals). This led to very early human use in several regions, from circa 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, circa 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clock Tower
Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another building. Some other buildings also have clock faces on their exterior but these structures serve other main functions. Clock towers are a common sight in many parts of the world with some being iconic buildings. One example is the Elizabeth Tower in London (usually called "Big Ben", although strictly this name belongs only to the bell inside the tower). Definition There are many structures which may have clocks or clock faces attached to them and some structures have had clocks added to an existing structure. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat a structure is defined as a building if at least fifty percent of its height is made up of floor plates containing habitable floor area. Structures that do not meet this crite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sash Window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History The oldest surviving examples of sash windows were installed in England in the 1670s, for example at Ham House.Louw, HJ, ''Architectural History'', Vol. 26, 1983 (1983), pp. 49–72, 144–15JSTOR The invention of the sash window is sometimes credited, without conclusive evidence, to Robert Hooke. Others see the sash window as a Dutch invention. H.J. Louw believed that the sash window was developed in England, but concluded that it was impossible to determine the exact inventor. The sash window is often found in Georgian architecture, Georgian and Victorian architecture, Victorian houses, and the classic arrangement has three panes across by two up on each of two sash, giving a ''six over six'' panel window, alth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural element: a structural or decorative member. It can be made of wood, stone, plaster, metal, or other media. It projects from a wall, usually to carry weight and sometimes to "...strengthen an angle". A corbel or console are types of brackets. In mechanical engineering a bracket is any intermediate component for fixing one part to another, usually larger, part. What makes a bracket a bracket is that it is intermediate between the two and fixes the one to the other. Brackets vary widely in shape, but a prototypical bracket is the L-shaped metal piece that attaches a shelf (the smaller component) to a wall (the larger component): its vertical arm is fixed to one (usually large) element, and its horizontal arm protrudes outwards and holds another (usually small) element. This shelf bracket is effectively the same as the architectural bracket: a vertical arm mounted on the wall, and a horizontal arm projecting outwards for another element to be attached o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italianate Architecture
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, synthesising these with picturesque aesthetics. The style of architecture that was thus created, though also characterised as "Neo-Renaissance", was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object," Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles; "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature." The Italianate style was first developed in Britain in about 1802 by John Nash, with the construction of Cronkhill in Shropshire. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency and early Victorian eras. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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