Random thoughts and photos on my journey through life…
The latest edition of National Geographic Magazine has brought to my attention that on the 5th and 6th June Venus will align with the Earth and sun for the last time until 2117. The transit will be visible over North America, Asia, Oceania and most of Europe.
14 Comments CherryPie on May 3rd 2012
This is normally one of my favourite places to sit and watch the world go by when I visit Ironbridge. After all the rain it has a new resident!
8 Comments CherryPie on May 2nd 2012
From a plaque next to the kilns:
Under tremendous heat, rock-hard limestone was transformed into powdery-fine lime in the lime kilns that you see. Limestone, first quarried and later mixed, was brought from vast deposits on Lincoln Hill, which rises behind the kilns. Though lime kilns have been found in the Gorge since medieval times, these kilns operated from about 1760 to 1870 when Lincoln Hill supplied huge quantities of limestone to surrounding iron furnaces. The best stone no, doubt, was sent to the furnaces and the lower grade stone was used to make lime.
The continually burning kiln was charged from the top with alternating layers of limestone and fuel, usually coke. The kiln often burned for a week or more to convert the limestone into lime. Under the intense heat of the kiln, carbon dioxide was driven off from the limestone to produce lime.
As the Kiln burned, lime clinker fell through the draw hole at the bottom of the kiln and more fuel and limestone were added at the top. The clinker, large lumps of lime, was then slaked with water. The lumps of lime absorbed the water, expanded, and crumbled into a fine powder. The lime was then ready to be used by builders for mortar, and farmers as fertiliser.
10 Comments CherryPie on May 1st 2012
The 21 ladies (from around the globe) that collectively share their thoughts and ideas through Vision & Verb wanted to give something to the wider world in which they live.
An idea was born and embraced (by the 21 ladies) to use their artwork to create gift cards which would enable disadvantaged people around the world to help themselves:
The profit from every card sold (approximately 50%) will be given back to the larger world in allotments of 50$ loans to men and women seeking to start their own businesses. The conduit for these loans is Kiva, a non-profit organisation that enables us to lend to the “working poor” around the world.
The shop is now open for viewing 
8 Comments CherryPie on Apr 30th 2012
The world’s first cast iron bridge was built over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale in 1779.
In the early eighteenth century, the only way to cross the Severn Gorge was by ferry. However, the industries that were growing in the area of Coalbrookdale and Broseley needed a more reliable crossing.
In 1773, Thomas Farnolls Pritchard[1] wrote to a local ironmaster, John Wilkinson of Broseley, to suggest building a bridge out of cast iron. By 1775, Pritchard had finalised the plans, but he died in December 1777, only a month after work had begun.[2]
Abraham Darby III, who was the grandson of the first foundry owner and an ironmaster working at Coalbrookdale in the gorge, was commissioned to cast and build the bridge. The iron for the new bridge was cast at his foundry.
The worlds first cast iron bridge was built over the river Severn at Coalbrookdale in 1779.
14 Comments CherryPie on Apr 30th 2012
Logic will get you from A-B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
18 Comments CherryPie on Apr 29th 2012
This photograph depicts the cooling towers of Ironbrige B power station, which was designed to blend in with it’s surroundings:
Project architect Alan Clark worked closely with landscape architect Kenneth Booth, in order to ensure that the station merged as seamlessly as possible into its natural surroundings.[1] In this respect, the power station is unique amongst British coal-fired stations. When viewed from Ironbridge, the surroundings of the station are hidden by wooded hills. The cooling towers were deliberately constructed using concrete to which a red pigment had been added, to blend with the colour of the local soil. This had cost £11,000 in the 1960s. The towers cannot be seen at all from the world famous landmark, The Iron Bridge. The station’s single 205 m (673 ft) high chimney is fifth tallest chimney in the UK. It is the tallest structure in Shropshire, as well as being taller than Blackpool Tower and London’s BT Tower.[5]
The station’s turbine hall is decoratively clad in chipped granite faced concrete panels, aluminium sheeting, and glazing. The turbine hall obscures the rather more functional metal clad boiler house from view. A free-standing administration block continues the theme of concrete panelling, albeit with extensive use of large floor to ceiling windows.[1] Period fittings within the administration block include a board room, containing murals that reference the industries of the Ironbridge Gorge, and a grand entrance hall with a metallic mural.
So impressive were the measures taken to ensure that the power station was an asset to the gorge and not an eyesore, that it was short listed for a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors/The Times conservation award in 1973.[1]
Click here for a photograph that I took a few years ago that shows the complete power station from the other direction. I will let you judge for yourselves whether or not the architect achieved his aim in merging the structure into the surrounding landscape.
14 Comments CherryPie on Apr 29th 2012
