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Category Archives: Historic Buildings
Babylonian Law: The first building regulations
The oldest structure in the world is a 23,000 year old stone wall, at a cave entrance, in Greece. It is known as the Theopetra Cave. Ireland oldest structure, New Grange, although older than the Pyramids, is still comparably young at an estimated 5000 years … Continue reading
Irish dry stone walls
The shear volume of stone walls in the West of Ireland is amazing. These simple but effective structures are used as field boundaries. The comparison with the East of Ireland is stark where the fields are larger and are usually divided by … Continue reading
Posted in Historic Buildings
Tagged construction, dry stone walls, hedgerows, ireland, Irish, stone walls, walls
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Historic buildings and sustainable design
The Bornabreenan reservoirs in South County Dublin are a lovely peaceful area to go walking or fishing. While I was there recently, I was pleased to find a delightful cut stone administration building on the grounds. The building dates from … Continue reading
Posted in Historic Buildings
Tagged buildings, Cut stone building, ireland, natural materials, sustainable deign
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War Bunkers: Part of The Atlantic Wall
I recently spent a lovely two weeks in South West France, in Gironde. Its a lovely part of France with long sandy beaches and great weather. A short walk along the beach from where we were staying was an old … Continue reading
Posted in Historic Buildings
Tagged Atlantic wall, France, german bunkers, H667 bunkers, reinforced concrete, Second World War
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Skew arch canal bridges in County Kildare
A skew arch bridge is one where the bridge deck is at an angle to the obstacle it is crossing. In the case of a straight canal a skew bridge would be one which is not at right angles to … Continue reading
U-Boat base in Saint Nazaire: Too big to knock
I discussed buildings and roads as tourist attractions before, here. But traveling through France some years ago, I came across the ugly U-boat base in Saint Nazaire, which is an unlikely tourist attraction but one I was fascinated by. I was shocked by the … Continue reading
Posted in Historic Buildings
Tagged reinforced concrete, Saint Nazaire, Second World War, Submarine, tourist attraction, U-Boat bunker
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What if an earthquake hit the UK & Ireland?
The pictures of the devastation from the recent earthquake in Christchurch are truly shocking. It will be a long time before the city and the residents recover. Britain and Ireland are lucky to be located on a relatively stable part of the earth’s crust and rarely experience anything more than a light tremor. If there was a small earthquake here, which is possible although unlikely, how much damage would it cause to our building stock? Continue reading
Posted in Historic Buildings
Tagged Britain, earthquake, Georgian buildings, historic building, ireland, strapping, Victorian buildings
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Sallins Sugar Factory: Ireland’s first reinforced concrete building….or is it?
Sallins Sugar Factory was built at the beginning of the last century and according to some sources is Ireland first reinforced concrete building. It is located 1km to the East of Sallins village, which is located just North of Naas town, in County Kildare. The Helpful Engineer decided to pay this historic building a visit to investigate how the reinforced concrete is resisting the passing of time and then discovered that all was not as it seemed. Continue reading
Posted in Historic Buildings
Tagged canal, County Kildare, Grand canal, historic building, ireland, reinforced concrete, Sallins, sugar factory
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