The CHS Newsletter is published by the Chartered Institute of Building on behalf of the Construction History Society

No. 63 June 2002

CHSNewsletter
ISSN 0951 9203

CONSTRUCTION HISTORY SOCIETY

EDITORS NOTE
Malcolm Dunkeld (CHS Committee member) has been appointed the new editor of the Newsletter. All articles for publication should be sent to: Address: Email: Tel. No.: 147, Leslie Road, London N2 8BH [email protected] or [email protected] 0208 883 7003 / 0207 815 7292

buildings in the evolution and development of domes are in the Delhi area and I have concentrated on these. The bulk of the eldwork is based on two visits to Delhi in 1997 and 2000. Elsewhere, the monuments in Agra were visited in 1997 and Bijapur in 2001. Apart from the buildings themselves, the other sources of information used here are contemporary paintings, mainly from the 16th century, 20th century publications and discussions with a number of people involved in the built environment in India. It was not unexpected that the majority of these are architects rather than engineers. Where no information is available, such as for the ways that domes were actually built, I have made assumptions. These are based on comparisons with modern methods of building masonry structures in India, building practice in Europe during the period under study, and a general structural engineering understanding of how buildings are constructed. Some commonly observed structural problems are noted, with a summary of the likely causes. I have deliberately not included solutions to these problems since a structure needs to be fully understood in order to develop repairs that are both sympathetic and appropriate. Background to the Structure of Domes The major buildings in pre-Islamic India used trabeate methods of construction. This can be referred to as beam and post construction to reect its most simple form. Here balanced forces within each element of the structure carry the self-weight of the horizontal member, together with any imposed loads. The internal balance of forces means that the loads transferred to the supports are all vertical. In pre-modern construction the main materials were timber, brick and stone. The size of opening an individual beam can span is clearly limited by the available length and cross-section of stone or timber and the ability to transport and erect large, heavy elements. An alternative to a single beam is to use smaller elements of brick or stone that corbel beyond the edge of the stone below. One benet of this method is that, providing the projection is less than half of the total length (for a uniform cross-section), the blocks can be laid without the need for temporary support. Larger corbels will need temporary propping during their construction, and when the opening is enclosed the two corbels lean on each other to create a form of arch. The dead loads from the self-weight of the structure are transferred by the resistance to slippage along the horizontal joints. Any imposed loads on the top of the corbel will be relatively small and limited to what can be resisted by the vertical joints and local arching of the blocks. The structural problem with corbelling is that it relies on tensile forces within the individual elements and across the joints between the elements. This does not take advantage of the basic structural

NEWS FROM THE CHS SECRETARY, MICHAEL TUTTON

Please note two important brochures come with this issue of the Newsletter the Societys new brochure and the SPAB 125th Anniversary Conference Brochure. If you are able to distribute either of these brochures please let me know (contact details at the end of the Newsletter). Also, please support your Society by doing your best to recruit new members and by attending the Conference.

THE STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF MASONRY DOMES IN INDIA

Introduction This article researches the origins, structural development and construction of masonry domes in India. Surprisingly little has been published on the structure or methods of construction of the buildings that make such an important contribution to Indias built heritage. The published material seldom makes mention of how the structure was created, either in terms of its design or how the materials were physically placed. The intention here is to investigate where the structural engineering knowledge of the original builders came from and how successfully the knowledge was applied. I will also consider the choices they had to make with materials and methods of construction. The period under review covers Islamic rule over northern and central India from the end of the 12th century to the mid 18th century. New types of buildings came with the new rulers, in particular for this article the tomb. In Islamic buildings the dome, together with the arch and, to a lesser extent, the vault are an integral part of the structure. How Hindu masons responded to these new structural forms is already covered in books on Islamic architecture in India, as are questions of decoration, symbolism and patronage. These issues are therefore not repeated here; the bibliography at the end provides sources for further reading on these topics. The choice of a particular building has been made on the basis of it marking an important structural development, or a milestone in terms of form, scale and technical achievement. Many of the key

Editor: Malcolm Dunkeld, 147 Leslie Road, London N2 8BH, to whom all copy should be sent. All other correspondence should be addressed to The Secretary, Construction History Society, c/o Library & Information Services Manager, The Chartered Institute of Building, Englemere, Kings Ride, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7TB E-mail: [email protected]

property of masonry, that it works best compression. As an example, it would be theoretically possible to build a one square metre column of Portland stone over 2000 metres high before crushing of the stone at the base occurred. By contrast the tension force that can be generated between two blocks will be small, and for the purposes of structural analysis it is considered to be zero. A masonry arch has the individual elements arranged so that the predominant forces, up to the point of failure, are all compressive, thereby taking advantage of the natural properties of the material. The blocks can be rectangular with mortar used to form the tapered joints. Alternatively the blocks can be shaped into voussoirs, which allows the use of regular width joints. It also means that any small slippage of individual elements within an arch will tend to wedge the voussoirs in position. An important difference from trabeate construction is that an arch imposes horizontal as well as vertical loads on the supports. It is fundamental to the stability of the arch that these horizontal loads can be resisted. This is usually achieved by providing supports with sufcient mass, or by external buttressing. The other method is to tie across the base of the arch. A dome can be considered as an arch that is rotated 90 on plan. It can be constructed with roughly shaped stone bound in mortar or cut stones. These will need to be carefully cut to form a wedge shaped block, with any exposed face proled to the curvature of the dome. It has the same radial lines of force as if it were a series of arches, plus circumferential forces. Depending on the shape of the dome this second group of forces may be wholly compressive, or include tensile hoops towards the base. If this is the case the dome will require reinforcement ties between the stones at the critical points to prevent cracks and possibly collapse. This need to restrain movements becomes particularly critical where a dome is raised on a cylindrical masonry drum. For the building designer the structural requirements can be summarised as strength, stiffness and stability. Modern structural engineering analysis tends to break a building down into a series of elements and concentrates on the rst of these criteria; is the element sufciently sized to take its own self weight, plus the weight of any other parts of the building it is supporting and the designed imposed loads (people, wind, dynamic loads from earthquakes, etc)? If the element passes this test it is then checked for stiffness, is the deection under load within acceptable limits? Finally the elements are put together to ensure that it can stand up, that all the loads can be transferred to the foundations and it does not sway unduly. As noted above, arches and domes work in compression where the masonry is able to withstand very high forces and therefore strength is rarely an issue. Similarly, the deection of a masonry arch will be negligible and need not be considered. What is important is the local stability of individual elements and of the overall structure. This can be appraised by overlaying, on drawings, the shape of the structure and the lines of resultant forces. The design therefore relies on developing the geometry and proportion of the structure rather than applying a numerical analysis. The Origins of Arcuate Construction To put the use of domes in India into a broader context we need to look briey at the early origins and developments of this from of construction. Examples of true arches can be found in Egypt in the seventh century BC. A brick gateway at the Tomb of Mentuement, El Asaisif, Thebes, uses six semi-circular rings of rectangular bricks to span over 4 metres. Three centuries later, voussoir arches were being built, again spanning relatively small distances, in Greece and Rome. Early dome-shaped structures, using corbelled stonework, can be seen at Mycenae in the Tomb of Agamemnon, dating from about 1300BC.

The full benets of arcuate construction were realised during the Roman period, so that by 19BC spans of up to 6.5m were used in the construction of the Pont du Gard aqueduct near Nimes in southern France. As condence in the understanding and use of materials grew, a number of innovations followed. One change was the bonding of the voussoirs to the masonry above to improve the overall robustness of the arch. Second was the introduction of the at arch which was generally used instead of large, heavy lintels to frame openings. On problem with at arches is that small differential movements of the supports will cause slippage between adjacent voussoirs. To overcome this joggle joints, or steps in the sides of the blocks, were introduced. The fourth innovation took the arch-form and extended it lengthways to create a barrel vault, or rotated it to form a dome. The other innovation related to a material, concrete. Roman concrete is a conglomerate of brick, either whole or broken, bound in a mixture of lime mortar and pozzolanas that help the mixture to set more rapidly, attain a higher strength and increase its durability. The free-owing property of concrete was used of to construct a number of domed and vaulted buildings in Rome. By far the most ambitious was The Pantheon. Built c. A.D. 128, the internal diameter of the dome is 43.3m. It is constructed in concrete, cast in layers with volcanic tufa added in the upper section to reduce the self-weight. The inside is coffered, also to reduce the weight and to provide an inclined support to the formwork needed to support the next layer while it was being constructed. In other parts of the Roman Empire the tradition to build with masonry continued and brick or stone was used to create similar buildings to those in the capital. Examples from the 3rd century A.D. include the brick dome to the Mausoleum of Galerius in Salonika and the stone dome to the Baths at Jerash, Syria. The use of materials that had be carefully cut and placed, rather than formed, as is the case with concrete, meant that other ways of supporting the circular base of the dome on a square or octagonal structure had to be found. The most straightforward solution is to use of stone lintels to span across corners. Where stone was not available in the necessary lengths a series of arches, called squinch arches, could be used. The alternative to this is pendentives that probably evolved from the superimposition of a circular dome onto a smaller, square base. These last two methods both act in compression to transfer the load from the dome to the wall below. Maidstone gives the 5th century as the rst denitive use of the squinch, with the pendentive a century later. Islamic Prototypes In Syria the Roman temples and mausolea became the model for Byzantine builders who created churches or memorials to house the body or relics of Christian saints or biblical character, or to mark a particular event. These were generally small in scale and used a variety of plan-forms; square, cruciform, polygonal or circular. The small size meant that the structural stability of the dome could be achieved by copying existing buildings. At the centre of Byzantine, in Istanbul, the understanding of structures continued to develop and led to buildings such as the Church of Hagia Sophia, Built between 532 and 537, this has a shallow brick dome, approximately 32 metres in diameter. Its builders understood the need to resist the outward thrusts from the dome and used iron cramps between the marble blocks that form the cornice to create a continuous tension ring at the springing point of the dome. One potential source of this understanding was the continuation of the tradition of building masonry domes that had existed under the Romans. The other reference was translations of the scientic writings of Euclid, Ptolemy and others, and the Roman architect Vitruvius. These, along with Arabic works on geometry and

algebra, were later translated into Latin in the 11th and 12th centuries to form part of the basis of knowledge of the Middle Age cathedral builders in Europe. The symbolic importance of the dome in Islam was established in the building of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Completed in 691, the dome is about 20 metres in diameter, and consists of two hemi-spherical wooden frames. This is supported on a circular colonnade of masonry piers and columns surrounded by two octagonal ambulatories. With the spread of Islam by nomadic tribes in central and west Asia, these Christian prototypes became mixed with their own indigenous portable structures to produce new building types. The pre-Islamic burial practices of these tribes probably developed out of traditional customs where the deceased was covered with a tent. Once they had adopted Islam the burial practices could be developed to produce masonry mausolea, in line with passages from The Koran, such as Sutha 18, The Cave. This tells of seven youths who had faith in the Lord and are guided by God, or Allah, away from a city to a refuge in a cave. After their death the people argued among themselves, and those that were to win said: Let us build a place of worship over them. The symbolism of the domed temples and churches of the Romans and Christians were obvious models for Islamic tombs. The dome also had Islamic references with the description in Sutha 21:25 of The Koran of heaven spread like a canopy. The earliest surviving Islamic tomb is that of Qubbat-al Sulaibiya at Samarra, built c. 892. This is octagonal on plan with a double-height central chamber that was originally covered with a dome raised on a drum, see plan1. This formed one of the models for tombs in India; the other being the early 10th century Tomb of Ismail the Samanid in Bukhara. It is square on plan with slightly tapering brick walls with a 7 metre diameter dome supported across each of the corners by brick squinch arches buttressed by a radial half-arch. A structural device that was to have a signicant inuence in India is the double-dome. We have already seen that the Dome of the Rock has two layers of structure to form the dome. In that case the form, in part, reects the structural properties of the material, timber, used in its construction. There are practical limitations on the size of timber that can be obtained and the extent to which it can be bent to the required shape that meant the dome could not be formed by single pieces of timber. The design of timber structures is determined, to a large extent, by how the elements are joined together, with the total load capacity being determined by the connections. By having the roof nishes and ceiling nishes carried on separate domes the loads in each are reduced. This means that smaller size sections of timber can be used with less-highly loaded connections. In Iran the emphasis on height led to tomb towers that at Gunbad-i Qabus in 1007 reached over 51 metres above the ground. The internal dome at the top of the tower is capped with a conical roof, a likely reection of the tents used by the nomadic Seljuks then ruling from Iran to the eastern Mediterranean. The earliest known masonry double domes are a pair of 11th century tombs at Kharraqan. In Iran the double dome reached its apogee in the Mausoleum of Oljeitu at Sultaniya. Built between 1304 and 1315, the inner of the two interconnected brick domes has an internal diameter of 26 metres. In 14th and 15th century Samarkand the competition among the rulers and noblemen to build higher tombs for themselves led to domes on the top of elongated, cylindrical, masonry drums that needed separate domes internally and externally to maintain proportions. The Gur-i Amir was built c. 1404 for Timur, a descendent of the Mongol chieftain Genghis Khan. This used a framework of timber built off the internal dome that served to help construct and provide permanent support to the outer, bulbous dome. In structural terms the raising of the outer dome on an elongated

drum increases the risk of movements at the base of the drum. To prevent these outward forces from causing cracks that may lead to a collapse required the introduction of a material capable of resisting tensile forces. There are references to the use of timber reinforcement rings at the base of the dome, or iron cramps set into stones so that a continuous ring, or reinforced stone chain is formed. For the Gur-i Amir, Cresswell shows a cross section through the two domes, with radial tie bars built into the wall at the base of the outer dome. This is a sophisticated use of materials, but this system is not mentioned in any reference to double domes in India. The Dome in India Who were the designers? Many centuries after these masonry domed buildings were built, and in many cases despite longstanding neglect, they are still standing. We can see that they were built with durable materials, and can deduce that the designers and builders knew how to use these materials and had some knowledge of the importance of proportion and geometry to produce a structure that could support all the loads. The titles of people involved in the design and construction have been have been given a number of different translations. As an example, Qaisar says darogha imarat is chief architect, whereas Begley, in relation to Mir Abd Al-Karim at the Taj Mahal, calls it Superintendent of Buildings. Qaisar consider the roles of people involved in the construction of a building. From his description the architect/engineer (memar/muhandis) was involved in choosing the site, then preparing a tarah, or plan of the proposed building for the client. More than one design could be presented. For part of Lahore Fort, after a tarah, prepared by the memar, had been chosen by Shah Jahan it was handed over to muhandis to carry out the work accordingly. The building of the Taj Mahal offers some guide to these roles. The son of Ustad Ahmad describes his father as Chief Architect in this court (i.e. of the emperor Shah Jahan) who constructed the edice of the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal. As well as being an architect, Ahmad was recognised as an outstanding astronomer, engineer and mathematician. It may be that Ustad Ahmad drew the tarah that was presented to Shah Jahan, but to realise the construction of a building of this scale would have involved others of a similar degree of expertise. Mukarramat Khan is referred to as Minister of Royal Works to Shah Jahan. He is described as an administrator, not an architect, but it is likely that his understanding of mathematics and practical matters would have led him to be involved in aspects of the design and construction. Mir Abdul Karim had been chief architect for Shah Jahans father, Jahangir. Within a few months of Mumtaz Mahals death he was transferred from Lahore to Agra to become Superintendent of Buildings. This suggests a specic role as the equivalent of a modern-day project manager appointed by the client to oversee the works which Tavernier said involved twenty thousand men over 22 years. There are no original drawings of the Taj Mahal or any other buildings from the period covered here. In Europe at this time the drawings of proposed buildings were generally little more than a simple plan that showed the layout of the main rooms and an idealised picture of the main elevation. We can assume that the same was true in India. Once the nal choice of the facing material for the elevations had been agreed between the architect and master mason it would have been the job of the mason and his team to decide how to structure the building and prepare any detailed drawings. It was only on large or complex structures that the architect-engineer had a detailed involvement in the structural design. An example is the design of St. Pauls Cathedral where Wren produced detailed designs for the dome and the iron chains needed to restrain the horizontal forces. Setting aside that Wren, like Ustad Ahmad, had an understanding of mathematics and astronomy, it is reasonable to suppose that a similar system of was used in India.

Building Materials The basic materials used in the construction of the structure of the domes were stone, brick and mortar, with ironwork for dowels and cramps. Timber or bamboo was used for the access scaffolding and the centering that provided the temporary support to the dome as it was being built. Stone The rst building at the Qutb site in Delhi made extensive use of cut stone from the remains of the twenty-seven demolished Hindu and Jain temples. A few years later new stone was used for the extension to the mosque. These were shaped into rectangular blocks with the corbelled edge cut back to the line of the intrados of the arch. A masonry building could be constructed more quickly and for less money if undressed stonework was used on one or both faces. The walls, arches and half-domes that remain at late 13th century Tomb of Balban use coarsely cut stones that would have needed a layer of applied nishes. Two centuries later the prolic building of tombs during the Lodi dynasty would have put great demands on both the availability of skilled masons and good quality stone. Instead, many of the tombs from the mid-15th century to the early 16th century are built from roughly dressed stonework with a rendered finish internally and externally. Dressed stonework was used externally and internally for most of the important buildings, such as the surviving walls of Iltutmishs tomb, built c. 1235. Brown and Rani both talk about the use of a stone outer and inner faces of the walls being bonded together, with a core of roughly cut stones or broken bricks. This was common building practice in European masonry buildings and allows the use cheaper materials and labour for the unseen parts of the structure. Later evidence of this type of construction in India can be seen in a 16th century painting from the Akbarnama. Where the stonework forms the exposed faces of a dome, it needs to be carefully cut in all three dimensions to form the voussoir blocks. This requires an understanding of three-dimensional geometry by the masons, with the sides and exposed face(s) cut to the correct prole for the size of the dome. The rst use of a dressed stone dome in India is for the Alai Dawarza in 1311. It is likely that the masons who had this knowledge came from the break up of the Seljuk empire to the west caused by the total war raged by Genghis Khan and his decedents in the 13th century. Brick The use of brickwork is mentioned during the 14th century building works at Hauz Khas. Where bricks for arches and domes have been used, such as at Humayuns Tomb or Safdar Jangs Tomb, they look to be made from baked clay and sand. They are all rectangular in shape with variations in the thickness of the mortar joints used to form the required curvature. The clay and sand would be brought to the site where they would be mixed, shaped and then baked in specially made kilns. These kilns were fairly rudimentary as can be seem on 16th Century paintings of building works. Three types of bricks are mentioned in the 16th century, baked, halfbaked and unbaked. The lesser quality bricks may have been used for the temporary centering seen in illustrations from the Akbarnama. Nath refers to a standard Mughal brick size of 8 x 712 x 134 and that the Taj Mahal was built using a thinner size, 7 x 412 x 1 to allow the mortar to occupy a greater part of the volume. It is not clear where this comment comes from; structurally the greater use of mortar increases the risk of cracks developing as the mortar dries and shrinks and for these cracks to propagate through the structure. Nath also mentions that the bricks for the foundations, which extend well below the level of the adjacent River Yamuna, were dipped into liquid fat to make them waterproof.

Mortar The stonework in the rst building at Qutb is dry bedded, relying on the contact between faces of the stone blocks. As these were built by the local masons this is in line with the quotes in Qaisar that Hindu architecture of the pre-Muhammadan period appears to have used mortar as little as possible. By the time of Sultan Iltutmish in the early 13th century the buildings made use of rekhta, meaning mortar or plaster, in the construction. Bedding mortars made use of lime mixed with a range of additives to improve its workability, durability and setting properties. These included jaggery, a fermented nut whose use has been revived in recent years for conservation work, and surkhi, or crushed brick. This last ingredient is an articial equivalent of pozzolanas used in Roman construction. The ingredients were dry mixed on the ground before adding water. Iron The structural use of iron in masonry has received little attention in previous studies, but as we have seen above its use is fundamental in restraining the outward forces that are generated in the larger domes. The use of iron cramps between stones was already known in pre-Muslim India. Iron dowels were also used to connect vertical elements such as the individual stones within columns, for example at roof level on Isa Khans Tomb. Ironwork was also used to secure the facing stones back to the core of the wall, such as at Humayuns Tomb and the Taj Mahal. Timber This was used to form access ramps from ground level to the level of construction, and to provide temporary support to the centering; I have not seen timber used as part of the permanent structure. Methods of Construction One of the best sources of information about how domes were built is paintings from the Mughal period. The Akbarnama, paintings from the late 16th century that chronicle the life of the Mughal emperor Akbar, include a number that show building works. Although the Akbarnama and other contemporary paintings do not relate to buildings that have been subsequently identied they do show the organisation of the site, the works of different trades and their methods of working. The validity of these paintings as reliable references can therefore be tested against what we can see by observing the actual buildings. One thing that can be seen is that there is little in the way of off-site pre-fabrication. Large sections of stone are brought to site where they are split using driven iron wedges to the required size. This method works well with sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, which readily separates along the bedding planes. The larger stones were then secured with rope and manhandled using temporary timber ramps to where the masons were working. This method is clearly limited by what it is physically possible to carry. The illustration below tells us about actual methods of construction. The arch to the gateway is shown with two piers of blocks (baked clay?) and a timber lintel to form the centering needed to construct the structural arch. The lintel allows access through the gate while it is being built. There is no structural reason for the timbers at 90 to the lintel, but may have been considered helpful to tie together the stack bonded blocks below. Above the gate a small brick dome is being constructed. The dome is one brick thick and the bricks are being laid in concentric rings that eliminate the need for centering. (A certain amount of sticktion in newly laid mortar can be relied on to hold individual bricks in place before a complete ring is laid.) Once the mortar has set the bricks are anchored in place by compression forces within the ring as shown on the same painting. For larger domes, where the thickness of the structure is greater a different approach is required. The dome of the Gol Gumbad in

Masonry Domes in India The rst key buildings date from the end of the 12th century with the capture of Delhi in 1192 by the forces of the Afghan Turk, Muhammad of Ghor. The head of the invaders, Qutb-ud-Din Aybak, was placed in charge of the conquered areas and established Delhi as his capital. In the same year a mosque was built, later to be called the Quwwat-al-Islam or Might of Islam. This used stonework from destroyed Hindu and Jain temples; re-laid by indigenous masons following their traditional technique of beam and post construction, with corbelled domes. Once the mosque was established new structures and buildings, using new stone, were added including the 16m high the screen completed in 1198, and the tomb of Iltutmish, built c. 1235. These have the exposed corner of the corbelled stones dressed to form the shape of Islamic arches. About eight kilometres from the mosque is Sultan Gharis tomb. This is the rst major tomb in India, built by Iltutmish for his son and heir Nasir-ud-Din who died in 1229. This is set within a walled enclosure with the tomb chamber in the centre of the compound below an octagonal plinth. The original roof to the chamber has been replaced by a at surface, but it may have been similar in form to the trabeate construction of the square pyramidal roofs on the outer walls. The rst use of true arches is at tomb of Sultan Balban, who died in 1287, and two smaller adjacent tombs, about 500m south-east of the mosque. The main tomb is about 11.5m square with its walls constructed in roughly coursed stone bound in a mortar. The arches are either made in the same roughly cut blocks or with dressed stonework. On the west wall of the main building, facing towards Mecca, is the remains of a half-domed prayer niche. The roof to this building no longer exists. The tomb to the south, known as that of Khan Shahid, still has its roof, which is similar in outline to the roofs on the tomb of Sultan Ghari. Its structural form however relies on arching action to create a small dome with the external nish built up in render. These structures stand apart from the general developments in arcuate construction. Similarities in the three buildings suggest that the same masons used employed, and perhaps after their patron died they moved elsewhere. As the tombs lie outside of the mosque complex and the structures, when completed, were covered with a rendered nish the use of arcuate construction was not adopted by the local masons. The Alai Darwaza, completed in 1311 as the south gate to the Quwwat-al-Islam mosque is the first building to express the structural use of true arches and the central dome, photo sheet 6. The arches are formed from stone voussoirs and similar arches are used internally to form the transition from a square to an octagonal plan. The nal transition to a 16-sided polygon at the base of the dome is by small, corbelled brackets. The dome, seen from the inside, is built with horizontal rings of stonework of a uniform depth. It sits well within the thick masonry walls. By contrast, the dome for the tomb that Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughluq built for himself before his death in 1325 rises clear above the massive sloping walls. Internally the dome has alternate rings of shallow and deep stones, with the shallow layers bonded into the core of the dome to produce a more robust structure. Within the same compound is the tomb of Zafar Khan, built by his father Ghiyas-ud-Din. This has a similar marble-clad dome over an octagonal chamber surrounded by an enclosed octagonal ambulatory. Ghiyas-ud-Din was succeeded by his son, Muhammad Tughluq who in 132829 moved his capital to Daulatabad, 960 kms to the south of Delhi, to consolidate his authority in the Deccan, only to return soon after. One consequence of this move was the dispersal from the Delhi region of the skilled masons and artisans. This loss of skilled masons

Building Agra fort temporary support to an arched opening

Bijapur has an internal diameter of 41.15m, and at the base of the dome the masonry, measured through one of the openings, is 2.6 metres thick. The eight intersecting arches that span across the corners of the square to support the dome are about 2.17m wide and rise to about 37m above the crypt oor level. (It is reasonable to assume that the vaulted ground oor was installed once the dome was constructed so that the temporary supports bear onto the underlying bedrock). There are no large forests around Bijapur, so the large quantity of timber required for the centering to support the arches during the construction would have been difcult and expensive to procure. An alternative is to use brick centering as the temporary support to the arches. Once the permanent arches and pendentives were in place the vertical base of the brick and mortar concrete dome was formed. This then provided the dead load to the top of the walls to resist the outward thrusts from the arches, which meant that the brick centering could be removed. It is possible that this removed material was incorporated into the upper part of the dome. This would have required some temporary formwork could be supported off the balcony around the base of the dome. Qaisar refers to, and questions, Taverniers report that It is said that the scaffolding (for the Taj Mahal) for the want of wood had to be made of brick. Scaffolding is used for a variety of purposes then and today. Timber or bamboo scaffolding would have been used externally to provide access to place the marble that clads the structure. It can also provide temporary support to the structure during construction and it may be that a combination of brick piers and wooden scaffolding was used. Given the scale of the outer dome it is very unlikely that brick alone was used for temporary support during the construction. Once the inner dome was formed it could be used to help support the wooden framework needed to create the outer dome. In Bijapur the ruler built his own tomb. The partially built tomb of Ali Adil Shah II, who died in 1672 before the building was nished, provides useful information of the sequence of construction. The tomb is about 65m square on plan and built of local stone. The massive base and all the piers and stonewalls around the central chamber have been built up to the level of the springing of the arches. The arches appear to have been built by separate teams of masons working in each corner, rather than by a single team that systematically worked its way around the plan of the tomb.

had an impact on the construction of buildings under the next ruler, Firoz Shah Tughluq. In place of carefully cut stones that formed both the structure and nishes, the buildings from the late 14th century used roughly shaped stones for the arches and the domes, which were then covered internally and externally with render. This can be seen at the Khirki Masjid, built c. 1375. The tomb of Firoz Shah, who died in 1388, is built in the same way. The exposed pendentives of roughly coursed stones in an adjacent building show how the transition between the square walls and octagonal base to the tomb was constructed. The reduction in masonry skills would have been accompanied by a loss in the understanding of how to structure the buildings. In place of this structural understanding it is likely that the builders simply copied what had been built before. As structures they have survived due to the massiveness of the walls that support and resist the loads from the dome. One building that is stylistically important is the tomb of Khan-iJahan Tilangani, the prime minister of Firoz Shah. Built circa 1368, this is generally referred to as the rst octagonal tomb in Delhi with the domed central chamber surrounded by an ambulatory verandah with three arched openings on each facet. Whatever skills were re-learnt during the second half of the 14th century were lost again following the invasion of Delhi in 1398 by the army of Timur. A grandson of Genghis Khan, he sacked Delhi and took artists and craftsmen back to build in his capital, Samarkand. The Tughluq dynasty ended soon after and was followed in 1414 by the Sayyids, and from 1451 to 1526 by the Lodis. There are no significant differences, or major structural developments in the buildings of these two dynasties. Instead, there was a great proliferation of tomb building that reected the Lodis Afghan origins where a brotherhood of nobles was commonplace and the king was rst among equals rather than the absolute ruler. There was however a hierarchy in terms of form; octagonal for royal tombs, square for nobles and others of high rank. Examples include the tomb of Muhammad Sayyid who died in 1444 and the Bara Gumbad built in 1494. One structural question from this period concerns the introduction of the double dome. The tomb of Sikander Lodi, built 151718 is referred to as the rst double-dome in India, but the section through the building from Tadgell reproduced at the end of the study shows only a single dome. The interior of the tomb is dimly lit (some doors have been inlled with brick) but the dome does spring from a level where externally the side of the dome is vertical. There is also what appears to be a partly blocked opening on this vertical face that is not apparent internally. Presumably this opening provides access to the small void between the two domes.

octagonal tomb, built in sandstone, was the largest in India at the time with a 22 metre diameter dome over the central chamber. Humayuns tomb is the rst major Mughal memorial. It was built between 1562 and 1571 early in the reign of his son, Akbar to a design by Mirak Mirza Ghiyas an architect from Persia. This has a double dome above an octagonal central chamber that is about 15m from side to side. At roof level the small domed kiosks, or chattri, are constructed in brick that was then clad externally in stone and rendered on the underside. The base of the domes uses a stretcherheader bonding pattern where the bricks are laid longitudinally and transversely. The small dome above is built from thinner bricks laid in stretcher bond in circular rings. Unfortunately there was no access to reach the opening close to the top of the drum that leads into the void between the two domes. It is likely that the main structure of the tomb was also built from brickwork that was then clad with sandstone and marble. The outer surface of the dome has alternate layers of wide and narrow blocks of marble to help bond the cladding to the structural core. The use of iron cramps to tie the facing stone to the core of the wall can be deduced from the damage to the corner of a number of stones above the entrance portal. This is common defect where the iron cramp behind has corroded and the expansion of the metal has fractured the stone. There must also be a system of ties around the base of the outer dome to resist the outward forces acting on the top of the drum. It may be that the stones in the horizontal band of marble at the top of the drum are connected by iron cramps to form a continuous tension ring. In the same part of Delhi is the tomb of Khan-i-Khanan who died in 1627, the same year as the following emperor, Jahangir. The stripping of large amounts of the sandstone and marble cladding in the 18th century for Safdar Jangs tomb has helped reveal that this is a brick structure with a brick double-dome (see below).

Safdar Jangs tomb east elevation

The question of whether Sikander Lodis tomb was the rst double dome in India is less certain. The tomb built by Zain-ul-Abidin c.1465 for his mother at Zaina Kadal in Srinigar, Kashmir is a brick structure with double domes over the central and perimeter chambers. In Delhi, Sabz Burj has a shallow inner dome and an outer dome raised on an extended drum in the style of the early 15th century tombs at Samarkand. Written sources place this in the early Mughal period of 153040, but it may be over one century earlier. The Lodi period ended when they were defeated by Babur, a descendent through his father from Timur and through his mother from Genghis Khan. Babur died in 1531 and was buried in a simple grave in Kabul. His son, Humayun, ruled between 153140 and 154556, with the Afghan Sher Shah Sur ruling during the intervening period. Sher Shah Sur built tombs at Sasaram for himself, his father and grandfather (a horse trader) that elevated his own genealogy as a means of legitimising his authority. His own

The Taj Mahal at Agra is also a brick structure clad mainly in marble, with sandstone to the half-hidden areas at roof level. Work began in 1632, the year after the death of Mumtaz Mahal. Much of the tomb was complete four years later and by 1643 the entire complex of buildings and gardens was virtually nished. It is founded on a series of brick wells that were lled with rubble bound in a lime mortar. The areas between the wells were then dug out and lled with stone and mortar. The footings pass through approximately 19m of soft alluvial deposits to bear onto a 7m thick layer of sandstone. Below this layer is clay before reaching bedrock some 134 m below ground level. The internal diameter of the dome and drum is 22 metres. The inner dome is 32 m above oor level and about 3 m thick. Above this the 5 m thick walls to the drum support the outer dome that encloses a void over 30 m high. A summary of how the Taj Mahal works as a structure is shown below.

marble acts alone as a thin shell, its geometry suggests it would collapse under its self-weight. Instead it may be that the marble is supported on the outer of two domes, with a small void below the marble lotus leaf nial. Some Common Structural Problems The proliferation of dome building from the mid-15th century would have required an increase in the number of masons to build the structures. Inevitably this led to domes being built by masons who copied the form of existing buildings without understanding the structural principles. A common problem with the Lodi tombs is an outward spreading of the octagonal verandah at eaves level. This is caused by the horizontal forces in the arches and vaults that form the verandah roof. These movements can be seen in a circumferential crack at the mid-point of the ceiling and rotation of the outer piers of the tomb of Isa Khan built in1547. This movement probably occurred early in the life of the building as part of an adjustment of the structure to reach a state of equilibrium from the forces generated by its self-weight. There are generally few signs of structural problems resulting from the horizontal forces in the central dome. This is because on the early square domes the walls are sufciently massive to resist these loads. For the octagonal tombs the verandah will act as a partial buttress to the central dome and for larger structures like Humayuns Tomb the walls of the surrounding chambers resist the forces from the inner dome. The need to resist the forces generated when a dome is raised onto a drum, such as at the Taj Mahal, seems to have been understood and I did not see any signicant vertical cracks at the top of the drum, or radial cracks in the lower part of the dome. The use of iron ties, cramps and dowels in masonry can lead to problems when the iron corrodes. Long-term water ingress will result in the iron laminating and expanding by up to seven to eight times its original thickness. When the iron is constrained, such as by being built into mortar joints, the large forces generated by this expansion can cause the stone to spall. This increases the likelihood of water entering the structure and, if left unrepaired, sets up a cycle of decay. Masonry, like all materials will expand and contract with changes in its temperature. A structure composed of small elements of stone or brick in a lime mortar will move as a result of thermal changes, but generally the cracks that result will be spread evenly over the whole of the structure and consequently small in size. A large monolithic structure will tend to produce larger cracks that concentrate along lines of weakness. This seems to have been the cause of the radial cracks to the dome of the Gol Gumbad. It was repaired in 193637 by adding a reinforced concrete to the outside to help tie the cracked segments of the dome together. Bibliography Books and Articles Agrawal, R. C., Kashmir and its Monumental Glory. Aryan Books, Delhi, 1998. Asher, Catherine, The New Cambridge History of India, 1:4 Architecture of Mughal India. Cambridge University Press, 1992. Beglar, J. D., Delhi. Archaeological Survey of India. Report for the Year 187172. Ofce of the Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1874. Begley, W. E. & Desai Z. A., Eds. Taj Mahal, The Illumined Tomb. The University of Washington Press, 1989. Brown, Percy, Indian Architecture (Islamic Period). D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co., Mumbai, 1997. Cresswell, K. A. C., The Origin of the Persian Double Dome. The Burlington Magazine, London. Vol. XXIV, October 1913 March 1914, p 9 99 & 152156.

Taj Mahal cross section

In Bijapur, the tomb Muhammad Adil Shah built for himself before he died in 1656 is generally referred to as the Gol Gumbad, or Round Dome. The monumental size is well documented. The dome has an internal diameter of 135 feet, or 41.15 metres, and it rises to 54.25 m. above the ground oor. There are a number of door openings through lotus leaf moulding the base of the dome. The total thickness of the dome at this level was measured on site at 2.9m, including a 300mm projection of the leaf moulding. This gives a structural thickness of approximately 2.6 metres, compared to 10 feet, or 3.05 m from Reuben. At the crown the dome is said by Reuben to be 9, or 2.74 m thick. The dome is rendered on both faces and the structure is not visible. Reuben says he saw it was constructed in brickwork laid at in lime mortar joints (that vary) from 1 to 2 thick The bricks are of varying size and do not appear to be very systematically laid. Brown talks of the dome being constructed in horizontal courses of brick with a substantial layer of mortar between each course, in other words it is a homogeneous shell or monobloc (sic) of concrete reinforced with bricks. Here the term concrete is used in the same way as for Roman concrete where the structure contains as much mortar as roughly coursed brick or stone. It is unlikely that the bricks are laid horizontally throughout the dome, since this would produce a structure that acts more as a series of corbels. Presumably, what both Brown and Reuben saw was towards the base of the dome and that higher up the brick courses are inclined to the inside face so that the layers acted as self-stable compression rings during the construction. The use of squinch arches or pendentives to support the base of the dome across the corner of the square would have resulted either an irregular octagon at the base of the dome or an uneven vertical division of the walls. Instead the dome is supported on eight intersecting brick arches that provide an octagonal support to the dome and divide the walls into equally into thirds. Safdar Jangs tomb in Delhi built 175354 is the last major Islamic tomb to have been built in India. It is a brick structure that is clad externally in sandstone and marble, and internally in render. The shallow domes to the chambers around the perimeter of the plinth follow the traditional form of concentric brick rings. The central dome is described as a triple dome, with two attish inner brick domes and an outer bulbous marble dome. No drawings have been found to verify this. Triple domes do exist; Wrens St Pauls Cathedral is one where the outer dome is a lead clad timber structure supported from the middle brick cone. It is improbable that the

Cresswell. K. A. C., Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture. Penguin, London, 1958. Cuneo, Paolo, About Double Domes in Timurid Architecture. Paper 15 from Domes From Antiquity to the Present. Proceedings of the IASS-MSU International Symposium, 1988. Pub. Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul Davies, Philip, The Penguin Guide to the Monuments of India. Volume II: Islamic, Rajput, European. Penguin, London, 1989. Dawood, N. J., Translation of The Koran. Penguin, London, 1997. Dickie, James, Allah and Eternity: Mosques, Madrasas and Tombs, in George Michell, ed., Architecture of the Islamic World. Thames and Hudson, London, 1996. Dikshit, Rao Bahadur K. J., Ed. Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India 193637. Manager of Publications, Delhi, 1940. Eltinghausen, Robert & Grabar, Oleg, The Art and Architecture of Islam 650 1250. Penguin, London, 1987. Gimpel, Jean, The Cathedral Builders. Pimlico, London. 1993 King, Ross, Brunelleschis Dome; The Story of the Great Cathedral in Florence. Chatto & Windus, London, 2000. Koch, Ebba, Mughal Architecture. Prestel, Munich, 1991. Harle, J. C., The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent. Yale University Press, 1994. Heyman, Jacques, The Stone Skeleton: Structural Engineering of Masonry Architecture. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Hillenbrand, Robert, Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Meaning. Edinburgh University Press, 1984. Hillenbrand, Robert, Islamic Art and Architecture. Thames and Hudson, London, 1999. Lewcock, Ronald, Architects, Craftsmen and Builders: Materials and Techniques in George Michell, ed., Architecture of the Islamic World. Thames and Hudson, London, 1996. Mainstone, Rowland J., Developments in Structural Form. Architectural Press. Oxford, 1998. Mark, Robert, Ed., Architectural Technology up to the Scientic Revolution. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, Cambridge, Mass., USA , 1995. Nath, R. History of Mughal Architecture, Volume I. Abhinar, New Delhi, 1982. Nath, R. History of Mughal Architecture, Volume III. Abhinar, New Delhi, 1994. Nath, R., The Immortal Taj Mahal: The Evolution of the tomb in Mughal Architecture. Taraporevala & Sons, Bombay, 1972. Qaisar, Ashan Jan, Building Construction in Mughal India. The Evidence from Paintings. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1988. Rahman, Hazur, Domes in the Muslim Architecture of the Indo-Pak Subcontinent. . Paper 16 from Domes From Antiquity to the Present. Proceedings of the IASS-MSU International Symposium, 1988. Pub. Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul Rajan, K. V. Soundara, Islam Builds in India (Cultural Studies of Islamic Architecture). Agam Kala Prakashan, Delhi, 1983. Rani, Abha, Tughluq Architecture of Delhi. Bharati Prakashan, Varanasi, 1991. Sharma, Y. D., Delhi and its Neighbourhood. Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, 1990. Tadgell, Christopher, The History of Architecture in India. Phaidon, London, 1990. Journals Gye, D.H., Arches and Domes in Iranian Islamic Buildings: An Engineers Perspective. Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. Vol. XXVI, p. 129144. 1988. London.

Illustrations Akbarnama; Building Agra Fort. V&A accession 1896/46/117 Other Sources Asher, Catherine, Visions in Marble. Recording of a talk at the V&A Museum, London 1997(?) Tillotson, Giles, Beyond Stately Pleasure: the Iconography of the Dome in India. Paper for The Annual Symposium of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, 2000. Stuart Tappin Correspondence to: Faber Maunsell, 23 Middle Street, London, EC1A 7JD Tel: 020 7645 2000

CONSTRUCTION HISTORY SOCIETY ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Societys Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday, 19th October 2002 at the Building of Bath Museum (one of the best construction museums in the UK). An outstanding itinerary has been arranged, that includes:2.45 3.00 p.m. 3.00 4.00 p.m. 4.00 4.15 p.m. 4.15 5.15 p.m. 5.15 5.45 p.m. 5.45 6.45 p.m. 6.45 7.45 p.m. Arrive Building of Bath Museum Guided tour of Building of Bath Museum Tea/Coffee/Biscuits Guided tour of Bath (walking) Drinks and Buffet (Building of Bath Museum) CHS Annual General Meeting Annual General Lecture Dr. Janet DeLaine, The Baths of Caracalla: Design, Construction, Economics Guided tour of the Roman Baths Dr. Janet DeLaine Depart (optional CHS dinner in local restaurant)

8.00 9.00 p.m.

9.00 p.m.

A dinner for CHS members will be arranged in a local restaurant if there is sufcient demand (Bath has some excellent restaurants). Overnight accommodation can be arranged at the local YMCA rooms are cheap, but reasonably comfortable and the price will include breakfast. Alternatively, members can make their own accommodation arrangements. The Building of Bath Museum is located at the Countess of Huntingdons Chapel, The Vineyards, Bath BA1 5NA (Tel: 01225 333 895) . Getting to Bath:By Road take the M4 junction 18 to Bath (A46) By Rail Bath Spa Station By Coach National Express (Tel: 01990 808080 or http://www.nationalexpress.co.uk) To reserve a place at the AGM and book accommodation in the YMCA, please contact Malcolm Dunkeld at the address shown in the front of the Newsletter.

Reuben, S. S., The Architecture of Bijapur. Journal of the Indian Institute of Architects, January 1947, p39 47.

THE HISTORICAL TREASURES OF THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

Introduction The Institution of Civil Engineers has collections of international signicance relating to the development of civil engineering. This resource is not only one for the scholastic community interested in the history of the profession, but very much part of an active information centre serving an international community of civil engineers involved in the maintenance and reuse of this heritage. Some time ago I wrote an article for Construction History about these collections. Over the last decade important developments have taken place in the services available and the collections themselves and it seems appropriate to update that piece, while reminding readers of the basic strengths of the collections. The Library Catalogue is now accessible via the ICE website (http://www.ice.org.uk/library), and all ICE papers from 1836 to date are available as pdfs in the Virtual Library for 5.00 to ICE members. Details of major manuscript holdings can also be traced through the A2A Project with which ICE has been involved: http://www.a2a.pro.gov.uk The Institution of Civil Engineers has been a forum for the collection and dissemination of engineering information since 1818. Members have been actively encouraged to present books papers, models and other artefacts to the Institution since the rst regulations were drawn up. From the rst there has been no restriction of language or discipline, the objective has always been to collect all signicant information of interest to the engineering profession regardless of origin. In the early years, in the absence of published civil engineering journals and textbooks, the collection was largely comprised of maps, drawings and models. From the 1830s, when civil engineering journals began to appear, the focus rapidly switched to the publication and exchange of periodicals, a process that has continued to this day. In the early nineteenth century ICE was the only, and throughout the nineteenth century it was the leading, engineering institution in the British Empire. For much of that period there was little in the way of tertiary engineering education in the British Empire, and national (government) library provision in the eld was sketchy. By 1900 the Institution held the largest collection of engineering literature of all disciplines in the country, and this collection remains the core of the Institutions historical holdings to this day. The Institution recognised, however, that there was a great civil engineering heritage, which had preceded its foundation, and actively sought to acquire through purchase and, whenever possible donation, records of earlier engineers. Thomas Telford presented the Institution with many foreign engineering works of the eighteenth century. On his death he left the Institution his entire collection of papers, reports and drawings. Through the nineteenth century this nucleus was added to and an outstanding collection of manuscripts of John Smeaton, the rst British engineer to be described as a civil engineer, was one of a number of notable acquisitions. In recent years the Library has acquired manuscripts by Smeaton, Robert Stephenson, Alexander Mackenzie Ross, Marc Isambard Brunel and Henry Swinburne to name but a few. Since 1975 the Institutions historical collections have been in the care of the Archives Panel established on the advice of Professor Sir Alfred Pugsley. Today the Chairman is Lawrance Hurst, recently retired from Hurst, Peirce and Malcolm, consulting engineers. The Panel provides advice on both the Institutions own archives, and historical engineering archives. After an initial assessment of the existing collections it was decided that the objective should be to

provide a representative selection of civil engineering archives. The Panel has also sought to encourage use of the archives by promoting exhibitions and guides to the collections. The Exhibition in 2002 will celebrate the centenary of the rst Aswan Dam. Published material With printed books dating back to 1476 the ICE have an important collection of printed material. One hundred and thirty pre-1900 serial titles are held, including sets of the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London and early Memoirs of the Academie des sciences. The emphasis is on the proceedings of engineering societies from the United Kingdom and overseas. Aside from the Institutions own publications, the most heavily used resources are the sets of the Builder, Engineer, Engineering, and the Civil Engineer and Architects Journal. The Tract collection is the richest historical resource in the Library. It has grown to more than 1,500 volumes of reports, pamphlets and reprints. The trade literature is kept by the Library, generally found in these volumes, including catalogues from rms such as J H Porter, exporters of prefabricated iron buildings. The most famous parts of the collection are the early engineering reports, based upon the bequest of Thomas Telford, and gifts from the Stevenson and Chapman families and the Smeatonian Society. Recently the daughters of Professor Sir Alec Skempton presented a number of early reports including Vermuydens drainage of the Fens. The collection also includes famous papers by leading foreign engineers and scientists such as Laplace and Mohr. The collection of canal pamphlets is possibly the largest in the country, and those dating from the railway age include material on the commercial and political development of the worlds railway system, and not just its engineering aspects. Although engineering reports are no longer disseminated as before, the Library has reports on major projects such as the Thames Barrier and Channel Tunnel Rail Link. The Library contains a large collection of government reports, mostly relating to the United Kingdom and its former colonies, dating back to the sixteenth century. Of particular interest are the Minutes of Evidence for various Bills and Commissions, which contain incidental biographical information on the witnesses, as well as an insight into what leading engineers of the time thought. Archive collections The main source of biographical information is the Institutions own archives. Information can be gleaned from the members Application Forms, which are shortly to be commercially available on microlm for the nineteenth century. There are large collections of photographs of members and the Institution also houses possibly the largest collection of oil portraits of civil engineers in the world. The Institutions archives include a complete set of Council Minutes, and Manuscript Minutes of Meetings and Annual General Meetings. Minutes of most of the Institutions various committees since c.1890 have survived. The largest group of engineering archives are the generally unpublished original communications, c.2,000 papers presented from 1818 onwards. However, it is the collections of engineers papers which attract most researchers. Foremost amongst the papers are those of Telford. Recent acquisitions include the Provis notebooks relating to the Menai Suspension Bridge. The Telford material is complemented by the Report Books of John Rennie and his sons George and Sir John which give an insight into how Telfords contemporaries organised their work.

By the time of Telford and Rennie, civil engineering had emerged as a profession, and to a large extent this was due to the work of John Smeaton. The Institution has the largest surviving collection of Smeatons papers, including microlms and transcripts of those not held in the original. Many of the manuscripts are difcult to read, and are far less attractive than the Report Book of his near contemporary John Grundy junior. This contains interesting drawings of some of the countrys earliest earth dams. They are complemented by the diaries of engineers from the eighteenth century onwards. The earliest are those of James Brindley, the most famous probably Sir Marc Brunels Thames Tunnel Diaries, and the most recently researched those of William Mackenzie, now published (by Thomas Telford Limited) in full. There are still many volumes awaiting analysis. Brunels diaries are only part of the largest collection of material the Library has relating to a single project the Thames Tunnel scheme. This collection includes drawings, report books, diaries, correspondence and scrapbooks. There are a several other projects where large volumes of material are held: the main drainage of London, the Forth Railway Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Pride of place goes to the Mackenzie collection, an enormous collection of drawings, diaries, account books and correspondence relating to the activities of William Mackenzie, and his brother Edward, railway contractors across western Europe in partnership with Thomas Brassey in the 1840s. Engineering drawings The ICE Drawings collection is relatively small. The most famous drawings are those of Telford, and John Rennie. Apart from these major donations, and the Mackenzie collection noted above, other drawings held by the Institution include sets relating to the Severn Railway Tunnel and the High Level Bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Recent acquisitions include drawings for the M1 motorway, the Snowdon Aviary and the Cunard Building in Liverpool. Photographic and other research material The railway age was also the rst era of construction history to be recorded in photographs. The photographs in the Institution date back to the 1850s and include more than 50 albums relating to specic projects, such as the Manchester Ship Canal, individual prints, and a large number of glass slides dating from the late nineteenth century onwards including many of early reinforced concrete structures. The collection has been enriched by the gift of the late J G James who gave the Institution thousands of slides and photographs, chiey of bridges and iron structures. The role of the Archives Panel Since the establishment of the Archives Panel in 1975 it has played an active part in encouraging rms and other relevant bodies to preserve engineering drawings and documents. The Archives Panel is not just interested in old material, and have, in co-operation with the Concrete Society and the Institution of Highways and Transportation been involved in the establishment of a concrete archive and motorway archive. The former is based at ICE, the latter is more of a virtual archive or nding tool, although material is being deposited at ICE. The Panel has taken the view that it should be proactive and encourage the use of the collections. The overwhelming majority of users are members involved in the maintenance of buildings. Few visit the archives, relying on staff to identify relevant material. Contemporary relevance is constantly displayed, for example tracing an article on the original design of the Entro os rios bridge over the Douro in Portugal which failed in March 2001.

The Panel has taken the lead in producing a biographical dictionary of civil engineers of the British Isles; a volume covering the years 15001830 was published in March 2002. Michael Chrimes Correspondence to: Library, The Institution of Civil Engineers, One Great George Street, Westminster, London SW1P 3AA; Tel: 020 7222 7722; email: [email protected]

JOURNEY INTO ISLAMIC AND CLASSICAL TURKEY

Students in the Faculty of the Built Environment at South Bank University (London) undertake an annual overseas eld trip to a place of architectural and building interest. The trip is associated with a unit in the Faculty that considers 4,000 years of building history. The trip is offered to members of the Construction History Society, some of whom have previously visited Israel and Egypt. This year the trip was to Turkey to study Islamic and Graeco-Roman architecture and building. Turkey is a wonderful place to visit for people interested in building history. Due to its location (connecting Europe and Asia), the country has witnessed a progression of kingdoms and empires some of which fostered great cultures including Hittite, Hellenic, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman. Each successive culture built on and from the ruins of those that proceeded it, so that modern Turkey has a range of extant monuments representative of some of the most important periods in architectural and building history. The trip began with 4 days in Istanbul (former Constantinople), which is located on the Bosphorus the strait that separates Europe from Asia. A busy schedule included visits to the Hagia Sophia, the Christian church commissioned by Justinian in 537 AD that is one of the great buildings of the world with its stunning interior space and spectacular dome; a morning visit to the Sultan Ahmet Mosque called the Blue Mosque because of magnicent blue/green Iznik tiles; exploration of the Hippodrome and Underground Cisterns (constructed in the 5th century and supported by 224 columns); and a visit to the Topkapi Palace, the home of the Ottoman sultans and the largest monument in Turkish civil architecture occupying 700,000 sq. metres. Part of the stay in Istanbul also included a Bosphorus cruise to explore the Ottoman houses/Yalis and historical forts by the water (including the Bosphorus Pasha and Fuat Pasha). Students also had a free day in Istanbul and many visited the Grand Bazaar (one of the most famous markets in the world) and the Spice Market built in 1660 by Hatice Sultan. The group then travelled to the archaeological site of Troy in Western Anatolia, the legendary city of King Priam that was destroyed by the Achaeans in the Trojan War. Troy was rediscovered and excavated by Heinrich Shliemann in the late 19th century and there have since been many other excavations. The site is complex since Troy was settled from 3000 BC to 400 AD in nine different layers, each established on the previous layer. Students (and some staff!) enjoyed climbing into the large replica wooden horse set up for visitors. The nal part of the trip involved visiting the ancient Graeco-Roman cities in Anatolia (the subcontinent more generally known as Asia Minor). Most of the sites visited lie on or near the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey. The rst visit was to Pergamon the magnicent Hellenistic city to view the great theatre and the Temple of Trajan, the Acropolis and the temple of Athena. Visits were also made to the Asclepion and the temple of Telesphor. Perhaps the highlight of the trip was a visit to Ephesus the largest Roman ruin in the world and one of the worlds nest archaeological sites.

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Other visits included a trip to Miletus and my own favourite the southern Ionian city of Priene, which is magnicently situated high above the Maeander plain on the south-eastern slope of Mount Mycale, one of whose sheer rock peaks looms directly above the ancient city. The group then returned to Istanbul and en route stayed overnight in Bursa to visit the Green tomb and the Green Mosque, a 15th century Ottoman masterpiece. Overall the trip was busy (many 6.00 a.m. starts!) but fascinating; the archaeological sites were outstanding and full of interest, the group were excellent company and contained both the young and what the students euphemistically referred to as the SAGA group! The only complaint was the weather a cold, wet wind was constantly blowing from Russia. The overall cost of the trip was less than 400. Next years eld trip in April 2003 will be to India to consider Mogul architecture (including a visit to the Taj Mahal) and Victorian conquest architecture and building. Further details are available from Malcolm Dunkeld (CHS Newsletter Editor).

subject quietly and with absolute clarity, without notes. He had discovered that the Albion Mills in Southwark were constructed by Samuel Wyatt, architect and engineer, and the discovery of a previously unknown iron bridge to Wyatts design at Culford, Suffolk inspired his last lecture, to the Institute of Structural Engineers History Group in 1999. He could be intolerant of small-mindedness. Professor Skemptons own working habits were meticulous, and he accepted nothing until he had assembled, plotted and analysed the data himself. Construction history has beneted enormously over the years from Alecs formidable intellect, high scholarly standards and powerful historical imagination. John Burland, Richard Chandler, Julia Elton and Judith Niechcial A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain 15001830, to which Skempton was an major contributor, was published by Thomas Telford in March 2002. A Biography of Skempton by his daughter Judith will be published by Whittles later this year.

HALTDALEN STAVE CHURCH: FORM AND FUNCTION

Continued from the previous Newsletter: Haltdalen Stave Church The rate of change in church-building was slow, and consequently we nd that younger stave churches display few new features compared to older buildings. To building archaeologists, these and other factors suggest that the stave churches were built according to a relatively xed set of rules and principles. Lacking any kind of written information, the only real way for us to determine what these may have been is to carry out precise surveys of the buildings. The idea that every stave church will have been drawn from top to bottom in 1:20 scale by the end of the surveying programme, and the resulting body of documentation will be of great value to a number of elds, not least historic buildings management and research. Surveying is still carried out much as it has been for centuries, using plumb lines and measuring tapes to make plans, proles, sections and elevations. Every irregularity, every bit of damage, and every piece of repair work is recorded on the drawings, along with descriptions of the original materials. Various details, such as concealed joints, are drawn in 1:5 scale. This kind of documentation is vital when studying churches and their history. In the course of surveying the remaining stave churches, we have come across incised lines, notches and other marks that may have been put on the prefabricated timbers to guide the builders during the subsequent assembly work. Attention to measurements and proportions was essential to ensuring a sound construction and a sound building is a rule also a beautiful one: aesthetic norms often have a practical origin. The nave and chancel of Haltdalen stave church are rectangular in shape, and since the buildings principal structural elements are either perpendicular or level, with right-angled corners, these too combine to form various quadrangles. If we wish to speculate, it is entirely possible to draw all manner of complicated geometric gures circles, arcs, triangles. My own feeling, however, is that the underlying mathematical principles must have been relatively uncomplicated, and my analysis of the building is therefore based on simple measurements of length and height. One is, of course, aware that there are sources of error. The present building may well deviate from the original , due to its having been pulled down and rebuilt; it may have sagged and subsided; original timbers may have been replaced with timbers that were not identical; and the timbers may have contracted as the wood dried out. As a result, we cannot be sure that the measurements we obtain today are necessarily the same as the original measurements. To complicate things even more, we cannot

OBITUARY PROFESSOR SIR ALEC WESTLEY SKEMPTON, F.R.S. 19142001

Skem, as he was known to his family, friends and colleagues, was a rare combination of world-class civil engineer and prominent historian of his subject. Alec Skempton was brought up in Northampton and read civil engineering at Imperial College. His postgraduate study was in reinforced concrete, and he joined the Building Research Station in 1936 to continue his work in this eld. However, he soon became fascinated by the Soil Mechanics laboratory, in part because he had developed a love of Geology during his undergraduate days, and he got himself transferred to that section. His remarkable aptitude for this new subject was immediately apparent when he correctly analysed the reason for the failure under construction of the Chingford dam. Alecs work on concrete was useful for his War work, as he was charged with supervising the construction of concrete airraid shelters in the South West of England. (He later wrote a paper on the early development of Portland cements.) After the war Skempton returned to Imperial College to set up the Soil Mechanics courses. IC soon became a leading international centre for this subject, and he went on to become the leading gure in British soil mechanics. He was Head of the Civil Engineering Department for 19 years. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1961, became a founder Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1976, and was knighted in the millennium New Years Honours list. Skemptons work in the 1950s on the settlement of buildings and their tolerance to foundation distortion is of outstanding importance and is still widely used in foundation design. In the 1960s Alec was a member of the Cathedrals Advisory Board, which gave him the opportunity to study and make recommendations on the stability of, among others, the tower of Salisbury Cathedral. He had a passion for engineering and construction history. He gave memorable lectures to the Newcomen Society, notably on the construction of the early nineteenth century docks in the Port of London, and the Boat Store, Sheerness. His work on the development of metal-framed structures established an accurate chronology for the rst time for more than a century. Alecs bibliography of early civil engineering literature is denitive. In his 80th birthday lecture at the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1993 he reviewed Marc Brunels historical achievements in the construction of the Thames Tunnel at Rotherhithe in the light of the geology of the site. He had a beautiful lecturing style, expounding his

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the ground prior to construction. We are, however, unable to say whether this method was purely a native development resulting from generations of trial and error, or whether it was introduced from abroad, perhaps by builders from Northern Europe. Conclusion Haltdalen stave church was a quite ordinary rural church serving a small community in one of Norways many valleys, and many of its features are indubitably of local origin. In a wider perspective, however, it is part of the timber-church building tradition that evolved in northern Europe in the second half of the First Millennium, and its design conforms to ideals developed by the early Church in southern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Historically and architecturally, Haltdalen stave church is by no means a simple building. Jorgen H Jensenius Correspondence to: NIKU Hovedkontor, Dronningens gt. 13, Postboks 736 Sentrum, 0105 Oslo, NORWAY

Haltdalen stave church plan

FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY CHS DELEGATION AND SPONSORSHIP

The CHS is sending a delegation to the 1st International Congress on Construction History due to take place in Madrid between the 2024th January 2003. Apart from the intellectual interest generated by the papers given at the conference, the event offers the opportunity of making contact with construction historians from around world, possibly leading to exciting joint ventures in the form of symposia, conferences, summer schools, exchange visits etc. The conference fee has attracted some criticism (see Letters to the Editor) which may have discouraged people from attending. The CHS Committee has therefore decided to pay the full conference fee of 275 for one person to attend in Madrid. That person should preferably, though not necessarily, be a member of the Society and should be able to demonstrate an interest in some aspect of construction history. For example, they might be undertaking a PhD in the area of construction history, or have submitted a paper for the Madrid conference, or be engaged in research associated with construction history, or be involved in some other project that would benet from attendance in Madrid. If these criteria apply to you, please send details of your project to Malcolm Dunkeld (CHS Newsletter Editor). All proposals should be submitted by Friday, 26th July 2002 and will be assessed by the CHS Committee.

West facade

East facade

CIRCA TRUST
Cross section of the chancel, looking west Cross section of the nave, looking east

The Construction History Societys archive and library, formerly housed at the Chartered Institute of Building at Englemere, is now in the care of the CIRCA Trust at Kimmins Mill, Stroud. As members will be aware, the Societys collection divides into four main categories:1. Library books containing information on the history of the construction industry at home and abroad 2. Company/practice histories of designers, contractors, merchants and manufacturers often issued on the anniversary of the their founding or in connection with major projects 3. A unique set of nearly two hundred invoices issued by suppliers to Prestige & Co Ltd, Cambridge Wharf, 149 Grosvenor Road, Pimlico/Westminster, London SW between 1910 and 1912 4. A small collection of past society papers

even be sure that the original building corresponded in all respects to the plan inside the builders head: small deviations, intentional or otherwise, were almost inevitable. Nevertheless, since all we have to go on is the standing building, it is here that we must seek the answers. As mentioned above, my approach is based on simple measurements. Analysis indicates that the churchs construction involved the use of simple ratios, as shown in the accompanying illustration, and what we nd is that all of these ratios are based on Pythagoras theorem: in other words, we end up with right-angled triangles with sides in the ratio of 3:4:5. One advantage of this method is that it would have made it relatively easy for the builder to draw the churchs outline on

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These complement very well the existing CIRCA collections. They and the remaining material in the archive at Stroud are now accessible there to CHS members for research purposes (see below for contact details). The Trust has come a long way in the last six years, further than any of us would ever have dreamed. We have had our adventures, including two moves, and we have amassed more valuable material of a wider range of types than we ever envisaged at the start. Indeed, it is difcult to believe that there can be any large class of construction industry information which are not now well represented in the collections. And we have built up a circle of invaluable friends. Now the task is to consolidate what we have, and build a rm nancial foundation. It is no secret that what we have achieved so far has been done on the slenderest of shoestrings, and has relied heavily on the dedication of a few people who spend a great deal of their time, processing the material we have in the archives At times the extent of the material to be handled has almost overwhelmed us. Donations of large amounts of shelving have been a godsend, but it has all had to be dismantled, transported, unloaded and moved into and up the building before the considerable task of assembling it in its nal position can even start. And until that stage is complete it is almost impossible to get on with the main tasks of sorting, classifying and cataloguing. But there are also bills to pay: electricity, rent, conservation materials, transport etc. This requires a regular income and donations of time. We believe that the best way of ensuring this to build a strong network of members whose annual subscriptions will give them access to the facilities at the archives while enabling the regular volunteers to continue with the work. The CIRCA Trust and the CHS collections are housed in a mid 19th century listed mill, Kimmins Mill, Dudbridge, Stroud. The mill, which is administered by the Stroud Mills Heritage Centre (LBG), also houses a building conservation display (Western Industrial Collection of Conservation Artifacts and Documentation) and local heritage displays, education suite and reading rooms for use by similarly minded organisations (Stroud Heritage Forum). Membership of the Centre allows organisations to promote and participate in special displays of their work and to keep archives at the mill, where the conditions are governed by the need of the documents not the users. Additional specialist displays and library sectors are either in progress or planned for architectural ironmongery, building materials and tools. Manufacturers and specialist conservation contractors can also demonstrate their skills in the Mills restoration trials. Kimmins Mill (New Dudbridge Flour Mill), is of considerable historic interest. In 2001 students from the University of Bristol carried out industrial archaeology investigations, which it is hoped will continue during 2002 to uncover the adjacent old harbour from the Stroudwater Navigation and investigate the missing space on the 1840s Tithe Maps. The mill is an appropriate building for a construction based archive and located close to rail and the M4 & M5 motorways. Built in 1849 it demonstrates the height of traditional building technology and the use of timber engineering with: Cotswold stone masonry walls and slate roof Imported timber beams with local cast iron columns to provide a 29ft span Trussed oor structure for the bin oors

building has been used for storage and suffered from severe water penetration. The exterior was restored by J Sainsbury as part of the conditions for planning permission for its new store, with a commitment for a community based purpose. It is leased by the Stroud Mills Heritage Centre at a low rental on condition that the Centre carries out further restoration work. These include reinstatement of the shooting stage in the attic and repairs to the damaged oors, during which time the stairs will be moved to a re protected shaft. However, the basic structure of the mill is sound and as a our mill it was designed to carry very heavy oor loadings. The CHS collection is now stored alongside the CIRCA Trust main collection of construction documentation. This consists of two library oors and three archive oors covering: Materials library in conjunction with the conservation displays Book library, research positions and rest areas in conjunction with the Stroud Heritage Forums reading rooms Project documentation: specifications, bills of quantities, drawings and images as well as lm, video, site photographic albums and surveying equipment Educational, design and guidance documents: books, government publications, standards, technical documents by professional and trade bodies, university and research reports, and journals; Company / product based documents: trade literature and company publications, some of which are now considered more as textbooks than sales ephemera, and product selectors.

The work of the CIRCA Trust can be summarised under the following objectives: to rescue the knowledge of the industry to accommodate all materials in conditions suitable for prolonging the life of the relevant media to promote and index its availability to researchers to research the collection and provide access to the collections in the Trusts care for researchers to use the collections for educational purposes. These objectives t well with those of CHS.

CIRCA was formed in 1996 when it was realised that many organisations in the construction industry were shedding archives and libraries, on the assumption that the information would be available elsewhere or in electronic format if it were ever needed. Unfortunately, much of the older material is not widely available and the scope of electronic information systems is limited. At the start it was envisaged that a couple of double garage size stores would be required for the collection, based on the average library of some thirty 3 ft-wide bays each of six shelves. The reality was shelves by the mile not yard and by tons not boxes. Amongst the contributors so far, donations have come from large corporate and excentral government departments. Individuals were rst considered to be the main source; however they have proved to be the sources to the older/specialist material. The main collections rescued / donated have been: George Wimpey archive of publications, staff news sheet and the associated photographic, lm and video library, plus some project information; TBV/TPS Consult library (part of the former PSA HQ library) Wimpey Testing/Wimtec Environmental library of books and reports DOE Eastcote reserve library surplus, on its disbanding Fitzroy Robinson library (architectural practice) Construction Confederation (NFBTE/BEC): National Builder Archive 192192 and other newsletters and publications

Earlier our mill structures in the area were smaller and developed piecemeal. Later mills tended to be operate roller mills in more industrial buildings of brick and iron/steel structures. The mill produced our and animal feed from 1849 until 1931, since when the

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Manchester University: Architectural pamphlet library Morris Singer archives 1948 to 1970: details of the estimates and costings for many of the countrys memorials and works of art by Dame Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, as well as metalwork for major projects including London University and the Bank of China Highways Agency: Models of bridges and road schemes (cancelled) which together with others illustrate the skills of model makers W S Atkins library (consulting engineers) Rofe, Kennard & Lapworth (Arup RKL): Library of site photographs and drawings prepared for parliamentary approvals for water conservation and supply schemes circa 1895 to 1985.

future, not necessarily to own it. Library listings are also useful in recording the knowledge which was available at any given time if you can help in providing journal indexes on disc to integrate with the CIRCA Index please talk to the Curator. No document or material is beyond our scope, if we know it is at risk of the skip. Jonathan David, Trustee, CIRCA Trust (To offer a donation, join the Trust or offer practical assistance, please contact the curator, John Keenan, on 17966 227575 or e-mail us at [email protected])

Donations have also been received from the BRE, RIBA, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, Barbour Index and other similar organisations and their members. Amongst these donations have been found some special items: Poor Law Commission documents from 1835 Prizes presented by the Institution of Civil Engineers Telford Premium and the Surveyors Institution Personal text books of the engineers: William Sydney Albert Atkins (W S Atkins) and Herbert W Rafferty (Arup RKL) Authors own copies of text books and their press cuttings

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

From Professor Richard Rodger, Director and Professor of Urban History, University of Leicester:I was pleased to receive and read my CHS Newsletter. It is always of interest. I was immediately tempted to attend the First International Congress on Construction History in Madrid. This seems an excellent opportunity to develop construction history interests across a European platform. However, I believe that this is too expensive for me to justify and I imagine that it eliminates most PhD students and others who might benet. I hope you will relay my disappointment (and I am sure that of many others) at a level of pricing that is too unrealistic to bring together those genuinely interested in Construction History. I would be grateful if you would relay this view to the Madrid organisers. (Professor Rodger has recently published a book entitled The Transformation of Edinburgh: Land, Property and Trust in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 2001) From Ian and Thalia Campbell:We are retired and in the process of moving into a smaller home, and are to sell Glangors, a detached house/bungalow. From the outside it appears to be in the Trinity House style, with four double bedrooms, large siting room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, utility rooms, tower room with windows on four sides, and a second toilet. It has a large garden/grounds, double garage and stable. We are contacting you because we thought it is a house of interest to historical and architectural organisations. Glangors, built in 1882 of poured concrete within shutters cast as a monobloc with a solid roof of railway lines at 3 foot centres (as in the relevant factory regulations of the time) is one of the only remaining complete examples of this type of construction in North Wales. For many years it was almost derelict. We have restored it to its original condition and consider that it should now be protected by listing as of architectural and social interest. Telford on his canals built houses in a similar technique. There is a connection in the design to early Trinity House lighthouse design, but they used a different technique. I can send photographs if you are interested. (Ian and Thalia D. Campbell, By the Marsh, Blue Island, Borth, Cardiganshire. Glangors, Ynyslas, Borth, Ceredigion, SY24 5JU. Tel: 01970 871360 Mobile: 079681 59684. Email: [email protected] or [email protected])

Amongst some of the smaller donations have been found core collections which have been used to build upon and form displays: Bruce Martin: Collection of 1970s standards used in a BR /BSI project on design information sources Malcolm Burrows: Trent Polytechnic survey of quantity surveying documents carried out in the 1970s providing examples of bills of quantities from the late 19th century Eric Corker: Work on metrication of drawings and product information card indexing Geoffrey Booth (CHS): Timber engineering Education (Imperial College), standards and international reports Gordon Reed (Transport director for UBM MAC): builders merchants, specialist library on transport requirements for construction materials George Atkinson (CHS): Housing design (I 9201960) and research

Plus many others who have donated catalogues and other items for incorporation into the main archives Several professional practices have archived their spent technical material, so that it may be retrieved at a later date. Archive space can also be made available to member practices for special collections subject to the collection being available to researchers (on application) and by prior arrangement, for example the Wimpey Grove Projects seismic library Some very useful information has also been made available by photocopying some the older books of members, thus making the knowledge available without the associated problems of archiving. Ex display items have also proved very useful in adding information, an example being the display prepared for the retirement of Patrick Barbour from Barbour Index which now rests alongside a Barbour library from 1986 rescued from the basement of Wimpeys and the current set of Barbour Fiche which is maintained in the archive. The Trust has made arrangements to act as custodians for any collection in order that public access can be achieved please consider donating your library/collection to the Trust when it is no longer of use to you. The Trust is there to preserve knowledge for the

CONSTRUCTION HISTORY SOCIETY EVENTS AND VISITS ORGANISER

The Society has organised a regular series of events and visits to places of historic interest. Previous organisers of these visits have included Jack Smale and Alan Palmer. Currently the position of visits organiser is vacant and the CHS Committee is looking for a volunteer

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to take on this role. Key skills include a wide knowledge of construction history, good connections and creative ideas for interesting visits. If you feel able to ll this role, please contact the CHS Secretary, Mike Tutton, whose address is given at the end of the Newsletter.

POT-POURRI
Peter Longley writes: Records of James Longley & Co Ltd 1863 2000 have been deposited in West Sussex Record Ofce. Papers relating to Sir Norman Longley (1900 1994) have also been placed in West Sussex Record Ofce. However, those concerning his chairmanship of the Construction Industry Training Board (1964 1970) have been archived by the Board. Sir Norman was President of the National Federation of Building Trades Employers 1949 1950 and the International Federation of Building and Public Works Contractors 1955 1957. Sussex Industrial History 2001. The Journal of the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society contains an article on Longleys patent Wood Block Flooring based on an article written by Sir Norman Longley in 1984 with additional notes by Peter Longley. Also included is a facsimile copy of a sales brochure c. 1928. SIHC Journal 2002 will include the history of Crawley and District Water Company (1897 1926) by Charles Longley (1862 1931) with additional notes by Peter Longley. SIHC Journal. A future issue will include an article on the building of Christs Hospital, Horsham 1897 1902. Horsham (West Sussex) Museum will be mounting an exhibition on brick making in September which will include material given by the Whitehouse family. Three generations of Whitehouses were connected with the Sussex Brick Company and its successors for virtually the whole of the 20th century.

HELP!
The Editor has received the following request for help: Mike Heaton My request for help arises from a survey I prepared of a site at Falmouth last year. The building is Lamella Hanger, designed by Junkers in Germany and manufactured in the UK under licence by Horsley Eng Co Ltd immediately before the Second World War. Several have survived in the UK, mainly at TA centres where they were used as drill halls, but there are larger versions at airelds. I am appealing to the CHS to help me with what is possibly a wild goose chase, but one that I am obliged to pursue. The pedigree of the structures as far back as Horsley Eng Co Ltd. and Junkers is documented. I am trying to establish whether, given the similarity of design to the fuselage of Wellington bombers and R101 airships, there is a possible link to Barnes Wallis. I know it is a long one, but we know the Nazis acquired technical details of early jet engines from the UK, so it is not improbable that they also stole the concepts of Geodetic construction from us. Despite anecdotal evidence that Barnes Wallis was engaged in designing geodetic buildings between the wars, I have so far drawn a blank. Do we have any links with German historians studying the history of the Junkers company, or could anyone point me in the right direction for German sources. This is potentially very important since these buildings are the precursors of Buckminster Fullers Geodesics, not to mention Cullnams current Geodesic tunnel at The Weald and Downland Museum. It would be nice to prove a British origin.

Replies to Mike Heaton, Archaeological Site Investigations, Furlong House, 61 East Street, Warminster, Wiltshire BA12 9BZ Tel: 01985 847791 email: [email protected] or www.asiheritageconsultants.co.uk

A GUIDE TO ARCHIVE SOURCES

The Business Archives Councils recent Newsletter has the following article: Well done the authors Janet Foster and Julia Sheppard on their compilation of the 4th edition of British Archives: A Guide to Archive Resources in the UK which is hot from the press. With its 1,200 entries contained in 864 pages, the volume is as impressive as it is long. It is packed with well structured information and continues to be a prime resource for archivists and historians alike.

PAST CHS NEWSLETTERS

If you require past copies of the CHS Newsletter (in Xerox format), please send details to Malcolm Dunkeld (CHS Newsletter Editor), enclosing a payment of 1 per copy.

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FUTURE EVENTS
4th July 2002 Images of the Grand Tour daytime lecture at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martins Place, London, WC2H OHE. 1.10 p.m. Free. Christ Church, Streatham and Streatham Hill walk Wilds 1840s church with its campanile is a signicant landmark on the South Circular. Inside, its decoration has been recently restored. Father Ivory, with Daniel Golberg or architects Thomas Ford & Partners, will explain the history and conservation work. Meet 6.30 p.m. at Christ Church, Streatham, near junction of Christchurch Road and Brixton Hill (Brixton Tube, then bus or 15 min. walk; Streatham Hill, train from Victoria, then bus). Pay on the day. A walk around St. Marylebone this walk focuses on the area west of Regents Park and north of the Marylebone Road, focusing particularly on the Victorian development of the area. The walk will be led by Dr. Mike Wood of the St. Marylebone Society. Meet 6.30 p.m. at Baker Street Tube station, the Baker Street entrance. Pay on the day. The Dome of St Peters: Its design and construction and responses to later concerns for stability. Dr. Roland Mainstone. The Institution of Civil Engineers, 1 Great George Street, London SW1P 3AA. Booking contact Paul Parkes Tel: 020 7665 2258; email: [email protected]. Start 5.00 p.m. Heritage Open Day Englands biggest and most popular voluntary cultural event. The four day event opens the doors to nearly 2000 fascinating properties or activities, many of which are not normally open or accessible. The Heritage Open Days Events Directory will be published online in August 2002.

9th July 2002

5th October 2002 The Chapels Society visit to Mid-Wharfedale: this area is centred on the contrasting towns of Otley and Ilkley, but begins with a visit to the 17th century chapel of Bramhope, a rare example built during the Commonwealth, as a private chapel of worship. Otley, an ancient market town around which industry developed, is an early Methodist centre and Congregationalism is also long established. The Wesleyan chapel (1828) long replaced, has survived demolition threats to become flats. High tea will be taken at Christchurch. The coach leaves Leeds City Railway Station at 10.45 a.m. and returns there at 6.00 p.m. Cost 20. Details from Dr. Mary Ede Tel: 01225 422362 22nd November 2002 Historic Failure of Dams Godfrey Mitchell Theatre, The Institution of Civil Engineers, 1 Great George Street, London SW1P 3AA. Booking contact Tim Fuller Tel: 020 7665 2234; email: [email protected]. Start 5.30 p.m.

16th July 2002

To help homeowners make informed decisions about the repair of their property the SPAB runs a Introduction to the Repair of Old Buildings courses. Dates for 2002 include:13th 14th July 2002 Haughley Barn, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk The Scottish Lime Centre, Fife Nostell Priory, NR. Wakeeld, West Yorkshire

23rd July 2002

10th 11th August 2002 19th 20th October 2002

Details of prices and availability from SPAB

13th 16th September

CHS GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE

Please note that all other correspondence not relating to the Newsletter should be addressed to The Secretary, Construction History Society, c/o Library and Information Services Manager, The Chartered Institute of Building, Englemere, Kings Ride, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7TB e-mail: [email protected]

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