Dreaded & reviled by many these nineteenth-century buildings provide a unique window on how the Victorians housed & treated the mentally ill. Despite initially good intentions they became warehouses for societys outcasts at a time when cures were rare. Isolated hidden in the countryside & surrounded by high walls most have been closed since the 1980s their original use largely forgotten. In The Victorian Asylum" Sarah Rutherford gives an insight into their history their often imposing architecture & their later decline & brings to life these haunting buildings some of which still survive today." ...

Birminghams Victorian heritage is still surprisingly well preserved despite much demolition during the twentieth century & major redevelopment in the last few months & years. In this book Roy Thornton looks at a selection of the citys Victorian architecture some of the lost buildings as well as the survivors to illustrate the range of building that took place during Birminghams most prosperous decades. A wide range of old & new photographs maps plans drawings & paintings are also included. Public buildings churches houses industrial buildings schools & hospitals are all discussed together with a special study of Corporation Street
- arguably the city centres best-preserved Victorian thoroughfare. Victorian Buildings of Birmingham" will appeal to anyone interested in the history of Britains second city."
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Planned with the same passion as a landscape garden filled with monuments that represented the start of the art of craftsmanship in stone & equipped with expensively constructed & fashionably designed gatehouses & chapels of rest the Victorian cemetery was a matter of real civic pride. It was also the ultimate expression of the cult of the dead that gripped every Victorian. This beautifully illustrated study of the Victorian cemetery tells the fascinating story of this historical & architectural phenomenon which provided Britains towns & cities with some of their most extraordinary & charming reminders of the sensibilities of an age long gone. ...

This slim brilliant very scary novel (John Sandoe Books) came out in 1953 four years after Little Boy Lost". It is about a young married woman who lies down on a chaise-longue & wakes to find herself imprisoned in the body of her alter ego ninety years before. It impressed PD James author of the " Preface" as one of the most skillfully told & terrifying short novels of its decade. And Penelope Lively described it as disturbing & compulsive commenting: This is time travel fiction but with a difference...instead of making it into a form of adventure what Marghanita Laski has done is to propose that such an experience would be the ultimate terror...so Melanie/ Milly clings to the belief that she is dreaming for as long as she possibly can; the point at which she is forced to abandon this comfort & search for other explanations is her plunge into nightmare. In the stifling menacing atmosphere in which Melanie finds herself there is another dark unspoken theme. Sex. Milly has been in some way disgraced... Once again the chaise-longue is the hinge between the two planes of existence. The site of rapture of ecstasy
- that is the implication..."
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The nineteenth century was a time of unprecedented transformation & nowhere was this more apparent than on the streets of London. In only a few decades London grew from a Regency town to the biggest city the world had ever seen with more than 6.5 million people & railways street-lighting & new buildings at every turn. In The Victorian House Judith Flanders described in intimate detail what went on inside the nineteenth-century home. Now in The Victorian City she explores London's outdoors in an extraordinary revelatory portrait of everyday life on the streets. From the moment Charles Dickens the century's best-loved novelist & London's greatest observer arrived in the city in 1822 he obsessively walked its streets recording its pleasures curiosities & cruelties. Now with him Judith Flanders leads us through the markets transport systems sewers rivers slums alleys cemeteries gin palaces chop-houses & entertainment emporia of Dickens' London to reveal the Victorian capital in all its variety vibrancy & squalor. From the colourful cries of street-sellers to the uncomfortable reality of travel by omnibus via the many uses for the body parts of dead horses or the unimaginably grueling working days of hawker children no detail is too small or too strange. No one who reads Judith Flanders's The Victorian City will view London in the same light again. ...

No electricity no gas no flushing toilet.. .and no tractor! Could you survive a year on a Victorian farm? In this fascinating time-travelling experiment Lion Television with the BBC follow a team of historians who will spend a year recreating farm life in 1885. Accompanying the series this book follows the team as they try to run a farm using only materials & resources that would have been available to them in the Victorian era. This was a crucial period in the history of Britain
- rapid industrialization had radically changed life in the cites but rural communities used a mixture of centuries-old & pioneering modern practices. Packed with informative text & photographs from the farm year this book reveals exactly what the Victorians ate wore how they managed their animals farmed the land & organised their lives. In-depth features describe revolutionary advances in more detail including new inventions new breeding methods & advances in agricultural science. Practical projects allow you to join the historians in rediscovering Victorian crafts cookery & homecare. Providing a real insight into life on a Victorian farm this series is also a fascinating reminder of how history comes full circle. The organic diet of 1885 use of natural products for cleaning & healthcare & interests in crafts & gardening are of increasing relevance today as we look for a more responsible way of living over 120 years later.
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The bestselling social history of Victorian domestic life told through the letters diaries journals & novels of 19th-century men & women. The Victorian age is both recent & unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous & technologically advanced nation in the world people carried slops up & down stairs; buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mould forming; wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. This drudgery was routinely performed by the parents of people still living but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been. Running water stoves flush lavatories -- even lavatory paper -- arrived slowly throughout the century & most were luxuries available only to the prosperous. Judith Flanders author of the widely acclaimed A Circle of Sisters has written an incisive & irresistible portrait of Victorian domestic life. The book itself is laid out like a house following the story of daily life from room to room: from childbirth in the master bedroom through the scullery kitchen & dining room -- cleaning dining entertaining -- on upwards ending in the sickroom & death. Through a collage of diaries letters advice books magazines & paintings Flanders shows how social history is built up out of tiny domestic details. Through these we can understand the desires motivations & thoughts of the age. Many people today live in Victorian terraces & so the houses themselves are familiar but the lives are not. The Victorian House will change all that. ...

From the majestic rows of gleaming white terraces in West London to the grid of red-brick houses in northern mill towns the legacy of the Victorian era can be found in every area of the Engl&. Using his own drawings diagrams & photographs author Trevor Yorke explains all aspects of the Victorian house & provides a definitive guide for those who are renovating tracing the history of their own house or are simply interested in this notable period of history. The book provides a background to different phases of design throughout the Victorian age from 1830 to 1902. Various areas are considered in detail including: the layout & use of rooms; fixtures & fittings; sources of heat & lighting; domestic machinery such as kitchen ranges & laundry equipment; gardens & outbuildings. Also included is a quick reference time chart with drawings of the period details that can help date them & a glossary of the more unfamiliar architectural terms. ...

Many of Britain's four million Victorian & Edwardian houses were shoddily built & often require 'essential repairs'. Problems like rising damp timber decay bowed roofs & subsidence are well-known but how can you tell if your house has major defects or is just typical for its age? Forget 'makeovers': this easy-to-use manual shows where to look for danger signs what's 'normal' & what isn't & how to fix common defects. Equipped with this book you can talk the same language as builders & property professionals. This is the first book to cover logically all defects common to Victorian houses. ...

Within this compendium the very first knitting books have been translated from sketchy often inaccurate instructions into richly coloured exciting patterns for modern day accessories. This blend of history mystery & hands-on technique debunks myths about Victorian life as it inspires beginners & ambitious knitters alike. Included are instructions for Victorian lace as the Victorians never saw it
- in glorious detail up close & on location in & around Cambridge. The lace patterns progress from the first most basic edgings to the sophistication of real" lace. Forty patterns are included
- scarves & shawls capes & fichus
- with comprehensive information on the tools & techniques of lace knitting for beginners & enough challenges to keep experienced or ambitious knitters engaged. Delicate & decorative historical lace patterns are within the reach of todays knitters in this book of adventurous ideas with a vintage touch."


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