Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Arty Stuff

Sounds an interesting house John .... If someone had a deco house I wonder if just removing the original windows, having them blasted and galvanised then painted and replaced might work.

There were firms who would draw-form aluminium guttering to match cast iron profiles on site ... the ali comes off a roll in the truck so can be formed to any custom length thereby eliminating joins ... presume they still exist.

Guess fly-ash itself is now pretty much a thing of the past with the changes in power generation .. the world turns.

K

From bitter personal experience Crittall = without doubt the worst window manufacturer I have ever had the misfortune in dealing with ! (several times)

Various versions of fly-ash such as GGBS (ground granulated blastfurnace slag) or PFA (pulverised fuel ash) are used in specific concrete mixes, they can give resistance to sulphates in dodgy ground and act as a cement 'replacement' making it a (bit) greener

So can you still get the various fly ash? When we were using lime mortar to brick up a redundant doorway, the specialists suppliers could supply all the other components but not the fly ash, and it was the specialists that identified the constituent components of our specific fly ash lime mortar. So we had to use blast grit for consistency in the look of the mortar to blend in with the surrounding brickwork. But we are looking to to undertake some lime mortar pointing and want to be consistent with the original...over time the colour of the mortar has changed from when new, the suppliers just slightly change the mix to match the lime mortar accordingly.

Never dealt with Crittall windows, although they were the original suppliers to our house in the 1924. We used a different company as we wanted the same look but double glazed and better weather protected.


Its always interesting to see the design layout priorities in the different individual houses in our street, next door and next door but one ( owned for a time by Bobby Ball the comedian) are relatively much smaller houses but have massive entertaining/drawing rooms, Ours by comparison had a massive billard room, but much smaller entertaining rooms...................maybe they only enjoyed the company of a few people compared to the other house owners. Strange old world, Speakman our original owner whilst the poorer relation (relatively speaking) of a Lancashire coal mining dynasty, was a mine engineer who made his separate fortune from making engineering bricks from coal dust. Whilst renovating the original kitchen in the downstairs servants quarters, stripping back 70's anaglypta, we found hand blocked Chinese painted figures/scenes against a very dark brown background on the wall. Unfortunately, less caring electricians in the 50's/60's had run channelled wires thru the scene. The size of skirting boards, the thickness of doors, depth of plastering on the walls varied from the owners to servants quarters, which meant all the servants quarters woodwork etc had to be made consistent with the rest of house. Although a summer house and never used outside the summer season, it has massive coal fireplaces and 24 double sized ventilation bricks around the house to allow adequate ventilation and draw for what must have been roaring fires in the house, that's beside the basement furnace system. The house was split into 4 flats in the mid 50's as there was little demand for large houses then, we own 2 of the flats one downstairs and one upstairs, we have thought about buying the other 2 flats and bringing the house back to one, but the thought these days of the cost trying to heat the entire house isn't worth thinking about and I have better things to spend my money on and I don't have access to an unlimited supply of coal as Speakman used to enjoy. .

John, you will struggle to get small quants of fly-ash, the readymix conc co's have special deals with producers and it's shipped in bulk direct to the plants, it's then blown as a dry powder direct into the silos, you can't pop to Wickes and buy a bag

I had a feeling that might be the case, I'll have to take my begging bowl and a few sacks down to the nearest coal power station and see if I can get any spare fly ash that drops off the transport.

Whilst I typed this I had a flash back to my youth, when the less well off used to go down to the coal merchant and collect by the bucket full what basically we called coal dust /slag for free (if he wasn't around) from the merchant. We often used it to bank up the fire overnight, so there would still be embers to start the fire next morning. Those were the days when as kids we were tasked with counting the coal bags the coal man emptied into our coal store, he was not the most reliable with his count or weighing of coal bags, living in a massive house in what was known as millionaires row some distance away in Tettenhall Rock........I never met a poor coal merchant.

Oh so much simpler times.

Back to my big Garden Art, love this in Wales.



On 1st November 1991 Penallta Colliery near Hengoed was closed. It had been the last deep mine working in the Rhymney Valley.
The mine was sunk in 1905 by Powell Duffryn and by 1908, employed 291 workers. At the peak of production during the 1930s, there were in excess of 3,200 employed at the mine and in 1935 it held the European record for coal found in a 24-hour period. The mine was nationalised in 1947 but by the 1970s, coal was becoming increasingly more difficult to access and the colliery's workforce had reduced to 700.
In 1996 it was decided to redevelop the site of the former colliery by building Penallta Country Park. The park includes a bridle path, cycle tracks, a wetlands area with boardwalks, peaceful woodland trails, lakes and open grassland. It also features 'Sultan' a 200 metre long figurative earth sculpture of a pit pony. The artwork was created by Mike Petts using 60,000 tons of coal shale waste, covered with living grass and named by local people after one of the last pit ponies from the area, which was still living at the time.

Meanwhile in Aberdeenshire this one has been reinstated.

[img]http://tm-img.com/images/2023/11/01/st.webp[/img]

Indeed ... been finished for a few weeks but just made the news ... Mrs Image and I were up there just before the last bad storm ... walked the perimeter and tidied a few stray stones ..... although there are a lot of hill figures of various vintages down South there are, surprisingly, only two hill figures in the whole of Scotland ... and both on the hill I see from my kitchen window ... a Horse on our side and the stag on the side that faces the sea ... the horse is a century older. There's a ruined Hunting Lodge from the 1700s on top that we walk to from the house if we fancy a local hike ... about 8 mile round trip.

K

K, I wondered if you knew of it great it's near you.

So, back on the OP's subject, I've been tidying some old family stuff and we do have a bit of an arty background

These are original pen & ink by my Great Grandad, one is dated 1913, so it's survived two World wars ! numerous house moves and local disasters over the years



We think this one is a little later