Trivia Investigation Team

[NewcastleFalcon]

Skipton's the place for "sheds", although didn't see any "Freds".



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

More trivia from Peter's contribution on the Energy Matters thread

I would think so it's only basic Chinese engine. I had even thought of using 28 sec heating with some added oil.

Peter

An unfamiliar term for me, so I looked it up

https://www.crownoil.co.uk/guides/kerosene-guide/

What is kerosene?
Kerosene is a combustible oil with low viscosity used by businesses and homes as fuel to generate heat, light and power. Kerosene has many names, although these all refer to the same fuel; these names include kerosine, paraffin, heating oil, 28 second, kero, lamp oil, burning oil and boiler fuel. Kerosene is a hydrocarbon fuel and is obtained by fractional distillation of crude oil.

The term ‘28-second oil’ is used as a term to distinguish kerosene’s viscosity, through a specific test of how long it takes 50ml of the oil to drip into a beaker. This also explains how red diesel gets its ‘35-second’ name.

Curiosity satisfied

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

I did wonder but not enough to investigate.
Right choice, see, I didn't need to.

[Peter.N.]

Well done, some boilers use 35 sec oil which is actually red diesel but I think you can only buy it in 1000 ltrs which is nearly £1000! I just paid nearly that for kerosene but a litre of Kerosene contains 10 kw of power, knock of boiler efficiency which in my case is 85% and you end up with 8.5 kw which is still about 1/4 of the cost of electricity. If fuel goes back to a sensible price it may even be cheaper to generate your own power with a small generator, say around 2kw.

Peter

[CitroJim]

On my reading the motive power is a two-stroke diesel from General Motors!

Hence why they sound so lovely Not quite as lovely as a Class 55 with the Napier Deltic but still very easy on the ears

A world apart compared to the Class 37 engine note - their nickname of 'Tractor' is well deserved and justified

The Class 37 is another tremendously successful loco. Dating from the early 60s, some are still in mainline service on freight traffic and departmental duties

[NewcastleFalcon]

New brick today

F&L (Ferens and Love)

Hats off to those who put together the research and the resouces on the net which tell a little bit of the history arising from the names and initials stamped on bricks.

Without it there wouldn't be a chance of working it out.

I got a bit of a surprise with the F&L brick which was a simple look up on the brocross web site. The initials are cross referenced to the main pages and F&L turns out to be Ferens and Love. The brick was from my old stomping ground of North West Durham.

Kelly's Durham Directory 1890: - Fire Brick Manufacturers Ferens & Love, Lanchester, Durham Ferens & Love, 28 Market Place; works, Cornsay & Lanchester Collieries, Durham. Cornsay colliery was opened in 1868 by Ferens and Love, who employed 700 men at the colliery and its associated drift mines. The company established a works alongside the colliery specifically for the manufacture of bricks and sanitary pipes using fire clay extracted from the mine. The brickworks operated for some time after the closure of the colliery in 1953. Photos and info by Frank Lawson.

Joseph and Sarah Love had one son, Isaac Pearson Love, who died in 1854, leaving an only child, Joseph Horatio Love, born in 1853, who subsequently lived at The Hawkhills near Easingwold, Yorkshire. Isaac Pearson Love's widow Sarah (née Stephinson) in ca.1857 married Robinson Ferens (died 1892), originally a draper of Durham City and Willington, County Durham. Robinson Ferens became a member of the Methodist New Connexion perhaps in ca.1857. After his marriage he was appointed manager of Joseph Love's collieries. He later joined with Love as a partner in developing new collieries and after Love's death in 1875 had sole direction of the collieries, becoming wealthy.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/histo ... s-respond/

Cornsay Colliery, near Esh Winning to the west of Durham City, was probably F&L’s principal colliery. The company sank it in 1863 and maintained it through its pre-First World War heyday, when it employed 700 men, until it closed it in the 1950s.

An 1894 guide to County Durham says: “A great feature of this pit is that it yields a splendid fireclay, which supplies the rather extensive brick, tile, and sanitary pipe works in connection with the colliery. It is contemplated by the owners to lay down plant for the manufacture of glazed, sanitary, and other ware, for which the clay is so well adapted.”

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Time to head off on a small tangental links odyssey.

Ferens is a name associated both with Durham and Hull.

Hull through Thomas Robinson Ferens, born in County Durham,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ferens
Thomas Robinson Ferens (4 May 1847 – 9 May 1930) was a British Liberal politician, a philanthropist, and an industrialist. He was the Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull East for 13 years, and served the city as a Justice of the Peace and as High Steward. He helped establish Reckitt and Sons, a manufacturer of household goods, as one of Kingston upon Hull's foremost businesses.

Thomas Robinson Ferens: the millionaire from Shildon who made Hull a city of culture

“His life story is that of one who as a young man was possessed of few worldly prospects or advantages, but who, with the aid of that commonsense and grit so often associated with the industrial and social life of the Northcountryman, became one of the leading commercial magnates of the country, and one of the most princely philanthropists of his time.”

And the art gallery (in Hull) that bears his name is now featuring as one of the central attractions in the UK’s 2017 City of Culture.

Then we are fishing for a link to the Ferens family of Durham City, the best known of which was Cecil Ferens, a solicitor who captained Durham County Cricket Club in 1929-31 and was mayor of the city in 1947-49. He gave £500 to buy an orchard in the Sands area by the Wear which became Ferens Park, the home of Durham City FC until 1994 – they’ve played at New Ferens Park until recently.

Cecil Ferens, who died in 1975, was a director of Ferens and Love, a mining company which owned Cornsay Colliery. One of the founders of Ferens and Love was Robinson Ferens, born 1819. And what was the middle name of Hull’s benefactor, TR Ferens – yes, it was Robinson.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

The source of that Brick was fireclay from Cornsay Colliery, Co Durham.

Wiki has some interesting information on the Colliery here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornsay_Colliery

One of the things which pricked my curiosity was the naming of one of the "Seams".

The Cornsay Colliery, worked by Messrs. Ferens and Love, was first opened out in 1868, and is situated within the township of Cornsay, but in this parish. There are four seams, the whole of which are worked by drifts into the hillsides. The 'Harvey' is 2 feet 8 inches thick; the 'Ballarat' 1 foot 9 inches; the 'Five Quarter' 2 feet 2 inches to 3 feet 6 inches, and the Main coal is 3 feet. The names of the drifts are Low Drift, High Drift, Colpike Drift, and Ford Drift, which give a daily output amounting to 750 tons, about the half of which is converted into coke on the spot, there being 270 ovens. A great feature of this pit is that it yields a splendid fire-clay, which supplies the rather extensive brick, tile, and sanitary pipe-works in connection with the colliery.

Seems an odd name to choose to "name" a seam.

So where does the name Ballarat come from

Happy for other joiners-in to find that one out...my initial look maybe posed the question "What came first " and leads to a place many many miles from Co Durham.

Regards Neil

[bobins]

I think I would have named that seam " The Short Straw"

[NewcastleFalcon]

The Northern Echo provides a decent answer to the naming of the "ballarat" seam, and it does indeed come from many miles from County Durham.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/histo ... deep-past/

As you travelled across the county, the seams rose and fell and the names varied. In mid-Durham, there was a thin seam – less than 2ft wide – called “Ballarat”, which the rest of the coalfield knew as “Top Busty”.

Ballarat is an Aboriginal word for “camping place”. In 1851, gold was discovered at a camping place in Victoria, Australia, and 20,000 golddiggers rushed to the Ballarat area.

Presumably, the black gold of the Ballarat seam was identified by mid-Durham miners just as they were hearing stories of untold wealth from the goldrush miners of Ballarat.

REgards Neil

[CitroJim]

Near me was a great centre of brick-making with many kilns all around, especially along the Marston Vale between Bletchley and Bedford...

All gone now, the last being the Stewartby works which closed in 2008. Stewartby village was built especially for the staff of the brickworks and the houses are very regimented and reminiscent of military married-quarters. Recent expansion of the village has maintained the style precisely and it's now hard to tell old from new...

Until recently, four of the kiln chimneys still stood. One was slated for preservation but sadly it was too far gone and was demolished with the other three...

The one to be saved had 'STEWARTBY' written on it in big white letters...

Some of us were not sorry when the kilns closed... The fumes from them could be awful when wind and atmospheric conditions were wrong.. You could almost cut the air with a knife...

Since the closure of all the brickworks much land reclamation has been done and some nice new forest and parkland established... Once a grotty industrial area it's now a nice place to visit... Several pits are now lakes and used for water sports - including triathlon events...

These days you'd never know it was once a horrid, industrial polluted smoky place...

[bobins]

New brick today

<Much snaippage>

Joseph and Sarah Love had one son, Isaac Pearson Love, who died in 1854, leaving an only child, Joseph Horatio Love, born in 1853, who subsequently lived at The Hawkhills near Easingwold, Yorkshire.

REgards Neil

A tiny bit of trivia - The Hawkhills is the home to The Emergency Planning College*. I have a feeling The Hawkhills has been mentioned somewhere here before

*- a place where lots of good ideas about emergency planning are taught and discussed...... and then not implemented due to lack of money.

[NewcastleFalcon]

On our Ballarat tangent, based on Ferens and Love's Cornsay Colliery working the "Ballarat" seam, here is some information on this vessel...P&O's SS Ballarat, now a shipwreck off the Coast of Cornwall.

http://fascinatingfactsofww1.blogspot.c ... ed-on.html



The steamship S.S. “Ballarat” was a cargo and passenger liner built in 1911 by Caird & Company in Scotland for the P & O Company and sailed the route from Britain to Australia.

The “Ballarat” was one of the many passenger liners requisitioned by the British Admiralty and converted for war service during the First World War. The ship initially served as an Indian transport vessel before becoming a troopship, carrying Australian troops to Britain.

In 1917, The ship was torpedoed by UB 32 in the English Channel on the final day (ANZAC day) of the 13,000 mile voyage. The Ballarat eventually sank but amazingly not a single life was lost and the entire ship’s company of 1,752 souls were landed safely.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Even more SS Ballarat trivia. There were 4, (The first one was named "Ballaarat" subsequent ones adopted the spelling "Ballarat")

Loads of interesting information here of the Four SS Ballarats of the Peninsular & Oriental.
http://www.pandosnco.co.uk/ballarat.html

In March 1893 she (the first SS Ballaarat) delivered a record consignment of Australian butter to the UK - 25,401 cases totalling about 700 tons.

Regards Neil