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A solid foundation is the key to any quality building project, and that’s definitely true when it comes to laying natural stone flooring. Whether you’re using tiles or slabs, it’s essential to prepare the surface properly before you start work. Can I put stone tiles on a concrete floor? Concrete or brick floors are an ideal foundation for natural stone flooring as they’re even, solid and strong. Little preparation is required to put a stone floor on a concrete foundation, but a few basic precautions should be taken. First, particularly […]

This week I have been mostly looking at Roman Aqueducts. The first, the Aqua Appia was built in 312 BC to provide the populace of Rome up to 75,537 cubic meters of water per day. The amazing thing about this structure is that the majority of it’s length was subterranean and dropped only 10m throughout it’s entirety. Aqueducts move water through gravity alone and the Aqua Appia, built from stone, brick and the special volcanic element pozzuolona also afforded itself protection by it’s underground construction. During the Samnite wars, the […]

Built after 1865, the Solent Forts Horse-Sands, No Man’s Land, St Helens and Spitbank forts were created to protect Portsmouth and it’s harbour from attack. The most likely culprit at this point would have been the french. All of the forts are built from granite and are armour plated. Ranging in size from 150-200ft diameter and costing between £123,000 and £467,000 they were an expensive and impressive defensive against potential invaders. Luckily they never had to be used in warfare. The forts had to be armoured to prevent granite they […]