John Minnis Livres

This book examines the history of Boston in Lincolnshire as reflected in its buildings and townscape from medieval times to the present day. Boston has a position as an important market from medieval times and as a major port with links with Europe and America. The homes and warehouses of its citizens show the evidence of this.Boston's religious and public buildings are discussed, and its physical expansion throughout the 19th and into the 20th century are examined. Other important influences on the town's development include fen drainage, the role of agriculture and manufacturing, and transport links. Bringing the story up to date, problems created by the town's remoteness from large centres of population, a low-wage agricultural economy and the impact of 1970s redevelopment are discussed, where they have affected the physical appearance of the town. A final chapter looks at how successful regeneration projects have been in Boston and how these can be built upon to promote a more prosperous future for the town that recognises the important role heritage can play in achieving it.

A striking photographic record of how industry cuts and modernisation saw Britain's grand terminal stations, soaring viaducts, and cavernous locomotive works wiped from the landscape Filled with fascinating and often rare images, this collection documents the remarkably rich architectural heritage of British railways, from quaint country halts to distinguished railway hotels—all of which exists now only in photographs. Who would know that the ugly, low concrete bunker of Birmingham New Street station replaced a handsome glass-roofed train shed, that until the 1960s the stupendously high Belah viaduct swept across a remote Cumbrian valley, that the outlet mall in Swindon selling cheap designer clothing used to be the great GWR locomotive works, or that on little bucolic branch lines in the West Country or Essex an old bus body was the waiting-room? The current restoration of St Pancras Station and its Midland Hotel is a glorious exception to a melancholy rule—that the finer the railway architecture, the more likely it was to be demolished in the name of progress.