Christopher Howse

Writer for the Telegraph. Author of Soho in the Eighties and The Train in Spain.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

Shephard Taylor sketched this coal plate in Gerrard Street in 1863. The same pattern is still to be seen in Belgrave Road, London SW1. #opercula No 74

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

@Tudorgentleman So, with Shrewsbury, it's an Ope and Shut case.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

Venice has its sottoporteghi and Toledo its cobertizos. In Great Yarmouth, the alleys dating from past centuries are called Rows. There are 145 of them. Dove Row is No 119.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

In Leominster, Herefordshire, the jettied upper floors of neighbouring timber-framed buildings are jammed together, entirely roofing over Ironmongers Lane.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

Venice has its sottoporteghi and Toledo its cobertizos. In Great Yarmouth, the alleys dating from past centuries are called Rows. There are 145 of them. Dove Row is No 119.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

@IsabelMathiasPR That's wonderful. I didn’t know about shuts.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

The penguins didn’t like it. The concrete gave them sore feet.

[Modernism in Metroland @mod_in_metro]

Penguin Pool, London Zoo

1934

Berthold Lubetkin and Tecton

https://t.co/oO2I3pD5NY

[Mark W. @DurhamWASP]

Sir Edward Elgar, born 2nd June 1857

Nimrod by Sir Edward Elgar, performed by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

Market Row, Great Yarmouth. One of the widest of the 145 Rows in the town and one of the few to survive bombing and redevelopment.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

@RoyalFineArt The listing notes them as artificial stone blocks.

https://t.co/B5acjJGNUh

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

The appearance of this building has nothing to do with the window tax. The side round the corner is full of windows. The blanks are not bricked up but decorative devices.

[Creative Deduction @CreativeDeduct]

In 1696, the British government decided to tax sunlight. Under the Window Tax, households were charged according to the number of windows in their homes. To avoid paying, many people simply bricked up or boarded over their windows, choosing to live in darkness rather than hand money to the state for daylight.
The tax was presented as a fair way of taxing wealth, since larger houses tended to have more windows. In practice, it proved crude and damaging. Tax inspectors were given the power to enter homes and count the windows, which was widely resented as an invasion of privacy.
The consequences were severe. Poorer families, in particular, bricked up windows to reduce their liability, leaving homes darker, damper and poorly ventilated. This contributed to higher rates of disease, including tuberculosis and rickets. Architects began designing houses with fewer windows to minimise the tax, resulting in buildings that were less healthy and less pleasant to live in.
Far from being an efficient revenue raiser, the Window Tax distorted behaviour, harmed public health and became increasingly unpopular over time. Yet it remained in place for 155 years until it was finally abolished in 1851. The Window Tax required invasive enforcement and created more resentment, hardship and economic distortion than revenue. It is a classic example of the unintended consequences of taxation.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

@RoyalFineArt Yes, I don’t know the history. I'd like to find out.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

@DickiebirdBrown The door is off. But it's no worse than the windows in the Doge's Palace.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

@TheFrameBlogX @OxoDog51N14W He'd have fitted in in Camden Town.

[On This Day RN @OnthisdayRN]

The Royal Navy has a long history of building Floating Dry Docks to maintain the Fleet around the world. In the 1869, the world’s largest floating Dry Dock was towed across the Atlantic to Bermuda to support the Ironclads which at the time was the largest ever built. 🧵1/3

[John A. Monaco @johnamonaco]

Growing up in Connecticut, I always assumed the majority of Americans had Italian-Irish ancestry.

Pizza places on every block, Irish pubs, kids in your graduating class named Ryan Mancino/Maria Murphy, everyone is Catholic.

Once I left New England, I realized how unique it was.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

"We do traditional and untraditional breakfast" – Balkanitza Cafe Bistro, Market Place, Great Yarmouth.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

@GarryLavin Philology.

[Christopher Howse @BeardyHowse]

Bran loyalty.

[John McCafferty @jdmccafferty]

29 May 1639: d. Niccolò Arrighetti associate & friend of Galileo, philosopher & orator #otd (here's his ceremonial 'bran shovel' in the Accademia della Crusca Florence, by Sailko)

[Dr Francis Young @DrFrancisYoung]

Just got a copy of this 🔥

[Ennius @red_loeb]

June is the time for weeding out thistles. #MedievalCalendar
Bodleian Library Exeter College MS 47; The 'Psalter of Humphrey de Bohun'; 1360 CE–1400 CE; Pleshey and London, England; f.3v @bodleianlibs

[Martin Potter @PotterVillamil]

thistle door