There is a reason haymaking dominated the rural year to the extent it did, and it is not simply that animals needed feeding.
The requirement was absolute. Livestock kept through…
Each building did one job, and the shape is the job. Here are fifteen.
1. A Very Tall Pair of Doors Means Loaded Carts
Enormous doors in the middle of…
There is a category of object assembled entirely without fixings, and basketry is the oldest and most widespread example.
Almost everything else made of many parts is held together by…
Source: Wikipedia
There is an assumption about milling that the word itself encourages, and it is wrong in an interesting way.
The assumption is crushing: two heavy stones pressed together, grain…
One rock type, unusually pure and unusually porous, produces a landscape unlike anything around it - dry on top, wet underneath and covered in a grassland that only exists because…
Source: Wikipedia
There is a small piece of rural engineering that walkers cross constantly and rarely examine.
The problem it solves is truly awkward. A boundary must be continuous to hold…