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19 Comments

Christopher nursing home .
Christopher nursing home .
Photo: . Ozy .
Views: 926
Item #: 35151
Construction of the Christopher home 1936.
I assume at this period that the concrete would have been mixed on site.

Comment by: Cyril on 13th June 2024 at 16:57

Ozy, I was assuming that the concrete would have been mixed by hand too, but after looking on the web they may have had an electric powered mixer, they had been invented by a German man Richard Bodlaender and patented as a Mortar Mixer in America in 1904, and they would have saved a lot of hard work.

Just noticed that the photos have been Deckle Edged, you could buy a decent pair of scissors to do that decorative edging at one time, but not now.

Comment by: Dek on 13th June 2024 at 19:53

They were delivering ready-mix concrete to sites in the late 1800's.

Comment by: . Ozy . on 13th June 2024 at 20:09

Never heard that term
“ deckle edged “ before Cyril ….. Every day’s a school day as they say eh ?
I used to have a pair of scissors that cut a zig - zag line . They have a particular name but I can’t just bring it to mind ….. here’s a clue though ….
Wimmin use them for cutting material … They supposedly help prevent the edge of the material from fraying …. What the flip are the damn things called …..?

Comment by: Veronica on 13th June 2024 at 22:47

Pinking shears …I have some that I’ve had for years.

Comment by: . Ozy . on 14th June 2024 at 08:52

That’s the name I was looking for Veronica .

Comment by: Cyril on 14th June 2024 at 16:58

You can buy a set of different pattern cut scissors (wavy, crimped, deckle edged) at craft shops and amazon, but they aren't much good with being made in China of plastic with tin plate like cutting blades that aren't aligned, so the upper patterned blade catches on the lower patterned one and so preventing cutting, I don't know how children whom they are aimed at manage with them. I returned mine and told of the problem, they said to keep them if I could find any use for them, and had my cost returned, it seems it is a common complaint about them.

Quote: "Dek wrote: They were delivering ready-mix concrete to sites in the late 1800's."
Maybe, but according to the web the concrete would still have been mixed by hand in a convenient nearby yard and then wheel barrowed (delivered) over to the building site, but it was still inhouse and not a commercial operation.

*The earliest mention of ready mixed concrete in the UK is when Kjeld Ammentorp, a Dane who had witnessed the introduction of ready-mixed concrete in Copenhagen in the mid-1920s. Formed a company called Ready Mixed Concrete Ltd in July 1930 and erected the UK's first plant on land owned by Hall & Co.*
*From here:- https://www.agg-net.com/resources/articles/concrete/the-dawn-of-the-ready-mixed-concrete-industry#:~:text=The%20person%20credited%20with%20being,land%20owned%20by%20Hall%20%26%20Co.

Comment by: Dek on 14th June 2024 at 18:11

Cyril, forget what it says "there" or anywhere else for that matter. Admiralty Harbour, Dover, was constructed using remotely mixed and delivered concrete in 1898. Before that event, George Deacon (Liverpool civil engineer) had used a pre-mixed and delivered-to-site concrete system to construct over 70 miles of sewers in Liverpool.
Historical records speak for themselves, Cyril.

Comment by: Cyril on 14th June 2024 at 20:24

Dek, all of the Historical Records that 'speak for themselves' are in the website link that I put on if you had taken time to read it, and as is said the concrete or mortar was all mixed by hand in nearby yards or convenient land (which began to be coined as the Mortar Mill) and then barrowed over to where the men were working.
Ready mixed concrete trucks had been used in America from around the 1920s, but used a lot later in the UK.

Besides George Deacon was the Liverpool Borough engineer that brought safe drinking water to Liverpool by building a dam in 1879 at North Wales. It was Liverpool Borough engineer James Newlands who in 1847 began to build the sewers there and they were built using bricks.
We can all read the Historical Records on Wikipedia and Google, but if I do I give them the credit and posting a link. This is from United Utilities: https://www.unitedutilities.com/corporate/newsroom/latest-news/victorian-engineering-ingenuity-still-helps-keep-liverpool-flowing/

Comment by: John Noakes on 14th June 2024 at 20:51

London Gazette, June 8th, 1866.

"To Philip John Messent, of Tynemouth, in the county of Northumberland, Engineer, for the invention of improvements in apparatus for mixing concrete and other materials."

ie: the patent to Messent Concrete Mixing Machine in 1866.

Comment by: . Ozy . on 14th June 2024 at 21:14

As far as I’ve been able to ascertain , Admiralty dock was constructed primarily using pre-formed concrete blocks that were cast off site and placed into position using massive cranes … the voids between the blocks subsequently being filled by premixed concrete which was transported to the site by a fleet of side tipping hoppers shuttling between the batching site and the pour along a narrow gauge light railway .
So technically , Dek is correct , pre -mixed concrete was available at the turn of the century , but that still doesn’t explain how the concrete arrived at the Christopher Home .

Perhaps you could be a little more precise Dek .

Light railway ? … From where exactly ?

Comment by: Cyril on 15th June 2024 at 12:38

Re: application by P. J. Messent, at that time it wouldn't have been a concrete mixing machine such as we know, and also it was just that - an application - more than likely a drawing of an apparatus for the mixing of concrete and other materials, theoretically it may well have had two men on top of a large barrel or tub pedalling paddles around to mix it.
Though did it work?
There is no further mention of it so we don't know - though more than likely it did not because the inventions for mortar mixers that actually did work went on to be built, improved upon and still used today.

see here, Applicants for Patents of Invention:- https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BWsyAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA393&lpg=PA393&dq=did+Philip+John+Messent+have+a+patent+for+a+Concrete+Mixing+Machine+in+1866.&source=bl&ots=LrxuXuJMcX&sig=ACfU3U2u9JanKG5RUb_s93Q4dltK7wNc-A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjA-PHrst2GAxXjYEEAHVWFAIYQ6AF6BAgLEAM#v=onepage&q=did%20Philip%20John%20Messent%20have%20a%20patent%20for%20a%20Concrete%20Mixing%20Machine%20in%201866.&f=false

The mixing of the concrete may well have been mixed off site and possibly referred to as pre-mixed concrete, but at the time with slow transport it would certainly have had to have been mixed in a yard or on land close to the building site and transported either by barrow or a horse and cart, or in the case of the docks by a railway built specially, and delivered well before it began to harden.
Not exactly like the Ready Mix lorries we have now.

Be interesting to see what Dek or John Noakes now come up with.

Comment by: Veronica on 15th June 2024 at 14:41

Cyril, Ozy I don’t think they have a cat in hell’s chance!..;o))
Even now they’ll be pouring over old records in some cobweb strung cellar.

Comment by: Dek on 15th June 2024 at 15:50

Cyril, these things don't happen overnight, they progress from an outset. I said "They were delivering ready-mix concrete to sites in the late 1800's." simply because they were. I posted about the Admiralty Harbour because it said about it in the link you provided along with the Deacon information. You said you assumed it was hand mixed at the Christopher Home site in 1936, yet your link clearly states that records show "ready-mixed concrete was used in the construction of the Admiralty Harbour at Dover in 1898 and in one section of the work there were two 1yd3 mixers, each producing 100yd3 of concrete a day."
If they were using mixers in 1898, surely they would be using them in 1936, some 38 years later?

Comment by: Cyril on 15th June 2024 at 21:44

Dek. Read exactly what I put - i.e. "I was assuming that the concrete would have been mixed by hand too, but after looking on the web they may have had an electric powered mixer, they had been invented by a German man Richard Bodlaender and patented as a Mortar Mixer in America in 1904, and they would have saved a lot of hard work."

But according to you it would have been delivered, because it was as you say "being delivered from as early as the late 1800s."
Though you failed to say how and from where it would be delivered.
So with you putting it the way you did in Your initial post - then answer this with you assuming to know - Where Would They Be Having This Ready Mixed Concrete Delivered From - And How Would It Be Being Delivered To The Site At The Christopher Home?

Also the docks you are on about Ozy explained it - and you haven't replied to the question he put to you.

Comment by: Cyril on 16th June 2024 at 14:38

Veronica/Ozy, I'm convinced that Dek and John Noakes are the same poster, and the selfsame that hides cowardly behind other strange pseudonyms when leaving silly or offending posts, trying, though failing miserably in their quest to browbeat or belittle other users.
Besides they maybe are from the Communicate Boards in an effort to try and spoil this Platform like they've been trying to do on there.

Comment by: Dek on 16th June 2024 at 16:09

Cyril, you are a paranoid schizophrenic.

Comment by: Veronica on 16th June 2024 at 17:06

I’m convinced Cyril. I don’t go on those boards but I have taken a look now and then. It’s how you would imagine hell is like with every one arguing. Especially one person in particular going on and on. So much tit for tat!!!

Comment by: Cyril on 17th June 2024 at 15:58

Also thinking he's a Psychiatrist too.

Comment by: John(Westhoughton) on 8th July 2024 at 21:07

Now then after 35 years delivering ready mixed concrete in a vehicle that is designed to mix concrete by adding all required ingredients and transporting it whilst continuing to mix I believe 1930 was the first vehicle of that description in the UK to do so,1920ties in American.

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