Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/334

 316 THE BUILDING NEWS. Aprit 19, 187 2. HOUSE PLANNING COMPETITION. HE following are the names of the authors of plans successful in this competition, and also the names of the authors whose plans received honourable mention. (See report of referees in our last week’s number.) The premiated plans are given this week, and some of the others will be given in future numbers of the Burtpinc N EWs. FOR MANSION. “ Experientia,” Wm. Henry Lockwood, 10, Adam- street, Adelphi, London. Honovurasie Mention.—1. No Motto. 2. “En Avant,” Benjamin C. Hughes, Spon-lane, West Bromwich. FOR VILLA. “Domus,” Wm. Edwards, 64, Warwick-street, Hulme, Manchester. Honovraste Mention. —1. “Una Quinta,” James MacLaren, 141, West George-street, Glasgow. 2. “Cofite qu'il Cofite,” James Ledingham, 29, Hanover-square, Bradford. 3. ‘‘ Glasgowegian,” George W. Brown, at Messrs. Salmon, Son, & Ritchie, architects, Glasgow. 4. ‘‘ One in a Hundred,” John Watts, 35, Bucklersbury, E.C. 5. “ Home,” W. H. Lockwood, 10, John-street, Adelphi. 6. ‘Let us Labour with Love,” W. Flockhart, 160, Hope- street, Glasgow. DESCRIPTION OF DESIGN FOR MANSION BEARING THE MOTTO “ EXPERIENTIA.” NTERING by an arcade or loggia which forms a porch, the vestibule is reached; this is separated from the hall by an enriched screen. The main staircase is lighted by a large external window, and skylights of all kinds are avoided. Sliding doors connect the morning-room with drawing-room. The dinner route is made as simple as possible, and is cut off from main part of house. The library, which could be used as a business room, is placed con- veniently near the entrance. Communication is pro- vided through conservatory between dining and drawing-rooms; in other respects they are quite separate. The lavatory and water-closet are situated by the garden entrance. The referees, as men- tioned in the report last week, awarded the first prize to this plan. The corridor on the ground floor is to be lighted by fan-light and glass in upper panels of door, also from garden entrance. The somewhat peculiar design of front entrance is adopted to avoid an external opening in base of tower, which would take away from its stability, and apparently weaken the wall. Draughts are thereby avoided, and we do away with the “ pompous portico” which too often stares us in the face, and is quite useless as a protection from the weather. The Gothic style has been adopted because it is the best suited to our climate, wants, and feelings; less sacrifice has to be made in obtaining effect and efficiency of plan than if Classic models are followed. The materials would be externally entirely of stone, say, Kentish rag with dressings of Portland or Bath stone. Gray slating to roofs. The main portion of house is caleulated at a shillling per cubie foot; if we include cellars and outbuildings, it will be about tenpence per foot, the price named in the conditions. This mansion could certainly be built in a superior manner at this price ; indeed, it should be done for less, as there is no extravagant ornament introduced ; much would, of Mr. Wm. Hy. Lockwood, architect, of 10, John-street, Adelphi, is the author. course, depend upon the style of finish, DESCRIPTION OF DESIGN FOR DETACHED SUBMITTED BY “ DoMUS.” VILLA N reference to the plan it will be seen that the principal apartments have an aspect ranging from east to south, the entrance and staircase having been arranged on the north-west side. The dining- room has been planned in close proximity with the kitchen, the former having a serving door, the hall. The whole of the seven bedrooms on each floor are provided witha fireplace and ventilating flues. The usual cellars, larder, &e., are arranged for in the basement, and the kitchen out-offices at end of yard. The whole of the fronts to be faced with white stock bricks. The windows to have stone heads, springers, sills, &c. The roof to be covered with slates. The internal woodwork, such as doors, staircases, &c., to be of pitch pine. The outside walls are to be 15}in. in thickness and constructed with a 2in. cavity, in order to prevent damp from penetrating through the wall. The de- sign has been made in accordance with the instruc- tions issued by the Editor of the Burrpinc News, so as to cost £2,000, calculated at the rate of 8d. per cube foot from the ground line. ——————»@»~—__—__ THE UNIVERSAL FOUL AIR PURIFIER. HIS apparatus has been invented by Mr. S. Lidstone, for placing in vent pipes for the purpose of purifying the foul air at present conveyed into neighbouring windows and skylights. It is cheap, simple in construction, and easily fixed. Its construction will given. be understood from the sketch Fig. 1 is an elevation of the apparatus; Fig. 2 is a vertical section thereof; Fig. 3 is a plan with the cover removed. Aisa chamber provided at top with a cap or cover B; the chamber is provided at bottom with a tubular opening or neck D, communicating at one end with the interior of the chamber A, in the bottom of which is an orifice for the purpose. At the other end this tube D is intended to com- municate and be connected with a pipe or passage into which the vapour or gas flows or is conveyed. Atthe top of the cover B is a tube C open at both ends, itslower end communicating with the interior of the chamber A, through an opening in the cover B, and its upper end open. E isa tube or channel perforated with a number of orifices. This tube is open at bottom, and communicates with the tube or tubular neck D, through the orifice in the bottom of the chamber A. At top, the tube E is covered by a cap or lid H, which projects over the top edge of the tube I, but does not extend to the sides of the chamber A, there being a space left all round, between the edges of the lid H, and the sides of the chamber A. I is a perforated diaphragm fitted in the chamber A alittle distance above the lid H; 77 are supports for the diaphragm I to rest on. The chamber A is supplied with charcoal or other suitable purify- ing medium or agent around the tube E, and such medium or agentis alsostrewed on the diaphragm L. The vapourous, gaseous, or aeriform products to be purified pass through the tube IE, through the perforations therein, and through the diaphragm L, traversing or percolating through the purifying medium; and eventually they emerge in a purified condition from the tube or opening C. If used in the open air, the apparatus may be furnished with a cap, raised over and protecting the opening C. ——— On Tuesday week a new national school and master’s house were opened at West Mersea. They have been erected at a cost of £720, from plans prepared by Mr. Horace Darken, by Mr. A. Diss, of Bergholt. They are built of red bricks, jointed with coloured mortar, and faced with Bath stone, of which thereby ¢ material the window frames and arches of the door avoiding the necessity of carrying the dinner across { are also composed. SUBURBAN CEMETERIES. N order just issued from the Home Office for the discontinuance of burials in the church- yard of the picturesque parish church of Hornsey reminds us (Graphic) of a practical difficulty whick does not appear to have presented itself to the minds of those useful sanitary reformers who some forty years since began to advocate the abolition of inter- ments in towns. The principle of that salutary re- gulation has long been recognised by the law, but it is certainly not correct to say that intramural’ burials are altogether unknown. The new suburban cemeteries of thirty or forty years since were in all cases in the open country, but so rapid is the growth of London that there are few of them which are not now surrounded by houses, while some are actually situated in the midst of very populous neighbour- hoods. Take, for example, the Tower Hamlets Cemetery at Bow. This already crowded burial- ground was but a few years ago separated from town by fields and market-gardens, but London has overtaken it, and now streets of shops and houses surround and even extend beyond it eastward for- several miles. The great cemeteries of Brompton, Abney Park, Norwood, and Nunhead, are also al- ready outstripped by the builders; while even Highgate and the classic Kensal-green are manifestly doomed to be thus, before long, brought practically into town. The case is not without difficulty, for the distance of the present burial grounds is a hard- ship bearing very heavily on the poor who live in the- heart of London. No good purpose, however, can be served by encouraging the delusion that we have- altogether ceased to bury the dead in close proximity to the habitations of the living. It may be that, after all, this cannot be helped, but the question of whether the limits defined by the Burial Acts should be extended ought at least to receive the earnest at- tention of the Legislature. —__@—__—_ POISONOUS PAPER-HANGINGS. PAPER on this subject appears in the “ Trans— actions” of the Social Science Association for 1871. The fact that nearly all the green colouring. now in use is arsenical has been indisputably proved by eminent analysts. Specimens can be produced of pale green papers containing six, nine, and even. fourteen grains of arsenic to the square foot, and papers containing only a leaf or line of green in the pattern are arsenical and injurious. Yet such papers are to be seen everywhere; in royal palaces, in the. mansions of our nobles and gentry, in lodging-houses, and the homes of the middle and industrial classes in town and country. Medical men have these. poisonous papers on their walls, and suffer from them unawares. Arsenic was first employed in the manufacture of wall-papers about the beginning of this century, and its use has been on the increase year after year up to the present time. If we cover our walls with a poison which is not only deadly, but volatile, can we wonder at deterioration of health? The writer says: My own experience of the danger of arsenical wall-papers extends over a period of fourteen years, during which my entire household, numbering fourteen persons, suffered severely. But now follows an important point, proving that arsenic is not confined to green colouring, as sup- posed, but is used in papers of all colours, and even in white. Our paperscontaining green were replaced with others totally devoid of green, but in a few months’ time many alarming symptoms reappeared. Suspecting arsenic again, I had all these papers analysed, and arsenic was found in the paper of every bedroom in the house, though not one con- tained even a speck of green. On removing these papers, and colouring the walls with whiting and size, tinted with safe colours, relief soon followed, and health has since steadily improved. It often happens that dangerous arsenic papers are concealed underneath harmless ones, owing to the pernicious cuttom of putting one paper over another. A very severe case of poisoning by this means has recently come under my notice. Many of the pigments now in use appear to contain arsenic; therefore, in sub- stituting paint or wash for paper, it is important to. know of what the colours are composed. There is, I am told, a “new blue” used for colouring walls, which contains arsenic, and the green distemper wash so often used instead of paint is aimost invari- ably arsenical; being totally unglazed, it is all the more rapidly injurious. But the gaseous exhala- tions of arsenic haye been found dangerous, both from glazed papers and oil paint, as was proved at Munich in 1860. The Prussian Government, recog- nising the danger, ‘* forbid the use of arsenic in any colours, whether distemper or oil, for indoor work.” Yet in this country arsenic paintis freely used on the walls of our rooms, and on Venetian blinds ; the green paint used for these latter articles containing about seventy-five per cent. of arsenic.