Bøger af John Christopher

King's Cross station was the terminus of the Great Northern Railway and was opened in 1852. Designed by Lewis Cubitt, it replaced a temporary station at Maiden Lane. It established itself as the London terminus of what is now known as the East Coast Main Line to Edinburgh. From 1862, at 10 a.m. every weekday, the Flying Scotsman left King's Cross for the north, initially taking over ten hours to complete the journey but now taking only four hours from Edinburgh to London. Some of Britain's most famous locomotives, from the Ivatt Atlantics to the A3 and A4 Pacifics, Deltics and HSTs, have sped north from King's Cross.The underground station below the main line station encompasses six lines and was the scene of the disastrous King's Cross fire in 1987, following which it was rebuilt. King's Cross itself has been redeveloped many times over the years, and a fictional platform (93⁄4) made famous in the Harry Potter novels. Its Grade 1 listed facade has been revamped and the station improved to increase capacity.

Bournemouth Through Time is a wonderful collection of old and new photographs of Bournemouth. The older images are printed alongside a contemporary full colour photograph, which illustrates the same scene. The contrasting illustrations show how the area has changed and developed during the last 100 years. The photographs illustrate shops, schools, garages, churches, houses and street scenes.As you browse through the photographs, you will notice the increase in the number of vehicles on the roads and the number of residents, how shops and other businesses have evolved and the changes and developments in modes of transportation and the architecture of the area.

Cornwall marks the extreme south-western extent of Brunel's kingdom and the county is surprisingly rich in his works. The Royal Albert Bridge, which crosses the River Tamar, connected the broad gauge network with the Cornwall and West Cornwall railways - both engineered by Brunel - to take the trains coming from Paddington all the way to Penzance via a series of over sixty spectacular timber viaducts. The original viaducts have gone now, either modified or replaced over the years, but in many cases the masonry piers remain like rows of monolithic sentinels. As a result there is much to reward the Brunel hunter, including the branch line to Falmouth and many surviving examples of his railway stations. There are other connections, literally. His Great Eastern steamship was the first vessel to successfully lay a telegraphic cable to connect Europe and the USA - a story told at the historic Porthcurno Telegraph Museum near Land's End. John Christopher, an acknowledged expert on Brunel, takes us on a tour of Cornwall, exploring his works in the county. This is the latest in a series of books which are about rediscovering Brunel's works in your area.

LONDON needed rebuilding after the great fire of 1666. Eighty-eight churches had been destroyed and a grand plan to rebuild them was started by Sir Christopher Wren. In the end, he designed fifty-one new churches and the splendour that is St Paul's Cathedral. Of the fifty-one churches, many have been lost, either to a combination of Victorian indifference, fire, subsidence or German bombs. Twelve Wren City churches survive in their original form, while many of the remaining churches have been rebuilt or substantially altered. Wren left an amazing legacy and John Christopher takes us on a tour of the churches, showing them as built and showing us a comparison scene of today.

He was responsible for building the Great Western Railway main line, introducing regular steamship travel across the Atlantic, building the first tunnel under a major river, and constructing docks, harbours and bridges that enabled Britain to expand and grow as the powerhouse of the world.

Bradshaw's Guide provides a fascinating account of Victorian railway travel in the north-east of the UK. For the first time it is presented in a highly readable form in this new annotated volume, fully illustrated throughout with old and new colour images.

The SS Great Britain Story is a concise account of one of the most famous steamships ever built. The great Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel embraced the latest innovations, including an iron hull and a screw-propeller, to create an ocean liner that was decades ahead of its time.

The HMS Victory story

In the distant future, Harl and Ellen talk about their work and their lives. Their work as scientists is more important to them than love. Harl plans to leave Earth, on a long journey through space. Ellen plans to stay on Earth, to change the way the human mind works. When Harl returns to Earth, the world will be a very different place.

This book comprehensively tells the story behind London's famous red buses.

The history of balloons at war

One of a series of fiction for schools. The moral of this story, set in the 21st century, is that freedom has to be won and kept by the young. It won the "Guardian" Prize for Children's Literature.