Persistence and change in the spatio-temporal description of Sheffield Parish c.1750-1905

This paper brings a range of techniques from space syntax and fractal geometry to the question of the diachronic description of spatial structures that are usually considered in purely synchronic terms. Drawing on historical research into the growth of the English industrial city of Sheffield c.1770-1905 it asks how far the spatial configuration of the city’s rural hinterland (its ‘parish’) was implicated in the processes of social change and continuity that unfolded during this period. Time-series data on the development of Sheffield Parish is provided by the syntactical analysis of detailed historical maps, the routes taken by roadbased public transport systems and contemporary newspaper reports. The data is interpreted in the light of Hillier and Iida’s notion of angular, topological and metric “distance concepts” which are said to represent distinctive ‘modalities of scale’ in the emergence of an urban area embedded in the historical spatial configuration of its rural hinterland. In traditional urban geography the growth of cities is conventionally represented as the projection of an expanding built environment onto a blank surface. The discourse that accompanies this teleological notion of urbanization is typically one in which the countryside is ‘absorbed’ by the rapacious city. This language can be misleading, since urban areas whose growth can be regarded as ‘organic’ - in the sense of arising piecemeal over time - suggests the inadequacy of conceptualizing the built environment in a single (synchronic) dimension. The evidence from Sheffield Parish indicates how the differentiation of urban form is constituted both synchronically and diachronically in the description of spatial elements structured at different modalities of scale consistent with prevailing patterns of social practice, some of which relate to innovations in public transportation. The analysis of rural road networks represents a relatively new area of space syntax research. An historical study of this kind helps to ground future work by focusing on the emergent properties of space at the urban-rural periphery without also raising complex methodological questions relating to the application of space syntax methodology to large-scale contemporary urban regions. Rather, the emphasis is on drawing together the theoretical and analytical aspects of the Sheffield case study to assert that if the growing city is legitimately said to have ‘absorbed’ its rural hinterland then it is equally evident that this process of urban transformation can be also described in terms of the persistence of pre-urban road networks, historically embedded in local topography

The ‘Lost’ Church of Bix Gibwyn: The Human Bone

Recent research for the Victoria County History (VCH) highlighted the presence of a ‘lost’ medieval church in Bix, a Chilterns parish north-west of Henley-on-Thames. The building, formerly the parish church of Bix Gibwyn, was abandoned in the late sixteenth or seventeenth century and has left no standing remains. Archaeological investigation by the South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group (SOAG) and Reading University has confirmed its location in a close called ‘Old Chapel’ in Bix Bottom, in the north of the parish. The rediscovery of the site – which contains the foundations of a hitherto unknown Romano-British stone building – sheds new light on long-term changes in local communications, settlement, and economic conditions. In the Middle Ages Bix Gibwyn church was a focus of religious and social life for a small rural community in the south Oxfordshire Chilterns. After the Reformation it was neglected, demolished, and finally all but forgotten. Its location has been a matter of speculation for over a hundred years,1 but in 2007–10 its churchyard was identified through a combination of historical research and archaeological fieldwork. Confirmation of the church’s location in the remote Bix Bottom valley provides important evidence about the medieval settlement pattern in Bix, which was very different from the modern one, and offers an opportunity to reassess the development of settlement in the southern Chilterns more generally. The archaeological findings also supply new evidence about Roman activity in the area

Cycloaurated GoId (III) complexes- Possible alternatives to cisplatin?

The serendipitous discovery of the anti-tumour activity of cisplatin [cis-PtCI₂(NH₃)₂] in 1969 has led to increased interest in the development of new metal-based anti-cancer drugs. However, regardless of the large numbers of new metal-containing compounds generated, many of which demonstrate anti-tumour activity, cisplatin still remains one of the most widely used anti-tumour drugs in the western world

Ministry and stress : listening to Anglican clergy in Wales

This study set out to examine the experiences of stress in ministry among a sample of Anglican clergy serving in Wales. Building on recent quantitative studies of work-related psychological health among Anglican clergy in England, the study employed mainly qualitative methods to illustrate eight issues: the clergy's overall assessment of their present health, their understanding of the characteristics of stress, their assessment of the levels of symptoms of stress within their own lives, their identification of the causes of stress within their experience of ministry, the people on whom they call for support in times of stress, their strategy for and styles of recreation, their assessment of the pastoral care provision available to clergy, and their views on enhancing initial clergy training to equip clergy to cope with stress. Data provided by 73 clergy (10 female and 63 male) portray a group of professionally engaged men and women who are well aware of the stress-related dynamics of their vocation, who are displaying classic signs of work-overload, and who are critical of and resistant to strategies that may confuse the pastoral care of stressed clergy with the accepted management role of the Church's hierarchy of bishops and archdeacons

A study of the spatial characteristics of the Jews in London 1695 & 1895

This paper suggests that the settlement pattern of Jews in London is in a distinct cluster, but contradicts the accepted belief about the nature of the 'ghetto'; finding that the traditional conception of the 'ghetto', as an enclosed, inward-looking immigrant quarter is incorrect in this case. It is shown that despite the fact that the Jews sometimes constituted up to 100% of the population of a street, that in general, the greater the concentration of Jews in a street, the better connected (more 'integrated') the street was into the main spacial structure of the city. It is also suggested here that the Jewish East End worked both as an internally strong structure of space, with local institutions relating to and reinforcing the local pattern of space; and also externally, with strong links tying the Jewish East End with its host society. It is proposed that this duality of internal/external links not only strengthens Jewish society but possibly contradicts accepted beliefs on the structure of immigrant societies