History
The stream is an engineered watercourse which is part of an intricate five mile canal system within the Gunpowder Mills establishment and is fed by water from the River Lea. It provided the main power source for water driven mills in the area before the first gunpowder mills were recorded in 1662. The stream was also used for the smooth and safe delivery of raw materials and collection of gunpowder.
Due to its location the stream remained largely unseen for over 300 years until the site was opened to the general public in 2001.
Read more about this topic: Millhead Stream
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)