To reserve your copy of Walls Across the Valley, please complete the form below. We will contact you before publication of the book to process payment of £50 (RRP £60).
To be a subscriber (with your name and place of residence printed in the book), you must place your order by Sunday the 26th of February. After this point, you will still be able to reserve the book for the pre-publication price of £50, but you will not be included in the list of subscribers.
The Derwent and Howden Dams are a principal source of drinking water for much of South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the East Midlands, including the cities of Sheffield, Derby, Leicester and Nottingham. They are magnificent engineering and architectural structures and have acquired additional fame as one of several locations used in training the Dambusters Squadron. Prof. Brian Robinson’s grandfather worked on the project and his mother was born in the temporary navvies’ village of Birchinlee in 1909, and indeed Brian himself has the stature of a powerful workman. Though a molecular biologist by profession, Prof. Robinson has had a lifelong interest in the construction of the Dams and in the lives of the workmen employed there, and in 1993, Scarthin Books of Cromford, Derbyshire were able, with support from the Severn Trent Water Authority, to publish his highly illustrated magnum opus, Walls across the Valley; The Building of the Howden and Derwent Dams in an edition of some 1500 copies. “Walls” has been out of print now for over a decade and has become Scarthin’s most legendary publication, with the few examples that come onto the market selling for £200 or more. At the time of writing, not a single copy for sale can be traced on the net.
The building of the Dams was one of the great engineering feats of the early 20th. Century, involving the building of a railway up the valley and the village for the workmen, Birchinlee and the moving of well over a million tons of earth, stone and cement. The opening ceremony was held on the 5th of September 1912, so centenary celebrations are not far in the future.
The publication of the first edition of Walls across the Valley brought to light much new material, as well as a few factual revisions, and as the original edition sold out, Brian Robinson and publisher David Mitchell invested much time and effort in revising the text, but production of a second edition was beset by technical gremlins too costly to overcome and ten years past before Scarthin Books took up the challenge again. The advance of publishing technology has allowed this scholarly and superbly-illustrated volume to be completely re-originated with the revised text, and long-established Sheffield firm J.W.Northend have undertaken to print it to their accustomed high standards.
Walls across the Valley; The Building of the Howden and Derwent Dams by Brian Robinson; Publication Date Easter 2012; large format clothbound. Limited edition of 500 copies only, price £60.
We invite you to subscribe in advance of this publication at the pre –publication price of £50. Unless you request otherwise, your name and simplified place of residence or institution, will be printed in the list of subscribers. In the event of an unreasonable delay in publication or of other justified dissatisfaction, Scarthin Books will return your subscription promptly and in full.
