Here at Brick to the Past we take our inspiration from a variety of sources, including field trips, a range of literature and art. Art can be particularly useful because it can not only provide a view point to the past but can also be the source of scenes and stories to work into a model. So it’s been wonderful to find out that we’ve been able to provide inspiration that others have drawn upon.

This month we were contacted by artist George Brady, who has been working on a lead and glass mosaic. The inspiration for the mosaic comes from our model The Wall: Rome’s Northern Frontier, and in particular a photo of it that shows it’s fort, milecastle and rolling landscape.

The result is an incredible mosaic that is alive with life. According to George, the model took over 3,000 hours to make and contains over 30,000 pieces of lead. He is hoping that this is a world record for a mosaic of this kind and is currently awaiting the decision of the Guinness Book of Records. If you would like to see the mosaic in person, then it go on display at the Harris Museum in Preston over December and January.

George is available for commission and you can send any enquiries you have to gbradyarts@hotmail.co.uk

On this day in 1745 the Battle of Prestonpans was fought between the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stewart, also known as Bonny Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender, and those of the Hanoverian British Government, under the command of Lieutenant General Sir John Cope. The battle was a resounding and somewhat unexpected victory for the Jacobites who completely routed Cope's army, killing or capturing and estimated 2,100 men while losing fewer than 100 of their own. Following Prestonpans the Jacobites would march south as far as Derby, capturing Carlisle and Manchester, before deciding to return to the Highlands where they would eventually face defeat on Culloden Moor.

Having raised his banner at Glenfinnan on 19th August, Charles Edward Stewart and his Jacobite army had marched south, taking the cities of Perth, Stirling and Edinburgh with little in the way of resistance. Despite taking the cities they failed to capture the castles at either Stirling or Edinburgh, or indeed the Barracks at Ruthven, but these held only minor garrisons who could do little to effectively counter the Jacobites in what was essentially hostile territory. Cope had taken an army north with the aim of reaching Fort Augustus and over-awing the Highland clans. However, he overestimated the size of the Jacobite force and fearing an engagement at Corrieyairack, diverted his men to Inverness. Cope then marched his army to Aberdeen from where it sailed south, landing at Dunbar just to the east of Edinburgh on the same day the city fell to the Jacobites.

Cope was now keen to engage with the Jacobites, with intelligence suggesting they numbered but 2,000 but poorly armed men. His own army numbered around 4,000 and while they were mostly fresh recruits and lacked combat experience, they had cavalry and artillery in support. Meeting Charles' advance guard on September 20th, Cope decided to stand his ground and drew up his army facing south, with a boggy ditch to their front, and the park walls around Preston House protecting their right flank. It was a strong position as a frontal charge favoured by the Highlanders would flounder in the bog and be defenseless against the musket and canon fire of the government army.

The Jacobites knew this too and if it weren't for the knowledge of a Jacobite Lieutenant Anderson, the battle may have turned out quite differently. He was the son of a local farmer and claimed to know a path through the bog. At 4am the next morning, under the cover of darkness and the morning mist, the Jacobites made their way three abreast along this route to the far east of Cope's position. From there they were able to charge down the government army who were taken completely by surprise and thrown into a panic. While the government were briefly able to deploy their canons the battle became a rout in under 10 minutes. Out of the 2,300 men in the government army, only 170 troops managed to escape, including Cope himself.

The battle was a pivotal moment in the rising, handing Charles Edward Stewart a major victory and perhaps emboldening the Jacobites to strike south towards London. The defeat was a humiliating one for the government and now, taking the situation with the seriousness it deserved, they recalled their army from Europe. Consequently when the two sides met for the final time on Culloden Moor in the April of 1746, the government army would be quite different in character and experience to the one that fell apart at Prestonpans.

Our model The Jacobite Risings: The Fight for Britain's Throne explores the history of the Risings and in particular that of the 'Forty-five'. It will next be on display at the Great Western Brick Show on October 7th and 8th, why not come and see it there?

​1811, 16th September, Villarejo, Spain. First Lieutenant George Simmons moves with the 1st Battalion of the 95th Rifles up to Villarejo, around 5 hours march North to Ciuadad Rodrigo.

On this day in 1835 the HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reached the Galápagos Islands. The ship landed at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago. Darwin and the Beagle would remain in the Galapagos for five weeks, from 15 September to 20 October 1835.

Darwin spent time on the islands now known as San Cristóbal, Floreana, Isabela and Santiago. Through studying the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils on the islands and at other locations visited on the 5 year voyage, Darwin began to formulate his theory of natural selection. His book On the Origin of Species was published on 24th November 1859 and was revolutionary at the time. It established the evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation for the diversification of nature. The book contained evidence that he had gathered during the Beagle expedition and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence and experimentation.
 
Darwin is now regarded as one of the most influential figures in human history and is honoured with a burial at Westminster Abbey.

This scene was built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on world history. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to see them first.

1​​917AD, 7th Septemeber, Sydney, South Wales, Australia. John Cornforth is born, later to become Sir in recognistion for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions.

Born in Sydney, Cornforth was the son and the second of four children of English-born, Oxford-educated schoolmaster and teacher John Warcup Cornforth and Hilda Eipper (1887–1969), a granddaughter of pioneering missionary and Presbyterian minister Christopher Eipper. Before her marriage, Eipper had been a maternity nurse.
 
John the second of four children of English-born, Oxford-educated schoolmaster and teacher John Warcup Cornforth and Hilda Eipper a granddaughter of pioneering missionary and Presbyterian minister Christopher Eipper. He was raised in Sydney and Armidale, north of New South Wales, where he went through his primary school education. His secondary school education was at Sydney Boys' High School, and he excelled academically. His chemistry teacher, Leonard Basser, encouraged John to change his career directions from law to chemistry.
 
He went on to study at the University of Sydney, studying organic chemistry and graduated with a Bachelor of Science with First-Class Honours
 
In 1939, John won one of two Science Research Scholarships from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, tenable overseas for two years. At the University of Oxford, he worked with Sir Robert Robinson which he found stimulating, and the two would often deliberate to no end until one had a cogent case against the other's counterargument. He both graduated with a D.Phil. in Organic Chemistry. At the time, there were no institutions or facilities at which a PhD in chemistry could be done in Australia.
 
During World War II he was at Oxford where his work significantly influenced the development of penicillin. At the time penicillin was very unstable in its crude form and researchers were building on Howard Florey's work on the drug. Along with other chemists, he measured the yield of penicillin in arbitrary units to understand the conditions that favoured penicillin production and activity.

In 1946 he joined the Medical Research Council and worked at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR). Here he continued on earlier work in synthesising sterols, including cholesterol. His collaboration with Robinson continued and flourished. In 1951, they completed, simultaneously with Woodward, the first total synthesis of the non-aromatic steroids. At the NIMR, Cornforth collaborated with numerous biological scientists, including George Popják, with whom he shared an interest in cholesterol. Together, they received the Davy Medal in 1968 in recognition of their distinguished joint work on the elucidation of the biosynthetic pathway to polyisoprenoids and steroids.
 
While working at the MRC, Cornforth was appointed a Professor at the University of Warwick and was employed there from 1965 to 1971.
 
In 1975, Cornforth was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, alongside Vladimir Prelog. In the same year, he moved to the University of Sussex in Brighton as a Royal Society Research Professor. He remained here as a professor and was active in research until his death. He was knighted in 1977. He died o the 8th December 2013 (aged 96).

​This model was built by Brick to the Past's James Pegrum as part of a series of scenes on important events in world history. Be the first to see them by following us on Twitter or Facebook.