Locks & Keys

Six thousand years of mechanisms for excluding people, with one of history's best rivalries at its centre.

8 posts· 4000 BCE – 1851

• The Great Lock Controversy of 1851 1851
• The Chubb Detector lock: security with a memory 1818
• Bramah's challenge lock: a 200-guinea dare that stood for sixty-seven years 1784
• The precise lift, or how a Hoxton locksmith beat the pick 1778
• The guild masterpiece, or the keyhole that wasn't there 1411
• The barbed-spring padlock 200 CE
• The Roman warded lock 100 BCE
• The wooden lock, or the first machine for keeping people out 4000 BCE