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Port Pirie.
Prior to white settlement the area was known by the local aboriginal people as “muddy creek.” Samuel Germein named the area Samuel’s Creek in 1839. In 1846 it was re-named Port Pirie by Governor Robe after the first vessel to land here. It took on board sheep from the Crystal Brook run leased by William Younghusband and Peter Ferguson. The ship was the John Pirie. Two years later in 1848 Emanuel Solomon and Matthew Smith laid out a private township on land they had bought from the Crystal Brook run which they called Solomontown. But nothing much happened in Solomontown for the next 23 years until the SA government gazetted and laid out a town further along the harbour from Solomontown which was called Port Pirie. This occurred in 1871 but before then the Pirie district became established as a significant port but without a town. Why? Because the port at Pirie, which is one of the best natural harbours in SA, was the export point for the wool cargoes of the major pastoral runs of the surrounding country. They were Crystal Brook run (285 square miles); Baroota run (65 square miles)- north of Pirie; Telowie run (43 square miles) north of Pirie and into the Flinders Ranges; Booyoolie( 194 square miles) at Gladstone; and Beetaloo ( about 30 square miles) near what is now Laura. For 23 years Pirie was a major port for the export of SA wool.
In 1871 the government surveyed and gazetted a government town next to Solomontown. In the government town the streets were named after the family members of the Surveyor General, George Woodroofe Goyder with the main streets being Ellen, Gertrude, and Alexander etc. This government town was established because most of the pastoral runs mentioned above were resumed by the government for surveying and sale to wheat farmers. In a few years around 1870 the Hundreds of Pirie, Napperby, Crystal Brook, Wandearah, Telowie, Narridy and Booyoolie were all declared. Port Pirie continued as the major regional port but for wheat as much as wool from 1871 onwards. It was also the main service centre for the region. Wheat grew well on the slopes towards the Flinders Ranges, south towards Crystal Brook and inland around Gladstone and Laura. As the new town of Pirie emerged Solomon re-surveyed and redesigned his town of Solomontown in 1873 with a grand church circle in the middle of it for a Jewish synagogue or church. Almost overnight, like many other wheat towns established under the new land sale regulations which permitted land on credit, Pirie emerged from the mangrove swamps and sands near the harbour.
The first wooden churches emerged, hotels were built and most importantly the government created a new larger wharf in 1874. All the allotted areas were quickly taken up for wheat or wool exporters and timber merchants to bring in the materials to build the new city. In 1874 the telegraph line to Adelaide was established, the first of three flour mills was constructed and a start was made on a railway line to Crystal Brook. Early wharf allotment holders included Dunn -flour millers, Duffield – flour millers, Hart – flour millers, Elder Smith & Co – wool handlers, and several timber and general merchant importers. The first government school, Pirie West opened in 1877 and seven hotels were licensed and operating by 1886. Stone for many of the grander buildings came from sandstone quarries near Napperby in the foothills. But the story of Pirie’s early growth was related to the railway. It reached Crystal Brook in 1874 bringing in wheat from areas near that town. In 1876 this line was extended on to Gladstone and by 1877 it had reached Jamestown. In 1880 it reached a new rail terminus at Peterborough which was just being established. The steam engines for this route from Pirie were all landed at the Port Pirie wharf. All the new towns in the hinterland added to the growth and prosperity of Pirie. They included: Redhill (1869); Gladstone (1872); Laura (1872); Jamestown (1872); Koolunga (1875); Crystal Brook (1875); Warnertown and Napperby (1877); Orroroo (1877); Booleroo Centre (1879); and Peterborough (1880).
To maintain law and order the first Court House and Customs House (1875) were built adjacent to the wharves. Exports of wheat from Pirie started with over 200,000 bushels in 1873 rising to over 500,000 bushels in 1875 and then jumping to over 1.1 million bushels in 1876. By 1880 Pirie was exporting over 2.7 million bushels of wheat a year. Pirie surpassed the other major SA port - Port Adelaide by 1878. By 1884 Port Pirie was exporting twice the number of bushels of wheat as Port Adelaide! But Port Adelaide exported more flour than Port Pirie. So within ten years of its founding Pirie was the major wheat port of SA and it was still exporting significant amounts of wool. It had advantages of a deep port and a big hinterland being opened up with new rail lines and new farmers every year.
Socially the Anglicans, Catholics, Methodists, Congregationalists and Baptists had all established churches. But unlike most other SA towns Pirie attracted two immigrant groups in the 19th century. There were the Italians and the Greeks, long before the post World War Two immigration to other areas. Why? Because Pirie was an international port. Sailors told stories to friends back home and the first Italian fishermen settled in Pirie in the early 1880s. Most stayed year or two and then returned home to Italy but more kept coming. Around 75% of the early Italian settlers came from one town- Molfetta in Puglia. By 1900 Italian women were settling in Pirie also and the Italian community became a permanent residential group thereafter. Most resided in King and Prince Streets in Solomontown which were known as Little Italy. The first Italians to turn to wheat farming and tomato growing did so at Napperby in 1902. Others followed suit and by the 1930s many were workers in the Pirie smelters. A Fascist Club was formed in 1929 to support Mussolini in Italy but when World War Two broke out a number of Italians enlisted with Australian troops. The Italian community always worshiped at St. Marks Catholic church and Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church at Solomontown. They established the ritual of the Blessing of the Fleet for early September each year in 1929 .On this date a processions travels from St. Mark’s Cathedral to St. Anthony’s Catholic Church at Solomontown.
A few Greeks settled for short periods in Pirie from the 1875 but a community as such did not emerge until 1912. More Greeks came to Pirie during and after World War One when there was an exchange of territories between Greece and Turkey. When a survey was done of alien Greeks during World War One the majority in SA, lived in Port Pirie, not Adelaide. One notable immigrant was George Polites who worked in the smelters but grew tomatoes at Napperby on his land there. Son Con was born in 1919 at Napperby. He is now a major SA landowners and developer. As Pirie was the centre of Greeks living in SA in the 1920s it is not surprising that the first Greek Orthodox Church in SA was established in Port Pirie in 1925. They employed the first Greek priest in the former wooden Anglican Church. This building was used until the current white painted Greek Orthodox Church was built between 1957 and 1960 in Florence Street. By 1925 when the first Royal Commission into Plumbism( lead poisoning) was held there were 362 Greek men employed in the Pirie smelters alone. The Napperby School was the first in SA to start Greek lessons in SA in 1945! The Greek Orthodox Church in Pirie is pictured above.
But the factor the sealed the industrial fate of Port Pirie and lead (pun intended) to it becoming the first regional city in South Australia was the establishment of smelters for the Broken Hill silver, lead and zinc mines in 1889.The rich lodes at Broken Hill were discovered in 1883. The SA government decided to cash in on this and built a railway line to the NSW border in 1887 of 3’6” gauge. Several options were considered for such as a line including lines from Morgan or from Terowie or from Orroroo but the line built was from Peterborough connecting with the existing line from Port Pirie. But a private railway company was needed to cover the last distance to Broken Hill within NSW. Hence the Silverton Railway Company was formed. Now all the supplies of timber and food were railed from Port Pirie to Broken Hill providing a boom for Pirie merchants and shippers. There were a number of mining companies in Broken Hill and they adopted different responses to the problem of smelting their ores. Some ore was smelted in Broken Hill but water was limited and fuel had to be railed from Port Pirie. Some was railed and shipped to Port Adelaide but that was expensive. Some was railed to Pirie and then shipped to Germany for smelting. Eventually in 1889 the minor British Broken Hill Company decided to build their smelter in Port Pirie. This was followed by Broken Hill Propriety, the major mine deciding to do likewise in 1892. It took over the British Broken Hill Company smelter and enlarged it. In 1915, the smelting of five companies was amalgamated and BHAS, Broken Hill Associated Smelters developed the Pirie smelters into the largest in the world.
But what was the effect of the 1892 decision to concentrate smelting in Port Pirie? It increased the population and it gave the town a reliable electricity supply. By 1891 Port Pirie was the largest settlement in SA outside of Adelaide with 4,000 people, but the Copper Triangle (Moonta, Wallaroo and Kadina) was still the major population area outside of Adelaide with around 12,000 people. But ten years later in 1901 Pirie was by far the largest country town in SA with 8,000 people. The smelters also led to Pirie’s rise as an industrial and commercial centre.
The city already had shipping agents, timber merchants, importers and exporters, many law firms, a bustling School of Mines (from 1902) and the usual range of town businessmen. But the smelters brought a bigger professional class to the town of engineers, industrial chemists and smelter managers. Pirie soon had wealth and wealthy suburbs. But it also had many unionised workers. The three main industrial groups in Pirie were the railway workers, the wharfies and the smelter workers. In 1885 a Working Men’s Association had been formed to prevent non union labour being employed in the town. The first showdown came in 1888 when town businessmen were told that non union wharfies could not work in Pirie. The shipping companies acceded to the demand. Then in 1890, like unionists across Australian, there was great sympathy with the striking wharfies in London. All three union groups threatened to strike in sympathy and all three groups got wage increases and concessions. The power of the unions was realised and Pirie was hence forth a fully unionised town. In 1891 following this success the unions met and formed a Trades and Labour Council in Pirie which eventually became the Amalgamated Workers’ Association of Port Pirie in 1901.
As the unions came together they realised their political force and as the largest population outside of Adelaide the Pirie workers decided the state election results in this region. Any political candidate had to have their support. Pirie was the only SA town to ever have political muscle as the union members voted as a block. Many later state politicians started out in Pirie and began their political careers there. During the major communist inspired strikes of 1917 in Australia, Port Pirie remained calm. One of the local union leaders and strike organisers was Percy Brookfield who went on to become a Member of Parliament. In 1923 he was assassinated by a mad man on Riverton railway Station. Overall Pirie remained relatively calm in 1917 because of the new smelter manager Sir Gerald Mussen. He established the BHAS shop in the town to offer workers lower prices for clothing and other goods. He later made significant donations on behalf of the BHAS to the Pirie War Memorial Gates depicted above and in 1918 he provided funds, materials and support for the Playground in a Day project. The playground, designed by the government Town Planner, Charles Reade who also designed Colonel Light Gardens, included a lake, play equipment and gardens and paths. It was located opposite the Pirie West School in the George Goyder surveyed town parklands. This was a great family boost for poor children in Pirie at that time. Alas it no longer exists and it is not even marked with a plaque only the entrance gates.
The smelter was the main employer in the city for decades and consequently Port Pire was the largest city outside of Adelaide until the rise of Whyalla in the 1960s. Port Pirie was declared the first provincial city in SA in 1953. It had been made the cathedral city of the Catholic Diocese of Port Pirie in the 1953 when the new St Mark’s Cathedral opened and the old cathedral in Peterborough lost its status as such. Apart from employment from smelting, the town has always been a major port for the export of grain, and is currently the second port in SA. The Mallyon designed Anglican Church in Port Pirie became the Anglican Cathedral for the Anglican Diocese of Willochra in 1999. Pirie is one of the few regional centres in SA to boast a festival theatre complex, named after Keith Michell, the famous actor who grew up in Port Pirie. Unfortunately Port Pirie no longer has a railway service or station. The original railway station Ellen Street was built in French Empire style in 1902. Then in 1937 Port Pirie got its first direct rail connection to Adelaide via Redhill and Snowtown. Prior to that the rail service to Adelaide went via Peterborough on a very circuitous route. A new railway station opened in Port Pirie in 1967 so that Ellen Street station could be closed down thus ending trains travelling up the middle of the main street. In turn this station was closed in 1982 when the line from Adelaide to Port Augusta was standardised and Port Pirie bypassed. That station is now the City Information Centre and Art Gallery and well worth a visit.
Houses in what I think of as the "Easton Style" in Brixton Road, off Easton Road, Sunday 1st June 1975. They were once found in great swathes throughout inner east Bristol, but few now remain. Their pitched roofs were screened from view by parapets, but the true roofline was defined by a string course, as was the party wall between the individual houses. The brickwork was always rendered an indeterminate light olive colour, uniform throughout the district. Sometimes the render was incised to give the illusion of stone blocks. As a boy, visiting my aunt in Easton Road, I disliked this render and especially the incised effect, which seemed fraudulent. I liked to be able to see the materials of which a building was made and enjoyed the more lively appearance of brick or stone. I have always retained a slight lingering prejudice against any kind of covering applied to a building's surface.
AYA 178H is a Mk II Ford Cortina, and beyond is a Morris Oxford. A third car, parked at the end of the road, is unidentifiable. Just above this third car, between the end of the road and the flats in the distance, is the gabled roof of a Dissenters' chapel. This was demolished during the late 1970s. There appears to have been some demolition on the left-hand side beyond the junction with Clayton Street. Adapted gas light in the left foreground. For modern equivalent view, see next photo...
Nottingham Contemporary. Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham (CCAN).
Architects: Caruso St John Architects. Year: 2009.
металлочерепица sotdel.ru//metallocherepica.html #металлочерепица #sotdel #кровля #сотдел Металлочерепица изготавливается путем роликовой прокатки стали с последующей холодной штамповкой. Металлочерепица - это листы профилированной оцинкованной стали толщиной от 0,4 до 0,5 мм, покрытые специальным полимерным составом, защищающим металл от коррозии и придающим материалу тот или иной цвет. Тип этого покрытия влияет на цену и некоторые физические свойства материала. Профиль повторяет форму идеально уложенной натуральной черепицы. Монтаж металлочерепицы Преимущества металлочерепицы по сравнению с другими кровельными покрытиями: Невысокая цена, Небольшой вес - экономия на стоимости стропильной конструкции, Большая цветовая гамма, Многолетнее использование в нашей стране. металлочерепица www.sotdel.ru/metallocherepitsa/ www.facebook.com/110372909302943/photos/a.347113352295563...
Первое тюнинг-ателье по загородным домам - отделка фасадов, кровельные работы. Монтаж сайдинга под ключ. Гарантия 5 лет на монтаж сайдинга
Строительные блоки WOODBE из древесины www.sotdel.ru/stroitelnye-bloki-woodbe.html
Панели ДВП (Древесно Волокнистая Плита) www.sotdel.ru/paneli-dvp-drevesno-voloknistaya-plita/
ПАНЕЛИ KMEW fasadnye-panely.sotdel.ru/
Фартук для кухни (Кухонный фартук) www.sotdel.ru/fartuk-dlya-kuhni.html
Москва ул. Верхние Поля, 48а
пн–пт 09:00–18:00; сб 09:00–15:00
+7 (495) 258-62-08
The resemblance to the Hernando Mississippi Taco Felix is uncanny: flic.kr/p/o5xdCo. If the Hernando location started out as a Church's Chicken, it was definitely remodeled sometime later into a Long John Silver's. It's run as LJS in Hernando was likely very short however, since few people seem to even remember it!
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Former Long John Silvers, 1975-built, Hwy. 72 near Cass St., Corinth MS
I took this from Greyfriars Kirkyard. Due to it's city centre location it has some wonderful views, monuments and the occasional resident leaning out of their window! During the early days of photography in the 1840s it was used by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson as a setting for several portraits and tableaux such as The Artist and The Gravedigger.
The tenement is one of the very few remaining buildings by James Craig, built 1774. A 4-storey tenement on splayed corner site (with Candlemaker Row). Nepus gables to each elevation. Random rubble with polished ashlar dressings. Dividing band between ground and 1st floors and beneath gables. Long and short rusticated quoins. Severe and elegant detailing.
James Craig provided the plan for Edinburgh’s New Town and to say he was very important to the city is a vast understatement. His legacy lives on today. However, as an architect he was rather unsuccessful and never achieved the status of architects like Robert Adam and Robert Mylne nor did he have an extensive practice. Craig’s best architectural design was that for the Physicians in George Street, Edinburgh which was demolished many years ago because it was deemed unsuitable and new premises were built on Queen Street. After 1781 he was always borrowing money and he died in debt. Craig died unmarried in the West Bow, Edinburgh on 23 June 1795.
As I headed towards my hotel this most wonderful structure came into view.
The Palais Garnier, also known as the Opéra de Paris or Opéra Garnier, but more commonly as the Paris Opéra, is a 2,200 seat opera house in Paris, France. A grand landmark designed by Charles Garnier in the Neo-Baroque style, it is regarded as one of the architectural masterpieces of its time.
Upon its inauguration in 1875, the opera house was officially named the Académie Nationale de Musique - Théâtre de l'Opéra. It retained this title until 1978 when it was re-named the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris. After the opera company chose the Opéra Bastille as their principal theatre upon its completion in 1989, the theatre was re-named as the Palais Garnier, though its more official name, the Académie Nationale de Musique, is still sprawled above the columns of its front façade. In spite of the change of names and the Opera company's relocation to the Opéra Bastille, the Palais Garnier is still known by many people as the Paris Opéra, as have all of the many theatres which have served as the principal venues of the Parisian Opera and Ballet since its founding.
The Old Post Office & Customs building, located at 4177 Park St., downtown Niagara Falls, Ontario was built in 1885 and now abandoned.
While looking for a new apartment I found this little gem of a hill. Wouldn't want to live there right now, but there's some nice views and some fancy buildings.
Photography | Design by Adrian Cabrero
Elmcroft – built in 1880 as the Manse for the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Allendale Town.
The foundation stone was laid on 9 Jun 1880 and ‘notwithstanding the very wet character of the weather there was a large assemblage to take part in the interesting proceedings.’ The £600 building cost was raised by local subscriptions and the Alston Herald of 12 June goes on to record the contents of a time capsule placed behind the first-laid stone.
Photograph in private ownership. For more information and to see the full archive go to www.allenvalleyslocalhistory.org.uk
The sea resort of Prora was designed to house 20,000 holidaymakers, under the ideal that every worker deserved a holiday at the beach. Designed by Clemens Klotz (1886-1969), the buildings complex extend over a length of 4.5 km and are roughly 150 m from the long flat sandy beach. All rooms were planned to overlook the sea. Each room of 5 by 2.5 metres (16'5" x 8'3") was to have two beds, an armoire (wardrobe) and a sink. There were communal toilets and showers.
Hitler's plans for Prora were much more ambitious. He wanted a gigantic sea resort, the "most mighty and large one to ever have existed". At the same time, Hitler wanted it to be convertible into a military hospital in case of war. During the few years that Prora was under construction, all major construction companies of the Reich and nearly 9,000 workers were involved in this project. With the onset of World War II in 1939 construction on Prora stopped, and the construction workers transferred to the V-Weapons plant at Peenemünde. The eight housing blocks, the theatre and cinema stayed as empty shells, and the swimming pools and festival hall never materialised. During the Allied bombing campaign, many people from Hamburg took refuge in one of the housing blocks, and later refugees from the east of Germany were housed there. By the end of the war, these buildings served to house female auxiliary personnel for the Luftwaffe.
In 1945 the Soviet Army took control of the region, and established a base at Prora. After the formation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) part of it was used as an army holiday centre. The sturdy but derelict shell of the complex remains as a tourist curiosity. After German reunification, the National People's Army of GDR left the region, and it stood uninhabited until new plans were put in place. The buildings suffered heavy vandalism during this period.
Nowadays, it is still a question what to do with the huge buildings complex, partly hosting some interesting museums. There are plans to turn it into a modern tourist resort but also some skepticism from the locals, who feel that there are already too many tourists in the region, and voices who say that the town's past made it an inappropriate location for tourists.
Source: WIKIPEDIA
Sample image taken with a Panasonic Lumix LF1. These samples and comparisons are part of my Lumix LF1 review at:
www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_DMC_LF1/
Feel free to download the original image for evaluation on your own computer or printer, but please don't use it on another website or publication without permission from www.cameralabs.com/
The castle has been the seat of the Percy family since Norman times. By 1138 the original motte and bailey castle, with wooden buildings, was replaced with stone buildings and walls. In 1309 the keep and defences were made even stronger by Henry de Percy. The castle then stayed unchanged for 400 years. By the 18th century it had fallen into ruins. The keep however was then turned into a gothic style mansion by Robert Adam. In the 19th century the Duke of Northumberland carried out more restoration of the castle.
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ALNWICK CASTLE, THE CASTLE, STABLE COURT AND COVERED RIDING SCHOOL INCLUDING WEST WALL OF RIDING SCHOOL
Heritage Category: Listed Building
Grade: I
List Entry Number: 1371308
National Grid Reference: NU 18685 13574
Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 05/10/2011
NU 1813 NE 2/1 NU 1813 SE 1/1 20.2.52. 5330
Alnwick Castle The Castle, Stable Court and Covered Riding School including West Wall of Riding School
GV I
Alnwick Castle has work of every period on the line of the original motte and bailey plan. By 1138 a strong stone built border castle with a shell keep in place of the motte, formed the nucleus of the present castle with 2 baileys enclosing about 7 acres. The curtain walls and their square towers rest on early foundations and the inner gatehouse has round-headed arches with heavy chevron decoration. The Castle was greatly fortified after its purchase by Henry de Percy 1309 - the Barbican and Gatehouse, the semi-circular towers of the shell keep, the octagonal towers of the inner gateway and the strong towers of the curtain wall date from the early to mid C14. Ruinous by the C18, the 1st Duke had it rehabilitated and extended by James Prince and Robert Adam, the latter being mainly concerned with the interior decoration, very little of which remains except for fireplaces in the Housekeeper's and the Steward's Rooms and for inside the present Estates Office range. Capability Brown landscaped the grounds, filling in the former moat (formed by Bow Burn). The 4th Duke employed Anthony Salvin 1854-65 at the cost of £1/4 million to remove Adam's fanciful Gothic decoration, to restore a serious Gothic air to the exterior and to redesign the state rooms in an imposing grand Italian manner. The Castle is approached from Bailliff gate through the crenellated Barbican and Gatehouse (early C14): lion rampant (replica) over archway, projecting square side towers with corbelled upper parts, fortified passage over dry moat to vaulted gateway flanked by polygonal towers. Stone figures on crenellations here, on Aveners Tower, on Record Tower and on Inner Gateway were carved circa 1750-70 by Johnson of Stamfordham and probably reflect an earlier similar arrangement. In the Outer Bailey to the, north are the West Garrett (partly Norman), the Abbott's Tower (circa 1350) with a rib vaulted basement, and the Falconer's Tower (1856). To the south are the Aveners Tower [C18], the Clock Tower leading into the Stable Yard, the C18 office block, the Auditor's Tower (early Clk) and the Middle Gateway (circa 1309-15) leading to the Middle Bailey. The most prominent feature of the Castle on the west side is the very large Prudhoe Tower by Salvin and the polygonal apse of the chapel near to it. In the Middle Bailey, to the south are the Warders Tower (1856) with the lion gateway leading by a bridge to the grand stairs into the walled garden, the East Garrett and the Record Tower (C14, rebuilt 1885). In the curtain wall to the north are 2 blocked windows probably from an early C17 building now destroyed and the 'Bloody Gap', a piece of later walling possibly replacing a lost truer; next a small C14 watch tower (Hotspur's Seat); next the Constable's Tower, early C14 and unaltered with a gabled staircase turret; close by is the Postern Tower, early C14, also unaltered.'To the north-west of the Postern Tower is a large terrace made in the C18, rebuilt 1864-65, with some old cannon on it. The Keep is entered from the Octagon Towers (circa 1350) which have 13 heraldic shields below the parapet, besides the agotrop3ic figures, and a vaulted passage expanded from the Norman gateway (fragments of chevron on former outer arch are visible inside). The present arrangement of the inner ward is largely Salvin's work with a covered entrance with a projecting storey and lamp-bracket at the rear of the Prudhoe Tower and a corbelled corridor at 1st floor level on the east. Mediaeval draw well on the east wall, next to the original doorway to the keep, now a recess The keep, like the curtain walls, is largely mediaeval except for some C18 work on the interior on the west and for the Prudhoe Tower and the Chapel. The interior contrasts with the rugged mediaeval exterior with its sumptuous Renaissance decoration, largely by Italians - Montiroli, Nucci, Strazza, Mantavani and inspired from Italian sources. The chapel with its family gallery at the east end has 4 short rib vaulted bays and a shallow 3-light apse; side walls have mosaics, covered now with tapestry. The grand staircase With its groin vaulted ceiling leads to the Guard Chamber from which an ante-room leads west into the Library (in the Prudhoe Tower) and east into the Music Room (fireplace with Dacian captives by Nucci). Further on are the Red Drawing Room (caryatid fireplace by Nucci) and the Dining Room (ceiling design copied from St Lorenzo f.l.m. in Rome and fireplace with bacchante by Strazza and faun by Nucci). South of the Middle Gateway are Salvin's impressive Kitchen quarters where the oven was designed to burn a ton of coal per day. West of the Stable Courtyard, with C19 Guest Hall at the south end, is the C19 covered riding school, with stable to north of it, and with its west wall forming the east side of Narrowgate. The corner with Bailliffgate has an obtuse angled tower of 2 storeys, with a depressed ogee headed doorway from the street, and merlons.
Listing NGR: NU1863413479
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/137130...
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ALNWICK CASTLE
Heritage Category: Park and Garden
Grade: I
List Entry Number: 1001041
National Grid Reference: NU1739315366, NU2254414560
Details
Extensive landscape parks and pleasure grounds developed from a series of medieval deer parks, around Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Percy family since the C14.
Between 1750 and 1786, a picturesque landscape park was developed for Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland, involving work by James Paine, Robert Adam, and the supervision of work by Lancelot Brown (1716-83) and his foremen Cornelius Griffin, Robson, and Biesley in the 1760-80s, working alongside James and Thomas Call, the Duke's gardeners. During the C19 each successive Duke contributed and elaborated on the expansive, planned estate landscape, within which the landscape park was extended. This was accompanied by extensive C19 garden works, including a walled, formal flower garden designed in the early C19 by John Hay (1758-1836), and remodelled mid C19 by William Andrews Nesfield (1793-1881).
NOTE This entry is a summary. Because of the complexity of this site, the standard Register entry format would convey neither an adequate description nor a satisfactory account of the development of the landscape. The user is advised to consult the references given below for more detailed accounts. Many Listed Buildings exist within the site, not all of which have been here referred to. Descriptions of these are to be found in the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest produced by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
In the C13, Hulne Park, West Park, and Cawledge were imparked within the Forest of Alnwick. Hulne Park lay to the north-west of Alnwick Castle and Cawledge to the south and south-east. By the late Middle Ages, Hulne Park extended to 4000 acres (c 1620ha) enclosed by some 13 miles (c 21km) of wall. It was stocked with some 1000 fallow deer and a tower at Hulne Priory served as a hunting lodge. The parks formed the basis of Alnwick Park, landscaped by Sir Hugh Smithson (1714-86) who in 1750 became Earl of Northumberland, inheriting his father-in-law's northern estates. Prior to this, from 1748 he and his wife, Elizabeth Seymour (1716-76), had lived at Stanwick, Yorkshire (qv) and at Syon Park, London (qv), where they had already established a reputation for gardening, attested by Philip Miller's dedication, in 1751, of his Gardener's Dictionary to the Earl.
Together they embarked on an ambitious scheme to restore the Castle, develop the grounds and estate, and restore the Percy family traditions and identity at Alnwick. Those employed at Alnwick were also involved elsewhere on the Northumberland estates: James Paine, architect at Syon House, Daniel Garrett, architect at Northumberland House, the Strand (1750-3), Robert Adam, architect at Syon (1762-9), Lancelot Brown, landscape architect at Syon Park (1754-72).
In 1751, Thomas Call (1717-82), who had been the Earl's gardener at Stanwick, prepared a scheme for the parklands and pleasure grounds, including a plan for Brizlee Hill (the south part of Hulne Park). Call and his relation James, working at Alnwick by 1756, were responsible for the development of Hulne Park over twenty years. The date and extent of Lancelot Brown's involvement at Alnwick is uncertain, although his foremen Griffin, Robson, and Biesley worked at Alnwick with teams of men between 1771and 1781 and records shown that they also worked alongside Call and his men (in 1773 for example, Call had a team of sixty men and Biesley one of seventy-eight).
Hulne Park was developed as a picturesque pleasure ground with extensive rides, follies, and the enhancement of natural features. A characteristic of the Duke's scheme was his recognition of antiquarian sites within the landscape, which were embellished. Thus in 1755, Hulne Priory was purchased to become the focal point of Hulne Park. A garden was made within the cloister walls and, from c 1763, the priory became the gamekeeper's residence, with a menagerie of gold and silver pheasants. Statues of friars cut by the mason Matthew Mills were set in the landscape. In 1774, a medieval commemorative cross to Malcolm Canmore (listed grade II), situated at the northern entrance to the North Demesne, was restored.
Following the Duchess' death in 1776, the Duke decorated all her favourite locations with buildings, some being ideas she had noted in her memoranda. Work also included other notes and ideas the Duchess had had, including the ruin at Ratcheugh Crag and some ninety-eight drives and incidents.
Plans for the parklands at the North Demesne, Denwick, and Ratcheugh Crags were developed in the late 1760s, although in the case of the North Demesne some parkland planting had been undertaken by 1760, and the major work undertaken in the early 1770s is that attributed to Brown, mainly on stylistic grounds.
During the C19, under the second Duke (1742-1817) the parks were extended, this including the purchase of Alnwick Abbey and part of its estate. The complex of drives was also extended and this was accompanied by extensive plantations, including the large Bunker Hill plantation central to the north area of Hulne Park, named to commemorate the Duke's action in 1775 in the War of American Independence. Most significantly, between 1806 and 1811, building centred on construction of a perimeter wall, defining the boundary of Hulne Park, and lodges and gateways at entrances to the parks. The carriage drives were extended, necessitating the construction of bridges over the River Aln. These schemes were implemented by estate workers, local masons, and David Stephenson, the Duke's architect.
As the Castle had no formal flower gardens, John Hay was commissioned between 1808 and 1812 to design pleasure gardens to the south-east of the Castle, linking it with a new walled garden at Barneyside, furnished with a range of hothouses, glasshouses, and pine pits. These were extended in the 1860s when Anthony Salvin, employed in the restoration of the Castle, built a gateway between the inner bailey and the pleasure gardens. Nesfield designed a scheme for the walled gardens to be developed as an ornamental flower and fruit garden, with a large central pool, conservatory, and a series of broad terraces and parterres. The Alnwick scheme can be compared to Nesfield's in the precincts of Arundel Castle, West Sussex (qv), in 1845.
Alnwick Castle, parks and estate remain (2000) in private ownership, the latest significant developments being the replanting and restoration of the North Demesne (1990s) and plans to completely remodel the walled garden.
SUMMARY DESCRIPTION
Alnwick Castle parks cover a tract of countryside encircling Alnwick town on its west, north, north-east, and south sides. The land is a mixture of contrasting landscape types, with high heather moorland and the rough crags of the Northumbrian Sandstone Hills sweeping down to the improved pasture lands along the wooded Aln valley. The parks exploit the boundaries of these distinctive landforms where the rugged moorland gives way to the pastoral, rolling landscape of the Aln, on its route to the sea. In the west parklands the river is confined between hills, and in places has incised deep, narrow valleys while in the east the landscape is more open.
The registered area of 1300ha is bounded on its north-east side by the Hulne Park wall, west of the Bewick to Alnwick Road (B6346). The west side of the area here registered follows field boundaries to the west of Shipley Burn, starting at Shipley Bridge, and then turns south-west at a point c 1km south of the bridge. It then runs for south-west for c 2.3km, to the west of Hulne Park, before crossing the River Aln and running parallel to Moorlaw Dean for c 1.2km, on the west side of the burn. The southern area is defined by Hulne Park wall running around the south point of Brizlee Wood then in a line due east, south of Cloudy Crags drive, to cross the Stocking Burn and reach Forest Lodge. The boundary then defines the north-western extent of Alnwick town and, crossing the Canongate Bridge, the southernmost extent of the Dairy Grounds.
To the east of the Castle the registered area takes in the entire North Demesne bounded on its north by Long Plantation, a perimeter belt which lies on the south side of Smiley Lane and then extends eastwards to meet the junction of the B1340 and A1 trunk road. The A1 has effectively cut through the North Demesne from north to south and, although physically divorcing the two areas, they are still visually conjoined. Defined on its north side within the hamlet of Denwick by tree belts, the park extends eastwards for 1km before cutting across southwards to meet the River Aln at Lough House. This latter stretch is bounded by a perimeter belt. The south boundary of the North Demesne follows the river in part, before meeting the Alnwick to Denwick road (B1340). To the south, the Castle gardens are delimited from the town by property boundaries along Bondgate. An outlying area of designed landscape at Ratcheugh is also included.
A complex series of drives is laid throughout the parks, particularly in Hulne Park. A series of thirty standing stones stand at the beginning of the drives or where they converge. These are inscribed with the names of the drives and act as signposts.
Alnwick Castle (1134 onwards, c 1750-68 by James Paine and Robert Adam, 1854-6 by Anthony Salvin, listed grade I) lies on the high ground on the south side of the Aln valley, commanding views to the north, east, and west. To the south is Alnwick town but the landscape is designed so that the town is not in view of the Castle. The principal views from the Castle lie over the North Demesne.
The North Demesne originally included Denwick Park (they have now been divided by the A1 road), and together these 265ha form the core parkland designed by Brown. Perimeter tree belts define the park, and clumps and scatters of specimen trees ornament the ground plan. The Aln has been dammed to give the appearance of an extensive, natural serpentine lake, with bridges as focal points: the Lion Bridge (John Adam 1773, listed grade I) and Denwick Bridge (1766, probably also by Adam, listed grade I). A programme of replanting and restoration of the North Demesne is under way (late 1990s).
The medieval deer park of Hulne extended to the north of the Shipley Road (outside the area here registered). Hulne Park is now 1020ha and is in agricultural and forestry use. The principal entrance from Alnwick town is Forest Lodge, the only extant part of Alnwick Abbey. Hulne Park is completely enclosed by an early C19 perimeter wall, c 3m high with shaped stone coping and buttresses every 20m. Nearly 5km of wall lies alongside roads, 5km across fields, and 5km defines perimeter woodland and moorland from the enclosed park.
The park design consists of a series of oval-shaped enclosures, defined by tree belts vital for shelter. The highest point is in the west area of the park, from where there are long-distance views east to the sea. The River Aln winds its way through the park via a series of contrasting steep valleys and flatter lands. The valleys are emphasised by planting on the upper slopes, while the lower areas are encircled with designed plantations to emphasise the river's meanders and ox-bow lakes.
Picturesque incidents survive at Nine Year Aud Hole, where the statue of a hermit (late C18, listed grade II) stands at the entrance to a natural cave along Cave Drive, and at Long Stone, a monolith standing high on the west side of Brizlee Hill, with panoramic views over Hulne Park to the north-west. The picturesque highlight is Hulne Priory (original medieval buildings, C18 alterations and enhancements, all listed grade I), which includes a summerhouse designed by Robert Adam (1778-80, listed grade I) and statues of praying friars erected in the Chapter House (late C18). The Priory's picturesque qualities are well appreciated from Brizlee Tower (Robert Adam, listed grade I), built in 1781 to commemorate the creation of the Alnwick parks by the first Duke and Duchess, a Latin inscription stating:
Circumspice! Ego omnia ista sum dimensus; Mei sunt ordines, Mea descriptio Multae etiam istarum arborum Mea manu sunt satae. [Look about you. I have measured all these things; they are my orders; it is my planning; many of these trees have been planted by my own hand.]
Brizlee is sited on a high point which can be seen in views north-west from the Castle, mirroring views north-east to the 'Observatory' on Ratcheugh Crag, a sham ruined castle sited as an eyecatcher on high ground and built by John Bell of Durham in 1784 (plans to further elaborate it were designed by Robert Adam).
Another principal feature of Hulne Park is a series of regular, walled enclosures (the walls set in ditches with banks cast up inside the compounds) which line Farm Drive, the central road through the park, north-westwards from Moor Lodge. This functioned as the third Duke's menagerie, and is still pasture.
The 15ha Dairy Ground links Hulne Park and the North Demesne. It principally consists of the Aln valley north-west of the Castle, stretching between Canongate Bridge and Lion Bridge, laid out as pleasure gardens. Barbara's Bank and the Dark Walk are plantations laid out with walks on the steep slopes with a Curling Pond to the north of the Aln.
The walled garden of 3ha lies to the south-east of the Castle, reached by the remains of C19 pleasure gardens laid out on the slopes above Barneyside. After the Second World War use of the glasshouses ceased, and until recently (late 1990s) the Estate Forestry Department used it. The earthwork terraces and remnants of specimen planting of Nesfield's scheme survive.
REFERENCES
Note: There is a wealth of material about this site. The key references are cited below.
The Garden, 5 (1874), pp 100-1, 188; 20 (1881), pp 155-6 Gardeners' Chronicle, ii (1880), pp 523-4, 587; ii (1902), pp 273-4 J Horticulture and Cottage Gardener 15, (1887), pp 296-8 P Finch, History of Burley on the Hill (1901), p 330 Country Life, 65 (22 June 1929), pp 890-8; 66 (6 July 1929), pp 16-22; 174 (4 August 1983), p 275 D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), pp 103-4 Garden History 9, (1981), pp 174-7 Capability Brown and the Northern Landscape, (Tyne & Wear County Council Museums 1983), pp 19, 22-3, 27, 42 Restoration Management Plan, Alnwick Castle, (Land Use Consultants 1996) C Shrimpton, Alnwick Castle, guidebook, (1999)
Description written: August 2000 Resgister Inspector: KC Edited: June 2003
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/100104...
See also:-
The old Town House in the village of Culross.
Like everything in the historic part of Culross it is well preserved and maintained. Modern additions around the historic area have been well integrated providing a functional area but still retaining the old village's character.
Here is a small bit about the building:
Culross Town House was presumably erected in 1626, this date appearing on a lintel lying above the lintel of an inserted doorway, later converted into a window, in the W end of the S wall. The front of the building was altered, and the forestair and clock-and-bell tower were added, in 1783.
Of 17th century origin but transformed into a symmetrical two-storey block and central tower in 1782. Apart from the 1626 datestone early detials include a 1637 hatchment and portions of two open-beam painted ceilings.
Source:canmore.org.uk
I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.
Anyway; Woolpit.
I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.
On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.
And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.
Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.
The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.
The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.
But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.
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2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.
Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.
I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.
2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.
The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.
A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.
But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.
It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.
Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.
Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...
So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.
Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.
A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.
You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.
Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...
I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.
After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.
Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.
And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.
Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.
Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?
The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?
There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.
But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.
Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!
Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!
Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.
How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.
So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.
But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.
They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.
Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.
Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.
As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.
The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.
Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!
Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?
How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.
So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.
The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.
The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.
I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?
Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?
Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.
- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.
The City Hall (Dutch: Stadhuis) of Antwerp, Belgium, stands on the western side of Antwerp's Grote Markt (Great Market Square). Erected between 1561 and 1565 to the design of Cornelis Floris de Vriendt and several other architects and artists, this Renaissance building incorporates both Flemish and Italian influences.
The low arcaded ground story is of rusticated stone, and at one time housed little shops. Above are two stories with Doric and Ionic columns separating large mullioned windows, and a fourth story forming an open gallery.
The richly ornamented center section, which rises above the eaves in diminishing stages, holds female statues representing Justice, Prudence, and the Virgin Mary, and bears the coats of arms of the Duchy of Brabant, the Spanish Habsburgs, and the Margraviate of Antwerp.