Mighty Tantallon Castle was built in the mid-1300s by William Douglas. Tantallon was the last truly great castle built in Scotland. The castle was constructed in the age before gunpowdered artillery. Its high, thick walls had simply to withstand assault from stone-throwing machines, battering rams and arrows. The invention of the gun changed all this – subsequent owners had to improve Tantallon’s defensive capability. They filled in the wall chambers to help withstand incoming cannon shot, inserted gun holes and built additional gun defences outside.

 

It was all to no avail. In 1651 Cromwell’s heavy guns, mounted on adjacent promontories, ripped the guts out of the end towers.

 

The Bass Rock, situated only two miles east of North Berwick and one mile off the mainland, has famously been described as "One of the Twelve Wildlife Wonders of the World" by the respected wildlife specialist, David Attenborough. Today, the spectacular volcanic plug is the home to approximately 10% of the world population of North Atlantic gannets..

 

The Bass Rock is also known to have served as a useful place of imprisonment, during the early 15th century after King James imprisoned Neil Bhass Mack and Walter Stewart among other political enemies.

Capability Brown landscape at Croome in Worcestershire

US Marines F-35 from RAF Fairford demonstrates the the aircraft's hovering capability at Farnborough International.

Taken at Stowe Park, Buckinghamshire, the original gardens of Stowe House, now a school. The gardens were designed by Capability Brown.

Prairie Warbler, Versailles (Capability Farm), Ripley County, IN, May 8, 2019.

CORAL SEA (July 21, 2021) An F-35B Lightning fighter aircraft from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit lands on the flight deck of the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) during Exercise Talisman Sabre 21. Talisman Sabre 21, the ninth iteration and conducted since 2005, occurs biennially across Northern Australia. Australian, U.S. and other multinational partner forces use Talisman Sabre to enhance interoperability by training in complex, multi-domain operations scenarios that address the full range of Indo-Pacific security concerts. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonathan D. Berlier)

SAC 01 Pápa NATO Strategic Airlift Capability

Boeing C-17A Globemaster III

08-0001 (F-207)

477FF1

BRK Hungarian Air Force

Plymouth 22/4/03

New as D1779 to 41A (TI) 10/64 & renumbered 47184 2/74.

Renumbered 47585 1/81 & 47757 3/94.

Withdrawn 2/04 & cut.

Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.[1]

 

Claremont estate

The first house on the Claremont estate was built in 1708 by Sir John Vanbrugh, the Restoration playwright and architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, for his own use. This "very small box", as he described it, stood on the level ground in front of the present mansion. At the same time, he built the stables and the walled gardens, also probably White Cottage, which is now the Sixth Form Centre of Claremont Fan Court School.

 

In 1714, he sold the house to the wealthy Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare, who later became Duke of Newcastle and served twice as Prime Minister. The earl commissioned Vanbrugh to add two great wings to the house and to build a fortress-like turret on an adjoining knoll. From this so-called "prospect-house", or belvedere, he and his guests could admire the views of the Surrey countryside as they took refreshments and played hazard, a popular dice game.

 

In the clear eighteenth-century air it was apparently possible to see Windsor Castle and St Paul's Cathedral. The Earl of Clare named his country seat Clare-mount, later contracted to Claremont. The two lodges at the Copsem Lane entrance were added at this time.

 

Landscape garden

Main article: Claremont Landscape Garden

Claremont landscape garden is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th century layout. The extensive landscaped grounds of Claremont represents the work of some of the best known landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman, Capability Brown, William Kent (with Thomas Greening) and Sir John Vanbrugh.[2]

 

Work on the gardens began around 1715 and, by 1727, they were described as "the noblest of any in Europe". Within the grounds, overlooking the lake, is an unusual turfed amphitheatre.

 

A feature in the grounds is the Belvedere Tower, designed by Vanbrugh for the Duke of Newcastle. The tower is unusual in that, what appear to be windows, are actually bricks painted black and white. It is now owned by Claremont Fan Court School, which is situated alongside the gardens.

 

In 1949, the landscape garden was donated to the National Trust for stewardship and protection. A restoration programme was launched in 1975 following a significant donation by the Slater Foundation. The garden is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[3]

 

Capability Brown's mansion, built for Lord Clive of India

The Duke of Newcastle died in 1768 and, in 1769, his widow sold the estate to Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, founder of Britain's Indian Empire. Although the great house was then little more than fifty years old, it was aesthetically and politically out of fashion. Lord Clive decided to demolish the house and commissioned Capability Brown to build the present Palladian mansion on higher and dryer ground. Brown, more accomplished as a landscape designer than an architect, took on his future son-in-law Henry Holland as a junior partner owing to the scale of the project. John Soane (later Sir John Soane) was employed in Holland's office at this time and worked on the project as a draftsman and junior designer.[4] Holland's interiors for Claremont owe much to the contemporary work of Robert Adam.

 

Lord Clive, by now fabulously rich Nabob, is reputed to have spent over £100,000 on rebuilding the house and the complete remodelling of the celebrated pleasure ground. However, Lord Clive ended up never living at the property, as he died in 1774—the year that the house was completed. The estate then passed through a rapid succession of owners; first being sold "for not more than one third of what the house and alterations had cost"[5] to Robert Monckton-Arundell, 4th Viscount Galway, and then to George Carpenter, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, and finally to Charles Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford.[citation needed]

 

A large map entitled "Claremont Palace", situated in what is called "Clive's room" inside the mansion, shows the mansion and its surrounding grounds; giving a detailed overview of the campus. The map likely dates back to the 1860s, when the mansion was frequently occupied by Queen Victoria (thus it having been christened "palace"). However, the exact date is still unknown. The relief in Claremont's front pediment is of Clive's coat of arms impaled with that of Maskelyne, his wife's family.

 

Royal residence

In 1816, Claremont was bought by the British Nation through an Act of Parliament as a wedding present for George IV's daughter Princess Charlotte and her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. At that time, the estate was valued to Parliament at £60,000: "Mr Huskisson stated that it had been agreed to purchase the house and demesnes of Clermont... The valuation of the farms, farm-houses, and park, including 350 acres of land, was 36,000/; the mansion, 19,000/; and the furniture, 6,000/; making together 60,000/. The mansion, which is in good repair, could not be built now for less than 91,000/."[6] To the nation's great sorrow, however, Princess Charlotte, who was second in line to the throne, was, after two miscarriages, to die there after giving birth to a stillborn son in November the following year. This sorrow is expressed in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem Wikisource-logo.svg Lines on the Mausoleum of the Princess Charlotte, at Claremont., published in Forget Me Not, 1824. Although Leopold retained ownership of Claremont until his death in 1865, he left the house in 1831 when he became the first King of the Belgians.

  

Mausoleum of Princess Charlotte

 

Claremont House, ca. 1860

Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor to Claremont—both as a child and later as an adult—when Leopold, her doting uncle, lent her the house. She, in turn, lent the house to the exiled French King and Queen, Louis-Philippe and Marie-Amelie (the parents-in-law of Leopold I of Belgium), after the Revolutions of 1848. The exiled King died at Claremont in 1850.

 

In 1857, Offenbach and his Bouffes company performed three of his opéras bouffes there for Marie Amelie and her sons during an eight-week tour of England.[7]

 

In 1870, Queen Victoria commissioned Francis John Williamson to sculpt a marble memorial to Charlotte and Leopold which was erected inside the house.[8][9] (The memorial was subsequently moved to St George's Church, Esher.)[9]

 

Victoria bought Claremont for her fourth, and youngest, son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, when he married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1882. The Duke and Duchess of Albany had two children—Alice and Charles. Charles, who had been born at Claremont in 1884, inherited the title and position of Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his uncle, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1900. He moved to the duchy in Germany to fulfill the position, becoming a German citizen, and renouncing his claim in the British succession.

 

Claremont should have passed to Charles upon his mother's death in 1922, but because he served as a German general in the First World War, the British government disallowed the inheritance. Claremont was accordingly confiscated and sold by the Public Trustee to shipping magnate Sir William Corry, director of the Cunard Line. Two years after Sir William's death, in 1926, it was bought by Eugen Spier, a wealthy German financier.

 

In 1930, Claremont stood empty and was marked for demolition when it was bought, together with the Belvedere, the stables, and 30 acres (120,000 m2) of parkland, by the Governors of a south London school, later renamed Claremont School and, since 1978, has been known as Claremont Fan Court School.

 

The National Trust

The National Trust acquired 50 acres (0.20 km2) of the Claremont estate in 1949. In 1975, with a grant from the Slater Foundation, it set about restoring the eighteenth-century landscape garden. Now, the Claremont Landscape Garden displays the successive contributions of the great landscape gardeners who worked on it: Sir John Vanbrugh, Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Capability Brown.

 

In 1996, the school celebrated the National Trust's centenary by opening a feature of the grounds which had not previously been accessible to the garden's visitors: the 281-year-old Belvedere Tower. Wikipedia

Comox Air Force Museum

 

In Service: 1951 to 1984 (Retired from flying 27 October 1983)

 

The development, production, and operation of the CF-100 represent one of Canadian aviation’s outstanding achievements. It remains the only Canadian designed and built combat aircraft to reach operational status and the Canuck played a critical role in this country's participation in the defence of North America and Europe during the first two decades of the Cold War.

 

The Canuck became operational in 1953 and continued flying with the RCAF until 1981. Both its role and weaponry changed through the years as some squadrons of CF-100's were based in Europe as part of NATO and the aircraft's armament evolved from machine guns to rockets and guided missiles. In its prime, the Canuck was known as a rugged, dependable aircraft. It was the first and one of the best long-range, all-weather fighters available, it served

Canada, NORAD, and NATO well.

 

The RCAF named the CF-100, “Canuck”, after the much earlier Curtiss JN-4 Canuck trainer of the First World War. However, the name Canuck was never really accepted for the jet aircraft and the crews more often referred to the type as the “Clunk”; for the noise the landing gear made as it retracted into its well after takeoff.

 

The CF-100’s good climb, excellent fire control and radar systems, twin-engine reliability and all-weather capability made the aircraft highly suitable for Canadian, NATO and NORAD air defence roles of the Korean and Cold War

eras until it was replaced by the McDonnell CF-101 Voodoo in the air defence role in 1961. It was then modified to become an electronic warfare (EW) and electronic countermeasures (ECM) trainer. The two main versions of the

CF-100 were the gun and rocket armed Mark 4s and the rocket only armed Mark 5s.

 

Reference: comoxairforcemuseum.ca

 

Image best viewed in large screen.

 

Thank-you for your visit, and any comments or faves are always very much appreciated! ~Sonja

Commentary.

 

Landscaped by Lancelot “Capability” Brown,

this estate is crowned by a Neo-Greco-Roman mansion,

now used as part of Stowe Public School.

Brown ensured that from the house a number of Classical structures would provide, eye-line, focal points within the Park Landscape.

These include the scaled-down copies of Greek Temples, like the one shown,

Obelisks, Columns with statues and a Corinthian Arch,

centred on the house, nearly a mile to the south-east.

The lakes and valleys provide slopes and water, to further enhance the vistas and present a variety of eco-systems.

Copse woodland and mature trees lining vast, sweeping lawns.

Wood-fringed lakes, streams and waterfalls.

Wild meadow land, farm-land and a maze of interconnecting drives and paths.

This lake is known as the Octagonal Lake.

A brood of Coot chicks briefly swam out into the open, but lily-covered, expanse of water.

Mum and Dad Coots ushered them back into the safety of the nest amongst the reeds, rushes and Water-Irises.

The adults then swam out to forage for food before returning to the nest.

Although far from natural, the Estate has matured and provides a very pleasant and relaxing environment, managed in recent times by the National Trust.

 

Another shot from my visit to Coombe Abbey on Sunday. Showing the house and gardens.

 

A little history from Wikipedia:

Coombe Abbey was founded as a monastery in the 12th century.

 

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century it became royal property.

 

Elizabeth of Bohemia, the daughter of king James I, was educated there in the early 17th century. Had the Gunpowder Plot succeeded she was to have been abducted from Coombe Abbey and proclaimed as Queen Elizabeth II.

 

In 1682, the West Wing was added by architect Captain William Winde, who also designed Buckingham House, which later became Buckingham Palace. In 1771, Lancelot 'Capability' Brown redesigned the gardens, incorporating the Coombe Pool lake.

 

For successive generations Coombe Abbey was owned by the Earls of Craven, in whose possession the estate remained until 1923.

 

The park was opened to the public in 1966.

 

Thank you for looking and for any comments you may leave.

SAC 01, a Boeing C-17A Globemaster III operated by NATO's Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) Heavy Airlift Wing, arriving at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, England, to participate in the Royal International Air Tattoo 2022 (RIAT 2022). Although operated by NATO, the aircraft is based at Pápa Air Base in Hungary, and wears Hungarian Air Force insignia.

 

This, and other images, available for sale by clicking the link

Stock photography by Marco McGinty at Alamy

 

©Copyright Notice

This photograph and all those within my photostream are protected by copyright. They may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without my written permission.

Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown for George Coventry, 6th Earl of Coventry, and they were Brown's first landscape design and first major architectural project. Some of the mansion's rooms were designed by Robert Adam. St Mary Magdalene's Church, Croome D'Abitot that sits within the grounds of the park is now owned and cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.

 

The mansion house is owned by Croome Heritage Trust and leased to the National Trust, which operates it as a tourist attraction. The National Trust owns the surrounding parkland, which is also open to the public.

 

Location

Croome Court is located near to Croome D'Abitot, in Worcestershire,[1] near Pirton, Worcestershire.[2] The wider estate was established on lands that were once part of the royal forest of Horewell.[3] Traces of these older landscapes, such as unimproved commons and ancient woodlands, can be found across the former Croome Estate.[4]

 

House

 

Croome Court South Portico

History

See also: History of Worcestershire § Georgian society, politics and religion

The foundations and core of Croome Court, including the central chimney stack structure, date back to the early 1640s.[5] Substantial changes to this early house were made by Gilbert Coventry, 4th Earl of Coventry.[6]

 

George Coventry, the 6th Earl, inherited the estate in 1751, along with the existing Jacobean house. He commissioned Lancelot "Capability" Brown, with the assistance of Sanderson Miller, to redesign the house and estate.[7][1] It was Brown's "first flight into the realms of architecture" and a "rare example of his architectural work",[8] and it is an important and seminal work.[9] It was built between 1751 and 1752, and it and Hagley Hall are considered to be the finest examples of Neo-Palladian architecture in Worcestershire. Notable Neo-Palladian features incorporated into Croome Court include the plain exterior and the corner towers with pyramidal roofs (a feature first used by Inigo Jones in the design of Wilton House in Wiltshire).[1] Robert Adam worked on the interior of the building from 1760 onwards.[10] The house was visited by George III,[2][11] as well as by Queen Victoria[7] during summers when she was a child, and George V (when Duke of York).[11]

 

A jam factory was built near Pershore railway station by George Coventry, 9th Earl of Coventry in about 1880, to provide a market for Vale of Evesham fruit growers in times of surplus. Although the Croome connection with jam-making had ceased, the building was leased by the Croome Estate Trust during the First World War to the Huddersfield Fruit Preserving Company as a pulping station.[12] The First World War deeply affected Croome; there were many local casualties, although the house was not requisitioned for the war effort. This is possibly because it was the home of the Lord-lieutenant of the county, who needed a residence for his many official engagements.[13] Croome Court was requisitioned during the Second World War by the Ministry of Works, and leased for a year to the Dutch Government as a possible refuge for Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands to escape the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. However, evidence shows that Queen Wilhelmina stayed for two weeks at the most, perhaps because of the noise and the fear created by the proximity of RAF Defford. The Dutch Royal family later emigrated to Canada for the duration of the war.

 

The Croome Estate Trust sold the Court in 1948, along with 38 acres (15 ha) of land, to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, and the mansion became St Joseph's Special School, which was run by nuns[14] from 1950[11] until 1979.[14] In 1979, the hall was taken over by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON, the Hare Krishna movement) which used it as its UK headquarters and a training college,[15] called Chaitanya College.[14] During their tenure they repainted the Dining Room.[16] ISKCON left the estate in 1984 for financial reasons. It held a festival at the hall in 2011.[15] From 1984 onwards, various owners tried to use the property as a training centre; apartments; a restaurant and conference centre; and a hotel and golf course,[14] before once more becoming a private family home,[2][14] with outbuildings converted to private houses.[14]

 

The house was purchased by the Croome Heritage Trust, a registered charity,[17] in October 2007,[18] and it is now managed by the National Trust as a tourist attraction. It opened to the public in September 2009, at which point six of the rooms had been restored, costing £400,000, including the Saloon. It was estimated that another £4 million[2][19] to £4.8 million would be needed to restore the entire building. Fundraising activities for the restoration included a 2011 raffle for a Morgan sports car organised by Lord and Lady Flight. After the restoration is complete, a 999-year lease on the building will be granted to the National Trust.[20] An oral history project to record recollections about Croome was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.[14] As of 2009, the service wing was empty and in need of substantial repair.[21] The house was listed on 11 August 1952; it is currently Grade I listed.[10]

 

Exterior

The mansion is faced with Bath stone,[7] limestone ashlar, and has both north and south facing fronts. It has a basement and two stories, with three stories in the end pavilions. A slate roof, with pyramid roofs over the corner towers, tops the building, along with three pair-linked chimneys along the axis of the house.[10]

 

Both fronts have 11 bays, split into three central sets of three each, and one additional bay each side. The north face has a pedimented centre, with two balustraded staircases leading to a Roman Doric doorcase. The south face has a projecting Ionic tetrastyle portico and Venetian windows. It has a broad staircase, with Coade stone sphinxes on each side, leading to a south door topped with a cornice on consoles. The wings have modillion cornice and balustrade.[10]

 

A two-story L-shaped service wing is attached to the east side of the mansion. It is made of red brick and stone, with slate roofs.[10] It was designed by Capability Brown in 1751–1752.[21] On the far side of the service wing, a wall connects it to a stable court.[10]

 

Interior

 

The Tapestry Room, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

... and the Tapestry Room at Croome Court today

The interior of the house was designed partially by Capability Brown, with plasterwork by G. Vassalli, and partially by Robert Adam, with plasterwork by Joseph Rose, Jr. It has a central spine corridor. A stone staircase, with iron balusters, is at the east end.[10]

 

The entrance hall is on the north side of the building, and has four fluted Doric columns, along with moulded doorcases. To the east of the entrance hall is the dining room, which has a plaster ceiling and cornice, while to the west is a billiard room, featuring fielded panelling, a plaster cornice, and a rococo chimneypiece. The three rooms were probably decorated around 1758–1759 by Capability Brown.[10] The dining room was vibrantly repainted by the Hare Krishnas in the 1970s-80s.[16]

 

The central room on the south side is a saloon, probably by Brown and Vassalli. It has an elaborate ceiling, with three panels, deep coving, and a cornice, along with two Ionic chimneypieces, and Palladian doorcases.[22] King George III was entertained by George Coventry, the 6th Earl, in the house's Saloon.[2] A drawing room is to the west of the saloon, and features rococo plasterwork and a marble chimneypiece.[10]

 

To the east of the saloon is the Tapestry Room.[10] This was designed in 1763–1771, based on a design by Robert Adam, and contained tapestries and furniture covers possibly designed by François Boucher and Maurice Jacques, and made by Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins.[23] Around 1902 the 9th Earl sold the tapestries and seating to a Parisian dealer. The Samuel H. Kress Foundation purchased the ceiling, floor, chimneypiece, chair rails, doors and door surrounds in 1949; they were donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1958. In 1959, the Kress Foundation also helped the Metropolitan Museum acquire the chair and sofa frames, which they recovered using the original tapestry seats.[7][23] A copy of the ceiling was installed in place of the original.[10] As of 2016, the room is displayed as it would have looked after the tapestries had been sold, with a jug and ewer on display as the only original decoration of the room that remains in it. The adjacent library is used to explain what happened to the tapestry room;[16] the former library was designed by Adam, and was dismantled except for the marble chimneypiece.[10]

 

At the west side of the building is a Long Gallery[10] which was designed by Robert Adam and installed between 1761 and 1766. It is the best preserved element of the original interior (little of the rest has survived in situ).[1] It has an octagonal panelled ceiling, and plaster reliefs of griffins. A half-hexagonal bay faces the garden. The room also contains a marble caryatid chimneypiece designed by J Wilton.[10] As of 2016, modern sculptures are displayed in empty niches along the Long Gallery....Wikipedia

During air show at Malmen 2010.

SAC 01 Pápa NATO Strategic Airlift Capability

Boeing C-17A Globemaster III

08-0001 (F-207)

477FF1

BRK Hungarian Air Force

EYSA 260750Z 16013KT CAVOK 23/16 Q1008 NOSIG

The beautiful Capability Brown designed gardens, lake & bridge at Weston Park on the Shropshire / Staffordshire border.

 

Capability Brown designed the Temple Wood Pleasure Ground as a relaxing haven for the Bridgeman family.

 

www.weston-park.com

 

Sheffield Park Garden is an informal landscape garden five miles east of Haywards Heath, in East Sussex, England. It was originally laid out in the 18th century by Capability Brown, and further developed in the early years of the 20th century by its then owner, Arthur Gilstrap Soames. It is now owned by the National Trust.

 

The gardens originally formed part of the estate of the adjacent Sheffield Park House, a gothic country house, which is still in private ownership. It was also firstly owned by the West Family and later by the Soames family until in 1925 the estate was sold by Arthur Granville Soames, who had inherited it from his childless uncle, Arthur Gilstrap Soames.

 

Sheffield Park as an estate is mentioned in the Domesday Book. In August 1538, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, entertained Henry VIII here. By 1700, the Deer Park had been partially formalised by Lord De La Warr who planted avenues of trees radiating from the house and cleared areas to establish lawns. In the late 1700s, James Wyatt remodelled the house in the fashionable Gothic style and Capability Brown was commissioned to landscape the garden. The original four lakes form the centrepiece. Humphry Repton followed Brown in 1789–1790. In 1796, the estate was sold to John Holroyd, created Baron Sheffield in 1781. It is particularly noted for its plantings of trees selected for autumn colour, including many Black Tupelos.

 

By 1885, an arboretum was being established, consisting of both exotic and native trees. After Arthur Gilstrap Soames purchased the estate in 1910, he continued large-scale planting. During World War II the house and garden became the headquarters for a Canadian armoured division, and Nissen huts were sited in the garden and woods. The estate was split up and sold in lots in 1953. The National Trust purchased approximately 40 ha in 1954, now up to 80 ha with subsequent additions. It is home to the National Collection of Ghent azaleas.

 

In 1876 the third Earl of Sheffield laid out a cricket pitch. It was used on 12 May 1884 for the first cricket match between England and Australia. The Australian team won by an innings and 6 runs.

The Nikon F90X (N90s in the U.S. market) was the second and final version of what I call the third generation of semi-pro 35mm autofocus SLRs from Nikon. The second generation, the F801/F801s (N8008/N8008s), introduced reliable autofocus, together with built-in autowind and rewind, spot metering, a new single control wheel interface, and other features, to the semi-pro line. (Note: an even earlier Nikon autofocus design, the F501 (N2020), had early first generation autofocus capability and a completely different interface and viewfinder display.) The F90/F90x continued virtually the same interface and body design as the F801/F801s but upgraded the level of technology, especially in its final incarnation, the F90X. The F90X is the epitome of Nikon's single focus point autofocus film SLRs. The F90X's interface was changed and enhanced with the subsequent F100, which introduced dual control wheels. The F100 also adds multiple focus and spot metering points, together with support for modern vibration reduction/image stabilization (VR) lenses and slightly more flexible custom settings. While the F100 is in some ways a better film camera to use today than the F90X, the F90X already included 3D Matrix Metering, which is the biggest exposure metering advance in the industry until the later color matrix metering of the F5 and F6 (and subsequent digital SLRs). The F90X also supports the built-in Silent Wave motors of modern Nikon lenses. In spite of its technical advances over the F90X, the F100 has an even more severe problem than the F90X with decomposition of the rubbery surface of its camera backs. If you don't need support for VR and are looking for a low-cost high-tech AF body in the used market, the F90X could be just what you want.

 

With the big picture out of the way, let's look at the features and functions of the F90X in more detail. The original F90 appears to have been rushed out in 1992 to quickly upgrade the F801s as a way to compete with Canon in a rapidly developing market. However, the F90X was released less than two years later with a long list of major and minor refinements. Today, you would definitely want the F90X over the original F90. The biggest improvements in the F90X over the F90 were improved autofocus, and the ability to adjust P, S, and M modes in 1/3 stop increments rather than one stop increments. According to Nikon, both the F90 and F90X used the CAM246 AF detection system, so AF improvement from the F90 to F90X was presumably due to better software.

 

The F90X is an amazing camera. The F800 already felt very advanced, moving from an F3HP, when the F801 was released in 1988. But after upgrading from the F801 to the F90X, one really appreciated the more responsive autofocus, the addition of spot metering (I never moved to an F801s), and most of all 3D Matrix (multi-pattern) metering. The 3D matrix metering of the F90X enabled more accurate exposure metering, especially for flash photography with dedicated Nikon electronic flashes, by incorporating subject focus distance information from AF-D lenses into the exposure calculation. The F90X is optimized for use with AF-D lenses, either Nikkor lenses or from third-party manufacturers such as Sigma and Tamron. The F90X works with non-autofocus Ai lenses, but with such lenses, you can only use center-weighted and spot metering (no matrix metering) and you can only use the Aperture Priority and Manual exposure modes (no Program or Shutter Speed Priority modes). Also, the set aperture of non-AF lenses does not appear in the viewfinder since there is no optical ADR like on most earlier Nikon bodies. The F90X (unlike the previous F801/F801s) auto-focuses with later G-type lenses (with no aperture ring and Silent Wave focusing motor). While you cannot adjust the aperture of G-type lenses directly on the F90X, a very simple solution is to shoot in Program mode, but use Flexible Program by turning the control wheel to step through equivalent aperture/shutter speed combinations while keeping the EV fixed. (This works a bit like exposure lock on electronic Contax bodies.)

 

The size and weight of the F90X is a very reasonable 755g, especially by the standard of the F4 or F5. It is an incremental increase in size and weight over the F801/s. In addition, although the user manual only indicates four AA-type alkaline, manganese or NiCd batteries, both Nikon and my personal experience confirms that the F90X also works fine with relatively lightweight AA lithium batteries. Overall, the camera/battery combination, even with alkaline batteries, is perfect both for stability and also portability. I have personally only used alkaline and lithium batteries and both types last for a very long time, although of course not as long as the button batteries in older manual focus cameras, such as the F3 or FM2N. The F90X owner manual indicates a battery capacity of 50 rolls of 36-exposure film at 20 degrees Celsius. This is much more than the battery capacity of my F6, especially with a power-hungry VR lens attached to the F6. The F90X has a very solid and comfortable feel, with a metal interior, matte-type rubberized grip surfaces, and heavy-duty matte composite plastic exterior plates. The F90/X body design includes a molded hand grip that is very stable and comfortable, but does not excessively add to the dimensions of the body. The covering material on the F90/X is not as rubbery or tactile as newer Nikon bodies, but still offers a fine grip.

 

There was a well-known problem with the rubberized material on the exterior of the camera back. A few years ago, the rubberized material on on at least some samples of the F90/X started to decompose and become a sticky goo. The same problem happened to the back of my own F90X, which became extremely sticky and completely unusable. Fortunately, my camera tech was able to procure a new replacement back and make the camera like new. The new back, like the old, is indeed plastic except for the pressure plate and other hardware. Still, the construction of the new back is very solid and it fits snugly onto the camera body when closed, without any irritating play. I am not sure about the composition of the exterior surface of the new back. It is a very attractive matte black finish, that must either be some type of composite material, or a very fine sprayed on layer. In any event, it appears to be very durable and hopefully long-lasting.

 

With the F90X generation of Nikon bodies, if you want to adjust certain functions, such as auto exposure bracketing, multiple exposure operation, interval timer, film imprinting, etc., you will need to add a MF-26 Multi-Control back. You can also use the optional Data Link System and AC-2E card to adjust more settings, download stored data, etc.

 

The viewfinder of the F90X has a relatively low 92% image coverage. Such coverage is more appropriate for the era when people used mounted slides, which cut off the edges of the frame, but is more limiting in today's age when film is scanned directly after processing at the lab. On the other hand, you can crop the scanned images in Photoshop if necessary. You just need to keep in mind at the time of shooting that your image will include a bit more than you can see. The viewfinder display is well-organized, and the brightness of the soft green horizontal LCD display is just right for both bright and dim environments. The viewfinder eyepiece does not include an adjustable diopter. However, Nikon still makes a full range of single diopter lenses in current production. The F90X takes the same diopter lens as the F3HP, F801/S, F90 and F100.

 

Dual film advance modes of single frame and continuous High ( 4.3 fps) and Low (2.0) speed, offer more than enough speed for casual shooting.

 

As mentioned above, the exposure metering system of the F90X is extremely advanced. It has second generation software and three additional central segments in addition to the five metering segments of the FA and F801/s (plus spot), for a total of 8 segments. In addition, the new "3D" technology of the F90x increases the accuracy of the multi-segment metering system even further, especially for flash photography, with concurrent and later AF-D compatible lenses. Center-weighted metering is of course included, and is designed with a 75% weighting, which had become the new Nikon standard for center-weight, more like the 80% center-weight of the F3 than the 60% weight of classic Nikon camera meters. The 3mm spot meter had become standard since the earlier F801s. One of my few complaints about the design of the F90X is that the selected exposure metering system is not displayed in the viewfinder, unlike on many later models. Glasses wearers will prefer the selected exposure metering system to be indicated in the viewfinder so they can switch among the metering systems without putting your glasses on, especially since the control wheel interface makes it difficult to confirm the selected system by feel alone. The LCD display on the top of the camera duplicates much of the same information as the viewfinder display, plus additional information such as metering system and ISO. The exposure meter is very sensitive, covering EV -1 through EV 21 in matrix and center-weighted, and EV 3 to EV 21 for spot metering.

 

Although the F90X only has a single focus area, autofocusing is quite responsive. Of course, the focusing technique in the day of the single autofocus point was to focus on the appropriate object, lock the focus with the shutter release button or AF lock, recompose, and shoot. The focus indicator also works very well with most manual focus lenses (with greater than f/5.6 aperture). Just focus manually until the round digital in-focus indicator is displayed in the viewfinder; there is no need for a central focusing aid on the focusing screen, although you can also manually focus with the matte screen itself. The central focus area can be easily switched between Spot and Wide by pushing a button on the top right of the camera and turning the control wheel; which area you have selected shows up in the viewfinder display so you can switch back and forth with your eye to the viewfinder. The Wide autofocus area is actually quite large, covering more than half of the outer central circle of the viewfinder image. The autofocus system appears quite adept at following moving subjects that stay within this expanded focusing area.

 

The F90X has all of the required PASM exposure modes and then some. The camera adds Ps "Vari-Program" modes that automatically set the recommended shutter speed and aperture combinations for seven separate photographic situations, such as Portraits, Portraits with Red Eye Reduction, Landscape, Sports, Close Up, etc. However, anyone who properly knows their way around a camera, or wants to learn, has no need for these Vari-Program settings. Unlike exposure metering systems, it is extremely easy to adjust your exposure modes with your eye to the viewfinder; just push the Mode button on the top left of the camera and turn the control wheel to select the correct mode. The selected mode is always clearly indicated at the bottom of the viewfinder. Program mode is extremely useful, even for photographers who are expert at manual camera setting. In a pinch, the camera's Program mode can adjust exposure fully automatically. More commonly, however, it is convenient to let the camera select the correct EV and the approximate shutter speed/aperture combination in Program mode. You then simply turn the control wheel in Program Mode after you have metered the scene to select the exact shutter speed/aperture combination that you want in 1/3 stop increments. This technique becomes even more useful when using newer G-type lenses, which have no aperture ring, since you have no secondary control dial to change the aperture directly. Manual mode works very well with AF lenses that have aperture rings; the digital analog readout in the viewfinder indicates exposure deviation in 1/3 stop increments, although, unlike some later designs, it only displays the range of +-1 EV to save display real estate. Although you can't see exactly how far you you are when greater than +- 1 EV, I never found this to be a practical limitation.

 

The F90X has a highly advanced shutter. Using the control wheel, you can directly set the shutter speed in 1/3 stop increments all the way from 1/8000 sec. to 30 seconds. Standard electronic flash maximum synch speed is a modern 1/250 sec.

 

Exposure compensation of +- 5 EV is easy to set by pushing a button on top of the camera and turning the control wheel, with the amount of compensation visible in the viewfinder display in 1/3 stop increments. The camera also has an AE-Lock lever on the back for your right thumb. I find that I usually prefer to use Manual Mode rather than the AE-Lock lever.

 

One small advantage of the F90X as a fully electronic camera is its ability to easily set the self-timer delay between 2 to 30 seconds. Just push the appropriate button on the top left of the camera and turn the control wheel to set. It can be used as an alternative to a remove control cable. On the other hand, one disadvantage of fully electronic cameras, such as the F90X, is that you need to use a special electronic remote cord (MC-20) (rather than a standard mechanical cable) when taking Bulb exposures. Also, Bulb exposures can wear down the battery. Better to use a fully mechanical body if you plan to take lots of long Bulb exposures. (On the other hand, the MC-20 can automatically close the shutter after up to 99 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds! The MF-20 back, and apparently the AC-2E card, also provides this function.)

 

The F90X has easily interchangeable focusing screens. The single available optional screen adds a grid.

 

The MB-10 Multi-Power Vertical Grip is available if you need more battery longevity and bigger camera grip with vertical shutter release.

 

As already mentioned, with its 3D technology, the F90X is amazing for flash photography. If you know what you are doing, you can get great flash photographs even with non-TTL mechanical bodies. But TTL flash control is much more convenient, and the F90/x enhances the level of TTL matrix flash metering by, for the first time, incorporating focus distance from the lens into the exposure calculation. Just make sure to use AF-D type lenses or better, and one of the compatible Nikon electronic flash units. The most advanced concurrent flash with the F90X was the SB-28, which allows full use of the F90X's flash exposure features. The F90X also supports monitor pre-flash with the SB-25/26/28. (Later flashes, such as current production modern Nikon flashes, also work fully with the F90X. I usually use a current production SB-800 flash, even on the F90X.) Another nice feature of the F90X's flash technology is 3D Multi-Sensor Balanced Fill Flash. This function automatically reduces the output of the flash to supplement ambient light. Of course, is you want more precise control, fill-flash can also be set with appropriate manual flash negative compensation directly on the flash unit. Other flash features available with the F90X/SB-28 combination is Rear-Curtain Synch for motion photography and red eye reduction.

 

One generally unnecessary feature that has been omitted from the F90X is mirror lock-up (MLU).

 

To conclude, the F90X was and continues to be an amazing camera. The F90/X were the first semi-pro Nikon to incorporate 3D metering technology. It felt fun and was effective to use the camera with AF-D or newer lenses. The F90X offered virtually every function that you could think of, at least with its various accessories. The camera feels great in your hands and has a good form factor and weight for both travel and large lenses. Really the only limitation that irritates me about the F90X is that I can not use Matrix Metering, and there is no viewfinder display of the selected aperture, with manual focus lenses. In practice, this should not impact the quality of your images, but it is certainly less convenient. (Thankfully, this limitation was finally fixed in the F6 and some high-end Nikon DSLRs). The real limitations of the F90X today are its single focus point, its lack of support for VR lenses, and its lack of a second control wheel for G-type lenses. Thus, in the film world, you would need an F100 or F6 (and the consumer grade F75/F80) to get maximum benefit out of the newest generation of lenses. The control wheels and rubbery grip are more ergonomic on the F100 and F6, compared with the F90X.

  

Copyright © 2016 Timothy A. Rogers. All rights reserved.

  

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02 Boeing C-17A

Globemaster III C17

477FF2

NATO Strategic Airlift Capability

08-0002 c/nF-210

EYSA 211220Z 31012KT 280V340 CAVOK 23/09 Q1017 BLU NOSIG

 

Broadway Tower is a folly on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second-highest point of the Cotswolds (after Cleeve Hill). Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 65 feet (20 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was the brainchild of Capability Brown and designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1798–99. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester — about 22 miles (35 km) away — and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. Indeed, the beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s. William Morris was so inspired by Broadway Tower and other ancient buildings that he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village.

 

Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

The Skye Bridge is a road bridge over Loch Alsh, Scotland, connecting the Isle of Skye to the island of Eilean Bàn. The name is also used for the whole Skye Crossing, which further connects Eilean Bàn to the mainland across the Carrich Viaduct. The crossing forms part of the A87.

 

Traditionally, the usual route from the mainland to Skye was the shortest crossing, with a length of around 500 metres (1,640 ft), across the sound between the villages of Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland and Kyleakin on the island's east coast. A ferry service operated from around 1600, run by private operators and latterly by Caledonian MacBrayne.

 

Road and rail connections to Kyle of Lochalsh were constructed towards the end of the 19th century and various parties proposed building a bridge to the island. Although the engineering task was well within the capability of the age (the crossing is shorter and shallower than that bridged by the Forth Bridge), the island's remoteness and small population meant that the cost could not be justified.

 

By 1971 the two 28-car ferries carried more than 300,000 vehicles. Increased prosperity in the islands and a healthy summertime tourist traffic led to traffic queuing for the ferries. This brought renewed calls for the construction of a road bridge.

 

In 1989 Conservative junior minister Lord James Douglas-Hamilton announced a bidding round, requested tenders to construct a toll bridge. A variety of locations and designs were proposed, and the contract was awarded to Miller-Dywidag, a consortium composed of Scottish construction company Miller Construction, German engineering company DYWIDAG Systems International, and financial partner the Bank of America. The Miller-Dywidag proposal (designed in collaboration with civil engineering firm Arup) was for a single-span concrete arch, supported by two piers resting on caissons in the loch and using Eilean Bàn as a stepping-stone. The PFI plan was accepted, and received support from local MP Charles Kennedy and the local council in the full knowledge that it would be on a high-toll basis for a limited period. Although the bridge itself was built with PFI, the approach roads were the responsibility of the Scottish Office, which paid £15 million for the roads and associated improvements, and to cover the costs associated with decommissioning the ferry. Construction began in 1992 led by Project Director John Henderson and the bridge was opened by Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth on 16 October 1995. Then the ferry service ceased, and the bridge and the Mallaig-Armadale ferry were the only year-round connections to the mainland.

 

The two caissons that the main span stands on were cast as hollow cylinders in the old Kishorn Dry Dock and floated to site where they were sunk onto the prepared loch bed. Kishorn Dock had been built for the oil industry, but only built the one rig – Ninian Central.

 

This was the first major capital project funded by the Private Finance Initiative, and in exchange for the contractors funding the bridge's construction themselves (rather than being paid to do so from the public exchequer) they were granted a licence to operate the bridge and charge travellers tolls. When the contract was first awarded, the partnership estimated it would cost around £15 million, although delays and design changes added significantly to the cost (to around £25 million, by the BBC's estimate).

 

The tolls charged by the bridge concessionaire, Skye Bridge Ltd., were particularly unpopular. By 2004 a round trip cost visitors £11.40, fourteen times the round trip price charged by the Forth Road Bridge, a crossing over twice the length. Protesters claimed the toll made it the most expensive road in Europe. While the Skye bridge was being built, several other, smaller bridges in the Hebrides were also being built or planned. These bridges were to connect smaller islands either to larger ones or to the mainland and were without tolls. Skye locals came to believe that the Skye bridge should also be a public road and free of tolls.

 

The ferry operator, Caledonian MacBrayne, had made a profit of over a million pounds per year on the route, but observers from the BofA and later the National Audit Office noted that many locals were excused the ferry fee by ferry workers, with much of the ferry's revenue coming from the heavy summertime tourist traffic. In the bridge's first year of operation it recorded traffic of 612,000 vehicles, a third more than the ferry's official numbers.

 

The campaign included mass protests and a prolonged non-payment campaign, and continued as long as did the tolls. A toll-collector interviewed by the BBC said that abuse of collectors by motorists had been commonplace. Numerous toll opponents were cited for refusing to pay the toll, with around 500 being arrested and 130 subsequently convicted of non-payment. Among those charged was Clodagh Mackenzie, an elderly lady from whom the land necessary for the bridge's arrival in Skye had been compulsorily purchased; the charges against her were subsequently dropped without explanation. Of those convicted, only the first, the SKAT Secretary Andy Anderson, received a (brief) prison term. Those charged with non-payment had to make the 140-mile (230-kilometre) round trip to Dingwall Sheriff Court, again crossing the bridge and where again many refused to pay, incurring a further criminal charge. Robbie the Pict argued that the legal paperwork for the tolls was incomplete, and that consequently the tolls themselves were illegal. In particular he said that the "assignation statement", a licence to charge a toll, had never been given. Interviewed later by the BBC, Fiscal David Hingston in Dingwall denied this claim, but admitted that he himself had been denied access to many government documents on the case, on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. Hingston told the BBC "As a fiscal I was stuck with that evidence but as a private individual I found it stunning", leading to renewed calls that the convictions of the toll protesters should be quashed – to this the Crown Office reiterated that appeals on these grounds had already been rejected by the courts.

 

The bridge, and the toll protest, became a continuing political issue. Following the 1997 General Election, the Labour-run Scottish Office introduced a scheme whereby tolls for locals were subsidised (the scheme cost a total of £7 million). Following the creation of the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Labour Party joined in coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who had made the Skye Bridge toll abolition one of their priorities. With responsibility for Scotland's road network transferred from Westminster to the Scottish Executive, increased political pressure was placed on the toll's future. On 3 June 2004, Jim Wallace, the Enterprise Minister in the Scottish Executive announced that he hoped the bridge would be bought out, and tolls abolished, by the end of 2004. In line with this, on 21 December 2004, Scottish Transport Minister Nicol Stephen announced that the bridge had been purchased for approximately £27 million, and toll collection immediately ceased. During the preceding decade £33.3 million in tolls had been collected. Figures obtained by the BBC under freedom of information laws showed the consortium's operating costs on the bridge during this period had been only £3.5 million.

 

An Drochaid, an hour-long documentary in Scottish Gaelic, was made for BBC Alba documenting the battle to remove the tolls.

 

The Isle of Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in the country. Although Sgitheanach has been suggested to describe a winged shape, no definitive agreement exists as to the name's origins.

 

The island has been occupied since the Mesolithic period, and over its history has been occupied at various times by Celtic tribes including the Picts and the Gaels, Scandinavian Vikings, and most notably the powerful integrated Norse-Gaels clans of MacLeod and MacDonald. The island was considered to be under Norwegian suzerainty until the 1266 Treaty of Perth, which transferred control over to Scotland. The 18th-century Jacobite risings led to the breaking-up of the clan system and later clearances that replaced entire communities with sheep farms, some of which involved forced emigrations to distant lands. Resident numbers declined from over 20,000 in the early 19th century to just under 9,000 by the closing decade of the 20th century. Skye's population increased by 4% between 1991 and 2001. About a third of the residents were Gaelic speakers in 2001, and although their numbers are in decline, this aspect of island culture remains important.

 

The main industries are tourism, agriculture, fishing, and forestry. Skye is part of the Highland Council local government area. The island's largest settlement is Portree, which is also its capital, known for its picturesque harbour. Links to various nearby islands by ferry are available, and since 1995, to the mainland by a road bridge. The climate is mild, wet, and windy. The abundant wildlife includes the golden eagle, red deer, and Atlantic salmon. The local flora is dominated by heather moor, and nationally important invertebrate populations live on the surrounding sea bed. Skye has provided the locations for various novels and feature films, and is celebrated in poetry and song.

 

A Mesolithic hunter-gatherer site dating to the seventh millennium BC at An Corran in Staffin is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Scotland. Its occupation is probably linked to that of the rock shelter at Sand, Applecross, on the mainland coast of Wester Ross, where tools made of a mudstone from An Corran have been found. Surveys of the area between the two shores of the Inner Sound and Sound of Raasay have revealed 33 sites with potentially Mesolithic deposits. Finds of bloodstone microliths on the foreshore at Orbost on the west coast of the island near Dunvegan also suggest Mesolithic occupation. These tools probably originated from the nearby island of Rùm. Similarly, bloodstone from Rum, and baked mudstone, from the Staffin area, were found at the Mesolithic site of Camas Daraich, also from the seventh millennium BC, on the Point of Sleat, which has led archaeologists to believe that Mesolithic people on Skye would travel fairly significant distances, at least 70 km, both by land and sea.

 

Rubha an Dùnain, an uninhabited peninsula to the south of the Cuillin, has a variety of archaeological sites dating from the Neolithic onwards. A second- or third-millennium BC chambered cairn, an Iron Age promontory fort, and the remains of another prehistoric settlement dating from the Bronze Age are nearby. Loch na h-Airde on the peninsula is linked to the sea by an artificial "Viking" canal that may date from the later period of Norse settlement. Dun Ringill is a ruined Iron Age hill fort on the Strathaird Peninsula, which was further fortified in the Middle Ages and may have become the seat of Clan MacKinnon.

 

The late Iron Age inhabitants of the northern and western Hebrides were probably Pictish, although the historical record is sparse. Three Pictish symbol stones have been found on Skye and a fourth on Raasay. More is known of the kingdom of Dál Riata to the south; Adomnán's life of Columba, written shortly before 697, portrays the saint visiting Skye (where he baptised a pagan leader using an interpreter) and Adomnán himself is thought to have been familiar with the island. The Irish annals record a number of events on Skye in the later seventh and early eighth centuries – mainly concerning the struggles between rival dynasties that formed the background to the Old Irish language romance Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin.

 

Legendary hero Cú Chulainn is said to have trained on the Isle of Skye with warrior woman Scáthach.

 

The Norse held sway throughout the Hebrides from the 9th century until after the Treaty of Perth in 1266. However, apart from placenames, little remains of their presence on Skye in the written or archaeological record. Apart from the name "Skye" itself, all pre-Norse placenames seem to have been obliterated by the Scandinavian settlers. Viking heritage, with Celtic heritage is claimed by Clan MacLeod. Norse tradition is celebrated in the winter fire festival at Dunvegan, during which a replica Viking long boat is set alight.

 

The most powerful clans on Skye in the post–Norse period were Clan MacLeod, originally based in Trotternish, and Clan Macdonald of Sleat. The isle was held by Donald Macdonald, Lord of the Isles’ half-brother, Godfrey, from 1389 until 1401, at which time Skye was declared part of Ross. When the Donald Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, re-gained Ross after the battle of Harlaw in 1411, they added "Earl of Ross" to their lords' titles. Skye came with Ross.

 

Following the disintegration of the Lordship of the Isles, Clan Mackinnon also emerged as an independent clan, whose substantial landholdings in Skye were centred on Strathaird. Clan MacNeacail also have a long association with Trotternish, and in the 16th century many of the MacInnes clan moved to Sleat. The MacDonalds of South Uist were bitter rivals of the MacLeods, and an attempt by the former to murder church-goers at Trumpan in retaliation for a previous massacre on Eigg, resulted in the Battle of the Spoiling Dyke of 1578.

 

After the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, Flora MacDonald became famous for rescuing Prince Charles Edward Stuart from the Hanoverian troops. Although she was born on South Uist, her story is strongly associated with their escape via Skye, and she is buried at Kilmuir in Trotternish. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell's visit to Skye in 1773 and their meeting with Flora MacDonald in Kilmuir is recorded in Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Boswell wrote, "To see Dr Samuel Johnson, the great champion of the English Tories, salute Miss Flora MacDonald in the isle of Sky, was a striking sight; for though somewhat congenial in their notions, it was very improbable they should meet here". Johnson's words that Flora MacDonald was "A name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour" are written on her gravestone. After this rebellion, the clan system was broken up and Skye became a series of landed estates.

 

Of the island in general, Johnson observed:

 

I never was in any house of the islands, where I did not find books in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them, except one from which the family was removed. Literature is not neglected by the higher rank of the Hebrideans. It need not, I suppose, be mentioned, that in countries so little frequented as the islands, there are no houses where travellers are entertained for money. He that wanders about these wilds, either procures recommendations to those whose habitations lie near his way, or, when night and weariness come upon him, takes the chance of general hospitality. If he finds only a cottage he can expect little more than shelter; for the cottagers have little more for themselves but if his good fortune brings him to the residence of a gentleman, he will be glad of a storm to prolong his stay. There is, however, one inn by the sea-side at Sconsor, in Sky, where the post-office is kept.

 

— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

 

Skye has a rich heritage of ancient monuments from this period. Dunvegan Castle has been the seat of Clan MacLeod since the 13th century. It contains the Fairy Flag and is reputed to have been inhabited by a single family for longer than any other house in Scotland. The 18th-century Armadale Castle, once home of Clan Donald of Sleat, was abandoned as a residence in 1925, but now hosts the Clan Donald Centre. Nearby are the ruins of two more MacDonald strongholds, Knock Castle, and Dunscaith Castle (called "Fortress of Shadows"), the legendary home of warrior woman, martial arts instructor (and, according to some sources, Queen) Scáthach. Caisteal Maol, a fortress built in the late 15th century near Kyleakin and once a seat of Clan MacKinnon, is another ruin.

 

In the late 18th century the harvesting of kelp became a significant activity, but from 1822 onward cheap imports led to a collapse of this industry throughout the Hebrides. During the 19th century, the inhabitants of Skye were also devastated by famine and Clearances. Thirty thousand people were evicted between 1840 and 1880 alone, many of them forced to emigrate to the New World. The "Battle of the Braes" involved a demonstration against a lack of access to land and the serving of eviction notices. The incident involved numerous crofters and about 50 police officers. This event was instrumental in the creation of the Napier Commission, which reported in 1884 on the situation in the Highlands. Disturbances continued until the passing of the 1886 Crofters' Act and on one occasion 400 marines were deployed on Skye to maintain order. The ruins of cleared villages can still be seen at Lorgill, Boreraig and Suisnish in Strath Swordale, and Tusdale on Minginish.

 

As with many Scottish islands, Skye's population peaked in the 19th century and then declined under the impact of the Clearances and the military losses in the First World War. From the 19th century until 1975 Skye was part of the county of Inverness-shire, but the crofting economy languished and according to Slesser, "Generations of UK governments have treated the island people contemptuously" --a charge that has been levelled at both Labour and Conservative administrations' policies in the Highlands and Islands. By 1971 the population was less than a third of its peak recorded figure in 1841. However, the number of residents then grew by over 28 percent in the thirty years to 2001. The changing relationship between the residents and the land is evidenced by Robert Carruthers's remark c. 1852, "There is now a village in Portree containing three hundred inhabitants." Even if this estimate is inexact the population of the island's largest settlement has probably increased sixfold or more since then. During the period the total number of island residents has declined by 50 percent or more. The island-wide population increase of 4 percent between 1991 and 2001 occurred against the background of an overall reduction in Scottish island populations of 3 percent for the same period. By 2011 the population had risen a further 8.4% to 10,008 with Scottish island populations as a whole growing by 4% to 103,702.

 

Historically, Skye was overwhelmingly Gaelic-speaking, but this changed between 1921 and 2001. In both the 1901 and 1921 censuses, all Skye parishes were more than 75 percent Gaelic-speaking. By 1971, only Kilmuir parish had more than three-quarters of Gaelic speakers while the rest of Skye ranged between 50 and 74 percent. At that time, Kilmuir was the only area outside the Western Isles that had such a high proportion of Gaelic speakers. In the 2001 census Kilmuir had just under half Gaelic speakers, and overall, Skye had 31 percent, distributed unevenly. The strongest Gaelic areas were in the north and southwest of the island, including Staffin at 61 percent. The weakest areas were in the west and east (e.g. Luib 23 percent and Kylerhea 19 percent). Other areas on Skye ranged between 48 percent and 25 percent.

 

In terms of local government, from 1975 to 1996, Skye, along with the neighbouring mainland area of Lochalsh, constituted a local government district within the Highland administrative area. In 1996 the district was included in the unitary Highland Council, (Comhairle na Gàidhealtachd) based in Inverness and formed one of the new council's area committees. Following the 2007 elections, Skye now forms a four-member ward called Eilean a' Cheò; it is currently represented by two independents, one Scottish National Party, and one Liberal Democrat councillor.

 

Skye is in the Highlands and Islands electoral region and comprises a part of the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency of the Scottish Parliament, which elects one member under the first past the post basis to represent it. Kate Forbes is the current MSP for the SNP. In addition, Skye forms part of the wider Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency, which elects one member to the House of Commons in Westminster. The present MP Member of Parliament is Ian Blackford of the Scottish National Party, who took office after the SNP's sweep in the General Election of 2015. Before this, Charles Kennedy, a Liberal Democrat, had represented the area since the 1983 general election.

 

The ruins of an old building sit on top of a prominent hillock that overlooks a pier attended by fishing boats.

Caisteal Maol and fishing boats in Kyleakin harbour

The largest employer on the island and its environs is the public sector, which accounts for about a third of the total workforce, principally in administration, education, and health. The second-largest employer in the area is the distribution, hotels, and restaurants sector, highlighting the importance of tourism. Key attractions include Dunvegan Castle, the Clan Donald Visitor Centre, and The Aros Experience arts and exhibition centre in Portree. There are about a dozen large landowners on Skye, the largest being the public sector, with the Scottish Government owning most of the northern part of the island. Glendale is a community-owned estate in Duirinish, and the Sleat Community Trust, the local development trust, is active in various regeneration projects.

 

Small firms dominate employment in the private sector. The Talisker Distillery, which produces a single malt whisky, is beside Loch Harport on the west coast of the island. Torabhaig distillery located in Teangue opened in 2017 and also produces whisky. Three other whiskies—Mac na Mara ("son of the sea"), Tè Bheag nan Eilean ("wee dram of the isles") and Poit Dhubh ("black pot")—are produced by blender Pràban na Linne ("smugglers den by the Sound of Sleat"), based at Eilean Iarmain. These are marketed using predominantly Gaelic-language labels. The blended whisky branded as "Isle of Skye" is produced not on the island but by the Glengoyne Distillery at Killearn north of Glasgow, though the website of the owners, Ian Macleod Distillers Ltd., boasts a "high proportion of Island malts" and contains advertisements for tourist businesses in the island. There is also an established software presence on Skye, with Portree-based Sitekit having expanded in recent years.

 

Some of the places important to the economy of Skye

Crofting is still important, but although there are about 2,000 crofts on Skye only 100 or so are large enough to enable a crofter to earn a livelihood entirely from the land. In recent years, families have complained about the increasing prices for land that make it difficult for young people to start their own crofts.

 

Cod and herring stocks have declined but commercial fishing remains important, especially fish farming of salmon and crustaceans such as scampi. The west coast of Scotland has a considerable renewable energy potential and the Isle of Skye Renewables Co-op has recently bought a stake in the Ben Aketil wind farm near Dunvegan. There is a thriving arts and crafts sector.

 

The unemployment rate in the area tends to be higher than in the Highlands as a whole, and is seasonal, in part due to the impact of tourism. The population is growing and in common with many other scenic rural areas in Scotland, significant increases are expected in the percentage of the population aged 45 to 64 years.

 

The restrictions required by the worldwide pandemic increased unemployment in the Highlands and Islands in the summer of 2020 to 5.7%; which was significantly higher than the 2.4 percent in 2019. The rates were said to be highest in "Lochaber, Skye and Wester Ross and Argyll and the Islands". A December 2020 report stated that between March (just before the effects of pandemic were noted) and December, the unemployment rate in the region increased by "more than 97%" and suggested that the outlook was even worse for spring 2021.

 

A report published in mid-2020 indicated that visitors to Skye added £211 million in 2019 to the island's economy before travel restrictions were imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report added that "Skye and Raasay attracted 650,000 visitors [in 2018] and supported 2,850 jobs". The government estimated that tourism in Scotland would decline by over 50% as a result of the pandemic. "Skye is highly vulnerable to the downturn in international visitors that will continue for much of 2020 and beyond", Professor John Lennon of Glasgow Caledonian University told a reporter in July 2020.

 

Tourism in the Highlands and Islands was negatively impacted by the pandemic, the effects of which continued into 2021. A September 2020 report stated that the region "has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to date when compared to Scotland and the UK as a whole". The industry required short-term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions". A scheme called Island Equivalent was introduced by the Scottish government in early 2021 to financially assist hospitality and retail businesses "affected by Level 3 coronavirus restrictions". Previous schemes in 2020 included the Strategic Framework Business Fund and the Coronavirus Business Support Fund.

 

Before the pandemic, during the summer of 2017, islanders complained about an excessive number of tourists, which was causing overcrowding in popular locations such as Glen Brittle, the Neist Point lighthouse, the Quiraing, and the Old Man of Storr. "Skye is buckling under the weight of increased tourism this year", said the operator of a self-catering cottage; the problem was most significant at "the key iconic destinations, like the Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing", he added. Chris Taylor of VisitScotland sympathised with the concerns and said that the agency was working on a long-term solution. "But the benefits to Skye of bringing in international visitors and increased spending are huge," he added.

 

An article published in 2020 confirmed that (before the pandemic), the Talisker Distillery and Dunvegan Castle were still overcrowded in peak periods; other areas where parking was a problem due to large crowds included "the Old Man of Storr, Kilt Rock, the Quiraing, the Fairy Pools, and Neist Point. This source also stated that Portree was "the busiest place on the island" during peak periods and suggested that some tourists might prefer accommodations in quieter areas such as "Dunvegan, Kyleakin and the Broadford and Breakish area".

 

Skye is linked to the mainland by the Skye Bridge, while ferries sail from Armadale on the island to Mallaig, and from Kylerhea to Glenelg, crossing the Kyle Rhea strait on the MV Glenachulish, the last turntable ferry in the world. Turntable ferries had been common on the west coast of Scotland because they do not require much infrastructure to operate, a boat ramp will suffice. Ferries also run from Uig to Tarbert on Harris and Lochmaddy on North Uist, and from Sconser to Raasay.

 

The Skye Bridge opened in 1995 under a private finance initiative and the high tolls charged (£5.70 each way for summer visitors) met with widespread opposition, spearheaded by the pressure group SKAT (Skye and Kyle Against Tolls). On 21 December 2004, it was announced that the Scottish Executive had purchased the bridge from its owners and the tolls were immediately removed.

 

Bus services run to Inverness and Glasgow, and there are local services on the island, mainly starting from Portree or Broadford. Train services run from Kyle of Lochalsh at the mainland end of the Skye Bridge to Inverness, as well as from Glasgow to Mallaig from where the ferry can be caught to Armadale.

 

The island's airfield at Ashaig, near Broadford, is used by private aircraft and occasionally by NHS Highland and the Scottish Ambulance Service for transferring patients to hospitals on the mainland.

 

The A87 trunk road traverses the island from the Skye Bridge to Uig, linking most of the major settlements. Many of the island's roads have been widened in the past forty years although there are still substantial sections of single-track road.

 

A modern 3 story building with a prominent frontage of numerous windows and constructed from a white material curves gently away from a green lawn in the foreground. In the background there is a tall white tower of a similar construction.

 

Students of Scottish Gaelic travel from all over the world to attend Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Scottish Gaelic college based near Kilmore in Sleat. In addition to members of the Church of Scotland and a smaller number of Roman Catholics, many residents of Skye belong to the Free Church of Scotland, known for its strict observance of the Sabbath.

 

Skye has a strong folk music tradition, although in recent years dance and rock music have been growing in popularity on the island. Gaelic folk rock band Runrig started in Skye and former singer Donnie Munro still works on the island. Runrig's second single and a concert staple is entitled Skye, the lyrics being partly in English and partly in Gaelic and they have released other songs such as "Nightfall on Marsco" that were inspired by the island. Ex-Runrig member Blair Douglas, a highly regarded accordionist, and composer in his own right was born on the island and is still based there to this day. Celtic fusion band the Peatbog Faeries are based on Skye. Jethro Tull singer Ian Anderson owned an estate at Strathaird on Skye at one time. Several Tull songs are written about Skye, including Dun Ringil, Broadford Bazaar, and Acres Wild (which contains the lines "Come with me to the Winged Isle, / Northern father's western child..." about the island itself). The Isle of Skye Music Festival featured sets from The Fun Lovin' Criminals and Sparks, but collapsed in 2007. Electronic musician Mylo was born on Skye.

 

The poet Sorley MacLean, a native of the Isle of Raasay, which lies off the island's east coast, lived much of his life on Skye. The island has been immortalised in the traditional song "The Skye Boat Song" and is the notional setting for the novel To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, although the Skye of the novel bears little relation to the real island. John Buchan's descriptions of Skye, as featured in his Richard Hannay novel Mr Standfast, are more true to life. I Diari di Rubha Hunis is a 2004 Italian language work of non-fiction by Davide Sapienza [it]. The international bestseller, The Ice Twins, by S K Tremayne, published around the world in 2015–2016, is set in southern Skye, especially around the settlement and islands of Isleornsay.

 

Skye has been used as a location for several feature films. The Ashaig aerodrome was used for the opening scenes of the 1980 film Flash Gordon. Stardust, released in 2007 and starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, featured scenes near Uig, Loch Coruisk and the Quiraing. Another 2007 film, Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, was shot almost entirely in various locations on the island. The Justin Kurzel adaption of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender was also filmed on the Island. Some of the opening scenes in Ridley Scott's 2012 feature film Prometheus were shot and set at the Old Man of Storr. In 1973 The Highlands and Islands - a Royal Tour, a documentary about Prince Charles's visit to the Highlands and Islands, directed by Oscar Marzaroli, was shot partly on Skye. Scenes from the Scottish Gaelic-language BBC Alba television series Bannan were filmed on the island.

 

The West Highland Free Press is published at Broadford. This weekly newspaper takes as its motto An Tìr, an Cànan 's na Daoine ("The Land, the Language, and the People"), which reflects its radical, campaigning priorities. The Free Press was founded in 1972 and circulates in Skye, Wester Ross, and the Outer Hebrides. Shinty is a popular sport played throughout the island and Portree-based Skye Camanachd won the Camanachd Cup in 1990. The local radio station Radio Skye is a community based station that broadcast local news and entertainment to the Isle Of Skye and Loch Alsh on 106.2 FM and 102.7 FM.

 

Whilst Skye had unofficial flags in the past, including the popular "Bratach nan Daoine" (Flag of the People) design which represented the Cuillins in sky blue against a white sky symbolising the Gaelic language, land struggle, and the fairy flag of Dunvegan, the Island received its first official flag "Bratach an Eilein" (The Skye Flag) approved by the Lord Lyon after a public vote in August 2020. The design by Calum Alasdair Munro reflects the Island's Gaelic heritage, the Viking heritage, and the history of Flora MacDonald. The flag has a birlinn in the canton, and there are five oars representing the five areas of Skye, Trotternish, Waternish, Duirinish, Minginish, and Sleat. Yellow represents the MacLeods, and Blue the MacDonalds or the MacKinnons.

 

The Hebrides generally lack the biodiversity of mainland Britain, but like most of the larger islands, Skye still has a wide variety of species. Observing the abundance of game birds Martin wrote:

 

There is plenty of land and water fowl in this isle—as hawks, eagles of two kinds (the one grey and of a larger size, the other much less and black, but more destructive to young cattle), black cock, heath-hen, plovers, pigeons, wild geese, ptarmigan, and cranes. Of this latter sort I have seen sixty on the shore in a flock together. The sea fowls are malls of all kinds—coulterneb, guillemot, sea cormorant, &c. The natives observe that the latter, if perfectly black, makes no good broth, nor is its flesh worth eating; but that a cormorant, which hath any white feathers or down, makes good broth, and the flesh of it is good food; and the broth is usually drunk by nurses to increase their milk.

 

— Martin Martin, A Description of The Western Islands of Scotland.

 

Similarly, Samuel Johnson noted that:

 

At the tables where a stranger is received, neither plenty nor delicacy is wanting. A tract of land so thinly inhabited must have much wild-fowl; and I scarcely remember to have seen a dinner without them. The moor-game is every where to be had. That the sea abounds with fish, needs not be told, for it supplies a great part of Europe. The Isle of Sky has stags and roebucks, but no hares. They sell very numerous droves of oxen yearly to England, and therefore cannot be supposed to want beef at home. Sheep and goats are in great numbers, and they have the common domestic fowls."

 

— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

A black sea bird with a black beak, red feet and a prominent white flash on its wing sits on a shaped stone. The stone is partially covered with moss and grass and there is an indistinct outline of a grey stone wall and water body in the background.

 

In the modern era avian life includes the corncrake, red-throated diver, kittiwake, tystie, Atlantic puffin, goldeneye and golden eagle. The eggs of the last breeding pair of white-tailed sea eagle in the UK were taken by an egg collector on Skye in 1916 but the species has recently been re-introduced. The chough last bred on the island in 1900. Mountain hare (apparently absent in the 18th century) and rabbit are now abundant and preyed upon by wild cat and pine marten. The rich fresh water streams contain brown trout, Atlantic salmon and water shrew. Offshore the edible crab and edible oyster are also found, the latter especially in the Sound of Scalpay. There are nationally important horse mussel and brittlestar beds in the sea lochs and in 2012 a bed of 100 million flame shells was found during a survey of Loch Alsh. Grey Seals can be seen off the Southern coast.

 

Heather moor containing ling, bell heather, cross-leaved heath, bog myrtle and fescues is everywhere abundant. The high Black Cuillins weather too slowly to produce soil that sustains a rich plant life, but each of the main peninsulas has an individual flora. The basalt underpinnings of Trotternish produce a diversity of Arctic and alpine plants including alpine pearlwort and mossy cyphal. The low-lying fields of Waternish contain corn marigold and corn spurry. The sea cliffs of Duirinish boast mountain avens and fir clubmoss. Minginish produces fairy flax, cats-ear, and black bog rush. There is a fine example of Brachypodium-rich ash woodland at Tokavaig in Sleat incorporating silver birch, hazel, bird cherry, and hawthorn.

 

The local Biodiversity Action Plan recommends land management measures to control the spread of ragwort and bracken and identifies four non-native, invasive species as threatening native biodiversity: Japanese knotweed, rhododendron, New Zealand flatworm and mink. It also identifies problems of over-grazing resulting in the impoverishment of moorland and upland habitats and a loss of native woodland, caused by the large numbers of red deer and sheep.

 

In 2020 Clan MacLeod chief Hugh MacLeod announced a plan to reintroduce 370,000 native trees along with beaver and red squirrel populations to the clan estates on Skye, to restore a "wet desert" landscape which had depleted from years of overgrazing.

Designed by the renowned landscape gardener ‘Capability’ Brown in the 1760s, the Grand Cascade forms part of a complex dam structure at the western end of the lake he created across the estate.

 

The cascade and the lake have recently been the subject of a multi-million pound restoration project, hence the felled trees on the far bank.

  

Grampian Transport Museum based in Alford Aberdeenshire Scotland host various activities throughout the summer months, today 2/7/17 I attended their Speedfest event, this is the third year I've enjoyed the specialist cars on display,

 

British Aston Martins and Jaguars, Italian Lamborghinis and Ferraris and German Audis and BMWs being to the fore.

 

The theme this year is rally sport and ancient and modern rally cars put through their paces on the museum’s road circuit.

 

Police vehicles fascinate me hence when this BMW was on display I took the opportunity to capture it with the Nikon.

 

Vehicle make: BMW

Date of first registration: November 2015

Year of manufacture: 2015

Cylinder capacity (cc): 2993 cc

CO₂Emissions: 142 g/km

Fuel type: DIESEL

Export marker: No

Vehicle status: Tax not due

Vehicle colour: WHITE

Vehicle type approval: M1

Wheelplan: 2 AXLE RIGID BODY

Revenue weight: Not available

  

Please find below some info on Police Vehicles in the UK.

 

Police vehicles in the United Kingdom

 

The 52 police forces in the UK use a wide range of operational vehicles including compact cars, powerful estates and armored police carriers. The main uses are patrol, response, tactical pursuit and public order policing. Other vehicles used by British police include motorcycles, aircraft and boats.

  

Patrol Cars

 

Patrol cars may also be known as response or area cars. They are the most essential mode of police transport. In most forces these vehicles are low-budget compact cars due to the simple tasks they need to perform. The Vauxhall Corsa and Ford Fiesta have both been used as patrol cars by forces recently.

 

Engine sizes vary according to each forces vehicle procurement policies but range from 1.3 to 2.0. Although petrol-powered engines once dominated, diesel engines are now becoming much more common due to their superior fuel economy and therefore lower operating costs.

 

Forces may choose to use unmarked patrol cars to double up as diary cars, covert cars and unmarked transport vehicles for discreet escort of civilians or prisoners.

 

Marked variants of these cars feature a single row of battenburg police markings on each side of car with 'Police' lettering on the front and rear of the vehicle. Badges or slogans from police forces can be found on the front and sides of marked cars in most areas to identify the force it belongs to. Most marked cars also have hi-vis chevrons on the back.

 

Response Cars

 

These vehicles are used for attending 999 calls and patrolling in targeted areas, where a police officer may be needed more urgently. Many forces do not differ between patrol and response cars; this could mean the response car is used to cover both its normal role and the duty of a traditional patrol car. Forces including City of London Police and Thames Valley Police do not differentiate between the two types of cars and use only one specification identified as a response car. Response cars are not authorized to pursue a failing to stop suspect: an area car, traffic car or advanced blue light trained officer will take over the pursuit.

 

Response cars are much the same as the patrol cars but will generally carry equipment and lighting for use at traffic accidents, such as cones, red and blue boot or side police lights, warning signs and basic first aid equipment. Many response cars in the UK now also carry mobile technology which can be linked to police databases and automatic number plate recognition technology. Most response cars have sirens. The Vauxhall Astra or Ford Focus are a classic but key car in police response units.

 

Area Cars

 

There are times when police feel the need to increase presence and performance in an area. Area cars are tasked to serve high crime areas or large areas with a fair response time. Area cars typically carry a single row of battenburg marking like their response car counterparts but the drivers are trained in tactical pursuit, advanced driving and stopping fleeing offenders. Area cars may carry both firearms officers or local patrol officers but are on hand in major cities and large urban counties when help is needed most.

 

Area cars may be various high performance vehicles. Vauxhall Insignia, BMW 5, Skoda Octavia, Volvo V40, Volvo XC70 and the Ford Mondeo have all been used as area cars in recent[when?] years. Some area cars may be tasked for rural patrols or highway duties so may utilize 4x4 capability when needed. Area cars can be old Traffic cars given to local response teams when the vehicles become dated. London's new area cars are branded with ANPR Interceptor wording.

 

Traffic Cars

 

Road policing units use cars that are larger, more powerful vehicles that are capable of carrying out tasks such as high speed pursuits and attending major accidents. Traffic cars are often estate cars that can carry additional equipment, such as traffic cones, signs to warn of road closures or collisions and some basic scene preservation equipment. Their daily roles primarily consist of ANPR patrols.

 

Unmarked vehicles are also employed for motorway patrol duties.

 

The most common traffic car used by British police RPU's is the BMW 530d while models from Audi, such as the Audi S3 are also becoming popular as unmarked units

 

Cars Used By Armed Police Units

 

A Vauxhall Omega in service as a Metropolitan Police Service Armed Response Vehicle in 2005

With the exception of Northern Ireland most police officers in the United Kingdom do not routinely carry firearms. There are, however, a number of armed tactical units in which authorised firearms officers are deployed and which use special vehicles. Armed Response Units operate in all police forces.

 

The Metropolitan Police also have a Diplomatic Protection Group (DPG) and a Special Escort Group (SEG) for the protection of VIPs. A very common vehicle for armed police units is the BMW X5 (Used by Metropolitan Police and City of London Police)

 

A range of vehicles are used by these squads. They are often larger and with a higher performance than those used for local patrols. DPG cars, minibuses and vans are red. Special Escort Group officers use Range Rovers and motorcycles. The motorcycle officers may be identified by their Glock 17 pistols.

 

Some Armed Response Unit cars are unmarked to enable them to be unnoticed. In London the marked patrol cars of armed units are identified by large yellow dots on the car exterior.

 

Motorcycles

 

A Metropolitan Police BMW R1200RT motorcycle

Motorcycles are used by a number of forces in the UK, usually by the Road Policing Unit. Police motorcycles are also used in road safety initiatives such as Bikesafe, a national program to reduce motorcycle casualties in which police motorcyclists provide advanced rider training to members of the public.

 

Some Metropolitan Police Special Escort Group officers also use motor cycles. These officers may be identified by their side arms as they are the only armed motor cycle police in London, apart from a small section of the Diplomatic Protection Group who use motorcycles to respond quickly to incidents faster than the DPG ARVs can.

 

The motorcycles used by police include the BMW R1200RT, Honda ST1100 Pan-European, and Yamaha FJR1300. The Honda ST1300 Pan-European was the most popular bike, but it was withdrawn from service by most forces in 2007, following the death of a Merseyside police motorcyclist in 2005 in an accident caused by an inherent instability in the model.

 

Police van

 

An LDV Convoy van, in service with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)

Police vans, such as the Ford Transit or Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, are widely used across the United Kingdom and incorporate a cage to hold prisoners. Although in the United States it is usual to carry a prisoner in a police car, some British forces do not permit this, as most police cars have no barrier between the front and back seats to protect the officers.

 

Each police force has different policies on prisoner transportation. Some allow compliant prisoners to be transported in response cars, ensuring that one officer sits in the rear with the prisoner, and the prisoner sits behind the passenger seat.

 

Larger vans are also used to act as mobile control room at major incidents, and may also carry specialized equipment such as hydraulic door entry and cutting tools.

 

Minibuses are used to carry groups of police officers, for example to public order and major incidents, and for inner-city patrols. One notable example is the Mercedes Sprinter used by the Metropolitan Police's Territorial Support Group. Other public order minibuses include the Vauxhall Movano and the Iveco Daily. They are usually fitted with riot shields to protect the windscreen from damage.

 

Other vehicles

 

Jankel armoured truck of the Metropolitan Police Service, sometimes used for public order policing but mainly for airport duties[4]

Dog unit vehicles: cars and vans adapted for the welfare of the police dogs, including air conditioning.

Mounted police vehicles: horse trailers for the transport of police horses

 

Vehicle removal trucks: recovery trucks for the removal of vehicles.

Mobile custody units: vans to hold prisoners during public disorder.

Unmarked cars; used by CID and traffic officers.

Vehicle Markings, Lights & Sirens

  

Nearly a half of British police forces use the battenburg livery of yellow and blue checks for their vehicles. Other forces use white, black, or silver. Silver became popular in some forces because of the higher resale values when sold. Most cars use retroreflective livery on the sides and red and yellow chevrons on the rear. Some carry slogans, the force crest and contact information.

 

Most police cars, vans and minibuses have aerial roof markings that help aircraft crew identify them. These can include the unique force code, vehicle identifying mark, or police division that the vehicle belongs to.

 

Under the Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations 1989, police vehicles may display blue flashing lights to alert other road users to their presence or when the driver feels that the journey needs to be undertaken urgently.

 

These lights are usually mounted on the roof and incorporated into the standard vehicle system of external lights. Most police vehicles are also fitted with a siren. In addition to blue lights, many traffic and incident response cars are fitted with flashing red lights that are only visible at the rear of the vehicle. These indicate that the vehicle is stopped or moving slowly.

 

Equipment Police vehicles may carry:

 

Speed gun

Taser

Enforcer

First aid kits

Traffic cones

Police signs

Fire extinguisher

Torch

Broom

Breathalyzer

Personal flotation device

Stinger

Runlock systemEdit

 

Most cars and police motorcycles are fitted with a 'Runlock' system. This allows the vehicle's engine to be left running without the keys being in the ignition. This enables adequate power, without battery drain, to be supplied to the vehicle's equipment at the scene of an incident. The vehicle can only be driven after re-inserting the keys.

 

If the keys are not re-inserted, the engine will switch off if the handbrake is disengaged or the footbrake is activated; or the sidestand is flipped up in the case of a motorcycle. Runlock is also commonly used when an officer is required to quickly decamp from a vehicle. By enabling Runlock, the car's engine can be left running without the risk of someone stealing the vehicle: if the vehicle is driven normally, it will shut down, unless the Runlock system is turned off.

A summertime picture of the gardens at Berrington hall, Herefordshire, England,

The gardens were designed by 'Capability Brown, and were his last commissioned gardens.

"Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown redesigned the landscape at Chatsworth in Derbyshire for the 4th Duke of Devonshire between the late 1750s and 1765.

 

The park covers 1000 acres and is enclosed by a 15 km long dry stone wall and deer fence. Brown’s work at Chatsworth came relatively early in his career as an independent landscape architect, at a time when his style was becoming established."

 

source: Capability Brown website

www.capabilitybrown.org/garden/chatsworth/

One of my favourite views of this beautiful garden in Worcestershire. Designed by Capability Brown in the 18th century it has five interconnected lakes mostly covered in water lillies.

Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.[1]

 

Claremont estate

The first house on the Claremont estate was built in 1708 by Sir John Vanbrugh, the Restoration playwright and architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, for his own use. This "very small box", as he described it, stood on the level ground in front of the present mansion. At the same time, he built the stables and the walled gardens, also probably White Cottage, which is now the Sixth Form Centre of Claremont Fan Court School.

 

In 1714, he sold the house to the wealthy Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare, who later became Duke of Newcastle and served twice as Prime Minister. The earl commissioned Vanbrugh to add two great wings to the house and to build a fortress-like turret on an adjoining knoll. From this so-called "prospect-house", or belvedere, he and his guests could admire the views of the Surrey countryside as they took refreshments and played hazard, a popular dice game.

 

In the clear eighteenth-century air it was apparently possible to see Windsor Castle and St Paul's Cathedral. The Earl of Clare named his country seat Clare-mount, later contracted to Claremont. The two lodges at the Copsem Lane entrance were added at this time.

 

Landscape garden

Main article: Claremont Landscape Garden

Claremont landscape garden is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th century layout. The extensive landscaped grounds of Claremont represents the work of some of the best known landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman, Capability Brown, William Kent (with Thomas Greening) and Sir John Vanbrugh.[2]

 

Work on the gardens began around 1715 and, by 1727, they were described as "the noblest of any in Europe". Within the grounds, overlooking the lake, is an unusual turfed amphitheatre.

 

A feature in the grounds is the Belvedere Tower, designed by Vanbrugh for the Duke of Newcastle. The tower is unusual in that, what appear to be windows, are actually bricks painted black and white. It is now owned by Claremont Fan Court School, which is situated alongside the gardens.

 

In 1949, the landscape garden was donated to the National Trust for stewardship and protection. A restoration programme was launched in 1975 following a significant donation by the Slater Foundation. The garden is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[3]

 

Capability Brown's mansion, built for Lord Clive of India

The Duke of Newcastle died in 1768 and, in 1769, his widow sold the estate to Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, founder of Britain's Indian Empire. Although the great house was then little more than fifty years old, it was aesthetically and politically out of fashion. Lord Clive decided to demolish the house and commissioned Capability Brown to build the present Palladian mansion on higher and dryer ground. Brown, more accomplished as a landscape designer than an architect, took on his future son-in-law Henry Holland as a junior partner owing to the scale of the project. John Soane (later Sir John Soane) was employed in Holland's office at this time and worked on the project as a draftsman and junior designer.[4] Holland's interiors for Claremont owe much to the contemporary work of Robert Adam.

 

Lord Clive, by now fabulously rich Nabob, is reputed to have spent over £100,000 on rebuilding the house and the complete remodelling of the celebrated pleasure ground. However, Lord Clive ended up never living at the property, as he died in 1774—the year that the house was completed. The estate then passed through a rapid succession of owners; first being sold "for not more than one third of what the house and alterations had cost"[5] to Robert Monckton-Arundell, 4th Viscount Galway, and then to George Carpenter, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, and finally to Charles Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford.[citation needed]

 

A large map entitled "Claremont Palace", situated in what is called "Clive's room" inside the mansion, shows the mansion and its surrounding grounds; giving a detailed overview of the campus. The map likely dates back to the 1860s, when the mansion was frequently occupied by Queen Victoria (thus it having been christened "palace"). However, the exact date is still unknown. The relief in Claremont's front pediment is of Clive's coat of arms impaled with that of Maskelyne, his wife's family.

 

Royal residence

In 1816, Claremont was bought by the British Nation through an Act of Parliament as a wedding present for George IV's daughter Princess Charlotte and her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. At that time, the estate was valued to Parliament at £60,000: "Mr Huskisson stated that it had been agreed to purchase the house and demesnes of Clermont... The valuation of the farms, farm-houses, and park, including 350 acres of land, was 36,000/; the mansion, 19,000/; and the furniture, 6,000/; making together 60,000/. The mansion, which is in good repair, could not be built now for less than 91,000/."[6] To the nation's great sorrow, however, Princess Charlotte, who was second in line to the throne, was, after two miscarriages, to die there after giving birth to a stillborn son in November the following year. This sorrow is expressed in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem Wikisource-logo.svg Lines on the Mausoleum of the Princess Charlotte, at Claremont., published in Forget Me Not, 1824. Although Leopold retained ownership of Claremont until his death in 1865, he left the house in 1831 when he became the first King of the Belgians.

  

Mausoleum of Princess Charlotte

 

Claremont House, ca. 1860

Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor to Claremont—both as a child and later as an adult—when Leopold, her doting uncle, lent her the house. She, in turn, lent the house to the exiled French King and Queen, Louis-Philippe and Marie-Amelie (the parents-in-law of Leopold I of Belgium), after the Revolutions of 1848. The exiled King died at Claremont in 1850.

 

In 1857, Offenbach and his Bouffes company performed three of his opéras bouffes there for Marie Amelie and her sons during an eight-week tour of England.[7]

 

In 1870, Queen Victoria commissioned Francis John Williamson to sculpt a marble memorial to Charlotte and Leopold which was erected inside the house.[8][9] (The memorial was subsequently moved to St George's Church, Esher.)[9]

 

Victoria bought Claremont for her fourth, and youngest, son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, when he married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1882. The Duke and Duchess of Albany had two children—Alice and Charles. Charles, who had been born at Claremont in 1884, inherited the title and position of Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his uncle, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1900. He moved to the duchy in Germany to fulfill the position, becoming a German citizen, and renouncing his claim in the British succession.

 

Claremont should have passed to Charles upon his mother's death in 1922, but because he served as a German general in the First World War, the British government disallowed the inheritance. Claremont was accordingly confiscated and sold by the Public Trustee to shipping magnate Sir William Corry, director of the Cunard Line. Two years after Sir William's death, in 1926, it was bought by Eugen Spier, a wealthy German financier.

 

In 1930, Claremont stood empty and was marked for demolition when it was bought, together with the Belvedere, the stables, and 30 acres (120,000 m2) of parkland, by the Governors of a south London school, later renamed Claremont School and, since 1978, has been known as Claremont Fan Court School.

 

The National Trust

The National Trust acquired 50 acres (0.20 km2) of the Claremont estate in 1949. In 1975, with a grant from the Slater Foundation, it set about restoring the eighteenth-century landscape garden. Now, the Claremont Landscape Garden displays the successive contributions of the great landscape gardeners who worked on it: Sir John Vanbrugh, Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Capability Brown.

 

In 1996, the school celebrated the National Trust's centenary by opening a feature of the grounds which had not previously been accessible to the garden's visitors: the 281-year-old Belvedere Tower. Wikipedia

"Bartok 37" departed Uppsala yesterday for Östersund and then Visby.

British Railways Class 56 56074 'Kellingley Colliery' with unbranded Loadhaul Livery and Class 60 60002 'Capability Brown' behind at Knottingley Depot on the 29th August 1994.

Broadway Tower is a folly on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second-highest point of the Cotswolds (after Cleeve Hill). Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 65 feet (20 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was the brainchild of Capability Brown and designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1798–99. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester — about 22 miles (35 km) away — and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. Indeed, the beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s. William Morris was so inspired by Broadway Tower and other ancient buildings that he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village.

 

Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

Ickworth House, Horringer, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

 

The House was built between the years of 1795 and 1829 to the designs of the Italian Architect Mario Asprucci, his most noted work being the Villa Borghese. It was this work that Frederick Hervey, the then 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry had seen.

Asprucci’s plans were then taken up by the brothers Francis & Joseph Sandys, English architects.

The Parkland, of which there is 1,800 acres in total, was designed by Capability Brown and was Italianate in style. This style much loved by the 4th Earl.

Most of the friezes running around the rotunda were based upon John Flaxman’s illustrations of The Iliad and The Odyssey although, within the entrance portico there are some panels designed by Lady Caroline, the Earl’s Granddaughter and are based upon the Roman Olympic Games.

There are many works of art inside the house and very much well worth the visit.

 

Cedrus libani, the cedar of Lebanon or Lebanese cedar (Arabic: أرز لبناني, romanized: ʾarz Lubnāniyy), is a species of tree in the genus Cedrus, a part of the pine family, native to the mountains of the Eastern Mediterranean basin. It is a large evergreen conifer that has great religious and historical significance in the cultures of the Middle East, and is referenced many times in the literature of ancient civilisations. It is the national emblem of Lebanon and is widely used as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens.

 

Description

 

Foliage

Cedrus libani can reach 40 m (130 ft) in height, with a massive monopodial columnar trunk up to 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) in diameter.[3] The trunks of old trees ordinarily fork into several large, erect branches.[4] The rough and scaly bark is dark grey to blackish brown, and is run through by deep, horizontal fissures that peel in small chips. The first-order branches are ascending in young trees; they grow to a massive size and take on a horizontal, wide-spreading disposition. Second-order branches are dense and grow in a horizontal plane. The crown is conical when young, becoming broadly tabular with age with fairly level branches; trees growing in dense forests maintain more pyramidal shapes.[citation needed]

 

Shoots and leaves

The shoots are dimorphic, with both long and short shoots. New shoots are pale brown, older shoots turn grey, grooved and scaly. C. libani has slightly resinous ovoid vegetative buds measuring 2 to 3 mm (0.079 to 0.118 in) long and 1.5 to 2 mm (0.059 to 0.079 in) wide enclosed by pale brown deciduous scales. The leaves are needle-like, arranged in spirals and concentrated at the proximal end of the long shoots, and in clusters of 15–35 on the short shoots; they are 5 to 35 mm (0.20 to 1.38 in) long and 1 to 1.5 mm (0.039 to 0.059 in) wide, rhombic in cross-section, and vary from light green to glaucous green with stomatal bands on all four sides.[3][5]

 

Cones

Cedrus libani produces cones beginning at around the age of 40. Its cones are borne in autumn, the male cones appear in early September and the female ones in late September.[6][5] Male cones occur at the ends of the short shoots; they are solitary and erect about 4 to 5 cm (1.6 to 2.0 in) long and mature from a pale green to a pale brown color. The female seed cones also grow at the terminal ends of short shoots. The young seed cones are resinous, sessile, and pale green; they require 17 to 18 months after pollination to mature. The mature, woody cones are 8 to 12 cm (3.1 to 4.7 in) long and 3 to 6 cm (1.2 to 2.4 in) wide; they are scaly, resinous, ovoid or barrel-shaped, and gray-brown in color. Mature cones open from top to bottom, they disintegrate and lose their seed scales, releasing the seeds until only the cone rachis remains attached to the branches.[4][5][6][7]

 

The seed scales are thin, broad, and coriaceous, measuring 3.5 to 4 cm (1.4 to 1.6 in) long and 3 to 3.5 cm (1.2 to 1.4 in) wide. The seeds are ovoid, 10 to 14 mm (0.39 to 0.55 in) long and 4 to 6 mm (0.16 to 0.24 in) wide, attached to a light brown wedge-shaped wing that is 20 to 30 mm (0.79 to 1.18 in) long and 15 to 18 mm (0.59 to 0.71 in) wide.[7] C. libani grows rapidly until the age of 45 to 50 years; growth becomes extremely slow after the age of 70. Wikipedia

 

Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.[1]

 

Claremont estate

The first house on the Claremont estate was built in 1708 by Sir John Vanbrugh, the Restoration playwright and architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, for his own use. This "very small box", as he described it, stood on the level ground in front of the present mansion. At the same time, he built the stables and the walled gardens, also probably White Cottage, which is now the Sixth Form Centre of Claremont Fan Court School.

 

In 1714, he sold the house to the wealthy Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare, who later became Duke of Newcastle and served twice as Prime Minister. The earl commissioned Vanbrugh to add two great wings to the house and to build a fortress-like turret on an adjoining knoll. From this so-called "prospect-house", or belvedere, he and his guests could admire the views of the Surrey countryside as they took refreshments and played hazard, a popular dice game.

 

In the clear eighteenth-century air it was apparently possible to see Windsor Castle and St Paul's Cathedral. The Earl of Clare named his country seat Clare-mount, later contracted to Claremont. The two lodges at the Copsem Lane entrance were added at this time.

 

Landscape garden

Main article: Claremont Landscape Garden

Claremont landscape garden is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th century layout. The extensive landscaped grounds of Claremont represents the work of some of the best known landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman, Capability Brown, William Kent (with Thomas Greening) and Sir John Vanbrugh.[2]

 

Work on the gardens began around 1715 and, by 1727, they were described as "the noblest of any in Europe". Within the grounds, overlooking the lake, is an unusual turfed amphitheatre.

 

A feature in the grounds is the Belvedere Tower, designed by Vanbrugh for the Duke of Newcastle. The tower is unusual in that, what appear to be windows, are actually bricks painted black and white. It is now owned by Claremont Fan Court School, which is situated alongside the gardens.

 

In 1949, the landscape garden was donated to the National Trust for stewardship and protection. A restoration programme was launched in 1975 following a significant donation by the Slater Foundation. The garden is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[3]

 

Capability Brown's mansion, built for Lord Clive of India

The Duke of Newcastle died in 1768 and, in 1769, his widow sold the estate to Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, founder of Britain's Indian Empire. Although the great house was then little more than fifty years old, it was aesthetically and politically out of fashion. Lord Clive decided to demolish the house and commissioned Capability Brown to build the present Palladian mansion on higher and dryer ground. Brown, more accomplished as a landscape designer than an architect, took on his future son-in-law Henry Holland as a junior partner owing to the scale of the project. John Soane (later Sir John Soane) was employed in Holland's office at this time and worked on the project as a draftsman and junior designer.[4] Holland's interiors for Claremont owe much to the contemporary work of Robert Adam.

 

Lord Clive, by now fabulously rich Nabob, is reputed to have spent over £100,000 on rebuilding the house and the complete remodelling of the celebrated pleasure ground. However, Lord Clive ended up never living at the property, as he died in 1774—the year that the house was completed. The estate then passed through a rapid succession of owners; first being sold "for not more than one third of what the house and alterations had cost"[5] to Robert Monckton-Arundell, 4th Viscount Galway, and then to George Carpenter, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, and finally to Charles Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford.[citation needed]

 

A large map entitled "Claremont Palace", situated in what is called "Clive's room" inside the mansion, shows the mansion and its surrounding grounds; giving a detailed overview of the campus. The map likely dates back to the 1860s, when the mansion was frequently occupied by Queen Victoria (thus it having been christened "palace"). However, the exact date is still unknown. The relief in Claremont's front pediment is of Clive's coat of arms impaled with that of Maskelyne, his wife's family.

 

Royal residence

In 1816, Claremont was bought by the British Nation through an Act of Parliament as a wedding present for George IV's daughter Princess Charlotte and her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. At that time, the estate was valued to Parliament at £60,000: "Mr Huskisson stated that it had been agreed to purchase the house and demesnes of Clermont... The valuation of the farms, farm-houses, and park, including 350 acres of land, was 36,000/; the mansion, 19,000/; and the furniture, 6,000/; making together 60,000/. The mansion, which is in good repair, could not be built now for less than 91,000/."[6] To the nation's great sorrow, however, Princess Charlotte, who was second in line to the throne, was, after two miscarriages, to die there after giving birth to a stillborn son in November the following year. This sorrow is expressed in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem Wikisource-logo.svg Lines on the Mausoleum of the Princess Charlotte, at Claremont., published in Forget Me Not, 1824. Although Leopold retained ownership of Claremont until his death in 1865, he left the house in 1831 when he became the first King of the Belgians.

  

Mausoleum of Princess Charlotte

 

Claremont House, ca. 1860

Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor to Claremont—both as a child and later as an adult—when Leopold, her doting uncle, lent her the house. She, in turn, lent the house to the exiled French King and Queen, Louis-Philippe and Marie-Amelie (the parents-in-law of Leopold I of Belgium), after the Revolutions of 1848. The exiled King died at Claremont in 1850.

 

In 1857, Offenbach and his Bouffes company performed three of his opéras bouffes there for Marie Amelie and her sons during an eight-week tour of England.[7]

 

In 1870, Queen Victoria commissioned Francis John Williamson to sculpt a marble memorial to Charlotte and Leopold which was erected inside the house.[8][9] (The memorial was subsequently moved to St George's Church, Esher.)[9]

 

Victoria bought Claremont for her fourth, and youngest, son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, when he married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1882. The Duke and Duchess of Albany had two children—Alice and Charles. Charles, who had been born at Claremont in 1884, inherited the title and position of Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his uncle, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1900. He moved to the duchy in Germany to fulfill the position, becoming a German citizen, and renouncing his claim in the British succession.

 

Claremont should have passed to Charles upon his mother's death in 1922, but because he served as a German general in the First World War, the British government disallowed the inheritance. Claremont was accordingly confiscated and sold by the Public Trustee to shipping magnate Sir William Corry, director of the Cunard Line. Two years after Sir William's death, in 1926, it was bought by Eugen Spier, a wealthy German financier.

 

In 1930, Claremont stood empty and was marked for demolition when it was bought, together with the Belvedere, the stables, and 30 acres (120,000 m2) of parkland, by the Governors of a south London school, later renamed Claremont School and, since 1978, has been known as Claremont Fan Court School.

 

The National Trust

The National Trust acquired 50 acres (0.20 km2) of the Claremont estate in 1949. In 1975, with a grant from the Slater Foundation, it set about restoring the eighteenth-century landscape garden. Now, the Claremont Landscape Garden displays the successive contributions of the great landscape gardeners who worked on it: Sir John Vanbrugh, Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Capability Brown.

 

In 1996, the school celebrated the National Trust's centenary by opening a feature of the grounds which had not previously been accessible to the garden's visitors: the 281-year-old Belvedere Tower. Wikipedia

60002 on 6E10 Liverpool Biomass - Drax Power Station at Heaton Norris 26/03/2021

RAF Fairford - EGVA / FFD

SAN DIEGO (July 12, 2020) An MH-60S Sea Hawk attached to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 21, sits loaded with an Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS) AN/ASQ-235 for use during a mine countermeasure exercise led by the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) as part of U.S. 3rd Fleet’s Trident Warrior exercise. Trident Warrior, in its 18th year of execution, is an annual U.S. 3rd Fleet at-sea field experiment that helps the Navy identify warfighting capability gaps and provides inventive solutions in an operational environment. (U.S. Navy photo)

Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.[1]

 

Claremont estate

The first house on the Claremont estate was built in 1708 by Sir John Vanbrugh, the Restoration playwright and architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, for his own use. This "very small box", as he described it, stood on the level ground in front of the present mansion. At the same time, he built the stables and the walled gardens, also probably White Cottage, which is now the Sixth Form Centre of Claremont Fan Court School.

 

In 1714, he sold the house to the wealthy Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare, who later became Duke of Newcastle and served twice as Prime Minister. The earl commissioned Vanbrugh to add two great wings to the house and to build a fortress-like turret on an adjoining knoll. From this so-called "prospect-house", or belvedere, he and his guests could admire the views of the Surrey countryside as they took refreshments and played hazard, a popular dice game.

 

In the clear eighteenth-century air it was apparently possible to see Windsor Castle and St Paul's Cathedral. The Earl of Clare named his country seat Clare-mount, later contracted to Claremont. The two lodges at the Copsem Lane entrance were added at this time.

 

Landscape garden

Main article: Claremont Landscape Garden

Claremont landscape garden is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th century layout. The extensive landscaped grounds of Claremont represents the work of some of the best known landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman, Capability Brown, William Kent (with Thomas Greening) and Sir John Vanbrugh.[2]

 

Work on the gardens began around 1715 and, by 1727, they were described as "the noblest of any in Europe". Within the grounds, overlooking the lake, is an unusual turfed amphitheatre.

 

A feature in the grounds is the Belvedere Tower, designed by Vanbrugh for the Duke of Newcastle. The tower is unusual in that, what appear to be windows, are actually bricks painted black and white. It is now owned by Claremont Fan Court School, which is situated alongside the gardens.

 

In 1949, the landscape garden was donated to the National Trust for stewardship and protection. A restoration programme was launched in 1975 following a significant donation by the Slater Foundation. The garden is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[3]

 

Capability Brown's mansion, built for Lord Clive of India

The Duke of Newcastle died in 1768 and, in 1769, his widow sold the estate to Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, founder of Britain's Indian Empire. Although the great house was then little more than fifty years old, it was aesthetically and politically out of fashion. Lord Clive decided to demolish the house and commissioned Capability Brown to build the present Palladian mansion on higher and dryer ground. Brown, more accomplished as a landscape designer than an architect, took on his future son-in-law Henry Holland as a junior partner owing to the scale of the project. John Soane (later Sir John Soane) was employed in Holland's office at this time and worked on the project as a draftsman and junior designer.[4] Holland's interiors for Claremont owe much to the contemporary work of Robert Adam.

 

Lord Clive, by now fabulously rich Nabob, is reputed to have spent over £100,000 on rebuilding the house and the complete remodelling of the celebrated pleasure ground. However, Lord Clive ended up never living at the property, as he died in 1774—the year that the house was completed. The estate then passed through a rapid succession of owners; first being sold "for not more than one third of what the house and alterations had cost"[5] to Robert Monckton-Arundell, 4th Viscount Galway, and then to George Carpenter, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, and finally to Charles Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford.[citation needed]

 

A large map entitled "Claremont Palace", situated in what is called "Clive's room" inside the mansion, shows the mansion and its surrounding grounds; giving a detailed overview of the campus. The map likely dates back to the 1860s, when the mansion was frequently occupied by Queen Victoria (thus it having been christened "palace"). However, the exact date is still unknown. The relief in Claremont's front pediment is of Clive's coat of arms impaled with that of Maskelyne, his wife's family.

 

Royal residence

In 1816, Claremont was bought by the British Nation through an Act of Parliament as a wedding present for George IV's daughter Princess Charlotte and her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. At that time, the estate was valued to Parliament at £60,000: "Mr Huskisson stated that it had been agreed to purchase the house and demesnes of Clermont... The valuation of the farms, farm-houses, and park, including 350 acres of land, was 36,000/; the mansion, 19,000/; and the furniture, 6,000/; making together 60,000/. The mansion, which is in good repair, could not be built now for less than 91,000/."[6] To the nation's great sorrow, however, Princess Charlotte, who was second in line to the throne, was, after two miscarriages, to die there after giving birth to a stillborn son in November the following year. This sorrow is expressed in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem Wikisource-logo.svg Lines on the Mausoleum of the Princess Charlotte, at Claremont., published in Forget Me Not, 1824. Although Leopold retained ownership of Claremont until his death in 1865, he left the house in 1831 when he became the first King of the Belgians.

  

Mausoleum of Princess Charlotte

 

Claremont House, ca. 1860

Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor to Claremont—both as a child and later as an adult—when Leopold, her doting uncle, lent her the house. She, in turn, lent the house to the exiled French King and Queen, Louis-Philippe and Marie-Amelie (the parents-in-law of Leopold I of Belgium), after the Revolutions of 1848. The exiled King died at Claremont in 1850.

 

In 1857, Offenbach and his Bouffes company performed three of his opéras bouffes there for Marie Amelie and her sons during an eight-week tour of England.[7]

 

In 1870, Queen Victoria commissioned Francis John Williamson to sculpt a marble memorial to Charlotte and Leopold which was erected inside the house.[8][9] (The memorial was subsequently moved to St George's Church, Esher.)[9]

 

Victoria bought Claremont for her fourth, and youngest, son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, when he married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1882. The Duke and Duchess of Albany had two children—Alice and Charles. Charles, who had been born at Claremont in 1884, inherited the title and position of Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his uncle, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1900. He moved to the duchy in Germany to fulfill the position, becoming a German citizen, and renouncing his claim in the British succession.

 

Claremont should have passed to Charles upon his mother's death in 1922, but because he served as a German general in the First World War, the British government disallowed the inheritance. Claremont was accordingly confiscated and sold by the Public Trustee to shipping magnate Sir William Corry, director of the Cunard Line. Two years after Sir William's death, in 1926, it was bought by Eugen Spier, a wealthy German financier.

 

In 1930, Claremont stood empty and was marked for demolition when it was bought, together with the Belvedere, the stables, and 30 acres (120,000 m2) of parkland, by the Governors of a south London school, later renamed Claremont School and, since 1978, has been known as Claremont Fan Court School.

 

The National Trust

The National Trust acquired 50 acres (0.20 km2) of the Claremont estate in 1949. In 1975, with a grant from the Slater Foundation, it set about restoring the eighteenth-century landscape garden. Now, the Claremont Landscape Garden displays the successive contributions of the great landscape gardeners who worked on it: Sir John Vanbrugh, Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Capability Brown.

 

In 1996, the school celebrated the National Trust's centenary by opening a feature of the grounds which had not previously been accessible to the garden's visitors: the 281-year-old Belvedere Tower. Wikipedia

Broadway Tower is a folly on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second-highest point of the Cotswolds (after Cleeve Hill). Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 65 feet (20 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was the brainchild of Capability Brown and designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1798–99. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester — about 22 miles (35 km) away — and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. Indeed, the beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s. William Morris was so inspired by Broadway Tower and other ancient buildings that he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village.

 

Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

Broadway Tower is a folly on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second-highest point of the Cotswolds (after Cleeve Hill). Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 65 feet (20 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was the brainchild of Capability Brown and designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1798–99. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester — about 22 miles (35 km) away — and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. Indeed, the beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s. William Morris was so inspired by Broadway Tower and other ancient buildings that he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village.

 

Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

Broadway Tower is a folly on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second-highest point of the Cotswolds (after Cleeve Hill). Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 65 feet (20 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was the brainchild of Capability Brown and designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1798–99. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester — about 22 miles (35 km) away — and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. Indeed, the beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s. William Morris was so inspired by Broadway Tower and other ancient buildings that he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village.

 

Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

The horrible livery aside, I was pleased with this, especially as I was not going out of my way, as I had a call in the village later in the day. The former 'Capability Brown' passes Bromham with 6E38 Colnbrook-Lindsey on the 18th of May 2015.

***EXPLORE 250 Dec 30th 2008***

***2000 Views 14th Sept 2012***

 

Probably my personal favourite view, this is the 'Queen Elizabeth Island' in the Lake created by Capability Brown at Blenheim, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.

 

One of the features of Capability Brown's landscape is the way that certain areas serve as focal points, the island is viewed from many different locations throughout the park, and the views of it depend greatly on the viewpoint and the light at the time.

 

Here the island is seen towards midday on a December day that started with a frost that has now burnt off, however, it's very still as can be seen by the reflection of the island in the lake. Behind the island can be seen the tower of Woodstock Church.

Specifications:

Configuration: Inline front-mounted

Engine: OHC V6 with twin Solex carburetors

Displacement: 2.2 L

Horsepower: 84 bhp at 4,800 RPM

Torque: 161 Nm at 3,500 RPM

Loaded weight: 1,790 kg

 

A Little History

 

Mercedes-Benz launched its 220a, the predecessor to this car, in 1954. It represented their new generation of unit-body constructed cars, which was later nicknamed the “Ponton” series, in reference to its pontoon-style front fenders. The 220a, considered by many to be the first modern Mercedes-Benz, was built on a 17 cm longer wheelbase than its predecessor, allowing more legroom for the rear-seat passengers and more room under the hood for a 2.2-liter six-cylinder engine. Servo-assisted brakes became standard in September 1955.

 

When the 220S was introduced in August 1957, the engine had two Solex downdraft carburetors and its effect was increased to 106 horsepower. A Hydrak hydraulically operated clutch also became available as an extra-cost option. The 220S was a quick car by the standards of the day, offering genuine 160 km/h capability.

 

These 157 cabriolets were produced in limited numbers (1,066 220S Coupés and Cabriolets) and hand-finished at Sindelfingen to the highest standards of Mercedes-Benz’s prestige models. Bodies were mass-produced yet finished by craftsmen skilled in the art of coachbuilding. This in part explained why the cabriolets cost nearly 75 percent more than their saloon equivalents when new. Unlike the larger 300 S models, the 220S Cabriolets featured a fully retractable convertible roof, giving them a much sleeker and more modern appearance. The “Ponton” was Mercedes-Benz’s first totally new series of post-War passenger vehicles produced from 1953 through 1959. The nickname comes from the German word for “pontoon” and refers to a definition of pontoon fenders subsequently called Ponton styling, which became the precursor of modern automotive design.

 

The trend featured all-enveloping bodywork enclosing the full width and uninterrupted length of a car, incorporating previously distinct running boards and fully articulated fenders.

 

Ads from the period emphasized the comfort that the grand touring car’s lengthened wheelbase, produced, as well as the extra room in the rear seat and trunk for luggage.

 

Source: Audrain Automobile Museum

 

Taken at Gärdesloppet in Stockholm, Sweden on 2023-06-04.

 

For full resolution click on the image twice.

NATO/Strategic Airlift Capability

Heavy Airlift Wing

Papa AB

 

RIAT 2018

RAF Fairford

Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.[1]

 

Claremont estate

The first house on the Claremont estate was built in 1708 by Sir John Vanbrugh, the Restoration playwright and architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, for his own use. This "very small box", as he described it, stood on the level ground in front of the present mansion. At the same time, he built the stables and the walled gardens, also probably White Cottage, which is now the Sixth Form Centre of Claremont Fan Court School.

 

In 1714, he sold the house to the wealthy Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare, who later became Duke of Newcastle and served twice as Prime Minister. The earl commissioned Vanbrugh to add two great wings to the house and to build a fortress-like turret on an adjoining knoll. From this so-called "prospect-house", or belvedere, he and his guests could admire the views of the Surrey countryside as they took refreshments and played hazard, a popular dice game.

 

In the clear eighteenth-century air it was apparently possible to see Windsor Castle and St Paul's Cathedral. The Earl of Clare named his country seat Clare-mount, later contracted to Claremont. The two lodges at the Copsem Lane entrance were added at this time.

 

Landscape garden

Main article: Claremont Landscape Garden

Claremont landscape garden is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th century layout. The extensive landscaped grounds of Claremont represents the work of some of the best known landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman, Capability Brown, William Kent (with Thomas Greening) and Sir John Vanbrugh.[2]

 

Work on the gardens began around 1715 and, by 1727, they were described as "the noblest of any in Europe". Within the grounds, overlooking the lake, is an unusual turfed amphitheatre.

 

A feature in the grounds is the Belvedere Tower, designed by Vanbrugh for the Duke of Newcastle. The tower is unusual in that, what appear to be windows, are actually bricks painted black and white. It is now owned by Claremont Fan Court School, which is situated alongside the gardens.

 

In 1949, the landscape garden was donated to the National Trust for stewardship and protection. A restoration programme was launched in 1975 following a significant donation by the Slater Foundation. The garden is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[3]

 

Capability Brown's mansion, built for Lord Clive of India

The Duke of Newcastle died in 1768 and, in 1769, his widow sold the estate to Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, founder of Britain's Indian Empire. Although the great house was then little more than fifty years old, it was aesthetically and politically out of fashion. Lord Clive decided to demolish the house and commissioned Capability Brown to build the present Palladian mansion on higher and dryer ground. Brown, more accomplished as a landscape designer than an architect, took on his future son-in-law Henry Holland as a junior partner owing to the scale of the project. John Soane (later Sir John Soane) was employed in Holland's office at this time and worked on the project as a draftsman and junior designer.[4] Holland's interiors for Claremont owe much to the contemporary work of Robert Adam.

 

Lord Clive, by now fabulously rich Nabob, is reputed to have spent over £100,000 on rebuilding the house and the complete remodelling of the celebrated pleasure ground. However, Lord Clive ended up never living at the property, as he died in 1774—the year that the house was completed. The estate then passed through a rapid succession of owners; first being sold "for not more than one third of what the house and alterations had cost"[5] to Robert Monckton-Arundell, 4th Viscount Galway, and then to George Carpenter, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, and finally to Charles Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford.[citation needed]

 

A large map entitled "Claremont Palace", situated in what is called "Clive's room" inside the mansion, shows the mansion and its surrounding grounds; giving a detailed overview of the campus. The map likely dates back to the 1860s, when the mansion was frequently occupied by Queen Victoria (thus it having been christened "palace"). However, the exact date is still unknown. The relief in Claremont's front pediment is of Clive's coat of arms impaled with that of Maskelyne, his wife's family.

 

Royal residence

In 1816, Claremont was bought by the British Nation through an Act of Parliament as a wedding present for George IV's daughter Princess Charlotte and her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. At that time, the estate was valued to Parliament at £60,000: "Mr Huskisson stated that it had been agreed to purchase the house and demesnes of Clermont... The valuation of the farms, farm-houses, and park, including 350 acres of land, was 36,000/; the mansion, 19,000/; and the furniture, 6,000/; making together 60,000/. The mansion, which is in good repair, could not be built now for less than 91,000/."[6] To the nation's great sorrow, however, Princess Charlotte, who was second in line to the throne, was, after two miscarriages, to die there after giving birth to a stillborn son in November the following year. This sorrow is expressed in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem Wikisource-logo.svg Lines on the Mausoleum of the Princess Charlotte, at Claremont., published in Forget Me Not, 1824. Although Leopold retained ownership of Claremont until his death in 1865, he left the house in 1831 when he became the first King of the Belgians.

  

Mausoleum of Princess Charlotte

 

Claremont House, ca. 1860

Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor to Claremont—both as a child and later as an adult—when Leopold, her doting uncle, lent her the house. She, in turn, lent the house to the exiled French King and Queen, Louis-Philippe and Marie-Amelie (the parents-in-law of Leopold I of Belgium), after the Revolutions of 1848. The exiled King died at Claremont in 1850.

 

In 1857, Offenbach and his Bouffes company performed three of his opéras bouffes there for Marie Amelie and her sons during an eight-week tour of England.[7]

 

In 1870, Queen Victoria commissioned Francis John Williamson to sculpt a marble memorial to Charlotte and Leopold which was erected inside the house.[8][9] (The memorial was subsequently moved to St George's Church, Esher.)[9]

 

Victoria bought Claremont for her fourth, and youngest, son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, when he married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1882. The Duke and Duchess of Albany had two children—Alice and Charles. Charles, who had been born at Claremont in 1884, inherited the title and position of Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his uncle, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1900. He moved to the duchy in Germany to fulfill the position, becoming a German citizen, and renouncing his claim in the British succession.

 

Claremont should have passed to Charles upon his mother's death in 1922, but because he served as a German general in the First World War, the British government disallowed the inheritance. Claremont was accordingly confiscated and sold by the Public Trustee to shipping magnate Sir William Corry, director of the Cunard Line. Two years after Sir William's death, in 1926, it was bought by Eugen Spier, a wealthy German financier.

 

In 1930, Claremont stood empty and was marked for demolition when it was bought, together with the Belvedere, the stables, and 30 acres (120,000 m2) of parkland, by the Governors of a south London school, later renamed Claremont School and, since 1978, has been known as Claremont Fan Court School.

 

The National Trust

The National Trust acquired 50 acres (0.20 km2) of the Claremont estate in 1949. In 1975, with a grant from the Slater Foundation, it set about restoring the eighteenth-century landscape garden. Now, the Claremont Landscape Garden displays the successive contributions of the great landscape gardeners who worked on it: Sir John Vanbrugh, Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Capability Brown.

 

In 1996, the school celebrated the National Trust's centenary by opening a feature of the grounds which had not previously been accessible to the garden's visitors: the 281-year-old Belvedere Tower. Wikipedia

“Space Shuttle Program Objectives:

 

* Reduce Substantially Cost of Space Operations

 

* Provide Future Capability Designed to Support Wide Range of Scientific, Defense & Commercial Uses”

 

Gorgeous and iconic – in my world – depiction by Mr. Roy Gjertson on the left, and a seldom/rarely seen depiction on the right by the somewhat enigmatic Mr. Bert Winthrop, both on behalf of the Boeing Company. The latter festooned with 4, count ‘em, FOUR air-breathing engines girdling the upper fuselage! Hold up…there’s more! If I’m counting correctly — TWELVE - XII - 12 - IIIII IIIII II — air-breathing engines on the belly & underside of the wings of the fly-back booster on the left! That’s just crazy.

Note the VAB/LCC on the horizon of Mr. Winthrop’s work.

 

Bert Winthrop. Continue to Rest In Peace:

 

www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/azcentral/name/herbert-winth...

Credit: Legacy website

 

www.metafilter.com/107550/RIP-Bert-Winthrop-Space-Artist

Credit: MetaFilter website

 

Outstanding:

 

www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld030.htm

Credit: PMView Pro website

One of NATO's Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) C-17 Globemasters making a rare visit to Glasgow for a fuel stop. It arrived from Pápa Air Base, Hungary, and departed to Charleston (CHS), SC.