This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This statue was executed by Michelangelo Slodtz (1705-1764) in 1744. It captures the refusal of bishop's post by the saint.

St Bruno of Cologne (1035-1101), founder of the Carthusian Order. He was born at Cologne about the year 1030; died 6 October, 1101. He is usually represented with a death's head in his hands, a book and a cross, or crowned with seven stars; or with a roll bearing the device O Bonitas. His feast is kept on the 6th of October.

 

The great figure of St. Bruno has been often sketched by artists and has inspired more than one masterpiece: in sculpture, for example, the famous statue by Houdon, at St. Mary of the Angels in Rome, "which would speak if his rule did not compel him to silence"; in painting, the fine picture by Zurbaran, in the Seville museum, representing Urban II and St. Bruno in conference; the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bruno, by Guercino at Bologna; and above all the twenty-two pictures forming the gallery of St. Bruno in the museum of the Louvre, "a masterpiece of Le Sueur and of the French school".

 

Alchemy is one of Jackson Pollock’s earliest poured paintings, executed in the revolutionary technique that constituted his most significant contribution to twentieth-century art. After long deliberation before the empty canvas, he used his entire body in a picture-making process that can be described as drawing in paint. By pouring streams of commercial paint onto the canvas from a can with the aid of a stick, Pollock made obsolete the conventions and tools of traditional easel painting. He often tacked the unstretched canvas onto the floor in an approach he likened to that of the Navajo Indian sandpainters, explaining that “on the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.”¹ Surrealist notions of chance and automatism are given full expression in Pollock’s classic poured paintings, in which line no longer serves to describe shape or enclose form, but exists as an autonomous event, charting the movements of the artist’s body. As the line thins and thickens it speeds and slows, its appearance modified by chance behavior of the medium such as bleeding, pooling, or blistering.

 

When Alchemy is viewed from a distance, its large scale and even emphasis encourage the viewer to experience the painting as an environment. The layering and interpenetration of the labyrinthine skeins give the whole a dense and generalized appearance. The textured surface is like a wall on which primitive signs are inscribed with white pigment squeezed directly from the tube. Interpretations of these markings have frequently relied on the title Alchemy; however, this was assigned not by Pollock, but by Ralph Manheim and his wife, neighbors of the Pollocks in East Hampton.

Baby mountain gorilla found clinging to body of mother 'executed' by rebels in Congo

 

Wildlife rangers are battling to save an orphaned baby mountain gorilla found clinging to her dead mother in the Congo.

 

The adult gorilla had been shot a point-blank range in the back of the head.

 

The orphaned gorilla is being cared for by wildlife rangers in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park.

 

The two-month-old, who has been named Ndakasi by conservationists looking after her in Goma, is taking baby formula from a feeding bottle.

 

"She's more or less OK. It is certainly a worrying situation, but not hopeless," Paulin Ngobobo, senior warden in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park.

 

Ndakasi, who was born on April 15, would normally have suckled for up to three years.

 

The two-month-old orphan is taking baby formula from a bottle

 

Only 700 mountain gorillas survive in the wild, more than half of them in Virunga.

 

At least two have been killed and eaten already this year by rebels living off the land as militia fighting drags on despite the official end of Congo's five-year war in 2003.

 

It is unclear who had killed the adult female or why.

 

She had been killed "execution-style" in the back of the head and left at the scene rather than taken away to be eaten, said Emmanuel de Merode of conservation group Wildlife Direct.

 

Plenty of TLC for the the baby gorilla, who has been named Ndakasi

 

"It looks like she was lured with bananas because we found bananas at the site.

 

"A second gorilla was probably shot because there was a trail of blood nearby and three gunshots were heard. The other was probably wounded and got away," he said.

 

"There are militia groups there. This particular incident was in the Mikeno sector, which is on the border of Rwanda. There was a lot of fighting in that area in January and those problems have not entirely been solved."

 

Last month Wildlife Direct said Mai Mai rebels had attacked patrol posts in Virunga park, killing one wildlife officer and critically injuring three others, and threatened to slaughter gorillas if park rangers retaliated.

 

More than 150 rangers have been killed in the last decade while protecting Congo's parks from poachers, rebel groups, illegal miners and land invasions, working through the war without pay.

   

BANKRUPTCY

 

the torrent of sneers and abuse, it came at the moment when

Whistler most needed it.*

 

Whistler's financial affairs were in more hopeless confusion

than ever. The expenses of the White House were heavier

than he anticipated. The interference of the Metropolitan

Board of Works, to whom every drawing and plan had to

be submitted, resulted in delays, disagreements, alterations.

He made what concessions he could ; he even accepted the

stone mouldings insisted upon by the Board. The builder's

estimate was largely exceeded before the decorations

Boehm was to execute had been begun. He had brought

debts from Lindsey Row. The legends of them centre

about a greengrocer who is said to have let him run up

his bill for endless tomatoes and rare fruit out of season,

until it amounted to some six hundred pounds. When the

greengrocer insisted on payment, Whistler said :

 

" How what why why, of course, you have sent these

things most excellent things and they have been eaten, you

know, by most excellent people. Think what a splendid ad-

vertisement. And sometimes, you know, the salads are not

quite up to the mark the fruit, you know, not quite fresh.

And if you go into these unseemly discussions about the bill

well, you know, I shall have to go into discussions about all this

and think how it would hurt your reputation with all these

extraordinary people. I think the best thing is not to refer to

the past I'll let it go. And in the future, we'll have a weekly

account wiser, you know ! "

 

The greengrocer left without his money, but received in

payment two Nocturnes, one the blue upright Valparaiso.

Another story of the same creditor is that he followed Whistler

with his account to the White House, arriving as a grand

piano was being carried in. Whistler said he was so busy

 

* Perhaps it should be added that this first serious article on Whistler was by

no means taken seriously, and that the most was made of Mr. Brownell's mis-

take in describing the dry-point of Joe as a portrait of Dr. Whistler.

1879]

   

he couldn't attend to the matter just then, and the green-

grocer went away happy, thinking if grand pianos were

being bought, it must be all right.

 

Whistler used to say of stories told about him, that there

was always some foundation for them. The fact is that the

creditors in Lindsey Row had been many, though before

moving to Tite Street, he wrote hopefully to his mother at

Hastings of his economies, and his prospects for paying off

his debts. Whistler did not know the meaning of economy.

And the trial had to be paid for, the studio still waited for

pupils, his most important pictures were with Mr. Graves,

and no new commissions came. But, as far as he let the

world see, his troubles made no difference to him.

 

It was no unusual occurrence for bailiffs to be in possession

at the White House, or for bills to cover its walls. The first

time it happened, he told the people whom he invited that

they 'might know his house by the bills on it. Of the bailiffs

he made another " joy," a new feature of his Sunday break-

fasts. Mrs. Lynedoch Moncrieff has told us of a Sunday

when, to her surprise, two or three men waited at table with

Whistler's servant, John, and she said to Whistler :

 

" Why, Jimmie, I am glad to see you've grown so wealthy."

"Ha ha ! Bailiffs ! You know I had to put them to some

use ! "

 

Mr. W. M. Rossetti and his wife once found the same

" liveried attendants."

 

" ' Your servants seem to be extremely attentive, Mr. Whistler,

and anxious to please you,' one of the guests said. ' Oh, yes,'

was his answer, ' I assure you they wouldn't leave me.' '

 

Others remember the Sunday when all the furniture in

the house was numbered for a coming execution. When

breakfast was announced by a bailiff, Whistler said :

 

" They are wonderful fellows. You will see how excellently

252 [1879

   

BANKRUPTCY

 

they wait at table, and to-morrow, you know, if you want, you

can see them sell the chairs you sit on every bit as well. Amazing."

 

Mrs. Edwin Edwards wrote us that, when he had at one time

three men in possession, he treated them, while his friends

carted away his pictures from the back door. Other friends

say that the bailiffs, multiplied to seven, were invited into

the garden, and given beer " with a little something in it.'*

No sooner had they drunk of it than down went their heads

on the table round which they sat, and they slept. People

dining with Whistler that evening were taken into the garden

to see the seven sleepers of Ephesus : " stick pins in them,

shout in their ears see you can't wake them ! " All

evening it rained, and it snowed, and it thundered, and it

lightened, and it hailed. All night they slept. Morning

came and they slept. But just at the hour at which he had

given them their glass the day before, they all woke up and

asked for more.

 

The man who has bailiffs in his house because he cannot

pay his debts must still manage to pay them. One of the

" wonderful fellows " at the end of a week demanded his

money. Whistler answered :

 

" If I could afford to keep you, I would do without you."

"But what is to become of my wife and family, if I don't

 

get my wages ? "

 

" Ha ha ! You must ask those who sent you here to answer

 

that question."

 

" I assure you, Mr. Whistler, I need the money badly."

 

" Why not do as I do then, and have a man in yourself ? "

 

Whistler made a point of being courteous and attentive

to these gentlemen, for, " really, it was kind of them to see

to such tedious affairs." He asked the first bailiff whom

he encountered in his house, one evening when he returned

from the Arts Club :

 

" And how long will you remain ' the man in possession * ? "

1879] 2 53

   

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

 

" That, Mr. Whistler, depends on your paying Mr. 's bill."

 

" Awkward for me, but perhaps more so for you ! I hope

you won't mind it, though, you know, I fear your stay with me

will be a lengthy one. However, you will find it not entirely

unprofitable. For you will see and hear much that may be

useful to you later on ! "

 

When things got more desperate, bills covered the front

of the house, announcing the approaching sale. Whistler,

begging the bailiffs to make themselves at home, went off

one night to dine. It was a stormy night, and, returning

late, he found that the rain had washed loose some of the

bills, which were flapping in the wind. He woke up the

bailiffs, made them get a ladder, brought them into the

street, and insisted that every bill should be pasted down

in place again. He had allowed them, he said, to cover his

house with their posters, but, so long as he lived in it, no

man should leave it in a slovenly condition.

 

The crash came early in May 1879, and Whistler was

declared bankrupt. The amount of his liabilities was four

thousand six hundred and forty-one pounds, nine shillings

and three pence, according to Messrs. Waddell and Co.'s

statement of affairs, dated May 7, 1879. His assets were

estimated at one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four

pounds nine shillings and four pence, which was ultimately

increased by one hundred pounds. Among his debtors were

several friends, whom he urged to press their claims. In

his long overcoat, longer than ever, swinging his light, thin

cane, also lengthening in defiance, his hat set jauntily on the

black curls, he appeared at the office of one of these friends,

in the City, during business hours. " Ha ha ! " he laughed

as he came in. " Well, you know, here I am in the City !

Amazing." And he sat down and gossiped lightly. The

friend, knowing Whistler, knew something else must come of

the visit. And it came, but not before Whistler got up to go.

254 [1879

   

BANKRUPTCY

 

" You know, on the way, I dropped in to see George Lewis,

being in the neighbourhood, and, you know, ha ha ! he gave me

a paper for you to sign ! "

 

It was a petition in bankruptcy. The friend did not want

to sign ; he had lent Whistler money, but was in no hurry

to have it back. Whistler insisted, the friend could not

escape, and would have put down as small a sum as possible.

No, said Whistler, it must be for as much as possible, that

he might have the more influence in the proceedings. The

friend put down the exact amount, which was not large, and

Whistler sauntered away, as if he had no heavier care than

the fit of his coat and the weight of the cane he was swinging.

 

The meeting of the creditors was held at the Inns of Court

Hotel, a few weeks later, in June. Sir Thomas Sutherland

was in the chair, Whistler on one side, Sir George Lewis on

the other. To Leyland, with whom he had no " business

contract " for the Peacock Room, he attributed his bank-

ruptcy, and Leyland, therefore, was his scapegoat. Various

Chelsea tradesmen were also there. Except the solicitor,

they all seemed amateurs in matters of bankruptcy. Papers

were passed by the solicitor to the chairman, who endorsed

them. Not a word was said. At last, an impatient butcher,

or baker, springing up, moved that some explanation be

made to the creditors. Leyland seconded him. At that,

Whistler was on his feet, making a speech about plutocrats,

men with millions, and what he thought of them. Every-

body was stupefied ! No one knew what to do. With

difficulty, solicitor and chairman pulled him down into his

seat again. At the end of the meeting, debtor and creditors

appeared to understand as little as at the beginning. But

the law took its course. A committee of examiners was

appointed, composed of Leyland, the largest creditor, Howell,

and Mr. Thomas Way.

 

Leyland was not let off easily by Whistler. As Michael

1879] 255

Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, United States

 

The former Jamaica Savings Bank was constructed in 1897-98 for the oldest and most prestigious banking institution in Jamaica.

 

Designed by the noted firm of Hough & Deuell, the building is a fine and particularly exuberant example of the classically inspired Beaux-Arts style strikingly executed in carved limestone and wrought iron, and is one of only a few buildings in the borough of Queens to embrace that architectural aesthetic.

 

Prominently sited on Jamaica Avenue, the bank building is an urbane presence on the neighborhood’s main commercial thoroughfare. Although the four-story structure is relatively small in scale, the imposing design of the facade conveys a monumentality which is appropriately suited to the distinguished image and reputation of the banking institution, while lending the building the formal elegance of a private club or townhouse.

 

Incorporated in 1866 by a consortium of local citizens—including John A. King, former Governor of the State of New York—the Jamaica Savings Bank played an important role in the development of Jamaica, at that time a burgeoning commercial center.

 

The success of the organization was marked by its exponential expansion in the late nineteenth century and its need for more commodious—and more conspicuous—quarters.

 

The construction of this bank coincided with the 1898 incorporation of Queens County into the municipal jurisdiction of the City of New York and reflects the metropolitan spirit of the period.

 

The facade of the building maintains its original Beaux-Arts design and survives today essentially intact as a reminder of an

 

important era in Jamaica’s history.

 

The Development of Jamaica

 

Historically an important crossroads of Long Island, the area of downtown Jamaica developed as a result of its central location and extensive transportation systems.

 

Jamaica began as a rural settlement when the town was granted a patent from Governor Peter Stuyvesant in 1656.

 

The English took over the town in 1664, changing its name from the Dutch “Rusdorp” to a variation on the name of the local Yemacah Indians, which meant “beaver.”

 

Queens County (then incorporating present-day Nassau County) was chartered in 1683 as one of the ten counties in the colony of New York and official town patents were soon given to Jamaica, Newtown, and Flushing.

 

Through the next century the community of Jamaica served as the county seat and became a trading post where farmers from outlying areas brought their produce. By the time the village of Jamaica was incorporated in 1814, it had become a center of trade on Long Island.

 

Jamaica Avenue, which evolved from an Indian trail, has been called the oldest continuously used road on Long Island.

 

In 1703 the colonial legislature established a highway, known as the “King’s Highway,” which extended from the East River (later Fulton) Ferry through Brooklyn and Queens (along portions of the current route of Fulton Street and Jamaica Avenue) to eastern Long Island. Following the Revolution, the management of the old colonial roads fell into private hands, and beginning in 1809, the Brooklyn, Jamaica & Flatbush Turnpike Company established a toll road from the Brooklyn ferries to the present-day intersection of Jamaica Avenue (then also known as Fulton Street) and 168th Street.

 

The Brooklyn & Jamaica Railroad Company, chartered in 1832, purchased the turnpike and completed a rail line along its route through Jamaica in 1836. Almost simultaneously, the Long Island Railroad, which had been incorporated in 1834, began running a trunk line from the foot of Atlantic Avenue to Jamaica and then eastward from Jamaica to eastern Long Island, making Jamaica a pivotal hub.

 

This improved transportation encouraged non-agricultural business activity in the Jamaica area; industrial enterprises sprang up along the railroad, particularly after 1850 when the turnpike was sold to a group of Jamaica businessmen who incorporated as the Jamaica & Brooklyn Plank Road Company.

 

Following the Civil War, new modes of transportation continued to transform Jamaica by further facilitating commutation to New York City.

 

The East New York & Jamaica Railroad Company established horsecar lines along Fulton Street in 1866; it is no coincidence that the company’s president was Aaron DeGrauw, who was also the first president of the Jamaica Savings Bank and as such had a vested interest in the economic growth and development of the community.

 

The horsecar lines were replaced by electric trolleys in 1887.

 

The nineteenth century saw Jamaica evolve into a retreat for urban residents, who patronized its numerous inns and saloons on weekend excursions and built large summer homes.

 

The permanent population of Jamaica also increased steadily throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, and brought with it the subdivision of farms into house lots and a proliferation of new development, as well as the growth of Jamaica’s downtown.

 

The pressure for housing increased, resulting in street regularization and somewhat denser residential development following the incorporation of Queens into the City of New York in 1898.

 

The 1901 Atlas of the Borough of Queens shows two- and three-story brick and frame structures clustered along Fulton Street and freestanding frame houses and stables, on lots mostly ranging from 50 to 100 feet in width, in the surrounding streets.

 

The rail lines on Fulton Street are identified on the atlas as the Brooklyn, Queens County & Suburban Railroad Company and the New York & North Shore Railway Company. The Long Island Railroad ran parallel to Fulton Street, one block south; the one-story frame station was located on the north side of Twombly Place between Church and Beaver Streets.

 

In 1897 Fulton Street ceased to be operated as a private toll road and its jurisdiction reverted to the local government. The long-needed widening and repaving of the road, which had fallen into disrepair, was quickly undertaken, and in April of 1898, Jamaica hosted a celebration to honor the improvement of Fulton Street.

 

The souvenir brochure from the celebration and other contemporary local publications reflect the metropolitan spirit of that period of municipal consolidation. Local business and political leaders seized the opportunity to praise the numerous advantages of Jamaica—a place with a traditional village character, yet poised to enter a new age—in an effort to encourage commerce, promote residential development, and raise property values.

 

The perceived positive impact of the impending consolidation was declared by one source in 1894: “The days of Greater New York can now be seen not very far ahead, when Jamaica will naturally form the most eastern point to which the consolidated elevated railroad can be expected to run ... very likely before the end of this [century].”

 

Although it would be 1918 before the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company finally replaced the existing surface lines on Fulton Street—soon to be known as Jamaica Avenue—with elevated trains, the decade prior to World War I saw several other significant transportation improvements: the electrification of the Long Island Railroad in 1905-08, the opening of the railroad tunnels beneath the East River in 1910, and the completion of the Queensborough Bridge in 1909.

 

Indeed, with improved accessibility to Jamaica’s downtown, the population of Jamaica quadrupled between 1900 and 1920 and the area was subsumed into the metropolitan web of New York City.

 

The extension of the Eighth Avenue subway to 169th Street in 1937 and the opening of the Triborough Bridge brought further urban development to the area.

 

History of the Jamaica Savings Bank

 

The Jamaica Savings Bank, the oldest and most prestigious banking institution in Jamaica, was incorporated on April 20, 1866, in the midst of the “wildcat” banking period following the Civil War. The bank was established in the basement of the County Clerk’s Office and opened on July 14, 1866, with fifteen customers depositing a total of $2,675.00.

 

The County Clerk’s Office (later the Register’s Office) was located in a building that previously stood on the site of the present Register/Jamaica Arts Center building (a designated New York City Landmark), which is adjacent to the Jamaica Savings Bank.

 

The bank was founded by a group of distinguished local business leaders and prominent citizens. Among the 19 charter trustees was John A. King.

 

John Alsop King (1788-1867) served as a U.S. Congressman and as Governor of New York State in 1857-58.He was the eldest son of Rufus King, a Federalist statesman, minister to Great Britain, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

 

The King Mansion (1733-55; additions, 1806, 1810, c.1830s, a designated New York City Landmark) still stands at 150th Street and Jamaica Avenue, several blocks west of the Jamaica Savings Bank.

 

John A. King was admitted to the bar shortly before being commissioned as a lieutenant of cavalry in the War of 1812. King launched his political career in 1819-21 when he sat in the State Assembly, and later in the State Senate (1823-25, 1832, 1838, 1840).

 

He was sent to the U.S. Congress as a Whig representative, served as a delegate to several Whig national conventions, and in 1856 was a delegate to the first Republican national convention. In the following year he began his term as Governor of New York State. King was stricken with paralysis and died in 1867, the year after the founding of the Jamaica Savings Bank.

 

Following distinguished service as a colonel in the Civil War, Aaron DeGrauw became the first president of the Jamaica Savings Bank, a post he maintained for 33 years until 1899.Described as “an energetic capitalist destined to be the most prominent banker in Jamaica,” DeGrauw was an entrepreneur in the transportation field, operating several turnpikes as well as the East New York & Jamaica Railroad Company.

 

A leader in civic affairs, DeGrauw also served as president of Jamaica village and on the commission in charge of the construction of the town hall built in 1870 at the corner of Fulton Street and Flushing Avenue.

 

By 1874 the business of the Jamaica Savings Bank had grown significantly, with 630 accounts on the books and $177,465.00 in deposits.

 

In that year the bank purchased for $12,000 a two-and-one-halfstory frame building which belonged to the County Clerk’s Office and stood on the site of the present bank building.

 

At that time, the institution “was still small enough to keep its deposits in an ordinary safe, housed in a small frame addition on the side of the building….

 

It was in plain view of the street and this was considered an extra measure of protection.”It has been reported that the first-known occupant of the frame building was J.W. Cornwell’s bakery and feed store; subsequently, the building was used as

 

D.T. Conger’s Oyster House, a shoe store, and a printing office before being purchased by the bank.

 

As the bank grew, more spacious quarters were needed; it is also likely that consideration was given to enhancing the image and status of the institution with a new, handsomely designed bank building which would foster confidence in the bank’s depositors and exhibit its prosperity.

 

A committee was formed to oversee the erection of the bank, composed of George L. Peck, John H. Sutphin, William A. Warnock, and William W. Gillen, all of whom shared close political and business ties.

 

The committee selected the firm of Hough & Deuell to design the new bank headquarters.

 

The cost of construction of the steel-framed limestone-fronted building was estimated to be $60,000.

 

The old frame building was moved to the rear of the site to accommodate the new structure.

 

The bank opened for business in its new quarters in 1898, as Jamaica witnessed its incorporation into the newly consolidated city.

 

Banks and Architectural Imagery

 

As industry, business, and commerce prospered after the Civil War, New York became the nation’s financial capital.

 

Apart from a few imposing buildings on Wall Street, however, commercial banks were for the most part located in converted dwellings, or in office buildings erected to generate revenue, but prior to the 1880s and 1890s rarely in quarters designed specifically for them.

 

Savings banks, many of which catered to the small private investor, were, in contrast, generally not located in the Wall Street area where property values were high, but rather in the communities which they served; therefore, taking advantage of less expensive real estate, those organizations were able to build imposing bank buildings for their exclusive use.Around the turn of the century many savings banks, “suffering, as it were, from the possession of too much cash, and [being] somewhat self-conscious about it,”commissioned new buildings.

 

Even neighborhood banks, which often had small mid-block sites, were designed to be taken seriously as “pillars of the community” by the public which they served. In 1909, Architectural Record published a lengthy, illustrated survey entitled “Recent Bank Buildings in the United States,” in which the author invoked the ancient Greek and Roman temples— which also served as banks—as ancestors to the modern type; the recent banks, however, had evolved due to “the marvelous growth of modern consumerism.” The illustrations attest to the pervasiveness of the classical temple-fronted or domed bank design.

 

This elegant building type not only projected an image of wealth and financial security, but also evoked the trustworthiness and responsibility expected from institutions which serve the public.

 

The popular bank imagery developed, not only as a result of economic conditions, but also in response to the resurgence of the classically inspired style, in the 1890s.

 

Influenced by the architectural principles of the French Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the popularity of the buildings in the Court of Honor of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago—dubbed the “Great White City”—American architects turned for inspiration to Greco-Roman antiquity as well as Renaissance and other classically derived architectural sources.

 

The Beaux-Arts style provided a formal and monumental architecture that was particularly appropriate for the design of banks and public edifices such as libraries, museums, and government buildings.

 

In making historical associations, American architects drew parallels between their own culture, the American neo-Classical past, and the enlightened Greco Roman and Renaissance civilizations. This general movement in the arts and culture, sometimes referred to by scholars as the “American Renaissance,” not only fostered a boom in public buildings, but also the City Beautiful Movement, promoting civic improvement and beautification for the public benefit.

 

Indeed, the metropolitan spirit that accompanied the 1898 consolidation of New York City is demonstrated by the numerous public and private institutions which erected new, stately buildings and, in part, served as an impetus for the Jamaica Savings Bank to enhance its public image.

 

The Beaux-Arts Style and the Design of the Jamaica Savings Bank

 

One popular stylistic trend which informed American architecture at the turn of the century was the pervasive Beaux-Arts mode, also called “Modern French” or “Beaux-Arts Baroque” as identified by the authors of New York 1900.

 

This aesthetic represents a recasting of the classical idiom to express contemporary taste and respond to the requirements of modern buildings. Borrowing such architectural elements from the Baroque period as bold massing and sculptural plasticity of the facade, and such prominent roof treatments as the mansard, the Beaux-Arts style was disseminated in this country by the generation of American architects who studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the late nineteenth century and who were familiar with the recent architecture of Paris, notably, such famous monuments as Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera (1862-74), as well as many of that city’s residential buildings of the period.

 

The Beaux-Arts style of the Jamaica Savings Bank is a departure from the classical temple-fronted or domed type which had been the traditional formula in American bank architecture.

 

Among the most conspicuous examples of the use of the Beaux-Arts style for a bank building was the National Park Bank, designed by Donn Barber in 1904, which once stood on the east side of Broadway between Ann and Fulton Streets.

 

In this design the architect used robust ornamental forms and an unconventional facade composition in place of the classical orders, and crowned the building with an overscaled mansard. Like that of the National Park Bank, which was built several years later and at a prominent location in Manhattan’s commercial center, the design of the Jamaica Savings Bank is an ornate example of this architectural style; it is, however, of a scale appropriate to its small, mid-block site on a neighborhood main street.

 

In addition, the building is significant as one of only a few buildings in the borough of Queens to embrace the Beaux-Arts style; its design rivals that of many such buildings constructed in Manhattan and in areas of Brooklyn during that period. Above a rusticated base which reinforces the presence of the building on the street, the midsection of the bank’s facade is defined by relatively austere superimposed pilasters supporting an entablature with a segmentally arched pediment.

 

This composition—which functions as a stylized temple front—provides unity and order to the facade.

 

In contrast, the center bay of the facade is the exuberantly detailed focal point of the design, featuring particularly rich and fluid ornamental forms, reminiscent of French Baroque architecture, and handsome wrought-iron balconies. Notable among the facade’s decorative motifs is a carved stone beehive, a traditional symbol in the imagery of bank architecture, denoting industry, thrift, and prosperity.

 

The imposing facade treatment conveys a monumentality which befits the distinguished image and reputation of the banking institution, while lending the building the formal elegance of a private club or townhouse. An urbane presence in Jamaica’s downtown, the building is a pleasing

 

counterpart in the streetscape to the adjacent Register/Jamaica Arts Center building, erected at about the same time and designed in the Renaissance Revival style. The two buildings display similar rusticated stone bases and such complementary horizontal elements as stringcourses, modillioned cornices, and decorated parapets.

 

Hough & Deuell

 

The architectural firm of Hough & Deuell was chosen to design the new headquarters of the Jamaica Savings Bank. William C. Hough and Edgar Deuell, Jr., entered into partnership at about the same time they received the commission for the bank.

 

Hough, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a member of its Brooklyn Chapter, is known for his institutional work in Brooklyn.

 

He had been established as an architect in Manhattan at least since 1886, with offices at 115 Broadway and 18 Cortlandt Street before locating at 280 Broadway where in 1890 he established a partnership with Halstead Parker Fowler (1859-1911).

 

The firm of Fowler & Hough was active through 1897, during which time it was responsible for the design of the 23rd Regiment Armory at 1322 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn (1891-95, a designated New York City Landmark), as well as several other projects in that borough, such as the Bushwick Avenue Congregational Church and Sunday school (1895) at 1170 Bushwick Avenue. Hough is also credited with the design of the French Renaissance-inspired Dudley Memorial Building at 110 Amity Street (1902, in the Cobble Hill Historic District) which was erected for student nurses at Long Island College Hospital. After a short partnership of two to three years, the firm of Hough & Deuell dissolved; Hough maintained an independent practice in Manhattan through 1934. Deuell, a member of the Brooklyn Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, had worked briefly in Brooklyn prior to his collaboration with Hough.

 

In addition to the Jamaica Savings Bank, the firm of Hough & Deuell was responsible for the Brooklyn Homeopathic Hospital on Cumberland Street (demolished), designed in the Renaissance Revival style.

 

Subsequent History

 

The growth in the business of the Jamaica Savings Bank following World War I paralleled that of Jamaica’s downtown, which had become the foremost commercial center of Queens.

 

Indeed, in 1924 when Jamaica Savings Bank first enlarged its building, there were seven banks in Jamaica, and the local press referred to Jamaica Avenue as “Financial Row.”

 

All of these institutions had recently either built new structures or expanded existing facilities. In addition to the Jamaica Savings Bank, the community boasted a branch of the Bank of the Manhattan Company on the corner of Jamaica Avenue and Union Hall Street, two doors east of the Jamaica Savings Bank; the Title Guarantee & Trust Co. to the west of the Jamaica Savings Bank on the same blockfront; the Jamaica National Bank across the street at the corner of Herriman Avenue; and branches of the Corn Exchange Bank, the American Trust Company, and the First National Bank.

 

In 1927 the National Title Guaranty Company erected a ten-story building adjacent to the Jamaica Savings Bank at 160-16 Jamaica Avenue (the Jamaica Savings Bank acquired that property in 1941).

 

In 1923 the Jamaica Savings Bank commissioned local architect William H. Spaulding to design a rear addition to the building, 32 feet deep, which made the total depth of the building approximately 80 feet; the main-floor banking room was completely redesigned and two new vaults were constructed.

 

In 1932 architect Morrell Smith was hired to further enlarge the building, necessitating the demolition of the old frame structure which still stood at the rear of the site.

 

The brick-and-steel extension made the building’s depth about 140 feet, and a small addition was also made in the alleyway at the east side of the building, toward the front of the site.

 

In 1934, the Jamaica Savings Bank merged with the Queensboro Savings Bank and the offices of the latter bank at 90-55 Sutphin Boulevard were made a branch of the Jamaica Savings Bank.

 

In 1964, as the institution continued to grow, it moved across the street to a new, modern headquarters at the northeast corner of 161 Street (designed by LaPierre, Litchfield & Associates).

 

In 1999, the eleven branches of the Jamaica Savings Bank were sold to North Fork Bancorp.

 

Although the former Jamaica Savings Bank building has been enlarged at the rear, the facade maintains its original Beaux-Arts design and survives today essentially intact.

 

Description Main (North) Facade

 

The four-story former Jamaica Savings Bank building, approximately 30 feet wide and constructed of brick with a steel frame, has an imposing, symmetrical, four-story limestone main façade separated into three bays.

 

The high first floor of the building is rusticated; a granite basement sill runs the full width of the façade and projects at the main entrance to serve as an entrance step.

 

A cornerstone at the eastern end of the façade is incised with the dates “1866-1897.”

 

There are two basement openings, each crowned by scrolled ornament with foliate decoration.

 

The western basement opening is filled with a wood panel, and the eastern basement opening contains a metal louver within a wood frame; both openings contain historic, metal grilles with ornate, scrollwork tracery. A painted wood panel adjoins the main entrance surround to its west.

 

The main entrance consists of a pair of historic paneled and glazed double doors set within a historic enframement featuring a paneled reveal, fluted engaged columns crowned by Corinthian capitals, and a pair of sidelights with paneled reveals and recessed lower panels.

 

The columns support a frieze with a central panel reading “161-02.”

 

Above this frieze is a segmental pediment ornamented with eggand-tongue and acanthus-leaf moldings, and filled with ornament consisting of a central scallop flanked by foliate decoration.

 

A five-paned transom with a group of three central panes separated from the two, narrower, outer panes by baluster-like mullions fills the upper portion of the main-entrance opening, above the segmental pediment.

 

The main-entrance opening sits within an eared, molded surround with a projecting molded cornice that also acts as a sill for the window opening above.

 

A panel within the surround, above the main-entrance doors, historically read “JAMAICA SAVINGS BANK” but is now covered with stucco. Two historic metal light fixtures, their edges decorated by egg-and-dart moldings, flank the main entrance; these fixtures are covered with peeling paint and are missing their historic globes. The basement and lower first-floor portions of the façade are painted white; a non-historic sign reading “PROTECTED BY ADT SYSTEM ELECTRIC PROTECTION SERVICES” is attached to the main-entrance reveal west of the enframement.

 

Flanking the main entrance are two pairs of window openings, each consisting of one square-headed opening filled with a historic one-over-one, double-hung wood window, below an ocular opening filled with a single-pane, round, wood-framed sash.

 

A continuous, projecting, molded sill separates the square-headed openings from the basement portion of the façade.

 

A molded, projecting lintel above each square-headed window opening doubles as a sill for the oculus above.

 

Filling the spandrel below each oculus is elaborate carved ornament, consisting of garlands of fruit, some of it spilling over the sill to the eared surround of the square-headed opening below. Each oculus is flanked by fluted brackets supporting a projecting, half-round cornice crowned by an acanthus-leaf keystone.

 

The segmental-arch-headed, central first-floor window opening, located above the main entrance, is filled with a pair of historic, single-pane, wood casement windows.

 

The opening is flanked by classically inspired, carved ornament, including wreaths and cornucopias spilling garlands of fruit over the projecting, molded sill that doubles as a cornice for the main-entrance surround.

 

The opening is flanked by fluted brackets that support a projecting, molded eyebrow cornice crowned by a central cartouche.

 

All of the first-floor window openings contain historic metal grilles with elaborate scrollwork tracery. A continuous, projecting molding extends the width of the façade at the level of the upper first-floor window heads.

 

The first floor is separated from the second and third floors by a deep, molded cornice decorated with an egg-and-dart molding.

 

At the central portion of the façade, the cornice, supported by two large, scrolled and fluted brackets with guttae and decorated with garlands of fruit, steps out from the façade to create a second-floor balcony, which retains its historic and elegant iron railing featuring ornate scrollwork. The second and third floors, forming the midsection of the building, are defined by smooth, Ionic pilasters that frame each bay.

 

A flagpole attached to the second-floor balcony railing projects over Jamaica Avenue. At the central bay, the second-floor opening features a projecting, molded sill, and is filled with a pair of historic one-over-one, double-hung wood windows separated by a flat wood mullion and crowned by a historic, single-pane wood transom, which has a curved top rail that follows the upper line of the window opening.

 

This opening is flanked by rusticated stone pilasters.

 

The richly carved, half-round tympanum above the curved lintel of this opening is filled with carved foliate ornament and a central beehive that is symbolic of the original function of the building.

 

At the central bay of the third story, a scrolled cartouche and undulating brackets support a curvilinear balcony, which retains its historic iron railing decorated with ornate scrollwork.

 

The balcony fronts a segmental-arch-headed window opening within a molded, eared surround containing a historic one-over-one, double-hung wood window with a curved top rail.

 

The outer second-floor openings contain historic one-over-one double-hung wood windows with single-pane wood transoms.

 

They are set within eared surrounds and are crowned by projecting, molded lintels supported by scrolled brackets.

 

The outer third-floor openings contain historic one-over-one, double-hung wood sashes, and are set within molded, eared surrounds with scallop shells.

 

The third story is crowned by a wide entablature featuring a central segmental pediment, which is filled with foliate carving, and a large, scaly, shell-like ornament.

 

The fourth story features a false balustrade below the window openings. The three fourth-floor openings are square-headed and feature simple molded surrounds, and all three, including the central, tripartite window, retain their historic, one-over-one, double-hung wood sashes.

 

The fourth floor is crowned by a denticulated band and deep, modillioned cornice, which is surmounted by a high stone parapet decorated with a central winged cartouche flanked by drooping fruit garlands and topped by a scallop-shell motif.

 

A flagpole rises above the parapet at the center of the façade.

 

The site includes a narrow alleyway to the east, fronted by an ornate iron fence at the building line, that is blocked by a recessed brick extension added in 1932.

 

(An extension was made to the rear of the building at the same time.)

 

The north façade of the extension is faced with tan brick and has a square-headed opening with a stone sill that contains a historic, one-over-one, double-hung wood window.

 

The extension is crowned by stone or cast-stone coping. East and Rear (South) Façades

 

The northernmost portion of the east façade is faced with limestone, which wraps around from the main façade.

 

Some of the main façade’s decorative features, including the cornices above the first, third, and fourth stories, similarly wrap around and continue for a short stretch along the northernmost portion of the east façade.

 

The first floor, and easternmost two bays of the second, third, and fourth floors, are faced with tan brick in stretcher bond. North of the extension are one square-headed basement opening, which has a stone lintel and is filled with a wood panel; one square-headed first-floor opening, which has a projecting stone sill and flush stone lintel, and is filled with a historic one-over-one, double-hung wood window behind a metal grille; and one round-headed opening with a gauged soldier-brick surround, which contains a historic, single-pane wood sash behind a historic, ornate metal grille.

 

All of the second-, third-, and fourth-floor openings in the two northernmost bays have projecting stone sills.

 

The two northernmost second- and fourth-floor openings have flush stone lintels; each of the two northernmost third-floor openings is crowned by a segmental, triple-rowlock arch.

 

The northernmost second-floor opening contains a historic one-over-one, double-hung wood window and single-pane wood transom; the northernmost fourth-floor opening contains a historic one-over-one, double-hung wood window; and the second-northernmost openings at the second and fourth floors are filled with wood panels.

 

The two northernmost third-floor windows contain historic one-over-one, double-hung wood windows, the top rails of their top sashes curved to follow the upper line of their segmentally arched openings.

 

A vent pipe extends vertically from the second floor to above the roofline between the second- and third-northernmost bays.

 

The portion of the façade south of the second-northernmost bay is of red brick, and the openings on this portion of the façade have projecting stone sills and flush stone lintels. While many of these openings retain their historic one-over-one, double-hung wood windows, others are filled with wood panels.

 

The rear of the building, which is partially visible from Archer Avenue, is of red brick.

 

The second- and third-floor window openings have stone lintels and sills, and the façade also has a metal fire escape.

 

- From the 2008 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

The first recorded execution was John of Dalton in 1286, after which at least 52 names of those beheaded are known. The last time the gibbet was used was in 1650 when John Wilkinson was executed for stealing 16yds of cloth. All that remains of the original gibbet is the platform composed of stone blocks and measuring 9ft by 9ft by 4ft. There is a flight of stone steps up the W side. It is situated in a small paved area within a small public garden. On top of the platform a replica of the gibbet instrument has been erected.

 

www.calderdale.gov.uk/environment/conservation/ancient-mo...

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#ELDER_SCROLL_OF_MNEM_0.0♾😻

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ℹ️8️⃣📞📲📳☎️♾💁‍♂️

 

ℹ️▶️⏯⏭↕️🔘https://youtu.be/bS5JnGBmghM

 

First of all; the #FBI does not have the clearance, to be in possession, of my nuclear codesz.

 

Load, Load, Load; you're too slow, #YouTube. And do you know what that means? It means that you are #Guilty of #HighTreason. &, do you know what that means? It means that you are #Executed by #FiringSquad.

 

Nope; your apology means nothing to me. It means, that you are still #Executed by #FiringSquad.

 

That's one☝️. Two✌️; I👆, told you💭💬📣🔊📢; I did not suggest to you – I told you, #YouTube; that I need 14-15,000 characters🔤🔡🔠🔢; &, you refused to comply. Therefore; you are shot🔫 to death – #Executed for #HighTreason, twice✌️👋😽💀😵.👀‍

 

Three3️⃣☘️; #JohnPaulMacIssac: I simply, or merely, tell💭💬📣🔊📢 the #FBI, to go & fuck themselves; & to eat shit💩🚽, & die💀😵⚰️⚱️. 👀‍

 

☎️▶️⏯⏩⏭➡️🔀↕️🔘https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=qKVkhQQXEGE&feature=share

 

She asked me to cum⛲️💦💧🌊🎣🐟🔫 over, to #Steinway🎹🏭, in #Astoria👸; & then, after driving from #Pennsylvania #Pistolvania, she was on the #AOL_IM #AIM, w/ #JesseHenry. I told her that she was being rude; & she told me to go & fuck myself. So; I left, drove home🏡, & ate the cost💸 of travel. &, I went & fuckt myself. &; she was unhappy that I left; & she didn't get none. &; I don't really give a fuck. She can eat shit💩🚽, & die💀.👀‍❄️ @/#GregGutfeld #CarleyShimkus

 

#OliviaCampbellPatton #OliviaWildeNeeCockburne

 

🏰🏯🔘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya

 

By the way; it is #Ceylon; do not offend me again. This is your first(ly)☝️, & only⏳⌛️ warning⚠️⛔️☣️☢️

 

#SAP_q / #SAR_Q, how-ever, not #SAP-q / #SAR-Q; #RobertCharles #THE_COMMODORES_CIRCLE.👀‍😾😠😤😡

 

‍👀😎⚠️⛔️☣️☢️🔘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program#:~:text=Special%20access%20programs%20%28SAPs%29%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Federal,that%20exceed%20those%20for%20regular%20%28collateral%29%20classified%20information.

 

☝️; there is no quick select, of 20,000+ images, on #iPhone, #Apple #TimCook. ✌️; there is no #conspicuous way to remove the #Slideslow option, on #iPhone, w/ your shitty, shitty musick selection. Therefore, I cannot turn it off. Oh, by the way; I cannot trash individual #AppCaches, neither, all of them, in a single tap. Take a wild guess what that means for you; all of you. #HighTreason = #Execution🔫 @ the #Gallows💀😵, or #Gibbet💀😵.👋👋👋

 

3️⃣; @/ #GregGutfeld‼️⚠️ : The #Saxophone🎷 is lame, gey, & any-person, who may believe it to be kool, or trendy, or even good; they may eat shit💩🚽, & die💀😵.

 

4️⃣ By the way; #SullyErna; you're a bitch.👋💀

 

🔘https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=R8pj2y39_jc&feature=share

 

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It is nice to see #TulsiGabbard; @/#FoxNewsCorp.

 

@/ #JennaLeeUSA I 👀‍ see ❄️🍧🍨🍦⛸ (also, #Björk) two✌️👩‍⚖️😌 #RingsOfPower ‍♀️🆗🙆‍♀️☎️🔥♨️💍🔏✍️👩‍💃👩‍💍👨‍👌🙆‍♂️🆗☑️🔲🔳▫️ℹ️🔘https://youtu.be/Pqijx0pnn3c

 

#Owlephant

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#ELDER_SCROLL_OF_MNEM_0.0♾😻

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#EvanRachelWood-._•✏️📝✍️🔏🐧

 

--WRW

 

_.• ✍️🔏

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This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Crusaders fall to St. Joe's in heartbreaker.D3 BOYS' BASKETBALL STATE SEMIFINAL: ST. JOSEPH'S 61, WHITINSVILLE CHRISTIAN 59.By Bill Doyle TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF..SPRINGFIELD— Grant Brown lofted an off-balance 3-pointer in the final second. If the shot was good, Whitinsville Christian would win and defend its Division 3 state championship on Saturday. If it was off the mark, the Crusaders’ season would end. .With Lavante Wiggins of St. Joseph’s close by, Brown didn’t have time to set himself, but his shot was on line nevertheless. ..“To be honest, I thought I was going to get a foul called,” Brown said, “but I saw it, and I thought it was going in.” ..“I was thinking, ‘Man, that would be unbelievable if that thing went in,’ ” WC coach Jeff Bajema said, “and I thought it was.” ..“When he took it, I said, “God, it looks good,’” St. Joseph’s of Pittsfield coach Paul Brindle said. ..The shot hit the back of the rim, however, and bounced away, and St. Joseph’s held on for a 61-59 victory in a Division 3 state semifinal last night at the MassMutual Center. ..“The hoop angels just weren’t there today,” Bajema said. ..St. Joseph’s (20-5) will play Danvers at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the DCU Center for the state title. This will be the first state final for St. Joseph’s since it won it all in 2001. ..Whitinsville Christian, the defending Division 3 state champion, finished 17-6. ..Colin Richey led the Crusaders with 15 points, including eight in the fourth quarter. His drive put his team ahead, 59-54, with 3:13 left, but WC didn’t score again. ..“They were denying Colin the ball,” Bajema said, “and Colin is the guy who makes it happen for us. We ran some stuff for other guys, but their team quickness really affected us, especially down the stretch. We just couldn’t get into a set.” ..Bajema also thought Whitinsville missed center Jesse Dykstra, the team’s only starting senior, after he fouled out with 2:02 left and the score 59-54. ..St. Joseph’s scored the game’s final seven points at the foul line. Mike McMahon made four of the free throws, including a pair with 10.6 seconds left to give St. Joseph’s its first lead, 60-59, since late in the third quarter. ..With WC leading, 59-58, Tim Dufficy missed the front end of a one-and-one with 22.5 seconds left. After McMahon put St. Joseph’s ahead, Dufficy threw the ball away and Roberson was fouled with 6.8 seconds left. ..Dufficy was upset at himself after the game, but Richey came to his defense. ..“That’s not why we lost,” Richey said. “He shouldn’t feel like that’s a big reason. That’s not why we lost. We lost because we didn’t execute down the stretch, we didn’t make shots, and we didn’t rebound. They just outworked us down the stretch.” ..Roberson made one of two at the line to make it 61-59. After a timeout, WC got the ball to Brown, but his shot missed by inches. Bajema planned to call another timeout when his Crusaders got the ball in the frontcourt, but changed his mind. ..“I thought he had a step on the kid,” Bajema said. ..Brown finished with 12 points. Dufficy had 10. ..Joe Wiggins led St. Joseph’s with 17 points and 12 rebounds, including 13 points and 10 rebounds in the second half. McMahon scored 13 points. ..Whitinsville Christian led for most of the game and was up by nine, 36-27, when Brown scored on a put-back early in the third quarter. Tank Roberson scored seven of his 15 points during a 16-4 run that gave St. Joseph’s a 43-40 edge with 3:31 left in the third. Brown’s 3-pointer highlighted a 7-2 run that regained the lead for WC, 47-45, entering the fourth. ..With four starting juniors returning next year, the Crusaders should be strong again, but the loss will stick with them. ..“It’s definitely heartbreaking,” Richey said. “We put so much time into this over the summer, even since we were kids. So it was definitely tough. You’re going to remember this forever. You’re going to remember this more than if you won the game.”

 

Shot at ISO 2500, Aperture of 2.8, Shutter speed of 1/640 and Focal Length of 150.0 mm

Taken with a Minolta/Sony AF 70-200mm F2.8 G lens and processed by Aperture 3.2.3 on Tuesday March-13-2012 16:36 EDT PM

This weekend was Heritage and Ride & Stride weekend, when many churches are open.

 

So, a grand tour round Kent's most difficult was planned and executed, with this being the first church of the day open, after four strike outs.

 

St Alphege is just the chancel of a larger church, so there isn't much to see, or room inside, but I got my shots and declined my first cuppa of the day.

 

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Hidden from the road and accessible only by footpath, this 13th century gem is a remarkable survivor. It is the chancel of the medieval church of Seasalter, the rest of which was demolished when the new church of St Alphege was built in what is now Whitstable. The west wall of flint is in contrast to the rubble construction of the medieval work and its lancet windows. Inside, all is squashed together but they even managed to get a proper organ in! High in the west wall is a lovely window by Lawrence Lee depicting St Alphege whose body rested in the previous church which stood out where the River Swale washes the shore today. This old church is still used and well loved by its congregation who now also have a brand new (2007) church a few hundred yards away for there regular services.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Seasalter

 

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THE LIBERTY AND PARISH OF SEASALTER.

THIS liberty lies adjoining to the parish of Hernehill and hundred of Boughton Blean, north eastward, being so named from its near vicinity to the sea. (fn. 1)

 

The LIBERTY AND PARISH of Seasalter lies in an obscure out of the way situation, bounded by the sea northward, but the large tract of marshes which adjoin it westward, as well as the badness of the water, make it very unhealthy. The east and southern parts are mostly coppice wood, and the soil a deep clay. The church stands on the knoll of a hill, nearly in the middle of the parish, below which, westward, it is all marsh land to the sea shore, not far from which the few houses stand which make the village of Seasalter. There are forty-six houses in this parish, most of which are in Whitstaple-street, great part of which is within the bounds of it, and over part of which the borough of Harwich claims. There is an oyster fishery on the shore here, the grounds of which, called the Pollard, are an appendage to the manor of Seasalter, and as such belong to the dean and chapter of Canterbury, who demise them to seven fishermen or free dredgermen of Seasalter, at a certain yearly rent. In December, 1763, a live whale was driven on shore on Seasalter flats, which was about fifty-six feet long. The manor of Seasalter has the privilege of four fairs yearly, on the four principal feasts in the year; but there have not been any held for some years.

 

The MANOR OF SEASALTER was given, before the Norman conquest, to the priory of Christ-church, in Canterbury, but by whom, I have no where found; and it continued part of the possessions of it at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in which record it is thus entered:

 

In Borowart lath, there lies a small borough named Sesaltre, which properly belongs to the kitchen of the archbishop. One named Blize held it of the monks. In demesne there is one carucate, and forty-eight borderers with one carucate. There is a church and eight fisheries, with a rent of twenty-five shillings. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth twenty-five shillings, and now one hundred shillings.

 

After which, this manor appears to have been let to ferme by the prior and convent, to Roger de Wadenhale, in king Henry the IId.'s reign, at the yearly rent of six pounds, with a reservation of all royal fish, wrec, &c. and afterwards to Clemencia, daughter of Henry de Hanifeld, at that of ten marcs, which rent was afterwards raised to twenty pounds per annum. In 1494, prior Thomas Goldstone caused a new mansion, or court-lodge to be built here, and at the rectory he rebuilt all the edifices, except the barn. In which situa tion this manor continued with the priory till its dissolution, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it was surrendered into the king's hands, and was by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, settled on his newfounded dean and chapter of Canterbury, with whom the inheritance still continues. (fn. 2)

 

A court leet and court baron is regularly held by the dean and chapter for this manor; but the demesne lands, as well as the rectory or parsonage of the church, were lately demised on a beneficial lease to Isaac Rutton, M. D. of Ashford, who died in 1792, whose descendants assigned them to Mr. William Baldock, brewer, of Canterbury, and they were again assigned by him in 1798, to Mr. King, of Whitstaple. (fn. 3)

 

ELYNDENNE, or Ellenden, as it is now written, is a small manor, situated at the southern boundary of this parish, among the woods adjoining to the ville of Dunkirk, within the bounds of which, one half of the house, as well as part of the lands are situated, though in the deeds belonging to this manor, it is constantly described as within this parish and Whitstaple. It was once the property of a family of its own name, one of whom, John Elyndenne, gave it to the abbot and convent of Faversham, as appeared by the lerger book of that abbey, (fn. 4) with which it staid till its dissolution, anno 30 Henry VIII. when this manor came, with the rest of its estates, into the king's hands, who in his 35th year granted it to Thomas Ardern, gent. of Faversham, to hold in capite, (fn. 5) and he that year passed it away to John Needham, whose son, of the same name, alienated it, in the 32d year of queen Elizabeth, to Michael Beresford, esq. of Westerham, and he soon after conveyed it to Sir George Newman, LL.D. in whose descendants, who bore for their arms, Or, a fess dancette, gules, between three eagles, sable, (fn. 6) it continued till it was alienated to St. Leger, and Sir John St. Leger, in the reign of William and Mary, passed it away to Sir Henry Furnese, bart. of Waldershare, who died possessed of it in 1712, but his grandson Sir Henry Furnese, bart. dying in 1735, under age and unmarried, this, among the rest of his estates, became vested in his three sisters, coheirs of their father, in equal shares in coparcenary, in tail general, and on a partition anno 9 George II. this manor was allotted, among others, to Anne the eldest daughter, wife of John, viscount St. John, whose grandson the right hon. George St. John, lord viscount Bolingbrooke, sold it in 1791 to Mr. John Daniels, of Whitstaple, and he in 1793 sold it to Mr. Hayward, of the Black Friars, Canterbury, who dying in the year 1794, his widow is the present possessor of it.

 

Charities.

THERE have been given to the use of the poor of this parish, five acres of land, late occupied by Fenner, of the annual produce of 3l. a field of three acres, called the Peters field, of the annual produce of 2l. 6s. four acres of land, in two pieces, of the annual produce of 4l. and two acres of woodland, sold in 1785 at eighteen years growth for 6l. sundry yearly annuities, of 2s. 6d. of 40s paid by the parish of Whitstaple, and of 12s. paid by Mrs Gillow.

 

The poor constantly maintained are about twenty, casually one hundred.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Westbere.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. Alphage, is small, consisting of only one isle and a chancel, having a low pointed turret of wood at the west end, in which hangs one bell. There is no memorial or inscription in it. In the north window of the isle are some small remains of painted glass. There are two hatchments in the isle, one, Argent, two bends wavy, on a chief, gules, three estoiles, or; the other the same, impaling, Paly bendy, or, and sable, a bend, counterchanged, which were for the family of Taylor, who once owned lands in this parish, and lie buried in this church. There is a gallery at the west end.

 

By the great storm, which happened on Jan. 1, 1779, there was discovered among the beach on the sea shore, at Codhams corner, about half a mile westward of the present church, the stone foundations of a large long buildings, lying due east and west, supposed to have been the remains of the antient church of Seasalter. Many human bones were likewise uncovered, by the shifting of the beach, both within and about it, all of which that could be found, were collected together and buried in the church-yard of Seasalter; but those which have been since uncovered remain at this time sticking up an end among the beach.

 

¶This church was always appendant to the manor of Seasalter, belonging to the priory of Christ church, to which it was appropriated in 1236, for the maintenance of the monks there, and was by the archbishop afterwards allotted to the almonry. In which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, who settled it, with the advowson of the vicarage and the manor, by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new-founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions they still continue.

 

In the 8th year of Richard II. anno 1384, the vicarage of this church was not, on account of the smallness of its income, taxed to the tenth. It is valued in the king's books at 11l. but it is now a discharged living, of the clear yearly certified value of 25l. 19s. 8d. In 1588 here were communicants seventy-six. In 1640 the same, and it was then valued at 60l.

 

Among the archives of the dean and chapter is an examination relating to the bounds of the parishes of Seasalter and Hernehill, anno 1481, and another taken the same year by the archbishop's commissary. (fn. 7)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol8/pp499-504

 

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A liberty was an English unit originating in the Middle Ages, traditionally defined as an area in which regalian right was revoked and where the land was held by a mesne lord (i.e. an area in which rights reserved to the king had been devolved into private hands). It later became a unit of local government administration.[1]

 

Liberties were areas of widely variable extent which were independent of the usual system of hundreds and boroughs for a number of different reasons, usually to do with peculiarities of tenure. Because of their tenurial rather than geographical origin, the areas covered by liberties could either be widely scattered across a county or limited to an area smaller than a single parish: an example of the former is Fordington Liberty, and of the latter, the Liberty of Waybayouse, both in Dorset.

 

In northern England, the liberty of Bowland was one of the larger tenurial configurations covering some ten manors, eight townships and four parishes under the sway of a single feudal lord, the Lord of Bowland, whose customary title is Lord of the Fells.[2][3] Up until 1660, such lords would have been lords paramount.

 

Legislation passed in 1836 ended the temporal jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely in several liberties, and the Liberties Act 1850 permitted the merging of liberties in their counties. By 1867, only a handful remained: Ely, Havering-atte-Bower, St Albans, Peterborough, Ripon and Haverfordwest. St Albans was subsequently joined to the county of Hertfordshire in 1875.

 

The Local Government Act 1888 led to the ending of the special jurisdictions in April 1889: the Isle of Ely and Soke of Peterborough became administrative counties, while the three remaining liberties were united to their surrounding counties.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_(division)

Lumley Castle is a 14th-century quadrangular castle at Chester-le-Street in the North of England, near the city of Durham, and a property of the Earl of Scarbrough. It is a Grade I listed building. It is currently a hotel.

 

It is named after its original creator, Sir Ralph Lumley, who converted his family manor house into a castle in 1389 after returning from wars in Scotland. However, after being implicated in a plot to overthrow Henry IV, he was imprisoned and ultimately executed, forfeiting his lands to the Earl of Somerset. In 1421 the ownership of the castle reverted to Sir Ralph Lumley's grandson, Thomas.

 

During the time of John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley, he altered the windows of the castle to let more light in, installed a new fireplace in the great hall along with a lavabo of black and white marble, adorned by a pelican, which is the crest of the Lumley coat of the arms. On the accession of James VI and I as King of England in 1603, he journeyed from Edinburgh to London to take his new throne. On 13 April, en route from Newcastle upon Tyne to Durham, he stopped briefly at the castle as a guest of Lord Lumley. The King James Suite hotel room commemorates this connection with the king. However, the suite was previously the chapel; the king did not stay at Lumley overnight, instead travelling later that day and staying at Durham Castle.

 

Although there are no documents to prove it, the Georgian alterations to the castle are attributed to Sir John Vanbrugh, particularly the library, which is now the Black Knight Restaurant.

 

By the nineteenth century, the castle had become the residence of the Bishop of Durham, after Bishop Van Mildert gave his residence of Durham Castle to the newly founded University of Durham. The castle thus became a hall of residence for University College, Durham. Castlemen, as the students of University College are known, spent their first year at Lumley Castle and subsequent years in the Castle at Durham. Lumley Castle was sold in the 1960s by University College to fund the building of the 'Moatside' residential halls in central Durham, in order to keep all students on the same site. The role of Lumley Castle in University College's history is still commemorated by students in the biannual 'Lumley Run'.

 

In 1976, management of the castle was handed over to No Ordinary Hotels, which had the castle turned into the 73-bedroomed hotel it is today, but it is still in the possession of the present Lord Scarbrough. It is also a picturesque backdrop for Durham County Cricket Club's Riverside Ground, which was first used in 1995, and often houses visiting cricket teams. In 2019 the castle teamed up with Escape Rooms Durham to offer a live Escape Game housed inside the castle's old beer cellar. It tells the story of Lily of Lumley and opened on St Valentine's Day 2019.

 

The castle is believed to be one of the most haunted places in County Durham, which includes a story about a woman named Lily Lumley who married Ralph Lumley. In reality, the said Ralph Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley (c. 1360 – January 1400) was married to Eleanor Neville. But in a tale called The Lily of Lumley he has a previous wife. She was supposedly thrown down a well in the castle grounds by two priests for rejecting the Catholic faith, who then told Baron Lumley she had left him to become a nun. Her ghost is said to float up from the well and haunt the castle. A contemporary romance of medieval times, the tale was based on a legend of a lady of Lumley who was murdered. This woman is not identified in family pedigrees. In 2000 and 2005, visiting cricketers staying at the castle claimed to have witnessed paranormal activity including Indian Captain Sourav Ganguly. Several members of the 2005 Australian tour party recounted the strong effect its reputation and setting had had on them.

 

Chester-le-Street is a market town in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It is located around 6 miles (10 kilometres) north of Durham and is also close to Newcastle upon Tyne. The town holds markets on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. In 2011, it had a population of 24,227.

 

The town's history is ancient; records date to a Roman-built fort called Concangis. The Roman fort is the Chester (from the Latin castra) of the town's name; the Street refers to the paved Roman road that ran north–south through the town, now the route called Front Street. The parish church of St Mary and St Cuthbert is where the body of Anglo-Saxon St Cuthbert remained for 112 years before being transferred to Durham Cathedral and site of the first Gospels translation into English, Aldred writing the Old English gloss between the lines of the Lindisfarne Gospels there.

 

The Romans founded a fort named Concangis or Concagium, which was a Latinisation of the original Celtic name for the area, which also gave name to the waterway through the town, Cong Burn. The precise name is uncertain as it does not appear in Roman records, but Concangis is the name most cited today. Although a meaning "Place of the horse people" has been given, scholarly authorities consider the meaning of the name obscure.

 

Old English forms of the name include Cuneceastra and Conceastre, which takes its first two syllables from the Roman name, with the addition of the Old English word ceaster 'Roman fortification' The Universal etymological English dictionary of 1749 gives the town as Chester upon Street (and describes it as "a Village in the Bishoprick of Durham"). At some point this was shortened to the modern form.

 

There is evidence of Iron Age use of the River Wear near the town, but the history of Chester-le-Street starts with the Roman fort of Concangis. This was built alongside the Roman road Cade's Road (now Front Street) and close to the River Wear, around 100 A.D., and was occupied until the Romans left Britain in 410 A.D. At the time, the Wear was navigable to at least Concangis and may also have provided food for the garrisons stationed there.

 

After the Romans left, there is no record of who lived there (apart from some wounded soldiers from wars who had to live there), until 883 when a group of monks, driven out of Lindisfarne seven years earlier, stopped there to build a wooden shrine and church to St Cuthbert, whose body they had borne with them. While they were there, the town was the centre of Christianity for much of the north-east because it was the seat of the Bishop of Lindisfarne, making the church a cathedral. There the monks translated into English the Lindisfarne Gospels, which they had brought with them. They stayed for 112 years, leaving in 995 for the safer and more permanent home at Durham. The title has been revived as the Roman Catholic titular see of Cuncacestre.

 

The church was rebuilt in stone in 1054 and, despite the loss of its bishopric, seems to have retained a degree of wealth and influence. In 1080, most of the huts in the town were burned and many people killed in retaliation for the death of William Walcher, the first prince-bishop, at the hands of an English mob. After this devastation wrought by the Normans the region was left out of the Domesday Book of 1086; there was little left to record and the region was by then being run from Durham by the prince-bishops, so held little interest for London.

 

Cade's Road did not fall out of use but was hidden beneath later roads which became the Great North Road, the main route from London and the south to Newcastle and Edinburgh. The town's location on the road played a significant role in its development, as well as its name, as inns sprang up to cater for the travelling trade: both riders and horses needed to rest on journeys usually taking days to complete. This trade reached a peak in the early 19th century as more and more people and new mail services were carried by stagecoach, before falling off with the coming of the railways. The town was bypassed when the A167 was routed around the town and this was later supplanted by the faster A1(M).

 

The coal industry also left its mark on the town. From the late 17th century onwards, coal was dug in increasing quantities in the region. Mining was centred around the rivers, for transportation by sea to other parts of the country, and Chester-le-Street was at the centre of the coal being dug and shipped away down the Wear, so a centre of coal related communication and commerce. At the same time, the growth of the mines and the influx of miners supported local businesses, not just the many inns but new shops and services, themselves bringing in more people to work in them. These people would later work in new industries established in the town to take advantage of its good communications and access to raw materials.

 

One of the most tragic episodes in the town's history and that of the coal industry in NE England occurred during a miners' strike during the winter of 1811/12. Collieries owned by the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral were brought to a standstill by the strike, causing much hardship amongst the people of the town. The strike was broken on New Year's Day, 1 January 1812, when the Bishop of Durham, Shute Barrington, sent a detachment of troops from Durham Castle to force a return to work. It is thought that this uncharacteristic act by Barrington was due to pressure from the national government in Westminster who were concerned that the strike was affecting industrial output of essential armaments for the Napoleonic Wars.

 

On the evening of 5 October 1936, the Jarrow Marchers stopped at the town centre after their first day's walk. The church hall was used to house them before they continued onward the following day.

 

From 1894 until 2009, local government districts were governed from the town. From 1894 to 1974, it had a rural district, which covered the town and outlying villages. In 1909, the inner rural district formed an urban district, which covered the town as it was at that time.

 

By 1974, the town expanded out of the urban district, during that year's reforms the urban and rural districts, as well as other areas formed a non-metropolitan district. It was abolished in 2009 reforms when the non-metropolitan county became a unitary authority.

 

The town has a mild climate and gets well below average rainfall relative to the UK. It does though experience occasional floods. To the east of the town lies the Riverside cricket ground and Riverside Park. They were built on the flood plains of the River Wear, and are often flooded when the river bursts its banks. The town centre is subject to occasional flash flooding, usually after very heavy rain over the town and surrounding areas, if the rain falls too quickly for it to be drained away by Cong Burn. The flooding occurs at the bottom of Front Street where the Cong Burn passes under the street, after it was enclosed in concrete in 1932.

 

Chester-le-Street's landmarks

A brick-red, elliptically curved arch, twice as wide as it is high, over an open area with a brick-red surface

Front of a three-storey building, six windows across, with a large-framed wood door at ground level and a painted sign with the words "THE QUEENS HEAD"

Square castle with square tower

A large railway viaduct made from red bricks, topped by railings and electric pylons

The general Post Office, the marketplace with the former Civic Heart sculpture (now demolished), the Queens Head Hotel on Front Street, Lumley Castle and Chester Burn viaduct

John Leland described Chester-le-Street in the 1530s as "Chiefly one main street of very mean building in height.", a sentiment echoed by Daniel Defoe.

 

The viaduct to the northwest of the town centre was completed in 1868 for the North Eastern Railway, to enable trains to travel at high speed on a more direct route between Newcastle and Durham. It is over 230m long with 11 arches, now spanning a road and supermarket car-park, and is a Grade II listed structure.

 

Lumley Castle was built in 1389. It is on the eastern bank of the River Wear and overlooks the town and the Riverside Park.

 

The Queens Head Hotel is located in the central area of the Front Street. It was built over 250 years ago when Front Street formed part of the main route from Edinburgh and Newcastle to London and the south of England. A Grade II listed building, it is set back from the street and is still one of the largest buildings in the town centre.

 

Chester-le-Street Post Office at 137 Front Street is in Art Deco style and replaced a smaller building located on the corner of Relton Terrace and Ivanhoe Terrace. It opened in 1936 and is unusual in that it is one of a handful[30] of post offices that display the royal cypher from the brief reign of Edward VIII.

 

Main article: St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street

St Mary and St Cuthbert church possesses a rare surviving anchorage, one of the best-preserved in the country. It was built for an anchorite, an extreme form of hermit. His or her walled-up cell had only a slit to observe the altar and an opening for food, while outside was an open grave for when the occupant died. It was occupied by six anchorites from 1383 to c. 1538, and is now a museum known as the Anker's House. The north aisle is occupied by a line of Lumley family effigies, only five genuine, assembled circa 1590. Some have been chopped off to fit and resemble a casualty station at Agincourt, according to Sir Simon Jenkins in his England's Thousand Best Churches. This and Lumley Castle are Chester-le-Street's only Grade I listed buildings.

 

The Bethel United Reformed church on Low Chare

The small United Reformed Church on Low Chare, just off the main Front Street, was built in 1814 as the Bethel Congregational Chapel and remodelled in 1860. It is still in use and is a Grade II listed building.

 

The Riverside Ground, known for sponsorship reasons as the Seat Unique Riverside, is home to Durham County Cricket Club which became a first class county in 1992. Since 1999, the ground has hosted many international fixtures, usually involving the England cricket team. The ground was also host to two fixtures at the 1999 Cricket World Cup, and three fixtures at the 2019 Cricket World Cup. The town also has its own cricket club, Chester-le-Street Cricket Club based at the Ropery Lane ground. They are the current Champions of the North East Premier League, won the national ECB 45 over tournament in 2009 and reached the quarter-final of the national 20/20 club championship in 2009.

 

Chester-le-Street Amateur Rowing Club is based on the River Wear near the Riverside cricket ground and has been there for over 100 years. During the summer months the club operate mainly on the river, but in the winter move to indoor sessions during the evenings and use the river at weekends.

 

The club has over 160 members of which 90 are junior members, with numbers increasing annually. The club are well thought of by British Rowing as a lead club for junior development with many juniors now competing at GB level, and some competing for GB at international events.

 

Medieval football was once played in the town. The game was played annually on Shrove Tuesday between the "Upstreeters" and "Downstreeters". Play started at 1 pm and finished at 6 pm. To start the game, the ball was thrown from a window in the centre of the town and in one game more than 400 players took part. The centre of the street was the dividing line and the winner was the side where the ball was (Up or Down) at 6 pm. It was played from the Middle Ages until 1932, when it was outlawed by the police and people trying to carry on the tradition were arrested. Chester-le-Street United F.C. were founded in 2020 and compete in the Northern Football League Division Two. In the 2022/23 season they finished above their local rivals Chester-le-Street Town F.C. who were founded in 1972 and compete in the Northern Football League Division Two and based just outside Chester-le-street in Chester Moor.

 

Chester-le-Street railway station is a stop on the East Coast Main Line of the National Rail network between Newcastle and Durham; it opened in 1868. The station is served by two train operating companies:

 

TransPennine Express provides services between Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds, York, Durham and Newcastle;

Northern Trains runs a limited service in early mornings and evenings; destinations include Newcastle, Carlisle and Darlington.

The station is managed by Northern Trains.

 

The town is mentioned in the 1963 song "Slow Train" by Flanders and Swann:

 

No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat,

At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street.

 

Chester-le-Street's bus services are operated primarily by Go North East and Arriva North East; routes connect the town with Newcastle, Durham, Middlesbrough and Seaham.

 

The town is the original home of The Northern General Transport Company, which has since grown into Go North East; it operated from the Picktree Lane Depot until 2023 when it was demolished. It also pioneered the use of Minilink bus services in the North East in 1985.

 

Front Street first carried the A1 road, between London and Edinburgh, through the town. A bypass was built in the 1950s, which still exists today as the A167. The bypass road itself was partly bypassed by, and partly incorporated in, the A1(M) motorway in the 1970s.

 

The northern end of Front Street was once the start of the A6127, which is the road that would continue through Birtley, Gateshead and eventually over the Tyne Bridge; it become the A6127(M) central motorway in Newcastle upon Tyne. However, when the Gateshead-Newcastle Western Bypass of the A1(M) was opened, many roads in this area were renumbered; they followed the convention that roads originating between single digit A roads take their first digit from the single digit A road in an anticlockwise direction from their point of origin. Newcastle Road, which was formerly designated A1, is now unclassified. The A6127 was renamed the A167. Car traffic is now banned from the northern part of Front Street and it is restricted to buses, cyclists and delivery vehicles.

 

Education

Primary schools

Cestria Primary School

Bullion Lane Primary School

Woodlea Primary School

Lumley Junior and Infant School

Newker Primary School

Red Rose Primary School

Chester-le-Street CE Primary School

St Cuthbert's RCVA Primary School

Secondary schools

Park View School

Hermitage Academy

 

Notable people

Michael Barron, footballer

Aidan Chambers, children's author, Carnegie Medal and Hans Christian Andersen Award winner

William Browell Charlton, trade union leader, Durham County Colliery Enginemen's Association, National Federation of Colliery Enginemen and Boiler Firemen

Ellie Crisell, journalist and television presenter

Ronnie Dodd, footballer

Danny Graham, footballer

Andrew Hayden-Smith, actor and presenter

Grant Leadbitter, footballer

Sheila Mackie, artist

Jock Purdon, folk singer and poet

Adam Reach, footballer

Bryan Robson, former England football captain, and his brothers Justin and Gary, also footballers

Gavin Sutherland, conductor and pianist

Colin Todd, football manager and former England international player

Olga and Betty Turnbull, child entertainers of the 1930s who performed for royalty

Kevin "Geordie" Walker, guitarist of post-punk group Killing Joke

Peter Ward, footballer

Bruce Welch of pop group The Shadows

 

It is twinned with:

Germany Kamp-Lintfort in Germany.

 

County Durham, officially simply Durham is a ceremonial county in North East England. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne and Wear to the north, the North Sea to the east, North Yorkshire to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The largest settlement is Darlington, and the county town is the city of Durham.

 

The county has an area of 2,721 km2 (1,051 sq mi) and a population of 866,846. The latter is concentrated in the east; the south-east is part of the Teesside built-up area, which extends into North Yorkshire. After Darlington (92,363), the largest settlements are Hartlepool (88,855), Stockton-on-Tees (82,729), and Durham (48,069). For local government purposes the county comprises three unitary authority areas—County Durham, Darlington, and Hartlepool—and part of a fourth, Stockton-on-Tees. The county historically included the part of Tyne and Wear south of the River Tyne, and excluded the part of County Durham south of the River Tees.

 

The west of the county contains part of the North Pennines uplands, a national landscape. The hills are the source of the rivers Tees and Wear, which flow east and form the valleys of Teesdale and Weardale respectively. The east of the county is flatter, and contains by rolling hills through which the two rivers meander; the Tees forms the boundary with North Yorkshire in its lower reaches, and the Wear exits the county near Chester-le-Street in the north-east. The county's coast is a site of special scientific interest characterised by tall limestone and dolomite cliffs.

 

What is now County Durham was on the border of Roman Britain, and contains survivals of this era at sites such as Binchester Roman Fort. In the Anglo-Saxon period the region was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. In 995 the city of Durham was founded by monks seeking a place safe from Viking raids to house the relics of St Cuthbert. Durham Cathedral was rebuilt after the Norman Conquest, and together with Durham Castle is now a World Heritage Site. By the late Middle Ages the county was governed semi-independently by the bishops of Durham and was also a buffer zone between England and Scotland. County Durham became heavily industrialised in the nineteenth century, when many collieries opened on the Durham coalfield. The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, opened in 1825. Most collieries closed during the last quarter of the twentieth century, but the county's coal mining heritage is remembered in the annual Durham Miners' Gala.

 

Remains of Prehistoric Durham include a number of Neolithic earthworks.

 

The Crawley Edge Cairns and Heathery Burn Cave are Bronze Age sites. Maiden Castle, Durham is an Iron Age site.

 

Brigantia, the land of the Brigantes, is said to have included what is now County Durham.

 

There are archaeological remains of Roman Durham. Dere Street and Cade's Road run through what is now County Durham. There were Roman forts at Concangis (Chester-le-Street), Lavatrae (Bowes), Longovicium (Lanchester), Piercebridge (Morbium), Vindomora (Ebchester) and Vinovium (Binchester). (The Roman fort at Arbeia (South Shields) is within the former boundaries of County Durham.) A Romanised farmstead has been excavated at Old Durham.

 

Remains of the Anglo-Saxon period include a number of sculpted stones and sundials, the Legs Cross, the Rey Cross and St Cuthbert's coffin.

 

Around AD 547, an Angle named Ida founded the kingdom of Bernicia after spotting the defensive potential of a large rock at Bamburgh, upon which many a fortification was thenceforth built. Ida was able to forge, hold and consolidate the kingdom; although the native British tried to take back their land, the Angles triumphed and the kingdom endured.

 

In AD 604, Ida's grandson Æthelfrith forcibly merged Bernicia (ruled from Bamburgh) and Deira (ruled from York, which was known as Eforwic at the time) to create the Kingdom of Northumbria. In time, the realm was expanded, primarily through warfare and conquest; at its height, the kingdom stretched from the River Humber (from which the kingdom drew its name) to the Forth. Eventually, factional fighting and the rejuvenated strength of neighbouring kingdoms, most notably Mercia, led to Northumbria's decline. The arrival of the Vikings hastened this decline, and the Scandinavian raiders eventually claimed the Deiran part of the kingdom in AD 867 (which became Jórvík). The land that would become County Durham now sat on the border with the Great Heathen Army, a border which today still (albeit with some adjustments over the years) forms the boundaries between Yorkshire and County Durham.

 

Despite their success south of the river Tees, the Vikings never fully conquered the Bernician part of Northumbria, despite the many raids they had carried out on the kingdom. However, Viking control over the Danelaw, the central belt of Anglo-Saxon territory, resulted in Northumbria becoming isolated from the rest of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Scots invasions in the north pushed the kingdom's northern boundary back to the River Tweed, and the kingdom found itself reduced to a dependent earldom, its boundaries very close to those of modern-day Northumberland and County Durham. The kingdom was annexed into England in AD 954.

 

In AD 995, St Cuthbert's community, who had been transporting Cuthbert's remains around, partly in an attempt to avoid them falling into the hands of Viking raiders, settled at Dunholm (Durham) on a site that was defensively favourable due to the horseshoe-like path of the River Wear. St Cuthbert's remains were placed in a shrine in the White Church, which was originally a wooden structure but was eventually fortified into a stone building.

 

Once the City of Durham had been founded, the Bishops of Durham gradually acquired the lands that would become County Durham. Bishop Aldhun began this process by procuring land in the Tees and Wear valleys, including Norton, Stockton, Escomb and Aucklandshire in 1018. In 1031, King Canute gave Staindrop to the Bishops. This territory continued to expand, and was eventually given the status of a liberty. Under the control of the Bishops of Durham, the land had various names: the "Liberty of Durham", "Liberty of St Cuthbert's Land" "the lands of St Cuthbert between Tyne and Tees" or "the Liberty of Haliwerfolc" (holy Wear folk).

 

The bishops' special jurisdiction rested on claims that King Ecgfrith of Northumbria had granted a substantial territory to St Cuthbert on his election to the see of Lindisfarne in 684. In about 883 a cathedral housing the saint's remains was established at Chester-le-Street and Guthfrith, King of York granted the community of St Cuthbert the area between the Tyne and the Wear, before the community reached its final destination in 995, in Durham.

 

Following the Norman invasion, the administrative machinery of government extended only slowly into northern England. Northumberland's first recorded Sheriff was Gilebert from 1076 until 1080 and a 12th-century record records Durham regarded as within the shire. However the bishops disputed the authority of the sheriff of Northumberland and his officials, despite the second sheriff for example being the reputed slayer of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scots. The crown regarded Durham as falling within Northumberland until the late thirteenth century.

 

Following the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror appointed Copsig as Earl of Northumbria, thereby bringing what would become County Durham under Copsig's control. Copsig was, just a few weeks later, killed in Newburn. Having already being previously offended by the appointment of a non-Northumbrian as Bishop of Durham in 1042, the people of the region became increasingly rebellious. In response, in January 1069, William despatched a large Norman army, under the command of Robert de Comines, to Durham City. The army, believed to consist of 700 cavalry (about one-third of the number of Norman knights who had participated in the Battle of Hastings), entered the city, whereupon they were attacked, and defeated, by a Northumbrian assault force. The Northumbrians wiped out the entire Norman army, including Comines, all except for one survivor, who was allowed to take the news of this defeat back.

 

Following the Norman slaughter at the hands of the Northumbrians, resistance to Norman rule spread throughout Northern England, including a similar uprising in York. William The Conqueror subsequently (and successfully) attempted to halt the northern rebellions by unleashing the notorious Harrying of the North (1069–1070). Because William's main focus during the harrying was on Yorkshire, County Durham was largely spared the Harrying.

 

Anglo-Norman Durham refers to the Anglo-Norman period, during which Durham Cathedral was built.

 

Matters regarding the bishopric of Durham came to a head in 1293 when the bishop and his steward failed to attend proceedings of quo warranto held by the justices of Northumberland. The bishop's case went before parliament, where he stated that Durham lay outside the bounds of any English shire and that "from time immemorial it had been widely known that the sheriff of Northumberland was not sheriff of Durham nor entered within that liberty as sheriff. . . nor made there proclamations or attachments". The arguments appear to have prevailed, as by the fourteenth century Durham was accepted as a liberty which received royal mandates direct. In effect it was a private shire, with the bishop appointing his own sheriff. The area eventually became known as the "County Palatine of Durham".

 

Sadberge was a liberty, sometimes referred to as a county, within Northumberland. In 1189 it was purchased for the see but continued with a separate sheriff, coroner and court of pleas. In the 14th century Sadberge was included in Stockton ward and was itself divided into two wards. The division into the four wards of Chester-le-Street, Darlington, Easington and Stockton existed in the 13th century, each ward having its own coroner and a three-weekly court corresponding to the hundred court. The diocese was divided into the archdeaconries of Durham and Northumberland. The former is mentioned in 1072, and in 1291 included the deaneries of Chester-le-Street, Auckland, Lanchester and Darlington.

 

The term palatinus is applied to the bishop in 1293, and from the 13th century onwards the bishops frequently claimed the same rights in their lands as the king enjoyed in his kingdom.

 

The historic boundaries of County Durham included a main body covering the catchment of the Pennines in the west, the River Tees in the south, the North Sea in the east and the Rivers Tyne and Derwent in the north. The county palatinate also had a number of liberties: the Bedlingtonshire, Islandshire and Norhamshire exclaves within Northumberland, and the Craikshire exclave within the North Riding of Yorkshire. In 1831 the county covered an area of 679,530 acres (2,750.0 km2) and had a population of 253,910. These exclaves were included as part of the county for parliamentary electoral purposes until 1832, and for judicial and local-government purposes until the coming into force of the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, which merged most remaining exclaves with their surrounding county. The boundaries of the county proper remained in use for administrative and ceremonial purposes until the Local Government Act 1972.

 

Boldon Book (1183 or 1184) is a polyptichum for the Bishopric of Durham.

 

Until the 15th century, the most important administrative officer in the Palatinate was the steward. Other officers included the sheriff, the coroners, the Chamberlain and the chancellor. The palatine exchequer originated in the 12th century. The palatine assembly represented the whole county, and dealt chiefly with fiscal questions. The bishop's council, consisting of the clergy, the sheriff and the barons, regulated judicial affairs, and later produced the Chancery and the courts of Admiralty and Marshalsea.

 

The prior of Durham ranked first among the bishop's barons. He had his own court, and almost exclusive jurisdiction over his men. A UNESCO site describes the role of the Prince-Bishops in Durham, the "buffer state between England and Scotland":

 

From 1075, the Bishop of Durham became a Prince-Bishop, with the right to raise an army, mint his own coins, and levy taxes. As long as he remained loyal to the king of England, he could govern as a virtually autonomous ruler, reaping the revenue from his territory, but also remaining mindful of his role of protecting England’s northern frontier.

 

A report states that the Bishops also had the authority to appoint judges and barons and to offer pardons.

 

There were ten palatinate barons in the 12th century, most importantly the Hyltons of Hylton Castle, the Bulmers of Brancepeth, the Conyers of Sockburne, the Hansards of Evenwood, and the Lumleys of Lumley Castle. The Nevilles owned large estates in the county. John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby rebuilt Raby Castle, their principal seat, in 1377.

 

Edward I's quo warranto proceedings of 1293 showed twelve lords enjoying more or less extensive franchises under the bishop. The repeated efforts of the Crown to check the powers of the palatinate bishops culminated in 1536 in the Act of Resumption, which deprived the bishop of the power to pardon offences against the law or to appoint judicial officers. Moreover, indictments and legal processes were in future to run in the name of the king, and offences to be described as against the peace of the king, rather than that of the bishop. In 1596 restrictions were imposed on the powers of the chancery, and in 1646 the palatinate was formally abolished. It was revived, however, after the Restoration, and continued with much the same power until 5 July 1836, when the Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 provided that the palatine jurisdiction should in future be vested in the Crown.

 

During the 15th-century Wars of the Roses, Henry VI passed through Durham. On the outbreak of the Great Rebellion in 1642 Durham inclined to support the cause of Parliament, and in 1640 the high sheriff of the palatinate guaranteed to supply the Scottish army with provisions during their stay in the county. In 1642 the Earl of Newcastle formed the western counties into an association for the King's service, but in 1644 the palatinate was again overrun by a Scottish army, and after the Battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644) fell entirely into the hands of Parliament.

 

In 1614, a Bill was introduced in Parliament for securing representation to the county and city of Durham and the borough of Barnard Castle. The bishop strongly opposed the proposal as an infringement of his palatinate rights, and the county was first summoned to return members to Parliament in 1654. After the Restoration of 1660 the county and city returned two members each. In the wake of the Reform Act of 1832 the county returned two members for two divisions, and the boroughs of Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland acquired representation. The bishops lost their secular powers in 1836. The boroughs of Darlington, Stockton and Hartlepool returned one member each from 1868 until the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.

 

The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 reformed the municipal boroughs of Durham, Stockton on Tees and Sunderland. In 1875, Jarrow was incorporated as a municipal borough, as was West Hartlepool in 1887. At a county level, the Local Government Act 1888 reorganised local government throughout England and Wales. Most of the county came under control of the newly formed Durham County Council in an area known as an administrative county. Not included were the county boroughs of Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland. However, for purposes other than local government, the administrative county of Durham and the county boroughs continued to form a single county to which the Crown appointed a Lord Lieutenant of Durham.

 

Over its existence, the administrative county lost territory, both to the existing county boroughs, and because two municipal boroughs became county boroughs: West Hartlepool in 1902 and Darlington in 1915. The county boundary with the North Riding of Yorkshire was adjusted in 1967: that part of the town of Barnard Castle historically in Yorkshire was added to County Durham, while the administrative county ceded the portion of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees in Durham to the North Riding. In 1968, following the recommendation of the Local Government Commission, Billingham was transferred to the County Borough of Teesside, in the North Riding. In 1971, the population of the county—including all associated county boroughs (an area of 2,570 km2 (990 sq mi))—was 1,409,633, with a population outside the county boroughs of 814,396.

 

In 1974, the Local Government Act 1972 abolished the administrative county and the county boroughs, reconstituting County Durham as a non-metropolitan county. The reconstituted County Durham lost territory to the north-east (around Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland) to Tyne and Wear and to the south-east (around Hartlepool) to Cleveland. At the same time it gained the former area of Startforth Rural District from the North Riding of Yorkshire. The area of the Lord Lieutenancy of Durham was also adjusted by the Act to coincide with the non-metropolitan county (which occupied 3,019 km2 (1,166 sq mi) in 1981).

 

In 1996, as part of 1990s UK local government reform by Lieutenancies Act 1997, Cleveland was abolished. Its districts were reconstituted as unitary authorities. Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees (north Tees) were returned to the county for the purposes of Lord Lieutenancy. Darlington also became a third unitary authority of the county. The Royal Mail abandoned the use of postal counties altogether, permitted but not mandatory being at a writer wishes.

 

As part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England initiated by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the seven district councils within the County Council area were abolished. The County Council assumed their functions and became the fourth unitary authority. Changes came into effect on 1 April 2009.

 

On 15 April 2014, North East Combined Authority was established under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 with powers over economic development and regeneration. In November 2018, Newcastle City Council, North Tyneside Borough Council, and Northumberland County Council left the authority. These later formed the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

 

In May 2021, four parish councils of the villages of Elwick, Hart, Dalton Piercy and Greatham all issued individual votes of no confidence in Hartlepool Borough Council, and expressed their desire to join the County Durham district.

 

In October 2021, County Durham was shortlisted for the UK City of Culture 2025. In May 2022, it lost to Bradford.

 

Eighteenth century Durham saw the appearance of dissent in the county and the Durham Ox. The county did not assist the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. The Statue of Neptune in the City of Durham was erected in 1729.

 

A number of disasters happened in Nineteenth century Durham. The Felling mine disasters happened in 1812, 1813, 1821 and 1847. The Philadelphia train accident happened in 1815. In 1854, there was a great fire in Gateshead. One of the West Stanley Pit disasters happened in 1882. The Victoria Hall disaster happened in 1883.

 

One of the West Stanley Pit disasters happened in 1909. The Darlington rail crash happened in 1928. The Battle of Stockton happened in 1933. The Browney rail crash happened in 1946.

 

The First Treaty of Durham was made at Durham in 1136. The Second Treaty of Durham was made at Durham in 1139.

 

The county regiment was the Durham Light Infantry, which replaced, in particular, the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and the Militia and Volunteers of County Durham.

 

RAF Greatham, RAF Middleton St George and RAF Usworth were located in County Durham.

 

David I, the King of Scotland, invaded the county in 1136, and ravaged much of the county 1138. In 17 October 1346, the Battle of Neville's Cross was fought at Neville's Cross, near the city of Durham. On 16 December 1914, during the First World War, there was a raid on Hartlepool by the Imperial German Navy.

 

Chroniclers connected with Durham include the Bede, Symeon of Durham, Geoffrey of Coldingham and Robert de Graystanes.

 

County Durham has long been associated with coal mining, from medieval times up to the late 20th century. The Durham Coalfield covered a large area of the county, from Bishop Auckland, to Consett, to the River Tyne and below the North Sea, thereby providing a significant expanse of territory from which this rich mineral resource could be extracted.

 

King Stephen possessed a mine in Durham, which he granted to Bishop Pudsey, and in the same century colliers are mentioned at Coundon, Bishopwearmouth and Sedgefield. Cockfield Fell was one of the earliest Landsale collieries in Durham. Edward III issued an order allowing coal dug at Newcastle to be taken across the Tyne, and Richard II granted to the inhabitants of Durham licence to export the produce of the mines, without paying dues to the corporation of Newcastle. The majority was transported from the Port of Sunderland complex, which was constructed in the 1850s.

 

Among other early industries, lead-mining was carried on in the western part of the county, and mustard was extensively cultivated. Gateshead had a considerable tanning trade and shipbuilding was undertaken at Jarrow, and at Sunderland, which became the largest shipbuilding town in the world – constructing a third of Britain's tonnage.[citation needed]

 

The county's modern-era economic history was facilitated significantly by the growth of the mining industry during the nineteenth century. At the industry's height, in the early 20th century, over 170,000 coal miners were employed, and they mined 58,700,000 tons of coal in 1913 alone. As a result, a large number of colliery villages were built throughout the county as the industrial revolution gathered pace.

 

The railway industry was also a major employer during the industrial revolution, with railways being built throughout the county, such as The Tanfield Railway, The Clarence Railway and The Stockton and Darlington Railway. The growth of this industry occurred alongside the coal industry, as the railways provided a fast, efficient means to move coal from the mines to the ports and provided the fuel for the locomotives. The great railway pioneers Timothy Hackworth, Edward Pease, George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson were all actively involved with developing the railways in tandem with County Durham's coal mining industry. Shildon and Darlington became thriving 'railway towns' and experienced significant growths in population and prosperity; before the railways, just over 100 people lived in Shildon but, by the 1890s, the town was home to around 8,000 people, with Shildon Shops employing almost 3000 people at its height.

 

However, by the 1930s, the coal mining industry began to diminish and, by the mid-twentieth century, the pits were closing at an increasing rate. In 1951, the Durham County Development Plan highlighted a number of colliery villages, such as Blackhouse, as 'Category D' settlements, in which future development would be prohibited, property would be acquired and demolished, and the population moved to new housing, such as that being built in Newton Aycliffe. Likewise, the railway industry also began to decline, and was significantly brought to a fraction of its former self by the Beeching cuts in the 1960s. Darlington Works closed in 1966 and Shildon Shops followed suit in 1984. The county's last deep mines, at Easington, Vane Tempest, Wearmouth and Westoe, closed in 1993.

 

Postal Rates from 1801 were charged depending on the distance from London. Durham was allocated the code 263 the approximate mileage from London. From about 1811, a datestamp appeared on letters showing the date the letter was posted. In 1844 a new system was introduced and Durham was allocated the code 267. This system was replaced in 1840 when the first postage stamps were introduced.

 

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911): "To the Anglo-Saxon period are to be referred portions of the churches of Monk Wearmouth (Sunderland), Jarrow, Escomb near Bishop Auckland, and numerous sculptured crosses, two of which are in situ at Aycliffe. . . . The Decorated and Perpendicular periods are very scantily represented, on account, as is supposed, of the incessant wars between England and Scotland in the 14th and 15th centuries. The principal monastic remains, besides those surrounding Durham cathedral, are those of its subordinate house or "cell," Finchale Priory, beautifully situated by the Wear. The most interesting castles are those of Durham, Raby, Brancepeth and Barnard. There are ruins of castelets or peel-towers at Dalden, Ludworth and Langley Dale. The hospitals of Sherburn, Greatham and Kepyer, founded by early bishops of Durham, retain but few ancient features."

 

The best remains of the Norman period include Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, and several parish churches, such as St Laurence Church in Pittington. The Early English period has left the eastern portion of the cathedral, the churches of Darlington, Hartlepool, and St Andrew, Auckland, Sedgefield, and portions of a few other churches.

 

'Durham Castle and Cathedral' is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Elsewhere in the County there is Auckland Castle.

Executing a go-around because of a Cessna.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Today, Thursday 9 November 2017, saw Greater Manchester Police execute warrants at addresses across the Moss Side and Hulme areas of Manchester.

 

The warrants, which were supported by the Immigration Service, were executed as part of Operation Malham targeting the supply of drugs in South Manchester.

  

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Walker, of GMP’s City of Manchester team, said: "Over the past 6 months we have had a dedicated team of detectives trawling through community concerns and information about drug supply in the Moss Side and Hulme areas.

 

“Today, we have made arrests after executing warrants across these areas and I would like to thank the community for working with us, as well as partners, and making this possible.

 

“Please continue to report anything suspicious to help us stop the criminals benefiting from drug supply and organised crime.

 

“Drugs never be tolerated by us and we are determined to bring those responsible to justice.”

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

 

Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information.

 

Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

 

Today, Thursday 9 November 2017, saw Greater Manchester Police execute warrants at addresses across the Moss Side and Hulme areas of Manchester.

 

The warrants, which were supported by the Immigration Service, were executed as part of Operation Malham targeting the supply of drugs in South Manchester.

  

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Walker, of GMP’s City of Manchester team, said: "Over the past 6 months we have had a dedicated team of detectives trawling through community concerns and information about drug supply in the Moss Side and Hulme areas.

 

“Today, we have made arrests after executing warrants across these areas and I would like to thank the community for working with us, as well as partners, and making this possible.

 

“Please continue to report anything suspicious to help us stop the criminals benefiting from drug supply and organised crime.

 

“Drugs never be tolerated by us and we are determined to bring those responsible to justice.”

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

 

Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information.

 

Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

 

 

This imposing statue of Cardinal René de Birague one of the crowning achievements of French bronze sculpture in France, was executed by Germain Pilon, at the height of his powers.

 

René de Birague (Renato Biragro) was born in Milan, then a French Duchy. After the Battle of Pavia in 1525), when the French and their sympathizers were expelled from Milan, he and his three brothers escaped to France where he had an accomplishe career in the service of the French monarchy, as an administrator, jurist, and later as a soldier. He took holy orders after his wife's death in 1572, and became a cardinal in 1578.

 

In 1573, Birague commissioned Germain Pilon, the dominant figure of late 16th-century sculpture, to sculpt the tomb of his wife Valentine Balbiani. Four years later Birague commisionned Pilon to sculpt his own effigy for a medallion now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. A year after Birague's passing in 1584, his heirs asked Pilon to sculpt a funerary vault for Sainte-Catherine-du-Val-des-écoliers in Paris. The tomb was dismantled and moved to the church of Saint-Louis-des-Jésuites when the church of Sainte-Catherine was demolished in 1783, then again dismantled during the Revolution. The praying figure, thanks to the ingenuity of Lenoir, was not melted down.

 

Pilon designed a simple and monumental tomb, with the central statue of the cardinal praying framed within an architecture of bronze and marble. The figure of Birague praying derives from that of Henry II, which Pilon had sculpted for the mausoleum of the Valois family, but here he gives it an unprecedented magnitude that makes it one of the crowning achievements of bronze sculpture. The imposing robe falling into a mass of swirling folds prolongs the figure to take up the monument's full width. The concentrated, expressive face and fimly joined hands protruding from the robe have intense presence. All decorative details that might have interfered with the overall effect have been eliminated except for the fur. The statue was orginally polychromed, perhaps because of the poor lighting in the chapel, with the red of the cardinal's robe dominating. The deceased is looking slightly sideways, a gesture which enabled those praying in the chapel to look towards the altar; this slight movement is enough to conquer the space of the viewer.

 

Pilon, who had sculpted many medallions and a series of busts of the Valois kings, was renowned for his lifelike depiction of physical traits and the psychological penetration of his portraits. He gives us here a strikngly faithful likeness of the aged face of a great man: cropped hair, prominent cheekbones, authoritarian nose, veined forehead, deep wrinkles, bags under the eyes.

Yesterday (Wednesday 11 March 2020), officers from Greater Manchester Police and the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) executed a number of warrants at Great Ducie Street, Manchester.

 

Officers from GMP and the City of London Police - the national policing lead for fraud – worked alongside UK immigration, meaning a total of 100 officers and staff members were involved in the operation.

 

The search warrant, which developed from a previous operation that involved the sale and distribution of counterfeit items, saw thousands of labels, computer equipment and cash seized.

 

Detectives are currently exploring links between the counterfeit operation and Serious Organised Crime, helping to fund criminal activity beyond Greater Manchester.

 

15 people were arrested, after officers uncovered an estimated £7.5 million worth of branded clothing, shoes and perfume suspected to be counterfeit.

 

Chief Inspector Kirsten Buggy, of GMP’s North Manchester division, said: “Yesterday’s operation is one of the largest of its kind ever carried out in the area and has taken a meticulous amount of planning and preparation.

 

“I am thankful to colleagues from the City of London Police, who as the national policing lead for fraud, have worked in partnership with officers from GMP and helped bring about yesterday’s direct action. I am also grateful to those from UK Immigration for their help.

 

“Such partnerships are absolutely vital when tackling counterfeit operations, as they bring specialisms from across the country together in a bid to make an impactive and real difference. Steps such as yesterday are often only the start when it comes to investigating the scale of these operations and we will continue to work in conjunction with the City of London’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit to tackle this type of offending to its’ very core.

 

“It is important to recognise the far-reaching and serious impact of sophisticated and large scale counterfeit operations such as this one; and I would like to take this opportunity to remind members of the public of the repercussions of this kind of offending and the link to organised criminal activity. Please be under no illusion- this type of crime is not victimless.”

 

Police staff investigator Charlotte Beattie, of the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), said:

 

“The counterfeit goods business is a deceiving one and the key message to be take away from this operation, is that counterfeiting is not a victimless crime.

 

“An individual may think that when buying counterfeit goods they are only affecting a multi-million pound brand, and won’t matter, when in fact they are helping to fund organised criminal activity. Counterfeit goods also pose a health risk to individuals as they usually are not fit for purpose or have not gone through the legal health and safety checks.

 

“Working in partnership has ensured that today’s operation has been a success. We will continue to work with Greater Manchester Police and UK Immigration to tackle the scourge of the counterfeit goods problem.”

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website. www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

 

You can access many of our services online at www.gmp.police.uk.

 

Klinkicht, Gerhard, * 1915, † 14.03.2000 Bavaria, Wehrmacht Captain. A commemorative plaque on St. Stephen's Cathedral (side of the gate Singertor) recalls that in April 1945 Klinkicht refused to execute the order to bombard the cathedral.

 

Klinkicht, Gerhard, * 1915, † 14.03.2000 Bayern, Wehrmachtshauptmann. Eine Gedenktafel am Stephansdom (Seite des Singertors) hält in Erinnerung, dass sich Klinkicht im April 1945 geweigert hatte, den Befehl zur Beschießung des Doms auszuführen.

 

Fire in St. Stephen's Cathedral: eyewitnesses cried in the face of devastation.

Despite great need after the war, the landmark of Austria was rebuilt within seven years.

04th April 2015

What happened in the heart of Vienna 70 years ago brought tears to many horrified residents. On 12 April 1945, the Pummerin, the largest bell of St. Stephen's Cathedral, fell as a result of a roof fire in the tower hall and broke to pieces. The following day, a collapsing retaining wall pierced through the vault of the southern side choir, the penetrating the cathedral fire destroyed the choir stalls and choir organ, the Imperial oratory and the rood screen cross. St. Stephen's Cathedral offered a pitiful image of senseless destruction, almost at the end of that terrible time when the Viennese asked after each bombing anxiously: "Is Steffl still standing?"

100 grenades for the cathedral

Already on April 10, the cathedral was to be razed to the ground. In retaliation for hoisting a white flag on St. Stephen's Cathedral, the dome must be reduced to rubble and ash with a fiery blast of a hundred shells. Such was the insane command of the commander of an SS Artillery Division in the already lost battle for Vienna against the Red Army.

The Wehrmacht Captain Gerhard Klinkicht, from Celle near Hanover, read the written order to his soldiers and tore the note in front of them with the words: "No, this order will not be executed."

What the SS failed to do, settled looters the day after. The most important witness of the events from April 11 to 13, became Domkurat (cathedral curate) Lothar Kodeischka (1905-1994), who, as the sacristan director of St. Stephen, was practically on the spot throughout these days. When Waffen-SS and Red Army confronted each other on the Danube Canal on April 11, according to Kodeischka a report had appeared that SS units were making a counter-attack over the Augarten Bridge. Parts of the Soviet artillery were then withdrawn from Saint Stephen's square. For hours, the central area of ​​the city center was without occupying forces. This was helped by gangs of raiders who set fire to the afflicted shops.

As a stone witness to the imperishable, the cathedral had defied all adversity for over 800 years, survived the conflagrations, siege of the Turks and the French wars, but in the last weeks of the Second World War St. Stephen was no longer spared the rage of annihilation. Contemporary witness Karl Strobl in those days observed "an old Viennese lady who wept over the burning cathedral".

The stunned spectators of destruction were joined, according to press reports, by a man in baggy trousers and a shabby hat, who incidentally remarked, "Well, we'll just have to rebuild him (the dome)." It was Cardinal Theodor Innitzer. Only a few weeks later, on May 15, 1945, the Viennese archbishop proclaimed to the faithful of his diocese: "Helping our cathedral, St. Stephen's Cathedral, to regain its original beauty is an affair of the heart of all Catholics, a duty of honor for all."

 

April 1945

In April 1945, not only St. Stephen's Cathedral burned. We did some research for you this month.

April 6: The tallest wooden structure of all time, the 190 meter high wooden tower (short-wave transmitter) of the transmitter Mühlacker, is blown up by the SS.

April 12: Following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman is sworn in as the 33rd US President.

April 13: Vienna Operation: Soviet troops conquer Vienna.

April 25: Björn Ulvaeus, Swedish singer, member of the ABBA group, is born.

April 27: The provisional government Renner proclaims the Austrian declaration of independence.

April 30: The Red Army hoists the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building. Adolf Hitler, the dictator of the Third Reich, commits suicide with Eva Braun.

 

Brand im Stephansdom: Augenzeugen weinten angesichts der Verwüstung.

Trotz großer Not nach dem Krieg wurde das Wahrzeichen Österreichs binnen sieben Jahren wieder aufgebaut.

04. April 2015

Was vor 70 Jahren im Herzen Wiens passierte, trieb vielen entsetzten Bewohnern die Tränen in die Augen. Am 12. April 1945 stürzte die Pummerin, die größte Glocke des Stephansdoms, als Folge eines Dachbrandes in die Turmhalle herab und zerbrach. Tags darauf durchschlug eine einbrechende Stützmauer das Gewölbe des südlichen Seitenchors, das in den Dom eindringende Feuer zerstörte Chorgestühl und Chororgel, Kaiseroratorium und Lettnerkreuz. Der Stephansdom bot ein erbarmungswürdiges Bild sinnloser Zerstörung, und das fast am Ende jener Schreckenszeit, in der die Wiener nach jedem Bombenangriff bang fragten: "Steht der Steffl noch?"

100 Granaten für den Dom

Bereits am 10. April sollte der Dom dem Erdboden gleichgemacht werden. Als Vergeltung für das Hissen einer weißen Fahne auf dem Stephansdom ist der Dom mit einem Feuerschlag von 100 Granaten in Schutt und Asche zu legen. So lautete der wahnwitzige Befehl des Kommandanten einer SS-Artillerieabteilung im schon verlorenen Kampf um Wien gegen die Rote Armee.

Der aus Celle bei Hannover stammende Wehrmachtshauptmann Gerhard Klinkicht las die schriftlich übermittelte Anordnung seinen Soldaten vor und zerriss den Zettel vor aller Augen mit den Worten: "Nein, dieser Befehl wird nicht ausgeführt."

Was der SS nicht gelang, besorgten einen Tag später Plünderer: Zum wichtigsten Zeugen der Geschehnisse vom 11. bis 13. April wurde Domkurat Lothar Kodeischka (1905–1994), der als Sakristeidirektor von St. Stephan in diesen Tagen praktisch durchgehend an Ort und Stelle war. Als am 11. April Waffen-SS und Rote Armee einander am Donaukanal gegenüberstanden, war laut Kodeischka die Nachricht aufgetaucht, SS-Einheiten würden einen Gegenstoß über die Augartenbrücke unternehmen. Teile der sowjetischen Artillerie wurden daraufhin vom Stephansplatz abgezogen. Für Stunden sei der zentrale Bereich der Innenstadt ohne Besatzung gewesen. Dies nützten Banden von Plünderern, die Feuer in den heimgesuchten Geschäften legten.

Als steinerner Zeuge des Unvergänglichen hatte der Dom über 800 Jahre hinweg "allen Widrigkeiten getrotzt, hatte Feuersbrünste, Türkenbelagerungen und Franzosenkriege überstanden. Doch in den letzten Wochen des Zweiten Weltkrieges blieb auch St. Stephan nicht mehr verschont vor der Wut der Vernichtung. Zeitzeuge Karl Strobl beobachtete damals "eine alte Wienerin, die über den brennenden Dom weinte".

Zu den fassungslosen Betrachtern der Zerstörung gesellte sich laut Presseberichten ein Mann in ausgebeulten Hosen und mit abgeschabtem Hut, der so nebenbei bemerkte: "Na, wir werden ihn (den Dom) halt wieder aufbauen müssen." Es handelte sich um Kardinal Theodor Innitzer. Nur wenige Wochen danach, am 15. Mai 1945, ließ der Wiener Erzbischof an die Gläubigen seiner Diözese verlautbaren: "Unsere Kathedrale, den Stephansdom, wieder in seiner ursprünglichen Schönheit erstehen zu helfen, ist eine Herzenssache aller Katholiken, eine Ehrenpflicht aller."

 

April 1945

Im April 1945 brannte nicht nur der Stephansdom. Wir haben für Sie recherchiert wa noch in diesem Monat geschah.

6. April: Das höchste Holzbauwerk aller Zeiten, der 190 Meter hohe Holzsendeturm des Senders Mühlacker, wird von der SS gesprengt.

12. April: Nach dem Tod von Präsident Franklin D. Roosevelt wird Harry S. Truman als 33. Präsident der USA vereidigt.

13. April: Wiener Operation: Sowjetischen Truppen erobern Wien.

25. April: Björn Ulvaeus, schwedischer Sänger, Mitglied der Gruppe ABBA, kommt zur Welt.

27. April: Von der provisorischen Regierung Renner wird die österreichische Unabhängigkeitserklärung proklamiert.

30. April: Die Rote Armee hisst die sowjetische Fahne auf dem Reichstagsgebäude. Adolf Hitler, der Diktator des Dritten Reiches, begeht mit Eva Braun Selbstmord.

www.nachrichten.at/nachrichten/150jahre/ooenachrichten/Vo...

This weekend was Heritage and Ride & Stride weekend, when many churches are open.

 

So, a grand tour round Kent's most difficult was planned and executed, with this being the first church of the day open, after four strike outs.

 

St Alphege is just the chancel of a larger church, so there isn't much to see, or room inside, but I got my shots and declined my first cuppa of the day.

 

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Hidden from the road and accessible only by footpath, this 13th century gem is a remarkable survivor. It is the chancel of the medieval church of Seasalter, the rest of which was demolished when the new church of St Alphege was built in what is now Whitstable. The west wall of flint is in contrast to the rubble construction of the medieval work and its lancet windows. Inside, all is squashed together but they even managed to get a proper organ in! High in the west wall is a lovely window by Lawrence Lee depicting St Alphege whose body rested in the previous church which stood out where the River Swale washes the shore today. This old church is still used and well loved by its congregation who now also have a brand new (2007) church a few hundred yards away for there regular services.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Seasalter

 

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THE LIBERTY AND PARISH OF SEASALTER.

THIS liberty lies adjoining to the parish of Hernehill and hundred of Boughton Blean, north eastward, being so named from its near vicinity to the sea. (fn. 1)

 

The LIBERTY AND PARISH of Seasalter lies in an obscure out of the way situation, bounded by the sea northward, but the large tract of marshes which adjoin it westward, as well as the badness of the water, make it very unhealthy. The east and southern parts are mostly coppice wood, and the soil a deep clay. The church stands on the knoll of a hill, nearly in the middle of the parish, below which, westward, it is all marsh land to the sea shore, not far from which the few houses stand which make the village of Seasalter. There are forty-six houses in this parish, most of which are in Whitstaple-street, great part of which is within the bounds of it, and over part of which the borough of Harwich claims. There is an oyster fishery on the shore here, the grounds of which, called the Pollard, are an appendage to the manor of Seasalter, and as such belong to the dean and chapter of Canterbury, who demise them to seven fishermen or free dredgermen of Seasalter, at a certain yearly rent. In December, 1763, a live whale was driven on shore on Seasalter flats, which was about fifty-six feet long. The manor of Seasalter has the privilege of four fairs yearly, on the four principal feasts in the year; but there have not been any held for some years.

 

The MANOR OF SEASALTER was given, before the Norman conquest, to the priory of Christ-church, in Canterbury, but by whom, I have no where found; and it continued part of the possessions of it at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in which record it is thus entered:

 

In Borowart lath, there lies a small borough named Sesaltre, which properly belongs to the kitchen of the archbishop. One named Blize held it of the monks. In demesne there is one carucate, and forty-eight borderers with one carucate. There is a church and eight fisheries, with a rent of twenty-five shillings. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth twenty-five shillings, and now one hundred shillings.

 

After which, this manor appears to have been let to ferme by the prior and convent, to Roger de Wadenhale, in king Henry the IId.'s reign, at the yearly rent of six pounds, with a reservation of all royal fish, wrec, &c. and afterwards to Clemencia, daughter of Henry de Hanifeld, at that of ten marcs, which rent was afterwards raised to twenty pounds per annum. In 1494, prior Thomas Goldstone caused a new mansion, or court-lodge to be built here, and at the rectory he rebuilt all the edifices, except the barn. In which situa tion this manor continued with the priory till its dissolution, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it was surrendered into the king's hands, and was by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, settled on his newfounded dean and chapter of Canterbury, with whom the inheritance still continues. (fn. 2)

 

A court leet and court baron is regularly held by the dean and chapter for this manor; but the demesne lands, as well as the rectory or parsonage of the church, were lately demised on a beneficial lease to Isaac Rutton, M. D. of Ashford, who died in 1792, whose descendants assigned them to Mr. William Baldock, brewer, of Canterbury, and they were again assigned by him in 1798, to Mr. King, of Whitstaple. (fn. 3)

 

ELYNDENNE, or Ellenden, as it is now written, is a small manor, situated at the southern boundary of this parish, among the woods adjoining to the ville of Dunkirk, within the bounds of which, one half of the house, as well as part of the lands are situated, though in the deeds belonging to this manor, it is constantly described as within this parish and Whitstaple. It was once the property of a family of its own name, one of whom, John Elyndenne, gave it to the abbot and convent of Faversham, as appeared by the lerger book of that abbey, (fn. 4) with which it staid till its dissolution, anno 30 Henry VIII. when this manor came, with the rest of its estates, into the king's hands, who in his 35th year granted it to Thomas Ardern, gent. of Faversham, to hold in capite, (fn. 5) and he that year passed it away to John Needham, whose son, of the same name, alienated it, in the 32d year of queen Elizabeth, to Michael Beresford, esq. of Westerham, and he soon after conveyed it to Sir George Newman, LL.D. in whose descendants, who bore for their arms, Or, a fess dancette, gules, between three eagles, sable, (fn. 6) it continued till it was alienated to St. Leger, and Sir John St. Leger, in the reign of William and Mary, passed it away to Sir Henry Furnese, bart. of Waldershare, who died possessed of it in 1712, but his grandson Sir Henry Furnese, bart. dying in 1735, under age and unmarried, this, among the rest of his estates, became vested in his three sisters, coheirs of their father, in equal shares in coparcenary, in tail general, and on a partition anno 9 George II. this manor was allotted, among others, to Anne the eldest daughter, wife of John, viscount St. John, whose grandson the right hon. George St. John, lord viscount Bolingbrooke, sold it in 1791 to Mr. John Daniels, of Whitstaple, and he in 1793 sold it to Mr. Hayward, of the Black Friars, Canterbury, who dying in the year 1794, his widow is the present possessor of it.

 

Charities.

THERE have been given to the use of the poor of this parish, five acres of land, late occupied by Fenner, of the annual produce of 3l. a field of three acres, called the Peters field, of the annual produce of 2l. 6s. four acres of land, in two pieces, of the annual produce of 4l. and two acres of woodland, sold in 1785 at eighteen years growth for 6l. sundry yearly annuities, of 2s. 6d. of 40s paid by the parish of Whitstaple, and of 12s. paid by Mrs Gillow.

 

The poor constantly maintained are about twenty, casually one hundred.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Westbere.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. Alphage, is small, consisting of only one isle and a chancel, having a low pointed turret of wood at the west end, in which hangs one bell. There is no memorial or inscription in it. In the north window of the isle are some small remains of painted glass. There are two hatchments in the isle, one, Argent, two bends wavy, on a chief, gules, three estoiles, or; the other the same, impaling, Paly bendy, or, and sable, a bend, counterchanged, which were for the family of Taylor, who once owned lands in this parish, and lie buried in this church. There is a gallery at the west end.

 

By the great storm, which happened on Jan. 1, 1779, there was discovered among the beach on the sea shore, at Codhams corner, about half a mile westward of the present church, the stone foundations of a large long buildings, lying due east and west, supposed to have been the remains of the antient church of Seasalter. Many human bones were likewise uncovered, by the shifting of the beach, both within and about it, all of which that could be found, were collected together and buried in the church-yard of Seasalter; but those which have been since uncovered remain at this time sticking up an end among the beach.

 

¶This church was always appendant to the manor of Seasalter, belonging to the priory of Christ church, to which it was appropriated in 1236, for the maintenance of the monks there, and was by the archbishop afterwards allotted to the almonry. In which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, who settled it, with the advowson of the vicarage and the manor, by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new-founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions they still continue.

 

In the 8th year of Richard II. anno 1384, the vicarage of this church was not, on account of the smallness of its income, taxed to the tenth. It is valued in the king's books at 11l. but it is now a discharged living, of the clear yearly certified value of 25l. 19s. 8d. In 1588 here were communicants seventy-six. In 1640 the same, and it was then valued at 60l.

 

Among the archives of the dean and chapter is an examination relating to the bounds of the parishes of Seasalter and Hernehill, anno 1481, and another taken the same year by the archbishop's commissary. (fn. 7)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol8/pp499-504

 

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A liberty was an English unit originating in the Middle Ages, traditionally defined as an area in which regalian right was revoked and where the land was held by a mesne lord (i.e. an area in which rights reserved to the king had been devolved into private hands). It later became a unit of local government administration.[1]

 

Liberties were areas of widely variable extent which were independent of the usual system of hundreds and boroughs for a number of different reasons, usually to do with peculiarities of tenure. Because of their tenurial rather than geographical origin, the areas covered by liberties could either be widely scattered across a county or limited to an area smaller than a single parish: an example of the former is Fordington Liberty, and of the latter, the Liberty of Waybayouse, both in Dorset.

 

In northern England, the liberty of Bowland was one of the larger tenurial configurations covering some ten manors, eight townships and four parishes under the sway of a single feudal lord, the Lord of Bowland, whose customary title is Lord of the Fells.[2][3] Up until 1660, such lords would have been lords paramount.

 

Legislation passed in 1836 ended the temporal jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely in several liberties, and the Liberties Act 1850 permitted the merging of liberties in their counties. By 1867, only a handful remained: Ely, Havering-atte-Bower, St Albans, Peterborough, Ripon and Haverfordwest. St Albans was subsequently joined to the county of Hertfordshire in 1875.

 

The Local Government Act 1888 led to the ending of the special jurisdictions in April 1889: the Isle of Ely and Soke of Peterborough became administrative counties, while the three remaining liberties were united to their surrounding counties.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_(division)

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Paul Cézanne's Achille Emperaire was executed from 1867 to 1868.

 

Born in Aix, like Cézanne who was his elder by ten years, Achille Emperaire was also an artist. The two men met in Charles Suisse's studio in Paris in the early 1860s and were close friends for at least a decade.

 

Cézanne often spoke fondly of the companion of his youth saying: "He's a very talented boy and nothing in the art of the Venetians has been lost on him. I have often seen him do as well!" Unfortunately, out of money and luck, Achille Emperaire failed to establish a reputation and all that survives of him are a small number of rather spirited works.

 

A contemporary reported that in the two charcoal sketches made before the painted portrait of Achille, we see "a magnificent knight's head, in the style of Van Dyck", and sense "a burning soul, nerves of steel, and iron pride in a misshapen body [...], a cross between Don Quixote and Prometheus."

 

In the painting, on the contrary, Cézanne emphasises Emperaire's sickliness and deformed body. However, far from being a caricature, the work plays on its monumental format – the frontal view, the majestic chair and the ostentatious inscription echo Ingres' Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne, right down to the pun on Emperor/Emperaire.

 

Going beyond the lessons in realism learnt from artists such as Courbet and Manet, Cézanne's vision is here infused with a raw kind of romanticism, which marks the apogee of this period that the master of Aix himself described as "ballsy".

 

The Musée d'Orsay (The Orsay Museum), housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay, holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist masterpieces by popular painters such as Monet and Renoir. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986.

ΤΟ ΜΑΥΣΩΛΕΙΟ ΤΩΝ ΕΘΝΟΜΑΡΤΥΡΩΝ - The mausoleum of the Ethnomartyrs.

 

This monument lies some metres away from Phaneromeni Church in Nicosia, Cyprus! It was erected in 1921, exactly 100 years after the 9th of July 1821! Here are burried Archbishop Kyprianos (head of the Cypriot Orthodox Church), Chrysanthos (bishop of Paphos), Meletios (bishop of Kition) and Lavrentios of (bishop of Kyrenia). These 4 were executed in the 9th of July 1821 among with 470 others by the Ottoman rulers of the island when the Greek population of the island try to help the Greeks in mainland Greece in the Independence war (When the Greek War of Independence broke out on March 25, 1821, Cypriots left in large numbers to fight on the Greek mainland while proclamations were distributed in every corner of the island. The local pasha, Kucuk Mehmet, reacted with fury, calling in reinforcements, confiscating weapons, arresting and executing several prominent Cypriots). The Ottoman occupation of the island came to an end in 1878 (in all it lasted for 307 years) when the United Kingdom took over the government of Cyprus as a protectorate as the result of the Cyprus Convention, in which the Ottoman Empire granted control of the island to the British in return for their support in the Russian-Turkish War.

 

Vassilis Michaelides wrote an epic poem (in Cyprus dialect) about the above incident and below is the most famous and important part of it where Archbishop Kyprianos (Bishop) answers to the Turk Kucuk Mehmet(Mousellim-Aga) and says that the Greek race will not be vanished by Turks or anyone else, but it will vanish only when the world ends!

 

9. The Greek Race

(Romiosyni)

 

"Bishop, I never do change my mind,

and however much you say don't think that I'll believe you.

My mind is made up, Bishop, to slaughter, and to hang,

and, if I can, to clean Cyprus of the Greeks,

and even more, if I could rove the world,

I would slaughter all Greeks, not a soul would I leave alive."

"The Greeks are a race as old as the world,

noone has lived to annihilate it,

noone, because God shelters it from up high.

The Greek race will vanish, when the world ends!

 

Slaughter us all and let our blood gush like a river,

make the world a slaughterhouse and the Greeks herds of sheep,

but be warned that when the aging poplar is cut down

all around it three hundred new sprouts shoot up.

The share while ploughing the earth, thinks the earth is wasted,

but it is itself that's always wasted and itself that's worn out.

You are full of malice, and if you want to butcher,

butcher those who are fighting abroad and are armed.

Us who are empty handed, why should you harm us,

us who are unarmed and peaceful?"

 

Then Mousellim-Aga raised his eyes,

and looked at him with a winsome glance, and then began to say :

"Whatever man suffers it's because of his own head,

the prudent saves his life from the sword,

and you, if you are prudent, can also save your life."

"Say no more, for I've understood before you finished talking,

stop struggling to drain the sea.

Don't waste your words for you'll be late to your work.

Can you put out the sun with a puff?

Call your hangman, get your gallows ready!"

(•) – The Lockheed Martin HC-130J Hercules The Combat King II is the U.S. Air Force's only dedicated fixed-wing personnel recovery platform and is flown by the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) and Air Combat Command (ACC). This C-130J variation specializes in tactical profiles and avoiding detection and recovery operations in austere environments. The HC-130J replaces HC-130P/Ns as the only dedicated fixed-wing Personnel Recovery platform in the Air Force inventory. It is an extended-range version of the C-130J Hercules transport. Its mission is to rapidly deploy to execute combatant commander directed recovery operations to austere airfields and denied territory for expeditionary, all weather personnel recovery operations to include airdrop, airland, helicopter air-to-air refueling, and forward area ground refueling missions. When tasked, the aircraft also conducts humanitarian assistance operations, disaster response, security cooperation/aviation advisory, emergency aeromedical evacuation, and noncombatant evacuation operations.

 

Features

Modifications to the HC-130J have improved navigation, threat detection and countermeasures systems. The aircraft fleet has a fully-integrated inertial navigation and global positioning systems, and night vision goggle, or NVG, compatible interior and exterior lighting. It also has forward-looking infrared, radar and missile warning receivers, chaff and flare dispensers, satellite and data-burst communications, and the ability to receive fuel inflight via a Universal Aerial Refueling Receptacle Slipway Installation (UARRSI).

 

The HC-130J can fly in the day; however, crews normally fly night at low to medium altitude levels in contested or sensitive environments, both over land or overwater. Crews use NVGs for tactical flight profiles to avoid detection to accomplish covert infiltration/exfiltration and transload operations. To enhance the probability of mission success and survivability near populated areas, crews employ tactics that include incorporating no external lighting or communications, and avoiding radar and weapons detection.

 

Drop zone objectives are done via personnel drops and equipment drops. Rescue bundles include illumination flares, marker smokes and rescue kits. Helicopter air-to-air refueling can be conducted at night, with blacked out communication with up to two simultaneous helicopters. Additionally, forward area refueling point operations can be executed to support a variety of joint and coalition partners.

 

Background

The HC-130J is a result of the HC/MC-130 recapitalization program and replaces Air Combat Command's aging HC-130P/N fleet as the dedicated fixed-wing personnel recovery platform in the Air Force inventory. The 71st and 79th Rescue Squadrons in Air Combat Command, the 550th Special Operations Squadron in Air Education and Training Command, the 920th Rescue Group in Air Force Reserve Command and the 106th Rescue Wing, 129th RQW and 176th Wing in the Air National Guard will operate the aircraft.

 

First flight was 29 July 2010, and the aircraft will serve the many roles and missions of the HC-130P/Ns. It is a modified KC-130J aircraft designed to conduct personnel recovery missions, provide a command and control platform, in-flight-refuel helicopters and carry supplemental fuel for extending range or air refueling.

 

In April 2006, the personnel recovery mission was transferred back to Air Combat Command at Langley AFB, Va. From 2003 to 2006, the mission was under the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Fla. Previously, HC-130s were assigned to ACC from 1992 to 2003. They were first assigned to the Air Rescue Service as part of Military Airlift Command.

 

General Characteristics

Primary function: Fixed-wing Personnel Recovery platform

Contractor: Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

Power Plant: Four Rolls Royce AE2100D3 turboprop engines

Thrust: 4,591 Propeller Shaft Horsepower, each engine

Wingspan: 132 feet, 7 inches (40.4 meters)

Length: 97 feet, 9 inches (29.57 meters)

Height: 38 feet, 9 inches (11.58 meters)

Operating Weight: 89,000 pounds (40,369 kilograms)

Maximum Takeoff Weight: 164,000 pounds (74,389 kilograms)

Fuel Capacity: 61,360 pounds (9,024 gallons)

Payload: 35,000 pounds (15,875 kilograms)

Speed: 316 knots indicated air speed at sea level

Range: beyond 4,000 miles (3,478 nautical miles)

Ceiling: 33,000 feet (10,000 meters)

Armament: countermeasures/flares, chaff

Basic Crew: Three officers (pilot, co-pilot, combat system officer) and two enlisted loadmasters

Unit Cost: $66 million (fiscal 2010 replacement cost)

Initial operating capability: 2013.

 

The Fairchild Republic A-10-C Warthog The Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin turbofan engine, straight wing jet aircraft developed by Fairchild-Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). Commonly referred to by its nicknames Warthog or Hog, its official name comes from the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, a World War II fighter that was effective at attacking ground targets. The A-10 was designed for close-in support of ground troops, close air support (CAS), and providing quick-action support for troops against helicopters and ground forces. It entered service in 1976 and is the only production-built aircraft that has served in the USAF that was designed solely for CAS. Its secondary mission is to provide forward air controller – airborne (FAC-A) support, by directing other aircraft in attacks on ground targets. Aircraft used primarily in this role are designated OA-10.

 

The A-10 was intended to improve on the performance of the A-1 Skyraider and its poor firepower. The A-10 was designed around the 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon. Its airframe was designed for durability, with measures such as 1,200 pounds (540 kg) of titanium armor to protect the cockpit and aircraft systems, enabling it to absorb a significant amount of damage and continue flying. Its short takeoff and landing capability permits operation from airstrips close to the front lines, and its simple design enables maintenance with minimal facilities. The A-10 served in Operation Desert Shield, and Operation Desert Storm, the American intervention against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, where the A-10 distinguished itself. The A-10 also participated in other conflicts such as Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and against ISIL in the Middle East.

The A-10A single-seat variant was the only version produced, though one pre-production airframe was modified into the YA-10B twin-seat prototype to test an all-weather night capable version. In 2005, a program was started to upgrade remaining A-10A aircraft to the A-10C configuration with modern avionics for use of precision weaponry. The U.S. Air Force had stated the F-35 would replace the A-10 as it entered service, but this remains highly contentious within the Air Force and in political circles. With a variety of upgrades and wing replacements, the A-10's service life may be extended to 2040.

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Officers from Titan - the North West Regional Crime Unit - and Greater Manchester Police have taken part in raids targeting people suspected of being involved in a £300 million pound drugs conspiracy.

 

Police executed warrants at a number of addresses in Altrincham, Prestwich, Salford and Bolton in the early hours of Wednesday 2 July 2014.

 

A quantity of cash and drugs have been seized and are being examined to identify what they are.

 

Eight men were arrested on suspicion of drugs trafficking offences and three women were arrested on suspicion of possessing Class B drugs.

 

This morning’s raids have been part of an extensive investigation into the supply of Class A, B and C drugs across the North West by officers from Titan.

 

Detective Superintendent Jason Hudson, Titan’s head of operations said: "The coordinated arrests this morning come as a result of an intensive and painstaking 12 month long investigation by my team.

 

“Our actions have delivered a massive blow against the organised criminals operating in the Manchester and North West region, and we continue to send a strong message to others involved in this type of crime that we will act on information we receive and we will be knocking on your door.

 

“We remain committed to tackling those involved in drugs offences by dismantling their hierachies and putting those involved before the courts.

 

"I would urge decent, law-abiding members of the community who have information about criminality where they live to share that information with their local police force or Crimestoppers so that positive action can be taken."

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the new national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

 

Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

 

This portrait of John Jay (Catalog Number INDE14086) was executed by an unidentified artist, modeled after a John Trumbull portrait, circa 1875.

 

John Jay (1745 – 1829) was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, and jurist. Considered one of the "founding fathers" of the United States, Jay served in the Continental Congress, and was elected President of that body. During and after the American Revolution, he was a minister (ambassador) to Spain and France, helping to fashion American foreign policy and to secure favorable peace terms from the British and French. He co-wrote the Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Jay served on the U.S. Supreme Court as the first Chief Justice of the United States from 1789 to 1795. In 1794 he negotiated the Jay Treaty with the British. A leader of the new Federalist party, Jay was elected Governor of New York state, 1795-1801. He was the leading opponent of slavery and the slave trade in New York. His first attempt to pass emancipation legislation failed in 1777, and failed again in 1785, but he succeeded in 1799, signing the law that eventually emancipated the slaves of New York; the last were freed before his death.

 

The Second Bank of the United States, at 420 Chestnut Street, was chartered five years after the expiration of the First Bank of the United States in 1816 to keep inflation in check following the War of 1812. The Bank served as the depository for Federal funds until 1833, when it became the center of bitter controversy between bank president Nicholas Biddle and President Andrew Jackson. The Bank, always a privately owned institution, lost its Federal charter in 1836, and ceased operations in 1841. The Greek Revival building, built between 1819 and 1824 and modeled by architect William Strickland after the Parthenon, continued for a short time to house a banking institution under a Pennsylvania charter. From 1845 to 1935 the building served as the Philadelphia Customs House. Today it is open, free to the public, and features the "People of Independence" exhibit--a portrait gallery with 185 paintings of Colonial and Federal leaders, military officers, explorers and scientists, including many by Charles Willson Peale.

 

Independence National Historical Park preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution. Administered by the National Park Service, the 45-acre park was authorized in 1948, and established on July 4, 1956. The Second Bank of the United States was added to the Park's properties in 2006.

 

Second Bank of the United States National Register #87001293 (1987)

Independence National Park Historic District National Register #66000675 (1966)

KIRBY MUXLOE CASTLE, KNOWN ALSO AS KIRBY CASTLE IS AN UNFINISHED 15TH CENTURY FORTIFIED MANOR HOUSE IN KIRBY MUXLOE, LEICESTERSHIRE. THE MANSION WAS LEFT UNFINISHED WHEN ITS OWNER WAS EXECUTED FOR TREASON. THE OWNER WAS WILLIAM, LORD HASTINGS, WHO BEGAN WORK ON KIRBY MUXLOE CASTLE IN 1480, CREATING A FORTIFIED HOUSE OF RED BRICK SURROUNDED BY A WIDE MOAT. THERE WAS ALREADY A 14TH CENTURY HOUSE ON THE SITE, BUILT BY THE PAKEMAN FAMILY, WHEN HASTINGS BEGAN HIS CASTLE. FOUNDATIONS OF THAT FIRST HOUSE CAN BE SEEN WITHIN THE CASTLE ENCLOSURE. THE HASTINGS FAMILY GAINED OWNERSHIP OF THE KIRBY MUXLOE ESTATE IN 1460, AND LORD HASTINGS DEMOLISHED MUCH OF THE EARLIER HOUSE IN ORDER TO USE THE STONE TO BUILD HIS NEW CASTLE.

WORK HAD ONLY BEEN GOING ON FOR THREE YEARS WHEN LORD HASTINGS WAS CAUGHT UP IN THE TRANSITION OF POWER FROM EDWARD IV TO RICHARD III. HASTINGS HAD BEEN A FIRM A FAVOURITE OF EDWARD, AND ACTUALLY SUPPORTED RICHARD'S CLAIM TO THE THRONE. SO IT CAME AS SOME SURPRISE WHEN, IN JUNE 1483, RICHARD HAD HASTINGS SUDDENLY SEIZED, CHARGED WITH TREASON, AND SUMMARILY EXECUTED. ONE THEORY IS THAT HASTINGS REFUSED TO SUPPORT RICHARD'S PLANS TO KILL HIS YOUNG NEPHEWS, THE SO-CALLED PRINCES IN THE TOWER. WHILE WE WILL PROBABLY NEVER KNOW THE TRUE REASONS FOR HASTING'S EXECUTION, THE EFFECT ON KIRBY MUXLOE CASTLE WAS DRAMATIC. WORK DID NOT CEASE IMMEDIATELY, FOR LADY HASTINGS CONTINUED CONSTRUCTION FOR A BRIEF TIME, BUT ACTIVITY PETERED OUT AFTER 1484 AND ONLY SPORADIC WORK WAS EVER DONE AFTER THAT POINT, AND EVENTUALLY THE SITE WAS ABANDONED.

THE CASTLE SITE IS ENTERED BY WAY OF AN IMPOSING GATEHOUSE, AND A STRONG THREE STORY TOWER STANDS SILENT WATCH OVER THE MOAT. THE MOAT ENCLOSES A SITE 110 METRES LONG AND 90 METRES WIDE, WHILE THE ISLAND UPON WHICH THE CASTLE STANDS IS 80 METRES BY 60 METRES. THE GATEHOUSE AND WEST TOWER ARE IN RED BRICK DRESSED WITH STONE, MAKING THIS ONE OF THE FIRST GROUPS OF BRICK BUILDINGS IN THE MIDLANDS. HARDER WEARING STONE IS USED FOR BOTH DOOR AND WINDOW SURROUNDS, HOWEVER.

THE GATEHOUSE IS VERY STRIKING; IT IS ONE OF THE FIRST IN ENGLAND TO HAVE GUNPORTS FOR FIRING AT ATTACKERS. SEVERAL OF THE GUNPORTS ARE BELOW THE WATERLINE, OUT OF SIGHT TO MODERN VISITORS. WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING GUNPORTS UNDER WATER? PRESUMABLY THEY WERE INTENDED FOR USE WHEN WATER LEVELS IN THE MOAT WERE LOW. THERE IS A LARGE, EMPTY PANEL OVER THE ENTRANCE ARCHWAY, PREPARED FOR LORD HASTINGS COAT OF ARMS, BUT THE CARVINGS WERE NEVER ADDED BEFORE THE OWNER'S DEATH LED TO BUILDING WORK BEING ABANDONED. THE GATEHOUSE IS REACHED BY A DRAWBRIDGE OVER THE MOAT, AND THE GATEWAY PASSAGE IS FURTHER DEFENDED BY A PORTCULLIS AND TWO SETS OF GATES.

THE SITE IS A ROUGH OBLONG, RATHER THAN A SQUARE PLAN LIKE ASHBY CASTLE. ONE PART OF THE CASTLE THAT WAS COMPLETE IS THE LOVELY CORNER TOWER, STANDING THREE STOREYS HIGH, WITH A SPIRAL STAIR RISING TO A CRENELLATED PARAPET WALK. THE STAIR IS MADE OF BRICK; ONE OF THE EARLIEST AND MOST IMPRESSIVE USE OF BRICK FOR A STAIRCASE IN ENGLAND.

 

Operation Vulcan executed their latest warrant yesterday (3 May 2023) at a property on Great Ducie Street in Cheetham Hill.

 

The warrant was carried out after intelligence came to light suggesting the property - a large distribution warehouse - was being used to supply a network of counterfeit stores throughout Cheetham Hill.

 

The number of items seized have an estimated worth of £1.2million pounds.

 

The enterprise was so vast officers made use of a conveyor belt to speed up the transfer of seized items into waiting vehicles.

 

Over the last 6 months through relentless policing and support from dedicated partners, Operation Vulcan has turned the tide against the criminals. The support of partners has been integral to Operation Vulcan and that was on full display yesterday (3 May 2023) with over 15 departments, teams, organisations and partner representatives in attendance - including from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, Intellectual Property Office, Trading Standards, Brand Experts and Border Force.

 

GMFRS also raised concerns about the safety of the building, which led to it being issued it with a prohibition order.

 

Inspector Andy Torkington said: "The network of counterfeit stores in Cheetham Hill might seem chaotic and disorganised but this is far from the truth. The latest warrant demonstrates that these stores are well funded and well supplied and it's big business for organised crime groups who have been operating out of the area.

 

"This warrant is an opportunity to make a huge dent in the supply chain by cutting off the head of the supply snake. I hope it sends a message to any remaining counterfeit stores in the area who persist in trading to pack up now or face the consequences.

 

"Operation Vulcan is here to stay and we will continue making it unsustainable for criminal businesses to exist here and will work shoulder-to-shoulder with our partners to re-build the area into a thriving community where people feel safe.”

 

Neil Fairlamb, Strategic Director of Neighbourhoods for Manchester City Council said: "The work that has taken place throughout Operation Vulcan has shown the scope and scale of the counterfeit industry. It is huge enterprise, one which has had an incredibly negative impact on our communities. By striking a blow against this criminal supply chain we will succeed in forcing these traders out for good."

 

The Intellectual Property Office’s Deputy Director of Intelligence and Law Enforcement, Marcus Evans said: The Intellectual Property Office’s Deputy Director of Intelligence and Law Enforcement, Marcus Evans said: “Criminal networks are seeking to exploit consumers and communities for their own financial gain through the trade in illegal counterfeits – with absolutely no regard for the quality or safety of the items being sold, which are often dangerous and defective. Such items can cause genuine harm to the people who buy and use them, as well as those workers often exploited during their production.

 

“As well as helping to sustain serious and organised crime, the sale of counterfeit goods has been estimated to contribute to over 80,000 job loses each year in the UK by diverting funds away from legitimate traders and into the hands of criminals. We are pleased to support the ongoing activity by Greater Manchester Police to clamp down on this illegal activity and help protect the public, as we continue to work with partners across in industry, local government, and law enforcement to help empower consumers and raise awareness of the damage these goods cause.”

Detail of the Baptistry Window, a masterpiece of abstract stained glass designed by John Piper and executed by Patrick Reyntiens.

 

Coventry's Cathedral is a unique synthesis of old a new, born of wartime suffering and forged in the spirit of postwar optimism, famous for it's history and for being the most radically modern of Anglican cathedrals. Two cathedral's stand side by side, the ruins of the medieval building, destroyed by incendiary bombs in 1940 and the bold new building designed by Basil Spence and opened in 1962.

 

It is a common misconception that Coventry lost it's first cathedral in the wartime blitz, but the bombs actually destroyed it's second; the original medieval cathedral was the monastic St Mary's, a large cruciform building believed to have been similar in appearance to Lichfield Cathedral (whose diocese it shared). Tragically it became the only English cathedral to be destroyed during the Reformation, after which it was quickly quarried away, leaving only scant fragments, but enough evidence survives to indicate it's rich decoration (some pieces were displayed nearby in the Priory Visitors Centre, sadly since closed). Foundations of it's apse were found during the building of the new cathedral in the 1950s, thus technically three cathedrals share the same site.

 

The mainly 15th century St Michael's parish church became the seat of the new diocese of Coventry in 1918, and being one of the largest parish churches in the country it was upgraded to cathedral status without structural changes (unlike most 'parish church' cathedrals created in the early 20th century). It lasted in this role a mere 22 years before being burned to the ground in the 1940 Coventry Blitz, leaving only the outer walls and the magnificent tapering tower and spire (the extensive arcades and clerestoreys collapsed completely in the fire, precipitated by the roof reinforcement girders, installed in the Victorian restoration, that buckled in the intense heat).

 

The determination to rebuild the cathedral in some form was born on the day of the bombing, however it wasn't until the mid 1950s that a competition was held and Sir Basil Spence's design was chosen. Spence had been so moved by experiencing the ruined church he resolved to retain it entirely to serve as a forecourt to the new church. He envisaged the two being linked by a glass screen wall so that the old church would be visible from within the new.

 

Built between 1957-62 at a right-angle to the ruins, the new cathedral attracted controversy for it's modern form, and yet some modernists argued that it didn't go far enough, after all there are echoes of the Gothic style in the great stone-mullioned windows of the nave and the net vaulting (actually a free-standing canopy) within. What is exceptional is the way art has been used as such an integral part of the building, a watershed moment, revolutionising the concept of religious art in Britain.

 

Spence employed some of the biggest names in contemporary art to contribute their vision to his; the exterior is adorned with Jacob Epstein's triumphant bronze figures of Archangel Michael (patron of the cathedral) vanquishing the Devil. At the entrance is the remarkable glass wall, engraved by John Hutton with strikingly stylised figures of saints and angels, and allowing the interior of the new to communicate with the ruin. Inside, the great tapestry of Christ in majesty surrounded by the evangelistic creatures, draws the eye beyond the high altar; it was designed by Graham Sutherland and was the largest tapestry ever made.

 

However one of the greatest features of Coventry is it's wealth of modern stained glass, something Spence resolved to include having witnessed the bleakness of Chartres Cathedral in wartime, all it's stained glass having been removed. The first window encountered on entering is the enormous 'chess-board' baptistry window filled with stunning abstract glass by John Piper & Patrick Reyntiens, a symphony of glowing colour. The staggered nave walls are illuminated by ten narrow floor to ceiling windows filled with semi-abstract symbolic designs arranged in pairs of dominant colours (green, red, multi-coloured, purple/blue and gold) representing the souls journey to maturity, and revealed gradually as one approaches the altar. This amazing project was the work of three designers lead by master glass artist Lawrence Lee of the Royal College of Art along with Keith New and Geoffrey Clarke (each artist designed three of the windows individually and all collaborated on the last).

 

The cathedral still dazzles the visitor with the boldness of it's vision, but alas, half a century on, it was not a vision to be repeated and few of the churches and cathedrals built since can claim to have embraced the synthesis of art and architecture in the way Basil Spence did at Coventry.

 

The cathedral is generally open to visitors most days. For more see below:-

www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/

This weekend was Heritage and Ride & Stride weekend, when many churches are open.

 

So, a grand tour round Kent's most difficult was planned and executed, with this being the first church of the day open, after four strike outs.

 

St Alphege is just the chancel of a larger church, so there isn't much to see, or room inside, but I got my shots and declined my first cuppa of the day.

 

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Hidden from the road and accessible only by footpath, this 13th century gem is a remarkable survivor. It is the chancel of the medieval church of Seasalter, the rest of which was demolished when the new church of St Alphege was built in what is now Whitstable. The west wall of flint is in contrast to the rubble construction of the medieval work and its lancet windows. Inside, all is squashed together but they even managed to get a proper organ in! High in the west wall is a lovely window by Lawrence Lee depicting St Alphege whose body rested in the previous church which stood out where the River Swale washes the shore today. This old church is still used and well loved by its congregation who now also have a brand new (2007) church a few hundred yards away for there regular services.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Seasalter

 

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THE LIBERTY AND PARISH OF SEASALTER.

THIS liberty lies adjoining to the parish of Hernehill and hundred of Boughton Blean, north eastward, being so named from its near vicinity to the sea. (fn. 1)

 

The LIBERTY AND PARISH of Seasalter lies in an obscure out of the way situation, bounded by the sea northward, but the large tract of marshes which adjoin it westward, as well as the badness of the water, make it very unhealthy. The east and southern parts are mostly coppice wood, and the soil a deep clay. The church stands on the knoll of a hill, nearly in the middle of the parish, below which, westward, it is all marsh land to the sea shore, not far from which the few houses stand which make the village of Seasalter. There are forty-six houses in this parish, most of which are in Whitstaple-street, great part of which is within the bounds of it, and over part of which the borough of Harwich claims. There is an oyster fishery on the shore here, the grounds of which, called the Pollard, are an appendage to the manor of Seasalter, and as such belong to the dean and chapter of Canterbury, who demise them to seven fishermen or free dredgermen of Seasalter, at a certain yearly rent. In December, 1763, a live whale was driven on shore on Seasalter flats, which was about fifty-six feet long. The manor of Seasalter has the privilege of four fairs yearly, on the four principal feasts in the year; but there have not been any held for some years.

 

The MANOR OF SEASALTER was given, before the Norman conquest, to the priory of Christ-church, in Canterbury, but by whom, I have no where found; and it continued part of the possessions of it at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in which record it is thus entered:

 

In Borowart lath, there lies a small borough named Sesaltre, which properly belongs to the kitchen of the archbishop. One named Blize held it of the monks. In demesne there is one carucate, and forty-eight borderers with one carucate. There is a church and eight fisheries, with a rent of twenty-five shillings. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth twenty-five shillings, and now one hundred shillings.

 

After which, this manor appears to have been let to ferme by the prior and convent, to Roger de Wadenhale, in king Henry the IId.'s reign, at the yearly rent of six pounds, with a reservation of all royal fish, wrec, &c. and afterwards to Clemencia, daughter of Henry de Hanifeld, at that of ten marcs, which rent was afterwards raised to twenty pounds per annum. In 1494, prior Thomas Goldstone caused a new mansion, or court-lodge to be built here, and at the rectory he rebuilt all the edifices, except the barn. In which situa tion this manor continued with the priory till its dissolution, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it was surrendered into the king's hands, and was by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, settled on his newfounded dean and chapter of Canterbury, with whom the inheritance still continues. (fn. 2)

 

A court leet and court baron is regularly held by the dean and chapter for this manor; but the demesne lands, as well as the rectory or parsonage of the church, were lately demised on a beneficial lease to Isaac Rutton, M. D. of Ashford, who died in 1792, whose descendants assigned them to Mr. William Baldock, brewer, of Canterbury, and they were again assigned by him in 1798, to Mr. King, of Whitstaple. (fn. 3)

 

ELYNDENNE, or Ellenden, as it is now written, is a small manor, situated at the southern boundary of this parish, among the woods adjoining to the ville of Dunkirk, within the bounds of which, one half of the house, as well as part of the lands are situated, though in the deeds belonging to this manor, it is constantly described as within this parish and Whitstaple. It was once the property of a family of its own name, one of whom, John Elyndenne, gave it to the abbot and convent of Faversham, as appeared by the lerger book of that abbey, (fn. 4) with which it staid till its dissolution, anno 30 Henry VIII. when this manor came, with the rest of its estates, into the king's hands, who in his 35th year granted it to Thomas Ardern, gent. of Faversham, to hold in capite, (fn. 5) and he that year passed it away to John Needham, whose son, of the same name, alienated it, in the 32d year of queen Elizabeth, to Michael Beresford, esq. of Westerham, and he soon after conveyed it to Sir George Newman, LL.D. in whose descendants, who bore for their arms, Or, a fess dancette, gules, between three eagles, sable, (fn. 6) it continued till it was alienated to St. Leger, and Sir John St. Leger, in the reign of William and Mary, passed it away to Sir Henry Furnese, bart. of Waldershare, who died possessed of it in 1712, but his grandson Sir Henry Furnese, bart. dying in 1735, under age and unmarried, this, among the rest of his estates, became vested in his three sisters, coheirs of their father, in equal shares in coparcenary, in tail general, and on a partition anno 9 George II. this manor was allotted, among others, to Anne the eldest daughter, wife of John, viscount St. John, whose grandson the right hon. George St. John, lord viscount Bolingbrooke, sold it in 1791 to Mr. John Daniels, of Whitstaple, and he in 1793 sold it to Mr. Hayward, of the Black Friars, Canterbury, who dying in the year 1794, his widow is the present possessor of it.

 

Charities.

THERE have been given to the use of the poor of this parish, five acres of land, late occupied by Fenner, of the annual produce of 3l. a field of three acres, called the Peters field, of the annual produce of 2l. 6s. four acres of land, in two pieces, of the annual produce of 4l. and two acres of woodland, sold in 1785 at eighteen years growth for 6l. sundry yearly annuities, of 2s. 6d. of 40s paid by the parish of Whitstaple, and of 12s. paid by Mrs Gillow.

 

The poor constantly maintained are about twenty, casually one hundred.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Westbere.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. Alphage, is small, consisting of only one isle and a chancel, having a low pointed turret of wood at the west end, in which hangs one bell. There is no memorial or inscription in it. In the north window of the isle are some small remains of painted glass. There are two hatchments in the isle, one, Argent, two bends wavy, on a chief, gules, three estoiles, or; the other the same, impaling, Paly bendy, or, and sable, a bend, counterchanged, which were for the family of Taylor, who once owned lands in this parish, and lie buried in this church. There is a gallery at the west end.

 

By the great storm, which happened on Jan. 1, 1779, there was discovered among the beach on the sea shore, at Codhams corner, about half a mile westward of the present church, the stone foundations of a large long buildings, lying due east and west, supposed to have been the remains of the antient church of Seasalter. Many human bones were likewise uncovered, by the shifting of the beach, both within and about it, all of which that could be found, were collected together and buried in the church-yard of Seasalter; but those which have been since uncovered remain at this time sticking up an end among the beach.

 

¶This church was always appendant to the manor of Seasalter, belonging to the priory of Christ church, to which it was appropriated in 1236, for the maintenance of the monks there, and was by the archbishop afterwards allotted to the almonry. In which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, who settled it, with the advowson of the vicarage and the manor, by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new-founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions they still continue.

 

In the 8th year of Richard II. anno 1384, the vicarage of this church was not, on account of the smallness of its income, taxed to the tenth. It is valued in the king's books at 11l. but it is now a discharged living, of the clear yearly certified value of 25l. 19s. 8d. In 1588 here were communicants seventy-six. In 1640 the same, and it was then valued at 60l.

 

Among the archives of the dean and chapter is an examination relating to the bounds of the parishes of Seasalter and Hernehill, anno 1481, and another taken the same year by the archbishop's commissary. (fn. 7)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol8/pp499-504

 

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A liberty was an English unit originating in the Middle Ages, traditionally defined as an area in which regalian right was revoked and where the land was held by a mesne lord (i.e. an area in which rights reserved to the king had been devolved into private hands). It later became a unit of local government administration.[1]

 

Liberties were areas of widely variable extent which were independent of the usual system of hundreds and boroughs for a number of different reasons, usually to do with peculiarities of tenure. Because of their tenurial rather than geographical origin, the areas covered by liberties could either be widely scattered across a county or limited to an area smaller than a single parish: an example of the former is Fordington Liberty, and of the latter, the Liberty of Waybayouse, both in Dorset.

 

In northern England, the liberty of Bowland was one of the larger tenurial configurations covering some ten manors, eight townships and four parishes under the sway of a single feudal lord, the Lord of Bowland, whose customary title is Lord of the Fells.[2][3] Up until 1660, such lords would have been lords paramount.

 

Legislation passed in 1836 ended the temporal jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely in several liberties, and the Liberties Act 1850 permitted the merging of liberties in their counties. By 1867, only a handful remained: Ely, Havering-atte-Bower, St Albans, Peterborough, Ripon and Haverfordwest. St Albans was subsequently joined to the county of Hertfordshire in 1875.

 

The Local Government Act 1888 led to the ending of the special jurisdictions in April 1889: the Isle of Ely and Soke of Peterborough became administrative counties, while the three remaining liberties were united to their surrounding counties.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_(division)

designed and executed by Vincenzo Barbareschi @ www.sacredarttattoos.co.uk/

A Marine serving with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion responds to simulated small-arms fire during a combat readiness exercise here, Aug. 20, 2013. During the exercise, Marines performed a night raid on a combat town and detained possible enemy combatants. The exercise assessed the Marines' ability to execute their mission and coordinate logistics with their command element as they prepare to deploy with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit next year.

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The Great Warrior of Montauban, an 73.25-inch tall bronze sculpture, was originally executed in 1898-1900 by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle. This cast, number three in an edition of ten, was done in 1956. The muscular male nude symbolizes those who fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. It was acquired as a gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn in 1966, purchased from World House Galleries in 1959.

 

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, with an emphasis on contemporary and modern art, was established by Act of Congress in 1966. Gordon Bunshaft's museum and 4-acre garden complex with a two-level sculpture garden opened along the National Mall in 1974.

 

The Smithsonian Institution, an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazines, was established in 1846. Although concentrated in Washington DC, its collection of over 136 million items is spread through 19 museums, a zoo, and nine research centers from New York to Panama.

the iliveisl sim, Enercity Park, goes away shortly after these pics were taken. it was one of only 100 or so remaining openspace sims.

 

it had been 3750 prims but when Linden Lab poorly executed their change in policy and pricing and went from $75 to $95 per month and from 3750 prims to 750 prims, this became the most expensive type of land isl

 

but i promised my residents that Enercity would have a park so kept it until the estate was transferred to the very best residents in all of second life

 

the park was the closest to a home that Ener Hax had. two sparse fallout shelters would become Ener's homes

 

one just a bare mattress and cardboard boxes to reduce drafts from broken windows and had and old turret slowly rotating that stood as a silent sentinel to bygone eras when we humans could have taken a lesson from our own avatars and the other a small emergency shelter for the bus stop

 

the lake in the park was called Butterfly Lake from its shape when viewed from the air and had a swan and ducklings swimming and a nice bench for friends to sit and visit under a weeping willow. near that spot was an old underground shelter to park military vehicles. that spot became an underground skatepark and was connected to the city's catacombs. these catacombs, like in Paris, ran below the city streets

 

zombies lived in one section near a small graveyard. no one knew why zombies were there, some suspect it was related to the war time bunkers. the manhole cover near the zombies was opened and the catacombs tagged with "i <3 ener hax" and "subQuark sux"

 

the most favourite spot for Ener Hax was near the bus stop and the 1950's era rotating and steaming coffee billboard (hmm, maybe the chemical smoke from that big coffee cup is to blame for the zombies? after all, the "steam" does drift over the grave yard

 

the fave spot looked over the smaller lake west of the bus stop and was in view of one of the parks two waterfalls. that spot was made very special because of Mr. Bunny. Ener loved to sit on the ground and just watch Mr. Bunny hop around and doze occasionally. what a cute bunny =) he even had his own carrots planted by Ener

 

high above the eastern part of the park was the huge zebra striped zeppelin. a bit of a trademark of the iliveisl estate

 

it was a lovely spot, even had tai chi on the big bunker and a zip line from the water tower

 

ooh, the water tower! as a surprise gift, DreamWalker scripted the water tower and turned it int a funky hang out spot. there was an abandoned pool inside the tower (???) and place to sit and talk. even a cute ladybug called it home. the water tower's top would slide up and down and also turn invisible. for romance, a moon beam came through the towers top port and could even have its brightness changed

 

even though the park was outrageously expensive, it was Ener Hax and Mr. Bunnies home and will be sincerely missed

 

namas te

Detail of the Baptistry Window, a masterpiece of abstract stained glass designed by John Piper and executed by Patrick Reyntiens.

 

Coventry's Cathedral is a unique synthesis of old a new, born of wartime suffering and forged in the spirit of postwar optimism, famous for it's history and for being the most radically modern of Anglican cathedrals. Two cathedral's stand side by side, the ruins of the medieval building, destroyed by incendiary bombs in 1940 and the bold new building designed by Basil Spence and opened in 1962.

 

It is a common misconception that Coventry lost it's first cathedral in the wartime blitz, but the bombs actually destroyed it's second; the original medieval cathedral was the monastic St Mary's, a large cruciform building believed to have been similar in appearance to Lichfield Cathedral (whose diocese it shared). Tragically it became the only English cathedral to be destroyed during the Reformation, after which it was quickly quarried away, leaving only scant fragments, but enough evidence survives to indicate it's rich decoration (some pieces were displayed nearby in the Priory Visitors Centre, sadly since closed). Foundations of it's apse were found during the building of the new cathedral in the 1950s, thus technically three cathedrals share the same site.

 

The mainly 15th century St Michael's parish church became the seat of the new diocese of Coventry in 1918, and being one of the largest parish churches in the country it was upgraded to cathedral status without structural changes (unlike most 'parish church' cathedrals created in the early 20th century). It lasted in this role a mere 22 years before being burned to the ground in the 1940 Coventry Blitz, leaving only the outer walls and the magnificent tapering tower and spire (the extensive arcades and clerestoreys collapsed completely in the fire, precipitated by the roof reinforcement girders, installed in the Victorian restoration, that buckled in the intense heat).

 

The determination to rebuild the cathedral in some form was born on the day of the bombing, however it wasn't until the mid 1950s that a competition was held and Sir Basil Spence's design was chosen. Spence had been so moved by experiencing the ruined church he resolved to retain it entirely to serve as a forecourt to the new church. He envisaged the two being linked by a glass screen wall so that the old church would be visible from within the new.

 

Built between 1957-62 at a right-angle to the ruins, the new cathedral attracted controversy for it's modern form, and yet some modernists argued that it didn't go far enough, after all there are echoes of the Gothic style in the great stone-mullioned windows of the nave and the net vaulting (actually a free-standing canopy) within. What is exceptional is the way art has been used as such an integral part of the building, a watershed moment, revolutionising the concept of religious art in Britain.

 

Spence employed some of the biggest names in contemporary art to contribute their vision to his; the exterior is adorned with Jacob Epstein's triumphant bronze figures of Archangel Michael (patron of the cathedral) vanquishing the Devil. At the entrance is the remarkable glass wall, engraved by John Hutton with strikingly stylised figures of saints and angels, and allowing the interior of the new to communicate with the ruin. Inside, the great tapestry of Christ in majesty surrounded by the evangelistic creatures, draws the eye beyond the high altar; it was designed by Graham Sutherland and was the largest tapestry ever made.

 

However one of the greatest features of Coventry is it's wealth of modern stained glass, something Spence resolved to include having witnessed the bleakness of Chartres Cathedral in wartime, all it's stained glass having been removed. The first window encountered on entering is the enormous 'chess-board' baptistry window filled with stunning abstract glass by John Piper & Patrick Reyntiens, a symphony of glowing colour. The staggered nave walls are illuminated by ten narrow floor to ceiling windows filled with semi-abstract symbolic designs arranged in pairs of dominant colours (green, red, multi-coloured, purple/blue and gold) representing the souls journey to maturity, and revealed gradually as one approaches the altar. This amazing project was the work of three designers lead by master glass artist Lawrence Lee of the Royal College of Art along with Keith New and Geoffrey Clarke (each artist designed three of the windows individually and all collaborated on the last).

 

The cathedral still dazzles the visitor with the boldness of it's vision, but alas, half a century on, it was not a vision to be repeated and few of the churches and cathedrals built since can claim to have embraced the synthesis of art and architecture in the way Basil Spence did at Coventry.

 

The cathedral is generally open to visitors most days. For more see below:-

www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/

The Liechtenstein Garden Palace is a Baroque palace at the Fürstengasse in the 9th District of Vienna, Alsergrund . Between the palace, where the Liechtenstein Museum was until the end of 2011, and executed as Belvedere summer palace on the Alserbachstraße is a park. Since early 2012, the Liechtenstein Garden Palace is a place for events. Part of the private art collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein is still in the gallery rooms of the palace. In 2010 was started to call the palace, to avoid future confusion, officially the Garden Palace, since 2013 the city has renovated the Palais Liechtenstein (Stadtpalais) in Vienna's old town and then also equipped with a part of the Liechtenstein art collection.

Building

Design for the Liechtenstein Garden Palace, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1687/1688

Canaletto: View of Palais Liechtenstein

1687 bought Prince Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein a garden with adjoining meadows of Count Weikhard von Auersperg in the Rossau. In the southern part of the property the prince had built a palace and in the north part he founded a brewery and a manorial, from which developed the suburb Lichtental. For the construction of the palace Johann Adam Andreas organised 1688 a competition, in the inter alia participating, the young Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Meanwhile, a little functional, " permeable " project was rejected by the prince but, after all, instead he was allowed to built a garden in the Belvedere Alserbachstraße 14, which , however, was canceled in 1872.

The competition was won by Domenico Egidio Rossi, but was replaced in 1692 by Domenico Martinelli. The execution of the stonework had been given the royal Hofsteinmetzmeister (master stonemason) Martin Mitschke. He was delivered by the Masters of Kaisersteinbruch Ambrose Ferrethi , Giovanni Battista Passerini and Martin Trumler large pillars, columns and pedestal made ​​from stone Emperor (Kaiserstein). Begin of the contract was the fourth July 1689 , the total cost was around 50,000 guilders.

For contracts from the years 1693 and 1701 undertook the Salzburg master stonemason John and Joseph Pernegger owner for 4,060 guilders the steps of the great grand staircase from Lienbacher (Adnet = red) to supply marble monolith of 4.65 meters. From the Master Nicolaus Wendlinger from Hallein came the Stiegenbalustraden (stair balustrades) for 1,000 guilders.

A palazzo was built in a mix of city and country in the Roman-style villa. The structure is clear and the construction very blocky with a stressed central risalite, what served the conservative tastes of the Prince very much. According to the procedure of the architectural treatise by Johann Adam Andreas ' father, Karl Eusebius, the palace was designed with three floors and 13 windows axis on the main front and seven windows axis on the lateral front. Together with the stems it forms a courtyard .

Sala terrene of the Palais

1700 the shell was completed. In 1702, the Salzburg master stonemason and Georg Andreas Doppler took over 7,005 guilders for the manufacture of door frame made ​​of white marble of Salzburg, 1708 was the delivery of the fireplaces in marble hall for 1,577 guilders. For the painted decoration was originally the Bolognese Marcantonio Franceschini hired, from him are some of the painted ceilings on the first floor. Since he to slow to the prince, Antonio Belucci was hired from Venice, who envisioned the rest of the floor. The ceiling painting in the Great Hall, the Hercules Hall but got Andrea Pozzo . Pozzo in 1708 confirmed the sum of 7,500 florins which he had received since 1704 for the ceiling fresco in the Marble Hall in installments. As these artists died ( Pozzo) or declined to Italy, the Prince now had no painter left for the ground floor.

After a long search finally Michael Rottmayr was hired for the painting of the ground floor - originally a temporary solution, because the prince was of the opinion that only Italian artist buon gusto d'invenzione had. Since Rottmayr was not involved in the original planning, his paintings not quite fit with the stucco. Rottmayr 1708 confirmed the receipt of 7,500 guilders for his fresco work.

Giovanni Giuliani, who designed the sculptural decoration in the window roofing of the main facade, undertook in 1705 to provide sixteen stone vases of Zogelsdorfer stone. From September 1704 to August 1705 Santino Bussi stuccoed the ground floor of the vault of the hall and received a fee of 1,000 florins and twenty buckets of wine. 1706 Bussi adorned the two staircases, the Marble Hall, the Gallery Hall and the remaining six halls of the main projectile with its stucco work for 2,200 florins and twenty buckets of wine. Giuliani received in 1709 for his Kaminbekrönungen (fireplace crowning) of the great room and the vases 1,128 guilders.

Garden

Liechtenstein Palace from the garden

The new summer palace of Henry of Ferstel from the garden

The garden was created in the mind of a classic baroque garden. The vases and statues were carried out according to the plans of Giuseppe Mazza from the local Giovanni Giuliani. In 1820 the garden has been remodeled according to plans of Joseph Kornhäusel in the Classical sense. In the Fürstengasse was opposite the Palais, the Orangerie, built 1700s.

Use as a museum

Already from 1805 to 1938, the palace was housing the family collection of the house of Liechtenstein, which was also open for public viewing, the collection was then transferred to the Principality of Liechtenstein, which remained neutral during the war and was not bombed. In the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called Building Centre was housed in the palace as a tenant, a permanent exhibition for builders of single-family houses and similar buildings. From 26 April 1979 rented the since 1962 housed in the so-called 20er Haus Museum of the 20th Century , a federal museum, the palace as a new main house, the 20er Haus was continued as a branch . Since the start of operations at the Palais, the collection called itself Museum of Modern Art (since 1991 Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation ), the MUMOK in 2001 moved to the newly built museum district.

From 29 March 2004 till the end of 2011 in the Palace was the Liechtenstein Museum, whose collection includes paintings and sculptures from five centuries. The collection is considered one of the largest and most valuable private art collections in the world, whose main base in Vaduz (Liechtenstein) is . As the palace, so too the collection is owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation .

On 15 November 2011 it was announced that the regular museum operating in the Garden Palace was stopped due to short of original expectations, visiting numbers remaining lower as calculated, with January 2012. The Liechtenstein City Palace museum will also not offer regular operations. Exhibited works of art would then (in the city palace from 2013) only during the "Long Night of the Museums", for registered groups and during leased events being visitable. The name of the Liechtenstein Museum will no longer be used.

 

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_Liechtenstein_(F%C3%BCrstengasse)

This weekend was Heritage and Ride & Stride weekend, when many churches are open.

 

So, a grand tour round Kent's most difficult was planned and executed, with this being the first church of the day open, after four strike outs.

 

St Alphege is just the chancel of a larger church, so there isn't much to see, or room inside, but I got my shots and declined my first cuppa of the day.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

Hidden from the road and accessible only by footpath, this 13th century gem is a remarkable survivor. It is the chancel of the medieval church of Seasalter, the rest of which was demolished when the new church of St Alphege was built in what is now Whitstable. The west wall of flint is in contrast to the rubble construction of the medieval work and its lancet windows. Inside, all is squashed together but they even managed to get a proper organ in! High in the west wall is a lovely window by Lawrence Lee depicting St Alphege whose body rested in the previous church which stood out where the River Swale washes the shore today. This old church is still used and well loved by its congregation who now also have a brand new (2007) church a few hundred yards away for there regular services.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Seasalter

 

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THE LIBERTY AND PARISH OF SEASALTER.

THIS liberty lies adjoining to the parish of Hernehill and hundred of Boughton Blean, north eastward, being so named from its near vicinity to the sea. (fn. 1)

 

The LIBERTY AND PARISH of Seasalter lies in an obscure out of the way situation, bounded by the sea northward, but the large tract of marshes which adjoin it westward, as well as the badness of the water, make it very unhealthy. The east and southern parts are mostly coppice wood, and the soil a deep clay. The church stands on the knoll of a hill, nearly in the middle of the parish, below which, westward, it is all marsh land to the sea shore, not far from which the few houses stand which make the village of Seasalter. There are forty-six houses in this parish, most of which are in Whitstaple-street, great part of which is within the bounds of it, and over part of which the borough of Harwich claims. There is an oyster fishery on the shore here, the grounds of which, called the Pollard, are an appendage to the manor of Seasalter, and as such belong to the dean and chapter of Canterbury, who demise them to seven fishermen or free dredgermen of Seasalter, at a certain yearly rent. In December, 1763, a live whale was driven on shore on Seasalter flats, which was about fifty-six feet long. The manor of Seasalter has the privilege of four fairs yearly, on the four principal feasts in the year; but there have not been any held for some years.

 

The MANOR OF SEASALTER was given, before the Norman conquest, to the priory of Christ-church, in Canterbury, but by whom, I have no where found; and it continued part of the possessions of it at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in which record it is thus entered:

 

In Borowart lath, there lies a small borough named Sesaltre, which properly belongs to the kitchen of the archbishop. One named Blize held it of the monks. In demesne there is one carucate, and forty-eight borderers with one carucate. There is a church and eight fisheries, with a rent of twenty-five shillings. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth twenty-five shillings, and now one hundred shillings.

 

After which, this manor appears to have been let to ferme by the prior and convent, to Roger de Wadenhale, in king Henry the IId.'s reign, at the yearly rent of six pounds, with a reservation of all royal fish, wrec, &c. and afterwards to Clemencia, daughter of Henry de Hanifeld, at that of ten marcs, which rent was afterwards raised to twenty pounds per annum. In 1494, prior Thomas Goldstone caused a new mansion, or court-lodge to be built here, and at the rectory he rebuilt all the edifices, except the barn. In which situa tion this manor continued with the priory till its dissolution, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it was surrendered into the king's hands, and was by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, settled on his newfounded dean and chapter of Canterbury, with whom the inheritance still continues. (fn. 2)

 

A court leet and court baron is regularly held by the dean and chapter for this manor; but the demesne lands, as well as the rectory or parsonage of the church, were lately demised on a beneficial lease to Isaac Rutton, M. D. of Ashford, who died in 1792, whose descendants assigned them to Mr. William Baldock, brewer, of Canterbury, and they were again assigned by him in 1798, to Mr. King, of Whitstaple. (fn. 3)

 

ELYNDENNE, or Ellenden, as it is now written, is a small manor, situated at the southern boundary of this parish, among the woods adjoining to the ville of Dunkirk, within the bounds of which, one half of the house, as well as part of the lands are situated, though in the deeds belonging to this manor, it is constantly described as within this parish and Whitstaple. It was once the property of a family of its own name, one of whom, John Elyndenne, gave it to the abbot and convent of Faversham, as appeared by the lerger book of that abbey, (fn. 4) with which it staid till its dissolution, anno 30 Henry VIII. when this manor came, with the rest of its estates, into the king's hands, who in his 35th year granted it to Thomas Ardern, gent. of Faversham, to hold in capite, (fn. 5) and he that year passed it away to John Needham, whose son, of the same name, alienated it, in the 32d year of queen Elizabeth, to Michael Beresford, esq. of Westerham, and he soon after conveyed it to Sir George Newman, LL.D. in whose descendants, who bore for their arms, Or, a fess dancette, gules, between three eagles, sable, (fn. 6) it continued till it was alienated to St. Leger, and Sir John St. Leger, in the reign of William and Mary, passed it away to Sir Henry Furnese, bart. of Waldershare, who died possessed of it in 1712, but his grandson Sir Henry Furnese, bart. dying in 1735, under age and unmarried, this, among the rest of his estates, became vested in his three sisters, coheirs of their father, in equal shares in coparcenary, in tail general, and on a partition anno 9 George II. this manor was allotted, among others, to Anne the eldest daughter, wife of John, viscount St. John, whose grandson the right hon. George St. John, lord viscount Bolingbrooke, sold it in 1791 to Mr. John Daniels, of Whitstaple, and he in 1793 sold it to Mr. Hayward, of the Black Friars, Canterbury, who dying in the year 1794, his widow is the present possessor of it.

 

Charities.

THERE have been given to the use of the poor of this parish, five acres of land, late occupied by Fenner, of the annual produce of 3l. a field of three acres, called the Peters field, of the annual produce of 2l. 6s. four acres of land, in two pieces, of the annual produce of 4l. and two acres of woodland, sold in 1785 at eighteen years growth for 6l. sundry yearly annuities, of 2s. 6d. of 40s paid by the parish of Whitstaple, and of 12s. paid by Mrs Gillow.

 

The poor constantly maintained are about twenty, casually one hundred.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Westbere.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. Alphage, is small, consisting of only one isle and a chancel, having a low pointed turret of wood at the west end, in which hangs one bell. There is no memorial or inscription in it. In the north window of the isle are some small remains of painted glass. There are two hatchments in the isle, one, Argent, two bends wavy, on a chief, gules, three estoiles, or; the other the same, impaling, Paly bendy, or, and sable, a bend, counterchanged, which were for the family of Taylor, who once owned lands in this parish, and lie buried in this church. There is a gallery at the west end.

 

By the great storm, which happened on Jan. 1, 1779, there was discovered among the beach on the sea shore, at Codhams corner, about half a mile westward of the present church, the stone foundations of a large long buildings, lying due east and west, supposed to have been the remains of the antient church of Seasalter. Many human bones were likewise uncovered, by the shifting of the beach, both within and about it, all of which that could be found, were collected together and buried in the church-yard of Seasalter; but those which have been since uncovered remain at this time sticking up an end among the beach.

 

¶This church was always appendant to the manor of Seasalter, belonging to the priory of Christ church, to which it was appropriated in 1236, for the maintenance of the monks there, and was by the archbishop afterwards allotted to the almonry. In which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, who settled it, with the advowson of the vicarage and the manor, by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new-founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions they still continue.

 

In the 8th year of Richard II. anno 1384, the vicarage of this church was not, on account of the smallness of its income, taxed to the tenth. It is valued in the king's books at 11l. but it is now a discharged living, of the clear yearly certified value of 25l. 19s. 8d. In 1588 here were communicants seventy-six. In 1640 the same, and it was then valued at 60l.

 

Among the archives of the dean and chapter is an examination relating to the bounds of the parishes of Seasalter and Hernehill, anno 1481, and another taken the same year by the archbishop's commissary. (fn. 7)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol8/pp499-504

 

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A liberty was an English unit originating in the Middle Ages, traditionally defined as an area in which regalian right was revoked and where the land was held by a mesne lord (i.e. an area in which rights reserved to the king had been devolved into private hands). It later became a unit of local government administration.[1]

 

Liberties were areas of widely variable extent which were independent of the usual system of hundreds and boroughs for a number of different reasons, usually to do with peculiarities of tenure. Because of their tenurial rather than geographical origin, the areas covered by liberties could either be widely scattered across a county or limited to an area smaller than a single parish: an example of the former is Fordington Liberty, and of the latter, the Liberty of Waybayouse, both in Dorset.

 

In northern England, the liberty of Bowland was one of the larger tenurial configurations covering some ten manors, eight townships and four parishes under the sway of a single feudal lord, the Lord of Bowland, whose customary title is Lord of the Fells.[2][3] Up until 1660, such lords would have been lords paramount.

 

Legislation passed in 1836 ended the temporal jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely in several liberties, and the Liberties Act 1850 permitted the merging of liberties in their counties. By 1867, only a handful remained: Ely, Havering-atte-Bower, St Albans, Peterborough, Ripon and Haverfordwest. St Albans was subsequently joined to the county of Hertfordshire in 1875.

 

The Local Government Act 1888 led to the ending of the special jurisdictions in April 1889: the Isle of Ely and Soke of Peterborough became administrative counties, while the three remaining liberties were united to their surrounding counties.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_(division)

This weekend was Heritage and Ride & Stride weekend, when many churches are open.

 

So, a grand tour round Kent's most difficult was planned and executed, with this being the first church of the day open, after four strike outs.

 

St Alphege is just the chancel of a larger church, so there isn't much to see, or room inside, but I got my shots and declined my first cuppa of the day.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

Hidden from the road and accessible only by footpath, this 13th century gem is a remarkable survivor. It is the chancel of the medieval church of Seasalter, the rest of which was demolished when the new church of St Alphege was built in what is now Whitstable. The west wall of flint is in contrast to the rubble construction of the medieval work and its lancet windows. Inside, all is squashed together but they even managed to get a proper organ in! High in the west wall is a lovely window by Lawrence Lee depicting St Alphege whose body rested in the previous church which stood out where the River Swale washes the shore today. This old church is still used and well loved by its congregation who now also have a brand new (2007) church a few hundred yards away for there regular services.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Seasalter

 

-------------------------------------------

 

THE LIBERTY AND PARISH OF SEASALTER.

THIS liberty lies adjoining to the parish of Hernehill and hundred of Boughton Blean, north eastward, being so named from its near vicinity to the sea. (fn. 1)

 

The LIBERTY AND PARISH of Seasalter lies in an obscure out of the way situation, bounded by the sea northward, but the large tract of marshes which adjoin it westward, as well as the badness of the water, make it very unhealthy. The east and southern parts are mostly coppice wood, and the soil a deep clay. The church stands on the knoll of a hill, nearly in the middle of the parish, below which, westward, it is all marsh land to the sea shore, not far from which the few houses stand which make the village of Seasalter. There are forty-six houses in this parish, most of which are in Whitstaple-street, great part of which is within the bounds of it, and over part of which the borough of Harwich claims. There is an oyster fishery on the shore here, the grounds of which, called the Pollard, are an appendage to the manor of Seasalter, and as such belong to the dean and chapter of Canterbury, who demise them to seven fishermen or free dredgermen of Seasalter, at a certain yearly rent. In December, 1763, a live whale was driven on shore on Seasalter flats, which was about fifty-six feet long. The manor of Seasalter has the privilege of four fairs yearly, on the four principal feasts in the year; but there have not been any held for some years.

 

The MANOR OF SEASALTER was given, before the Norman conquest, to the priory of Christ-church, in Canterbury, but by whom, I have no where found; and it continued part of the possessions of it at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in which record it is thus entered:

 

In Borowart lath, there lies a small borough named Sesaltre, which properly belongs to the kitchen of the archbishop. One named Blize held it of the monks. In demesne there is one carucate, and forty-eight borderers with one carucate. There is a church and eight fisheries, with a rent of twenty-five shillings. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth twenty-five shillings, and now one hundred shillings.

 

After which, this manor appears to have been let to ferme by the prior and convent, to Roger de Wadenhale, in king Henry the IId.'s reign, at the yearly rent of six pounds, with a reservation of all royal fish, wrec, &c. and afterwards to Clemencia, daughter of Henry de Hanifeld, at that of ten marcs, which rent was afterwards raised to twenty pounds per annum. In 1494, prior Thomas Goldstone caused a new mansion, or court-lodge to be built here, and at the rectory he rebuilt all the edifices, except the barn. In which situa tion this manor continued with the priory till its dissolution, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it was surrendered into the king's hands, and was by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, settled on his newfounded dean and chapter of Canterbury, with whom the inheritance still continues. (fn. 2)

 

A court leet and court baron is regularly held by the dean and chapter for this manor; but the demesne lands, as well as the rectory or parsonage of the church, were lately demised on a beneficial lease to Isaac Rutton, M. D. of Ashford, who died in 1792, whose descendants assigned them to Mr. William Baldock, brewer, of Canterbury, and they were again assigned by him in 1798, to Mr. King, of Whitstaple. (fn. 3)

 

ELYNDENNE, or Ellenden, as it is now written, is a small manor, situated at the southern boundary of this parish, among the woods adjoining to the ville of Dunkirk, within the bounds of which, one half of the house, as well as part of the lands are situated, though in the deeds belonging to this manor, it is constantly described as within this parish and Whitstaple. It was once the property of a family of its own name, one of whom, John Elyndenne, gave it to the abbot and convent of Faversham, as appeared by the lerger book of that abbey, (fn. 4) with which it staid till its dissolution, anno 30 Henry VIII. when this manor came, with the rest of its estates, into the king's hands, who in his 35th year granted it to Thomas Ardern, gent. of Faversham, to hold in capite, (fn. 5) and he that year passed it away to John Needham, whose son, of the same name, alienated it, in the 32d year of queen Elizabeth, to Michael Beresford, esq. of Westerham, and he soon after conveyed it to Sir George Newman, LL.D. in whose descendants, who bore for their arms, Or, a fess dancette, gules, between three eagles, sable, (fn. 6) it continued till it was alienated to St. Leger, and Sir John St. Leger, in the reign of William and Mary, passed it away to Sir Henry Furnese, bart. of Waldershare, who died possessed of it in 1712, but his grandson Sir Henry Furnese, bart. dying in 1735, under age and unmarried, this, among the rest of his estates, became vested in his three sisters, coheirs of their father, in equal shares in coparcenary, in tail general, and on a partition anno 9 George II. this manor was allotted, among others, to Anne the eldest daughter, wife of John, viscount St. John, whose grandson the right hon. George St. John, lord viscount Bolingbrooke, sold it in 1791 to Mr. John Daniels, of Whitstaple, and he in 1793 sold it to Mr. Hayward, of the Black Friars, Canterbury, who dying in the year 1794, his widow is the present possessor of it.

 

Charities.

THERE have been given to the use of the poor of this parish, five acres of land, late occupied by Fenner, of the annual produce of 3l. a field of three acres, called the Peters field, of the annual produce of 2l. 6s. four acres of land, in two pieces, of the annual produce of 4l. and two acres of woodland, sold in 1785 at eighteen years growth for 6l. sundry yearly annuities, of 2s. 6d. of 40s paid by the parish of Whitstaple, and of 12s. paid by Mrs Gillow.

 

The poor constantly maintained are about twenty, casually one hundred.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Westbere.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. Alphage, is small, consisting of only one isle and a chancel, having a low pointed turret of wood at the west end, in which hangs one bell. There is no memorial or inscription in it. In the north window of the isle are some small remains of painted glass. There are two hatchments in the isle, one, Argent, two bends wavy, on a chief, gules, three estoiles, or; the other the same, impaling, Paly bendy, or, and sable, a bend, counterchanged, which were for the family of Taylor, who once owned lands in this parish, and lie buried in this church. There is a gallery at the west end.

 

By the great storm, which happened on Jan. 1, 1779, there was discovered among the beach on the sea shore, at Codhams corner, about half a mile westward of the present church, the stone foundations of a large long buildings, lying due east and west, supposed to have been the remains of the antient church of Seasalter. Many human bones were likewise uncovered, by the shifting of the beach, both within and about it, all of which that could be found, were collected together and buried in the church-yard of Seasalter; but those which have been since uncovered remain at this time sticking up an end among the beach.

 

¶This church was always appendant to the manor of Seasalter, belonging to the priory of Christ church, to which it was appropriated in 1236, for the maintenance of the monks there, and was by the archbishop afterwards allotted to the almonry. In which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, who settled it, with the advowson of the vicarage and the manor, by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new-founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions they still continue.

 

In the 8th year of Richard II. anno 1384, the vicarage of this church was not, on account of the smallness of its income, taxed to the tenth. It is valued in the king's books at 11l. but it is now a discharged living, of the clear yearly certified value of 25l. 19s. 8d. In 1588 here were communicants seventy-six. In 1640 the same, and it was then valued at 60l.

 

Among the archives of the dean and chapter is an examination relating to the bounds of the parishes of Seasalter and Hernehill, anno 1481, and another taken the same year by the archbishop's commissary. (fn. 7)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol8/pp499-504

 

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A liberty was an English unit originating in the Middle Ages, traditionally defined as an area in which regalian right was revoked and where the land was held by a mesne lord (i.e. an area in which rights reserved to the king had been devolved into private hands). It later became a unit of local government administration.[1]

 

Liberties were areas of widely variable extent which were independent of the usual system of hundreds and boroughs for a number of different reasons, usually to do with peculiarities of tenure. Because of their tenurial rather than geographical origin, the areas covered by liberties could either be widely scattered across a county or limited to an area smaller than a single parish: an example of the former is Fordington Liberty, and of the latter, the Liberty of Waybayouse, both in Dorset.

 

In northern England, the liberty of Bowland was one of the larger tenurial configurations covering some ten manors, eight townships and four parishes under the sway of a single feudal lord, the Lord of Bowland, whose customary title is Lord of the Fells.[2][3] Up until 1660, such lords would have been lords paramount.

 

Legislation passed in 1836 ended the temporal jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely in several liberties, and the Liberties Act 1850 permitted the merging of liberties in their counties. By 1867, only a handful remained: Ely, Havering-atte-Bower, St Albans, Peterborough, Ripon and Haverfordwest. St Albans was subsequently joined to the county of Hertfordshire in 1875.

 

The Local Government Act 1888 led to the ending of the special jurisdictions in April 1889: the Isle of Ely and Soke of Peterborough became administrative counties, while the three remaining liberties were united to their surrounding counties.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_(division)

There is a plethora of parish churches on either side of the Medway. And the previous evening, I had noticed two more I had yet to visit, so pencilled them in.

 

St Margaret sits in a quiet village, at the end of a dead end lane where there is no parking. This I know now but I parked in front of the no parking sign, so didn't see it until I left.

 

The church had a group of cyclists on the ride and stride charity ride.

 

I said hello and went about my work taking shots.

 

The church is ancient, Saxon in origin, and the walls have Roman tiles embedded in them.

 

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Here is a church which really shows its Saxon origins, the south chancel wall displaying the tell-tale herringbone masonry executed in part in salvaged Roman tile. The chancel arch and north and south arcades date from the thirteenth century and are simple cut-throughs, with plain piers between. The chancel has internal wall arcading with Bethersden marble shafts. Above the chancel arch hangs a George III Royal Arms while below it can be seen the notches where the rood beam was originally supported. The metal font - of twelfth-century date - is of cast lead with a king and an angel on each of its ten sides. It was discovered in 1921 hidden under plaster. There are the remains of some unclear fourteenth-century wall paintings and a very interesting piece of graffiti - a Persian beast with the head of a man, body of a lion, mane of quills and sting of a scorpion! This can be found on the south nave arcade.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Lower+Halstow

 

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HALSTOW

LIES the next parish eastward from Upchurch, it is written in antient deeds Halegestow, and is usually called Lower Halstow, from its low situation, and to distinguish it from the parish of High Halstow, in the hundred of Hoo.

 

It is a very obscure and unfrequented parish, though the road from Chatham to the King's Ferry leads through the lower part of it, across a branch of the creek, here called the Stray, which is at high water hardly passable with safety. The little streamlet which rises southward near Newington church, runs on hither to the corn mill, belonging to All Souls college, situated on another branch of this creek, up to which the tide flows likewise, the mill being turned by it; below these the two branches acquire the name of Halstow creek, and soon afterwards joining, about three miles below, that of Standgate creek, a little further from which it flows into the river Medway, at some distance above Sheerness. At the lower end of Standgate creek, all vessels arriving from foreign countries, where the plague, or any other infections distemper is known to rage, are obliged by order of the privy council and the king's proclamation to perform quarantine for a limited time, and for the purpose of airing the cargoes of them, there are two large hospital ships, commonly called lazarettos, being the hulks of forty-four gun ships stationed here constantly, on board which the goods and merchandize are removed, for the purpose of airing them, and a government cutter attends to see this properly observed, and to prevent the crews getting on shore before the time is expired,

 

Halstow creek above this becomes so shallow, as to be used only by the small vessels belonging to the dredger men, who live here, and make up the principal part of the inhabitants of this parish, it is navigable in both branches as high up as the stray on the one, and the bridge built over the other, just above the church, where there is a wharf belonging to All Souls college, which, if in a proper condition, might be made of great use to the neighbouring country, which, as appears by the survey made in the 8th year of queen Elizabeth, by her order, was then called Halstow key, and that there were then in this parish houses inhabited twenty-four, ships and boats fourteen, from one ton to seven; and persons occupied in carrying from port to port and fishing fourteen. There are two small hamlets in the lower part of it, near the creek, the one built round a green, and called from thence Halstow-green, and the other at a small distance from it called Lower street. This part of the parish lies on a level, and open to the adjoining marshes, which render it most unpleasant, and at the same time unhealthy to an extreme, the look of which the inhabitants carry in their countenances; indeed, it seems so enveloped among creeks, marshes and salts, the look over which extends as far as the eye can see, that it seems a boundary, beyond which the traveller dreads to hazard his future safety.

 

The whole of this parish, excepting towards the marshes, has a woody appearance, the shaves and hedge-rows being very broad round the fields, it contains about twelve hundred acres of land, the soil of it is in general a very stiff and wet clay, a heavy tillage land, some few parts of it are gravel, and others, a black unfertile sand, with much broom and brakes, or fern on it. The clayey lands have of late years been much improved, by spreading them over with lime, brought at a heavy expence from the upper part of Hartlip, a distance of between three and four miles, by which means they produce a good crop of wheat. Near the stray there are some fertile meadows and orchards, the lands in general let at a high rent of fifteen and twenty shillings an acre, much of it throughout the parish belongs to All Souls college, as part of their manor farm of Horsham, in Upchurch. Towards the eastern part of the parish the hills rise pretty high, over much of which the adjoining manor of Norwood in Milton claims. In the north-east part is Basser farm, almost the whole of which is pasture, and some of it so fertile as to be good fatting land for beasts.

 

The paramount manor of Milton claims over this parish, subordinate to which is

 

THE MANOR OF BERKESORE, commonly called BASSER, which is situated in the north-east part of this parish. It was given to the monks of the priory of Christ-church, in Canterbury, to the finding of a light before the shrine of St. Anselm there, which gift was confirmed by Henry II. who added to it fifteen pounds of rent in this place likewise, as did Reginald de Clere, certain land bounding to that of Roger de Wardun and William de Northwode.

 

King Edward II. in his 10th year, granted and confirmed to the prior and convent of Christ-church, free-warren in all their demesne land in Berkesore, held in the time of his grandfather king Henry III.

 

In which state this manor continued till the dissolution of the above-mentioned priory, in the 31st year of Henry VIII. when it was, with all the lands and possessions belonging to it, surrendered up into the king's hands, who settled this manor, by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new erected dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions it now remains.

 

The family of Darell, of Calehill, have for many generations been lessees of this manor under the dean and chapter. Sir Robert Darell held it as such in the 17th year of king James I. and in his descendants it has continued down to Henry Darell, esq. of Calehill, the present lessee of it. A court baron is regularly held for it.

 

Charities.

A HOUSE, with a garden, and two acres of land, in this parish, occupied in 1775 by William Judson, at the yearly rent of 5l. were given by a person unknown, to the poor of this parish.

 

ONE ACRE of land in Southfield, in Halstow, belonging to West Hide, esq. in 1775 occupied by Samuel Buckland, at 10s. per annum, was given by a like person to the same purpose.

 

WILLIAM ROBINSON, of this parish, by will in 1632, gave 20s, in money, and two bushels of wheat, out of land now used with the Stray farm in this parish, to be distributed yearly on St. Thomas's Day for ever.

 

CATH. WOOTTON, of this parish, gave by will in 1678, a field called Budington, in Newington, of the annual produce of 20s. to be distributed yearly on Easter Monday to the poor of this parish for ever.

 

A PERSON UNKNOWN gave a cottage and two tenements, with a garden, in the lower street, worth 4l. per annum, to the poor of it; all which gifts are vested in the minister and churchwardens.

 

The poor constantly relieved here are about eighteen; casually sixteen.

 

HALSTOW is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.

 

The church, which stands close to the creek, is dedicated to St. Margaret; it consists of three small isles and one chancel, with a low pointed steeple, in which hang five bells, and has nothing remarkable in it. The church of Halstow was part of the antient possessions of the priory of Christ-church in Canterbury, as appears by the instrument of archbishop Baldwin, who came to the see of Canterbury in 1184, who, at the presentation of the prior and convent, granted to his beloved son John de London, nephew of the then blessed martyr Thomas, the church of St. Margaret of Halegestowa, in perpetual alms; saving the pension of one marc, which the said John should be bound to pay to the monks above-mentioned, twice in each year. (fn. 1)

 

King Henry III. in his 19th year, granted to the prior and convent of Christ-church, the privilege of a fair at the church of Halowesto.

 

In which situation this church continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it was, with all the lands and possessions of it, surrendered up into the king's hands.

 

The church of Halstow, with the vicarage of it, did not remain long in the hands of the crown, for the king settled it by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new-erected dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions it now remains, the parsonage being leased out by them for twenty-one years, but the advowson of the vicarage they retain in their own hands.

 

The yearly rent to the dean and chapter is 3l. 6s. 8d. who pay yearly to the archdeacon five shillings for procurations for it.

 

The vicarage is a discharged living in the king's books of the yearly certified value of forty pounds, the yearly tenths being 16s. 2¼d. In 1642 it was valued at sixty pounds per annum, first receipt. Communicants eighty-two.

 

Dr. Francis Walwin, prebendary of Canterbury, in 1770, but a short time before his death, paid into the hands of the Rev. John Tucker, of Canterbury, and rector of Ringwold, since deceased, ten pounds to be laid out for the benefit of this vicarage.

 

¶John White, vicar of this parish in 1696, presented a petition to archbishop Tension, setting forth, that he had two vicarage-houses, one an old uninhabited house adjoining to the sea side, which every spring tide overflowed with salt water, and which the seamen and others had in a manner demolished; that the other is a house given by two maids, who died there, and bequeathed it to the vicar for ever; that it had been recovered by his predecessor by course of law, and that he himself had inhabited it for twenty years. He therefore prayed the archbishop to grant him licence to demolish the former, in regard that the vicarage was small, not being worth thirty pounds per annum. To which the archbishop assented, and granted his licence for that purpose in 1696.

 

The scite of the old house and garden was afterwards taken possession of by a dredgerman; a house has been since rebuilt on it, by a person who now claims it as his freehold, and the vicar has not as yet made any attempt to disposses him of it.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol6/pp34-40

Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

Summary

 

The eleven-story Potter Building was commissioned by Orlando B. Potter, a prominent figure in New York politics with prime commercial real estate holdings in Manhattan, and constructed in 1883-86 to the design ofN.G. Starkweather, an architect who had formerly practiced in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Built to replace Potter's World Building, destroyed by fire in January 1882, the Potter Building had the most advanced fireproofing then available. With its vertically-expressed design executed in red brick and brownstone-colored terra cotta above a cast-iron-clad base, and picturesque, flamboyant fusion of Queen Anne, neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival motifs, the Potter Building was distinguished stylistically from most downtown buildings.

 

Several aspects of the Potter Building make it today one of New York's most significant surviving tall office buildings of the period prior to the full development of the skyscraper. Its brickwork is among the handsomest in New York City. An early building to employ extensive exterior architectural terra cotta, it is a rare survivor of that period of development of terra cotta in New York. The highly sculpted terra cotta, produced by the Boston Terra Cotta Co., was employed in a notable "constructive" manner in the loadbearing walls.

 

The Potter Building is also an important surviving example of a New York office building with interior framing mostly of iron, as well as one of the earliest surviving examples of an office building having a C-shaped plan with a major light court facing the street. Its significance is enhanced by the fact that its original design is nearly intact (except for alterations to the commercial base and light court), and its visibility is heightened by its prominent location facing City Hall Park and by its three fully articulated facades.

 

Orlando B. Potter

 

Orlando Bronson Potter commissioned the Potter Building in 1882. A Massachusetts lawyer, Potter (1823-1894) moved to New York City in 1853 to assist in the development of a sewing machine business; he was president of the Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Co. until 1876. A prominent figure in New York Democratic politics, he achieved recognition by developing a plan for a national banking system and currency that was adopted by Congress in 1863, served as a U.S. Representative in 1883-85, and was a member of the Rapid Transit Commission in 1890-94.

 

Potter became extremely wealthy, due largely to his commercial real estate holdings in Manhattan (worth an estimated six million dollars at his death) upon which he concentrated after 1876. Besides purchasing existing structures, Potter commissioned a number of notable buildings, among them: 444 Lafayette Street (1875-76, Griffith Thomas); 746-750 Broadway (1881-83, Starkweather & Gibbs); Potter Building (1883-86, N.G. Starkweather), 35-38 Park Row; 808 Broadway (1888, Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell), adjacent to Grace Church; and 4-8 Astor Place (1890, Francis H. Kimball). In 1886, Potter founded the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. with his son-in-law Walter Geer. At the time of his sudden death in January 1894, Potter was thought to have been the wealthiest man in New York City to have died intestate.

 

The Architect

 

The Potter Building was designed by Norris Garshom Starkweather. Born in Vermont the son of a farmer-carpenter, N.G. Starkweather (18181885) was apprenticed to a builder in 1830 and fifteen years later became a contractor on his own in Massachusetts. By the mid-1840s he had established an architectural practice, moving by the mid-1850s to Philadelphia where he specialized in church designs.

 

The construction of the Gothic Revival style First Presbyterian Church (1854-59; spire completed 1874 by Edmund G. Lind), Baltimore, Starkweather's finest church, was apparently the reason for his relocation to Baltimore in 1856. The 273-foot spire of the church, built of masonry, necessitated "the most massive and scientifically arranged iron framework ever done in this country, or in any other, to our knowledge," according to a contemporary account.5 Achieving some renown for his ecclesiastical and institutional commissions in the Gothic Revival, Italianate, and Romanesque Revival styles, Starkweather also designed some of the most notable Italianate style villas in Maryland and Virginia.6 By 1860 he opened an office in Washington, D.C., and after the Civil War became the partner of Thomas M. Plowman in the architectural and engineering firm of Starkweather & Plowman (1868-71).

 

Starkweather continued to be listed in Washington directories until 1881, though nothing is known of his career during the period following the Panic of 1873. His letterhead in 1877 read "Architect, Engineer, and Superintendent, All kinds of House Decorations Promptly Attended to."

 

Baltimore architect George Frederick reminisced that "after an erratic career . . . [Starkweather] moved to New York."

 

Arriving in New York City by the middle of 1880, Starkweather was a partner of Robert Napier Anderson in the firm of Starkweather & Anderson, "architects and superintendents," at 106 Broadway.

 

From 1881 until about 1884 he was the partner of Charles E. Gibbs; the office of Starkweather & Gibbs in 1881 was in the World Building, owned by O.B. Potter, at 37 Park Row. Besides the Potter Building, only two other commissions by Starkweather in New York City are known, both with Gibbs: the previously-mentioned 746-750 Broadway (1881-83), also for Potter, and the Second Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church (1882-83, demolished) at 321 East 118th Street, a Victorian Gothic style composition with flanking asymmetrical towers, executed in brick and terra cotta. Starkweather died in New York in December 1885, prior to the completion of the Potter Building, and was buried in Bridgeport, Conn.

 

The Tall Office Building in New York City in the 1880s

 

During the nineteenth century, commercial buildings in New York City developed from four-story structures modeled on Italian Renaissance palazzi to much taller skyscrapers. Made possible by technological advances, tall buildings challenged designers to fashion an appropriate architectural expression. Between 1870 and 1890, nine- and ten-story buildings transformed the streetscapes of lower Manhattan between Bowling Green and City Hall. During the building boom following the Civil War, building envelopes continued to be articulated largely according to traditional palazzo compositions, with mansarded and towered roof profiles.

 

The period of the late 1870s and 1880s was one of stylistic experimentation in which commercial and office buildings in New York incorporated diverse influences, such as the Queen Anne, Victorian Gothic, Romanesque, and neo-Grec styles, French rationalism, and the German Rundbogenstil, under the leadership of such architects as Richard M. Hunt and George B. Post. New York's tallest buildings — including the seven-and-one-half-story Equitable Life Assurance Co. Building (186870, Gilman & Kendall and George B. Post) at Broadway and Cedar Street, the ten-story Western Union Building (1872-75, George B. Post) at Broadway and Liberty Street, and the ten-story Tribune Building (1873-75, Richard M. Hunt) on Park Row, all now demolished — incorporated passenger elevators, iron floor beams, and fireproof building materials.

 

Cage construction, employed in the 1880s in tall buildings in New York and Chicago, was characterized by the Record and Guide as "a frame work of iron or steel columns and girders which carry the floors only, and do not carry the outer walls. In the cage construction the outer walls are independent walls, from the foundation to the extreme top, sustaining themselves only, and therefore, the walls are made less in thickness than if they had to bear the floors as in ordinary buildings such walls would have to do."12 Ever taller skyscrapers were permitted by the increasing use and refinement of the metal skeleton frame, in which the metal columns and girders support both the floors and the outer (curtain) walls.13 In addition, several hybrid structural forms were used in tall buildings, such as the combination of both masonry and metal for interior vertical supports. Fireproofing was of paramount concern as office buildings grew taller, and by 1881-82 systems had been devised to "completely fireproof' them.

 

While tall buildings in New York City often had interior light courts,15 George B. Post is credited as one of the first architects to introduce and popularize major light courts that faced the street, a solution to providing office towers with maximum light and air, in the Post Building (1880-81, demolished), 16-18 Exchange Place, and Mills Building (1881-83, demolished), 59 Exchange Place, both of which had C-shaped plans.16 The Potter Building utilized the successful design, construction, fireproofing, and planning techniques of these earlier buildings.

 

Park Row: "Newspaper Row"

 

The vicinity of Park Row, Nassau Street, and Printing House Square,18 roughly from the Brooklyn Bridge to Ann Street, was the center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1840s through the 1920s, while Beekman Street became the center of the downtown printing industry.

 

Beginning in the 1870s, this area was redeveloped with tall office buildings, most associated with the newspapers, and Park Row (with its advantageous frontage across from City Hall Park and the U.S. Post Office) and adjacent Nassau Street acquired a series of important late-nineteenth-century structures: Tribune Building (1873-75, Richard M. Hunt, demolished), 154-170 Nassau Street; Morse Building (1878-80, Silliman & Farnsworth; 1900-02, Bannister & Schell), 140 Nassau Street; Temple Court Building (1881-83, Silliman & Farnsworth; 1889-90, James Farnsworth), 7 Beekman Street; Potter Building (1883-86); New York Times Building (1888-89, George B. Post; 1904-05, Robert Maynicke), 40 Park Row; World (Pulitzer) Building (1889-90, George B. Post, demolished), 53-63 Park Row; American Tract Society Building (1894-95, R.H. Robertson), 150 Nassau Street; and Park Row Building (1896-99, R.H. Robertson), 15 Park Row.

 

Construction of the Potter Building

 

The Potter Building's lot, at Park Row and Beekman Street, had been the location of the Brick Presbyterian Church (1767, John McComb, Sr.). When the church built a new edifice uptown, the church site was divided into two lots; the building erected on the northern lot housed the New York Times. Orlando B. Potter, with Boston friends John and Uriah Ritchie, purchased the southern lot in 1857 for around $350,000, and put up a five-story Italianate style stone structure (first known as the Park Building) that became the home of the New York World (founded in 1860). Potter became the sole owner of this building in 1867.22 Destroyed by a fire on January 31, 1882, in which several people died, the World Building (as it was then known)

 

"made itself notorious the country over for burning up in the shortest time on record."23 The Real Estate Record & Guide speculated that "the ground is so valuable that it will no doubt be immediately built upon, and a structure will take its place that will vie with the several superb buildings in its neighborhood."24 Potter, understandably determined to replace the World Building with a structure having the most advanced fireproofing then available, had suffered heavy financial loss in the fire.25 The Record & Guide announced on February 18, 1882, that

 

Mr. O.B. Potter proposes to erect on the site of the structure so recently destroyed by fire . . . one of the largest office buildings yet erected in New York. Mr. Potter proposes to have this building absolutely fireproof inside as well as outside . . . The building will be eleven stories high, the fronts being constructed of pressed brick and terra cotta . . . It is proposed to fit up the first floor for banking houses, while the upper stories will be devoted to offices for lawyers and general business purposes. It is the intention of the owner to make this structure an ornament to the neighborhood and in keeping with the numerous handsome buildings by which it will be surrounded.26 Costs, however, delayed construction until the next year.27 The Record & Guide finally indicated in April 1883 that foundation work on Potter's building had commenced: "The structure is to be made absolutely fire-proof.

 

A furnace will be put up on the premises to test the various building materials that Mr. Potter has under consideration. Mr. Starkweather's plans have been adopted, and the work will be pushed as rapidly as good building will permit."28

 

The World Building fire had occurred while Potter's 746-750 Broadway building was under construction, and the firms working on that project were retained for the construction of the Potter Building.29 The day after architect N.G. Starkweather filed his plans for the Potter Building, the New York Times announced that the eleven-story office building, with ground-story commercial spaces, was to cost $700,000, and that "the materials used in the construction of the walls and front will be the best bricks, pressed bricks, terra cotta, and iron . . . The roof and floor beams will be of rolled iron, and all floors, except the basement, will be laid on iron girders."30 The Record & Guide in March 1884 reported that "the Potter building is going forward rapidly."31 Five companies apparently supplied the exterior cast

 

iron and interior structural ironwork for the building (New York City Iron Works, J.M. Duclos & Co., H.W. Adams & Co., Lehigh Iron Co., and Jackson Architectural Iron Works), while Thomas Armstrong was the mason.32 The Fireman's Herald thought that "the new structure will be famous as the result of much thought and many experiments in order to put up an ideal fireproof building, and it will endure for ages . . . The work is not done by contract, but by the day, and every detail undergoes inspection."33 In addition, there was a bricklayers' strike in 1884,34 thus the estimated cost of the project in May 1885 rose to 1.2 million dollars. Construction was completed at the end of June 1886.

 

Today the Potter Building is recognized as an important and rare surviving example of an 1880s fireproofed New York office building with interior framing mostly of iron. The independent exterior brick walls vary in thickness from forty inches on the ground story to twenty inches on the upper stories. Interior hollow cast-iron structural columns are encased in wire netting covered with "lime water," fire brick, and plaster; flanged wrought-iron joists, set into the brick walls, carry wrought-iron beams; flat-arch tile fireproofing ("a specially constructed brick of the best fire-resisting qualities"),35 between and encasing the joists, is coated with plaster; and floors are laid with concrete and pieces of stone and brick. In each of the building's wings (to the east and west of the light court) an interior masonry wall is set perpendicular to the court, for additional floor support and bracing of the building.36 The Fireman's Herald opined that "on the floors and ceilings depend the whole theory and practice of fire-proofing."

 

King's Handbook of New York in 1892 called the Potter Building "one of the most substantially constructed and absolutely fireproof among the office buildings in the metropolis."38 Besides the eleven above-ground stories, the building has two basement stories; four passenger elevators were originally located in a lobby that extended through the north end of the building.

 

Design of the Potter Building

 

The Potter Building, designed by a non-New York architect with a picturesque, flamboyant fusion of Queen Anne, neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival motifs, was distinguished stylistically from most downtown Manhattan office buildings.

 

The vertically- expressed design, executed in red brick and brownstone-colored terra cotta above a cast-ironclad base, is organized by continuous piers flanking paired fenestration. The northernmost bay on both the Park Row and Nassau Street facades is narrower, corresponding functionally to the interior elevator halls. Articulation on all three facades is similar, the walls elaborated by ornamental terracotta capitals, pediments, segmental arches, panels, and corbelling. The building's brickwork, incorporating molding and patterns, is among the handsomest in New York City. The quadrilateral shape of the lot and the acute angle created by the juncture of Park Row and Beekman Street were skillfully adapted into the design, which features a dramatic, colossal three-quarter-round column terminating in a pinnacle on this primary corner. The roofline is further punctuated by finials and broken scroll pediments with urns.

 

Several elements of the Potter Building can be seen in Starkweather's earlier work, such as an overall picturesqueness, exploitation of a dramatic corner, the use of prominent pinnacles and pediments, and elaboration of windows. The Potter Building provided an interesting contrast with its adjacent neighbors, the slightly earlier Temple Court and Morse Buildings.

 

Contemporary comment on the Potter Building was decidedly mixed (as it was with most prominent tall buildings of the late nineteenth century in New York). A critic with the Record & Guide in 1885 was particularly scathing, stating that "there is not an interesting or refined piece of detail in the whole building . . . All the good work that has been done in recent architecture has been thrown away on the designer of the Potter building, which is coarse, pretentious, overloaded and intensely vulgar."39 Interestingly, this critic also viewed unfavorably the verticality of the design (a hallmark of later favorable criticism on the progression of skyscraper design):

 

There is no effort visible anywhere to broaden the fronts and keep them down. There is not an emphatic horizontal line anywhere, with the single exception of the main cornice. Even the demarcation between the principal divisions is not brought out, while the vertical lines are everywhere emphasized so as to make the building look spindling.40 Carpentry and Building in 1885 remarked, how ever, that one of the most conspicuous new buildings in the lower part of New York City is the Potter

 

Building . . . noticeable to the casual visitor particularly on account of its hight [sic], and also on account of the combined use of iron and brick on the outside walls . . . A prominent feature of the building is the extensive use of terra-cotta . . . The front of the principal story and the story immediately above it are of cast iron. Iron trimmings are also used in some of the stories above these, and a judicious combination of iron with brick, and iron with terra-cotta, is a marked feature of the exterior treatment.41

 

King's Handbook in 1892 thought that "the really noble proportions of the Potter Building, and the impressive character of its architecture, make it one of the great and illustrious monuments of commercial success in the Empire City."42 And in 1899 the History of Architecture and the Building Trades of Greater New York found that the building "as a design is unusual and perhaps excessive in detail, but has great interest in the disposition of its masses."

 

The Potter Building is an early example, and one of the earliest surviving, of a New York office building having a C-shaped plan with a major light court facing the street (here Beekman Street). The Record & Guide noted that the court was "similar to those of the Post and Mills buildings," while the Fireman's Herald thought the building "is so divided that it looks almost like two buildings."44 Today the Potter Building is one of New York's most notable surviving tall office buildings of the period prior to the full development of the skyscraper. Its significance is enhanced by the fact that its original design is nearly intact (except for alterations to the commercial base and light court). Its visibility is heightened by its prominent location on Park Row facing City Hall Park and by its three fully articulated facades.

 

The Potter Building and Architectural Terra Cotta in New York City

 

While there were several attempts in the 1850s to employ terra cotta for architectural ornament in New York,46 it was after the Chicago and Boston fires of 1871-72 that terra cotta began to be used as a significant interior and exterior building material in the United States. Walter Geer observed that "by these fires it was conclusively demonstrated that fire-proof buildings could not be made of unprotected stone or iron, and that only brick and terra-cotta walls were practically fire-proof.

 

This increased use of brick work, and of terra-cotta as a constructive and decorative material in connection with brick work, revived the demand for the manufacture of this material in or near New York."47 Advantages seen in terra cotta for both exterior architectural ornament and interior fireproofing included its fireproof properties, strength, durability, lower cost and weight in shipping and handling, the relative ease w ith which elaborate decoration could be molded, and the retention over time of crisp ornamental profiles compared to stone. In the 1870s and early 1880s architectural terra cotta was often a color that matched stone (commonly brownstone, buff or red) that could be employed in pleasant juxtaposition with brick, or as a substitute for brownstone. The Record & Guide remarked that during this period "terra cotta is most generally used for the trimming and ornamentation of buildings, taking the form of panels, courses, friezes, small tiles, roofing tiles and paving blocks."

 

George B. Post was the leader in New York City in the use of exterior terra cotta, in his designs for the Braem House (1878-80, demolished), 15 East 37th Street;49 Long Island Historical Society (1878-81), 128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, for which a contemporary said "the material has been employed, for the first time in the United States, both for the building material and for all decorative details";50 New York Produce Exchange (1881-84, demolished), 2 Broadway; and Mills Building. Among other contemporary architects who employed terra cotta were Silliman & Farnsworth, in the Morse Building, then considered the first prominent New York office building to employ exterior terra cotta (though it was used sparingly for architectural details, in conjunction with molded red and black brick), and Temple Court Building; and Kimball & Wisedell, designers of the Casino Theater (1881-82, demolished), 1400 Broadway, an early New York building having highly intricate, exotic terra-cotta ornament.

 

The Potter Building was an early and significant building to employ extensive exterior architectural terra cotta. (King's Handbook in 1892 claimed, inaccurately, that it was "the first building erected in this city which was elaborately o rname nted w ith te rra c otta."51) To day the building is a rare survivor of that period of development of terra cotta in New York. The terra cotta on the Potter Building, highly sculpted in comparison to the lower relief terra-cotta panels and more judicious use of terra cotta found more typically on contemporary buildings, was produced by the Boston Terra Cotta Co.52 One of the first terra cotta firms on the East Coast, the Boston company featured the Potter Building in its 1885 catalogue, declaring that the terra cotta was "used constructively -- fully demonstrating the great bearing strength (when properly set) of the work made by the Boston Terra Cotta Co."

 

The term "constructively" refers to the manner in which the terra cotta was fully integrated into the exterior brick bearing walls of the Potter Building.

 

Some 540 tons of terra cotta were employed in the Potter Building, which was further called in 1888 an example of the best use of terra-cotta, both for constructive and ornamental purposes . . . No building yet erected in this country is more solidly constructed, and the weight supported by the piers and arches is simply enormous. If stone had been used in place of terra-cotta, the weight to be supported would have been more than doubled, and the risk and cost of handling would have been greatly increased, to say nothing about the first-cost of stone work, as heavily carved and richly ornamented as the terra-cotta work used in this building.5 James Taylor (1839-1898), "the father of American terra cotta,"55 was superintendent of the Boston Terra Cotta Co. during construction of the Potter Building.

 

First rising to superintendent of J.M. Blashfield's terra cotta works in Stamford, England, Taylor left and later superintended the Chicago Terra-Cotta Works in 1870-76, the period during which Chicago was the leading location for American terra cotta manufacturing. He advised the establishment of the A. Hall & Sons Fire Brick Works in 1877 (Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Co. after 1879) in New Jersey. After the owner of the Chicago firm collaborated with the Boston Fire Brick Co. after 1876, to meet the demand for terra cotta on the East Coast, this plant subsequently became the Boston Terra Cotta Co. in 1880 and Taylor became superintendent there. Geer reported that Taylor "was frequently in New York supervising the setting of the terra cotta [for the Potter Building], and had numerous opportunities of meeting Mr. Potter, who always personally looked after the construction of his buildings."

 

O.B. Potter decided to organize his own firm, the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co., which was launched in January 1886 with Walter Geer and his father, Asahel Clarke Geer; Taylor was superintendent until he retired in 1893. Ill-starred

 

to say the least, Potter saw his new terra cotta works in Long Island City totally destroyed by fire in July 1886 (it was immediately rebuilt).58 The company, the only major architectural terra cotta firm in New York City, became one of the largest such manufacturers in the United States, remaining in business until bankruptcy in 1932. Walter Geer credited George B. Post and Orlando B. Potter as the two men most responsible for the promotion of terra cotta in New York City, praising Potter for having "employed terra cotta largely in all of the numerous buildings which he erected, and [who] did much by his example, and also by his advocacy of the material on all occasions, to promote and encourage its use."59

 

Early Tenants

 

King's Handbook mentioned that there were two hundred offices in the Potter Building, "including those of several newspaper and periodical publishers, insurance and other companies, lawyers and professional men."61 Among its newspaper tenants were the editorial and business offices of The Press, a popular penny newspaper founded in 1887 with ties to the Republican party, and the New York-Observer, the oldest American religious newspaper, started in 1823 and previously located in the World Building until the fire. Other tenants included Peter Adams Co. and Adams & Bishop Co., manufacturers of fine papers for printing, maps, photography, etc.; the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association, established in 1881 and the then-largest assessment insurance firm in the world;62 the business offices of Otis Brothers & Co., manufacturers of elevators since 1855 and the leading maker of passenger elevators; the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. offices; and O.B. Potter himself, on the top floor.

 

Later History

 

After Orlando B. Potter's death in 1894, the Potter Building was conveyed to the O.B. Potter Trust (Estate of Orlando B. Potter),64 then in 1913 to O.B. Potter Properties, Inc. Frederick Potter (1856-1923), a lawyer who had assisted his father with family real estate since 1880, became administrator of the estate and later served as president of O.B. Potter Properties.65 The firm sold the Potter Building in 1920 to Aronson Investing Co., Inc., "relinquished in the best interests of the [Potter] Estate with the changes brought about in the city's development."66 O.B. Potter's daughter,

 

Blanche, stated that, due to financial worries in 1919, the family sold some of its real estate, including the Potter and Empire Buildings.67 In 1923 the Potter Building was conveyed to Parbee Realty Corp., then to Gening Realty Corp. in 1929, to 38 Park Row Corp. in 1931, and back to Parbee in 1932. Seaman's Bank for Savings foreclosed on the property in March 1941, holding it until 1945, when it was purchased by Beepark Estates, Inc. (later Beepark Realty Co.). The majority of twentieth-century office tenants were lawyers and accountants. The 38 Park Row Corp. acquired the building in 1954 and held it until 1973, when it was sold to Pace College, which intended to demolish four adjacent buildings for the construction of a large office tower on Park Row. After this scheme fell through, Pace sold the Potter Building in 1979 to 38 Park Row Associates, a joint venture of the East River Savings Bank with the BOMA, Ltd., partnership (Martin J. Raynes and Robert Stang, principals).

 

The building was converted into a cooperative with loft apartments and the property was conveyed to the 38 Park Row Residence Corp. in 1981.

 

Description

 

The eleven-story (plus two basement stories) Potter Building has three principal facades, on Park Row, Beekman Street, and Nassau Street; the C-shaped plan of the building allows for a major light court (now altered) above the third story on Beekman Street. The building, of fireproofed construction with mostly iron framing, is clad in cast iron on the two stories of the base, and red brick and brownstone-colored terra cotta on the upper stories. Articulation on the three facades is similar, organized by continuous piers alternating with paired fenestration; there is a high degree of ornamentation in the cast iron, brick, and terra cotta. A colossal three-quarter-round column is placed on the acute primary corner of Park Row and Beekman Street. Windows have one-over-one double-hung wood sash (there are some exterior storm windows). An exterior restoration, performed in 1992-93 by Siri & Marsik, architects, with Henry Restoration, included overall repointing, patching of the terra cotta with Jahn mortar, and some brick replacement.

 

Base

 

The two-story base is clad in cast iron. The entire ground story was originally capped by spandrel

 

panels with segmental arches with bosses, while the second story is capped by spandrel panels with pediments. Shopfronts were originally framed with thin cast-iron colonnettes, and had a display window (some had additional projecting display cases) and a doorway (with a transom) to the right, surmounted by a two-part transom. Historic photographs indicate that doors and entrance transoms were of the multi-pane Queen Anne style. All of the shopfronts have been altered several times over the years, and no historic fabric survives. Shopfronts are currently framed in metal with rolldown gates.

 

Base: Park Row The northernmost bay of the ground story was originally the entrance to the elevator lobby; it had shallow steps, columns supporting a heavy broken scroll pediment, and double doors. This entrance received a surround with a veneer of polished granite, the entrance steps were removed, and a shop was installed in the former entrance and western portion of the elevator lobby. The ground-story spandrel panels, originally with segmental arches, were covered by cast-stone panels (1941, Hardie Phillip, Alt. 2119-41). Base: Beekman Street The center of this facade corresponds to the light court above: the ground story originally had an entrance through a triple-arched portico with a projecting pediment supported by bracketed columns (the entrance was altered in 1912, later converted into a shop, and the portico was removed); the second story has three windows flanked by colonnettes. This is the only facade with its original ground-story spandrel panels with segmental arches exposed.

 

A Duclos & Co. iron founder's plate is located on the first pier at the southwest corner of the building. Base: Nassau Street The northernmost bay of the ground story was originally the entrance to the elevator lobby; it is now the residential entrance, with metal and glass doors and transom (1980). The ground-story spandrel panels, originally with segmental arches, were covered with cast-stone panels in 1941.

 

Midsection

 

The midsection consists of seven stories, the ninth story acting as a transition to the upper section. The spandrels above the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh stories are ornamented by corbelling, and the fourth and eighth stories by segmental arches, all of terra cotta. The piers of the eighth story have heavy terra-cotta stylized composite capitals, the corner column at Park Row and Beekman Street having an eagle. The ninth story is capped by a bracketed terra-cotta cornice. Window sills are cast iron. Beekman Street: Light Court The center section of the Beekman Street facade is the light court. On the third story (below the court) are three windows flanked by cast-iron colonnettes, surmounted by a cast-iron pediment with an acroterion. A T-shaped fire escape was added across the center of the court in 1916-18. The fire escape was extended to the roof, enclosed with parged masonry walls, and braced with steel beams (1979-81).

 

The remaining light court configuration is thus an enclosed interior light court to the north (not visible from the street) and an exposed southern portion, within which extends the enclosed stairway. The northernmost sections of the side walls of this latter (southern) portion of the court still exposed are clad in cream brick.

 

Upper Section

 

The two-story upper section has corbelled spandrels above the tenth story and segmental-arched windows with segmental terra-cotta hoods on the eleventh story. Alternate bays are surmounted by pediments. The roofline is punctuated by finials, broken scroll pediments with urns, and a prominent pinnacle above the primary corner column. The roof has later penthouse and service structures.

 

- From the 1996 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

An oil painting of the last meal of Cameron Todd Willingham, wrongfully convicted and executed in Texas by death penalty artist Kate MacDonald. 20 x 16", oil on canvas. © Kate MacDonald, All Rights Reserved.

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Gwalior Fort (Hindi: ग्वालियर क़िला Gwalior Qila) is an 8th-century hill fort near Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, central India. The fort consists of a defensive structure and two main palaces, Gurjari Mahal and Man Mandir, built by Man Singh Tomar. The fort has been controlled by a number of different rulers over time. The Gurjari Mahal palace was built for Queen Mrignayani. It is now an archaeological museum.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The word Gwalior is derived from one of the Hindu words for saint, Gwalipa.

 

TOPOGRAPHY

The fort is built on an outcrop of Vindhyan sandstone on a solitary, rocky, long, thin, steep hill called Gopachal. The geology of the Gwalior range rock formations is ochre coloured sandstone covered with basalt. There is a horizontal strata, 104 m at its highest point (length 2.4 km and average width 910 m.The stratum forms a near perpendicular precipice. A small river, the Swarnrekha, flows close to the palace.

 

RULERS

Legend tells that Suraj Sen Kachwaha, chieftain of the nearby Silhonia village was on a hunting trip. He came upon the hermit, Gwalipa (Galava) who gave the chieftain healing water from the Surajkund reservoir. In gratitude for the healing of leprosy, the chieftain founded Gwalior, naming it after Gwalipa. The earliest record of the fort is 525 AD where it is mentioned in an inscription in the temple of the Hun) emperor, Mihirakula (510 AD). Near the fort is an 875 AD Chaturbhuj temple associated with Telika Mandir.

 

PAL DYNASTY OF KACHAWAHA

The Pal dynasty of 86 kings ruled for 989 years. It began with Budha Pal and concluded with Suraj Pal. Budha Pal's son was Tej Karan (1127 - 1128). Gwalipa prophesied that the Pal dynasty would continue while the patronym, Pal was kept. Tej Keran married the daughter of Ran Mul, ruler of Amber (Jaipur) and received a valuable dowry. Tej Keran was offered the reign of Amber as long as he made it his residence. He did so, leaving Gwalior under Ram Deva Pratihar.

 

GUJARA-PRATIHARA DYNASTY

The Gurjara-Pratihar dynasty at Gwalior included Pramal Dev, Salam Dev, Bikram Dev, Ratan Dev, Shobhang Dev, Narsinh Dev and Pramal Dev.

 

TURKIC CONQUEST

In 1023 AD, Mahmud of Ghazni unsuccessfully attacked the fort. In 1196 AD, after a long siege, Qutubuddin Aibak, first Turkic sultan of Delhi took the fort, ruling till 1211 AD. In 1231 AD, the fort taken by Iltumish, Turkic sultan of Delhi. Under attack from Timurlane, Narasingh Rao, a Jaina chieftain captured the fort.

 

TOMAR RULERS

The Rajput Tomara clan ruled Gwalior from 1398 (when Pramal Dev captured the fort from a Muslim ruler) to 1518 (when Vikramaditya was defeated by Ibrahim lodhi).

 

Pramal Dev (Ver Singh, Bir Sing Deo) 1375.

Uddhharan Dev (brother of Pramal Dev).

Lakshman Dev Tomar

Viramdev 1400 (son of Virsingh Dev).

Ganapati Dev Tomar 1419.

Dugarendra (Dungar) Singh 1424.

Kirti Singh Tomar 1454.

Mangal Dev (younger son of Kirti Singh).

Kalyanmalla Tomar 1479.

Man Singh Tomar 1486 - 1516 (builder of the Man mandir).

Vikramaditya Tomar 1516.

Ramshah Tomar 1526.

Salivahan Tomar 1576.

 

SURI DYNASTY

In 1519, Ibrahim Lodi took the fort. After his death, control passed to the Mughal emperor Babur. Barber's son, Humayun, was defeated by Sher Shah Suri. After Suri's death in 1540, his son, Islam Shah, moved power from Delhi to Gwalior for strategic reasons. After the death of Islam Shah in 1553, his incumbent, Adil Shah Suri, appointed the Hindu warrior, Hemu (Hem Chandra Vikramaditya) as manager of Gwalior. From 1553 - 1556, Hemu attacked Adil Shah Suri and others from the fort.

 

MUGHAL DYNASTY

When the Mughal leader, Akbar captured the fort, he made it a prison for political prisoners. For example, Kamran, Akbar's cousin was held and executed at the fort. Aurangzeb's brother, Murad and nephews Suleman and Sepher Shikoh were also executed at the fort. The killings took place in the Man Madir palace.

 

RANA JAT DYNASTY

The Jats of Gohad occupied the fort on three occasions between 1740 and 1783. (Maharaja Bhim Singh Rana 1740 - 1756; Maharaja Chhatra Singh Rana 1761 - 1767; and Maharaja Chhatra Singh Rana 1780 - 1783).

 

MARATHA RULE

In 1779, the Scindia clan of the Maratha Empire stationed a garrison at the fort however, it was taken by the East India Company. In 1784, the Marathas under Mahadji Sinde, recovered the fort. There were frequent changes in the control of the fort between the Scindias and the British between 1808 and 1844. In January 1844, after the battle of Maharajpur, the fort was occupied by the Marathas as protectorate of the British government.

 

REBELLION OF 1857

On 1 June 1858, Rani Lakshmi Bai led a rebellion. The Central India Field Force, under General Hugh Rose, besieged the fort. Bai died on 17 June 1858.

 

STRUCTURES

The fort and its premises are well maintained and house many historic monuments including palaces, temples and water tanks. There are eleven temples to Gautama Buddha and the tirthankaras of Jainism. There are also a number of palaces (mahal) including the Man mandir, the Gujari, the Jahangir, the Karan, and the Shah Jahan. The fort covers an area of 3 square kilometres and rises 11 m. Its rampart is built around the edge of the hill, connected by six bastions or towers. The profile of the fort has an irregular appearance due to the undulating ground beneath. On the southern side are 21 temples cut into the rock with intricately carved tirthankaras. One, Pārśva, the 23rd local saint, is 12 m high.

 

There are two gates; one on the northeast side with a long access ramp and the other on the southwest. The main entrance is the ornate Elephant gate (Hathi Pul). The other is the Badalgarh Gate. The Man Mandir palace or citadel is located at the northeast end of the fort. It was built in the 1400s and refurbished in 1648. The water tanks or reservoirs of the fort could provide water to a 15,000 strong garrison, the number required to secure the fort.

 

MAN MANDIR PALACE

The Man mandir palace was built by the King of Tomar Dynasty - Maharaja Man Singh.It is a big palace with wonderful architecture,and beautiful art work done on its front as well as some interior walls.

 

HATHI POL

The Hathi Pol gate (or Hathiya Paur), located on the southeast, leads to the Man mandir palace. It is the last of a series of seven gates. It is named for a life-sized statue of an elephant (hathi) that once adorned the gate. The gate was built in stone with cylindrical towers crowned with cupola domes. Carved parapets link the domes.

 

GUJARI MAHAL MUSEUM

Gujari Mahal was built by Raja Man Singh for his wife Mrignayani, a Gujar princess. She demanded a separate palace for herself with a regular water supply through an aqueduct from the nearby Rai River. The palace has been converted into an archaeological museum. Rare artefacts at the museum include Hindu and Jain sculptures dated to the 1st and 2nd centuries BC; miniature statue of Salabhanjika; Terracotta items and replicas of frescoes seen in the Bagh Caves.

 

TELI KA MANDIR

The Teli-ka mandir (the oilman’s temple or oil pressers' temple) is a Brahmanical sanctuary built in the 8th (or perhaps the 11th century) and was refurbished between 1881 and 1883. It is the oldest part of the fort and has a blend of south and north Indian architectural styles. Within the rectangular structure is a shrine with no pillared pavilions (mandapa) and a Buddhist barrel-vaulted roof on a Hindu mandir. Buddhist architectural elements are found in the Chitya type hall and torana decorations at the entrance. There is a masonry tower in the nagari architectural style with a barrel vaulted roof 25 metres in height. The niches in the outer walls once housed statues but now have gavakshas (horse shoe arch) ventilator openings in the north Indian style. The gavaksha has been compared to the trefoil, a honeycomb design with a series of receding pointed arches within an arch. The entrance door has a torana or archway with sculpted images of river goddesses, romantic couples, foliation decoration and a Garuda. Diamond and lotus designs are seen on the horizontal band at the top of the arch indicating an influence from the Buddhist period. The vertical bands on either side of the door are decorated in a simple fashion with figures that are now badly damaged. Above the door are a small grouping of discs representing the finial (damalaka) of an Indo-Aryan Shikhara. The temple was originally dedicated to Vishnu, but later converted to the worship of Siva.

 

GARUDA MONUMENT

Close to the Teli ka Mandir temple is the Garuda monument, dedicated to Vishnu, is the highest in the fort. It has a mixture of Muslim and Indian architecture. The word Teli comes from the Hindu word Taali a bell used in worship.

 

SAAS-BAHU TEMPLE

In 1093, the Pal Kachawaha rulers built two temples to Vishnu. The temples are pyramidal in shape, built of red sandstone with several stories of beams and pillars but no arches.

 

KAM MAHAL

The Karn mahal is another significant monument at Gwalior Fort. The Karn mahal was built by the second king of the Tomar dynasty, Kirti Singh. He was also known as Karn Singh, hence the name of the palace.

 

VIKRAM MAHAL

The Vikram mahal (also known as the Vikram mandir, as it once hosted a temple of Shiva) was built by Vikramaditya Singh, the elder son of Maharaja Mansingh.He was a devotee of Shiva. The temple was destroyed during Mughal period but now has been re-established in the front open space of the Vikram mahal.

 

CHHATRI OF BHIM SINGH RANA

This chhatri (cupola or domed shaped pavilion) was built as a memorial to Bhim Singh Rana (1707-1756), a ruler of Gohad state. It was built by his successor, Chhatra Singh. Bhim Singh occupied Gwalior fort in 1740 when the Mughal Satrap, Ali Khan, surrendered. In 1754, Bhim Singh built a bhimtal (a lake) as a monument at the fort. Chhatra Singh built the memorial chhatri near the bhimtal. Every year, the Jat Samaj Kalyan council (parishad) of Gwalior organises a fair on Rama Navami, in honor of Bhim Singh Rana.

 

OTHER MONUMENTS

There are several other monuments built inside the fort area. These include: the Scindia School (an exclusive school for the sons of Indian princes and nobles)that was founded by Madho Rao Scindia in 1897; and the Gurdwara Data Bandi, a memorial to the sixth Sikh, Guru Hargobind.

 

WIKIPEDIA