The Shipley Art Gallery is an art gallery in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England, located at the south end of Prince Consort Road. It has a Designated Collection of national importance.

 

Origins

The Shipley Art Gallery opened to the public in 1917. This was made possible by a bequest from wealthy local solicitor and art collector, Joseph Ainsley Davidson Shipley (1822–1909).

 

Shipley was a rather enigmatic person about whom little is known. He was born in Gateshead, near High Street. He was a solicitor in the Newcastle firm of Hoyle, Shipley and Hoyle. From 1884 until his death, he leased Saltwell Park House, now known as Saltwell Towers. Shipley's main passion was art and collecting paintings. He bought his first painting when he was sixteen and by the time he died he had amassed a collection of some 2,500 paintings.

 

On his death, Shipley left £30,000 and all his pictures to the City of Newcastle, which was to build a new gallery to house the collection. This was to be known as "The Shipley Bequest". Current belief within local history circles is that Shipley’s will expressly banned Newcastle’s art gallery as a recipient of the bequest, but this assertion must be dismissed: since the foundation stone of the Laing Art Gallery was laid only in August 1901 and the gallery opened in October 1904, the institution did not yet exist in 1900, when Shipley’s will was compiled. Shipley’s will did, in fact, declare that ‘the Art Gallery to be erected in Higham Place will not be and shall not be regarded as an Art Gallery within this trust’, owing to its being ‘too small’, but he conceded that if it ‘shall be capable of being enlarged so as to render it capable of holding all, then I direct my Trustees to raise the sum of £30,000 out of my residuary estate and pay the same to the treasurer of the gallery to be applied in or toward such enlargement as aforesaid’. It was only following a lengthy process that Gateshead Municipal Council was offered the collection. As it was impossible to house all of the paintings, 359 of the pictures recommended by the executors of Shipley's will were selected. A further group was then added by the Gateshead Committee, bringing the total to 504.

 

In 1914, after the sale of the remaining paintings, work began on the new art gallery. The building, which was designed by Arthur Stockwell, M.S.A. of Newcastle, opened on 29 November 1917. The stone entrance portico is distyle in antis – four Corinthian-style stone columns flanked by solid pilasters. These are surmounted by two sculptured figures, one representing the Arts and the other Industry and Learning, by W. Birnie Rhind, RSA. of Edinburgh.

 

Pevsner described the art gallery as a "bold arrangement of a brick central block and lower wings containing galleries". The building was designated as Grade II listed in 1982.

 

Present gallery

The original 504 paintings represented all the main European schools from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Since 1917, the collection has been added to, and now comprises some 10,000 items.

 

The gallery holds a strong collection of 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings, as well as 19th century British works, watercolours, prints, drawings and sculpture. Also featured are items of local interest, which include the popular painting by William C. Irving ((1866–1943) of "Blaydon Races" (1903) and a 1970 street scene of Redheugh Crossroads by Gateshead-born Charlie Rogers.

 

Since 1977 the gallery has become established as a national centre for contemporary craftwork. It has built up one of the best collections outside London, which includes ceramics, wood, metal, glass, textiles and furniture. The Shipley is home to the Henry Rothschild collection of studio ceramics. In 2008, the Shipley opened its Designs for Life gallery which showcases the gallery's collections of contemporary craft and design. The Gallery also hosts a varied programme of temporary exhibitions and has a strong partnership with the V&A Museum in London.

 

The Shipley Art Gallery is managed by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums on behalf of Gateshead Council.

 

Gateshead is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The town shares the Millennium Bridge, Tyne Bridge and multiple other bridges with Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Historically part of County Durham, under the Local Government Act 1888 the town was made a county borough, meaning it was administered independently of the county council.

 

In the 2011 Census, the town had a population of 120,046 while the wider borough had 200,214.

 

History

Gateshead is first mentioned in Latin translation in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People as ad caput caprae ("at the goat's head"). This interpretation is consistent with the later English attestations of the name, among them Gatesheued (c. 1190), literally "goat's head" but in the context of a place-name meaning 'headland or hill frequented by (wild) goats'. Although other derivations have been mooted, it is this that is given by the standard authorities.

 

A Brittonic predecessor, named with the element *gabro-, 'goat' (c.f. Welsh gafr), may underlie the name. Gateshead might have been the Roman-British fort of Gabrosentum.

 

Early

There has been a settlement on the Gateshead side of the River Tyne, around the old river crossing where the Swing Bridge now stands, since Roman times.

 

The first recorded mention of Gateshead is in the writings of the Venerable Bede who referred to an Abbot of Gateshead called Utta in 623. In 1068 William the Conqueror defeated the forces of Edgar the Ætheling and Malcolm king of Scotland (Shakespeare's Malcolm) on Gateshead Fell (now Low Fell and Sheriff Hill).

 

During medieval times Gateshead was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Durham. At this time the area was largely forest with some agricultural land. The forest was the subject of Gateshead's first charter, granted in the 12th century by Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham. An alternative spelling may be "Gatishevede", as seen in a legal record, dated 1430.

 

Industrial revolution

Throughout the Industrial Revolution the population of Gateshead expanded rapidly; between 1801 and 1901 the increase was over 100,000. This expansion resulted in the spread southwards of the town.

 

In 1854, a catastrophic explosion on the quayside destroyed most of Gateshead's medieval heritage, and caused widespread damage on the Newcastle side of the river.

 

Sir Joseph Swan lived at Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead from 1869 to 1883, where his experiments led to the invention of the electric light bulb. The house was the first in the world to be wired for domestic electric light.

 

In the 1889 one of the largest employers (Hawks, Crawshay and Company) closed down and unemployment has since been a burden. Up to the Second World War there were repeated newspaper reports of the unemployed sending deputations to the council to provide work. The depression years of the 1920s and 1930s created even more joblessness and the Team Valley Trading Estate was built in the mid-1930s to alleviate the situation.

 

Regeneration

In the late noughties, Gateshead Council started to regenerate the town, with the long-term aim of making Gateshead a city. The most extensive transformation occurred in the Quayside, with almost all the structures there being constructed or refurbished in this time.

 

In the early 2010s, regeneration refocused on the town centre. The £150 million Trinity Square development opened in May 2013, it incorporates student accommodation, a cinema, health centre and shops. It was nominated for the Carbuncle Cup in September 2014. The cup was however awarded to another development which involved Tesco, Woolwich Central.

 

Governance

In 1835, Gateshead was established as a municipal borough and in 1889 it was made a county borough, independent from Durham County Council.

 

In 1870, the Old Town Hall was built, designed by John Johnstone who also designed the previously built Newcastle Town Hall. The ornamental clock in front of the old town hall was presented to Gateshead in 1892 by the mayor, Walter de Lancey Willson, on the occasion of him being elected for a third time. He was also one of the founders of Walter Willson's, a chain of grocers in the North East and Cumbria. The old town hall also served as a magistrate's court and one of Gateshead's police stations.

 

Current

In 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, the County Borough of Gateshead was merged with the urban districts of Felling, Whickham, Blaydon and Ryton and part of the rural district of Chester-le-Street to create the much larger Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead.

 

Geography

The town of Gateshead is in the North East of England in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear, and within the historic boundaries of County Durham. It is located on the southern bank of the River Tyne at a latitude of 54.57° N and a longitude of 1.35° W. Gateshead experiences a temperate climate which is considerably warmer than some other locations at similar latitudes as a result of the warming influence of the Gulf Stream (via the North Atlantic drift). It is located in the rain shadow of the North Pennines and is therefore in one of the driest regions of the United Kingdom.

 

One of the most distinguishing features of Gateshead is its topography. The land rises 230 feet from Gateshead Quays to the town centre and continues rising to a height of 525 feet at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sheriff Hill. This is in contrast to the flat and low lying Team Valley located on the western edges of town. The high elevations allow for impressive views over the Tyne valley into Newcastle and across Tyneside to Sunderland and the North Sea from lookouts in Windmill Hills and Windy Nook respectively.

 

The Office for National Statistics defines the town as an urban sub-division. The latest (2011) ONS urban sub-division of Gateshead contains the historical County Borough together with areas that the town has absorbed, including Dunston, Felling, Heworth, Pelaw and Bill Quay.

 

Given the proximity of Gateshead to Newcastle, just south of the River Tyne from the city centre, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as being a part of Newcastle. Gateshead Council and Newcastle City Council teamed up in 2000 to create a unified marketing brand name, NewcastleGateshead, to better promote the whole of the Tyneside conurbation.

 

Economy

Gateshead is home to the MetroCentre, the largest shopping mall in the UK until 2008; and the Team Valley Trading Estate, once the largest and still one of the larger purpose-built commercial estates in the UK.

 

Arts

The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art has been established in a converted flour mill. The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, previously The Sage, a Norman Foster-designed venue for music and the performing arts opened on 17 December 2004. Gateshead also hosted the Gateshead Garden Festival in 1990, rejuvenating 200 acres (0.81 km2) of derelict land (now mostly replaced with housing). The Angel of the North, a famous sculpture in nearby Lamesley, is visible from the A1 to the south of Gateshead, as well as from the East Coast Main Line. Other public art include works by Richard Deacon, Colin Rose, Sally Matthews, Andy Goldsworthy, Gordon Young and Michael Winstone.

 

Traditional and former

The earliest recorded coal mining in the Gateshead area is dated to 1344. As trade on the Tyne prospered there were several attempts by the burghers of Newcastle to annex Gateshead. In 1576 a small group of Newcastle merchants acquired the 'Grand Lease' of the manors of Gateshead and Whickham. In the hundred years from 1574 coal shipments from Newcastle increased elevenfold while the population of Gateshead doubled to approximately 5,500. However, the lease and the abundant coal supplies ended in 1680. The pits were shallow as problems of ventilation and flooding defeated attempts to mine coal from the deeper seams.

 

'William Cotesworth (1668-1726) was a prominent merchant based in Gateshead, where he was a leader in coal and international trade. Cotesworth began as the son of a yeoman and apprentice to a tallow - candler. He ended as an esquire, having been mayor, Justice of the Peace and sheriff of Northumberland. He collected tallow from all over England and sold it across the globe. He imported dyes from the Indies, as well as flax, wine, and grain. He sold tea, sugar, chocolate, and tobacco. He operated the largest coal mines in the area, and was a leading salt producer. As the government's principal agent in the North country, he was in contact with leading ministers.

 

William Hawks originally a blacksmith, started business in Gateshead in 1747, working with the iron brought to the Tyne as ballast by the Tyne colliers. Hawks and Co. eventually became one of the biggest iron businesses in the North, producing anchors, chains and so on to meet a growing demand. There was keen contemporary rivalry between 'Hawks' Blacks' and 'Crowley's Crew'. The famous 'Hawks' men' including Ned White, went on to be celebrated in Geordie song and story.

 

In 1831 a locomotive works was established by the Newcastle and Darlington Railway, later part of the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway. In 1854 the works moved to the Greenesfield site and became the manufacturing headquarters of North Eastern Railway. In 1909, locomotive construction was moved to Darlington and the rest of the works were closed in 1932.

 

Robert Stirling Newall took out a patent on the manufacture of wire ropes in 1840 and in partnership with Messrs. Liddell and Gordon, set up his headquarters at Gateshead. A worldwide industry of wire-drawing resulted. The submarine telegraph cable received its definitive form through Newall's initiative, involving the use of gutta-percha surrounded by strong wires. The first successful Dover–Calais cable on 25 September 1851, was made in Newall's works. In 1853, he invented the brake-drum and cone for laying cable in deep seas. Half of the first Atlantic cable was manufactured in Gateshead. Newall was interested in astronomy, and his giant 25-inch (640 mm) telescope was set up in the garden at Ferndene, his Gateshead residence, in 1871.

 

Architecture

JB Priestley, writing of Gateshead in his 1934 travelogue English Journey, said that "no true civilisation could have produced such a town", adding that it appeared to have been designed "by an enemy of the human race".

 

Victorian

William Wailes the celebrated stained-glass maker, lived at South Dene from 1853 to 1860. In 1860, he designed Saltwell Towers as a fairy-tale palace for himself. It is an imposing Victorian mansion in its own park with a romantic skyline of turrets and battlements. It was originally furnished sumptuously by Gerrard Robinson. Some of the panelling installed by Robinson was later moved to the Shipley Art gallery. Wailes sold Saltwell Towers to the corporation in 1876 for use as a public park, provided he could use the house for the rest of his life. For many years the structure was essentially an empty shell but following a restoration programme it was reopened to the public in 2004.

 

Post millennium

The council sponsored the development of a Gateshead Quays cultural quarter. The development includes the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, erected in 2001, which won the prestigious Stirling Prize for Architecture in 2002.

 

Former brutalism

The brutalist Trinity Centre Car Park, which was designed by Owen Luder, dominated the town centre for many years until its demolition in 2010. A product of attempts to regenerate the area in the 1960s, the car park gained an iconic status due to its appearance in the 1971 film Get Carter, starring Michael Caine. An unsuccessful campaign to have the structure listed was backed by Sylvester Stallone, who played the main role in the 2000 remake of the film. The car park was scheduled for demolition in 2009, but this was delayed as a result of a disagreement between Tesco, who re-developed the site, and Gateshead Council. The council had not been given firm assurances that Tesco would build the previously envisioned town centre development which was to include a Tesco mega-store as well as shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, offices and student accommodation. The council effectively used the car park as a bargaining tool to ensure that the company adhered to the original proposals and blocked its demolition until they submitted a suitable planning application. Demolition finally took place in July–August 2010.

 

The Derwent Tower, another well known example of brutalist architecture, was also designed by Owen Luder and stood in the neighbourhood of Dunston. Like the Trinity Car Park it also failed in its bid to become a listed building and was demolished in 2012. Also located in this area are the Grade II listed Dunston Staithes which were built in 1890. Following the award of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of almost £420,000 restoration of the structure is expected to begin in April 2014.

 

Sport

Gateshead International Stadium regularly holds international athletics meetings over the summer months, and is home of the Gateshead Harriers athletics club. It is also host to rugby league fixtures, and the home ground of Gateshead Football Club. Gateshead Thunder Rugby League Football Club played at Gateshead International Stadium until its purchase by Newcastle Rugby Limited and the subsequent rebranding as Newcastle Thunder. Both clubs have had their problems: Gateshead A.F.C. were controversially voted out of the Football League in 1960 in favour of Peterborough United, whilst Gateshead Thunder lost their place in Super League as a result of a takeover (officially termed a merger) by Hull F.C. Both Gateshead clubs continue to ply their trade at lower levels in their respective sports, thanks mainly to the efforts of their supporters. The Gateshead Senators American Football team also use the International Stadium, as well as this it was used in the 2006 Northern Conference champions in the British American Football League.

 

Gateshead Leisure Centre is home to the Gateshead Phoenix Basketball Team. The team currently plays in EBL League Division 4. Home games are usually on a Sunday afternoon during the season, which runs from September to March. The team was formed in 2013 and ended their initial season well placed to progress after defeating local rivals Newcastle Eagles II and promotion chasing Kingston Panthers.

 

In Low Fell there is a cricket club and a rugby club adjacent to each other on Eastwood Gardens. These are Gateshead Fell Cricket Club and Gateshead Rugby Club. Gateshead Rugby Club was formed in 1998 following the merger of Gateshead Fell Rugby Club and North Durham Rugby Club.

 

Transport

Gateshead is served by the following rail transport stations with some being operated by National Rail and some being Tyne & Wear Metro stations: Dunston, Felling, Gateshead Interchange, Gateshead Stadium, Heworth Interchange, MetroCentre and Pelaw.

 

Tyne & Wear Metro stations at Gateshead Interchange and Gateshead Stadium provide direct light-rail access to Newcastle Central, Newcastle Airport , Sunderland, Tynemouth and South Shields Interchange.

 

National Rail services are provided by Northern at Dunston and MetroCentre stations. The East Coast Main Line, which runs from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley, cuts directly through the town on its way between Newcastle Central and Chester-le-Street stations. There are presently no stations on this line within Gateshead, as Low Fell, Bensham and Gateshead West stations were closed in 1952, 1954 and 1965 respectively.

 

Road

Several major road links pass through Gateshead, including the A1 which links London to Edinburgh and the A184 which connects the town to Sunderland.

 

Gateshead Interchange is the busiest bus station in Tyne & Wear and was used by 3.9 million bus passengers in 2008.

 

Cycle routes

Various bicycle trails traverse the town; most notably is the recreational Keelmans Way (National Cycle Route 14), which is located on the south bank of the Tyne and takes riders along the entire Gateshead foreshore. Other prominent routes include the East Gateshead Cycleway, which connects to Felling, the West Gateshead Cycleway, which links the town centre to Dunston and the MetroCentre, and routes along both the old and new Durham roads, which take cyclists to Birtley, Wrekenton and the Angel of the North.

 

Religion

Christianity has been present in the town since at least the 7th century, when Bede mentioned a monastery in Gateshead. A church in the town was burned down in 1080 with the Bishop of Durham inside.[citation needed] St Mary's Church was built near to the site of that building, and was the only church in the town until the 1820s. Undoubtedly the oldest building on the Quayside, St Mary's has now re-opened to the public as the town's first heritage centre.

 

Many of the Anglican churches in the town date from the 19th century, when the population of the town grew dramatically and expanded into new areas. The town presently has a number of notable and large churches of many denominations.

 

Judaism

The Bensham district is home to a community of hundreds of Jewish families and used to be known as "Little Jerusalem". Within the community is the Gateshead Yeshiva, founded in 1929, and other Jewish educational institutions with international enrolments. These include two seminaries: Beis Medrash L'Morot and Beis Chaya Rochel seminary, colloquially known together as Gateshead "old" and "new" seminaries.

 

Many yeshivot and kollels also are active. Yeshivat Beer Hatorah, Sunderland Yeshiva, Nesivos Hatorah, Nezer Hatorah and Yeshiva Ketana make up some of the list.

 

Islam

Islam is practised by a large community of people in Gateshead and there are 2 mosques located in the Bensham area (in Ely Street and Villa Place).

 

Twinning

Gateshead is twinned with the town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen in France, and the city of Komatsu in Japan.

 

Notable people

Eliezer Adler – founder of Jewish Community

Marcus Bentley – narrator of Big Brother

Catherine Booth – wife of William Booth, known as the Mother of The Salvation Army

William Booth – founder of the Salvation Army

Mary Bowes – the Unhappy Countess, author and celebrity

Ian Branfoot – footballer and manager (Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton)

Andy Carroll – footballer (Newcastle United, Liverpool and West Ham United)

Frank Clark – footballer and manager (Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest)

David Clelland – Labour politician and MP

Derek Conway – former Conservative politician and MP

Joseph Cowen – Radical politician

Steve Cram – athlete (middle-distance runner)

Emily Davies – educational reformer and feminist, founder of Girton College, Cambridge

Daniel Defoe – writer and government agent

Ruth Dodds – politician, writer and co-founder of the Little Theatre

Jonathan Edwards – athlete (triple jumper) and television presenter

Sammy Johnson – actor (Spender)

George Elliot – industrialist and MP

Paul Gascoigne – footballer (Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, Rangers and Middlesbrough)

Alex Glasgow – singer/songwriter

Avrohom Gurwicz – rabbi, Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva

Leib Gurwicz – rabbi, Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva

Jill Halfpenny – actress (Coronation Street and EastEnders)

Chelsea Halfpenny – actress (Emmerdale)

David Hodgson – footballer and manager (Middlesbrough, Liverpool and Sunderland)

Sharon Hodgson – Labour politician and MP

Norman Hunter – footballer (Leeds United and member of 1966 World Cup-winning England squad)

Don Hutchison – footballer (Liverpool, West Ham United, Everton and Sunderland)

Brian Johnson – AC/DC frontman

Tommy Johnson – footballer (Aston Villa and Celtic)

Riley Jones - actor

Howard Kendall – footballer and manager (Preston North End and Everton)

J. Thomas Looney – Shakespeare scholar

Gary Madine – footballer (Sheffield Wednesday)

Justin McDonald – actor (Distant Shores)

Lawrie McMenemy – football manager (Southampton and Northern Ireland) and pundit

Thomas Mein – professional cyclist (Canyon DHB p/b Soreen)

Robert Stirling Newall – industrialist

Bezalel Rakow – communal rabbi

John William Rayner – flying ace and war hero

James Renforth – oarsman

Mariam Rezaei – musician and artist

Sir Tom Shakespeare - baronet, sociologist and disability rights campaigner

William Shield – Master of the King's Musick

Christina Stead – Australian novelist

John Steel – drummer (The Animals)

Henry Spencer Stephenson – chaplain to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II

Steve Stone – footballer (Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Portsmouth)

Chris Swailes – footballer (Ipswich Town)

Sir Joseph Swan – inventor of the incandescent light bulb

Nicholas Trainor – cricketer (Gloucestershire)

Chris Waddle – footballer (Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield Wednesday)

William Wailes – stained glass maker

Taylor Wane – adult entertainer

Robert Spence Watson – public benefactor

Sylvia Waugh – author of The Mennyms series for children

Chris Wilkie – guitarist (Dubstar)

John Wilson - orchestral conductor

Peter Wilson – footballer (Gateshead, captain of Australia)

Thomas Wilson – poet/school founder

Robert Wood – Australian politician

2 Star Destroyers and Executor Cruiser

From the Alonzo T. & Millard Mial Papers, PC.132. Box 25. Folder 4B.

Promissory Note for Hire of a Negro boy, Simon, Wake County, 27 Dec. 1847

Transcription: “Twelve months after date we promise to pay Thomas F. Grice Ex. [Executor] of Hugh Lee, Dec’d, on order Twenty Seven Dollars for the hire of a negro Boy named Simon [.] Said negro to have the following clothes [:]Two suits of cotton clothes and one of woolen, one pair of Double soled shoes, one pair of stockings, one good Blanket, one wool Hat for value received on this 27 Dec. 1847. “

Signed by A. T. Mial (Also, C. Bryan; A. Montague, Witnesses)

 

1559 Thomas Grey and wife Anne widow of Sir William Cave, daughter of Sir Ralph Verney of Pendley Manor, Tring by Margery Iwardby flic.kr/p/fFxqbw

Thomas was 1st son of Edward Grey 1529 and 1st wife Joyce daughter of John Horde / Hoorde of Bridgnorth (grand daughter of Thomas Hoorde and Joyce Stapleton)

His sister Elizabeth Clopton was the mother of William Clopton at Stratford www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/278wNZ

Children:

1. Catherine m Walter son of Sir Thomas Blount of Sodington and Catherine Stanford

2. Eleanor m William son of Richard Cave of Pickwell by Barbara Fielding

3. John m Jane daughter of Simon Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt by Mary daughter of Sir Edward Aston of Tixhall

4. Edward

5. George m Joyce daughter of Thomas Levenson of Wolverhampton d1595 and Mary daughter of Judge Robert Brooke / Broke www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2146208326/

6. Elizabeth m William son of Francis Cockayne and Dorothy Marrow

7. Robert

8. Son

9. Margaret

10. Daughter.

11. Jane

 

Although Thomas was not a minor when his father died, an enfeoffment compelled him to wait until he was 29 before he could inherit lands in Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and elsewhere: Sadly also his father died heavily in debt and only bequeathed him £50 towards the redemption of a chain !.

Although he was nominated for the position of sheriff of Staffordshire in 1535, he never achieved any local office Although probably a Catholic himself , this did not stop him, as with others, acquiring former chantry property in Enville and Kinver and his becoming MP in Mary Tudor's parliament of 1554 was possibly due to his link with the catholic Giffards:

His Will of December 1559, 9 days before his death, divided his property into 3 parts; one was to pass immediately to his heir John who was 19 years old, another to remain with his wife for her life, and the third to be held by his executors, his kinsmen Francis Kynaston and Bassett Fielding, until the conditions of the will had been performed. The executors were empowered to sell whatever was necessary, the chantry in Enville being specified for disposal. Much of his lands here were leased to Rowland Shakerley, a London mercer,

Thomas' nephew Thomas Mytton (son of his sister Anne) is at Acton Scott www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2187413424/

LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer Fleet

Abstract Title 101 Hardres Street, late 19 Frederick Street, Ramsgate under the Trust of the late Mr. Samuel Beeching, deceased, purchased at Auction 1st June 1871 by Mr. Henry Maskell, 1871.

 

Indenture 22nd November 1862 between Jens Peter Jensen, Ramsgate and Marabella Jensen his wife to Samuel Beeching, Ramsgate, Ship Builder.

 

Indenture, Mortgage 23rd December 1858: Between Jens Peter Jensen, Tailor of Ramsgate, Marabella Jensen his wife, Mary Martha Pantin of Ramsgate.

 

Will of George Handel Sharp dated 21st August 1850 appointed Edward Beray Walford, Surgeon, Ramsgate and Thomas Hodges Snowden of Ramsgate as Executors. Beneficiary was Marabella Sharp, Wife.

 

Indenture 14th February 1849: Between William Edward Smith, Builder, Ramsgate, George Handel Sharpe and George Griggs.

 

Indenture 15th April 1847: Between William Edward Smith, William Hurst, James Barber Edward, John Rothschild Edwards, George Mercer, James Barber Edwards and Robert Edwards. A parcel of land in Frederick Street next to premises of Elizabeth Frances Harrison

 

In Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, the Palace Cinema opened in 1923, with 500 seats. A café and a ballroom were also housed in the large building, which was owned by Albert Nelson and J. H. Lines.

 

The 1940 Kinematograph Year Book listed the executors of Albert Nelson as the proprietors. By the 1953 edition, the owners were Nelson Brothers. At that time the café was also mentioned, but not the ballroom, which had presumably gone into other uses.

 

The Palace Cinema closed on 22nd December 1957, by then with 396 seats. A notice on the doors said that closure was caused by the failure of the management to obtain an exemption from Entertainment Tax available to cinemas in towns of fewer than 3,000 people. (The census in 1951 listed 3,028 people, but the management maintained this still included many wartime evacuees, and that the true population was only 2,840.)

 

The building became home to Amber Court Chinese restaurant, offices and shops. By 2017 it was in use as a restaurant, bar and gymnasium.

 

cinematreasures.org/theaters/50993

Portrait of Lady Guildford by Hans Holbein the younger, c.1527

 

In the 1520s, there were two Lady Guildfords, both of which were the wives of Sir Henry Guildford at respective times. If the dating of the portrait is correct, then it depicts Lady Mary Guildford, who was the daughter of Sir Robert Wotton of Boughton Malherbe, Kent. Mary and Henry married sometime in 1525 after his first wife, Margaret died. Mary had notable connections; her sister Margaret was the mother of Henry Grey, the duke of Suffolk, who married Frances Brandon and was the father of Lady Jane Grey (who was briefly placed upon the throne in 1553). There survives a sketch of Margaret by Holbein:

 

www.flickr.com/photos/20631910@N03/2682808519/in/set-7215...

  

Sir Henry Guildford was good friends with the king and prospered at court, becoming an esquire of the body and master of the revels by 1513 and a notable councillor. However he appears to have disliked Anne Boleyn and the two apparently quarrelled, although after a brief time back in his country estates he returned to court. Guildford remained controller of the household until his death in 1532. He appointed his wife his executor and charged her with the payment of his debts. The couple had no children and Mary went on to marry Sir Gawain Carew of Devon.

 

Billinge Beacon is just visible to the left of the farmhouse. The Farm was previously owned by the Bankes family of Winstanley Hall, but was included -with Neville's House Farm- in the sale of Winstanley Estate properties in 1951. The sale catalogue describes the property as follows:

 

“A PRODUCTIVE ARABLE FARM … Let to the Executors of H Johnson at an apportioned rental of £71-18-8 per annum and extending to an area of 63,424 acres or thereabouts. The Farmhouse is stone built with stone flagged roof and comprises: Sitting-room ; Living-room; Back Kitchen; Scullery; Pantry; 4 Bedrooms; Outside brick built EC. The Farm Buildings are in one range and are stone built, the main roof being slated. They include: Shippon tyings for 4 cows with water bowls; 3 Stall Stable; Barn and Cart shed; Pig-sty and Calf Box. There is a timber built Tractir House; Lofts over part; 3 Nay hay shed. The Farm Buildings at Neville's House Farm include Shippon for 5; 3 Stall Stable; 2 Loose Boxes; Barn, and barn with thrashing bay ...”

 

Sold as a separate lot was:-

 

“A SMALL COTTAGE known as PLANE TREE FARM COTTAGE … adjoining Plane Tree Farmhouse. Let to Mr E Smith at a rent of £7-16-0 per annum, landlord paying rates, and extending to an area of 0.9 acres or thereabouts. The Cottage comprises Kitchen; Pantry; 1 Bedroom; Outside EC...”

 

A comparison shot from (I think) the 1950s can be seen here.]

Margaret 1489 heiress daughter of Agnes 1465 & John Stock / Stokke / Stokes of Warmington stands next to her husband William Browne 1489 on the south chapel floor in their original place where he asked in his will of 17th February 1489 to be buried .

Wealthy wool merchant of the staple, Mayor, Justice of the Peace, Alderman, Sheriff, Benefactor. Acquired during his lifetime around 200 properties and 10,000 acres of land including the Manor of Lilford He and his brother John 1475 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/B6W946 restored, embellished and enlarged the 13c church of All Saints c1475 after major damage by lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses..

Browne's hospital www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/N8Uh6c , an almshouse in Broad Street adjacent to where he lived and which is still in use today was founded in November 1493 on his instructions after his death by his widow Margaret, Thomas Stokke, clerk, her brother and other executors which was dedicated to pray their souls and also for the Queen, Sir Reynold Bray and wife Katherine, Thomas Stokke and William Elmes,

William who died on 14th April 1489 stands on 2 woolsacks, over his head is his motto "X me spede" (Christ speed me) and at his feet the family crest of a stork on a woolsack. Over Margaret are the words "Dere Lady help at need"

A long inscription translates -

"Since Thou alone art King of kings, Lord of lords

All that is and will be shall be subjected to Thy will

My body entered the earth, but my spirit to Thee

hastens to run. Thou God, accept me,

Who put my hope in Thee, Son of God, gentle Father

and Holy Ghost thundering from on high - accept and receive me, I have sinned, I have done much evil, and rue this

Thou God accept and receive me who is calling out to Thee !

Enter not, Lord, in judgement, unless beforehand

Thou deignest to give me of Thy redeeming grace, which is enough and since for the sake of the salvation of our souls

Thou, King, wast on earth, receive me, my God! "

 

William was the son of John Browne 1442, wool merchant, and wife Margery / Margaret 1460 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/z1Zb1N

He m Margaret 1489 heiress daughter of Agnes 1465 & John Stock / Stokke / Stokes of Warmington

Children

1. Elizabeth c1441-1511 m John Elmes 1497 of Henley-on-Thames, merchant of the Staple of Calais (parents of Margaret Elmes 1571 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/30591z )

2. Agnes died young

Elizabeth inherited the majority of his wealth and land, estimated to be around 6,000 acres in total and 50 houses (at today’s value worth around £50 million), the balance of land having been endowed to the Alms houses / Hospital. One of the manors inherited by Elizabeth was the Manor of Lilford, which the Elmes family owned until 1711. The wealth of William Browne was thus the basis on which Lilford Hall was built by his grandson and executor William Elmes in 1495, and indeed its' extension in 1635.

www.pegasus-onlinezeitschrift.de/2010_1/erga_1_2010_lamp-...

www.lilfordhall.com/ElmesFamily/William-Browne.asp - Church of All Saints, Stamford Lincolnshire

The lobby of the Holiday Inn Dali in Mexico City, D.F., Mexico, near the airport. Taken from the sixth floor. (IIRC) Taken by a Nikon D610 at ISO 400 with a Nikkor 50mm ƒ 1.4 AF-D lens.

Exposure is 1/30sec @ ƒ 2.8.

 

Sculpture is believed to be by Salvadore Dalí, and that looks like his signature over on the lower right...

 

If an artistic executor of Sr. Dalí has any copyright objections to this photo, Flickr-mail the poster stating that you are such an executor, state the objection(s), and it will be taken down...

  

Abstract Title 101 Hardres Street, late 19 Frederick Street, Ramsgate under the Trust of the late Mr. Samuel Beeching, deceased, purchased at Auction 1st June 1871 by Mr. Henry Maskell, 1871.

 

Indenture 22nd November 1862 between Jens Peter Jensen, Ramsgate and Marabella Jensen his wife to Samuel Beeching, Ramsgate, Ship Builder.

 

Indenture, Mortgage 23rd December 1858: Between Jens Peter Jensen, Tailor of Ramsgate, Marabella Jensen his wife, Mary Martha Pantin of Ramsgate.

 

Will of George Handel Sharp dated 21st August 1850 appointed Edward Beray Walford, Surgeon, Ramsgate and Thomas Hodges Snowden of Ramsgate as Executors. Beneficiary was Marabella Sharp, Wife.

 

Indenture 14th February 1849: Between William Edward Smith, Builder, Ramsgate, George Handel Sharpe and George Griggs.

 

Indenture 15th April 1847: Between William Edward Smith, William Hurst, James Barber Edward, John Rothschild Edwards, George Mercer, James Barber Edwards and Robert Edwards. A parcel of land in Frederick Street next to premises of Elizabeth Frances Harrison

 

10221 Super Star Destroyer (Star Wars)

 

Ages 16+. 3,152 pieces.

US $399.99 CA $499.99 DE 399.99 € UK 349.99 £

The Super Star Destroyer Executor has arrived! This jaw-dropping vessel served as command ship at the Battle of Endor and as the personal flagship of Darth Vader in the classic Star Wars movies. With its classic dagger-shaped design, the Executor is among the largest and most powerful vessels in the Star Wars galaxy. With over 3,000 pieces, measuring nearly 50" (124.5 cm) long and weighing nearly 8 pounds (3.5 kg), every aspect of this fantastic LEGO® Star Wars™ model impresses. Includes 4 minifigures: Darth Vader, Admiral Piett, Dengar, Bossk and IG-88.

Includes 4 minifigures: Darth Vader, Admiral Piett, Dengar and Bossk!

Also includes IG-88 figure!

Features over 3,000 pieces!

Measures nearly 50 inches (124.5 cm) long and weighs nearly 8 pounds (3.5kg)!

Includes display stand and data sheet label!

Center section lifts off to reveal command center!

  

The Super Star Destroyer is on sale from September 1, 2011

"Sir Rauffe (Ralph) Egerton knight Standard Bearer to our Sovraine Lord King Henry Vlll ..AD 1527" The second son of Philip Egerton of Egerton by Margery www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2058679329/ daughter of William Mainwaring of Ightfield

He m Margaret, daughter and heiress of Ralph Basset of Blore

Children

1. Eleanor m Ralph Leycester / Leicester of Toft

2. Sir Richard / Ralph m Mary

At the Battle of Tournay in 1513 he captured the French Standard being knighted by Henry Vlll and appointed Standard Bearer of England for life at a salary of £100 pa - He was also granted the Manor and estate of Ridley, a massive establishment transformed by a previous owner Sir William Stanley into "the finest gentleman's house of all Cheshire."

He kneels in the south chantry he built www.bunbury.org.uk/johnpapers/sirralpheg2frame.htm

"He thereby orders his body to be buried in the chapel of Bunbury and that 12 torches be borne by 12 men in black gowns the day of his burial and 24 tapers burning about his body the same day; and that his executors distribute £10 sterling not only to beggars but also to such poor men and women as they shall think convenient." He likewise ordered his executors "to furnish at his proper cost and charges the said chapel covered with lead, ceiled and drawn with knots gilded and the panels painted also two images either side of the altar within the Chapel and the Chancel."

His executors were to provide “one Chalice gilt and another double gilt, 3 suits of vestments, one for working days, another for Sundays and low holy-days and the other a good suit for solemn and high festival days; and that his green velvet gown lined with green sarsnet guarded with cloth of gold, as also his gown of velvet lined with black satin and perled with gold [gold buttons] as also his jacket of velvet perled with gold be taken for performance of the same; as also his jacket of cloth of silver and of blue russet velvet to make crosses and other ornaments to the said Chapel which he orders to have paved with square ashlar or tile or stone.” and to “erect a tomb for him with a large marble stone with his name and arms engraved thereon with this addition: 'The King's Standard Bearer and Treasurer to the Lady Princess,' as also a gilt plate fastened on the wall with his names and arms and additions aforesaid.” (His tomb stone has now gone www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/7731738394/ )

Sir Ralph also willed that a house was to be built in Bunbury “for two chantry priests to pray for his soul, for his father's and mother's souls of his kind and all Christian Souls for ever.” It was to have

"2 chambers, 1 parlour, a buttery and a kitchen, and the said priests to be maintained out of his mills at Nantwich.”

 

(Brass renewed in 1894 set into original stone frame)

 

www.geni.com/people/Sir-Ralph-Egerton-Kt-of-Ridley/600000...

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postkarte that was published by Leo Stainer of Innsbruck, with photography by Richard Müller of Innsbruck. The card has a divided back.

 

The Hofkirche

 

The Hofkirche (Court Church) is a Gothic church located in the Altstadt (Old Town) section of Innsbruck, Austria. The church was built in 1553 by Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564) as a memorial to his grandfather Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519), whose cenotaph within features a remarkable collection of German Renaissance sculpture. The church also contains the tomb of Andreas Hofer, Tyrol's national hero.

 

Maximilian's will had directed that he be buried in the castle chapel in Wiener Neustadt. However it proved impractical to construct the large memorial there.

 

The plans of the memorial had been supervised in detail by Maximilian, and Ferdinand I as executor planned construction of a new church and monastery in Innsbruck to accommodate the memorial.

 

In the end, however, Maximilian's simple tomb remained in Wiener Neustadt and the Hofkirche serves as a cenotaph.

 

The Hofkirche

 

The Hofkirche is located at Universitätsstraße 2, adjacent to the Hofburg in the Altstadt section of Innsbruck. The church was designed by architect Andrea Crivelli of Trento in the traditional German form of a hall church, consisting of three naves with a setback three-sided choir, round and pointed arch windows, and a steep broken hip roof.

 

Its layered buttresses reflect compromise of contemporary Renaissance design with German late Gothic style.

 

The church interior contains galleries, high slender colonnettes of red marble with white stylized Corinthian capitals, and a lectern. The gallery's original ribs made from sandstone from Mittenwald have been preserved, but after the main vault was damaged by earthquake in the 17th. century, it was rebuilt in the Baroque style.

 

The high altar seen today was designed in 1755 by the Viennese court architect Nikolaus Pacassi, and decorated with a crucifixion by the Viennese academic painter Johann Carl Auerbach. Also added were bronze statues of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Teresa of Ávila by Innsbruck court sculptor Balthasar Moll (1768).

 

The Renaissance organ (1560) is by Jörg Ebert of Ravensburg, and described locally as one of the five most famous organs in the world. Domenico Pozzo from Milan painted the organ panels.

 

A side chapel, called the Silver Chapel (Silberne Kapell), was consecrated in 1578. It contains a silver altar to Mary incorporating three elephant tusks and three hundred kilos of ebony, and the tombs of Archduke Ferdinand II and his wife Philippine Welser—both by Alexander Colyn.

 

Maximilian's Cenotaph

 

Emperor Maximilian's ornate black marble cenotaph occupies the centre of the nave. Florian Abel, of the Prague Imperial Court, supplied a full-sized draft of the high tomb in the florid style of court Mannerism. Its construction took more than 80 years.

 

The sarcophagus itself was completed in 1572, and the final embellishments—the kneeling emperor, the four virtues, and the iron grille—were added in 1584.

 

Trento mason Hieronymus Longi directed construction of the tomb proper. The base of the tomb consists of Hagau marble, a Jurassic limestone found in the North Tyrol and used as a building stone throughout western Austria.

 

The bronze relief frieze of trophies includes vases, suits of armour, weapons, shields, musical instruments, etc., and above that two rows of white marble reliefs. The 24 reliefs were created by the artist Alexander Colin, based on woodcuts from The Triumphal Arch (Ehrenpforte) by Albrecht Dürer, with four stone bas-reliefs at each on the tomb's ends, and eight on its longer sides.

 

The tomb is enclosed within a fine wrought iron grille created by Jörg Schmidhammer of the Prague court, based on a drawing by the Innsbruck painter Paul Trabel, and capped with statues of the four virtues and kneeling emperor cast in Mühlau from models by Alexander Colin.

 

Hofkirche Statues

 

The cenotaph is surrounded by 28 large bronze statues (200–250 cm) of ancestors, relatives and heroes. Their creation took place between 1502-1555, and occupied a number of artists including Albrecht Dürer.

 

The inclusion of the King Arthur and Godfrey of Bouillon statues are due to Louis II's sister, Anna, the Queen of Bohemia marrying Ferdinand, Maximilian's grandson, and bringing her English heritage with her. Both men were said to be her ancestors.

 

The following list records the 28 statues and their year of execution:

 

-- Joanna, Queen of Castile, 1528

-- Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, 1530–31

-- Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 1521

-- Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 1525–26

-- Cymburgis, 1516

-- Margaret, Duchess of Savoy, 1522

-- Bianca Maria Sforza, Holy Roman Empress, 1525

-- Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, 1523–24

-- Arthur, King of Great Britain, 1513

-- Ferdinand I, King of Portugal, 1509

-- Ernest, Duke of Austria, 1516

-- Theoderic the Great, King of the Ostrogoths, 1513

-- Albert II, Duke of Austria, 1528-29

-- Rudolph I, King of Germany, 1516-17

-- Philip I, King of Castile, 1516

-- Clovis I, King of the Franks, 1509

-- Albert II, King of Germany, 1526

-- Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, 1523-24

-- Leopold III, Margrave of Austria, 1520

-- Albert IV, Count of Habsburg, 1517

-- Leopold III, Duke of Austria, 1519

-- Frederick IV, Duke of Austria with the Empty Pockets, 1523

-- Albert I, King of Germany, 1527

-- Godfrey of Bouillon, 1533

-- Elizabeth of Luxembourg, Queen of Germany, 1530

-- Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, 1513-16

-- Elizabeth of Carinthia, Queen of Germany, 1516

-- Kunigunde, Archduchess of Austria, 1516-17

 

The gallery also contains 23 small statues (66–69 cm) of the Habsburg patron saints. They were designed by the court painter Jörg Köldere around 1514/15, and carved into wood and then wax by Leonhard Magt.

 

The church also once contained a number of busts of Roman emperors; 20 are now displayed in Schloß Ambras, and one is in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich.

Draft Will of William Murray of Ramsgate, 28th June 1869.

 

Executor: Son, William George Murray. Beneficiaries: William George Murray, sister Sarah Ann Porter, sister Ann Dodds, widow and children of Brigg, Lincoln. Fanny Murray and children of 12 Park Crescent, Portland Place, Marylebone, Middlesex. Thomas George and EmilieWhite and children, 12 Milbourne Grove, Brompton, Middlesex. Eliza Dodds and daughter Rosalie Dodds. Henry and Jane Bishop and their children, 57 Plains of Waterloo, Ramsgate. Witnesses: Snowden, Solicitors, Sydney Head, Clerk.

 

Creating a landscape and garden worthy of and suitable to Virginia House challenged landscape architect Charles Gillette's ability to marry history, art, and gardening. Gillette's success would be both professional and personal. His synthesis of Italian and English gardening styles at Virginia House resulted in a garden uniquely American. His passion to please his clients resulted in a lifelong friendship with the Weddells. Gillette, who intermittently vacationed with the Weddells was the executor of their estate upon their deaths in 1948.

Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The two stables at Nos. 130 and 132 West 18th Street — units of an original row of thirteen brick-fronted stables erected in 1864-66 of which nine survive — were joined in 1907 to create the present building. Though joined at the ground story, the two facades retain their individual identity at the second story and remain largely intact. Designed in a round-arched utilitarian style related to the German Rundbogenstil. they feature a mix of Romanesque and Renaissance Revival details.

 

Each unit of the 130-132 West 18th Street building has a tripartite triumphal arch composition which focuses on a central bifurcated Renaissance arch at the second story. Originally built for wealthy businessmen, the two stables had several prominent owners, among them Civil War hero, Major Theodore K. Gibbs, and Nathaniel McCready, founder of the Old Dominion Steamship Line. As a component of one of the two uniformly designed mid-nineteenth-century private carriage house groups remaining in Manhattan, the 130-132 West 18th Street Stables Building is a rare survivor.

 

These stable rows reflect a period in the city's developmental history when private carriage houses began to be erected some blocks away from their owners' homes, on streets devoted almost exclusively to private stables and commercial liveries. An early manifestation of this trend, which became common practice during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the West 18th Street row was one of the most extensive of the period and contained unusually large and handsomely decorated stables.

 

The Tonnele Estate and the Development of the Private Stables on West 18th Street

 

Once part of the eighteenth-century farm of Peter Warren, the lots on the south side of West 18th Street between Sixth Avenue and the old Warren Road to the west were acquired by John Tonnele around 1817.

 

Senior partner in the firm of Tonnele & Hall, the country's leading dealer in wool, Tonnele had extensive real estate holdings in Manhattan including large tracts on Sixth Avenue, 14th and 15th, and 17th and 18th Streets.

 

In his will of 1846, Tonnele divided his real estate among his family, giving them the option of selling the property and investing the proceeds in trust for their heirs. A total of thirty-two lots on West 17th and 18th Streets were left to his daughter Susan G. Hall. In March of 1863, she and the executors of the estate, her husband Valentine G. Hall and his brother George Hall, began selling her lots which were then occupied by small dwellings and wood shanties.

 

As the area was semi-industrial in character, with a brewery located on the north side of 18th Street and the Weber piano factory occupying the northeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 17th Street, the Halls must have regarded the lots as unsuitable for first-class residential or commercial development. However, the lots' proximity to the fashionable Fifth Avenue residential district north of Union Square must have made them seem ideal for private stables and apparently they were offered for sale as such. By 1867, all the former Tonnele Estate lots on 17th and 18th Streets were occupied by private stables with restrictive covenants on the properties prohibiting their conversion to factories or commercial livery stables.

 

Stables were a necessity during the period when private urban transportation was limited to horses and carriages.3 While the majority of New Yorkers rented or boarded their horses in large commercial stables, the very wealthy maintained private stables. (Since private stables invariably provided storage space for carriages, the terms carriage house and private stable are used interchangeably hereafter.)

 

Traditionally, these were located directly behind their owners' houses, sometimes facing onto the less desirable street front of a through-the-block lot. By the mid-nineteenth century, carriage-house rows developed to serve a few of the city's most exclusive streets.

 

Remnants of these stable rows survive at 127 and 129 East 19th Street, originally part of a group of stables serving the houses on Gramercy Park South and Irving Place, * and at 57 Great Jones Street, the sole survivor of a long row of stables which once backed onto the mansions on the north side of Bond Street between Broadway and Lafayette Street.

 

Around 1860, carriage houses began to be erected a few blocks from their owners' homes, on convenient but less fashionable streets, where land costs were lower and where the noises and smells associated with stables would not mar the character of a residential neighborhood. Eventually a number of streets in Manhattan were devoted almost exclusively to private and livery stables.

 

These included East 35th and East 36th Streets between Lexington and Third Avenues (developed largely in the 1860s and 1870s), East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues (stables erected between 1883 and 1904), and West 58th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue (stables erected c. 1885-1905)

 

The twenty-nine stables erected on the former Tonnele Estate in the 1860s, extending from 121 to 143 West 17th Street and from 112 to 146 West 18th Street, were an early example of this type of development and together formed one of the most extensive groups of private stables built in Manhattan in the 1860s.

 

It should be noted that throughout the 1860s, most of the private carriage houses on these "stable streets" were commissioned on an individual basis and that speculatively built rows were a rarity.

 

Perhaps the most extensive speculative development was Sniffen court, a group of ten private carriage houses on a blind alley off East 36th Street, erected in 1864 for four investors by local builder John Sniff in, and subsequently sold to wealthy residents of Murray Hill.

 

Although uniform in design, the row from 122 to 146 West 18th Street was created through a combination of small-scale speculative development and individual commissions. in May and June of 1864, Elisha Brooks, a partner in the successful Brooks Brothers clothing firm, purchased the lots from 122 to 126 West 18th Street and had three identical stables erected on the site.

 

As work was proceeding on the Brooks stables, Susan Hall and her children agreed to use part of the proceeds from the sale of the lots on 18th Street to build a stable at 128 West 18th Street which would be retained for the family's use.

 

Though commissioned by a different client, this stable was identical in plan and design to the recently completed Brooks stables. By 1866, the nine remaining lots extending from 130 to 146 West 18th Street had been sold. Their new owners also had stables erected which followed the articulation established by the Brooks stables creating a uniform row of thirteen stables.

 

This would suggest that Brooks had made the plans for his stables available to the other owners and/or that the same builder or architect was commissioned for all thirteen buildings. The result was one of the most extensive stable rows in the city, containing unusually large and handsomely decorated buildings whose owners included a number of New York's wealthiest and most prominent citizens, among them Samuel F.B. Morse who was the original owner of the stable at 144 West 18th Street (demolished).

 

The stable at 130 West 18th Street was constructed in 1864-65 for Wilmot Johnson, a resident of Albany, who owned a coal company with offices in New York at 111 Broadway.

 

Soon after its completion Johnson sold the stable to Walter S. Gurnee, a midwesterner who had made a fortune in the tannery business and railroads in Chicago before moving to New York in 1863 where he operated an investment banking firm and served on the board of several mining and metal processing companies.

 

Gurnee retained the 18th Street stable for three years while he was living at 33 West 20th Street. The stable was then purchased by Henry T. Helmbold, described by nineteenth-century diarist George Templeton Strong as a "sporting druggist [who] is said to have acquired a vast fortune by pictorial advertisements."14 Helmbold also retained the stable for about three years, selling it in 1871 to Major Theodore K. Gibbs, who resided nearby at 62 West 21st Street.

 

A descendent of a prominent and wealthy Rhode Island family, Theodore Kane Gibbs was born in Newport in 1840. His father William Charming Gibbs was a leader in the public affairs of the state who had served as a member of the state assembly, chief magistrate, and governor from 1820 to 1824.

 

Theodore K. Gibbs was raised in Newport and entered the army as a young man during the Civil War. He served with distinction, was twice wounded, and twice decorated for bravery. Following the war, he enlisted in the regular army and while stationed on Staten Island married Virginia Barrett. The Gibbses maintained homes in New York and on Gibbs Avenue in Newport.

 

They were active in society and were known for "giving liberally of their large means."

 

The stable at 132 West 18th Street was built in 1864-65 for John R. Garland, a broker who headed his own firm on William Street and resided at 28 West 21st Street.

 

In 1868, the building was acquired by Nathaniel L'Hommedieu McCready, president of the Old Dominion Steamship Line, who lived at 10 West 22nd Street.

 

A leader in the shipping industry in New York, McCready had entered the business in 1840 at the age of nineteen, organizing his cwn firm, the N.L. McCready Company, which he ran successfully until 1865. He then formed a partnership with Livingston, Fox & Company, owners of several steamship lines. In 1867, he organized the Old Dominion Line which operated a fleet of steamships between New York and the Virginia ports of Norfolk, Newport News, Richmond, and West Point. McCready served as president of the line until his death in 1887; he was also president of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad for fourteen years.

 

Following her husband's death Caroline Waldron McCready retained ownership of 132 West 18th Street which continued to function as a private stable. In 1895, the building was remodeled to accommodate horses on the second floor. Four years later Mrs. McCready sold the building to Theodore K. Gibbs who retained ownership of both 130 and 132 West 18th Street until his death in 1906.

 

The Design of the 130 and 132 West 18th Street Stables

 

Originally units of a stable row, the stables at 130 and 132 West 18th Street are characteristic of nineteenth carriage house design as adapted to a narrow urban lot. Typically, such stables would have been divided into two major ground-floor spaces — a front room for carriages and a rear room with stalls for horses.

 

The front portion of the second floor would have contained quarters for the coachman or grocsn, while the rear would have been used as a hayloft. Windows were restricted to the front of the building to spare neighbors the sights and smells associated with horses, but two large skylights provided additional light to the second-floor roams.

 

The facades of the two buildings were designed in a round-arched utilitarian style derived from the German Rundbogenstil (round-arch style) . The Rundbogenstil evolved in Germany in the 1820s among a group of progressive architects who sought to create a synthesis of classical and medieval architecture by drawing on historic precedents in the round-arched Byzantine, Romanesque, and Renaissance styles.

 

Transmitted to this country through the immigration of German and Central European architects in the 1840s, as well as through architectural publications, the Rundbogenstil tended to be conflated with other mid-nineteenth century round-arched styles such as the Romanesque and Renaissance Revivals.

 

Among the major American examples of the round-arched style are Charles Blesch and Leopold Eidlitz's St. George's Church (1846-56) on Stuyvesant Square at 16th Street, Alexander Saeltzer's Astor Library (1849-53, later additions 1859, 1881), at 425 Lafayette Street, and Thomas Tefft's Union Depot, Providence, R.I. (1847, demolished). The style is reflected in the design of the West 18th Street stables by the choice of materials (unstuccoed brick and locally available sandstone), by the emphasis on flat wall surfaces, and by the clear definition of architectural elements.

 

The meshing of classical and medieval motifs is apparent in the tripartite composition for each unit, which recalls both a Roman triumphal arch and the elevation of a medieval nave arcade, and in the incorporation of such details as the Renaissance-inspired cornice and diamond-pointed keystones and the Romanesque-inspired arcades and rusticated bands.

 

The chief feature of each facade is a large central arch containing a pair of inscribed arches and a bull's-eye tympanum. This motif, which was thought by nineteenth-century theorists to have originated in northern Italy during the Romanesque period and was widely used during the Renaissance, became a hallmark of the nineteenth-century round-arched styles, both here and in Germany.

 

Interestingly, the only other remaining group of mid-nineteenth century carriage houses in Manhattan, located at Sniffen Court, is also designed in a round-arched style and features a triumphal arch composition with arched windows and doors flanking a central two-story arch. At 18th Street, the stables are larger and more elaborate in design.

 

In addition to its ties to the round-arched style, the design of the stables at 130 and 132 West 18th Street is distinguished by its skillful super imposition of recessed and projected planes. The double-height arcade of each facade, carried on slender projected piers, is on a forward plane, while the wall membrane with its door and window openings is recessed. A series of horizontal moldings break forward over the piers to unite the two planes.

 

The moldings at the arches' imposts at the second story form the capitals for two pilaster orders (a major order which articulates the piers, and a minor order which frames the windows). In addition to their function in the design of these individual units, the repeated use of horizontal elements and the alternation of large and small arches are important elements in creating a strong sense of rhythm and harmony within the row.

 

Description

 

Two components of a uniformly designed stable row were joined in 1907 to create the building at 130-132 West 18th Street which has a frontage of forty-three feet on West 18th Street and has been extended from its original depth of eighty-one feet to occupy the entire length of its ninety-two-foot-deep lot. Though joined on the ground story, the two facades retain much of their individual identity. Faced with brick and brownstone they are designed in a round-arched style that incorporates Romanesque and Renaissance details.

 

Each facade is organized in a tripartite triumphal arch composition that focuses on a double-width center bay. At the ground story, the bays are articulated by projected piers. Originally, the wide center bay of each building contained a pair of wood carriage doors, the eastern bay had an arched entrance, and the western bays had an arched window.

 

The arches were ornamented by diamond-pointed keystones and stone bands ran across the facade at the sill, watertable, impost, and cornice lines. Today, the eastern bay (at No. 130) remains relatively intact, although the entrance has been enlarged somewhat to accommodate a metal door. In the center bay of No. 130 the paired carriage doors have been replaced by two arched windows with metal grilles; the windows are supported by a wood bulkhead and surmounted by multipane transoms. At watertable level the stone bands ornamenting the piers have been cut flush with the brickwork.

 

When No. 130 and No. 132 were joined in 1907, the end piers in the west bay at No. 130 and the east bay of No. 132 were removed to create a vehicle entrance. At that time cast-iron supports were installed next to the brick piers and steel girders were inserted above the old center bay at No. 130 and new vehicle entrance (new occupied by wood infill and a metal door). ,The girders are currently covered with stucco, as are the rusticated blocks above the piers. The cornice that separated the two stories has been removed.

 

On the western portion of the facade (at No. 132) the ground story has been extensively altered. In addition to the changes in the east bay, the piers flanking the original vehicle entrance have been replaced and a steel beam has been inserted above the entrance.

 

This necessitated the removal of the stone cornice which once capped the first story; the area above the vehicle entrance is now stuccoed. In the west bay, the arched surround has been removed and the window opening has been enlarged to create a doorway. The Weill surface is covered with sheet metal. The opening contains a metal and glass door surmounted by narrow transom. The paired carriage doors in the center bay have also been replaced by a garage door.

 

The second story of the facade at 130 West 18th Street remains virtually intact. Here the piers carry an arcade in which the center arch is both wider and taller than the flanking arches. The arches are set-off by stone diamond-pointed keystones and stone sills beneath the windows. Stone bands, which break forward over the piers at the impost line of the arches, form the capitals for two pilaster orders — a major order articulating the arcade and a minor order framing the windows.

 

A small pilaster bisects the center bay into a pair of arched windows which are topped by a molded wood surround that features a central bull's-eye. All of the window openings contain original wood frames and four-over-four double-hung sash. This section of the facade is crowned by a simple molded brick entablature.

 

On the second story of the portion of the facade at No. 132 the articulation of the facade at No. 130 is repeated. The facade remains largely intact; however, only the east window bay retains its original sash and a fire escape has been added at the west window.

 

Subsequent History

 

In the 1870s and 1880s, the neighborhood to the east of the stables on 18th Street, which had once been exclusively residential, became the heart of New York's chief shopping district as the retail trade expanded along Broadway, Sixth Avenue, and 14th and 23rd Streets. At least two of the stables were sold to neighboring businesses in the 1880s and by the first decade of the twentieth century all were being used for commercial or manufacturing purposes. This change in the character of the neighborhood was coupled with the advent of the automobile.

 

The forerunners of the modern automobile had developed in Europe in the last decades of the of the nineteenth century.

 

By the 1890s horseless carriages were being manufactured in the United States, and in the first decade of the twentieth century they became a major means of transport for the rich. In 1907, the year following the death of Theodore K. Gibbs, the buildings at 130 and 132 West 18th Street were acquired by the Metropolis Security Company and leased to T.J. Gerome for conversion to an automobile repair garage.

 

At that time the buildings were joined and a portion of the front wall was taken dcwn and supported on steel beams. The inclusion of a drafting room on the second floor gives some indication of how very specialized auto repair must have been during this period. From documents filed with the Department of Buildings,23 it would appear that the building remained in use as a garage through the mid-twentieth century.

 

Fires in 1914 and 1946 made alterations to the ground story necessary; however, the second story is largely intact. Today, the 130-132 West 18th Street stables building is a component of one of the two remaining mid-nineteenth century carriage house groups in Manhattan and is distinguished by its design which provides a notable example of the round-arched style as applied to a utilitarian building type.

 

- From the 1990 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

“They swoop down from the sky, like golden bugs. Their Photon pistols de-materialize any matter earthly or otherwise. Their twin blades drip blood. The smell of the burning rocket fuel from their jetpacks fills the air. The armor shines in what little sunlight is left. They call themselves the will of the emporer: we call them demons.”

 

Just a little story. The idea is that these guys are post apocalyptic future warriors. They exterminate those who do not comply to the rules of “The emperor”. The above story was an exerpt from a rebellion soldier’s diary.

  

8.4.2009: 8.4.2009: left door ("portal of the martyrs"), South Portal, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, France.

 

This shows the martyrdom and vision of Stephen described in Acts 7:54-60. Stephen gazes into heaven and sees, "the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." He is dragged out of the city and stoned to death for his blasphemy.

 

Above this vision sit the Holy Innocents massacred by Herod after the birth of Jesus (first archivolt), six martyrs washed in the blood of the Lamb (second archivolt, lamb in the centre), martyrs holding palms as a symbol of their victory (third archivolt), further specific martyrs in the fourth and fifth archivolts, but impossible to identify.

 

At the bottom of the archivolts are characters from the trial of Stephen. Most are members of the Sanhedrin, but Stephen can be seen at the bottom of the third archivolt on the left and Paul, holding the cloaks of Stephen's executors at the bottom of the third archivolt on the right.

Monument erected c1630 by Sir Simon Leach 1567-1637 & 2nd wife Katherine Turberville - His children kneel below except for his heir Walter who kneels behind opposite his wife Sarah Napier - From Sir Simon Leach's will it appears he erected this monument in memory of his second wife Katherine who had predeceased him. He appointed one of his sons, Nicholas, and A.Y. . . to be his executors. The will was proved on April 8th 1637, and in 1651 administration was granted to his grandson, Simon Leach.

 

Children of his 1st and 2nd marriages kneel below - his heir Walter kneels above - Monument erected c1630 by Sir Simon Leach 1567-1637 after the death of his 2nd wife Katherine Turberville - His children kneel below except for his heir Walter who kneels behind opposite his wife Sarah Napier

"Here lye the bodyes of Sr. Simon Leach Knight, Son of Symon Leach of Credition Blacksmith And of ye lady Catherine Leach his wife, Daughter of Nicholas Turbeville of Credition, Esq Whose true affection in Religious wedlock caused there desire to make there bed together in the dust".

"Bowed down by the fate of my wife I am going to her tomb, her partner in life, in death I will be her comrade"."L'o a third generation follows yet second was he to non distinguished for his discretion distinguished also for his talent."

 

Simon was the son of Walter Leach a blacksmith of Crediton by Elizabeth daughter of John Rowe of Crediton

He was Sheriff of Devon in 1625 and knighted at Ford Abbey, Axminster the same year - he died "deeply regretted June 29th AD 1660"

He m1 Elizabeth, daughter of Walter Burrough of Exeter

Children

1. "Sir Walter Leach 1636 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/K985G4 Soldier Son and Heir of Simon Leach Soldier.predeceased him" "Stay dear Father my sands have run now quickly in order that I may be able to be the bearer of your prayers." He m Sarah www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/5h4t70 daughter of Sir Robert Napier, 1st Bart of Luton Hoo by Mary daughter of John Robinson. Their son Simon became heir to his grandfather.

2. Simon died young

 

He m2 Katherine daughter of Nicholas Turberville of Crediton

Children - 3 sons and 4 daughters

1. NIcholas of Newton St Petrock m Grace daughter of Roger Mallock and Anne daughter of Simon Snow of Exeter

2. George m1 Margaret .... m2 Bevill Prideaux

3. Simon dsp 1637

1. Katherine 1666 m1 Thomas Giffard of Halsbury m2 Robert Burrington of West Sandford

2. Elizabeth m John Cowling rector of Cadeleigh

3. Rebecah m John Davie

4. Anne m John Martin of Middle Temple

 

Sir Simon was succeeded by his grandson "Simon Leach son and heir of Walter Leach a zealous supporter of King Charles ii. when in exile, died deeply regretted June 25th A.D. 1660".

Simon then aged 5 later m Bridget daughter of Sir Bevil Grenville of Kilkhampton www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/aYr6Na en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevil_Grenville#mediaviewer/File:Be... killed whilst commanding the royalist side at the battler of Lansdowne in 1643. He died aged 28, leaving 2 children, his heir "Sir Simon Leach Knight of the Bath son of Simon Leach Esq.1708" and a daughter, Bridget Berners 1708 at Wiggenhill St Mary flic.kr/p/21Jf8Fs - His widow Bridget Grenville www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1K5d5K m2 Sir Thomas Higgons,

 

www.wissensdrang.com/stabb049.htm

- Church of St Bartholomew, Cadeleigh Devon

LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer Fleet

Lexus IS F on SSR Executor CV03 in Titan Silver.

www.ssr-wheels.com/wheels/cv03.asp

Liberty Walk Ferrari 458 Italia on SSR Executor CV03 in Flat Black with Flat Black barrels.

www.ssr-wheels.com/wheels/cv03.asp

Empire officially turns 30 this month! Continuing my slow going celebration of my favorite movie of all time this a little something different.

Draft Will of William Murray of Ramsgate, 28th June 1869.

 

Executor: Son, William George Murray. Beneficiaries: William George Murray, sister Sarah Ann Porter, sister Ann Dodds, widow and children of Brigg, Lincoln. Fanny Murray and children of 12 Park Crescent, Portland Place, Marylebone, Middlesex. Thomas George and EmilieWhite and children, 12 Milbourne Grove, Brompton, Middlesex. Eliza Dodds and daughter Rosalie Dodds. Henry and Jane Bishop and their children, 57 Plains of Waterloo, Ramsgate. Witnesses: Snowden, Solicitors, Sydney Head, Clerk.

 

Norman Frost, of Stanley between Ilkeston and Derby, named his bus company Felix Bus Services after a popular film cartoon cat of the 1920s. After Norman died, his executors continued to run the business for several years. The cat then lived on as Trent-Barton's "Black Cat" route branding.

Felix bought a succession of Yeates bodied coaches, and these regularly worked the firm's Derby to Ilkeston Bus Service.

One of these, 3XRA, photographed in Derby's Morledge Bus Station in March 1971, was a 1962 Yeates Europa C41F bodied Bedford SB5.

"Here is buried Simon Digby Esquier Gent. Pensioner of King Henry the eight. Second sonne of Sir John Digby Knight Marshall which Simon maried Katherine daughter of Christopher Clapham of Beamesley in Yorksher, esquire.

Here is also buried Roger Digby Esquier their sonne and heyre who married (Mary) daughter of John Cheyne of Shardelows in Buckinghamsher Esquire

Man is born to long suffering in a short uncertain life. In Christ, truth and certainty are found in life and death.

(Maria Nerendon), once wife to Roger Digby places this monument, 1582".

 

Simon died in 1560

He was the 2nd son of Sir John Digby of Eye Kettleby by Catherine d1500 daughter of Sir Nicholas Griffin of Braybrooke and Catharine d1558 daughter of Richard Curzon / Curson & Alice Willoughby flic.kr/p/dRCNFZ of Kedleston

He was the grandson of Sir Everard Digby 1510 flic.kr/p/bq67e5 and Jaquetta Ellis flic.kr/p/9e134f

He m Katherine d1558 daughter of Christopher Clapham of Beamsley Yorkshire

Children - 4 sons & 4 daughters

1. Roger 1582 who possessing a moiety of that manor, settled at North Luffenham. he m Mary daughter of John Cheney esq. of Shardellows, Agmondisham Bucks, and was buried under a monument by his father: Mary m2 ............. Nerendon (?)

2, Augustin

 

(Looks like someone took against Mary whose name has been chiseled out twice, possibly because she remarried - it is not clear who to )

 

Simon inherited his father’s property in Rutland in 1533, the rest of the estates passing to his nephew John Digby. He had followed his father into the royal household, rising from esquire of the body to gentleman pensioner before his retirement at Mary Tudor’s accession. He was returned to the Parliament of 1542 with John Harington shortly after he had been escheator and his friend Harington sheriff, doubtless owing the seat to Kenelm Digby, head of the senior line of the family, who was sheriff at the election.

Following the Dissolution in 1544 Digby fought in the French campaign which led to the capture of Boulogne. Queen Mary gave him an annuity of £46 13s.4d. and later named him to the bench. Little more is know apart from his sheep-rearing and disputes with neighbours. By his will made in October 1559 he asked to be buried in the church at North Luffenham ‘above the steps near my seat’, He provided for his children and named his son Roger executor and his ‘cousins’ Kenelm Digby and John Hunt supervisors. He died on 14 May 1560

 

- Church of St John the Baptist, North Luffentham, Rutland

"Sir Rauffe (Ralph) Egerton knight Standard Bearer to our Sovraine Lord King Henry Vlll ..AD 1527" The second son of Philip Egerton of Egerton by Margery www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2058679329/ daughter of William Mainwaring of Ightfield

He m Margaret, daughter and heiress of Ralph Basset of Blore

Children

1. Eleanor m Ralph Leycester / Leicester of Toft

2. Sir Richard / Ralph m Mary

At the Battle of Tournay in 1513 he captured the French Standard being knighted by Henry Vlll and appointed Standard Bearer of England for life at a salary of £100 pa - He was also granted the Manor and estate of Ridley, a massive establishment transformed by a previous owner Sir William Stanley into "the finest gentleman's house of all Cheshire."

He kneels in the south chantry he built www.bunbury.org.uk/johnpapers/sirralpheg2frame.htm

"He thereby orders his body to be buried in the chapel of Bunbury and that 12 torches be borne by 12 men in black gowns the day of his burial and 24 tapers burning about his body the same day; and that his executors distribute £10 sterling not only to beggars but also to such poor men and women as they shall think convenient." He likewise ordered his executors "to furnish at his proper cost and charges the said chapel covered with lead, ceiled and drawn with knots gilded and the panels painted also two images either side of the altar within the Chapel and the Chancel."

His executors were to provide “one Chalice gilt and another double gilt, 3 suits of vestments, one for working days, another for Sundays and low holy-days and the other a good suit for solemn and high festival days; and that his green velvet gown lined with green sarsnet guarded with cloth of gold, as also his gown of velvet lined with black satin and perled with gold [gold buttons] as also his jacket of velvet perled with gold be taken for performance of the same; as also his jacket of cloth of silver and of blue russet velvet to make crosses and other ornaments to the said Chapel which he orders to have paved with square ashlar or tile or stone.” and to “erect a tomb for him with a large marble stone with his name and arms engraved thereon with this addition: 'The King's Standard Bearer and Treasurer to the Lady Princess,' as also a gilt plate fastened on the wall with his names and arms and additions aforesaid.” (His tomb stone has now gone www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/7731738394/ )

Sir Ralph also willed that a house was to be built in Bunbury “for two chantry priests to pray for his soul, for his father's and mother's souls of his kind and all Christian Souls for ever.” It was to have

"2 chambers, 1 parlour, a buttery and a kitchen, and the said priests to be maintained out of his mills at Nantwich.”

 

(Brass renewed in 1894 set into original stone frame)

 

www.geni.com/people/Sir-Ralph-Egerton-Kt-of-Ridley/600000...

Darth Vader prepares to return to his ship, Executor.

LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer Fleet

Draft Will of William Murray of Ramsgate, 28th June 1869.

 

Executor: Son, William George Murray. Beneficiaries: William George Murray, sister Sarah Ann Porter, sister Ann Dodds, widow and children of Brigg, Lincoln. Fanny Murray and children of 12 Park Crescent, Portland Place, Marylebone, Middlesex. Thomas George and EmilieWhite and children, 12 Milbourne Grove, Brompton, Middlesex. Eliza Dodds and daughter Rosalie Dodds. Henry and Jane Bishop and their children, 57 Plains of Waterloo, Ramsgate. Witnesses: Snowden, Solicitors, Sydney Head, Clerk.

 

The Richard-Strauss-Brunnen fountain in the Altstadt district of Munich, Germany. This fountain, the work of Hans Wimmer, was named after the composer, (a native of Munich...) and erected in 1962. Taken by a Nikon D610 at ISO 400 with a Nikkor 50mm ƒ 1.4 AF-D lens.

 

The scenes flowing around the column are from the opera Salome, composed by R. Strauss in 1905, to his own libretto. (For the non-musically inclined, it is quite unusual for a composer to write the libretto of his operas - it is usually handled by another person. For American Musicals, think of the "book" - usually not written by the music composer. "Libretto" is the Italian for "little book".)

 

If an artistic executor of Hans Wimmer has any copyright objections to this photo, Flickr-mail the poster stating that you are such an executor, state the objection(s), and it will be taken down...

 

Collection: Serjeant Family Letters, 1769-1840

 

Item: Letter to Elizabeth Browne Rogers Roche from Winwood Serjeant (15 June 1774)

 

Transcription:

 

Cambridge June 15th 1774

My Dearest Sister

Your Letters always give me pleasure,

for I feel a tender concern for your hap

-piness & welfare: It is a blessing you are possessed

of so much prudence, for your circumstances in

life require it all, & I hope will enable you to

surmount all difficulties. You informed me

that Mr. Whipple had bought poor Father’s house,

but forgot to tell me for how much; I hope to a

reasonable advantage, otherwise the Executors

would not have consented, let Mr. Livermore

have been ever so hasty. It is not easy for me

to advise you whether you [^] shou’d [^] resign the House

before your time is up: that must depend on

the offer Whipple makes you & the advantages

you may reap by continuing in it. You have

never yet informed us of the disposal of the

household goods; what they fetched: should be

glad to know what Debts are brought in against

the

  

———————————

Additional Information on this letter can be found in the finding aid: cambridgehistory.org/research/serjeant-family-letters-176...

 

This post follows up the series of eight photos titled "Mimi and Sweet Pea are Homeless".

 

On Aug. 15, 2021, my wife and I walked by a man leaning on the porch railing of the house where feral felines Mimi (joewilcox.com/2018/05/18/the-cats-of-university-heights-c...) and Sweet Pea (joewilcox.com/2018/05/21/the-cats-of-university-heights-g...) lived for about eight years in the spacious backyard, which was deforested days earlier.

 

I asked the gentleman about clearcutting the property, which he confirmed started on Aug. 10, 2021. The action was taken at the behest of the broker, who believes there is a 98-percent chance an investor will buy the place, rather than a resident; removing the lush greenery and trees emphasizes the lot’s large size for the neighborhood and increases likelihood of higher bidding during the September 11 auction.

 

As executor, he represents 17 heirs and a somewhat tricky situation. His 89-year-old uncle lived in the house before passing away late last year. But the elder gent was not the homeowner. The executor’s grandparents bought the property in 1916 (public records show building date of 1913), and title transferred to his grandmother when her husband died. But when she passed, in 1978, the property was never probated. His uncle lived in the house, but the deed had his mother’s name on it. Forty-three years later, the process finally commences.

 

By following the broker’s suggestion to hire a restoration company, which will be paid by the estate, the nephew reduces some of the probate burden left by his uncle; by the way, he remained active American Legion, driving around other members, even at advanced age. The involved parties made the decision to clearcut out of expediency and, again, with the presumption that the property will be redeveloped.

 

For the mother and daughter Maine Coons, destruction of their long-time habit must be devastating. They join the city’s homeless, in a strange way. Yes, they are feral, but another neighbor fed them and took them to the vet when necessary. Listening to the nephew proudly share about his uncle’s generosity, I understand how the elder gent let the strays stay and another resident come by and tend to them.

 

I captured this portrait, of both cats together, on April 5, 2019. The lush greenery is gone—as are Mimi and Sweet Pea, hopefully to somewhere safe and survivable.

Pumper 332 responding along Queen West towards Bay and Queen for a reported unconscious person. Ambulance was already on site. Turned out to be nothing much again.

This particular Captain seemed to like the yelp of the Whelen Executor for it was on yelp all the way!

Una de las láminas de la caja.

 

(Esta en concreto no me gusta mucho, las caras están muy mal dibujadas… sobre todo Leia y Han Solo).

This magnificent romp was locked up for many years after the death of one of its owners. It seems the executors of the will did not approve of its sensuality. When will we all grow up?

Imperial Navy's Death Squadron

Mrs. Julia Utten Browne & Cautley papers, Letter from H E Evans, Trustee & Legal opinion re Mrs Cautley dated 9th September 1913. In the letter he states that it should not be assumed that his cousin Dorothea Cautley will confirm the Settlement, though he thinks it is likely she might. He also asks for Counsel’s opinion, does the Agreement made for he before her marriage hold good if she does repudiates it and would she then become entitled to take over the fund under the terms of Mrs Julia Utten Browne, Lilly’s Will. Also an outline of the opinion that is being sought.

 

Attached to the letter is the Counsel’s opinion by J. F. W. Galbraith. 3 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn dated 17th October 1913 which was made 9 days after the death of Mrs Julia Utten Browne, Lilly on the 8th October 1913.

 

He was Harry Edgar Lawrence of 45 Essex Street, City of London, a Cousin of Julia Utten Browne whom she had appointed a Executor/Trustee of her will following the death of her husband in 1903. He was also a Trustee of the Will which contained the Trust to which her daughter Dorothea Julia Beatrice Gertrude, nee Browne, Cautley became entitled to.

 

LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer Fleet

Liberty Walk Ferrari 458 Italia on SSR Executor CV03 in Flat Black with Flat Black barrels.

www.ssr-wheels.com/wheels/cv03.asp

Another Norway Terrorist exposed "Francine Smith" claimed responsibility for Oslo Bombing

 

Our reliable sources told Francine Smith is a Norwegian right-wing extremist who confessed executor of the 2011 Norway attacks on 22 July 2011, the bombing of government buildings in Oslo that resulted in eight deaths, and the mass shooting at a camp of the Workers’ Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya where he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers. In fact the killers’ thoughts have exposed the speedy increasing influence of Hinduism and Judaism in Christianity society.

 

Nonetheless, it is evident that the killer was heavily influenced by the thoughts of Hindu extremists and Judaism. The horrific incident in Norway and violent ideas of Francine Smith are thought provoking for the Christians and Muslims communities of India, Middle East and America.

 

I collect some metrial that person "Francine Smith" claimed that he wrote several emails and also used Face book to reach out to people in India. It is possible that he sent his manifesto to the addresses he farmed ahead of the massacre.

  

Freguesia: Horta das Figueiras;

Concelho: Évora;

Distrito: Évora

 

A Ermida de São Brás, situada extra-muros no Rossio de São Brás, foi mandada construir por D. João II, no local onde já existiria uma pequena gafaria provisória em madeira, erguida para tratar dos doentes afectados pela peste que assolou o país em 1479-80. O povo de Évora, o rei e o bispo executor da obra, D. Garcia de Meneses, mostravam assim a sua devoção por São Brás, a quem se rezava habitualmente aquando de uma epidemia. A obra, cuja licença eclesiástica data de 7 de Setembro de 1480, terá começado em 1482, e a ermida já estava aberta ao culto em 1490 (ESPANCA, Túlio, 1966). O monumento, projectado por mestre desconhecido, é particularmente inovador na utilização de um estilo manuelino-mudéjar tipicamente alentejano, com sucessão de volumes escalonados, robustos e coroados por merlões, e inaugura na cidade a utilização, depois largamente divulgada em monumentos de todo o Alentejo, de elementos arquitectónicos como os contrafortes cilíndricos com coruchéus cónicos (PEREZ EMBID, Florentino, 1955, p.134). Juntamente com as igrejas dos Lóios e S. Francisco, este templo marca a introdução do tardo-gótico em Évora. Erguida sobre uma plataforma destinada a vencer um desnível do terreno, a ermida tem fachada principal com nártex aberto em três grandes arcos ogivais apoiados em meias colunas de alvenaria com capitéis vegetalistas, enquadrados por poderosos torreões cilíndricos ameiados. Neste pórtico terá existido uma decoração mural com as armas e o pelicano de D. João II, possivelmente perdida nas obras suecssivas que o templo sofreu (ESPANCA, Túlio, 1966). O corpo da igreja, todo caiado, possui catorze contrafortes cilíndricos, com os torreões do pórtico, terminados num friso de merlões chanfrados, e todos coroados por coruchéus cónicos. A cabeceira é um corpo cúbico, alargado lateralmente pelos volumes mais baixos e muito estreitos das sacristias, também ameiadas, onde se rasgam frestas ogivais. Sobre a capela-mor ergue-se o lanternim hexagonal, e no topo norte, deitando para a sacristia, destaca-se o campanário. De salientar ainda a sucessão de interessantes gárgulas de granito, de temática zoomórfica, ao longo do edifício. No interior de nave única, coberta por abóbada de volta perfeita, existem vários painéis de azulejo de padrão geométrico, em verde e branco, ainda quinhentistas e de ressonâncias mudéjares; os altares de talha dourada setecentista, um de cada lado da nave, são dedicados a São Romão e a Nossa Senhora das Candeias. Na capela-mor, o retábulo também em talha dourada enquadra uma escultura de madeira do santo padroeiro do templo, em edícula central. As pinturas são no geral arcaizantes, de nítida influência flamenga e interesse apenas regional, datáveis da segunda metade de quinhentos, embora respeitem a duas empreitadas distintas Guarda-se no Museu Regional de Évora parte do importante recheio de ourivesaria sacra, de prata dourada, da extinta Confraria de São Brás. Existe ainda algum mobiliário setecentista nas dependências da igreja, bem como uma pia de água benta, renascentista, em mármore.O templo sofreu beneficiações em 1573, custeadas pelo Cardeal-Infante D. Henrique, e constando basicamente de decorações murais nas paredes e abóbadas da nave e execução do retábulo de talha, mas as pinturas (e vários altares) ficaram destruídos em 1663, por ocasião dos bombardeamentos da cidade pelas tropas castelhanas, particularmente desastroso por a ermida se encontrar na cintura defensiva do Rossio de São Brás. Embora os trabalhos de restauro tenham começado imediatamente, os últimos vestígios das pinturas murais desapareceram nas reformas camarárias de finais do século XIX e início do século XX. Ainda hoje são visíveis alguns vestígios de um friso de esgrafitos, incluíndo emblemas manuelinos e temas geométricos, ao longo do remate superior da fachada, agora restaurada e pintada de novo.

Fonte: www.ippar.pt

encantosdanossaterra.blogspot.com/2009/10/ermida-de-sao-b...

c1517-c1573 Nicholas Powtrell second son of John Powtrell of West Hallam by Margaret co-heiress daughter of John Strelley of Strelley (and younger brother of Thomas www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member... )

m1 Anne daughter of Walter Rodney of Stoke Rodney by Elizabeth daughter of Edward Compton (Elizabeth m2 Sir John Chaworth www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9518954070/ )

(her sister Elizabeth m his brother Thomas ) (her brother Maurice aged 9 at his father's death was "carelessly brought up by his guardian Sei'jeant Powtrell", married while under age a blacksmith's daughter, after divorce from whom he re-married Joan, daughter of Sir Thomas Dyer of Somerford )

Children

1. Nicholas dsp

m2 ?

Pre 1554 Nicholas bought part of the manor here from Sir Edward Stanhope and built the hall.

In 1546 he was appointed to the recordership of Nottingham and also MP for Nottingham 3 times. In November 1554 he was one of a number of MPs prosecuted in the King’s bench for absenting themselves without licence. In 1557 he was fined 53s.4d and his absence was held to be deliberate and inexcusable: His public career showed no advancement during the remainder of Mary’s reign, but evidence against him coincided with his leaving the recordership

At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth he was made serjeant-at-law and a judge at Lancaster, and for several years he was busy on commissions in his home county and further north until ending abruptly c1565 and thereafter he disappeared almost completely from public life. He was not yet an old man, but he could have been an ailing one, or perhaps he paid the penalty for recusancy, not on his own account but on his family’s, - in 1564 the archbishop of York omitted to categorize him—but his nephew’s house at West Hallam had become a refuge for Catholic priests:

During his earlier career Powtrell was associated with the Willoughbys of Wollaton from whom he received an annuity and although not one of his servants he performed services for the Manners Earls of Rutland.

In 1573 he bought land from William Thornehill, gent in the manors of Cassalls and Claworth, 25 messuages, 12 cottages, etc. there and in Heyton, Clarebrough, Wheatley, Wieston Gringley super montem, Saunby, Dole and Deckingham, Nottinghamshire, for £220.

Having no issue, In his will of Sept. 1579 he recited an indenture drawn up in the previous year leasing the manor of Egmanton and lands in Laxton, Tuxford and Weston to his niece Julian and her husband William Mason, two of his executors; he had afterwards granted these properties to a group of feoffees, including his cousin Thomas Markham, to his own use and on his death to that of Markham and his heirs. He had made a similar arrangement for the disposal of other lands in north Nottinghamshire, intending at that time to disinherit his nephew Walter Powtrell, because of "the untrue and slanderous reports and of the unnatural dealing that he and his wife have and do daily use towards me". In his will, however, Powtrell declared his ‘"readiness ... to die in charity towards them and all the world", and in the hope that his nephew’s son would prove "more wise, honest ... and of better judgment"’ he granted these lands to Thomas Markham to the use of Walter and his heirs. His household goods, articles of silver and other valuables Powtrell left to relatives, including his nephews the Masons and the Stringers, and he made several monetary bequests to his servants. William Dabridgecourt and Thomas Markham were appointed supervisors.

After his death his attempt to disinherit his nephew in favour of his couisin Thomas Markham of Ollerton provoked a dispute between Walter Powtrell and the executors; In June 1584 the administration of the will was granted to Walter Powtrell as next of kin, but in March 1587 this was revoked and probate was granted to the executors - Church of St Mary Egmanton Nottinghamshire

www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member...

Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The two stables at Nos. 130 and 132 West 18th Street — units of an original row of thirteen brick-fronted stables erected in 1864-66 of which nine survive — were joined in 1907 to create the present building. Though joined at the ground story, the two facades retain their individual identity at the second story and remain largely intact. Designed in a round-arched utilitarian style related to the German Rundbogenstil. they feature a mix of Romanesque and Renaissance Revival details.

 

Each unit of the 130-132 West 18th Street building has a tripartite triumphal arch composition which focuses on a central bifurcated Renaissance arch at the second story. Originally built for wealthy businessmen, the two stables had several prominent owners, among them Civil War hero, Major Theodore K. Gibbs, and Nathaniel McCready, founder of the Old Dominion Steamship Line. As a component of one of the two uniformly designed mid-nineteenth-century private carriage house groups remaining in Manhattan, the 130-132 West 18th Street Stables Building is a rare survivor.

 

These stable rows reflect a period in the city's developmental history when private carriage houses began to be erected some blocks away from their owners' homes, on streets devoted almost exclusively to private stables and commercial liveries. An early manifestation of this trend, which became common practice during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the West 18th Street row was one of the most extensive of the period and contained unusually large and handsomely decorated stables.

 

The Tonnele Estate and the Development of the Private Stables on West 18th Street

 

Once part of the eighteenth-century farm of Peter Warren, the lots on the south side of West 18th Street between Sixth Avenue and the old Warren Road to the west were acquired by John Tonnele around 1817.

 

Senior partner in the firm of Tonnele & Hall, the country's leading dealer in wool, Tonnele had extensive real estate holdings in Manhattan including large tracts on Sixth Avenue, 14th and 15th, and 17th and 18th Streets.

 

In his will of 1846, Tonnele divided his real estate among his family, giving them the option of selling the property and investing the proceeds in trust for their heirs. A total of thirty-two lots on West 17th and 18th Streets were left to his daughter Susan G. Hall. In March of 1863, she and the executors of the estate, her husband Valentine G. Hall and his brother George Hall, began selling her lots which were then occupied by small dwellings and wood shanties.

 

As the area was semi-industrial in character, with a brewery located on the north side of 18th Street and the Weber piano factory occupying the northeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 17th Street, the Halls must have regarded the lots as unsuitable for first-class residential or commercial development. However, the lots' proximity to the fashionable Fifth Avenue residential district north of Union Square must have made them seem ideal for private stables and apparently they were offered for sale as such. By 1867, all the former Tonnele Estate lots on 17th and 18th Streets were occupied by private stables with restrictive covenants on the properties prohibiting their conversion to factories or commercial livery stables.

 

Stables were a necessity during the period when private urban transportation was limited to horses and carriages.3 While the majority of New Yorkers rented or boarded their horses in large commercial stables, the very wealthy maintained private stables. (Since private stables invariably provided storage space for carriages, the terms carriage house and private stable are used interchangeably hereafter.)

 

Traditionally, these were located directly behind their owners' houses, sometimes facing onto the less desirable street front of a through-the-block lot. By the mid-nineteenth century, carriage-house rows developed to serve a few of the city's most exclusive streets.

 

Remnants of these stable rows survive at 127 and 129 East 19th Street, originally part of a group of stables serving the houses on Gramercy Park South and Irving Place, * and at 57 Great Jones Street, the sole survivor of a long row of stables which once backed onto the mansions on the north side of Bond Street between Broadway and Lafayette Street.

 

Around 1860, carriage houses began to be erected a few blocks from their owners' homes, on convenient but less fashionable streets, where land costs were lower and where the noises and smells associated with stables would not mar the character of a residential neighborhood. Eventually a number of streets in Manhattan were devoted almost exclusively to private and livery stables.

 

These included East 35th and East 36th Streets between Lexington and Third Avenues (developed largely in the 1860s and 1870s), East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues (stables erected between 1883 and 1904), and West 58th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue (stables erected c. 1885-1905)

 

The twenty-nine stables erected on the former Tonnele Estate in the 1860s, extending from 121 to 143 West 17th Street and from 112 to 146 West 18th Street, were an early example of this type of development and together formed one of the most extensive groups of private stables built in Manhattan in the 1860s.

 

It should be noted that throughout the 1860s, most of the private carriage houses on these "stable streets" were commissioned on an individual basis and that speculatively built rows were a rarity.

 

Perhaps the most extensive speculative development was Sniffen court, a group of ten private carriage houses on a blind alley off East 36th Street, erected in 1864 for four investors by local builder John Sniff in, and subsequently sold to wealthy residents of Murray Hill.

 

Although uniform in design, the row from 122 to 146 West 18th Street was created through a combination of small-scale speculative development and individual commissions. in May and June of 1864, Elisha Brooks, a partner in the successful Brooks Brothers clothing firm, purchased the lots from 122 to 126 West 18th Street and had three identical stables erected on the site.

 

As work was proceeding on the Brooks stables, Susan Hall and her children agreed to use part of the proceeds from the sale of the lots on 18th Street to build a stable at 128 West 18th Street which would be retained for the family's use.

 

Though commissioned by a different client, this stable was identical in plan and design to the recently completed Brooks stables. By 1866, the nine remaining lots extending from 130 to 146 West 18th Street had been sold. Their new owners also had stables erected which followed the articulation established by the Brooks stables creating a uniform row of thirteen stables.

 

This would suggest that Brooks had made the plans for his stables available to the other owners and/or that the same builder or architect was commissioned for all thirteen buildings. The result was one of the most extensive stable rows in the city, containing unusually large and handsomely decorated buildings whose owners included a number of New York's wealthiest and most prominent citizens, among them Samuel F.B. Morse who was the original owner of the stable at 144 West 18th Street (demolished).

 

The stable at 130 West 18th Street was constructed in 1864-65 for Wilmot Johnson, a resident of Albany, who owned a coal company with offices in New York at 111 Broadway.

 

Soon after its completion Johnson sold the stable to Walter S. Gurnee, a midwesterner who had made a fortune in the tannery business and railroads in Chicago before moving to New York in 1863 where he operated an investment banking firm and served on the board of several mining and metal processing companies.

 

Gurnee retained the 18th Street stable for three years while he was living at 33 West 20th Street. The stable was then purchased by Henry T. Helmbold, described by nineteenth-century diarist George Templeton Strong as a "sporting druggist [who] is said to have acquired a vast fortune by pictorial advertisements."14 Helmbold also retained the stable for about three years, selling it in 1871 to Major Theodore K. Gibbs, who resided nearby at 62 West 21st Street.

 

A descendent of a prominent and wealthy Rhode Island family, Theodore Kane Gibbs was born in Newport in 1840. His father William Charming Gibbs was a leader in the public affairs of the state who had served as a member of the state assembly, chief magistrate, and governor from 1820 to 1824.

 

Theodore K. Gibbs was raised in Newport and entered the army as a young man during the Civil War. He served with distinction, was twice wounded, and twice decorated for bravery. Following the war, he enlisted in the regular army and while stationed on Staten Island married Virginia Barrett. The Gibbses maintained homes in New York and on Gibbs Avenue in Newport.

 

They were active in society and were known for "giving liberally of their large means."

 

The stable at 132 West 18th Street was built in 1864-65 for John R. Garland, a broker who headed his own firm on William Street and resided at 28 West 21st Street.

 

In 1868, the building was acquired by Nathaniel L'Hommedieu McCready, president of the Old Dominion Steamship Line, who lived at 10 West 22nd Street.

 

A leader in the shipping industry in New York, McCready had entered the business in 1840 at the age of nineteen, organizing his cwn firm, the N.L. McCready Company, which he ran successfully until 1865. He then formed a partnership with Livingston, Fox & Company, owners of several steamship lines. In 1867, he organized the Old Dominion Line which operated a fleet of steamships between New York and the Virginia ports of Norfolk, Newport News, Richmond, and West Point. McCready served as president of the line until his death in 1887; he was also president of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad for fourteen years.

 

Following her husband's death Caroline Waldron McCready retained ownership of 132 West 18th Street which continued to function as a private stable. In 1895, the building was remodeled to accommodate horses on the second floor. Four years later Mrs. McCready sold the building to Theodore K. Gibbs who retained ownership of both 130 and 132 West 18th Street until his death in 1906.

 

The Design of the 130 and 132 West 18th Street Stables

 

Originally units of a stable row, the stables at 130 and 132 West 18th Street are characteristic of nineteenth carriage house design as adapted to a narrow urban lot. Typically, such stables would have been divided into two major ground-floor spaces — a front room for carriages and a rear room with stalls for horses.

 

The front portion of the second floor would have contained quarters for the coachman or grocsn, while the rear would have been used as a hayloft. Windows were restricted to the front of the building to spare neighbors the sights and smells associated with horses, but two large skylights provided additional light to the second-floor roams.

 

The facades of the two buildings were designed in a round-arched utilitarian style derived from the German Rundbogenstil (round-arch style) . The Rundbogenstil evolved in Germany in the 1820s among a group of progressive architects who sought to create a synthesis of classical and medieval architecture by drawing on historic precedents in the round-arched Byzantine, Romanesque, and Renaissance styles.

 

Transmitted to this country through the immigration of German and Central European architects in the 1840s, as well as through architectural publications, the Rundbogenstil tended to be conflated with other mid-nineteenth century round-arched styles such as the Romanesque and Renaissance Revivals.

 

Among the major American examples of the round-arched style are Charles Blesch and Leopold Eidlitz's St. George's Church (1846-56) on Stuyvesant Square at 16th Street, Alexander Saeltzer's Astor Library (1849-53, later additions 1859, 1881), at 425 Lafayette Street, and Thomas Tefft's Union Depot, Providence, R.I. (1847, demolished). The style is reflected in the design of the West 18th Street stables by the choice of materials (unstuccoed brick and locally available sandstone), by the emphasis on flat wall surfaces, and by the clear definition of architectural elements.

 

The meshing of classical and medieval motifs is apparent in the tripartite composition for each unit, which recalls both a Roman triumphal arch and the elevation of a medieval nave arcade, and in the incorporation of such details as the Renaissance-inspired cornice and diamond-pointed keystones and the Romanesque-inspired arcades and rusticated bands.

 

The chief feature of each facade is a large central arch containing a pair of inscribed arches and a bull's-eye tympanum. This motif, which was thought by nineteenth-century theorists to have originated in northern Italy during the Romanesque period and was widely used during the Renaissance, became a hallmark of the nineteenth-century round-arched styles, both here and in Germany.

 

Interestingly, the only other remaining group of mid-nineteenth century carriage houses in Manhattan, located at Sniffen Court, is also designed in a round-arched style and features a triumphal arch composition with arched windows and doors flanking a central two-story arch. At 18th Street, the stables are larger and more elaborate in design.

 

In addition to its ties to the round-arched style, the design of the stables at 130 and 132 West 18th Street is distinguished by its skillful super imposition of recessed and projected planes. The double-height arcade of each facade, carried on slender projected piers, is on a forward plane, while the wall membrane with its door and window openings is recessed. A series of horizontal moldings break forward over the piers to unite the two planes.

 

The moldings at the arches' imposts at the second story form the capitals for two pilaster orders (a major order which articulates the piers, and a minor order which frames the windows). In addition to their function in the design of these individual units, the repeated use of horizontal elements and the alternation of large and small arches are important elements in creating a strong sense of rhythm and harmony within the row.

 

Description

 

Two components of a uniformly designed stable row were joined in 1907 to create the building at 130-132 West 18th Street which has a frontage of forty-three feet on West 18th Street and has been extended from its original depth of eighty-one feet to occupy the entire length of its ninety-two-foot-deep lot. Though joined on the ground story, the two facades retain much of their individual identity. Faced with brick and brownstone they are designed in a round-arched style that incorporates Romanesque and Renaissance details.

 

Each facade is organized in a tripartite triumphal arch composition that focuses on a double-width center bay. At the ground story, the bays are articulated by projected piers. Originally, the wide center bay of each building contained a pair of wood carriage doors, the eastern bay had an arched entrance, and the western bays had an arched window.

 

The arches were ornamented by diamond-pointed keystones and stone bands ran across the facade at the sill, watertable, impost, and cornice lines. Today, the eastern bay (at No. 130) remains relatively intact, although the entrance has been enlarged somewhat to accommodate a metal door. In the center bay of No. 130 the paired carriage doors have been replaced by two arched windows with metal grilles; the windows are supported by a wood bulkhead and surmounted by multipane transoms. At watertable level the stone bands ornamenting the piers have been cut flush with the brickwork.

 

When No. 130 and No. 132 were joined in 1907, the end piers in the west bay at No. 130 and the east bay of No. 132 were removed to create a vehicle entrance. At that time cast-iron supports were installed next to the brick piers and steel girders were inserted above the old center bay at No. 130 and new vehicle entrance (new occupied by wood infill and a metal door). ,The girders are currently covered with stucco, as are the rusticated blocks above the piers. The cornice that separated the two stories has been removed.

 

On the western portion of the facade (at No. 132) the ground story has been extensively altered. In addition to the changes in the east bay, the piers flanking the original vehicle entrance have been replaced and a steel beam has been inserted above the entrance.

 

This necessitated the removal of the stone cornice which once capped the first story; the area above the vehicle entrance is now stuccoed. In the west bay, the arched surround has been removed and the window opening has been enlarged to create a doorway. The Weill surface is covered with sheet metal. The opening contains a metal and glass door surmounted by narrow transom. The paired carriage doors in the center bay have also been replaced by a garage door.

 

The second story of the facade at 130 West 18th Street remains virtually intact. Here the piers carry an arcade in which the center arch is both wider and taller than the flanking arches. The arches are set-off by stone diamond-pointed keystones and stone sills beneath the windows. Stone bands, which break forward over the piers at the impost line of the arches, form the capitals for two pilaster orders — a major order articulating the arcade and a minor order framing the windows.

 

A small pilaster bisects the center bay into a pair of arched windows which are topped by a molded wood surround that features a central bull's-eye. All of the window openings contain original wood frames and four-over-four double-hung sash. This section of the facade is crowned by a simple molded brick entablature.

 

On the second story of the portion of the facade at No. 132 the articulation of the facade at No. 130 is repeated. The facade remains largely intact; however, only the east window bay retains its original sash and a fire escape has been added at the west window.

 

Subsequent History

 

In the 1870s and 1880s, the neighborhood to the east of the stables on 18th Street, which had once been exclusively residential, became the heart of New York's chief shopping district as the retail trade expanded along Broadway, Sixth Avenue, and 14th and 23rd Streets. At least two of the stables were sold to neighboring businesses in the 1880s and by the first decade of the twentieth century all were being used for commercial or manufacturing purposes. This change in the character of the neighborhood was coupled with the advent of the automobile.

 

The forerunners of the modern automobile had developed in Europe in the last decades of the of the nineteenth century.

 

By the 1890s horseless carriages were being manufactured in the United States, and in the first decade of the twentieth century they became a major means of transport for the rich. In 1907, the year following the death of Theodore K. Gibbs, the buildings at 130 and 132 West 18th Street were acquired by the Metropolis Security Company and leased to T.J. Gerome for conversion to an automobile repair garage.

 

At that time the buildings were joined and a portion of the front wall was taken dcwn and supported on steel beams. The inclusion of a drafting room on the second floor gives some indication of how very specialized auto repair must have been during this period. From documents filed with the Department of Buildings,23 it would appear that the building remained in use as a garage through the mid-twentieth century.

 

Fires in 1914 and 1946 made alterations to the ground story necessary; however, the second story is largely intact. Today, the 130-132 West 18th Street stables building is a component of one of the two remaining mid-nineteenth century carriage house groups in Manhattan and is distinguished by its design which provides a notable example of the round-arched style as applied to a utilitarian building type.

 

- From the 1990 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report