"The long ages of infancy and of childhood, through which the human race

had to pass, have receded into the background. Humanity is now experiencing the

commotions invariably associated with the most turbulent stage of its evolution, the

stage of adolescence, when the impetuosity of youth and its vehemence reach their

climax, and must gradually be superseded by the calmness, the wisdom, and the

maturity that characterize the stage of manhood. Then will the human race reach

that stature of ripeness which will enable it to acquire all the powers and capacities

upon which its ultimate development must depend." -- Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 202

 

"The Cloisters was bequeathed to the City of Baltimore by its original owners, Sumner A. Parker (1881-1946) and G. Dudrea Parker (1883-1972). Both Mr. and Mrs. Parker were Baltimore natives and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University. After their marriage in 1905, Mr. and Mrs. Parker traveled extensively throughout Europe and the United States collecting art work and artifacts. During these travels, they became enchanted with the medieval architecture of England and France, which provided the inspiration for their summer home, The Cloisters.

 

The Cloisters sits atop a beautiful hillside in Lutherville in Baltimore County, Maryland surrounded by carefully tended gardens and 60 wooded acres. The house is principally composed of large, random-sized blocks of grey and gold Butler stone, some of which was quarried on the estate and all of which comes from Maryland quarries. The roof, consisting of heavy Butler stone flagstones arranged in an overlapping pattern and secured by iron pins, is the only one of its kind in the United States. The roof’s flagstones are of irregular sizes, approximately one-inch thick and 8-12 inches across.

 

The cloistered garden, from which the house takes its name, is located on the north side, just off of the Gallery. To the northwest of the house, is a stunning windmill, made of the same Butler stone as the house. Mr. Parker used the original windmill, which stood on the same site, as a studio. After this structure was destroyed by fire in 1940, the Parkers built the current windmill, which served as quarters for the groundskeeper and pumped water for the swimming pool. This pool, which has since been removed, was located slightly to southwest of the front of the house. Its entrance was marked by the two stone pillars that still stand just to the side of the main driveway.

 

Although The Cloisters itself only dates from 1932, many of the architectural elements are far older, lending the house an ancient feel. For example, the massive, half-timbered gables on the main facade originally graced a medieval house in Donremy, France, while Mr. and Mrs. Parker acquired the pale gray medallions on the same facade from a 16th century house in Venice, Italy. Similarly, the elaborate stained-glass door leading from the chapel to the cloistered garden originally decorated a 16th century house in Verona, Italy, and several of the doors on the first floor date from medieval France as does the beautifully carved wooden panel over the Dining Room’s mantel.

 

In addition to acquiring antique building materials directly from Europe, the Parkers also salvaged authentic medieval pieces from the renowned Glen Ellen mansion (Photo), which once stood near the Loch Raven reservoir in Baltimore. For example, the Gothic tracery above the windows in the Chapel and in the first-floor Solarium came from Glen Ellen as did the French doors that open from the Gallery to the cloistered garden. In addition to saving historical objects from Glen Ellen, Mr. and Mrs. Parker also creatively reused wood from antique furniture for architectural elements in the house.

 

For example, the mantels of the four fireplaces on the first floor were crafted from sections of antique chests and feature carved geometric designs in a late-medieval style and wooden Renaissance figures.

 

The Parkers were natives of Baltimore, maintaining their primary residence at 913 St. Paul Street in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, and both graduated from the Johns Hopkins University. They had three children: Sumner A. Parker, Jr. (who died in infancy), F. Jameson Parker (1909-1971), and Katherine S. Parker (1914-1978).

  

Mr. Parker was president of the Armstrong and Parker Company, which produced ornamental ironwork (such as balconies, gates, and fences) and which was located where Lake Clifton High School now stands. Beautiful examples of the ironwork made by Mr. Parker’s company can be seen around Baltimore and throughout The Cloisters. For example, Mr. Parker designed the railing of the stunning four-story spiral stair tower in the center of the house; the gothic-inspired banister of the library staircase; the decorative (and functional) grates on the windows of the stair tower and on the ground floor; and the balconies on the upper floors.

 

Throughout their lives, the Parkers frequently opened both of their homes to the public, allowing the people of Baltimore to view their remarkable collections of tapestries, rugs, porcelain, paintings, and antique furniture. In a final act of generosity to the city that she loved, Mrs. Parker willed The Cloisters and its contents to the City of Baltimore. Mr. and Mrs. Parker and their older son are interred on the property."

 

Mrs. Parker went green before her times, which everyone should be no matter what century they live in.

 

George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (18 December 1751 – 11 November 1837) was a British peer. A direct descendant of Sir John Wyndham, he succeeded to his father's titles in 1763 at the age of 12, inheriting estates at Petworth, Egremont, Leconfield and land in Wiltshire and Somerset. He later inherited the lands of the Earl of Thomond in Ireland. He was a great patron of art and interested in the latest scientific advances. He was an agriculturist, a friend of Arthur Young, and enthusiastic for canal building, investing in many commercial ventures for the improvement of his estates. He was also not entirely indifferent to politics.

 

For some time the painter Turner lived at his Sussex residence, Petworth House, and many painters including John Constable, C R Leslie, George Romney, the sculptor John Flaxman, and other talented artists received commissions from Egremont, who filled his house with valuable works of art. The earl was a sponsor of the Petworth Emigration Scheme intended to relieve rural poverty caused by overpopulation. Generous and hospitable, blunt and eccentric, the earl was in his day a very prominent figure in English society. Charles Greville says, he was "immensely rich and his munificence was equal to his wealth"; and again that "in his time Petworth was like a great inn".

 

Egremont was born on 18 December 1751 to Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont and the Honourable Alicia Maria Carpenter. He was educated at Wandworth and Westminster Schools. In 1774 he added O'Brien to his name on inheriting extensive estates in Ireland from his uncle the Earl of Thomond. He went on two grand tours to Italy in the 1770s. At the family's newly built London residence, Egremont House, he associated with fashionable Maccaronis

 

The earl was an enthusiast for canal building which would allow agricultural improvement on his Petworth estates by bringing in chalk from Houghton for liming and coal to replace scarce supplies of firewood, releasing more land for food production. The first venture was the Rother Navigation, making the River Rother navigable to Midhurst. Failing to find any reliable contractor to build the navigation during the time of Canal Mania most of the work was done by the earl's own estate workers. Starting from Stopham the navigation reached Petworth in 1795 and Midhurst in 1796. A branch to Haslingbourne, south of Petworth, the Petworth Canal was then built, initially intended to be extended north to link to the River Wey, and initial surveys were conducted. This idea was soon abandoned when the cost of locks needed to reach the north side of Petworth was realised.

 

In 1796 the earl purchased 36% of the shares in the Arun Navigation Company, saving it from liquidation when it was burdened with the £16,000 cost of building the Coldwaltham cut and Hardham tunnel. Having abandoned plans for a canal from Petworth to Shalford and keen for the nation to have an inland waterway linking London and Portsmouth, safe from natural hazards to coastal shipping and naval attack by the French, the earl turned his attention to linking the River Arun to the River Wey in Surrey. The Arun Canal had extended the navigable length of the River Arun to Newbridge on the road from Wisborough Green to Billingshurst and the Wey and Arun Junction Canal was completed in 1816 to connect to the Godalming Navigation. The completion of the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal, including the Chichester Ship Canal, in 1823, completed the London to Portsmouth route for barges and also the earl's investment in canal building.

 

A number of vessels were named Egremont, including a barge on the Arun Navigation, a brigantine built at Littlehampton for coastal trading, but wrecked on the Goodwin Sands after only two years, and later a steam tug used to tow barges across Chichester and Langstone harbours for the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal.

 

As a young man in London Egremont gave a gilded coach to Mlle Rosalie Duthé, sometimes called "the first officially recorded dumb blonde", a French courtesan who had moved to London during the French revolution, with whom he was frequently seen at the opera. He was later close to Lady Melbourne whose son William Lamb, later Prime Minister, was widely regarded as Egremont's son and was said to look remarkably like him. Lamb often spent time at Petworth House as a child and continued to visit Egremont until the end of the earl's life. Egremont called off a planned marriage to Lady Maria Walpole, a granddaughter of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole

 

Egremont inherited the recently built Egremont House in Piccadilly and it was known as a haunt of Macaronis. As his country base he hired Stansted House during 1775 and 1776 while renovation work was in progress at Petworth House. He also spent much time at Brighton where he had a house in Kemptown, East Lodge on the east side of Upper Rock Gardens. He attended Brighton and Lewes races and visited the Prince Regent at the Royal Pavilion. Egremont was known for his philanthropy, being a founding subscriber of the Royal Sussex Hospital.

 

Egremont maintained around fifteen mistresses who had more than forty children between them at Petworth House. It is recorded that the peace of the household would often be disturbed by disputes between the children, with their respective mothers joining in. The children, of the more favoured mistresses at least, especially those of Elizabeth Ilive, were educated by Thomas Sockett, a protégé of the earl who became Rector of Petworth while also acting as the earl's secretary. On 16 July 1801 Egremont married Elizabeth Ilive, already having seven illegitimate children by her. Their eighth child, Elizabeth, died in infancy and Ilive left Petworth after this to live in London. He also had four or five children with Elizabeth Fox and many others by other women.

 

In earlier centuries a horse fair was held at Egdean in early September. It was one of the last occasions on which Egremont was seen out in public before he died. The earl gave a £20 prize for the best three year old colt or filly.

 

The earl died at Petworth House on 11 November 1837. He was succeeded by his nephew George Francis Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont who inherited the Somerset estates, and on whose death the Earldom of Egremont became extinct. Petworth, however, and estates in Yorkshire and Ireland passed to Colonel George Wyndham, the eldest natural son of the third Earl. In 1859 he was created Baron Leconfield. Henry Wyndham inherited the family lands in Cumberland.

  

Photo taken in St Mary's Church Petworth.

 

Source: Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia.

 

More Info at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wyndham,_3rd_Earl_of_Egremont

 

"DATE AI VOSTRI BAMBINI L'INFANZIA PIU' BELLA POSSIBILE, PIU' FAVOLOSA POSSIBILE"

(Luigi Santucci)

 

-Giornata internazionale per i diritti dell'Infanzia e dell'Adolescenza

-International day for the rights of the infancy and the adolescence

-Día internacional por los derechos a la infancia y la adolescencia

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0XotjqSAjA

Born in 1865, Miksa Róth was 19 years old when he took over his father Zsigmond’s workshop.

The craft of glass painting was still in its infancy. In 1855 English glass workers succeeded in creating an "antique glass" effect.

This coloured glass was suitable for the repair and restoration of the windows of medieval churches, as well as for decorating the new romantic, and the historically eclectic designs. By 1880, workshops were sprouting up in the capital, the most significant of which belonged to Miksa Róth, who at the turn of the century was providing work for 10 trainees, working on both public and private building commissions.

Miksa Róth’s first significant work was in 1886 in Máriafalva (Mariasdorf, Austria) where Imre Steindl was leading the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church.

Earlier Róth had studied the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals on a tour of Europe.

During the reconstruction of many other national monuments, Róth designed Gothic stained glass windows at Keszthely for the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church led by Samu Pecz (architect of the main market hall in Budapest) in 1896.

In Budapest, you can see examples of his beautiful work in the Gresham Palace (now the newly opened Four Seasons hotel), the Agricultural Museum, the Music Academy and the Andrássy Dining Room amongst many others. The plans for the stained glass windows of the Parliament building were prepared in 1890. Róth took into account both the staircase’s light source and the building’s interior decoration, and decided to use the Grotesque style originating from the Renaissance period.

Reflecting the multi-coloured nature of Hungarian architecture at the turn of the century, Róth created windows in many styles: Historic, Hungarian Secession, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Viennese Secession.

Róth’s craft was given a new inspiration when he saw the "opalescent" and "favril" glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose display at the 1893 Chicago World Trade Fair, entitled Four Seasons featured shimmering, iridescent colours and an immediately popular natural marbling effect of the glass.

Róth was also influenced by the work of the English pre-Raphaelite artists, in particular Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. In 1897, Miksa Róth bought a collection of opalescent glass from the Hamburg glass painter Karl Engelbrecht, and began to regularly order glass from his factory.

At the 1898 Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ Christmas Exhibition Róth displayed glass windows prepared using a type of Tiffany glass, seen for the first time in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Róth won the silver medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 with the Pax and Rising Sun mosaics made with opalescent glass.

The Róth workshop then made a large number of stained glass windows with floral designs, whose success could be attributed to the nostalgia felt by people living then in large cities for the lost world of nature.

In Budapest the stairwells and lifts were brightened up with luxuriant gardens in place of the drab partition walls and dark corridors.

Middle class citizens even decorated their parlours with the symbolic motives of flowers: Irises, lilies, sunflowers, poppies and roses, birds such as peacocks and swans, and fauns, nymphs, fairies and female figures frolicking in gardens, arbours and riverbanks to recall the lost period of the Golden Age.

One of Róth’s most significant creations using opalescent glass was for cupola of the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City, which he carried out according to designs by Géza Maróti.With this work he showed details of geometric design of the Jugenstil and Viennese Secession which he also used in windows for Bank Building (1905 Ignác Alpár), the Gresham Palace (1907 Zsigmond Quittner and József Vágó) and the Music Academy (1907 Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl) . Róth worked with many of the best architects, builders and designers of the time.

For Ödön Lechner's magnificent Post Office Savings Bank building, Róth created an unusual mosaic, embedded into cement. In 1910, Róth created the gorgeous windows of the Culture Palace in Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures in Romania). In the Hall of Mirrors, scenes from traditional Székely fairy tales, ballads and legends are featured in the 12 stained glass windows which fill the entire length of the long hall. It is worth a visit to Marosvásárhely alone to stand among these magical and colourful designs.

Róth worked for a long time in conjunction with two artists from the Gödöllô artists’ settlement, Sándor Nagy and Aladár Kriesch Körösfôi. Together they created the Hungarian Secession style windows for the National Salon and the windows and mosaics for the Hungarian House in Venice. For the Marosvásárhely Culture House triptych, also based on Nagy’s designs, Róth used a special medieval technique, employing thick leading and strong lines. From the 1920s Róth mainly received commissions from the Church and State.

He died in 1944 after a lifetime of bringing joy and colour to the world with his beautiful creations.

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

Róth Miksa (1865. december 26. Pest - 1944. június 14. Budapest) a magyar üvegfestészet és mozaik művészet egyik legjelentősebb alkotója volt. A pesti Eötvös Reálgimnáziumban tanult s az apja műhelyében sajátította el a mesterség alapjait. Később Német-, Francia- és Olaszországban tanulmányozta a kora-középkori üvegfestészet technikáját és képszerkesztési módszerét. A XIII. századi üvegfestészet egész életét meghatározó befolyással volt művészeti tevékenységére. Emlékirataiban a német Sigismund Frankot valamint az angol preraffaelitákat, Burne Jones-t, William Morrist nevezi meg művészeti példaképeinek.

 

Első sikereit historizáló stílusú képeivel érte el: az 1896-os Ezredévi Kiállítás és az Országház üvegfestményei hozták meg számára az országos elismertséget. 1897-től az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchiában elsőként használta fel a Tiffany-üveget szecessziós stílusú alkotásaihoz. Számos hazai és nemzetközi elismerést szerzett: elsőként ő kapta meg az Iparművészeti Állami Aranyérmet, az 1900-as párizsi világkiállításon ezüstéremmel, az 1902-es torinói és az 1904-es St. Louisin pedig arannyal díjazták munkáit.

 

Alkotásai megtalálhatóak az oslói Fegeborg templomtól a mexikói Theatro Nationalig - ahová Maróti Gézával készítettek 1500 négyzetláb nagyságú üvegkupolát és mozaik képeket. 1939-ben, a második zsidó törvény meghozatala után szüntette meg a Nefelejcs utcai házában működő "üvegfestészeti műintézet" tevékenységét.

Róth Miksa 1944-ben halt meg, természetes halállal, hiszen kikeresztelkedettként akkor még védett helyzetben volt, de ekkor már állandó rettegésben élt. Családja sok tagja a holokauszt áldozata lett.

 

www.rakovszky.net/D1_DisplRemImg/Rako_DRI_ShowARemoteImag...

 

disappearingbudapest.blogspot.hu/2011/03/miksa-roth-geniu...

 

csomalin.csoma.elte.hu/~toti/uvegek/roth.htm

 

nol.hu/kult/20130404-roth_miksa_demotivalasa

 

hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3th_Miksa</a

"In Sacred memory of Frances, born of the illustrious and ancestral family of the lords of Berkeley, daughter of the most honourable Henry , Baron Berkeley and his wife Catherine sister of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and most dear wife of George Shirley of Staunton, knight, to whom she bore 4 sons, two of whom were summoned to their heavenly home in infancy, and one daughter. She was lady of the highest chastity, modesty, integrity, faith in God and love for her husband, and splendidly equipped with the glory of all other virtues worthy of such a family. Piously and calmly she ended this mortal life in childbirth and was called to the company of the immortals on the 29th of December in the year of our Lord 1595 aged 31 years.

For her husband and her children she left behind a most greavous sense of loss.

George Shirley, grieving and sorrowing, has set up this monument and ordained that with her, to whom when living he was united in wedlock in the hope of children, he be invited to her tomb in death, together in the hope of the resurrection at the last day.

Death which untimely tore thee from my bed and robbed my home

Shall one day give me back with thee to wed in this thy tomb "

 

George Shirley 1622 and 1st wife Frances Berkeley 1598 who died in childbirth

Frances was the daughter of Henry 7th Baron Berkeley and Katherine www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9496809132/ 3rd daughter of Henry Howard (the 'Poet Earl'), Earl of Surrey ex 1547 and Frances www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9493951767/ daughter of John de Vere 15th Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth Trussell. www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/14513115062/

 

George was the son of John Shirley 1570 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/sKgCZz of Staunton Harald and Jane heiress daughter of Thomas Lovett 1572 www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/5356352947/ of Astwell by Elizabeth Fermor of Easton Neston

He was the grandson of Francis Shirley 1571 & Dorothy Giffard www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1G500z

Francis Shirley had bought the former priory lands here from the Crown in 1539

 

Both his father and Shirley grandfather having already died, at the age of 13 after the death of his other grandfather Thomas Lovett , his custody, wardship and marriage were given by the Queen to Henry McWilliam & wife Lady Cheke

He studied at Harford College Oxford before "presenting his services at Court"

 

George & Frances married 22nd February 1586 at Callowden, near Coventry

Children

1. George b/d 1587 died an infant

2. Henry 1588-1634 m Dorothy daughter of Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex and Frances daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham (parents of Sir Robert Shirley 1656 of Staunton Harold www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/44XiwC )

3. Thomas 1594-1654 described as an antiquarian

4. John died an infant

1. Mary 1595-1630

 

Frances was "struck with a deadly disease lying in childbed and seeing herself on her deathbed, she sent for a famous and holy priest whom she had honoured for his learning, innocensy and sanctity of life, to assist her with his prayers at her last hours. She gave her blessing to her children, took her leave and gave her last farewell to her husband recommending unto him her surviving three little children, most earnestly praying and desiring that he would have a care that they might be instructed and brought up in the fear of God and the true Catholick religion,and having made a general confession of her whole life, she received with great fervour and devotion the blessed sacrament, and by divers miracles she was visited by the heavenly courtiers St Peter, St John & St Thomas of Canterbury on whose day she died ...... "

 

George m2 Dorothy www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2401560660/ daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of Broadhinton Wilts by Anne flic.kr/p/j5QVHF co-heiress of John Barwick of Wilcot.: Dorothy was the widow of Henry Unton

According to son Thomas, Sir George "had spent 3 whole years in mourning and solitary widowhood", before

"following his sute verie hard, but doth nowe meane to desist without shee will be brought to qualifie the conditions of her obigations "

Dorothy's "pre nup" on her marriage to George shows she wasn't taking any chances. -

" First she doth require to reserve her own living entire to herself, to bestow the commodities of it to her own pleasure, without any controls; secondly, she doth demand a £1000 yearly jointure; third, £500 land to be tyed upon her son, if by any good means there may be one gotten; fourthly, if it so fall that her husband and she should fall out, she doth require £500 a year out of his living, and to live apart from him with that added to her living of Faringdon".

 

George was created a baronet in 1611 having loaned King James £50 the highest sum in the county

George was suspected of being a Catholic, although mindful of the fines imposed, he outwardly conformed to the church of England.. (If a Papists refused to come to church on Sunday, they were liable to a penalty of 20 pounds for every lunar month during which they absented themselves). He was placed on the list of suspected Papists in Northamptonshire. All his armour and weapons were removed from Astwell House in his absence overseas in 1618 on the plea that his servants were recusants. Lord Exeter, then Lord Lieutenant, thereupon wrote to the Privy Council on his behalf that "he had always been loyal and forward in service and declared himself no recusant". Three years later his arms were restored to him. A letter to Dr. Lambe, Chancellor of the Diocese of Peterborourgh, from four of the local clergy, suggests that they thought very strongly that his attendance at their services was more than a mere formality. He was perhaps one of those who had "true unity, which is most glorious."

"May it please you, Sir, Whereas we whose names are hereunder written are intreated by Sir George Shirley of Astwell in your Countie of Northampton Baronet, to certifie our knowledge to your worship of his conformities in coming to the church and hearing devine service and sermons there, upon Sundays and Holldayes, according to the lawe in that case; we do hereby certifie you that the said Sir George Shirley (being an old gent. and his house farr from the parish churche) and having an auntient privileged chappell in his house, hathe, according to the booke of Common prayer, service red in the same chappell by Mr. Jones. a Batchelor in Divinitie and Chaplen in his house, who hathe of him a yearely stipend for reading prayer and preaching there, to which service and sermons himselfe, his Ladie and his familie doe come verie orderly, and we doe further certifie your worship that we ourselves doe verifie often every yeare in the absence of his said chaplen, or when we are thereunto entreated by the said Sir George Shirley, come thither and read service and preache in his his said chappell to him, his Ladie and his familie; and this with remembrance of our humble dutie we committ you to God, and rest.

However in the words of his son, Thomas, George died on 27th of April 1622, aged 63, "in the bosom of his mother, the Roman Catholick Church". "His piety was so remarkable in his large and bountiful alms, that he merited the glorious title of father and nourisher of the poor, relieving during the great dearth, 500 a day at his gates"

 

The monument was put up in 1598 after 1st wife Frances died. In 1596 he contracted with Garrett and Jasper Hollemans to put up a monument at Wappenham, Northamptonshire where her father was buried, but he evidently changed his mind about the location and had it erected at Breedon instead. .

The Shirley family bought the manor after it was surrendered to the Crown in 1539

 

books.google.co.uk/books?id=_vQRAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA81&...

www.shirleyassociation.com/NewShirleySite/NonMembers/Engl...

- Church of St Mary & St Hardulph, Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire

 

Picture with thanks - copyright Christ Downer CCL www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3454184

The cycle path on the route of the former Chesterfield and Lincoln Direct Railway, close to Doddington in Lincolnshire.

 

Like most new railways of the time its purpose was the carriage of coal. The project's leading light was William Arkwright, a descendant of Richard Arkwright who had made the family's fortune by mechanising the spinning of cotton. William Arkwright had settled at Sutton Scarsdale Hall near Chesterfield and with the land came extensive deposits of coal.

 

The rail network in the vicinity provided by the Midland Railway and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway was still in its infancy and would not meet his requirements. In 1887 the Chesterfield and Lincoln Direct Railway was proposed independently to join with Midland lines at each end. It would cross his land but received insufficient support.

 

Arkwright decided to promote an independent line to provide through roads to opposite coasts of the country. In time it became known as "The East to West". It would be sufficiently large to maintain itself in the face of competition from other railways. There were a number of lines already approved but not carried forward which could be incorporated. With the Newark and Ollerton there was the Macclesfield and Warrington Railway and the Lincoln and East Coast Railway. A number of other lines had been considered but not formally proposed and these, together with plans for dock works at Sutton on Sea which had been approved in 1884, gave Arkwright his route and support from the various landowners involved. The Lancashire Derbyshire and East Coast Railway Company was formed at 27 George St in Westminster and published its plans in 1890.

 

There was initially a deal of opposition from landowners and other railway companies but, in the end, the main opponent was the MS&LR because the line would bypass its own line from Sheffield to Retford and thence to London. The Great Eastern Railway turned from opponent to supporteer, realising that the line could give it an entree to the Midlands coalfields. The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway Act authorising building the line was given Royal Assent on 5 August 1891.

 

Due to lack of investment, only the portion from Chesterfield to Lincoln was built. To have continued west of Chesterfield would have required some extremely expensive and difficult engineering works. It was an ambitious undertaking, with some extremely expensive engineering works, crossing the Peak District which had always been a major headache for railway builders. Even to the east it crossed lines of hills running north and south. In addition it would conflict with the lines of a number of other railway companies.

 

From Lincoln the line would continue eastward over the Lincolnshire Wolds, with a junction near Stainfield as it crossed the GNR Louth to Bardney line. Proceeding well to the north of Horncastle it would cross the East Lincolnshire Railway to the southwest of Alford passing to the south. It would then join that line's loop (at that time known as the Willoughby Railway) near Thurlby turning north east to Sutton on Sea, where the North Sea port would be built.

 

Passenger services over the line to Lincoln finished in September 1955.

 

Blazefield in its infancy moved buses around at an alarming rate, you really didn't know what was going to come or go next. This is AYJ99T a Leyland national with its history firmly in the south, transferred to Harrogate and rushed into use still in sovereign livery. Seen on route 1 to Harrogate at Knaresborough bus station , the school children in the shot suggest it was around lunchtime. It was later repainted and became...........

This Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image captures the infancy of the Stingray Nebula (Hen-1357), the youngest known planetary nebula.

 

A planetary nebula forms after an aging, low-mass star swells to become a "red giant" and blows off some of its outer layers of material. As the nebula expands away from the star, the star's remaining core gets hotter and heats the gas until it glows.

 

In this image, the bright central star is in the middle of the green ring of gas. A companion star is diagonally above it at 10 o'clock. A spur of gas (green) is forming a faint bridge to the companion star due to gravitational attraction.

 

The image also shows a ring of gas (green) surrounding the central star, with bubbles of gas to the lower left and upper right of the ring. The wind of material propelled by radiation from the hot central star has created enough pressure to blow open holes in the ends of the bubbles, allowing gas to escape.

 

The red curved lines represent bright gas that is heated by a "shock" caused when the central star's wind hits the walls of the bubbles.

 

The nebula is as large as 130 solar systems, but at its distance of 18,000 light-years, it appears only as big as a dime viewed a mile away. The Stingray is located in the direction of the southern constellation Ara (the Altar).

 

The colors shown are actual colors emitted by nitrogen (red), oxygen (green), and hydrogen (blue). The observations were made in March 1996.

 

For more information please visit:

hubblesite.org/image/653/news_release/1998-15

 

Credit: NASA and Matt Bobrowsky (Orbital Sciences Corporation)

 

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A submission to our #UnfoldTheUniverse art social media campaign by Rebecca Sherer. The art goes with a poem.

 

Cosmic Dream

 

It came to me in a cosmic dream

We’ve come this far

with so much left to see

Young galaxies,

a star’s infancy

shining bright through a stellar stream

What lies beneath

in a cosmic dream

The air we breathe

in a cosmic dream

 

Says Rebecca, "I wrote this poem while day dreaming about what Webb will capture and what will be discovered in our near future.

I wanted to push my boundaries with an abstract piece and this vision started to fall into place. In this piece I depicted exoplanets, undiscovered galaxies, and a nebula unveiling distant stars we’ve never seen. "

  

If you create art inspired by what the James Webb Space Telescope might discover, share it with us! For more information, please visit: go.nasa.gov/unfoldtheuniverse

 

Image credit: Rebecca Sherer

St Margaret, Sotterley, Suffolk

 

That poor Simon Jenkins. Not a day can go past without someone questioning the choices in his book England's Thousand Best Churches. But then, if you make such a claim and then miss out some which are plainly among the best, I suppose you leave yourself wide open to criticism. Here in Suffolk, he missed many peoples' favourites, but particularly three that are, for me, clearly county top twenty material: the amazing St Andrew at Westhall, grand St Mary at Redgrave, and here, St Margaret at Sotterley. Westhall has been described as Suffolk's best-kept secret, but in many ways Sotterley is more secretive, and is certainly less well-known. Indeed, some people would be surprised to learn that it has more figure brasses than any other church in Suffolk, not to mention much else of interest.

 

But first, you must get there. Sotterley is easily found on an Ordnance Survey map because it looks so darned curious. The roads between Beccles and Southwold swerve widely to avoid it, and it is marked as a large, round private park, about three miles in circumference. Houses scattered around the perimeter form the village, but the parkland itself is all open fields, lawns and a long ornamental lake. Near the centre of the parkland is the great house, and beside it the church of St Margaret. A private driveway reaches the house from near the turn off to Willingham, but it doesn't give access to the church except for services, and no public footpath crosses the park.

 

In addition, you cannot see the church from any public road, so unless you have the map or inside information, you won't even know it is there. However, just to the north of the private drive entrance, there is a gap in the hedgerow and a wooden stile. This is the start of a 'permitted access' path, a walk which is almost a mile long; it will take you across the fields and to the church.

 

You climb the stile, and set off across the fields. In summer and autumn you will find yourself walking through cows, but they are harmless enough. The way is marked by OS church symbols attached to trees, but they can get hidden by growth in springtime. After about a third of a mile, the path diverges rightwards down to a rickety wooden bridge across the infant River Blyth, and then into the field beyond. The path then skirts the righthand edge of a field for about a third of a mile and takes you round to another wooden bridge with sheep gates. Here, you can see the church for the first time, and across the next field, you enter the churchyard in its north-west corner.

 

St Margaret is a long, low building, with a tower that is at once simple and elegant. The lower stage is probably Norman, and the great rebuilding here happened unusually early for Suffolk, certainly before the Black Death.

 

The 18th century Hall sits immediately to the south, separated from the graveyard only by a low wall. St Margaret is a classic example of an estate church, one of few in Suffolk that retains its relationship with the Big House. The estate was the home of the Playters family until the middle of the 18th century, and it is their name you'll find all over the inside of the church. Earlier, it had been the seat of the Soterleys, and later it became the home of the Barne family, who we have already met at Dunwich. The families have been good guardians, because the building not only retains eight figure brasses and numerous other inscriptions, but some fascinating medieval glass, wonderful roof corbels, a good roodscreen (albeit completely repainted) and Suffolk's loveliest monument. All in all, it is a shame that Simon Jenkins missed it.

 

Although much of the fabric of the building is original, there was a substantial late 19th century restoration here, which filled the nave with middle-brow furnishings. The font is a good example of the typical 15th century East Anglian design, and there are four hatchments above the war memorial. This end of the church is little more dramatic than many other local churches, but don't miss the banner stave locker set in the wall to the west of the south door. These tall alcoves were supposedly designed for holding processional crosses and the like; there are about a dozen of them, but they are only found in the churches of the north-east of the county. Why here? Perhaps it was just a Lowestoft area thing, a need to tidy things up. What did people do elsewhere?

 

As you walk east, the building becomes more interesting, and once you are in the chancel it is fascinating. Here, the Soterleys and the Playters remembered themselves in brass and stone. Some of the brasses are set in the sanctuary, others in the centre of the chancel floor. There are six figure brasses, as well as numerous inscriptions. All the brasses except that on the tomb chest are covered by removable matting, but it would be easy to miss them if you did not know that they were there and did not think to investigate.

 

The same cannot be said for the grand 17th century monument to Sir Thomas Playters to the north of the sanctuary. It is probably the most famous in Suffolk, and I think it is the best. It was actually installed during the Commonwealth in 1658, and Mortlock says that the sculptor was Edward Marshall, who would become sculptor to the crown at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.

 

Thomas Playters had died in 1638, and a brass inscription in the chancel floor remembers him. Here on the wall he is shown in the middle, with his two wives on either side, both conveniently called Anne. By Anne I he had two sons and two daughters, but Anne II bore him a jaw-dropping eighteen children. What makes the memorial so remarkable, though, is the way the 22 children are shown as weepers on the panel beneath. Instead of the usual uniform kneeling figures united in sorrow, each child is given its individual character - in short, they all look like different people, and are doing different things. Some kneel in formal prayer, but others are distracted; one turns round to chat to her sister, while others gaze out at the viewer. One poor little mite is wrapped in a blanket right near the middle of the panorama, to show that she died in infancy.

 

It has to be said that Sir Thomas's first family look more equal to the task of formal mourning than the second. The monument is rather hard to photograph, because the altar screen stands in front of part of it.

 

Stepping back through the screen, the nave is lighter than the chancel because of the two large windows either side. Presumably, they were intended to light the rood, but the one to the north is set in the closed entrance to a now-vanished transept chapel. Panels of medieval and continental glass have been set in them, surrounded by clear lozenges. Among them are a Lamb of God, Christ in Majesty, a pilgrim who may be St James, and a later Flemish Holy Trinity; God the Father sits on a throne with the crucified Christ on his lap, while a dove perches on his shoulder. It looks very unfamiliar in an English church.

 

There is some other good glass in the west window beneath the tower; a king with a sword walks towards a beckoning bishop, rather as if they were on their way to a chess match. I wondered if the person who set them there had imagined them to be St Paul and St Peter. Perhaps the best medieval glass in the church is behind the altar screen in the east window, so you may have missed it. Beneath the restrained Victorian saints is a reset 1470s portrait of Sir William Playters, with his sons grouped behind him, looking as if he is on holiday from the north aisle at Long Melford.

 

The screen, then. It is elegant and pretty in that way that only smaller screens are, but it has been heavily restored and repainted. This incurs the wrath of the likes of Cautley, but we have no way of knowing what was lost and in an case it is done here rather well. The original doors are in place, which is very unusual in this part of the county, and the cusping at the top was thought original by Mortlock. The Saints are in an early 20th century style, and are mostly easily identifiable from their symbols.

 

Looking through the screen, Sir Charles Nicholson's reredos is at once imposing and seemly, in that Anglican triumphalist style of between the two world wars. All that is missing is a font cover at the west end to balance it.

Caernarfon Castle is a medieval fortress in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, north-west Wales cared for by Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment service. It was a motte-and-bailey castle from the late 11th century until 1283 when King Edward I of England began to replace it with the current stone structure. The Edwardian town and castle acted as the administrative centre of north Wales, and as a result the defences were built on a grand scale. There was a deliberate link with Caernarfon's Roman past, and the Roman fort of Segontium is nearby.

 

While the castle was under construction, town walls were built around Caernarfon. The work cost between £20,000 and £25,000 from the start until the work ended in 1330. Although the castle appears mostly complete from the outside, the interior buildings no longer survive and many of the building plans were never finished. The town and castle were sacked in 1294 when Madog ap Llywelyn led a rebellion against the English. Caernarfon was recaptured the following year. During the Glyndŵr Rising of 1400–1415, the castle was besieged. When the Tudor dynasty ascended to the English throne in 1485, tensions between the Welsh and English began to diminish and castles were considered less important. As a result, Caernarfon Castle was allowed to fall into a state of disrepair. Despite its dilapidated condition, during the English Civil War Caernarfon Castle was held by Royalists, and was besieged three times by Parliamentarian forces. This was the last time the castle was used in war. The castle was neglected until the 19th century when the state funded repairs. The castle was used for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1911 and again in 1969. It is part of the World Heritage Site "Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd".

 

The first fortifications at Caernarfon were built by the Romans. Their fort, which they named Segontium, is on the outskirts of the modern town. The fort sat near the bank of the River Seiont; the fort was probably built here due to the sheltered position and because it could be resupplied via the river Seiont. Caernarfon derives its name from the Roman fortifications. In Welsh, the place was called y gaer (lenition of caer) yn Arfon, meaning "the stronghold in the land over against Môn"; Môn is the Welsh name for Anglesey. Little is known about the fate of Segontium and its associated civilian settlement after the Romans departed from Britain in the early 5th century.

 

Following the Norman Conquest of England, William the Conqueror turned his attention to Wales. According to the Domesday Survey of 1086, the Norman Robert of Rhuddlan was nominally in command of the whole of northern Wales. He was killed by the Welsh in 1088. His cousin Hugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester, reasserted Norman control of north Wales by building three castles: one at an unknown location somewhere in Meirionnydd, one at Aberlleiniog on Anglesey, and another at Caernarfon. This early castle was built on a peninsula, bounded by the River Seiont and the Menai Strait; it would have been a motte and bailey, defended by a timber palisade and earthworks. The motte, or mound, was integrated into the later Edwardian castle, but the location of the original bailey is uncertain, although it may have been to the north-east of the motte. Excavations on top of the motte in 1969 revealed no traces of medieval occupation, suggesting any evidence had been removed. It is likely that the motte was surmounted by a wooden tower known as a keep. The Welsh recaptured Gwynedd in 1115, and Caernarfon Castle came into the possession of the Welsh princes. From contemporary documents written at the castle, it is known that Llywelyn the Great and later Llywelyn ap Gruffudd occasionally stayed at Caernarfon.

 

War broke out again between England and Wales on 22 March 1282. The Welsh leader, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, died later that year on 11 December. His brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd continued to fight against the English, but in 1283 Edward I was victorious. Edward marched through northern Wales, capturing castles such as that at Dolwyddelan, and establishing his own at Conwy. War finally drew to a close in May 1283 when Dolbadarn Castle, Dafydd ap Gruffudd's last castle, was captured. Shortly afterwards, Edward began building castles at Harlech and Caernarfon. The castles of Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech were the most impressive of their time in Wales, and their construction—along with other Edwardian castles in the country—helped establish English rule. The master mason responsible for the design and construction of the castle was probably James of Saint George, an experienced architect and military engineer who played an important role in building the Edwardian castles in Wales. According to the Flores Historiarum, during the construction of the castle and planned town, the body of the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus was discovered, and Edward I ordered its reburial in a local church.

 

The construction of the new stone castle was part of a programme of building which transformed Caernarfon; town walls were added, connected to the castle, and a new quay was built. The earliest reference to building at Caernarfon dates from 24 June 1283, when a ditch had been dug separating the site of the castle from the town to the north. A bretagium, a type of stockade, was created around the site to protect it while the permanent defences were under construction. Timber was shipped from as far away as Liverpool. Stone was quarried from nearby places, such as from Anglesey and around the town. A force of hundreds worked on the excavation of the moat and digging the foundations for the castle. As the site expanded, it began to encroach on the town; houses were cleared to allow the construction. Residents were not paid compensation until three years later. While the foundations for the stone walls were being created, timber-framed apartments were built for Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, his queen. They arrived at Caernarfon on either 11 or 12 July 1283 and stayed for over a month.

 

Construction at Caernarfon Castle continued over the winter of 1283–84. The extent of completion is uncertain, although architectural historian Arnold Taylor speculated that when Edward and Eleanor visited again in Easter 1284 the Eagle Tower may have been complete. The Statute of Rhuddlan, enacted on 3 March 1284, made Caernarfon a borough and the administrative centre of the county of Gwynedd.[Gwynedd was not a county.] According to tradition, Edward II was born at Caernarfon on 25 April 1284. Edward was created Prince of Wales in 1301, with control over Wales and its incomes. Since then the title has traditionally been held by the eldest son of the monarch. According to a famous legend, the king had promised the Welsh that he would name "a prince born in Wales, who did not speak a word of English" and then produced his infant son to their surprise; but the story may well be apocryphal, as it can only be traced to the 16th century. In 1284, Caernarfon was defended by a garrison of forty men, more than the thirty-strong garrisons at Conwy and Harlech. Even in peace time, when most castles would have a guard of only a few men, Caernarfon was defended by between twenty and forty people due to its importance.

 

By 1285, Caernarfon's town walls were mostly complete. At the same time work continued on the castle. Spending on construction was negligible from 1289 and accounts end in 1292. Edward I's campaign of castle-building in Wales cost £80,000 between 1277 and 1304, and £95,000 between 1277 and 1329; by 1292 £12,000 had been spent on the construction of Caernarfon's castle—of which the southern façade was furthest along—and town walls. As the southern wall and town walls completed a defensive circuit around Caernarfon, the plan was to build the castle's northern façade last.

 

In 1294, Wales broke out in rebellion led by Madog ap Llywelyn, Prince of Wales. As Caernarfon was the centre of administration in Gwynedd and a symbol of English power, it was targeted by the Welsh. Madog's forces captured the town in September, and in the process heavily damaged the town walls. The castle was defended by just a ditch and a temporary barricade. It was quickly taken and anything flammable was set alight. Fire raged across Caernarfon, leaving destruction in its wake. In the summer of 1295, the English moved to retake Caernarfon. By November the same year, the English began refortifying the town. Rebuilding the town walls was a high priority, and £1,195 (nearly half the sum initially spent on the walls) was spent on completing the job two months ahead of schedule. Attention then shifted to the castle and on finishing the work that had halted in 1292. Once the rebellion was put down, Edward began building Beaumaris Castle on the Isle of Anglesey. The work was overseen by James of Saint George; as a result, Walter of Hereford took over as master mason for the new phase of construction. By the end of 1301, a further £4,500 had been spent on the work; the focus of the work was on the northern wall and towers. The accounts between November 1301 and September 1304 are missing, possibly because there was a hiatus in work while labour moved north to help out with England's war against Scotland. Records show that Walter of Hereford had left Caernarfon and was in Carlisle in October 1300; he remained occupied with the Scottish wars until the autumn of 1304 when building at Caernarfon resumed. Walter died in 1309 and his immediate subordinate, Henry of Ellerton, took over the position of master mason. Construction continued at a steady rate until 1330.

 

From 1284 to 1330, when accounts end, between £20,000 and £25,000 was spent on Caernarfon's castle and town walls. Such a sum was enormous and dwarfed the spending on castles such as Dover and Château Gaillard, which were amongst the most expensive and impressive fortifications of the later 12th and early 13th centuries. Subsequent additions to Caernarfon were not major, and what remains of the castle is substantially from the Edwardian period. Despite the expense, much of what was planned for the castle was never carried out. The rears of the King's Gate (the entrance from the town) and the Queen's Gate (the entrance from the south-east) were left unfinished, and foundations in the castle's interior mark where buildings would have stood had work continued.

 

For around two centuries after the conquest of Wales, the arrangements established by Edward I for the governance of the country remained in place. During this time the castle was constantly garrisoned, and Caernarfon was effectively the capital of north Wales.[30] There was a degree of discrimination, with the most important administrative jobs in Wales usually closed to Welsh people. Tension between the Welsh and their English conquerors spilled over at the start of the 15th century with the outbreak of the Glyndŵr Rising (1400–1415). During the revolt, Caernarfon was one of the targets of Owain Glyndŵr's army. The town and castle were besieged in 1401, and in November that year the Battle of Tuthill was fought nearby between Caernarfon's defenders and the besieging force. In 1403 and 1404, Caernarfon was besieged by Welsh troops with support from French forces;[30] the garrison at the time was around thirty. The accession of the Tudor dynasty to the English throne in 1485 heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. As a result, castles such as Caernarfon, which provided secure centres from which the country could be administered, became less important. They were neglected, and in 1538 it was reported that many castles in Wales were "moche ruynous and ferre in decaye for lakke of tymely reparations".

 

In Caernarfon's case the walls of the town and castle remained in good condition, while features which required maintenance—such as roofs—were in a state of decay and much timber was rotten. Conditions were so poor that of the castle's seven towers and two gatehouses, only the Eagle Tower and the King's Gate had roofs by 1620. The domestic buildings inside the castle had been stripped of anything valuable, such as glass and iron. Despite the disrepair of the domestic buildings, the castle's defences were in a good enough state that during the English Civil War in the mid-17th century it was garrisoned by Royalists. Caernarfon Castle was besieged three times during the war. The constable was John Byron, 1st Baron Byron, who surrendered Caernarfon to Parliamentarian forces in 1646. It was the last time Caernarfon Castle saw fighting. Although it was ordered in 1660 that the castle and town walls should be dismantled, the work was aborted early on and may never have started.

 

Despite avoiding slighting, the castle was neglected until the late 19th century. From the 1870s onwards, the government funded repairs to Caernarfon Castle. The deputy-constable Llewellyn Turner oversaw the work, in many cases controversially restoring and rebuilding the castle, rather than simply conserving the existing stonework. Steps, battlements, and roofs were repaired, and the moat to the north of the castle was cleared of post-medieval buildings that were considered to spoil the view, despite the protest of locals. Under the auspices of the Office of Works and its successors since 1908, the castle was preserved due to its historic significance. In 1911, Caernarfon was used for the investiture of the Prince of Wales for the first time for Prince Edward (later Edward VIII), eldest son of the newly crowned King George V; the ceremony was held there at the insistence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George, a Welshman raised in Caernarfonshire. In 1969, the precedent was repeated with the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales. Although Caernarfon Castle has been the property of the Crown since it was built, it is currently cared for by Cadw (English: to keep), the Welsh Government's historic environment division, responsible for the maintenance and care of Wales' historic buildings. In 1986, Caernarfon was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites as part of the "Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd" in recognition of its global importance and to help conserve and protect the site. The castle houses the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum. During 2015 a new "entrance pavilion" was built, designed by architects Donald Insall Associates.

 

Caernarfon Castle is now a major tourist attraction, with over 205,000 people visiting the attraction in 2018.

 

Caernarfon is a royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales. It has a population of 9,852 (with Caeathro). It lies along the A487 road, on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait, opposite the island of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) to the north-east, while Snowdonia (Eryri) fringes Caernarfon to the east and south-east.

 

Abundant natural resources in and around the Menai Strait enabled human habitation in prehistoric Britain. The Ordovices, a Celtic tribe, lived in the region during the period known as Roman Britain. The Roman fort Segontium was established around AD 80 to subjugate the Ordovices during the Roman conquest of Britain. The Romans occupied the region until the end of Roman rule in Britain in 382, after which Caernarfon became part of the Kingdom of Gwynedd. In the late 11th century, William the Conqueror ordered the construction of a motte-and-bailey castle at Caernarfon as part of the Norman invasion of Wales. He was unsuccessful, and Wales remained independent until around 1283.

 

In the 13th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, ruler of Gwynedd, refused to pay homage to Edward I of England, prompting the English conquest of Gwynedd. This was followed by the construction of Caernarfon Castle, one of the largest and most imposing fortifications built by the English in Wales. In 1284, the English-style county of Caernarfonshire was established by the Statute of Rhuddlan; the same year, Caernarfon was made a borough, a county and market town, and the seat of English government in north Wales.

 

The ascent of the House of Tudor to the throne of England eased hostilities with the English and resulted in Caernarfon Castle falling into a state of disrepair. The town has flourished,[when?] leading to its status as a major tourist centre and seat of Gwynedd Council, with a thriving harbour and marina. Caernarfon has expanded beyond its medieval walls and experienced heavy suburbanisation. The community of Caernarfon's population includes the highest percentage of Welsh-speaking citizens anywhere in Wales. The status of Royal Borough was granted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1963 and amended to Royal Town in 1974. The castle and town walls are part of a World Heritage Site described as the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd.

 

The town's name consists of three elements: caer , yn, and arfon. "Caer' means 'fortress", in this case either the Roman fort of Segontium, which lies on the outskirts of the modern town, or the Norman castle erected near the mouth of the Afon Seiont. "Arfon" means "opposite Môn (Anglesey)", and the full name therefore means "the fortress in the land opposite Anglesey".

 

The earlier British and Romano-British settlement at Segontium was named Cair Segeint ("Fort Seiont") after the river. It was also known as Cair Custoient ("Fortress of Constantine"), after a belief that it was the capital of Gwynedd under Constantine, a supposed son of Saint Elen and the Emperor Magnus Maximus. Both names appear in the Historia Brittonum traditionally ascribed to Nennius. A medieval romance about Maximus and Elen, Macsen's Dream, calls her home Caer Aber Sein ("Fort Seiontmouth" or "the fortress at the mouth of the Seiont") and other pre-conquest poets such as Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd used the name Caer Gystennin. A 1221 charter by Llywelyn the Great to the canons of Penmon priory on Anglesey mentions Kaerinarfon, and the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion mentions both Kaerenarvon and Caerenarvon.

 

The town and the county named after it were officially spelled "Carnarvon" until 1926. At a meeting on 10 November 1925 the borough council resolved to ask the county council to change the spelling to "Caernarvon". The county council gave permission for the change of spelling for the name of the borough with effect from 14 January 1926, and at the same time decided to ask the government to also change the spelling of the county's name to Caernarvon. The government confirmed the change in the spelling of the county's name with effect from 1 July 1926.

 

The municipal borough was designated a royal borough in 1963. When the borough was abolished in 1974 the status of "royal town" was granted to the new community which succeeded it. The spelling of both borough and county remained "Caernarvon" until they were abolished in 1974. The spelling of the community's name was changed from "Caernarvon" to "Caernarfon" with effect from 2 June 1975 by order of Arfon Borough Council.

 

Caernarfon contains a Roman fort, Segontium, and a Norman motte-and-bailey castle was built at the mouth of the River Seiont.

 

In 1283, King Edward I completed his conquest of Wales which he secured by a chain of castles and walled towns. The construction of a new stone Caernarfon Castle seems to have started as soon as the campaign had finished. Edward's architect, James of St. George, may well have modelled the castle on the walls of Constantinople, possibly being aware of the town's legendary associations. Edward's fourth son, Edward of Caernarfon, later Edward II of England, was born at the castle in April 1284 and made Prince of Wales in 1301. A story recorded in the 16th century suggests that the new prince was offered to the native Welsh on the premise "that [he] was borne in Wales and could speake never a word of English", however, there is no contemporary evidence to support this.

 

Caernarfon was constituted a borough in 1284 by a charter of Edward I. The charter, which was confirmed on a number of occasions, appointed the mayor of the borough Constable of the Castle ex officio.

 

On 2 November 1401, 'Y Ddraig Aur' (The golden dragon) of Owain Glyndŵr was attested to have been flown during the Battle of Tuthill at Caernarfon, it is also likely that it was also flown throughout the Welsh independence campaign.

In 1911, David Lloyd George, then Member of Parliament (MP) for Caernarfon boroughs, which included various towns from Llŷn to Conwy, agreed to the British Royal Family's idea of holding the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle. The ceremony took place on 13 July, with the royal family visiting Wales, and the future Edward VIII was duly invested.

 

In 1955, Caernarfon was in the running for the title of Capital of Wales on historical grounds but the town's campaign was heavily defeated in a ballot of Welsh local authorities, with 11 votes compared to Cardiff's 136. Cardiff therefore became the Welsh capital.

 

On 1 July 1969, the investiture ceremony for Charles, Prince of Wales was again held at Caernarfon Castle. The ceremony went ahead without incident despite terrorist threats and protests, which culminated in the death of two members of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (Welsh Defence Movement), Alwyn Jones and George Taylor, who were killed when their bomb – intended for the railway line at Abergele in order to stop the British Royal Train – exploded prematurely. The bombing campaign (one in Abergele, two in Caernarfon and finally one on Llandudno Pier) was organised by the movement's leader, John Jenkins. He was later arrested after a tip-off and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.

 

In July 2019, Caernarfon hosted a rally for Welsh independence. The event, organised by AUOB (All Under One Banner) Cymru, included a march through the town centre. Organisers estimated that roughly 8,000 people joined the march on the town square; local authorities confirmed at least 5,000 attendees. The event featured a number of speakers including Hardeep Singh Kohli, Evra Rose, Dafydd Iwan, Lleuwen Steffan, Siôn Jobbins, Beth Angell, Gwion Hallam, Meleri Davies and Elfed Wyn Jones. Talks covered criticism of Brexit and Westminster with advocating Welsh Independence.

 

The history of Caernarfon, as an example where the rise and fall of different civilizations can be seen from one hilltop, is discussed in John Michael Greer's book The Long Descent. He writes of Caernarfon:

Spread out below us in an unexpected glory of sunlight was the whole recorded history of that little corner of the world. The ground beneath us still rippled with earthworks from the Celtic hill fort that guarded the Menai Strait more than two and a half millennia ago. The Roman fort that replaced it was now the dim brown mark of an old archaeological site on low hills off to the left. Edward I’s great grey castle rose up in the middle foreground, and the high contrails of RAF jets on a training exercise out over the Irish Sea showed that the town’s current overlords still maintained the old watch. Houses and shops from more than half a dozen centuries spread eastward as they rose through the waters of time, from the cramped medieval buildings of the old castle town straight ahead to the gaudy sign and sprawling parking lot of the supermarket back behind us.

 

Caernarfon is situated on the southern bank of the Menai Strait facing the Isle of Anglesey. It is situated 8.6 miles (13.8 km) south-west of Bangor, 19.4 miles (31.2 km) north of Porthmadog and approximately 8.0 miles (12.9 km) west of Llanberis and Snowdonia National Park. The mouth of the River Seiont is in the town, creating a natural harbour where it flows into the Menai Strait. Caernarfon Castle stands at the mouth of the river. The A487 passes directly through Caernarfon, with Bangor to the north and Porthmadog to the south.

 

As the crow flies, the summit of Snowdon lies a little over 9.6 miles (15.4 km) to the southeast of the town centre.

 

Caernarfon's historical prominence and landmarks have made it a major tourist centre. As a result, many of the local businesses cater for the tourist trade. Caernarfon has numerous guest houses, inns and pubs, hotels, restaurants and shops. The majority of shops in the town are located either in the centre of town around Pool Street and Castle Square (Y Maes), on Doc Fictoria (Victoria Dock) or in Cei Llechi (Slate Quay). A number of shops are also located within the Town Walls.

 

The majority of the retail and residential section of Doc Fictoria was opened in 2008. The retail and residential section of Doc Fictoria is built directly beside a Blue Flag beach marina. It contains numerous homes, bars and bistros, cafés and restaurants, an award-winning arts centre, a maritime museum and a range of shops and stores.

 

Pool Street and Castle Square contain a number of large, national retail shops and smaller independent stores. Pool Street is pedestrianised and serves as the town's main shopping street. Castle Square, commonly referred to as the 'Maes' by both Welsh and English speakers, is the market square of the town. A market is held every Saturday throughout the year and also on Mondays in the summer. The square was revamped at a cost of £2.4 million in 2009. However, since its revamp the square has caused controversy due to traffic and parking difficulties. During the revamp, it was decided to remove barriers between traffic and pedestrians creating a 'shared space', to force drivers to be more considerate of pedestrians and other vehicles. This is the first use of this kind of arrangement in Wales, but it has been described by councillor Bob Anderson as being 'too ambiguous' for road users. Another controversy caused by the revamp of the Maes was that a historic old oak tree was taken down from outside the HSBC bank. When the Maes was re-opened in July 2009 by the local politician and Heritage Minister of Wales, Alun Ffred Jones AM, he said, "the use of beautiful local slate is very prominent in the new Maes."

 

There are many old public houses serving the town, including The Four Alls, The Anglesey Arms Hotel, The Castle Hotel, The Crown, Morgan Lloyd, Pen Deitch and The Twthill Vaults. The oldest public house in Caernarfon is the Black Boy Inn, which remained in the same family for over 40 years until sold in 2003 to a local independent family business. The pub has stood inside Caernarfon's Town Walls since the 16th century, and many people claim to have seen ghosts within the building.

 

In and around the Town Walls are numerous restaurants, public houses and inns, and guest houses and hostels.

 

Gwynedd Council's head offices are situated in the town. The Caernarfon parliamentary constituency was a former electoral area centred on Caernarfon. Caernarfon is now part of the Arfon constituency for both the UK Parliament and the Senedd. The town is twinned with Landerneau in Brittany. Caernarfon was the county town of the historic county of Caernarfonshire.

 

At the local level, Caernarfon Royal Town Council consists of 17 town councillors, elected from the wards of Cadnant (3), Canol Tref Caernarfon (3), Hendre (3), Menai (4) and Peblig (4). The current Mayor is Councillor Maria Veronica Sarnacki.

 

The population in 1841 was 8,001.

 

The population of Caernarfon Community Parish in 2001 was 9,611. Caernarfon residents are known colloquially as "Cofis". The word "Cofi" /ˈkɒvi/ is also used locally in Caernarfon to describe the local Welsh dialect, notable for a number of words, not in use elsewhere.

 

Within Wales, Gwynedd has the highest proportion of speakers of the Welsh language. The greatest concentration of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd is found in and around Caernarfon.

 

According to the 2011 census, 85.8% of residents were born in Wales, one of the highest proportions in Gwynedd, and 77.0% reported a 'Welsh only' national identity.

 

The present castle building was constructed between 1283 and 1330 by the order of King Edward I. The banded stonework and polygonal towers are thought to have been in imitation of the Walls of Constantinople. The impressive curtain wall with nine towers and two gatehouses survive largely intact. Caernarfon Castle is now under the care of Cadw and is open to the public. The castle includes the regimental museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

 

The medieval town walls, including eight towers and two twin-towered gateways, form a complete circuit of 800 yards (730 m) around the old town and were built between 1283 and 1285. The walls are in the care of Cadw but only a small section is accessible to the public. The town walls and castle at Caernarfon were declared part of a World Heritage Site in 1986. According to UNESCO, the castle and walls together with other royal castles in Gwynedd "are the finest examples of late 13th century and early 14th century military architecture in Europe".

 

Dedicated to Saint Peblig, the son of Saint Elen and Macsen Wledig (Magnus Maximus), the church is built on an important early Christian site, itself built on a Roman Mithraeum or temple of Mithras, close to the Segontium Roman Fort (200m away, in the care of Cadw). A Roman altar was found in one of the walls during 19th-century restoration work. The present church dates mainly from the 14th century and is a Grade I listed building.

 

The statue in Castle Square was sculpted by W. Goscombe John and was erected in 1921 when Lloyd George was Prime Minister. David Lloyd George was the Member of Parliament for the area from 1890 to 1945.

 

The Old Market Hall in Hole-in-the-Wall Street and Crown Street was built in 1832, but the interior and roof were rebuilt later in that century. It is a Grade II listed building. It now acts as a pub and music venue.

 

A small Victorian urban park, Morfa was laid out in 1888. It stands to the south of the town, bordered by the 'Ysbyty Eryri' hospital [see below] at its southern edge. It is listed at Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

 

The old County Hall, which went on to become a courthouse, is situated inside the castle walls, next door to the Anglesey Arms Hotel. The old courthouse was built in the Neo-classical style. The courthouse was replaced by the new Caernarfon Criminal Justice Centre on the former Segontium School site in Llanberis Road in 2009. The old courthouse adjoins what used to be Caernarfon Gaol, which has been closed since the early 20th century and was subsequently converted into council offices.

 

There is a small hospital in the town, 'Ysbyty Eryri' (i.e. "Snowdonia Hospital"). The nearest large regional hospital is Ysbyty Gwynedd, in Bangor.

 

Caernarfon Barracks was commissioned by John Lloyd, County Surveyor of Caernarfonshire, as a military headquarters and completed in 1855.

 

Caernarfon was at one time an important port, exporting slate from the Dyffryn Nantlle quarries. This traffic was facilitated from 1828 by the Nantlle Railway which predated far more widely known ventures such as the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Ffestiniog Railway.

 

Five passenger stations have served the town. Caernarvon railway station opened in 1852 as the western terminus of the Bangor and Carnarvon Railway. This connected the town with the North Wales coast and the expanding national network. Carnarvon Castle railway station opened in 1856 as the northern passenger terminus of the 3ft 6in narrow gauge Nantlle Railway. This service ended in 1865 when the line being built from the south by the standard gauge Carnarvonshire Railway took over most of its trackbed. The Carnarvonshire Railway's temporary northern terminus was at Pant to the south of the town. Pant station opened in 1867. At the same time, the Carnarvon and Llanberis Railway built its line from Llanberis to Caernarfon. Its temporary western terminus was called Carnarvon (Morfa). It opened in 1869 near the modern road bridges over the Afon Seiont. For a short period, therefore, Caernarfon had three terminating stations on its edges. Records are contradictory, but this ended in either 1870 or 1871 when they were connected by a line through the town using the tunnel which survives, having been converted in 1995 for road traffic. When the through route was opened Pant and Morfa stations closed and the original station became the town's only station. The London and North Western Railway also took over all the lines mentioned leaving one station and one service provider by 1871.

 

The services to Llanberis and south to Afon Wen closed progressively from the 1930s, with tracks being lifted in the mid-1960s, but Caernarvon station survived until 1970, with Bangor to Caernarvon one of the last passenger services to be closed under the Beeching Axe; it is now the site of a Morrisons supermarket. In November 2020 the Welsh Government stated 'further consideration' should be given to reopening the line. The fifth station was opened in 1997 on the old trackbed in St. Helen's Road. It is the northern terminus of the 2ft narrow gauge Rheilffordd Eryri / Welsh Highland Railway. Work began on a permanent station for the town in February 2017. The new station opened to passengers in the Spring of 2019. Heritage steam services provide links to Porthmadog, where passengers can change for services on the Ffestiniog Railway to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

 

Bus services in the town are provided by Arriva Buses Wales, and a number of smaller, local operators. Longer distance, cross-country services are operated by Lloyds Coaches, and connect the town with Bangor to the north, and Aberystwyth via Porthmadog, Dolgellau and Machynlleth to the south. These services are part of the Welsh Government funded TrawsCymru network.

 

The A487 trunk road bisects the town, providing access to major urban areas along the North Wales coast and the Port of Holyhead, via the A55 expressway. Llanberis at the foot of Snowdon can be reached via the A4086, which heads east out of the town towards Capel Curig.

 

Heading north out of the town is the Lôn Las Menai cycle path to nearby Y Felinheli. Heading south out of the town is the Lôn Eifion cycle path, which leads to Bryncir, near Criccieth. The route provides views into the Snowdonia mountains, down along the Llŷn Peninsula and across to the Isle of Anglesey.

 

Caernarfon Airport is 4.5 miles (7.2 km) to the southwest, and offers pleasure flights and an aviation museum.

 

The Aber Swing Bridge is a pedestrian swing bridge that crosses over the Afon Seiont to connect pedestrians from the foreshore to the Watergate entrance in the centre of Caernarfon by the Caernarfon Castle.

 

There are four primary schools in Caernarfon, Ysgol yr Hendre being the largest. The others are Ysgol y Gelli, Ysgol Santes Helen and Ysgol Maesincla. Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen is the single secondary school serving Caernarfon and the surrounding areas and currently has between 900 and 1000 pupils from ages 11 to 18. Ysgol Pendalar is a school for children with special needs. Coleg Menai is a further education college for adult learners.

 

Notable people

Lewis Jones, 1898

Saint Elen, late 4th-century founder of churches in Wales.

Edward II of England (1284–1327), King of England from 1307 to 1327.

Morris Williams (1809–1874), clergyman and writer, known by his bardic name Nicander

William Henry Preece (1834–1913), an electrical engineer and inventor.

Lewis Jones (1837-1904), one of the founders of the Welsh settlement in Patagonia.

David Lloyd George (1863–1945), Prime Minister of the UK from 1916 to 1922.

Gwilym Edwards (1881–1963), Presbyterian minister, writer and academic

Lionel Rees (1884–1955), aviator, flying ace and recipient of the Victoria Cross

Maureen Peters (1935–2008), an historical novelist

Dafydd Wigley (born 1943), politician, MP for Caernarfon from 1974 until 2001

Sian Eleri, BBC Radio 1 presenter

Sport

Bryan Orritt (1937–2014), a professional footballer with over 370 club caps

Barry Hughes (1937–2019), a professional footballer and manager, active primarily in the Netherlands

Wyn Davies (born 1942), a footballer with 611 club caps and 34 for Wales

Tom Walley (born 1945) footballer with over 410 club caps

Catrin Thomas (born 1964), ski mountaineer and mountain climber.

Waynne Phillips (born 1970), a professional footballer with over 470 club caps

Nathan Craig (born 1991), a professional footballer.

Osian Dwyfor Jones Wales Commonwealth Hammer Thrower

 

Caernarfon Town F.C. (Welsh: Clwb Pêl Droed Tref Caernarfon) is a Welsh football club based in the town, which currently plays in the Cymru Premier, the top level for football in Wales. The club is nicknamed "the Canaries" because of its yellow and green strip. Caernarfon Town plays at The Oval which has a capacity of 3000 people and 250 seated people.

 

Caernarfon hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1862, 1894, 1906, 1921, 1935, 1959 and 1979. Unofficial National Eisteddfod events were also held there in 1877 and 1880. Caernarfon also hosted the 30th annual Celtic Media Festival in March 2009. Cultural destinations include Galeri and Oriel Pendeitsh. Galeri is a creative enterprise centre that houses a gallery, a concert hall, a cinema, a number of companies, and a range of other creative and cultural spaces. Oriel Pendeitsh is a ground-floor exhibition space adjoining the Tourist Information Centre opposite Caernarfon Castle. The gallery has a varied and changing programme of exhibitions throughout the year.

 

The Caernarfon Food Festival takes place in the town's streets including The Slate Quay (Cei Llechi) and Castle Square (the Maes), which is pedestrianised for the event. Stalls are also located along the promenade next to the Menai Strait towards the marina and Doc Fictoria.

 

The festival was formed in 2015 as a result of public consultation within the town. The first festival was held in 2016. It is organised by the Caernarfon Food Festival Group which is made up of local volunteers who hold regular meetings to plan each festival. The festival has a number of support groups, including a content group, sponsorship group, technical group, communication group and volunteer group. These groups feed into the main group's monthly meetings. The festival logo was inspired by contributions from pupils at Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen and designed by Iestyn Lloyd of Cwmni Da. The festival has been supported by Welsh Government through the Food Festival Grant Scheme and was highly commended by Food Awards Wales in 2019, Car parking is provided at the Slate Quay (Cei Llechi) and at other car parks around the town while the Welsh Highland Railway provides transport from Porthmadog. Cycle access is by the cycle tracks along the disused railway lines which include Lôn Las Eifion, which runs from Porthmadog, by-passing Penygroes and on to Caernarfon, Lôn Las Menai from Y Felinheli to Caernarfon and Lôn Las Peris from Llanberis to Caernarfon.

 

Gwynedd is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The city of Bangor is the largest settlement, and the administrative centre is Caernarfon. The preserved county of Gwynedd, which is used for ceremonial purposes, includes the Isle of Anglesey.

 

Gwynedd is the second largest county in Wales but sparsely populated, with an area of 979 square miles (2,540 km2) and a population of 117,400. After Bangor (18,322), the largest settlements are Caernarfon (9,852), Bethesda (4,735), and Pwllheli (4,076). The county has the highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 64.4%, and is considered a heartland of the language.

 

The geography of Gwynedd is mountainous, with a long coastline to the west. Much of the county is covered by Snowdonia National Park (Eryri), which contains Wales's highest mountain, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa; 3,560 feet, 1,090 m). To the west, the Llŷn Peninsula is flatter and renowned for its scenic coastline, part of which is protected by the Llŷn AONB. Gwynedd also contains several of Wales's largest lakes and reservoirs, including the largest, Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid).

 

The area which is now the county has played a prominent part in the history of Wales. It formed part of the core of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the native Principality of Wales, which under the House of Aberffraw remained independent from the Kingdom of England until Edward I's conquest between 1277 and 1283. Edward built the castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, which form part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage Site. During the Industrial Revolution the slate industry rapidly developed; in the late nineteenth century the neighbouring Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarries were the largest in the world, and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is now a World Heritage Site. Gwynedd covers the majority of the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.

 

In the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant 'collection of tribes' – the same root as the Irish fine, meaning 'tribe'. Further, a connection is recognised between the name and the Irish Féni, an early ethnonym for the Irish themselves, related to fían, 'company of hunting and fighting men, company of warriors under a leader'. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə ('strive, hope, wish') is the Indo-European stem. The Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a memorial stone from c. AD 500 which reads: Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis ('Here lies Cantiorix, citizen of Gwynedd'). The name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974.

 

Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It covered the entirety of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, and all of Merionethshire apart from Edeirnion Rural District (which went to Clwyd); and also a few parishes of Denbighshire: Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan.

 

The county was divided into five districts: Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey.

 

The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the 1974 county (and the five districts) on 1 April 1996, and its area was divided: the Isle of Anglesey became an independent unitary authority, and Aberconwy (which included the former Denbighshire parishes) passed to the new Conwy County Borough. The remainder of the county was constituted as a principal area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire, as it covers most of the areas of those two historic counties. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996. The present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, but Arfon, Dwyfor and Meirionnydd remain as area committees.

 

The pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. In 2003, the boundary with Clwyd was adjusted to match the modern local government boundary, so that the preserved county now covers the two local government areas of Gwynedd and Anglesey. Conwy county borough is now entirely within Clwyd.

 

A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire forces. A further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. In one proposal for local government reform in Wales, Gwynedd had been proposed as a name for a local authority covering all of north Wales, but the scheme as enacted divided this area between Gwynedd and Clwyd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police.

 

The Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park fell entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd, and was run as a department of Gwynedd County Council. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, and the park's administration separated from the Gwynedd council. Gwynedd Council still appoints nine of the eighteen members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority; Conwy County Borough Council appoints three; and the Welsh Government appoints the remaining six.

 

There has been considerable inwards migration to Gwynedd, particularly from England. According to the 2021 census, 66.6% of residents had been born in Wales whilst 27.1% were born in England.

 

The county has a mixed economy. An important part of the economy is based on tourism: many visitors are attracted by the many beaches and the mountains. A significant part of the county lies within the Snowdonia National Park, which extends from the north coast down to the district of Meirionnydd in the south. But tourism provides seasonal employment and thus there is a shortage of jobs in the winter.

 

Agriculture is less important than in the past, especially in terms of the number of people who earn their living on the land, but it remains an important element of the economy.

 

The most important of the traditional industries is the slate industry, but these days only a small percentage of workers earn their living in the slate quarries.

 

Industries which have developed more recently include TV and sound studios: the record company Sain has its HQ in the county.

 

The education sector is also very important for the local economy, including Bangor University and Further Education colleges, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Coleg Menai, both now part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai.

 

The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.

Gwynedd has the highest proportion of people in Wales who can speak Welsh. According to the 2021 census, 64.4% of the population aged three and over stated that they could speak Welsh,[7] while 64.4% noted that they could speak Welsh in the 2011 census.

 

It is estimated that 83% of the county's Welsh-speakers are fluent, the highest percentage of all counties in Wales.[9] The age group with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd were those between ages 5–15, of whom 92.3% stated that they could speak Welsh in 2011.

 

The proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd declined between 1991 and 2001,[10] from 72.1% to 68.7%, even though the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales as a whole increased during that decade to 20.5%.

 

The Annual Population Survey estimated that as of March 2023, 77.0% of those in Gwynedd aged three years and above could speak Welsh.

 

Notable people

Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer; originated the Welsh Harlequin duck in Criccieth

Sir Dave Brailsford (born 1964), cycling coach; grew up in Deiniolen, near Caernarfon

Duffy (born 1984), singer, songwriter and actress; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Edward II of England (1284–1327), born in Caernarfon Castle

Elin Fflur (born 1984), singer-songwriter, TV and radio presenter; went to Bangor University

Bryn Fôn (born 1954), actor and singer-songwriter; born in Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire.

Wayne Hennessey (born 1987), football goalkeeper with 108 caps for Wales; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

John Jones (c. 1530 – 1598), a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest and martyr; born at Clynnog

Sir Love Jones-Parry, 1st Baronet (1832–1891), landowner and politician, co-founder of the Y Wladfa settlement in Patagonia

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), archaeologist, army officer and inspiration for Lawrence of Arabia, born in Tremadog

David Lloyd George (1863–1945), statesman and Prime Minister; lived in Llanystumdwy from infancy

Sasha (born 1969), disc jockey, born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Sir Bryn Terfel (born 1965), bass-baritone opera and concert singer from Pant Glas

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect of Portmeirion

Owain Fôn Williams, (born 1987), footballer with 443 club caps; born and raised in Penygroes, Gwynedd.

Hedd Wyn (1887–1917), poet from the village of Trawsfynydd; killed in WWI

Formerly The Record Exchange on Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, here from about 1978 through 2010, a 32-year run.

Link to original signage (impossible to tell the year): www.flickr.com/photos/disappearingatlanta/52863864307/in/...

 

Not much has been written about Record Ex, or about its owners. In fact, other than the novel "High Fidelity," there has been little writing about working in retail music. Two brothers who were Heights grads started their business as students at Ohio State around 1975, attained their degrees, then moved it home to Cleveland Heights. They must have started off doing what they loved, ostensibly trying to get admitted to law school, but instead convinced their disappointed parents that music retail would someday be profitable.

 

I worked here between 1984 and 1991. I was part-time during high school and college, then full time after I earned my own degree, also at Ohio State. Internally, we called it "RX1" (or the "main store"). RX1 carried a great selection of classic and obscure rock, and the best selection in town of pop/Top-40, R&B, classical, jazz, blues, world, and soundtracks. Almost no one else carried "world" music, or jazz, for that matter. Rap and hip-hop were in their infancy and, by today's standards, were "clean."

 

When I started shopping here in early 1981, it was still a standalone store. I kept checking back before being offered a position as a high school senior; it was the best store of its kind around. Even working the floor was an unassailably cool job for a high schooler. I developed vast musical knowledge in my teens. By late 1984, when Record Exchange finally hired me, it was the place to buy music for reasons of service, selection, and price. This was made possible by volume of sales, inexpensive rent (for a time), an enthused teenaged crew of part-timers, great location not reliant on nearby parking, and everything inside the store done on the cheap, except for the wonderful sound system. Managers usually played in store the best condition used vinyl from the bins or vinyl that customers had returned--never cassette tapes--probably because of their inferior sound. It amazes me that as crowded as it could become behind the counter, rarely did anyone bump the turntable.

 

For sale: new and used albums (no 45s), needles and record washer, blank cassette tapes, no bongs or paraphernalia, no apparel, and no swag. The youngest baby boomers (b. 1946-64) were in prime music buying age and finishing college, with the oldest Generation X'ers (1965-1980) in high school or starting college. There was no shortage of foot traffic or demand. Around late 1984, we became large enough to order direct from the record labels. Stores with lower volume still had to go through "rack jobbers," also known as wholesalers.

 

A $50,000.00 mall store interior buildout we were not. Fluorescent lights hung under pressboard drop ceiling. The store was brightly-lit. Stuccoed walls of the 70-year-old building were painted over light blue, and on them hung tastefully-framed posters and memorabilia from the owners' personal collections. All the bins were handmade or bought secondhand. Aside from the inventory, memorabilia and powerful sound system, I would be shocked if the store cost $10,000.00 to outfit. Hardwood, on a 25' by 50' sales floor, had not seen stain or poly in decades.

Mall rents were exorbitant and, unlike a mall store, they didn't have a 50-page lease and they could run their store their way and without red tape.

 

This was part of my bosses' marketing strategy. They did not want to be like Record Revolution or a head shop, which attracted teenage boys almost exclusively. The idea was also to attract teenage girls (and their parents). We had two women store managers at the main store, as well as the manager of the Jazz/Classical Annex. We could dress almost however we wanted, but we were required to be mannerly and professional at all times. We could wear any shirt so long as we tucked it in, but we had to wear long pants: no shorts and no hats. In my boss' words, the stores (at least what customers saw) were rated "G," and the personalities behind it were big enough that the experience was far from sterile. Behind the counter, the owners were like two Jackie Gleasons. Environment was highly professional, and loud. We communicated by yelling over the music, except at customers.

 

I was proud to tell people I worked here and soaked up every bit of knowledge I could. Morale was positive and we were all treated as contributors. And I think, for various reasons, the owners and most of the managers enjoyed the vitality that comes only from young people. We worked very hard, especially on long Saturdays, and whenever else the store was packed. Busiest days of the year, by far, were the last Saturday before Christmas and Christmas Eve. Day after Christmas, and Saturday after Christmas, were packed, too, all over our slush-soaked hardwood floors. We understood our customers at least as well as the owners because the shoppers were our age. I read relatively current reviews of Record Exchange's successor store and it is sad that people complain that the workers now are abrupt. That was impossible in the 1980s and early 1990s when all customers were greeted and made to feel at home as management was, if anything, effusively friendly and mannerly, and not in an insincere way.

 

Working at RX1 beat the hell out of what my friends were doing, by far: working at landscaping jobs, restaurants, malls, grocery stores and in other menial labor. There was a hierarchy of high school jobs and mine was at the top. For example, I went to school with a guy, Eric, who bussed the food court in Beachwood Place Mall. Beachwood Place Mall, which had just gone up around 1978, was upscale, just loaded with educated people with expensive tastes and, at the time, virtually crime-free. By 1984, the mall was no longer brand new, but it still felt like it. Eric bragged to me that he was bringing in $5.00/hour, not including tips. His older brother ran the pizza place in the food court at the mall and you had to know someone to get Eric's job. Eric was earning almost 50% more than I was, what he was doing for pocket money was simple and easy, he was surrounded by pretty girls (though what he was doing wasn't glamorous), and he had almost no oversight. Like all of us, though, he was on his feet all day. The mall was located near three terrific public high schools (Shaker, Beachwood and Orange), and near three exclusive one-sex-only schools (Hathaway Brown and Laurel (all girls), University School (all boys) plus nearby Hawken School was co-ed, as was Catholic Gilmour Academy. In spite of this, I would not have switched places with Eric. I could walk to work, and he had to have his brother drive him from Cleveland Heights several miles out Cedar to Beachwood.

 

Many of students at these great private and public schools were also customers of ours. Their tastes and clothing often ran a little more avant garde, the rest were preppy. Watch a John Hughes film from the 1980s for accuracy: nearly all were set and filmed in the northern suburbs of Chicago with local extras and they reflect how teens of the day looked, spoke and acted: "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," or "Pretty in Pink." Yet another brother of Eric's, Pete, made fun of me within the last year or so for not working in retail yet. I wasn't old enough for my work permit and was still mowing lawns, babysitting and housesitting, etc. Work permits, by the way, were issued by the Board of Education, no matter where you want to school. Many employers required them. Pete worked at Gale's Bi-Rite on Lee Road (later Zagara's). When Record Ex hired me, he sure did shut up. I took a pay cut to work here, and I was told right off the bat that mine would not be a "glamor job." They were right.

 

Our managers, all trained to act as buyers, would take in used records or cassette tapes in trades (or pay cash), put the first and cheapest copy of what we had on the floor, and store duplicates of each title downstairs; other than best sellers, there was no need to have more than one copy upstairs. When we sold something, it appeared on a 14" long handwritten list created at the checkout, with many abbreviations, and we went downstairs in the storage area to pull the list once the sheet was full.

 

If someone wanted something at Record Ex, we physically brought the customer over to the music he or she wanted, and handed them a copy. Not telling them "Look in the L's." Or referring to a customer, not "the guy..." but "the gentleman in front of the cassette case." Or in speaking to one of them, "please," "thank you," "Sir," "Ma'am." There were a few idiosyncrasies in our filing: Elton John and Elvis Presley were under "E." Elvis Costello was under "C." Mick Jagger's solo album was filed with the Rolling Stones (under "R").

 

One of my favorite parts of my job was finding out exactly what music customers came for, when they didn't necessarily know. Usually if someone liked one song, they would purchase the whole album. By today's standards, that's insane. It's like paying $15.00 for one song, if the rest of the album is mediocre. LPs that were consistently good throughout (plus a radio-played single or two) would sell many copies for a long time. Those albums with only one good song--and there were many--fizzled quickly once word got around. There was no Google or Shazam. Usually one of the managers could figure out what the customer wanted if I didn't know it. If we still didn't recognize what the customer was asking for by name (or hearing a snippet of the chorus), we had a copy of the Billboard Top 100 chart hung up. We also had a Phonolog, which was a huge looseleaf yellow-paged catalog that sat on the end of the counter on a metal rack. I not uncommonly had people sing what they wanted to me. One fairly normal blue collar guy, probably late 20s, kept mumbling and singing to me "That's Amore" (by Dean Martin). "What the hell is he talking about?" I wondered, not realizing that the song includes Italian (and not knowing Italian). About five minutes later (and about eight garbled versions of "That's Amore") I saw the title "That's Amore" on a greatest hits album, and figured out what he wanted. If they want it bad enough, they will sing it to you. The Dean Martin fan was functionally illiterate, probably severely dyslexic, as I had to read song titles to him. Yet another Dean Martin fan, Isaac, was in all the time and once told me Dino had cut about 60 LPs. Isaac was missing only three of them. He came in every couple weeks looking for one of the three. Only the rare customer went home empty. (Coincidentally, for about two years many decades before, Dean Martin had lived with his first wife, Betty McDonald, just steps up the street in a furnished apartment in 2820 Mayfield Road, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118. They were in their twenties and Dino was unknown outside of his big band singer gig at the Hollenden House Hotel at E. 6th St. and Superior Ave, which is where he met Betty. )

 

Speaking of Billboard, it was published and mailed to us weekly, but by today's standards, there was information lag. The hottest selling albums were on the Billboard charts between positions 10 and 20 or 25. By the time something reached Number 1, usually it had already peaked, and would still be selling very respectably, but our customers and the hubbub of activity surrounding the hottest sellers had moved on to other things weeks before.

 

We brought cassettes, once selected, to the counter from the locked case at the rear. We experienced very little theft, though the area north of us was in decline. If someone was suspected of packing albums in his pants, one of our associates, Bob (who was large and might appear buffoonish--and was--so played it off perfectly), would "accidentally" bump into him, to see if he felt anything. I missed any shoplifter apprehensions. Once a group of very capable kids succeeded. They knew exactly how to stay on my periphery and somehow escape everyone's notice, because they did not stand out, other than not being from around here. Their mannerisms and how they talked was very different from how we spoke on the east side; they probably drove in from 90 minutes away to see a show. But Sgt. Mark Lovequist of Cleveland Heights Police Department grilled me about whether I knew the thieves or had ever seen them before, to make sure I wasn't conspiring. I wasn't in on it, of course, but he scared the crap out of me.

 

If a customer was dishonest or unreasonable in his expectations, his album sticker (also functioned as the receipt) was starred with a pen as a reminder to give no future latitude if he came back complaining. This was uncommon, and the customer had to be pretty awful; 99% of our customers were great. My boss enjoyed repeating the story of how he bellowed to an annoyed one-percenter wondering what his "star" was for: "You earned it, sir!"

 

There was the choice of paying mall prices of $8.98/ single album elsewhere, or $6.50 at Record Ex for sealed albums, or usually $5.00 for a used mint copy (cosmetically perfect, no audible wear); $4.50 VG+ (cosmetically imperfect, no audible wear); $4.00 VG (slight audible wear); $3.50 no grade (significant audible wear, but plays through). This was in 1984 dollars, by the way. The grades were visual only. We cleaned used vinyl with a high-quality paper towel dampened with tap water we kept in a tea kettle. Damp enough to clean the dust; not so damp as to leave streaks or water marks. (I sampled the Diskwasher fluid we sold in little red bottles, and it was stagnant water. It may, in fairness, have been distilled, albeit with 10 or 20x markup.) Only VG+ and mint albums, or returns in good condition, were played in store. We advised customers with high-quality needles to only play new or used albums graded mint or VG+. Roughly double these numbers to account for inflation. A common single LP wholesale price was about $5.55, and almost all new albums we sold we priced at $5.99 or $6.50 ($8.98 suggested retail), and certain close-outs were priced as low as $2.25 wholesale, $4.99 sealed. Stickers for new albums were preprinted; used prices and conditions were hand printed in blue ink on the sticker, and repeated on the inside label on the vinyl in pencil. Manager Kelly had by far the neatest, stylized, almost elegant lettering, at odds with his twisted, caustic wit. We also sold a lot of similarly-priced "cut-outs," i.e., the LP cover had a slice or punch through it, so it could not be returned at full price, though the vinyl was new. These were pressing plant overruns or close-outs. Record Ex did not sell vinyl 45s, which sold elsewhere for about $1.49 retail. 45s were usually kids' stuff, or jukebox owners.' We made almost all of our money on used vinyl LPs and cassettes; we sold new LPs and cassettes to get people into the store, and barely broke even on them; we carried but did not emphasize new. We sold cassingles from the late 1980s through 1990 and 1991 (about $3.00), and 12" singles (extended editions), usually for $3.50-4.00.

 

We also rarely, if ever, advertised, at least not in print, once the store was well-established. If "Record Exchange" appeared in a newspaper or magazine ad by the mid-1980s, a record company was paying for the ad. The annual Coventry Street Fairs reportedly brought increased foot traffic, but brought no more music buyers into the store than would have been there on any other weekend.

 

Record Ex was mostly a cash business when I started. We also accepted personal checks. Around 1985 we started accepting Visa and Mastercard. It was a big deal at first; most people didn’t have credit cards, and debit cards were unheard of until the 2000s. I myself didn’t obtain a credit card until 1990. The whole credit card number and expiration used to appear on the receipt (there were no CVV values on the reverse). We used to accept checks if the person wrote their social on the check, which was soon outlawed. This wasn’t just at Record Ex; it was done this way everywhere. People who bounced checks received a call from our management. If they ignored the call or no one answered, their name appeared on a large magic-markered dishonored check list above the counter. Record Ex was not the only store to do this, but only small stores did do this, not the Sears and J.C. Penneys of the world. Occasionally his or her presence on the list would get back to the person who wrote the dishonored check and, mortified, they would return to the store and pay up (in cash). Banks would not charge bounced check fees for another 10 years or so. Having a posted list of people who bounce checks seems cruel, but it was perfectly legal. There is no excuse for paying for music with a bad check or, worse, a check on a closed account; music is a luxury item.

 

Unauthorized concert recordings, known as "bootlegs," were always sold as unsealed used, and were denoted on the sticker with the euphemism "Rare." Likewise highly collectible used catalog albums were denoted "Rare" when we took them in. As a trading store with a lot of volume, we did not take in many collectibles; there were stores that dealt in them and probably offered better trade values than us. (The by now long-gone Capitol City Records in Columbus comes to mind.) "Out of Print" albums were likewise denoted. Several customers often asked me about were "Blowin' Your Mind" by Van Morrison, "Spill the Wine" by Eric Burdon and War, and "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic. Two others were the soundtrack for "Valley Girl" (highly coveted and rare even then) and Johnnie Taylor's "Eargasm." Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" (on "Blowin' Your Mind") was already a standard, in spite of being out of print, which made people interested in the album it came from. “Brown Eyed Girl” showed up on many compilations then in print. The other two songs were played all over radio, and BLF ("BLF Bash" or Bill Freeman) played a scratched vinyl version of "Maggot Brain" every Sunday around 1:30 a.m. on WMMS, through at least most of the 1980s. Probably BLF recorded "Maggot Brain" onto a cart ("carted it off") and played the cart over the air once he realized that the WMMS music library vinyl LP copy was irreplaceable though becoming increasingly scratched. (A "cart" was a plastic cartridge, similar to an eight-track tape, that contained a short tape loop used in radio, which does not require rewinding. They were a step or two down in sound quality from vinyl in good condition.) R&B, soul and rap music, other than established classics still receiving airplay, tended to be forgotten quickly and deleted off the labels' catalogs more quickly than other forms of music, and much of the out-of-print music in these areas was obscure.

 

Our best employee benefit (the only benefit, actually) was being allowed to borrow up to five used albums/cassettes from the store at any given time. The savings to a music buff would be significant, as it was easy to spend a small fortune on music. Each employee had a tiny ledger, which was known as our "card." If you liked what you borrowed, you taped it. We also could pay off what we took home, gradually or all at once. I wasn't aware of the limit, at first, and borrowed a sixth album once. The price of all the albums I was borrowing right then was $1.00 each. Certainly I was not abusing the privilege. But I was taken aside. I pointed out that a co-worker, a college student, had borrowed five Grateful Dead boots (too stoned and lazy to tape them, I suppose), mint and priced at $20.00 each--a lot of money for a kid then--and perhaps the limit should be monetary. Dead boots, Stones boots, Dylan boots, all flew off the shelves and were marked up significantly. Of course they were. No one was paying the artists, the publisher, the songwriters or the labels. (This Dead or even Dylan vinyl--if anywhere to be found and still mint--would be worth a fortune today.) My co-worker was taking advantage, and kept these hot sellers out a long time. The manager that evening saw my point and changed the limit. Or my co-worker had to bring some back. There was one other benefit: we (part-timers) were paid weekly and a manager would cash our checks for us out of the drawer. It was usually only something like $50.00-60.00/week per employee.

 

We had catalog depth like no other shop I ever saw. (The only other store coming close to the selection our customers were accustomed to was mega-chain Tower Records, and this was a decade or more later. Tower had ten times our square footage.) For example, Yes, a well-established classic rock band, had a "comeback" LP come out in 1983, which sold very respectably. If Yes had released 13 LPs as of 1983, for example, we would typically have at least 10 or 11 of those in stock, new or used, or both. Why not all thirteen? First, because of natural oversight, and some LPs (even old ones) unexpectedly get hot for a couple weeks and sell out, and it could take a couple weeks to get another in. Probably no one else in town carried all 13 LPs, either. Second, many a time we did have all thirteen.

 

If the store phone rang, it was ignored if there was a customer at the counter, especially if he or she was paying. If the store was full, the phone was left off the hook altogether. This made excellent business sense, yet even today few retailers understand this. If you have to distill any service business to one important objective, it is a customer is handing you money. How can a ringing phone be more important than that? My bosses explained this to paying customers many times, in nicer terms. Think about this for a second, especially if you have worked in retail music: the person on the other end of ringing phone at a record store is not dying of a heart attack. Yet cashiers often jump to the ring of the phone as if it is and make you wait before taking your money. (I mentioned before how everything in the store was handled on the cheap. When a manager wanted one of the other managers to call back from elsewhere, they would call that number, allow it to ring twice, and hang up to save the $0.07 for the outgoing call. The person who received the mysterious rings knew to immediately phone the store. I swear this is true.)

 

My bosses, weary of continually escalating rent, tried for years to buy this building, one of them told me. The building owner, Mrs. Tyler, enjoying her gush of rental income, refused. It appears that she and her husband owned a grocery/deli on the spot that is now Grum's (1776 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44106). clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/448

 

When I started, Record Ex had just opened their second store in Maple Heights (RX2). RX2 shoppers, being part of the surrounding demographic, apparently had a huge appetite for classic hard rock, metal, and R & B, based on what we sent over there at the request of their customers. Eventually the owners grew to about 24 corporate-owned stores, plus they sold franchises to others. In the late 1990s, in a business breakup that required both owners to stop using the name "Record Exchange," one took the name CD/Game Exchange, the other "The Exchange." I understand CD/Game Exchange stores, which are pocketed in the Pacific Northwest, for example, to be owned by these franchisees. "The Exchange" stores appear to be concentrated in northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

 

The legacy of the Coventry Record Exchange seems to be "The Exchange" store located at the corner of Coventry and Lancashire in the ornate, white terra cotta Betty Burke Building. The Exchange took over the Coventry Record Exchange phone number 216-321-1887, though ownership info is not public. Used CDs and vinyl albums with Record Exchange stickers may still be found in other regions of the U.S., notably the southeast. This is attributable to the "brain drain" that has afflicted greater Cleveland for decades, influencing educated young Clevelanders to make their futures elsewhere (especially during recessions that seem to last twice as long in Cleveland as they do in warmer and less expensive areas of the country, sorry to say).

 

But back to the early 1990s. There were three Record Exchange stores on Coventry Road in 1990 and 1991, all at once: The main store at 1780, the Jazz/Classical Annex, and the Album Store. This was amidst the early 1990s recession.

 

The Record Exchange Album Store was across Coventry from RX1 (southeast corner of Coventry and Mayfield Roads). Link to the store from early 1991: photos.clevescene.com/amazing-vintage-photos-of-life-in-c... (The City's date estimate of 1985 is off by about six years.) The cool job of a lifetime. I personally ran the Album Store for about six months in 1990-1991. As the name suggests, they moved all of their vinyl there, out of other stores (not jazz or classical); by then there were probably six or seven stores outside of Coventry. The store was well-stocked with any vinyl you could want, yet the space was roomy, airy, let a lot of light in and you could even watch the sun set over the cemetery, which was cater corner. I kept the place clean and organized, played whatever I could find in the store, and nodded my head up and down when the occasional music-obsessed and slightly demented customer would talk my ear off. That, and I had to keep my weekly hours under 40. Store had no bathroom or basement access and was suffused with a curry smell from the Indian place then next door (Taj Mahal, now Pacific East). It was an organized storage area of truckloads of vinyl that ownership decided to try to very gradually sell rather than warehouse. The world had fallen in love with CDs and vinyl was the forgotten, fading older sister (or at least it was in 1990). Store lost money or barely broke even. We pulled in a little more than it cost to pay me to run it, plus electricity (no water/sewer, though heat was included). I played the radio news talking about the U.S. Army overrunning Baghdad and quickly routing Iraqi troops in January 1991, and my manager Kelly stopped by from the main store across the street. The atmosphere was so casual that Kelly ordered me to turn the news off and play music. In fact, that was the only criticism I ever received from management--I gave them no reason to--and management here was on top of everything. Someone from the main store would swing by to "relieve" me while I grabbed a meal/restroom break; both were only available across the street, unless you wanted Indian at Taj Mahal. I was not going to go to Revolution Books next door to ask one of the political zealots there to use theirs. Pacific East restaurant recently expanded to take over the space.

 

The Record Exchange Jazz/Classical Annex was south of the main store on Coventry at Euclid Heights Blvd, same side of the street. Link to the storefront: www.flickr.com/photos/disappearingatlanta/52884342474/in/.... It was a few doors north of where the Inn on Coventry stands to this day. The Annex was never overly busy, but it was well-run, and one of the best outlets for jazz and classical music I've ever seen, though it was full of the acrid smell of roasting coffee beans. (Arabica rented nearby square footage for this purpose--must have been not much bigger than a closet in the basement--though I could never figure out exactly where because the storefront was 100' away.) There was no mail order music market to speak of at the time (except perhaps for collectibles or imports through Goldmine Magazine), and downloading would not become an issue for another eight to 10 years. I was not buddy-buddy with my jazz and classical manager, but we usually got along well enough. But because our jazz and classical customers were well-educated and nicer to deal with there than the attitude-laden rap- and hip-hop rats who were by now dominating RX1, I specifically asked to be scheduled at the Annex. Very young people buy enough music to sustain a brick and mortar store (or they did at the time), aging hipsters never have. Plus jazz/classical customers couldn't simply swing by on their skateboards. They usually came from University Circle, Shaker Square, the upscale parts of Cleveland and Shaker Heights or Beachwood/Orange/Pepper Pike/Chargin Valley and needed places to park their cars, of which there was a shortage, and no spaces were usually convenient. Basically, the parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents of the east sider kids who looked like they belonged in a John Hughes film. You had to cross Coventry and walk at least a couple of blocks and risk being ticketed. Throughout a warm, sunny day in November 1991, the surrounding building burned (electrical with no suspicious circumstances) and the owners did not rebuild, but they did expand elsewhere, which says everything: a noble failed experiment. This was a shame as, given the size of the inventory, no doubt a significant amount of collectible music was destroyed with it. A link to a shot of this fire is here: www.flickr.com/photos/chfd/558584818/in/photostream/

 

Nostalgia tidbit: Music is a dirty business. Did you ever wonder how that song from about '85 "We Built This City" (Starship) became a number one hit, yet somehow everyone hated it, and still hates it?

 

One day, in the main store on Coventry (RX1) I notice stacks and stacks of boxed 45s (about four Bankers Boxes high) behind the counter. It was against a store commandment to keep anything on the floor behind the counter, because the space was cramped. We didn't even carry 45s. I mention this to one of my bosses. He explains that he is being paid to hold many, many copies of "We Built This City" and soon ship them back as unsold. Music was sold on consignment. He was paid something $175 or $200, so I was surprised it was worth the trouble. (Why bother physically shipping them? Why not just acknowledge "receipt," and then "return" them on paper?) He was tickled at being paid not to sell them. The music buying economy was great, so no problem there. Returns were not accounted for then for purposes of chart position, so it was surprisingly simple to “game” the charts. Additionally, though sales was a factor in Billboard singles chart position, so was airplay. Once airplay was assured by "sales," presumably to independent shops like ours, the song started to sell--probably to 10 and 11 year olds who shopped for music at chain stores at malls. Sure enough, the 45s went back from where they came, two weeks later. I can't leave this out, though: my two bosses were both scrupulous financially and "straight arrow" towards their customers.

 

Footnote. Payola: one piece of crap on the Billboard charts displaces another. Though payola is a "white collar crime," or used to be, personally I could care less and see no moral implications (this is a libertarian view). It is impossible to prevent promoters from rewarding broadcasters in any number of indirect and creative ways. Radio stations are commercial enterprises, not some arm of government, unlike county auditors who are sworn to protect us and inspect grocery scales and gas pumps for accuracy. The public isn't cheated, radio listening is not mandatory, and music is not played on the radio based on “merit," anyway, whatever that is. If someone wants to pay a station to play their music, which is a form of advertising of that music, there should be no reason why they cannot. Payola can only do so much, though, because unlistenable music has no market; if it is played over the air, listeners tune out ads, too.

 

Nostalgia tidbit II: in the late 80s and early 90s, a lot of rap music, and some rock music, had "dirty" (profanity or sexually explicit) and "clean" album or cassette tape versions (safe for radio and for kids of involved parents). "Dirty" outsold "clean" 19-to-1. If you were out of "dirty" but had "clean" and the kid wanted "dirty," that kid waited until the next shipment of "dirty" was due in before coming back. We were also not allowed to sell LPs of comedian Rudy Ray Moore (or others like him) to minors. The giveaway was the album covers full of seminude 1970s people. This was no problem as no one under 40 had heard of Rudy (or wanted to look at the covers). (Great article about Rudy Ray Moore links here:

www.cleveland.com/life-and-culture/g66l-2019/10/5287fb500...)

 

Our used music competition was Record Revolution (Record Rev) up Coventry Road. They had a much hipper, edgier reputation than we did: the ambience was goth/punk/club rat/head shop. The act of going in there--like being invited to enter an exclusive and hip club, or the black-painted basement apartment of a musician/artist older brother of a friend, who also liked to party, and with a suggestion of lawlessness--was by itself an experience. Experience is a huge asset in retail. Record Rev was far ahead of us in style points, and in in-store visits by hugely popular musicians, but they were almost never crowded and we often were; they had more customer window shopping and aloof staff and we had lower prices, better attitudes and more sales. Record Rev’s original owner, to be fair, had died in an accident while still a relatively young guy, and our owners were still around to be hands on. Used music selection there wasn't as good as Record Ex, and they neglected to cull out non-selling used albums as often as they should have, but occasionally you could pick up a gem cheaply. I'm sure they thought of us as a "sausage factory." They also sold new music but their selection was not as good as Record Ex. They did sell many offbeat imports, presumably music being played in clubs downtown and on college stations, such as WRUW (Case), WUJC (JCU) or WCSB (CSU). In that regard, they were way ahead of us; though we ordered and also sold imports, we were far more commercial, if stuck in the 1980s version of classic/AOR (album-oriented rock radio) mode. Record Rev also briefly advertised on cable television. The used department in the Record Rev basement seemed to be fed by radio station libraries and many promo album copies from record companies (almost always in mint condition if you were the first owner), along with the occasional music collection culling. Record Rev receives its own separate photo and commentary in this collection because of its notable, unusual, and tragic history.

 

Wax Stacks on Lee Road near Meadowbrook, also in Cleveland Heights (long since closed), was a low-key and successful copycat to Record Ex, with even less emphasis than us on new vinyl (if they sold any at all). I have to admit they also got it right. It was a very good store, but I would not have wanted to work there as management was not especially personable.

 

For perhaps a year or two (1982-83) Coventry Road RX1 had additional competition in Rena Rent-A-Record, located in the basement of Coventryard Mall, which was a horrible location with no foot traffic, especially for a new business concept. Rena, from Canada, was sued out of existence by the RIAA because of copyright violation inherent in its business model.

 

Chris' Warped Records on the near west side also had a great reputation. I only went there once but I was impressed.

 

Nearest new-only music competition was Record Theatre at Severance Mall (enclosed portion closed decades ago). There was also, if I recall correctly, a Record Den at Severance in the 1980s and early 1990s. By 1990, Record Den, too, had made the switch to "CD only." I knew the manager at Record Den, Marguerite. Not very well, just enough to say "hi." One morning in 1990, I will never forget, I had a day off my office job and went to Severance. I walked into Record Den and Marguerite, the only one there, was not her usual outgoing self. I asked her if everything was okay. She wasn't: Stevie Ray Vaughn had just died in a helicopter crash. If you bought music in any volume, you went to Record Ex, or a store that sold used. Mall stores were for very casual buyers, 12-year-olds and their parents, or someone buying new music as a last-minute gift, and didn't want to deal with trying to park at Coventry. I assume that mall stores never sold secondhand albums and cassettes because their leases prohibited it; there is no other reason why a huge mall chain could not have competed with us.

 

Another new music competitor, Camelot Music, ordered their employees chainwide to wear dress shirts and ties in the early 1990s to appeal to the "upscale masses” (i.e.,professional young adults and middle aged people with good incomes, who spend a sizable portion of that income on recorded music, which is to say a herd of "rainbow unicorns”). I mentioned before that this demographic buys comparatively little music, so this didn't work, of course. Their true demo was 13-year old gangsta’-ed up Italian kids in Mayfield Heights buying NWA cassettes. Camelot really needed knowledgeable music geeks with piercings in their faces and blue hair in an edgy atmosphere: the musical equivalent of Spencer's Gifts (that was never me; my type of “edgy” was vintage clothes). Camelot was a several-hundred-store chain (all CDs and cassettes by this time—no vinyl), though no one else I could find has written about their experience. I left Record Ex in early 1991 for another job with health insurance, got canned from there (I was an idiot to leave for that job, and a bigger idiot to get myself canned), and was too prideful to ask Record Ex for my old job back (also idiotic). I wound up at Camelot in Richmond Mall for several months in mid-1991 before starting grad school. There was no "pride of ownership" among the employees there and only one or two of my co-workers (and I) knew more than squat about music.

 

Camelot used to drill us with videos of loss prevention, employee theft, etc. Camelot upper management was obsessed with shrinkage, but guess who used to force us (another male employee or me) to escort the girl manager to drop the night deposit off the clock? It was a 20 minute waiting around plus walk, and a risky (unarmed) errand. If it was a "safe" errand, of course, no escort would be needed. Though we had a safe, they were too cheap to use an (armed) Brinks driver, and didn't have the sense to have us make the deposit during daylight. It would have been very easy to hide in a restroom, wait for the mall to close, and stick us up. As with Record Exchange (Camelot at Richmond Mall was nearly due east) the area to the north was in decline. With no weapon, and no witnesses in the empty mall (no portable cell phones yet in 1991), we were defenseless. I was not going to play "hero" to save the night deposit, and I’m not sure about whether the “off the clock” part, or the fact that we were defenseless, irritated me more. As it turned out, Camelot probably had life insurance taken out on me and many others for their benefit and neither we nor our families had any idea. All Camelot needed to do was buy the manager a cheap purse or briefcase--not the obvious rubber zippered satchel with the bank's name on it--that wouldn't stand out and have her or one of us discreetly handle the deposit with mall open an hour before closing. If the store was robbed between 8:00 and 9:00 pm, then they only lose an hour's worth of cash receipts, perhaps $300.00 at most on a busy weeknight. Who shortly thereafter bit the dust and was then sued by Uncle Sam for secretly taking out life insurance policies on their minimum wage employees for years as a sham expense to hide taxable gains? You got it: The same company so obsessed with honest dealing. They lost big and must have stroked a check to match. In the spirit of fairness, though, ex-Camelot employees on a dedicated Facebook page (and elsewhere) almost all talk about their time with great fondness. My discontent, which was very short-term, was atypical. There was a sale of the business in the mid-1990s (followed by a Chapter 11 bankruptcy), and this changed the viewpoint of many of them.

 

My time at Record Ex was a formative experience. As the old Record Exchange alumni Facebook page says: "We were yelled at. A lot." I got it more than a few times, deservedly. I was yelled at once, for example, for confusing Joni Mitchell with Ricki Lee Jones (a blatant imitator), and bringing the wrong album up from downstairs. (I love Joni Mitchell but I still occasionally confuse the two.) One of the best pieces of advice my boss gave me was: "You only have to concentrate for two seconds. You just need to choose those two seconds." We were specifically told that we would be yelled at when we started, and not to take it personally, the idea being to motivate and improve. When boss yelled, it was angry, cutting, and fearsome. It was, to say the least, motivating. Then, two minutes later, he was over it. They let up a little once they could see it had an effect. Yelling may have become more commonplace once the fortunes of the business declined with the advent of digital downloading in the late 1990s and 2000s. Because of these things Record Exchange was my best employer. I learned. A lot.

 

While still in college, I had higher educational aspirations. I took aside one of the Record Ex owners and told him that I would like to manage a store after college graduation and put myself through grad school. He told me that I was "innately intelligent," and suggested that managing a store was not for me, as it would not move me forward in life. For one thing, unlike many other employees, and some managers, I didn't do drugs. And, unlike still others, I had enough sense to know that they were foolish to partake in front of either owner. He acted as if he would still consider me, but this was a gracious rejection. Years later, though, I grasped that he was looking out for me in his own way; what he said was flattering but he was also trying to tell me that there was no true upward mobility (in the sense that he had it) unless you own your own business, and a very long time passed before I fully appreciated that. Also, store management in that chain seems to have been all-consuming, with poor per-hour pay, and no long-term opportunity. There was no time left over for education or self-improvement. Boss achieved "upward mobility" with each new successful store. I didn't work anywhere through grad school, anyway, except during summer breaks.

 

Every 15 years music retailers have a new generation of customers. The largest bloc of music buyers (or at least music consumers, measured by hours spent listening), is concentrated in young people between ages 10 and 25. Older buyers are a significant market, but nowhere near the force driving multi-platinum sales in the 1970s and early to mid-80s, which was all high school and college aged-kids. There is a secondary demand from music buyers switching media from cassettes and vinyl to CDs, from CDs to downloads, or sometimes, streaming music (and now back to vinyl). The switch of media from vinyl and cassettes to CDs of the late 1980s, was profitable and offset the contraction of sales of new music occurring as baby boomers aged out of prime demographic. (Personally I enjoyed vinyl, and throughout the late 80s, vinyl became increasingly affordable to own, especially used. I did not switch to CDs until mid-1990. I have a small quantity of vinyl now, mostly of obscure and inexpensive music that was deleted off record company catalogs before CDs ever existed. Records do sound warmer than CDs but the sound produced is not as true to life as CDs, CDs are portable and, even if you handle vinyl professionally, vinyl is far more delicate).

 

Longtime area resident and late comic book publisher Harvey Pekar, now revered, was a serious jazz fan, frequent customer of ours and was, shall we say, notoriously "frugal." Former employee Kenny Dixon, writing for his Cleveland Live Music YouTube channel, remembers Harvey this way: " I first met Harvey when I worked at Record Exchange on Coventry Road in the 1970's. He would come in daily and flip through the dollar bin and bitch there was nothing new even though I would be filing new titles as he spoke. He often got thrown out of the store. My most intense Harvey day was sitting next to him for a 6 hour long Woody Guthrie series of lectures the Rock Hall organized." (Author's note: it took a lot to get thrown out of the store.) I read recently that the shelves holding Harvey's jazz LP collection, which he kept in a huge and cheap but old and solidly-built apartment, sagged the floor! (RX1 had jazz albums until the jazz and classical sections were expanded and given their own annex in 1989, mentioned above. It would not surprise me at all if Harvey owned more jazz albums than we did at RX1 in the mid-1980s, which took up about half the island of record bins in the center of the store, upper and lower.) I was familiar with his appearances on "Letterman" in the second half of the 1980s and don't remember Harvey, and if I had any contact with him at all, it was very low-key; he minded his own business. Harvey was an eccentric guy (even relatively eccentric for Coventry, and that is saying something).

 

But to my point: Harvey gave a video interview about the history of Coventry Road, in the last several years of his life. About the owners of The Record Exchange, he said: "Everything they touched turned to gold." It may have seemed that way because they eventually opened about two dozen stores, but they worked very long hours, and they had a significant payroll. Plus, they and everyone else selling retail music experienced a major collapse (an investment banker might call it a "correction") around 2000. I am pleased to notice that they recovered.

 

A customer asked why we did not have a worn out dollar bill hanging up behind the counter--the first dollar earned--as are common in small retail business. My boss' reply? "We spent it!" Another customer thanked him as he was leaving. Boss (loudly): "Thank YOU. If it wasn't for you, there would be no us!"

 

In 2010, a spa business took over CD/Game Exchange at 1780, which went bust. Until recently it was a womens' clothing store, "Winds of Change." That, too, closed. 1780 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44106. At last check it was an Asian restaurant.

 

The previous signage, photographed in the early 1980s, may be viewed here: images.ulib.csuohio.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/cl... And as of 2012, follow this link: www.yelp.com/biz_photos/oi7md_T5_zlZthrGCiUTYA?select=IGM...

Down the graveyard to the Lych (body) gate erected in 1905 by the 9 sons of Henry Rendall, rector 1856-1893, in memory of their mother. (All their initials are carved on it) The Rendalls only daughter died in infancy and is buried just inside on the left, close to the family tomb. (The clock in the tower is in memory of their father) The old churchyard closed in 2000 is reckoned to contain at least 4000 bodies, the earliest dating from the 17c - Church of St Andrew, Great Rollright, Oxfordshire

medievalpoc: Chartres Cathedral; Bay 50: The Infancy and Public Ministry of Christ Panel 7 - The Magi With Their Gifts France (c. 1150) Medieval Stained Glass at Chartres Cathedral

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

Applied in a door.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0XotjqSAjA

Born in 1865, Miksa Róth was 19 years old when he took over his father Zsigmond’s workshop.

The craft of glass painting was still in its infancy. In 1855 English glass workers succeeded in creating an "antique glass" effect.

This coloured glass was suitable for the repair and restoration of the windows of medieval churches, as well as for decorating the new romantic, and the historically eclectic designs. By 1880, workshops were sprouting up in the capital, the most significant of which belonged to Miksa Róth, who at the turn of the century was providing work for 10 trainees, working on both public and private building commissions.

Miksa Róth’s first significant work was in 1886 in Máriafalva (Mariasdorf, Austria) where Imre Steindl was leading the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church.

Earlier Róth had studied the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals on a tour of Europe.

During the reconstruction of many other national monuments, Róth designed Gothic stained glass windows at Keszthely for the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church led by Samu Pecz (architect of the main market hall in Budapest) in 1896.

In Budapest, you can see examples of his beautiful work in the Gresham Palace (now the newly opened Four Seasons hotel), the Agricultural Museum, the Music Academy and the Andrássy Dining Room amongst many others. The plans for the stained glass windows of the Parliament building were prepared in 1890. Róth took into account both the staircase’s light source and the building’s interior decoration, and decided to use the Grotesque style originating from the Renaissance period.

Reflecting the multi-coloured nature of Hungarian architecture at the turn of the century, Róth created windows in many styles: Historic, Hungarian Secession, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Viennese Secession.

Róth’s craft was given a new inspiration when he saw the "opalescent" and "favril" glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose display at the 1893 Chicago World Trade Fair, entitled Four Seasons featured shimmering, iridescent colours and an immediately popular natural marbling effect of the glass.

Róth was also influenced by the work of the English pre-Raphaelite artists, in particular Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. In 1897, Miksa Róth bought a collection of opalescent glass from the Hamburg glass painter Karl Engelbrecht, and began to regularly order glass from his factory.

At the 1898 Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ Christmas Exhibition Róth displayed glass windows prepared using a type of Tiffany glass, seen for the first time in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Róth won the silver medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 with the Pax and Rising Sun mosaics made with opalescent glass.

The Róth workshop then made a large number of stained glass windows with floral designs, whose success could be attributed to the nostalgia felt by people living then in large cities for the lost world of nature.

In Budapest the stairwells and lifts were brightened up with luxuriant gardens in place of the drab partition walls and dark corridors.

Middle class citizens even decorated their parlours with the symbolic motives of flowers: Irises, lilies, sunflowers, poppies and roses, birds such as peacocks and swans, and fauns, nymphs, fairies and female figures frolicking in gardens, arbours and riverbanks to recall the lost period of the Golden Age.

One of Róth’s most significant creations using opalescent glass was for cupola of the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City, which he carried out according to designs by Géza Maróti.With this work he showed details of geometric design of the Jugenstil and Viennese Secession which he also used in windows for Bank Building (1905 Ignác Alpár), the Gresham Palace (1907 Zsigmond Quittner and József Vágó) and the Music Academy (1907 Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl) . Róth worked with many of the best architects, builders and designers of the time.

For Ödön Lechner's magnificent Post Office Savings Bank building, Róth created an unusual mosaic, embedded into cement. In 1910, Róth created the gorgeous windows of the Culture Palace in Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures in Romania). In the Hall of Mirrors, scenes from traditional Székely fairy tales, ballads and legends are featured in the 12 stained glass windows which fill the entire length of the long hall. It is worth a visit to Marosvásárhely alone to stand among these magical and colourful designs.

Róth worked for a long time in conjunction with two artists from the Gödöllô artists’ settlement, Sándor Nagy and Aladár Kriesch Körösfôi. Together they created the Hungarian Secession style windows for the National Salon and the windows and mosaics for the Hungarian House in Venice. For the Marosvásárhely Culture House triptych, also based on Nagy’s designs, Róth used a special medieval technique, employing thick leading and strong lines. From the 1920s Róth mainly received commissions from the Church and State.

He died in 1944 after a lifetime of bringing joy and colour to the world with his beautiful creations.

 

____

 

Róth Miksa (1865. december 26. Pest - 1944. június 14. Budapest) a magyar üvegfestészet és mozaik művészet egyik legjelentősebb alkotója volt. A pesti Eötvös Reálgimnáziumban tanult s az apja műhelyében sajátította el a mesterség alapjait. Később Német-, Francia- és Olaszországban tanulmányozta a kora-középkori üvegfestészet technikáját és képszerkesztési módszerét. A XIII. századi üvegfestészet egész életét meghatározó befolyással volt művészeti tevékenységére. Emlékirataiban a német Sigismund Frankot valamint az angol preraffaelitákat, Burne Jones-t, William Morrist nevezi meg művészeti példaképeinek.

 

Első sikereit historizáló stílusú képeivel érte el: az 1896-os Ezredévi Kiállítás és az Országház üvegfestményei hozták meg számára az országos elismertséget. 1897-től az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchiában elsőként használta fel a Tiffany-üveget szecessziós stílusú alkotásaihoz. Számos hazai és nemzetközi elismerést szerzett: elsőként ő kapta meg az Iparművészeti Állami Aranyérmet, az 1900-as párizsi világkiállításon ezüstéremmel, az 1902-es torinói és az 1904-es St. Louisin pedig arannyal díjazták munkáit.

 

Alkotásai megtalálhatóak az oslói Fegeborg templomtól a mexikói Theatro Nationalig - ahová Maróti Gézával készítettek 1500 négyzetláb nagyságú üvegkupolát és mozaik képeket. 1939-ben, a második zsidó törvény meghozatala után szüntette meg a Nefelejcs utcai házában működő "üvegfestészeti műintézet" tevékenyégét. 1944-ben halt meg.

 

www.rakovszky.net/D1_DisplRemImg/Rako_DRI_ShowARemoteImag...

 

disappearingbudapest.blogspot.hu/2011/03/miksa-roth-geniu...

 

csomalin.csoma.elte.hu/~toti/uvegek/roth.htm

 

nol.hu/kult/20130404-roth_miksa_demotivalasa

 

hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3th_Miksa</a

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

Youth and not youth.

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

United Olympian 221 was just five months old at the time of this picture, taken in a very soggy Haymarket Bus Station, Newcastle. Note the advert for Sharp typewriters - personal computers and word processing were still very much in their infancy in 1983. (27th October 1983: Neg.74.2)

 

Written on reverse: “Lucy Goss & dau. Grace.”

 

“Photographed by F. Mowrey, Main St., Rutland, Vt.”

 

Lucy L. (possibly Lavinda) Sheldon, born in 1838, was the daughter of physician Lorenzo Sheldon and his wife Mahala Smith (1804 – 1883). She was named after her paternal grandmother Lucy Bass Sheldon (d. 1831), and was the second child of that born to her parents. The first Lucy had been born sometime before 1837 and died in infancy.

 

Much is known about the family, and I reproduce here a long section from the “History of Rutland County, Vermont,” edited by H. P. Smith and W.S. Rann; published by D. Mason & Co., Syracuse, New York, 1886:

 

“Dr. Lorenzo Sheldon, son of Medad [(1776 – 1846)] and Lucy (Bass) Sheldon [(d. 1831)], was born in Rutland, Vt., May 8, 1801. He was the eldest of a family of eleven children, consisting of five sons and six daughters. His father carried on a farm north of what is now known as West Rutland village.

 

“The subject of the sketch early manifested a desire for a broader culture than a constant devotion to the farm permitted; and, having a taste for the study and practice of medicine, the way was opened for his entrance upon the necessary preparation for that profession. He entered the Academy of Medicine at Castleton, Vt., where he continued his studies until his graduation, January 16, 1820. After completing his course at the medical college he returned to his native place and commenced study and practice with Dr. Jonathan Shaw, with whom he formed a partnership. This connection, however, continued only about one year, when Dr. Shaw removed to Clarendon Springs, leaving young Dr. Sheldon to practice independently in his chosen field.

 

“He soon won a good practice, and commanded the confidence of the community as a conscientious, attentive, intelligent and skillful physician. After a few years' practice, inducements were held out to secure his removal to Waddington, St. Lawrence County, N. Y., to which place he removed in the year 1826.

 

“On his return, 1828, he entered, with all the ardor and energy of his nature, into the practice of his profession, and won an honored position which he maintained till death, continuing to respond to the last to calls of friends who would not give him up, though he sought relief from the fatigues and cares of practice as the infirmities of age crept on.

 

“In the year 1829, February 6, Dr. Sheldon was married to Mahala Smith, of West Rutland. Of this marriage were born seven children — Sophronia M., Darwin Rush, Lucy Amorette, Charles S., Lucy L., Harley G., and Mary Kate, only two of whom, Lucy and Harley survive him.

 

[The Sheldon children, in order of birth, were Sophronia M. (b. 1823); Darwin Rush (1826 – 1834); Charles Smith, born in 1834, who died aged six months and five days in 1835; the aforementioned Lucy the first, who died age four months and eight days in 1837; Lucy; Harley G. (1840 – 1917); and Mary Kate (1844 – 1869).]

 

“In the year 1835, Dr. Sheldon entered into partnership with Mr. William F. Barnes, and commenced the marble business, then in its infancy. At one time this company owned the entire marble deposit extending from the present quarry of Sheldon & Slason, north. Dr. Sheldon, at a later date, became senior member of the firm of Sheldon & Slason, continuing his connection with the firm till 1865, when he sold out, and ceased to have any connection with the marble business. But he continued to have large interests in real estate, which absorbed a considerable portion of his time through the remainder of his life.

 

“While the responsibilities of his large marble interests were upon him, he sought some relief from his professional duties, and hence during those years his practice was somewhat restricted.

He died Sunday morning, September 5, 1880, at the age of eighty years.

 

“He was a prominent member of the Congregational Church from 1826 and deacon from 1865 to his death. He was also a member of the Masonic order and conspicuous in all good works. It was written of him by his biographer: that ‘his was a well-balanced, well-developed, rounded manhood, which, while presenting no very striking features, was strong at every point.’” (from "History of Rutland County, Vermont",)

 

On the 1850 census of Rutland shows the Sheldon family unit consisted of Lorenzo and Mahala, 26-year-old Saphonia, 12-year-old Lucy, 9-year-old Harley, and 5-year-old Mary.

 

Shortly after the census was taken, Sophronia (a photo of her is here: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/14113774436/) married Daniel Conway on 19 May, 1851. He had been born in about 1824 in Ireland, the son of James and Ellen Conway. Sophronia bore Daniel five children: Julia Conway, who died in 24 September, 1854, age two years and five months; Alice Conway (1856 – 1886), Lorenzo Sheldon Conway (1858 – 1932); an unnamed infant born 25 February, 1862, who died 5 June of the same year, and Guy L., born 14 October, 1866, who died 14 May, 1867.

 

Daniel Conway (photo here: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/14113763906/in/photost...) served in the Civil War as 2nd lieutenant in the 14th Vermont Infantry, Company H; and as a captain in the 17th Vermont Infantry, Company I. He enlisted 10 September, 1862. His records note that he was “Commissioned an officer in Company H, Vermont 14th Infantry Regiment on 7 Oct., 1862. Mustered out on 30 July, 1863, at Brattleboro, VT.” He then was “commissioned an officer in Company I, Vermont 17th Infantry Regiment on 7 July, 1864. Mustered out on 14 July, 1865, at Washington, D.C.”

 

Sophronia died 5 November, 1872, of “ossification of the heart.”

 

Daniel Conway appears alone on the 1880 census, working as a blacksmith. He drew an army pension of $10 per month; the cause for which he was pensioned was “chr. diarrhea.” He lived on, probably uncomfortably, until 1890, when he died of “paralysis” in West Rutland on 22 January. Both, along with their children, are buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

 

Lucy Shelton married Harmon B. Goss, who had been born in 1833 in Hanby, New Hampshire, on 1 September, 1857. He was the son of Rutland hotelier and tavern-keeper Pliny L. Goss (b. 1810) and his wife Jane (b. 1813). On the 1850 census, Harmon appears as a 16-year-old barkeep in his father’s tavern in a hotel occupied by railroad workers, laborers, clerks, and stonecutters.

 

The marriage was but brief. While pregnant with her first and only child, Lucy suffered the loss of her young husband to Cholera on 16 July, 1861. The disease washed over the United States in waves of epidemic during much of the 1800s. Cholera is an infection of the small intestine caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are watery diarrhea and vomiting leading to extreme and often fatal dehydration. Transmission occurs through water or foodstuffs tainted by feces from an infected person.

 

Harmon’s daughter, Grace Mahala, was born posthumously on 19 September. Lucy returned to her father’s home with her child, and remained there at least as late as the day the 1880 census. Her father died in September of that year and her mother passed away in 1883. Lucy died at age 60 of cancer in a house in Pine Street, Rutland, on 18 November, 1898. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery with her husband.

 

It is unclear who Lucy and Grace are in mourning for in this image. The clothing and the apparent age of Grace Goss in the photo makes the most likely family member Lucy’s nephew, Guy, the son of Sophronia and Daniel, who died as a toddler in May 1867. The next likely candidate is Lucy’s younger sister Mary Kate, who died in 1869. But Lucy’s fashions and Grace’s appearance make this problematic.

 

Grace Goss married William Andrew Graham in about 1882. He worked for his entire career as a factory machinist. They had three children: William Robert (1884 – 1950); Katherine Lucy (b. 1886); and Sidney Graham (1889 – 1944). Grace died of Bronchopneumonia, complicated by senility and orthopedic injuries, on 21 June, 1945.

 

Lucy’s brother Harley’s life can be encompassed in his lengthy obituary, which can be found in the “Rutland Daily Herald” of January 16, 1917:

 

“Harley G. Sheldon (photo here: www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/13950269517/in/photost...) of West Rutland, a Civil War veteran and well-known farmer of Rutland County, died suddenly at his home yesterday morning. He had been in his usually good health until about 10 minutes previous to his death when he had an attack of heart trouble. He was 76 years old.

 

“Mr. Sheldon was born September 23, 1840, the son of Lorenzo and Mahala Smith Sheldon. His father was one of the pioneer marble men of the state. Mr. Sheldon graduated in 1857 from the Riverside institute at Auburndale, Mass., and the same year joined the Rutland Light Guard. He responded to the president's first call for volunteers for the defense of the Union and a little later engaged in the Battle of Bethel.

When his first enlistment expired, he joined Company H, 14th Vermont regiment, and was mustered into service October 21, 1862, as first sergeant. The following January the first promotion in the regiment was offered Mr. Sheldon but he declined the honor. On March 12, 1863, he was made second lieutenant in Company K. In December, Mr. Sheldon assisted in the repulse of Stuart's cavalry raid near Fairfax Courthouse in Virginia.

 

“He was at Wolf Run Shoals doing outer picket duty at Washington from March ‘til June of 1863. Mr. Sheldon's regiment was attached to the first army corps on June 25 and began the march north which ended at Gettysburg.

 

“Company K., of which Mr. Sheldon was second lieutenant, was the only company which reported all three officers on duty at the end of the march and ready to enter the battle of Gettysburg.

 

“Mr. Sheldon was mustered out of service in 1863 and a little later joined the army and became attached to the Commissary Department. He was associated with Gen. Farrero's Brigade and remained in this position until the end of the war.

 

“On December 11, 1866, he married Eliza Harman, and last month they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Besides his wife, Mr. Sheldon leaves a daughter, Mrs. [Mary Sheldon] Erwin E. Keyes [(1867 – 1931)] of this city, and a son, Lorenzo Harmon Sheldon [(1871 -1947)], also of Rutland.

 

“The funeral will be held at the house tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock. The burial will be in the family lot in Evergreen cemetery.”

 

Lucy’s younger sister, Mary Kate, married Delett B. Haynes (1841 – 1883). The couple had one child, William Haynes, who was born in 1868 and lived until 1933. His mother died when he was about a year old, in 1869, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in the family plot.

 

The nine figures in the background, who are variously styled the Corybantes or the Curetes according to different versions of this legend, are shown making music so that the noise will distract Jupiter’s father, Saturn, from devouring his offspring. The picture was formerly in the collection of King Charles I, and is one of a series of twelve pictures, of which four are in the Royal Collection.

 

[Oil on wood, 106.4 x 175.5 cm]

 

gandalfsgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/workshop-of-giulio...

By solemn vision and bright silver dream

His infancy was nurtured. Every sight

And sound from the vast earth and ambient air

Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.

The fountains of divine philosophy

Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,

Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past

In truth or fable consecrates, he felt

And knew. When early youth had passed, he left

His cold fireside and alienated home

To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.

Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness

Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought

With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,

His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps

He like her shadow has pursued, where'er

The red volcano overcanopies

Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice

With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes

On black bare pointed islets ever beat

With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,

Rugged and dark, winding among the springs

Of fire and poison, inaccessible

To avarice or pride, their starry domes

Of diamond and of gold expand above

Numberless and immeasurable halls,

Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines

Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.

From The Spirit of Solitude by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

 

The dancing gull flys away for Christmas! (spot the dancing gull)

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

Dancing Gull Productions 23.12.2008 - Christmas Series

 

Best Viewed Large

 

2009 Calendar (Sunset & Sunrise shots) Available here:

my.qoop.com/store/8967108717056170/8597579816735/

Painted glass, window panel.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0XotjqSAjA

Born in 1865, Miksa Róth was 19 years old when he took over his father Zsigmond’s workshop.

The craft of glass painting was still in its infancy. In 1855 English glass workers succeeded in creating an "antique glass" effect.

This coloured glass was suitable for the repair and restoration of the windows of medieval churches, as well as for decorating the new romantic, and the historically eclectic designs. By 1880, workshops were sprouting up in the capital, the most significant of which belonged to Miksa Róth, who at the turn of the century was providing work for 10 trainees, working on both public and private building commissions.

Miksa Róth’s first significant work was in 1886 in Máriafalva (Mariasdorf, Austria) where Imre Steindl was leading the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church.

Earlier Róth had studied the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals on a tour of Europe.

During the reconstruction of many other national monuments, Róth designed Gothic stained glass windows at Keszthely for the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church led by Samu Pecz (architect of the main market hall in Budapest) in 1896.

In Budapest, you can see examples of his beautiful work in the Gresham Palace (now the newly opened Four Seasons hotel), the Agricultural Museum, the Music Academy and the Andrássy Dining Room amongst many others. The plans for the stained glass windows of the Parliament building were prepared in 1890. Róth took into account both the staircase’s light source and the building’s interior decoration, and decided to use the Grotesque style originating from the Renaissance period.

Reflecting the multi-coloured nature of Hungarian architecture at the turn of the century, Róth created windows in many styles: Historic, Hungarian Secession, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Viennese Secession.

Róth’s craft was given a new inspiration when he saw the "opalescent" and "favril" glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose display at the 1893 Chicago World Trade Fair, entitled Four Seasons featured shimmering, iridescent colours and an immediately popular natural marbling effect of the glass.

Róth was also influenced by the work of the English pre-Raphaelite artists, in particular Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. In 1897, Miksa Róth bought a collection of opalescent glass from the Hamburg glass painter Karl Engelbrecht, and began to regularly order glass from his factory.

At the 1898 Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ Christmas Exhibition Róth displayed glass windows prepared using a type of Tiffany glass, seen for the first time in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Róth won the silver medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 with the Pax and Rising Sun mosaics made with opalescent glass.

The Róth workshop then made a large number of stained glass windows with floral designs, whose success could be attributed to the nostalgia felt by people living then in large cities for the lost world of nature.

In Budapest the stairwells and lifts were brightened up with luxuriant gardens in place of the drab partition walls and dark corridors.

Middle class citizens even decorated their parlours with the symbolic motives of flowers: Irises, lilies, sunflowers, poppies and roses, birds such as peacocks and swans, and fauns, nymphs, fairies and female figures frolicking in gardens, arbours and riverbanks to recall the lost period of the Golden Age.

One of Róth’s most significant creations using opalescent glass was for cupola of the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City, which he carried out according to designs by Géza Maróti.With this work he showed details of geometric design of the Jugenstil and Viennese Secession which he also used in windows for Bank Building (1905 Ignác Alpár), the Gresham Palace (1907 Zsigmond Quittner and József Vágó) and the Music Academy (1907 Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl) . Róth worked with many of the best architects, builders and designers of the time.

For Ödön Lechner's magnificent Post Office Savings Bank building, Róth created an unusual mosaic, embedded into cement. In 1910, Róth created the gorgeous windows of the Culture Palace in Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures in Romania). In the Hall of Mirrors, scenes from traditional Székely fairy tales, ballads and legends are featured in the 12 stained glass windows which fill the entire length of the long hall. It is worth a visit to Marosvásárhely alone to stand among these magical and colourful designs.

Róth worked for a long time in conjunction with two artists from the Gödöllô artists’ settlement, Sándor Nagy and Aladár Kriesch Körösfôi. Together they created the Hungarian Secession style windows for the National Salon and the windows and mosaics for the Hungarian House in Venice. For the Marosvásárhely Culture House triptych, also based on Nagy’s designs, Róth used a special medieval technique, employing thick leading and strong lines. From the 1920s Róth mainly received commissions from the Church and State.

He died in 1944 after a lifetime of bringing joy and colour to the world with his beautiful creations.

 

____

 

Róth Miksa (1865. december 26. Pest - 1944. június 14. Budapest) a magyar üvegfestészet és mozaik művészet egyik legjelentősebb alkotója volt. A pesti Eötvös Reálgimnáziumban tanult s az apja műhelyében sajátította el a mesterség alapjait. Később Német-, Francia- és Olaszországban tanulmányozta a kora-középkori üvegfestészet technikáját és képszerkesztési módszerét. A XIII. századi üvegfestészet egész életét meghatározó befolyással volt művészeti tevékenységére. Emlékirataiban a német Sigismund Frankot valamint az angol preraffaelitákat, Burne Jones-t, William Morrist nevezi meg művészeti példaképeinek.

 

Első sikereit historizáló stílusú képeivel érte el: az 1896-os Ezredévi Kiállítás és az Országház üvegfestményei hozták meg számára az országos elismertséget. 1897-től az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchiában elsőként használta fel a Tiffany-üveget szecessziós stílusú alkotásaihoz. Számos hazai és nemzetközi elismerést szerzett: elsőként ő kapta meg az Iparművészeti Állami Aranyérmet, az 1900-as párizsi világkiállításon ezüstéremmel, az 1902-es torinói és az 1904-es St. Louisin pedig arannyal díjazták munkáit.

 

Alkotásai megtalálhatóak az oslói Fegeborg templomtól a mexikói Theatro Nationalig - ahová Maróti Gézával készítettek 1500 négyzetláb nagyságú üvegkupolát és mozaik képeket. 1939-ben, a második zsidó törvény meghozatala után szüntette meg a Nefelejcs utcai házában működő "üvegfestészeti műintézet" tevékenyégét. 1944-ben halt meg.

 

www.rakovszky.net/D1_DisplRemImg/Rako_DRI_ShowARemoteImag...

 

disappearingbudapest.blogspot.hu/2011/03/miksa-roth-geniu...

 

csomalin.csoma.elte.hu/~toti/uvegek/roth.htm

 

nol.hu/kult/20130404-roth_miksa_demotivalasa

 

hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3th_Miksa</a

"In Sacred memory of Frances, born of the illustrious and ancestral family of the lords of Berkeley, daughter of the most honourable Henry , Baron Berkeley and his wife Catherine sister of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and most dear wife of George Shirley of Staunton, knight, to whom she bore 4 sons, two of whom were summoned to their heavenly home in infancy, and one daughter. She was lady of the highest chastity, modesty, integrity, faith in God and love for her husband, and splendidly equipped with the glory of all other virtues worthy of such a family. Piously and calmly she ended this mortal life in childbirth and was called to the company of the immortals on the 29th of December in the year of our Lord 1595 aged 31 years.

For her husband and her children she left behind a most greavous sense of loss.

George Shirley, grieving and sorrowing, has set up this monument and ordained that with her, to whom when living he was united in wedlock in the hope of children, he be invited to her tomb in death, together in the hope of the resurrection at the last day.

Death which untimely tore thee from my bed and robbed my home

Shall one day give me back with thee to wed in this thy tomb "

 

George Shirley 1622 and 1st wife Frances Berkeley 1598 who died in childbirth

George kneels with his 2 sons, in front of wife Frances and daughter Mary with 2 infants in cradles. Underneath lies a skeleton, a reminder of what they will become

Frances was the daughter of Henry 7th Baron Berkeley and Katherine www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9496809132/ 3rd daughter of Henry Howard (the 'Poet Earl'), Earl of Surrey ex 1547 and Frances www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9493951767/ daughter of John de Vere 15th Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth Trussell. www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/14513115062/

 

George was the son of John Shirley 1570 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/sKgCZz of Staunton Harald and Jane heiress daughter of Thomas Lovett 1572 www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/5356352947/ of Astwell by Elizabeth Fermor of Easton Neston

He was the grandson of Francis Shirley 1571 & Dorothy Giffard www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1G500z

Francis Shirley had bought the former priory lands here from the Crown in 1539

 

Both his father and Shirley grandfather having already died, at the age of 13 after the death of his other grandfather Thomas Lovett , his custody, wardship and marriage were given by the Queen to Henry McWilliam & wife Lady Cheke

He studied at Harford College Oxford before "presenting his services at Court"

 

George & Frances married 22nd February 1586 at Callowden, near Coventry

Children

1. George b/d 1587 died an infant

2. Henry 1588-1634 m Dorothy daughter of Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex and Frances daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham (parents of Sir Robert Shirley 1656 of Staunton Harold www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/44XiwC )

3. Thomas 1594-1654 described as an antiquarian

4. John died an infant

1. Mary 1595-1630

 

Frances was "struck with a deadly disease lying in childbed and seeing herself on her deathbed, she sent for a famous and holy priest whom she had honoured for his learning, innocensy and sanctity of life, to assist her with his prayers at her last hours. She gave her blessing to her children, took her leave and gave her last farewell to her husband recommending unto him her surviving three little children, most earnestly praying and desiring that he would have a care that they might be instructed and brought up in the fear of God and the true Catholick religion,and having made a general confession of her whole life, she received with great fervour and devotion the blessed sacrament, and by divers miracles she was visited by the heavenly courtiers St Peter, St John & St Thomas of Canterbury on whose day she died ...... "

 

George m2 Dorothy www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2401560660/ daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of Broadhinton Wilts by Anne flic.kr/p/j5QVHF co-heiress of John Barwick of Wilcot.: Dorothy was the widow of Henry Unton

According to son Thomas, Sir George "had spent 3 whole years in mourning and solitary widowhood", before

"following his sute verie hard, but doth nowe meane to desist without shee will be brought to qualifie the conditions of her obigations "

Dorothy's "pre nup" on her marriage to George shows she wasn't taking any chances. -

" First she doth require to reserve her own living entire to herself, to bestow the commodities of it to her own pleasure, without any controls; secondly, she doth demand a £1000 yearly jointure; third, £500 land to be tyed upon her son, if by any good means there may be one gotten; fourthly, if it so fall that her husband and she should fall out, she doth require £500 a year out of his living, and to live apart from him with that added to her living of Faringdon".

 

George was created a baronet in 1611 having loaned King James £50 the highest sum in the county

George was suspected of being a Catholic, although mindful of the fines imposed, he outwardly conformed to the church of England.. (If a Papists refused to come to church on Sunday, they were liable to a penalty of 20 pounds for every lunar month during which they absented themselves). He was placed on the list of suspected Papists in Northamptonshire. All his armour and weapons were removed from Astwell House in his absence overseas in 1618 on the plea that his servants were recusants. Lord Exeter, then Lord Lieutenant, thereupon wrote to the Privy Council on his behalf that "he had always been loyal and forward in service and declared himself no recusant". Three years later his arms were restored to him. A letter to Dr. Lambe, Chancellor of the Diocese of Peterborourgh, from four of the local clergy, suggests that they thought very strongly that his attendance at their services was more than a mere formality. He was perhaps one of those who had "true unity, which is most glorious."

"May it please you, Sir, Whereas we whose names are hereunder written are intreated by Sir George Shirley of Astwell in your Countie of Northampton Baronet, to certifie our knowledge to your worship of his conformities in coming to the church and hearing devine service and sermons there, upon Sundays and Holldayes, according to the lawe in that case; we do hereby certifie you that the said Sir George Shirley (being an old gent. and his house farr from the parish churche) and having an auntient privileged chappell in his house, hathe, according to the booke of Common prayer, service red in the same chappell by Mr. Jones. a Batchelor in Divinitie and Chaplen in his house, who hathe of him a yearely stipend for reading prayer and preaching there, to which service and sermons himselfe, his Ladie and his familie doe come verie orderly, and we doe further certifie your worship that we ourselves doe verifie often every yeare in the absence of his said chaplen, or when we are thereunto entreated by the said Sir George Shirley, come thither and read service and preache in his his said chappell to him, his Ladie and his familie; and this with remembrance of our humble dutie we committ you to God, and rest.

However in the words of his son, Thomas, George died on 27th of April 1622, aged 63, "in the bosom of his mother, the Roman Catholick Church". "His piety was so remarkable in his large and bountiful alms, that he merited the glorious title of father and nourisher of the poor, relieving during the great dearth, 500 a day at his gates"

 

The monument was put up in 1598 after 1st wife Frances died. In 1596 he contracted with Garrett and Jasper Hollemans to put up a monument at Wappenham, Northamptonshire where her father was buried, but he evidently changed his mind about the location and had it erected at Breedon instead. .

The Shirley family bought the manor after it was surrendered to the Crown in 1539

 

books.google.co.uk/books?id=_vQRAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA81&...

www.shirleyassociation.com/NewShirleySite/NonMembers/Engl...

- Church of St Mary & St Hardulph, Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

"In Sacred memory of Frances, born of the illustrious and ancestral family of the lords of Berkeley, daughter of the most honourable Henry , Baron Berkeley and his wife Catherine sister of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and most dear wife of George Shirley of Staunton, knight, to whom she bore 4 sons, two of whom were summoned to their heavenly home in infancy, and one daughter. She was lady of the highest chastity, modesty, integrity, faith in God and love for her husband, and splendidly equipped with the glory of all other virtues worthy of such a family. Piously and calmly she ended this mortal life in childbirth and was called to the company of the immortals on the 29th of December in the year of our Lord 1595 aged 31 years.

For her husband and her children she left behind a most greavous sense of loss.

George Shirley, grieving and sorrowing, has set up this monument and ordained that with her, to whom when living he was united in wedlock in the hope of children, he be invited to her tomb in death, together in the hope of the resurrection at the last day.

Death which untimely tore thee from my bed and robbed my home

Shall one day give me back with thee to wed in this thy tomb "

 

George Shirley 1622 and 1st wife Frances Berkeley 1598 who died in childbirth

George kneels with his 2 sons, in front of wife Frances and daughter Mary with 2 infants in cradles. Underneath lies a skeleton, a reminder of what they will become

Frances was the daughter of Henry 7th Baron Berkeley and Katherine www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9496809132/ 3rd daughter of Henry Howard (the 'Poet Earl'), Earl of Surrey ex 1547 and Frances www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9493951767/ daughter of John de Vere 15th Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth Trussell. www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/14513115062/

 

George was the son of John Shirley 1570 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/sKgCZz of Staunton Harald and Jane heiress daughter of Thomas Lovett 1572 www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/5356352947/ of Astwell by Elizabeth Fermor of Easton Neston

He was the grandson of Francis Shirley 1571 & Dorothy Giffard www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1G500z

Francis Shirley had bought the former priory lands here from the Crown in 1539

 

Both his father and Shirley grandfather having already died, at the age of 13 after the death of his other grandfather Thomas Lovett , his custody, wardship and marriage were given by the Queen to Henry McWilliam & wife Lady Cheke

He studied at Harford College Oxford before "presenting his services at Court"

 

George & Frances married 22nd February 1586 at Callowden, near Coventry

Children

1. George b/d 1587 died an infant

2. Henry 1588-1634 m Dorothy daughter of Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex and Frances Walsingham

3. Thomas 1594-1654 described as an antiquarian

4. John died an infant

1. Mary 1595-1630

 

Frances was "struck with a deadly disease lying in childbed and seeing herself on her deathbed, she sent for a famous and holy priest whom she had honoured for his learning, innocensy and sanctity of life, to assist her with his prayers at her last hours. She gave her blessing to her children, took her leave and gave her last farewell to her husband recommending unto him her surviving three little children, most earnestly praying and desiring that he would have a care that they might be instructed and brought up in the fear of God and the true Catholick religion,and having made a general confession of her whole life, she received with great fervour and devotion the blessed sacrament, and by divers miracles she was visited by the heavenly courtiers St Peter, St John & St Thomas of Canterbury on whose day she died ...... "

 

George m2 Dorothy www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2401560660/ daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of Broadhinton Wilts by Anne flic.kr/p/j5QVHF co-heiress of John Barwick of Wilcot.: Dorothy was the widow of Henry Unton

According to son Thomas, Sir George "had spent 3 whole years in mourning and solitary widowhood", before

"following his sute verie hard, but doth nowe meane to desist without shee will be brought to qualifie the conditions of her obigations "

Dorothy's "pre nup" on her marriage to George shows she wasn't taking any chances. -

" First she doth require to reserve her own living entire to herself, to bestow the commodities of it to her own pleasure, without any controls; secondly, she doth demand a £1000 yearly jointure; third, £500 land to be tyed upon her son, if by any good means there may be one gotten; fourthly, if it so fall that her husband and she should fall out, she doth require £500 a year out of his living, and to live apart from him with that added to her living of Faringdon".

 

George was created a baronet in 1611 having loaned King James £50 the highest sum in the county

George was suspected of being a Catholic, although mindful of the fines imposed, he outwardly conformed to the church of England.. (If a Papists refused to come to church on Sunday, they were liable to a penalty of 20 pounds for every lunar month during which they absented themselves). He was placed on the list of suspected Papists in Northamptonshire. All his armour and weapons were removed from Astwell House in his absence overseas in 1618 on the plea that his servants were recusants. Lord Exeter, then Lord Lieutenant, thereupon wrote to the Privy Council on his behalf that "he had always been loyal and forward in service and declared himself no recusant". Three years later his arms were restored to him. A letter to Dr. Lambe, Chancellor of the Diocese of Peterborourgh, from four of the local clergy, suggests that they thought very strongly that his attendance at their services was more than a mere formality. He was perhaps one of those who had "true unity, which is most glorious."

"May it please you, Sir, Whereas we whose names are hereunder written are intreated by Sir George Shirley of Astwell in your Countie of Northampton Baronet, to certifie our knowledge to your worship of his conformities in coming to the church and hearing devine service and sermons there, upon Sundays and Holldayes, according to the lawe in that case; we do hereby certifie you that the said Sir George Shirley (being an old gent. and his house farr from the parish churche) and having an auntient privileged chappell in his house, hathe, according to the booke of Common prayer, service red in the same chappell by Mr. Jones. a Batchelor in Divinitie and Chaplen in his house, who hathe of him a yearely stipend for reading prayer and preaching there, to which service and sermons himselfe, his Ladie and his familie doe come verie orderly, and we doe further certifie your worship that we ourselves doe verifie often every yeare in the absence of his said chaplen, or when we are thereunto entreated by the said Sir George Shirley, come thither and read service and preache in his his said chappell to him, his Ladie and his familie; and this with remembrance of our humble dutie we committ you to God, and rest.

However in the words of his son, Thomas, George died on 27th of April 1622, aged 63, "in the bosom of his mother, the Roman Catholick Church". "His piety was so remarkable in his large and bountiful alms, that he merited the glorious title of father and nourisher of the poor, relieving during the great dearth, 500 a day at his gates"

 

The monument was put up in 1598 after 1st wife Frances died. In 1596 he contracted with Garrett and Jasper Hollemans to put up a monument at Wappenham, Northamptonshire where her father was buried, but he evidently changed his mind about the location and had it erected at Breedon instead. .

The Shirley family bought the manor after it was surrendered to the Crown in 1539

 

books.google.co.uk/books?id=_vQRAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA81&...

www.shirleyassociation.com/NewShirleySite/NonMembers/Engl...

- Church of St Mary & St Hardulph, Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire

It's was only 35 years ago that the Napa Valley Wine Train was in its infancy, still refurbishing passenger cars in order to fill out their trains. The power is in good shape and nicely painted. It's on display on this date in front of its yet-to-be-built departure location in downtown Napa. All four units are shown, in back-to-back pairs. One unit provides motive power and the second provides power for the train itself. MU controls allow either to lead, so there is no turning involved, just a run around at the end of track near St. Helena. This is a beautiful paint scheme, maroon, gold and forest green (on top, though the slide and the fog make it look black) and everything below the frame is black - with a pretty cool emblem on the nose as well.

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0XotjqSAjA

Born in 1865, Miksa Róth was 19 years old when he took over his father Zsigmond’s workshop.

The craft of glass painting was still in its infancy. In 1855 English glass workers succeeded in creating an "antique glass" effect.

This coloured glass was suitable for the repair and restoration of the windows of medieval churches, as well as for decorating the new romantic, and the historically eclectic designs. By 1880, workshops were sprouting up in the capital, the most significant of which belonged to Miksa Róth, who at the turn of the century was providing work for 10 trainees, working on both public and private building commissions.

Miksa Róth’s first significant work was in 1886 in Máriafalva (Mariasdorf, Austria) where Imre Steindl was leading the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church.

Earlier Róth had studied the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals on a tour of Europe.

During the reconstruction of many other national monuments, Róth designed Gothic stained glass windows at Keszthely for the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church led by Samu Pecz (architect of the main market hall in Budapest) in 1896.

In Budapest, you can see examples of his beautiful work in the Gresham Palace (now the newly opened Four Seasons hotel), the Agricultural Museum, the Music Academy and the Andrássy Dining Room amongst many others. The plans for the stained glass windows of the Parliament building were prepared in 1890. Róth took into account both the staircase’s light source and the building’s interior decoration, and decided to use the Grotesque style originating from the Renaissance period.

Reflecting the multi-coloured nature of Hungarian architecture at the turn of the century, Róth created windows in many styles: Historic, Hungarian Secession, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Viennese Secession.

Róth’s craft was given a new inspiration when he saw the "opalescent" and "favril" glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose display at the 1893 Chicago World Trade Fair, entitled Four Seasons featured shimmering, iridescent colours and an immediately popular natural marbling effect of the glass.

Róth was also influenced by the work of the English pre-Raphaelite artists, in particular Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. In 1897, Miksa Róth bought a collection of opalescent glass from the Hamburg glass painter Karl Engelbrecht, and began to regularly order glass from his factory.

At the 1898 Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ Christmas Exhibition Róth displayed glass windows prepared using a type of Tiffany glass, seen for the first time in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Róth won the silver medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 with the Pax and Rising Sun mosaics made with opalescent glass.

The Róth workshop then made a large number of stained glass windows with floral designs, whose success could be attributed to the nostalgia felt by people living then in large cities for the lost world of nature.

In Budapest the stairwells and lifts were brightened up with luxuriant gardens in place of the drab partition walls and dark corridors.

Middle class citizens even decorated their parlours with the symbolic motives of flowers: Irises, lilies, sunflowers, poppies and roses, birds such as peacocks and swans, and fauns, nymphs, fairies and female figures frolicking in gardens, arbours and riverbanks to recall the lost period of the Golden Age.

One of Róth’s most significant creations using opalescent glass was for cupola of the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City, which he carried out according to designs by Géza Maróti.With this work he showed details of geometric design of the Jugenstil and Viennese Secession which he also used in windows for Bank Building (1905 Ignác Alpár), the Gresham Palace (1907 Zsigmond Quittner and József Vágó) and the Music Academy (1907 Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl) . Róth worked with many of the best architects, builders and designers of the time.

For Ödön Lechner's magnificent Post Office Savings Bank building, Róth created an unusual mosaic, embedded into cement. In 1910, Róth created the gorgeous windows of the Culture Palace in Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures in Romania). In the Hall of Mirrors, scenes from traditional Székely fairy tales, ballads and legends are featured in the 12 stained glass windows which fill the entire length of the long hall. It is worth a visit to Marosvásárhely alone to stand among these magical and colourful designs.

Róth worked for a long time in conjunction with two artists from the Gödöllô artists’ settlement, Sándor Nagy and Aladár Kriesch Körösfôi. Together they created the Hungarian Secession style windows for the National Salon and the windows and mosaics for the Hungarian House in Venice. For the Marosvásárhely Culture House triptych, also based on Nagy’s designs, Róth used a special medieval technique, employing thick leading and strong lines. From the 1920s Róth mainly received commissions from the Church and State.

He died in 1944 after a lifetime of bringing joy and colour to the world with his beautiful creations.

 

____

 

Róth Miksa (1865. december 26. Pest - 1944. június 14. Budapest) a magyar üvegfestészet és mozaik művészet egyik legjelentősebb alkotója volt. A pesti Eötvös Reálgimnáziumban tanult s az apja műhelyében sajátította el a mesterség alapjait. Később Német-, Francia- és Olaszországban tanulmányozta a kora-középkori üvegfestészet technikáját és képszerkesztési módszerét. A XIII. századi üvegfestészet egész életét meghatározó befolyással volt művészeti tevékenységére. Emlékirataiban a német Sigismund Frankot valamint az angol preraffaelitákat, Burne Jones-t, William Morrist nevezi meg művészeti példaképeinek.

 

Első sikereit historizáló stílusú képeivel érte el: az 1896-os Ezredévi Kiállítás és az Országház üvegfestményei hozták meg számára az országos elismertséget. 1897-től az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchiában elsőként használta fel a Tiffany-üveget szecessziós stílusú alkotásaihoz. Számos hazai és nemzetközi elismerést szerzett: elsőként ő kapta meg az Iparművészeti Állami Aranyérmet, az 1900-as párizsi világkiállításon ezüstéremmel, az 1902-es torinói és az 1904-es St. Louisin pedig arannyal díjazták munkáit.

 

Alkotásai megtalálhatóak az oslói Fegeborg templomtól a mexikói Theatro Nationalig - ahová Maróti Gézával készítettek 1500 négyzetláb nagyságú üvegkupolát és mozaik képeket. 1939-ben, a második zsidó törvény meghozatala után szüntette meg a Nefelejcs utcai házában működő "üvegfestészeti műintézet" tevékenyégét. 1944-ben halt meg.

 

www.rakovszky.net/D1_DisplRemImg/Rako_DRI_ShowARemoteImag...

 

disappearingbudapest.blogspot.hu/2011/03/miksa-roth-geniu...

 

csomalin.csoma.elte.hu/~toti/uvegek/roth.htm

 

nol.hu/kult/20130404-roth_miksa_demotivalasa

 

hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3th_Miksa</a

Part of the purpose of the sketches series was to help me to just get back to trying new techniques and processing styles. It hasn't worked out completely yet, but I'll keep at it. This is another early attempt at ICM and multiple exposures. It's fair to say that I'm quite enjoying the results, although it's a bit hit & miss with the initial technique at the moment.

What I am enjoying is the use of the square format.

What I quoted 10 years ago, that is even more relevant now:

Exploring the Edina cemetery in southwestern (Argenteuil County) Quebec, I came across this amazing headstone. It records the successive deaths of six Tomalty children ranging in ages from infancy to age 19 in the span of 17 days. I can only guess of the tragedy. I believe the Tomalty family originated from Ireland and made it over to Canada during the Great Irish Hunger 1845-1849. These early settlers had a hard life and they had to have remarkable stamina and good health, mental and physical, to survive in this harsh land. Many raised large families in the absence of medical care, and a no-doubt inadequate housing and diet. Various epidemics of infectious diseases swept the land including influenza, smallpox, diptheria, scarlet fever and cholera. In fact 1883 happened to be a bad year for cholera being the fifth pandemic claiming 250,000 lives in Europe and at least 50,000 in the Americas. This water born disease, also called the Blue Death, struck suddenly and arbitrarily and depending on the individual, cholera's effects could range from minor intestinal disturbances to severe illness which was painful and rapidly fatal. A person in good health at daybreak might be dead and buried by nightfall. Several people of a household could become infected and die sequentially in just a few days. Alternatively the Tomalty children could have succumbed to Scarlet fever as there was a world wide pandemic from 1825 to 1885. This disease, caused by streptococci bacteria, is airborne causing an upper respiratory infection and scarlet rash. It can be associated with a toxic shock syndrome that often becomes quickly fatal in children aged 1-10 with peak cases in the dead of winter. Same can be said of diphtheria that could cause respiratory failure due to the formation of a thick membrane at the back of the throat. Back then in the pre-antibiotic era, nothing could be done. Parents, if they survived these illnesses, would helplessly watch their children die agonizing deaths.

I'm really not sure what claimed the lives of all these children. Sadly, examples of this sort of extreme mortality in families of the 19'th century was not uncommon.

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

In January 2005, when flickr was still in its infancy, I uploaded a set of scans of pictures made in 1976 when I was on a bicycling holiday in (then) Czechoslovakia/(now) the Czech Republic. Holidaying in the repressive atmosphere of a soviet occupation wasn't all fun and games but photographically it was a goldmine for me.

 

In 2007 the set was seen by fellow-flickr'r and Czech emigrant, Jindra Noewi, who is now a painter in Tampa, Florida (see here) but who was born in one of the towns that I visited (Tabor). She liked the historical views the pictures offered and wrote to me that, if she would ever be back there, she'd try and photograph the same places again.

 

Well, she just came back from that trip and recently uploaded ten pictures, offering virtually the same views of the places I shot 37 years ago.

 

What a wonderful adventure! And how great to see the changes that took place there after communism was a thing of the past!

 

So, after having consulted with her, I can now present here a set of time travelling internet collaboration, consisting of these ten diptyches. Hope you enjoy!

A picture of two very young little girls with their mother sitting on the edge of an open-air swimming pool one summer day. In the background a boy with a blue bathing cap is standing waist deep in the pool and is splashing some water. The girls though, are facing away from us. The older one has wet hair and water droplets on her back. The faces are not seen, apart from the mother's, which is depicted in profile. She smiles leonardesquely in amusement as she watches her daughters and gently but firmly holds on to the smaller one. The colors are alive and the whole picture is filled with a bright light that comes from the sun, from the sky and the intensely blue water. A tender photo showing children coming into contact with water for the first time, an element that is new and strange for them. Their mother enjoys watching them. We can just about make out that the older child is smiling as she looks down amused and touches her wet tummy. The tiny smaller child is wearing a straw hat to protect her from the sun. The hat, which is in the center of the composition, seems disproportionately large for her. It gives an exquisitely funny but delicate touch to the photo. The photo captures a unique moment that, if it was not for the photographer, would have passed by without anyone noticing. A moment that will return no more.

 

*********************************

Una foto di due giovanissime, piccole bambine con la loro madre sedute sul bordo di una piscina all'aperto un giorno d'estate. Sullo sfondo c'è un ragazzo con una cuffia blu che sta giocando, sollevando un spruzzo d'acqua. Le bambine però hanno le spalle girate. La più grande ha i capelli bagnati e delle goccioline d'acqua sulla schiena. Non si vedono i volti, a parte quella della madre, che è girato di profilo, sorridente leonardescamente a guardare le sue figlie mentre tiene la più piccola gentilmente ma saldamente. I colori sono accesi ed è piena di una luce viva che viene dal sole, dal cielo e dall'acqua intensamente blu. Una foto tenera che mostra dei bambini a confronto per la prima volta con un elemento che per loro è assai nuovo e strano, cioè l'acqua. La madre si diverte a guardarli. Si intravede anche un sorriso della bambina più grande mentre si guarda divertita e tocca la pancia bagnata. La più piccola porta un cappello di paglia per proteggerla contro il sole. Il cappello, che è al centro della composizione, sembra sproporzionatamente grande per lei, dà un tocco squisitamente buffo ma delicato alla foto. La foto capta un momento unico che, se non fosse stato per il fotografo, probabilmente sarebbe fuggita senza che nessuno si accorgesse. Un momento che non tornerà più.8

the miller of my infancy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0XotjqSAjA

Born in 1865, Miksa Róth was 19 years old when he took over his father Zsigmond’s workshop.

The craft of glass painting was still in its infancy. In 1855 English glass workers succeeded in creating an "antique glass" effect.

This coloured glass was suitable for the repair and restoration of the windows of medieval churches, as well as for decorating the new romantic, and the historically eclectic designs. By 1880, workshops were sprouting up in the capital, the most significant of which belonged to Miksa Róth, who at the turn of the century was providing work for 10 trainees, working on both public and private building commissions.

Miksa Róth’s first significant work was in 1886 in Máriafalva (Mariasdorf, Austria) where Imre Steindl was leading the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church.

Earlier Róth had studied the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals on a tour of Europe.

During the reconstruction of many other national monuments, Róth designed Gothic stained glass windows at Keszthely for the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church led by Samu Pecz (architect of the main market hall in Budapest) in 1896.

In Budapest, you can see examples of his beautiful work in the Gresham Palace (now the newly opened Four Seasons hotel), the Agricultural Museum, the Music Academy and the Andrássy Dining Room amongst many others. The plans for the stained glass windows of the Parliament building were prepared in 1890. Róth took into account both the staircase’s light source and the building’s interior decoration, and decided to use the Grotesque style originating from the Renaissance period.

Reflecting the multi-coloured nature of Hungarian architecture at the turn of the century, Róth created windows in many styles: Historic, Hungarian Secession, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Viennese Secession.

Róth’s craft was given a new inspiration when he saw the "opalescent" and "favril" glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose display at the 1893 Chicago World Trade Fair, entitled Four Seasons featured shimmering, iridescent colours and an immediately popular natural marbling effect of the glass.

Róth was also influenced by the work of the English pre-Raphaelite artists, in particular Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. In 1897, Miksa Róth bought a collection of opalescent glass from the Hamburg glass painter Karl Engelbrecht, and began to regularly order glass from his factory.

At the 1898 Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ Christmas Exhibition Róth displayed glass windows prepared using a type of Tiffany glass, seen for the first time in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Róth won the silver medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 with the Pax and Rising Sun mosaics made with opalescent glass.

The Róth workshop then made a large number of stained glass windows with floral designs, whose success could be attributed to the nostalgia felt by people living then in large cities for the lost world of nature.

In Budapest the stairwells and lifts were brightened up with luxuriant gardens in place of the drab partition walls and dark corridors.

Middle class citizens even decorated their parlours with the symbolic motives of flowers: Irises, lilies, sunflowers, poppies and roses, birds such as peacocks and swans, and fauns, nymphs, fairies and female figures frolicking in gardens, arbours and riverbanks to recall the lost period of the Golden Age.

One of Róth’s most significant creations using opalescent glass was for cupola of the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City, which he carried out according to designs by Géza Maróti.With this work he showed details of geometric design of the Jugenstil and Viennese Secession which he also used in windows for Bank Building (1905 Ignác Alpár), the Gresham Palace (1907 Zsigmond Quittner and József Vágó) and the Music Academy (1907 Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl) . Róth worked with many of the best architects, builders and designers of the time.

For Ödön Lechner's magnificent Post Office Savings Bank building, Róth created an unusual mosaic, embedded into cement. In 1910, Róth created the gorgeous windows of the Culture Palace in Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures in Romania). In the Hall of Mirrors, scenes from traditional Székely fairy tales, ballads and legends are featured in the 12 stained glass windows which fill the entire length of the long hall. It is worth a visit to Marosvásárhely alone to stand among these magical and colourful designs.

Róth worked for a long time in conjunction with two artists from the Gödöllô artists’ settlement, Sándor Nagy and Aladár Kriesch Körösfôi. Together they created the Hungarian Secession style windows for the National Salon and the windows and mosaics for the Hungarian House in Venice. For the Marosvásárhely Culture House triptych, also based on Nagy’s designs, Róth used a special medieval technique, employing thick leading and strong lines. From the 1920s Róth mainly received commissions from the Church and State.

He died in 1944 after a lifetime of bringing joy and colour to the world with his beautiful creations.

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

Róth Miksa (1865. december 26. Pest - 1944. június 14. Budapest) a magyar üvegfestészet és mozaik művészet egyik legjelentősebb alkotója volt. A pesti Eötvös Reálgimnáziumban tanult s az apja műhelyében sajátította el a mesterség alapjait. Később Német-, Francia- és Olaszországban tanulmányozta a kora-középkori üvegfestészet technikáját és képszerkesztési módszerét. A XIII. századi üvegfestészet egész életét meghatározó befolyással volt művészeti tevékenységére. Emlékirataiban a német Sigismund Frankot valamint az angol preraffaelitákat, Burne Jones-t, William Morrist nevezi meg művészeti példaképeinek.

 

Első sikereit historizáló stílusú képeivel érte el: az 1896-os Ezredévi Kiállítás és az Országház üvegfestményei hozták meg számára az országos elismertséget. 1897-től az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchiában elsőként használta fel a Tiffany-üveget szecessziós stílusú alkotásaihoz. Számos hazai és nemzetközi elismerést szerzett: elsőként ő kapta meg az Iparművészeti Állami Aranyérmet, az 1900-as párizsi világkiállításon ezüstéremmel, az 1902-es torinói és az 1904-es St. Louisin pedig arannyal díjazták munkáit.

 

Alkotásai megtalálhatóak az oslói Fegeborg templomtól a mexikói Theatro Nationalig - ahová Maróti Gézával készítettek 1500 négyzetláb nagyságú üvegkupolát és mozaik képeket. 1939-ben, a második zsidó törvény meghozatala után szüntette meg a Nefelejcs utcai házában működő "üvegfestészeti műintézet" tevékenységét.

Róth Miksa 1944-ben halt meg, természetes halállal, hiszen kikeresztelkedettként akkor még védett helyzetben volt, de ekkor már állandó rettegésben élt. Családja sok tagja a holokauszt áldozata lett.

 

www.rakovszky.net/D1_DisplRemImg/Rako_DRI_ShowARemoteImag...

 

disappearingbudapest.blogspot.hu/2011/03/miksa-roth-geniu...

 

csomalin.csoma.elte.hu/~toti/uvegek/roth.htm

 

nol.hu/kult/20130404-roth_miksa_demotivalasa

 

hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3th_Miksa</a

page from The Home Educator

Snowdonia, or Eryri is a mountainous region and national park in North Wales. It contains all 15 mountains in Wales over 3000 feet high, including the country's highest, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), which is 1,085 metres (3,560 ft) tall. These peaks are all part of the Snowdon, Glyderau, and Carneddau ranges in the north of the region. The shorter Moelwynion and Moel Hebog ranges lie immediately to the south.

 

The national park has an area of 823 square miles (2,130 km2) (the fourth-largest in the UK), and covers most of central and southern Gwynedd and the western part of Conwy County Borough. This is much larger than the area traditionally considered Snowdonia, and in addition to the five ranges above includes the Rhinogydd, Cadair Idris, and Aran ranges and the Dyfi Hills. It also includes most of the coast between Porthmadog and Aberdyfi. The park was the first of the three national parks of Wales to be designated, in October 1951, and the third in the UK after the Peak District and Lake District, which were established in April and May 1951 respectively. The park received 3.89 million visitors in 2015.

 

The name Snowdon means 'snow hill' and is derived from the Old English elements snāw and dūn, the latter meaning 'hill'. Snowdonia is simply taken from the name of the mountain.

 

The origins of Eryri are less clear. Two popular interpretations are that the name is related to eryr, 'eagle', and that it means 'highlands' and is related to the Latin oriri ('to rise'). Although eryri is not any direct form of the word eryr in the meaning 'eagle', it is a plural form of eryr in the meaning 'upland'.

 

Before the boundaries of the national park were designated, "Snowdonia" was generally used to refer to a smaller upland area of northern Gwynedd centred on the Snowdon massif. The national park covers an area more than twice that size, extending south into the Meirionnydd area.

 

This difference is apparent in books published before 1951. In George Borrow's 1907 Wild Wales he states that "Snowdon or Eryri is no single hill, but a mountainous region, the loftiest part of which is called Y Wyddfa", making a distinction between the summit of the mountain and the surrounding massif. The Mountains of Snowdonia by H. Carr & G. Lister (1925) defines "Eryri" as "composed of the two cantrefs of Arfon and Arllechwedd, and the two commotes of Nant Conwy and Eifionydd", which corresponds to Caernarfonshire with the exception of southwest Llŷn and the Creuddyn Peninsula. In Snowdonia: The National Park of North Wales (1949), F. J. North states that "When the Committee delineated provisional boundaries, they included areas some distance beyond Snowdonia proper".

 

Snowdonia National Park, also known as Eryri National Park in English and Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri in Welsh, was established in October 1951. It was the third national park in the United Kingdom, following the Peak District and Lake District in April and May of the same year. It covers 827 square miles (2,140 km2) in the counties of Gwynedd and Conwy, and has 37 miles (60 km) of coastline.

 

The park is governed by the Snowdonia National Park Authority, which has 18 members: 9 appointed by Gwynedd, 3 by Conwy, and 6 by the Welsh Government to represent the national interest. The authority's main offices are at Penrhyndeudraeth.

 

The park authority used Snowdonia and Snowdon when referring to the national park and mountain in English until February 2023, when it resolved to primarily use the Welsh names, Eryri and Yr Wyddfa. There will be a transitional period of approximately two years in which the authority will continue to use the English names in parentheses — for example "Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon)" — where the context requires.

 

Unlike national parks in other countries, national parks in the UK are made up of both public and private lands under a central planning authority. The makeup of land ownership in the national park is as follows:

 

More than 26,000 people live within the park, of whom 58.6% could speak Welsh in 2011. While most of the land is either open or mountainous land, there is a significant amount of agricultural activity within the park.

 

The national park does not include the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, which forms a unique non-designated enclave within the park boundaries. The town was deliberately excluded from the park when it was established because of its slate quarrying industry. The boundaries of the Peak District National Park exclude the town of Buxton and its adjacent limestone quarries for a similar reason.

 

The geology of Snowdonia is key to the area's character. Glaciation during a succession of ice ages, has carved from a heavily faulted and folded succession of sedimentary and igneous rocks, a distinctive rocky landscape. The last ice age ended only just over 11,500 years ago, leaving a legacy of features attractive to visitors but which have also played a part in the development of geological science and continue to provide a focus for educational visits. Visiting Cwm Idwal in 1841 Charles Darwin realised that the landscape was the product of glaciation. The bedrock dates largely from the Cambrian and Ordovician periods with intrusions of Ordovician and Silurian age associated with the Caledonian Orogeny. There are smaller areas of Silurian age sedimentary rocks in the south and northeast and of Cenozoic era strata on the Cardigan Bay coast though the latter are concealed by more recent deposits. Low grade metamorphism of Cambrian and Ordovician mudstones has resulted in the slates, the extraction of which once formed the mainstay of the area's economy.

 

The principal ranges of the traditional Snowdonia are the Snowdon massif itself, the Glyderau, the Carneddau, the Moelwynion and the Moel Hebog range. All of Wales' 3000ft mountains are to be found within the first three of these massifs and are most popular with visitors. To their south within the wider national park are the Rhinogydd and the Cadair Idris and Aran Fawddwy ranges. Besides these well-defined areas are a host of mountains which are less readily grouped though various guidebook writers have assigned them into groups such as the 'Arenigs', the 'Tarrens' and the 'Dyfi hills'.

 

Snowdon's summit at 1085 metres (3560 feet) is the highest in Wales and the highest in Britain south of the Scottish Highlands. At 905 metres (2970 feet) Aran Fawddwy is the highest in Wales outside of northern Snowdonia; Cadair Idris, at 893 metres (2930 feet), is next in line.

 

Rivers draining the area empty directly into Cardigan Bay are typically short and steep. From north to south they include the Glaslyn and Dwyryd which share a common estuary, the Mawddach and its tributaries the Wnion and the Eden, the smaller Dysynni and on the park's southern margin the Dyfi. A series of rivers drain to the north coast. Largest of these is the Conwy on the park's eastern margin which along with the Ogwen drains into Conwy Bay. Further west the Seiont and Gwyrfai empty into the western end of the Menai Strait. A part of the east of the national park is within the upper Dee (Dyfrydwy) catchment and includes Bala Lake, the largest natural waterbody in Wales. A fuller list of the rivers and tributaries within the area is found at List of rivers of Wales.

 

There are few natural waterbodies of any size in Wales; Snowdonia is home to most. Besides Bala Lake, a few lakes occupy glacial troughs including Llyn Padarn and Llyn Peris at Llanberis and Tal-y-llyn Lake south of Cadair Idris. Llyn Dinas, Llyn Gwynant, and Llyn Cwellyn to the south and west of Snowdon feature in this category as do Llyn Cowlyd and Llyn Ogwen on the margins of the Carneddau. There are numerous small lakes occupying glacial cirques owing to the former intensity of glacial action in Snowdonia. Known generically as tarns, examples include Llyn Llydaw, Glaslyn and Llyn Du'r Arddu on Snowdon, Llyn Idwal within the Glyderau and Llyn Cau on Cadair Idris.

 

There are two large wholly man-made bodies of water in the area, Llyn Celyn and Llyn Trawsfynydd whilst numerous of the natural lakes have had their levels artificially raised to different degrees. Marchlyn Mawr reservoir and Ffestiniog Power Station's Llyn Stwlan are two cases where natural tarns have been dammed as part of pumped storage hydro-electric schemes. A fuller list of the lakes within the area is found at List of lakes of Wales. In 2023, the park standardised its Welsh language lake names, to be also used in English.

 

The national park meets the Irish Sea coast within Cardigan Bay between the Dovey estuary in the south and the Dwyryd estuary. The larger part of that frontage is characterised by dune systems, the largest of which are Morfa Dyffryn and Morfa Harlech. These two locations have two of the largest sand/shingle spits in Wales. The major indentations of the Dovey, the Mawddach and Dwyryd estuaries, have large expanses of intertidal sands and coastal marsh which are especially important for wildlife: see #Natural history. The northern tip of the national park extends to the north coast of Wales at Penmaen-bach Point, west of Conwy, where precipitous cliffs have led to the road and railway negotiating the spot in tunnels.

 

There are only three towns within the park boundary, though there are several more immediately beyond it. Dolgellau is the most populous followed by Bala on the eastern boundary and then Harlech overlooking Tremadog Bay. More populous than these is the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, which is within an exclave, that is to say it is surrounded by the national park but excluded from it, whilst the towns of Tywyn and Barmouth on the Cardigan Bay coast are within coastal exclaves. Llanrwst in the east, Machynlleth in the south and Porthmadog and Penrhyndeudraeth in the west are immediately beyond the boundary but still identified with the park; indeed the last of these hosts the headquarters of the Snowdonia National Park Authority. Similarly the local economies of the towns of Conwy, Bethesda, and Llanberis in the north are inseparably linked to the national park as they provide multiple visitor services. The lower terminus of the Snowdon Mountain Railway is at Llanberis. Though adjacent to it, Llanfairfechan and Penmaenmawr are less obviously linked to the park.

 

There are numerous smaller settlements within the national park: prominent amongst these are the eastern 'gateway' village of Betws-y-Coed, Aberdyfi on the Dovey (Dyfi) estuary and the small village of Beddgelert each of which attract large numbers of visitors. Other sizeable villages are Llanuwchllyn at the southwest end of Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid), Dyffryn Ardudwy, Corris, Trawsfynydd, Llanbedr, Trefriw and Dolwyddelan.

 

Six primary routes serve Snowdonia, the busiest of which is the A55, a dual carriageway which runs along the north coast and provides strategic road access to the northern part of the national park. The most important north–south route within the park is the A470 running from the A55 south past Betws-y-Coed to Blaenau Ffestiniog to Dolgellau. It exits the park a few miles to the southeast near Mallwyd. From Dolgellau, the A494 runs to Bala whilst the A487 connects with Machynlleth. The A487 loops around the northwest of the park from Bangor via Caernarfon to Porthmadog before turning in land to meet the A470 east of Maentwrog. The A5 was built as a mail coach road by Thomas Telford between London and Holyhead; it enters the park near Pentrefoelas and leaves it near Bethesda. Other A class roads provide more local links; the A493 down the Dovey valley from Machynlleth and up the coast to Tywyn then back up the Mawddach valley to Dolgellau, the A496 from Dolgellau down the north side of the Mawddach to Barmouth then north up the coast via Harlech to Maentwrog. The A4212 connecting Bala with Trawsfynydd is relatively modern having been laid out in the 1960s in connection with the construction of Llyn Celyn. Three further roads thread their often twisting and narrow way through the northern mountains; A4085 links Penrhyndeudraeth with Caernarfon, the A4086 links Capel Curig with Caernarfon via Llanberis and the A498 links Tremadog with the A4086 at Pen-y-Gwryd. Other roads of note include that from Llanuwchllyn up Cwm Cynllwyd to Dinas Mawddwy via the 545 metre (1788') high pass of Bwlch y Groes, the second highest tarmacked public road in Wales and the minor road running northwest and west from Llanuwchllyn towards Bronaber via the 531 metre (1742') high pass of Bwlch Pen-feidiog.

 

The double track North Wales Coast Line passes along the northern boundary of the park between Conwy and Bangor briefly entering it at Penmaen-bach Point where it is in tunnel. Stations serve the communities of Conwy, Penmaenmawr, Llanfairfechan and Bangor. The single-track Conwy Valley Line runs south from Llandudno Junction, entering the park north of Betws-y-coed which is served by a station then west up the Lledr valley by way of further stations at Pont-y-pant, Dolwyddelan and Roman Bridge. After passing through a tunnel the passenger line now terminates at Blaenau Ffestiniog railway station. Prior to 1961 the route continued as the Bala and Ffestiniog Railway via Trawsfynydd to Bala joining another former route along the Dee valley which ran southwest via Dolgellau to join the still extant coastal Cambrian Line south of Barmouth. The Pwllheli branch of the Cambrian Line splits from the Aberystwyth branch at Dovey Junction and continues via stations at Aberdovey, Tywyn, Tonfanau, Llwyngwril, Fairbourne and Morfa Mawddach to Barmouth where it crosses the Mawddach estuary by the Grade II* listed wooden Barmouth Bridge, a structure which also provides for walkers and cyclists. Further stations serve Llanaber, Tal-y-bont, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Llanbedr, Pensarn and Llandanwg before reaching Harlech. Tygwyn, Talsarnau and Llandecwyn stations are the last before the line exits the park as it crosses the Dwyryd estuary via Pont Briwet and turns westwards bound for Pwllheli via Penrhyndeudraeth, Porthmadog and Criccieth.

 

Many sections of dismantled railway are now used by walking and cycling routes and are described elsewhere. The Bala Lake Railway is a heritage railway which has been established along a section of the former mainline route between Bala and Llanuwchllyn. Other heritage railways occupy sections of former mineral lines, often narrow gauge and are described in a separate section.

 

The national park is served by a growing bus network, branded Sherpa'r Wyddfa (formerly Snowdon Sherpa). Together with the TrawsCymru network of buses this provides a car-free option to tourists and locals wishing to travel across the National Park.

 

The network was relaunched in July 2022 with a new brand, Sherpa'r Wyddfa, to reflect the National Park's new push for the promotion of Welsh place names. As such the publicity and websites for the newly branded service only use these Welsh names, even for English language users.

 

Snowdonia is one of the wettest parts of the United Kingdom; Crib Goch in Snowdonia is the wettest spot in the United Kingdom, with an average rainfall of 4,473 millimetres (176.1 in) a year over the 30-year period prior to the mid-2000s. (There is a rainfall gauge at 713 metres, 2340' on the slopes below Crib Goch.)

 

The earliest evidence for human occupation of the area dates from around 4000–3000 BCE with extensive traces of prehistoric field systems evident in the landscape. Within these are traces of irregular enclosures and hut circles. There are burial chambers of Neolithic and Bronze Age such as Bryn Cader Faner and Iron Age hillforts such as Bryn y Castell near Ffestiniog.

 

The region was finally conquered by the Romans by AD 77–78. Remains of Roman marching camps and practice camps are evident. There was a Roman fort and amphitheatre at Tomen y Mur. Roads are known to have connected with Segontium (Caernarfon) and Deva Victrix (Chester) and include the northern reaches of Sarn Helen.

 

There are numerous memorial stones of Early Christian affinity dating from the post-Roman period. The post-Roman hillfort of Dinas Emrys also dates to this time. Churches were introduced to the region in the 5th and 6th centuries. Llywelyn the Great and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had various stone castles constructed to protect their borders and trade routes. Edward I built several castles around the margins including those at Harlech and Conwy for military and administrative reasons. Most are now protected within a World Heritage Site. Some of Snowdonia's many stone walls date back to this period too. In the Middle Ages, the title Prince of Wales and Lord of Snowdonia (Tywysog Cymru ac Arglwydd Eryri) was used by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd; his grandfather Llywelyn Fawr used the title Prince of north Wales and Lord of Snowdonia.

 

The 18th century saw the start of industrial exploitation of the area's resources, assisted by the appearance in the late part of the century of turnpike trusts making it more accessible. The engineer Thomas Telford left a legacy of road and railway construction in and around Snowdonia. A new harbour at Porthmadog linked to slate quarries at Ffestiniog via a narrow gauge railway. At its peak in the 19th century the slate industry employed around 12,000 men. A further 1000 were employed in stone quarrying at Graiglwyd and Penmaenmawr. Mining for copper, iron and gold was undertaken during the 18th and 19th centuries, leaving a legacy of mine and mill ruins today. Ruins of the gold industry are found at Cefn Coch on the Dolmelynllyn estate.

 

The Snowdonia Society is a registered charity formed in 1967; it is a voluntary group of people with an interest in the area and its protection.

 

Amory Lovins led the successful 1970s opposition to stop Rio Tinto digging up the area for a massive mine.

 

The park's entire coastline is a Special Area of Conservation, which runs from the Llŷn Peninsula down the mid-Wales coast, the latter containing valuable sand dune systems.

 

The park's natural forests are of the mixed deciduous type, the commonest tree being the Welsh oak. Birch, ash, mountain-ash and hazel are also common. The park also contains some large (planted) coniferous forested areas such as Gwydir Forest near Betws-y-Coed, although some areas, once harvested, are now increasingly being allowed to regrow naturally.

 

Northern Snowdonia is the only place in Britain where the Snowdon lily (Gagea serotina), an arctic–alpine plant, is found and the only place in the world where the Snowdonia hawkweed Hieracium snowdoniense grows.

 

One of the major problems facing the park in recent years has been the growth of Rhododendron ponticum. This fast-growing invasive species has a tendency to take over and stifle native species. It can form massive towering growths and has a companion fungus that grows on its roots producing toxins that are poisonous to any local flora and fauna for a seven-year period after the Rhododendron infestations have been eradicated. As a result, there are a number of desolate landscapes.

 

Mammals in the park include otters, polecats, feral goats, and pine martens. Birds include raven, red-billed chough, peregrine, osprey, merlin and the red kite. The rainbow-coloured Snowdon beetle (Chrysolina cerealis) is only found in northern Snowdonia.

 

Snowdonia has a particularly high number of protected sites in respect of its diverse ecology; nearly 20% of its total area is protected by UK and European law. Half of that area was set aside by the government under the European Habitats Directive as a Special Area of Conservation. There are a large number of Sites of special scientific interest (or 'SSSIs'), designated both for fauna and flora but also in some cases for geology. Nineteen of these sites are managed as national nature reserves by Natural Resources Wales. The park also contains twelve Special Areas of Conservation (or 'SACs'), three Special Protection Areas (or 'SPAs') and three Ramsar sites. Some are wholly within the park boundaries, others straddle it to various degrees.

 

There are numerous SSSIs within the park, the most extensive of which are Snowdonia, Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt, Morfa Harlech, Rhinog, Berwyn, Cadair Idris, Llyn Tegid, Aber Mawddach / Mawddach Estuary, Dyfi, Morfa Dyffryn, Moel Hebog, Coedydd Dyffryn Ffestiniog and Coedydd Nanmor.

 

The following NNRs are either wholly or partly within the park: Allt y Benglog, Y Berwyn (in multiple parts), Cader Idris, Ceunant Llennyrch, Coed Camlyn, Coed Cymerau, Coed Dolgarrog, Coed Ganllwyd, Coed Gorswen, Coed Tremadog, Coedydd Aber, Coedydd Maentwrog (in 2 parts), Coed y Rhygen, Cwm Glas Crafnant, Cwm Idwal, Hafod Garregog, Morfa Harlech, Rhinog and Snowdon.

 

The twelve SACs are as follows: Snowdonia SAC which covers much of the Carneddau, Glyderau, and the Snowdon massif, Afon Gwyrfai a Llyn Cwellyn, Corsydd Eifionydd / Eifionydd Fens (north of Garndolbenmaen), the Coedydd Derw a Safleoedd Ystlumod Meirion / Meirionydd Oakwoods and Bat Sites - a series of sites between Tremadog, Trawsfynydd, and Ffestiniog and Beddgelert and extending up the Gwynant. It also includes many of the oakwoods of the Mawddach and its tributaries. Afon Eden – Cors Goch Trawsfynydd, Rhinog, Cadair Idris (in 2 parts), Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt, River Dee and Afon Dyfrdwy a Llyn Tegid (Wales), Mwyngloddiau Fforest Gwydir / Gwydyr Forest Mines (north of Betws-y-Coed) and a part of the Berwyn a Mynyddoedd De Clwyd / Berwyn and South Clwyd Mountains SAC. The Pen Llyn a'r Sarnau / Lleyn Peninsula and the Sarnau SAC covers the entire Cardigan Bay coastline of the park and the sea area and extends above the high water mark at Morfa Harlech, Mochras and around the Dovey and Mawddach estuaries.

 

The three SPAs are Dovey Estuary / Aber Dyfi (of which a part is within the park), Berwyn (of which a part is within the park) and Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt.

 

The three designated Ramsar sites are the Dyfi Biosphere (Cors Fochno and Dyfi), Cwm Idwal and Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake).

 

The area's economy was traditionally centred upon farming and from the early 19th century increasingly on mining and quarrying. Tourism has become an increasingly significant part of Snowdonia's economy during the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

The extensive farming of sheep remains central to Snowdonia's farming economy.

 

Significant sections of the park were afforested during the 20th century for timber production. Major conifer plantations include Dyfi Forest, Coed y Brenin Forest between Dolgellau and Trawsfynydd, Penllyn Forest south of Bala, Beddgelert Forest and Gwydyr (or Gwydir) Forest near Betws-y-Coed which is managed as a forest park by Natural Resources Wales.

 

The region was once the most important producer of slate in the world. Some production continues but at a much reduced level from its peak. The park boundaries are drawn such that much of the landscape affected by slate quarrying and mining lies immediately outside of the designated area.

 

Construction of a nuclear power station beside Llyn Trawsfynydd began in 1959 with the first power produced in 1965. The site was operational until 1991 though it continues as an employer during its decommissioning phase. Pumped storage hydroelectric schemes are in operation at Llanberis and Ffestiniog.

 

Research indicates that there were 3.67 million visitors to Snowdonia National Park in 2013, with approximately 9.74 million tourist days spent in the park during that year. Total tourist expenditure was £433.6 million in 2013.

 

Many of the hikers in the area concentrate on Snowdon itself. It is regarded as a fine mountain, but at times gets very crowded; in addition the Snowdon Mountain Railway runs to the summit.

 

The other high mountains with their boulder-strewn summits as well as Tryfan, one of the few mountains in the UK south of Scotland whose ascent needs hands as well as feet are also very popular. However, there are also some spectacular walks in Snowdonia on the lower mountains, and they tend to be relatively unfrequented. Among hikers' favourites are Y Garn (east of Llanberis) along the ridge to Elidir Fawr; Mynydd Tal-y-Mignedd (west of Snowdon) along the Nantlle Ridge to Mynydd Drws-y-Coed; Moelwyn Mawr (west of Blaenau Ffestiniog); and Pen Llithrig y Wrach north of Capel Curig. Further south are Y Llethr in the Rhinogydd, and Cadair Idris near Dolgellau.

 

The park has 1,479 miles (2,380 km) of public footpaths, 164 miles (264 km) of public bridleways, and 46 miles (74 km) of other public rights of way. A large part of the park is also covered by right to roam laws.

 

The Wales Coast Path runs within the park between Machynlleth and Penrhyndeudraeth, save for short sections of coast in the vicinity of Tywyn and Barmouth which are excluded from the park. It touches the park boundary again at Penmaen-bach Point on the north coast. An inland alternative exists between Llanfairfechan and Conwy, wholly within the park. The North Wales Path, which predates the WCP, enters the park north of Bethesda and follows a route broadly parallel to the north coast visiting Aber Falls and the Sychnant Pass before exiting the park on the descent from Conwy Mountain. The Cambrian Way is a long-distance trail between Cardiff and Conwy that stays almost entirely within the national park from Mallwyd northwards. It was officially recognised in 2019, and is now depicted on Ordnance Survey maps.

 

The use of the English names for the area has been divisive, with an increase in protests against their use since 2020; these led to the national park authority deciding to use Welsh names as far as legally possible in November 2022. An early example of pressure to deprecate Snowdon and Snowdonia was a 2003 campaign by Cymuned, inspired by campaigns to refer to Ayers Rock as Uluru and Mount Everest as Qomolangma.

 

In 2020 an e-petition calling for the removal of the English names was put forward to the Senedd, but rejected as responsibility lies with the national park authority. In 2021 an e-petition on the same topic attracted more than 5,300 signatures and was presented to the national park authority.

 

On 28 April 2021 Gwynedd councillor John Pughe Roberts put forward a motion to use the Welsh names exclusively, calling this a "question of respect for the Welsh language". The motion was not considered and delayed, as the national park authority already appointed a "Welsh Place Names Task and Finish Group" to investigate the issue. The park authority however cannot compel other bodies and/or individuals to stop using the English names, with the proposals facing some criticism.

 

In May 2021, following the dismissal of the motion, YouGov conducted a poll on Snowdon's name. 60% of Welsh adults supported the English name Snowdon, compared to 30% wanting the Welsh name Yr Wyddfa. Separating by language, 59% of Welsh speakers preferred the Welsh name, but 37% of these still wanted Snowdon to be used as well. 69% of non-Welsh speakers firmly supported Snowdon as the Mountain's name. The proposals to rename Snowdon are usually accompanied with proposals to rename Snowdonia.

 

On 16 November 2022, Members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority committee voted to use the Welsh names Yr Wyddfa and Eryri to refer to the mountain and the national park, rather than the English names, in materials produced by the authority. The national park authority described the decision as "decisive action" and the authority's head of culture heritage stated that Welsh place names were part of the area's "special qualities" and that other public bodies, English-language press and filming companies have used the Welsh-language names. Before the decision the park had already prioritised the Welsh names by using them first and giving the English names in parentheses. The name "Snowdonia" cannot be abandoned entirely, as it is set in law and so must be used in statutory documents. The authority announced a review of the authority's branding in 2023 to adapt to the new approach to Welsh place names.

 

Gwynedd is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The city of Bangor is the largest settlement, and the administrative centre is Caernarfon. The preserved county of Gwynedd, which is used for ceremonial purposes, includes the Isle of Anglesey.

 

Gwynedd is the second largest county in Wales but sparsely populated, with an area of 979 square miles (2,540 km2) and a population of 117,400. After Bangor (18,322), the largest settlements are Caernarfon (9,852), Bethesda (4,735), and Pwllheli (4,076). The county has the highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 64.4%, and is considered a heartland of the language.

 

The geography of Gwynedd is mountainous, with a long coastline to the west. Much of the county is covered by Snowdonia National Park (Eryri), which contains Wales's highest mountain, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa; 3,560 feet, 1,090 m). To the west, the Llŷn Peninsula is flatter and renowned for its scenic coastline, part of which is protected by the Llŷn AONB. Gwynedd also contains several of Wales's largest lakes and reservoirs, including the largest, Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid).

 

The area which is now the county has played a prominent part in the history of Wales. It formed part of the core of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the native Principality of Wales, which under the House of Aberffraw remained independent from the Kingdom of England until Edward I's conquest between 1277 and 1283. Edward built the castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, which form part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage Site. During the Industrial Revolution the slate industry rapidly developed; in the late nineteenth century the neighbouring Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarries were the largest in the world, and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is now a World Heritage Site. Gwynedd covers the majority of the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.

 

In the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant 'collection of tribes' – the same root as the Irish fine, meaning 'tribe'. Further, a connection is recognised between the name and the Irish Féni, an early ethnonym for the Irish themselves, related to fían, 'company of hunting and fighting men, company of warriors under a leader'. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə ('strive, hope, wish') is the Indo-European stem. The Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a memorial stone from c. AD 500 which reads: Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis ('Here lies Cantiorix, citizen of Gwynedd'). The name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974.

 

Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It covered the entirety of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, and all of Merionethshire apart from Edeirnion Rural District (which went to Clwyd); and also a few parishes of Denbighshire: Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan.

 

The county was divided into five districts: Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey.

 

The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the 1974 county (and the five districts) on 1 April 1996, and its area was divided: the Isle of Anglesey became an independent unitary authority, and Aberconwy (which included the former Denbighshire parishes) passed to the new Conwy County Borough. The remainder of the county was constituted as a principal area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire, as it covers most of the areas of those two historic counties. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996. The present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, but Arfon, Dwyfor and Meirionnydd remain as area committees.

 

The pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. In 2003, the boundary with Clwyd was adjusted to match the modern local government boundary, so that the preserved county now covers the two local government areas of Gwynedd and Anglesey. Conwy county borough is now entirely within Clwyd.

 

A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire forces. A further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. In one proposal for local government reform in Wales, Gwynedd had been proposed as a name for a local authority covering all of north Wales, but the scheme as enacted divided this area between Gwynedd and Clwyd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police.

 

The Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park fell entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd, and was run as a department of Gwynedd County Council. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, and the park's administration separated from the Gwynedd council. Gwynedd Council still appoints nine of the eighteen members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority; Conwy County Borough Council appoints three; and the Welsh Government appoints the remaining six.

 

There has been considerable inwards migration to Gwynedd, particularly from England. According to the 2021 census, 66.6% of residents had been born in Wales whilst 27.1% were born in England.

 

The county has a mixed economy. An important part of the economy is based on tourism: many visitors are attracted by the many beaches and the mountains. A significant part of the county lies within the Snowdonia National Park, which extends from the north coast down to the district of Meirionnydd in the south. But tourism provides seasonal employment and thus there is a shortage of jobs in the winter.

 

Agriculture is less important than in the past, especially in terms of the number of people who earn their living on the land, but it remains an important element of the economy.

 

The most important of the traditional industries is the slate industry, but these days only a small percentage of workers earn their living in the slate quarries.

 

Industries which have developed more recently include TV and sound studios: the record company Sain has its HQ in the county.

 

The education sector is also very important for the local economy, including Bangor University and Further Education colleges, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Coleg Menai, both now part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai.

 

The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.

Gwynedd has the highest proportion of people in Wales who can speak Welsh. According to the 2021 census, 64.4% of the population aged three and over stated that they could speak Welsh,[7] while 64.4% noted that they could speak Welsh in the 2011 census.

 

It is estimated that 83% of the county's Welsh-speakers are fluent, the highest percentage of all counties in Wales.[9] The age group with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd were those between ages 5–15, of whom 92.3% stated that they could speak Welsh in 2011.

 

The proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd declined between 1991 and 2001,[10] from 72.1% to 68.7%, even though the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales as a whole increased during that decade to 20.5%.

 

The Annual Population Survey estimated that as of March 2023, 77.0% of those in Gwynedd aged three years and above could speak Welsh.

 

Notable people

Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer; originated the Welsh Harlequin duck in Criccieth

Sir Dave Brailsford (born 1964), cycling coach; grew up in Deiniolen, near Caernarfon

Duffy (born 1984), singer, songwriter and actress; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Edward II of England (1284–1327), born in Caernarfon Castle

Elin Fflur (born 1984), singer-songwriter, TV and radio presenter; went to Bangor University

Bryn Fôn (born 1954), actor and singer-songwriter; born in Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire.

Wayne Hennessey (born 1987), football goalkeeper with 108 caps for Wales; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

John Jones (c. 1530 – 1598), a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest and martyr; born at Clynnog

Sir Love Jones-Parry, 1st Baronet (1832–1891), landowner and politician, co-founder of the Y Wladfa settlement in Patagonia

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), archaeologist, army officer and inspiration for Lawrence of Arabia, born in Tremadog

David Lloyd George (1863–1945), statesman and Prime Minister; lived in Llanystumdwy from infancy

Sasha (born 1969), disc jockey, born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Sir Bryn Terfel (born 1965), bass-baritone opera and concert singer from Pant Glas

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect of Portmeirion

Owain Fôn Williams, (born 1987), footballer with 443 club caps; born and raised in Penygroes, Gwynedd.

Hedd Wyn (1887–1917), poet from the village of Trawsfynydd; killed in WWI

Why are fires are so mesmerizing even to adults? It turns out that the attraction to fire beyond our childhood might be a Western trait.

 

A 2002 study by Irene Pinsonneault of the Massachusetts Coalition for Juvenile Firesetter Intervention Program revealed children's most common questions about fire: What makes fire hot? How does a small fire grow? Why are some fires very smoky? Can everything burn? How can you keep a fire small? How can you put fires out?

 

In societies in which fire is an everyday tool, kids learn the answers by age 7. Ethnographic data reveals that children in most such societies study adults' control of fire from infancy, and at age 3, start experimenting with fire (including building small fires and using them to "cook" pretend food, such as mud pies). They are gradually given more responsibility over the adults' fire as they grow older, and at age 7, are generally able to control fire. Fire play starts to wind down at that stage.

 

According to one researcher, here in the West, many or most of us never get to that point. "The motives that drive fire learning are only incompletely satisfied, with the result that, throughout life, fire retains greater allure or fascination than would normally be the case."

 

For the complete article go to: news.discovery.com/human/psychology/fire-fascination-huma...

Bird homes

New York,Doubleday & McClure Co.,1900.

biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13269833

Sons of Sir Humphrey Bradbourne 1513-1581 and wife Elizabeth Turville on the side of their tomb www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1aXCnH - 3 did not survive infancy

"Here lieth the bodies of Sir Humpry Bradburn Knight died the 17 of April in the year of our God 1581 and Dame Elizabeth his wife and daughter of Sir William Turville of Newhall in the county of Leicester Knight who died May the 28th 1598"

The tomb was moved into this chapel c1840 after originally being in the family mausoleum in the south transept

The guide says a Spanish connection is alluded to by the pomegranate decorating the hilt of his dagger. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/mGR6Ek

Humphrey was the son & heir of John Bradbourne 1523 of Bradbourne and Lea by Isabella daughter and coheir of Richard Cotton of Ridware.

On his paternal side he was the great grandson of Sir John Bradbourne 1488 and Anne Vernon 1499 whose monument is nearby www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/L9fq7m

On his mother's side he was the great grandson of Nicholas Longford & Joan Warren (whose arms are in the stained glass here www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/XEE1W3

 

A minor on the death of his father, Bradbourne succeeded to an inheritance consisting of the manor of Bradbourne and other property in the west of Derbyshire, as well as the manor of Hough and a small amount of other land in Staffordshire, the whole being valued at £99 a year. It is not known who purchased his wardship or when he had livery of these lands. His appointment in 1538 to the Derbyshire commission of the peace marks the beginning of his career in shire administration, and six years later he was called upon to supply 20 men for the Earl of Hertford’s expedition against Scotland. He himself served as a captain and was knighted by Hertford, being the only member of his family so honoured. In 1557 he was one of the Derbyshire gentlemen who certified to the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury the number of men each could supply for service on the borders, his own quota being 12 billmen and three bowmen.

 

He m Elizabeth daughter of Sir William Turville of Aston Flamville Leics & Newhall, by 2nd wife Jane Warburton www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1M08C3

Children - 9 sons (4 in armour holding shields, 2 in civilian robes, 3 infants) & 6 daughters (4 holding shields indicating their marriage)

1. William 1547 m1 Joan Fleetwood ; m2 Tabitha www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/540jQa daughter of Thomas Cockayne 1592 & Dorothy Ferrers www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/kD33tB : m3 Frances Priest

2. George Bradborne b 1530

3. Francis Bradburne b 1532

4. John Bradburne b 1534

5. Hugh Bradburne b 1536

6. Nicholas Bradburne 1540 - 1553

7. Humphrey Bradbourne b 1545

8. Edward b 1547

9. Anthony b 1551

1. Ann 1542 - 1599 m (1st wife) Sir Humphrey 1607 son of John Ferrers & Barbara daughter of Francis Cockayne 1536 & Dorothy Marrow flic.kr/p/dBpGjH ; Humphrey m2 Elizabeth Longford widow of Humphrey Dethick of Hartshorne www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/EP590F ( dispositions of the property by Sir Humphrey Ferrers after his own death and that of his wife, Lady Elizabeth, and his brother, William Bradbourne. It is Sir Humphrey's intention that after his death his wife will have the lands for her jointure; after her death, his "daughter Ferrers" will have them for her jointure; subsequently the lands shall descend unto his next male heir or, in the case of lack of issue, unto his wife's heirs)

2. Elizabeth m Sir John Cotton of Landwade 1620 son of John Cotton 1593 flic.kr/p/9CZ6h6

3. Jane m Henry Sacheverell

www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/4jV2Ew

 

Although he remained a justice of the peace for over 40 years, for most of this time Bradbourne was not of the quorum, probably because of his religion. In the report to the Privy Council on the justices of Derbyshire compiled in 1564, he was named as one of the two ‘adversaries to religion’ in the shire. His disaffection is more likely to have been of a Catholic than of a Puritan kind, since Henry Vernon, the other justice so described, was a Catholic whereas Richard Blackwell, whom the signatories recommended for dismissal, was seemingly a Puritan and was defended by the bishop. Bradbourne was an executor of Vernon’s will of 1568. Although his religion had not prevented him from serving two terms as sheriff, it was only in his later years that he was entrusted with such special commissions as the investigation of 1578 into local animosity towards (Sir) John Zouche II.4

 

It was with Sir Thomas Cokayne that Bradbourne had sat in his first Parliament, that of March 1553 called under the aegis of the Duke of Northumberland: a man of his conservative views can hardly have felt at home in such an assembly. He would have found more congenial his next and last Parliament, the fourth of Mary’s reign, although the manoeuvres of the opposition would probably have offended him and it is not surprising that his name is absent from the list of them. His fellow-knight in that Parliament, Vincent Mundy, was to be one of those commissioned in 1556 and 1557 to investigate a dispute, which had already reached the Star Chamber, between Bradbourne and his cousin Aden Beresford over a brook which ran through their adjacent properties. Bradbourne was involved in a number of other suits in both Chancery and Star Chamber, including one in the reign of Henry VIII when he was charged with enclosing common land. In February 1557 he appeared before the barons of the Exchequer to meet an accusation of maintaining retainers in blue livery who accompanied him to the local sessions of the peace and the assizes. The case was brought by Thomas Gravenor, a husbandman of Bentley: Bradbourne asked for trial by jury but no further process is recorded.5

 

Humphrey's death gave suspicion of foul play. Three days after his death the Privy Council ordered an investigation of a ‘dangerous practice taken in hand by certain lewd persons, whereby is intended the destruction of the person of Sir Humphrey Bradbourne and conveying away of his goods’. A charge of murder was made against a yeoman of Lea, Richard Haughton, for allegedly having smeared Bradbourne’s right leg with an ointment containing poison which, after a lapse of 3 years proved fatal. - the result of this charge is not known.

 

By his will of 8 Oct. 1580 Humphrey had appointed as sole executrix his wife Elizabeth and as overseer Sir John Manners of Bakewell www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/E1w2d2

Humphrey asked for a tomb of alabaster with ‘pictures of myself, my wife and all my children ... set thereupon’, This was made by Richard and Gabriel Royley of Burton on Trent who were "popular and inexpensive"

- Church of St Oswald, Ashbourne Derbyshire

 

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

www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bradbourne-4 ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LZ1S-CBL/anne-bradbourne-15...

Detail photo in my comment below.

 

Art Nouveau glass mosaic, detail.

Embossed part: eosin by Zsolnay

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0XotjqSAjA

Born in 1865, Miksa Róth was 19 years old when he took over his father Zsigmond’s workshop.

The craft of glass painting was still in its infancy. In 1855 English glass workers succeeded in creating an "antique glass" effect.

This coloured glass was suitable for the repair and restoration of the windows of medieval churches, as well as for decorating the new romantic, and the historically eclectic designs. By 1880, workshops were sprouting up in the capital, the most significant of which belonged to Miksa Róth, who at the turn of the century was providing work for 10 trainees, working on both public and private building commissions.

Miksa Róth’s first significant work was in 1886 in Máriafalva (Mariasdorf, Austria) where Imre Steindl was leading the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church.

Earlier Róth had studied the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals on a tour of Europe.

During the reconstruction of many other national monuments, Róth designed Gothic stained glass windows at Keszthely for the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic church led by Samu Pecz (architect of the main market hall in Budapest) in 1896.

In Budapest, you can see examples of his beautiful work in the Gresham Palace (now the newly opened Four Seasons hotel), the Agricultural Museum, the Music Academy and the Andrássy Dining Room amongst many others. The plans for the stained glass windows of the Parliament building were prepared in 1890. Róth took into account both the staircase’s light source and the building’s interior decoration, and decided to use the Grotesque style originating from the Renaissance period.

Reflecting the multi-coloured nature of Hungarian architecture at the turn of the century, Róth created windows in many styles: Historic, Hungarian Secession, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Viennese Secession.

Róth’s craft was given a new inspiration when he saw the "opalescent" and "favril" glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose display at the 1893 Chicago World Trade Fair, entitled Four Seasons featured shimmering, iridescent colours and an immediately popular natural marbling effect of the glass.

Róth was also influenced by the work of the English pre-Raphaelite artists, in particular Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. In 1897, Miksa Róth bought a collection of opalescent glass from the Hamburg glass painter Karl Engelbrecht, and began to regularly order glass from his factory.

At the 1898 Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ Christmas Exhibition Róth displayed glass windows prepared using a type of Tiffany glass, seen for the first time in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Róth won the silver medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 with the Pax and Rising Sun mosaics made with opalescent glass.

The Róth workshop then made a large number of stained glass windows with floral designs, whose success could be attributed to the nostalgia felt by people living then in large cities for the lost world of nature.

In Budapest the stairwells and lifts were brightened up with luxuriant gardens in place of the drab partition walls and dark corridors.

Middle class citizens even decorated their parlours with the symbolic motives of flowers: Irises, lilies, sunflowers, poppies and roses, birds such as peacocks and swans, and fauns, nymphs, fairies and female figures frolicking in gardens, arbours and riverbanks to recall the lost period of the Golden Age.

One of Róth’s most significant creations using opalescent glass was for cupola of the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City, which he carried out according to designs by Géza Maróti.With this work he showed details of geometric design of the Jugenstil and Viennese Secession which he also used in windows for Bank Building (1905 Ignác Alpár), the Gresham Palace (1907 Zsigmond Quittner and József Vágó) and the Music Academy (1907 Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl) . Róth worked with many of the best architects, builders and designers of the time.

For Ödön Lechner's magnificent Post Office Savings Bank building, Róth created an unusual mosaic, embedded into cement. In 1910, Róth created the gorgeous windows of the Culture Palace in Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures in Romania). In the Hall of Mirrors, scenes from traditional Székely fairy tales, ballads and legends are featured in the 12 stained glass windows which fill the entire length of the long hall. It is worth a visit to Marosvásárhely alone to stand among these magical and colourful designs.

Róth worked for a long time in conjunction with two artists from the Gödöllô artists’ settlement, Sándor Nagy and Aladár Kriesch Körösfôi. Together they created the Hungarian Secession style windows for the National Salon and the windows and mosaics for the Hungarian House in Venice. For the Marosvásárhely Culture House triptych, also based on Nagy’s designs, Róth used a special medieval technique, employing thick leading and strong lines. From the 1920s Róth mainly received commissions from the Church and State.

He died in 1944 after a lifetime of bringing joy and colour to the world with his beautiful creations.

 

____

 

Róth Miksa (1865. december 26. Pest - 1944. június 14. Budapest) a magyar üvegfestészet és mozaik művészet egyik legjelentősebb alkotója volt. A pesti Eötvös Reálgimnáziumban tanult s az apja műhelyében sajátította el a mesterség alapjait. Később Német-, Francia- és Olaszországban tanulmányozta a kora-középkori üvegfestészet technikáját és képszerkesztési módszerét. A XIII. századi üvegfestészet egész életét meghatározó befolyással volt művészeti tevékenységére. Emlékirataiban a német Sigismund Frankot valamint az angol preraffaelitákat, Burne Jones-t, William Morrist nevezi meg művészeti példaképeinek.

 

Első sikereit historizáló stílusú képeivel érte el: az 1896-os Ezredévi Kiállítás és az Országház üvegfestményei hozták meg számára az országos elismertséget. 1897-től az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchiában elsőként használta fel a Tiffany-üveget szecessziós stílusú alkotásaihoz. Számos hazai és nemzetközi elismerést szerzett: elsőként ő kapta meg az Iparművészeti Állami Aranyérmet, az 1900-as párizsi világkiállításon ezüstéremmel, az 1902-es torinói és az 1904-es St. Louisin pedig arannyal díjazták munkáit.

 

Alkotásai megtalálhatóak az oslói Fegeborg templomtól a mexikói Theatro Nationalig - ahová Maróti Gézával készítettek 1500 négyzetláb nagyságú üvegkupolát és mozaik képeket. 1939-ben, a második zsidó törvény meghozatala után szüntette meg a Nefelejcs utcai házában működő "üvegfestészeti műintézet" tevékenyégét. 1944-ben halt meg.

 

www.rakovszky.net/D1_DisplRemImg/Rako_DRI_ShowARemoteImag...

 

disappearingbudapest.blogspot.hu/2011/03/miksa-roth-geniu...

 

csomalin.csoma.elte.hu/~toti/uvegek/roth.htm

 

nol.hu/kult/20130404-roth_miksa_demotivalasa

 

hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3th_Miksa</a

Caernarfon Castle is a medieval fortress in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, north-west Wales cared for by Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment service. It was a motte-and-bailey castle from the late 11th century until 1283 when King Edward I of England began to replace it with the current stone structure. The Edwardian town and castle acted as the administrative centre of north Wales, and as a result the defences were built on a grand scale. There was a deliberate link with Caernarfon's Roman past, and the Roman fort of Segontium is nearby.

 

While the castle was under construction, town walls were built around Caernarfon. The work cost between £20,000 and £25,000 from the start until the work ended in 1330. Although the castle appears mostly complete from the outside, the interior buildings no longer survive and many of the building plans were never finished. The town and castle were sacked in 1294 when Madog ap Llywelyn led a rebellion against the English. Caernarfon was recaptured the following year. During the Glyndŵr Rising of 1400–1415, the castle was besieged. When the Tudor dynasty ascended to the English throne in 1485, tensions between the Welsh and English began to diminish and castles were considered less important. As a result, Caernarfon Castle was allowed to fall into a state of disrepair. Despite its dilapidated condition, during the English Civil War Caernarfon Castle was held by Royalists, and was besieged three times by Parliamentarian forces. This was the last time the castle was used in war. The castle was neglected until the 19th century when the state funded repairs. The castle was used for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1911 and again in 1969. It is part of the World Heritage Site "Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd".

 

The first fortifications at Caernarfon were built by the Romans. Their fort, which they named Segontium, is on the outskirts of the modern town. The fort sat near the bank of the River Seiont; the fort was probably built here due to the sheltered position and because it could be resupplied via the river Seiont. Caernarfon derives its name from the Roman fortifications. In Welsh, the place was called y gaer (lenition of caer) yn Arfon, meaning "the stronghold in the land over against Môn"; Môn is the Welsh name for Anglesey. Little is known about the fate of Segontium and its associated civilian settlement after the Romans departed from Britain in the early 5th century.

 

Following the Norman Conquest of England, William the Conqueror turned his attention to Wales. According to the Domesday Survey of 1086, the Norman Robert of Rhuddlan was nominally in command of the whole of northern Wales. He was killed by the Welsh in 1088. His cousin Hugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester, reasserted Norman control of north Wales by building three castles: one at an unknown location somewhere in Meirionnydd, one at Aberlleiniog on Anglesey, and another at Caernarfon. This early castle was built on a peninsula, bounded by the River Seiont and the Menai Strait; it would have been a motte and bailey, defended by a timber palisade and earthworks. The motte, or mound, was integrated into the later Edwardian castle, but the location of the original bailey is uncertain, although it may have been to the north-east of the motte. Excavations on top of the motte in 1969 revealed no traces of medieval occupation, suggesting any evidence had been removed. It is likely that the motte was surmounted by a wooden tower known as a keep. The Welsh recaptured Gwynedd in 1115, and Caernarfon Castle came into the possession of the Welsh princes. From contemporary documents written at the castle, it is known that Llywelyn the Great and later Llywelyn ap Gruffudd occasionally stayed at Caernarfon.

 

War broke out again between England and Wales on 22 March 1282. The Welsh leader, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, died later that year on 11 December. His brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd continued to fight against the English, but in 1283 Edward I was victorious. Edward marched through northern Wales, capturing castles such as that at Dolwyddelan, and establishing his own at Conwy. War finally drew to a close in May 1283 when Dolbadarn Castle, Dafydd ap Gruffudd's last castle, was captured. Shortly afterwards, Edward began building castles at Harlech and Caernarfon. The castles of Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech were the most impressive of their time in Wales, and their construction—along with other Edwardian castles in the country—helped establish English rule. The master mason responsible for the design and construction of the castle was probably James of Saint George, an experienced architect and military engineer who played an important role in building the Edwardian castles in Wales. According to the Flores Historiarum, during the construction of the castle and planned town, the body of the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus was discovered, and Edward I ordered its reburial in a local church.

 

The construction of the new stone castle was part of a programme of building which transformed Caernarfon; town walls were added, connected to the castle, and a new quay was built. The earliest reference to building at Caernarfon dates from 24 June 1283, when a ditch had been dug separating the site of the castle from the town to the north. A bretagium, a type of stockade, was created around the site to protect it while the permanent defences were under construction. Timber was shipped from as far away as Liverpool. Stone was quarried from nearby places, such as from Anglesey and around the town. A force of hundreds worked on the excavation of the moat and digging the foundations for the castle. As the site expanded, it began to encroach on the town; houses were cleared to allow the construction. Residents were not paid compensation until three years later. While the foundations for the stone walls were being created, timber-framed apartments were built for Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, his queen. They arrived at Caernarfon on either 11 or 12 July 1283 and stayed for over a month.

 

Construction at Caernarfon Castle continued over the winter of 1283–84. The extent of completion is uncertain, although architectural historian Arnold Taylor speculated that when Edward and Eleanor visited again in Easter 1284 the Eagle Tower may have been complete. The Statute of Rhuddlan, enacted on 3 March 1284, made Caernarfon a borough and the administrative centre of the county of Gwynedd.[Gwynedd was not a county.] According to tradition, Edward II was born at Caernarfon on 25 April 1284. Edward was created Prince of Wales in 1301, with control over Wales and its incomes. Since then the title has traditionally been held by the eldest son of the monarch. According to a famous legend, the king had promised the Welsh that he would name "a prince born in Wales, who did not speak a word of English" and then produced his infant son to their surprise; but the story may well be apocryphal, as it can only be traced to the 16th century. In 1284, Caernarfon was defended by a garrison of forty men, more than the thirty-strong garrisons at Conwy and Harlech. Even in peace time, when most castles would have a guard of only a few men, Caernarfon was defended by between twenty and forty people due to its importance.

 

By 1285, Caernarfon's town walls were mostly complete. At the same time work continued on the castle. Spending on construction was negligible from 1289 and accounts end in 1292. Edward I's campaign of castle-building in Wales cost £80,000 between 1277 and 1304, and £95,000 between 1277 and 1329; by 1292 £12,000 had been spent on the construction of Caernarfon's castle—of which the southern façade was furthest along—and town walls. As the southern wall and town walls completed a defensive circuit around Caernarfon, the plan was to build the castle's northern façade last.

 

In 1294, Wales broke out in rebellion led by Madog ap Llywelyn, Prince of Wales. As Caernarfon was the centre of administration in Gwynedd and a symbol of English power, it was targeted by the Welsh. Madog's forces captured the town in September, and in the process heavily damaged the town walls. The castle was defended by just a ditch and a temporary barricade. It was quickly taken and anything flammable was set alight. Fire raged across Caernarfon, leaving destruction in its wake. In the summer of 1295, the English moved to retake Caernarfon. By November the same year, the English began refortifying the town. Rebuilding the town walls was a high priority, and £1,195 (nearly half the sum initially spent on the walls) was spent on completing the job two months ahead of schedule. Attention then shifted to the castle and on finishing the work that had halted in 1292. Once the rebellion was put down, Edward began building Beaumaris Castle on the Isle of Anglesey. The work was overseen by James of Saint George; as a result, Walter of Hereford took over as master mason for the new phase of construction. By the end of 1301, a further £4,500 had been spent on the work; the focus of the work was on the northern wall and towers. The accounts between November 1301 and September 1304 are missing, possibly because there was a hiatus in work while labour moved north to help out with England's war against Scotland. Records show that Walter of Hereford had left Caernarfon and was in Carlisle in October 1300; he remained occupied with the Scottish wars until the autumn of 1304 when building at Caernarfon resumed. Walter died in 1309 and his immediate subordinate, Henry of Ellerton, took over the position of master mason. Construction continued at a steady rate until 1330.

 

From 1284 to 1330, when accounts end, between £20,000 and £25,000 was spent on Caernarfon's castle and town walls. Such a sum was enormous and dwarfed the spending on castles such as Dover and Château Gaillard, which were amongst the most expensive and impressive fortifications of the later 12th and early 13th centuries. Subsequent additions to Caernarfon were not major, and what remains of the castle is substantially from the Edwardian period. Despite the expense, much of what was planned for the castle was never carried out. The rears of the King's Gate (the entrance from the town) and the Queen's Gate (the entrance from the south-east) were left unfinished, and foundations in the castle's interior mark where buildings would have stood had work continued.

 

For around two centuries after the conquest of Wales, the arrangements established by Edward I for the governance of the country remained in place. During this time the castle was constantly garrisoned, and Caernarfon was effectively the capital of north Wales.[30] There was a degree of discrimination, with the most important administrative jobs in Wales usually closed to Welsh people. Tension between the Welsh and their English conquerors spilled over at the start of the 15th century with the outbreak of the Glyndŵr Rising (1400–1415). During the revolt, Caernarfon was one of the targets of Owain Glyndŵr's army. The town and castle were besieged in 1401, and in November that year the Battle of Tuthill was fought nearby between Caernarfon's defenders and the besieging force. In 1403 and 1404, Caernarfon was besieged by Welsh troops with support from French forces;[30] the garrison at the time was around thirty. The accession of the Tudor dynasty to the English throne in 1485 heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. As a result, castles such as Caernarfon, which provided secure centres from which the country could be administered, became less important. They were neglected, and in 1538 it was reported that many castles in Wales were "moche ruynous and ferre in decaye for lakke of tymely reparations".

 

In Caernarfon's case the walls of the town and castle remained in good condition, while features which required maintenance—such as roofs—were in a state of decay and much timber was rotten. Conditions were so poor that of the castle's seven towers and two gatehouses, only the Eagle Tower and the King's Gate had roofs by 1620. The domestic buildings inside the castle had been stripped of anything valuable, such as glass and iron. Despite the disrepair of the domestic buildings, the castle's defences were in a good enough state that during the English Civil War in the mid-17th century it was garrisoned by Royalists. Caernarfon Castle was besieged three times during the war. The constable was John Byron, 1st Baron Byron, who surrendered Caernarfon to Parliamentarian forces in 1646. It was the last time Caernarfon Castle saw fighting. Although it was ordered in 1660 that the castle and town walls should be dismantled, the work was aborted early on and may never have started.

 

Despite avoiding slighting, the castle was neglected until the late 19th century. From the 1870s onwards, the government funded repairs to Caernarfon Castle. The deputy-constable Llewellyn Turner oversaw the work, in many cases controversially restoring and rebuilding the castle, rather than simply conserving the existing stonework. Steps, battlements, and roofs were repaired, and the moat to the north of the castle was cleared of post-medieval buildings that were considered to spoil the view, despite the protest of locals. Under the auspices of the Office of Works and its successors since 1908, the castle was preserved due to its historic significance. In 1911, Caernarfon was used for the investiture of the Prince of Wales for the first time for Prince Edward (later Edward VIII), eldest son of the newly crowned King George V; the ceremony was held there at the insistence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George, a Welshman raised in Caernarfonshire. In 1969, the precedent was repeated with the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales. Although Caernarfon Castle has been the property of the Crown since it was built, it is currently cared for by Cadw (English: to keep), the Welsh Government's historic environment division, responsible for the maintenance and care of Wales' historic buildings. In 1986, Caernarfon was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites as part of the "Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd" in recognition of its global importance and to help conserve and protect the site. The castle houses the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum. During 2015 a new "entrance pavilion" was built, designed by architects Donald Insall Associates.

 

Caernarfon Castle is now a major tourist attraction, with over 205,000 people visiting the attraction in 2018.

 

Caernarfon is a royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales. It has a population of 9,852 (with Caeathro). It lies along the A487 road, on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait, opposite the island of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) to the north-east, while Snowdonia (Eryri) fringes Caernarfon to the east and south-east.

 

Abundant natural resources in and around the Menai Strait enabled human habitation in prehistoric Britain. The Ordovices, a Celtic tribe, lived in the region during the period known as Roman Britain. The Roman fort Segontium was established around AD 80 to subjugate the Ordovices during the Roman conquest of Britain. The Romans occupied the region until the end of Roman rule in Britain in 382, after which Caernarfon became part of the Kingdom of Gwynedd. In the late 11th century, William the Conqueror ordered the construction of a motte-and-bailey castle at Caernarfon as part of the Norman invasion of Wales. He was unsuccessful, and Wales remained independent until around 1283.

 

In the 13th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, ruler of Gwynedd, refused to pay homage to Edward I of England, prompting the English conquest of Gwynedd. This was followed by the construction of Caernarfon Castle, one of the largest and most imposing fortifications built by the English in Wales. In 1284, the English-style county of Caernarfonshire was established by the Statute of Rhuddlan; the same year, Caernarfon was made a borough, a county and market town, and the seat of English government in north Wales.

 

The ascent of the House of Tudor to the throne of England eased hostilities with the English and resulted in Caernarfon Castle falling into a state of disrepair. The town has flourished,[when?] leading to its status as a major tourist centre and seat of Gwynedd Council, with a thriving harbour and marina. Caernarfon has expanded beyond its medieval walls and experienced heavy suburbanisation. The community of Caernarfon's population includes the highest percentage of Welsh-speaking citizens anywhere in Wales. The status of Royal Borough was granted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1963 and amended to Royal Town in 1974. The castle and town walls are part of a World Heritage Site described as the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd.

 

The town's name consists of three elements: caer , yn, and arfon. "Caer' means 'fortress", in this case either the Roman fort of Segontium, which lies on the outskirts of the modern town, or the Norman castle erected near the mouth of the Afon Seiont. "Arfon" means "opposite Môn (Anglesey)", and the full name therefore means "the fortress in the land opposite Anglesey".

 

The earlier British and Romano-British settlement at Segontium was named Cair Segeint ("Fort Seiont") after the river. It was also known as Cair Custoient ("Fortress of Constantine"), after a belief that it was the capital of Gwynedd under Constantine, a supposed son of Saint Elen and the Emperor Magnus Maximus. Both names appear in the Historia Brittonum traditionally ascribed to Nennius. A medieval romance about Maximus and Elen, Macsen's Dream, calls her home Caer Aber Sein ("Fort Seiontmouth" or "the fortress at the mouth of the Seiont") and other pre-conquest poets such as Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd used the name Caer Gystennin. A 1221 charter by Llywelyn the Great to the canons of Penmon priory on Anglesey mentions Kaerinarfon, and the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion mentions both Kaerenarvon and Caerenarvon.

 

The town and the county named after it were officially spelled "Carnarvon" until 1926. At a meeting on 10 November 1925 the borough council resolved to ask the county council to change the spelling to "Caernarvon". The county council gave permission for the change of spelling for the name of the borough with effect from 14 January 1926, and at the same time decided to ask the government to also change the spelling of the county's name to Caernarvon. The government confirmed the change in the spelling of the county's name with effect from 1 July 1926.

 

The municipal borough was designated a royal borough in 1963. When the borough was abolished in 1974 the status of "royal town" was granted to the new community which succeeded it. The spelling of both borough and county remained "Caernarvon" until they were abolished in 1974. The spelling of the community's name was changed from "Caernarvon" to "Caernarfon" with effect from 2 June 1975 by order of Arfon Borough Council.

 

Caernarfon contains a Roman fort, Segontium, and a Norman motte-and-bailey castle was built at the mouth of the River Seiont.

 

In 1283, King Edward I completed his conquest of Wales which he secured by a chain of castles and walled towns. The construction of a new stone Caernarfon Castle seems to have started as soon as the campaign had finished. Edward's architect, James of St. George, may well have modelled the castle on the walls of Constantinople, possibly being aware of the town's legendary associations. Edward's fourth son, Edward of Caernarfon, later Edward II of England, was born at the castle in April 1284 and made Prince of Wales in 1301. A story recorded in the 16th century suggests that the new prince was offered to the native Welsh on the premise "that [he] was borne in Wales and could speake never a word of English", however, there is no contemporary evidence to support this.

 

Caernarfon was constituted a borough in 1284 by a charter of Edward I. The charter, which was confirmed on a number of occasions, appointed the mayor of the borough Constable of the Castle ex officio.

 

On 2 November 1401, 'Y Ddraig Aur' (The golden dragon) of Owain Glyndŵr was attested to have been flown during the Battle of Tuthill at Caernarfon, it is also likely that it was also flown throughout the Welsh independence campaign.

In 1911, David Lloyd George, then Member of Parliament (MP) for Caernarfon boroughs, which included various towns from Llŷn to Conwy, agreed to the British Royal Family's idea of holding the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle. The ceremony took place on 13 July, with the royal family visiting Wales, and the future Edward VIII was duly invested.

 

In 1955, Caernarfon was in the running for the title of Capital of Wales on historical grounds but the town's campaign was heavily defeated in a ballot of Welsh local authorities, with 11 votes compared to Cardiff's 136. Cardiff therefore became the Welsh capital.

 

On 1 July 1969, the investiture ceremony for Charles, Prince of Wales was again held at Caernarfon Castle. The ceremony went ahead without incident despite terrorist threats and protests, which culminated in the death of two members of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (Welsh Defence Movement), Alwyn Jones and George Taylor, who were killed when their bomb – intended for the railway line at Abergele in order to stop the British Royal Train – exploded prematurely. The bombing campaign (one in Abergele, two in Caernarfon and finally one on Llandudno Pier) was organised by the movement's leader, John Jenkins. He was later arrested after a tip-off and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.

 

In July 2019, Caernarfon hosted a rally for Welsh independence. The event, organised by AUOB (All Under One Banner) Cymru, included a march through the town centre. Organisers estimated that roughly 8,000 people joined the march on the town square; local authorities confirmed at least 5,000 attendees. The event featured a number of speakers including Hardeep Singh Kohli, Evra Rose, Dafydd Iwan, Lleuwen Steffan, Siôn Jobbins, Beth Angell, Gwion Hallam, Meleri Davies and Elfed Wyn Jones. Talks covered criticism of Brexit and Westminster with advocating Welsh Independence.

 

The history of Caernarfon, as an example where the rise and fall of different civilizations can be seen from one hilltop, is discussed in John Michael Greer's book The Long Descent. He writes of Caernarfon:

Spread out below us in an unexpected glory of sunlight was the whole recorded history of that little corner of the world. The ground beneath us still rippled with earthworks from the Celtic hill fort that guarded the Menai Strait more than two and a half millennia ago. The Roman fort that replaced it was now the dim brown mark of an old archaeological site on low hills off to the left. Edward I’s great grey castle rose up in the middle foreground, and the high contrails of RAF jets on a training exercise out over the Irish Sea showed that the town’s current overlords still maintained the old watch. Houses and shops from more than half a dozen centuries spread eastward as they rose through the waters of time, from the cramped medieval buildings of the old castle town straight ahead to the gaudy sign and sprawling parking lot of the supermarket back behind us.

 

Caernarfon is situated on the southern bank of the Menai Strait facing the Isle of Anglesey. It is situated 8.6 miles (13.8 km) south-west of Bangor, 19.4 miles (31.2 km) north of Porthmadog and approximately 8.0 miles (12.9 km) west of Llanberis and Snowdonia National Park. The mouth of the River Seiont is in the town, creating a natural harbour where it flows into the Menai Strait. Caernarfon Castle stands at the mouth of the river. The A487 passes directly through Caernarfon, with Bangor to the north and Porthmadog to the south.

 

As the crow flies, the summit of Snowdon lies a little over 9.6 miles (15.4 km) to the southeast of the town centre.

 

Caernarfon's historical prominence and landmarks have made it a major tourist centre. As a result, many of the local businesses cater for the tourist trade. Caernarfon has numerous guest houses, inns and pubs, hotels, restaurants and shops. The majority of shops in the town are located either in the centre of town around Pool Street and Castle Square (Y Maes), on Doc Fictoria (Victoria Dock) or in Cei Llechi (Slate Quay). A number of shops are also located within the Town Walls.

 

The majority of the retail and residential section of Doc Fictoria was opened in 2008. The retail and residential section of Doc Fictoria is built directly beside a Blue Flag beach marina. It contains numerous homes, bars and bistros, cafés and restaurants, an award-winning arts centre, a maritime museum and a range of shops and stores.

 

Pool Street and Castle Square contain a number of large, national retail shops and smaller independent stores. Pool Street is pedestrianised and serves as the town's main shopping street. Castle Square, commonly referred to as the 'Maes' by both Welsh and English speakers, is the market square of the town. A market is held every Saturday throughout the year and also on Mondays in the summer. The square was revamped at a cost of £2.4 million in 2009. However, since its revamp the square has caused controversy due to traffic and parking difficulties. During the revamp, it was decided to remove barriers between traffic and pedestrians creating a 'shared space', to force drivers to be more considerate of pedestrians and other vehicles. This is the first use of this kind of arrangement in Wales, but it has been described by councillor Bob Anderson as being 'too ambiguous' for road users. Another controversy caused by the revamp of the Maes was that a historic old oak tree was taken down from outside the HSBC bank. When the Maes was re-opened in July 2009 by the local politician and Heritage Minister of Wales, Alun Ffred Jones AM, he said, "the use of beautiful local slate is very prominent in the new Maes."

 

There are many old public houses serving the town, including The Four Alls, The Anglesey Arms Hotel, The Castle Hotel, The Crown, Morgan Lloyd, Pen Deitch and The Twthill Vaults. The oldest public house in Caernarfon is the Black Boy Inn, which remained in the same family for over 40 years until sold in 2003 to a local independent family business. The pub has stood inside Caernarfon's Town Walls since the 16th century, and many people claim to have seen ghosts within the building.

 

In and around the Town Walls are numerous restaurants, public houses and inns, and guest houses and hostels.

 

Gwynedd Council's head offices are situated in the town. The Caernarfon parliamentary constituency was a former electoral area centred on Caernarfon. Caernarfon is now part of the Arfon constituency for both the UK Parliament and the Senedd. The town is twinned with Landerneau in Brittany. Caernarfon was the county town of the historic county of Caernarfonshire.

 

At the local level, Caernarfon Royal Town Council consists of 17 town councillors, elected from the wards of Cadnant (3), Canol Tref Caernarfon (3), Hendre (3), Menai (4) and Peblig (4). The current Mayor is Councillor Maria Veronica Sarnacki.

 

The population in 1841 was 8,001.

 

The population of Caernarfon Community Parish in 2001 was 9,611. Caernarfon residents are known colloquially as "Cofis". The word "Cofi" /ˈkɒvi/ is also used locally in Caernarfon to describe the local Welsh dialect, notable for a number of words, not in use elsewhere.

 

Within Wales, Gwynedd has the highest proportion of speakers of the Welsh language. The greatest concentration of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd is found in and around Caernarfon.

 

According to the 2011 census, 85.8% of residents were born in Wales, one of the highest proportions in Gwynedd, and 77.0% reported a 'Welsh only' national identity.

 

The present castle building was constructed between 1283 and 1330 by the order of King Edward I. The banded stonework and polygonal towers are thought to have been in imitation of the Walls of Constantinople. The impressive curtain wall with nine towers and two gatehouses survive largely intact. Caernarfon Castle is now under the care of Cadw and is open to the public. The castle includes the regimental museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

 

The medieval town walls, including eight towers and two twin-towered gateways, form a complete circuit of 800 yards (730 m) around the old town and were built between 1283 and 1285. The walls are in the care of Cadw but only a small section is accessible to the public. The town walls and castle at Caernarfon were declared part of a World Heritage Site in 1986. According to UNESCO, the castle and walls together with other royal castles in Gwynedd "are the finest examples of late 13th century and early 14th century military architecture in Europe".

 

Dedicated to Saint Peblig, the son of Saint Elen and Macsen Wledig (Magnus Maximus), the church is built on an important early Christian site, itself built on a Roman Mithraeum or temple of Mithras, close to the Segontium Roman Fort (200m away, in the care of Cadw). A Roman altar was found in one of the walls during 19th-century restoration work. The present church dates mainly from the 14th century and is a Grade I listed building.

 

The statue in Castle Square was sculpted by W. Goscombe John and was erected in 1921 when Lloyd George was Prime Minister. David Lloyd George was the Member of Parliament for the area from 1890 to 1945.

 

The Old Market Hall in Hole-in-the-Wall Street and Crown Street was built in 1832, but the interior and roof were rebuilt later in that century. It is a Grade II listed building. It now acts as a pub and music venue.

 

A small Victorian urban park, Morfa was laid out in 1888. It stands to the south of the town, bordered by the 'Ysbyty Eryri' hospital [see below] at its southern edge. It is listed at Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

 

The old County Hall, which went on to become a courthouse, is situated inside the castle walls, next door to the Anglesey Arms Hotel. The old courthouse was built in the Neo-classical style. The courthouse was replaced by the new Caernarfon Criminal Justice Centre on the former Segontium School site in Llanberis Road in 2009. The old courthouse adjoins what used to be Caernarfon Gaol, which has been closed since the early 20th century and was subsequently converted into council offices.

 

There is a small hospital in the town, 'Ysbyty Eryri' (i.e. "Snowdonia Hospital"). The nearest large regional hospital is Ysbyty Gwynedd, in Bangor.

 

Caernarfon Barracks was commissioned by John Lloyd, County Surveyor of Caernarfonshire, as a military headquarters and completed in 1855.

 

Caernarfon was at one time an important port, exporting slate from the Dyffryn Nantlle quarries. This traffic was facilitated from 1828 by the Nantlle Railway which predated far more widely known ventures such as the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Ffestiniog Railway.

 

Five passenger stations have served the town. Caernarvon railway station opened in 1852 as the western terminus of the Bangor and Carnarvon Railway. This connected the town with the North Wales coast and the expanding national network. Carnarvon Castle railway station opened in 1856 as the northern passenger terminus of the 3ft 6in narrow gauge Nantlle Railway. This service ended in 1865 when the line being built from the south by the standard gauge Carnarvonshire Railway took over most of its trackbed. The Carnarvonshire Railway's temporary northern terminus was at Pant to the south of the town. Pant station opened in 1867. At the same time, the Carnarvon and Llanberis Railway built its line from Llanberis to Caernarfon. Its temporary western terminus was called Carnarvon (Morfa). It opened in 1869 near the modern road bridges over the Afon Seiont. For a short period, therefore, Caernarfon had three terminating stations on its edges. Records are contradictory, but this ended in either 1870 or 1871 when they were connected by a line through the town using the tunnel which survives, having been converted in 1995 for road traffic. When the through route was opened Pant and Morfa stations closed and the original station became the town's only station. The London and North Western Railway also took over all the lines mentioned leaving one station and one service provider by 1871.

 

The services to Llanberis and south to Afon Wen closed progressively from the 1930s, with tracks being lifted in the mid-1960s, but Caernarvon station survived until 1970, with Bangor to Caernarvon one of the last passenger services to be closed under the Beeching Axe; it is now the site of a Morrisons supermarket. In November 2020 the Welsh Government stated 'further consideration' should be given to reopening the line. The fifth station was opened in 1997 on the old trackbed in St. Helen's Road. It is the northern terminus of the 2ft narrow gauge Rheilffordd Eryri / Welsh Highland Railway. Work began on a permanent station for the town in February 2017. The new station opened to passengers in the Spring of 2019. Heritage steam services provide links to Porthmadog, where passengers can change for services on the Ffestiniog Railway to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

 

Bus services in the town are provided by Arriva Buses Wales, and a number of smaller, local operators. Longer distance, cross-country services are operated by Lloyds Coaches, and connect the town with Bangor to the north, and Aberystwyth via Porthmadog, Dolgellau and Machynlleth to the south. These services are part of the Welsh Government funded TrawsCymru network.

 

The A487 trunk road bisects the town, providing access to major urban areas along the North Wales coast and the Port of Holyhead, via the A55 expressway. Llanberis at the foot of Snowdon can be reached via the A4086, which heads east out of the town towards Capel Curig.

 

Heading north out of the town is the Lôn Las Menai cycle path to nearby Y Felinheli. Heading south out of the town is the Lôn Eifion cycle path, which leads to Bryncir, near Criccieth. The route provides views into the Snowdonia mountains, down along the Llŷn Peninsula and across to the Isle of Anglesey.

 

Caernarfon Airport is 4.5 miles (7.2 km) to the southwest, and offers pleasure flights and an aviation museum.

 

The Aber Swing Bridge is a pedestrian swing bridge that crosses over the Afon Seiont to connect pedestrians from the foreshore to the Watergate entrance in the centre of Caernarfon by the Caernarfon Castle.

 

There are four primary schools in Caernarfon, Ysgol yr Hendre being the largest. The others are Ysgol y Gelli, Ysgol Santes Helen and Ysgol Maesincla. Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen is the single secondary school serving Caernarfon and the surrounding areas and currently has between 900 and 1000 pupils from ages 11 to 18. Ysgol Pendalar is a school for children with special needs. Coleg Menai is a further education college for adult learners.

 

Notable people

Lewis Jones, 1898

Saint Elen, late 4th-century founder of churches in Wales.

Edward II of England (1284–1327), King of England from 1307 to 1327.

Morris Williams (1809–1874), clergyman and writer, known by his bardic name Nicander

William Henry Preece (1834–1913), an electrical engineer and inventor.

Lewis Jones (1837-1904), one of the founders of the Welsh settlement in Patagonia.

David Lloyd George (1863–1945), Prime Minister of the UK from 1916 to 1922.

Gwilym Edwards (1881–1963), Presbyterian minister, writer and academic

Lionel Rees (1884–1955), aviator, flying ace and recipient of the Victoria Cross

Maureen Peters (1935–2008), an historical novelist

Dafydd Wigley (born 1943), politician, MP for Caernarfon from 1974 until 2001

Sian Eleri, BBC Radio 1 presenter

Sport

Bryan Orritt (1937–2014), a professional footballer with over 370 club caps

Barry Hughes (1937–2019), a professional footballer and manager, active primarily in the Netherlands

Wyn Davies (born 1942), a footballer with 611 club caps and 34 for Wales

Tom Walley (born 1945) footballer with over 410 club caps

Catrin Thomas (born 1964), ski mountaineer and mountain climber.

Waynne Phillips (born 1970), a professional footballer with over 470 club caps

Nathan Craig (born 1991), a professional footballer.

Osian Dwyfor Jones Wales Commonwealth Hammer Thrower

 

Caernarfon Town F.C. (Welsh: Clwb Pêl Droed Tref Caernarfon) is a Welsh football club based in the town, which currently plays in the Cymru Premier, the top level for football in Wales. The club is nicknamed "the Canaries" because of its yellow and green strip. Caernarfon Town plays at The Oval which has a capacity of 3000 people and 250 seated people.

 

Caernarfon hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1862, 1894, 1906, 1921, 1935, 1959 and 1979. Unofficial National Eisteddfod events were also held there in 1877 and 1880. Caernarfon also hosted the 30th annual Celtic Media Festival in March 2009. Cultural destinations include Galeri and Oriel Pendeitsh. Galeri is a creative enterprise centre that houses a gallery, a concert hall, a cinema, a number of companies, and a range of other creative and cultural spaces. Oriel Pendeitsh is a ground-floor exhibition space adjoining the Tourist Information Centre opposite Caernarfon Castle. The gallery has a varied and changing programme of exhibitions throughout the year.

 

The Caernarfon Food Festival takes place in the town's streets including The Slate Quay (Cei Llechi) and Castle Square (the Maes), which is pedestrianised for the event. Stalls are also located along the promenade next to the Menai Strait towards the marina and Doc Fictoria.

 

The festival was formed in 2015 as a result of public consultation within the town. The first festival was held in 2016. It is organised by the Caernarfon Food Festival Group which is made up of local volunteers who hold regular meetings to plan each festival. The festival has a number of support groups, including a content group, sponsorship group, technical group, communication group and volunteer group. These groups feed into the main group's monthly meetings. The festival logo was inspired by contributions from pupils at Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen and designed by Iestyn Lloyd of Cwmni Da. The festival has been supported by Welsh Government through the Food Festival Grant Scheme and was highly commended by Food Awards Wales in 2019, Car parking is provided at the Slate Quay (Cei Llechi) and at other car parks around the town while the Welsh Highland Railway provides transport from Porthmadog. Cycle access is by the cycle tracks along the disused railway lines which include Lôn Las Eifion, which runs from Porthmadog, by-passing Penygroes and on to Caernarfon, Lôn Las Menai from Y Felinheli to Caernarfon and Lôn Las Peris from Llanberis to Caernarfon.

 

Gwynedd is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The city of Bangor is the largest settlement, and the administrative centre is Caernarfon. The preserved county of Gwynedd, which is used for ceremonial purposes, includes the Isle of Anglesey.

 

Gwynedd is the second largest county in Wales but sparsely populated, with an area of 979 square miles (2,540 km2) and a population of 117,400. After Bangor (18,322), the largest settlements are Caernarfon (9,852), Bethesda (4,735), and Pwllheli (4,076). The county has the highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 64.4%, and is considered a heartland of the language.

 

The geography of Gwynedd is mountainous, with a long coastline to the west. Much of the county is covered by Snowdonia National Park (Eryri), which contains Wales's highest mountain, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa; 3,560 feet, 1,090 m). To the west, the Llŷn Peninsula is flatter and renowned for its scenic coastline, part of which is protected by the Llŷn AONB. Gwynedd also contains several of Wales's largest lakes and reservoirs, including the largest, Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid).

 

The area which is now the county has played a prominent part in the history of Wales. It formed part of the core of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the native Principality of Wales, which under the House of Aberffraw remained independent from the Kingdom of England until Edward I's conquest between 1277 and 1283. Edward built the castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, which form part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage Site. During the Industrial Revolution the slate industry rapidly developed; in the late nineteenth century the neighbouring Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarries were the largest in the world, and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is now a World Heritage Site. Gwynedd covers the majority of the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.

 

In the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant 'collection of tribes' – the same root as the Irish fine, meaning 'tribe'. Further, a connection is recognised between the name and the Irish Féni, an early ethnonym for the Irish themselves, related to fían, 'company of hunting and fighting men, company of warriors under a leader'. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə ('strive, hope, wish') is the Indo-European stem. The Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a memorial stone from c. AD 500 which reads: Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis ('Here lies Cantiorix, citizen of Gwynedd'). The name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974.

 

Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It covered the entirety of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, and all of Merionethshire apart from Edeirnion Rural District (which went to Clwyd); and also a few parishes of Denbighshire: Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan.

 

The county was divided into five districts: Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey.

 

The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the 1974 county (and the five districts) on 1 April 1996, and its area was divided: the Isle of Anglesey became an independent unitary authority, and Aberconwy (which included the former Denbighshire parishes) passed to the new Conwy County Borough. The remainder of the county was constituted as a principal area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire, as it covers most of the areas of those two historic counties. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996. The present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, but Arfon, Dwyfor and Meirionnydd remain as area committees.

 

The pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. In 2003, the boundary with Clwyd was adjusted to match the modern local government boundary, so that the preserved county now covers the two local government areas of Gwynedd and Anglesey. Conwy county borough is now entirely within Clwyd.

 

A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire forces. A further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. In one proposal for local government reform in Wales, Gwynedd had been proposed as a name for a local authority covering all of north Wales, but the scheme as enacted divided this area between Gwynedd and Clwyd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police.

 

The Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park fell entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd, and was run as a department of Gwynedd County Council. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, and the park's administration separated from the Gwynedd council. Gwynedd Council still appoints nine of the eighteen members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority; Conwy County Borough Council appoints three; and the Welsh Government appoints the remaining six.

 

There has been considerable inwards migration to Gwynedd, particularly from England. According to the 2021 census, 66.6% of residents had been born in Wales whilst 27.1% were born in England.

 

The county has a mixed economy. An important part of the economy is based on tourism: many visitors are attracted by the many beaches and the mountains. A significant part of the county lies within the Snowdonia National Park, which extends from the north coast down to the district of Meirionnydd in the south. But tourism provides seasonal employment and thus there is a shortage of jobs in the winter.

 

Agriculture is less important than in the past, especially in terms of the number of people who earn their living on the land, but it remains an important element of the economy.

 

The most important of the traditional industries is the slate industry, but these days only a small percentage of workers earn their living in the slate quarries.

 

Industries which have developed more recently include TV and sound studios: the record company Sain has its HQ in the county.

 

The education sector is also very important for the local economy, including Bangor University and Further Education colleges, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Coleg Menai, both now part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai.

 

The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.

Gwynedd has the highest proportion of people in Wales who can speak Welsh. According to the 2021 census, 64.4% of the population aged three and over stated that they could speak Welsh,[7] while 64.4% noted that they could speak Welsh in the 2011 census.

 

It is estimated that 83% of the county's Welsh-speakers are fluent, the highest percentage of all counties in Wales.[9] The age group with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd were those between ages 5–15, of whom 92.3% stated that they could speak Welsh in 2011.

 

The proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd declined between 1991 and 2001,[10] from 72.1% to 68.7%, even though the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales as a whole increased during that decade to 20.5%.

 

The Annual Population Survey estimated that as of March 2023, 77.0% of those in Gwynedd aged three years and above could speak Welsh.

 

Notable people

Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer; originated the Welsh Harlequin duck in Criccieth

Sir Dave Brailsford (born 1964), cycling coach; grew up in Deiniolen, near Caernarfon

Duffy (born 1984), singer, songwriter and actress; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Edward II of England (1284–1327), born in Caernarfon Castle

Elin Fflur (born 1984), singer-songwriter, TV and radio presenter; went to Bangor University

Bryn Fôn (born 1954), actor and singer-songwriter; born in Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire.

Wayne Hennessey (born 1987), football goalkeeper with 108 caps for Wales; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

John Jones (c. 1530 – 1598), a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest and martyr; born at Clynnog

Sir Love Jones-Parry, 1st Baronet (1832–1891), landowner and politician, co-founder of the Y Wladfa settlement in Patagonia

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), archaeologist, army officer and inspiration for Lawrence of Arabia, born in Tremadog

David Lloyd George (1863–1945), statesman and Prime Minister; lived in Llanystumdwy from infancy

Sasha (born 1969), disc jockey, born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Sir Bryn Terfel (born 1965), bass-baritone opera and concert singer from Pant Glas

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect of Portmeirion

Owain Fôn Williams, (born 1987), footballer with 443 club caps; born and raised in Penygroes, Gwynedd.

Hedd Wyn (1887–1917), poet from the village of Trawsfynydd; killed in WWI

Detail of one of the clerestorey windows on the south side of the nave, depicting saints and champions of the Church.

 

St Mary's at Fairford is justly famous, not only as a most beautiful building architecturally but for the survival of its complete set of late medieval stained glass, a unique survival in an English parish church. No other church has resisted the waves of iconoclasm unleashed by the Reformation and the English Civil War like Fairford has, and as a result we can experience a pre-Reformation iconographic scheme in glass in its entirety. At most churches one is lucky to find mere fragments of the original glazing and even one complete window is an exceptional survival, thus a full set of 28 of them here in a more or less intact state makes Fairford church uniquely precious.

 

The exterior already promises great things, this is a handsome late 15th century building entirely rebuilt in Perpendicular style and dedicated in 1497. The benefactor was lord of the manor John Tame, a wealthy wool merchant whose son Edmund later continued the family's legacy in donating the glass. The central tower is adorned with much carving including strange figures guarding the corners and a rather archaic looking relief of Christ on the western side. The nave is crowned by a fine clerestorey whilst the aisles below form a gallery of large windows that seem to embrace the entire building without structural interruption aside from the south porch and the chancel projecting at the east end. All around are pinnacles, battlements and gargoyles, the effect is very rich and imposing for a village church.

 

One enters through the fan-vaulted porch and is initially met by subdued lighting within that takes a moment to adjust to but can immediately appreciate the elegant arcades and the rich glowing colours of the windows. The interior is spacious but the view east is interrupted by the tower whose panelled walls and arches frame only a glimpse of the chancel beyond. The glass was inserted between 1500-1517 and shows marked Renaissance influence, being the work of Flemish glaziers (based in Southwark) under the direction of the King's glazier Barnard Flower. The quality is thus of the highest available and suggests the Tame family had connections at court to secure such glaziers.

 

Entering the nave one is immediately confronted with the largest and most famous window in the church, the west window with its glorious Last Judgement, best known for its lurid depiction of the horrors of Hell with exotic demons dragging the damned to their doom. Sadly the three windows in the west wall suffered serious storm damage in 1703 and the Last Judgement suffered further during an 1860 restoration that copied rather than restored the glass in its upper half. The nave clerestories contain an intriguing scheme further emphasising the battle of Good versus Evil with a gallery of saintly figures on the south side balanced by a 'rogue's gallery' of persecutors of the faith on the darker north side, above which are fabulous demonic figures leering from the traceries.

 

The aisle windows form further arrays of figures in canopies with the Evangelists and prophets on the north side and the Apostles and Doctors of the Church on the south. The more narrative windows are mainly located in the eastern half of the church, starting in the north chapel with an Old Testament themed window followed by more on the life of Mary and infancy of Christ. The subject matter is usually confined to one light or a pair of them, so multiple scenes can be portrayed within a single window. The scheme continues in the east window of the chancel with its scenes of the Passion of Christ in the lower register culminating in his crucifixion above, while a smaller window to the south shows his entombment and the harrowing of Hell. The cycle continues in the south chapel where the east window shows scenes of Christ's resurrection and transfiguration whilst two further windows relate further incidents culminating in Pentecost. The final window in the sequence however is of course the Last Judgement at the west end.

 

The glass has been greatly valued and protected over the centuries from the ravages of history, being removed for protection during the Civil War and World War II. The windows underwent a complete conservation between 1988-2010 by the Barley Studio of York which bravely restored legibility to the windows by sensitive releading and recreating missing pieces with new work (previously these had been filled with plain glass which drew the eye and disturbed the balance of light). The most dramatic intervention was the re-ordering of the westernmost windows of the nave aisles which had been partially filled with jumbled fragments following the storm damage of 1703 but have now been returned to something closer to their original state.

 

It is important here not to neglect the church's other features since the glass dominates its reputation so much. The chancel also retains its original late medieval woodwork with a fine set of delicate screens dividing it from the chapels either side along with a lovely set of stalls with carved misericords. The tomb of the founder John Tame and his wife can be seen on the north side of the sanctuary with their brasses atop a tomb chest. Throughout the church a fine series of carved angel corbels supports the old oak roofs.

 

Fairford church is a national treasure and shouldn't be missed by anyone with a love of stained glass and medieval art. It is normally kept open for visitors and deserves more of them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Church,_Fairford