View allAll Photos Tagged InterConnect
Sporting a new group logo though no InterConnect branding, 15811 departs Chapel St Leonards with a 1 for Skegness Interchange
YD63 UZW reaches the bottom of Lindum Road with an InterConnect 5 on its way into Lincoln. Usually the IC5 would be entering the city from the south, on Canwick Road, but the closure of Pelham Bridge means the route is currently entering and exiting the city from the East.
2.8.21
This Bergonia looked magnificent in the late afternoon light. Miss Beryl Bergonia was positively beaming.
You can walk, or you can take a boat (going about the lagoon requires a boat; there are 300+ footbridges interconnecting the main city). Here the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore with myriad boats moving about the foreground.
What's this? Another unscheduled upload... absolute anarchy! But I do bring more repaint news with Eclipse 21216 appearing in the new livery, and not only that but it's a Skeg motor appearing on the evening 56 single deck working (that due to the clocks going forward now happens when it's lighter) so an even rarer sight.
I actually had no idea this was around or had been repainted and ran into it purely by accident when I wasn't even intentionally bus spotting. Luckily the camera goes wherever I do, so came in handy for this shot of it leaving the bus station... although I didn't have the chance to set the camera clock right before this, so contrary to what the camera thinks, this was taken at 7pm.
The lighting is abysmal (and I thought I'd play it safe at the bus station rather than go for a different location with worse lighting or street clutter) but I'd say this is a reasonably special enough working to upload anyway. Not as good as the new liveried President picture, but still good enough (btw, for everyone who faved 18027, thanks for them all since it's the most I've ever got on a photo).
Of course I'm not going to ignore the fact this is another new vehicle type I've seen painted in 'Local' - plus the first that hasn't been a Transbus/Alexander Dennis type, and I have to say all the problems I've previously mentioned with this livery are still apparent. In fact, the additional length of this Eclipse accentuates the blank, white space in the centre of the vehicle, effectively taking the problem that already existed on the E200/300s and (literally) making it bigger. The main area that has been let down by the new livery however is the front, as the pleasing Wrightbus front end has had light blue plastered over every paintable surface, save for the centre panel which isn't even part of the vehicle's design... it merely exists as a necessity. This livery was in no way designed to fit on this bus, and it shows.
(I mean it doesn't fit on any bus, but it seriously doesn't fit on this)
29.3.21
The third Enviro 400 to receive the InterConnect livery with a North East pedigree is 19194. It has also been given lettering on the sides and front in the same typeface as the six Enviro 400MMCs allocated to Gainsborough. This bus follows the allocation of 19210 and 19196 to Skegness and is the vehicle that replaced East Lancs Vyking 16906.
A very surprise find on my arrival into the City was an InterConnect E400MMC dumped on the Sherwood Arrow stand.
As it turns out, Gainsborough Garage are currently helping out Worksop, seeing one of the two Retford diagrams covered by themselves using any of their spare vehicles. Many thanks to Lindsey Robinson for the info on this setup.
10897 sets off on the 1020 Sherwood Arrow to New Ollerton via White Post Farm, Bilsthorpe and Edwinstowe, continuing to Retford via Tuxford, Elkesley and Ordsall.
Last one of the Cope series. (for now ;-).
Thank you so much for all the comments and favs on the previous photos. Have a happy easter everyone!
Not easy to see it but Paxton's (or Nelson's) Tower is in the centre of the ring - but as it's so far away, not easy to make out - see next image for a closer view.
Paxton's Tower is a Neo-Gothic folly erected in honour of Lord Nelson. It is situated on a hilltop near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is a visitor attraction that can be combined with a visit to the nearby National Botanic Garden of Wales. Its hilltop location provides views over the Botanic Gardens and the Towy valley. The tower is under care of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty and is a grade II* listed building
The tower was built by Sir William Paxton (1745-1824), a Scottish-born but London-raised merchant and banker, whose forefathers were from Auchencrow by Paxton, Berwickshire. Paxton made his first fortune while with the HEIC in Calcutta with Charles Cockerell, brother of the architect. He purchased the Middleton Hall estate about 1790 and built the tower circa 1806-1809. Designed by the architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell (1754-1827), Middleton Hall was destroyed by fire in 1931.
Paxton may have been inspired to build the tower by Nelson's death at Trafalgar. Whilst in the office of mayor of Carmarthen, he may have met Nelson in person. Marble tablets dedicating the tower to Nelson were located above the entrances to the tower.
The tower is 36 feet high. The lower part of the tower is triangular in shape with a turret at each corner. On the first floor there is a banqueting room. Coloured glass from one of the windows can now be seen in the Carmarthen Museum at Abergwili. On the second floor there is a hexagonal prospect room surrounded by roof terraces. The windows to the prospect room are now bricked up. There is currently public access to the first floor banqueting room via stairs in one of the corner turrets.
The National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW) is situated near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The garden is both a visitor attraction and a centre for botanical research and conservation, and features the world's largest single-span glasshouse measuring 110 m (360 ft) long by 60 m (200 ft) wide.
NBGW seeks "to develop a viable world-class national botanic garden dedicated to the research and conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable utilisation, to lifelong learning and to the enjoyment of the visitor." NBGW is a Registered Charity reliant upon funding from visitors, friends, grants and gifts. From 2008–2009 onwards, the garden will be receiving £550,000 revenue support per annum from the Welsh Assembly Government. Significant start-up costs were shared with the UK Millennium Fund.
The Middleton family from Oswestry built a mansion here in the early 17th century. In 1789 Sir William Paxton bought the estate for £40,000 to create a water park. He used his great wealth to employ some of the finest creative minds of his day, including the eminent architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell, whom he commissioned to design and build a new Middleton Hall, turning the original one into a farm. The new Middleton Hall became ‘one of the most splendid mansions in South Wales’ which ‘far eclipsed the proudest of the Cambrian mansions in Asiatic pomp and splendour’.
Paxton created an ingenious water park. Water flowed around the estate via a system of interconnecting lakes, ponds and streams linked by a network of dams, water sluices, bridges and cascades. Spring water was stored in elevated reservoirs that fed into a lead cistern on the mansion’s roof, allowing Paxton’s residence to enjoy piped running water and the very latest luxury, water closets.
In 1806, Saxton engaged Pepys Cockerell again to design and then oversee the construction of Paxton's Tower on the estate, which was completed in 1809. A Neo-Gothic folly erected in honour of Lord Nelson, it is situated on a hilltop near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley. Today the folly is now owned by the National Trust.
By the time of Paxton's death in 1824, Middleton Hall estate covered some 2,650 acres (1,070 ha). The sale agents engaged that year described the esate thus in their catalogue:
“Richly ornamented by nature, and greatly improved by art. A beautiful tower erected to the memory of the noble hero the late Lord Nelson, forming a grand and prominent feature in the Property and a Land Mark in the County, opposite to which are the Ruins of Dryslwyn Castle, and the Grongar Hills, With the Tower winding to a great extent, presenting a scenery that may vie with any County. As to local amenities, the Roads are excellent, a good Neighborhood, and Country abounding with highly Picturesque Scenery”
Middleton Hall estate was sold to Jamaican-born West India merchant, Edward Hamlin Adams, for £54,700. Neither a gardener nor a lover of water features, while adding buildings that aided his love of country sports, the bath houses quickly fell into disrepair, and only the gardens immediately visible from the house were maintained.
In 1842 the estate passed into the hands of his eccentric son Edward, who immediately changed his name from Adams into the Welsh form Abadam. Not loving the country or gardens, according to his estate manager Thomas Cooke, Edward was a social nightmare. As his son predeceased him, on his death in 1875 the estate passed to his daughter, who had married into the local Hughes family. In 1919 the estate changed hands again when Major William J. H. Hughes sold it to Colonel William N. Jones.
In 1931, the mansion was completely gutted by fire, leaving only the walls standing, themselves covered in globules of moulten lead from the melted roof. After this the estate fell into decline, and 20 years later the walls of the main house were pulled down. The site was then bought by Carmarthenshire County Council, and leased to young farmers hoping to make their way into an agricultural career.
In 1978, interest had been captured by local walkers, who were keen to revive the splendour of what they could see around them. Setting up a fund raising scheme, the little money raised led to the rediscovery of a number of historical features.
The idea for a National Botanic Garden of Wales originated from the Welsh artist, William Wilkins, whose aunt had described to him the ruins of an elaborate water features she had discovered while walking in the local woods at Pont Felin Gat. Under the guidance of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, an application was made to the Millennium Commission to fund Britain’s first national botanic garden for 200 years.
Virtually on the site of Cockerell's mansion, the Great Glasshouse now forms the centrepiece. Much of the original water-scape has been restored, and extended by introducing cascades to the western approach to the Glasshouse. The extraordinary original view the east side of the mansion offered over the grounds has been restored, extending as originally to Paxton's Tower in the distance. Many experts have commented that this view gives visitors an ability to see and hence understand something of what the great landscape architects of the end of the eighteenth century understood by the word “Picturesque”.
The Garden was opened to the public for the first time on 24 May 2000, and was officially opened on 21 July by the Prince of Wales. In 2003, the garden ran into serious financial difficulties, and in 2004 it accepted a financial package from the Welsh Assembly Government, Carmarthenshire County Council and the Millennium Commission to secure its future.
The site extends to 568 acres (2.30 km2), and among the garden's rare and threatened plants is the whitebeam Sorbus leyana. 21st Century approaches to recycling and conservation have been used in the design of the centre: biomass recycling is used to provide heating for some of the facilities such as the visitor centre and glasshouses.
Placed virtually on the same site as Paxton's new but now demolished Middleton Hall, the Great Glasshouse, designed by Foster and Partners, is the largest structure of its kind in the world. The structure is 95 m (312 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, with a roof containing 785 panes of glass. Housing plants from several Mediterranean climate regions, the plants are divided into sections from Chile, Western Australia, South Africa, California, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean itself.
The Double Walled Garden has been rebuilt from the ruins, and is being developed to house a wide variety of plants, including a modern interpretation of a kitchen garden in one quarter, and ornamental beds to display the classification and evolution of all flowering plant families in the other three quarters.
In 2007, a new Tropical Glasshouse, designed by Welsh architect John Belle, was opened to continue the classification displays with tropical monocotyledons.
In 2015 a large collection of Welsh Apple varieties have been planted and a Welsh Pomona is forthcoming.
Arriving into Lincoln with a 56 is 27196, one of two fully branded InterConnect ADL Enviro 400s; the other ten got painted into base InterConnect livery and never had the branding applied, possibly because it was right as the new Stagecoach branding was unveiled in 2020, or possibly because they intended to but a pandemic got in the way.
The corner of the InterConnect logo clips into the purple area in an unsatisfying way.
Oxford Street, Lincoln, 24.9.22
Half 7 in the morning on 26.3.21 and Brylaine Optare Tempo YJ57 EHX rocks up at Lincoln bus station with an InterConnect 5 from Boston, and Solo SR YD63 UZV in tow as a students-only duplicate.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 15618, a 2010 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400, was seen in Long Sutton, out of service. New to Stagecoach Oxfordshire as a "Stagecoach Gold" vehicle.
YJ06 YSP putting its new headlights to use (I was going to say good use, but it's daylight) in Lincoln bus station on 21.6.21 as it sets off for Coningsby with an InterConnect 5.
embarcadero center, san francisco. crazy massive block of mid-century modern architecture, office building, plaza and a giant maze interconnecting pedestrian walkways.
Uh, apologies for the lighting on this one, it was the best i could do.... Earlier in the week, we got loaned a Scania Enviro 400, plenty of other Hull bus enthusiasts got a photo of it, and going by the photos, i got the worst- ah, i was going to go for it today, but looking at the tracker it's back in Skegness/Long Sutton- bummer!
Seen in Hull Interchange on the 8 "Bransholme Circular" is 15612, a 2010 Scania Enviro 400 new to Stagecoach Oxford in Stagecoach Gold livery for the S1 service, it transferred to Stagecoach East Midlands in 2019 with the addition of the Long Sutton depot.
Not much as I can say here. After that incident on the A158, This is the remains of her. Can't say anything else here.
no. FX12 BAA
As one of the showpiece main rooms of Billilla mansion when male guests came to call, the billiard room is one of the grandest rooms in the house. With an interconnecting door between it and the adjoining dining room, whilst the women retired to the feminine surrounds of the drawing room, the men could retreat to this strictly male preserve with their brandy and cigars and discuss business over a game or two of billiards.
Although part of the original 1878 house and featuring some High Victorian detailing, the billiard room did not escape the 1907 redecoration, and as a result it also features some very fine Art Nouveau detailing.
The Billilla billiards room is also one of the most intact rooms in the whole house, as it still features its original and ornate Victorian carpet and the original walnut Alcock and Company billiard table and scoreboard.
A very masculine oriented room, the walls feature Victorian era dark wood dado panelling about a third of the way up the walls. Above that the walls are simply painted, and even to this day they still feature marks where chalked cues once rested. Original ornate Victorian gasoliers that could be swiveled into position still jut from the walls above the dado panelling. With their original fluted glass shades remaining in place, the gasoliers still have functioning taps to increase or decrease the gas supply.
The room is heated by a large fireplace featuring an insert of beautiful tube lined Art Nouveau peacock feathers, once again quietly underlining the fact that this is a man's room.
The Victorian era carpet of the billiard room is still bright and in remarkably good condition for its age. It is thick and dyed in bright colours in a pattern designed to imitate ornate floor tiles.
The ceiling of the billiard room is decorated with ornate stylised foliate Art Nouveau patterns and mouldings of leaves. Whilst Art Nouveau is often referred to as a feminine style, the ceiling of the billiard room shows how when applied in a particular way it could also be very strong and masculine.
Suspended over the walnut Alcock and Company billiard table the gleaming polished brass foliate style gasolier has subsequently been electrified and features five of its six green glass shades.
One of the few more feminine touches to what is otherwise a very masculine room are the stained glass lunettes over the billiard room's three windows. In keeping with other original windows of the house, they feature a single flower, in this case a red tulip.
Alcock and Company Manufacturers was established in 1853 when Melbourne was still a very new city of less than twenty years old. they still manufacture billiard tables from their Malvern establishment today.
Built in High Victorian style in 1878 for successful gold miner Robert Wright, Billilla mansion was originally a thirteen room mansion erected on seven and a half acres of land.
When economic boom turned to bust in the 1880s, the property was purchased in 1888 by wealthy New South Wales pastoralist William Weatherly who named it Billilla after his land holdings and established a home there for his wife Jeannie and their children Violet, Gladys and Lionel.
The house was substantially altered by architect Walter Richmond Butler in 1907, extending the house beyond its original thirteen rooms and adding the Art Nouveau façade seen today.
After William Weatherly's death in 1914, his wife, who was much younger, remained living there until her own death in 1933. She bequeathed the property to her daughter, Violet, who maintained the home with reduced staff until her own death in 1972.
The property was purchased in 1973 by the Bayside Council who subsequently used Billilla as a historical house with guided tours, a wedding and events venue, a school and finally in 2009 as an artist's precinct in the property's outbuildings. Billilla is a beautiful heritage property retaining many of its original features thanks to its long private ownership still incorporating a stately formal garden and the magnificent historic house.
Billilla, at 26 Halifax Street, Brighton, is one of Melbourne’s few remaining significant homesteads, built on land which had originally been owned by Nicholas Were. The house has a mixture of architectural styles, featuring a Victorian design with Art Nouveau features and has exquisite formal gardens, which retain much of their original Nineteenth Century layout.
Billilla retains many original Victorian elements and a number of outbuildings still stand to the rear of the property including the butler’s quarters, dairy, meat house, stable garden store and coach house.
Billilla was opened to the general public as part of the Melbourne Open House weekend 2022.
Billilla was used as a backdrop in the 1980 Australian Channel 10 miniseries adaptation of Sumner Locke Elliott's "Water Under the Bridge". It was used at the Sydney harbourside home of Luigi, Honor and Carrie Mazzini.
Since last year, a number of the Stagecoach InterConnect services have been renumbered:
The 3 is now the 53
The 6 is now the 56
The 7 is now the 57
The 9 is now the 59
The 10 is now the 50
The 50 is now the, erm, 49!!
16940 pauses for traffic outside the Ship Inn at the end of Sea Lane with a 59 to Mablethorpe via Chapel St. Leonards, Mumby and Sutton-on-Sea, with guaranteed onward connection to Louth.
I hadn't even noticed this was out, and just happened across it while I was - coincidentally - looking for its sibling 18023. Gainsborough depot's 18024 is in Lincoln bus station on 23.1.23, preparing for a run through its home town and onward to Scunthorpe with a 100, in place of the usual E400 MMC.
InterConnect purple liveried Enviro 400 19196 arriving into Lincoln on 21.3.20, possibly on a 56 although the blind isn't visible in this photo - as far as I can tell the 56 is operated from Skegness depot.
I like how the light surrounds have been finished in black - having them black, silver or any colour that isn't the same as the panels around them seem to make Enviro 2/3/400s look a little bit more interesting, if older.
At the time I didn't notice but this has the new Stagecoach logo applied, even though the livery is in the 'MMC' style.
Stagecoach East Midlands 10897 leaves Scunthorpe Bus Station on 'InterConnect' Service 100 to Gainsborough and Lincoln. It is an Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC fitted with high-backed seats, new in November 2017.
There was an AEC on the 56, which isn't something that happens every day - albeit an Enviro 300 with AEC in the reg, but still a fairly rare event seeing as this is on loan from Hull to Skeg, and has a MAN chassis. As far as I know, there are two on loan, and that's both of them I've now spotted in Lincoln on the 56.
Seen in the bus station, alongside a similarly aged all-ADL variant of the E300, 24192 departs with an InterConnect 56 to Skegness via Horncastle. One window half way down the side is greyer/more tinted than the others for some reason.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 15810, a 2012 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400, was seen at the Long Sutton outbase, out of service. New to Stagecoach Lincolnshire in 2012 for the InterConnect 6 service that operated between Skegness and Lincoln, it is now numbered the 56.