Look! I'm back. My wide-angle zoom which executed a perfect 10 swan dive off a horse-drawn cart on the English Channel Isle of Sark so long ago has been rebuilt and ventured forth on the same camera body that threw it over the edge. We are just going for a little walk through some unassigned time.

 

Time was when this was a road; the perfectly useful Alinga Street. There were low row shops on either side. You can see the vestiges of some; there on the right. Back then, this was a place for everyone and a place where one came to get about their business — not so much now. Nor is it a street. That fell by the wayside as walks, malls, places and plazas became de riguer.

 

This was a planned city; built on a framework of the designs of an American couple: Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. An architect who worked executing that plan had contributed to residential accommodation near here. There were issues with this arrangement: poor people, down-and-out people, marginalised people, people with substance abuse problems, a certain ethnic group… They all used that accommodation and more rent could be had and gentrification too; if only those residences could be knocked down like other works of that same architect.

 

Mission accomplished! Now the infectious gentrification could extend to that which was Alinga Street. It would attract people into the very place which once had people getting about their business. Only it didn't! Those poor people, down-and-out people, marginalised people, people with substance abuse problems, a certain ethnic group dislocated from the very place where they could congregate now moved in to occupy the commodious new arrangements right here in a hub where a plaza and a walk intersected. Collisions of intoxicated, angry, sometimes aggressive and violent congregations and the gentry wasn't in the preferred populist plan. This was problematic.

 

Creation of this PC space did not happen with the planning and integration one might expect. Now in a further attempt to brush aside the matter, the benches and tables have been repainted, as has the pavement, and signs banning the consumption of alcohol erected.

 

Note the colour schemes. They beg for inclusivity! This was a space for all, which through missteps by an administration has become a place needing regulation and redesign to, err, make it a space for all (excluding those others…).

 

Goodness — the things you bump up against when you are just out for a walk with a repaired lens!

  

Dharamshala (also Dharamsala) is a city and a municipal council in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is the district headquarters. It was formerly known as Bhagsu. The Dalai Lama's residence in McLeodGanj and the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government in exile) are in Dharamshala. Dharamshala is 18 kilometres from Kangra.

 

DESCRIPTION

Dharamshala is a city in the upper reaches of the Kangra Valley and is surrounded by dense coniferous forest consisting mainly of stately Deodar cedar trees. The suburbs include McLeodGanj, Bhagsunath, Dharamkot, Naddi, ForsythGanj, Kotwali Bazaar (the main market), Kaccheri Adda (government offices such as the court, police, post, etc.), Dari, Ramnagar, Sidhpur, and Sidhbari (where the Karmapa is based).

 

The village of McLeodGanj, lying in the upper reaches, is known worldwide for the presence of the Dalai Lama. On 29 April 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) established the Tibetan exile administration in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie. In May 1960, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) was moved to Dharamshala.

 

Dharamshala is the centre of the Tibetan exile world in India. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising there was an influx of Tibetan refugees who followed the 14th Dalai Lama. His presence and the Tibetan population has made Dharamshala a popular destination for Indian and foreign tourists, including students studying Tibet.

 

One of the main attractions of Dharamshala is Triund hill. Jewel of Dharamshala, Triund is one day trek at the upper reaches of McLeodGanj, about 9 km from McLeodGanj.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Dharamshala (Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashaalaa; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a Hindi word (derived from Sanskrit) that is a compound of dharma (धर्म) and shālā (शाला). A loose translation into English would be 'spiritual dwelling' or, more loosely, 'sanctuary'. Rendering a precise literal translation into English is problematic due to the vast and conceptually rich semantic field of the word dharma and the cultural aspect of India.

 

In common Hindi usage, the word dharamshala refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. Traditionally, such dharamshalas (pilgrims' rest houses) were commonly constructed near pilgrimage destinations (often in remote areas) to give visitors a place to sleep for the night. When the first permanent settlement was created in the place now called Dharamshala, there was one such pilgrims' rest house on the site, and the settlement took its name from that dharamshala.

 

HISTORY

BEFORE THE RAJ

From the earliest times until the British Raj, Dharamshala and its surrounding area was ruled by the Katoch Dynasty of Kangra. The Katoch Dynasty is said to be the oldest serving Royal Family in the world. The Royal Family still keeps a residence in Dharamshala, known as 'Clouds End Villa'.

 

The indigenous people of the Dharamshala area (and the surrounding region) are the Gaddis, a predominantly Hindu group who traditionally lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic (transhumant) lifestyle. Due to the lack of permanent settlements in the area, some Gaddis lost their seasonal pastures and farmland when the British and the Gurkhas arrived to settle.

 

SETTLESMENT BY THE BRITISH AND THE GURKHAS

In 1848, the area now known as Dharamshala was annexed by the British.

 

"Dharamsāla lies on a spur of the Dhaola Dhār, 16 miles north-east of Kāngra, in the midst of wild and picturesque scenery. It originally formed a subsidiary cantonment for the troops stationed at Kāngra, and was first occupied as a station in 1849, when a site was required for a cantonment to accommodate a Native regiment which was being raised in the District. A site was found upon the slopes of the Dhaola Dhār, in a plot of waste land, upon which stood an old Hindu resthouse, or dharmsāla, whence the name adopted for the new cantonment. The civil authorities, following the example of the regimental officers, and attracted by the advantages of climate and scenery, built themselves houses in the neighbourhood of the cantonment; and in 1855 the new station was formally recognised as the head-quarters of the [Kāngra] District."

 

In 1860, the 66th Gurkha Light Infantry was moved from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh to Dharamshala, which was at first made a subsidiary cantonment. An ideal position for the new base was found on the slopes of the Dhauladhar Hills, near the site of a Hindu sanctuary, or Dharamshala, hence the name of the town. The Battalion was later renamed the historic 1st Gurkha Rifles, this was the beginning of the legend of the Gurkhas, also known as the 'Bravest of the Brave'. Consequently, fourteen Gurkha platoon villages grew from this settlement, and exist to this day, namely Dari, Ramnagar, Shyamnagar, Dal, Totarani, Khanyara, Sadher, Chaandmaari, Sallagarhi, Sidhbari, Yol, and so on. The Gurkhas worshipped at the ancient Shiva temple of Bhagsunag. The Gurkhas referred to Dharamshala as 'Bhagsu' and referred to themselves as Bhagsuwalas.

 

The 21st Gurkha Regiment from Dharamshala performed heroic feats during World War I and the North West Frontier Province campaigns. The Gurkha cantonment then reached its zenith during World War II, when battalions from Dharamshala made history. Many place names in the town still retain their former cantonment terminologies: Depot Bazaar, Pensioners' Lines, Tirah Lines (named after the 19th century Tirah Campaign), Bharatpore Lines (named after the 1826 Battle of Bharatpore).

 

The second Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India died here (at the 1st Gurkha Rifles Officers' Mess) in 1863 and is buried in the cemetery of St. John in the Wilderness, a small Anglican church distinguished by its stained-glass windows. Dharamshala became a popular hill station for the British working in or near Delhi, offering a cool respite during the hot summer months.

 

"Before the earthquake of 1905, the upper part of the station, which rises to a height of 2,168 metres, contained the European houses, the station church, and the officers' mess and lines of the 1st Gurkhas, together with the public gardens, post office, and two bazars, the Forsythganj and McLeodganj. The public offices, a bazar, and a few European houses made up the lower station, as low as 1,372 metres. The 1st battalion of the 1st Gurkhas used to be stationed here, but was moved to the upper station in 1894-5.... The public gardens, which were, before the earthquake, laid out with much taste in lawns and terraces, contained a valuable collection of indigenous and imported trees and shrubs, and were overlooked by the Assembly Rooms, a handsome building comprising a public hall, a library and reading-room and a billiard-room. The church was beautifully situated in a recess of the mountain."

 

In 1905, the Kangra valley suffered a major earthquake. On April 4 of that year, the earth shook, demolishing much of the cantonment and the neighbouring city of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh as well as the Bhagsunag temple. Altogether, the 1905 Kangra earthquake killed 20,000 people. "1,625 persons perished at Dharamsāla alone, including 15 Europeans and 112 of the Gurkha garrison."

 

The Gurkhas rebuilt the town along with the temple, which today is acknowledged as the 1st Gurkha Rifles' heritage. The British had planned to make Dharamshala the summer capital of India, but moved to Shimla after the disaster.

 

Not only did the Gurkhas of Dharmshala make a major contribution to India's defence, many were freedom fighters for the Indian National Army, which had been founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indian National Army Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gurkha from the village of Khanyara, composed some of India's most popular and stirring patriotic songs, including "Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja". He is acknowledged so by the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata. The important contribution of the noted Gurkha social commentator, the late Master Mitrasen Thapa, from the village of Totarani, has been acknowledged by the Himachal Pradesh government. Recently, a park dedicated to the memory of the late Brigadier Sher Jung Thapa, MVC, the 'Hero of Skardu', has been opened alongside the road between Lower and Upper Dharamshala.

 

ESTABLISHMENT OF TIBETAN EXILE COMMUNITY

The Tibetan settlement of Dharamshala began in 1959, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet and the Prime Minister of India allowed him and his followers to settle in McLeodGanj (in Upper Dharmshala), a former colonial British summer picnic spot. There they established the "government-in-exile" in 1960. Dharamshala had been connected with Hinduism and Buddhism for a long time, many monasteries having been established there in the past, by Tibetan immigrants in the 19th century. In 1970, The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives which houses over 80,000 manuscripts and other important resources related to Tibetan history, politics and culture. It is considered one of the most important institutions for Tibetology in the world, the new director is Geshe Lahkdor, the old translator of H.H. the Dalai Lama.

 

Several thousand Tibetan exiles have now settled in the area, and most live in and around McLeodGanj in Upper Dharamshala, where they have built monasteries, temples and schools. McLeodGanj is sometimes known as 'Little Lhasa", after the Tibetan capital city, or 'Dhasa' (a compound of 'Dharamshala' and 'Lhasa'). It has become an important tourist destination with many hotels and restaurants, leading to growth in tourism and commerce.

 

Dharamshala is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh. The Legislative Assembly is at Sidhbari, near the Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram, and the winter sessions of the Government are held there.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Dharamshala has an average elevation of 1457 metres, covering an area of almost 8.51 km².

 

Dharamsala is located in the Kangra Valley, in the shadow of the Dhauladhar mountains.

 

The city is divided into two distinct sections. Kotwali Bazaar and the surrounding markets are referred to as "Lower Dharamshala" or just "Dharamshala." Further up the mountain is McLeodGanj separated in between by the village of Ganchen Kyishong, the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. A steep, narrow road connects McLeodGanj from Dharamshala and is only accessible to taxis and small cars, while a longer road winds around the valley for use by buses and trucks. McLeodGanj is surrounded by pine, Himalayan oak, and rhododendron.

 

The main crops grown in the valleys below are rice, wheat and tea.

 

CONNECTIONS

Dharamshala town is reached by Gaggal Airport, (IATA: DHM, ICAO: VIGG), about 15 km to the town's south and about 10 km north of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town. To reach Dharamshala by train, one has to reach Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town by Kangra Valley Railway line from Pathankot 94 km away and then take a bus or a taxi.

 

Pathankot is a broad gauge railway head. There is another railway line from Pathankot to Jogindernagar, a part of the Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh, which is a narrow-gauge line. The nearest station to Dharamshala on this line is Chamunda Marg, half an hour away, where a Shaktipitha is; the town is well connected by road to other parts of the country.

 

Buses of all classes (deluxe, air-conditioned, and regular) drive daily between Dharamshala and major cities such as Chandigarh, Delhi, and Shimla. Several buses each night connect McLeodGanj with Majnu Ka Tila, the Tibetan settlement in Delhi.

 

CLIMATE

Dharamshala has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Cwa). Summer starts in early April, peaks in early June (when temperatures can reach 36 °C) and last till mid-June. From July to mid-September is the monsoon season when up to 3000 mm of rainfall can be experienced, making Dharamshala one of the wettest places in the state. Autumn is mild and lasts from October to the end of November.

 

Autumn temperatures average around 16–17 °C. Winter starts in December and continues until late February. Snow and sleet are common during the winter in upper Dharamshala (including McLeodganj, Bhagsu Nag and Naddi). Lower Dharamshala receives little solid precipitation except hail. The snowfall of January 7, 2012 was an exception. It was caused by deep low pressure entering the Kangra district. Winter is followed by a short, pleasant spring until April. Historically, the Dhauladhar mountains used to remain snow-covered all year long, however, in recent years they have been losing their snow blanket during dry spells.

 

The best times to visit are the autumn and spring months.

 

TREKKING

Dharamshala is a starting point to a number of trekking trails that especially lead trekkers across Dhauladhar into the upper Ravi Valley and Chamba district. En route, you cross through forests of deodar, pine, oak and rhododendron, and pass streams and rivers and wind along vertiginous cliff tracks, and the occasional lake waterfall and glacier.

 

A 2-km amble takes one to Bhagsu, and then a further 3-km walk will lead the trekkers to Dharamkot. If one wishes to go on a longer walk then he/she can trek 8-km to Triund. The snow line of Ilaqa Got is just a 5-km walk.

 

Other trekking trails that lead you to Chamba from Dharamshala are:

 

Toral Pass (4575m) which begins from Tang Narwana (1150m) that is nearly 10 km from Dharamshala

Across Bhimghasutri Pass (4580m) via near-vertical rocky ascents, steep cliffs and dangerous gorges. This is a highly difficult level trek and takes around six days to complete.

Dharamshala—Bleni Pass (3710m) – Dunali. Compared to other trekking trails, this one is much easier and takes around four or five-days to complete. The trek leads you through alpine pastures, woods, and streams, before ending at Dunali, on the Chamba road.

 

Dharamshala is an ideal destination for rock climbing enthusiasts. One can go rock climbing over the ridges of the Dhauladhar range.

 

Kareri lake (near kareri village) is also a famous trekking destination for travellers.

 

PLACES OF ATTRACTION

Naam Art Gallery The exhibition in ‘NAAM ART GALLERY’ exhibits paintings by Elsbeth Buschmann - watercolours and acrylics - and oil paintings by Alfred W. Hallett. Elsbeth Buschmann, is a professional painter from Germany, having studied painting in London and Paris . She lived in many countries where she held exhibitions, especially in the USA where she received various awards. Her paintings are in private collections in Germany, USA, Scotland, India and Switzerland. In India she held solo exhibitions at AIFAX, New Delhi and TAG, the Art Gallery of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. She also took part in ‘The Himalayan National Exhibition of Art’ and was awarded. Open 10am to 7.00pm (Monday Closed) Mobile 098160-43708

 

Masrur (or Masroor): The major attraction of this place is the fifteen exquisitely carved monolithic rock temples dating back to the 8th century. The carvings of these temples are similar to Kailash temple at Ellora. In the sanctum of the main temple, one can find images of Lord Ram, and the Goddesses Sita and Lakshmi. Masrur is 40 km south of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh at 32°4′22″N 76°8′14″E. Template: Jama Masjid, Kotwali Bazar, Dharamshala.

 

Bhagsu Waterfall: This waterfall is in Bhagsu, 2 km from McLeodGanj. It lies behind the Bhagsunag Temple. During Monsoon, the fall turns into a 30 feet cascade.

 

Bhagsunag Temple: Temple of god Shiva situated around 2 km from McLeodGanj Bazaar. Constructed by 1 GR by around 1800 century and then worshipped majorly by 14 Gukha platoon villages in Dharamshala. Very next to Bhagsunag temple is a water fall, one of the major tourist attraction spot in Dharamshala.

 

Kangra Museum: Situated close to the bus stand, Kangra Art Museum is a unique museum displaying the artifacts of Tibetan and Buddhist cultures. This is a treasure of Kangra valley’s cultural past, crafts, arts and other ancient artifacts. Some of the displayed items in the museum are dating back to the 5th century.

 

Kangra Museum encloses a gallery consisting of miniature paintings of Kangra’s rich past, pottery, rare coin memorabilia, sculptures and anthropological materials. It has a varied collection of tribal jewelry, embroidered costumes and wood carvings. A section dedicated to contemporary artworks adds the attraction to the museum.

 

Tourists can easily reach by bus or taxi and it will take 30 mins to one hour to see the museum. While visiting the museum, never miss to explore the Kotwali bazar.

 

Kunal Pathri Temple: This temple is dedicated to Goddess Kalpeshwari and is 3 km from the Kotwali Bazaar. It's believed that a part of Goddess Sati's skull fell here when Lord Shiva was carrying the charred body of the Goddess; hence the name of the temple.

 

Chamunda Temple: This temple is around 15 km from Dharamshala on the right bank of river Baner on the Mandi-Pathankot highway. According to mythology, Goddess Kali killed the demons Chand and Mund at this place.

 

Dal Lake: The Lake is spread in an area of 1 km and is bounded by rhododendrons, deodars, and junipers forest. Annually, a fair is held at the Kali Temple near the Lake. There is another temple close to the lake that is dedicated to sage Durvasa. Dal Lake is 2 km walk westwards from McLeodGanj bazaar.

 

Triund: Triund is nestled in the foothills of Dhauladhar and is around 17 km from Dharamshala. It's a trekking destination from McLeodGanj, and offers magnificent vistas of the mountains and valleys. The nightstays are in the hoods, small time caves, that local gaddis with their goat herds use as shelters from rains during the daytime.

 

Naddi: This scenic picnic spot is located 5 km northwest of McLeodGanj. Naddi offers a spectacular view of the Kangra valley. You can trek to Kareri Lake, Triund, and Guna Devi from here. It's becoming a popular destination for nature lovers.

 

Thaneek Pura or Thanik Pura is a hill station village (hamlet) in Chintpurni in the Una district of the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. It is near the Chintpurni Temple, which is a place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Sikhs. The area is surrounded by the western Himalayas in the north and east in the smaller Shiwalik (or Shivalik) range bordering the state of Punjab.

 

McLeodGanj is around 9 km from Dharamshala. This place is famous for its markets, where one can shop for handicraft items, eat Tibetan food and visit statue of Lord Buddha.

 

Sidhbari : A village located 6 km from Dharamshala near Yol Cantonment and a place of historical spiritual significance. Attractions around Sidhbari include the Kapila Muni Cave, Chinmaya Ashram, Gyuto monastery, Aganjar Mahadev Temple and the newly constructed State legislature. The agricultural hamlet of Rakkar nearby is an ideal base to explore the rest of the Kangra district and experience the traditional lifestyle and mud architecture of the Gaddi community.

 

Adi Shakti Temple, Naddi

Aghanjar Mahadev

Bhagsu waterfall

Bhagsunath

Sheela Chowk

Bir - Popular destination for ecotourism, meditation studies, volunteering, and paragliding at Billing.

Brajeshwari Devi Temple

Chamunda Devi Mandir

Chinmaya Tapovan

Chime Gyatsarling Monastery, just behind of Norbulingka Institute, upper Sidhpur. 6 km from Dharmshala and 14 km from Gagal airport.

Dal Lake

Dari

Gopalpur Zoo and tea gardens

Dehra Gopipur

Dharamkot (2100 m)

Guna Devi Mandir amidst dense forest

Historical fort in Old Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Adjoining the Fort is the Maharaja Sansar Chandra Museum, run by the Kangra Royal Family. The Museum provides audio guides for the fort and the museum.

Haripur Village (near Guler)

Pong Dam Lake

Indru Nag Temple

Kareri Lake

Khaniyara

Kunal Pathri

Lam Dal Lake

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

Masrur (rock temple)

Namgyal Monastery

Narghota

Norbulingka Institute

Nurpur

Sidhbari

Church of St. John in the Wilderness

Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts

Triund (2975 m), a popular day hike or overnight trek. There is a forest rest house for overnight stay.

Tatwani and Machhrial

Trilokpur

Chime Gyatseling Monastery (Guru Padmasambhava)

Near Norbulingka Tibetan Institute

Jama Masjid kotwalibazar Dharamshala

 

WIKIPEDIA

Peru searched for modern tanks in 1935 due to problematic relations to Equador, and the Czech LTL type seemed to be perfect. The main requirement was use in heights over 4000 meters above the sea level. The first tank was tested in Peru in 1938, 24 were delivered and used until the 80ies, after this they ended as memorials over the country.

The steam-ship SS Great Eastern, built in 1854-59, was conceived and designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) for the Eastern Steam Navigation Company (ESNC). It was built initially by John Scott Russell, until the project destroyed the working relationship between Scott Russell and Brunel and drove the former to bankruptcy, after which construction came under the direct supervision of Brunel. At 692ft in length, with a beam of 83ft, the ship was six times bigger than any vessel yet built and its construction was a considerable feat of engineering, which was documented in a remarkable series of photographs. Its launch, or attempted launch, was a major public spectacle, recorded extensively in the press and vividly described by Charles Dickens. However, the project was also extremely problematic and ultimately led not only to the bankrupting of Scott Russell in 1855, but brought on Brunel's early death. The ship never made the long sea journeys for which she was designed, although she went on to a successful career as a cable-layer, and was eventually broken up in the early 1890s. Remains of the purpose-built, and heavily engineered, launch ways are believed to survive, largely below-ground, on the northern banks of the Thames...

...The Great Eastern was built in Millwall, which by the mid-C19 was an important centre for iron ship building. The area had been dominated by the neighbouring establishments of the Scottish engineers William Fairbairn and David Napier. William Fairbairn's Millwall Iron Works was laid out in 1836-7. More than 100 ships were built here by Fairbairn, but by 1848 it was occupied by John Scott Russell and his partners Albert and Richard Alexander Robinson (later J Scott Russell & Company). They made various products but the best-known part of their business was ship-building. The Napier Yard operated until about 1852, when the firm relocated to the Clyde, and most of the site was then leased to John Scott Russell as the building site for the Great Eastern. Scott Russell was one of the leading exponents of the emerging science of naval architecture, and his works had a capability for iron fabrication second to none. There was no other place in the world which had the skills and resources necessary to build a vessel of this size. He and Brunel had worked together previously and, at least at the inception of the project, the two men had a high regard for one another.

The width of the Thames at Millwall, coupled with the size of the Great Eastern, meant that a traditional stern-first launch would be impossible; the only alternative was a sideways launch. Before construction could begin, the building site had to be strengthened to bear the weight of the hull and the necessary machinery. The building area was piled with 12 to 15 inch square oak piles, of 20 to 38ft in length, driven into the mud 5 foot apart, and left standing four foot proud; these were topped with a wooden platform. The exact details of how the ship would launch were not finalised until it was nearing completion, and the two launch ways which ran down from the construction platform to the river, were not constructed until 1857...

...After the construction of the Great Eastern, the site continued in various industrial uses into the late C20. In 1900 part of the building site for the ship, which included the area occupied by the launch ways, was levelled and a river wall built. When the site was cleared in the 1980s remains of part of the southern launch way were uncovered. These timbers underwent a preservative treatment and were left exposed for public display. Beyond the river wall some timbers, and the concrete that surrounds them, are visible for both launch ways when the tide is out. When the area occupied by the northern launch way was developed for housing in the 1990s, pile foundations were used to minimise the damage to underlying archaeology.

[Historic England]

 

Taken during 'Chimneys & Tunnels Along the River' by Dotmaker Tours.

A tiny jumping spider from the southern parts of Europe, this little creature is related to the colourful peacock spider of the tropics. This one was very content to sit on my left hand for a moment in mid-summer, which made handholding the SX40 (with a Raynox 150 attached) in my right hand quite problematic!

Dharamshala (also Dharamsala) is a city and a municipal council in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is the district headquarters. It was formerly known as Bhagsu. The Dalai Lama's residence in McLeodGanj and the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government in exile) are in Dharamshala. Dharamshala is 18 kilometres from Kangra.

 

DESCRIPTION

Dharamshala is a city in the upper reaches of the Kangra Valley and is surrounded by dense coniferous forest consisting mainly of stately Deodar cedar trees. The suburbs include McLeodGanj, Bhagsunath, Dharamkot, Naddi, ForsythGanj, Kotwali Bazaar (the main market), Kaccheri Adda (government offices such as the court, police, post, etc.), Dari, Ramnagar, Sidhpur, and Sidhbari (where the Karmapa is based).

 

The village of McLeodGanj, lying in the upper reaches, is known worldwide for the presence of the Dalai Lama. On 29 April 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) established the Tibetan exile administration in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie. In May 1960, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) was moved to Dharamshala.

 

Dharamshala is the centre of the Tibetan exile world in India. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising there was an influx of Tibetan refugees who followed the 14th Dalai Lama. His presence and the Tibetan population has made Dharamshala a popular destination for Indian and foreign tourists, including students studying Tibet.

 

One of the main attractions of Dharamshala is Triund hill. Jewel of Dharamshala, Triund is one day trek at the upper reaches of McLeodGanj, about 9 km from McLeodGanj.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Dharamshala (Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashaalaa; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a Hindi word (derived from Sanskrit) that is a compound of dharma (धर्म) and shālā (शाला). A loose translation into English would be 'spiritual dwelling' or, more loosely, 'sanctuary'. Rendering a precise literal translation into English is problematic due to the vast and conceptually rich semantic field of the word dharma[1] and the cultural aspect of India.

 

In common Hindi usage, the word dharamshala refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. Traditionally, such dharamshalas (pilgrims' rest houses) were commonly constructed near pilgrimage destinations (often in remote areas) to give visitors a place to sleep for the night. When the first permanent settlement was created in the place now called Dharamshala, there was one such pilgrims' rest house on the site, and the settlement took its name from that dharamshala.

 

HISTORY

BEFORE THE RAJ

From the earliest times until the British Raj, Dharamshala and its surrounding area was ruled by the Katoch Dynasty of Kangra. The Katoch Dynasty is said to be the oldest serving Royal Family in the world. The Royal Family still keeps a residence in Dharamshala, known as 'Clouds End Villa'.

 

The indigenous people of the Dharamshala area (and the surrounding region) are the Gaddis, a predominantly Hindu group who traditionally lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic (transhumant) lifestyle. Due to the lack of permanent settlements in the area, some Gaddis lost their seasonal pastures and farmland when the British and the Gurkhas arrived to settle.

 

In 1848, the area now known as Dharamshala was annexed by the British.

 

"Dharamsāla lies on a spur of the Dhaola Dhār, 16 miles north-east of Kāngra, in the midst of wild and picturesque scenery. It originally formed a subsidiary cantonment for the troops stationed at Kāngra, and was first occupied as a station in 1849, when a site was required for a cantonment to accommodate a Native regiment which was being raised in the District. A site was found upon the slopes of the Dhaola Dhār, in a plot of waste land, upon which stood an old Hindu resthouse, or dharmsāla, whence the name adopted for the new cantonment. The civil authorities, following the example of the regimental officers, and attracted by the advantages of climate and scenery, built themselves houses in the neighbourhood of the cantonment; and in 1855 the new station was formally recognised as the head-quarters of the [Kāngra] District."

 

In 1860, the 66th Gurkha Light Infantry was moved from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh to Dharamshala, which was at first made a subsidiary cantonment. An ideal position for the new base was found on the slopes of the Dhauladhar Hills, near the site of a Hindu sanctuary, or Dharamshala, hence the name of the town. The Battalion was later renamed the historic 1st Gurkha Rifles, this was the beginning of the legend of the Gurkhas, also known as the 'Bravest of the Brave'. Consequently, fourteen Gurkha platoon villages grew from this settlement, and exist to this day, namely Dari, Ramnagar, Shyamnagar, Dal, Totarani, Khanyara, Sadher, Chaandmaari, Sallagarhi, Sidhbari, Yol, and so on. The Gurkhas worshipped at the ancient Shiva temple of Bhagsunag. The Gurkhas referred to Dharamshala as 'Bhagsu' and referred to themselves as Bhagsuwalas.

 

The 21st Gurkha Regiment from Dharamshala performed heroic feats during World War I and the North West Frontier Province campaigns. The Gurkha cantonment then reached its zenith during World War II, when battalions from Dharamshala made history. Many place names in the town still retain their former cantonment terminologies: Depot Bazaar, Pensioners' Lines, Tirah Lines (named after the 19th century Tirah Campaign), Bharatpore Lines (named after the 1826 Battle of Bharatpore).

 

The second Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India died here (at the 1st Gurkha Rifles Officers' Mess) in 1863 and is buried in the cemetery of St. John in the Wilderness, a small Anglican church distinguished by its stained-glass windows. Dharamshala became a popular hill station for the British working in or near Delhi, offering a cool respite during the hot summer months.

 

"Before the earthquake of 1905, the upper part of the station, which rises to a height of 2,168 metres, contained the European houses, the station church, and the officers' mess and lines of the 1st Gurkhas, together with the public gardens, post office, and two bazars, the Forsythganj and McLeodganj. The public offices, a bazar, and a few European houses made up the lower station, as low as 1,372 metres. The 1st battalion of the 1st Gurkhas used to be stationed here, but was moved to the upper station in 1894-5.... The public gardens, which were, before the earthquake, laid out with much taste in lawns and terraces, contained a valuable collection of indigenous and imported trees and shrubs, and were overlooked by the Assembly Rooms, a handsome building comprising a public hall, a library and reading-room and a billiard-room. The church was beautifully situated in a recess of the mountain."

 

In 1905, the Kangra valley suffered a major earthquake. On April 4 of that year, the earth shook, demolishing much of the cantonment and the neighbouring city of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh as well as the Bhagsunag temple. Altogether, the 1905 Kangra earthquake killed 20,000 people. "1,625 persons perished at Dharamsāla alone, including 15 Europeans and 112 of the Gurkha garrison."."

 

The Gurkhas rebuilt the town along with the temple, which today is acknowledged as the 1st Gurkha Rifles' heritage. The British had planned to make Dharamshala the summer capital of India, but moved to Shimla after the disaster.

 

Not only did the Gurkhas of Dharmshala make a major contribution to India's defence, many were freedom fighters for the Indian National Army, which had been founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indian National Army Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gurkha from the village of Khanyara, composed some of India's most popular and stirring patriotic songs, including "Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja". He is acknowledged so by the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata. The important contribution of the noted Gurkha social commentator, the late Master Mitrasen Thapa, from the village of Totarani, has been acknowledged by the Himachal Pradesh government. Recently, a park dedicated to the memory of the late Brigadier Sher Jung Thapa, MVC, the 'Hero of Skardu', has been opened alongside the road between Lower and Upper Dharamshala.

 

ESTABLISHMENT OF TIBETAN EXILE COMMUNITY

The Tibetan settlement of Dharamshala began in 1959, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet and the Prime Minister of India allowed him and his followers to settle in McLeodGanj (in Upper Dharmshala), a former colonial British summer picnic spot. There they established the "government-in-exile" in 1960. Dharamshala had been connected with Hinduism and Buddhism for a long time, many monasteries having been established there in the past, by Tibetan immigrants in the 19th century.In 1970, The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives which houses over 80,000 manuscripts and other important resources related to Tibetan history, politics and culture. It is considered one of the most important institutions for Tibetology in the world, the new director is Geshe Lahkdor, the old translator of H.H. the Dalai Lama.

 

Several thousand Tibetan exiles have now settled in the area, and most live in and around McLeodGanj in Upper Dharamshala, where they have built monasteries, temples and schools. McLeodGanj is sometimes known as 'Little Lhasa", after the Tibetan capital city, or 'Dhasa' (a compound of 'Dharamshala' and 'Lhasa'). It has become an important tourist destination with many hotels and restaurants, leading to growth in tourism and commerce.

 

Dharamshala is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh. The Legislative Assembly is at Sidhbari, near the Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram, and the winter sessions of the Government are held there.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Dharamshala has an average elevation of 1457 metres, covering an area of almost 8.51 km².

 

Dharamsala is located in the Kangra Valley, in the shadow of the Dhauladhar mountains.

 

The city is divided into two distinct sections. Kotwali Bazaar and the surrounding markets are referred to as "Lower Dharamshala" or just "Dharamshala." Further up the mountain is McLeodGanj separated in between by the village of Ganchen Kyishong, the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. A steep, narrow road connects McLeodGanj from Dharamshala and is only accessible to taxis and small cars, while a longer road winds around the valley for use by buses and trucks. McLeodGanj is surrounded by pine, Himalayan oak, and rhododendron.

 

The main crops grown in the valleys below are rice, wheat and tea.

 

CONNECTIONS

Dharamshala town is reached by Gaggal Airport, (IATA: DHM, ICAO: VIGG), about 15 km to the town's south and about 10 km north of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town. To reach Dharamshala by train, one has to reach Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town by Kangra Valley Railway line from Pathankot 94 km away and then take a bus or a taxi.

 

Pathankot is a broad gauge railway head. There is another railway line from Pathankot to Jogindernagar, a part of the Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh, which is a narrow-gauge line. The nearest station to Dharamshala on this line is Chamunda Marg, half an hour away, where a Shaktipitha is; the town is well connected by road to other parts of the country.

 

Buses of all classes (deluxe, air-conditioned, and regular) drive daily between Dharamshala and major cities such as Chandigarh, Delhi, and Shimla. Several buses each night connect McLeodGanj with Majnu Ka Tila, the Tibetan settlement in Delhi.

 

CLIMATE

Dharamshala has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Cwa). Summer starts in early April, peaks in early June (when temperatures can reach 36 °C) and last till mid-June. From July to mid-September is the monsoon season when up to 3000 mm of rainfall can be experienced, making Dharamshala one of the wettest places in the state. Autumn is mild and lasts from October to the end of November.

 

Autumn temperatures average around 16–17 °C. Winter starts in December and continues until late February. Snow and sleet are common during the winter in upper Dharamshala (including McLeodganj, Bhagsu Nag and Naddi). Lower Dharamshala receives little solid precipitation except hail. The snowfall of January 7, 2012 was an exception. It was caused by deep low pressure entering the Kangra district. Winter is followed by a short, pleasant spring until April. Historically, the Dhauladhar mountains used to remain snow-covered all year long, however, in recent years they have been losing their snow blanket during dry spells.

 

The best times to visit are the autumn and spring months.

 

TREKKING

Dharamshala is a starting point to a number of trekking trails that especially lead trekkers across Dhauladhar into the upper Ravi Valley and Chamba district. En route, you cross through forests of deodar, pine, oak and rhododendron, and pass streams and rivers and wind along vertiginous cliff tracks, and the occasional lake waterfall and glacier.

 

A 2-km amble takes one to Bhagsu, and then a further 3-km walk will lead the trekkers to Dharamkot. If one wishes to go on a longer walk then he/she can trek 8-km to Triund. The snow line of Ilaqa Got is just a 5-km walk.

 

Other trekking trails that lead you to Chamba from Dharamshala are:

 

Toral Pass (4575m) which begins from Tang Narwana (1150m) that is nearly 10 km from Dharamshala

Across Bhimghasutri Pass (4580m) via near-vertical rocky ascents, steep cliffs and dangerous gorges. This is a highly difficult level trek and takes around six days to complete.

Dharamshala - Bleni Pass (3710m) – Dunali. Compared to other trekking trails, this one is much easier and takes around four or five-days to complete. The trek leads you through alpine pastures, woods, and streams, before ending at Dunali, on the Chamba road.

 

Dharamshala is an ideal destination for rock climbing enthusiasts. One can go rock climbing over the ridges of the Dhauladhar range.

 

Kareri Lake (near Kareri Village) is also a famous trekking destination for travellers.

 

PLACES OF ATTRACTION

Naam Art Gallery The exhibition in ‘NAAM ART GALLERY’ exhibits paintings by Elsbeth Buschmann - watercolours and acrylics - and oil paintings by Alfred W. Hallett. Elsbeth Buschmann, is a professional painter from Germany, having studied painting in London and Paris . She lived in many countries where she held exhibitions, especially in the USA where she received various awards. Her paintings are in private collections in Germany, USA, Scotland, India and Switzerland. In India she held solo exhibitions at AIFAX, New Delhi and TAG, the Art Gallery of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. She also took part in ‘The Himalayan National Exhibition of Art’ and was awarded. Open 10am to 7.00pm (Monday Closed)

 

Masrur (or Masroor): The major attraction of this place is the fifteen exquisitely carved monolithic rock temples dating back to the 8th century. The carvings of these temples are similar to Kailash temple at Ellora. In the sanctum of the main temple, one can find images of Lord Ram, and the Goddesses Sita and Lakshmi. Masrur is 40 km south of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh at 32°4′22″N 76°8′14″E. Template:Jama Masjid, Kotwali Bazar, Dharamshala.

 

Bhagsu Waterfall: This waterfall is in Bhagsu, 2 km from McLeodGanj. It lies behind the Bhagsunag Temple. During Monsoon, the fall turns into a 30 feet cascade.

 

Bhagsunag Temple: Temple of god Shiva situated around 2 km from McLeodGanj Bazaar. Constructed by 1 GR by around 1800 century and then worshipped majorly by 14 Gukha platoon villages in Dharamshala. Very next to Bhagsunag temple is a water fall, one of the major tourist attraction spot in Dharamshala.

 

Kangra Museum: Situated close to the bus stand, Kangra Art Museum is a unique museum displaying the artifacts of Tibetan and Buddhist cultures. This is a treasure of Kangra valley’s cultural past, crafts, arts and other ancient artifacts. Some of the displayed items in the museum are dating back to the 5th century.

 

Kangra Museum encloses a gallery consisting of miniature paintings of Kangra’s rich past, pottery, rare coin memorabilia, sculptures and anthropological materials. It has a varied collection of tribal jewelry, embroidered costumes and wood carvings. A section dedicated to contemporary artworks adds the attraction to the museum.

 

Tourists can easily reach by bus or taxi and it will take 30 mins to one hour to see the museum. While visiting the museum, never miss to explore the Kotwali bazar.

 

Kunal Pathri Temple: This temple is dedicated to Goddess Kalpeshwari and is 3 km from the Kotwali Bazaar. It's believed that a part of Goddess Sati's skull fell here when Lord Shiva was carrying the charred body of the Goddess; hence the name of the temple.

 

Chamunda Temple: This temple is around 15 km from Dharamshala on the right bank of river Baner on the Mandi-Pathankot highway. According to mythology, Goddess Kali killed the demons Chand and Mund at this place.

 

Dal Lake: The Lake is spread in an area of 1 km and is bounded by rhododendrons, deodars, and junipers forest. Annually, a fair is held at the Kali Temple near the Lake. There is another temple close to the lake that is dedicated to sage Durvasa. Dal Lake is 2 km walk westwards from McLeodGanj bazaar.

 

Triund: Triund is nestled in the foothills of Dhauladhar and is around 17 km from Dharamshala. It's a trekking destination from McLeodGanj, and offers magnificent vistas of the mountains and valleys. The nightstays are in the hoods, small time caves, that local gaddis with their goat herds use as shelters from rains during the daytime.

 

Naddi: This scenic picnic spot is located 5 km northwest of McLeodGanj. Naddi offers a spectacular view of the Kangra valley. You can trek to Kareri Lake, Triund, and Guna Devi from here. It's becoming a popular destination for nature lovers.

 

Thaneek Pura or Thanik Pura is a hill station village (hamlet) in Chintpurni in the Una district of the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. It is near the Chintpurni Temple, which is a place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Sikhs. The area is surrounded by the western Himalayas in the north and east in the smaller Shiwalik (or Shivalik) range bordering the state of Punjab.

 

McLeodGanj is around 9 km from Dharamshala. This place is famous for its markets, where one can shop for handicraft items, eat Tibetan food and visit statue of Lord Buddha.

 

Sidhbari : A village located 6 km from Dharamshala near Yol Cantonment and a place of historical spiritual significance. Attractions around Sidhbari include the Kapila Muni Cave, Chinmaya Ashram, Gyuto monastery, Aganjar Mahadev Temple and the newly constructed State legislature. The agricultural hamlet of Rakkar nearby is an ideal base to explore the rest of the Kangra district and experience the traditional lifestyle and mud architecture of the Gaddi community.

 

Adi Shakti Temple, Naddi

Aghanjar Mahadev

Bhagsu waterfall

Bhagsunath

Sheela Chowk

Bir - Popular destination for ecotourism, meditation studies, volunteering, and paragliding at Billing.

Brajeshwari Devi Temple

Chamunda Devi Mandir

Chinmaya Tapovan

Chime Gyatsarling Monastery, just behind of Norbulingka Institute, upper Sidhpur. 6 km from Dharmshala and 14 km from Gagal airport.

Dal Lake

Dari

Gopalpur Zoo and tea gardens

Dehra Gopipur

Dharamkot (2100 m)

Guna Devi Mandir amidst dense forest

Historical fort in Old Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Adjoining the Fort is the Maharaja Sansar Chandra Museum, run by the Kangra Royal Family. The Museum provides audio guides for the fort and the museum.

Haripur Village (near Guler)

Pong Dam Lake

Indru Nag Temple

Kareri Lake

Khaniyara

Kunal Pathri

Lam Dal Lake

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

Masrur (rock temple)

Namgyal Monastery

Narghota

Norbulingka Institute

Nurpur

Sidhbari

Church of St. John in the Wilderness

Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts

Triund (2975 m), a popular day hike or overnight trek. There is a forest rest house for overnight stay.

Tatwani and Machhrial

Trilokpur

Chime Gyatseling Monastery (Guru Padmasambhava)

Near Norbulingka Tibetan Institute

Jama Masjid kotwalibazar Dharamshala

 

WIKIPEDIA

Definitely looks more like a male juvie; the orange on the lower mandible is still problematic.... Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) South Belmont Pond, Kelowna, BC.

Dharamshala (also Dharamsala) is a city and a municipal council in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is the district headquarters. It was formerly known as Bhagsu. The Dalai Lama's residence in McLeodGanj and the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government in exile) are in Dharamshala. Dharamshala is 18 kilometres from Kangra.

 

DESCRIPTION

Dharamshala is a city in the upper reaches of the Kangra Valley and is surrounded by dense coniferous forest consisting mainly of stately Deodar cedar trees. The suburbs include McLeodGanj, Bhagsunath, Dharamkot, Naddi, ForsythGanj, Kotwali Bazaar (the main market), Kaccheri Adda (government offices such as the court, police, post, etc.), Dari, Ramnagar, Sidhpur, and Sidhbari (where the Karmapa is based).

 

The village of McLeodGanj, lying in the upper reaches, is known worldwide for the presence of the Dalai Lama. On 29 April 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) established the Tibetan exile administration in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie. In May 1960, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) was moved to Dharamshala.

 

Dharamshala is the centre of the Tibetan exile world in India. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising there was an influx of Tibetan refugees who followed the 14th Dalai Lama. His presence and the Tibetan population has made Dharamshala a popular destination for Indian and foreign tourists, including students studying Tibet.

 

One of the main attractions of Dharamshala is Triund hill. Jewel of Dharamshala, Triund is one day trek at the upper reaches of McLeodGanj, about 9 km from McLeodGanj.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Dharamshala (Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashaalaa; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a Hindi word (derived from Sanskrit) that is a compound of dharma (धर्म) and shālā (शाला). A loose translation into English would be 'spiritual dwelling' or, more loosely, 'sanctuary'. Rendering a precise literal translation into English is problematic due to the vast and conceptually rich semantic field of the word dharma and the cultural aspect of India.

 

In common Hindi usage, the word dharamshala refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. Traditionally, such dharamshalas (pilgrims' rest houses) were commonly constructed near pilgrimage destinations (often in remote areas) to give visitors a place to sleep for the night. When the first permanent settlement was created in the place now called Dharamshala, there was one such pilgrims' rest house on the site, and the settlement took its name from that dharamshala.

 

HISTORY

BEFORE THE RAJ

From the earliest times until the British Raj, Dharamshala and its surrounding area was ruled by the Katoch Dynasty of Kangra. The Katoch Dynasty is said to be the oldest serving Royal Family in the world. The Royal Family still keeps a residence in Dharamshala, known as 'Clouds End Villa'.

 

The indigenous people of the Dharamshala area (and the surrounding region) are the Gaddis, a predominantly Hindu group who traditionally lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic (transhumant) lifestyle. Due to the lack of permanent settlements in the area, some Gaddis lost their seasonal pastures and farmland when the British and the Gurkhas arrived to settle.

 

SETTLESMENT BY THE BRITISH AND THE GURKHAS

In 1848, the area now known as Dharamshala was annexed by the British.

 

"Dharamsāla lies on a spur of the Dhaola Dhār, 16 miles north-east of Kāngra, in the midst of wild and picturesque scenery. It originally formed a subsidiary cantonment for the troops stationed at Kāngra, and was first occupied as a station in 1849, when a site was required for a cantonment to accommodate a Native regiment which was being raised in the District. A site was found upon the slopes of the Dhaola Dhār, in a plot of waste land, upon which stood an old Hindu resthouse, or dharmsāla, whence the name adopted for the new cantonment. The civil authorities, following the example of the regimental officers, and attracted by the advantages of climate and scenery, built themselves houses in the neighbourhood of the cantonment; and in 1855 the new station was formally recognised as the head-quarters of the [Kāngra] District."

 

In 1860, the 66th Gurkha Light Infantry was moved from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh to Dharamshala, which was at first made a subsidiary cantonment. An ideal position for the new base was found on the slopes of the Dhauladhar Hills, near the site of a Hindu sanctuary, or Dharamshala, hence the name of the town. The Battalion was later renamed the historic 1st Gurkha Rifles, this was the beginning of the legend of the Gurkhas, also known as the 'Bravest of the Brave'. Consequently, fourteen Gurkha platoon villages grew from this settlement, and exist to this day, namely Dari, Ramnagar, Shyamnagar, Dal, Totarani, Khanyara, Sadher, Chaandmaari, Sallagarhi, Sidhbari, Yol, and so on. The Gurkhas worshipped at the ancient Shiva temple of Bhagsunag. The Gurkhas referred to Dharamshala as 'Bhagsu' and referred to themselves as Bhagsuwalas.

 

The 21st Gurkha Regiment from Dharamshala performed heroic feats during World War I and the North West Frontier Province campaigns. The Gurkha cantonment then reached its zenith during World War II, when battalions from Dharamshala made history. Many place names in the town still retain their former cantonment terminologies: Depot Bazaar, Pensioners' Lines, Tirah Lines (named after the 19th century Tirah Campaign), Bharatpore Lines (named after the 1826 Battle of Bharatpore).

 

The second Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India died here (at the 1st Gurkha Rifles Officers' Mess) in 1863 and is buried in the cemetery of St. John in the Wilderness, a small Anglican church distinguished by its stained-glass windows. Dharamshala became a popular hill station for the British working in or near Delhi, offering a cool respite during the hot summer months.

 

"Before the earthquake of 1905, the upper part of the station, which rises to a height of 2,168 metres, contained the European houses, the station church, and the officers' mess and lines of the 1st Gurkhas, together with the public gardens, post office, and two bazars, the Forsythganj and McLeodganj. The public offices, a bazar, and a few European houses made up the lower station, as low as 1,372 metres. The 1st battalion of the 1st Gurkhas used to be stationed here, but was moved to the upper station in 1894-5.... The public gardens, which were, before the earthquake, laid out with much taste in lawns and terraces, contained a valuable collection of indigenous and imported trees and shrubs, and were overlooked by the Assembly Rooms, a handsome building comprising a public hall, a library and reading-room and a billiard-room. The church was beautifully situated in a recess of the mountain."

 

In 1905, the Kangra valley suffered a major earthquake. On April 4 of that year, the earth shook, demolishing much of the cantonment and the neighbouring city of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh as well as the Bhagsunag temple. Altogether, the 1905 Kangra earthquake killed 20,000 people. "1,625 persons perished at Dharamsāla alone, including 15 Europeans and 112 of the Gurkha garrison."

 

The Gurkhas rebuilt the town along with the temple, which today is acknowledged as the 1st Gurkha Rifles' heritage. The British had planned to make Dharamshala the summer capital of India, but moved to Shimla after the disaster.

 

Not only did the Gurkhas of Dharmshala make a major contribution to India's defence, many were freedom fighters for the Indian National Army, which had been founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indian National Army Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gurkha from the village of Khanyara, composed some of India's most popular and stirring patriotic songs, including "Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja". He is acknowledged so by the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata. The important contribution of the noted Gurkha social commentator, the late Master Mitrasen Thapa, from the village of Totarani, has been acknowledged by the Himachal Pradesh government. Recently, a park dedicated to the memory of the late Brigadier Sher Jung Thapa, MVC, the 'Hero of Skardu', has been opened alongside the road between Lower and Upper Dharamshala.

 

ESTABLISHMENT OF TIBETAN EXILE COMMUNITY

The Tibetan settlement of Dharamshala began in 1959, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet and the Prime Minister of India allowed him and his followers to settle in McLeodGanj (in Upper Dharmshala), a former colonial British summer picnic spot. There they established the "government-in-exile" in 1960. Dharamshala had been connected with Hinduism and Buddhism for a long time, many monasteries having been established there in the past, by Tibetan immigrants in the 19th century. In 1970, The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives which houses over 80,000 manuscripts and other important resources related to Tibetan history, politics and culture. It is considered one of the most important institutions for Tibetology in the world, the new director is Geshe Lahkdor, the old translator of H.H. the Dalai Lama.

 

Several thousand Tibetan exiles have now settled in the area, and most live in and around McLeodGanj in Upper Dharamshala, where they have built monasteries, temples and schools. McLeodGanj is sometimes known as 'Little Lhasa", after the Tibetan capital city, or 'Dhasa' (a compound of 'Dharamshala' and 'Lhasa'). It has become an important tourist destination with many hotels and restaurants, leading to growth in tourism and commerce.

 

Dharamshala is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh. The Legislative Assembly is at Sidhbari, near the Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram, and the winter sessions of the Government are held there.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Dharamshala has an average elevation of 1457 metres, covering an area of almost 8.51 km².

 

Dharamsala is located in the Kangra Valley, in the shadow of the Dhauladhar mountains.

 

The city is divided into two distinct sections. Kotwali Bazaar and the surrounding markets are referred to as "Lower Dharamshala" or just "Dharamshala." Further up the mountain is McLeodGanj separated in between by the village of Ganchen Kyishong, the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. A steep, narrow road connects McLeodGanj from Dharamshala and is only accessible to taxis and small cars, while a longer road winds around the valley for use by buses and trucks. McLeodGanj is surrounded by pine, Himalayan oak, and rhododendron.

 

The main crops grown in the valleys below are rice, wheat and tea.

 

CONNECTIONS

Dharamshala town is reached by Gaggal Airport, (IATA: DHM, ICAO: VIGG), about 15 km to the town's south and about 10 km north of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town. To reach Dharamshala by train, one has to reach Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town by Kangra Valley Railway line from Pathankot 94 km away and then take a bus or a taxi.

 

Pathankot is a broad gauge railway head. There is another railway line from Pathankot to Jogindernagar, a part of the Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh, which is a narrow-gauge line. The nearest station to Dharamshala on this line is Chamunda Marg, half an hour away, where a Shaktipitha is; the town is well connected by road to other parts of the country.

 

Buses of all classes (deluxe, air-conditioned, and regular) drive daily between Dharamshala and major cities such as Chandigarh, Delhi, and Shimla. Several buses each night connect McLeodGanj with Majnu Ka Tila, the Tibetan settlement in Delhi.

 

CLIMATE

Dharamshala has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Cwa). Summer starts in early April, peaks in early June (when temperatures can reach 36 °C) and last till mid-June. From July to mid-September is the monsoon season when up to 3000 mm of rainfall can be experienced, making Dharamshala one of the wettest places in the state. Autumn is mild and lasts from October to the end of November.

 

Autumn temperatures average around 16–17 °C. Winter starts in December and continues until late February. Snow and sleet are common during the winter in upper Dharamshala (including McLeodganj, Bhagsu Nag and Naddi). Lower Dharamshala receives little solid precipitation except hail. The snowfall of January 7, 2012 was an exception. It was caused by deep low pressure entering the Kangra district. Winter is followed by a short, pleasant spring until April. Historically, the Dhauladhar mountains used to remain snow-covered all year long, however, in recent years they have been losing their snow blanket during dry spells.

 

The best times to visit are the autumn and spring months.

 

TREKKING

Dharamshala is a starting point to a number of trekking trails that especially lead trekkers across Dhauladhar into the upper Ravi Valley and Chamba district. En route, you cross through forests of deodar, pine, oak and rhododendron, and pass streams and rivers and wind along vertiginous cliff tracks, and the occasional lake waterfall and glacier.

 

A 2-km amble takes one to Bhagsu, and then a further 3-km walk will lead the trekkers to Dharamkot. If one wishes to go on a longer walk then he/she can trek 8-km to Triund. The snow line of Ilaqa Got is just a 5-km walk.

 

Other trekking trails that lead you to Chamba from Dharamshala are:

 

Toral Pass (4575m) which begins from Tang Narwana (1150m) that is nearly 10 km from Dharamshala

Across Bhimghasutri Pass (4580m) via near-vertical rocky ascents, steep cliffs and dangerous gorges. This is a highly difficult level trek and takes around six days to complete.

Dharamshala—Bleni Pass (3710m) – Dunali. Compared to other trekking trails, this one is much easier and takes around four or five-days to complete. The trek leads you through alpine pastures, woods, and streams, before ending at Dunali, on the Chamba road.

 

Dharamshala is an ideal destination for rock climbing enthusiasts. One can go rock climbing over the ridges of the Dhauladhar range.

 

Kareri lake (near kareri village) is also a famous trekking destination for travellers.

 

PLACES OF ATTRACTION

Naam Art Gallery The exhibition in ‘NAAM ART GALLERY’ exhibits paintings by Elsbeth Buschmann - watercolours and acrylics - and oil paintings by Alfred W. Hallett. Elsbeth Buschmann, is a professional painter from Germany, having studied painting in London and Paris . She lived in many countries where she held exhibitions, especially in the USA where she received various awards. Her paintings are in private collections in Germany, USA, Scotland, India and Switzerland. In India she held solo exhibitions at AIFAX, New Delhi and TAG, the Art Gallery of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. She also took part in ‘The Himalayan National Exhibition of Art’ and was awarded. Open 10am to 7.00pm (Monday Closed) Mobile 098160-43708

 

Masrur (or Masroor): The major attraction of this place is the fifteen exquisitely carved monolithic rock temples dating back to the 8th century. The carvings of these temples are similar to Kailash temple at Ellora. In the sanctum of the main temple, one can find images of Lord Ram, and the Goddesses Sita and Lakshmi. Masrur is 40 km south of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh at 32°4′22″N 76°8′14″E. Template: Jama Masjid, Kotwali Bazar, Dharamshala.

 

Bhagsu Waterfall: This waterfall is in Bhagsu, 2 km from McLeodGanj. It lies behind the Bhagsunag Temple. During Monsoon, the fall turns into a 30 feet cascade.

 

Bhagsunag Temple: Temple of god Shiva situated around 2 km from McLeodGanj Bazaar. Constructed by 1 GR by around 1800 century and then worshipped majorly by 14 Gukha platoon villages in Dharamshala. Very next to Bhagsunag temple is a water fall, one of the major tourist attraction spot in Dharamshala.

 

Kangra Museum: Situated close to the bus stand, Kangra Art Museum is a unique museum displaying the artifacts of Tibetan and Buddhist cultures. This is a treasure of Kangra valley’s cultural past, crafts, arts and other ancient artifacts. Some of the displayed items in the museum are dating back to the 5th century.

 

Kangra Museum encloses a gallery consisting of miniature paintings of Kangra’s rich past, pottery, rare coin memorabilia, sculptures and anthropological materials. It has a varied collection of tribal jewelry, embroidered costumes and wood carvings. A section dedicated to contemporary artworks adds the attraction to the museum.

 

Tourists can easily reach by bus or taxi and it will take 30 mins to one hour to see the museum. While visiting the museum, never miss to explore the Kotwali bazar.

 

Kunal Pathri Temple: This temple is dedicated to Goddess Kalpeshwari and is 3 km from the Kotwali Bazaar. It's believed that a part of Goddess Sati's skull fell here when Lord Shiva was carrying the charred body of the Goddess; hence the name of the temple.

 

Chamunda Temple: This temple is around 15 km from Dharamshala on the right bank of river Baner on the Mandi-Pathankot highway. According to mythology, Goddess Kali killed the demons Chand and Mund at this place.

 

Dal Lake: The Lake is spread in an area of 1 km and is bounded by rhododendrons, deodars, and junipers forest. Annually, a fair is held at the Kali Temple near the Lake. There is another temple close to the lake that is dedicated to sage Durvasa. Dal Lake is 2 km walk westwards from McLeodGanj bazaar.

 

Triund: Triund is nestled in the foothills of Dhauladhar and is around 17 km from Dharamshala. It's a trekking destination from McLeodGanj, and offers magnificent vistas of the mountains and valleys. The nightstays are in the hoods, small time caves, that local gaddis with their goat herds use as shelters from rains during the daytime.

 

Naddi: This scenic picnic spot is located 5 km northwest of McLeodGanj. Naddi offers a spectacular view of the Kangra valley. You can trek to Kareri Lake, Triund, and Guna Devi from here. It's becoming a popular destination for nature lovers.

 

Thaneek Pura or Thanik Pura is a hill station village (hamlet) in Chintpurni in the Una district of the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. It is near the Chintpurni Temple, which is a place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Sikhs. The area is surrounded by the western Himalayas in the north and east in the smaller Shiwalik (or Shivalik) range bordering the state of Punjab.

 

McLeodGanj is around 9 km from Dharamshala. This place is famous for its markets, where one can shop for handicraft items, eat Tibetan food and visit statue of Lord Buddha.

 

Sidhbari : A village located 6 km from Dharamshala near Yol Cantonment and a place of historical spiritual significance. Attractions around Sidhbari include the Kapila Muni Cave, Chinmaya Ashram, Gyuto monastery, Aganjar Mahadev Temple and the newly constructed State legislature. The agricultural hamlet of Rakkar nearby is an ideal base to explore the rest of the Kangra district and experience the traditional lifestyle and mud architecture of the Gaddi community.

 

Adi Shakti Temple, Naddi

Aghanjar Mahadev

Bhagsu waterfall

Bhagsunath

Sheela Chowk

Bir - Popular destination for ecotourism, meditation studies, volunteering, and paragliding at Billing.

Brajeshwari Devi Temple

Chamunda Devi Mandir

Chinmaya Tapovan

Chime Gyatsarling Monastery, just behind of Norbulingka Institute, upper Sidhpur. 6 km from Dharmshala and 14 km from Gagal airport.

Dal Lake

Dari

Gopalpur Zoo and tea gardens

Dehra Gopipur

Dharamkot (2100 m)

Guna Devi Mandir amidst dense forest

Historical fort in Old Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Adjoining the Fort is the Maharaja Sansar Chandra Museum, run by the Kangra Royal Family. The Museum provides audio guides for the fort and the museum.

Haripur Village (near Guler)

Pong Dam Lake

Indru Nag Temple

Kareri Lake

Khaniyara

Kunal Pathri

Lam Dal Lake

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

Masrur (rock temple)

Namgyal Monastery

Narghota

Norbulingka Institute

Nurpur

Sidhbari

Church of St. John in the Wilderness

Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts

Triund (2975 m), a popular day hike or overnight trek. There is a forest rest house for overnight stay.

Tatwani and Machhrial

Trilokpur

Chime Gyatseling Monastery (Guru Padmasambhava)

Near Norbulingka Tibetan Institute

Jama Masjid kotwalibazar Dharamshala

 

WIKIPEDIA

Universalis Cosmographia Secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii Alioru[m]que Lustrationes, St. Dié, 1507

 

Recognizing and Naming America

 

Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map grew out of an ambitious project in St. Dié, near Strasbourg, France, during the first decade of the sixteenth century, to document and update new geographic knowledge derived from the discoveries of the late fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth centuries. Waldseemüller’s large world map was the most exciting product of that research effort, and included data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages of 1501-1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller christened the new lands “America” in recognition of Vespucci ’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered as a result of the voyages of Columbus and other explorers in the late fifteenth century. This is the only known surviving copy of the first printed edition of the map, which, it is believed, consisted of 1,000 copies.

 

Waldseemüller’s map supported Vespucci’s revolutionary concept by portraying the New World as a separate continent, which until then was unknown to the Europeans. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world divided into only three parts—Europe, Asia, and Africa.

 

•Martin Waldseemüller (1470-1521)

•Universalis Cosmographia Secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii Alioru[m]que Lustrationes, [St. Dié], 1507

•One map on 12 sheets, made from original woodcut

•Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress

  

Exploring the Early Americas

 

Waldseemüller Maps

 

For more than three hundred years the only surviving copies of what are arguably two of the most important maps in the history of cartography, the 1507 and 1516 World Maps by Martin Waldseemüller (ca. 1470-ca. 1522), sat unknown on the shelves of a library in the castle of a prince. The owner was Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg, of Württenberg, Germany. The maps were rediscovered there in 1901 by the Jesuit historian Josef Fischer (1858-1944), who found them bound into a single portfolio, now known as the “Schöner Sammelband,” by the Nuremburg globe-maker and mathematician Johannes Schöner (1477–1547).

 

1507 World Map: Recognizing and Naming a New Continent

 

Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map grew out of an ambitious project in St. Dié, France, during the first decade of the sixteenth century. The objective was to document and update new geographic knowledge derived from the discoveries of the late fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth centuries. Waldseemüller’s large world map was the most exciting product of that research effort and included data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages of 1501-1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller christened the new lands “America” in recognition of Vespucci’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered as a result of the voyages of Columbus and other explorers in the late fifteenth century. This is the only known surviving copy of the 1,000 maps that are believed to have been printed.

 

Waldseemüller’s map represented a revolutionary new geography: it was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, separated from Asia, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world that was previously divided into only three parts—Europe, Asia, and Africa.

 

The existence of the Pacific Ocean and a western coastline for South America on the 1507 Waldseemüller map remains an unsolved mystery for scholars. In 1507 neither Balboa nor Magellan had reached the Pacific Ocean. How then did Waldseemüller know of the ocean’s existence and depict a continent whose coastline on the west borders the ocean?

  

The Impact

 

After the printing of the map it appears to have received little attention in cartographic circles even though it presented a radically new understanding of world geography based on the discoveries of Columbus and Vespucci. Waldseemüller himself recognized that the map was an important departure from previous cartographic views of the world and asked for the reader’s patience when looking at the map. In the large text block found in the lower right-hand corner of the map we find him saying: “This one request we have to make, that those who are inexperienced and unacquainted with cosmography shall not condemn all this before they have learned what will surely be clearer to them later on, when they have come to understand it.” Sadly, his radical new view of the world was noted by few references in contemporary geographic literature and, having been copied by only a few minor cartographers, it slipped into obscurity and disappeared.

 

Based on their reading of the Cosmographiae Introductio in the early and mid-nineteenth century, later scholars, such as Alexander von Humboldt and Marie d’Avezac-Macaya, speculated on the map’s existence, on its importance to the early history of the New World, and on its crucial role in the naming of America, all without ever having laid eyes on a copy of the map itself.

 

The map, which displays the name America for the first time on any map, also represents the continents of North and South America with a shape that is geometrically similar in form to the outlines of the continents as we recognize them today. The two aspects of the shape and the location of the New World on the map, separated as it is from Asia, are chronologically and chronometrically problematic in that in 1507, the map’s supposed creation date, neither Vasco Núñez de Balboa nor Ferdinand Magellan had reached the Pacific Ocean.

  

Waldseemüller Map

 

The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia (“Universal Cosmography”) is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name “America”. The name America is placed on what is now called South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci.

 

The map is drafted on a modification of Ptolemy’s second projection, expanded to accommodate the Americas and the high latitudes. A single copy of the map survives, presently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

 

Waldseemüller also created globe gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth. The wall map, and his globe gores of the same date, depict the American continents in two pieces. These depictions differ from the small inset map in the top border of the wall map, which shows the two American continents joined by an isthmus.

 

Wall Map

 

Description

 

The wall map consists of twelve sections printed from woodcuts measuring 18 by 24.5 inches (46 cm × 62 cm). Each section is one of four horizontally and three vertically, when assembled. The map uses a modified Ptolemaic map projection with curved meridians to depict the entire surface of the Earth. In the upper-mid part of the main map there is inset another, miniature world map representing to some extent an alternative view of the world.

 

Longitudes, which were difficult to determine at the time, are given in terms of degrees east from the Fortunate Islands (considered by Claudius Ptolemy as the westernmost known land) which Waldseemüller locates at the Canary Islands. The longitudes of eastern Asian places are too great. Latitudes, which were easy to determine, are also quite far off. For example, “Serraleona” (Sierra Leone, true latitude about 9°N) is placed south of the equator, and the Cape of Good Hope (true latitude 35°S) is placed at 50°S.

 

The full title of the map is Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes (The Universal Cosmography according to the Tradition of Ptolemy and the Discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci and others). One of the “others” was Christopher Columbus. The title signaled his intention to combine or harmonize in a unified cosmographic depiction the traditional Ptolemaic geography of Europe, Asia and Africa with the new geographical information provided by Amerigo Vespucci and his fellow discoverers of lands in the western hemisphere. He explained: “In designing the sheets of our world-map we have not followed Ptolemy in every respect, particularly as regards the new lands … We have therefore followed, on the flat map, Ptolemy, except for the new lands and some other things, but on the solid globe, which accompanies the flat map, the description of Amerigo that is appended hereto.”

 

Several earlier maps are believed to be sources, chiefly those based on the Geography (Ptolemy) and the Caveri planisphere and others similar to those of Henricus Martellus or Martin Behaim. The Caribbean and what appear to be Florida were depicted on two earlier charts, the Cantino map, smuggled from Portugal to Italy in 1502 showing details known in 1500, and the Caverio map, drawn circa 1503-1504 and showing the Gulf of Mexico.

 

While some maps after 1500 show, with ambiguity, an eastern coastline for Asia distinct from the Americas, the Waldseemüller map apparently indicates the existence of a new ocean between the trans-Atlantic regions of the Spanish discoveries and the Asia of Ptolemy and Marco Polo as exhibited on the 1492 Behaim globe. The first historical records of Europeans to set eyes on this ocean, the Pacific, are recorded as Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. That is five to six years after Waldseemüller made his map. In addition, the map apparently predicts the width of South America at certain latitudes to within 70 miles. However, as pointed out by E.G. Ravenstein, this is an illusory effect of the cordiform projection used by Waldseemüller, for when the map is laid out on a more familiar equirectangular projection and compared with others of the period also set out on that same projection there is little difference between them: this is particularly evident when the comparison is made with Johannes Schöner’s 1515 globe.

 

Apparently among most map-makers until that time, it was still erroneously believed that the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus, Vespucci, and others formed part of the Indies of Asia. Thus, some believe that it is impossible that Waldseemüller could have known about the Pacific, which is depicted on his map. The historian Peter Whitfield has theorized that Waldseemüller incorporated the ocean into his map because Vespucci’s accounts of the Americas, with their so-called “savage” peoples, could not be reconciled with contemporary knowledge of India, China, and the islands of Indies. Thus, in the view of Whitfield, Waldseemüller reasoned that the newly discovered lands could not be part of Asia, but must be separate from it, a leap of intuition that was later proved uncannily precise. An alternative explanation is that of George E. Nunn (see below).

 

Mundus Novus, a book attributed to Vespucci (who had himself explored the extensive eastern coast of South America), was widely published throughout Europe after 1504, including by Waldseemüller’s group in 1507. It had first introduced to Europeans the idea that this was a new continent and not Asia. It is theorized that this led to Waldseemüller’s separating the Americas from Asia, depicting the Pacific Ocean, and the use of the first name of Vespucci on his map.

 

An explanatory text, the Cosmographiae Introductio, widely believed to have been written by Waldseemüller’s colleague Matthias Ringmann, accompanied the map. It was said in Chapter IX of that text that the earth was now known to be divided into four parts, of which Europe, Asia and Africa, being contiguous with each other, were continents, while the fourth part, America, was “an island, inasmuch as it is found to be surrounded on all sides by the seas”.

 

The inscription on the top left corner of the map proclaims that the discovery of America by Columbus and Vespucci fulfilled a prophecy of the Roman poet, Virgil, made in the Aeneid (VI. 795-797), of a land to be found in the southern hemisphere, to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn:

 

Many have thought to be an invention what the famous Poet said, that “a land lies beyond the stars, beyond the paths of the year and the sun, where Atlas the heaven-bearer turns on his shoulder the axis of the world set with blazing stars”; but now, at last, it proves clearly to have been true. It is, in fact, the land discovered by the King of Castile’s captain, Columbus, and by Americus Vesputius, men of great and excellent talent, of which the greater part lies under the path of the year and sun, and between the tropics but extending nonetheless to about nineteen degrees beyond Capricorn toward the Antarctic pole beyond the paths of the year and the sun. Wherein, indeed, a greater amount of gold is to be found than of any other metal.

 

The “path” referred to is the ecliptic, which marks the sun’s yearly movement along the constellations of the zodiac, so that to go beyond it meant crossing the southernmost extent of the ecliptic, the Tropic of Capricorn. 19° beyond Capricorn is latitude 42° South, the southernmost extent of America shown on Waldseemüller’s map. The map legend shows how Waldseemüller strove to reconcile the new geographic information with the knowledge inherited from antiquity.

 

The most southerly feature named on the coast of America on the Waldseemüller map is Rio decananorum, the “River of the Cananoreans”. This was taken from Vespucci, who in 1501 during his voyage along this coast reached the port which he called Cananor (now Cananéia). Cananor was the port of Kannur in southern India, the farthest port reached in India during the 1500-1501 voyage of the Portuguese Pedro Álvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil, two of whose ships were encountered returning from India by Vespucci. This may be an indication Waldseemüller thought that the “River of the Cananoreans” could have actually been in the territory of Cananor in India and that America was, therefore, part of India.

 

The name for the northern land mass, Parias, is derived from a passage in the Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, in which, after several stops, the expedition arrives at a region that was “situated in the torrid zone directly under the parallel which describes the Tropic of Cancer. And this province is called by them [the inhabitants] Parias.” Parias was described by Waldseemüller’s follower, Johannes Schöner as: “The island of Parias, which is not a part or portion of the foregoing [America] but a large, special part of the fourth part of the world”, indicating uncertainty as to its situation.

 

PARIAS and AMERICA, corresponding to North and South America, are separated by a strait in the region of the present Panama on the main map but on the miniature map inset into the upper-mid part of the main map the isthmus joining the two is unbroken, apparently demonstrating Waldseemüller’s willingness to represent alternative solutions to a question yet unanswered.

 

The map shows the cities of Catigara (near longitude 180° and latitude 10°S) and Mallaqua (Malacca, near longitude 170° and latitude 20°S) on the western coast of the great peninsula that projects from the southeastern part of Asia, or INDIA MERIDIONALIS (Southern India) as Waldseemüller called it. This peninsula forms the eastern side of the SINUS MAGNUS (“Great Gulf”), the Gulf of Thailand. Amerigo Vespucci, writing of his 1499 voyage, said he had hoped to sail westward from Spain across the Western Ocean (the Atlantic) around the Cape of Cattigara mentioned by Ptolemy into the Sinus Magnus. Ptolemy understood Cattigara, or Kattigara, to be the most eastern port reached by shipping trading from the Graeco-Roman world to the lands of the Far East. Vespucci failed to find the Cape of Cattigara on his 1499 voyage: he sailed along the coast of Venezuela but not far enough to resolve the question of whether there was a sea passage beyond leading to Ptolemy’s Sinus Magnus. The object of his voyage of 1503-1504 was to reach the fabulous spice emporium of “Melaccha in India” (that is, Malacca, or Melaka, on the Malay Peninsula). He had learned of Malacca from one Guaspare (or Gaspard), a pilot with Pedro Álvares Cabral’s fleet on its voyage to India in 1500-1501, whom Vespucci had encountered in the Atlantic on his return from India in May 1501. Christopher Columbus, in his fourth and last voyage of 1502-1503, planned to follow the coast of Champa southward around the Cape of Cattigara and sail through the strait separating Cattigara from the New World, into the Sinus Magnus to Malacca. This was the route he understood Marco Polo to have gone from China to India in 1292 (although Malacca had not yet been founded in Polo’s time). Columbus anticipated that he would meet up with the expedition sent at the same time from Portugal to Malacca around the Cape of Good Hope under Vasco da Gama, and carried letters of credence from the Spanish monarchs to present to da Gama. The map therefore shows the two cities that were the initial destinations of Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus in their voyages that led to the unexpected discovery of a New World.

 

Just to the south of Mallaqua (Malacca) is the inscription: hic occisus est S. thomas (Here St. Thomas was killed), referring to the legend that Saint Thomas the Apostle went to India in 52 AD and was killed there in 72 AD. Waldseemüller had confused Malacca (Melaka) with Mylapore in India. The contemporary understanding of the nature of Columbus’ discoveries is demonstrated in the letter written to him by the Aragonese cosmographer and Royal counsellor, Jaume Ferrer, dated August 5, 1495, saying: “Divine and infallible Providence sent the great Thomas from the Occident into the Orient in order to declare in India our Holy and Catholic Law; and you, Sir, it has sent to this opposite part of the Orient by way of the Ponient [West] so that by the Divine Will you might arrive in the Orient, and in the farthest parts of India Superior in order that the descendants might hear that which their ancestors neglected concerning the teaching of Thomas … and very soon you will be by the Divine Grace in the Sinus Magnus, near which the glorious Thomas left his sacred body”.

 

History

 

At the time this wall map was drawn, Waldseemüller was working as part of the group of scholars of the Vosgean Gymnasium at Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in Lorraine, which in that time belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. The maps were accompanied by the book Cosmographiae Introductio produced by the Vosgean Gymnasium.

 

Of the one thousand copies that were printed, only one complete original copy is known to exist today. It was originally owned by Johannes Schöner (1477-1547), a Nuremberg astronomer, geographer, and cartographer. Its existence was unknown for a long time until its rediscovery in 1901 in the library of Prince Johannes zu Waldburg-Wolfegg in Schloss Wolfegg in Württemberg, Germany by the Jesuit historian and cartographer Joseph Fischer. It remained there until 2001 when the United States Library of Congress purchased it from Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee for ten million dollars.

 

Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Federal Republic of Germany symbolically turned over the Waldseemüller map on April 30, 2007, within the context of a formal ceremony at the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC. In her remarks, the chancellor stressed that the US contributions to the development of Germany in the postwar period tipped the scales in the decision to turn over the Waldseemüller map to the Library of Congress as a sign of transatlantic affinity and as an indication of the numerous German roots to the United States. Today another facsimile of the map is exhibited for the public by the House of Waldburg in their museum on Waldburg Castle in Upper Swabia.

 

Since 2007, to the celebration of the 500-year jubilee of the first edition, the original map has been permanently displayed in the Library of Congress, within a specially-designed microclimate case. An argon atmosphere fills the case to give an anoxic environment. Prior to display, the entire map was the subject of a scientific analysis project using hyperspectral imaging with an advanced LED camera and illumination system to address preservation storage and display issues.

 

In 2005 the Waldseemüller map was nominated by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington for inscription on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register and was inscribed on the register that same year.

 

Nunn’s Analysis

 

The geographers of Italy and Germany, like Martin Waldseemüller and his colleagues, were exponents of a theoretical geography, or cosmography. This means they appealed to theory where their knowledge of the American and Asiatic geography was lacking. That practice differed from the official Portuguese and Spanish cartographers, who omitted from their maps all unexplored coastlines.

 

The second century Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy had believed that the known world extended over 180 degrees of longitude from the prime meridian of the Fortunate Isles (possibly the Canary Islands) to the city of Cattigara in southeastern Asia. (In fact, the difference in longitude between the Canaries, at 16°W, and Cattigara, at 105°E, is just 121°.) He had also thought that the Indian Ocean was completely surrounded by land. Marco Polo demonstrated that an ocean lay east of Asia and was connected with the Indian Ocean. Hence, on the globe made by Martin Behaim in 1492, which combined the geography of Ptolemy with that of Marco Polo, the Indian Ocean was shown as merging with the Western Ocean to the east. Ptolemy’s lands to the east of the Indian Ocean, however, were retained in the form of a great promontory projecting far south from the southeastern corner of Asia—the peninsula of Upper India (India Superior) upon which the city of Cattigara was situated.

 

Another result of Marco Polo’s travels was also shown on Behaim’s globe—the addition of 60 degrees to the longitude of Asia. Columbus had not actually seen Behaim’s globe in 1492 (which apparently owed much to the ideas of Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli); but the globe, except for one important point, reflects the geographical theory on which he apparently based his plan for his first voyage. The exception is that Columbus shortened the length of the degree, thus reducing the distance from the Canaries to Zipangu (Japan), to about 62 degrees or only 775 leagues. Consequently, it seemed to Columbus a relatively simple matter to reach Asia by sailing west.

 

In the early 16th century, two theories prevailed with regard to America (the present South America). According to one theory, that continent was identified with the southeastern promontory of Asia that figures on Behaim’s globe, India Superior or the Cape of Cattigara. The other view was that America (South America) was a huge island wholly unconnected with Asia.

 

Balboa called the Pacific the Mar del Sur and referred to it as “la otra mar”, the other sea, by contrast with the Atlantic, evidently with Behaim’s concept of only two oceans in mind. The Mar del Sur, the South Sea, was the part of the Indian Ocean to the south of Asia: the Indian Ocean was the Oceanus Orientalis, the Eastern Ocean, as opposed to the Atlantic or Western Ocean, the Oceanus Occidentalis in Behaim’s two ocean world.

 

According to George E. Nunn, the key to Waldseemüller’s apparent new ocean is found on the three sketch maps made by Bartolomé Colon (that is, Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher’s brother) and Alessandro Zorzi in 1504 to demonstrate the geographical concepts of Christopher Columbus. One of the Columbus/Zorzi sketch maps bears an inscription saying that: “According to Marinus of Tyre and Columbus, from Cape St. Vincent to Cattigara is 225 degrees, which is 15 hours; according to Ptolemy as far as Cattigara 180 degrees, which is 12 hours”. This shows that Christopher Columbus overestimated the distance eastward between Portugal and Cattigara as being 225 degrees instead of Ptolemy’s estimate of 180 degrees, permitting him to believe the distance westward was only 135 degrees and therefore that the land he found was the East Indies. As noted by Nunn, in accordance with this calculation, the Colon/Zorzi maps employ the longitude estimate of Claudius Ptolemy from Cape St. Vincent eastward to Cattigara, but the longitude calculation of Marinus and Columbus is employed for the space between Cape St. Vincent westward to Cattigara.

 

Nunn pointed out that Martin Waldseemüller devised a scheme that showed both the Columbus and the Ptolemy-Behaim concept on the same map. On the right-hand side of the Waldseemüller 1507 map is shown the Ptolemy-Behaim concept with the Ptolemy longitudes: this shows the huge peninsula of India Superior extending to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn. On the left side of the Waldseemüller map the discoveries of Columbus, Vespucci and others are represented as a long strip of land extending from about latitude 50 degrees North to latitude 40 degrees South. The western coasts of these trans-Atlantic lands discovered under the Spanish crown are simply described by Waldseemüller as Terra Incognita (Unknown Land) or Terra Ulterior Incognita (Unknown Land Beyond), with a conjectural sea to the west, making these lands apparently a distinct continent. America’s (that is, South America’s) status as a separate island or a part of Asia, specifically, the peninsula of India Superior upon which Cattigara was situated, is left unresolved. As the question of which of the two alternative concepts was correct had not been resolved at the time, both were represented on the same map. Both extremities of the map represent the eastern extremity of Asia, according to the two alternative theories. As Nunn said, “This was a very plausible way of presenting a problem at the time insoluble.”

 

As noted by Nunn, the distance between the meridians on the map is different going eastward and westward from the prime meridian which passes through the Fortunate Isles (Canary Islands). This has the effect of representing the eastern coast of Asia twice: once in accordance with Ptolemy’s longitudes to show it as Martin Behaim had done on his 1492 globe; and again in accordance with Columbus’ calculation of longitudes to show his and the other Spanish navigators’ discoveries across the Western Ocean, which Columbus and his followers considered to be part of India Superior.

 

On his 1516 world map, the Carta Marina, Waldseemüller identified the land he had called Parias on his 1507 map as Terra de Cuba and said it was part of Asia (Asie partis), that is, he explicitly identified the land discovered by Columbus as the eastern part of Asia.

 

Globe Gores

 

Besides Universalis Cosmographia, Waldseemüller published a set of gores for constructing globes. The gores, also containing the inscription America, are believed to have been printed in the same year as the wall map, since Waldseemüller mentions them in the introduction to his Cosmographiæ Introductio. On the globe gores, the sea to the west of the notional American west coast is named the Occeanus Occidentalis, that is, the Western or Atlantic Ocean, and where it merges with the Oceanus Orientalis (the Eastern, or Indian Ocean) is hidden by the latitude staff. This appears to indicate uncertainty as to America’s location, whether it was an island continent in the Atlantic (Western Ocean) or in fact the great peninsula of India Superior shown on earlier maps, such as the 1489 map of the world by Martellus or the 1492 globe of Behaim.

 

Only few copies of the globe gores are extant. The first to be rediscovered was found in 1871 and is now in the James Ford Bell Library of the University of Minnesota. Another copy was found inside a Ptolemy atlas and had been in the Bavarian State Library in Munich since 1990. The Library recognized in February 2018, after reviewing its authenticity, that this map is not an original copy—it was printed in the 20th century. A third copy was discovered in 1992 bound into an edition of Aristotle in the Stadtbücherei Offenburg, a public library in Germany. A fourth copy came to light in 2003 when its European owner read a newspaper article about the Waldseemüller map. It was sold at auction to Charles Frodsham & Co. for $1,002,267, a world record price for a single sheet map. In July 2012, a statement was released from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich that a fifth copy of the gore had been found in the LMU Library’s collection which is somewhat different from the other copies, perhaps because of a later date of printing. LMU Library has made an electronic version of their copy of the map available online.

  

Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes.

 

Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorū que lustrationes

 

•Title: Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes.

•Other Title: Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorū que lustrationes

•Contributor Names: Waldseemüller, Martin, 1470-1519.

•Created/Published: [Strasbourg, France? : s.n., 1507]

•Subject Headings: Earth

•Genre: World maps; Early maps

•Notes:

oRelief shown pictorially.

oFirst document known to name America.

oRed ink grid on 2 sheets. Text applied over blank areas on 2 sheets. Manuscript annotations in the margin of 1 sheet.

oAll sheets bear a watermark of a triple pointed crown.

oTwo stamps on verso of upper left hand sheet: Fürstl. Waldburg Wolfegg’sches Kupferstichkabinett – Furstl. Waldbg. Wolf. Bibliothek.

oExhibited: Rivers, edens, empires: Lewis & Clark and the revealing of America, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., July 24-Nov. 29, 2003.

oAvailable also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image.

oIncludes text and ill.

oPrinted surrogate in vault available for reference.

oLC digital image is a composite map from the twelve separate sheets.

oOriginally bound with Waldseemüller’s 1516 Carta marina in the Schöner Sammelband.

•Medium: 1 map on 12 sheets; 128 × 233 cm., sheets 46 × 63 cm. or smaller.

•Call Number/Physical Location: G3200 1507 .W3

•Repository: Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA dcu

•Digital Id: hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3200.ct000725C; hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3200.ct000725

•Library of Congress Control Number: 2003626426

•Online Format: image

•LCCN Permalink: lccn.loc.gov/2003626426

•Additional Metadata Formats: MARCXML Record; MODS Record; Dublin Core Record

•Part of…

oDiscovery and Exploration (174)

oGeography and Map Division (15,333)

oAmerican Memory (504,438)

oLibrary of Congress Online Catalog (623,348)

•Format: Maps

•Contributors: Waldseemüller, Martin

•Dates: 1507

•Location: Earth

•Language: Latin

•Subjects: Early Maps; Earth; World Maps

•Articles and Essays with this item:

oEvaluation—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan

oOverview—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan

oPreparation—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan

oProcedure—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan

oMr. Dürer Comes to Washington

oExploring the Early Americas—2010—Past Events—News and Events

oSpanish Exploration in America—Primary Source Set

oIntroducing Primary Source Analysis to Students: Lessons from the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute

oLearning Activity—Secondary Level—Technology Integration, Spring 2009- Teaching with Primary Sources

oDocumenting New Knowledge—Exploring the Early Americas

oExhibitions and Presentations—Geography and Maps—Themed Resources

oPrologue - Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America

oExploration and Discovery—Zoom Into Maps—Classroom Presentation

•Credit Line: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

 

Cite This Item

 

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

 

Chicago citation style:

 

Waldseemüller, Martin. [Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes]. [Strasbourg, France?: s.n, 1507] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003626426/. (Accessed February 26, 2017.)

 

APA citation style:

 

Waldseemüller, M. (1507) [Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes]. [Strasbourg, France?: s.n] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003626426/.

 

MLA citation style:

 

Waldseemüller, Martin. [Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes]. [Strasbourg, France?: s.n, 1507] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003626426/.

  

The Map That Named America

 

Library Acquires 1507 Waldseemüller Map of the World

 

By JOHN R. HÉBERT

 

In late May 2003 the Library of Congress completed the purchase of the only surviving copy of the first image of the outline of the continents of the world as we know them today— Martin Waldseemüller’s monumental 1507 world map.

 

The map has been referred to in various circles as America’s birth certificate and for good reason; it is the first document on which the name “America” appears. It is also the first map to depict a separate and full Western Hemisphere and the first map to represent the Pacific Ocean as a separate body of water. The purchase of the map concluded a nearly century-long effort to secure for the Library of Congress that very special cartographic document which revealed new European thinking about the world nearly 500 years ago.

 

The Waldseemüller world map is currently on display in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building in the exhibition honoring the Lewis and Clark expedition, “Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America.” It will remain on display, either in the original or with an exact facsimile, until Nov. 29. A permanent site for the display of this historical treasure will be prepared in the Thomas Jefferson Building within the next year.

 

Martin Waldseemüller, the primary author of the 1507 world map, was a 16th-century scholar, humanist, cleric and cartographer who was part of the small intellectual circle, the Gymnasium Vosagense, in Saint-Dié, France. He was born near Freiburg, Germany, sometime in the 1470s and died in the canon house at Saint-Dié in 1522. During his lifetime he devoted much of his time to cartographic ventures, including, in the spring 1507, the famous world map, a set of globe gores (for a globe with a three-inch diameter), and the “Cosmographiae Introductio” (a book to accompany the map). He also prepared the 1513 edition of the Ptolemy “Geographiae”; the “Carta Marina,” a large world map, in 1516; and a smaller world map in the 1515 edition of “Margarita Philosophica Nova.”

 

Thus, in a remote part of northeast France, was born the famous 1507 world map, whose full title is “Universalis cosmographia secunda Ptholemei traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorum que lustrationes” (“A drawing of the whole earth following the tradition of Ptolemy and the travels of Amerigo Vespucci and others”). That map, printed on 12 separate sheets, each 18-by-24-inches, from wood block plates, measured more than 4 feet by 8 feet in dimension when assembled.

 

The large map is an early 16th-century masterpiece, containing a full map of the world, two inset maps showing separately the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, illustrations of Ptolemy and Vespucci, images of the various winds, and extensive explanatory notes about selected regions of the world. Waldseemüller’s map represented a bold statement that rationalized the modern world in light of the exciting news arriving in Europe as a result of explorations across the Atlantic Ocean or down the African coast, which were sponsored by Spain, Portugal and others.

 

The map must have created quite a stir in Europe, since its findings departed considerably from the accepted knowledge of the world at that time, which was based on the second century A.D. work of the Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy. To today’s eye, the 1507 map appears remarkably accurate; but to the world of the early 16th century it must have represented a considerable departure from accepted views of the composition of the world. Its appearance undoubtedly ignited considerable debate in Europe regarding its conclusions that an unknown continent (unknown, at least, to Europeans and others in the Eastern Hemisphere) existed between two huge bodies of water, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and was separated from the classical world of Ptolemy, which had been confined to the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia.

 

While it has been suggested that Waldseemüller incorrectly dismissed Christopher Columbus’ great achievement in history by the selection of the name “America” for the Western Hemisphere, it is evident that the information that Waldseemüller and his colleagues had at their disposal recognized Columbus’ previous voyages of exploration and discovery. However, the group also had acquired a recent French translation of the important work “Mundus Novus,” Amerigo Vespucci’s letter detailing his purported four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean to America between 1497 and 1504. In that work, Vespucci concluded that the lands reached by Columbus in 1492 and explored by Columbus and others over the ensuing two decades were indeed a segment of the world, a new continent, unknown to Europe. Because of Vespucci’s recognition of that startling revelation, he was honored with the use of his name for the newly discovered continent.

 

It is remarkable that the entire Western Hemisphere was named for a living person; Vespucci did not die until 1512. With regard to Columbus’ exploits after 1492, i.e., his various explorations between 1492 and 1504, the 1507 map clearly denotes Columbus’ explorations in the West Indies as well as the Spanish monarchs’ sponsorship of those and subsequent voyages of exploration.

 

By 1513, when Waldseemüller and the Saint-Dié scholars published the new edition of Ptolemy’s “Geographiae,” and by 1516, when Waldseemüller’s famous “Carta Marina” was printed, he had removed the name “America” from his maps, perhaps suggesting that even he had second thoughts about honoring Vespucci exclusively for his understanding of the New World. Instead, in the 1513 atlas, the area named “America” on the 1507 map is now referred to as Terra Incognita (Unknown Land). In the1516 “Carta Marina,” South America is called Terra Nova (New World) and North America is named Cuba and is shown to be part of Asia. No reference in either work is made to the name “America.”

 

The only surviving copy of the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemüller, purchased by the Library of Congress and now on display in its Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. The term “America” can be seen in continent on the lower leftmost panel. Vespuci is pictured on the top panel of the third column.

 

The only surviving copy of the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemüller, purchased by the Library of Congress and now on display in its Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. The term “America” can be seen in continent on the lower leftmost panel. Vespuci is pictured on the top panel of the third column.

 

Cartographic contributions by Johannes Schöner in 1515 and by Peter Apian in 1520, however, adopted the name “America” for the Western Hemisphere, and that name then became part of accepted usage.

 

A reported 1,000 copies of the 1507 map were printed, which was a sizeable print run in those days. This single surviving copy of the map exists because it was kept in a portfolio by Schöner (1477-1547), a German globe maker, who probably had acquired a copy of the map for his own cartographic work . That portfolio contained not only the unique copy of the 1507 world map but also a unique copy of Waldseemüller’s 1516 large wall map (the “Carta Marina”) and copies of Schöner’s terrestrial (1515) and celestial (1517) globe gores.

 

At some later time, the family of Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg acquired and retained Schöner’s portfolio of maps in their castle in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where it remained unknown to scholars until the beginning of the 20th century when its extraordinary contents were revealed. The uncovering of the 1507 map in the Wolfegg Castle early last century is thought by many to have been one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of cartographic scholarship.

 

The map sheets have been maintained separated—not joined, with each of the large maps composed of 12 separate sheets—and that is probably why they survived. The portfolio with its great treasure was uncovered and revealed to the world in 1901 by the Jesuit priest Josef Fischer, who was conducting research in the Waldburg collection.

 

The Library of Congress’ Geography and Map Division acquired the facsimiles of the 1507 and 1516 maps in 1903. Throughout the 20th century the Library continued to express interest in and a desire to acquire the 1507 map, if it were ever made available for sale. That time came in 1992 when Prince Johannes Waldberg-Wolfegg, the owner of the map, revealed to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, the Associate Librarian for Library Services Winston Tabb, and the chief of the Geography and Map Division Ralph Ehrenberg in a conversation in Washington that he was willing to negotiate the sale of the map. Ehrenberg and Margrit Krewson, the Library’s German and Dutch area specialist, were encouraged to investigate the opportunity.

 

In 1999 Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg notified the Library that the German national government and the Baden-Württemberg state government had granted permission for a limited export license, which Krewson was instrumental in negotiating. Having obtained the license, which allowed this German national treasure to come to the Library of Congress, the Prince pursued an agreement to sell the 1507 map to the Library. In late June 2001 Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg and the Library of Congress reached a final agreement on the sale of the map for the price of $10 million. In late May 2003 the Library completed a successful campaign to raise the necessary funds to purchase Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, after receiving substantial congressional and private support to achieve the terms of the contract. The Congress of the United States appropriated $5 million for the purchase of the map; Discovery Communications, Jerry Lenfest and David Koch provided substantial contributions; and other individuals (George Tobolowsky and Virginia Gray) gave matching funds for the purchase and additional support for its preservation, exhibition and study.

Through the combined efforts of Billington, Tabb and members of the Library’s staff over the past 11 years, the map was able to leave Germany and come to the Library of Congress.

 

The 1507 world map is now the centerpiece of the outstanding cartographic collections of the Geography and Map Division in the Library of Congress. The map serves as a departure point for the development of the division’s American cartographic collection in addition to its revered position in early modern cartographic history. The map provides a meaningful link between the Library’s treasured late medieval-early Renaissance cartographic collection (which includes one of the richest holdings of Ptolemy atlases in the world) and the modern cartographic age that unfolded as a result of the explorations of Columbus and other discoverers in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It represents the point of departure from the geographical understanding of the world based on Ptolemy’s “Cosmographiae” and “Geographiae” (editions from 1475-) to that emerging in the minds of scholars and practical navigators as reports of the “new worlds” of America, southern Africa and other regions of Asia and Oceania reached Europe’s shores. Waldseemüller recognized the transition taking place, as the title of his map notes and as his prominent placement of images of Ptolemy and Vespucci next to their worlds at the top portion of the 1507 world map denotes.

 

The Waldseemüller map joins the rich cartographic holdings of the Library’s Geography and Map Division, which include some 4.8 million maps, 65,000 atlases, more than 500 globes and globe gores, and thousands of maps in digital form. And from that fragile first glimpse of the world, so adequately described by Waldseemüller in 1507, the Library of Congress’ cartographic resources provide the historical breadth and cartographic depth to fill in the geographic blanks left by those early cosmographers.

 

The Library’s acquisition of the Waldseemüller map represents an important moment to renew serious research into this exceptional map, to determine the sources which made possible its creation, and to investigate its contemporary impact and acceptance. The map’s well-announced acquisition provides scholars with an extraordinary opportunity to appreciate the earliest of early depictions of our modern world. Major portions of this 1507 world map have not received the same concentrated scrutiny as the American segments. The very detailed depiction of sub-Saharan Africa, the south coast of Asia, and even the areas surrounding the Black and Caspian seas merit further study and discussion in response to obvious questions regarding the cartographic and geographic sources that were available and used by the Saint-Dié scholars to reach the conclusions that they embodied in the 1507 world map.

 

Through agreement with Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg and the government of Germany, the 1507 Waldseemüller world map is to be placed on permanent display in the Library of Congress’ Thomas Jefferson Building. A second floor gallery, the Pavilion of the Discoverers, has been chosen as an appropriate location to house the map, where it will be exhibited with supporting materials from the Library’s collections that will assist in describing the rich history surrounding the map and its relation to its creators and the sources used to prepare it in the 16th century.

 

The Library of Congress is extremely proud to have obtained this unique treasure and is hopeful that this great cartographic document will receive the public acclaim and the critical scholarly inspection that it so rightly merits.

 

John R. Hébert is the chief of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress.

  

This View

 

Sheet 5.

 

The representation of the Mediterranean, Europe, and North Africa is for the most part based on Ptolemy. On this sheet Schöner grew red lines over the Middle East north to the Black Sea region.

unfinished giants are lasting from the late socialist era... have no idea if they wiil be used someday or demolished... looks like both possibilities are very problematic

 

 

 

Dharamshala (also Dharamsala) is a city and a municipal council in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is the district headquarters. It was formerly known as Bhagsu. The Dalai Lama's residence in McLeodGanj and the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government in exile) are in Dharamshala. Dharamshala is 18 kilometres from Kangra.

 

DESCRIPTION

Dharamshala is a city in the upper reaches of the Kangra Valley and is surrounded by dense coniferous forest consisting mainly of stately Deodar cedar trees. The suburbs include McLeodGanj, Bhagsunath, Dharamkot, Naddi, ForsythGanj, Kotwali Bazaar (the main market), Kaccheri Adda (government offices such as the court, police, post, etc.), Dari, Ramnagar, Sidhpur, and Sidhbari (where the Karmapa is based).

 

The village of McLeodGanj, lying in the upper reaches, is known worldwide for the presence of the Dalai Lama. On 29 April 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) established the Tibetan exile administration in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie. In May 1960, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) was moved to Dharamshala.

 

Dharamshala is the centre of the Tibetan exile world in India. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising there was an influx of Tibetan refugees who followed the 14th Dalai Lama. His presence and the Tibetan population has made Dharamshala a popular destination for Indian and foreign tourists, including students studying Tibet.

 

One of the main attractions of Dharamshala is Triund hill. Jewel of Dharamshala, Triund is one day trek at the upper reaches of McLeodGanj, about 9 km from McLeodGanj.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Dharamshala (Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashaalaa; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a Hindi word (derived from Sanskrit) that is a compound of dharma (धर्म) and shālā (शाला). A loose translation into English would be 'spiritual dwelling' or, more loosely, 'sanctuary'. Rendering a precise literal translation into English is problematic due to the vast and conceptually rich semantic field of the word dharma and the cultural aspect of India.

 

In common Hindi usage, the word dharamshala refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. Traditionally, such dharamshalas (pilgrims' rest houses) were commonly constructed near pilgrimage destinations (often in remote areas) to give visitors a place to sleep for the night. When the first permanent settlement was created in the place now called Dharamshala, there was one such pilgrims' rest house on the site, and the settlement took its name from that dharamshala.

 

HISTORY

BEFORE THE RAJ

From the earliest times until the British Raj, Dharamshala and its surrounding area was ruled by the Katoch Dynasty of Kangra. The Katoch Dynasty is said to be the oldest serving Royal Family in the world. The Royal Family still keeps a residence in Dharamshala, known as 'Clouds End Villa'.

 

The indigenous people of the Dharamshala area (and the surrounding region) are the Gaddis, a predominantly Hindu group who traditionally lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic (transhumant) lifestyle. Due to the lack of permanent settlements in the area, some Gaddis lost their seasonal pastures and farmland when the British and the Gurkhas arrived to settle.

 

SETTLESMENT BY THE BRITISH AND THE GURKHAS

In 1848, the area now known as Dharamshala was annexed by the British.

 

"Dharamsāla lies on a spur of the Dhaola Dhār, 16 miles north-east of Kāngra, in the midst of wild and picturesque scenery. It originally formed a subsidiary cantonment for the troops stationed at Kāngra, and was first occupied as a station in 1849, when a site was required for a cantonment to accommodate a Native regiment which was being raised in the District. A site was found upon the slopes of the Dhaola Dhār, in a plot of waste land, upon which stood an old Hindu resthouse, or dharmsāla, whence the name adopted for the new cantonment. The civil authorities, following the example of the regimental officers, and attracted by the advantages of climate and scenery, built themselves houses in the neighbourhood of the cantonment; and in 1855 the new station was formally recognised as the head-quarters of the [Kāngra] District."

 

In 1860, the 66th Gurkha Light Infantry was moved from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh to Dharamshala, which was at first made a subsidiary cantonment. An ideal position for the new base was found on the slopes of the Dhauladhar Hills, near the site of a Hindu sanctuary, or Dharamshala, hence the name of the town. The Battalion was later renamed the historic 1st Gurkha Rifles, this was the beginning of the legend of the Gurkhas, also known as the 'Bravest of the Brave'. Consequently, fourteen Gurkha platoon villages grew from this settlement, and exist to this day, namely Dari, Ramnagar, Shyamnagar, Dal, Totarani, Khanyara, Sadher, Chaandmaari, Sallagarhi, Sidhbari, Yol, and so on. The Gurkhas worshipped at the ancient Shiva temple of Bhagsunag. The Gurkhas referred to Dharamshala as 'Bhagsu' and referred to themselves as Bhagsuwalas.

 

The 21st Gurkha Regiment from Dharamshala performed heroic feats during World War I and the North West Frontier Province campaigns. The Gurkha cantonment then reached its zenith during World War II, when battalions from Dharamshala made history. Many place names in the town still retain their former cantonment terminologies: Depot Bazaar, Pensioners' Lines, Tirah Lines (named after the 19th century Tirah Campaign), Bharatpore Lines (named after the 1826 Battle of Bharatpore).

 

The second Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India died here (at the 1st Gurkha Rifles Officers' Mess) in 1863 and is buried in the cemetery of St. John in the Wilderness, a small Anglican church distinguished by its stained-glass windows. Dharamshala became a popular hill station for the British working in or near Delhi, offering a cool respite during the hot summer months.

 

"Before the earthquake of 1905, the upper part of the station, which rises to a height of 2,168 metres, contained the European houses, the station church, and the officers' mess and lines of the 1st Gurkhas, together with the public gardens, post office, and two bazars, the Forsythganj and McLeodganj. The public offices, a bazar, and a few European houses made up the lower station, as low as 1,372 metres. The 1st battalion of the 1st Gurkhas used to be stationed here, but was moved to the upper station in 1894-5.... The public gardens, which were, before the earthquake, laid out with much taste in lawns and terraces, contained a valuable collection of indigenous and imported trees and shrubs, and were overlooked by the Assembly Rooms, a handsome building comprising a public hall, a library and reading-room and a billiard-room. The church was beautifully situated in a recess of the mountain."

 

In 1905, the Kangra valley suffered a major earthquake. On April 4 of that year, the earth shook, demolishing much of the cantonment and the neighbouring city of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh as well as the Bhagsunag temple. Altogether, the 1905 Kangra earthquake killed 20,000 people. "1,625 persons perished at Dharamsāla alone, including 15 Europeans and 112 of the Gurkha garrison."

 

The Gurkhas rebuilt the town along with the temple, which today is acknowledged as the 1st Gurkha Rifles' heritage. The British had planned to make Dharamshala the summer capital of India, but moved to Shimla after the disaster.

 

Not only did the Gurkhas of Dharmshala make a major contribution to India's defence, many were freedom fighters for the Indian National Army, which had been founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indian National Army Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gurkha from the village of Khanyara, composed some of India's most popular and stirring patriotic songs, including "Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja". He is acknowledged so by the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata. The important contribution of the noted Gurkha social commentator, the late Master Mitrasen Thapa, from the village of Totarani, has been acknowledged by the Himachal Pradesh government. Recently, a park dedicated to the memory of the late Brigadier Sher Jung Thapa, MVC, the 'Hero of Skardu', has been opened alongside the road between Lower and Upper Dharamshala.

 

ESTABLISHMENT OF TIBETAN EXILE COMMUNITY

The Tibetan settlement of Dharamshala began in 1959, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet and the Prime Minister of India allowed him and his followers to settle in McLeodGanj (in Upper Dharmshala), a former colonial British summer picnic spot. There they established the "government-in-exile" in 1960. Dharamshala had been connected with Hinduism and Buddhism for a long time, many monasteries having been established there in the past, by Tibetan immigrants in the 19th century. In 1970, The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives which houses over 80,000 manuscripts and other important resources related to Tibetan history, politics and culture. It is considered one of the most important institutions for Tibetology in the world, the new director is Geshe Lahkdor, the old translator of H.H. the Dalai Lama.

 

Several thousand Tibetan exiles have now settled in the area, and most live in and around McLeodGanj in Upper Dharamshala, where they have built monasteries, temples and schools. McLeodGanj is sometimes known as 'Little Lhasa", after the Tibetan capital city, or 'Dhasa' (a compound of 'Dharamshala' and 'Lhasa'). It has become an important tourist destination with many hotels and restaurants, leading to growth in tourism and commerce.

 

Dharamshala is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh. The Legislative Assembly is at Sidhbari, near the Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram, and the winter sessions of the Government are held there.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Dharamshala has an average elevation of 1457 metres, covering an area of almost 8.51 km².

 

Dharamsala is located in the Kangra Valley, in the shadow of the Dhauladhar mountains.

 

The city is divided into two distinct sections. Kotwali Bazaar and the surrounding markets are referred to as "Lower Dharamshala" or just "Dharamshala." Further up the mountain is McLeodGanj separated in between by the village of Ganchen Kyishong, the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. A steep, narrow road connects McLeodGanj from Dharamshala and is only accessible to taxis and small cars, while a longer road winds around the valley for use by buses and trucks. McLeodGanj is surrounded by pine, Himalayan oak, and rhododendron.

 

The main crops grown in the valleys below are rice, wheat and tea.

 

CONNECTIONS

Dharamshala town is reached by Gaggal Airport, (IATA: DHM, ICAO: VIGG), about 15 km to the town's south and about 10 km north of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town. To reach Dharamshala by train, one has to reach Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town by Kangra Valley Railway line from Pathankot 94 km away and then take a bus or a taxi.

 

Pathankot is a broad gauge railway head. There is another railway line from Pathankot to Jogindernagar, a part of the Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh, which is a narrow-gauge line. The nearest station to Dharamshala on this line is Chamunda Marg, half an hour away, where a Shaktipitha is; the town is well connected by road to other parts of the country.

 

Buses of all classes (deluxe, air-conditioned, and regular) drive daily between Dharamshala and major cities such as Chandigarh, Delhi, and Shimla. Several buses each night connect McLeodGanj with Majnu Ka Tila, the Tibetan settlement in Delhi.

 

CLIMATE

Dharamshala has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Cwa). Summer starts in early April, peaks in early June (when temperatures can reach 36 °C) and last till mid-June. From July to mid-September is the monsoon season when up to 3000 mm of rainfall can be experienced, making Dharamshala one of the wettest places in the state. Autumn is mild and lasts from October to the end of November.

 

Autumn temperatures average around 16–17 °C. Winter starts in December and continues until late February. Snow and sleet are common during the winter in upper Dharamshala (including McLeodganj, Bhagsu Nag and Naddi). Lower Dharamshala receives little solid precipitation except hail. The snowfall of January 7, 2012 was an exception. It was caused by deep low pressure entering the Kangra district. Winter is followed by a short, pleasant spring until April. Historically, the Dhauladhar mountains used to remain snow-covered all year long, however, in recent years they have been losing their snow blanket during dry spells.

 

The best times to visit are the autumn and spring months.

 

TREKKING

Dharamshala is a starting point to a number of trekking trails that especially lead trekkers across Dhauladhar into the upper Ravi Valley and Chamba district. En route, you cross through forests of deodar, pine, oak and rhododendron, and pass streams and rivers and wind along vertiginous cliff tracks, and the occasional lake waterfall and glacier.

 

A 2-km amble takes one to Bhagsu, and then a further 3-km walk will lead the trekkers to Dharamkot. If one wishes to go on a longer walk then he/she can trek 8-km to Triund. The snow line of Ilaqa Got is just a 5-km walk.

 

Other trekking trails that lead you to Chamba from Dharamshala are:

 

Toral Pass (4575m) which begins from Tang Narwana (1150m) that is nearly 10 km from Dharamshala

Across Bhimghasutri Pass (4580m) via near-vertical rocky ascents, steep cliffs and dangerous gorges. This is a highly difficult level trek and takes around six days to complete.

Dharamshala—Bleni Pass (3710m) – Dunali. Compared to other trekking trails, this one is much easier and takes around four or five-days to complete. The trek leads you through alpine pastures, woods, and streams, before ending at Dunali, on the Chamba road.

 

Dharamshala is an ideal destination for rock climbing enthusiasts. One can go rock climbing over the ridges of the Dhauladhar range.

 

Kareri lake (near kareri village) is also a famous trekking destination for travellers.

 

PLACES OF ATTRACTION

Naam Art Gallery The exhibition in ‘NAAM ART GALLERY’ exhibits paintings by Elsbeth Buschmann - watercolours and acrylics - and oil paintings by Alfred W. Hallett. Elsbeth Buschmann, is a professional painter from Germany, having studied painting in London and Paris . She lived in many countries where she held exhibitions, especially in the USA where she received various awards. Her paintings are in private collections in Germany, USA, Scotland, India and Switzerland. In India she held solo exhibitions at AIFAX, New Delhi and TAG, the Art Gallery of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. She also took part in ‘The Himalayan National Exhibition of Art’ and was awarded. Open 10am to 7.00pm (Monday Closed) Mobile 098160-43708

 

Masrur (or Masroor): The major attraction of this place is the fifteen exquisitely carved monolithic rock temples dating back to the 8th century. The carvings of these temples are similar to Kailash temple at Ellora. In the sanctum of the main temple, one can find images of Lord Ram, and the Goddesses Sita and Lakshmi. Masrur is 40 km south of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh at 32°4′22″N 76°8′14″E. Template: Jama Masjid, Kotwali Bazar, Dharamshala.

 

Bhagsu Waterfall: This waterfall is in Bhagsu, 2 km from McLeodGanj. It lies behind the Bhagsunag Temple. During Monsoon, the fall turns into a 30 feet cascade.

 

Bhagsunag Temple: Temple of god Shiva situated around 2 km from McLeodGanj Bazaar. Constructed by 1 GR by around 1800 century and then worshipped majorly by 14 Gukha platoon villages in Dharamshala. Very next to Bhagsunag temple is a water fall, one of the major tourist attraction spot in Dharamshala.

 

Kangra Museum: Situated close to the bus stand, Kangra Art Museum is a unique museum displaying the artifacts of Tibetan and Buddhist cultures. This is a treasure of Kangra valley’s cultural past, crafts, arts and other ancient artifacts. Some of the displayed items in the museum are dating back to the 5th century.

 

Kangra Museum encloses a gallery consisting of miniature paintings of Kangra’s rich past, pottery, rare coin memorabilia, sculptures and anthropological materials. It has a varied collection of tribal jewelry, embroidered costumes and wood carvings. A section dedicated to contemporary artworks adds the attraction to the museum.

 

Tourists can easily reach by bus or taxi and it will take 30 mins to one hour to see the museum. While visiting the museum, never miss to explore the Kotwali bazar.

 

Kunal Pathri Temple: This temple is dedicated to Goddess Kalpeshwari and is 3 km from the Kotwali Bazaar. It's believed that a part of Goddess Sati's skull fell here when Lord Shiva was carrying the charred body of the Goddess; hence the name of the temple.

 

Chamunda Temple: This temple is around 15 km from Dharamshala on the right bank of river Baner on the Mandi-Pathankot highway. According to mythology, Goddess Kali killed the demons Chand and Mund at this place.

 

Dal Lake: The Lake is spread in an area of 1 km and is bounded by rhododendrons, deodars, and junipers forest. Annually, a fair is held at the Kali Temple near the Lake. There is another temple close to the lake that is dedicated to sage Durvasa. Dal Lake is 2 km walk westwards from McLeodGanj bazaar.

 

Triund: Triund is nestled in the foothills of Dhauladhar and is around 17 km from Dharamshala. It's a trekking destination from McLeodGanj, and offers magnificent vistas of the mountains and valleys. The nightstays are in the hoods, small time caves, that local gaddis with their goat herds use as shelters from rains during the daytime.

 

Naddi: This scenic picnic spot is located 5 km northwest of McLeodGanj. Naddi offers a spectacular view of the Kangra valley. You can trek to Kareri Lake, Triund, and Guna Devi from here. It's becoming a popular destination for nature lovers.

 

Thaneek Pura or Thanik Pura is a hill station village (hamlet) in Chintpurni in the Una district of the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. It is near the Chintpurni Temple, which is a place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Sikhs. The area is surrounded by the western Himalayas in the north and east in the smaller Shiwalik (or Shivalik) range bordering the state of Punjab.

 

McLeodGanj is around 9 km from Dharamshala. This place is famous for its markets, where one can shop for handicraft items, eat Tibetan food and visit statue of Lord Buddha.

 

Sidhbari : A village located 6 km from Dharamshala near Yol Cantonment and a place of historical spiritual significance. Attractions around Sidhbari include the Kapila Muni Cave, Chinmaya Ashram, Gyuto monastery, Aganjar Mahadev Temple and the newly constructed State legislature. The agricultural hamlet of Rakkar nearby is an ideal base to explore the rest of the Kangra district and experience the traditional lifestyle and mud architecture of the Gaddi community.

 

Adi Shakti Temple, Naddi

Aghanjar Mahadev

Bhagsu waterfall

Bhagsunath

Sheela Chowk

Bir - Popular destination for ecotourism, meditation studies, volunteering, and paragliding at Billing.

Brajeshwari Devi Temple

Chamunda Devi Mandir

Chinmaya Tapovan

Chime Gyatsarling Monastery, just behind of Norbulingka Institute, upper Sidhpur. 6 km from Dharmshala and 14 km from Gagal airport.

Dal Lake

Dari

Gopalpur Zoo and tea gardens

Dehra Gopipur

Dharamkot (2100 m)

Guna Devi Mandir amidst dense forest

Historical fort in Old Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Adjoining the Fort is the Maharaja Sansar Chandra Museum, run by the Kangra Royal Family. The Museum provides audio guides for the fort and the museum.

Haripur Village (near Guler)

Pong Dam Lake

Indru Nag Temple

Kareri Lake

Khaniyara

Kunal Pathri

Lam Dal Lake

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

Masrur (rock temple)

Namgyal Monastery

Narghota

Norbulingka Institute

Nurpur

Sidhbari

Church of St. John in the Wilderness

Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts

Triund (2975 m), a popular day hike or overnight trek. There is a forest rest house for overnight stay.

Tatwani and Machhrial

Trilokpur

Chime Gyatseling Monastery (Guru Padmasambhava)

Near Norbulingka Tibetan Institute

Jama Masjid kotwalibazar Dharamshala

 

WIKIPEDIA

Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) is a communications and observation tower located in the Shiba-koen district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan. At 332.9 metres (1,092 ft), it is the second-tallest structure in Japan. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and international orange to comply with air safety regulations.

 

Built in 1958, the tower's main sources of revenue are tourism and antenna leasing. Over 150 million people have visited the tower since its opening. FootTown, a four-story building located directly under the tower, houses museums, restaurants and shops. Departing from there, guests can visit two observation decks. The two-story Main Observatory is located at 150 metres (490 ft), while the smaller Special Observatory reaches a height of 249.6 metres (819 ft).

 

The tower acts as a support structure for an antenna. Originally intended for television broadcasting, radio antennas were installed in 1961, but the tower is now used to broadcast signals for Japanese media outlets such as NHK, TBS and Fuji TV. Japan's planned digital television transition by July 2011 was problematic, however; Tokyo Tower's height, 332.9 m (1,092 ft) was not high enough to adequately support complete terrestrial digital broadcasting to the area. A taller digital broadcasting tower, known as Tokyo Skytree, was completed on February 29, 2012.

 

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Photograph taken by

Jos van der Heiden (2015)

 

Pride and Prejudice: on Raphael Perez's Artwork

 

Raphael Perez, born in 1965, studied art at the College of Visual Arts in Beer Sheva, and from 1995 has been living and working in his studio in Tel Aviv. Today Perez plays an important role in actively promoting the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) art and culture in Tel Aviv, and the internet portal he set up helps artists from the community reach large audiences in Israel and abroad. Hundreds of his artworks are part of private collections in Israel and abroad, and his artworks were shown in several group exhibitions: in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "Zman Le'Omanut" art gallery, Camera Obscura, The Open House in Jerusalem, Ophir Gallery, The Haifa Forum and other private businesses and galleries.

In 2003-4 his paintings and studio appeared in a full-length movie, three student films and two graduation films.

 

Raphael Perez is the first Israeli artist to express his lifestyle as a Gay. His life and the life of the LGBT community are connected and unfold over hundreds of artwork pieces. His art creation is rare and extraordinary by every Israeli and international artistic standard. His sources of inspiration are first and foremost life events intertwined in Jewish and Israeli locality as well as influences and quotes from art history (David Hockney, Matisse). This uniqueness has crossed international borders and has succeeded in moving the LGBT and art communities around the world.

 

This is the first time we meet an Israeli artist who expresses all of his emotions in a previously unknown strength. The subjects of the paintings are the everyday life of couples in everyday places and situations, along with the aspiration to a homosexual relationship and family, equality and public recognition. Perez's works bring forward to the cultural space and to the public discourse the truth about living as LGBT and about relationships, with all of their aspects – casual relationships and sex, the yearning for love, the everyday life and the mundane activities that exist in every romantic relationship – whether by describing two men in an intimate scene in the bathroom, the bedroom or the toilet, a male couple raising a baby or the homosexual version of the Garden of Eden, family dinners, relationship ups and downs, the complexity in sharing a life as well as mundane, everyday life competing with the aspiration to self realization – through Perez's life.

  

Perez's first artworks are personal diaries, which he creates at 14 years of age. He makes sure to hide these diaries, as in them he keeps a personal journal describing his life events in the most genuine way. In these journals he draws thousands of drawings and sketches, next to which he alternately writes and erases his so-called "problematic texts", texts describing his struggle with his sexual orientation. His diaries are filled with obsessive cataloging of details, daily actions, friends and work, as well as repeating themes, such as thoughts, exhibits he has seen, movies, television, books and review of his work.

 

When he is done writing, Perez draws on his diaries. Each layer is done from beginning to end all along the journal. In fact, the work on the diaries never ends.

This struggle never ends, and when the emotion is passed on to paper, and it ends its role and becomes meaningless in a way, the visual-graphic side becomes dominant, due to the need to hide the written text, according to Perez. In books and diaries this stands out even more – when he chooses to draw in a style influenced by children's drawings, the characters are cheerful, happy, naïve and do not portray any sexuality, and when he tries drawing as an adult the sketches became more depressed and somber. During these years Perez works with preschool children, teaching them drawing and movement games. Perez says that during this period he completely abandoned the search for a relationship, either with a woman or a man, and working with children has given him existential meaning. This creation continues over 10 years, and Perez creates about 60 books-personal journals in various sizes (notepads, old notebooks, atlases and even old art books).

 

In his early paintings (1998-1999) the transition from relationships with women to relationships with men can be seen, from restraint to emotional outburst in color, lines and composition. Some characters display strong emotional expression. The women are usually drawn in restraint and passiveness, while a happy and loving emotional outburst is expressed in the colors and style of the male paintings.

 

"I fantasized that in a relationship with a woman I could fly in the sky, love, fly. However, I felt I was hiding something; I was choked up, hidden behind a mask, as if there was an internal scream wanting to come out. I was frustrated, I felt threatened…"

 

His first romance with a man in 1999 has drawn out a series of naïve paintings dealing with love and the excitement of performing everyday actions together in the intimate domestic environment.

 

"The excitement from each everyday experience of doing things together and the togetherness was great, so I painted every possible thing I liked doing with him."

 

From the moment the self-oppression and repression stopped, Perez started the process of healing, which was expressed in a burst of artworks, enormous in their size, amount, content and vivid colors – red, pink and white.

 

In 2000 Perez starts painting the huge artworks describing the hangouts of the LGBT community (The Lake, The Pool) and the Tel Avivian balcony paintings describing the masculine world, which, according to him, becomes existent thanks to the painting. Perez has dedicated this year to many series of drawings and paintings of the experience of love, in which he describes his first love for his new partner, and during these months he paints from morning to night. These paintings are the fruit of a long dialogue with David Hockney, and the similarity can be seen both in subjects and in different gestures.

 

In 2001 Perez creates a series of artworks, "Portraits from The Community". Perez describes in large, photorealistic paintings over 20 portraits of active and well-known members of the LGBT community. The emphasis is on the achievements that reflect the community's strong standing in Tel Aviv.

As a Tel-Avivian painter, in the past two years Perez has been painting urban landscapes of central locations in his city. Perez wanders around the city and chooses familiar architectural and geographical landmarks, commerce and recreation, and historical sites, and paints them from a homosexual point of view, decorated with the rainbow flag, which provide a sense of belonging to the place. His artworks are characterized by a cheerful joie de vivre and colors, and they also describe encounters and meetings. The touristic nature of his paintings makes them a declaration of Tel Aviv's image as a place where cultural freedom prevails.

Perez's Tel Aviv is a city where young families and couples live and fill the streets, the parks, the beach, the houses and the balconies – all the city's spaces. The characters in his paintings are similar, which helps reinforcing the belonging to the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. The collective theme in Perez's artwork interacts with the work of the Israeli artist Yohanan Simon, who dealt with the social aspects of the Kibbutz. Simon, who lived and worked in a Kibbutz, expressed the human model of the Kibbutznik (member of a Kibbutz) and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz members as part of a group where all are equal. Simon's works, and now Perez's, have contributed to the Israeli society what is has been looking for endlessly, which is a sense of identity and belonging.

Perez maps his territory and marks his boundaries, and does not forget the historical sites. Unlike other Tel Avivian artists, Perez wishes to present the lives of the residents of the city and the great love in their hearts. By choosing the historical sites in Tel Aviv, he also pays tribute to the artist Nachum Gutman, who loved the city and lived in it his whole life. In his childhood Gutman experienced historical moments (lighting the first oil lamp, first concert, first pavement), and as an adult he recreated the uniqueness of those events while keeping the city's magic.

Like Gutman, Perez has also turned the city into an object of love, and it has started adorning itself in rich colors and supplying the energy of a city that wishes to be "the city that never sleeps", combining old and new. Perez meticulously describes the uniqueness and style of the Bauhaus houses and balconies along the modern glass and steel buildings, all from unusual angles in a rectangular format that wishes to imitate the panorama of a diverse city in its centennial celebrations.

 

Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, curator.

   

Interview with the painter Raphael Perez about his family artist book

An interview with the painter Raphael Perez about an artist's book he created about his family, the Peretz family from 6 Nissan St. Kiryat Yuval Jerusalem

  

Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about the family artist book you created

Answer: I created close to 40 artist books, notebooks, diaries, sketch books and huge books. I dedicated one of the books to my dear family, a book in which I took a childhood photograph of my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.. I pasted the photographs inside a book (the photograph is 10 percent of the total painting) and I drew with acrylic paints, markers and ink on the book and the photograph, so that the image of the photograph was an inspiration to me Build the story that includes page by page..

  

Question: Tell me when you were born, where, and a little about your family

Answer: I was born on March 4, 1965 in the Kiryat Yuval neighborhood in Jerusalem

I have a twin brother named Miki Peretz and we are seven brothers and sisters, five boys and two girls

 

Question: Tell us a little about your parents

Answer: My parents were new immigrants from Morocco, both immigrated young.

My mother's name before the wedding was Alice - Aliza ben Yair and my father's name was Shimon Peretz,

My mother was born in the Atlas Mountains and was orphaned at a young age and was later adopted by my father's family at the age of 10, so that my mother and father spent childhood and adolescence together....

They had a beautiful and happy relationship but sometimes when they argued my mother would say "even when she was a child she was like that..." This means that their acquaintance and relationship dates back to childhood..

  

Question: What did your parents Shimon and Aliza Peretz work for?

Answer: My father, Shimon Perez, born in 1928 - worked in a building in his youth and then for thirty years worked as a receptionist at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem... My father's great love was actually art, he loved to draw as a hobby, write, read, solve crossword puzzles and research Regarding the issue of medicinal plants, as a breadwinner he could not fulfill his dream of becoming an artist, in order to support and feed seven children. But we are the next generation, his children are engaged in the world of creativity and education, a field in which both of my parents were engaged during their lives. My father died at the age of 69

 

My mother, Alice Aliza Perez, born in 1934, worked as an assistant to a kindergarten teacher, and later took care of a baby at home. She is a woman of wholehearted giving and caring for children and people, a warm, generous and humble woman.. and took care of us in our childhood for every emotional and physical deficiency.. My mother is right For the year 2023, the 89-year-old is partly happy and happy despite the difficulties of age.. May you have a long life..

 

My mother really loved gardening and nature and both of them together created a magnificent garden, my parents have a relatively large garden so they could grow many types of special and rare medicinal plants and my father even wrote a catalog (unpublished) of medicinal plants and we even had botany students come to us who were interested in the field... today they They also grow ornamental plants, and fruit trees...

 

Question: A book about the brothers and sisters

Answer: My elder brother David Perez repented in his mid-twenties.. He was a very sharp, opinionated, curious and very charismatic guy who brought many people back to repentance, and also helped people with problems through the yeshiva and the synagogue to return to the normal path of life, he died young at the age of 56

 

Hana Peretz: My lovely sister, raised eight children, worked in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher, and child care.

She has a very large extended family of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren...

 

My brother Avi (Abraham) Peretz studied in Israel at the University of Philosophy and Judaism, he married a wonderful woman named Mira Drumi, a nurse by profession, and together they had three wonderful children, when they moved to the United States in their mid-twenties, where my brother Avi Peretz completed his master's degree in education, worked in the field Education and for the last twenty years is A conservative rabbi

 

The fourth brother is Asher Peretz - a great man of the world, very fond of traveling and has been to magical places all over the world, engaged in the creation of jewelry with two children.

 

I am Rafi Peretz english raphael perez the fifth and after fifteen minutes my twin brother was born

My mother still gets confused and can't remember who was born first :-)

 

My twin brother Miki micky - Michael Peretz, a beloved brother (everyone is beloved), a talented industrial designer, he has three children, his wife Revital Peretz Ben, who is a well-known art curator, active and responsible for the art field in Tel Aviv, they are a dynamic and talented couple, full of talents and action

 

The lovely little sister Shlomit Peretz - has been involved in the Bezeq telephone company for almost three decades, and is there in management positions, raising her lovely and beloved child.

  

The art book I dedicated to my family is colorful, rich in details, shows a very intense childhood, happy, cheerful, colorful, ... We were taught to be diligent and to be happy in our part and to see the glass half full in life, to have emotional intelligence and to put the relationship and love at the center with self-fulfillment in work that will interest you us and you will give us satisfaction.

 

Each of us is different in our life decisions and my family is actually a mosaic of the State of Israel that includes both religious and secular people from the entire political spectrum who understand that the secret to unity is mutual respect for each other... when my mother these days is also the family glue in everyone's gatherings on Shabbat and holidays..

 

The personification of the flower couple paintings by the Israeli painter Raphael Perez

Raphael Perez, also known as Rafi Peretz, is an Israeli painter who

explores his personal and sexual identity through his flower paintings. He created a series of flower paintings from 1995 to 1998, when he was in his early thirties and still in relationships with women, despite feeling gay. His flower paintings reflect his emotional turmoil and his struggle with his sexual orientation. He painted two flowers, one blooming and one wilting, to represent the contrast and conflict between his heterosexual relationships and his true self. He also painted single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to express his longing for a harmonious relationship that matches his nature. He chose sunflowers, white lilies, and red lilies as symbols of expression, purity, and joy, respectively. He painted from real flowers, using different styles and light to create drama and mood. Perez’s paintings of the flower couples are minimalist and focused on the theme of the complex relationship. He omitted any background or context, leaving only the canvas and the drawing of the flower couples. In some of the paintings, he added a very airy abstract surface with thin oil paints that give an atmosphere of watercolors. He also made drawings of flowers in ink, markers and gouache on paper. Later on, he created large acrylic paintings of flowers and still life. Perez’s flower paintings are not mere illustrations or decorations. They are autobiographical and psychological expressions of his inner state and his struggle with his sexuality. He wanted to reveal his loneliness, distress and concealment through these paintings, and to connect with people who are in a similar situation. He deliberately chose only two flowers and no more to intensify the engagement in the charged and complex relationship. Perez also painted and drew couples of men and women with charged psychological states, as well as states of desire for connection and realization of a heterosexual relationship that did not succeed. He used hyperrealism and expressive styles to convey his frozen and calculated state, as well as his mental stress. He used harsh lighting to create contrast and drama, with one side very bright and the other side darker. Perez was influenced by some of the famous artists who painted flowers, such as Van Gogh, who also used sunflowers as a symbol of expression. He also used white lilies and red lilies to convey freshness, cleanliness, purity, color, joy, movement, eruption, and splendor. Perez also painted some single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to show his aspiration for a future where he will have a harmonious relationship. Today, he is 58 years old and in a happy relationship for 10 years with his partner Assaf Henigsberg. He is surrounded by female friends and soulmates and not conflicted with heterosexual relationships as he used to be. He occasionally paints flowers in pots to symbolize home, stability, and peace. Sometimes I paint flowers in pots, which represent home, stability, and solid ground for me. I don’t paint just a couple of flowers, but pots full of flowers that overflow with life. This means that we also have a supportive network of family, friends, and peers around us. We live in a rich, supportive, and protective world. These paintings are a personification of my psychological state, when I had no words to express my feelings to myself. The painting began In 35 years of my creation (starting in 1998), you can read more about how my art and style evolved over time. Perez’s flower paintings are a unique and extraordinary artistic creation that reveals his personal journey and his sexual identity. His work is honest, expressive, and emotional, as well as beautiful and vibrant.

 

The characteristics of the naive painting of the painter Raphael Perez

A full interview with the Israeli painter Raphael Perez (Hebrew name: Rafi Peretz) about the ideas behind the naive painting, resume, personal biography and curriculum vitae Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about your work process as a naive painter? Answer: I choose the most iconic and famous buildings in every city and town that are architecturally interesting and have a special shape and place the iconic buildings on boulevards full of trees, bushes, vegetation, flowers. Question: How do you give depth in your naive paintings? Answer: To give depth to the painting, I build the painting with layers of vegetation, after those low famous buildings, followed by a tall avenue of trees, and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky I sometimes put innocent signs of balloons, kites. A recurring motif in some of my paintings is the figure of the painter who is in the center of the boulevard and paints the entire scene unfolding in front of him, also there are two kindergarten teachers who are walking with the kindergarten children with the state flags that I paint, and loving couples hugging and kissing and family paintings of mother, father and child walking in harmony on the boulevard. Question: Raphael Perez, what characterizes your naive painting? Answer: Most naive paintings have the same characteristics (Definition as it appears in Wikipedia) • Tells a simple story to absorb from everyday life, usually with humans. • The representation of the painter's idealization to reality - the mapping of reality. • Failure to maintain perspective - especially details even in distant details. • Extensive use of repeating patterns - many details. • Warm and bright colors. • Sometimes the emphasis is on outlines. • Most of the characters are flat, lack volume • No interest in texture, expression, correct proportions • No interest in anatomy. • There is not much use of light and shade, the colors create a three-dimensional effect. I find these definitions to be valid for all my naive paintings Question: Raphael Perez, why do you choose the city of Tel Aviv? Answer: I was born in Jerusalem, the capital city which I love very much and also paint, I love the special Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the ornamental buildings that were built a century ago in the 1920s and 1930s, the beautiful boulevards, towers and modern skyscrapers give you the feeling of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis and there are quite a few low and tall buildings that are architecturally fascinating in their form the special one Also, the move to Tel Aviv, which is the capital of culture, freedom, and secularism, allowed me to live my life as I chose, to live in a relationship with a man, Jerusalem, which is a traditional city, it is more complicated to live a homosexual life, also, the art world takes place mainly in the city of Tel Aviv, and it is possible that from a professional point of view, this allows I can support myself better in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel. Question: Raphael Perez, are the paintings of the city of Tel Aviv different from the paintings of the city of Jerusalem? Answer: Most of the paintings of Jerusalem have an emphasis on the color yellow, gold, the color of the old city walls, the subjects I painted in Jerusalem are mainly a type of idealization of a peaceful life between Jews and Arabs and paintings that deal with the Jewish religious world, a number of paintings depict all shades of the currents of Judaism today In contrast, the Tel Aviv paintings are more colorful, with skyscrapers, the sea, balloons and more secular motifs Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about which buildings and their architects you usually choose in your drawings of cities Answer: My favorite buildings are those that have a special shape that anyone can recognize and are the symbols of the city and you will give several examples: In the city of Tel Aviv, my favorite buildings are: the opera building with its unusual geometric shape, the Yisrotel tower with its special head, the Hail Bo Shalom tower that for years was the symbol of the tallest building in Tel Aviv, the Levin house that looks like a Japanese pagoda, the burgundy-colored Nordeau hotel with the special dome at the end of the building, A pair of Alon towers with the special structure of the sea, Bauhaus buildings typical of Tel Aviv with the special balconies and the special staircase, the Yaakov Agam fountain in Dizengoff square appears in a large part of the paintings, many towers that are in the stock exchange complex, the Aviv towers and other tall buildings on Ayalon, in some of the paintings I took plans An outline of future buildings that need to be built in the city and I drew them even before they were built in reality, In the paintings of Jerusalem, I mainly chose the area of the Old City and East Jerusalem, a painting of the walls of the Old City, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the El Akchea Mosque, the Tower of David, most of the famous churches in the city, the right hand of Moses, in most of the paintings the Jew is wearing a blue shirt with a red male cord I was in the youth movement and the Arab with a galabia, and in the paintings of the religious public then, Jews with black suits and white shirts, tallitas, kippahs, special hats, synagogues and more I also created three paintings of the city of Haifa and one painting of Safed In the Haifa paintings I drew the university, the Technion, the famous Egged Tower, the Sail Tower, well-known hotels, of course the Baha'i Gardens and the Baha'i Temple, Haifa Port and the boats and other famous buildings in the city Question: Raphael Perez, have you created series of other cities from around the world? Answer: I created series of New York City with all the iconic and famous buildings such as: the Guggenheim Museum, the famous skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, the famous synagogue in the city, the Statue of Liberty, the flags of the United States and other famous buildings Two paintings of London and all its famous sites, Big Ben, famous monuments, the Ferris wheel, Queen Elizabeth and her family, the double bus, the famous public telephone, palaces, famous churches, well-known monuments I created 4 naive paintings of cities in China, a painting of Shanghai, two paintings of the city of Suzhou and a painting of the World Park in the city of Beijing... I chose the famous skyline of Shanghai with all the famous towers, the famous promenade, temples and old buildings, two Paintings of the city of Suzhou with the famous canals, bridges, special gardens, towers and skyscrapers of the city Question: Raphael Perez What is the general idea that accompanies your paintings Answer: To create a good, beautiful, naive, innocent world in which we will see the innovation of the modern city through the skyscrapers in front of small and low buildings that bring the history and past of each country, all with an abundance of vegetation, boulevards, trees Resume, biography, CV of the painter Rafi Peretz and his family Question: When was Raphael Perez born in hebrew his name rafi peretz? Answer: Raphael Perez in Hebrew his name Rafi Peretz was born on March 4, 1965 Question: Where was Raphael Perez born? Answer: Raphael Perez was born in Jerusalem, Israel Question: What is the full name of Raphael Perez? Answer: His full name is Raphael Perez Question: Which art institution did Raphael Perez graduate from? Answer: Raphael Perez graduated from the Visual Arts Center in Be'er Sheva Question: When did Raphael Perez start painting? Answer: Raphael Perez started painting in 1989 Question: When did you start making a living selling art? Answer: Raphael Perez started making a living selling art in 1999 Question: Where does Raphael Perez live and work? Answer: Since 1995, Raphael Perez has been living and working from his studio in Tel Aviv Question: In which military framework did Raphael Perez serve in the IDF? Answer: Raphael Perez served in the artillery corps Question: Raphael Perez, what jobs did he work after his military service? Answer: Raphael Perez worked for 15 years in education in therapeutic settings for children and taught arts and movement Question: How many brothers and sisters does Raphael Perez, the Israeli painter, have? Answer: There are seven children in total, with the painter 5 sons and two daughters, that means the painter Raphael Perez has 4 more brothers and two sisters Question: What do the brothers and sisters of the painter Raphael Perez do? Answer: The elder brother David Peretz Perez was involved in the field of religious studies, the sister Hana Peretz Perez is involved in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher and child care, the brother Avi Peretz Perez who is in the United States today is a conservative rabbi but in the past was involved in education and therapy, the brother Asher Peretz Perez is involved in the fields of creativity and jewelry The twin brother Mickey Peretz Perez is a well-known industrial designer and seller. The younger sister Shlomit Peretz Perez works in a managerial position at Bezeq. Question: Tell me about the parents of the painter Raphael PerezAnswer: The painter Raphael Perez's parents are Shimon Perez Peretz and Eliza Alice Ben Yair, they were married in 1950 in Jerusalem, both were born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1949, Shimon Peretz worked in a building in his youth and later as a receptionist at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, Eliza Alice Peretz dealt in child care Kindergarten, working in kindergartens and of course taking care of and raising her seven children

The shortage of DMUs caused by the problematic 143s lead to first generation DMUs being drafted in from other areas, such as this Scotrail 101

Dharamshala (also Dharamsala) is a city and a municipal council in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is the district headquarters. It was formerly known as Bhagsu. The Dalai Lama's residence in McLeodGanj and the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government in exile) are in Dharamshala. Dharamshala is 18 kilometres from Kangra.

 

DESCRIPTION

Dharamshala is a city in the upper reaches of the Kangra Valley and is surrounded by dense coniferous forest consisting mainly of stately Deodar cedar trees. The suburbs include McLeodGanj, Bhagsunath, Dharamkot, Naddi, ForsythGanj, Kotwali Bazaar (the main market), Kaccheri Adda (government offices such as the court, police, post, etc.), Dari, Ramnagar, Sidhpur, and Sidhbari (where the Karmapa is based).

 

The village of McLeodGanj, lying in the upper reaches, is known worldwide for the presence of the Dalai Lama. On 29 April 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) established the Tibetan exile administration in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie. In May 1960, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) was moved to Dharamshala.

 

Dharamshala is the centre of the Tibetan exile world in India. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising there was an influx of Tibetan refugees who followed the 14th Dalai Lama. His presence and the Tibetan population has made Dharamshala a popular destination for Indian and foreign tourists, including students studying Tibet.

 

One of the main attractions of Dharamshala is Triund hill. Jewel of Dharamshala, Triund is one day trek at the upper reaches of McLeodGanj, about 9 km from McLeodGanj.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Dharamshala (Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashaalaa; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a Hindi word (derived from Sanskrit) that is a compound of dharma (धर्म) and shālā (शाला). A loose translation into English would be 'spiritual dwelling' or, more loosely, 'sanctuary'. Rendering a precise literal translation into English is problematic due to the vast and conceptually rich semantic field of the word dharma and the cultural aspect of India.

 

In common Hindi usage, the word dharamshala refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. Traditionally, such dharamshalas (pilgrims' rest houses) were commonly constructed near pilgrimage destinations (often in remote areas) to give visitors a place to sleep for the night. When the first permanent settlement was created in the place now called Dharamshala, there was one such pilgrims' rest house on the site, and the settlement took its name from that dharamshala.

 

HISTORY

BEFORE THE RAJ

From the earliest times until the British Raj, Dharamshala and its surrounding area was ruled by the Katoch Dynasty of Kangra. The Katoch Dynasty is said to be the oldest serving Royal Family in the world. The Royal Family still keeps a residence in Dharamshala, known as 'Clouds End Villa'.

 

The indigenous people of the Dharamshala area (and the surrounding region) are the Gaddis, a predominantly Hindu group who traditionally lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic (transhumant) lifestyle. Due to the lack of permanent settlements in the area, some Gaddis lost their seasonal pastures and farmland when the British and the Gurkhas arrived to settle.

 

SETTLESMENT BY THE BRITISH AND THE GURKHAS

In 1848, the area now known as Dharamshala was annexed by the British.

 

"Dharamsāla lies on a spur of the Dhaola Dhār, 16 miles north-east of Kāngra, in the midst of wild and picturesque scenery. It originally formed a subsidiary cantonment for the troops stationed at Kāngra, and was first occupied as a station in 1849, when a site was required for a cantonment to accommodate a Native regiment which was being raised in the District. A site was found upon the slopes of the Dhaola Dhār, in a plot of waste land, upon which stood an old Hindu resthouse, or dharmsāla, whence the name adopted for the new cantonment. The civil authorities, following the example of the regimental officers, and attracted by the advantages of climate and scenery, built themselves houses in the neighbourhood of the cantonment; and in 1855 the new station was formally recognised as the head-quarters of the [Kāngra] District."

 

In 1860, the 66th Gurkha Light Infantry was moved from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh to Dharamshala, which was at first made a subsidiary cantonment. An ideal position for the new base was found on the slopes of the Dhauladhar Hills, near the site of a Hindu sanctuary, or Dharamshala, hence the name of the town. The Battalion was later renamed the historic 1st Gurkha Rifles, this was the beginning of the legend of the Gurkhas, also known as the 'Bravest of the Brave'. Consequently, fourteen Gurkha platoon villages grew from this settlement, and exist to this day, namely Dari, Ramnagar, Shyamnagar, Dal, Totarani, Khanyara, Sadher, Chaandmaari, Sallagarhi, Sidhbari, Yol, and so on. The Gurkhas worshipped at the ancient Shiva temple of Bhagsunag. The Gurkhas referred to Dharamshala as 'Bhagsu' and referred to themselves as Bhagsuwalas.

 

The 21st Gurkha Regiment from Dharamshala performed heroic feats during World War I and the North West Frontier Province campaigns. The Gurkha cantonment then reached its zenith during World War II, when battalions from Dharamshala made history. Many place names in the town still retain their former cantonment terminologies: Depot Bazaar, Pensioners' Lines, Tirah Lines (named after the 19th century Tirah Campaign), Bharatpore Lines (named after the 1826 Battle of Bharatpore).

 

The second Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India died here (at the 1st Gurkha Rifles Officers' Mess) in 1863 and is buried in the cemetery of St. John in the Wilderness, a small Anglican church distinguished by its stained-glass windows. Dharamshala became a popular hill station for the British working in or near Delhi, offering a cool respite during the hot summer months.

 

"Before the earthquake of 1905, the upper part of the station, which rises to a height of 2,168 metres, contained the European houses, the station church, and the officers' mess and lines of the 1st Gurkhas, together with the public gardens, post office, and two bazars, the Forsythganj and McLeodganj. The public offices, a bazar, and a few European houses made up the lower station, as low as 1,372 metres. The 1st battalion of the 1st Gurkhas used to be stationed here, but was moved to the upper station in 1894-5.... The public gardens, which were, before the earthquake, laid out with much taste in lawns and terraces, contained a valuable collection of indigenous and imported trees and shrubs, and were overlooked by the Assembly Rooms, a handsome building comprising a public hall, a library and reading-room and a billiard-room. The church was beautifully situated in a recess of the mountain."

 

In 1905, the Kangra valley suffered a major earthquake. On April 4 of that year, the earth shook, demolishing much of the cantonment and the neighbouring city of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh as well as the Bhagsunag temple. Altogether, the 1905 Kangra earthquake killed 20,000 people. "1,625 persons perished at Dharamsāla alone, including 15 Europeans and 112 of the Gurkha garrison."

 

The Gurkhas rebuilt the town along with the temple, which today is acknowledged as the 1st Gurkha Rifles' heritage. The British had planned to make Dharamshala the summer capital of India, but moved to Shimla after the disaster.

 

Not only did the Gurkhas of Dharmshala make a major contribution to India's defence, many were freedom fighters for the Indian National Army, which had been founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indian National Army Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gurkha from the village of Khanyara, composed some of India's most popular and stirring patriotic songs, including "Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja". He is acknowledged so by the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata. The important contribution of the noted Gurkha social commentator, the late Master Mitrasen Thapa, from the village of Totarani, has been acknowledged by the Himachal Pradesh government. Recently, a park dedicated to the memory of the late Brigadier Sher Jung Thapa, MVC, the 'Hero of Skardu', has been opened alongside the road between Lower and Upper Dharamshala.

 

ESTABLISHMENT OF TIBETAN EXILE COMMUNITY

The Tibetan settlement of Dharamshala began in 1959, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet and the Prime Minister of India allowed him and his followers to settle in McLeodGanj (in Upper Dharmshala), a former colonial British summer picnic spot. There they established the "government-in-exile" in 1960. Dharamshala had been connected with Hinduism and Buddhism for a long time, many monasteries having been established there in the past, by Tibetan immigrants in the 19th century. In 1970, The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives which houses over 80,000 manuscripts and other important resources related to Tibetan history, politics and culture. It is considered one of the most important institutions for Tibetology in the world, the new director is Geshe Lahkdor, the old translator of H.H. the Dalai Lama.

 

Several thousand Tibetan exiles have now settled in the area, and most live in and around McLeodGanj in Upper Dharamshala, where they have built monasteries, temples and schools. McLeodGanj is sometimes known as 'Little Lhasa", after the Tibetan capital city, or 'Dhasa' (a compound of 'Dharamshala' and 'Lhasa'). It has become an important tourist destination with many hotels and restaurants, leading to growth in tourism and commerce.

 

Dharamshala is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh. The Legislative Assembly is at Sidhbari, near the Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram, and the winter sessions of the Government are held there.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Dharamshala has an average elevation of 1457 metres, covering an area of almost 8.51 km².

 

Dharamsala is located in the Kangra Valley, in the shadow of the Dhauladhar mountains.

 

The city is divided into two distinct sections. Kotwali Bazaar and the surrounding markets are referred to as "Lower Dharamshala" or just "Dharamshala." Further up the mountain is McLeodGanj separated in between by the village of Ganchen Kyishong, the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. A steep, narrow road connects McLeodGanj from Dharamshala and is only accessible to taxis and small cars, while a longer road winds around the valley for use by buses and trucks. McLeodGanj is surrounded by pine, Himalayan oak, and rhododendron.

 

The main crops grown in the valleys below are rice, wheat and tea.

 

CONNECTIONS

Dharamshala town is reached by Gaggal Airport, (IATA: DHM, ICAO: VIGG), about 15 km to the town's south and about 10 km north of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town. To reach Dharamshala by train, one has to reach Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town by Kangra Valley Railway line from Pathankot 94 km away and then take a bus or a taxi.

 

Pathankot is a broad gauge railway head. There is another railway line from Pathankot to Jogindernagar, a part of the Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh, which is a narrow-gauge line. The nearest station to Dharamshala on this line is Chamunda Marg, half an hour away, where a Shaktipitha is; the town is well connected by road to other parts of the country.

 

Buses of all classes (deluxe, air-conditioned, and regular) drive daily between Dharamshala and major cities such as Chandigarh, Delhi, and Shimla. Several buses each night connect McLeodGanj with Majnu Ka Tila, the Tibetan settlement in Delhi.

 

CLIMATE

Dharamshala has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Cwa). Summer starts in early April, peaks in early June (when temperatures can reach 36 °C) and last till mid-June. From July to mid-September is the monsoon season when up to 3000 mm of rainfall can be experienced, making Dharamshala one of the wettest places in the state. Autumn is mild and lasts from October to the end of November.

 

Autumn temperatures average around 16–17 °C. Winter starts in December and continues until late February. Snow and sleet are common during the winter in upper Dharamshala (including McLeodganj, Bhagsu Nag and Naddi). Lower Dharamshala receives little solid precipitation except hail. The snowfall of January 7, 2012 was an exception. It was caused by deep low pressure entering the Kangra district. Winter is followed by a short, pleasant spring until April. Historically, the Dhauladhar mountains used to remain snow-covered all year long, however, in recent years they have been losing their snow blanket during dry spells.

 

The best times to visit are the autumn and spring months.

 

TREKKING

Dharamshala is a starting point to a number of trekking trails that especially lead trekkers across Dhauladhar into the upper Ravi Valley and Chamba district. En route, you cross through forests of deodar, pine, oak and rhododendron, and pass streams and rivers and wind along vertiginous cliff tracks, and the occasional lake waterfall and glacier.

 

A 2-km amble takes one to Bhagsu, and then a further 3-km walk will lead the trekkers to Dharamkot. If one wishes to go on a longer walk then he/she can trek 8-km to Triund. The snow line of Ilaqa Got is just a 5-km walk.

 

Other trekking trails that lead you to Chamba from Dharamshala are:

 

Toral Pass (4575m) which begins from Tang Narwana (1150m) that is nearly 10 km from Dharamshala

Across Bhimghasutri Pass (4580m) via near-vertical rocky ascents, steep cliffs and dangerous gorges. This is a highly difficult level trek and takes around six days to complete.

Dharamshala—Bleni Pass (3710m) – Dunali. Compared to other trekking trails, this one is much easier and takes around four or five-days to complete. The trek leads you through alpine pastures, woods, and streams, before ending at Dunali, on the Chamba road.

 

Dharamshala is an ideal destination for rock climbing enthusiasts. One can go rock climbing over the ridges of the Dhauladhar range.

 

Kareri lake (near kareri village) is also a famous trekking destination for travellers.

 

PLACES OF ATTRACTION

Naam Art Gallery The exhibition in ‘NAAM ART GALLERY’ exhibits paintings by Elsbeth Buschmann - watercolours and acrylics - and oil paintings by Alfred W. Hallett. Elsbeth Buschmann, is a professional painter from Germany, having studied painting in London and Paris . She lived in many countries where she held exhibitions, especially in the USA where she received various awards. Her paintings are in private collections in Germany, USA, Scotland, India and Switzerland. In India she held solo exhibitions at AIFAX, New Delhi and TAG, the Art Gallery of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. She also took part in ‘The Himalayan National Exhibition of Art’ and was awarded. Open 10am to 7.00pm (Monday Closed) Mobile 098160-43708

 

Masrur (or Masroor): The major attraction of this place is the fifteen exquisitely carved monolithic rock temples dating back to the 8th century. The carvings of these temples are similar to Kailash temple at Ellora. In the sanctum of the main temple, one can find images of Lord Ram, and the Goddesses Sita and Lakshmi. Masrur is 40 km south of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh at 32°4′22″N 76°8′14″E. Template: Jama Masjid, Kotwali Bazar, Dharamshala.

 

Bhagsu Waterfall: This waterfall is in Bhagsu, 2 km from McLeodGanj. It lies behind the Bhagsunag Temple. During Monsoon, the fall turns into a 30 feet cascade.

 

Bhagsunag Temple: Temple of god Shiva situated around 2 km from McLeodGanj Bazaar. Constructed by 1 GR by around 1800 century and then worshipped majorly by 14 Gukha platoon villages in Dharamshala. Very next to Bhagsunag temple is a water fall, one of the major tourist attraction spot in Dharamshala.

 

Kangra Museum: Situated close to the bus stand, Kangra Art Museum is a unique museum displaying the artifacts of Tibetan and Buddhist cultures. This is a treasure of Kangra valley’s cultural past, crafts, arts and other ancient artifacts. Some of the displayed items in the museum are dating back to the 5th century.

 

Kangra Museum encloses a gallery consisting of miniature paintings of Kangra’s rich past, pottery, rare coin memorabilia, sculptures and anthropological materials. It has a varied collection of tribal jewelry, embroidered costumes and wood carvings. A section dedicated to contemporary artworks adds the attraction to the museum.

 

Tourists can easily reach by bus or taxi and it will take 30 mins to one hour to see the museum. While visiting the museum, never miss to explore the Kotwali bazar.

 

Kunal Pathri Temple: This temple is dedicated to Goddess Kalpeshwari and is 3 km from the Kotwali Bazaar. It's believed that a part of Goddess Sati's skull fell here when Lord Shiva was carrying the charred body of the Goddess; hence the name of the temple.

 

Chamunda Temple: This temple is around 15 km from Dharamshala on the right bank of river Baner on the Mandi-Pathankot highway. According to mythology, Goddess Kali killed the demons Chand and Mund at this place.

 

Dal Lake: The Lake is spread in an area of 1 km and is bounded by rhododendrons, deodars, and junipers forest. Annually, a fair is held at the Kali Temple near the Lake. There is another temple close to the lake that is dedicated to sage Durvasa. Dal Lake is 2 km walk westwards from McLeodGanj bazaar.

 

Triund: Triund is nestled in the foothills of Dhauladhar and is around 17 km from Dharamshala. It's a trekking destination from McLeodGanj, and offers magnificent vistas of the mountains and valleys. The nightstays are in the hoods, small time caves, that local gaddis with their goat herds use as shelters from rains during the daytime.

 

Naddi: This scenic picnic spot is located 5 km northwest of McLeodGanj. Naddi offers a spectacular view of the Kangra valley. You can trek to Kareri Lake, Triund, and Guna Devi from here. It's becoming a popular destination for nature lovers.

 

Thaneek Pura or Thanik Pura is a hill station village (hamlet) in Chintpurni in the Una district of the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. It is near the Chintpurni Temple, which is a place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Sikhs. The area is surrounded by the western Himalayas in the north and east in the smaller Shiwalik (or Shivalik) range bordering the state of Punjab.

 

McLeodGanj is around 9 km from Dharamshala. This place is famous for its markets, where one can shop for handicraft items, eat Tibetan food and visit statue of Lord Buddha.

 

Sidhbari : A village located 6 km from Dharamshala near Yol Cantonment and a place of historical spiritual significance. Attractions around Sidhbari include the Kapila Muni Cave, Chinmaya Ashram, Gyuto monastery, Aganjar Mahadev Temple and the newly constructed State legislature. The agricultural hamlet of Rakkar nearby is an ideal base to explore the rest of the Kangra district and experience the traditional lifestyle and mud architecture of the Gaddi community.

 

Adi Shakti Temple, Naddi

Aghanjar Mahadev

Bhagsu waterfall

Bhagsunath

Sheela Chowk

Bir - Popular destination for ecotourism, meditation studies, volunteering, and paragliding at Billing.

Brajeshwari Devi Temple

Chamunda Devi Mandir

Chinmaya Tapovan

Chime Gyatsarling Monastery, just behind of Norbulingka Institute, upper Sidhpur. 6 km from Dharmshala and 14 km from Gagal airport.

Dal Lake

Dari

Gopalpur Zoo and tea gardens

Dehra Gopipur

Dharamkot (2100 m)

Guna Devi Mandir amidst dense forest

Historical fort in Old Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Adjoining the Fort is the Maharaja Sansar Chandra Museum, run by the Kangra Royal Family. The Museum provides audio guides for the fort and the museum.

Haripur Village (near Guler)

Pong Dam Lake

Indru Nag Temple

Kareri Lake

Khaniyara

Kunal Pathri

Lam Dal Lake

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

Masrur (rock temple)

Namgyal Monastery

Narghota

Norbulingka Institute

Nurpur

Sidhbari

Church of St. John in the Wilderness

Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts

Triund (2975 m), a popular day hike or overnight trek. There is a forest rest house for overnight stay.

Tatwani and Machhrial

Trilokpur

Chime Gyatseling Monastery (Guru Padmasambhava)

Near Norbulingka Tibetan Institute

Jama Masjid kotwalibazar Dharamshala

 

WIKIPEDIA

Real Tulips. Fake wood floor.

First try at using my ebaytastic fake wood backdrop. Problematic to get it totally flat and the flash exacerbated the creases a lot, so have tried to clone out the most obvious.

 

GBRF Caledonian Sleeper 73971 with problematic coach passing Milton of Forteviot 22.06.2021

Abellio Surrey 8003 (LJ56 ONL) arrives at Woking station on the 557 to find the entire bus stand full of vehicles.

 

The reduction in stand capacity here can be problematic, partially as there are times when the timetabled number of buses exceeds available space, and partly because once they come back past a certain point, buses turning right out of Duke Street cannot make the manoeuvre without mounting the pavement.

 

Admittedly in this case the Safeguard coach shouldn't be there, but given there's now longer any coach parking provision in the town centre*, what else are they supposed to do?

 

(*Coaches can park in the leisure centre car park, but cannot set down or pick up passengers there, unless for a leisure cente function. The driver must stay with the vehicle, at a cost of £9. They can also park in Poole Road, but each vehicle needs to obtain a waiver for the parking ban at a cost of £18 each. This still doesn't provide anywhere to actually pick up or set down passengers in the town centre. The only location is the slip road to the shoppers car park in Victoria Way, bloody useless for the entire town centre barring the theatre. www.woking.gov.uk/transport/parking/coaches)

 

The Broadway, Woking, Surrey.

Clearly, getting past the branches to focus on the blossom was problematic! What was this blossom doing in there anyway? Weren't there better places to grow?

This is one species of robot dinosaurs everyone in the galaxy WISHES were extinct! These devils, while standing shorter than a human, are nonetheless problematic. Quick and well balanced on their two wirey strong legs with whip like tail these single minded and eyed (those red lens eyes are powerful both day and night!) bots have one overriding instinct ... cut and snip. Anything. ANYTHING!

 

Especially things that dangle.

 

DANGLE I say man! Do not find yourself in the hot summer sun on a nude beach. DON'T DO IT!

 

It's finished in a neat semi metallic dark blue and bright metallic silver with a bright red eye!

 

This creation is about 5 3/4" inches by about 2 3/3" and about 2" wide (reminder there are 2 1/2 cm in an inch). You are getting one item here; sometimes I display other items in the photos.

 

Made almost 100% from wood unless stated otherwise (I sometimes use tiny amounts of other things) I use paint and many finishes, often metallic, and make sure a lot of details shine through, often even the wood grain itself despite high tech themes. They maintain an often retro, sometimes even rustic look and feel to them, like an "olde worlde" toy or something (some more so than others ... I am told that surprisingly many do not even look like they are wood, but like metal or some manmade material... you can usually tell by the photos).

 

Pride and Prejudice: on Raphael Perez's Artwork

 

Raphael Perez, born in 1965, studied art at the College of Visual Arts in Beer Sheva, and from 1995 has been living and working in his studio in Tel Aviv. Today Perez plays an important role in actively promoting the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) art and culture in Tel Aviv, and the internet portal he set up helps artists from the community reach large audiences in Israel and abroad. Hundreds of his artworks are part of private collections in Israel and abroad, and his artworks were shown in several group exhibitions: in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "Zman Le'Omanut" art gallery, Camera Obscura, The Open House in Jerusalem, Ophir Gallery, The Haifa Forum and other private businesses and galleries.

In 2003-4 his paintings and studio appeared in a full-length movie, three student films and two graduation films.

 

Raphael Perez is the first Israeli artist to express his lifestyle as a Gay. His life and the life of the LGBT community are connected and unfold over hundreds of artwork pieces. His art creation is rare and extraordinary by every Israeli and international artistic standard. His sources of inspiration are first and foremost life events intertwined in Jewish and Israeli locality as well as influences and quotes from art history (David Hockney, Matisse). This uniqueness has crossed international borders and has succeeded in moving the LGBT and art communities around the world.

 

This is the first time we meet an Israeli artist who expresses all of his emotions in a previously unknown strength. The subjects of the paintings are the everyday life of couples in everyday places and situations, along with the aspiration to a homosexual relationship and family, equality and public recognition. Perez's works bring forward to the cultural space and to the public discourse the truth about living as LGBT and about relationships, with all of their aspects – casual relationships and sex, the yearning for love, the everyday life and the mundane activities that exist in every romantic relationship – whether by describing two men in an intimate scene in the bathroom, the bedroom or the toilet, a male couple raising a baby or the homosexual version of the Garden of Eden, family dinners, relationship ups and downs, the complexity in sharing a life as well as mundane, everyday life competing with the aspiration to self realization – through Perez's life.

  

Perez's first artworks are personal diaries, which he creates at 14 years of age. He makes sure to hide these diaries, as in them he keeps a personal journal describing his life events in the most genuine way. In these journals he draws thousands of drawings and sketches, next to which he alternately writes and erases his so-called "problematic texts", texts describing his struggle with his sexual orientation. His diaries are filled with obsessive cataloging of details, daily actions, friends and work, as well as repeating themes, such as thoughts, exhibits he has seen, movies, television, books and review of his work.

 

When he is done writing, Perez draws on his diaries. Each layer is done from beginning to end all along the journal. In fact, the work on the diaries never ends.

This struggle never ends, and when the emotion is passed on to paper, and it ends its role and becomes meaningless in a way, the visual-graphic side becomes dominant, due to the need to hide the written text, according to Perez. In books and diaries this stands out even more – when he chooses to draw in a style influenced by children's drawings, the characters are cheerful, happy, naïve and do not portray any sexuality, and when he tries drawing as an adult the sketches became more depressed and somber. During these years Perez works with preschool children, teaching them drawing and movement games. Perez says that during this period he completely abandoned the search for a relationship, either with a woman or a man, and working with children has given him existential meaning. This creation continues over 10 years, and Perez creates about 60 books-personal journals in various sizes (notepads, old notebooks, atlases and even old art books).

 

In his early paintings (1998-1999) the transition from relationships with women to relationships with men can be seen, from restraint to emotional outburst in color, lines and composition. Some characters display strong emotional expression. The women are usually drawn in restraint and passiveness, while a happy and loving emotional outburst is expressed in the colors and style of the male paintings.

 

"I fantasized that in a relationship with a woman I could fly in the sky, love, fly. However, I felt I was hiding something; I was choked up, hidden behind a mask, as if there was an internal scream wanting to come out. I was frustrated, I felt threatened…"

 

His first romance with a man in 1999 has drawn out a series of naïve paintings dealing with love and the excitement of performing everyday actions together in the intimate domestic environment.

 

"The excitement from each everyday experience of doing things together and the togetherness was great, so I painted every possible thing I liked doing with him."

 

From the moment the self-oppression and repression stopped, Perez started the process of healing, which was expressed in a burst of artworks, enormous in their size, amount, content and vivid colors – red, pink and white.

 

In 2000 Perez starts painting the huge artworks describing the hangouts of the LGBT community (The Lake, The Pool) and the Tel Avivian balcony paintings describing the masculine world, which, according to him, becomes existent thanks to the painting. Perez has dedicated this year to many series of drawings and paintings of the experience of love, in which he describes his first love for his new partner, and during these months he paints from morning to night. These paintings are the fruit of a long dialogue with David Hockney, and the similarity can be seen both in subjects and in different gestures.

 

In 2001 Perez creates a series of artworks, "Portraits from The Community". Perez describes in large, photorealistic paintings over 20 portraits of active and well-known members of the LGBT community. The emphasis is on the achievements that reflect the community's strong standing in Tel Aviv.

As a Tel-Avivian painter, in the past two years Perez has been painting urban landscapes of central locations in his city. Perez wanders around the city and chooses familiar architectural and geographical landmarks, commerce and recreation, and historical sites, and paints them from a homosexual point of view, decorated with the rainbow flag, which provide a sense of belonging to the place. His artworks are characterized by a cheerful joie de vivre and colors, and they also describe encounters and meetings. The touristic nature of his paintings makes them a declaration of Tel Aviv's image as a place where cultural freedom prevails.

Perez's Tel Aviv is a city where young families and couples live and fill the streets, the parks, the beach, the houses and the balconies – all the city's spaces. The characters in his paintings are similar, which helps reinforcing the belonging to the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. The collective theme in Perez's artwork interacts with the work of the Israeli artist Yohanan Simon, who dealt with the social aspects of the Kibbutz. Simon, who lived and worked in a Kibbutz, expressed the human model of the Kibbutznik (member of a Kibbutz) and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz members as part of a group where all are equal. Simon's works, and now Perez's, have contributed to the Israeli society what is has been looking for endlessly, which is a sense of identity and belonging.

Perez maps his territory and marks his boundaries, and does not forget the historical sites. Unlike other Tel Avivian artists, Perez wishes to present the lives of the residents of the city and the great love in their hearts. By choosing the historical sites in Tel Aviv, he also pays tribute to the artist Nachum Gutman, who loved the city and lived in it his whole life. In his childhood Gutman experienced historical moments (lighting the first oil lamp, first concert, first pavement), and as an adult he recreated the uniqueness of those events while keeping the city's magic.

Like Gutman, Perez has also turned the city into an object of love, and it has started adorning itself in rich colors and supplying the energy of a city that wishes to be "the city that never sleeps", combining old and new. Perez meticulously describes the uniqueness and style of the Bauhaus houses and balconies along the modern glass and steel buildings, all from unusual angles in a rectangular format that wishes to imitate the panorama of a diverse city in its centennial celebrations.

 

Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, curator.

   

Interview with the painter Raphael Perez about his family artist book

An interview with the painter Raphael Perez about an artist's book he created about his family, the Peretz family from 6 Nissan St. Kiryat Yuval Jerusalem

  

Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about the family artist book you created

Answer: I created close to 40 artist books, notebooks, diaries, sketch books and huge books. I dedicated one of the books to my dear family, a book in which I took a childhood photograph of my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.. I pasted the photographs inside a book (the photograph is 10 percent of the total painting) and I drew with acrylic paints, markers and ink on the book and the photograph, so that the image of the photograph was an inspiration to me Build the story that includes page by page..

  

Question: Tell me when you were born, where, and a little about your family

Answer: I was born on March 4, 1965 in the Kiryat Yuval neighborhood in Jerusalem

I have a twin brother named Miki Peretz and we are seven brothers and sisters, five boys and two girls

 

Question: Tell us a little about your parents

Answer: My parents were new immigrants from Morocco, both immigrated young.

My mother's name before the wedding was Alice - Aliza ben Yair and my father's name was Shimon Peretz,

My mother was born in the Atlas Mountains and was orphaned at a young age and was later adopted by my father's family at the age of 10, so that my mother and father spent childhood and adolescence together....

They had a beautiful and happy relationship but sometimes when they argued my mother would say "even when she was a child she was like that..." This means that their acquaintance and relationship dates back to childhood..

  

Question: What did your parents Shimon and Aliza Peretz work for?

Answer: My father, Shimon Perez, born in 1928 - worked in a building in his youth and then for thirty years worked as a receptionist at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem... My father's great love was actually art, he loved to draw as a hobby, write, read, solve crossword puzzles and research Regarding the issue of medicinal plants, as a breadwinner he could not fulfill his dream of becoming an artist, in order to support and feed seven children. But we are the next generation, his children are engaged in the world of creativity and education, a field in which both of my parents were engaged during their lives. My father died at the age of 69

 

My mother, Alice Aliza Perez, born in 1934, worked as an assistant to a kindergarten teacher, and later took care of a baby at home. She is a woman of wholehearted giving and caring for children and people, a warm, generous and humble woman.. and took care of us in our childhood for every emotional and physical deficiency.. My mother is right For the year 2023, the 89-year-old is partly happy and happy despite the difficulties of age.. May you have a long life..

 

My mother really loved gardening and nature and both of them together created a magnificent garden, my parents have a relatively large garden so they could grow many types of special and rare medicinal plants and my father even wrote a catalog (unpublished) of medicinal plants and we even had botany students come to us who were interested in the field... today they They also grow ornamental plants, and fruit trees...

 

Question: A book about the brothers and sisters

Answer: My elder brother David Perez repented in his mid-twenties.. He was a very sharp, opinionated, curious and very charismatic guy who brought many people back to repentance, and also helped people with problems through the yeshiva and the synagogue to return to the normal path of life, he died young at the age of 56

 

Hana Peretz: My lovely sister, raised eight children, worked in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher, and child care.

She has a very large extended family of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren...

 

My brother Avi (Abraham) Peretz studied in Israel at the University of Philosophy and Judaism, he married a wonderful woman named Mira Drumi, a nurse by profession, and together they had three wonderful children, when they moved to the United States in their mid-twenties, where my brother Avi Peretz completed his master's degree in education, worked in the field Education and for the last twenty years is A conservative rabbi

 

The fourth brother is Asher Peretz - a great man of the world, very fond of traveling and has been to magical places all over the world, engaged in the creation of jewelry with two children.

 

I am Rafi Peretz english raphael perez the fifth and after fifteen minutes my twin brother was born

My mother still gets confused and can't remember who was born first :-)

 

My twin brother Miki micky - Michael Peretz, a beloved brother (everyone is beloved), a talented industrial designer, he has three children, his wife Revital Peretz Ben, who is a well-known art curator, active and responsible for the art field in Tel Aviv, they are a dynamic and talented couple, full of talents and action

 

The lovely little sister Shlomit Peretz - has been involved in the Bezeq telephone company for almost three decades, and is there in management positions, raising her lovely and beloved child.

  

The art book I dedicated to my family is colorful, rich in details, shows a very intense childhood, happy, cheerful, colorful, ... We were taught to be diligent and to be happy in our part and to see the glass half full in life, to have emotional intelligence and to put the relationship and love at the center with self-fulfillment in work that will interest you us and you will give us satisfaction.

 

Each of us is different in our life decisions and my family is actually a mosaic of the State of Israel that includes both religious and secular people from the entire political spectrum who understand that the secret to unity is mutual respect for each other... when my mother these days is also the family glue in everyone's gatherings on Shabbat and holidays..

 

The personification of the flower couple paintings by the Israeli painter Raphael Perez

Raphael Perez, also known as Rafi Peretz, is an Israeli painter who

explores his personal and sexual identity through his flower paintings. He created a series of flower paintings from 1995 to 1998, when he was in his early thirties and still in relationships with women, despite feeling gay. His flower paintings reflect his emotional turmoil and his struggle with his sexual orientation. He painted two flowers, one blooming and one wilting, to represent the contrast and conflict between his heterosexual relationships and his true self. He also painted single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to express his longing for a harmonious relationship that matches his nature. He chose sunflowers, white lilies, and red lilies as symbols of expression, purity, and joy, respectively. He painted from real flowers, using different styles and light to create drama and mood. Perez’s paintings of the flower couples are minimalist and focused on the theme of the complex relationship. He omitted any background or context, leaving only the canvas and the drawing of the flower couples. In some of the paintings, he added a very airy abstract surface with thin oil paints that give an atmosphere of watercolors. He also made drawings of flowers in ink, markers and gouache on paper. Later on, he created large acrylic paintings of flowers and still life. Perez’s flower paintings are not mere illustrations or decorations. They are autobiographical and psychological expressions of his inner state and his struggle with his sexuality. He wanted to reveal his loneliness, distress and concealment through these paintings, and to connect with people who are in a similar situation. He deliberately chose only two flowers and no more to intensify the engagement in the charged and complex relationship. Perez also painted and drew couples of men and women with charged psychological states, as well as states of desire for connection and realization of a heterosexual relationship that did not succeed. He used hyperrealism and expressive styles to convey his frozen and calculated state, as well as his mental stress. He used harsh lighting to create contrast and drama, with one side very bright and the other side darker. Perez was influenced by some of the famous artists who painted flowers, such as Van Gogh, who also used sunflowers as a symbol of expression. He also used white lilies and red lilies to convey freshness, cleanliness, purity, color, joy, movement, eruption, and splendor. Perez also painted some single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to show his aspiration for a future where he will have a harmonious relationship. Today, he is 58 years old and in a happy relationship for 10 years with his partner Assaf Henigsberg. He is surrounded by female friends and soulmates and not conflicted with heterosexual relationships as he used to be. He occasionally paints flowers in pots to symbolize home, stability, and peace. Sometimes I paint flowers in pots, which represent home, stability, and solid ground for me. I don’t paint just a couple of flowers, but pots full of flowers that overflow with life. This means that we also have a supportive network of family, friends, and peers around us. We live in a rich, supportive, and protective world. These paintings are a personification of my psychological state, when I had no words to express my feelings to myself. The painting began In 35 years of my creation (starting in 1998), you can read more about how my art and style evolved over time. Perez’s flower paintings are a unique and extraordinary artistic creation that reveals his personal journey and his sexual identity. His work is honest, expressive, and emotional, as well as beautiful and vibrant.

 

The characteristics of the naive painting of the painter Raphael Perez

A full interview with the Israeli painter Raphael Perez (Hebrew name: Rafi Peretz) about the ideas behind the naive painting, resume, personal biography and curriculum vitae Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about your work process as a naive painter? Answer: I choose the most iconic and famous buildings in every city and town that are architecturally interesting and have a special shape and place the iconic buildings on boulevards full of trees, bushes, vegetation, flowers. Question: How do you give depth in your naive paintings? Answer: To give depth to the painting, I build the painting with layers of vegetation, after those low famous buildings, followed by a tall avenue of trees, and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky I sometimes put innocent signs of balloons, kites. A recurring motif in some of my paintings is the figure of the painter who is in the center of the boulevard and paints the entire scene unfolding in front of him, also there are two kindergarten teachers who are walking with the kindergarten children with the state flags that I paint, and loving couples hugging and kissing and family paintings of mother, father and child walking in harmony on the boulevard. Question: Raphael Perez, what characterizes your naive painting? Answer: Most naive paintings have the same characteristics (Definition as it appears in Wikipedia) • Tells a simple story to absorb from everyday life, usually with humans. • The representation of the painter's idealization to reality - the mapping of reality. • Failure to maintain perspective - especially details even in distant details. • Extensive use of repeating patterns - many details. • Warm and bright colors. • Sometimes the emphasis is on outlines. • Most of the characters are flat, lack volume • No interest in texture, expression, correct proportions • No interest in anatomy. • There is not much use of light and shade, the colors create a three-dimensional effect. I find these definitions to be valid for all my naive paintings Question: Raphael Perez, why do you choose the city of Tel Aviv? Answer: I was born in Jerusalem, the capital city which I love very much and also paint, I love the special Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the ornamental buildings that were built a century ago in the 1920s and 1930s, the beautiful boulevards, towers and modern skyscrapers give you the feeling of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis and there are quite a few low and tall buildings that are architecturally fascinating in their form the special one Also, the move to Tel Aviv, which is the capital of culture, freedom, and secularism, allowed me to live my life as I chose, to live in a relationship with a man, Jerusalem, which is a traditional city, it is more complicated to live a homosexual life, also, the art world takes place mainly in the city of Tel Aviv, and it is possible that from a professional point of view, this allows I can support myself better in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel. Question: Raphael Perez, are the paintings of the city of Tel Aviv different from the paintings of the city of Jerusalem? Answer: Most of the paintings of Jerusalem have an emphasis on the color yellow, gold, the color of the old city walls, the subjects I painted in Jerusalem are mainly a type of idealization of a peaceful life between Jews and Arabs and paintings that deal with the Jewish religious world, a number of paintings depict all shades of the currents of Judaism today In contrast, the Tel Aviv paintings are more colorful, with skyscrapers, the sea, balloons and more secular motifs Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about which buildings and their architects you usually choose in your drawings of cities Answer: My favorite buildings are those that have a special shape that anyone can recognize and are the symbols of the city and you will give several examples: In the city of Tel Aviv, my favorite buildings are: the opera building with its unusual geometric shape, the Yisrotel tower with its special head, the Hail Bo Shalom tower that for years was the symbol of the tallest building in Tel Aviv, the Levin house that looks like a Japanese pagoda, the burgundy-colored Nordeau hotel with the special dome at the end of the building, A pair of Alon towers with the special structure of the sea, Bauhaus buildings typical of Tel Aviv with the special balconies and the special staircase, the Yaakov Agam fountain in Dizengoff square appears in a large part of the paintings, many towers that are in the stock exchange complex, the Aviv towers and other tall buildings on Ayalon, in some of the paintings I took plans An outline of future buildings that need to be built in the city and I drew them even before they were built in reality, In the paintings of Jerusalem, I mainly chose the area of the Old City and East Jerusalem, a painting of the walls of the Old City, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the El Akchea Mosque, the Tower of David, most of the famous churches in the city, the right hand of Moses, in most of the paintings the Jew is wearing a blue shirt with a red male cord I was in the youth movement and the Arab with a galabia, and in the paintings of the religious public then, Jews with black suits and white shirts, tallitas, kippahs, special hats, synagogues and more I also created three paintings of the city of Haifa and one painting of Safed In the Haifa paintings I drew the university, the Technion, the famous Egged Tower, the Sail Tower, well-known hotels, of course the Baha'i Gardens and the Baha'i Temple, Haifa Port and the boats and other famous buildings in the city Question: Raphael Perez, have you created series of other cities from around the world? Answer: I created series of New York City with all the iconic and famous buildings such as: the Guggenheim Museum, the famous skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, the famous synagogue in the city, the Statue of Liberty, the flags of the United States and other famous buildings Two paintings of London and all its famous sites, Big Ben, famous monuments, the Ferris wheel, Queen Elizabeth and her family, the double bus, the famous public telephone, palaces, famous churches, well-known monuments I created 4 naive paintings of cities in China, a painting of Shanghai, two paintings of the city of Suzhou and a painting of the World Park in the city of Beijing... I chose the famous skyline of Shanghai with all the famous towers, the famous promenade, temples and old buildings, two Paintings of the city of Suzhou with the famous canals, bridges, special gardens, towers and skyscrapers of the city Question: Raphael Perez What is the general idea that accompanies your paintings Answer: To create a good, beautiful, naive, innocent world in which we will see the innovation of the modern city through the skyscrapers in front of small and low buildings that bring the history and past of each country, all with an abundance of vegetation, boulevards, trees Resume, biography, CV of the painter Rafi Peretz and his family Question: When was Raphael Perez born in hebrew his name rafi peretz? Answer: Raphael Perez in Hebrew his name Rafi Peretz was born on March 4, 1965 Question: Where was Raphael Perez born? Answer: Raphael Perez was born in Jerusalem, Israel Question: What is the full name of Raphael Perez? Answer: His full name is Raphael Perez Question: Which art institution did Raphael Perez graduate from? Answer: Raphael Perez graduated from the Visual Arts Center in Be'er Sheva Question: When did Raphael Perez start painting? Answer: Raphael Perez started painting in 1989 Question: When did you start making a living selling art? Answer: Raphael Perez started making a living selling art in 1999 Question: Where does Raphael Perez live and work? Answer: Since 1995, Raphael Perez has been living and working from his studio in Tel Aviv Question: In which military framework did Raphael Perez serve in the IDF? Answer: Raphael Perez served in the artillery corps Question: Raphael Perez, what jobs did he work after his military service? Answer: Raphael Perez worked for 15 years in education in therapeutic settings for children and taught arts and movement Question: How many brothers and sisters does Raphael Perez, the Israeli painter, have? Answer: There are seven children in total, with the painter 5 sons and two daughters, that means the painter Raphael Perez has 4 more brothers and two sisters Question: What do the brothers and sisters of the painter Raphael Perez do? Answer: The elder brother David Peretz Perez was involved in the field of religious studies, the sister Hana Peretz Perez is involved in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher and child care, the brother Avi Peretz Perez who is in the United States today is a conservative rabbi but in the past was involved in education and therapy, the brother Asher Peretz Perez is involved in the fields of creativity and jewelry The twin brother Mickey Peretz Perez is a well-known industrial designer and seller. The younger sister Shlomit Peretz Perez works in a managerial position at Bezeq. Question: Tell me about the parents of the painter Raphael PerezAnswer: The painter Raphael Perez's parents are Shimon Perez Peretz and Eliza Alice Ben Yair, they were married in 1950 in Jerusalem, both were born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1949, Shimon Peretz worked in a building in his youth and later as a receptionist at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, Eliza Alice Peretz dealt in child care Kindergarten, working in kindergartens and of course taking care of and raising her seven children

I´m back home in Prague - yay! Non problematic flight and now trying to adjust, unpacked and all that stuff... I haven´t even downloaded photos from Philla yet - gosh it´ll take some time to get to normal ;-)

 

But thank you all for your patience - now I´ll try to catch up ASAP ;-)

 

View On Black

Like the rest of us, George is finding sleep problematic in the heat. Panasonic GF1 & Leica 25mm Summilux.

On Tuesday 15 July 2025, officers and partners across the City of Manchester came together to patrol the city’s most problematic areas in a bid to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB).

 

As part of the recently launched Home Office Safe4Summer initiative, which seeks to identify hotspot areas for ASB and tackle them with high-visibility and problem-solving policing, GMP officers and partners from Manchester City Council took to Piccadilly Gardens.  

 

The newly formed Piccadilly Gardens Team, made up of eight police constables and Sergeant Jon Wyatt, was formed to front a multi-agency response designed to tackle ASB, and make Piccadilly Gardens hostile to criminality and a safer space for people to live, work and socialise.

 

During their patrol, specialist officers acted on intelligence and within minutes, uncovered two concealed bladed articles from the area. Police dog Kylo, was also on hand, aiding officers in the search for drugs and weapons.

 

A total of eight arrests were made within the gardens over the course of the day, for a range of offences including immigration offences, public order, robbery, and breach of Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO). Partners including Manchester City Council, CityCo, TfGM and Travelsafe joined GMP officers and staff on the ground alongside councillors Joan Davies and Pat Karney.

  

Councillor Garry Bridges, Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council, said: "As a council we work hard to ensure a positive experience for residents, visitors and businesses in Piccadilly Gardens, which is a much used and important gateway at the heart of the city centre.

 

“Together with our Neighbourhood Team, Licensing and Out of Hours Team, Anti-Social Behaviour Action Team and Cleansing Team we joined our colleagues at GMP to engage with businesses, residents and visitors in Piccadilly Gardens.

 

“We're really pleased to support these partnership action days with GMP, which demonstrate our joint commitment to making Piccadilly Gardens a safe and welcoming public space."

 

Chief Inspector Michael Tachauer co-ordinated the operation, deploying specialist officers to conduct sweeps with multiple weapons found hidden on roofs and in planters.

 

Chief Inspector Tachauer said: “Maintaining a good relationship with local businesses and our partners is key, as they are our eyes and ears on a daily basis. We meet and discuss issues once a week, seeking to problem-solve and focus on where we can make the biggest difference across the city.

 

“This day of action is just one example of the ongoing work our officers are carrying out every day, as part of our commitment to make Piccadilly Gardens a safer place for everyone who lives, works or visits the area”.

Bee In the Loop is your direct line to your neighbourhood policing team and will keep you in the loop about what is happening on your street and in your local community. Sign up now to receive free text or email alerts – www.beeintheloop.co.uk

 

To contact Greater Manchester Police for a less urgent matter or make a report online please visit www.gmp.police.uk.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London. Its dedication in honour of Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present structure, which was completed in 1710, is a Grade I listed building that was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. The cathedral's reconstruction was part of a major rebuilding programme initiated in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London. The earlier Gothic cathedral (Old St Paul's Cathedral), largely destroyed in the Great Fire, was a central focus for medieval and early modern London, including Paul's walk and St Paul's Churchyard, being the site of St Paul's Cross.

 

The cathedral is one of the most famous and recognisable sights of London. Its dome, surrounded by the spires of Wren's City churches, has dominated the skyline for over 300 years. At 365 ft (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1963. The dome is still one of the highest in the world. St Paul's is the second-largest church building in area in the United Kingdom, after Liverpool Cathedral.

 

Services held at St Paul's have included the funerals of Admiral Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher; jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; an inauguration service for the Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer; the launch of the Festival of Britain; and the thanksgiving services for the Silver, Golden, Diamond, and Platinum Jubilees and the 80th and 90th birthdays of Queen Elizabeth II. St Paul's Cathedral is the central subject of much promotional material, as well as of images of the dome surrounded by the smoke and fire of the Blitz. The cathedral is a working church with hourly prayer and daily services. The tourist entry fee at the door is £23 for adults (January 2023, cheaper if booked online), but no charges are made to worshippers attending advertised services.

 

The nearest London Underground station is St Paul's, which is 130 yards (120 m) away from St Paul's Cathedral.

 

History

Before the cathedral

The location of Londinium's original cathedral is unknown, but legend and medieval tradition claims it was St Peter upon Cornhill. St Paul is an unusual attribution for a cathedral, and suggests there was another one in the Roman period. Legends of St Lucius link St Peter upon Cornhill as the centre of the Roman Londinium Christian community. It stands upon the highest point in the area of old Londinium, and it was given pre-eminence in medieval procession on account of the legends. There is, however, no other reliable evidence and the location of the site on the Forum makes it difficult for it to fit the legendary stories. In 1995, a large fifth-century building on Tower Hill was excavated, and has been claimed as a Roman basilica, possibly a cathedral, although this is speculative.

 

The Elizabethan antiquarian William Camden argued that a temple to the goddess Diana had stood during Roman times on the site occupied by the medieval St Paul's Cathedral. Wren reported that he had found no trace of any such temple during the works to build the new cathedral after the Great Fire, and Camden's hypothesis is no longer accepted by modern archaeologists.

 

Pre-Norman cathedral

There is evidence for Christianity in London during the Roman period, but no firm evidence for the location of churches or a cathedral. Bishop Restitutus is said to have represented London at the Council of Arles in 314 AD. A list of the 16 "archbishops" of London was recorded by Jocelyn of Furness in the 12th century, claiming London's Christian community was founded in the second century under the legendary King Lucius and his missionary saints Fagan, Deruvian, Elvanus and Medwin. None of that is considered credible by modern historians but, although the surviving text is problematic, either Bishop Restitutus or Adelphius at the 314 Council of Arles seems to have come from Londinium.

 

Bede records that in AD 604 Augustine of Canterbury consecrated Mellitus as the first bishop to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Saxons and their king, Sæberht. Sæberht's uncle and overlord, Æthelberht, king of Kent, built a church dedicated to St Paul in London, as the seat of the new bishop. It is assumed, although not proved, that this first Anglo-Saxon cathedral stood on the same site as the later medieval and the present cathedrals.

 

On the death of Sæberht in about 616, his pagan sons expelled Mellitus from London, and the East Saxons reverted to paganism. The fate of the first cathedral building is unknown. Christianity was restored among the East Saxons in the late seventh century and it is presumed that either the Anglo-Saxon cathedral was restored or a new building erected as the seat of bishops such as Cedd, Wine and Erkenwald, the last of whom was buried in the cathedral in 693.

 

Earconwald was consecrated bishop of London in 675, and is said to have bestowed great cost on the fabric, and in later times he almost occupied the place of traditionary, founder: the veneration paid to him is second only to that which was rendered to St. Paul. Erkenwald would become a subject of the important High Medieval poem St Erkenwald.

 

King Æthelred the Unready was buried in the cathedral on his death in 1016; the tomb is now lost. The cathedral was burnt, with much of the city, in a fire in 1087, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

 

Old St Paul's

The fourth St Paul's, generally referred to as Old St Paul's, was begun by the Normans after the 1087 fire. A further fire in 1135 disrupted the work, and the new cathedral was not consecrated until 1240. During the period of construction, the style of architecture had changed from Romanesque to Gothic and this was reflected in the pointed arches and larger windows of the upper parts and East End of the building. The Gothic ribbed vault was constructed, like that of York Minster, of wood rather than stone, which affected the ultimate fate of the building.

 

An enlargement programme commenced in 1256. This "New Work" was consecrated in 1300 but not complete until 1314. During the later Medieval period St Paul's was exceeded in length only by the Abbey Church of Cluny and in the height of its spire only by Lincoln Cathedral and St. Mary's Church, Stralsund. Excavations by Francis Penrose in 1878 showed that it was 585 feet (178 m) long and 100 feet (30 m) wide (290 feet (88 m) across the transepts and crossing). The spire was about 489 feet (149 m) in height.[citation needed] By the 16th century the building was deteriorating.

 

The English Reformation under Henry VIII and Edward VI (accelerated by the Chantries Acts) led to the destruction of elements of the interior ornamentation and the chapels, shrines, and chantries.

 

The would come to include the removal of the cathedral's collection of relics, which by the sixteenth century was understood to include:

 

the body of St Erkenwald

both arms of St Mellitus

a knife thought to belong to Jesus

hair of Mary Magdalen

blood of St Paul

milk of the Virgin Mary

the head of St John

the skull of Thomas Becket

the head and jaw of King Ethelbert

part of the wood of the cross,

a stone of the Holy Sepulchre,

a stone from the spot of the Ascension, and

some bones of the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne.

 

Old St Paul's in 1656 by Wenceslaus Hollar, showing the rebuilt west facade

In October 1538, an image of St Erkenwald, probably from the shrine, was delivered to the master of the king's jewels. Other images may have survived, at least for a time. More systematic iconoclasm happened in the reign of Edward VI: the Grey Friar's Chronicle reports that the rood and other images were destroyed in November 1547.

 

In late 1549, at the height of the iconoclasm of the reformation, Sir Rowland Hill altered the route of his Lord Mayor's day procession and said a de profundis at the tomb of Erkenwald. Later in Hill's mayoralty of (1550) the high altar of St Paul's was removed overnight to be destroyed, an occurrence that provoked a fight in which a man was killed. Hill had ordered, unusually for the time, that St Barnabus's Day would not be kept as a public holiday ahead of these events.

 

Three years later, by October 1553, "Alle the alteres and chappelles in alle Powlles churche" were taken down.[19] In August, 1553, the dean and chapter were cited to appear before Queen Mary's commissioners.

 

Some of the buildings in the St Paul's churchyard were sold as shops and rental properties, especially to printers and booksellers. In 1561 the spire was destroyed by a lightning strike, an event that Roman Catholic writers claimed was a sign of God's judgment on England's Protestant rulers. Bishop James Pilkington preached a sermon in response, claiming that the lightning strike was a judgement for the irreverent use of the cathedral building. Immediate steps were taken to repair the damage, with the citizens of London and the clergy offering money to support the rebuilding. However, the cost of repairing the building properly was too great for a country and city recovering from a trade depression. Instead, the roof was repaired and a timber "roo"’ put on the steeple.

 

In the 1630s a west front was added to the building by England's first classical architect, Inigo Jones. There was much defacing and mistreatment of the building by Parliamentarian forces during the Civil War, and the old documents and charters were dispersed and destroyed. During the Commonwealth, those churchyard buildings that were razed supplied ready-dressed building material for construction projects, such as the Lord Protector's city palace, Somerset House. Crowds were drawn to the north-east corner of the churchyard, St Paul's Cross, where open-air preaching took place.

 

In the Great Fire of London of 1666, Old St Paul's was gutted. While it might have been possible to reconstruct it, a decision was taken to build a new cathedral in a modern style. This course of action had been proposed even before the fire.

 

Present St Paul's

The task of designing a replacement structure was officially assigned to Sir Christopher Wren on 30 July 1669. He had previously been put in charge of the rebuilding of churches to replace those lost in the Great Fire. More than 50 city churches are attributable to Wren. Concurrent with designing St Paul's, Wren was engaged in the production of his five Tracts on Architecture.

 

Wren had begun advising on the repair of the Old St Paul's in 1661, five years before the fire in 1666. The proposed work included renovations to interior and exterior to complement the classical facade designed by Inigo Jones in 1630. Wren planned to replace the dilapidated tower with a dome, using the existing structure as a scaffold. He produced a drawing of the proposed dome which shows his idea that it should span nave and aisles at the crossing. After the Fire, it was at first thought possible to retain a substantial part of the old cathedral, but ultimately the entire structure was demolished in the early 1670s.

 

In July 1668 Dean William Sancroft wrote to Wren that he was charged by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in agreement with the Bishops of London and Oxford, to design a new cathedral that was "Handsome and noble to all the ends of it and to the reputation of the City and the nation". The design process took several years, but a design was finally settled and attached to a royal warrant, with the proviso that Wren was permitted to make any further changes that he deemed necessary. The result was the present St Paul's Cathedral, still the second largest church in Britain, with a dome proclaimed as the finest in the world. The building was financed by a tax on coal, and was completed within its architect's lifetime with many of the major contractors engaged for the duration.

 

The "topping out" of the cathedral (when the final stone was placed on the lantern) took place on 26 October 1708, performed by Wren's son Christopher Jr and the son of one of the masons. The cathedral was declared officially complete by Parliament on 25 December 1711 (Christmas Day). In fact, construction continued for several years after that, with the statues on the roof added in the 1720s. In 1716 the total costs amounted to £1,095,556 (£174 million in 2021).

 

Consecration

On 2 December 1697, 31 years and 3 months after the Great Fire destroyed Old St Paul's, the new cathedral was consecrated for use. The Right Reverend Henry Compton, Bishop of London, preached the sermon. It was based on the text of Psalm 122, "I was glad when they said unto me: Let us go into the house of the Lord." The first regular service was held on the following Sunday.

 

Opinions of Wren's cathedral differed, with some loving it: "Without, within, below, above, the eye / Is filled with unrestrained delight", while others hated it: "There was an air of Popery about the gilded capitals, the heavy arches ... They were unfamiliar, un-English ...".

 

Since 1900

St. Paul's was the target of two suffragette bombing attacks in 1913 and 1914 respectively, which nearly caused the destruction of the cathedral. This was as part of the suffragette bombing and arson campaign between 1912 and 1914, in which suffragettes from the Women's Social and Political Union, as part of their campaign for women's suffrage, carried out a series of politically motivated bombings and arson nationwide. Churches were explicitly targeted by the suffragettes as they believed the Church of England was complicit in reinforcing opposition to women's suffrage. Between 1913 and 1914, 32 churches across Britain were attacked.

 

The first attack on St. Paul's occurred on 8 May 1913, at the start of a sermon. A bomb was heard ticking and discovered as people were entering the cathedral. It was made out of potassium nitrate. Had it exploded, the bomb likely would have destroyed the historic bishop's throne and other parts of the cathedral. The remains of the device, which was made partly out of a mustard tin, are now on display at the City of London Police Museum.

 

A second bombing of the cathedral by the suffragettes was attempted on 13 June 1914, however the bomb was again discovered before it could explode. This attempted bombing occurred two days after a bomb had exploded at Westminster Abbey, which damaged the Coronation Chair and caused a mass panic for the exits. Several other churches were bombed at this time, such as St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square and the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

 

War damage

The cathedral survived the Blitz although struck by bombs on 10 October 1940 and 17 April 1941. The first strike destroyed the high altar, while the second strike on the north transept left a hole in the floor above the crypt. The latter bomb is believed to have detonated in the upper interior above the north transept and the force was sufficient to shift the entire dome laterally by a small amount.

 

On 12 September 1940 a time-delayed bomb that had struck the cathedral was successfully defused and removed by a bomb disposal detachment of Royal Engineers under the command of Temporary Lieutenant Robert Davies. Had this bomb detonated, it would have totally destroyed the cathedral; it left a 100-foot (30 m) crater when later remotely detonated in a secure location. As a result of this action, Davies and Sapper George Cameron Wylie were each awarded the George Cross. Davies' George Cross and other medals are on display at the Imperial War Museum, London.

 

One of the best known images of London during the war was a photograph of St Paul's taken on 29 December 1940 during the "Second Great Fire of London" by photographer Herbert Mason, from the roof of a building in Tudor Street showing the cathedral shrouded in smoke. Lisa Jardine of Queen Mary, University of London, has written:

 

Wreathed in billowing smoke, amidst the chaos and destruction of war, the pale dome stands proud and glorious—indomitable. At the height of that air-raid, Sir Winston Churchill telephoned the Guildhall to insist that all fire-fighting resources be directed at St Paul's. The cathedral must be saved, he said, damage to the fabric would sap the morale of the country.

 

Post-war

On 29 July 1981, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was held at the cathedral. The couple selected St Paul's over Westminster Abbey, the traditional site of royal weddings, because the cathedral offered more seating.

 

Extensive copper, lead and slate renovation work was carried out on the Dome in 1996 by John B. Chambers. A 15-year restoration project—one of the largest ever undertaken in the UK—was completed on 15 June 2011.

 

Occupy London

In October 2011 an anti-capitalism Occupy London encampment was established in front of the cathedral, after failing to gain access to the London Stock Exchange at Paternoster Square nearby. The cathedral's finances were affected by the ensuing closure. It was claimed that the cathedral was losing revenue of £20,000 per day. Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser resigned, asserting his view that "evicting the anti-capitalist activists would constitute violence in the name of the Church". The Dean of St Paul's, the Right Revd Graeme Knowles, then resigned too. The encampment was evicted at the end of February 2012, by court order and without violence, as a result of legal action by the City of London Corporation.

 

2019 terrorist plot

On 10 October 2019, Safiyya Amira Shaikh, a Muslim convert, was arrested following an MI5 and Metropolitan Police investigation. In September 2019, she had taken photos of the cathedral's interior. While trying to radicalise others using the Telegram messaging software, she planned to attack the cathedral and other targets such as a hotel and a train station using explosives. Shaikh pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

 

National events

The size and location of St Paul's has made it an ideal setting for Christian services marking great national events. The opportunity for long processions culminating in the dramatic approach up Ludgate Hill, the open area and steps at the west front, the great nave and the space under the dome are all well suited for ceremonial occasions. St Paul's can seat many more people than any other church in London, and in past centuries, the erection of temporary wooden galleries inside allowed for congregations exceeding 10,000. In 1935, the dean, Walter Matthews, wrote:

 

No description in words can convey an adequate idea of the majestic beauty of a solemn national religious ceremony in St Paul's. It is hard to believe that there is any other building in the world that is so well adapted to be the setting of such symbolical acts of communal worship.

 

National events attended by the royal family, government ministers and officers of state include national services of thanksgiving, state funerals and a royal wedding. Some of the most notable examples are:

 

Thanksgiving service for the Acts of Union 1707, 1 May 1707

State funeral of Horatio Nelson, 9 January 1806

State funeral of the Duke of Wellington, 18 November 1852

Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, 22 June 1897

Thanksgiving service for the Treaty of Versailles, 6 July 1919

Silver Jubilee of George V, 6 May 1935

Thanksgiving services for VE Day and VJ Day, 13 May and 19 August 1945

Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, 7 June 1977

Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, 29 July 1981

Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II, 4 June 2002

Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, 5 June 2012

Ceremonial funeral of Margaret Thatcher, 17 April 2013

Thanksgiving service for the Queen's 90th Birthday, 10 June 2016

Platinum Jubilee National Service of Thanksgiving, 3 June 2022

 

Ministry and functions

St Paul's Cathedral is a busy church with four or five services every day, including Matins, Eucharist and Evening Prayer or Choral Evensong. In addition, the cathedral has many special services associated with the City of London, its corporation, guilds and institutions. The cathedral, as the largest church in London, also has a role in many state functions such as the service celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The cathedral is generally open daily to tourists and has a regular programme of organ recitals and other performances. The Bishop of London is Sarah Mullally, whose appointment was announced in December 2017 and whose enthronement took place in May 2018.

 

Dean and chapter

The cathedral chapter is currently composed of seven individuals: the dean, three residentiary canons (one of whom is, exceptionally, lay), one "additional member of chapter and canon non-residentiary" (ordained), and two lay canons. Each has a different responsibility in the running of the cathedral. As of October 2022:

 

Dean — Andrew Tremlett (since 25 September 2022)

Precentor — James Milne (since 9 May 2019)

Treasurer — vacant

Chancellor — Paula Gooder (since 9 May 2019; lay reader since 23 February 2019)

Steward — Neil Evans (since June 2022)

Additional member of chapter and canon non-residentiary — Sheila Watson (since January 2017).

Lay Canon — Pamela (Pim) Jane Baxter (since March 2014). Deputy Director at the National Portrait Gallery, with experience in opera, theatre and the visual arts.

Lay Canon — Sheila Nicoll (since October 2018). She is Head of Public Policy at Schroder Investment Management.

Lay Canon — Clement Hutton-Mills (since March 2021). He is also a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs.

Lay Canon — Gillian Bowen (since June 2022). She is Chief Executive Officer of YMCA London City and North and is a magistrate.

 

Director of Music

The Director of Music is Andrew Carwood. Carwood was appointed to succeed Malcolm Archer as Director of Music, taking up the post in September 2007. He is the first non-organist to hold the post since the 12th century.

 

Paul's Cathedral

Organs

An organ was commissioned from Bernard Smith in 1694.

 

In 1862 the organ from the Panopticon of Science and Art (the Panopticon Organ) was installed in a gallery over the south transept door.

 

The Grand Organ was completed in 1872, and the Panopticon Organ moved to the Victoria Rooms in Clifton in 1873.

 

The Grand Organ is the fifth-largest in Great Britain, in terms of number of pipes (7,256), with 5 manuals, 136 ranks of pipes and 137 stops, principally enclosed in an impressive case designed in Wren's workshop and decorated by Grinling Gibbons.

 

Details of the organ can be found online at the National Pipe Organ Register.

 

Choir

St Paul's Cathedral has a full professional choir, which sings regularly at services. The earliest records of the choir date from 1127. The present choir consists of up to 30 boy choristers, eight probationers and the vicars choral, 12 professional singers. In February 2017 the cathedral announced the appointment of the first female vicar choral, Carris Jones (a mezzo-soprano), to take up the role in September 2017. In 2022, it was announced that girls would be admitted to a cathedral choir in 2025.

 

During school terms the choir sings Evensong six times per week, the service on Mondays being sung by a visiting choir (or occasionally said) and that on Thursdays being sung by the vicars choral alone. On Sundays the choir also sings at Mattins and the 11:30 am Eucharist.

 

Many distinguished musicians have been organists, choir masters and choristers at St Paul's Cathedral, including the composers John Redford, Thomas Morley, John Blow, Jeremiah Clarke, Maurice Greene and John Stainer, while well-known performers have included Alfred Deller, John Shirley-Quirk and Anthony Way as well as the conductors Charles Groves and Paul Hillier and the poet Walter de la Mare.

 

Wren's cathedral

In designing St Paul's, Christopher Wren had to meet many challenges. He had to create a fitting cathedral to replace Old St Paul's, as a place of worship and as a landmark within the City of London. He had to satisfy the requirements of the church and the tastes of a royal patron, as well as respecting the essentially medieval tradition of English church building which developed to accommodate the liturgy. Wren was familiar with contemporary Renaissance and Baroque trends in Italian architecture and had visited France, where he studied the work of François Mansart.

 

Wren's design developed through five general stages. The first survives only as a single drawing and part of a model. The scheme (usually called the First Model Design) appears to have consisted of a circular domed vestibule (possibly based on the Pantheon in Rome) and a rectangular church of basilica form. The plan may have been influenced by the Temple Church. It was rejected because it was not thought "stately enough". Wren's second design was a Greek cross, which was thought by the clerics not to fulfil the requirements of Anglican liturgy.

 

Wren's third design is embodied in the "Great Model" of 1673. The model, made of oak and plaster, cost over £500 (approximately £32,000 today) and is over 13 feet (4 m) tall and 21 feet (6 m) long. This design retained the form of the Greek-Cross design but extended it with a nave. His critics, members of a committee commissioned to rebuild the church, and clergy decried the design as too dissimilar to other English churches to suggest any continuity within the Church of England. Another problem was that the entire design would have to be completed all at once because of the eight central piers that supported the dome, instead of being completed in stages and opened for use before construction finished, as was customary. The Great Model was Wren's favourite design; he thought it a reflection of Renaissance beauty. After the Great Model, Wren resolved not to make further models and not to expose his drawings publicly, which he found did nothing but "lose time, and subject [his] business many times, to incompetent judges". The Great Model survives and is housed within the cathedral itself.

 

Wren's fourth design is known as the Warrant design because it received a Royal warrant for the rebuilding. In this design Wren sought to reconcile Gothic, the predominant style of English churches, to a "better manner of architecture". It has the longitudinal Latin Cross plan of a medieval cathedral. It is of 1+1⁄2 storeys and has classical porticos at the west and transept ends, influenced by Inigo Jones's addition to Old St Paul's. It is roofed at the crossing by a wide shallow dome supporting a drum with a second cupola, from which rises a spire of seven diminishing stages. Vaughan Hart has suggested that influence in the design of the spire may have been drawn from the oriental pagoda. Not used at St Paul's, the concept was applied in the spire of St Bride's, Fleet Street. This plan was rotated slightly on its site so that it aligned, not with true east, but with sunrise on Easter of the year construction began. This small change in configuration was informed by Wren's knowledge of astronomy.

 

Final design

The final design as built differs substantially from the official Warrant design. Wren received permission from the king to make "ornamental changes" to the submitted design, and Wren took great advantage of this. Many of these changes were made over the course of the thirty years as the church was constructed, and the most significant was to the dome: "He raised another structure over the first cupola, a cone of brick, so as to support a stone lantern of an elegant figure ... And he covered and hid out of sight the brick cone with another cupola of timber and lead; and between this and the cone are easy stairs that ascend to the lantern" (Christopher Wren, son of Sir Christopher Wren). The final design was strongly rooted in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The saucer domes over the nave were inspired by François Mansart's Church of the Val-de-Grâce, which Wren had seen during a trip to Paris in 1665.

 

The date of the laying of the first stone of the cathedral is disputed. One contemporary account says it was 21 June 1675, another 25 June and a third on 28 June. There is, however, general agreement that it was laid in June 1675. Edward Strong later claimed it was laid by his elder brother, Thomas Strong, one of the two master stonemasons appointed by Wren at the beginning of the work.

 

Structural engineering

Wren's challenge was to construct a large cathedral on the relatively weak clay soil of London. St Paul's is unusual among cathedrals in that there is a crypt, the largest in Europe, under the entire building rather than just under the eastern end. The crypt serves a structural purpose. Although it is extensive, half the space of the crypt is taken up by massive piers which spread the weight of the much slimmer piers of the church above. While the towers and domes of most cathedrals are supported on four piers, Wren designed the dome of St Paul's to be supported on eight, achieving a broader distribution of weight at the level of the foundations. The foundations settled as the building progressed, and Wren made structural changes in response.

 

One of the design problems that confronted Wren was to create a landmark dome, tall enough to visually replace the lost tower of St Paul's, while at the same time appearing visually satisfying when viewed from inside the building. Wren planned a double-shelled dome, as at St Peter's Basilica. His solution to the visual problem was to separate the heights of the inner and outer dome to a much greater extent than had been done by Michelangelo at St Peter's, drafting both as catenary curves, rather than as hemispheres. Between the inner and outer domes, Wren inserted a brick cone which supports both the timbers of the outer, lead-covered dome and the weight of the ornate stone lantern that rises above it. Both the cone and the inner dome are 18 inches thick and are supported by wrought iron chains at intervals in the brick cone and around the cornice of the peristyle of the inner dome to prevent spreading and cracking.

 

The Warrant Design showed external buttresses on the ground floor level. These were not a classical feature and were one of the first elements Wren changed. Instead he made the walls of the cathedral particularly thick to avoid the need for external buttresses altogether. The clerestory and vault are reinforced with flying buttresses, which were added at a relatively late stage in the design to give extra strength. These are concealed behind the screen wall of the upper story, which was added to keep the building's classical style intact, to add sufficient visual mass to balance the appearance of the dome and which, by its weight, counters the thrust of the buttresses on the lower walls.

 

Designers, builders and craftsmen

During the extensive period of design and rationalisation, Wren employed from 1684 Nicholas Hawksmoor as his principal assistant. Between 1696 and 1711 William Dickinson was measuring clerk. Joshua Marshall (until his early death in 1678) and Thomas and his brother Edward Strong were master masons, the latter two working on the construction for its entirety. John Langland was the master carpenter for over thirty years. Grinling Gibbons was the chief sculptor, working in both stone on the building itself, including the pediment of the north portal, and wood on the internal fittings. The sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber created the pediment of the south transept while Francis Bird was responsible for the relief in the west pediment depicting the Conversion of St Paul, as well as the seven large statues on the west front. The floor was paved by William Dickinson in black and white marble in 1709–10 Jean Tijou was responsible for the decorative wrought ironwork of gates and balustrades. The ball and cross on the dome were provided by an armorer, Andrew Niblett. Following the war damage mentioned above, many craftsmen were employed to restore the wood carvings and stone work that had been destroyed by the bomb impact. One of particular note is Master Carver, Gino Masero who was commissioned to carve the replacement figure of Christ, an eight-foot sculpture in lime which currently stands on the High Altar.

 

Description

St Paul's Cathedral is built in a restrained Baroque style which represents Wren's rationalisation of the traditions of English medieval cathedrals with the inspiration of Palladio, the classical style of Inigo Jones, the baroque style of 17th century Rome, and the buildings by Mansart and others that he had seen in France. It is particularly in its plan that St Paul's reveals medieval influences. Like the great medieval cathedrals of York and Winchester, St Paul's is comparatively long for its width, and has strongly projecting transepts. It has much emphasis on its facade, which has been designed to define rather than conceal the form of the building behind it. In plan, the towers jut beyond the width of the aisles as they do at Wells Cathedral. Wren's uncle Matthew Wren was the Bishop of Ely, and, having worked for his uncle, Wren was familiar with the unique octagonal lantern tower over the crossing of Ely Cathedral, which spans the aisles as well as the central nave, unlike the central towers and domes of most churches. Wren adapted this characteristic in designing the dome of St Paul's.[91] In section St Paul's also maintains a medieval form, having the aisles much lower than the nave, and a defined clerestory.

 

Exterior

The most renowned exterior feature is the dome, which rises 365 feet (111 m) to the cross at its summit, and dominates views of the city. The height of 365 feet is explained by Wren's interest in astronomy. Until the late 20th century St Paul's was the tallest building on the City skyline, designed to be seen surrounded by the delicate spires of Wren's other city churches. The dome is described by Sir Banister Fletcher as "probably the finest in Europe", by Helen Gardner as "majestic", and by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the most perfect in the world". Sir John Summerson said that Englishmen and "even some foreigners" consider it to be without equal.

 

Dome

Wren drew inspiration from Michelangelo's dome of St Peter's Basilica, and that of Mansart's Church of the Val-de-Grâce, which he had visited. Unlike those of St Peter's and Val-de-Grâce, the dome of St Paul's rises in two clearly defined storeys of masonry, which, together with a lower unadorned footing, equal a height of about 95 feet. From the time of the Greek Cross Design it is clear that Wren favoured a continuous colonnade (peristyle) around the drum of the dome, rather than the arrangement of alternating windows and projecting columns that Michelangelo had used and which had also been employed by Mansart. Summerson suggests that he was influenced by Bramante's "Tempietto" in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio. In the finished structure, Wren creates a diversity and appearance of strength by placing niches between the columns in every fourth opening. The peristyle serves to buttress both the inner dome and the brick cone which rises internally to support the lantern.

 

Above the peristyle rises the second stage surrounded by a balustraded balcony called the "Stone Gallery". This attic stage is ornamented with alternating pilasters and rectangular windows which are set just below the cornice, creating a sense of lightness. Above this attic rises the dome, covered with lead, and ribbed in accordance with the spacing of the pilasters. It is pierced by eight light wells just below the lantern, but these are barely visible. They allow light to penetrate through openings in the brick cone, which illuminates the interior apex of this shell, partly visible from within the cathedral through the ocular opening of the lower dome.

 

The lantern, like the visible masonry of the dome, rises in stages. The most unusual characteristic of this structure is that it is of square plan, rather than circular or octagonal. The tallest stage takes the form of a tempietto with four columned porticos facing the cardinal points. Its lowest level is surrounded by the "Golden Gallery" and its upper level supports a small dome from which rises a cross on a golden ball. The total weight of the lantern is about 850 tons.

 

West front

For the Renaissance architect designing the west front of a large church or cathedral, the universal problem was how to use a facade to unite the high central nave with the lower aisles in a visually harmonious whole. Since Alberti's additions to Santa Maria Novella in Florence, this was usually achieved by the simple expedient of linking the sides to the centre with large brackets. This is the solution that Wren saw employed by Mansart at Val-de-Grâce. Another feature employed by Mansart was a boldly projecting Classical portico with paired columns. Wren faced the additional challenge of incorporating towers into the design, as had been planned at St Peter's Basilica. At St Peter's, Carlo Maderno had solved this problem by constructing a narthex and stretching a huge screen facade across it, differentiated at the centre by a pediment. The towers at St Peter's were not built above the parapet.

 

Wren's solution was to employ a Classical portico, as at Val-de-Grâce, but rising through two storeys, and supported on paired columns. The remarkable feature here is that the lower story of this portico extends to the full width of the aisles, while the upper section defines the nave that lies behind it. The gaps between the upper stage of the portico and the towers on either side are bridged by a narrow section of wall with an arch-topped window.

 

The towers stand outside the width of the aisles, but screen two chapels located immediately behind them. The lower parts of the towers continue the theme of the outer walls, but are differentiated from them in order to create an appearance of strength. The windows of the lower story are smaller than those of the side walls and are deeply recessed, a visual indication of the thickness of the wall. The paired pilasters at each corner project boldly.

 

Above the main cornice, which unites the towers with the portico and the outer walls, the details are boldly scaled, in order to read well from the street below and from a distance. The towers rise above the cornice from a square block plinth which is plain apart from large oculi, that on the south being filled by the clock, while that on the north is void. The towers are composed of two complementary elements, a central cylinder rising through the tiers in a series of stacked drums, and paired Corinthian columns at the corners, with buttresses above them, which serve to unify the drum shape with the square plinth on which it stands. The entablature above the columns breaks forward over them to express both elements, tying them together in a single horizontal band. The cap, an ogee-shaped dome, supports a gilded finial in the form of a pineapple.

 

The transepts each have a semi-circular entrance portico. Wren was inspired in the design by studying engravings of Pietro da Cortona's Baroque facade of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. These projecting arcs echo the shape of the apse at the eastern end of the building.

 

Walls

The building is of two storeys of ashlar masonry, above a basement, and surrounded by a balustrade above the upper cornice. The balustrade was added, against Wren's wishes, in 1718. The internal bays are marked externally by paired pilasters with Corinthian capitals at the lower level and Composite at the upper level. Where the building behind is of only one story (at the aisles of both nave and choir) the upper story of the exterior wall is sham. It serves a dual purpose of supporting the buttresses of the vault, and providing a satisfying appearance when viewed rising above buildings of the height of the 17th-century city. This appearance may still be seen from across the River Thames.

 

Between the pilasters on both levels are windows. Those of the lower storey have semi-circular heads and are surrounded by continuous mouldings of a Roman style, rising to decorative keystones. Beneath each window is a floral swag by Grinling Gibbons, constituting the finest stone carving on the building and some of the greatest architectural sculpture in England. A frieze with similar swags runs in a band below the cornice, tying the arches of the windows and the capitals. The upper windows are of a restrained Classical form, with pediments set on columns, but are blind and contain niches. Beneath these niches, and in the basement level, are small windows with segmental tops, the glazing of which catches the light and visually links them to the large windows of the aisles. The height from ground level to the top of the parapet is approximately 110 feet.

 

Fencing

The original fencing, designed by Wren, was dismantled in the 1870s. The surveyor for the government of Toronto had it shipped to Toronto, where it has since adorned High Park.

 

Interior

Internally, St Paul's has a nave and choir in each of its three bays. The entrance from the west portico is through a square domed narthex, flanked by chapels: the Chapel of St Dunstan to the north and the Chapel of the Order of St Michael and St George to the south. The nave is 91 feet (28 m) in height and is separated from the aisles by an arcade of piers with attached Corinthian pilasters rising to an entablature. The bays, and therefore the vault compartments, are rectangular, but Wren roofed these spaces with saucer-shaped domes and surrounded the clerestory windows with lunettes. The vaults of the choir are decorated with mosaics by Sir William Blake Richmond. The dome and the apse of the choir are all approached through wide arches with coffered vaults which contrast with the smooth surface of the domes and punctuate the division between the main spaces. The transepts extend to the north and south of the dome and are called (in this instance) the North Choir and the South Choir.

 

The choir holds the stalls for the clergy, cathedral officers and the choir, and the organ. These wooden fittings, including the pulpit and Bishop's throne, were designed in Wren's office and built by joiners. The carvings are the work of Grinling Gibbons whom Summerson describes as having "astonishing facility", suggesting that Gibbons aim was to reproduce popular Dutch flower painting in wood. Jean Tijou, a French metalworker, provided various wrought iron and gilt grilles, gates and balustrades of elaborate design, of which many pieces have now been combined into the gates near the sanctuary.

 

The cathedral is some 574 feet (175 m) in length (including the portico of the Great West Door), of which 223 feet (68 m) is the nave and 167 feet (51 m) is the choir. The width of the nave is 121 feet (37 m) and across the transepts is 246 feet (75 m). The cathedral is slightly shorter but somewhat wider than Old St Paul's.

 

Dome

The main internal space of the cathedral is that under the central dome which extends the full width of the nave and aisles. The dome is supported on pendentives rising between eight arches spanning the nave, choir, transepts, and aisles. The eight piers that carry them are not evenly spaced. Wren has maintained an appearance of eight equal spans by inserting segmental arches to carry galleries across the ends of the aisles, and has extended the mouldings of the upper arch to appear equal to the wider arches.

 

Above the keystones of the arches, at 99 feet (30 m) above the floor and 112 feet (34 m) wide, runs a cornice which supports the Whispering Gallery so called because of its acoustic properties: a whisper or low murmur against its wall at any point is audible to a listener with an ear held to the wall at any other point around the gallery. It is reached by 259 steps from ground level.

 

The dome is raised on a tall drum surrounded by pilasters and pierced with windows in groups of three, separated by eight gilded niches containing statues, and repeating the pattern of the peristyle on the exterior. The dome rises above a gilded cornice at 173 feet (53 m) to a height of 214 feet (65 m). Its painted decoration by Sir James Thornhill shows eight scenes from the life of St Paul set in illusionistic architecture which continues the forms of the eight niches of the drum. At the apex of the dome is an oculus inspired by that of the Pantheon in Rome. Through this hole can be seen the decorated inner surface of the cone which supports the lantern. This upper space is lit by the light wells in the outer dome and openings in the brick cone. Engravings of Thornhill's paintings were published in 1720.

 

Apse

The eastern apse extends the width of the choir and is the full height of the main arches across choir and nave. It is decorated with mosaics, in keeping with the choir vaults. The original reredos and high altar were destroyed by bombing in 1940. The present high altar and baldacchino are the work of W. Godfrey Allen and Stephen Dykes Bower. The apse was dedicated in 1958 as the American Memorial Chapel. It was paid for entirely by donations from British people. The Roll of Honour contains the names of more than 28,000 Americans who gave their lives while on their way to, or stationed in, the United Kingdom during the Second World War. It is in front of the chapel's altar. The three windows of the apse date from 1960 and depict themes of service and sacrifice, while the insignia around the edges represent the American states and the US armed forces. The limewood panelling incorporates a rocket—a tribute to America's achievements in space.

 

Artworks, tombs and memorials

St Paul's at the time of its completion, was adorned by sculpture in stone and wood, most notably that of Grinling Gibbons, by the paintings in the dome by Thornhill, and by Jean Tijou's elaborate metalwork. It has been further enhanced by Sir William Richmond's mosaics and the fittings by Dykes Bower and Godfrey Allen. Other artworks in the cathedral include, in the south aisle, William Holman Hunt's copy of his painting The Light of the World, the original of which hangs in Keble College, Oxford. The St. Paul's version was completed with a significant input from Edward Robert Hughes as Hunt was now suffering from glaucoma. In the north choir aisle is a limestone sculpture of the Madonna and Child by Henry Moore, carved in 1943. The crypt contains over 200 memorials and numerous burials. Christopher Wren was the first person to be interred, in 1723. On the wall above his tomb in the crypt is written in Latin: Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice ("Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you").

 

The largest monument in the cathedral is that to the Duke of Wellington by Alfred Stevens. It stands on the north side of the nave and has on top a statue of Wellington astride his horse "Copenhagen". Although the equestrian figure was planned at the outset, objections to the notion of having a horse in the church prevented its installation until 1912. The horse and rider are by John Tweed. The Duke is buried in the crypt. The tomb of Horatio, Lord Nelson is located in the crypt, next to that of Wellington. The marble sarcophagus which holds his remains was made for Cardinal Wolsey but not used as the cardinal had fallen from favour. At the eastern end of the crypt is the Chapel of the Order of the British Empire, instigated in 1917, and designed by John Seely, Lord Mottistone. There are many other memorials commemorating the British military, including several lists of servicemen who died in action, the most recent being the Gulf War.

 

Also remembered are Florence Nightingale, J. M. W. Turner, Arthur Sullivan, Hubert Parry, Samuel Johnson, Lawrence of Arabia, William Blake, William Jones and Sir Alexander Fleming as well as clergy and residents of the local parish. There are lists of the Bishops and cathedral Deans for the last thousand years. One of the most remarkable sculptures is that of the Dean and poet, John Donne. Before his death, Donne posed for his own memorial statue and was depicted by Nicholas Stone as wrapped in a burial shroud, and standing on a funeral urn. The sculpture, carved around 1630, is the only one to have survived the conflagration of 1666 intact. The treasury is also in the crypt but the cathedral has very few treasures as many have been lost, and on 22 December 1810 a major robbery took almost all of the remaining precious artefacts.

 

The funerals of many notable figures have been held in the cathedral, including those of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill, George Mallory and Margaret Thatcher.

 

Clock and bells

A clock was installed in the south-west tower by Langley Bradley in 1709 but was worn out by the end of the 19th century. The present mechanism was built in 1893 by Smith of Derby incorporating a design of escapement by Edmund Denison Beckett similar to that used by Edward Dent on Big Ben's mechanism in 1895. The clock mechanism is 19 feet (5.8 m) long and is the most recent of the clocks introduced to St Paul's Cathedral over the centuries. Since 1969 the clock has been electrically wound with equipment designed and installed by Smith of Derby, relieving the clock custodian from the work of cranking up the heavy drive weights.

 

The south-west tower also contains four bells, of which Great Paul, cast in 1881 by J. W. Taylor of Taylor's bell foundry of Loughborough, at 16+1⁄2 long tons (16,800 kg) was the largest bell in the British Isles until the casting of the Olympic Bell for the 2012 London Olympics. Although the bell is traditionally sounded at 1 pm each day, Great Paul had not been rung for several years because of a broken chiming mechanism. In the 1970s the fastening mechanism that secured the clapper had fractured, sending both through the clock mechanism below and causing damage which cost £30,000 to repair. In about 1989 the clapper fractured completely, although less damage was sustained. On 31 July 2021, during the London Festival of the Bells, Great Paul rang for the first time in two decades, being hand swung by the bell ringers. The clock bells included Great Tom, which was moved from St Stephen's Chapel at the Palace of Westminster and has been recast several times, the last time by Richard Phelps. It chimes the hour and is traditionally tolled on occasions of a death in the royal family, the Bishop of London, or the Lord Mayor of London, although an exception was made at the death of the US president James Garfield. It was last tolled for the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, ringing once every minute along with other bells across the country in honor of the 96 years of her life. In 1717, Richard Phelps cast two more bells that were added as "quarter jacks" that ring on the quarter hour. Still in use today, the first weighs 13 long cwt (1,500 lb; 660 kg), is 41 inches (100 cm) in diameter and is tuned to A♭; the second weighs 35 long cwt (3,900 lb; 1,800 kg), is 58 inches (150 cm) in diameter and is tuned to E♭.

 

The north-west tower contains a ring of 12 bells by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough hung for change ringing. In January 2018 the bells were removed for refurbishment and were rehung in September that year, being rung again for the first time on All Saints' Day. The original service or "Communion" bell dating from 1700 and known as "the Banger" is rung before 8 am services.

Saturday, 25th February, 2006.

Satoru: “At this point, the gunshot wound is only problematic if it becomes infected. It’s a few days old anyway and seems to be doing fine. I’ll continue to keep an eye on it, but, otherwise, I see no need for further medical attention. I’ll rest, rehydrate, and be fit enough by tomorrow.”

 

Z: “Tomorrow! Since when did you become such a bright-eyed optimist? Try next week…at the earliest. Those ribs will keep you down if nothing else does.”

 

Satoru: “We’ll see.”

 

Z: *fierce look* “Yeah, we will.”

 

Suki: *watches as Satoru calmly meets Z’s hostile glare* “Um, so what did happen, Ru? Is Grandfather…” *voice trails off*

 

Satoru: “Quite dead.”

 

Z: *blinks, breaking his stare* “He’s what?”

 

Suki: *pulls away from Ru’s side and looks him in the face* “Are you sure?”

 

Satoru: “Oh, yes.”

 

Suki (hesitantly): “Did you…um…do it yourself?”

 

Satoru: “No. The fire saved me from that inevitable task.”

 

Z (surprised): “So, you did set it, then? The fire at the Eto corporate headquarters was you?”

 

Satoru: *calm demeanor cracks and anger seeps out* “Of course not! As if I would ever put so many innocent lives in jeopardy to settle a personal vendetta. I cannot believe you would think that of me. Exactly what type of monster do you suppose I’ve become, Zinan?”

 

Z (bluntly): “The one Grandfather and Father molded you to be.”

 

Satoru: *stony mask slips back into place, too late to hide the flash of sorrow in his eyes* “I see.”

 

Suki (quickly): “He didn’t mean that. He didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Ru.”

 

Satoru: *sighs* “I think he did, Suki. It’s fine.”

 

Suki: “It’s not fine! Zin, apologize!”

 

Z: “No. I love him, but that doesn’t mean I know him. We’ve barely spoken over the last few years. He’s both familiar and strange, and I can’t just go around acting like I understand what he’s capable of anymore, just to make nice. *shoots Ru a truly apologetic look* Sorry, it is what it is…”

 

Satoru (stiffly): “Like I said, it’s fine.”

 

Suki: *mutters some truly disparaging insults about boys underneath her breath*

 

Satoru: “Regarding what happened in Japan, there were some unexpected surprises. No need to worry, though, since Father will be taking full responsibility for them all. You two are free. You no longer owe anything to the Eto family.”

 

Z (incredulously): “What do you mean we’re ‘free’?”

 

Fashion Credits

**Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes) were done by me unless otherwise stated.**

 

Z

Shorts & Hoodie: Kimberlee of Hazel Street Dezigns

Necklace: Rock-n-Soul – Bite Me Necklace – Knife’s Edge Designs (me)

Shoes: Mattel – Playline Ken Fashion

 

Doll is an In the Mix Takeo.

One Love.

 

Voigtlander Vitomatic IIa

 

Fantasy Faire 2024

 

A problematic project because how does one choose?

 

I adore all the regions of these Fairelands and will post about 5-6 photos in the next day (before the Fairelands fade back) to showcase those worlds that spoke so very clearly to me for various reasons. My clear favorite will close out this series.Thank you, amazing Worldbuilders, thank you.

 

Shown here: Planksbarrow Harbor. Such an amazing, incredible take. Such a surprising and complex build. Such an immediate impact. Calls to my inner pirate. Just amazing, top to bottom and all around.

 

Planksbarrow Harbor worldbuilder Nama Gearz.

Negatives from the low-spec and problematic Duca were okay.

Worth trying again, for sure.

I have passed St Mary a number of times since travelling to see the orchids at a nearby reserve. So with some time to kill a couple of weeks ago, I decide to call in.

 

The church is nearer to the village of Metfield than the one it is parish church for, and parking was problematic, as the church is off the main road, and the small houses and farms that make this part of Withersdale all had rather unwelcoming do not park here signs, and nearer the church, do not park on the grass signs. So where doe the visitor who arrives by car actually park? I ended up on the verge of the B road that passes close by, but the unwelcoming nature of the area had put me in a bad mood.

 

St mary is a small and simple church, a small bellcote at the west end, a fine ancient font on a new pedestal, some small but old pews and a fine roof.

 

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

 

(Introduction: Back in 2002, Withersdale was the 500th church on the Suffolk Churches site. You might say that the end of the journey was in view. I had recently had a conversation with some friends about writing parodies, using the style of other authors for those things we would have written anyway. One friend, a teacher, claimed to have written an entire school report in the style of Raymond Chandler. Some writers are easy to replicate - TS Eliot and Hemingway, for example - but it is harder to sustain a parody when the parodied writer is best known for going on at length. I said I'd have a go at Proust, which I did here, and James Joyce for church 501, Bungay St Mary. It's not for me to say how successful the parodies are, although the Joyce one has been complimented kindly by some of the man's fans. Nobody has ever said anything about the Withersdale parody - perhaps more people read Joyce than Proust, I don't know. In 2007, when I began revisiting Suffolk churches to replace the old photographs I had taken with brand spanking new digital ones, I came back to Withersdale. Unfortunately, I got here at the dullest hour on a dull day, and so the exteriors are not what I had hoped for. Still, that's a good excuse to go back again. As for the text, I have not seen any reason to change it, other than to add one hyperlink to a page on the Norfolk Churches site. I realise that this will be an annoyance for anyone wanting to find out more about Withersdale and its church. For this, I apologise.)

 

2002: For a long time, I used to read French novels in bed. And then, mid-morning, I'd get up and wander through an industrial wasteland.

I was living in Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, in the years when the coal and steel industries were finally coming to an end, and I'd walk through the battlefields of Brightside and Attercliffe, wondering at the abandoned factories and mills, and the wasted infrastructure, the boarded-up pubs and shops, the graffiti, the row upon row of derelict terraces. One day, I even found an old railway station, the door onto the platform hanging open, the wind howling through the gap into the tunnel, the line going nowhere.

 

Often, I would imagine what these places had once been like, when they were still alive, for I was not born to this, coming as I did from the flat fields of East Anglia. The first time I saw it all, it was already over. I loved the litany of names: Attercliffe and Brightside I have already mentioned, and there was Eccleshall and Carbrook, Intake and Millhouses. I don't know now if I knew them from visiting them, or only knew them from their names, bold on the fronts of buses.

 

I would wander alone through the broken streets, gazing up at the brick-faced shells, and imagine them full of activity, and try to decide what this winch had been for, or the platform where the lorries came, or the booth by the gate. This was all the evidence, and this was all I had to go on, as I reconstructed a world I had never seen. And what really interested me was not the places at all, but the people who had once inhabited them; those people who had now gone, but these buildings were once the focus of their lives, and they had known them very differently to the way I was knowing them now.

 

Using material evidence to reconstruct their activities, I could perhaps begin to understand their lives.

 

I was thinking about this as I cycled along the Waveney valley - but then something else happened. I had come to Withersdale from Weybread, up on the Norfolk border. In fact, I had reached Weybread from the northern side of the Waveney, since the most direct route from Mendham to Weybread had been across the river into Norfolk, and through the lanes that lead into Harleston. About fifteen years before all this happened, when I was living on the south coast of England, I had had a brief but passionate affair with a girl who came from Alburgh, a Norfolk village on the other side of the border to Mendham. I hadn't thought of this for years, but suddenly seeing the name of the village, which I had never visited, on a road sign, startled me. And then something extraordinary happened. As I sat on my bike, savouring this shock of recognition, an agricultural lorry passed me, and I noticed that the name of the town painted on the side of the lorry was the same south coast town where this occured.

 

I was still wondering at this as I threaded through the back lanes between Weybread and Withersdale, a world away from the post-industrial ruins of South Yorkshire, or the misery of the south coast, for I had not often been happy there, and never wish to be so poor or so far from home again. When I moved to the south, I had not many months since finished an increasingly pointless relationship that should have stopped after six months, and unfortunately went on for another two years. My habit of reading Proust in bed had come towards the end of this; that, and wandering around east Sheffield, were, I think, displacement activities of a kind, not only to avoid spending too much time with her, but also to avoid doing anything about it. It also had much to do with me leaving Sheffield shortly afterwards. It was a year later that I moved to the south coast, and I was already seeing the girl who would become my wife. And then I met this woman from a Norfolk village shortly after I arrived in the unfamiliar coastal town, in the warmest October of the century. The leaves were only just beginning to colour and fall, and I remembered the way the woods rode the Downs, and the way the fog hid all day in the valleys.

 

And then I thought, well, it must have been more than fifteen years ago, because I could remember leaving her bed in the early hours of one Friday morning, the paleness just beginning to appear in the east, and being stopped on a roadblock on the bypass, where it joined the Lewes road. It was the night that the IRA had bombed the Tory party conference at the Grand Hotel, and everyone leaving town was being stopped and questioned. I had no idea what had happened, and the policeman didn't tell me. As I explained where I had been, I watched the police coaches hurtling back westwards out of Kent, away from the miners' strike.

 

When I had made my life less complicated, I used to cycle around the Sussex lanes, finding lonely churches and sitting in them. When I'd lived in Sheffield, I liked to wander up on to the moors, perhaps to Bradfield, where the church looks out on an empty sky. Standing in its doorway took me out of the world altogether, and was the first time I experienced that sense of communion with the past. St Mary Magdalene, Withersdale, reminded me a bit of Bradfield, although busy Suffolk is much noisier than the peace around Sheffield. Here was an ancient space, plainly Norman in origin, that had stood here stubbornly while the world changed around it. Wars had come and gone, times of great prosperity had warmed it and depressions had made it cold again. Disease and famine had emptied it, until the irrepressible energy of human activity had restored it to life. And it was still here, so unlike our own transitory existences. But perhaps there is a resilience in stone that reflects the human spirit.

 

What would I have found most extraordinary back then, on the south coast? That we would now have known ten years of relative peace in Ireland? That the time of the Tories would finally come to an end, and it would be hard to imagine them ever regaining power? That I would be married with children in East Anglia? I think I would have found the Tories being out of power least believable.

 

I had been looking forward to reaching Withersdale for several years, and it had increasingly become the sole quest of the day, like people who set out on a journey to see with their own eyes some city they have always longed to visit, and imagine that they can taste in reality what has charmed their fancy.

 

Everybody who writes about it seems to like it, Mortlock calling it a dear little church, Simon Jenkins thought it unusually atmospheric, and Arthur Mee writes as though he actually visited the place for a change, and curiously mentions half a dozen pathetic old benches... which once held an honoured place in God's house and are now a shelter from the sun for a few of God's sheep, which is typical of barmy Arthur.

The church sits right beside the busy Halesworth to Harleston road, which you wouldn't expect from its reputation for being remote and peaceful. Incidentally, this is a road I always find difficult when I'm cycling, since it bends and twists through high Suffolk, and you can never be entirely clear about which way it is heading, and several times I have made the mistake of absent-mindedly turning for Harleston when I wanted Halesworth, and so on. Withersdale was the last piece of the jigsaw in north east Suffolk for me; I had visited every single other medieval church beyond the curve that connects Diss in Norfolk to Halesworth, and then the sea.

 

It was a crisp, bright afternoon towards the end of February, and my next stop after Withersdale would be the railway station at Halesworth, where I planned to catch the train that left at 4.30pm, en route from Lowestoft to Ipswich. Before Halesworth, the train would pass through Beccles, where I had stepped off of it earlier that morning, and cycled off to visit the churches of Worlingham, Mettingham and Shipmeadow workhouse. It was after this that I had made the somewhat convoluted journey through the Saints to reach Mendham in the early afternoon. Each of the Saints is an event, as if a counterpoint to the time it takes to travel through them, creating a history, a tradition of the distance, each one connected to and yet significantly different from the others, and sometimes events can overtake history and change its course, as I had discovered.

 

Now, I was nine miles from Halesworth, with less than an hour to go before the train left, which would give me time to visit Withersdale, but would concentrate my mind, since the 4.30pm train was the last that I could reasonably catch, having no lights, and needing to cycle a further two miles from the station when I arrived in Ipswich.

 

So, if I was to decide that the setting or interior of St Mary Magdalene were in any way timeless, this would have to be set against a pressing urgency - or, if not quite an urgency, a sense that an urgency would be created if I did not remain aware of the passing of time.

 

I stepped through the gate into the sloping churchyard, passing 18th and 19th century headstones as I walked to the east of the building. Here, I discovered that the church was not entirely rendered rubble, for the east wall had been partly rebuilt in red brick, and the window frame above was made of wood, which would be a memory of times past, and a hint of things to come.

 

The south side of the building was dappled in winter sunlight, and I remembered how Arthur Mee had found this church surrounded by elm trees, and how their leaves must have sent shadows scurrying along this wall, and how the sunlight had been washing it for generations. I wondered if there could be some kind of photographic effect, perhaps caused by chemicals in the rendering responding to the photons in the sunlight, and I remembered how Proust had watched from his curtained apartment the streets below, imagining scenes into stillness. I thought of my own small world, my transitory journey, and how this would be a blink of an eye, a relative stillness in comparison to the long centuries the wall had stood, and how everything I cared about, my passions, hopes and fears, signified nothing beside it.

 

I looked up at the pretty weather-boarded turret, and the little porch below. Although the church is visibly Norman in construction, the turret and porch have a later historical resonance, because they were the gift of William Sancroft, later to be Archbishop of Canterbury, who in the long years of the 17th century Commonwealth lived at nearby Fressingfield, during the time that the episcopal government of the Church of England was supressed.

 

Fressingfield was his native village, but Fressingfield church is a medieval wonder, and it is not too fanciful to imagine that Sancroft made St Mary Magdalene his quiet project, although of course it cannot be the work of one man, or even one generation or epoch, but his touch must have fallen firmly here.

 

I stepped inside to a cool light suffusing the nave and chancel, and I climbed up to the tiny gallery at the west end to look down on the space below. St Mary Magdalene is a relatively unspoiled prayerbook church, almost entirely of the 17th century, with some sympathetic Victorian additions. The pulpit is against the north wall as at All Saints South Elmham, to take full advantage of the theatrical sunlight from the windows in the south wall. The pulpit is tiny, barely two feet across, and the benches face it, and so do the box pews to south and east.

 

The woodwork is mellow, breathing a calmness into the silence, while the chancel beyond is gorgeous, a tiny altar surrounded by three-sided rails sitting beneath the elegant window, two brass vases of pussywillow sweet upon its cloth. I stood for some time looking down, and then descended, finding a superb font carved with a tree of life and a grinning face. It may be Norman, it may be older. It is set upon a modern brick base, but even this is fitting, as are the benches with strange ends, with a hole for the candlepricks, and I ran my hand over the golden curve, an eroticism stirring in the memory as the scent of flowers in a window splay touched my senses, an echo of a spring evening some twenty years before, when I had first ever thought myself in love, and this came to me now.

There was a crisp confidence to this building; it was expressed in the curious elegance of the 17th century English Church which had furnished it that, despite so many traumas, had finally come to represent the simplicity of the Puritans, the seemliness of the Anglicans, and that was the Elizabethan Settlement of the previous century fulfilled. Here Sancroft waited, while the world turned upside down around him, and then Cromwell died, and so too did the Puritan project; Sancroft became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London, witnessing its destruction by fire in 1666, and overseeing its complete rebuilding in the classical style, and such a contrast with St Mary Magdalene it must have made that perhaps he sometimes wished he was back here. A High Anglican, he crowned the Catholic James II with some misgivings, but then refused to recognise the Protestant coup of William III in 1688, returning once more to Suffolk, where he died.

 

I sat in the shadowed pew and felt the distant beat, the quiet trick of history turned and played. I thought of the certainty that this interior represented, the triumph of the will, of belief over mystery, and how the rationalist, superstitious 18th century worshippers here could not have conceived of the great sacramental fire that would one day flame out of Oxford and lick them clean.

 

I sat there, long enough to forget that I must of necessity move on, and the place began to cast a spell which I thought mostly due to the light, which was becoming pale as the sun faded beyond the distant trees, or perhaps the silence, but I knew in fact it was because of the matter on my mind.

 

You see, there's another thing. A few days before my visit to Withersdale I had spent a weekend abroad with three female friends, one of whom I felt increasingly drawn to, to the extent that I wondered if anything might come of it. This was also on my mind as I sat in the neat coolness of St Mary Magdalene, looking at the pussy willows in the altar vases, and talking to someone, possibly God.

 

How to understand flowers on altars, I wonder. How the 18th century puritans who furnished this place would be appalled! And yet they were perfect, as if the entire building had been constructed and furnished for them to be placed here, on this day, at this time, with the late afternoon light glancing down the hillside and leading my gaze to the brass vases. What did they mean to me, in comparison with their meaning for the people who placed them there? I ought to mention that the friends I went away with were all younger then me, at least twelve years, and it is to my great delight how younger people reinvent the world I think I understand, just as I must have done, and still do for people that much older than me. This constant process of reinterpretation must be immensely annoying for those who think they have grown old and wise, but I rejoice in it; it is a beautiful chaos, and keeps the world fresh and new, and history could not exist without it. By history, I mean of course the gradual process of constant change, which was also Newman's definition of the word tradition, rather than anything about dates and famous people.

 

So I sat there, and wondered if I should try and make something happen with the woman I mentioned, if I should tell her how I felt, and discover if what seemed to be the case was actually so, and so as I sit here now, writing this, I know the full story, and how it finally ended some weeks later, and this makes complete the circle from the moment I crossed the Waveney at Mendham, putting in chain an irrevokable sequence that would lead me here now to this computer keyboard, on this sunny spring evening in Ipswich. In A L'ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs, Proust remembers crossing France by train at night, and the dislocation and alienation of being hurtled through an invisible, unfamiliar landscape. He cannot sleep, and in the middle of the night the train stops in a secret valley, far from the nearest town, perhaps because there is a station, or because the track is blocked, I don't remember. He opens the carriage window; it is a hot, sultry night.

 

Suddenly, a woman appears from the nearest cottage, with a jug of coffee, and he watches her give the coffee to a group of passengers, or perhaps they were the men removing the blockage, which I think was a tree, but may have been an animal of some kind, or perhaps it was to do with a swollen river. Proust thinks of her life in this lost valley ...from which its congregated summits hid the rest of the world, she could never see anyone save those in the trains which stopped for a moment only.

 

She moves back down the track, and gives the narrator some coffee. Wordlessly, he drinks it, returns the bowl, and the train starts to move, and he watches her silently as she recedes into the blackness, not knowing where he is, and only being certain that he will never see her again.

Instantly, the day is magnified, signified: Il faisait grand jour maintenant, says the narrator, je m'eloignais de l'aurore... This is history, thousands of these events, infuriatingly disparate and yet somehow connected. And this is so for everyone, for millions of us. I think now of Withersdale, and see connections ramifying, spiralling outwards, always becoming endless.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/withersdale.htm

Peru searched for modern tanks in 1935 due to problematic relations to Equador, and the Czech LTL type seemed to be perfect. The main requirement was use in heights over 4000 meters above the sea level. The first tank was tested in Peru in 1938, 24 were delivered and used until the 80ies, after this they ended as memorials over the country.

"people usually only have access to partial truths about their lives, because most of us aren’t taught to critically analyze our role in society, and which cultural norms have shaped us how". - Jeana from this blog

  

In my experience photos with flags in them tend only to have meaning for the photographer and anyone from the country, state or association that the flag represents. So I apologise for anyone I've alienated with today's image but it reflects the space I am in today.

 

Australia Day, a national day of celebration of… ?

 

According to Wikipedia "Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Celebrated annually on 26 January, the date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove, NSW, in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia." The fact that I, as an Australian by birth, felt the need to look-up an online definition for our national day should give you some sort of indication as to where my head is at at this point in time.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love any excuse for a public holiday (I am Australian after all ;-)). I love a good old pool party and BBQ with my friends, whats not to love?! If only I could leave it at that.

 

Forgive me, I will probably ramble a bit in this description as I try to unravel the thoughts running through my head and sort them into some semblance of meaning. One of the side effects I have noticed starting this 365 is that it is causing me to think more critically about all sorts of things (which I am not entirely sure is a good thing as I am probably guilty of over thinking things in general anyway).

 

It all started a few weeks ago when I was walking to my car thinking I should plan a 'meaningful' shot for Australia day but the more I thought about what that would entail the more confused I became. What is it we are celebrating anyway? What is our national identity? Sure we like to think of ourselves as funny larakins who don't take life to seriously and enjoy a cold beer at the end of the day but honestly I think we have moved on from that, if it was ever true in the first place it is far too oversimplified for now…

 

Anwyay, with our boring you with all of the details I was already in a questioning frame of mind when I was invited by friends to go check out the Yabun festival/ Australia day/ Survival day celebrations in Victoria park, Glebe. This festival celebrates the survival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and culture, and according to the event description is "the largest single day Indigenous festival drawing an audience of between 10,000 and 15,000 and is one of the most important Indigenous music events in the country reflecting the huge wealth of Indigenous creative talent. Alongside all the wonderful music, you can soak up some culture and area information from some of the community's most influential leaders." Of course I didn't know this at the time, I just said yes and went in blind.

 

Oh god, how do I say this right without sounding like a total bimbo?

 

I hope this doesn't get me into trouble but when I got to Victoria park it was kind of as I expected, 2 stages with live music, some stalls with food and others housing representatives from cultural organisations, aboriginal flags, people selling all sorts of paraphernalia with aboriginal flags on them or various other slogans and all sorts of people including large family groups and random others like myself just milling about. What I wasn't prepared for was the aggression and anger that seemed to underpin a large proportion of the festivities.

 

But of course, the other half of the festival name - survival day.

 

I'd love to say that I knew, because it seems so disgustingly ignorant now that I do, but I didn't know, it had never occurred to me that this would be the case. The cultural tension, it just feels to me like this sort of thing should belong to other peoples worlds, not to mine. It is terrible to admit but I am probably more aware of the overall cultural tensions in the USA than I am those in my own backyard. For many indigenous Australians, Australia day is an arrogant display of celebration of the "injustices by Government businesses and people including but not limited to the misappropriation by whatever means of land air water culture heritage and children and the attempted cultural genocide perpetrated by past and present Federal and State Governments" reference

 

It is difficult to feel like by default you are on the side of the wrong-doers when as an individual your only transgression was to be born and remain ignorant of anthers plight, and yet still, once a little less ignorant to remain in the dark as to what you as a single person can do to make amends. I think this is where discussions of a 'peoples' falls apart, because I fail to see how it is possible for one peoples to make amends for wrongdoings to anthers peoples with out some sort of compensation to the individual people that make up the wronged peoples but then how does one go about accurately defining the people effected and who (individually) should be held responsible for making amends when the wrongdoing was done so long ago thats the direct people involved no longer exist? and to what extent do you go, if the terms be financial compensation, to make amends? Do you go so far as to destabilise an entire country? But then what right does the country have to be stable? Or, philosophically, what right do any of us, anywhere have to 'own' any piece of earth to the exclusion of others anywhere on this planet we were born onto? To set laws that other people must abide by? Or is all of this questioning just some perverted way for me to attempt to abdicate my responsibilities?

 

Truth is that I may come from a "multicultural" area of Sydney and have many European and Asian friends but apart from watching Cathy Freeman win the women's 400m sprint at the 2000 Olympics my closest, most common interaction with anyone from "Australia's indigenous peoples" (in quotations only because the phrase makes me feel uncomfortable) are those who are homeless and/or loiter around the entrance to Redfern station and whom I tend to walk passed quickly, ignoring whatever is said to me. I don't say this because I am proud, I say it because its the truth and because it makes me uncomfortable.

 

And without trying to use it as an excuse and at the risk of repeating the most overused word this decade, in this sense I am one of the 'privileged' and is it not true that the privileged very rarely realise that they are so?

 

Anyway, I wonder if all of this made any sense at all. I find myself cringing when I read parts of it back which is maybe a good thing. I should probably re-write parts of it to make my points clearer but the process of writing it felt so exhausting that I am loath to go through and proof-read it all.

 

***

The picture itself is a composite of 2 images: one taken at Victoria park as I was leaving the festival and another taken when I got home. To me it represents reflection and confusion and a tension between two different national identities, one which I belong to and one which I would like to understand better but feel as if my presence would be unwanted. Comments welcome :)

What's apparent and problematic about this sample is that a certain percentage of the asbestos fibers' are so thin, they're beyond the resolution of the light microscope used for the PCM method; there are asbestos fibers not adequately resolved and "missed" during sample analysis. Add to this, the inherent limitations of analysts' variability and common particulate interference issues.

 

PCM used for everyday asbestos-related air sampling may not be entirely reliable or accurate, especially compared to exponentially more precise electron microscopy methods.

 

Go North East's 640 (NK62 DWY), Optare Solo SR Hybrid/Optare Solo, carrying its "Sunderland Connect" branding, pictured on Saint Peters' Way, Sunderland, before working "Sunderland Connect" service 701 to Royal Hospital. 14/02/13

 

My final shot of the day - and a problematic one at that - we see (what I believe to be) the first ever picture of the "Sunderland Connect" 701 service! Despite this being a public road and the subject of the photo being 640 (as can be seen above), the driver of this vehicle who was talking to another male before starting his next duty, noticed me taking photos and interrogated me. He asked why I was taking photos, where they would be uploaded, and said that taking photos without permission is an invasion of his privacy. He (not-so-politely) asked to see all of the photos I'd taken as he had not given me his consent to take photos. Having showed him the photos, he did ask me to delete them, and after a debate of why he cannot ask me to do that, he said that a one where his face was not visible could be uploaded to my website. Of course, I confirmed this with a reputable bus enthusiast I know, and I was told that I was in the right to say that he had no right to ask me to delete the photos. Nevertheless, I did decide to abide by the "rule" he set and chose this one, of about ten taken.

 

Sunderland Connect is your route to many of the main attractions and destinations in Sunderland City Centre - so whether you live, work or study in the city or are just visiting - Sunderland Connect’s perfect for connecting you with where you want to be: Sunderland City Centre and The Bridges, Royal Hospital, Empire Theatre, Stadium of Light, Aquatic Centre, National Glass Centre, St Peter’s Church and the Museum and Winter Gardens.

 

Sunderland Connect is operated to a 15 minute frequency Monday to Saturday daytimes by Go North East on behalf of Nexus, Sunderland City Council and the University of Sunderland.

 

On evenings, from 19:17 until 22:17, service 701 operates between St Peter's Campus, University of Sunderland, University Travel Hub, Chester Road, Kayll Road and Hylton Road. Service 701 has a PVR of 1 and is almost a "secret" service, as it is not advertised on Go North East's website. A timetable (as always) has been published on Nexus' website though, which can be viewed below:

www.nexus.org.uk/sites/nexus.org.uk/files/documents/bus/7...

28th March 2007.

 

There were two modern single deckers added to the Green Bus fleet - they were problematical and so short-lived in the fleet.

 

070328-L268CCK-rt9 (4)1271

 

Øye Stave Church (Norwegian: Øye stavkyrkje) is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Vang Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the village of Øye. It is one of the churches for the Øye parish which is part of the Valdres prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Hamar. The brown, wooden stave church was built in a long church design in 1965 using plans drawn up by the architect Ole Øvergaard using pieces salvaged from the old 12th century church that had originally been torn down in 1747. The church seats about 30 people.

 

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1347, but the church was not new that year. The first church in Øye was a wooden stave church that was built in the late 12th century, likely around the years 1180–1200. This church was located on the flat land along the shore of the lake Vangsmjøse, about 400 metres (1,300 ft) northwest of the present Øye Church. This location was problematic over the years. The land was somewhat boggy and the nearby river Rødøla would flood almost every spring and this led to grave sites being disturbed (legend says the coffins would sometimes float to the surface during the flooding). By the 1660s, the church was said to be in poor condition. In 1747, the old church was torn down and a new Øye Church was built about 400 metres (1,300 ft) to the southeast of the old site.

 

In 1935, the new Øye Church was being renovated and part of the foundation wall was removed. Under the floor, workers found 156 pieces of the old stave church that had been salvaged after the demolition of the old stave church in 1747. The pieces included some of the staves, foundation pillars, framing, and decorative pieces. No one knew they were there and no one knew why they were saved there. After this discovery, the materials were saved and plans were made to reconstruct the old stave church. The architect Ole Øvergaard designed a reconstruction proposal for the church in 1950. The plans called for using many of the parts discovered in 1935 as well as some parts from the Heddal Stave Church as well as some new materials. The parish decided to build the reconstruction about 100 metres (330 ft) north of the present Øye Church (since the old church site was still not suited for building). The construction was completed and the church was consecrated on 1 August 1965 by the Bishop Alexander Lange Johnson. Historic artifacts include a medieval doorbell, a crucifix from the 13th century with a figure of Christ and a wooden baptismal font from the 1300s.

 

Øye is a village in Vang Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located at the west end of the lake Vangsmjøse, about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) northwest of the municipal centre of Vang i Valdres and about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the southeast of the rural village of Tyinkrysset. The European route E16 highway runs through the village, heading west through the Filefjell mountains on the way to the west coast of Norway. The historic Øye Stave Church and the newer Øye Church are both located in the village.

 

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway , is a Nordic , European country and an independent state in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula . Geographically speaking, the country is long and narrow, and on the elongated coast towards the North Atlantic are Norway's well-known fjords . The Kingdom of Norway includes the main country (the mainland with adjacent islands within the baseline ), Jan Mayen and Svalbard . With these two Arctic areas, Norway covers a land area of ​​385,000 km² and has a population of approximately 5.5 million (2023). Mainland Norway borders Sweden in the east , Finland and Russia in the northeast .

 

Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy , where Harald V has been king and head of state since 1991 , and Jonas Gahr Støre ( Ap ) has been prime minister since 2021 . Norway is a unitary state , with two administrative levels below the state: counties and municipalities . The Sami part of the population has, through the Sami Parliament and the Finnmark Act , to a certain extent self-government and influence over traditionally Sami areas. Although Norway has rejected membership of the European Union through two referendums , through the EEA Agreement Norway has close ties with the Union, and through NATO with the United States . Norway is a significant contributor to the United Nations (UN), and has participated with soldiers in several foreign operations mandated by the UN. Norway is among the states that have participated from the founding of the UN , NATO , the Council of Europe , the OSCE and the Nordic Council , and in addition to these is a member of the EEA , the World Trade Organization , the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and is part of the Schengen area .

 

Norway is rich in many natural resources such as oil , gas , minerals , timber , seafood , fresh water and hydropower . Since the beginning of the 20th century, these natural conditions have given the country the opportunity for an increase in wealth that few other countries can now enjoy, and Norwegians have the second highest average income in the world, measured in GDP per capita, as of 2022. The petroleum industry accounts for around 14% of Norway's gross domestic product as of 2018. Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and gas per capita outside the Middle East. However, the number of employees linked to this industry fell from approx. 232,000 in 2013 to 207,000 in 2015.

 

In Norway, these natural resources have been managed for socially beneficial purposes. The country maintains a welfare model in line with the other Nordic countries. Important service areas such as health and higher education are state-funded, and the country has an extensive welfare system for its citizens. Public expenditure in 2018 is approx. 50% of GDP, and the majority of these expenses are related to education, healthcare, social security and welfare. Since 2001 and until 2021, when the country took second place, the UN has ranked Norway as the world's best country to live in . From 2010, Norway is also ranked at the top of the EIU's democracy index . Norway ranks third on the UN's World Happiness Report for the years 2016–2018, behind Finland and Denmark , a report published in March 2019.

 

The majority of the population is Nordic. In the last couple of years, immigration has accounted for more than half of population growth. The five largest minority groups are Norwegian-Poles , Lithuanians , Norwegian-Swedes , Norwegian-Syrians including Syrian Kurds and Norwegian-Pakistani .

 

Norway's national day is 17 May, on this day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was dated and signed by the presidency of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll . It is stipulated in the law of 26 April 1947 that 17 May are national public holidays. The Sami national day is 6 February. "Yes, we love this country" is Norway's national anthem, the song was written in 1859 by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910).

 

Norway's history of human settlement goes back at least 10,000 years, to the Late Paleolithic , the first period of the Stone Age . Archaeological finds of settlements along the entire Norwegian coast have so far been dated back to 10,400 before present (BP), the oldest find is today considered to be a settlement at Pauler in Brunlanes , Vestfold .

For a period these settlements were considered to be the remains of settlers from Doggerland , an area which today lies beneath the North Sea , but which was once a land bridge connecting today's British Isles with Danish Jutland . But the archaeologists who study the initial phase of the settlement in what is today Norway reckon that the first people who came here followed the coast along what is today Bohuslân. That they arrived in some form of boat is absolutely certain, and there is much evidence that they could easily move over large distances.

 

Since the last Ice Age, there has been continuous settlement in Norway. It cannot be ruled out that people lived in Norway during the interglacial period , but no trace of such a population or settlement has been found.

 

The Stone Age lasted a long time; half of the time that our country has been populated. There are no written accounts of what life was like back then. The knowledge we have has been painstakingly collected through investigations of places where people have stayed and left behind objects that we can understand have been processed by human hands. This field of knowledge is called archaeology . The archaeologists interpret their findings and the history of the surrounding landscape. In our country, the uplift after the Ice Age is fundamental. The history of the settlements at Pauler is no more than fifteen years old.

 

The Fosna culture settled parts of Norway sometime between 10,000–8,000 BC. (see Stone Age in Norway ). The dating of rock carvings is set to Neolithic times (in Norway between 4000 BC to 1700 BC) and show activities typical of hunters and gatherers .

 

Agriculture with livestock and arable farming was introduced in the Neolithic. Swad farming where the farmers move when the field does not produce the expected yield.

 

More permanent and persistent farm settlements developed in the Bronze Age (1700 BC to 500 BC) and the Iron Age . The earliest runes have been found on an arrowhead dated to around 200 BC. Many more inscriptions are dated to around 800, and a number of petty kingdoms developed during these centuries. In prehistoric times, there were no fixed national borders in the Nordic countries and Norway did not exist as a state. The population in Norway probably fell to year 0.

 

Events in this time period, the centuries before the year 1000, are glimpsed in written sources. Although the sagas were written down in the 13th century, many hundreds of years later, they provide a glimpse into what was already a distant past. The story of the fimbul winter gives us a historical picture of something that happened and which in our time, with the help of dendrochronology , can be interpreted as a natural disaster in the year 536, created by a volcanic eruption in El Salvador .

 

In the period between 800 and 1066 there was a significant expansion and it is referred to as the Viking Age . During this period, Norwegians, as Swedes and Danes also did, traveled abroad in longships with sails as explorers, traders, settlers and as Vikings (raiders and pirates ). By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingship had been firmly established, building its right as descendants of Harald Hårfagre and then as heirs of Olav the Holy . The Norwegian kings, and their subjects, now professed Christianity . In the time around Håkon Håkonsson , in the time after the civil war , there was a small renaissance in Norway with extensive literary activity and diplomatic activity with Europe. The black dew came to Norway in 1349 and killed around half of the population. The entire state apparatus and Norway then entered a period of decline.

 

Between 1396 and 1536, Norway was part of the Kalmar Union , and from 1536 until 1814 Norway had been reduced to a tributary part of Denmark , named as the Personal Union of Denmark-Norway . This staff union entered into an alliance with Napoléon Bonaparte with a war that brought bad times and famine in 1812 . In 1814, Denmark-Norway lost the Anglophone Wars , part of the Napoleonic Wars , and the Danish king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January of that year. After a Norwegian attempt at independence, Norway was forced into a loose union with Sweden, but where Norway was allowed to create its own constitution, the Constitution of 1814 . In this period, Norwegian, romantic national feeling flourished, and the Norwegians tried to develop and establish their own national self-worth. The union with Sweden was broken in 1905 after it had been threatened with war, and Norway became an independent kingdom with its own monarch, Haakon VII .

 

Norway remained neutral during the First World War , and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Norway again declared itself neutral, but was invaded by National Socialist Germany on 9 April 1940 .

 

Norway became a member of the Western defense alliance NATO in 1949 . Two attempts to join the EU were voted down in referendums by small margins in 1972 and 1994 . Norway has been a close ally of the United States in the post-war period. Large discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea at the end of the 1960s led to tremendous economic growth in the country, which is still ongoing. Traditional industries such as fishing are also part of Norway's economy.

 

Stone Age (before 1700 BC)

When most of the ice disappeared, vegetation spread over the landscape and due to a warm climate around 2000-3000 BC. the forest grew much taller than in modern times. Land uplift after the ice age led to a number of fjords becoming lakes and dry land. The first people probably came from the south along the coast of the Kattegat and overland into Finnmark from the east. The first people probably lived by gathering, hunting and trapping. A good number of Stone Age settlements have been found which show that such hunting and trapping people stayed for a long time in the same place or returned to the same place regularly. Large amounts of gnawed bones show that they lived on, among other things, reindeer, elk, small game and fish.

 

Flintstone was imported from Denmark and apart from small natural deposits along the southern coast, all flintstone in Norway is transported by people. At Espevær, greenstone was quarried for tools in the Stone Age, and greenstone tools from Espevær have been found over large parts of Western Norway. Around 2000-3000 BC the usual farm animals such as cows and sheep were introduced to Norway. Livestock probably meant a fundamental change in society in that part of the people had to be permanent residents or live a semi-nomadic life. Livestock farming may also have led to conflict with hunters.

 

The oldest traces of people in what is today Norway have been found at Pauler , a farm in Brunlanes in Larvik municipality in Vestfold . In 2007 and 2008, the farm has given its name to a number of Stone Age settlements that have been excavated and examined by archaeologists from the Cultural History Museum at UiO. The investigations have been carried out in connection with the new route for the E18 motorway west of Farris. The oldest settlement, located more than 127 m above sea level, is dated to be about 10,400 years old (uncalibrated, more than 11,000 years in real calendar years). From here, the ice sheet was perhaps visible when people settled here. This locality has been named Pauler I, and is today considered to be the oldest confirmed human traces in Norway to date. The place is in the mountains above the Pauler tunnel on the E18 between Larvik and Porsgrunn . The pioneer settlement is a term archaeologists have adopted for the oldest settlement. The archaeologists have speculated about where they came from, the first people in what is today Norway. It has been suggested that they could come by boat or perhaps across the ice from Doggerland or the North Sea, but there is now a large consensus that they came north along what is today the Bohuslän coast. The Fosna culture , the Komsa culture and the Nøstvet culture are the traditional terms for hunting cultures from the Stone Age. One thing is certain - getting to the water was something they mastered, the first people in our country. Therefore, within a short time they were able to use our entire long coast.

 

In the New Stone Age (4000 BC–1700 BC) there is a theory that a new people immigrated to the country, the so-called Stone Ax People . Rock carvings from this period show motifs from hunting and fishing , which were still important industries. From this period, a megalithic tomb has been found in Østfold .

It is uncertain whether there were organized societies or state-like associations in the Stone Age in Norway. Findings from settlements indicate that many lived together and that this was probably more than one family so that it was a slightly larger, organized herd.

 

Finnmark

In prehistoric times, animal husbandry and agriculture were of little economic importance in Finnmark. Livelihoods in Finnmark were mainly based on fish, gathering, hunting and trapping, and eventually domestic reindeer herding became widespread in the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds from the Stone Age have been referred to as the Komsa culture and comprise around 5,000 years of settlement. Finnmark probably got its first settlement around 8000 BC. It is believed that the coastal areas became ice-free 11,000 years BC and the fjord areas around 9,000 years BC. after which willows, grass, heather, birch and pine came into being. Finnmarksvidda was covered by pine forest around 6000 BC. After the Ice Age, the land rose around 80 meters in the inner fjord areas (Alta, Tana, Varanger). Due to ice melting in the polar region, the sea rose in the period 6400–3800 BC. and in areas with little land elevation, some settlements from the first part of the Stone Age were flooded. On Sørøya, the net sea level rise was 12 to 14 meters and many residential areas were flooded.

 

According to Bjørnar Olsen , there are many indications of a connection between the oldest settlement in Western Norway (the " Fosnakulturen ") and that in Finnmark, but it is uncertain in which direction the settlement took place. In the earliest part of the Stone Age, settlement in Finnmark was probably concentrated in the coastal areas, and these only reflected a lifestyle with great mobility and no permanent dwellings. The inner regions, such as Pasvik, were probably used seasonally. The archaeologically proven settlements from the Stone Age in inner Finnmark and Troms are linked to lakes and large watercourses. The oldest petroglyphs in Alta are usually dated to 4200 BC, that is, the Neolithic . Bjørnar Olsen believes that the oldest can be up to 2,000 years older than this.

 

From around 4000 BC a slow deforestation of Finnmark began and around 1800 BC the vegetation distribution was roughly the same as in modern times. The change in vegetation may have increased the distance between the reindeer's summer and winter grazing. The uplift continued slowly from around 4000 BC. at the same time as sea level rise stopped.

 

According to Gutorm Gjessing, the settlement in Finnmark and large parts of northern Norway in the Neolithic was semi-nomadic with movement between four seasonal settlements (following the pattern of life in Sami siida in historical times): On the outer coast in summer (fishing and seal catching) and inland in winter (hunting for reindeer, elk and bear). Povl Simonsen believed instead that the winter residence was in the inner fjord area in a village-like sod house settlement. Bjørnar Olsen believes that at the end of the Stone Age there was a relatively settled population along the coast, while inland there was less settlement and a more mobile lifestyle.

 

Bronze Age (1700 BC–500 BC)

Bronze was used for tools in Norway from around 1500 BC. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper , and these metals were introduced because they were not mined in the country at the time. Bronze is believed to have been a relatively expensive material. The Bronze Age in Norway can be divided into two phases:

 

Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 BC)

Younger Bronze Age (1100–500 BC)

For the prehistoric (unwritten) era, there is limited knowledge about social conditions and possible state formations. From the Bronze Age, there are large burial mounds of stone piles along the coast of Vestfold and Agder, among others. It is likely that only chieftains or other great men could erect such grave monuments and there was probably some form of organized society linked to these. In the Bronze Age, society was more organized and stratified than in the Stone Age. Then a rich class of chieftains emerged who had close connections with southern Scandinavia. The settlements became more permanent and people adopted horses and ard . They acquired bronze status symbols, lived in longhouses and people were buried in large burial mounds . Petroglyphs from the Bronze Age indicate that humans practiced solar cultivation.

 

Finnmark

In the last millennium BC the climate became cooler and the pine forest disappears from the coast; pine forests, for example, were only found in the innermost part of the Altafjord, while the outer coast was almost treeless. Around the year 0, the limit for birch forest was south of Kirkenes. Animals with forest habitats (elk, bear and beaver) disappeared and the reindeer probably established their annual migration routes sometime at that time. In the period 1800–900 BC there were significantly more settlements in and utilization of the hinterland was particularly noticeable on Finnmarksvidda. From around 1800 BC until year 0 there was a significant increase in contact between Finnmark and areas in the east including Karelia (where metals were produced including copper) and central and eastern Russia. The youngest petroglyphs in Alta show far more boats than the earlier phases and the boats are reminiscent of types depicted in petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia. It is unclear what influence southern Scandinavian societies had as far north as Alta before the year 0. Many of the cultural features that are considered typical Sami in modern times were created or consolidated in the last millennium BC, this applies, among other things, to the custom of burying in brick chambers in stone urns. The Mortensnes burial ground may have been used for 2000 years until around 1600 AD.

 

Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 1050 AD)

 

The Einangsteinen is one of the oldest Norwegian runestones; it is from the 4th century

 

Simultaneous production of Vikings

Around 500 years BC the researchers reckon that the Bronze Age will be replaced by the Iron Age as iron takes over as the most important material for weapons and tools. Bronze, wood and stone were still used. Iron was cheaper than bronze, easier to work than flint , and could be used for many purposes; iron probably became common property. Iron could, among other things, be used to make solid and sharp axes which made it much easier to fell trees. In the Iron Age, gold and silver were also used partly for decoration and partly as means of payment. It is unknown which language was used in Norway before our era. From around the year 0 until around the year 800, everyone in Scandinavia (except the Sami) spoke Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Subsequently, several different languages ​​developed in this area that were only partially mutually intelligible. The Iron Age is divided into several periods:

 

Early Iron Age

Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 0)

Roman Iron Age (c. 0–c. AD 400)

Migration period (approx. 400–600). In the migration period (approx. 400–600), new peoples came to Norway, and ruins of fortress buildings etc. are interpreted as signs that there has been talk of a violent invasion.

Younger Iron Age

Merovingian period (500–800)

 

The Viking Age (793–1066)

Norwegian Vikings go on plundering expeditions and trade voyages around the coastal countries of Western Europe . Large groups of Norwegians emigrate to the British Isles , Iceland and Greenland . Harald Hårfagre starts a unification process of Norway late in the 8th century , which was completed by Harald Hardråde in the 1060s . The country was Christianized under the kings Olav Tryggvason , fell in the battle of Svolder ( 1000 ) and Olav Haraldsson (the saint), fell in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 .

 

Sources of prehistoric times

Shrinking glaciers in the high mountains, including in Jotunheimen and Breheimen , have from around the year 2000 uncovered objects from the Viking Age and earlier. These are objects of organic material that have been preserved by the ice and that elsewhere in nature are broken down in a few months. The finds are getting older as the melting makes the archaeologists go deeper into the ice. About half of all archaeological discoveries on glaciers in the world are made in Oppland . In 2013, a 3,400-year-old shoe and a robe from the year 300 were found. Finds at Lomseggen in Lom published in 2020 revealed, among other things, well-preserved horseshoes used on a mountain pass. Many hundreds of items include preserved clothing, knives, whisks, mittens, leather shoes, wooden chests and horse equipment. A piece of cloth dated to the year 1000 has preserved its original colour. In 2014, a wooden ski from around the year 700 was found in Reinheimen . The ski is 172 cm long and 14 cm wide, with preserved binding of leather and wicker.

 

Pytheas from Massalia is the oldest known account of what was probably the coast of Norway, perhaps somewhere on the coast of Møre. Pytheas visited Britannia around 325 BC. and traveled further north to a country by the "Ice Sea". Pytheas described the short summer night and the midnight sun farther north. He wrote, among other things, that people there made a drink from grain and honey. Caesar wrote in his work about the Gallic campaign about the Germanic tribe Haruders. Other Roman sources around the year 0 mention the land of the Cimbri (Jutland) and the Cimbri headlands ( Skagen ) and that the sources stated that Cimbri and Charyds lived in this area. Some of these peoples may have immigrated to Norway and there become known as hordes (as in Hordaland). Sources from the Mediterranean area referred to the islands of Scandia, Scandinavia and Thule ("the outermost of all islands"). The Roman historian Tacitus wrote around the year 100 a work about Germania and mentioned the people of Scandia, the Sviones. Ptolemy wrote around the year 150 that the Kharudes (Hordes) lived further north than all the Cimbri, in the north lived the Finnoi (Finns or Sami) and in the south the Gutai (Goths). The Nordic countries and Norway were outside the Roman Empire , which dominated Europe at the time. The Gothic-born historian Jordanes wrote in the 5th century about 13 tribes or people groups in Norway, including raumaricii (probably Romerike ), ragnaricii ( Ranrike ) and finni or skretefinni (skrid finner or ski finner, i.e. Sami) as well as a number of unclear groups. Prokopios wrote at the same time about Thule north of the land of the Danes and Slavs, Thule was ten times as big as Britannia and the largest of all the islands. In Thule, the sun was up 40 days straight in the summer. After the migration period , southern Europeans' accounts of northern Europe became fuller and more reliable.

 

Settlement in prehistoric times

Norway has around 50,000 farms with their own names. Farm names have persisted for a long time, over 1000 years, perhaps as much as 2000 years. The name researchers have arranged different types of farm names chronologically, which provides a basis for determining when the place was used by people or received a permanent settlement. Uncompounded landscape names such as Haug, Eid, Vik and Berg are believed to be the oldest. Archaeological traces indicate that some areas have been inhabited earlier than assumed from the farm name. Burial mounds also indicate permanent settlement. For example, the burial ground at Svartelva in Løten was used from around the year 0 to the year 1000 when Christianity took over. The first farmers probably used large areas for inland and outland, and new farms were probably established based on some "mother farms". Names such as By (or Bø) show that it is an old place of residence. From the older Iron Age, names with -heim (a common Germanic word meaning place of residence) and -stad tell of settlement, while -vin and -land tell of the use of the place. Farm names in -heim are often found as -um , -eim or -em as in Lerum and Seim, there are often large farms in the center of the village. New farm names with -city and -country were also established in the Viking Age . The first farmers probably used the best areas. The largest burial grounds, the oldest archaeological finds and the oldest farm names are found where the arable land is richest and most spacious.

 

It is unclear whether the settlement expansion in Roman times, migrations and the Iron Age is due to immigration or internal development and population growth. Among other things, it is difficult to demonstrate where in Europe the immigrants have come from. The permanent residents had both fields (where grain was grown) and livestock that grazed in the open fields, but it is uncertain which of these was more important. Population growth from around the year 200 led to more utilization of open land, for example in the form of settlements in the mountains. During the migration period, it also seems that in parts of the country it became common to have cluster gardens or a form of village settlement.

 

Norwegian expansion northwards

From around the year 200, there was a certain migration by sea from Rogaland and Hordaland to Nordland and Sør-Troms. Those who moved settled down as a settled Iron Age population and became dominant over the original population which may have been Sami . The immigrant Norwegians, Bumen , farmed with livestock that were fed inside in the winter as well as some grain cultivation and fishing. The northern border of the Norwegians' settlement was originally at the Toppsundet near Harstad and around the year 500 there was a Norwegian settlement to Malangsgapet. That was as far north as it was possible to grow grain at the time. Malangen was considered the border between Hålogaland and Finnmork until around 1400 . Further into the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, there was immigration and settlement of Norwegian speakers along the coast north of Malangen. Around the year 800, Norwegians lived along the entire outer coast to Vannøy . The Norwegians partly copied Sami livelihoods such as whaling, fur hunting and reindeer husbandry. It was probably this area between Malangen and Vannøy that was Ottar from the Hålogaland area. In the Viking Age, there were also some Norwegian settlements further north and east. East of the North Cape are the scattered archaeological finds of Norwegian settlement in the Viking Age. There are Norwegian names for fjords and islands from the Viking Age, including fjord names with "-anger". Around the year 1050, there were Norwegian settlements on the outer coast of Western Finnmark. Traders and tax collectors traveled even further.

 

North of Malangen there were Norse farming settlements in the Iron Age. Malangen was considered Finnmark's western border until 1300. There are some archaeological traces of Norse activity around the coast from Tromsø to Kirkenes in the Viking Age. Around Tromsø, the research indicates a Norse/Sami mixed culture on the coast.

 

From the year 1100 and the next 200–300 years, there are no traces of Norwegian settlement north and east of Tromsø. It is uncertain whether this is due to depopulation, whether it is because the Norwegians further north were not Christianized or because there were no churches north of Lenvik or Tromsø . Norwegian settlement in the far north appears from sources from the 14th century. In the Hanseatic period , the settlement was developed into large areas specialized in commercial fishing, while earlier (in the Viking Age) there had been farms with a combination of fishing and agriculture. In 1307 , a fortress and the first church east of Tromsø were built in Vardø . Vardø became a small Norwegian town, while Vadsø remained Sami. Norwegian settlements and churches appeared along the outermost coast in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, perhaps as a result of a decline in fish stocks or fish prices, there were Norwegian settlements in the inner fjord areas such as Lebesby in Laksefjord. Some fishing villages at the far end of the coast were abandoned for good. In the interior of Finnmark, there was no national border for a long time and Kautokeino and Karasjok were joint Norwegian-Swedish areas with strong Swedish influence. The border with Finland was established in 1751 and with Russia in 1826.

 

On a Swedish map from 1626, Norway's border is indicated at Malangen, while Sweden with this map showed a desire to control the Sami area which had been a common area.

 

The term Northern Norway only came into use at the end of the 19th century and administratively the area was referred to as Tromsø Diocese when Tromsø became a bishopric in 1840. There had been different designations previously: Hålogaland originally included only Helgeland and when Norse settlement spread north in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, Hålogaland was used for the area north approximately to Malangen , while Finnmark or "Finnmarken", "the land of the Sami", lay outside. The term Northern Norway was coined at a cafe table in Kristiania in 1884 by members of the Nordlændingernes Forening and was first commonly used in the interwar period as it eventually supplanted "Hålogaland".

 

State formation

The battle in Hafrsfjord in the year 872 has long been regarded as the day when Norway became a kingdom. The year of the battle is uncertain (may have been 10-20 years later). The whole of Norway was not united in that battle: the process had begun earlier and continued a couple of hundred years later. This means that the geographical area became subject to a political authority and became a political unit. The geographical area was perceived as an area as it is known, among other things, from Ottar from Hålogaland's account for King Alfred of Wessex around the year 880. Ottar described "the land of the Norwegians" as very long and narrow, and it was narrowest in the far north. East of the wasteland in the south lay Sveoland and in the north lay Kvenaland in the east. When Ottar sailed south along the land from his home ( Malangen ) to Skiringssal, he always had Norway ("Nordveg") on his port side and the British Isles on his starboard side. The journey took a good month. Ottar perceived "Nordveg" as a geographical unit, but did not imply that it was a political unit. Ottar separated Norwegians from Swedes and Danes. It is unclear why Ottar perceived the population spread over such a large area as a whole. It is unclear whether Norway as a geographical term or Norwegians as the name of a ethnic group is the oldest. The Norwegians had a common language which in the centuries before Ottar did not differ much from the language of Denmark and Sweden.

 

According to Sverre Steen, it is unlikely that Harald Hårfagre was able to control this entire area as one kingdom. The saga of Harald was written 300 years later and at his death Norway was several smaller kingdoms. Harald probably controlled a larger area than anyone before him and at most Harald's kingdom probably included the coast from Trøndelag to Agder and Vestfold as well as parts of Viken . There were probably several smaller kingdoms of varying extent before Harald and some of these are reflected in traditional landscape names such as Ranrike and Ringerike . Landscape names of "-land" (Rogaland) and "-mark" (Hedmark) as well as names such as Agder and Sogn may have been political units before Harald.

 

According to Sverre Steen, the national assembly was completed at the earliest at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 and the introduction of Christianity was probably a significant factor in the establishment of Norway as a state. Håkon I the good Adalsteinsfostre introduced the leasehold system where the "coastal land" (as far as the salmon went up the rivers) was divided into ship raiders who were to provide a longship with soldiers and supplies. The leidange was probably introduced as a defense against the Danes. The border with the Danes was traditionally at the Göta älv and several times before and after Harald Hårfagre the Danes had control over central parts of Norway.

 

Christianity was known and existed in Norway before Olav Haraldson's time. The spread occurred both from the south (today's Denmark and northern Germany) and from the west (England and Ireland). Ansgar of Bremen , called the "Apostle of the North", worked in Sweden, but he was never in Norway and probably had little influence in the country. Viking expeditions brought the Norwegians of that time into contact with Christian countries and some were baptized in England, Ireland and northern France. Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldson were Vikings who returned home. The first Christians in Norway were also linked to pre-Christian local religion, among other things, by mixing Christian symbols with symbols of Odin and other figures from Norse religion.

 

According to Sverre Steen, the introduction of Christianity in Norway should not be perceived as a nationwide revival. At Mostratinget, Christian law was introduced as law in the country and later incorporated into the laws of the individual jurisdictions. Christianity primarily involved new forms in social life, among other things exposure and images of gods were prohibited, it was forbidden to "put out" unwanted infants (to let them die), and it was forbidden to have multiple wives. The church became a nationwide institution with a special group of officials tasked with protecting the church and consolidating the new religion. According to Sverre Steen, Christianity and the church in the Middle Ages should therefore be considered together, and these became a new unifying factor in the country. The church and Christianity linked Norway to Roman Catholic Europe with Church Latin as the common language, the same time reckoning as the rest of Europe and the church in Norway was arranged much like the churches in Denmark, Sweden and England. Norway received papal approval in 1070 and became its own church province in 1152 with Archbishop Nidaros .

 

With Christianity, the country got three social powers: the peasants (organized through the things), the king with his officials and the church with the clergy. The things are the oldest institution: At allthings all armed men had the right to attend (in part an obligation to attend) and at lagthings met emissaries from an area (that is, the lagthings were representative assemblies). The Thing both ruled in conflicts and established laws. The laws were memorized by the participants and written down around the year 1000 or later in the Gulationsloven , Frostatingsloven , Eidsivatingsloven and Borgartingsloven . The person who had been successful at the hearing had to see to the implementation of the judgment themselves.

 

Early Middle Ages (1050s–1184)

The early Middle Ages is considered in Norwegian history to be the period between the end of the Viking Age around 1050 and the coronation of King Sverre in 1184 . The beginning of the period can be dated differently, from around the year 1000 when the Christianization of the country took place and up to 1100 when the Viking Age was over from an archaeological point of view. From 1035 to 1130 it was a time of (relative) internal peace in Norway, even several of the kings attempted campaigns abroad, including in 1066 and 1103 .

 

During this period, the church's organization was built up. This led to a gradual change in religious customs. Religion went from being a domestic matter to being regulated by common European Christian law and the royal power gained increased power and influence. Slavery (" servitude ") was gradually abolished. The population grew rapidly during this period, as the thousands of farm names ending in -rud show.

 

The urbanization of Norway is a historical process that has slowly but surely changed Norway from the early Viking Age to today, from a country based on agriculture and sea salvage, to increasingly trade and industry. As early as the ninth century, the country got its first urban community, and in the eleventh century we got the first permanent cities.

 

In the 1130s, civil war broke out . This was due to a power struggle and that anyone who claimed to be the king's son could claim the right to the throne. The disputes escalated into extensive year-round warfare when Sverre Sigurdsson started a rebellion against the church's and the landmen's candidate for the throne , Magnus Erlingsson .

 

Emergence of cities

The oldest Norwegian cities probably emerged from the end of the 9th century. Oslo, Bergen and Nidaros became episcopal seats, which stimulated urban development there, and the king built churches in Borg , Konghelle and Tønsberg. Hamar and Stavanger became new episcopal seats and are referred to in the late 12th century as towns together with the trading places Veøy in Romsdal and Kaupanger in Sogn. In the late Middle Ages, Borgund (on Sunnmøre), Veøy (in Romsdalsfjorden) and Vågan (in Lofoten) were referred to as small trading places. Urbanization in Norway occurred in few places compared to the neighboring countries, only 14 places appear as cities before 1350. Stavanger became a bishopric around 1120–1130, but it is unclear whether the place was already a city then. The fertile Jæren and outer Ryfylke were probably relatively densely populated at that time. A particularly large concentration of Irish artefacts from the Viking Age has been found in Stavanger and Nord-Jæren.

 

It has been difficult to estimate the population in the Norwegian medieval cities, but it is considered certain that the cities grew rapidly in the Middle Ages. Oscar Albert Johnsen estimated the city's population before the Black Death at 20,000, of which 7,000 in Bergen, 3,000 in Nidaros, 2,000 in Oslo and 1,500 in Tunsberg. Based on archaeological research, Lunden estimates that Oslo had around 1,500 inhabitants in 250 households in the year 1300. Bergen was built up more densely and, with the concentration of exports there, became Norway's largest city in a special position for several hundred years. Knut Helle suggests a city population of 20,000 at most in the High Middle Ages, of which almost half in Bergen.

 

The Bjarkøyretten regulated the conditions in cities (especially Bergen and Nidaros) and in trading places, and for Nidaros had many of the same provisions as the Frostating Act . Magnus Lagabøte's city law replaced the bjarkøretten and from 1276 regulated the settlement in Bergen and with corresponding laws also drawn up for Oslo, Nidaros and Tunsberg. The city law applied within the city's roof area . The City Act determined that the city's public streets consisted of wide commons (perpendicular to the shoreline) and ran parallel to the shoreline, similarly in Nidaros and Oslo. The roads were small streets of up to 3 cubits (1.4 metres) and linked to the individual property. From the Middle Ages, the Norwegian cities were usually surrounded by wooden fences. The urban development largely consisted of low wooden houses which stood in contrast to the relatively numerous and dominant churches and monasteries built in stone.

 

The City Act and supplementary provisions often determined where in the city different goods could be traded, in Bergen, for example, cattle and sheep could only be traded on the Square, and fish only on the Square or directly from the boats at the quayside. In Nidaros, the blacksmiths were required to stay away from the densely populated areas due to the risk of fire, while the tanners had to stay away from the settlements due to the strong smell. The City Act also attempted to regulate the influx of people into the city (among other things to prevent begging in the streets) and had provisions on fire protection. In Oslo, from the 13th century or earlier, it was common to have apartment buildings consisting of single buildings on a couple of floors around a courtyard with access from the street through a gate room. Oslo's medieval apartment buildings were home to one to four households. In the urban farms, livestock could be kept, including pigs and cows, while pastures and fields were found in the city's rooftops . In the apartment buildings there could be several outbuildings such as warehouses, barns and stables. Archaeological excavations show that much of the buildings in medieval Oslo, Trondheim and Tønsberg resembled the oblong farms that have been preserved at Bryggen in Bergen . The land boundaries in Oslo appear to have persisted for many hundreds of years, in Bergen right from the Middle Ages to modern times.

 

High Middle Ages (1184–1319)

After civil wars in the 12th century, the country had a relative heyday in the 13th century. Iceland and Greenland came under the royal authority in 1262 , and the Norwegian Empire reached its greatest extent under Håkon IV Håkonsson . The last king of Haraldsätten, Håkon V Magnusson , died sonless in 1319 . Until the 17th century, Norway stretched all the way down to the mouth of Göta älv , which was then Norway's border with Sweden and Denmark.

 

Just before the Black Death around 1350, there were between 65,000 and 85,000 farms in the country, and there had been a strong growth in the number of farms from 1050, especially in Eastern Norway. In the High Middle Ages, the church or ecclesiastical institutions controlled 40% of the land in Norway, while the aristocracy owned around 20% and the king owned 7%. The church and monasteries received land through gifts from the king and nobles, or through inheritance and gifts from ordinary farmers.

 

Settlement and demography in the Middle Ages

Before the Black Death, there were more and more farms in Norway due to farm division and clearing. The settlement spread to more marginal agricultural areas higher inland and further north. Eastern Norway had the largest areas to take off and had the most population growth towards the High Middle Ages. Along the coast north of Stad, settlement probably increased in line with the extent of fishing. The Icelandic Rimbegla tells around the year 1200 that the border between Finnmark (the land of the Sami) and resident Norwegians in the interior was at Malangen , while the border all the way out on the coast was at Kvaløya . From the end of the High Middle Ages, there were more Norwegians along the coast of Finnmark and Nord-Troms. In the inner forest and mountain tracts along the current border between Norway and Sweden, the Sami exploited the resources all the way down to Hedmark.

 

There are no censuses or other records of population and settlement in the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation, the population was below 200,000 and only in 1650 was the population at the same level as before the Black Death. When Christianity was introduced after the year 1000, the population was around 200,000. After the Black Death, many farms and settlements were abandoned and deserted, in the most marginal agricultural areas up to 80% of the farms were abandoned. Places such as Skien, Veøy and Borgund (Ålesund) went out of use as trading towns. By the year 1300, the population was somewhere between 300,000 and 560,000 depending on the calculation method. Common methods start from detailed information about farms in each village and compare this with the situation in 1660 when there are good headcounts. From 1300 to 1660, there was a change in the economic base so that the coastal villages received a larger share of the population. The inland areas of Eastern Norway had a relatively larger population in the High Middle Ages than after the Reformation. Kåre Lunden concludes that the population in the year 1300 was close to 500,000, of which 15,000 lived in cities. Lunden believes that the population in 1660 was still slightly lower than the peak before the Black Death and points out that farm settlement in 1660 did not reach the same extent as in the High Middle Ages. In 1660, the population in Troms and Finnmark was 6,000 and 3,000 respectively (2% of the total population), in 1300 these areas had an even smaller share of the country's population and in Finnmark there were hardly any Norwegian-speaking inhabitants. In the High Middle Ages, the climate was more favorable for grain cultivation in the north. Based on the number of farms, the population increased 162% from 1000 to 1300, in Northern and Western Europe as a whole the growth was 200% in the same period.

 

Late Middle Ages (1319–1537)

Due to repeated plague epidemics, the population was roughly halved and the least productive of the country's farms were laid waste. It took several hundred years before the population again reached the level before 1349 . However, those who survived the epidemics gained more financial resources by sharing. Tax revenues for the state almost collapsed, and a large part of the noble families died out or sank into peasant status due to the fall in national debt . The Hanseatic League took over trade and shipping and dominated fish exports. The Archbishop of Nidaros was the country's most powerful man economically and politically, as the royal dynasty married into the Swedish in 1319 and died out in 1387 . Eventually, Copenhagen became the political center of the kingdom and Bergen the commercial center, while Trondheim remained the religious center.

 

From Reformation to Autocracy (1537–1660)

In 1537 , the Reformation was carried out in Norway. With that, almost half of the country's property was confiscated by the royal power at the stroke of a pen. The large seizure increased the king's income and was able, among other things, to expand his military power and consolidated his power in the kingdom. From roughly the time of the Reformation and in the following centuries, the state increased its power and importance in people's lives. Until around 1620, the state administration was fairly simple and unspecialised: in Copenhagen, the central administration mainly consisted of a chancellery and an interest chamber ; and sheriffs ruled the civil (including bailiffs and sheriffs) and the military in their district, the sheriffs collected taxes and oversaw business. The accounts were not clear and without summaries. The clergy, which had great power as a separate organization, was appointed by the state church after the Reformation, administered from Copenhagen. In this period, Norway was ruled by (mainly) Danish noble sheriffs, who acted as intermediaries between the peasants and the Oldenborg king in the field of justice, tax and customs collection.

 

From 1620, the state apparatus went through major changes where specialization of functions was a main issue. The sheriff's tasks were divided between several, more specialized officials - the sheriffs retained the formal authority over these, who in practice were under the national administration in Copenhagen. Among other things, a separate military officer corps was established, a separate customs office was established and separate treasurers for taxes and fees were appointed. The Overbergamtet, the central governing body for overseeing mining operations in Norway, was established in 1654 with an office in Christiania and this agency was to oversee the mining chiefs in the Nordenfjeld and Sønnenfjeld areas (the mines at Kongsberg and Røros were established in the previous decades). The formal transition from county government to official government with fixed-paid county officials took place after 1660, but the real changes had taken place from around 1620. The increased specialization and transition to official government meant that experts, not amateurs, were in charge of each area, and this civil service meant, according to Sverre Steen that the dictatorship was not a personal dictatorship.

 

From 1570 until 1721, the Oldenborg dynasty was in repeated wars with the Vasa dynasty in Sweden. The financing of these wars led to a severe increase in taxation which caused great distress.

 

Politically-geographically, the Oldenborg kings had to cede to Sweden the Norwegian provinces of Jemtland , Herjedalen , Idre and Särna , as well as Båhuslen . As part of the financing of the wars, the state apparatus was expanded. Royal power began to assert itself to a greater extent in the administration of justice. Until this period, cases of violence and defamation had been treated as civil cases between citizens. The level of punishment was greatly increased. During this period, at least 307 people were also executed for witchcraft in Norway. Culturally, the country was marked by the fact that the written language became Danish because of the Bible translation and the University of Copenhagen's educational monopoly.

 

From the 16th century, business became more marked by production for sale and not just own consumption. In the past, it was particularly the fisheries that had produced such a large surplus of goods that it was sold to markets far away, the dried fish trade via Bergen is known from around the year 1100. In the 16th century, the yield from the fisheries multiplied, especially due to the introduction of herring in Western Norway and in Trøndelag and because new tools made fishing for herring and skre more efficient. Line fishing and cod nets that were introduced in the 17th century were controversial because the small fishermen believed it favored citizens in the cities.

 

Forestry and the timber trade became an important business, particularly because of the boom saw which made it possible to saw all kinds of tables and planks for sale abroad. The demand for timber increased at the same time in Europe, Norway had plenty of forests and in the 17th century timber became the country's most important export product. There were hundreds of sawmills in the country and the largest had the feel of factories . In 1680, the king regulated the timber trade by allowing exports only from privileged sawmills and in a certain quantity.

 

From the 1520s, some silver was mined in Telemark. When the peasants chased the German miners whereupon the king executed five peasants and demanded compensation from the other rebellious peasants. The background for the harsh treatment was that the king wanted to assert his authority over the extraction of precious metals. The search for metals led to the silver works at Kongsberg after 1624, copper in the mountain villages between Trøndelag and Eastern Norway, and iron, among other things, in Agder and lower Telemark. The financial gain of the quarries at that time is unclear because there are no reliable accounts. Kongsberg made Denmark-Norway self-sufficient in silver and the copper works produced a good deal more than the domestic demand and became an important export commodity. Kongsberg and Røros were the only Norwegian towns established because of the quarries.

 

In addition to the sawmills, in the 17th century, industrial production ( manufactures ) was established in, among other things, wool weaving, soap production, tea boiling , nail production and the manufacture of gunpowder .

 

The monopoly until the Peace of Kiel (1660–1814)

Until 1660, the king had been elected by the Danish Riksråd, while he inherited the kingdom of Norway, which was a tradition in Norway. After a series of military defeats, the king committed a coup d'état and deposed the Riksdag. King Frederik III introduced absolute power, which meant that there were hardly any legal restrictions on the king's power. This reinforced the expansion of the state apparatus that had been going on for a few decades, and the civil administration was controlled to a greater extent from the central administration in Copenhagen. According to Sverre Steen, the more specialized and expanded civil service meant that the period of autocracy was not essentially a personal dictatorship: The changing monarchs had the formal last word on important matters, but higher officials set the conditions. According to Steen, the autocracy was not tyrannical where the citizens were treated arbitrarily by the king and officials: the laws were strict and the punishments harsh, but there was legal certainty. The king rarely used his right to punish outside the judiciary and often used his right to commute sentences or pardons. It almost never happened that the king intervened in a court case before a verdict had been passed.

 

In 1662, the sheriff system (in which the nobility played an important role) was abolished and replaced with amt . Norway was divided into four main counties (Akershus, Kristiansands, Bergenhus and Trondhjems) which were later called stiftamt led by stiftamtmen with a number of county marshals and bailiffs (futer) under them. The county administrator in Akershus also had other roles such as governor. The former sheriffs were almost absolute within their fiefs, while the new stifamtmen and amtmen had more limited authority; among other things, they did not have military equipment like the sheriffs. The county officials had no control over state income and could not enrich themselves privately as the sheriffs could, taxes and fees were instead handled by their own officials. County officials were employed by the king and, unlike the sheriffs, had a fixed salary. Officials appointed by the king were responsible for local government. Before 1662, the sheriffs themselves appointed low officials such as bailiffs, mayors and councillors. A church commissioner was given responsibility for overseeing the churchwardens' accounts. In 1664, two general road masters were appointed for Norway, one for Sonnafjelske (Eastland and Sørlandet) and one for Nordafjelske (Westlandet and Trøndelag; Northern Norway had no roads).

 

Both Denmark and Norway got new law books. The wretched state finances led to an extensive sale of crown property, first to the state's creditors. Further sales meant that many farmers became self-owned at the end of the 18th century. Industrial exploitation of Norwegian natural resources began, and trade and shipping and especially increasing timber exports led to economic growth in the latter part of the 1700s.

 

From 1500 to 1814, Norway did not have its own foreign policy. After the dissolution of the Kalmar Union in 1523, Denmark remained the leading power in the Nordic region and dominated the Baltic Sea, while Sweden sought to expand geographically in all directions and strengthened its position. From 1625 to 1660, Denmark lost its dominance: Christian IV lost to the emperor in the Thirty Years' War and ceded Skåne, Blekinge, Halland, Båhuslen , Jemtland and Herjedalen as well as all the islands in the inner part of the Baltic Sea. With this, Norway got its modern borders, which have remained in place ever since. Sweden was no longer confined by Norway and Denmark, and Sweden became the great power in the Nordic region. At the same time, Norway remained far from Denmark (until 1660 there was an almost continuous land connection between Norway and Denmark). During the Great Nordic War, Danish forces moved towards Scania and ended with Charles the 12th falling at Fredriksten . From 1720 to 1807 there was peace except for the short Cranberry War in 1788. In August 1807, the British navy surrounded Denmark and demanded that the Danish fleet be handed over. After bombing 2-7. On September 1807, the Danes capitulated and handed over the fleet (known as the "fleet robbery") and the arsenal. Two weeks later, Denmark entered into an alliance with Napoleon and Great Britain declared war on Denmark in November 1807. The Danish leadership had originally envisioned an alliance with Great Britain. Anger at the fleet robbery and fear of French occupation of Denmark itself (and thus breaking the connection with Norway) were probably the motive for the alliance with France. According to Sverre Steen, the period 1807-1814 was the most significant in Norway's history (before the Second World War). Foreign trade was paralyzed and hundreds of Norwegian ships were seized by the British. British ships, both warships and privateers , blocked the sea route between Norway and Denmark as described in " Terje Vigen " by Henrik Ibsen . During the Napoleonic Wars , there was a food shortage and famine in Norway, between 20 and 30 thousand people out of a population of around 900 thousand died from sheer lack of food or diseases related to malnutrition.

 

From the late summer of 1807, Norway was governed by a government commission led by the governor and commander-in-chief, Prince Christian August . Christian August was considered an honorable and capable leader. In 1808, a joint Russian and Danish/Norwegian attack on Sweden was planned; the campaign fails completely and Christian August concludes a truce with the Swedes. The Swedish king was deposed, the country got a new constitution with a limited monarchy and in the summer of 1808, Christian August was elected heir to the throne in Sweden. Christian August died a few months after he moved to Sweden and the French general Jean Baptiste Bernadotte became the new heir to the throne with the name "Karl Johan". After Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig in 1813, Bernadotte entered Holstein with Swedish forces and forced the Danish king to the Peace of Kiel .

 

Colonies and slave trade

Denmark-Norway acquired overseas colonies: St. Thomas (1665), St. Jan and St. Croix (18th century). At the same time, the kingdom entered into an agreement with rulers on the Gold Coast (Ghana) regarding the establishment of slave forts, including Christiansborg in Accra . The trade was triangular from Copenhagen to the Gold Coast with weapons, gunpowder and liquor which were exchanged for gold, ivory and slaves . The slaves were transported across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, among other things to the Danish-Norwegian colonies where St. Croix was most important. The ships returned to Copenhagen with sugar, tobacco, cotton and other goods. About 100,000 slaves were transported across the sea on Danish and Norwegian ships from 1660 to 1802. About 10% of the slaves died during the crossing. At least two of the slave ships ("Cornelia" and "Friderich") were in Norwegian ownership. Engelbret Hesselberg was a fut on St. Croix and after a slave rebellion in 1759, he had some of the rebels executed, among other things, by burning them alive, hanging them by their feet or putting them naked in a cage in the sun. At the end of the 18th century, opposition to the slave trade grew in Denmark-Norway, among others the Norwegian Claus Fasting promoted strong criticism. The slave trade was banned from 1803, while slavery itself was banned in Denmark from 1848.

 

Immigration to Norway

In the 1500s and 1600s, many people moved within Europe. From Germany, France and the Netherlands, enterprising people came to Sweden and Denmark, and gave rise to influential families. Danes in particular came to Norway who, formally speaking, were not foreigners, but were probably perceived as strangers by the local population. There was some immigration of ethnic Germans, some from areas under the Danish crown and others. Some immigrated from the Netherlands, England and Scotland. For example, half of those who applied for citizenship in Bergen in the 17th century were foreigners and they were often founders of new businesses. Immigrants from the Netherlands brought knowledge of line fishing and the preparation of herring; the Scot came with knowledge of the production of cuttlefish ; and Germans engaged in mining. Some foreigners ran large farms they bought near the cities, for example Frogner near Christiania and Lade near Trondheim. A large part of the country's leading echelon of officials and merchants were around 1,800 descendants of immigrants, and family names of foreign origin had a higher status. According to Sverre Steen, it was special for Norway that the immigrants and their descendants were given such a much stronger position than other residents.

 

Social and cultural conditions

Around 1800, most people, both women and men, in Norway could read and many could write. Foreigners traveling in Norway were surprised at how well-informed and interested Norwegian farmers were about the situation outside the country. In the 17th century, Peder Claussøn Friis translated Snorre Sturlason's royal sagas from Old Norse, and in a new edition this book became important in nation-building in later centuries. Early in the 18th century, Tormod Torfæus wrote Norway's history to 1387 in 4 volumes in Latin ; the preparation is considered to be scientifically unsustainable. In the 1730s, Ludvig Holberg wrote the popular scientific Danmarks Reges Historie , which is considered to maintain a high standard. According to Holberg, Norway emerged as a kingdom after the "nomenclature union in 1380". Holberg was the most important Norwegian cultural figure in the Danish era. Gerhard Schøning wrote Norges Reges Historie (in Danish) in the 1770s ; Schøning claimed that the Norwegians were a separate people from the dawn of time and had immigrated from the north-east without visiting Denmark.

 

1814

Norway remained the hereditary kingdom of the Oldenborg kings until 1814 , when the king had to renounce Norw

“The Electric House”. Beautiful Townley & Matheson designed 1922 house is up for demolition at 1550 W 29th Avenue.

 

Built as an “electric model show-house” for the public which opened Wednesday, October 11, 1922 at 2pm, demonstrating how a fully electric home of the future could operate.

 

In a city where lot-value trumps anything sitting on it, our architecture history is being wiped clean.

 

Development and demolition permit applied for, orange-fencing-of-death just went up, but still up for sale at $7.3m.

 

It’s not listed on the heritage register, but even then in this climate, it might have only been reviewed. There simply aren’t enough financial heritage incentives to offset the high property values, when lots are viewed solely as value.

 

About the only way to protect certain sites would be through Heritage Designation (legally protected), a sensitive buyer, or move it (problematic) - or a local move into First Shaughnessy as infill?

 

With moving, overhead trolley wires, hydro, and trees create the issues, and affect the moving costs.

 

Firms and craftsmen who contributed to originally building and furnishing the house in 1922:

 

Architects; Townley & Matheson

Brick; Evans, Coleman & Evans Ltd.

Cement; BC Cement Co., Ltd., Victoria

Cottonwood Panelling; Laminated Materials Col. Ltd., New West

Draperies; David Spencer Ltd.

Electrical Wiring; D. J. Metcalf

Fireplaces; Polychrome Cement, Brick & Tile Co. Ltd.

Furniture; Restmore Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Gravel; Vancouver Contractors Supply Co., Ltd.

Hardware; J. A. Flett Ltd.

Hardwood Floors; BC Hardwood Floor Co., Ltd.

Heating; Gurney Foundry Co. Ltd.

Heating & Plumbing Installations; Barr & Anderson Ltd.

Lime; Pacific Lime Co. Ltd.

Lumber; Vancouver Lumber Co. Ltd.

Marquees; Edward Lipsett

Ornamental Plaster & Stucco Work; Rush & Read

Paint; National Paint Co., Ltd.

Painting; H. Howland

Sand; Champion & White Ltd.

Plumbing and Fixtures; Crane Ltd.

Satin Walnut Finish; J. Fyfe Smith Co., Ltd.

Shingles; Albert Cotton Shingle Mills, Canada Shingle Co., Hastings Shingle Manufacturing Co., Huntting-Merritt Lumber Co., Joseph Chew Shingle Co.

Silk Lamp Shades; The Misses McClung

Hand-painted Lamp Shades; Mrs. I. F. Letts

Tiling; Wm. N. O'Neil Co.

Copyright - All Rights Reserved - Black Diamond Images

 

More Singapore Images

 

We arrived in the later afternoon and took the lift up one of the Supertree towers to the aerial boadwalk. The views are stunning but photography was problematic owing to the movement of the boardwalk due to people constantly moving along its length.

Security often moves people to the down lift after 20 or so minutes when there are a lot of people but we were able to stay longer as there were only a small number on the boardwalk.

While its great to be up there when the lightshow is in full swing it is also essential to be on the ground from a photography perspective. My photos here were taken with the camera sitting on the ground as I had no tripod.

I would definitely go back to Singapore just to see this amazing lightshow again, next time perhaps viewing it from the Marina Bay Sands Skypark.

 

From WikiPedia

Supertrees are tree-like structures that dominate the Gardens' landscape with heights that range between 25 metres (82 ft) and 50 metres (160 ft). They are vertical gardens that perform a multitude of functions, which include planting, shading and working as environmental engines for the gardens.[8]

 

The Supertrees are home to enclaves of unique and exotic ferns, vines, orchids and also a vast collection of bromeliads such as Tillandsia, amongst other plants. They are fitted with environmental technologies that mimic the ecological function of trees – photovoltaic cells that harness solar energy which can be used for some of the functions of the Supertrees, such as lighting, just like how trees photosynthesize; and collection of rainwater for use in irrigation and fountain displays, exactly like how trees absorb rainwater for growth. The Supertrees also serve air intake and exhaust functions as part of the conservatories' cooling systems.

 

There is an elevated walkway, the OCBC Skyway, between two of the larger Supertrees for visitors to enjoy a breathtaking aerial view of the Gardens. A food and beverage outlet is planned atop the 50-metre (160 ft) Supertree. At night, the Supertrees come alive with a light and music show called the OCBC Garden Rhapsody.

A Tameside policing operation has cracked down on ASB with proactive patrols tackling everything from drug use to problematic street drinking.

 

A proactive policing operation was launched in June, with funding providing extra patrols across Ashton-under-Lyne and surrounding areas identified as having repeat offences, including local transport hubs and shopping spots.

 

Officers target these areas at peak times and further undertake disruption visits to pre-emptively stop incidents.

 

The operation has seen a crackdown and multiple actions and positive outcomes. July, August, and September saw a range of results in Ashton town centre, including 12 arrests, 28 stop-searches, 33 public space protection order warnings issued, and 30 logs responded to.

 

As an example of the reduction in quarter three of this year, August reported 30 incidents of ASB, while September recorded 10 – showing the positive effects of the ongoing work.

 

The operation has meant more patrols have been targeting the issues that the public care about and ensuring that criminals and anti-social behaviour are stopped in their tracks.

Tameside work.

 

As part of anti-social behaviour week, on Wednesday, neighbourhood officers in Ashton town centre secured two arrests on suspicion of possession of a Class B drug, which resulted in street cautions.

 

Further cautions were issued for someone smoking cannabis in public, while other people were provided with words of advice.

 

Sergeant Rob Froggatt, from GMP’s Tameside district, said: “People want to see officers out and about in the community, engaging with the public, and locking up those who disrupt their lives. Our operation is delivering exactly that.

 

“We know and appreciate just how much anti-social behaviour can disrupt people’s lives – whether it’s people taking drugs in public or intimidating people in town centres – and our work is designed to crack down on exactly those sort of offences.

 

“In addition to our own work, we liaise closely with partners in the community, including local charities and services, to ensure we stop ASB from progressing into more serious offences. Likewise, by conducting preventative engagement work, we can stop the offences from ever happening.

 

“If you are having issues with ASB, I would urge you to get in touch with your local team, who will be best-placed to offer advice and support on the issues you are having.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

"The photographic images of terrain vague are territorial indications of strangeness itself, and the aesthetics and ethical problems that they pose embrace the problematics of contemporary social life. What's to be done with these enormous voids, with their imprecise limits and vague definition?"

 

—Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubio

 

Even though I'm not a photographer, I'm taking part in a group show (opening tomorrow at the City College Art Gallery) articulated around the concept of terrain vague and using as an object lesson the vanishing Harlem neighborhood of Manhattanville. Buttressed by a twisted interpretation of eminent domain, Columbia has purchased large swaths of the neighborhood and is "repurposing" them to expand its campus.

 

My participation in this project has been something of an accident. Last fall, a gifted photographer I know invited me to come with her to a meeting of the photographers who were putting this show together. And now...here I am.

 

"Vague Terrain" was curated by Maria Politarhos and will be up from June 18 through July 17. Some very talented people are participating; if you're uptown, stop in and take a look.

 

My three pictures are shown here.

 

M–F 12–6.

 

Leave it to Jean-Luc Godard and Anne Marie Miéville to figure out how to use television to reveal the latent brilliance of a child. Created for French television during the radical days of the late 1970s , “France/tour/detour/deux enfant” (1978) is an intimate, provocative and quotidian video essay that uses avant-garde cinema’s techniques in a visual experiment that will change anyone’s perception of the developing mind of a human being.

Tonight Lynne Sachs will discuss the way that “France/tour…” influenced her own work as she reflects on the presence of childhood in her twenty-year film career. Beginning in her early twenties when the ambiguity of femininity seemed daunting and problematic to more recent years when motherhood has given her quick access to the conundrums of youth, Sachs, like Godard and Melville, ponders her relationship as an artist to this unavoidable eighteen year odyssey. Sachs will screen Photograph of Wind (3 min., 2001), Atalanta: 32 Years Later (5 min. 2006), and The Last Happy Day (38 min.) in their entirety along with brief scenes from The House of Science (1991) and Wind in Our Hair (2010).

Program:

France/Tour/Detour/Deux Enfants by Jean Luc Godard and Ann Marie Miéville

(excerpt from 12 part TV series, 1977, France)

 

Godard and Miéville take a detour through the everyday lives of two children in contemporary France. Sachs will present excerpts from the series.

 

Photograph of Wind by Lynne Sachs

(4 min.,16mm, b&w and color, 2001)

 

“My daughter’s name is Maya. I’ve been told that the word maya means illusion in Hindu philosophy. As I watch her growing up, spinning like a top around me, I realize that her childhood is not something I can grasp but rather – like the wind – something I feel tenderly brushing across my cheek.” (Lynne Sachs)

“Sachs suspends in time a single moment of her daughter.” Fred Camper, Chicago Reader

 

Atalanta: 32 Years Later by Lynne Sachs

(5 min. color sound, 16mm to video, 2006)

A retelling of the age-old fairy tale of the beautiful princess in search of the perfect prince. In 1974, Marlo Thomas’ hip, liberal celebrity gang created a feminist version of the children’s parable for mainstream TV’s “Free To Be You and Me”. Now in 2006, Sachs dreamed up this new experimental film reworking, a homage to girl/girl romance.

“Very gentle and evocative of foreign feelings.” George Kuchar

The Last Happy Day by Lynne Sachs

( 38 min. 2009)

 

The Last Happy Day is an experimental documentary portrait of Sandor (Alexander) Lenard, a Hungarian medical doctor and a distant cousin of filmmaker Lynne Sachs. In 1938 Lenard, a writer with a Jewish background, fled the Nazis to a safe haven in Rome. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Army Graves Registration Service hired Lenard to reconstruct the bones — small and large — of dead American soldiers. Eventually he found himself in remotest Brazil where he embarked on the translation of “Winnie the Pooh” into Latin, an eccentric task that catapulted him to brief world-wide fame. Sachs’ essay film uses personal letters, abstracted war imagery, home movies, interviews, and a children’s performance to create an intimate meditation on the destructive power of war.

“A fascinating, unconventional approach to a Holocaust-related story … a frequently charming work that makes no effort to disguise an underlying melancholy.” George Robinson, The Jewish Week

Excerpts from:

The House of Science: A Museum of False Facts

(30 min., 16mm,1991)

 

“Throughout The House of Science an image of a woman, her brain revealed, is a leitmotif. It suggests that the mind/body split so characteristic of Western thought is particularly troubling for women, who may feel themselves moving between the territories of the film’s title –house, science, and museum, or private, public and idealized space — without wholly inhabiting any of them. This film explores society’s representation and conceptualization of women through home movies, personal reminiscences, staged scenes, found footage and voice. Sachs’ personal memories recall the sense of her body being divided, whether into sexual and functional territories, or ‘the body of the body’ and ‘the body of the mind.’” (Kathy Geritz, Pacific Film Archive)

 

Wind in Our Hair/Con viento en el pelo

(16mm, Super 8 and digital on video, English and Spanish, 2010)

 

“Inspired by the writings of Julio Cortázar, whose work not only influenced a generation of Latin American writers but film directors such as Antonioni and Godard, Lynne Sachs’ Wind in Our Hair/Con viento en el pelo is an experimental narrative that explores the interior and exterior worlds of four early-teens, and how through play they come to discover themselves and their world. “Freedom takes us by the hand–it seizes the whole of our bodies,” a young narrator describes as they head towards the tracks. This is their kingdom, a place where–dawning fanciful masks, feather boas, and colorful scarves — the girls pose as statues and perform for each other and for passengers speeding by.”

- Carolyn Tennant, Media Arts Director, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, New York

“Wind in Our Hair moves from childhood’s earthbound, cloistered spaces, into the skittering beyond of adolescence, exploding with anticipation and possibility.” Todd Lillethun, Artistic Director, Chicago Filmmakers

Program Run Time: 119 minutes

Lynne Sachs makes films, videos, installations and web projects that explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences by weaving together poetry, collage, painting, politics and layered sound design. Since 1994, her five essay films have taken her to Vietnam, Bosnia, Israel and Germany — sites affected by international war–where she tries to work in the space between a community’s collective memory and her own subjective perceptions. Strongly committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice, Lynne searches for a rigorous play between image and sound, pushing the visual and aural textures in her work with each and every new project. Since 2006, she has collaborated with her partner Mark Street in a series of playful, mixed-media performance collaborations they call The XY Chromosome Project. In addition to her work with the moving image, Lynne co-edited the 2009 Millennium Film Journal issue on “Experiments in Documentary”. Supported by fellowships from the Rockefeller and Jerome Foundations and the New York State Council on the Arts, Lynne’s films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival and recently in a five film survey at the Buenos Aires Film Festival. In 2010, the San Francisco Cinematheque will present a full retrospective of her work. Lynne teaches experimental film and video at New York University and lives in Brooklyn.

  

Josetxo Cerdán Los Arcos is an assistant professor at the URV and the artistic director of Punto de Vista. He has edited the books ‘Mirada, Memoria y Fascinación’ (2001); ‘Documental y Vanguardia’ (2005); ‘Al Otro Lado de la Ficción’ (2007); and ‘Suevia Films-Caesáreo González’ (2005); ‘Signal Fires: The Cinema of Jem Cohen’ (2010). He is author of ‘Ricardo Urgoiti. Los trabajos y los días’ (2007). He has coordinated an M. A. in from 1998 to 2008. Principal interest areas are non-fiction film, Spanish cinema, and television.

Kelly Anderson is an award-winning independent producer and director of documentary and narrative films. Her most recent production is NEVER ENOUGH, a documentary about American’s relationship with their material possessions, which is premiering at the 2010 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Other recent directing work includes SOMEPLACE LIKE HOME, a documentary about the redevelopment of Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn, which she made for FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality). In 2004 Kelly produced and directed (with Tami Gold) and edited EVERY MOTHER’S SON, a documentary for ITVS about mothers whose children have been killed by police officers and who have become national spokespeople on the issue of police brutality. EVERY MOTHER’S SON premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, and had its broadcast premiere on PBS’s P.O.V. series. Kelly produced, directed and edited OVERCOMING THE ODDS, a short documentary that was distributed to more than 2,500 people internationally as part of a successful campaign to pass the groundbreaking Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which set global standards on the promotion and marketing of tobacco. This film was a follow-up to MAKING A KILLING, a half-hour documentary Kelly produced and directed (with Tami Gold) and edited that addresses the marketing practices of the tobacco industry in the developing world. MAKING A KILLING premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival, was screened for delegates at the World Health Organization and aired on television in Nigeria, Serbia, Lagos and Vietnam. In 2000 Kelly completed SHIFT, a one-hour drama for ITVS about the volatile relationship between a North Carolina waitress and a telemarketing prison inmate, which premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival and aired on many PBS stations. Kelly’s other documentaries include OUT AT WORK (with Tami Gold), which was screened at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and was shown on HBO. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College in New York City.

Closest remaining thing in Leeds to the problematic Leek Street Flats of Hunslet that were bulldozed within 15 years (1968 to 1983) This shared an eerily coincidental timeline to the similar and infamous Divis Flats of Belfast.

'The Discovery' 1956. Getting images without reflection (or other people in shot) proved problematic and the light levels are quite low.

Added conventional steering (mind control was proving problematic), landing gear and various lasers !!

Tentaculites are problematic fossils - their high-level taxonomic placement is uncertain, but they may be molluscs. Tentaculite fossils consist of small to very small calcitic shells. The shells are straight to slightly curving and are slightly tapering tubes. The pointed end of the shell is closed. In some forms, the pointed end is slightly bulbous, with an apical spine (usually broken off). Externally, tentaculite shells usually have ringed ornament and thin, delicate, longitudinal striations.

 

The tip of the shell is the embryonic part. After that is the juvenile portion of the shell, which consists of internal septa, or walls that divide the shell into chambers. Septa have no external expression and number 5 to 20 in one specimen. The adult portion of the shell is nonseptate - it is referred to as the living chamber, which occupies more than half the entire length of the shell. No aperture-like structure has ever been found at the distal end of the shell.

 

The soft-part morphology of tentaculites is poorly known. X-ray images of specimens from the Lower Devonian of Germany seem to show multiple "tentacles" protruding from the large end of the shell. Muscle impressions on the interior have been reported in some tentaculites.

 

Tentaculites are entirely extinct - their geologic range depends on how inclusive the term "tentaculite" is. Tentaculites first definitely appear in Ordovician rocks. Their maximum abundance and diversity was during the Devonian.

 

Tentaculites were entirely marine. They are known from shallow and deep-water deposits. Larger, thick-shelled forms are local in their distribution, and so appear to have been benthic. Smaller, thin-shelled forms have world-wide distributions, and so appear to have been planktonic. Planktonic forms, such as the styliolinids, may not be tentaculites at all. Sometimes, encrusters are found on tentaculite shells. The distribution of encrusting organisms suggests that benthic tentaculites had the apex of the shell pointed downward and the aperture was upward during life. Almost all tentaculite fossils are found parallel to bedding. Very few have been found with the pointed end of the shell vertically inserted into the sediments.

 

The specimen seen here is probably Tentaculites scalariformis.

 

Classification: Animalia incertae sedis, Tentaculita, Tentaculitida, Tentaculitidae

 

Locality: driveway gravel in Knox County, Ohio - derived from an unknown Devonian quarry (probably the Columbus Limestone, Middle Devonian)

 

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

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

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

In rapidly fading light on a damp Spring evening, Vintage Trains Class 37 37240 in Transrail branded Railfreight grey livery, was negotiating Lostock Hall Junction with the 14.00 Tyseley to Hellifield Goods Loop light engine move (0Z99) on March 29th 2025. The 37 was en-route to Hellifield to assist with the late-running and problematic Vintage Trains 15.08 Carlisle to Birmingham New Street working (1Z44).