View allAll Photos Tagged Surrender
When you have the courage to give all up, then you have reached that place...
22 x 28" Ink on Paper -artist Ru Tover.
Sweet Surrender – Photo Series
Model: Racheeda2000
Location: Sweet Surrender
Set within a dreamlike coastal landscape, Sweet Surrender unfolds as a visual journey between serenity, intimacy, and quiet strength. The location blends natural elements—rock formations, flowing water, lush greenery, and open sea views—into a poetic environment that feels both secluded and timeless.
Racheeda2000 moves through the scenery with effortless elegance, her presence calm yet expressive. Whether reclining on sunlit wooden decks, resting near gentle campfires inside coastal caves, or standing poised against vast ocean horizons, she becomes an organic part of the environment rather than a subject placed within it.
Soft natural lighting, combined with carefully chosen perspectives, highlights subtle emotions: contemplation, confidence, and surrender to the moment. The contrast between open landscapes and intimate spaces creates a cinematic rhythm—wide shots emphasize freedom and scale, while close-ups draw attention to refined details, facial expressions, and posture.
Sweet Surrender is not just a location, but a mood: a quiet escape where time slows, nature embraces the subject, and beauty reveals itself through stillness and balance.
The Postcard
A postcard that was published by Judges Ltd. of Hastings. The card was posted in Sevenoaks using a 1d. stamp on Saturday the 10th. August 1929. It was sent to:
Mr. & Mrs. Baker,
41 Sheringham Road,
Anerley,
London SE 20.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Thought you would like
to know we are having a
lovely time.
The weather is lovely now,
although we were nearly
flooded the other day.
We are surrounded by
gorgeous beech woods,
& can see for about twenty
miles.
Best wishes,
P. Dixon."
The Witch's Oak
The huge oak, known for centuries as "The Old Oak,' but popularly called "The Witch's Oak", is one of Knole Park's great "lost" trees. The legend tells of a young tousle-haired local lass who fell in love with Richard Sackville, Third Earl of Dorset. Sadly for her he married the far more noble Lady Anne Clifford in 1609.
However the scorned girl had supernatural powers, and she placed a curse on Knole. Never again, she swore, would Knole have an immediate heir to the title. In fact the three sons of her object of desire, Richard Sackville, died in infancy, and he himself left this world in 1624 aged only 34, after “a surfeit of potatoes” (amongst other excesses).
Further misfortunes followed, including the death in 1815 of George, Fourth Duke of Dorset, who had his spine crushed by a falling horse in a hunting accident. Since the witch's curse the issue of inheritance at Knole has been a constant source of contention, "moving crab-like from generation to generation".
The witch vowed never to leave the park, so where is she now?
Gnarled and sinister-looking, its huge hollow frame supported by wooden staves and bound in an iron girdle, The Old Oak was fancifully described in early postcards as "The oldest oak in England". Ancient it certainly was: even 360 years ago it was known as "The Old Oak".
It stood not far from the house, to the north of Echo Mount, together with King John's Oak and King Beech. They were important enough to show on the Ordnance Survey map of 1869.
Nan Horns and All: "The Old Woman Who Lived in the Tree." Nan Horns and All (so called because she was never seen without her hair in stiff curl papers) lived for many years in The Old Oak's hollow bole (trunk) in the early 19th. century. She worked as a "potman", serving at the old Wheatsheaf Inn which stood in London Road.
Woe betide any passing kids who called her by her nick-name. They were soon seen off with a barrage of stones.
The tree was vandalised in 1954.
Knole
Henry VIII acquired Knole from Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1538 for hunting purposes, and he then set about enlarging and improving the house and grounds. Earlier, the estate had been bought and the first house built by Archbishop Thomas Bourchier between 1456 and his death in 1486.
Though Elizabeth I subsequently presented it to her cousin Thomas Sackville, later 1st. Earl of Dorset, in 1566 he was not able to occupy it until he bought back the lease in 1603. Over the next two years the house underwent a transformation into a great Renaissance palace, and it largely remains unaltered from that time.
Throughout part of the seventeenth century, occupation by the Sackville family was intermittent, possibly due to lack of money, and it was sometimes leased.
It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that the 6th. Earl and later his son, the 7th. Earl, used the house as their principal residence, renovating, improving and embellishing what the 1st. Earl had initiated.
The family have lived at Knole ever since, but owing to the burden of upkeep and protecting the valuable collections within the house, they presented it (with the walled garden) to the National Trust in 1946, in exchange for a generous lease of 200 years.
-- More on Knole House
The excellent shelleyshouse.blogspot.com provides some fascinating information about Knole. Here are some of the highlights:
Virginia Woolf, describing Knole in her novel Orlando, 1928 wrote:
"The great house lay more like a town
than a house...with all its chimneys
smoking busily as if inspired with a life
of their own."
Underneath the Knole rooftops lies a labyrinth of apartments, each containing several rooms. These apartments once housed hundreds of people including high status staff, visitors and family members. The Sackville-West family still live in apartments here, over 400 years since the first family member lived in Knole.
Knole house stands on five acres of ground, around the size of three and a half football pitches.
There are over 300 rooms.
Knole has 51 chimneys.
The problem for me about Knole was that at the beginning of the tour most things were covered with dust sheets, in glass cases. I found it hilarious that there were signs on a lot of pieces (like enormous vases, or ornate chairs) printed with the word 'salvage'. I had to ask what this was about as I wondered if these items had been picked up from a salvage yard, though it seemed unlikely.
Turns out there is a very particular protocol in the event of a fire or other disaster about what will be saved first, and these labels referred to the priority of the items in that protocol.
Knole Park is the home of a wild deer herd. They are the descendants of those first introduced here over 500 years ago. It is Kent's last remaining medieval deer park.
Henry VIII stated in 1532:
"And as for Knole it standeth on a sound perfect,
wholesome ground. And if I should make mine
abode here, as I do surely mind to do now and
then, I myself will lie at Knole."
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer surrendered Knole to Henry VIII. The king purchased more land, and by 1556 Knole Park covered 446 acres. Today Knole Park covers 1,000 acres. It is 7.5 times bigger than St James' Park in London.
There are over 350 wild deer in Knole Park.
I remember an old bed (you know, the kind with curtains) still in pieces, being cleaned by a young man. He was using just water, and just rubbing the black pieces of wood; I think he said it was walnut, but I'm not sure. He told us that the Knole attics were so vast they still hadn't been fully explored and all the findings catalogued, even though the National Trust acquired the place in 1946 (over 70 years ago!).
In another room there was a bed covered and curtained with some sort of holey green fabric. The guide there explained that some inexperienced restorers from some workers' cooperative had used modern glue to stick the fabric back onto the wood, rather than the old fashioned fish glue.
This modern glue had eaten the fabric, and they were painstakingly trying to restore the old cloth. I had two thoughts at the time. One was how quickly they were ready to name and blame outsiders; the other was the enormous expense of restoring such a large amount of fabric. I would just frame a square or two and put up modern fabric, a copy of the original. Probably best that I don't work in restoration, eh?
Knole House is called a Calendar House, that is a house that has architectural features in quantities that mirror the numbers in a year. Knole reportedly has 365 rooms, 52 stair cases, 12 entrances and 7 courtyards (give or take).
One more thing that has come back to me is one of the guides telling me about a Knole couch. If you ever watched/drooled over Downton Abbey you know exactly what one looks like (the big red one to the left of the fireplace in the library).
Visitors from the local area and further afield have enjoyed access to Knole Park since the 17th. century. A dispute over public right of way led to Mortimer, 1st Lord Sackville, closing the park in June 1884. Local people were furious, and on the night of the 18th. June 1884, over a thousand people stormed the park. They broke down barricades before marching to the front of the house. The town's people smashed windows and hurled abuse.
President H. Hoover
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 10th. August 1929, U.S. President Herbert Hoover celebrated his 55th. birthday at the presidential camp in Madison County, Virginia; Charles and Anne Lindbergh were among the guests.
Patrick Collinson
The 10th. August 1929 also marked the birth of Patrick "Pat" Collinson, CBE, FBA.
Patrick was an English historian, known as a writer on the Elizabethan era, particularly Elizabethan Puritanism.
He was emeritus Regius Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, having occupied the chair from 1988 to 1996. He once described himself as:
"An early modernist with a prime interest
in the history of England in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries."
-- Patrick Collinson - The Early Years
Collinson was born in Ipswich, the son of Cecil Collinson and Belle Hay Patrick. His father came from a Yorkshire Quaker family, and both Patrick's parents were Christian missionaries. He later wrote that:
"My childhood home was an evangelical
hothouse where the Second Coming
was expected daily."
Before Patrick was 20, he was baptised at Bethesda Chapel in Ipswich.
After a short spell at Bethany School in Goudhurst, Kent, and Huntingdon Grammar School, Collinson was educated at King's Ely, and Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1949 to 1952.
He also trained as a radar mechanic during his national service in the Royal Air Force.
Patrick became a postgraduate student at the University of London in 1952 under the supervision of the Tudor historian J. E. Neale, who handed him some notes on East Anglian Puritanism.
In 1957 Collinson completed his doctorate on Elizabethan Puritanism, its 1,200-page size causing the administration to impose a word limit on future dissertations.
The work was published in 1967 as The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, which showed Puritanism to be a significant force within the Elizabethan Anglican Church instead of merely a radical group of individuals. It became a standard work on the subject.
-- Patrick Collinson - The Later Years
Collinson became a lecturer at the University of Khartoum, and from 1961 assistant lecturer in ecclesiastical history at King's College London (where he taught Desmond Tutu).
In 1960 he married Elizabeth Albinia Susan Selwyn, a nurse. He thought about becoming an Anglican minister, but in the end chose not to.
In 1969 Collinson emigrated to Australia to become chair of the history department of Sydney University.
Although he appreciated a more open-minded approach favouring interdisciplinary studies, he opposed what he termed the "fungus" of postmodernism, and so returned to England in 1976 as professor of history at the University of Kent.
Patrick was President of the Ecclesiastical History Society (1985-86).
He was chair of modern history at the University of Sheffield from 1984 to 1988 before he succeeded Sir Geoffrey Elton as Cambridge Regius Professor of History, where his attempt to reform the tripos failed due to opposition from within.
His inaugural lecture was entitled:
"De Republica Anglorum:
Or, History with the Politics
Put Back."
By the time of his retirement in 1996, Collinson was one of the doyens of English Reformation history. His short summation of the period, The Reformation, was published in 2003.
Collinson's work laid the foundations, in many ways, for what historians of the English Reformation currently term the 'Calvinist Consensus' in the latter decades of the 16th. century.
As such, the belief that Puritanism was anything but religiously radical in relation to English, and indeed British, culture stands as one of his great achievements as an historian.
In July 2000 Collinson was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.
In 2011 Boydell Press published Collinson's memoir The History of a History Man Or, the Twentieth Century Viewed from a Safe Distance: The Memoirs of Patrick Collinson as part of its Church of England Record Society Series.
Collinson was the founding president of the society in 1991.
Collinson's political views were left-wing; he was a republican and a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
-- The Death of Patrick Collinson
Patrick died on the 28th. September 2011. He lived for 30,000 days, or, to put it another way, 82 years, 1 month, and 19 days, including the day on which he died.
Patrick was laid to rest at Crossways Woodland Burial Ground,
Cheriton Bishop, in Devon.
For a little peek about my thoughts on this painting, please visit:
hilaryblackwood.blogspot.com/2011/01/surrender-illustrati...
Safe Surrender Site sticker designating the Hermosa Beach Fire Department as a safe site to abandon your baby.
This is sad, but not as sad as someone discovering a little one in a dumpster or trashcan somewhere, often after it's too late.
Surrender Bridge spans Old Gang Beck on the road from Feetham in Swaledale to Langthwaite in Arkengarthdale.Yorks Dales National Park,North Yorkshire,England,UK.
A squall rolls in toward 'Unconditional Surrender', a 25-foot statue in along the bayfront in Sarasota, FL.
This is the word that came to mind as I surveyed the garden yesterday. The sunflowers were all slumped over and tired of putting on their show, ready to call it quits for the season.
As I was reading the book, I had several ideas for the illustration. But I kept coming back to the story of Jesus asleep in the boat. What a life of trust in the Father He had! That is exactly the kind of relationship we are to live, even in the midst of storms. The little boy asleep in the boat is you and I as we rest in God the Father, or heavenly Dad.
In my usual manner, I found numerous individual stock images, the boy, the boat, several photos of waves. I then photo-illustrated them into a single image, and added the light and shadows.
Sweet Surrender – Photo Series
Model: Racheeda2000
Location: Sweet Surrender
Set within a dreamlike coastal landscape, Sweet Surrender unfolds as a visual journey between serenity, intimacy, and quiet strength. The location blends natural elements—rock formations, flowing water, lush greenery, and open sea views—into a poetic environment that feels both secluded and timeless.
Racheeda2000 moves through the scenery with effortless elegance, her presence calm yet expressive. Whether reclining on sunlit wooden decks, resting near gentle campfires inside coastal caves, or standing poised against vast ocean horizons, she becomes an organic part of the environment rather than a subject placed within it.
Soft natural lighting, combined with carefully chosen perspectives, highlights subtle emotions: contemplation, confidence, and surrender to the moment. The contrast between open landscapes and intimate spaces creates a cinematic rhythm—wide shots emphasize freedom and scale, while close-ups draw attention to refined details, facial expressions, and posture.
Sweet Surrender is not just a location, but a mood: a quiet escape where time slows, nature embraces the subject, and beauty reveals itself through stillness and balance.