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Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offered a unique snapshot of Roman life and an extraordinarily detailed insight into the everyday life of its inhabitants, although much of the evidence was lost in the early excavations. It was a wealthy town, enjoying many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses with lavish decorations, furnishings and works of art which were the main attractions for the early excavators.
Pompeii is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors annually. (Wikipedia)
The summit and surrounding area of May Hill consists of a wide expanse of open grassland, bracken and gorse with boggy areas and pools. The hill is capped by a clump of pine trees, planted in 1887 to commemorate the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria. It is now the location of annual May Day celebrations.
May Hill Common covers 30 hectares of common land acquired by the National Trust in 1988. This attractive area of bracken and developing trees (mainly birch, oak and crab apple) is still grazed by the commoners' ponies, pigs and occasionally sheep. There are beautiful views to the north and west across Herefordshire.
Monument to Sir Robert Steward (d.1570) in the south choir aisle.
Ely Cathedral is in the top rank of the great English cathedrals, and indeed earns its place among the best of medieval churches internationally for its unique architecture and astonishing beauty. It is a church I've visited several times over the years and never fails to impress, its form at once imposing and strikingly individual. Owing to the flatness of the surrounding countryside it is visible from afar as a major landmark, which makes approaching this tiny city all the more enticing.
The church was founded as an abbey by St Etheldreda in 672 and didn't achieve cathedral status until the foundation of the diocese in 1109. Much of the present building dates from the following years, with the nave and transepts still substantially as they were built (aside from a few altered windows and later ceilings) and a fine example of Norman / Romanesque architecture. A little later during the 1170s the soaring west tower and western transepts were added which would have created a magnificent facade when complete and of a type rarely seen in this country. The style is richer with more use of ornamentation than before, but also many of the arches (particularly the upper parts of the tower) are pointed, making it an early example of the transition to Gothic (the octagonal top storey is from two centuries later, but follows the original overall plan in form, if not detail). The north-west transept however collapsed in the late 15th century and was never rebuilt, leaving the front of the cathedral will the curiously lopsided but not unattractive west front we see today. The Galilee porch that projects from the base of the tower dates from the beginning of the 13th century, only a few decades later but now fully Gothic in style.
The Norman eastern limb had been fairly short so the next major building phases saw the great eastward extension of the presbytery built in Gothic style in 1234-50. It makes an interesting contrast with the earlier parts of the building being so rich in style, externally punctuated with pinnacles and flying buttresses and profusely ornamented withing, making the Romanesque nave and transepts seem somewhat austere by comparison. Then in 1321 an ambitious new lady chapel was begun at the north-east corner, but soon afterwards work was delayed by unforeseen events.
In 1322 the old Norman central tower collapsed, bringing down with it most of the old Romanesque choir (but not the recently built presbytery beyond). The aftermath left the cathedral with a gaping hole at its heart, but this must have inspired those charged with its recovery, and under the direction of Alan of Walsingham the crossing was rebuilt in a unique way; rather than build a new tower of a similar form the central piers that supported it were entirely cleared away along with the adjoining bay of nave, transepts and choir to create a much larger octagonal central space. This then rose to become the unique central tower that Ely is so famous for, the Octagon, a combination of a lower octagonal tower built of stone crowned by a delicate lantern built of wood and covered with lead externally. The result is an incredible, piece of architecture, and the view inside of the open space rising to the curved vaults above on which the glazed lantern appears to float is unforgettable.
After the Octagon and beautifully spacious and richly adorned Lady Chapel were completed there was no more major work at the cathedral. The transept roofs were replaced in the 15th century with the wooden hammerbeam structures we see today, adorned with large angel figures in the East Anglian tradition. The most significant late medieval additions are the two sumptuously decorated chantry chapels built within the end of each choir aisle, each a riot of later medieval ornament and Bishop West's also being remarkable for its fusion of Gothic and Renaissance detail. The cloister appears to have been rebuilt at a similar stage though sadly very little of it survives today.
Sadly the Reformation saw a wave of iconoclasm of particular ferocity unleashed here in Ely. The most telling reminder is the Lady Chapel with its richly ornamented arcading carved with hundreds of small scenes and figures, all brutally beheaded (not a single head survives). Free standing statues in niches have all gone without trace, but in the case of Bishop West's chantry chapel the topmost figures were carved in relief, so these were hammered away leaving the mutilated remains as a testament to zealotry and intolerance. Most of the stained glass appears to have also been removed around this time, so there was surprisingly little damage here during the Civil War a century later as the Puritan frenzy had already been unleashed.
A corner of the north transept collapsed in 1699 but was rebuilt almost identically, a rare early example of such an exacting approach to reconstruction. The classical form of a window and doorway below are the only reminders of the rebuilding, some say with advice from Christopher Wren whose uncle had been bishop here decades earlier (Wren knew the cathedral as a result, and the Octagon is believed to have inspired his plans for St Paul's, as the ground plans of the Octagon and his domed central space at St Paul's are remarkably similar).
The cathedral saw further changes in the 18th century when the structure was in need of repair. James Essex was called in to repair the Octagon and the wooden lantern was stabilised but its external was appearance simplified by stripping away much of its original detail. The medieval choir stalls had originally sat directly underneath the Octagon with painted walls on either side, but these were removed at this time and the stalls relocated further east to the position they are in now. Sadly the Norman pulpitum screen at the end of the nave was also removed (the earliest of its kind to survive in any cathedral).
By the mid 19th century tastes had changed again and the Victorian preference for richness over Georgian austerity saw the cathedral restored under the direction of George Gilbert Scott. He restored the Octagon lantern to something much closer to its original appearance and added new screens at the crossing and behind the altar. Stained glass gradually filled the cathedral again and it remains one of the richest collections of Victorian glass in the country. The ceiling of the nave which had been left plain for centuries was given a new richly painted finish with scenes from the Old & New Testaments, begun by Henry le Strange but finished by Thomas Gambier Parry after the former had died halfway through the project. Gambier Parry also undertook the lavish redecoration of the interior of the Octagon lantern.
The cathedral has remained little changed since and is one of the rewarding in the country. There is much of beauty to enjoy here beyond the architecture, with many interesting tombs and monuments from the medieval and post-Reformation periods. There is a wealth of stained glass of unusual richness; not everyone appreciates Victorian glass (indeed Alec Clifton Taylor was quite scathing about the glass here) but while it is very mixed I find much of it is of remarkably high quality.
Since 1972 the Stained Glass Museum has been housed in the nave triforium (originally on the north side, it was later transferred to the south where it currently remains). This is the only collection in the country solely devoted to the medium and is a great ambassador for it, with fine pieces covering a range of styles and illustrating the development of the art through the various backlit panels on show in the gallery.
Visitors can usually take tours to ascend the Octagon and even the west tower on more select days. Tours do get booked up though so it took me many visits before I could make my ascent, but happily this time I finally managed it and it was a wonderful experience I won't forget. Frustratingly I was unable to ascend the west tower since I was at a symposium on the day when tours were held so I hope to have better luck next time.
For more historical detail and context see below:-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ely_Cathedral
For entry fees and tower tours see the cathedral's website below:-
Taken with a Sony DSC-F717 and a Hoya R72 infrared filter.
All images copyright © Mia Lewis Images. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me through flickr or at My Website if you are interested in using any of my images.
Mountain road and landscape in the surrounding of the city Todtnau (Black Forest, Germany) in Schluchsee region and same named lake during sunset.
The Schluchsee is a reservoir lake in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, southeast of the Titisee in the Black Forest near Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
The Schluchsee, with its height of 930 metres above sea level, is the highest reservoir in Germany and also the largest lake in the Black Forest. By contrast the Hornberg Basin (Hornbergbecken), is 1,048 metres above sea level, but is the upper basin of a pumped storage hydropower station, rather than a reservoir.
The water of the reservoir is relatively cool even in summer because of its high elevation.
The best-known settlements around the Schluchsee are on its northern shores and include the eponymous town of Schluchsee and the hamlets of Seebrugg by the dam itself and Aha. The Three Lakes Railway, an extension of the Höllentalbahn, runs from Titisee station along the northern shore to the terminus at Seebrugg.
The Schluchsee is surrounded by numerous walking trails in the local area. The entire length of the shoreline, about 18 km long, is walkable, mostly level and suitable for prams. From May to October the walks may be combined with boat trips on the pleasure cruiser St. Nikolaus (en.wikipedia).
© 2012 Ursula Sander - All rights reserved.
One of several windmills on little artificial hills surrounding the old city of Brugge. Photographed on a very nice stroll on city bikes through Brugge and the surrounding areas. Thanks to Jos from Quasimundo bike tours and Visit Flanders for a splendid day on the bike and many nice impressions.
Eine von mehreren Windmühlen auf kleinen künstlichen Hügeln, die um die Altstadt von Brügge herum angelegt sind. Mein Dank geht an Jos von Quasimundo bike tours und Visit Flanders für einen tollen Tag auf dem Rad und viele schöne Eindrücke.
Walking around my surrounding neighborhoods the last few weeks, I've seen a lot more people out than a month ago, but it's not a continuous wave like it was pre-pandemic. There are no tourists around, which is good and bad. Most hotels are closed, but some are still taking guests. I wonder where these hotel guests are coming from.
Met these ladies in Delhi while they were paying respects at Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, located on the banks of the river Yamuna.
I was recently asked about my new choice of lens (Schneider PC-TS Super-Angulon 50mm f2.8) and its validity for landscape photography and was told it was just a studio lens. I take my art pretty seriously and would never make these decisions lightly and believe the the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Not only is this masterpiece of German engineering one of the sharpest lenses available the versatility is a compositional treat and I would go as far as saying its the perfect panoramic lens.
Lakeside Forest
Forests and Lake Biwa
In Shiga Prefecture, forests cover 200,000 hectares, i.e. roughly half the total area of the prefecture, accounting for about 60% of the land area. Most rainwater falling in forests surrounding Lake Biwa flows into the lake, which nurtures rich ecosystems and thereby sustains our lives.
In addition to playing these roles as a water source, forests offer a variety of values such as disaster prevention and timber production.
Currently, an increasing number of forests are ill-managed and devastated due to various changes in socioeconomic conditions and people’s lifestyles. If we allow these forests to continue to deteriorate, the subsequent decline in the multifunctionality of forests will have significant impact on our everyday lives. - Shiga prefecture
Lake Biwa, the largest lake of Japan, is located in central Honshu and fills the bottom of an oblong tectonic basin. The lake was formed some five million years ago and is therefore one of the oldest lakes in the world geologically, though it was originally located some distance south and moved gradually to its present site about 700,000 years ago. The long history of isolation from ther water bodies is suggested by the lake's biota, which is fairly rich for an island lake, containing about 50 species of fish, 40 species of mollusca and a number of indigenous species.
Lake Biwa measures 63.5 km from north to south and is strongly constricted at about 16 km from its southern end reaching a minimum width of only 1.35 km. The deep main basin (average depth 44 m) north of the constriction is called the Northern Lake, while the shallow sub-basin (average depth 3.5 m) to the south is called the Southern Lake. The two basins differ considerably in water quality, physical conditions, flora and fauna.
The lake's catchment area is 4.7 times as wide as the lake itself, and corresponds closely to the administrative limits of Shiga Prefecture. Forest-covered hills and mountains accounts for nearly 60% of the land area of the Prefecture, and farmlands (mostly wet paddy fields) makes up additional 25%. The forest vegetation consists mostly of secondary forests of pine on low hills and of mixed deciduous hardwoods on marginal mountains, and plantations of conifers. There are several cities of moderate size, the largest being Otsu with a population of 240,000.
Lake Biwa is also the biggest water resource in Japan that supplies city and industrial water for some 13 million residents in Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe megalopolis. The quality of lake water was profoundly influenced by economic development since the 1960's through rapid eutrophication. The legal control of waste water discharge from industries implemented by the National Government in 1970 slowed down the rate of eutrophication to a certain extent, but the steady increase of population, ever-rising standard of living, increased fertilizer application, etc. in the catchment area combined to result in a slow but steady march of lake water quality degradation.
The Shiga Prefectural Government enacted in 1980 the Ordinance for the Prevention of Eutrophication of Lake Biwa, which, for the first time in this country, prohibited the use of phosphate-containing synthetic detergents. The phosphorus content of lake water was thereby reduced considerably, but the effect of reduced phosphorus loading on biological processes in the lake is not yet apparent. - World Lake Database (The International Lake Environment Committee Foundation (ILEC))
Sunrise views over Blayney from Church Hill Rotary Lookout in the Central West, New South Wales, Australia.
CPC9.25, ZWO ASI224MC, ZWO 850nm filter
5000 frames captured in Firecapture, 2000 stacked in AS2, wavelets adjusted in Registax 6.
The rugged terrain surrounding Gallup was popular with Hollywood filmmakers during the 1940s and 50s for the on-location shooting of Westerns. Actors and film crews would stay at the El Rancho Hotel during filming. Films made in Gallup include Billy the Kid (1930), Pursued (1947), The Sea of Grass (1947), Four Faces West (1948), Only the Valiant (1951), Ace in the Hole (1951), Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), A Distant Trumpet (1964), and The Hallelujah Trail (1965).
Gallup, NM
Dec 2016
Dover (/ˈdoʊvər/; French: Douvres) is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's county town Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings. The town is the administrative centre of the Dover District and home of the Dover Calais ferry through the Port of Dover. The surrounding chalk cliffs are known as the White Cliffs of Dover.
Its strategic position has been evident throughout its history: archaeological finds have revealed that the area has always been a focus for peoples entering and leaving Britain. The name of the town derives from the name of the river that flows through it, the River Dour. The town has been inhabited since the Stone Age according to archaeological finds, and Dover is one of only a few places in Britain – London, Edinburgh, and Cornwall being other examples – to have a corresponding name in the French language, Douvres.
There was a military barracks in Dover, which was closed in 2007.[3] Although many of the former ferry services have declined, services related to the Port of Dover provide a great deal of the town’s employment, as does tourism. The prospect of privatising the sale of the Port of Dover to create increased cash flow for the government was given a recent ironic twist due to the rejection of a possible bid from the town of Calais in France after opposition in Dover against any sale forced the government to withdraw the Port from the market. Local residents had clubbed together to propose buying it for the community, more than 12,000 people have bought a £10 share in the People's Port Trust.
Etymology
First recorded in its Latinised form of Portus Dubris, the name derives from the Brythonic word for waters (dwfr in Middle Welsh). The same element is present in the towns French (Douvres) and Modern Welsh (Dofr) forms, as well as the name of the river Dour and is evident in other English towns such as Wendover.
A 2013 study [4] suggested the name may come from an ancient word for 'double bank' referring to the shingle spit(s) that formed across the harbour entrance, for which a word dover is still used in the Isle of Wight. Subsequent name forms included Doverre;[5]
The current name was in use at least by the time of Shakespeare's King Lear (between 1603 and 1606), in which the town and its cliffs play a prominent role. The sight of the white cliffs when approaching Dover may have given the island of Britain its ancient name of Albion.
History
Dover’s history, because of its proximity to France, has always been of great strategic importance to Britain. Archaeological finds have shown that there were Stone Age people in the area; and that by the Bronze Age the maritime influence was already strong. Some Iron Age finds exist also, but the coming of the Romans made Dover part of their communications network. Like Lemanis (Lympne) and Rutupiae (Richborough) Dover was connected by road to Canterbury and Watling Street; and it became Portus Dubris, a fortified port. Forts were built above the port; lighthouses were constructed to guide passing ships; and one of the best-preserved Roman villas in Britain is here.
Dover figured largely in the Domesday Book as an important borough. It also served as a bastion against various attackers: notably the French during the Napoleonic Wars; and against Germany during the Second World War. It was the capital of the Cinque Ports during medieval times.[6]
Geography and climate
Dover is near the extreme south-east corner of Britain between Deal and Folkestone. At South Foreland, the nearest point to the continent, Cap Gris Nez near Calais is 34 kilometres (21 mi) away, across the Strait of Dover - because of this, the town is strongly associated with France[7]
The site of its original settlement lies in the valley of the River Dour, making it an ideal place for a port, sheltered from the prevailing south-westerly winds. This led to the silting up of the river mouth by the action of longshore drift; the town was then forced into making artificial breakwaters to keep the port in being. These breakwaters have been extended and adapted so that the port lies almost entirely on reclaimed land.
The higher land on either side of the valley – the Western Heights and the eastern high point on which Dover Castle stands – has been adapted to perform the function of protection against invaders. The town has gradually extended up the river valley, encompassing several villages in doing so. Little growth is possible along the coast, since the cliffs are on the sea’s edge. The railway, being tunnelled and embanked, skirts the foot of the cliffs.
Dover has an oceanic climate (Koppen classification Cfb) similar to the rest of the United Kingdom with mild temperatures year-round and a light amount of rainfall each month. The warmest recorded temperature was 31 °C (88 °F) and the coldest was −8 °C (18 °F), but the temperature is usually between 3 °C (37 °F) and 21.1 °C (70.0 °F). There is evidence that the sea is coldest in February; the warmest recorded temperature for February was only 13 °C (55 °F), compared with 16 °C (61 °F) in January.
Demography
In 1800, the year before Britain's first national census, Edward Hasted (1732–1812) reported that the town had a population of almost 10,000 people.[10]
At the 2001 census, the town of Dover had 28,156 inhabitants, while the population of the whole urban area of Dover, as calculated by the Office for National Statistics, was 39,078 inhabitants.[11]
With the expansion of Dover, many of the outlying ancient villages have been incorporated into the town. Originally the parishes of Dover St. Mary's and Dover St. James, since 1836 Buckland and Charlton have become part Dover, and Maxton (a hamlet to the west), River, Kearsney, Temple Ewell, and Whitfield, all to the north of the town centre, are within its conurbation.
Economy
Shipping
The Dover Harbour Board[12] is the responsible authority for the running of the Port of Dover. The English Channel, here at its narrowest point in the Straits of Dover, is the busiest shipping lane in the world. Ferries crossing between here and the Continent have to negotiate their way through the constant stream of shipping crossing their path. The Dover Strait Traffic Separation Scheme allots ships separate lanes when passing through the Strait. The Scheme is controlled by the Channel Navigation Information Service based at Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre Dover. MRCC Dover is also charged with co-ordination of civil maritime search and rescue within these waters.[13]
The Port of Dover is also used by cruise ships. The old Dover Marine railway station building houses one passenger terminal, together with a car park. A second, purpose built, terminal is located further out along the pier.[14]
The ferry lines using the port are (number of daily sailings in parentheses):
to Calais: P&O Ferries (25), DFDS Seaways (10).
to Dunkirk: DFDS Seaways (11).
These services have been cut in recent years:
P&O Ferries sailings to Boulogne (5 daily) were withdrawn in 1993 and Zeebrugge (4 daily) in 2002.
SNCF withdrew their three train ferry sailings on the opening of the Channel Tunnel.
Regie voor Maritiem Transport[15][16] moved their Ostend service of three sailings daily to Ramsgate in 1994; this route was operated by TransEuropa Ferries until April 2013.
Stena Line merged their 20 Calais sailings into the current P&O operation in 1998.
Hoverspeed ceased operations in 2005 and withdrew their 8 daily sailings.
SpeedFerries ceased operations in 2008 and withdrew their 5 daily sailings.
LD Lines ceased the Dover-Dieppe service on 29 June 2009 and Dover-Boulogne 5 September 2010.
SeaFrance ceased operations in 2012 of their Dover-Calais service which was their only service.
Transport
Dover’s main communications artery, the A2 road replicates two former routes, connecting the town with Canterbury. The Roman road was followed for centuries until, in the late 18th century, it became a toll road. Stagecoaches were operating: one description stated that the journey took all day to reach London, from 4am to being "in time for supper".[17]
The other main roads, travelling west and east, are the A20 to Folkestone and thence to London and the A258 through Deal to Sandwich.
The railway reached Dover from two directions: the South Eastern Railway's main line connected with Folkestone in 1844, and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway opened its line from Canterbury in 1861. Trains run from Dover Priory to London Charing Cross, London Victoria or London St Pancras International stations in London, and Ramsgate or Sandwich in Kent. Trains from Dover Priory are run by Southeastern (train operating company).
A tram system operated in the town from 1897 to 1936.
Dover has two long distance footpaths: the Saxon Shore Way and the North Downs Way. Two National Cycle Network routes begin their journey at the town.
The Port of Dover is a 20 minute walk from Dover Priory railway station.
The Dover to Dunkirk ferry route was originally operated by ferry operator Norfolkline. This company was later acquired by the pan European operator DFDS Seaways in July 2010.[18] The crossing time is approximately two hours.[19] Due to this route not being as well known as Dover to Calais, prices are often cheaper.[20] The location of Dunkirk is also more convenient for those travelling by road transport on to countries in Northern Europe including Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and further afield.
Stagecoach in East Kent provide local bus services. Dover is on the Stagecoach Diamond network providing links to Canterbury and Deal. The Western Docks at the port of Dover are served from the Town Centre as well as Canterbury and Deal. Dover is the start of The Wave network to New Romney via Folkestone, Hythe and Dymchurch. There are services to Lydd via Lydd Airport, with one continuing from Lydd on to Hastings via Camber and Rye. There is a link to Sandwich and Ramsgate. Buses run from Dover to Canterbury via Aylesham.
National Express runs coaches from Dover to other towns in Kent including Canterbury, Folkestone, Ashford, Kent, Maidstone, Gillingham at Hempsted Valley shopping centre and Greenhithe at Bluewater Shopping Centre for Dartford to London including Bexleyheath, Eltham, Walworth, Canary Wharf, Elephant & Castle, The City (The City of London) and to Victoria Coach Station
All buses serve Pencester Road except route 68 to Maxton operated by Regent Coaches.[citation needed]
Retail
The town's main shopping streets are the High Street and Biggin Street. The Castleton Retail Park is to the north-west of the town centre.
There are plans to open a 6 screen Cineworld Cinema and leisure element ( Restaurants) at St James but not until 2017. It has been recently announced that Marks and Spencer will relocate to St James Development and that the current M&S general store will close. The new 16,000 sq feet store at St James will be an M&S Simply Food with café only and will not sell clothing or homeware unlike the current store which will shut in 2016. Simmonds Jeweller's will close their Dover branch after 40 years in January 2014.[citation needed] The M&S general store and Simmonds branch in nearby Deal will remain open.[citation needed]
Independent stores continue to grow in Dover,[citation needed] but the main town centre of Dover remains in decline compared to other towns like Deal (Telegraph High Street of the Year 2013), Canterbury, Westwood Cross and Ashford who continue to take trade away from Dover.[citation needed]
RNLI
The Dover lifeboat is a Severn class lifeboat based in the Western Docks.[21] Dover Lifeboat station is based at crosswall quay in Dover Harbour. There is a Severn-class lifeboat, which is the biggest in the fleet. It belongs to the RNLI which covers all of Great Britain. The lifeboat number is 17-09 and has a lot of emergencies in the Channel. The Severn class is designed to lay afloat. Built from fibre reinforced composite (FRC) the boat is lightweight yet very strong and is designed to right itself in the event of a capsize.
Education
There are nine secondary level schools, 16 primary schools and two schools for special education.
Non-selective secondary schools include Astor College, St Edmund's Catholic School and Dover Christ Church Academy. Dover Grammar School for Boys and Dover Grammar School for Girls are the main grammar schools for the town.
Astor College for the Arts federated with St Radigunds Primary School (then renamed White Cliffs Primary College for the Arts) to form the Dover Federation for the Arts (DFA). Subsequently, Barton Junior School and Shatterlocks Nursery and Infant School joined the DFA. Two schools have been rated by OFSTED as Outstanding and two Good with outstanding features. In 2014 the Dover Federation for the Arts was warned by the Department for Education about "unacceptably low standards of performance of pupils ".[22]
The Duke of York's Royal Military School, England's only military boarding school for children of service personnel (co-ed ages 11–18), is also located in Dover, next to the former site of Connaught Barracks.
Dover College, a public school was founded in 1871 by a group of local business men.[23]
Public services
Dover has one hospital, Buckland Hospital[24] built in 2015 and located just along from its previous location ( A former Victorian workhouse) on Coombe Valley Road. The town once had four hospitals, Buckland, Royal Victoria, Isolation and the Eye Hospitals located at various points across the town.
Local media
Television
Dover was the home to television studios and production offices of Southern Television Ltd, the company which operated the ITV franchise for South and South East England from 1958-1981. The studios were located on Russell Street and were home to programmes like 'Scene South East', 'Scene Midweek', 'Southern News', 'Farm Progress' and the nightly epilogue, 'Guideline'. The studios were operated by TVS in 1982 and home to 'Coast to Coast', however they closed a year later when the company moved their operations to the newly complete Television Centre in Maidstone.
Newspapers
Dover has two paid for newspapers, the Dover Express (published by Kent Regional News and Media) and the Dover Mercury (published by the KM Group). Free newspapers for the town include the Dover and Deal Extra, part of the KM Group; and yourdover, part of KOS Media.
Radio
Dover has one local commercial radio station, KMFM Shepway and White Cliffs Country, broadcasting to Dover on 106.8FM. The station was founded in Dover as Neptune Radio in September 1997 but moved to Folkestone in 2003 and was consequently rebranded after a takeover by the KM Group. Dover is also served by the county-wide stations Heart, Gold and BBC Radio Kent.
The Gateway Hospital Broadcasting Service, in Buckland Hospital radio, closed at the end of 2006. It was the oldest hospital radio station in East Kent being founded in 1968.[25]
Dover Community Radio (DCR) currently offer internet programming and podcasts on local events and organisations on their website. The online station of the same name launched on 30 July 2011 offering local programmes, music and news for Dover and district.[26]
Culture
There are three museums: the main Dover Museum,[27] the Dover Transport Museum[28] and the Roman Painted House.
International relations
Twin towns / Sister cities
Dover has three twin towns:
France Calais, France
United States Huber Heights, Ohio, United States
Croatia Split, Croatia
Sports
Dover Leisure Centre on Townwall Street, is operated by Your Leisure, a not for profit charitable trust,[32] which caters for sports and includes a swimming pool.
There are sports clubs, amongst them (Dover Athletic F.C.) who play in the conference Premier league; rugby; swimming; water polo and netball (Dover and District Netball League).[33]
Dover Rowing Club is the oldest coastal rowing club in Britain and has a rich history, at one time becoming the best club on the south coast. More information can be found on the history page of the club's website.[34]
One event which gets media attention is that of swimming the English Channel.[35]
Sea fishing, from the beach, pier or out at sea, is carried out here.[36] The so-called Dover sole (solea solea) is found all over European waters.
Places of interest
Blériot memorial: the outline of Louis Blériot's aircraft, marked with granite setts, at the exact spot where Blériot landed after the first cross-Channel flight, 1909[37]
Dover Castle
White Cliffs of Dover
Dover Western Heights
Dover Museum
Roman Painted House Museum
Dover Transport Museum
Samphire Hoe
Seafront promenade
South Foreland Lighthouse
Pines Garden
St Edmund's Chapel
Connaught Park
Kearsney Abbey
Russel Gardens & Bushy Ruff
St Mary's Church
St James' Church: preserved as a "tidy ruin"
Dover Priory Railway Station
Notable people[edit]
Further information: List of people from Dover
In literature
M.R. James used the Dover landmark, the Lord Warden Hotel, as a location in his short ghost story "Casting the Runes", first published in More Ghost Stories in 1911.
Region around the open cluster Messier 11 and the surrounding opaque clouds.
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
Under a dark, clear sky, you’ll notice this region of the summer Milky Way looks like it contains more stars than nearby areas.
Sharp-eyed observers can spot M11 with their unaided eyes about 3° west-southwest of the two stars that form Aquila’s tail. You probably spotted it through binoculars while scanning the Scutum Star Cloud. Even a 3-inch telescope reveals several dozen stars in M11.
Canon EOS 4000D mounted on a homemade 110/250mm f/2.2 astrograph. Captured from the Pollino National Park at an altitude of 1400m. Excellent seeing conditions.
Using surrounding Thistle bushes, sneaked up to within 4-5 yds.... managed a few shots before the shutter noise spooked the Goldfinch...(maybe the new Nikon Z6 mirrorless in silent mode would work ?) mmmmmm..?
Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age, although the nature of the early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until 1633. From the 15th century, the castle's residential role declined, and by the 17th century it was principally used as military barracks with a large garrison. Its importance as a part of Scotland's national heritage was recognised increasingly from the early 19th century onwards, and various restoration programmes have been carried out over the past century and a half.
As one of the most important strongholds in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in many historical conflicts from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century to the Jacobite rising of 1745. Research undertaken in 2014 identified 26 sieges in its 1,100-year history, giving it a claim to having been "the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attacked in the world". Few of the present buildings pre-date the Lang Siege of the 16th century when the medieval defences were largely destroyed by artillery bombardment. The most notable exceptions are St Margaret's Chapel from the early 12th century, which is regarded as the oldest building in Edinburgh, the Royal Palace, and the early 16th-century Great Hall, although the interiors have been much altered from the mid-Victorian period onwards. The castle also houses the Scottish regalia, known as the Honours of Scotland, and is the site of the Scottish National War Memorial and the National War Museum of Scotland. The British Army is still responsible for some parts of the castle, although its presence is now largely ceremonial and administrative. Some of the castle buildings house regimental museums which contribute to its presentation as a tourist attraction.
The castle, in the care of Historic Environment Scotland, is Scotland's most and the United Kingdom's second most-visited paid tourist attraction, with over 2.2 million visitors in 2019 and over 70 percent of leisure visitors to Edinburgh visiting the castle. As the backdrop to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo during the annual Edinburgh Festival, the castle has become a recognisable symbol of Edinburgh in particular and of Scotland as a whole.
The castle stands upon the plug of an extinct volcano, which is estimated to have risen about 350 million years ago during the lower Carboniferous period. The Castle Rock is the remains of a volcanic pipe, which cut through the surrounding sedimentary rock before cooling to form very hard dolerite, a type of basalt. Subsequent glacial erosion was resisted by the dolerite, which protected the softer rock to the east, leaving a crag and tail formation.
The summit of the Castle Rock is 130 metres above sea level, with rocky cliffs to the south, west, and north, rising to a height of 80 metres above the surrounding landscape. This means that the only readily accessible route to the castle lies to the east, where the ridge slopes more gently. The defensive advantage of such a site is self-evident, but the geology of the rock also presents difficulties, since basalt is extremely impermeable. Providing water to the Upper Ward of the castle was problematic, and despite the sinking of a 28-metre deep well, the water supply often ran out during drought or siege, including during the Lang Siege in 1573.
Archaeological investigation has yet to establish when the Castle Rock was first used as a place of human habitation. There is no record of any Roman interest in the location during General Agricola's invasion of northern Britain near the end of the 1st century AD. Ptolemy's map of the 2nd century AD shows a settlement in the territory of the Votadini named "Alauna", meaning "rock place", making this possibly the earliest known name for the Castle Rock. This could, however, refer to another of the tribe's hill forts in the area. The Orygynale Cronykil of Andrew of Wyntoun (c. 1350 – c. 1423), an early source for Scottish history, names "Ebrawce" (Ebraucus), a legendary King of the Britons, as having "byggyd [built] Edynburgh". According to the earlier chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100 – c. 1155), Ebraucus had fifty children by his twenty wives, and was the founder of "Kaerebrauc" (York), "Alclud" (Dumbarton) and the "Maidens' Castle". The 16th-century English writer John Stow (c. 1525 – 1605), credited Ebraucus with building "the Castell of Maidens called Edenbrough" in 989 BC. The name "Maidens' Castle" (Latin: Castra or Castellum Puellarum) occurs frequently up until the 16th century.[16] It appears in charters of David I (r. 1124–1153) and his successors, although the reason for it is not known. William Camden's survey of Britain, Britannia (1607), records that "the Britans called [it] Castle Myned Agned [winged rock], the Scots, the Maidens Castle and the Virgins Castle, of certaine young maidens of the Picts roiall bloud who were kept there in old time". According to the 17th-century antiquarian Father Richard Hay, the "maidens" were a group of nuns, who were ejected from the castle and replaced by canons, considered "fitter to live among soldiers". However, this story was considered "apocryphal" by the 19th-century antiquarian Daniel Wilson and has been ignored by historians since. The name may have been derived from a "Cult of the Nine Maidens" type of legend. Arthurian legends suggest that the site once held a shrine to Morgain la Fee, one of nine sisters. Later, St Monenna, said to be one of nine companions, reputedly invested a church at Edinburgh, as well as at Dumbarton and other places. Similar names are shared by many other Iron Age hillforts and may have simply described a castle that had never been taken by force or derived from an earlier Brittonic name like mag dun.
An archaeological excavation in the early 1990s uncovered evidence of the site having been settled during the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, potentially making the Castle Rock the longest continuously occupied site in Scotland. However, the extent of the finds was not particularly significant and was insufficient to draw any certain conclusions about the precise nature or scale of this earliest known phase of occupation.
The archaeological evidence is more reliable in respect of the Iron Age. Traditionally, it had been supposed that the tribes of central Scotland had made little or no use of the Castle Rock. Excavations at nearby Dunsapie Hill, Duddingston, Inveresk and Traprain Law had revealed relatively large settlements and it was supposed that these sites had been chosen in preference to the Castle Rock. However, the excavation in the 1990s pointed to the probable existence of an enclosed hill fort on the rock, although only the fringes of the site were excavated. House fragments revealed were similar to Iron Age dwellings previously found in Northumbria.
The 1990s dig revealed clear signs of habitation from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, consistent with Ptolemy's reference to "Alauna". Signs of occupation included some Roman material, including pottery, bronzes and brooches, implying a possible trading relationship between the Votadini and the Romans beginning with Agricola's northern campaign in AD 82, and continuing through to the establishment of the Antonine Wall around AD 140. The nature of the settlement in this period is inconclusive, but Driscoll and Yeoman suggest it may have been a broch, similar to the one at Edin's Hall near Duns, Scottish Borders in the Scottish Borders.
The castle does not re-appear in contemporary historical records from the time of Ptolemy until around AD 600. Then, in the epic Welsh poem Y Gododdin there is a reference to Din Eidyn, "the stronghold of Eidyn". This has been generally assumed to refer to the Castle Rock. The poem tells of the Gododdin King Mynyddog Mwynfawr, and his band of warriors, who, after a year of feasting in their fortress, set out to do battle with the Angles at "Catreath" (possibly Catterick) in Yorkshire. Despite performing glorious deeds of valour and bravery, the poem relates that the Gododdin were massacred.
The Irish annals record that in 638, after the events related in Y Gododdin, "Etin" was besieged by the Angles under Oswald of Northumbria, and the Gododdin were defeated. The territory around Edinburgh then became part of the Kingdom of Northumbria, which was itself absorbed by England in the 10th century. Lothian became part of Scotland, during the reign of Indulf (r.954–962).
The archaeological evidence for the period in question is based entirely on the analysis of middens (domestic refuse heaps), with no evidence of structures. Few conclusions can therefore be derived about the status of the settlement during this period, although the midden deposits show no clear break since Roman times.
The first documentary reference to a castle at Edinburgh is John of Fordun's account of the death of King Malcolm III (1031–1093). Fordun describes his widow, the future Saint Margaret, as residing at the "Castle of Maidens" when she is brought news of his death in November 1093. Fordun's account goes on to relate how Margaret died of grief within days, and how Malcolm's brother Donald Bane laid siege to the castle. However, Fordun's chronicle was not written until the later 14th century, and the near-contemporary account of the life of St Margaret by Bishop Turgot makes no mention of a castle. During the reigns of Malcolm III and his sons, Edinburgh Castle became one of the most significant royal centres in Scotland. Malcolm's son King Edgar died here in 1107.
Malcolm's youngest son, King David I (r.1124–1153), developed Edinburgh as a seat of royal power principally through his administrative reforms (termed by some modern scholars the Davidian Revolution). Between 1139 and 1150, David held an assembly of nobles and churchmen, a precursor to the parliament of Scotland, at the castle. Any buildings or defences would probably have been of timber, although two stone buildings are documented as having existed in the 12th century. Of these, St. Margaret's Chapel remains at the summit of the rock. The second was a church, dedicated to St. Mary, which stood on the site of the Scottish National War Memorial. Given that the southern part of the Upper Ward (where Crown Square is now sited) was not suited to be built upon until the construction of the vaults in the 15th century, it seems probable that any earlier buildings would have been located towards the northern part of the rock; that is around the area where St. Margaret's Chapel stands. This has led to a suggestion that the chapel is the last remnant of a square, stone keep, which would have formed the bulk of the 12th-century fortification. The structure may have been similar to the keep of Carlisle Castle, which David I began after 1135.
David's successor King Malcolm IV (r.1153–1165) reportedly stayed at Edinburgh more than at any other location. But in 1174, King William "the Lion" (r.1165–1214) was captured by the English at the Battle of Alnwick. He was forced to sign the Treaty of Falaise to secure his release, in return for surrendering Edinburgh Castle, along with the castles of Berwick, Roxburgh and Stirling, to the English King, Henry II. The castle was occupied by the English for twelve years, until 1186, when it was returned to William as the dowry of his English bride, Ermengarde de Beaumont, who had been chosen for him by King Henry. By the end of the 12th century, Edinburgh Castle was established as the main repository of Scotland's official state papers.
A century later, in 1286, on the death of King Alexander III, the throne of Scotland became vacant. Edward I of England was appointed to adjudicate the competing claims for the Scottish crown, but used the opportunity to attempt to establish himself as the feudal overlord of Scotland. During the negotiations, Edward stayed briefly at Edinburgh Castle and may have received homage there from the Scottish nobles.
In March 1296, Edward I launched an invasion of Scotland, unleashing the First War of Scottish Independence. Edinburgh Castle soon came under English control, surrendering after a three days long bombardment. Following the siege, Edward had many of the Scottish legal records and royal treasures moved from the castle to England. A large garrison numbering 325 men was installed in 1300. Edward also brought to Scotland his master builders of the Welsh castles, including Thomas de Houghton and Master Walter of Hereford, both of whom travelled from Wales to Edinburgh. After the death of Edward I in 1307, however, England's control over Scotland weakened. On 14 March 1314, a surprise night attack by Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray recaptured the castle. John Barbour's narrative poem The Brus relates how a party of thirty hand-picked men was guided by one William Francis, a member of the garrison who knew of a route along the north face of the Castle Rock and a place where the wall might be scaled. Making the difficult ascent, Randolph's men scaled the wall, surprised the garrison and took control. Robert the Bruce immediately ordered the slighting of the castle to prevent its re-occupation by the English. Four months later, his army secured victory at the Battle of Bannockburn.
After Bruce's death in 1329, Edward III of England determined to renew the attempted subjugation of Scotland and supported the claim of Edward Balliol, son of the former King John Balliol, over that of Bruce's young son David II. Edward invaded in 1333, marking the start of the Second War of Scottish Independence, and the English forces reoccupied and refortified Edinburgh Castle in 1335, holding it until 1341. This time, the Scottish assault was led by William Douglas, Lord of Liddesdale. Douglas's party disguised themselves as merchants from Leith bringing supplies to the garrison. Driving a cart into the entrance, they halted it there to prevent the gates closing. A larger force hidden nearby rushed to join them and the castle was retaken. The 100 English men of the garrison were all killed.
The 1357 Treaty of Berwick brought the Wars of Independence to a close. David II resumed his rule and set about rebuilding Edinburgh Castle which became his principal seat of government. David's Tower was begun around 1367, and was incomplete when David died at the castle in 1371. It was completed by his successor, Robert II, in the 1370s. The tower stood on the site of the present Half Moon Battery and was connected by a section of curtain wall to the smaller Constable's Tower, a round tower built between 1375 and 1379 where the Portcullis Gate now stands.
In the early 15th century, another English invasion, this time under Henry IV, reached Edinburgh Castle and began a siege, but eventually withdrew due to lack of supplies. From 1437, Sir William Crichton was Keeper of Edinburgh Castle, and soon after became Chancellor of Scotland. In an attempt to gain the regency of Scotland, Crichton sought to break the power of the Douglases, the principal noble family in the kingdom. The sixteen-year-old William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas, and his younger brother David were summoned to Edinburgh Castle in November 1440. After the so-called "Black Dinner" had taken place in David's Tower, both boys were summarily executed on trumped-up charges in the presence of the ten-year-old King James II (r.1437–1460). Douglas' supporters subsequently besieged the castle, inflicting damage. Construction continued throughout this period, with the area now known as Crown Square being laid out over vaults in the 1430s. Royal apartments were built, forming the nucleus of the later palace block, and a Great Hall was in existence by 1458. In 1464, access to the castle was improved when the current approach road up the north-east side of the rock was created to allow easier movement of the royal artillery train in and out of the area now known as the Upper Ward.
In 1479, Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, was imprisoned in David's Tower for plotting against his brother, King James III (r.1460–1488). He escaped by getting his guards drunk, then lowering himself from a window on a rope. The duke fled to France, then England, where he allied himself with King Edward IV. In 1482, Albany marched into Scotland with Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III), and an English army. James III was trapped in the castle from 22 July to 29 September 1482 until he successfully negotiated a settlement.
During the 15th century the castle was increasingly used as an arsenal and armaments factory. The first known purchase of a gun was in 1384, and the "great bombard" Mons Meg was delivered to Edinburgh in 1457. The first recorded mention of an armoury for the manufacture of guns occurs in 1474, and by 1498 the master gunner Robert Borthwick was casting bronze guns at Edinburgh. By 1511 Edinburgh was the principal foundry in Scotland, supplanting Stirling Castle, with Scottish and European smiths working under Borthwick, who by 1512 was appointed "master melter of the king's guns". Their output included guns for the Scottish flagship, the "Great Michael", and the "Seven Sisters", a set of cannons captured by the English at Flodden in 1513. Sir Thomas Howard, England's Lord Admiral, admired their graceful shape and brilliant finish, declaring them the most beautiful [cannon] for their size and length that he had ever seen. From 1510 Dutch craftsmen were also producing hand culverins, an early firearm. After Flodden, Borthwick continued his work, producing an unknown number of guns, of which none survive. He was succeeded by French smiths, who began manufacturing hagbuts (another type of firearm) in the 1550s, and by 1541 the castle had a stock of 413.
Meanwhile, the royal family began to stay more frequently at the Abbey of Holyrood, about 1 mile from the castle. Around the end of the fifteenth century, King James IV (r.1488–1513) built Holyroodhouse, by the abbey, as his principal Edinburgh residence, and the castle's role as a royal home subsequently declined. James IV did, however, construct the Great Hall, which was completed in the early 16th century. His daughter Margaret Stewart was lodged in the castle with her servant Ellen More.
James IV was killed in battle at Flodden Field, on 9 September 1513. Expecting the English to press their advantage, the Scots hastily constructed a town wall around Edinburgh and augmented the castle's defences. Robert Borthwick and a Frenchman, Antoine d'Arces, were involved in designing new artillery defences and fortifications in 1514, though it appears from lack of evidence that little of the planned work was carried out. Three years later, King James V (r.1513–1542), still only five years old, was brought to the castle for safety. Upon his death 25 years later, the crown passed to his week-old daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots. English invasions followed, as King Henry VIII attempted to force a dynastic marriage on Scotland. When the English burnt Edinburgh in May 1544 the gunner Andrew Mansioun firing from the castle destroyed an English cannon placed to bombard the forework. In 1547 disaffected members of the garrison who resented Regent Arran came to Norham Castle and offered to let the English in.
Refortification in 1548 included an earthen angle-bastion, known as the Spur, of the type known as trace italienne, one of the earliest examples in Britain. Brunstane Castle the home of the traitor Alexander Crichton was demolished to provide building materials. The Spur may have been designed by Migliorino Ubaldini, an Italian engineer from the court of Henry II of France, and was said to have the arms of France carved on it. James V's widow, Mary of Guise, acted as regent from 1554 until her death at the castle in 1560.
The following year, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, returned from France to begin her reign, which was marred by crises and quarrels amongst the powerful Protestant Scottish nobility. In 1565, the Queen made an unpopular marriage with Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and the following year, in a small room of the Palace at Edinburgh Castle, she gave birth to their son James, who would later be King of both Scotland and England. Mary's reign was, however, brought to an abrupt end. Three months after the murder of Darnley at Kirk o' Field in 1567, she married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, one of the chief murder suspects. A large proportion of the nobility rebelled, resulting ultimately in the imprisonment and forced abdication of Mary at Loch Leven Castle. She escaped and fled to England, but some of the nobility remained faithful to her cause. Edinburgh Castle was initially handed by its Captain, James Balfour, to the Regent Moray, who had forced Mary's abdication and now held power in the name of the infant King James VI. Shortly after the Battle of Langside, in May 1568, Moray appointed Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange Keeper of the Castle.
Grange was a trusted lieutenant of the Regent, but after Moray's murder in January 1570 his allegiance to the King's cause began to waver. Intermittent civil war continued between the supporters of the two monarchs, and in April 1571 Dumbarton Castle fell to "the King's men". Under the influence of William Maitland of Lethington, Mary's secretary, Grange changed sides, occupying the town and castle of Edinburgh for Queen Mary, and against the new regent, the Earl of Lennox. The stand-off which followed was not resolved until two years later, and became known as the "Lang Siege", from the Scots word for "long". Hostilities began in May, with a month-long siege of the town, and a second short siege in October. Blockades and skirmishing continued meanwhile, and Grange continued to refortify the castle. The King's party appealed to Elizabeth I of England for assistance, as they lacked the artillery and money required to reduce the castle, and feared that Grange would receive aid from France and the Duke of Alba in the Spanish Netherlands. Elizabeth sent ambassadors to negotiate, and in July 1572 a truce was agreed and the blockade lifted. The town was effectively surrendered to the King's party, with Grange confined to the castle.
The truce expired on 1 January 1573, and Grange began bombarding the town. His supplies of powder and shot, however, were running low, and despite having 40 cannon available, there were only seven gunners in the garrison. The King's forces, now with the Earl of Morton in charge as regent, were making headway with plans for a siege. Trenches were dug to surround the castle, and St Margaret's Well was poisoned. By February, all Queen Mary's other supporters had surrendered to the Regent, but Grange resolved to resist despite water shortages within the castle. The garrison continued to bombard the town, killing a number of citizens. They also made sorties to set fires, burning 100 houses in the town and then firing on anyone attempting to put out the flames.
In April, a force of around 1,000 English troops, led by Sir William Drury, arrived in Edinburgh. They were followed by 27 cannon from Berwick-upon-Tweed, including one that had been cast within Edinburgh Castle and captured by the English at Flodden. The English troops built an artillery emplacement on Castle Hill, immediately facing the east walls of the castle, and five others to the north, west and south. By 17 May these batteries were ready, and the bombardment began. Over the next 12 days, the gunners dispatched around 3,000 shots at the castle. On 22 May, the south wall of David's Tower collapsed, and the next day the Constable's Tower also fell. The debris blocked the castle entrance, as well as the Fore Well, although this had already run dry. On 26 May, the English attacked and captured the Spur, the outer fortification of the castle, which had been isolated by the collapse. The following day Grange emerged from the castle by a ladder after calling for a ceasefire to allow negotiations for a surrender to take place. When it was made clear that he would not be allowed to go free even if he ended the siege, Grange resolved to continue the resistance, but the garrison threatened to mutiny. He therefore arranged for Drury and his men to enter the castle on 28 May, preferring to surrender to the English rather than the Regent Morton. Edinburgh Castle was handed over to George Douglas of Parkhead, the Regent's brother, and the garrison were allowed to go free. In contrast, Kirkcaldy of Grange, his brother James and two jewellers, James Mossman and James Cokke, who had been minting coins in Mary's name inside the castle, were hanged at the Cross in Edinburgh on 3 August.
Nova Scotia and Civil War
Much of the castle was subsequently rebuilt by Regent Morton, including the Spur, the new Half Moon Battery and the Portcullis Gate. Some of these works were supervised by William MacDowall, the master of work who fifteen years earlier had repaired David's Tower. The Half Moon Battery, while impressive in size, is considered by historians to have been an ineffective and outdated artillery fortification. This may have been due to a shortage of resources, although the battery's position obscuring the ancient David's Tower and enhancing the prominence of the palace block, has been seen as a significant decision.
The battered palace block remained unused, particularly after James VI departed to become King of England in 1603. James had repairs carried out in 1584, and in 1615–1616 more extensive repairs were carried out in preparation for his return visit to Scotland. The mason William Wallace and master of works James Murray introduced an early Scottish example of the double-pile block. The principal external features were the three, three-storey oriel windows on the east façade, facing the town and emphasising that this was a palace rather than just a place of defence. During his visit in 1617, James held court in the refurbished palace block, but still preferred to sleep at Holyrood.
In 1621, King James granted Sir William Alexander the land in North America between New England and Newfoundland, as Nova Scotia ("New Scotland"). To promote the settlement and plantation of the new territory, the Baronetage of Nova Scotia was created in 1624. Under Scots Law, baronets had to "take sasine" by symbolically receiving the earth and stone of the land of which they were baronet. To make this possible, since Nova Scotia was so distant, the King declared that sasine could be taken either in the new province or alternatively "at the castle of Edinburgh as the most eminent and principal place of Scotland."
James' successor, King Charles I, visited Edinburgh Castle only once, hosting a feast in the Great Hall and staying the night before his Scottish coronation in 1633. This was the last occasion that a reigning monarch resided in the castle. In 1639, in response to Charles' attempts to impose Episcopacy on the Scottish Church, civil war broke out between the King's forces and the Presbyterian Covenanters. The Covenanters, led by Alexander Leslie, captured Edinburgh Castle after a short siege, although it was restored to Charles after the Peace of Berwick in June the same year. The peace was short-lived, however, and the following year the Covenanters took the castle again, this time after a three-month siege, during which the garrison ran out of supplies. The Spur was badly damaged and was demolished in the 1640s. The Royalist commander James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, was imprisoned here after his capture in 1650.
In May 1650, the Covenanters signed the Treaty of Breda, allying themselves with the exiled Charles II against the English Parliamentarians, who had executed his father the previous year. In response to the Scots proclaiming Charles King, Oliver Cromwell launched an invasion of Scotland, defeating the Covenanter army at Dunbar in September. Edinburgh Castle was taken after a three-month siege, which caused further damage. The Governor of the Castle, Colonel Walter Dundas, surrendered to Cromwell despite having enough supplies to hold out, allegedly from a desire to change sides.
After his Restoration in 1660, Charles II opted to maintain a full-time standing army based on Cromwell's New Model Army. From this time until 1923, a garrison was continuously maintained at the castle. The medieval royal castle was transformed into a garrison fortress, but continued to see military and political action. The Marquis of Argyll was imprisoned here in 1661, when King Charles II settled old scores with his enemies following his return to the throne. Twenty years later, Argyll's son, the 9th Earl of Argyll, was also imprisoned in the castle for religious Nonconformism in the reign of King James VII. He escaped by disguising himself as his sister's footman, but was recaptured and returned to the castle after his failed rebellion to oust James from the throne in 1685.
James VII was deposed and exiled by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which installed William of Orange as King of England. Not long after, in early 1689, the Estates of Scotland, after convening to accept William formally as their new king, demanded that Duke of Gordon, Governor of the Castle, surrender the fortress. Gordon, who had been appointed by James VII as a fellow Catholic, refused. In March 1689, the castle was blockaded by 7,000 troops against a garrison of 160 men, further weakened by religious disputes. On 18 March, Viscount Dundee, intent on raising a rebellion in the Highlands, climbed up the western side of the Castle Rock to urge Gordon to hold the castle against the new King. Gordon agreed, but during the ensuing siege he refused to fire upon the town, while the besiegers inflicted little damage on the castle. Despite Dundee's initial successes in the north, Gordon eventually surrendered on 14 June, due to dwindling supplies and having lost 70 men during the three-month siege.
The castle was almost taken in the first Jacobite rising in support of James Stuart, the "Old Pretender", in 1715. On 8 September, just two days after the rising began, a party of around 100 Jacobite Highlanders, led by Lord Drummond, attempted to scale the walls with the assistance of members of the garrison. However, the rope ladder lowered by the castle sentries was too short, and the alarm was raised after a change of the watch. The Jacobites fled, while the deserters within the castle were hanged or flogged. In 1728, General Wade reported that the castle's defences were decayed and inadequate, and a major strengthening of the fortifications was carried out throughout the 1720s and 1730s. This was the period when most of the artillery defences and bastions on the north and west sides of the castle were built. These were designed by military engineer Captain John Romer, and built by the architect William Adam. They include the Argyle Battery, Mills Mount Battery, the Low Defences and the Western Defences.
The last military action at the castle took place during the second Jacobite rising of 1745. The Jacobite army, under Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), captured Edinburgh without a fight in September 1745, but the castle remained in the hands of its ageing Deputy Governor, General George Preston, who refused to surrender. After their victory over the government army at Prestonpans on 21 September, the Jacobites attempted to blockade the castle. Preston's response was to bombard Jacobite positions within the town. After several buildings had been demolished and four people killed, Charles called off the blockade. The Jacobites themselves had no heavy guns with which to respond, and by November they had marched into England, leaving Edinburgh to the castle garrison.
Over the next century, the castle vaults were used to hold prisoners of war during several conflicts, including the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the American War of Independence (1775–1783) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). During this time, several new buildings were erected within the castle, including powder magazines, stores, the Governor's House (1742), and the New Barracks (1796–1799).
19th century to the present
Drawing of the castle surrounded by crowds
King George IV waves from the battlements of the Half Moon Battery in 1822, drawn by James Skene
A mass prison break in 1811, in which 49 prisoners of war escaped via a hole in the south wall, persuaded the authorities that the castle vaults were no longer suitable as a prison. This use ceased in 1814 and the castle began gradually to assume a different role as a national monument. In 1818, Sir Walter Scott was given permission to search the castle for the Crown of Scotland, believed lost after the union of Scotland and England in 1707. Breaking into a sealed room, now known as the Crown Room, and unlocking a chest within, he rediscovered the Honours of Scotland, which were then put on public display with an entry charge of one shilling. In 1822, King George IV made a visit to Edinburgh, becoming the first reigning monarch to visit the castle since Charles II in 1651. In 1829, the cannon Mons Meg was returned from the Tower of London, where it had been taken as part of the process of disarming Scotland after "the '45", and the palace began to be opened up to visitors during the 1830s. St Margaret's Chapel was "rediscovered" in 1845, having been used as a store for many years. Works in the 1880s, funded by the Edinburgh publisher William Nelson and carried out by Hippolyte Blanc, saw the Argyle Tower built over the Portcullis Gate and the Great Hall restored after years of use as a barracks. A new Gatehouse was built in 1888. During the 19th century, several schemes were put forward for rebuilding the whole castle as a Scottish baronial style château. Work began in 1858, but was soon abandoned, and only the hospital building was eventually remodelled in 1897. Following the death of Prince Albert in 1861, the architect David Bryce put forward a proposal for a 50-metre keep as a memorial, but Queen Victoria objected and the scheme was not pursued.
Edinburgh Castle, waxed-paper negative by Thomas Keith, c. 1855. Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington DC
In 1905, responsibility for the castle was transferred from the War Office to the Office of Works, although the garrison remained until 1923, when the troops moved to Redford Barracks in south-west Edinburgh. The castle was again used as a prison during the First World War, when "Red Clydesider" David Kirkwood was confined in the military prison block, and during the Second World War, when downed German Luftwaffe pilots were captured. The position of Governor of Edinburgh Castle, vacant since 1876, was revived in 1935 as an honorary title for the General Officer Commanding in Scotland, the first holder being Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Cameron of Lochiel. The castle passed into the care of Historic Scotland when it was established in 1991, and was designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1993. The buildings and structures of the castle are further protected by 24 separate listings, including 13 at category A, the highest level of protection for a historic building in Scotland, and special care was taken when installing 31 kW solar panels on the roof of the War Memorial, obscured by its parapet. The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, a World Heritage Site inscribed by UNESCO in 1995, is described as "dominated by a medieval fortress".
Peña Buraca is an archaeological site located near Alcántara that had been mistakenly traditionally identified with a prehistoric sanctuary.
Large groups of Iberian pigs (cerdo ibérico) populate the surrounding forests and roam around there. The black pigs mainly eat acorns - and end up being processed into pata negra.
Real Animals
Enchanted forest surrounding a fairy tale little shed. Once again I can't decide between two versions. Number Two will follow soon.
This shore and the surrounding hills have a long history of human occupation.
This area was once hills above the Bassian Plain that connected Tasmania to the mainland. It is over these hills that the first occupants came, travelling southward over 35,000 years ago.
The richness of the area’s resources is shown by the vast cave middens, left by Aboriginal occupation, revealing continuous occupation through the accumulated materials over 8,000 year period. These are one of the largest and most complete records of the lifestyle of coastal Aboriginal people anywhere in Australia.
This land has a good feeling.
Walking along the shore, and later, through the night, walking over the hills, I was reminded of Seth Kantner's thoughts about arctic Alaska:
"We spot no tusks curved like wrecked ship's ribs. There is no shore, no beach with huge Flintstone bones lying about. There is no disappointment either. Being here outshines taking something from here. This I think we humans forget. In our first few million years we learned nothing about how not to hunger. We have no clue how not to take."
~ from Shopping For Porcupine.
Nikkon D700, Nikkor 17-35mm @ 17 mm,
1/4 s @ f/14, ISO 100
Singh Ray 2 stop hard GND.
Nebulosity extends for many light years surrounding the fantastic shapes sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from massive young stars of the Ara OB1 association, about 4000 light years away.
This is a four panel mosaic imaged in the wavelength of Hydrogen Alpha- 3 hours of integration per panel for a total of 12 hours
Most images of this region focus on the so called " Fighting Dragons" - and the “ cosmic egg”-but this widefield shows that there is a lot more nebulosity surrounding these well known features
Equipment: EQ6/ Redcat 51/Baader 7 nm H alpha Filter/QHY 183 MM
Software: NINA/PHD2/AstroPixel Processor/ Photoshop/Topaz AI
Bortle 6 location; waxing moon past first quarter; imaged over three nights August 7, 11 and 12 , 2021
for the full resolution image that you can scroll , pan and zoom visit GipaPan
The Sentinel-1 radar satellite mission takes us over Orange County and surrounding areas in the US state of California.
Two prominent geological features are visible here: the coastal plains of the Los Angeles Basin in the upper-central left, and the Santa Ana Mountains running from the upper left to the lower right.
A typical feature of Pacific Coast mountain ranges like Santa Ana is a moister western slope and drier eastern slope – reflected in this radar image by the more prominent colours on the left side of the mountain range. This is due to air masses from the Pacific bringing precipitation to the land, while the mountains force the clouds to rise and produce rain and block them from moving further east, causing a ‘rain shadow’ and thus drier areas on the other side.
To respond to dry conditions in California and all over the world, populations rely on dams and reservoirs to control the water supply. In satellite imagery, these water bodies are easy to identify by the straight-cut line of the dam blocking water flow – two of which are visible in the centre-right part of the image.
Three passes by Sentinel-1’s radar from 21 December 2014, 2 January 2015 and 14 January 2015 were combined to create this image. Each image was assigned a colour – red, green and blue – and changes on the ground that occurred between passes appear as different colours.
One obvious example of changes can be seen in the boats in the water on the left side of the image, appearing in the three different colours depending on when they were present.
In other parts of the image we can see colours in agricultural fields showing changes in vegetation between the acquisitions.
This image is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2014-15), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanga_Parbat
Nanga Parbat (literally, Naked Mountain Urdu: نانگا پربت [nəŋɡaː pərbət̪]) is the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 metres (26,660 ft) above sea level. It is the western anchor of the Himalayas around which the Indus river skirts into the plains of Pakistan. It is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, and is locally known as 'Deo Mir' ('mir' meaning 'mountain').[2]
Nanga Parbat is one of the eight-thousanders, with a summit elevation of 8,126 metres (26,660 ft).[3] An immense, dramatic peak rising far above its surrounding terrain, Nanga Parbat is also a notoriously difficult climb. Numerous mountaineering deaths in the mid and early 20th century lent it the nickname "killer mountain". Along with K2, it has never been climbed in winter.
Location
Nanga Parbat forms the western anchor of the Himalayan Range and is the westernmost eight-thousander. It lies just south of the Indus River in the Diamer District of Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan. Not far to the north is the western end of the Karakoram range.
Notable features
Nanga Parbat has tremendous vertical relief over local terrain in all directions.
To the south, Nanga Parbat boasts what is often referred to as the highest mountain face in the world: the Rupal Face rises 4,600 m (15,090 ft) above its base. To the north, the complex, somewhat more gently sloped Rakhiot Flank rises 7,000 m (22,966 ft) from the Indus River valley to the summit in just 25 km (16 mi), one of the 10 greatest elevation gains in so short a distance on Earth.[citation needed]
Nanga Parbat is one of only two peaks on Earth that rank in the top twenty of both the highest mountains in the world, and the most prominent peaks in the world, ranking ninth and fourteenth respectively. The other is Mount Everest, which is first on both lists.
Nanga Parbat along with Namcha Barwa on the Tibetan Plateau mark the west and east ends of the Himalayas.
Layout of the mountain
The core of Nanga Parbat is a long ridge trending southwest–northeast. The ridge is an enormous bulk of ice and rock. It has three faces, Diamir face, Rakhiot and Rupal. The southwestern portion of this main ridge is known as the Mazeno Wall, and has a number of subsidiary peaks. In the other direction, the main ridge arcs northeast at Rakhiot Peak (7,070 m / 23,196 ft). The south/southeast side of the mountain is dominated by the massive Rupal Face, noted above. The north/northwest side of the mountain, leading to the Indus, is more complex. It is split into the Diamir (west) face and the Rakhiot (north) face by a long ridge. There are a number of subsidiary summits, including North Peak (7,816 m / 25,643 ft) some 3 km north of the main summit. Near the base of the Rupal Face is a beautiful glacial lake called Latbo, above a seasonal shepherds' village of the same name.
Climbing history
Early attempts
Climbing attempts started very early on Nanga Parbat. In 1895 Albert F. Mummery led an expedition to the peak, and reached almost 6,100 m (20,000 ft) on the Diamir (West) Face,[6] but Mummery and two Gurkha companions later died reconnoitering the Rakhiot Face.
In the 1930s, Nanga Parbat became the focus of German interest in the Himalayas. The German mountaineers were unable to attempt Mount Everest, as only the British had access to Tibet. Initially German efforts focused on Kanchenjunga, to which Paul Bauer led two expeditions in 1930 and 1931, but with its long ridges and steep faces Kanchenjunga was more difficult than Everest and neither expedition made much progress. K2 was known to be harder still, and its remoteness meant that even reaching its base would be a major undertaking. Nanga Parbat was therefore the highest mountain accessible to Germans and also deemed reasonably possible by climbers at the time.[
The first German expedition to Nanga Parbat was led by Willy Merkl in 1932. It is sometimes referred to as a German-American expedition, as the eight climbers included Rand Herron, an American, and Fritz Wiessner, who would become an American citizen the following year. While the team were all strong climbers, none had Himalayan experience, and poor planning (particularly an inadequate number of porters), coupled with bad weather, prevented the team progressing far beyond the Rakhiot Peak northeast of the Nanga Parbat summit, reached by Peter Aschenbrenner and Herbert Kunigk, but they did establish the feasibility of a route via Rakhiot Peak and the main ridge.[8]
Merkl led another expedition in 1934, which was better prepared and financed with the full backing of the new Nazi government. Early in the expedition Alfred Drexel died, probably of high altitude pulmonary edema.[9] The Tyrolean climbers Peter Aschenbrenner and Erwin Schneider reached an estimated height of (7,895 m / 25,900 ft) on July 6, but were forced to return because of worsening weather. On July 7 they and 14 others were trapped by a ferocious storm at 7,480 m (24,540 ft). During the desperate retreat that followed, three famous German mountaineers, Uli Wieland, Willo Welzenbach and Merkl himself, and six Sherpas died of exhaustion, exposure and altitude sickness, and several more suffered severe frostbite. The last survivor to reach safety, Ang Tsering, did so having spent seven days battling through the storm.[10] It has been said that the disaster, "for sheer protracted agony, has no parallel in climbing annals."[11]
In 1937, Karl Wien led another expedition to the mountain, following the same route as Merkl's expeditions had done. Progress was made, but more slowly than before due to heavy snowfall. Some time around the 14th of June seven Germans and nine Sherpas, almost the entire team, were at Camp IV below Rakhiot Peak when it was overwhelmed by an avalanche. All sixteen men died instantly.[12]
The Germans returned in 1938 led by Paul Bauer, but the expedition was plagued by bad weather, and Bauer, mindful of the previous disasters, ordered the party down before the Silver Saddle, halfway between Rakhiot Peak and Nanga Parbat summit, was reached.[13] The following year a small four man expedition, including Heinrich Harrer, explored the Diamir Face with the aim of finding an easier route. They concluded that the face was a viable route, but the Second World War intervened and the four men were interned in India.[14] Harrer's escape and subsequent travels became the subject of his book Seven Years in Tibet.
First ascent
For a sense of scale, notice a 4-man yellow tent, dwarfed by the peak, near the bottom right. Just above the tent is a large white building.
Nanga Parbat was first climbed, via the Rakhiot Flank (East Ridge), on July 3, 1953 by Austrian climber Hermann Buhl,[15] a member of a German-Austrian team. The expedition was organized by the half-brother of Willy Merkl, Karl Herrligkoffer from Munich, while the expedition leader was Peter Aschenbrenner from Innsbruck, who had participated in the 1932 and 1934 attempts. By the time of this expedition, 31 people had already died on the mountain.[16]
The final push for the summit was dramatic: Buhl last 1300 meters continued alone, after his companions had turned back. Under the influence of the drugs pervitin (based on the stimulant methamphetamine used by soldiers during World War II), padutin, and tea from coca leaves, he reached the summit dangerously late, at 7 p.m., the climbing harder and more time-consuming than he had anticipated. His descent was slowed when he lost a crampon. Caught by darkness, he was forced to bivouac standing upright on a narrow ledge, holding a small handhold with one hand. Exhausted, he dozed occasionally, but managed to maintain his balance. He was also very fortunate to have a calm night, so he was not subjected to wind chill. He finally reached his high camp at 7 p.m. the next day, 40 hours after setting out.[17] The ascent was made without oxygen, and Buhl is the only man to have made the first ascent of an 8000 m peak alone.
Subsequent attempts and ascents
The second ascent of Nanga Parbat was via the Diamir Face, in 1962, by Germans Toni Kinshofer, Siegfried "Siegi" Löw, and A. Mannhardt. The route is now the "standard route" on the mountain. The Kinshofer route does not ascend the middle of the Diamir Face, which is threatened by avalanches from massive hanging glaciers. Instead it climbs a buttress on the left side of the face.
In 1970 the brothers Günther and Reinhold Messner made the third ascent of the mountain and the first ascent of the Rupal Face. They were unable to descend by their original route, and instead descended by the Diamir Face, making the first traverse of the mountain. Unfortunately Günther was killed in an avalanche on the Diamir Face. (Messner's account of this incident has been disputed. In 2005 Günther's remains were found on the Diamir Face.)
In 1971 Ivan Fiala and Michael Orolin summited Nanga Parbat via Buhl's 1953 route while other expedition members climbed the SE peak (7,600 m / 24,925 ft) above the Silbersattel and the foresummit (7,850 m / 25,760 ft) above the Bazhin Gap.
In 1976 a team of four made the sixth summit via a new route on the Rupal Face (second ascent on this face), then named the Schell route after the Austrian team leader. The line had been plotted by Karl Herrligkoffer on a previous unsuccessful attempt.
In 1978 Reinhold Messner returned to the Diamir Face and achieved the first completely solo ascent (i.e. always solo above Base Camp) of an 8,000 m peak.
In 1984 the French climber Lilliane Barrard became the first woman to climb Nanga Parbat, along with her husband Maurice Barrard.
In 1985, Jerzy Kukuczka, Zygmunt Heinrich, Slawomir Lobodzinski (all Polish) and Carlos Carsolio (Mexico) climbed a bold line up the Southeast Pillar (or Polish Spur) on the right-hand side of the Rupal Face, reaching the summit July 13. It was Kukuczka's 9th 8000m summit.[18]
Also in 1985, a Polish women's team climbed the peak via the 1962 German Diamir Face route. Wanda Rutkiewicz, Krystyna Palmowska and Anna Czerwinska reached the summit on July 15.[18]
"Modern" superalpinism was brought to Nanga Parbat in 1988 with an unsuccessful attempt or two on the Rupal Face by Barry Blanchard, Mark Twight, Ward Robinson and Kevin Doyle.[19]
2005 saw a resurgence of lightweight, alpine-style attempts on the Rupal Face:
In August 2005, Pakistani military helicopters rescued Slovenian mountaineer Tomaž Humar, who was stuck under a narrow ice ledge at 5,900 m (19,400 ft) for six days. It is believed to be one of the few successful rescues carried out at such high altitude.[20]
In September 2005, Vince Anderson and Steve House did an extremely lightweight, fast ascent of a new, direct route on the face, earning high praise from the climbing community.[21]
On July 17 or 18, 2006, José Antonio Delgado from Venezuela died a few days after reaching the summit, where he was caught by bad weather for six days and was unable to make his way down. He is the only Venezuelan climber, and one of few Latin Americans, to have reached the summit of five eight-thousanders.[22] Part of the expedition and the rescue efforts at base camp were captured on video, as Delgado was the subject of a pilot for a mountaineering television series.[22] Explorart Films, the production company, later developed the project into a feature documentary film called Beyond the Summit, which was scheduled to be released in South America in January 2008.[23]
On July 15, 2008, Italian alpinist Karl Unterkircher fell into a crevasse during an attempt to open a new route to the top with Walter Nones and Simon Kehrer. Unterkircher died, but Kehrer and Nones were rescued by the Pakistani army.[24]
On July 12, 2009, after reaching the summit, South Korean climber Go Mi-Young fell off a cliff on the descent in bad weather in her race to be the first woman to climb all 14 eight-thousanders.[25]
On July 15, 2012 Scottish mountaineers Sandy Allan and Rick Allen made the first ascent of Nanga Parbat via the 10 km-long Mazeno Ridge,[26] and in April 2013 were awarded the Piolet d'Or for their achievement.[
Winter climbing
Nanga Parbat has yet to be climbed in winter; 28 expeditions have tried this feat as of 2015.
Winter expeditions:
1988/89 - Polish 12-seater expedition KW Zakopane under the leadership of Maciej Berbeka. They first attempted the Rupal wall and then the Diamir wall. On the Messner route, Maciej Berbeka, Piotr Konopka and Andrzej Osika reached an altitude of about 6500-6800m.
1990/91 - Polish-English expedition under the leadership of Maciej Berbeka reached the height of 6600 m on the Messner route, and then Andrzej Osika and John Tinker by the Schell route up the Rupal wall reached a height of 6600m.
1991/92 - Polish expedition KW Zakopane under the leadership of Maciej Berbeka from the Rupal valley. This light, bold attack in alpine style on the Schell route reached the height of 7000 m.
1992/93 - French expedition Eric Monier and Monique Loscos - Schell route on the south-eastern Rupal wall. They came to BC on December 20. Eric reached January 9 6500 m. January 13 expedition has been completed.
1996/97 - two expedition: Polish expedition led by Andrzej Zawada from the Diamir valley, Kinshofer route. During the summit team Zbigniew Trzmiel and Krzysztof Pankiewicz, Trzmiel reached a height of 7800 m. The assault was interrupted because of frostbite. After descending to the base camp, both climbers were evacuated by helicopter to a hospital.
British expedition led by Victor Saunders, taking the Kinshofer route on the Diamir wall. Victor Saunders, Dane Rafael Jensen and Pakistani Ghulam Hassan reached the height of 6000m.
1997/98 - Polish expedition led by Andrzej Zawada from the Diamir valley, Kinshofer route. Expedition reached the height 6800 m, encountered an unusually heavy snowfall. A falling stone broke Ryszard Pawłowski's leg.
2004/05 - Austrian expedition brothers Wolfgang and Gerfried Göschl via the Kinshofer route on the Diamir wall reached the height of 6500m.
2006/07 - Polish HiMountain expedition from the Rupal by Schell route. Expedition led by Krzysztof Wielicki, with Jan Szulc, Artur Hajzer, Dariusz Załuski, Jacek Jawień, Jacek Berbeka, Przemysław Łoziński, and Robert Szymczak. Reached a height of 7000m.
2007/08 - Italian Simone La Terra started climbing solo at the beginning of December, reaching a height of 6000 m.
2008/09 - Polish expedition on the Diamir side. Jacek Teler (leader) and Jarosław Żurawski. Deep snow is not allowed to reach with luggage to the base of the wall, forcing the base camp five kilometers before. Assume camp I at an altitude of 5400 m.
2010/11 - two expedition: Sergei Nikolayevich Cygankow in a single expedition Kinshofer route on the Diamir wall reached the 6,000 m. Pulmonary edema ended the expedition.
Tomasz Mackiewicz and Marek Klonowski - Polish expedition "Justice for All - Nanga Dream" by Kinshofer route on the Diamir side. Reached 5100 m.
2011/12 - three expedition: Tomasz Mackiewicz, Marek Klonowski and "Krzaq" - Polish expedition "Justice for All - Nanga Dream" by Kinshofer route on the Diamir side. Reached 5500 m.
Denis Urubko and Simone Moro first Diamir side on the Kinshofer route, and then by Messner route in year 2000 reached a height of 6800 m.
2012/13 - four expeditions: alone Frenchman Joël Wischnewski on Rupal Face in an alpine style. He was lost in February, the body found in September at an altitude of about 6100 m.[28] He went missing after February 6 and was probably hit by an avalanche.[29]
Italy's Daniele Nardi and French Elisabeth Revol - Mummery Rib on the Diamir reached the height of 6450 m.
Hungarian-American expedition: David Klein, Zoltan Acs and Ian Overton. Zoltan has suffered frostbite while reaching the base and did not participate in the further ascent. David and Ian reached the Diamir wall height of about 5400 m.
Tomasz Mackiewicz and Marek Klonowski - Polish expedition "Justice for All - Nanga Dream" by Schell route on the south-eastern wall of the Rupal. Marek Klonowski reached a height of 6600 m. February 7, 2013 Tomasz Mackiewicz in a lone attack reached a height of 7400 m.
2013/14 - four expeditions: Italian Simone Moro, Germany David Göttler and Italy Emilio Previtali - by Rupal wall on the Schell route. Expedition cooperated with Polish expedition. David Göttler on February 28, founded the camp 4 at about 7000 m, March 1, together with Tomasz Mackiewicz reached an altitude of about 7200 m. On the same day David and Simone decided to end the expedition.[30]
Tomasz Mackiewicz, Marek Klonowski, Jacek Teler, Paweł Dunaj, Michał Obrycki, Michał Dzikowski - Polish expedition "Justice for All - Nanga Dream" by Schell route on the south-eastern wall of the Rupal. Expedition cooperated with Italian-German expedition. March 1, Tomasz Mackiewicz and David Göttler reached an altitude of about 7200 m. March 8 at a height of about 5,000 m on the Paweł Dunaj and Michał Obrycki avalanche hit. Both were roughed up and suffered fractures. The rescue operation was successful.
German Ralf Dujmovits Diamir wall, by Reinhold Messner route in 1978 (as a filmmaker this expedition Pole Dariusz Załuski - he had no plan of summit attack). December 30 both came at 5500 m. Jan. 2 because of the threat serac Dujmovits decided to complete the expedition.
Italy's Daniele Nardi. Solo expedition from the Diamir side on Mummery Rib. Italy founded the camp I on the 4900. Reached an altitude of about 5450 m. March 1 decided to end the expedition.
2014/15 - four expeditions: Pole Tomasz Mackiewicz and Frenchwoman Elisabeth Revol - Nanga Parbat Winter Expedition 2014/2015. The north-west Diamir wall, unfinished road Messner-Hanspeter 2000. They reached 7800m.[31]
Italian Daniele Nardi planning the trip solo summit Mummery Rib on the Diamir wall, accompanied by Roberto Delle Monache (photographer) and Federico Santinii (filmmaker)
4-seater Russian expedition - Nikolay Totmjanin, Sergei Kondraszkin, Valery Szamało, Victor Smith - Schell route on the Rupal Wall. They reached 7150m.[32]
3-person expedition Iran - Reza Bahador, Iraj Maani and Mahmoud Hashemi
Taliban attack
On June 23, 2013, about 15 extremist militants wearing Gilgit Scouts uniforms shot to death ten foreign climbers (one Lithuanian, three Ukrainians, two Slovakians, two Chinese, one Chinese-American and one Nepali)[33] and one Pakistani guide at Base Camp. Another foreign victim was injured. The attack occurred at around 1AM and was claimed by a local branch of the Taliban. (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan).[
References in popular culture
Books
In the first chapter of Mistress of Mistresses, by E.R. Eddison, the narrator compares his now deceased compatriot, Lessingham, to Nanga Parbat in a descriptive passage:
"I remember, years later, his describing to me the effect of the sudden view you get of Nanga Parbat from one of those Kashmir valleys; you have been riding for hours among quiet richly wooded scenery, winding up along the side of some kind of gorge, with nothing very big to look at, just lush, leafy, pussy-cat country of steep hillsides and waterfalls; then suddenly you come round a corner where the view opens up the valley, and you are almost struck senseless by the blinding splendour of that vast face of ice-hung precipices and soaring ridges, sixteen thousand feet from top to toe, filling a whole quarter of the heavens at a distance of, I suppose, only a dozen miles. And now, whenever I call to mind my first sight of Lessingham in that little daleside church so many years ago, I think of Nanga Parbat." (Mistress of Mistresses, 1935, p.2-3)
Jonathan Neale wrote a book about the 1934 climbing season on Nanga Parbat called Tigers of the Snow. He interviewed many old Sherpas, including Ang Tsering, the last man off Nanga Parbat alive in 1934. The book attempts to narrate what went wrong on the expedition, set against mountaineering history of the early twentieth century, the background of German politics in the 1930s, and the hardship and passion of life in the Sherpa valleys.[36]
Movies
Nanga Parbat is a movie by Joseph Vilsmaier about the 1970 expedition of brothers Günther Messner and Reinhold Messner.[37]
Donald Shebib's 1986 film The Climb covers the story of Hermann Buhl making the first ascent.[38] Seven Years in Tibet features Nanga parbat.
Comics
Nanda Parbat is a fictional city in the DC Comics universe, patterned after the fictional Shangri-La and the real Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.
Nearby peaks
Rakhiot Peak
Chongra Peak
Mazeno Peak
Rupal Peak
Laila Peak (Rupal Valley)
Shaigiri
A beautiful and calm, early morning sceen along one of the #tributaries of the #AmazonRiver! The Amazon River is a place you must visit if you ever have the opportunity! There are many #TreasuresOfTraveling to explore in #Iquitos and the surrounding #Peruvian #Rainforest so make sure to add this area of #Peru to your list of places to visit! treasuresoftraveling.com/jungle-expedition-in-the-amazon-...
Double rainbow gracefully arcs over the serene Minho River, flowing through Eiras, O Rosal in Galicia, Spain. The river reflects the vibrant colors of the rainbow amidst a peaceful landscape of surrounding hills. Dense, dark green foliage lines the shores, providing a lush backdrop under an overcast sky. The hills in the distance are gently rolling, with a mix of trees and open grassland, enhancing the natural beauty of this picturesque setting.
WATERS SURROUNDING THE KOREAN PENINSULA (March 31, 2016) An MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter attached to Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron (HM) 14 prepares to land aboard a Republic of Korea Navy Wonson-class minelayer ROKS Wonson (MLS 560) during exercise Foal Eagle, March 31. Foal Eagle is a series of joint and combined field training exercises conducted by Combined Forces Command (CFC) and U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) ground, air, naval and special operations component commands. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Nick Scott/Released).
Bent old iron railings surrounding the front garden of a period town-house in Farnham. Managed to capture a brief splash of sun.
That's month 1 of 12 complete on the 365. Really enjoyed it so far (most days!).
Over 50 years in the industry and after 100 jobs Barbie had a rare one on one interview with Type01 to clear out recent issues that’s been surrounding the most hated doll in the world.
Type01: Hi Barbie thank you for giving us the time, we know you are very busy.
Barbie: Thank you no problem I love my fans that’s why I’m here.
T: I’m going to make it fast don’t worry,Barbie how are you?
B: I’m o key, I’m doing well just a bit tired. I just came from shooting Life in the dream house, and we just wrap up and finally releasing the next wave of the glam lux fashion and I’m also working on my next movie “Barbie and the secret door” or whatever the title is.
T: To say you are busy seem to be an understatement.
B: Yes I guess I’m busy but I’m thankful that I’m doing what I’m doing, I have been in the industry for almost 50 years and its just amazing.
T: Yes 50 years that’s a long time in doll years but what can you say about the rumors that well Barbie your brand is not doing very well now and is now being over powered by Monster High, Ever After High and of course Bratz.
Barbie took a long pause…
B: I know people are saying a lot of things, that’s why it hurts me that even though im working so hard people have always something mean to say. MH and EAH are my babies they are like sisters to me, so I’m happy for the success but it also hurts that we came from the same company and yet people are making us fight.
T: How about the issue of your outdated and sometimes crazy fashion, poor quality and half print clothes?
B: I know that was an issue before and honestly until now, that’s why me and my team are working hard to address the issue, that’s the same reason why we launched the glam lux fashion line is to once again tell my fans that I’m still here I’m still in fashion.
T: How about Bratz have you finally settled the issue about it?
Again another long pause and Barbie gave out a long sigh and fix her disheveled hair…
B: You know what I have learn a lot form that experience and its just sad that it had to be like this, Bratz came from a good place and its just unfortunate that it had to end like this with us, I know that she also gone through some changes now and all I can say is that I’m happy for her.
T: So no more drama between you guys?
B: Let’s just move on to better things that’s all I can say.
T: Another doll has recently came out Lamily have you heard about her? They claim that shes going to promote realistic look , body lifestyle for girls what can you say about this?
B: I have heard about it and its just….how do I say it without..um I think we can all be who we want to be, my life I know is really over the top glittered crazy but I think the value is that girls and boys can dream with me with my life, it’s a fantasy…I don’t really want to you know, just wish her luck.
T: why do you think there is so much hate and scrutiny in your life?
B: I really don’t know what to say about that I try to be a good positive example but…
T: Barbie my next question is a bit sensitive and like what I said let’s just clear it all…Is Chelsea really your daughter?
With the last question Barbie seemed to tense up a little bit, she called her assistant that was patiently waiting from the side and whispered a few words. She later stood up and shook my hand and jets off outside to the waiting paparazzi. Her assistant later emailed me this statement.
“ A lot of mean things has been said about my past but I think the people forget the good things that I have done as well, I have been inspiring kids to dream and be who they want to be for 50 years, and above all I think people should focus on that and not about the rumors about my life.” – Barbie
I was confused and shock about what happened, I thought she agreed that we will talked about everything but I guess as perfect her life might be as we see it on her movies and tv shows its not easy being the most hated doll in the world.
(I hope you guys don't mind this is just all play and I hope you take it in tongue and cheek just like how barbie is)
I gave her a fish tail and forgot to take it out for a few days and this si the result I love it, she still have some of the hair material on her hair thats why maybe it stayed that way. I like it, what do you think?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlovsk_Palace
Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by Paul I of Russia in Pavlovsk, near Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna. The palace and the large English garden surrounding it are now a Russian state museum and public park.
Creation
In 1777 The Empress Catherine II of Russia gave a parcel of a thousand hectares of forest along the winding Slavyanka River, four kilometers from her residence at Tsarskoye Selo, to her son and heir Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna, to celebrate the birth of their first son, the future Alexander I of Russia.
At the time the land was given to Paul and Maria Feodorovna, there were two rustic log lodges in the called 'Krik' and 'Krak.' Paul and his wife spent the summers of 1777 to 1780 in Krik, while their new homes and the garden were being built.
They began by building two wooden buildings, one kilometer apart. Paul's house, a two-story house in the Dutch style, with small gardens, was called "Marienthal", or the "Valley of Maria." Maria's house was a small wooden house with a cupola, flower beds, named "Paullust", or "Paul's Joy." Paul and Maria Feodorovna began to create picturesque "ruins", a Chinese kiosk, Chinese bridges and classical temples in the English landscape garden style which had spread rapidly across Europe in the second half of the 18th century.
In 1780, Catherine the Great loaned her official architect, the Scotsman Charles Cameron, to design a palace on a hillside overlooking the Slavyanka River, near the site of Marienthal.
Cameron had studied under English architect Isaac Ware, who was close to the architect of Chiswick House, the villa of Lord Burlington one of the earliest and finest Palladian houses in England. Through this connection Cameron became familiar with the original plans of Palladio, which were in the personal collection of Lord Burlington. This style was the major influence on Cameron when he designed Pavlovsk.
Cameron began his project not with the palace itself but with two classical pavilions. The first was the Temple of Friendship, a circular Dorian temple with sixteen columns supporting a low dome, containing a statute of Catherine the Great. It was placed at a bend of the Slavyanka River, below the future palace, and was surrounded by silver poplars and transplanted Siberian pines. The second was the Apollo Colonnade, a double row of columns with an entablature, forming a setting for a reproduction of a reproduction of the Belvedere Apollo. It was placed at the entrance of the park, and it was made of porous limestone with a coarse finish the surfaces to suggest that they had been aged by centuries of weather. At the same time the Slavyanka River was dammed, to create a lake which would mirror the facade of the palace above.
Maria Feodorovna also insisted in having several rustic structures which recalled the palace where she grew up at Étupes, forty miles from Basel, in what was then the Duchy of Württemberg and today is in Alsace. Cameron constructed a small Swiss chalet with a library; a dairy of rough stones with a thatched roof, where milk products were kept and prepared, and an aviary in the form of a small classical temple with metal netting between the Dorian columns, which was filled with nightingale, goldfinch, starling and quail.
For the palace itself, Cameron conceived a country house which seems to have been based on a design of Palladio shown in a woodcut in his book Quattro libri dell'architectura, for the Villa Tressino at Meledo in Italy. This same drawing was later used by Thomas Jefferson in his design for the University of Virginia. The palace he designed had a cube-shaped central block three stories high with a low dome supported by sixty-four columns. On either side of the building were two single story colonnades of curved open winged galleries connected to service buildings one and a half stories high. Each facade of the palace was decorated with molded friezes and reliefs.
In September 1781, as construction of the Pavlovsk Palace began, Paul and Maria set off on a journey to Austria, Italy, France and Germany. They traveled under the incognito of "The Count and Countess of the North". During their travels they saw the palaces and French gardens of Versailles and Chantilly, which strongly influenced the future appearance of Pavlovsk Park. King Louis XVI presented them with four Gobelins tapestries, Marie Antoinette presented Maria Feodorovna with a sixty-piece toilet set of Sèvres porcelain, and they ordered more sets of porcelain and purchased statues, busts, paintings, furniture and paintings, all for Pavlovsk. While they traveled, they kept in contact almost daily with Kuchelbecker, the supervisor of construction at Pavlovsk, sending back and forth drawings, plans and notes on the smallest details.[6]
Paul and Maria Feodorovna returned in November 1782, and they continued to fill Pavlovsk with art objects. A shipment of antique marbles, statues, busts, urns, and pottery discovered and purchased at Pompei, arrived in 1783. Sixteen sets of furniture, over two hundred pieces, were ordered from Paris between 1783 and 1785 for the State Rooms. In 1784, twelve Hubert Robert landscapes were commissioned for Pavlovsk. The couple purchased ninety-six clocks from Europe. The Imperial Glass factory, made special chandeliers for each room.
In the midst of the construction, and tensions grew between her and Cameron; Cameron was used to the unlimited budget for materials given him by Catherine the Great, while Catherine gave very little money to Paul; and Cameron was annoyed by the furniture, tapestries and fireplaces brought back from Europe by Maria Feodorovna without consulting him. Maria Feodorovna in turn was annoyed by the bright polychrome decoration and Pompeian arabesques used by Cameron, and wanted more delicate colors, and Paul did not like anything that resembled the style of his mother's house, the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo.
The tensions led to a parting in 1786. Cameron left to build a new palace for Catherine in the Crimea. He had finished entry vestibule and the five rooms of the private apartments. The work of decorating the interior was taken over by an Italian architect, Vincenzio Brenna, from Florence, who had come to Russia in 1783. Brenna designed interiors which reflected Paul's taste for Roman classicism. He created the white and gold Halls of War and Peace, on either side of the Greek Hall by Cameron, which had a colonnade of green false marble columns, resembling a Greek temple. He made the Italian hall into a replica of a Roman temple, and he built the State Bedroom for Maria Feodorovna as an imitation of the state bedroom of the King of France, with a huge gilded bed, and cream silk wallpaper painted in tempura with colorful flowers, fruit, musical instruments and gardening tools.
Catherine the Great died in 1796, and Paul became Emperor. He decided to enlarge Pavlovsk into a palace suitable for a royal residence, adding two new wings on either side of the main building, and a church attached to the south wing. Between 1797 and 1799, he lavished money and the finest materials on Brenna's interiors.
The reign of Emperor Paul did not last long. He alienated the nobles, and became increasingly fearful of conspiracies. His fears were justified; the Emperor Paul was murdered by members of his court in 1801, and his son Alexander became Emperor. Pavlovsk Palace became the residence of the Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828), the mother of both Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. She turned the house into a memorial to her murdered husband, filled with his furniture and portraits, and made the house a showcase for finest 18th century French furnishings, paintings, sculpture and porcelain.
Another disaster struck Pavlovsk in 1803; a fire caused by a defective chimney destroyed a major part of the interior of the palace, including all the decor of the State Apartments and living rooms. Most of the furniture was saved, along with some door panels, fireplaces and mirrors, but most of the Palace had to be rebuilt.
Maria Feodorovna brought Cameron and Brenna's young assistant, the Italian architect Carlo Rossi, to help restore the Palace. She also employed a Russian architect, Andrei Voronykhin, who had been born a serf, and was trained in decoration and design, who rose to become the architect of Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Voronykhin was named chief architect of Pavlovsk by Maria Feodorovna. He brought back the architect Quarenghi, who had redecorated five rooms on the main floor, to recreate his work. He remade some of the rooms, such as the Tapestry Room and the State Bedroom, exactly as they had been, but for other rooms he added decoration inspired by Roman models discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum; Roman-style lamps, furniture, Roman couches, and chairs copied after those of Roman senators. Following the French taste of the time for Egyptian art, he added black Egyptian statues in the entry vestibule of the Palace, He also redesigned the Greek and Italian halls, replacing the molding on the walls with false marble, and he added a Russian touch; fireplaces faced with Russian lapis-lazuli and jasper, which had originally been in the Mikhailovsky Palace that Paul had built in St. Petersburg. Voronykhin also made plans for a semi-circular library in one of the wings, which was later built by Carlo Rossi, and he redesigned the private apartments of Maria Feodorovna on the ground floor, which included a library, boudoir and bedroom. He installed French doors and large windows in the apartment, so the flower garden outside seemed to be part of the interior.[7]
In 1805 Voronykhin built the Centaur bridge in the park, and the Visconti bridge, which crossed the Slavyanka at a point it was filled with water lilies. His last construction in the park was the Rose Pavilion, built in 1811, a simple structure surrounded entirely by rosebushes. The Rose Pavilion was the site of a grand fete on July 12, 1814, celebrating the return of Alexander I to St. Petersburg after the defeat of Napoleon. For the occasion the architect Pietro de Gottardo Gonzaga built a ballroom the size of the Rose Pavilion itself in just seventeen days, and surrounded it with huge canvases of Russian villagers celebrating the victory. The ball inside the pavilion opened with a Polonaise led by Alexander and his mother, and ended with a huge display of fireworks.
In her later years Maria Feodorovna had a literary salon at Pavlovsk, which was frequented by the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, the fable writer Ivan Krylov, and the historian Nikolai Karamzin.
The last great St. Petersburg architect to work at Pavlovsk was Carlo Rossi, who in 1824 designed the library, which contained more than twenty thousand books as well as collections of rare coins and butterflies. He also designed the Corner Salon, where Maria Feodorovna received guests such as the first American Ambassador to Russia, John Quincy Adams, and the Lavender Room, whose walls were made of lilac-colored false marble, matching the lilac flowers outside the windows. These rooms were furnished with furniture made of native Russian woods, including Karelian birch, poplar and walnut.
Maria Feodorovna died on October 24, 1828, fourteen days after her sixty-seventh birthday. She left the house to her younger son, Michael, and specified that none of the furniture should be taken away. After Michael's death, it went to the second son of Nicholas I, Constantine Nikolayevich. It then passed to his widow and then their eldest son, Constantine Constantinovich. Her descendants respected the will, and turned the house into a family museum, just as it was when she died.
After the Russian Revolution
At the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the eldest son of Constantine Constantinovich, Prince Jean, along with his wife Helen, the daughter of the King of Serbia, and the sister of Constantine, Queen Olga of Greece, were living in one of the wings of Pavlovsk. As the political situation deteriorated, they left, and the house was left to the care of Alexander Polovotsoff, director of the Art Institute and the Museum of Applied Arts in St. Petersburg, When Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, Polovtsoff went to the Winter Palace, found Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Commissar of Enlightenment of the new government, and demanded that Pavlovsk be saved as a museum. Lunacharsky agreed and named him Commissar Curator of Pavlovsk. He returned to the Palace and found that a group of revolutionary sailors had searched the Palace for weapons and taken a few sabers, but otherwise everything was in its place. He hired former soldiers to guard the house, put all the furniture into the main building, made an inventory of all the treasures in the Palace, and successfully resisted demands from various revolutionary committees for dishes, chairs, tables, and all the books from the library. He was able to persuade Lunacharsky himself to come to Pavlovsk, After Lunacharsky's visit, Pavlovsk was officially confiscated, but turned into a museum, open to the public two or three days a week. Having succeeded in saving the Palace, Polovtsoff took family and belongings and slipped across the border to Finland and moved to Paris.
World War II
The German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the swiftness of the German advance took the Soviet government by surprise. The morning after the attack, the curators of Pavlovsk, under the direction of museum curator Anatoliy Kuchumov, began to pack as many of art objects as possible, starting with the Sèvres porcelain toilet set given by Louis XVI to Maria Feodorovna and Paul in 1780. Ninety-six hours after the announcement of the beginning of the war, the first thirty-four crates were being carried from the palace by horse-drawn cart. Boards were put over the windows, and sand on the floor of the Palace. The thirty curators often worked by candlelight, and by July there were air raids. The paintings, chandeliers, crystal, porcelain, rare furniture, and works of ivory and amber were packed and sent first. They worked with great care – each piece of furniture had to be carefully dismantled, porcelain vases had to be separated from the bases, and delicate clocks had to have their casing and mechanisms separated and packed separately, with diagrams on how to put them back together. One piece of each set of furniture was saved, and the others left behind. The Roman and Greek antiquities were too heavy and delicate to move, so they were taken to the basements, placed as close together as possible, and then hidden by a brick wall.
By the third week of August thirteen thousand objects, plus all the documentation, had been packed and sent away. Some crates were sent to Gorky, others to Sarapul, and the last group, on August 20, 1941, went to Leningrad, where the crates were stored in the basement of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The last shipment included the chandelier from the Italian Hall and the jasper vases from the Greek Hall. On August 30, the last rail link from Leningrad to Moscow was cut, and the city was under blockade. By August 28 the Germans were fifty kilometers from Pavlovsk. A Soviet division headquarters was located in one wing of the palace,
As the Germans came closer, the park and Palace came under bombardment. The museum staff began to bury the statues which were too heavy to evacuate. They calculated that the Germans would not dig deeper than one meter eighty centimeters, so they buried all the statues as deep as three meters. The statues of the Three Graces were buried three meters beneath the private garden of Maria Feodorovna. Their calculations were correct; the statues were still there after the war. On September 16, the last soldiers left, and the Germans occupied Pavlovsk Palace, which was still occupied by a group of elderly women guardians.
The Germans occupied Pavlovsk palace for two and a half years. Officers were quartered in the salons on the first floor, and the ballroom was made into a garage for cars and motorcycles. Barracks were located in the north wing and a hospital in the south wing. German soldiers, Dutch soldiers and Spanish soldiers in special units of the German army occupied the buildings in the Park. The sculpture and furniture that remained in the house and all the books of the Rossi Library were taken to Germany. The statue of Emperor Paul in the courtyard was used as a telephone pole. Fortunately the Germans did not discover the antiquities hidden behind the brick wall in the basement.
Pavlovsk was liberated on January 24, 1944. When the Soviet troops arrived, the Palace had already been burning for three days. The main building of the Palace was a hollow shell, without a roof or floors. The north wall had fallen. Most of the parquet floors of the palace had been used as firewood; a few pieces were found in unburned portions of the palace near the stoves. Of the over one hundred thousand trees that had been in the park before the War, seventy thousand had been cut down or destroyed by the shelling. All the decorative bridges in the park had been blown up. Eight hundred bunkers had been dug in the park. The Rose Pavilion was gone; the Germans had used the materials to construct a fortified dugout.
Restoration
On February 18, 1944, a meeting was held at the House of Architects in Leningrad to discuss the fate of the ruined Palaces. The academician and architect Aleksei Shchusev, who had designed the Lenin Mausoleum, called for the immediate reconstruction of the Palaces. "If we do not do this", he said, "we who know and remember these palaces in all their glory as they were, then the next generation will never be able to reconstruct them." [11] Even before the war had ended, the Soviet government decided to restore Pavlovsk and the other ruined palaces around Leningrad.
First the mines had to be cleared from the ruins and palace and the park. Then the remaining walls were supported with scaffolding, and casts were made of the remaining molding. Fragments of plaster molding were collected, sorting, and casts made. The color of paint still on the remaining walls was carefully noted for later copying. Photographs and early plans of the palace were brought together to help with the restoration.
As soon as the war ended, a search began for treasures stolen from the Palace. Curators collected pieces of furniture, fabric, the legs of tables and pieces of doors and gilded cornices from the German fortifications around the Palace. In the buildings which had been German headquarters, they found chairs, marble statues and rolled-up paintings from the Palace. They found other furniture and objects as far away as Riga, Tallinn, and in Konigsberg, in Germany.
Some precious objects from Pavlovsk left Russia even before the war. Four Gobelins tapestries from Pavlovsk were sold by the Soviet Government to J. Paul Getty, and are now on display in the Getty Museum in Malibu, California.[12]
The restorers used only the original variants of the architectural decoration; those created by Cameron, Brenna, Voronykhin, and Rossi. The only changes permitted were to use modern materials. Columns made of wood were replaced by poured concrete or bricks, and the ceilings of the Italian and Greek Halls were made of steel and concrete so they would be fireproof.
A special school, the Mukhina Leningrad Higher Artistic Industry School, was created in Leningrad to teach the arts of restoring architectural details, furniture, and art objects. This school produced a corps of restoration experts who worked on all the palaces around Leningrad.
The work was meticulous and difficult, and proceeded very slowly. In 1950, after six years of planting new trees, parts of the Park opened to the public. In 1955, the restoration of the facade of the Palace was completed, and restoration of the interiors began.
Fortunately for the restorers, the original plans by Cameron, Brenna, Voronykhin and Rossi still existed. Also, fragments of the original interior molding, cornices, friezes and the frames for the carvings, bas-reliefs, medallions and paintings still remained, and could be copied. In addition, there were twenty-five hundred photographic negatives taken in the early century by Benois, and another eleven thousand photographs taken just before the war.[12]
The chief of the restoration, Feodor Oleinik, was insistent that all the restoration be faithful to the original work: "Pay attention and do not use later details", he demanded. "Only the original variant, only that done by Cameron, Brenna, Vornykhin, or Rossi." Old techniques of artisans of the 18th century, such as painting false marble and gilding furniture, had to be relearned and applied. A silk workshop was opened in Moscow to recreate the original woven fabrics for wall coverings and upholstery, copying the texture, color and thread counts of the originals. In forty rooms of the Palace, painted decoration on the walls and ceilings had to be precisely recreated in the original colors and designs. A Master painter and six helpers recreated the original trompe l'oeil ceilings and wall paintings.[13]
Once the interior walls and decoration had been exactly recreated, the next step was the furnishings. The twelve thousand pieces of furniture and art objects removed from their original places, from paintings and tapestries to water pitchers and glasses, had to be put back where they belonged. Furniture, doors, and parquet floors of many different colors of wood which had been burned or stolen were remade exactly like the originals. The crystal chandeliers of the 18th century were exactly copied.
In 1957, thirteen years after the Palace had been burned, the first seven rooms were opened to the public. In 1958, four more rooms were opened, and eleven more in 1960. The Egyptian Vestibule was finished in 1963, and the Italian Room opened in 1965. Eleven more rooms were ready by 1967. By 1977, on the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Palace, fifty rooms were finished, and the Palace looked again as it had in the time of Maria Feodorovna.
Based on the countryside surrounding the inland city of Goulburn, Australia, rural life in the 19th century seems to have included building a lot of small, local stone churches. As with this image’s subject–St Bartholomew’s Anglican Church at Windellama–photographing these old, purpose-built community focal points gets me thinking about what life in the localities that they serve might have been like, and what place worship would have had in the lives of the church members.
For this single-frame image, I used my Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens @ f/2.4, using an exposure time of 15 seconds @ ISO 6400.
Explored on Dec. 12--highest position #40
Bow Lake and the surrounding Canadian Rockies--home of the legendary mountain guide, Jimmy Simpson and the Num-ti-Jah lodge. To read about the fascinating history of this colorful individual and his dream of establishing a lodge for accommodating intrepid travelers, click here: www.num-ti-jah.com/history.html
The distinctive red roof of the Num-ti-jah lodge can be seen in the background.
View On Blackand in LARGE format
In 1920 Jimmy made application to the Parks Branch to lease five acres of land which included the spot at which he camped on his first trip up the Bow Valley in 1898. A small log building was completed on the site in 1922, and the plan was to use it in conjunction with his outfitting business. Because of the stunted trees at the high altitude of Bow Lake Jimmy designed an octagonally shaped building with sides of ten feet each. He named the building "Num-te-jah," the Indian word for pine marten. During the 1930's Jimmy's business operations shifted from Banff to Bow Lake. The building of the Banff-Jasper Highway during the depression years brought automobile traffic to the area and Jimmy found it necessary to begin a major expansion in 1937. This is the red-roofed building which is seen from the highway. The original building became Jimmy's personal residence and he spent his later years living in what became known as the "Ram's Pasture."
Jimmy continued actively guiding parties until the end of the Second World War when his son took over the business. He remained quite active at Num-te-Jah, enjoying his well-earned status as "Grand Old Man of the Mountains" until his death in 1972 at the age of 95. Two years later the mountain to the northwest of the lodge was named Mount Jimmy Simpson in his honour.
From the Bow Lake viewpoint we can reflect on Jimmy Simpson's words, "There is absolutely nothing in the city to give us the same feeling as the great, mysterious things of nature even though they be stone and ice. It is only among them that we feel the utter helplessness and insignificance of ourselves."
Icefields Parkway
Alberta, Canada