Was it something I said?

This was taken from the top of the Shires Shopping Centre in Leicester. They're demolishing a carpark (to expand the centre I think). Anyway, I used Canon's PhotoStitch to

join 3 separate photos. And then I just couldn't leave it alone, so I "populated" it (see tags). :O)

 

PaintShop Pro effects. Leicester. UK. October. 2006.

was in June 1992 that an unusual architectural manifesto was launched in Great Britain. For the next ten years or more, the manifesto entitled "Urban Villages, a concept for creating mixed-use urban developments on a sustainable scale" continued to make waves, and was much commented and criticised - often unfavourably - in the specialist and general media.

 

In the language of contemporary British town planning, the expression "urban village" has for many people come to be synonymous with the name "Poundbury", the neo-traditionalist suburban development on the fringes of the rural town of Dorchester, piloted and largely masterminded by the Prince of Wales. Yet although Poundbury is certainly the most extensively developed of Britain's urban village projects, there are many others throughout Britain, and the expression "urban villages" is also used in other English speaking countries to describe modern suburban developments - and in some cases rural developments - that conform (or more or les conform) to certain holistic principles of planning that run against the grain of accepted modern practices in suburban development.

This article takes a concise look at the origins of the "urban village" concept, and its definition, before studying the situation of urban village development in the UK today, looking at Poundbury and the other projects throughout the country that were in 2001 affiliated to the Urban Villages Forum, the think tank set up under the patronage of the Prince of Wales.

 

Indeed, no discussion of "urban villages" in a British context can begin without reference to the role of the Prince of Wales who, long dissatisfied by much of the dreary suburban development that has occurred in Britain during his lifetime, has used his position to spearhead the development of socially and architecturally successful sustainable communities designed to avoid the failures of the recent past.

 

The much-used expression "neo-traditionalist", imported from the United States, clearly establishes the conceptual framework that underlies the urban village movement; urban villages are seen as not just an architectural or planning concept, but one predicated on a form of social organisation that has its roots in a long-established model that has stood the test of time. In Britain, as in the United States, the aim of the proponents of urban villages is not just to design modern living environments that reflect those of a previous and supposedly more stable rural society, but to rediscover the forms of living environment that engendered the stability of such traditional rural communities. In this respect, the "urban village" is a concept that takes its place in a historic British - and notably English - paradigm that has previously been illustrated in the model towns of Lever, Cadbury and others, the garden cities of the first half of the twentieth century, and, in community terms at least, in late twentieth century developments such as Newcastle's Byker village.

The expression "urban village" seems however to be an American invention. The earliest bibliographical reference to the phrase would seem to be a book entitled Urban Village: Population, Community, and Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1683-1800, by Stephanie Grauman, published in 1980. Yet early usages of the expression do not refer to any specific planning concept, but are a more a convenient pairing of words used to describe certain types of close-knit urban communities whose structures reflected traditional rural models. The phrase was even used as a rendering of the Spanish expression "barrio". It was in the early eighties, however, that the first references to the "urban village" as a planning concept began to appear, in the writings of Christopher Leinberger, a Los Angeles based urban affairs consultant (Urban Villages: The Locational Lessons. Wall Street Journal. New York. November 13, 1984) and Charles Lockwood (The Arrival of the Urban Village in Princeton Alumni Weekly November 1986). Leinberger used the phrase "urban villages" to describe what he saw as a new tendency towards mixed-use development in suburban America, resulting from the fact that in post-industrial America, there was no longer any need to separate business and residential areas for environmental reasons (pollution, noise, etc.).

More recently, and notably in the 1990's, the phrase has been used sporadically in discussions of the American "new urbanism" movement, often by and with reference to neotraditionalist planners Leon Krier and the Andres Duany / Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk partnership; yet generally speaking, American writers and planners - until recently - have made considerably more use of the expression "new urbanism", rather than "urban village". The idea of the "village", with its notions of "community", seems to be particularly English, and it was only in the late 1990's, following the international interest aroused by the first of England's "urban villages", Poundbury, that the expression really began to become popular in the United States and Australia.

 

It was the Prince of Wales who introduced the concept of the "urban village" into the vocabulary of British planning; the expression is used briefly in his 1989 book A Vision of Britain (the follow up to a 1988 television documentary), though not at the time directly in conjunction with the Poundbury project, which is mentioned. It was also this book that clearly established the dual parentage of the urban village concept in the English acceptance of the phrase; on the one hand, the historic English village tradition, on the other hand the American neotraditionalist architectural planners, notably Krier and Duany. In the final pages of A Vision of Britain, a presentation of Krier's archetypal neotraditionalist development in Florida, the town of Seaside, covers a full five pages, compared to just two covering the development of "model villages" in the U.K. from Saltaire to the garden cities.

Yet clearly, however great the influence of Krier on Prince Charles has been, it is the historic English concept of the village, and the idealised view of village life, that form the theoretical models that the British proponents of the "urban village" have sought to translate into a modern idiom.

One may speculate as to whether Prince Charles, while thinking over the possibility of creating a planned modern urban village at Poundbury, on the outskirts of Dorchester, had read P.H.Ditchfield's 1908 book The Charm of the English Village, which had recently been reprinted (1985); there is a lot in this book, most notably perhaps its preoccupation with the small details, the use of materials, and the stylistic and functional variety that characterise traditional English villages, that prefigures the Prince's view of the model community. Along with many other publications, both Prince Charles's and Ditchfield's books are also woven on the loom of nostalgia for a supposed almost utopian past, common to the proponents of New Urbanism, and anathema to many modernists. In an article in Harvard Design Magazine in 1997, marxist geographer David Harvey, professor at Johns Hopkins university wrote :

"The New Urbanism in fact connects to a facile contemporary attempt to transform large and teeming cities, so seemingly out of control, into an interlinked series of 'urban villages', where, it is believed, everyone can relate in a civil and urbane fashion to everyone else."

Harvey, however was looking on new urbanism in the fundamentally North American idiom; and although, historically, many earlier settlers in the United States - notably in New England - transposed onto north American soil social models imitated from those of the English village, on the whole the American model was, by definition, different. Early American villages may not have been subject to the rectilinear grid planning of 19th century American towns and villages, but neither did they evolve slowly over time in the manner of the historic English village. In addition, America's "New Urbanism", as exemplified by Seaside, is rather different from the English "urban village" as first exemplified at Poundbury.

 

Ditchfield (1908) more than once stresses the particular nature of English villages, even as opposed to villages in other parts of Europe, referring to the particular social structure of the English village as the "village commonwealth", a structure that would more normally be referred to in modern terms as the "village community". It should be noted that the notion of "community" is a fundamental building block in the societies of modern English speaking countries, and is considerably more deeply rooted in the English tradition (and more broadly speaking the Germanic traditions) than in that of any newer country, or even of other European countries in which the structures of pre-industrial society had evolved out of Roman law.

Since the departure of the Romans, the village has been the core community unit in the British Isles. Though England long boasted, in London, Europe's largest city, and though Britain was the first European nation to undergo major population drift to the towns, the village has always survived - in thought, literature or art - as the ideal, and often idealised, social unit. In Roman times, cities became the nuclei of life in Britain; but after the Romans left, most of their great cities, with the exception of London, were largely abandoned, the British populations moving out to occupy new village sites outside the city walls or further afield; and whilst in continental western Europe the great cities of Roman times remained great cities after the Romans left, and in many cases remain so to this day, the same was not true in the British Isles.

In mediaeval Britain, the extensive devolution of power and authority under the Anglo-Norman feudal system - inherited from the Anglo Saxon period - and the territorial representation that existed in English parliaments from the late thirteenth century onwards, played their role in formulating, in the national psyche, an image of England as being a nation represented emblematically by its villages, rather than by its capital city. In the English mind, London has never been the nexus of national identity in the way that Paris has long been the symbol of France and French life. In Shakespeare, the quintessential images of English life are not those of Henry IV and Bolingbroke at court or on the battle field; they are those of Justice Shallow in his orchard in rural Gloucestershire.

The Industrial Revolution completed, by the mid nineteenth century, a process that had been set in motion by the Enclosures Acts of the eighteenth, precipitating Europe's first massive rural exodus, and with it a further pauperisation of the former rural labourers. It was during this period that poets, artists and novelists, from Blake to Constable to William Morris or Thomas Hardy, began to place rural England at the heart of English art and writing, often in an idealised manner that helped give a new impetus to the longstanding perception of the superiority of English rural society over urban society. The apparent immortality of the BBC's classic radio soap opera, the Archers, set in its fictitious village of Ambridge, is just another more modern illustration of the same point.

It is perhaps significant that Trevor Osborne, chairman of the Urban Villages Group, notes, in the introduction to Urban Villages, that "the term 'urban village' will not be readily understood in mainland Europe; when exported to other EC member states, it will need a different label." One might even add : "or to the USA".

 

It is clearly by another quirk of coincidence that the first English "Urban Village", Poundbury, should have been located on the outskirts of Dorchester, the town immortalised under the name of Casterbridge, in the novels of Thomas Hardy.

Proposals for a major expansion of Dorchester were first debated in 1987, and two years later outline planning permission for the westward extension of the town was granted by West Dorset District Council, for a mixed-use residential suburb that will eventually stretch over 400 acres (about 190 hectares). The initial development was to cover 35 acres of land.

Prince Charles was involved in the project from the start; the greenfield site on the outskirts of Dorchester was in effect his land, agricultural leasehold land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall. When the Dorchester council applied to the Duchy to purchase the land for development, the answer they received was more favourable than they had imagined possible. Not only would the Duchy make the land available for development, but Prince Charles himself would oversee the operation, with the aim of establishing an attractive mixed-use and socially mixed suburban development; Britain's first "urban village".

For many in the UK architectural and planning establishment, news that the Prince of Wales was to take charge of a major suburban development project was like a red rag to a bull. Relations between the Prince and many of Britain's leading architects and planners had been, to say the least, tense ever since the Prince had begun airing in public his none-too-complimentary opinions on the architecture and planning of the sixties and seventies. His famous description of Birmingham's new library as looking more like an incinerator than a place of learning, or his much quoted speech to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in 1984, when he described the proposed extension to London's National Gallery as being like a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend", had done little to endear him to the modernists in British architecture.

Consequently, and unsurprisingly, reactions to the initial proposals for Poundbury were not favourable, neither in the specialised reviews nor in the architectural columns of the British broadsheets. The project was decried variously as an exercise in retrophilia, a pastiche, an irrelevance, or worse.

That was in 1989; and it is true that Leon Krier's bird's-eye sketch of what Poundbury might look like, published at the time in A Vision of Britain (p138), does look more like a heteroclite exercise in nostalgia than a serious plan for a late twentieth century suburban development.

The reality of Poundbury has been somewhat different: with the first phase of building now complete, the earliest streets have already had time to mellow, and as an urban environment, the general consensus among both residents and the press is that this new "urban village" is a success. After its early hostile coverage, the British mainstream press - including the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Mirror and the Mail - has now changed tack, and since 1998 press coverage of the ever-evolving project has been largely positive.

Among the common complaints voiced by residents now is that Poundbury is a victim of its success, with large numbers of tourists and visiting architects and town planners who invade their space, sometimes in coachloads, turning their residential quarter into an unintended tourist attraction.

So why do they come? What is it that has established Poundbury as a stopping point on the architect's and town planner's tour of Britain in the early twenty-first century? Firstly, of course, there is its curiosity value - an unusual - some would still say eccentric - act of royal patronage, an experiment in suburban architecture and planning, masterminded by an amateur planner who is due to become the next King of England. Secondly they come to see how the ten point theory of the "urban village", laid out in the Vision of Britain, transforms into reality.

Over 22 pages, the book sets out a list of "ten principles we can build upon" in order to create a successful modern urban living environment. These are as follows:

1. Place. That planners should understand the local environment, and design their projects to blend with it.

2. Hierarchy. That the design of buildings should always reflect their hierarchical position in the community, that "public buildings ought to proclaim themselves with pride", and others be designed in function of their value in society.

3. Scale. That buildings should bear relation to the human scale, and the scale of other buildings in an area.

4. Harmony. That buildings should blend harmoniously with others in the vicinity.

5. Enclosure. That spatial identity is of major importance, and that new developments should incorporate such public spaces as squares and courtyards

6. Materials. that building materials used should reflect the diversity of local traditions, and not conform to any national or international standard.

7. Decoration. That decorative craftsmanship should still be, as it always has been, a major feature of the urban environment.

8. Art. That artistic decoration has a major and a symbolic role to play in the enhancement of the urban environment, and that artists as well as architects should have a role to play in the designing of new living environments.

9. Signs and lighting. That these also contribute to the success of the built environment, not detract from it, and should therefore be put up with care and attention.

10. Community. That a successful community is a place where residents feel involved, and contribute to the planning and running of their environment.

 

While points 1 - 9 can be - and in the case of Poundbury, are being - ensured through the masterplan, point 10 cannot. A successful community can only be brought about by the people who live in it; and so far, in spite of the fact that Poundbury is still very much an ongoing project, those who live there are happy with their environment and, on the whole, consider it to be a successful community.

Besides the above ten points, which essentially concern the architectural and visual aspects of the environment in urban villages, there are other fundamental aspects that distinguish the urban village from other suburban or rural housing projects, aspects that are perhaps rather more fundamental than aesthetics. These are social mixity, and mixed use - together seen as preconditions for the creation of new sustainable communities.

As well as reflecting the ten principles, the masterplan for Poundbury was for a housing development that would include a seamless and indistinguishable mixture of owner-occupied dwellings and social housing. The mixed-use plan also called for the inclusion, within easy walking distance of the residential streets, of shops, workshops and factories, enabling residents to live and work in the community without the need for commuting.

 

In many details, the masterplan for Poundbury went against conventional planning orthodoxy. Its fundamental tenet, mixed use, ran counter to accepted zoning theory, which prefers to concentrate business in business parks, housing in housing estates, and shops in shopping centers.

As for social diversity, critics of the Poundbury plan argued that the type of home buyers wanting to buy in Poundbury would not wish to buy houses that shared a dividing wall with social housing units; it was also suggested that the densely-packed housing environment was out of keeping with the tastes and expectations of modern middle-class British house-buyers, more usually attracted by the ideal of detached houses in wrap-around gardens.

Others predicted that industry would not want to relocate in the middle, or even on the edge, of a residential area, and that in the end, Poundbury would end up as no more than a "glorified council estate".

So far at least, this has not been the case - which is exactly what its planners expected. Having conceived Poundbury as a carefully planned (or, in its critics' opinions, contrived) recreation of a traditional organically developed village, they did not expect to encounter the problems facing many other suburban developments.

Like the village, the urban village is conceived as a community of mixed housing, catering for all ages and income groups. At Poundbury, the first phase of housing consisted of 55 units of social housing, administered by a housing association, the Guinness Trust, and 141 freehold owner-occupier homes, as well as retail and commercial premises. By the time the development is completed, towards the year 2020, Poundbury will have between 2,000 and 3,000 housing units, with social housing accounting for about 20% of the total, in line with the national average.

 

The question that remains, however, is whether the model of Poundbury can be transposed into other settings, or whether the success of this rather middle-class development on the edge of a rather trouble-free county town in the heart of the Westcountry, can be replicated in other areas?

Following the media coverage - both positive and negative - given to the Poundbury project when it was first mooted in the late 1980's, a forum known as the Urban Villages Group was founded in 1989, at the Prince of Wales's behest, under the wing of Business in the Community, an organisation whose purpose is "to tackle economic, social and environmental issues affecting local communities" (Aldous, p8).

Among the founder members of the Group were Leon Krier, plus the chief executives of a number of property development companies, housing corporations, and the Managing Director of the Cooperative Bank. The aim of the Group was to encourage councils and property developers to take the urban village concept nationwide, as a viable - if slightly more costly - alternative to the monotonous standardized run-of-the-mill developments, the "edge cities" that have mushroomed, and will continue to mushroom, on the outskirts of most British urban areas.

 

As of January 2002, eighteen development projects across England are being carried out in partnership with the Prince's Foundation, according to "urban village" principles; none however is as advanced as Poundbury, and some, such as the Westoe Colliery project at South Shields and the Northwich city centre project, are still on the drawing board. Yet as the location of these two projects shows - one in the heart of the depressed northeast, and the other in the rundown centre of a Cheshire town - the "urban village" concept can be, and is being, applied in areas that are very different from semi-rural Dorset.

Only two other projects are listed, like Poundbury, as "urban extensions" on greenfield sites, one in Basdildon Essex, the other in Northampton; by far the majority of projects are "urban regeneration" projects on brownfield sites.

Some of these are in fact far removed from the "urban village" concept as illustrated by Poundbury. In particular, the Ancoats project in Manchester, the Jewellery quarter in Birmingham and the Little Germany redevelopment in the centre of Bradford appear more like classic industrial heritage preservation programmes, along the lines of the Albert Dock regeneration scheme in Liverpool, or the redevelopment of Butler's Wharf on the South Bank in London.

They are, however, different, inasmuch as these three projects, though they will never become villages in the sense that Poundbury can call itself a large village, have been conceived with the ethos of the urban village concept in mind, and not as just three more chic urban residential areas for the upwardly mobile.

Little Germany and the Jewelry Quarter are interesting cases, both being central urban areas which, in the past, had a clear spatial and social identity, the former as the fiefdom of Bradford's German cloth merchants, the latter as the densely populated network of small streets which housed both the homes and the workshops of Birmingham's hundreds of jewelers and watchmakers - a classic historic example of both mixed usage and a clearly defined urban quarter.

A hundred years ago, Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter provided employment for some 70,000 people – many of whom lived and worked in the quarter. Since then, the number of jobs in the sector has fallen by over 90%, and the residential population has all but disappeared. In 2000, the quarter harboured some 1,200 business, but only about 700 residents. The aim of the project is to redress this imbalance, and rekindle the vibrant community that existed at the start of the twentieth century.

The Ancoats Urban Village, in Manchester, is different - so different indeed that although Ancoats announces itself as an "urban village", the project's development manager herself is not convinced that it really is one.

"I feel uneasy about offering Ancoats as representative of the Urban Villages movement, as it does not conform to many of the criteria that the Urban Villages movement sets out, and although we are still members of the Prince's Foundation, I don't think they would suggest Ancoats as an example of their philosophy; we seem to spend most time disagreeing!" (Lyn Fenton, private letter of 02/01/02).

Ancoats prides itself for its place in urban history, as the world's first industrial suburb – an area in which 13,000 people once lived and worked; the targets of the Urban Village project are to bring people back to live in this historic industrial site, close to the centre of Manchester, through a programme of mixed use residential and business development. Classed as a conservation area in 1989, it is on the UK's short list for designation as a UNESCO world heritage site. In spite of the reservations of the developers, the targets set out in the Ancoats Supplementary Planning Guidance reflect the same principles as those adopted for Poundbury; the fact that this, as some other urban village sites, are not totally new-build areas, does not fundamentally change the perspective.

Naturally perhaps, it is not in Britain's great urban centres that other urban village projects closer to the Poundbury model can be found, but on the edges of Britain's smaller towns and cities, as the following two examples illustrate. The Westoe site in South Shields is being developed by Wimpey on the 17 hectare site of a disused colliery, as a high-density mixed-use and socially mixed suburb with up to 800 homes, its own school, shops and office premises. In Lancashire, the Luneside development at Lancaster, albeit smaller - 6 hectares - is being developed along similar lines.

 

Finally, although only 18 projects are affiliated to the Prince's Trust as recognised "urban village" developments, neither the Prince nor the trust has exclusive rights to the expression, and other new housing development projects elsewhere in Britain, are taking up the label in order to give themselves a certain cachet.

Indeed, the "urban village" approach to the design and planning of residential areas has now found its way into official UK government guidelines, a new guide from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions showing among its primary inspirations:

" the 'Urban Villages' movement in the UK and neo-traditional design generally. Indeed, the design philosophy promoted is essentially one of working with context, promoting pedestrian friendly environments, returning to traditional perimeter block systems, and - where possible - mixing uses." (DETR Website 2002)

The current popularity of the notion of the "urban village" in contemporary UK planning would tend to indicate that a sea change in planning theory has taken place in the UK since Prince Charles first launched his vision of Britain in 1989. Whether or not this will result in the recreation of something resembling the types of close-knit communities that existed in nineteenth century, or pre-Enclosures English villages, or even in twentieth century industrial villages, and whether "mixed usage" will really have any serious impact on the social habits of the British in the 21st century, other than reducing car usage, are different matters.

And in the end, it is perhaps of little matter in the context of this paper, in which I have set out to show the peculiarly high value attached to the word village in England, and the particularly strong belief that runs through English thought and culture, that the village - and notably the idealised village with its green spaces, flowered gardens, and friendly folk, is the finest possible form of spatial and social organisation - even in the resolutely urban society of the start of the third millennium. In this respect, the phrase "urban village" has readily come to be seen not as a contradiction in terms, but as a means of having one's cake and eating it, or at least getting the best of both worlds.

Bibliography

 

Aldous, Tony. Urban Villages, a concept for creating mixed-use urban developments on a sustainable scale, London, The Urban Villages Group 1992.

Ditchfield, P.H. The Charm of the English Village, 1908, reprinted London, Bracken Books, 1985,

Harvey, David. The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap, in Harvard Design Magazine, Winter/Spring 1997, no. 1.

Miller, Anthony. The role of Landscape Architecture in fostering community; Byker, a case study, in L'Espace Urbain Européen, Cahiers du Créhu 6. Annales littéraires de l'Université de Franche Comté 1996

Mumford, Lewis. T, The City in History, Secker & Warburg 1961, reprinted Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1973 &&.

Rossiter, Andrew. Retour à l'Utopie? Poundbury; redéfinir la banlieue en village urbain. In Ville et Utopie, Cahiers du Créhu no. 10, actes du Colloque. Presses Universitaires de Franche Comté, 2001.

Wales, Charles, Prince of. A Vision of Britain, a personal view of architecture. London, Doubleday, 1989

 

Webography:

Thandani, Diriu A. New Urbanism Bibliography, published by the Architectural Resources Network

periferia.org/publications/cnubibliography.html

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions:

www.planning.detr.gov.uk/livingplaces/02/03.htm

 

Copyright :

About-Britain academic : texts © Authors and About-Britain.com

Andrew Rossiter, Université de Franche Comté

From a paper presented at the International Symposium on Urban and Rural Britain at the University of Valenciennes, France, 2002

WWH33L was a Daimler Fleetline CRG6LXB / Park Royal H43/32F new as SELNEC 7175 in May 1973. It later passed to Greater Manchester and was a Bolton allocated bus. On disposal it passed to Fareway for use in Liverpool. Four ambitious Merseybus drivers mortgaged their houses and bought ten secondhand buses and started Fareway operating in the north of Liverpool. The company quickly grew to have a fleet of 70, offering a service very different from the public sector ethos of Merseybus, which was privatised in 1991 as an employee buy out. Fareway created a good image and won a large part of the north Liverpool market, so Merseybus bought Fareway and closed it down.

Was sitting in the 44 bus from Victoria Station to Tooting Station. Raining obviously, going along Battersea Park when that sudden moment of cinematic narrative jumped at me... Battersea Power Station in the rain. Obviously!

Strathalbyn.

A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.

 

Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.

 

From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:

Commercial Street/Dawson Street.

•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.

•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.

•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.

•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.

•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.

•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.

•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.

•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.

•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.

•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.

•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.

•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.

 

Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.

•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.

•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.

•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”

 

High Street.

•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.

•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.

•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.

•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.

 

Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.

•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.

•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.

•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.

•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.

•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.

•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.

 

Sadly this church was demolished in 2018 due to major structural problems.

 

We recently had all our old 8mm movie films digitized which had been filmed with a Bolex movie camera.

This picture was taken from a frame on the digitized movie film and enhanced.

The picture was taken in August 1965.

Metroline West (formerly First London (CentreWest), DEL2145, LK65 EAA (was LK15 CXX), Uxbridge/Bakers Road (UX)-based) at Uxbridge Station, Bakers Road, Uxbridge, London. Body no F206/1, delivered new 21/08/2015. Apologies for the mark on the left hand side of the photo, caused by a clump of sensor dust that got into one of the filters in my camera lens.

I was invited to model at the opening of new photo studios owned by three professional models (they were stunning), the photographer who invited me asked me to model four looks and in the end I did six changes and modelled for four other photographers as well. The studios are in a large country house, one of the owners greeted me and took me to the changing room, as I walked in I froze, there were four models aged late teens to mid/late twenties, I hadn't thought about this. I introduced myself and said 'l'm trans, if you prefer I can see if there's somewhere else I could use'. One girl whipped off her rhinestone thong and said 'it's not a problem' as she put on another without skipping a beat, the others said 'yeah, no problem' they were mainly doing lingerie shoots.

 

It was just like you imagine, at one time there were six of us doing our changes in a tiny room before dashing out for a shoot. It was so busy, I was there for six hours. We had a really good time and had such a laugh. At one point, Charlie, one of the owners popped into the toilet to adjust her contacts, one of the other girls came dashing in 'oh Charlie for goodness sake (she might have said something a bit different) l'm bursting fora wee, 'I'm not stopping you' so she dashed in and sat down, it took a couple of seconds to realise she actually was having a wee with the door wide open and having a three way conversation with Charlie and me, seems me being trans really wasn't a problem.

 

The difference a professional light system makes is amazing, the photographers would review their pictures with me when planning the next shoot, l can't wait to see the pictures.

 

At the end, Charlie gave me a little sweetie goody bag and a card and said they would love to see me back again

 

NB I got this and a few other low res pictures emailed to me, they must have been filtered, I don't look that good.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Nubdeb/Westf., no. 600. Photo: Warner Bros. Clark Gable in Band of Angels (Raoul Walsh, 1957). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

 

With his natural charm and knowing smile, Clark Gable (1901-1959) was 'The King of Hollywood' during the 1930s. He often portrayed down-to-earth, bravado characters with a carefree attitude, and was seen as the epitome of masculinity. Gable won an Academy Award for Best Actor for It Happened One Night (1934), and was nominated for leading roles in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and for his best-known role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).

 

William Clark Gable was born in 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania, where he stayed until he was two. His father then returned to take him back to Cadiz. At 16, he quit high school, went to work in an Akron, Ohio, tire factory, and decided to become an actor after seeing the play The Bird of Paradise. He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties. His acting coach Josephine Dillon, 15 years his senior, paid for him to have his teeth repaired and his hair styled. She also trained him to lower his voice and attain better body posture, attributes that that were instrumental in contributing to his later success and eventual iconic status. In 1924, with Dillon's financing, they went to Hollywood, where she became Gable's manager and first wife. He appeared as an extra in silent films between 1924 and 1926. However, he was not offered any major film roles, so he returned to the stage. While Gable acted on stage, he became a lifelong friend of Lionel Barrymore. He moved to New York City, where Dillon sought work for him on Broadway. He received good reviews in Machinal (1928). He gave an impressive appearance as the seething and desperate character Killer Mears in the Los Angeles stage production of The Last Mile. In 1930, Gable and Dillon divorced and a year later, he married Maria Langham (a.k.a. Maria Franklin Gable), also about 17 years older than him. After several failed screen tests, Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. He made his talking film debut as an archetypal villain named Brett in the Western The Painted Desert (Howard Higgin, 1931), starring William Boyd. Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in Dance, Fools, Dance (Harry Beaumont, 1931) and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (Clarence Brown, 1931) the same year. His unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust (Victor Fleming, 1932) made him MGM's most important star. His acting career then flourished. At one point, he refused an assignment, and the studio punished him by loaning him out to (at the time) low-rent Columbia Pictures, which put him in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) opposite Claudette Colbert. He won an Academy Award for his performance. The next year saw a starring role in Call of the Wild (William A. Wellman, 1935) with Loretta Young, with whom he had an affair (resulting in the birth of a daughter, Judy Lewis). He returned to far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd, 1935) and Rhett Butler in the Oscar-winning epic Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939).

 

After divorcing Maria Langham, Clark Gable married Carole Lombard in 1939, but tragedy struck in January 1942 when the plane in which Carole and her mother were flying crashed into Table Rock Mountain, Nevada, killing them both. A grief-stricken Gable joined the US Army Air Force and was off the screen for three years, flying combat missions in Europe. When he returned the studio regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract. He freelanced, but his films didn't do well at the box office. He starred in such films as The Hucksters (Jack Conway, 1947) and Homecoming (Mervyn LeRoy, 1948) with Lana Turner. He married Sylvia Ashley, the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, in 1949. Unfortunately this marriage was short-lived and they divorced in 1952. In July 1955 he married a former sweetheart, Kathleen Williams Spreckles (a.k.a. Kay Williams) and became stepfather to her two children, Joan and Adolph ("Bunker") Spreckels III. In 1959, Gable became a grandfather when Judy Lewis, his daughter with Loretta Young, gave birth to a daughter, Maria. In 1960, Gable's wife Kay discovered that she was expecting their first child. In early November 1960, he had just completed filming The Misfits (John Huston, 1961) with Marilyn Monroe, when he suffered a heart attack, and died later that month. Gable was buried shortly afterwards in the shrine that he had built for Carole Lombard and her mother when they died, at Forest Lawn Cemetery. In March 1961, Kay Gable gave birth to a boy, whom she named John Clark Gable after his father.

 

Sources Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Ruby was playing in the garden, looks like an angel,after she demolished the watering system

I was sorting through photos and realized I still have a number of shots from Costa Rica unprocessed. This Green Hermit had backed away from the feeder for a moment. Only a moment! She almost looks wingless here. Hard to imagine how fast those wings move!

When I go out shopping en femme, my main consideration is usually blending-in although wearing any type of dress or skirt runs counter to the prevailing trend. Yesterday's outfit was probably not in that blending-in category! Anyway, the only reaction I received was from the very cheerful sales assistant who said "You're very Summery". Every time I go out, I see more and more evidence that people are just too busy with their own lives and concerns to pay any attention to anyone else, including little old me!

 

This is a cool little spot near the entrance to the Everglades National Park. Good produce and smoothies.

Watteau was one of the most original and inventive artists of the eighteenth century. His life was short and plagued by illness yet his work would have a profound impact on the development of French art, exemplifying the delicacy and grace of the style known as Rococo. Fêtes Vénitiennes is an example of a genre that Watteau himself invented featuring elegant people in romantic landscape settings, often engaged in amorous pursuits. A new term, fête galante, was coined by the French Academy to describe this type of painting.

This was the longest escalator ride of my life

 

The world's highest escalators at the Umeda Sky Building, Osaka

 

If you like my pictures, please check out and like my new Facebook page (www.facebook.com/uddhavguptaphotography). I promise not to spam you and to post pictures over there first, before I post them here. Thanks! :)

Was looking thru some old photos, came across this one.

Backstory: Walked into a latenight Restaurant, and this guy was standing there shirtless, sunburned and he smiled at me. He proceeded to talk with me. I pulled my camera up to take a shot of this interesting character, and he flipped me a bird, in jest really, not in anger. He laughed right after this. I think he suffers from mental illness.. or rather, is completely an Appalachian guy, perhaps.. lacking social graces.. not that flipping a bird isn't uncommon or anything...giggle.

Death was the last doll I received. Her order was complicated by Doll Chateau who hadn't clearly indicated what was included in the purchase of one of their basic dolls. Due to delays and needing to reorder pieces that were left out, I wound up getting quite burnt out and shelving this project, generally quitting the BJD hobby altogether. Today I felt nostalgic, and after other plans had been canceled wound up with unexpected free time so Death was finally fully assembled! I am relieved I finally have my last doll ready to display with her sisters.

 

Now it's time for me to take a photo of the whole crew!

 

Credits:

Doll Chateau Christina on swan body with default headpiece

Faceup by Vita Vera

Glass eyes from Mint on Card

Dress by Souldoll

 

Today was such a lovely day that I couldn't resist going on a mini photoshoot! There's a pretty little stream near my house which I thought would be ideal :D

My wellies got soaked (one had a hole in!), my tights ruined, and my feet nearly turned to icicles; I had brilliant fun :D

 

This photo is really really not straight, mainly because my camera lens was balanced on a stick, but I think I kinda like it that way!

 

please view on black!

 

more like this to come...

Was not happy with the picture processed earlier in hurry, so I re-do.

The MtSac v Cerritos dual was held on 23 October 2019 at Mt. San Antonio College.

 

In his 13 years as the Cerritos College wrestling head coach, Donny Garriott has won a lot of matches. But one place he has had difficulty winning in conference play has been at Mt. San Antonio College, where he had lost his last five matches. But on Wednesday, the #2-ranked Falcons (10-0, 2-0) posted a 25-16 Southwest Conference win over the Mounties. It was the first conference win for Garriott and the Falcons at Mt. SAC since 2010, who now has a lifetime 13-8 record against the Mounties.

 

125 Pounds - Jonathan Prata (CERR) def. Connor Diamond (MSAC), 11-4

133 Pounds - Andres Gonzales (CERR) pinned Nicholas Weissinger (MSAC), 3:24

141 Pounds - Oscar Chirino (MSAC) pinned Stefano McKinney (CERR), 3:36

149 Pounds - V'ante Moore (CERR) def. Jimmy Adams (MSAC), 9-0

157 Pounds - Larry Rodriguez (CERR) win by forfeit

165 Pounds - Wetzel Hill (MSAC) def. Drake De La Cruz (CERR), 17-3

174 Pounds - Ian Vasquez (MSAC) def. Cobe Hatcher (CERR), 3-2

184 Pounds - Kevin Hope (MSAC) def. Jarrod Nunez (CERR), 10-6

197 Pounds - Hamzah Al-Saudi (CERR) def. Mellad Ayyoub (MSAC), 2-0

285 Pounds - Randy Arriaga (CERR) def. Jackson Clark (MSAC), 5-0

 

F424EJC was a Mercedes Benz 709D / Robin Hood DP25F purchased new by Crosville Wales as their MMM224 in July 1989. It passed to Arriva Cymru before purchase by Dickson's in 2000 and was loading outside Paisley Piazza shopping centre. It later passed to PD Travel.

This was the White Rose railtour that went from Axminster to York via Manchester Picadilly and the Woodhead line. 46012 took us to Crewe where 47214 replaced the 46. At Manchester the two 76s took us forward to Tinsley where 40093 took us forward to York and back to Sheffield.From there 47045 pulled the tour forward to Derby and the final leg was given over to 45071 arriving back in Exeter at 0113. A grand day out gromit.

When I was a young man living in Perth, Western Australia, my best friend was the incredibly talented, now New York fashion and iconic beauty photographer Patric Shaw. We were relentless in our pursuit of our photographic vision. Patric went to tech and studied visual arts including photography, and I went to uni and studied rocks. But we kept on shooting together.

 

Patric urged me to try a studio model shoot, as he loved them and I had little experience in the studio. We knew two spectacularly beautiful sisters, and I asked one of them, the absolutely wonderful, flawless beauty Michelle Dodd, to be my muse and model for a fashion shoot. I guess she was about 18 to my 20 years. She and I visited a bunch of boutiques and borrowed (yes, borrowed, no money was exchanged, all conducted on trust) a bunch of outfits. I can't remember who's studio it was (probably Perth School of Arts) but my records show that I shot 3 spectacular rolls of Agfapan (2 of 100 ASA and 1 of 400 ASA speed - that's ISO these days) on my trusty and even then ancient Nikon FT with a 50mm Nikkor attached. The negs were all developed in Rodinal (diluted 1:25 according to my notes).

 

We both smoked like chimneys way back then (didn't everyone?) and the shoot was a great success. The outfits were returned and we both felt great and wanted to work together again.

 

The shot above was printed in two sections on the biggest paper I could afford, mounted and made into an almost life size (5 foot long!) image. It was huge, and she was beautiful. It disappeared in one of my many Canberra house moves some years later, and I would love it to magically reappear if anyone knows its present whereabouts.

 

I would also love to get back in touch with my muse Michelle (or her sister, Karen) to send her a scanned portfolio of this session.

 

This was shot on Thursday, 5th May 1977. I wasn't even 21 yet, I can't believe it was so long ago.

 

This image was really difficult to scan and produce - scanned on my Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED with drivers suitably modified to allow it to still work in Windows 10 in the 64 bit environment. Because of the way it was lit, there is very little contrast between Michelle and the white seamless background (her outfit here was of course also white) I have slightly lifted her by changing the background brightness after masking her out - a really long and fiddly process.

 

I would love to know what you think of this fashion image shot 42 years ago. I might then process some more...

New Norcia.

The founder of this monastic town was Rosendo Salvado (1814-1900.) Salvado was born in Spain and became a

Benedictine monk, missionary and ordained priest from 1839. With Brother Serra he later sailed to Fremantle in January 1846 to set up a system of education for Aboriginal children. His mission at New Norcia was established in March 1846 and was named Norcia after the birthplace in Italy of St. Benedict. Hunger soon drove Brother Salvado back to Perth to give a one man piano concert to raise money for his mission. He returned to New Norcia with his bullock cart where he felled trees, ploughed, sowed and planted corn, vines for wine and established hives for honey. He set himself high standards of work which Brother Serra also met. The other monks were less able to work so hard. Brother Serra left the mission in 1848. Brother Salvado set about building an Abbey and a small village. He gathered the Murara and Victoria Plains Aboriginal people to the mission and began teaching them about Christianity. Through their spears and boomerangs he taught them the value and meaning of property and ownership. Soon his pupils were adept in animal husbandry, handicrafts, ploughing, horse husbandry and general farm work.

 

A papal decree gave Brother Salvado the title of Lord Abbot of New Norcia for life. After developing his mission for over fifty years Salvado died when he was visiting Rome in 1900. His remains were brought to WA for reburial in 1903 in the tomb of Carrara marble behind the altar in the church at New Norcia. His rule of New Norcia was followed by that of Abbot Fulgentious Torres, another Spanish brother. He brought with him eleven new recruits and set about transforming the mission station from a small village into a monastic town. He had erected two new boarding schools for the children of Catholic farming families and new accommodation for Aboriginal boarders. He added a campanile to the church. In 1904 he commissioned Teresian Sisters from Spain to run an Aboriginal girl’s orphanage. He invited Josephite Sisters to run the secondary college of St. Gertrude for Girls which was opened in 1908; and he enlisted the Marist Brothers to run St. Ildephonsus College for Boys which opened in 1913. Torres died in a Perth hospital in 1914 and was buried in New Norcia. As the mission expanded other services and structures were added to the settlement including a police station, a hotel, and a Post Office. They complemented the flourmill, the monastery, the abbey, the guesthouse, and the two colleges. Today the settlement also includes the museum and shop. You can walk around the complex and visit the cemetery and see the buildings or you can opt to join a tour of a particular building if available. You can join the monks for prayers in the Abbey Church at 12 pm (free) and you can have lunch in the New Norcia Hotel from noon or the roadhouse. Admission to the Museum, an essential place to visit, is $10 for concessions or $12. The Museum was formerly St. Joseph’s Aboriginal Girls Orphanage. Apart from the museum exhibits on Aboriginal education and the like, the art gallery part has some real treasures, including a cartoon by Renaissance artist Raphael. The European collection is mainly post Renaissance Spanish and Italian art but it has paintings by one Renaissance painter, Guido Reni 1575-1642. In 1986 the gallery was robbed and paintings damaged but they have all been returned and restored now. Such a collection of European art in the browned wheat belt of WA is so anachronistic and such a surprise. You can grab a map and do a 1.7 k walk along the creek if you want but the complex is large and interesting and takes considerable time for a mere amble.

 

Major Buildings at New Norcia.

The monastery. The current building is located on the site of the original 1847 monastery but it is now much changed and enlarged. This mainly occurred under Abbot Torres between 1903-1914. In the 19th century New Norcia’s Aboriginal population was often around 130 people but by the time of Abbott Torres (1903) this had declined substantially. He saw the need to revitalise the monastic community by adding colleges for farming boys and girls. New Norcia currently has about 10 monks and a workforce of about 50 people including members of several Aboriginal families who still live on the hill overlooking the Benedictine community. There is no access to the monastery which is where the monks live.

The Abbey Church. This fine building was made from local stones, mud plaster and rough-hewn tree trunks and wooden shingles. It opened in 1861 but has been added to several times. Abbot Torres altered the Georgian style of the church in 1908 by giving the façade a Spanish Baroque appearance. The church contains a massive pipe organ brought from Germany. Abbot Salvado’s tomb is in the church and the walls are adorned with European paintings.

St. Ildelphonsus Boys School. Opened in 1913 this boy’s college was of a simpler design than the girl’s college as the monastery was running low on funds by then. It is a revival of a Romanesque style with rounded windows, good symmetry and small turrets along the roofline. The statue in front of the building is of the founder of the Marist Brothers, Blessed Marcellin Champagnat.

St. Gertrude’s Girls School. This Gothic Revival building was opened in 1908. The Josephite sisters used the college as their convent as well. In 1970 the girl’s college amalgamated with the boy’s college as a co-educational boarding college, Salvado College. This in turn ceased operations in 1991. St. Gertrude’s is now used for weekend and conference accommodation.

New Norcia Hotel. Hospitality is an important part of the Benedictine tradition and the word “slave” on the front steps of the hotel means “welcome.” This imposing structure with a massive internal divided staircase was designed by Father Urbane Gimenez and built in 1927 as a hostel for parents visiting their children in either of the two boarding schools in the monastic compound. It is a great and atmospheric place for lunch.

 

With the rain falling harder, it was a bit of a route march to Holborn and my next church, the stunning St Sepulchre, which was also open.

 

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

 

St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holborn), is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey. In medieval times it stood just outside ("without") the now-demolished old city wall, near the Newgate. It has been a living of St John's College, Oxford, since 1622.

 

The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. During the Crusades in the 12th century the church was renamed St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre, in reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The name eventually became contracted to St Sepulchre.

 

The church is today the largest parish church in the City. It was completely rebuilt in the 15th century but was gutted by the Great Fire of London in 1666,[1] which left only the outer walls, the tower and the porch standing[2] -. Modified in the 18th century, the church underwent extensive restoration in 1878. It narrowly avoided destruction in the Second World War, although the 18th-century watch-house in its churchyard (erected to deter grave-robbers) was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt.

 

The interior of the church is a wide, roomy space with a coffered ceiling[3] installed in 1834. The Vicars' old residence has recently been renovated into a modern living quarter.

 

During the reign of Mary I in 1555, St Sepulchre's vicar, John Rogers, was burned as a heretic.

 

St Sepulchre is named in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as the "bells of Old Bailey". Traditionally, the great bell would be rung to mark the execution of a prisoner at the nearby gallows at Newgate. The clerk of St Sepulchre's was also responsible for ringing a handbell outside the condemned man's cell in Newgate Prison to inform him of his impending execution. This handbell, known as the Execution Bell, now resides in a glass case to the south of the nave.

 

The church has been the official musicians' church for many years and is associated with many famous musicians. Its north aisle (formerly a chapel dedicated to Stephen Harding) is dedicated as the Musicians' Chapel, with four windows commemorating John Ireland, the singer Dame Nellie Melba, Walter Carroll and the conductor Sir Henry Wood respectively.[4] Wood, who "at the age of fourteen, learned to play the organ" at this church [1] and later became its organist, also has his ashes buried in this church.

 

The south aisle of the church holds the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and its gardens are a memorial garden to that regiment.[5] The west end of the north aisle has various memorials connected with the City of London Rifles (the 6th Battalion London Regiment). The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre-without-Newgate

 

The Early History of St. Sepulchre's—Its Destruction in 1666—The Exterior and Interior—The Early Popularity of the Church—Interments here—Roger Ascham, the Author of the "Schoolmaster"—Captain John Smith, and his Romantic Adventures—Saved by an Indian Girl— St. Sepulchre's Churchyard—Accommodation for a Murderess—The Martyr Rogers—An Odd Circumstance—Good Company for the Dead—A Leap from the Tower—A Warning Bell and a Last Admonition—Nosegays for the Condemned—The Route to the Gallows-tree— The Deeds of the Charitable—The "Saracen's Head"—Description by Dickens—Giltspur Street—Giltspur Street Compter—A Disreputable Condition—Pie Corner—Hosier Lane—A Spurious Relic—The Conduit on Snow Hill—A Ladies' Charity School—Turnagain Lane—Poor Betty!—A Schoolmistress Censured—Skinner Street—Unpropitious Fortune—William Godwin—An Original Married Life.

 

Many interesting associations—Principally, however, connected with the annals of crime and the execution of the laws of England—belong to the Church of St. Sepulchre, or St. 'Pulchre. This sacred edifice—anciently known as St. Sepulchre's in the Bailey, or by Chamberlain Gate (now Newgate)—stands at the eastern end of the slight acclivity of Snow Hill, and between Smithfield and the Old Bailey. The genuine materials for its early history are scanty enough. It was probably founded about the commencement of the twelfth century, but of the exact date and circumstances of its origin there is no record whatever. Its name is derived from the Holy Sepulchre of our Saviour at Jerusalem, to the memory of which it was first dedicated.

 

The earliest authentic notice of the church, according to Maitland, is of the year 1178, at which date it was given by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, to the Prior and Canons of St. Bartholomew. These held the right of advowson until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII., and from that time until 1610 it remained in the hands of the Crown. James I., however, then granted "the rectory and its appurtenances, with the advowson of the vicarage," to Francis Phillips and others. The next stage in its history is that the rectory was purchased by the parishioners, to be held in fee-farm of the Crown, and the advowson was obtained by the President and Fellows of St. John the Baptist College, at Oxford.

 

The church was rebuilt about the middle of the fifteenth century, when one of the Popham family, who had been Chancellor of Normandy and Treasurer of the King's Household, with distinguished liberality erected a handsome chapel on the south side of the choir, and the very beautiful porch still remaining at the south-west corner of the building. "His image," Stow says, "fair graven in stone, was fixed over the said porch."

 

The dreadful fire of 1666 almost destroyed St. Sepulchre's, but the parishioners set energetically to work, and it was "rebuilt and beautified both within and without." The general reparation was under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, and nothing but the walls of the old building, and these not entirely, were suffered to remain. The work was done rapidly, and the whole was completed within four years.

 

"The tower," says Mr. Godwin, "retained its original aspect, and the body of the church, after its restoration, presented a series of windows between buttresses, with pointed heads filled with tracery, crowned by a string-course and battlements. In this form it remained till the year 1790, when it appears the whole fabric was found to be in a state of great decay, and it was resolved to repair it throughout. Accordingly the walls of the church were cased with Portland stone, and all the windows were taken out and replaced by others with plain semi-circular heads, as now seen—certainly agreeing but badly with the tower and porch of the building, but according with the then prevailing spirit of economy. The battlements, too, were taken down, and a plain stone parapet was substituted, so that at this time (with the exception of the roof, which was wagon-headed, and presented on the outside an unsightly swell, visible above the parapet) the church assumed its present appearance." The ungainly roof was removed, and an entirely new one erected, about 1836.

 

At each corner of the tower—"one of the most ancient," says the author of "Londinium Redivivum," "in the outline of the circuit of London" —there are spires, and on the spires there are weathercocks. These have been made use of by Howell to point a moral: "Unreasonable people," says he, "are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of St. Sepulchre's tower, which never look all four upon one point of the heavens." Nothing can be said with certainty as to the date of the tower, but it is not without the bounds of probability that it formed part of the original building. The belfry is reached by a small winding staircase in the south-west angle, and a similar staircase in an opposite angle leads to the summit. The spires at the corners, and some of the tower windows, have very recently undergone several alterations, which have added much to the picturesqueness and beauty of the church.

 

The chief entrance to St. Sepulchre's is by a porch of singular beauty, projecting from the south side of the tower, at the western end of the church. The groining of the ceiling of this porch, it has been pointed out, takes an almost unique form; the ribs are carved in bold relief, and the bosses at the intersections represent angels' heads, shields, roses, &c., in great variety.

 

Coming now to the interior of the church, we find it divided into three aisles, by two ranges of Tuscan columns. The aisles are of unequal widths, that in the centre being the widest, that to the south the narrowest. Semi-circular arches connect the columns on either side, springing directly from their capitals, without the interposition of an entablature, and support a large dental cornice, extending round the church. The ceiling of the middle aisle is divided into seven compartments, by horizontal bands, the middle compartment being formed into a small dome.

 

The aisles have groined ceilings, ornamented at the angles with doves, &c., and beneath every division of the groining are small windows, to admit light to the galleries. Over each of the aisles there is a gallery, very clumsily introduced, which dates from the time when the church was built by Wren, and extends the whole length, excepting at the chancel. The front of the gallery, which is of oak, is described by Mr. Godwin as carved into scrolls, branches, &c., in the centre panel, on either side, with the initials "C. R.," enriched with carvings of laurel, which have, however, he says, "but little merit."

 

At the east end of the church there are three semicircular-headed windows. Beneath the centre one is a large Corinthian altar-piece of oak, displaying columns, entablatures, &c., elaborately carved and gilded.

 

The length of the church, exclusive of the ambulatory, is said to be 126 feet, the breadth 68 feet, and the height of the tower 140 feet.

 

A singularly ugly sounding-board, extending over the preacher, used to stand at the back of the pulpit, at the east end of the church. It was in the shape of a large parabolic reflector, about twelve feet in diameter, and was composed of ribs of mahogany.

 

At the west end of the church there is a large organ, said to be the oldest and one of the finest in London. It was built in 1677, and has been greatly enlarged. Its reed-stops (hautboy, clarinet, &c.) are supposed to be unrivalled. In Newcourt's time the church was taken notice of as "remarkable for possessing an exceedingly fine organ, and the playing is thought so beautiful, that large congregations are attracted, though some of the parishioners object to the mode of performing divine service."

 

On the north side of the church, Mr. Godwin mentions, is a large apartment known as "St. Stephen's Chapel." This building evidently formed a somewhat important part of the old church, and was probably appropriated to the votaries of the saint whose name it bears.

 

Between the exterior and the interior of the church there is little harmony. "For example," says Mr. Godwin, "the columns which form the south aisle face, in some instances, the centre of the large windows which occur in the external wall of the church, and in others the centre of the piers, indifferently." This discordance may likely enough have arisen from the fact that when the church was rebuilt, or rather restored, after the Great Fire, the works were done without much attention from Sir Christopher Wren.

 

St. Sepulchre's appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity from the earliest period of its history, if one is to judge from the various sums left by well-disposed persons for the support of certain fraternities founded in the church—namely, those of St. Katherine, St. Michael, St. Anne, and Our Lady—and by others, for the maintenance of chantry priests to celebrate masses at stated intervals for the good of their souls. One of the fraternities just named—that of St. Katherine— originated, according to Stow, in the devotion of some poor persons in the parish, and was in honour of the conception of the Virgin Mary. They met in the church on the day of the Conception, and there had the mass of the day, and offered to the same, and provided a certain chaplain daily to celebrate divine service, and to set up wax lights before the image belonging to the fraternity, on all festival days.

 

The most famous of all who have been interred in St. Sepulchre's is Roger Ascham, the author of the "Schoolmaster," and the instructor of Queen Elizabeth in Greek and Latin. This learned old worthy was born in 1515, near Northallerton, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Cambridge University, and in time rose to be the university orator, being notably zealous in promoting what was then a novelty in England—the study of the Greek language. To divert himself after the fatigue of severe study, he used to devote himself to archery. This drew down upon him the censure of the all-work-and-no-play school; and in defence of himself, Ascham, in 1545, published "Toxophilus," a treatise on his favourite sport. This book is even yet well worthy of perusal, for its enthusiasm, and for its curious descriptions of the personal appearance and manners of the principal persons whom the author had seen and conversed with. Henry VIII. rewarded him with a pension of £10 per annum, a considerable sum in those days. In 1548, Ascham, on the death of William Grindall, who had been his pupil, was appointed instructor in the learned languages to Lady Elizabeth, afterwards the good Queen Bess. At the end of two years he had some dispute with, or took a disgust at, Lady Elizabeth's attendants, resigned his situation, and returned to his college. Soon after this he was employed as secretary to the English ambassador at the court of Charles V. of Germany, and remained abroad till the death of Edward VI. During his absence he had been appointed Latin secretary to King Edward. Strangely enough, though Queen Mary and her ministers were Papists, and Ascham a Protestant, he was retained in his office of Latin secretary, his pension was increased to £20, and he was allowed to retain his fellowship and his situation as university orator. In 1554 he married a lady of good family, by whom he had a considerable fortune, and of whom, in writing to a friend, he gives, as might perhaps be expected, an excellent character. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, she not only required his services as Latin secretary, but as her instructor in Greek, and he resided at Court during the remainder of his life. He died in consequence of his endeavours to complete a Latin poem which he intended to present to the queen on the New Year's Day of 1569. He breathed his last two days before 1568 ran out, and was interred, according to his own directions, in the most private manner, in St. Sepulchre's Church, his funeral sermon being preached by Dr. Andrew Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's. He was universally lamented; and even the queen herself not only showed great concern, but was pleased to say that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her tutor Ascham, which, from that somewhat closehanded sovereign, was truly an expression of high regard.

 

Ascham, like most men, had his little weaknesses. He had too great a propensity to dice and cock-fighting. Bishop Nicholson would try to convince us that this is an unfounded calumny, but, as it is mentioned by Camden, and other contemporary writers, it seems impossible to deny it. He died, from all accounts, in indifferent circumstances. "Whether," says Dr. Johnson, referring to this, "Ascham was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and among us it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature." His most valuable work, "The Schoolmaster," was published by his widow. The nature of this celebrated performance may be gathered from the title: "The Schoolmaster; or a plain and perfite way of teaching children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue. … And commodious also for all such as have forgot the Latin tongue, and would by themselves, without a schoolmaster, in short time, and with small pains, recover a sufficient habilitie to understand, write, and speak Latin: by Roger Ascham, ann. 1570. At London, printed by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate," a printer, by the way, already mentioned by us a few chapters back (see page 208), as having printed several noted works of the sixteenth century.

 

Dr. Johnson remarks that the instruction recommended in "The Schoolmaster" is perhaps the best ever given for the study of languages.

 

Here also lies buried Captain John Smith, a conspicuous soldier of fortune, whose romantic adventures and daring exploits have rarely been surpassed. He died on the 21st of June, 1631. This valiant captain was born at Willoughby, in the county of Lincoln, and helped by his doings to enliven the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. He had a share in the wars of Hungary in 1602, and in three single combats overcame three Turks, and cut off their heads. For this, and other equally brave deeds, Sigismund, Duke of Transylvania, gave him his picture set in gold, with a pension of three hundred ducats; and allowed him to bear three Turks' heads proper as his shield of arms. He afterwards went to America, where he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Indians. He escaped from them, however, at last, and resumed his brilliant career by hazarding his life in naval engagements with pirates and Spanish men-of-war. The most important act of his life was the share he had in civilising the natives of New England, and reducing that province to obedience to Great Britain. In connection with his tomb in St. Sepulchre's, he is mentioned by Stow, in his "Survey," as "some time Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England."

 

Certainly the most interesting events of his chequered career were his capture by the Indians, and the saving of his life by the Indian girl Pocahontas, a story of adventure that charms as often as it is told. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, relates how, during the early settlement of Virginia, Smith left the infant colony on an exploring expedition, and not only ascended the river Chickahominy, but struck into the interior. His companions disobeyed his instructions, and being surprised by the Indians, were put to death. Smith preserved his own life by calmness and self-possession. Displaying a pocket-compass, he amused the savages by an explanation of its power, and increased their admiration of his superior genius by imparting to them some vague conceptions of the form of the earth, and the nature of the planetary system. To the Indians, who retained him as their prisoner, his captivity was a more strange event than anything of which the traditions of their tribes preserved the memory. He was allowed to send a letter to the fort at Jamestown, and the savage wonder was increased, for he seemed by some magic to endow the paper with the gift of intelligence. It was evident that their captive was a being of a high order, and then the question arose, Was his nature beneficent, or was he to be dreaded as a dangerous enemy? Their minds were bewildered, and the decision of his fate was referred to the chief Powhatan, and before Powhatan Smith was brought. "The fears of the feeble aborigines," says Bancroft, "were about to prevail, and his immediate death, already repeatedly threatened and repeatedly delayed, would have been inevitable, but for the timely intercession of Pocahontas, a girl twelve years old, the daughter of Powhatan, whose confiding fondness Smith had easily won, and who firmly clung to his neck, as his head was bowed down to receive the stroke of the tomahawks. His fearlessness, and her entreaties, persuaded the council to spare the agreeable stranger, who could make hatchets for her father, and rattles and strings of beads for herself, the favourite child. The barbarians, whose decision had long been held in suspense by the mysterious awe which Smith had inspired, now resolved to receive him as a friend, and to make him a partner of their councils. They tempted him to join their bands, and lend assistance in an attack upon the white men at Jamestown; and when his decision of character succeeded in changing the current of their thoughts, they dismissed him with mutual promises of friendship and benevolence. Thus the captivity of Smith did itself become a benefit to the colony; for he had not only observed with care the country between the James and the Potomac, and had gained some knowledge of the language and manners of the natives, but he now established a peaceful intercourse between the English and the tribes of Powhatan."

 

On the monument erected to Smith in St. Sepulchre's Church, the following quaint lines were formerly inscribed:—

 

"Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings,

Subdued large territories, and done things

Which to the world impossible would seem,

But that the truth is held in more esteem.

Shall I report his former service done,

In honour of his God, and Christendom?

How that he did divide, from pagans three,

Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry?—

For which great service, in that climate done,

Brave Sigismundus, King of Hungarion,

Did give him, as a coat of arms, to wear

These conquered heads, got by his sword and spear.

Or shall I tell of his adventures since

Done in Virginia, that large continent?

How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,

And made those heathens flee, as wind doth smoke;

And made their land, being so large a station,

An habitation for our Christian nation,

Where God is glorified, their wants supplied;

Which else for necessaries, must have died.

But what avails his conquests, now he lies

Interred in earth, a prey to worms and flies?

Oh! may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,

Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep,

Return to judgment; and that after thence

With angels he may have his recompense."

 

Sir Robert Peake, the engraver, also found a last resting-place here. He is known as the master of William Faithorne—the famous English engraver of the seventeenth century—and governor of Basing House for the king during the Civil War under Charles I. He died in 1667. Here also was interred the body of Dr. Bell, grandfather of the originator of a well-known system of education.

 

"The churchyard of St. Sepulchre's," we learn from Maitland, "at one time extended so far into the street on the south side of the church, as to render the passage-way dangerously narrow. In 1760 the churchyard was, in consequence, levelled, and thrown open to the public. But this led to much inconvenience, and it was re-enclosed in 1802."

 

Sarah Malcolm, the murderess, was buried in the churchyard of St. Sepulchre's in 1733. This coldhearted and keen-eyed monster in human form has had her story told by us already. The parishioners seem, on this occasion, to have had no such scruples as had been exhibited by their predecessors a hundred and fifty years previous at the burial of Awfield, a traitor. We shall see presently that in those more remote days they were desirous of having at least respectable company for their deceased relatives and friends in the churchyard.

 

"For a long period," says Mr. Godwin (1838), "the church was surrounded by low mean buildings, by which its general appearance was hidden; but these having been cleared away, and the neighbourhood made considerably more open, St. Sepulchre's now forms a somewhat pleasing object, notwithstanding that the tower and a part of the porch are so entirely dissimilar in style to the remainder of the building." And since Godwin's writing the surroundings of the church have been so improved that perhaps few buildings in the metropolis stand more prominently before the public eye.

 

In the glorious roll of martyrs who have suffered at the stake for their religious principles, a vicar of St. Sepulchre's, the Reverend John Rogers, occupies a conspicuous place. He was the first who was burned in the reign of the Bloody Mary. This eminent person had at one time been chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp, and while residing in that city had aided Tindal and Coverdale in their great work of translating the Bible. He married a German lady of good position, by whom he had a large family, and was enabled, by means of her relations, to reside in peace and safety in Germany. It appeared to be his duty, however, to return to England, and there publicly profess and advocate his religious convictions, even at the risk of death. He crossed the sea; he took his place in the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross; he preached a fearless and animated sermon, reminding his astonished audience of the pure and wholesome doctrine which had been promulgated from that pulpit in the days of the good King Edward, and solemnly warning them against the pestilent idolatry and superstition of these new times. It was his last sermon. He was apprehended, tried, condemned, and burned at Smithfield. We described, when speaking of Smithfield, the manner in which he met his fate.

 

Connected with the martyrdom of Rogers an odd circumstance is quoted in the "Churches of London." It is stated that when the bishops had resolved to put to death Joan Bocher, a friend came to Rogers and earnestly entreated his influence that the poor woman's life might be spared, and other means taken to prevent the spread of her heterodox doctrines. Rogers, however, contended that she should be executed; and his friend then begged him to choose some other kind of death, which should be more agreeable to the gentleness and mercy prescribed in the gospel. "No," replied Rogers, "burning alive is not a cruel death, but easy enough." His friend hearing these words, expressive of so little regard for the sufferings of a fellow-creature, answered him with great vehemence, at the same time striking Rogers' hand, "Well, it may perhaps so happen that you yourself shall have your hands full of this mild burning." There is no record of Rogers among the papers belonging to St. Sepulchre's, but this may easily be accounted for by the fact that at the Great Fire of 1666 nearly all the registers and archives were destroyed.

 

A noteworthy incident in the history of St. Sepulchre's was connected with the execution, in 1585, of Awfield, for "sparcinge abrood certen lewed, sedicious, and traytorous bookes." "When he was executed," says Fleetwood, the Recorder, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, July 7th of that year, "his body was brought unto St. Pulcher's to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a traytor's corpse to be laid in the earth where their parents, wives, children, kindred, masters, and old neighbours did rest; and so his carcass was returned to the burial-ground near Tyburn, and there I leave it."

 

Another event in the history of the church is a tale of suicide. On the 10th of April, 1600, a man named William Dorrington threw himself from the roof of the tower, leaving there a prayer for forgiveness.

 

We come now to speak of the connection of St. Sepulchre's with the neighbouring prison of Newgate. Being the nearest church to the prison, that connection naturally was intimate. Its clock served to give the time to the hangman when there was an execution in the Old Bailey, and many a poor wretch's last moments must it have regulated.

 

On the right-hand side of the altar a board with a list of charitable donations and gifts used to contain the following item:—"1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave, for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services the sexton is paid £16s. 8d.—£50.

 

It was formerly the practice for the clerk or bellman of St. Sepulchre's to go under Newgate, on the night preceding the execution of a criminal, ring his bell, and repeat the following wholesome advice:—

 

"All you that in the condemned hold do lie,

Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;

Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near

That you before the Almighty must appear;

Examine well yourselves, in time repent,

That you may not to eternal flames be sent.

And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,

The Lord above have mercy on your souls.

Past twelve o'clock!"

 

This practice is explained by a passage in Munday's edition of Stow, in which it is told that a Mr. John Dowe, citizen and merchant taylor of London, gave £50 to the parish church of St. Sepulchre's, under the following conditions:—After the several sessions of London, on the night before the execution of such as were condemned to death, the clerk of the church was to go in the night-time, and also early in the morning, to the window of the prison in which they were lying. He was there to ring "certain tolls with a hand-bell" appointed for the purpose, and was afterwards, in a most Christian manner, to put them in mind of their present condition and approaching end, and to exhort them to be prepared, as they ought to be, to die. When they were in the cart, and brought before the walls of the church, the clerk was to stand there ready with the same bell, and, after certain tolls, rehearse a prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for the unfortunate criminals. The beadle, also, of Merchant Taylors' Hall was allowed an "honest stipend" to see that this ceremony was regularly performed.

 

The affecting admonition—"affectingly good," Pennant calls it—addressed to the prisoners in Newgate, on the night before execution, ran as follows:—

 

"You prisoners that are within,

Who, for wickedness and sin,

 

after many mercies shown you, are now appointed to die to-morrow in the forenoon; give ear and understand that, to-morrow morning, the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre's shall toll for you, in form and manner of a passing-bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death; to the end that all godly people, hearing that bell, and knowing it is for your going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow his grace and mercy upon you, whilst you live. I beseech you, for Jesus Christ's sake, to keep this night in watching and prayer, to the salvation of your own souls while there is yet time and place for mercy; as knowing to-morrow you must appear before the judgment-seat of your Creator, there to give an account of all things done in this life, and to suffer eternal torments for your sins committed against Him, unless, upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance, you find mercy through the merits, death, and passion of your only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return to Him."

 

And the following was the admonition to condemned criminals, as they were passing by St. Sepulchre's Church wall to execution:—" All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll.

 

"You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask mercy of the Lord, for the salvation of your own souls, through the [merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him.

 

"Lord have mercy upon you;

Christ have mercy upon you.

Lord have mercy upon you;

Christ have mercy upon you."

 

The charitable Mr. Dowe, who took such interest in the last moments of the occupants of the condemned cell, was buried in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate.

 

Another curious custom observed at St. Sepulchre's was the presentation of a nosegay to every criminal on his way to execution at Tyburn. No doubt the practice had its origin in some kindly feeling for the poor unfortunates who were so soon to bid farewell to all the beauties of earth. One of the last who received a nosegay from the steps of St. Sepulchre's was "Sixteen-string Jack," alias John Rann, who was hanged, in 1774, for robbing the Rev. Dr. Bell of his watch and eighteen pence in money, in Gunnersbury Lane, on the road to Brentford. Sixteen-string Jack wore the flowers in his button-hole as he rode dolefully to the gallows. This was witnessed by John Thomas Smith, who thus describes the scene in his admirable anecdotebook, "Nollekens and his Times:"—" I remember well, when I was in my eighth year, Mr. Nollekens calling at my father's house, in Great Portland Street, and taking us to Oxford Street, to see the notorious Jack Rann, commonly called Sixteenstring Jack, go to Tyburn to be hanged. … The criminal was dressed in a pea-green coat, with an immense nosegay in the button-hole, which had been presented to him at St. Sepulchre's steps; and his nankeen small-clothes, we were told, were tied at each knee with sixteen strings. After he had passed, and Mr. Nollekens was leading me home by the hand, I recollect his stooping down to me and observing, in a low tone of voice, 'Tom, now, my little man, if my father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, had been high constable, we could have walked by the side of the cart all the way to Tyburn.'"

 

When criminals were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, the cart passed up Giltspur Street, and through Smithfield, to Cow Lane. Skinner Street had not then been built, and the Crooked Lane which turned down by St. Sepulchre's, as well as Ozier Lane, did not afford sufficient width to admit of the cavalcade passing by either of them, with convenience, to Holborn Hill, or "the Heavy Hill," as it used to be called. The procession seems at no time to have had much of the solemn element about it. "The heroes of the day were often," says a popular writer, "on good terms with the mob, and jokes were exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged and the men who deserved to be."

 

"On St. Paul's Day," says Mr. Timbs (1868), "service is performed in St. Sepulchre's, in accordance with the will of Mr. Paul Jervis, who, in 1717, devised certain land in trust that a sermon should be preached in the church upon every Paul's Day upon the excellence of the liturgy o the Church of England; the preacher to receive 40s. for such sermon. Various sums are also bequeathed to the curate, the clerk, the treasurer, and masters of the parochial schools. To the poor of the parish he bequeathed 20s. a-piece to ten of the poorest householders within that part of the parish of St. Sepulchre commonly called Smithfield quarter, £4 to the treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 6s. 8d. yearly to the clerk, who shall attend to receive the same. The residue of the yearly rents and profits is to be distributed unto and amongst such poor people of the parish of St. Sepulchre's, London, who shall attend the service and sermon. At the close of the service the vestry-clerk reads aloud an extract from the will, and then proceeds to the distribution of the money. In the evening the vicar, churchwardens, and common councilmen of the precinct dine together."

 

In 1749, a Mr. Drinkwater made a praiseworthy bequest. He left the parish of St. Sepulchre £500 to be lent in sums of £25 to industrious young tradesmen. No interest was to be charged, and the money was to be lent for four years.

 

Next to St. Sepulchre's, on Snow Hill, used to stand the famous old inn of the "Saracen's Head." It was only swept away within the last few years by the ruthless army of City improvers: a view of it in course of demolition was given on page 439. It was one of the oldest of the London inns which bore the "Saracen's Head" for a sign. One of Dick Tarlton's jests makes mention of the "Saracen's Head" without Newgate, and Stow, describing this neighbourhood, speaks particularly of "a fair large inn for receipt of travellers" that "hath to sign the 'Saracen's Head.'" The courtyard had, to the last, many of the characteristics of an old English inn; there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble, the tired passengers creeping forth "thanking their stars in having escaped the highwaymen and the holes and sloughs of the road." Into that courtyard how many have come on their first arrival in London with hearts beating high with hope, some of whom have risen to be aldermen and sit in state as lord mayor, whilst others have gone the way of the idle apprentice and come to a sad end at Tyburn! It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited upon the Yorkshire schoolmaster Squeers, of Dotheboys Hall. Mr. Dickens describes the tavern as it existed in the last days of mail-coaching, when it was a most important place for arrivals and departures in London:—

 

"Next to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and the Compter and the bustle and noise of the City, and just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the 'Saracen's Head' inn, its portals guarded by two Saracen's heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night, but which have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity, possibly because this species of humour is now confined to St. James's parish, where doorknockers are preferred as being more portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient tooth-picks. Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the door of the hind-boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen's head with a twin expression to the large Saracen's head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is of the Saracenic order."

 

To explain the use of the Saracen's head as an inn sign various reasons have been given. "When our countrymen," says Selden, "came home from fighting with the Saracens and were beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still see the 'Saracen's Head' is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit." Or the sign may have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy Land either as pilgrims or to fight the Saracens. Others, again, hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of Thomas à Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen. However this may be, it is certain that the use of the sign in former days was very general.

 

Running past the east end of St. Sepulchre's, from Newgate into West Smithfield, is Giltspur Street, anciently called Knightriders Street. This interesting thoroughfare derives its name from the knights with their gilt spurs having been accustomed to ride this way to the jousts and tournaments which in days of old were held in Smithfield.

 

In this street was Giltspur Street Compter, a debtors' prison and house of correction appertaining to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. It stood over against St. Sepulchre's Church, and was removed hither from the east side of Wood Street, Cheapside, in 1791. At the time of its removal it was used as a place of imprisonment for debtors, but the yearly increasing demands upon the contracted space caused that department to be given up, and City debtors were sent to Whitecross Street. The architect was Dance, to whom we are also indebted for the grim pile of Newgate. The Compter was a dirty and appropriately convictlooking edifice. It was pulled down in 1855. Mr. Hepworth Dixon gave an interesting account of this City House of Correction, not long before its demolition, in his "London Prisons" (1850). "Entering," he says, "at the door facing St. Sepulchre's, the visitor suddenly finds himself in a low dark passage, leading into the offices of the gaol, and branching off into other passages, darker, closer, more replete with noxious smells, than even those of Newgate. This is the fitting prelude to what follows. The prison, it must be noticed, is divided into two principal divisions, the House of Correction and the Compter. The front in Giltspur Street, and the side nearest to Newgate Street, is called the Compter. In its wards are placed detenues of various kinds—remands, committals from the police-courts, and generally persons waiting for trial, and consequently still unconvicted. The other department, the House of Correction, occupies the back portion of the premises, abutting on Christ's Hospital. Curious it is to consider how thin a wall divides these widely-separate worlds! And sorrowful it is to think what a difference of destiny awaits the children—destiny inexorable, though often unearned in either case—who, on the one side of it or the other, receive an eleemosynary education! The collegian and the criminal! Who shall say how much mere accident— circumstances over which the child has little power —determines to a life of usefulness or mischief? From the yards of Giltspur Street prison almost the only objects visible, outside of the gaol itself, are the towers of Christ's Hospital; the only sounds audible, the shouts of the scholars at their play. The balls of the hospital boys often fall within the yards of the prison. Whether these sights and sounds ever cause the criminal to pause and reflect upon the courses of his life, we will not say, but the stranger visiting the place will be very apt to think for him. …

 

"In the department of the prison called the House of Correction, minor offenders within the City of London are imprisoned. No transports are sent hither, nor is any person whose sentence is above three years in length." This able writer then goes on to tell of the many crying evils connected with the institution—the want of air, the over-crowded state of the rooms, the absence of proper cellular accommodation, and the vicious intercourse carried on amongst the prisoners. The entire gaol, when he wrote, only contained thirty-six separate sleeping-rooms. Now by the highest prison calculation—and this, be it noted, proceeds on the assumption that three persons can sleep in small, miserable, unventilated cells, which are built for only one, and are too confined for that, being only about one-half the size of the model cell for one at Pentonville—it was only capable of accommodating 203 prisoners, yet by the returns issued at Michaelmas, 1850, it contained 246!

 

A large section of the prison used to be devoted to female delinquents, but lately it was almost entirely given up to male offenders.

 

"The House of Correction, and the Compter portion of the establishment," says Mr. Dixon, "are kept quite distinct, but it would be difficult to award the palm of empire in their respective facilities for demoralisation. We think the Compter rather the worse of the two. You are shown into a room, about the size of an apartment in an ordinary dwelling-house, which will be found crowded with from thirty to forty persons, young and old, and in their ordinary costume; the low thief in his filth and rags, and the member of the swell-mob with his bright buttons, flash finery, and false jewels. Here you notice the boy who has just been guilty of his first offence, and committed for trial, learning with a greedy mind a thousand criminal arts, and listening with the precocious instinct of guilty passions to stories and conversations the most depraved and disgusting. You regard him with a mixture of pity and loathing, for he knows that the eyes of his peers are upon him, and he stares at you with a familiar impudence, and exhibits a devil-may-care countenance, such as is only to be met with in the juvenile offender. Here, too, may be seen the young clerk, taken up on suspicion—perhaps innocent—who avoids you with a shy look of pain and uneasiness: what a hell must this prison be to him! How frightful it is to think of a person really untainted with crime, compelled to herd for ten or twenty days with these abandoned wretches!

 

"On the other, the House of Correction side of the gaol, similar rooms will be found, full of prisoners communicating with each other, laughing and shouting without hindrance. All this is so little in accordance with existing notions of prison discipline, that one is continually fancying these disgraceful scenes cannot be in the capital of England, and in the year of grace 1850. Very few of the prisoners attend school or receive any instruction; neither is any kind of employment afforded them, except oakum-picking, and the still more disgusting labour of the treadmill. When at work, an officer is in attendance to prevent disorderly conduct; but his presence is of no avail as a protection to the less depraved. Conversation still goes on; and every facility is afforded for making acquaintances, and for mutual contamination."

 

After having long been branded by intelligent inspectors as a disgrace to the metropolis, Giltspur Street Compter was condemned, closed in 1854, and subsequently taken down.

 

Nearly opposite what used to be the site of the Compter, and adjoining Cock Lane, is the spot called Pie Corner, near which terminated the Great Fire of 1666. The fire commenced at Pudding Lane, it will be remembered, so it was singularly appropriate that it should terminate at Pie Corner. Under the date of 4th September, 1666, Pepys, in his "Diary," records that "W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and comes home late, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her house in Pye Corner being burned; so that the fire is got so far that way." The figure of a fat naked boy stands over a public house at the corner of the lane; it used to have the following warning inscription attached:— "This boy is in memory put up of the late fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." According to Stow, Pie Corner derived its name from the sign of a well-frequented hostelry, which anciently stood on the spot. Strype makes honourable mention of Pie Corner, as "noted chiefly for cooks' shops and pigs dressed there during Bartholomew Fair." Our old writers have many references—and not all, by the way, in the best taste—to its cookstalls and dressed pork. Shadwell, for instance, in the Woman Captain (1680) speaks of "meat dressed at Pie Corner by greasy scullions;" and Ben Jonson writes in the Alchemist (1612)—

 

"I shall put you in mind, sir, at Pie Corner,

Taking your meal of steam in from cooks' stalls."

 

And in "The Great Boobee" ("Roxburgh Ballads"):

 

"Next day I through Pie Corner passed;

The roast meat on the stall

Invited me to take a taste;

My money was but small."

 

But Pie Corner seems to have been noted for more than eatables. A ballad from Tom D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," describing Bartholomew Fair, eleven years before the Fire of London, says:—

 

"At Pie-Corner end, mark well my good friend,

'Tis a very fine dirty place;

Where there's more arrows and bows. …

Than was handled at Chivy Chase."

 

We have already given a view of Pie Corner in our chapter on Smithfield, page 361.

 

Hosier Lane, running from Cow Lane to Smithfield, and almost parallel to Cock Lane, is described by "R. B.," in Strype, as a place not over-well built or inhabited. The houses were all old timber erections. Some of these—those standing at the south corner of the lane—were in the beginning of this century depicted by Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Ancient Topography of London." He describes them as probably of the reign of James I. The rooms were small, with low, unornamented ceilings; the timber, oak, profusely used; the gables were plain, and the walls lath and plaster. They were taken down in 1809.

 

In the corner house, in Mr. Smith's time, there was a barber whose name was Catchpole; at least, so it was written over the door. He was rather an odd fellow, and possessed, according to his own account, a famous relic of antiquity. He would gravely show his customers a short-bladed instrument, as the identical dagger with which Walworth killed Wat Tyler.

 

Hosier Lane, like Pie Corner, used to be a great resort during the time of Bartholomew Fair, "all the houses," it is said in Strype, "generally being made public for tippling."

 

We return now from our excursion to the north of St. Sepulchre's, and continue our rambles to the west, and before speaking of what is, let us refer to what has been.

 

Turnagain Lane is not far from this. "Near unto this Seacoal Lane," remarks Stow, "in the turning towards Holborn Conduit, is Turnagain Lane, or rather, as in a record of the 5th of Edward III., Windagain Lane, for that it goeth down west to Fleet Dyke, from whence men must turn again the same way they came, but there it stopped." There used to be a proverb, "He must take him a house in Turnagain Lane."

 

A conduit formerly stood on Snow Hill, a little below the church. It is described as a building with four equal sides, ornamented with four columns and pediment, surmounted by a pyramid, on which stood a lamb—a rebus on the name of Lamb, from whose conduit in Red Lion Street the water came. There had been a conduit there, however, before Lamb's day, which was towards the close of the sixteenth century.

 

At No. 37, King Street, Snow Hill, there used to be a ladies' charity school, which was established in 1702, and remained in the parish 145 years. Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale were subscribers to this school, and Johnson drew from it his story of Betty Broom, in "The Idler." The world of domestic service, in Betty's days, seems to have been pretty much as now. Betty was a poor girl, bred in the country at a charity-school, maintained by the contributions of wealthy neighbours. The patronesses visited the school from time to time, to see how the pupils got on, and everything went well, till "at last, the chief of the subscribers having passed a winter in London, came down full of an opinion new and strange to the whole country. She held it little less than criminal to teach poor girls to read and write. They who are born to poverty, she said, are born to ignorance, and will work the harder the less they know. She told her friends that London was in confusion by the insolence of servants; that scarcely a girl could be got for all-work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies, that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of a waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles, and to sit at work in the parlour window. But she was resolved, for her part, to spoil no more girls. Those who were to live by their hands should neither read nor write out of her pocket. The world was bad enough already, and she would have no part in making it worse.

 

"She was for a long time warmly opposed; but she persevered in her notions, and withdrew her subscription. Few listen, without a desire of conviction, to those who advise them to spare their money. Her example and her arguments gained ground daily; and in less than a year the whole parish was convinced that the nation would be ruined if the children of the poor were taught to read and write." So the school was dissolved, and Betty with the rest was turned adrift into the wide and cold world; and her adventures there any one may read in "The Idler" for himself.

 

There is an entry in the school minutes of 1763, to the effect that the ladies of the committee censured the schoolmistress for listening to the story of the Cock Lane ghost, and "desired her to keep her belief in the article to herself."

 

Skinner Street—now one of the names of the past—which ran by the south side of St. Sepulchre's, and formed the connecting link between Newgate Street and Holborn, received its name from Alderman Skinner, through whose exertions, about 1802, it was principally built. The following account of Skinner Street is from the picturesque pen of Mr. William Harvey ("Aleph"), whose long familiarity with the places he describes renders doubly valuable his many contributions to the history of London scenes and people:—"As a building speculation," he says, writing in 1863, "it was a failure. When the buildings were ready for occupation, tall and substantial as they really were, the high rents frightened intending shopkeepers. Tenants were not to be had; and in order to get over the money difficulty, a lottery, sanctioned by Parliament, was commenced. Lotteries were then common tricks of finance, and nobody wondered at the new venture; but even the most desperate fortune-hunters were slow to invest their capital, and the tickets hung sadly on hand. The day for the drawing was postponed several times, and when it came, there was little or no excitement on the subject, and whoever rejoiced in becoming a house-owner on such easy terms, the original projectors and builders were understood to have suffered considerably. The winners found the property in a very unfinished condition. Few of the dwellings were habitable, and as funds were often wanting, a majority of the houses remained empty, and the shops unopened. After two or three years things began to improve; the vast many-storeyed house which then covered the site of Commercial Place was converted into a warehousing depôt; a capital house opposite the 'Saracen's Head' was taken by a hosier of the name of Theobald, who, opening his shop with the determination of selling the best hosiery, and nothing else, was able to convince the citizens that his hose was first-rate, and, desiring only a living profit, succeeded, after thirty years of unwearied industry, in accumulating a large fortune. Theobald was possessed of literary tastes, and at the sale of Sir Walter Scott's manuscripts was a liberal purchaser. He also collected a library of exceedingly choice books, and when aristocratic customers purchased stockings of him, was soon able to interest them in matters of far higher interest…

 

"The most remarkable shop—but it was on the left-hand side, at a corner house—was that established for the sale of children's books. It boasted an immense extent of window-front, extending from the entrance into Snow Hill, and towards Fleet Market. Many a time have I lingered with loving eyes over those fascinating story-books, so rich in gaily-coloured prints; such careful editions of the marvellous old histories, 'Puss in Boots,' 'Cock Robin,' 'Cinderella,' and the like. Fortunately the front was kept low, so as exactly to suit the capacity of a childish admirer. . . . . But Skinner Street did not prosper much, and never could compete with even the dullest portions of Holborn. I have spoken of some reputable shops; but you know the proverb, 'One swallow will not make a summer,' and it was a declining neighbourhood almost before it could be called new. In 1810 the commercial depôt, which had been erected at a cost of £25,000, and was the chief prize in the lottery, was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt—a heavy blow and discouragement to Skinner Street, from which it never rallied. Perhaps the periodical hanging-days exercised an unfavourable influence, collecting, as they frequently did, all the thieves and vagabonds of London. I never sympathised with Pepys or Charles Fox in their passion for public executions, and made it a point to avoid those ghastly sights; but early of a Monday morning, when I had just reached the end of Giltspur Street, a miserable wretch had just been turned off from the platform of the debtors' door, and I was made the unwilling witness of his last struggles. That scene haunted me for months, and I often used to ask myself, 'Who that could help it would live in Skinner Street?' The next unpropitious event in these parts was the unexpected closing of the child's library. What could it mean? Such a well-to-do establishment shut up? Yes, the whole army of shutters looked blankly on the inquirer, and forbade even a single glance at 'Sinbad' or 'Robinson Crusoe.' It would soon be re-opened, we naturally thought; but the shutters never came down again. The whole house was deserted; not even a messenger in bankruptcy, or an ancient Charley, was found to regard the playful double knocks of the neighbouring juveniles. Gradually the glass of all the windows got broken in, a heavy cloud of black dust, solidifying into inches thick, gathered on sills and doors and brickwork, till the whole frontage grew as gloomy as Giant Despair's Castle. Not long after, the adjoining houses shared the same fate, and they remained from year to year without the slightest sign of life—absolute scarecrows, darkening with their uncomfortable shadows the busy streets. Within half a mile, in Stamford Street, Blackfriars, there are (1863) seven houses in a similar predicament— window-glass demolished, doors cracked from top to bottom, spiders' webs hanging from every projecting sill or parapet. What can it mean? The loss in the article of rents alone must be over £1,000 annually. If the real owners are at feud with imaginary owners, surely the property might be rendered valuable, and the proceeds invested. Even the lawyers can derive no profit from such hopeless abandonment. I am told the whole mischief arose out of a Chancery suit. Can it be the famous 'Jarndyce v. Jarndyce' case? And have all the heirs starved each other out? If so, what hinders our lady the Queen from taking possession? Any change would be an improvement, for these dead houses make the streets they cumber as dispiriting and comfortless as graveyards. Busy fancy will sometimes people them, and fill the dreary rooms with strange guests. Do the victims of guilt congregate in these dark dens? Do wretches 'unfriended by the world or the world's law,' seek refuge in these deserted nooks, mourning in the silence of despair over their former lives, and anticipating the future in unappeasable agony? Such things have been—the silence and desolation of these doomed dwellings make them the more suitable for such tenants."

 

A street is nothing without a mystery, so a mystery let these old tumble-down houses remain, whilst we go on to tell that, in front of No. 58, the sailor Cashman was hung in 1817, as we have already mentioned, for plundering a gunsmith's shop there. William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams," kept a bookseller's shop for several years in Skinner Street, at No. 41, and published school-books in the name of Edward Baldwin. On the wall there was a stone carving of Æsop reciting one of his fables to children.

 

The most noteworthy event of the life of Godwin was his marriage with the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of a "Vindication of the Rights of Women," whose congenial mind, in politics and morals, he ardently admired. Godwin's account of the way in which they got on together is worth reading:—"Ours," he writes, "was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention, that influenced by ideas I had long entertained, I engaged an apartment about twenty doors from our house, in the Polygon, Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. Trifles, however, will be interesting to some readers, when they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I will add, therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society. Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make my appearance in the Polygon till the hour of dinner. We agreed in condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed society but in company with each other, and we rather sought occasions of deviating from than of complying with this rule. By this means, though, for the most part, we spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit with the more delicious and heartfelt pleasure of a domestic life."

 

This philosophic union, to Godwin's inexpressible affliction, did not last more than eighteen months, at the end of which time Mrs. Godwin died, leaving an only daughter, who in the course of time became the second wife of the poet Shelley, and was the author of the wild and extraordinary tale of "Frankenstein."

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45116

There was an outdoor portrait activity , we invited the lovely girl Joy Yang to go to NTU campus to take picture , Joy Yang got pretty face , eyes , natural quality, nice figure with great breast , small waist , round hip and slim body, when she wore a fashion outfit with white boot to show her personal style of pose , she is so charming and gorgeous ,thank Joy Yang ,she did her best model job

Lisa was in the later stages of labour for more than 5 hours and was managing without Pethidine or an epidural. Even though the labour ward was full the midwife called her "The star of tonight's show". At about 2:30am the midwives noted that the baby's heartbeat was racing and called for a doctor. After an examination and tests (painful without that epidural) they concluded the baby had inhaled meconium from the womb. Suddenly lots of people appeared from nowhere and, after Lisa had signed the appropriate forms and waivers, was put under general anaesthetic and rushed away for an emergency caesarian. After the longest ten minutes I've ever known -not one but two of the people I love most having emergency operations- I was presented with our beautiful daughter, Emily. I held her in my arms for an hour and a half while we waited for Lisa to come 'round.

This is a photo of Emily after her first feed, about 5am.

 

Mother and baby are both doing really well and will be home in a few days.

 

:D

It was close to midday, as I wandered around Clarks Village in Street, Somerset. I was looking for a stranger to photograph. I’d found a spot to make portraits; there was a bench under a tree; a nice shaded spot. Unfortunately hardly anyone chose to walk that way. For this reason I chose to find someone, thinking that I might bring them to the spot.

 

As I walked around, I spotted a young woman with a skeleton top and yellow tights. She was in deep conversation with a young man. I did not want to interrupt. He was closer to the shop and she was facing toward him, so I could not see her face as I walked by a couple times.

 

I decided to walk on and wait a few shops away. If she was to come my way, then I would take the opportunity and ask if she would be in my project. The pair continued to talk, so I walked around a bit more. The next time I looked they had gone :-(

 

To my delight, a few minutes later, I spotted the young lady again, in the distance. She was headed out of the outlet shopping centre. I was able to see which direction she took and followed, slowly gaining on her. As she headed out of town, I wondered whether to continue; feeling a little stalkery. I had still not seen her face but figured that she would be interesting, just from the style of her outfit.

 

I caught up with Kelly outside of Clarks HQ. “Excuse me..” I said, as I drew beside her. I don’t think she heard me at first. She removed her earphones, I repeated “Excuse me... would it be OK to take your photo”. She agreed straight away, even apologising for not noticing me at first. “I was listening to music” she said and she pointed to her phone.

 

I explained that I was doing a project to photograph strangers and said “you have to be at least 18 years old”. She confirmed that she met my criteria, telling me her age. I offered my hand, introducing myself. Next, I checked her name and asked if it would be alright to take the photo on the small green opposite.

 

We sat down on some grass, under a tree. I asked what had brought Kelly to Street today. She works for Greggs and had been meeting with her boss to talk about things in the shop, where she works as assistant manager. Kelly is responsible for staff in the Wells branch, of the bakery chain store.

 

I asked Kelly what she did when she was not working in Greggs. She told me that she liked gore and cosplay. She makes her own outfits from scratch and updates those that she buys. Kelly pointed to her face and said that there might be some dye there, from fake blood, that was hard to remove.

 

Kelly will be going to Comic Con at Olympia in London, next month. She often dresses as Harley Quinn and has a huge hammer.. When she has it at conventions, people ask to be hit with it. Even though the head is made from polystyrene, it is still pretty heavy and Kelly would not be surprised if it hurt. If you are interested in Kelly’s Cosplay then you can follow her instagram at gothams_littlepsycho_x

 

We talked a bit about TV series and film. Aside from textiles, Kelly also does some 2D art, she studied art at college and university.

 

When we had finished with the portraits, we exchanged words of thanks. Kelly told me that I had provided a welcome break from thinking about sales targets and stocking levels. She had enjoyed the diversion.

 

Thank you Kelly for being part of my project. It was great to meet you. Best wishes for your work and outside activities.

 

You can view more portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family

View On Black

This cow barn was on the farm where my wife Sammy was raised, and there were a couple of stalls in it for their milk cow and Sammy's horse, and there was a hay loft in the top level. During the war years, when butter was rationed, their cow not only kept the family amply supplied with butter, but there was plenty to share with their neighbors as well.

 

Just before we made our last visit to the farm in 1992, I had bought a Tokina 20-35mm lens for my Nikon 8008s, and in the days of film, 20mm truly meant 20mm, and I was enamored with the tremendous depth of field such a wide angle lens was capable of. I was only a couple of feet from these pipes, and they're every bit as sharp as the cow barn quite a bit further away. That was a great lens, but, unfortunately, on my current Nikon D90 it becomes a 30-52mm lens and no longer serves any useful purpose.

 

This is another image that I'm posting for inclusion in my Family Farm set, which contains images of the farm on which my wife Sammy was raised in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, along with written commentary describing their life there. She lived there from 1940 until we were married in 1960. The set already contains a number of farm images, but those that I'm posting now will primarily, though not entirely, be those that were taken during our final visit to the 76-acre property in 1992, prior to its sale. When we were there in '92, we knew we'd never return, so we saturated the property with 742 photos in hopes of preserving some of those wonderful memories. See also Our Life Story Set, which contains over half a century's worth of our life's memories.

As I was processing images for a client(a local Bed & Breakfast) this image struck me as very soothing to look at. There is something about the interplay of natural elements(the Clematis vine) with manmade elements(the statue and wood) that I felt had such a pleasing combination of complimentary contrasts.

 

The B&B where I shot this is Silverbrook Farm Bed & Breakfast near historic Hillsboro, Virginia. The original part of the house(still in use) was built in the mid 1700's. This image is in the outdoor shower area where guests can enjoy bathing under the clouds or stars. It is not my usual "category" of uploads to Flickr but, believe me, I shoot just about everything. (Except nudes/boudoir...) :) I have photographed almost every nook and cranny of this property, both indoor and out, and keep going back to catch moments in time such as this. The owner, a gracious elegant lady in her 70's, calls me to let me know that "such and such is blooming" or "the house and barn are going to be decorated for a wedding on Saturday so come at 2:00 and you'll have the place to yourself".

The photography I have provided her is now going into their new website and, hopefully, will bring her more business. She also tells me she is writing a book about the farm, where she has lived her whole life, and wants to feature my photography. If you would like to see more of this special place please visit my website and go to the "Bed and Breakfast" gallery.

 

Please take a moment and click on the image to see it large on a black background. I would challenge you to open it in the "Original" size to soak in the textures and details. Thank you in advance for looking at my work and for any comments, critiques and favorites. :)

And I would greatly appreciate it if you would not use my images without my consent.

... before it was late Fall.

LUMIX DMC G3

was killing some time today in downtown so I did a quick little set of 5 photos of this wall.

Time was this street was full of life, day and night, dad heading off to work before dawn to begin the day shift at the factory and children wiping the sleep from their eyes, ambling down the stairs for a quick breakfast and mom sending them off to school. The streets filled in the afternoon with baseball or hoops and cleared as dad pulled around the corner in into the drive and calling everyone in for dinner. Scarf down dinner and back outside for game of kick- the- can while the night settled in. The activity was brisk, even in the cold, cold Michigan winters. The snow covered streets made for a fine rink for some street hockey. These streets were living, they were life.

 

Time was.

 

Now these streets have fallen silent. The sounds of life are distant and infrequent. It is as if no one ever lived here, the pavement seems to lead to nowhere and serves no clear purpose. The children are long gone and the few dads and moms that remain are old and often alone. They peer out fearfully behind curtains onto streets that their families once owned. They watch as wildlife begins to reclaim their ground- pheasants finding nesting in the tall grass where houses, full of life, once stood. In their time they have seen the full circle, families thriving, then struggling and now nature, devoid of man, struggling to get a foothold.

 

I often wonder if they sit and wonder about when time was….

 

It was a bad day for taking photographs, thick snow and a heavy white mist, visibility was often only about 6 yards and after walking for two hours I had not taken my camera out of its case once. Heading home I followed a hedgerow and in a gap spotted these seed heads standing out on the natural white backdrop. At least I got one shot before heading home.

so i found this cell phone at work.

 

it was likely dropped by an audience member seeing a show. the battery was dead, so i turned it in, and it sat in the box office for 2 months... its a nice cell phone, and i suspect that the person either had insurance, or was rich enough that they just got a new one.. so it was given to me to do whatever i wanted with it. i figured, ebay right?

 

UGH. for the 3rd time in a row, the phone has sold to an ebay scammer. essentially what happens is the auction closes, and then i get a series of emails in broken english explaining that they wish to ship the phone to Nigeria, and will include an extra $100, then i get a fake email from paypal saying the funds have been transferred and once i ship the phone and give them a tracking number, paypal will release the money... obviously bullshit... but now for the 3rd time, the same scam. its getting really frustrating, esp since it costs me money to list things on ebay.

 

this is also why, i suspect, my debit card was canceled by my bank last week. i just want to sell this damn phone... i need the money, and im selling it for literally half price.

 

365 - 5.18.09

The Bristol SU was an uncommon type and was rarer still in this, its short (SUS) form. Only 181 SUs were built and, of those, 133 were taken by a single company ...Western National. 23 of the total built were of the SUS type. Of these, seven were owned by the Bristol Omnibus Co. The BOC examples eventually gravitated to a group of services around Nailsworth in deepest Gloucestershire.

The SU originated as a shameless copy of Leyland's Albion Nimbus which, for political reasons, the nationalised Tilling Group companies could not buy. The men at the British Transport Commision did not believe in giving business away to outside companies when, in Bristol Commercial Vehicles, they had a bus builder of their own. The SU did use the same 4-cylinder Albion engine as the Nimbus but a David Brown gearbox was substituted for Albion's own. The rear axle was supplied by BMC's Austin-Morris.

I rode on this bus a few miles from Nailsworth to Tiltup's End, where the turning place was the forecourt of a garage. Here we have climbed to the top of the Cotswold escarpment where, at this time of year, low cloud rests on the ground for much of the time. No passenger boarded on either the outward or return journey.

Of the vehicle's five gears, you only ever used 2, 3 and 4 around Nailsworth, the driver told me. The bus was a few months short of the end of its life. It had been new in September 1963 and was withdrawn from service on 31st March 1978. The photograph was taken on Friday 16th December 1977. Note the lazy "Service" destination display.

I have no idea, but it seems standing pretty strong againts the wave, This photo was taken couples of months ago, Found it while cleaning my HDD.

 

Exposure30

Aperturef/13.0

Focal Length93 mm

ISO Speed100

 

Lee BIg Stopper

Yes I am mad.

Northgate Street, Chester on a rainy 22nd April 1981: I've always enjoyed visiting the City, although I personally think that it lost some of its character with the pedestrianisation of many of its central streets. The municipal owned bus fleet was always an interesting one, its red and cream buses an important and integral part of the City scene. By 1981, Chester, along with Lancashire United in Greater Manchester were then, the last bastions of the Guy Arab motorbus and were the places you could see the type operating in numbers.

 

Even in the early ‘80s it was still quite an amazing sight to see one of these stalwarts making it’s way through the City streets in the company of Fleetlines and Dennis Dominators, which were by then, the main stay of the contemporary fleet.

 

Chester City Transport No42, was one of the last Guy Arab motorbuses built for the British home market, arriving new to Chester in March 1969. After a reasonably long service life, and in the face of phasing out two-man operated buses, she was withdrawn from service in 1982. Fortunately, after withdrawal, 42 was sold to a preservationist in Altringham, and thankfully she survives to this day. glens-buses.fotopic.net/p50128985.html

 

We are here:

maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ei=_U4VSuTWFNfPjAet_oHkDA&...

 

Invicta is a British automobile manufacturer. The brand has been available intermittently through successive decades. Initially, the manufacturer was based in Cobham, Surrey, England from 1925 to 1933, then in Chelsea, London, England from 1933 to 1938 and finally in Virginia Water, Surrey, England from 1946 to 1950. More recently, the name was revived for the Invicta S1 sports car produced between 2004 and 2012.This manufacturer was founded by Noel Macklin with Oliver Lyle of the sugar family providing finance. Assembly took place in Macklin's garage at his home at Fairmile Cottage on the main London to Portsmouth road in Cobham, Surrey. Macklin had previously tried car making with Eric-Campbell & Co Limited and his own Silver Hawk Motor Company Limited[1][2] The Invicta cars were designed to combine flexibility, the ability to accelerate from virtual standstill in top gear, with sporting performance. With the assistance of William (Willie) Watson, his mechanic from pre-World War I racing days,[3] a prototype was built on a Bayliss-Thomas frame with Coventry Simplex engine in the stables of Macklin's house on the western side of Cobham.

SC and LC Chassis

 

The first production car, the 1925 2½ litre used a Meadows straight six, overhead-valve engine and four-speed gearbox in a chassis with semi elliptical springs all round cost from £595. Two different chassis lengths were available, 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) SC and 10 feet (3.0 m) LC to cater for the customer's choice of bodywork. As demand grew a lot of the construction work went to Lenaerts and Dolphens in Barnes, London but final assembly and test remained at Fairmile.[3] The engine grew to 3 litres in 1926 and 4½ litres in late 1928.

NLC and A Type Chassis

 

The larger engine was used in the William Watson designed 1929 4½ litre NLC chassis available in short 9 feet 10 inches (3.00 m) or long 10 feet 6 inches (3.20 m) versions, but the less expensive A Type replaced the NLC in 1930.

4½ litre S-type from 1931

S-type

 

In 1930 the S-type was launched at the London Motor Show.[3] Still using the 4½ litre Meadows engine but in a low chassis slung under the rear axle. About 75 were made.

1½ litre

 

In an attempt to widen the market appeal the 1½ litre straight-six overhead-cam Blackburne engined 12/45 L-type was announced in 1932. It was a large car with its 9 feet 10 inches (3.00 m) wheelbase and proved too heavy for the available power needing a 6:1 rear axle ratio. It was available with a preselector gearbox as an option and most had coachwork by Carbodies. The supercharged 12/90 of 1933 increased the available power from 45 to 90 bhp (67 kW) but few were made and a proposed twin-cam 12/100 never got beyond a prototype.[4]

Success

 

Sporting success for Invicta often came via Violette Cordery, who was Noel Macklin's sister-in-law. She won the half mile sprint at the West Kent Motor Club meeting at Brooklands in 1925 driving a 2.7 litre. In March 1926 Cordery and a team of six drivers set multiple long distance records at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza in Italy. They covered 10,000 miles at 56.47 mph, and 15,000 miles at 55.76 mph.[5] In July 1926 at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry track, Paris, they covered 5000 miles at 70.7 mph, taking over 70 hours of day and night driving, supervised by the Royal Automobile Club. Cordery was twice awarded the Dewar Trophy, latterly in 1929 for driving 30,000 miles (48,000 km) in 30,000 minutes at Brooklands, averaging 61.57 mph.[5][6][7] Sammy Davis had a spectacular accident in an S-type at Brooklands in 1931.[8] Donald Healey in 1930 gained a class win in the Monte Carlo Rally, and, starting from Stavanger, won the event outright the following year with an S Type. Raymond Mays held the Brooklands Mountain Circuit Class Record in 1931 and 1932, and the outright Shelsley Walsh Sports Car Record in the latter year.

 

Between February and July 1927 Cordery drove an Invicta around the world, accompanied by a nurse, a mechanic, and an RAC observer. They covered 10,266 miles in five months at 24.6 mph, crossing Europe, Africa, India, Australia, the United States and Canada.[5]

End of production

 

Car production seems to have finished in 1935. Noel Macklin went on to found Railton who used the Cobham buildings to make their cars after Invicta moved to Chelsea in 1933. An attempted revival using Delage and Darracq components failed to get off the ground. Following the collapse of an attempted sale the court made an order for the compulsory winding up of Invicta Cars Limited on 3 May 1938.[9]

1946 revival

Black Prince, 1946

 

The name was revived in 1946 by an organisation calling themselves Invicta Cars of Virginia Water Surrey[10] who began making the Black Prince. Meadows engines were again used, this time a twin overhead camshaft 3 litre six with three carburettors giving 120 bhp. The aluminium-bodied cars—steel supplies were effectively non-existent for new businesses in Britain's new centrally-planned economy—were extremely complex and very expensive with a torque converter (Brockhouse hydro-kinetic variable ratio "gearbox") entirely replacing the gearbox. The torque converter was controlled by a small switch with forward and reverse positions. Suspension was fully independent using torsion bars and there were built-in electric jacks. Other innovative luxury items included a trickle-charger to charge the battery from the domestic mains, an immersion heater in the engine, interior heating of the body and a built-in radio.[11] About 16 were made. The new company lasted until 1950 when it was bought by Frazer Nash makers, AFN Ltd.[4]

Was out looking for surf scoter but found this little guy instead, Taken at Waterfoot pier on the Antrim coast 02-01-2014