Contract changes in early March 2021 lead to Hornsbys giving away their 35 and 90 to Stagecoach East Midlands. Due to this, they got given a MAN Enviro 300 from Stagecoach Highlands and a Megabus Plaxton Panther from Stagecoach Hulls Megabus operation. This is because the contract, apparently, requires a vehicle with seatbelts. Considering the bus on the 90 today didn't have seatbelts, i doubt that is true...

 

Seen at Scunthorpe Bus Station operating a service 90 to Crowle is 34572, a 2004 Dart SLF Plaxton Pointer 2. New to Stagecoach Hull in 2004.

Bombay Truckshow, 21.1.23

Wrightbus christened its 'classic' 12m single-deck bus body with different names depending upon which chassis it was mounted - Eclipse on Volvo B7RLEs, Solar on Scanias, Pulsar on VDLs and Meridian on MANs.

 

The MAN-Wrightbus combination had limited sales and only 28 were built.

 

Newport Transport turned out to be a major customer purchasing six, numbered 101-6, in 2010. However, it was several months before they entered service, with their liveries being changed from green and cream to green and white during this period.

 

My shot from October 2014 depicts 104 on St David's Road in Cwmbran when operating Service 29 (Newport-Caerleon-Ponthir-Cwmbran). Despite being completely non standard, the batch lasted until 2022, though mostly relegated to contract duties in their latter years.

 

She was loaned to South Wales Transport as a driver trainer in 2023, and returned in 2024 to then be sold to Highland Transport Training of Inverness.

2014© Honey Fereidoonpour

Here we have D.L.W Coaches Volvo B10M Plaxton Premiere (110) W301 GCW seen leaving the newly styled depot to start operating a school contract on a nice Wednesday morning. 18/1/17.

With a hint of overnight dew and the rising sun just piercing the morning mist, DB Schenker 66111 rumbles through Cummersdale on the outskirts of Carlisle on 23 May 2015 heading the 6C33 05:22 Carlisle Yard to Dalston loaded bogie fuel tankers as some of the Blackwell Hall pedigree herd remain unperturbed by the train (but one with interest in the photographer behind a hedge I might add!). I was unaware at the time that this long-running BP contract with EWS/DBS would soon pass over to Colas Rail Freight.

 

© Gordon Edgar - All rights reserved. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission

The 161 contract at PD started with a very strict allocation of 67 reg E40H, albeit partly as not many other batches were suitably blinded.

That’s not the case now though, and quite a few E40D were out today, mainly from the 12 plates newly arrived from WH, but also this 64 plate, 10204, which was new to TL for the 136 extension.

It’s seen at Eltham Well Hall, as I gave into temptation and stepped back from one of the aforementioned 12 plates which was close behind. 23.12.18.

 

17864 Orpington-Chislehurst 61

10204 Chislehurst-Eltham 161

19866 Eltham-Woolwich Common 161

SE220 Woolwich Common-Woolwich 386

11058 Woolwich-Blackheath Standard 54

12375 Blackheath Standard-New Cross 53

EH248 New Cross-Dunton Rd 172

EH61 Dunton Rd-Elephant 363

LT434 Elephant-East Street 12

2603 East Street-Southwark Stn 45

The Percival P.56 Provost was a British ab initio trainer that was developed for the Royal Air Force in the 1950s as a replacement for the Percival Prentice. It was a low-wing monoplane with a fixed, tailwheel undercarriage and like the Prentice had a side-by-side seating arrangement. The Provost has the distinction of being the last piston-engine basic trainer aircraft to be operated by the RAF.

 

The Provost was later adapted to make use of a turbojet engine, producing the BAC Jet Provost. The type was withdrawn in the 1960s, in favour of its jet-powered successor.

 

The Provost design is attributed to the Polish-born Aeronautical Engineer, Henry Millicer. Millicer later moved to Australia where he also designed the award winning Victa Airtourer light aircraft. The Provost was designed to Air Ministry specification T.16/48 for a single-engined basic trainer aircraft to meet Operational Requirement 257 for a Percival Prentice replacement.

 

The specification was issued on 11 September 1948 and the ministry received over 30 proposals for consideration. Two designs were chosen for prototype construction, the Handley Page H.P.R 2 and the Percival P.56. Percival was given a contract dated 13 January 1950 to build two Cheetah powered prototypes. The company also built a third prototype with an Alvis Leonides Mk 25 engine.

 

The Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah powered prototype serial number WE522 first flew on 24 February 1950. After evaluation against the H.P.R 2 at Boscombe Down, the Leonides powered P.56 was selected for production as the Provost T.1, with an initial order for 200 aircraft being placed on 29 May 1951. Production ended in 1956 when 461 aircraft had been completed. The Percival Provost eventually formed the basis for the Jet Provost trainer which replaced it in RAF service.

etymologically, a contract is a meeting of minds...

Spanish postcard by Imprime Graficas Torroba. Caption: “Are they real ?” Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

 

The postcards in this series were produced in the mid-1970s for the Spanish men’s magazine 'Divachistes' and always emphasized the female stars’ sexy side. All of them have one uneven border, which indicates that they were bound to the magazine and that they were tear-off postcards. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to decipher the caricaturist’s name which looks like Mongini or Mancini.

 

Swedish (but naturalised Italian) film actress Anita Ekberg had a Hollywood career in the 1950s when she was contracted by studio mogul Howard Hughes. However, she got her real breakthrough in Italy. In Rome, she made film history as the sensual, curvaceous film goddess who dances in the Trevi Fountain in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960).

 

Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg was born in Malmö, Sweden in 1931. She grew up with seven brothers and sisters. Having six brothers around surely developed a fiercely independent spirit. In her teens, she worked as a fashion model, and in 1951 she was elected Miss Sweden. That year she also made her film début in the film journal Terras fönster nr 5/Terra Journal No. 5 (Olle Ekelund, 1951). According to several sources, Ekberg then went to the US for the Miss Universe contest - despite not speaking English - where she didn't win but did get a modelling contract. However, Marlene Pilate of La Collectionneuse recently made extensive research regarding the Miss Universe contests and came to the conclusion that Ekberg was not in a Miss Universe contest. However, Anita Ekberg won second place in the European Miss Casino beauty contest which took place in February 1952 in Amsterdam. The winner was the English contestant, Judy Breen, and the Miss Nederland, Betty van Proosdij, who came in third place. Marlene describes her research in an amusing post on Ekberg. Film mogul Howard Hughes gave her a contract with RKO but it didn't lead anywhere. Anita herself later claimed that Hughes wanted to marry her. Instead the voluptuous, husky-voiced blonde started making films for Universal. Her American début was as a Venusian guard in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (Charles Lamont, 1953). This was soon followed by The Golden Blade (Nathan Juran, 1953) starring Rock Hudson. These were small roles that only required her to look beautiful. She was given the nickname ‘The Iceberg’ - a play on her name as well as her cool, quite mysterious demeanour. While at Universal, Anita Ekberg quickly became one of Hollywood’s hot starlets. She caught the hearts of many famous men including Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, Frank Sinatra, and Gary Cooper. Legendary director and photographer Russ Meyer called her 'the most beautiful woman he ever photographed' and said that her 40D bust line was 'the most ample in A list Hollywood history, dwarfing rivals like Jayne Mansfield'. Soon she became a major pin-up girl for the new type of men's magazine such as Playboy that proliferated in the 1950s. Ekberg also knew how to play the Hollywood tabloids and gossip columnists, creating stunts that she hoped would translate into film roles. Famously, she admitted that an incident where her dress burst open in the lobby of London's Berkeley Hotel was pre-arranged with a photographer. Her two marriages also gave her a lot of attention from the press. She married and divorced British actor Anthony Steel (1956-1959) and actor Rik Van Nutter (1963-1975). And she reportedly had a three-year affair with the late Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli. The press also loved her saucy quotes, like: “I'm very proud of my breasts, as every woman should be. It's not cellular obesity. It's womanliness.”

 

Anita Ekberg would get several offers from other studios than Universal. Bob Hope joked that her parents had received the Nobel Prize for architecture when he was touring with her and William Holden to entertain US troops in 1954. The tour led her to a contract with John Wayne's Batjac Productions. Wayne cast her in Blood Alley (William A. Wellman, 1955), a small role where Ekberg's features and appearance were Orientalized to play a Chinese woman. The role earned her a Golden Globe award. Paramount Pictures then cast her in the funny comedies Artists and Models (Frank Tashlin, 1955) and Hollywood or Bust (Frank Tashlin, 1956), both starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. These films showed off her stunning body but also used her as a foil for many of the director's clever sight gags. In 1956, Ekberg went to Rome to make War and Peace (King Vidor, 1956) co-starring Audrey Hepburn. RKO gave Ekberg the female lead in Back from Eternity (John Farrow, 1956), co-starring with Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger. Ekberg was perfectly adequate in her cardboard role, and suggested that with a good director and a worthwhile part, she might have something to offer. In the British production Zarak (Terence Young, 1956) starring Victor Mature and Michael Wilding, her sexy harem-girl dance raised many eyebrows and blood pressures. With Bob Hope, she made two minor comedies, Paris Holiday (Gerd Oswald, 1958) and Call Me Bwana (Gordon Douglas, 1963). One of her better films of this period was the film noir Screaming Mimi (Gerd Oswald, 1958). At IMDb, reviewer Lazarillo calls it one of "the missing link between American film noir and the suspense and horror films that would become so popular in continental Europe over the next two decades (i.e. the German 'Krimis', the Italian 'Gialli', the horror films of Bava and Argento). It's technically a late-period film noir, but rather than having the traditional pessimistic tone and hard-boiled, voice-over narrative, it is completely off-the-wall and chock-full of the suggested depravity and lurid psycho-babble that would characterize the later European films. Interestingly, it was apparently based on the same Fredric Brown novel as Dario Argento's Bird with Crystal Plummage."

 

In 1960 Anita Ekberg found herself again in Rome for her greatest role. She played the unattainable ‘dream woman’ Sylvia opposite Marcello Mastroianni in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life (1960). La Dolce Vita was a sensational success, and Ekberg's uninhibited cavorting in Rome's Trevi Fountain remains one of the most memorable screen images ever captured. Thus began a period when Ekberg would work almost exclusively in Europe. La Dolce Vita was followed by another memorable role for Fellini in his segment La Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio/The Temptation of Doctor Antonio of the anthology film Boccaccio '70 (1962). She plays a gigantic voluptuous lady on a billboard poster, promoting to drink milk and attracting huge crowds. At night she comes to life and pesters the little censor, played by Peppino De Filippo. Fellini would later call her back for two more films: I Pagliacci/I clowns (Federico Fellini, 1972), and Intervista (Federico Fellini, 1987). In 1964 she returned to Sweden to appear in Bo Widerberg's Kärlek 65/Love 65 (1965), but she cancelled her appearance and called the acclaimed director ‘an amateur’. In 1967 she co-starred with Shirley MacLaine in a segment of Vittorio de Sica’s Woman Times Seven (1967). For much of the 1960s though, she was trapped in substandard genre fare and lame comedies. During the 1970s the roles became less frequent. In 1982, at the age of 50 she posed for glamour photos but in 1987, twenty-seven years after La Dolce Vita, she made a marvelous comeback with Fellini's film autobiography, Intervista (Federico Fellini, 1987), where she played herself in a reunion scene with Mastroianni and watched film clips of herself during her heydays. In 1995 Empire magazine chose her as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#98). While she remained active in films into the 1990s, the roles were hardly memorable. Exceptions came with her portrayal of an elderly restaurant owner who is killed in a gas explosion in Bámbola/Doll (Bigas Luna, 1996) featuring Valeria Marini, and her role as an aging, flamboyant opera star who succumbs to the charms of the titular character in Le nain rouge/The Red Dwarf (Yvan Lemoine, 1998). Still blonde, but a bit heavier, Ekberg was able to project the requisite sensuality and diva-like behaviour resulting in a full-bodied performance that ranked among her best. Her last role in a TV series was in Il bello delle donne/The beautiful one of the women (2002) starring Stefania Sandrelli. Anita Ekberg has not lived in Sweden since the early 1950s and rarely visited the country. She has welcomed Swedish journalists in her house outside Rome, and in 2005 appeared in the popular radio program Sommar, talking about her life. She stated in an interview that she would never move back to Sweden until she died when she will be buried there. In 2015, Anita Ekberg died at the clinic San Raffaele in Rocca di Papa, Italy. Her death was caused by complications from a long-time illness. She was 83.

 

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Marlene Pilaete (La Collectionneuse - French), Mattias Thuresson (IMDb), Java’s Bachelor Pad, TCM, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

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👏 Russ Kelly

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4132/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Greta Garbo in The Mysterious Lady (Fred Niblo, 1928).

 

Swedish Greta Garbo (1905-1990) was one of the greatest and most glamorous film stars ever produced by the Hollywood studio system. She was part of the Golden Age of the silent cinema of the 1920s and was one of the few actors who made a glorious transition to the talkies. She started her career in European cinema and would always stay more popular in Europe than in the USA.

 

She was born as Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm. When she was 14 her father died, leaving the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and work as a clerk in the department store PUB, where she also would model for newspaper ads. She photographed beautifully. Her first film aspirations came when she appeared in two short film advertisements, Herr och fru Stockholm (Ragnar Ring, 1920) and Konsum Stockholm Promo (Ragnar Ring, 1921). They were seen by director Erik Arthur Petschler who gave her a small part as a bathing beauty in his comedy Luffar-Petter (Erik A. Petschler, 1922). From 1922 to 1924, she studied at Dramaten, the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. She met Mauritz Stiller, who was Sweden's foremost filmmaker in the early 1920s. He trained the 18-year-old in cinema acting techniques and gave her the stage name Greta Garbo. Stiller cast her in a major role opposite Lars Hanson in Gösta Berlings Saga (Mauritz Stiller, 1924). This dramatisation of a novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf was internationally successful and made Greta a minor star. On the strength of Gösta Berling, she was cast in the German prostitution and depression melodrama Die Freudlose Gasse (G.W. Pabst, 1925), in which she co-starred with the legendary Danish star Asta Nielsen.

 

And then Hollywood called. Louis B. Mayer invited Stiller to work for MGM when Gösta Berlings Saga caught his attention. On viewing the film, Mayer admired Stiller's direction but was unimpressed with Garbo's acting and screen presence. Stiller insisted on bringing his protégé to Hollywood, thus, Mayer contracted her as well. Garbo’s relationship with Mauritz Stiller came to an end as her fame in Hollywood grew and he struggled in the studio system. In 1928 Stiller was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden, where he died soon after. Garbo retired in 1949 after making some screentests for a never realised film project. She abandoned Hollywood and moved to New York City. She would jet-set with such personalities as Aristotle Onassis and Cecil Beaton, and spent the rest of her time gardening flowers and vegetables. In 1954, she was given a special Oscar ‘for her unforgettable performances, and in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked her as the fifth greatest female star of all time.

 

Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

N231FL - B-727-22C - Contract Air Cargo

(reg. to International Trading Co. of Yukon, Oklahoma City/OK) -

at Hamilton International Airport (YHM)

 

operated still in basic Purolator c/s - visible registration is only "N23"

 

c/n 19.205 - built in 1967 for United Airlines -

operated by Kelowna Flightcraft air Charter between 02/1994 and 05/2002 as C-FKFP -

leased to All Canada Express between 08/1995 and 07/1996 -

 

retired in 2011 - stored at Kelowna (YLW)

 

No - this is not an AEW-727 !

G.H Watts Mercedes Benz Citaro seen heading out for an afternoon school contract on 15th April.

 

This was new to Bennetts of Gloucester in 2004 as BX54EBD and its current registration was latterly on a Plaxton bodied Iveco.

This card was also included as well as the Joker.

 

When I was in the Army I played a huge amount of Bridge, I have not played now for about 40 years.

twitter.com/keltruck/status/1565589879848931329

A1(M) Bramham 16/03/2017

linkedin.com/posts/peter-harris-68a5004b_scania-southwale...

Oogarding, a two storey, rendered masonry house in the Mediterranean style was built in 1940 - 1941 to the design of architect Mervyn Rylance. The house is prominently located on a sharp bend in Simpsons Road in the Brisbane suburb of Bardon and is set on a large block of land, against a stand of tall gum trees.

 

In 1940, Rylance was commissioned by Mr James Gervase (Gerb) Joyce and Mrs Edith Joyce to design a house for them on a one acre allotment which had been subdivided from the Joyce family property in Bardon. Gerb Joyce was a well known Brisbane business identity and owner of the Helidon Spa soft drink company. The Joyces named their new house Oogarding, the Aboriginal name for the spa to which they owed their fortune. It appears that the Joyces commissioned Rylance on the recommendation of the builder Mr Jan Cupka. Cupka had constructed at least three other buildings designed by Rylance around this time.

 

Rylance opened his architectural practice in Brisbane in 1933 and domestic commissions formed the basis of his practice. In the period up until World War II, he designed a number of relatively expensive and substantial homes in both the English and Mediterranean styles. The Mediterranean style established itself strongly in the temperate parts of Australia in the interwar period. This was largely due to the efforts of it's central proponent, Professor Leslie Wilkinson and through his position as the first chair of architecture at an Australian university. Wilkinson was able to influence many architects with his ideas about the suitability of Mediterranean styled architecture for the Australian climate. In effect, the style was a regionalisation of Georgian domestic architecture and avoided blatant Mediterranean features such as those adopted in Spanish Mission architecture, preferring classical details, smooth render, soft tones, and round arches that simply evoked a Mediterranean feeling.

 

Mervyn Rylance was one of these young architects influenced by Wilkinson's ideas. Although he was born in Brisbane, Rylance was educated in Sydney and England and was an articled pupil with Joseland and Gilling Architects in Sydney. F Glynn Gilling was recognised as a leading practitioner of the Mediterranean Style and his Woolcock Forbes house was to have a lasting influence on Rylance. Very few pure Mediterranean Style houses were built in Brisbane and Rylance was responsible for the design of a number of key examples including the Blanchard House at 43 Maxwell Street, New Farm, the Bartlett House at 390 Swann Road, St. Lucia and Oogarding.

 

The house was constructed by Mr Jan Cupka and it appears to have been built on the basis of a negotiated contract as no tender was advertised. When interviewed in 1995, Mrs Joyce remembered Rylance as "a dedicated professional", attending the site every couple of days during the nine month construction period. He personally applied the faux stone finish to the fireplace, throwing sand at the wet render and ruling in the joints with his pencil.

 

In 1964, a new family room was added to the south-east corner of the house, to the specification of Terrence Reid. Later in 1965, Hayes, Scott and Henderson Architects designed a new garage, front terrace and other landscape works and re-modelled the kitchen. The Joyce family lived in the house from its construction until 1999 when the house was bought by the Gasteen family.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

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Kumeu Truck Show. 18 Nov 2017

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.

 

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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

A1(M) Bramham 22/06/2017

Kersbrook and the South Australia Company.

White settlement started at Kersbrook in 1840. The area was surveyed as part of a Special Survey in 1839 and the major land buyer for the Kersbrook district across to Forreston and down to Gumeracha and Blumberg (later Birdwood) was the SA Company. The SA Company sent John Bowden up to Kersbrook as manager of an SA Company dairy. He named the district after his home town in Cornwall. John Bowden left the employ of the SA Company around 1843 and bought freehold land at Kersbrook. He remained in the district until he died in 1877 despite leasing huge pastoral runs on Yorke Peninsula. The original barn that he built on the outskirts of the town in 1843 still stands beside the road to Chain of Ponds- Scott Street.

 

The settler to get the town under way was William Carmen who moved to Kersbrook from Williamstown in 1851 to set up a blacksmith shop. He subdivided his land and created a private town with the first settlers taking up land options in 1858. He called his town Maidstone after its namesake in Kent. He sold his first town blocks to a family called Scott. But the name Kersbrook persisted and the Geographical Names Board officially adopted Kersbrook in 1917. In the early years the district was known for its wheat, fruit and pastures for dairy cattle. William Carmen built the Wheat Sheaf Hotel in Kersbrook as well as a blacksmiths. The old hotel is now a private house; the old Church of Christ which was built in the 1863 still stands; and the oldest cottage in the village, erected by the first land purchasers the Scott family, is Primrose Cottage located in High Street. It was built in 1858.

  

Bowden’s 1843 barn in Kersbrook.1860 Anglican church in Williamstown- St Peter.

Kersbrook highlights the role of the SA Company in the development of SA. It started in 1834 by act of the British parliament. It purchased the three ships the Duke of York, the John Pirie and the Rapid to bring the first settlers to SA. The Company employed 350 men to build roads, port facilities at Port Adelaide, a flour mill at Hackney, bridges across hill streams, stone mason to erect buildings, and managers of dairy herds, sheep flocks and general farm managers. Most of its early employees had 3 or 5 year contracts to 1842. It became an owner of mines in SA, wharfs, general stores, and much land. By 1841 it owned 20,000 sheep, the largest flock in the colony. It built grand houses on its land for its resident managers. At one time the Company owned a sixth of all surveyed land totalling 65,000 acres and it had hundreds of tenant farmers on these lands. It readily sold land on to its tenants when they had enough cash for purchase and they gave each employee/tenant some land, a cow and a pig. In 1850 one quarter of all wheat reaped in SA was grown on SA Company lands. The Company donated the land for the first school in Forreston near Kersbrook as they did elsewhere. The Company owned much land in the Kersbrook district until 1910 when it sold much of it. The last Company land was sold here in 1929. Gradually the Company also sold off the land it owned in the Adelaide city square mile. The SA Company was wound up in 1949 and the last assets transferred to the Elders Trustee Company. The headquarters for the Company had been in Bank Street until their new offices were built in 1913 on the corner of North Terrace and Gawler Place. This headquarters was called Gawler Chambers.

 

Operational Contract Support Joint Exercise 2016 provides training across the spectrum of OCS readiness from requirements and development of warfighter staff integration and synchronization through contract execution supporting the Joint Force Commander. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder/Released)

 

Creator(s): General Services Administration. National Archives and Records Service. Office of the National Archives. (9/19/1966 - 4/1/1985)

 

Series: Construction of the National Archives Building, 1932 - 1942

Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, 1789 - ca. 2007

 

Production Date: 1932 - 1942

 

Access Restriction(s): Unrestricted

Use Restriction(s): Unrestricted

 

Scope & Content: This photograph is part of the George Fuller Co. Contract for the construction of the National Archives Building.

 

Contact(s): National Archives at College Park - Still Pictures (RDSS)

National Archives at College Park

8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740-6001

Phone: 301-837-0561

Fax: 301-837-3621

Email: stillpix@nara.gov

 

National Archives Identifier: 26326875

 

Local Identifier: 64-NAC-194

 

Persistent URL: catalog.archives.gov/id/26326875

Today's story and sketch "by me" the intergalactic RV

being piloted by Danny (the Dude) Bindik and his

wife Ezmi, she is quite upset, realizing they just

exited worm hole nines portal E443 here in the Mohave

desert, which puts her twenty light years from where

she had made reservations at a retirement home on

the tropical moon Luanki.

But Ezmi will be more upset when she finds out that

Bindik has signed a contract to play cricket for the

the new Earth Cricket team the Desert Thunderballs.

"The Dude" was his nickname on the professional

cricket team the Nastybunch, Dude was the teams top

scoring batman, and wicket-keeper on planet Assgasi.

Ezmi's was also expecting to be in Luanki's beautiful

twenty seven hour days, with it's constant 78 degree

tropical breeze, not today's one hundred thirty degree

temperature when she steps out of their climate

controlled RV.

But that is a story for another time until then

taa ta the Rod Blog.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

Seeking a domestic aircraft manufacturer, the Brazilian government made several investments in this area during the 1940s and '50s, but it was not until 1969 that Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER) was created as a government-owned corporation. Born from a Brazilian government plan and having been state-run from the beginning, EMBRAER began a privatization process alongside many other state-controlled companies during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This privatization effort saw EMBRAER sold on December 7, 1994, and helped it avoid a looming bankruptcy.

 

The company's first product was a turboprop transport, the EMBRAER EMB 110 Bandeirante. In the course of years, both civil and military aircraft were developed, the focus shifted more and more to airliners, but the military work was never abandoned. The company continued to win government contracts, which included the EMB 314/T-27 Tucano trainer or the EMB 324/A-29 ground attack aircraft.

 

The EMB 320 was a bigger aircraft, though, and conceived in the early 2000s, when, with renewed economic stability, the Brazilian Air Force (Força Aérea Brasileira, FAB) underwent an extensive renewal of its inventory through several acquisition programs. The most ambitious of which was the acquisition of 36 new front-line interceptor aircraft to replace its aging Mirage III, known as the “F-X Project”.

 

In parallel, a supplement to the relatively new AMX fighter bomber (designated A-1 in Brazil) was needed, too, and this program ran under the handle “A-X Project”. While the F-X program was postponed several times until 2005, the A-X program made, thanks to its smaller budget needs, quick progress and resulted in the EMB 320 'Libélula' (Hornet), a dedicated ground attack, COIN and observation/FAC aircraft which would fill the gap between the AMX jets and various helicopters, e. g. the Mi-35M4 attack helicopter.

 

The EMB 320 was a straightforward design: a mid-wing two-turboprop-engined all-metal monoplane with retractable landing gear. Conceptually it was very similar to the Argentinian FMA IA-58 Pucara, but more sophisticated and with more compact dimensions. The aircraft was designed to operate from forward bases, in high temperature and humidity conditions in extremely rugged terrain. Repairs could be made with ordinary tools, and no ground equipment was required to start the engines.

 

The EMB 320 had a tandem cockpit arrangement; the crew of two were seated under an extensively glazed canopy on Martin-Baker Mk 6AP6A zero/zero ejection seats and were provided with dual controls. The pilot sat in front, while the rear seat would, if the mission called for it, be occupied by an observer, WSO or a flight teacher for training purposes. Armor plating was fitted to protect the crew and engines from hostile ground fire.

 

The retractable tricycle landing gear, with a double nose wheel and twin main wheels retracting into the engine nacelles, was fitted with low pressure tires to suit operations on rough ground and unprepared air strips, while the undercarriage legs were tall to give good clearance for underslung weapon loads. The undercarriage, flaps and brakes are operated hydraulically, with no pneumatic systems.

Through powerful high lift devices the EMB 320 could perform short takeoffs and landings, even on aircraft carriers and large deck amphibious assault ships without using catapults or arresting wires. Additionally, three JATO rockets could be fitted under the fuselage to allow extra-short take-off.

 

The aircraft was powered by a pair of Garrett T76-G turboprops, 1,040 hp (775.5 kW) each, driving sets of contra-rotating, three-bladed Hamilton-Standard propellers which were also capable of being used as air brakes. The engines were modified for operating on soy-derived bio-jet fuel. Alternatively the engines would operate on high-octane automobile fuel with only a slight loss of power, too.

Fuel was fed from two fuselage tanks of combined capacity of 800 l (180 imp gal; 210 US gal) and two self-sealing tanks of 460 l (100 imp gal; 120 US gal) in the wings.

 

The “Libélula”, quickly christened this way due to its slender fuselage, straight wings and the large cockpit glazing, was highly maneuverable at low altitude, had a low heat signature and incorporated 4th generation avionics and weapons system to deliver precision guided munitions at all weather conditions, day and night.

 

Armament consisted of two fixed 30 mm (1.181 in) Bernardini Mk-164 cannons in the wing roots and a total of nine external weapon hardpoints; these included a pair of launch rails at the wingtips for AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs (or ECM pods), four underwing pylons outside of the propeller radius and three underfuselage hardpoints. Chaff/flare dispensers in the tail section provided passive safety. The EMB 320 could carry more than 3.5 tons of external munitions, and loiter for three or more hours.

 

Avionics included:

● MIL-STD-1553 standards

● NVG ANVIS-9 (Night Vision)

● CCIP / CCRP / CCIL / DTOS / LCOS / SSLC (Computerized Attack Modes)

● R&S{RT} M3AR VHF/UHF airborne transceiver (two-way encrypted Data Link provision)

● HUD / HOTAS

● HMD with UFCP(Up Front Control Panel)

● Laser INS with GPS Navigational System

● CMFD (Colored Multi-Function Display) liquid crystal active matrix

● Integrated Radio Communication and Navigation

● Video Camera/Recorder

● Automatic Pilot with embedded mission planning capability

● Stormscope WX-1000E (Airborne weather mapping system)

● Laser Range Finder

● WiPak Support – (Wi-Fi integration for Paveway bombs)

● Training and Operation Support System (TOSS)

The prototype made its maiden flight on 2nd of April 2000. In August 2001, the Brazilian Air Force awarded EMBRAER a contract for 52 A-27 Libélula aircraft with options for a further 23, acquired from a contract estimated to be worth around $320 USD millions. The first aircraft was delivered in December 2003. By September 2007, 50 aircraft had entered service. The 75th, and last, aircraft was delivered to the FAB in June 2012.

 

While the Libélula has not been used in foreign conflicts the aircraft already fired in anger: One of the main missions of the aircraft was and is border patrol under the SIVAM program, and this resulted in several incidents in which weapons were fired.

 

On 3 June 2009, two BAF A-27A Libélulas, guided by an EMBRAER E-99, intercepted a Cessna U206G engaged in drug trafficking activities. Inbound from Bolivia, the Cessna was intercepted in the region of Alta Floresta d'Oeste and, after exhausting all procedures, one of the Moscarsos fired a warning shot from its 30mm cannons, after which the aircraft followed the Libélulas to Cacoal airport.

This incident was the first use of powers granted under the Shoot-Down Act, which was enacted in October 2004 in order to legislate for the downing of illegal flights. A total of 176 kg of pure cocaine base paste, enough to produce almost a ton of cocaine, was discovered on board the Cessna; the aircraft's two occupants attempted a ground escape before being arrested by Federal Police in Pimenta Bueno.

 

On 5 August 2011, Brazil started “Operation Ágata”, part of a major "Frontiers Strategic Plan" launched by President Dilma Rousseff in June, with almost 30 continuous days of rigorous military activity in the region of Brazil’s border with Colombia. It mobilized 35 aircraft and more than 3,000 military personnel of the Brazilian Army, Brazilian Navy and Brazilian Air Force surveillance against drug trafficking, illegal mining and logging, and trafficking of wild animals.

 

A-29s of 1°/3º Aviation Group (GAv), Squadron Scorpion, as well as six A-27A’s from 4°/3° GAv launched a strike upon an illicit airstrip, deploying eight 230 kg (500 lb) computer-guided Mk 82 bombs to render the airstrip unusable.

Multiple EMB 320 were assigned for night operations, locating remote jungle airstrips used by drug smuggling gangs along the border, and were typically guarded by several E-99 aircraft. The Libélulas also located targets for the A-29 Super Tucanos, allowing them to bomb the airstrips with an extremely high level of accuracy, making use of night-vision systems and computer systems calculating the impact points of munitions.

  

General characteristics

Crew: 2

Length (w/o pitot): 41 ft 10 in (12.76 m)

Wingspan: 40 ft 9 1/2 in (12.45 m)

Height: 13 ft 6 2/3 in (4.14 m)

Wing area: 203.4 ft² (18.9 m²)

Empty weight: 8.920 lb (4.050 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 16.630 lb (7.550 kg)

 

Powerplant:

2× Garrett T76-G410/411 turboprops, 1,040 hp (775.5 kW) each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 307 mph (267 kn, 495 km/h)

Range: 1.860 mi (1.620 nmi, 3.000 km)

Service ceiling: 30.160 ft (9.150 m)

Rate of climb: 2.966 ft/min (15 m/s)

 

Armament:

2× fixed 30 mm (1.181 in) Bernardini Mk-164 cannons in the wing roots with 200 RPG

9× external hardpoints for an ordnance load of 8.000 lb (3.630 kg), including smart weapons (e. g. Paveway GBUs, AGM-65B,C or D Maverick, AGM-114 Hellfire), iron bombs, cluster bombs, napalm tanks, unguided rocket pods and AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs as well as drop tanks.

  

The kit and its assembly:

This whif model is a remake of an idea I had/did many years ago from the remains of an Airfix OV-10D Bronco: converting it into a "normal" aircraft. While one could argue that this is not really exciting, I found this project pretty challenging as I wanted to make the result as plausible as possible, not just glue some leftover parts together (what I did years ago). And doing so turned a simple idea into major surgery and sculpting – or, how flickr fellow user Franclab called it, “it makes the Bronco look like the whif and the Libélula the real aircraft”.

 

The basis was a NiB OV-10A Bronco from Academy, a very good kit with a nice cockpit and lots or ordnance. Great value for the money. Design benchmark for what I had in mind was the FMA IA-58 Pucara, as it was designed for the exact same job as my EMB 320 - but details would differ.

 

The rear of the Bronco's central cabin was cut off and mated with the rear fuselage of a Matchbox Bf 110, which has a similar diameter - but the intersection between the square front of the Bronco and the oval Bf 110 fuselage was tricky (= requiring lots of putty work).

When these basic elements were fitted together, I finally decided to raise the spine. The mated fuselage parts would have had worked, but since the original high wings were missing, the EMB 320 would have had a distinctive and pointless hunchback - actually, with a rotor added, it could have become a helicopter, too!

Well, I went for the big solution, also in order to make the fuselage seam less obvious, and the whole upper rear fuselage was sculpted from 2C and NC putty. In the same process the tail was integrated into the fuselage. As a drawback, this shifted the kit's CG so far back that the lead load in the nose could not keep the front wheel down. Well, it's the price to pay for a better overall look.

 

The twin fins come from a 1:100 A-10, leftover from a Revell SnapFit kit, while the horizontal stabilizers were taken from the OV-10A, but had to be re-engraved in order to make the flap geometry plausible.

 

The wings were taken OOB and, relative to the Bronco, placed in a lower position, their original attachment point on top of the fuselage was faired over. The original plan had been to place them completely low, right where the OV-10's wing stubs would be located. But due to the engine nacelles under the wings I finally set them at mid height - otherwise, ground clearance and/or landing gear length had become a big issue - and the thing still looks stalky!

Moving the nacelles into a different (higher) wing position would have been an option, too, but that was IMHO too complicated. Since the EMD 320 would not have storage space behind the cockpit, a wing spar right through the fuselage would not be implausible. As a side effect I had to close the complete belly gap under the Bronco fuselage, again with 2C putty.

 

The Bronco’s tail booms were cut off and pointed end covers added, so that classic engine nacelles which also carry the main landing gear were created. The engine exhausts were relocated towards the nacelle’s end, and the propeller attachment modified, so that the propeller could turn freely on a metal axis and the overall look would be changed.

 

The cockpit tub was taken OOB, but armored seats from an Italeri AH-1 were used (with added headrests), as well as two crew figures, which come IIRC from a Hasegawa RA-5C Vigilante.

 

A new nose section with a sensor turret was built from scratch. It consists of parts from an AH-64 attack helicopter, mated with some styrene sheets for appropriate length. The shape was sculpted from massive material, and the result looks mean and menacing. The pitots were made from scratch, as well as the radar warning sensors on the hull.

 

The landing gear was improvised. The front strut actually belongs to a 1:200 Concorde(!) from Revell, the respective front wheels belong to an ESCI Ka-34 helicopter. For the main landing gear I used the struts from the Bronco kit, but the twin wheels are donations from the scrap box: these come from two Italeri Hawker Hawk kits.

 

The ordnance was puzzled together from the scrap box, too, as well as from Hasegawa Weapon sets. As the aircraft was supposed to have taken part in the real world “Operation Ágata”, I decided to add four light Paveway gliding bombs. Two Sidewinders and a pair of M260 rocket launchers (for seven 2.75"/70mm target marking missiles with phosphorous warheads) complete the full load.

The wing pylons come from two Italeri Tornados, those under the fuselage belong to a Matchbox Viggen and an Italeri Kfir.

 

As a final note: originally I wanted to call the aircraft “Moscardo” (= Hornet), but when it took shape its overall lines and potential agility made the dragonfly (Libélula in Portuguese) a much more appropriate namesake. So it goes... ^^

  

Painting and markings:

The reason why this turned out to be a Brazilian aircraft is the fact that I have been wanting to use the current FAB paint scheme for some time - it's basically made up from only two colors, FS 34092 (Dark Green) and FS 36176 (“F-15 Gray”, used on USAF F-15Es), paired with low-viz markings. Looks strange at first glance, like a poor man's Europe One/Lizard scheme, but over a typical rain forest scenery, low altitude and with hazy clouds around it is VERY effective, check the beauty pics which are based on BAF press releases. And it simply looks cool.

 

The pattern is based on current BAF F-5E fighters, the markings come from an FCM decal sheet and actually belong to a BAF Mirage 2000. 4º/3º GAv of the Brazilian Air Force is fictional, though, and some warning stencils were taken from the Academy kit.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in Dark Gull Gray (Humbrol 140), the landing gear wells in a yellow zinc chromate primer (Humbrol 225, Mid Stone) while the landing gear struts remained blank Aluminum, The outer wheel disks are white, while the inside is red - a detail I incorporated from some USN aircraft.

 

Painting was not spectacular - since the cockpit has a lot of glass to offer, I painted the windscreen with translucent light blue, and the observer on the rear seat received a similar sun blocker in deep blue. Translucent paint (yellow and black) was also used on the optical sensors at the nose turret as well as for position lights, all on a silver base.

 

The model was only slightly weathered thorough a black ink wash and some dry-brushing with Humbrol 140 and Testors 2076 (RLM 62) in order to emphasize panels - some panel lines were also painted onto the fuselage with thinned black ink, as the "new" rear body is devoid of any detail and difficult to engrave.

Vanquish Contracting Corp Demolition Specialist Mack RD/Leach 2rll

Ousted by the low-floor revolution, a brace of new to Manchester Volvo B10s await their fates at Lillyhall.

Still strying out my protos. Also, this is the start of a new faction, I will be working on.

Kenworth K200

I could have gone after Tim and Steph again. But I just didn't. I don't know if it's something from....Jackie, that's his name! Jackie slamming pieces of the cement floor against my skull, or if I just didn't have the motivation to go on. Or the heart. You see, The guy who put that contract on them...uh...Sherman? He's a moron. Him and that aging cow that tried to pay in shiny rocks. If anyone was a bigger idiot than them, though, it was me. I told Jackie I wouldn't hurt him, that I don't like bringing children into my work. But using him like I did, I might as well have mailed one of his fingers to his surrogate brother and sister. There was no need to bring him into something like this, and worst of all I pretty much broke one of my rules. Broke it into tiny, bite-sized pieces. For bringing harm to a kid like Jackie, I think I deserve a punishment. Maybe a self-exile. Five to ten years perhaps. Sounds fair. Apologizing to Tim and his friends might help. Probably gonna throw it in my face, but I'd say its about what I deserve. Don't know if I have the money to last a decade, though. Maybe... Oh, damn it! That phone's ringing again. That moron Sherman probably wondering why his teeth got kicked in by three ticked-off teens. This is ridiculous, I gotta tell this idiot that the contract's off.

 

"Listen Sherman, you call me again and Gotham's underworld's gonna become a bit more open, got it? I'm done!"

 

"I don't know who this Sherman is, but he sounds disappointing...I need a guy like you, Slade. Someone who can do stuff only you can.....

 

Well, like I said...ten years ain't gonna be kind to the wallet...

twitter.com/prichards1995/status/1101452418695479296

March 1st can only mean one thing... three brand new trucks have arrived and are out on the road! #Prichards #growingfleet #19plates #scania #suppliedbykeltruck

@20110430 鎌倉市/扇ガ谷　Gf670+Portra400

Gnangara , Perth, Western Australia

 

094A1251

What happens when two models are contracted to do the same photoshoot by mistake? Harry Emmalong, the unfortunate fashion photographer found out when sisters Flambo and Gissles Lank turned up at the same time.

 

The plan had been a simple shot, featuring an armchair by the newly formed furniture company, Shabby Sheik. However, both women were determined they should be the model employed, not accepting it to be a back-office mistake.

 

Harry said "Frankly, I just let them argue it out amongst themselves. There was much squealing from the back room, and afterwards I found tufts of hair all over the floor. But I wasn't going to get involved".

 

Eventually, Harry took this shot of the pair trying to force themselves into the same chair. It was as good he was going to get that day, especially as they broke the chair.

 

Shabby Sheik were delighted with the picture, and paid both girls half the amount.

 

On receiving the news of this, there was much squealing from the back room.