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MoonBus was created by friends who wanted to
share traveling experience together. We will
unite thorough music and dance, creating a space
where we can commune with nature while
appreaciating new experiences. It was created to
celebrate the new full moon. We will meet in
Buenos Aires and travel together for eigth dais
on this crazy trip in a huge motorhome with a
kitchen, bathroom, 14 seats and 12 beds... Good
music, exclusive movies, delicious food and new
friends. Welcome and fly to the moon...
Some weeks ago I ordered different materials for mosaic. I want to know the different kinds of glass, ceramic... and I'm looking for glass or ceramic that is not too expensive.
This unglazed ceramic is very, very, very easy to cut. But it is very, very, very dusty too. There is a small row with marble in the middle of this picture . Because of the small holes in the caramic tiles I'm "frightened" of grouting ... not grouting but cleaning after grouting ;-)
The greenhouse had some really beautiful flowers this year. I bought a few different ones to plant among my perennial flowers.
A path nexth to where I live. It was frost on the path and tiny lights glimmered. Two cars illuminates the road.
Baku is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan Republic, which was also the capital of Shirvan (during the reigns of Akhsitan I and Khalilullah I), Baku Khanate, Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and Azerbaijan SSR and the administrative center of Russian Baku governorate. Baku is derived from the old Persian Bagavan, which translates to "City of God". A folk etymology explains the name Baku as derived from the Persian Bādkube (بادکوبه ), meaning "city where the wind blows", due to frequent winds blowing in Baku. However, the word Bādkube was invented only in the 16th or 17th century, whereas Baku was founded at least before the 5th century AD.
Starting from the 13th century AD the name of Baku begins to appear in mediaeval European Sources. Spelling of the name varies from Vahcüh (Pietro Della Valle), to Bakhow, Baca, Bakuie and Backu.
On the coins minted by Shirvanshahs name appears as Bakuya.
Various different hypotheses have been proposed to explain the etymology of the word Baku. According to L.G.Lopatinski[3] and Ali Huseynzade "Baku" is derived from Turkic word for "hill". K.P. Patkanov, a specialist in Caucasian history, also explains the name as "hill" but in Lak language.
Around 1000 years ago, the territory of modern Baku and Absheron was savanna with rich flora and fauna. Traces of human settlement go back to the Stone Age. From the Bronze Age there have been rock carvings discovered near Bayil, and a bronze figure of a small fish discovered in the territory of the Old City. This have led some to suggest the existence of a Bronze Age settlement within the city's territory. Near Nardaran in a place called Umid Gaya, a prehistoric observatory was discovered, where on the rock the images of sun and various constellations are carved together with a primitive astronomic table. Further archeological excavations revealed various prehistoric settlements, native temples, statues and other artifacts within the territory of the modern city and around it.
In the 1st century, Romans organized two Caucasian campaigns and reached Baku. Near Baku, in Gobustan, Roman inscriptions dating from 84–96 AD were discovered. The remnant of this period is the village of Ramana in the Sabunchu district of Baku.
In the Life of the Apostle Bartholomew, Baku is identified as Armenian albanus. Some historians assume that during the existence of Caucasian Albania Baku was called Albanopolis. Local church traditions record the belief that Bartholomew's martyrdom occurred at the bottom of the Maiden Tower within the Old City, where according to historical data, a Christian church was built on the site of the pagan temple of Arta.
A record from the 5th-century historian Priscus of Panium was the first to mention the famous Bakuvian fires (ex petra maritima flamma ardet – from the maritime stone flame emerges). Owing to these eternal fires Baku became a major center of ancient Zoroastrianism. Sassanid shah Ardashir I gave orders "to keep an inextinguishable fire of the god Ormazd" in the city temples.
There is little or no information regarding Baku in medieval sources until the 10th century. The earliest numismatic evidence found in the city is an Abbasid coin dating from the 8th century AD. At that time Baku was a domain of the Arab Caliphate and later of Shirvanshahs. During this period, they frequently came under assault of the Khazars and (starting from the 10th century) the Rus. Shirvanshah Akhsitan I built a navy in Baku and successfully repelled another Rus assault in 1170. After a devastating earthquake struck Shamakhy, the capital of Shirvan, Shirvanshah's court moved to Baku in 1191. A mint was put into operation.
Between the 12th and 14th centuries, a massive fortification was undertaken in the city and around it. The Maiden Tower, castles of Ramana, Nardaran, Shagan and Mardakan, and also famous Sabayel castle on the island of the Baku bay was built during this period. The city walls were also rebuilt and strengthened.
The biggest problem of Baku during this time was the transgression of the Caspian Sea. The rising levels of the water from time to time engulfed much of the city and the famous castle of Sabayel went completely into the sea in the 14th century. These led to several legends about submerged cities such as Shahriyunan ("Greek city").
Hulagu Khan occupied Baku under the domain of the Shirvan state during the third Mongol campaign in Azerbaijan (1231–1239) and it became a winter residence for Ilkhanids. In the 14th century, the city prospered under Muhammad Oljeitu who relieved it from some of the heavy taxes. Bakuvian poet Nasir Bakui wrote a panegyric to Oljeitu thus creating the first piece of poetry in Azerbaijani language.
Marco Polo had written of Baku oil exports to Near Eastern countries. The city also traded with the Golden Horde, the Moscow Princedom, and European countries.
In 1501, Safavid shah Ismail I laid siege to Baku. The besieged inhabitants resisted, relying for defense on their fortifications. Due to the resistance, Ismail ordered part of the fortification's wall to be undermined. The fortress's defense was destroyed and many inhabitants were slaughtered. In 1538, the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I put an end to the Shirvanshahs' reign and in 1540, Baku was recaptured by Safavid troops again.
Between 1568 and 1574 there is a record of six English missions to Baku. English men named Thomas Bannister and Jeffrey Duckett described Baku in their correspondence. They wrote that the "...town is a strange thing to behold, for there issueth out of the ground a marvelous quantity of oil, which serveth all the country to burn in their houses. This oil is black and is called nefte. There is also by the town of Baku, another kind of oil which is white and very precious, and it is called petroleum." The first oil well outside of Baku was drilled in 1594 by a craftsman named A. Mamednur oglu. This man finished the construction of a high-efficiency oil well in the Balakhany settlement. This area was historically outside city territory.
In 1636, German diplomat and traveler Adam Olearius described Baku's 30 oil fields, noting that there was a great quantity of brown oil.[citation needed] In 1647, famous Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Baku. In April 1660, Cossacks under Stepan Razin attacked the Baku coast and plundered the village of Mashtaga. In 1683, Baku was visited by the ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden, Engelbert Kaempfer. In the following year, Baku was temporarily recaptured by the Ottoman Empire.
Baku is noted for being a focal point for traders from all across the world during the Early modern period, commerce was active and the area was prosperous. Notably, traders from the Indian subcontinent established themselves in the region. These Indian traders built the Ateshgah of Baku during 17th–18th centuries; the temple was used as a Hindu, Sikh, and Parsi place of worship.
The fall of the Safavid dynasty in 1722 caused widespread chaos.[citation needed] Baku was invaded by the Russian and Ottoman empires.
On 26 June 1723, after a long siege, Baku surrendered to the Russians and the Safavids were forced to cede the city alongside many other of their Caucasian territories. In accordance with Peter the Great's decree, the soldiers of two regiments (2,382 people) were left in the Baku garrison under the command of Prince Baryatyanski, the commandant of the city. Peter the Great, while equipping a new military expedition commanded by General Mikhail Matyushkin, charged him with sending more oil from Baku to St. Petersburg, "which is a basis of an eternal and sacred flame"—Old Russian: "коя является основой вечного и священного пламени". However, due to Peter's death, this order was not carried out.
In 1733, Baku was visited by physician Ioann Lerkh, an employee of the Russian embassy and, like many others before him, described the city oil fields. By 1730, the situation had deteriorated for the Russians as Nadir Shah's successes in Shirvan forced the Russians to make an agreement near Ganja on 10 March 1735, ceding the city and all other conquered territories in the Caucasus back to Persia.
After the disintegration of the Safavid Empire and after the death of Nader Shah, the semi-independent principality of Baku Khanate was formed in 1747 following the power vacuum which had been created. It was ruled by Mirza Muhammed Khan and soon became a dependency of the much stronger Quba Khanate. The population of Baku was small (approximately 5,000), and the economy was ruined as a result of constant warfare, banditry, and inflation. The khans benefited, however, from the sea trade with the rest of Iran. Feudal infighting in the 1790s resulted in the dominance of an anti-Russian faction in the city resulting in the Russian-leaning brother of the Khan being exiled to Quba.
By the end of the 18th century, Tsarist Russia now began a more firm policy with the intent to conquer all of the Caucasus at the expense of Persia and Ottoman Turkey. In the spring of 1796, by Yekaterina II's order, General Valerian Zubov's troops started a large campaign against Qajar Persia following the sack of Tbilisi and Persia's aim to restore its suzerainty over Georgia and Dagestan. Zubov had sent 13,000 men to capture Baku, and it was overrun subsequently without any resistance. On 13 June 1796, a Russian flotilla entered Baku Bay, and a garrison of Russian troops was placed inside the city. Later, however, Pavel I ordered the cessation of the campaign and the withdrawal of Russian forces following the death of his predecessor, Yekatarina II. In March 1797, the tsarist troops left Baku.
Prince Pavel Tsitsianov was shot to death when he tried to make Baku surrender during the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813).
Coat of arms of Baku Governorate
Tsar Alexander I set out to conquer Baku once again during the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813) during which Pavel Tsitsianov tried to capture Baku in January 1806. But aide-de-camp and cousin of Huseyngulu Khan suddenly shot Tsitsianov to death during the presentation of the city's keys to him. Left without a commander, the Russian Army left Baku and the occupation of Baku Khanate was delayed for a year. Baku was captured on October of the same year and eventually absorbed into the Russian Empire after formal ceding of the city amongst other integral territories in the North Caucasus and South Caucasus by Persia in the Treaty of Gulistan, in 1813. However, it was not until the aftermath of the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) and the Treaty of Turkmenchay that Baku came under nominal Russian rule, as the city was retaken by Persia during the war.
When Baku was occupied by the Russian troops during the war of 1804–1813, nearly the entire population of some 8,000 people was ethnic Tat.
In 1809, at the time of the Russian conquest, the Muslim population grew to become 95% of the city's population.
On 10 July 1840, the Russian Duma approved "The Principles of Ruling of the Transcaucasian Region", and Baku uyezd was turned into an administrative region of the Russian Empire.
Fortstadt, a new suburb, grew from the dispersed buildings scattered within the city's fortifications. Medieval seaside fortifications were demolished in 1861 to allow for the creation of the port and a customs house in the quay.
Baku became a center of the eponymous province after the devastating earthquake of 1859 in Shamakha. The population of Baku Governorate began to increase steadily. It is recorded that the number of police stations increased. The first Baku stock exchange had ten brokers, all of Russian nationality.
In 1823, the world's first paraffin factory was built in the city, and in 1846, the world's first oil well was drilled in Bibi-Heybat. Javad Melikov from Baku had built the first kerosene factory in 1863. In 1873, the Russian government offered competition for free land, and Baku caught the eye of the Nobel brothers. In 1882, Ludvig Nobel invited technical staff to Baku from Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Germany and founded a colony that he called Villa Petrolea. This colony was located in the "Black City". Bullock-cart drivers used wineskins and flasks to transport oil until the 1870s. In 1883, a Rothschild's plenipotentiary arrived from Paris and created the "Caspian-Black Sea Joint-Stock Company". Famous Baku oil magnates of the era included Musa Nagiyev, Murtuza Mukhtarov, Shamsi Asadullayev, Seid Mirbabayev, and many others.
The companies owned by Musa Nagiyev and Shamsi Asadullayev were the largest of Baku's oil producers. Established respectively in 1887 and 1893, they produced between 7 million and 12 million poods (110 to 200 Gg) of oil annually. The companies owned oil fields, refineries, and tankers. By the beginning of the next century, more than a hundred oil firms operated in Baku.
The oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries contributed to massive growth of Baku. Between 1856 and 1910 Baku's population grew at a faster rate than that of London, Paris or New York.
The second half of the 19th century was notable for its advancement in communication. In 1868, the first telegraph line to Tiflis was established, and in 1879, an under-sea telegraph line connected Baku with Krasnovodsk. In the same year, the Baku-Sabunchi-Surakhany was in operation. The tracks were 520 versts (555 kilometres) from Tiflis and was completed in a relatively short time on 8 May 1883. The first telephone line was in operation in 1886. In 1899, the first horse tramway appeared.
In 1870, a Lutheran-Evangelical community was established in Baku. However, in 1937, the clerics as well as the representatives of other religious communities were banished or shot. The Lutheran community was not revived until 1994, after the fall of the Soviet Union.
In the 1870s, the number of administrative and public institutions had grown, among them a provincial court and arbitration. In the first years of the 20th century, a case considered in the district court won great popularity and lawyers from Petersburg, Moscow, Tiflis, and Kiev became involved because of fabulous fees often received there.[clarification needed] The loudest litigations passed with the participation of a certain Karabek, who knew by heart the extensive code of laws of the Russian Empire and remembered all decrees of the Sacred Synod with exact reference numbers and dates.
In the beginning of October 1883, tsar Alexander III with his wife and two sons, accompanied by a huge retinue, arrived to Baku from Tiflis. The railway station had been prepared for the solemn ceremony. The city authorized Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev to welcome Alexander. The visitors examined the oil storage of Nobel brothers, the pump station, and three powerful oil wells of Shamsi Asadullayev. Beginning from the 1890s, Baku provided 95% of the oil production in the Russian Empire and approximately half of world oil production. Within ten years, the city had become the foremost producer of oil overtaking the United States.
In 1914–1917, Baku produced 7 million tons of oil each year, totaling 28,683,000 tons of oil , which constituted 15% of world production at the time. Germany did not trust Turkey in oil matters and transferred General Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein from the Middle Eastern front with his troops to Georgia in order to enter Baku, through Ukraine, the Black Sea and Georgia. Great Britain, in February 1918, urgently sent General Lionel Dunsterville with troops to Baku through Anzali to block the German troops. Having studied the Caucasus from the strategic point of view, Dunsterville concluded: "Those who capture Baku, will control the sea. That's why it was necessary for us to invade this city." On 23 August 1918, Lenin in his telegram to Tashkent wrote: "Germans agree to attack Baku provided that we would kick the British out of Baku".
Having been defeated in World War I, Turkey had to withdraw its forces from the borders of Azerbaijan in the middle of November 1918. Led by General William Thomson, British troops of 5,000 soldiers arrived in Baku on 17 November, and martial law was implemented on the capital of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic until "the civil power would be strong enough to release the forces from the responsibility to maintain the public order".
In the same year, Thompson was faced with an enormous challenge to recreate confidence in the economy. His fundamental requirement was to recreate a sound and reliable banking system. He wrote, however: "the political situation in Baku does not permit the opening of a British Bank because this would have increased suspicion and jealousy as to British intentions".
In the spring of 1918, Armenian interests in Baku were protected by the Baku Soviet of People's Commissars, who became known as the 26 Baku Commissars.
In February 1920, the 1st Congress of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan legally took place in Baku and made a decision about preparation of the armed revolt. On 27 April of the same year, units of the Russian 11th Red Army crossed the border of Azerbaijan and began to march towards Baku. Soviet Russia presented the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic with an ultimatum to surrender, and the troops entered Baku the next day, accompanied by Grigory Ordzhonikidze and Sergey Kirov of the Bolshevik Kavbiuro. The city became a capital of the Azerbaijan SSR and underwent many major changes. As a result, Baku played a great role in many branches of the Soviet life. Since about 1921, the city was headed by the Baku City Executive Committee, commonly known in Russian as Bakgorispolkom. Together with the Baku Party Committee (known as the Baksovet), it developed the economic significance of the Caspian metropolis. From 1922 to 1930, Baku was the venue for one of the major Trade fairs of the Soviet Union, serving as a commercial bridgehead to Iran and the Middle East.
On 8 February 1924, the first tram line and two years later the electric railway Baku-Surakhany—the first in the USSR—started to operate.
While being in Baku in May 1925 Russian poet Sergei Yesenin wrote a verse "Farewell to Baku":
Farewell to Baku! I'll see you no more
A sorrow and fright are now in the soul
And a heart under the hand is more painful and closer
And I feel the simple word "friend" more distinctly.
However Yesenin returned to the city on 28 July of the same year.
Maxim Gorkiy wrote after visiting Baku: "The oil fields remained in my memory as a perfect picture of the grave hell. This picture suppressed all the fantastic ideas of depressed mind, I was aware of." Well-known—at that time—industrialist V. Rogozin noted, in relation with the Baku oil fields, that everything there was done "without counting and calculating". In 1940, 22.2 million tons of oil were extracted in Baku which comprised nearly 72% of all the oil extracted in the entire USSR.
In 1941, the trolley bus line started to operate in the city, meanwhile the first buses appeared in Baku in 1928.
The US Ambassador to France, W. Bullitt, dispatched a telegram to Washington concerning "the possibilities of bombing and demolition of Baku" which were being discussed in Paris at the time. Charles de Gaulle was extremely critical of the plan according to both his wartime and postwar statements. Such ideas, he believed, were made by some "crazy heads that were thinking more of how to destroy Baku than of resisting Berlin". In his report submitted on 22 February 1940, to French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, General Maurice Gamelin believed the Soviets would fall into crisis if those resources were lost. However, during the Soviet-German War, ten defense zones were built around the city to prevent possible German invasion, planned within the Operation Edelweiss.
Even a cake for Hitler was adorned by a map of the Caspian Sea with the letters B-A-K-U spelled out in chocolate cream. After eating the cake, Hitler said: "Unless we get Baku oil, the war is lost".
The first offshore oil platform in the world, originally called "The Black Rocks", was built in 1947 within the city's metropolitan area. In 1960, the first Caucasus house-building plant was built in Baku, and on 25 December 1975, the only plant producing air-conditioners in the Soviet Union was turned over for operation.
In 1964–1968, the level of oil extraction rose to the stable level and comprised about 21 million tons per year. By the 1970s, Azerbaijan became one of the largest producers of grapes, and a champagne factory was subsequently constructed in Baku. In 1981, a record quantity of 15 billion m³ of gas was extracted in Baku.
In 1990, Shaumyan rayon of Baku was renamed to Khatai and Ordzhonikidze rayon to Narimanov. In 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Bakgorispolkom as a result, the first independent city mayor Rafael Allahverdiyev was appointed. On 29 April 1992, the names of some more city rayons were changed:
With the initiatives for saving the city in the 2000s, Baku embarked on a process of restructuring on a scale unseen in its history. Thousands of buildings from Soviet Period were demolished to make way for a green belt on its shores; parks and gardens were built on the land claimed by filling up the beaches of the Baku Bay. Improvements were made in the general cleaning, maintenance, garbage collection fields and these services are now at Western European standards. The city is growing dynamically and developing at full speed on an east-west axis along the shores of the Caspian Sea.
Most Soviet era street names have been replaced after the collapse of the Soviet Union. More than 225 streets have been renamed since 1988; however, some people still use the old names. Namely, the first street ever to be built outside the Inner City, originally called Nikolayevskaya after Nicolas I, was renamed to Parlaman Kuchesi, because the Parliament of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic held its meeting in a building located at that street, then during soviet era it became Kommunisticheskaya Ulitsa and now is called İstiqlaliyyet Kuchesi (Azeri: "independence").Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is 28 metres (92 ft) below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world and also the largest city in the world below sea level. Baku lies on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, on the Bay of Baku. Baku's urban population was estimated at two million people as of 2009. Baku is the primate city of Azerbaijan—it is the sole metropolis in the country, and about 25% of all inhabitants of the country live in Baku's metropolitan area.
Baku is divided into twelve administrative raions and 48 townships. Among these are the townships on the islands of the Baku Archipelago, as well as the industrial settlement of Neft Daşları built on oil rigs 60 kilometres (37 miles) away from Baku city in the Caspian Sea. The Old City, containing the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and the Maiden Tower, was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.
The city is the scientific, cultural, and industrial centre of Azerbaijan. Many sizeable Azerbaijani institutions have their headquarters there. In the 2010s, Baku became a venue for major international events. It hosted the 57th Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, the 2015 European Games, 4th Islamic Solidarity Games, the European Grand Prix in 2016, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix since 2017, the final of the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League, UEFA Euro 2020 and 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The Baku International Sea Trade Port is capable of handling two million tonnes of general and dry bulk cargoes per year. Baku is renowned for its harsh winds, reflected in its nickname, the "City of Winds".
Winter Night Walk.
Something different. I dabbled in „street" again. Nighttime street, even! It was a cold and somewhat uncomfortable evening, wet and cold, the kind of weather probably nobody really likes to go outside, even in the city. It was this time when shops close and bars open, so some people on the street, despite of the weather. I just snapped more or less blindly. But I have to say, I like some of those. Are the particulary original? Probably no. But still I think they give a sense of the mood and the place.
There is a point in our lives when we, the children, become the adults in the relationship with our parents.
It will come for most of us, no one tells you this will happen, and you are unprepared for it. But it comes
And each of us has a different relationship with our parents than everyone else, what's right for me, and my views, do not apply to you.
Yesterday, was the funeral of the person I have known longer than anyone else on this earth, now that my family is all gone. Margaret and Brian were married a few weeks before mine, and moved into the new build bungalow also a few weeks before my parents.
They also had one child, a son, and Douglas and I have been friends longer than I have been friends with anyone else, although he is a year younger than me.
I have my views on Margaret, but the reason I travelled back to Suffolk for her funeral, was to be there for Douggie, and give him the support he has given me through three weddings and two funerals.
Norfolk isn't far away, and the funeral and wake were taking place just a mile or two over the border from Suffolk, but the roads beyond Ipswich are poor, twisty and where there are accidents or roadworks, no real alternative routes.
I was also leaving just before six, so had to get across the Thames at Dartford and up the A12 during rush hour, so it wouldn't be easy. But at least there would be no rain.
I was up at five, dressed and washed, with time to drink a coffee before leaving. Loading the car with me and my camera bag, as I had plans in case I had time, to visit a church or two.
It was dark up the M20 to Dartford, and busy with traffic, but I made good time, and listened to a loop of old music podcasts all day, so chat and music kept me awake.
I got onto the M25 with no problem, and through the tunnels with only a slight slowdown, but on the other side there were queues.
Despite not wanting to spend money on a new railway, there is always money for road and junction improvements, even if it will just increase traffic. So it is that the M25/A12 junction is being upgraded, and with narrow lanes, speed restrictions, jams began a good four miles before the roadworks started.
I forced my way to the left hand lane, which became a filter lane, meaning it was much quicker than the remaining four lanes. But then came the roundabout. The roundabout under the motorway is the reason the improvements are needed, and queueing traffic blocks the junctions and causes even more backlogs.
Of course, traffic lights on roundabouts are never good ideas, so I was confronted with a wall of traffic, so when the light went green, I went in front of a track before it could shuffle forward and block more of the junction, then there was some clear road.
And ducking into the extreme left hand lane, I dodged past the queuing traffic that was blocking the exit from the A12, and onto clear road.
Yay.
The sky was clear, the sun about to rise, and it was going to be a glorious day.
Just north of Chelmsford, I stopped for breakfast: two sausage rolls and a coffee from Greggs, then filled up the tank and on my way north.
More traffic at Ipswich where the A12 meets the A14 to get over the Orwell, but then clear traffic again after ten minutes delay.
Soon, though, the road narrows to two lane blacktop, and all is well until you meet a slower vehicle. Like a tractor as we did soon after Whickham Market.
For 15 long minutes the tractor lead a growing snake of cars along the winding lanes until it pulled over and we could get past.
Blythburgh was always the marker when travelling back from Ipswich or beyond, that we were nearly home. he handsome church sits high, for Suffolk, overlooking the village and river which is mostly mudflats.
The busy A12 skirts close, but you get to the church via a narrow land, leaving the modern world far behind.
The church opened at nine, it was nearly half past, it was probably open before nine, and was open when I pushed the porch door.
Inside is an unspoilt space, grey wood that have witnessed the centuries so that their vigour has faded to almost no colour of all.
Its the roof people come for. Wooden beams and pairs of wooden angels. I have brought my big lens so to snap them.
My plan was to visit the large and impressive church in Southwold. I turned off the A12 and drove along the straight road into the town, where I found multiple sets of roadworks, and few places to park for a short time, anywhere near the church.
My back is achy, so I wanted somewhere close to park. Anyway, I drove round the town twice, found nowhere to park, so turned the car round and headed back north, until I came to South Cove.
South Cove is a small village, a few farms really, but has a fine, if rustic, well-proportioned church, set in a large churchyard.
And the church was open, so small the wide angle lens wasn't needed, and with windows close to the floor too, no big lens needed either.
Next town up is Kessingland, which until the 80s had the A12 running through the centre of it, but now a bypass lays to the west and the village is quiet. I don't think I had been of the main street, so I went in search of the church, and found it on Church Street.
Obviously.
I rarely research churches before I visit, so nothing prepared me for the interior of St Edmund.
It seems in the last two years, they church had sourced some banners with apt slogans on, banners which were made to look like large tapered ensigns, hanging from or along the supports of the roof.
A man was practicing on the organ, and the notes echoed round the church. Not only does the church have banners, it has ship's wheels and other nautical stuff, although most traditionalists won't like it, I think it hangs together, and if the congregation wants it thus, who are we to argue?
Next stop was South Cove, which I had forgotten I had visited before, so redid all my shots. But this time did see the panel featuring St Michael behind the font, where the rood steps began.
A small, perfect, church, perfect for a small country parish.
I take my shots and leave, driving back onto the A12 and heading into Lowestoft, my main task was to drive over the new bridge which spans Lake Lothing.
The town had been waiting since at least 1966 for a new bridge, and the 3rd crossing was opened in September, and offers fine views as you drive across.
I went to see the old family home. It has been renovated and looks splendid, and not much like it was when sold four years back, it looks cared for and lived in, which is what the buyer promised us he would do.
So then to the crematorium, a drive north through Gunton and past Hopton where Dougie lives, then through the housing estate behind the area hospital to the car park, and then wait.
Margaret was 89, had a long life, but friends of the same age are few, and families are now scattered. So, one can never be sure how many will attend. The chapel was half full at least, with people coming from Kent, Wiltshire and even California to be there.
The celebrant spoke for twenty minutes, saying nice things as they have to do. But, avoiding, or just hinting at faults. Whatever she had done in her life to Dougie, he still loved her, and he was in bits.
Afterward we lined up to shake his hand or give him and Pennie a hug, and allowed me to tell him he was the brother I never had. He was always there for me, and will be there for him.
More tears.
There was a wake at the pub in Hopton, but there was no one I knew other than Dougie and Penny, so I had a drink and made my excuses. These things are really for family and close friends, so I left at quarter to three, hoping to get home before midnight.
In the end, I made good time, I was going round Ipswich before four, and at the M25 junction less than an hour later, and was able to easily join it and zoom round to the bridge. No queues on the southbound side, but the queue northbound went all the way back to the M20 junction, so six mines.
I zoomed on.
I got home at ten past six, happy to have done it and go home in under three and a half hours. Dinner was defrosted ragu, pasta and reheated focaccia, which we were sitting down to eat twenty minutes after getting in.
Phew.
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Perhaps some counties have a church which sums them up. If there has to be one for Suffolk, it must be the church of the Most Holy Trinity, Blythburgh. Here is the late medieval Suffolk imagination writ large, as large as it gets, and not overwritten by the Anglican triumphalism of the 19th century. Blythburgh church is often compared with its near neighbour, St Edmund at Southwold, but this isn't a fair comparison - Southwold church is much grander, and full of urban confidence. Probably a better comparison is with St Margaret, Lowestoft, for there, too, the Reformation intervened before the tower could be rebuilt. The two churches have a lot in common, but Blythburgh has the saving grace. It is so fascinating, so stunningly beautiful, by virtue of a factor that is rare in Anglican parish churches: sheer neglect.
Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, is the church that Suffolk people know and love best, and because of this it has generated some extraordinary legends. The first is that Blythburgh, now a tiny village bisected by the fearsome A12 between London and the east coast ports, was once a thriving medieval town. This idea is used to explain the size of the church; in reality, it is almost certainly not the case. Blythburgh has always been small. But it did have an important medieval priory, and thus its church attracted enough wealthy piety on the eve of the Reformation to bankroll a spectacular rebuilding.
It is to Lavenham, Long Melford, Mildenhall, Southwold and here that we come to see the late 15th century Suffolk aesthetic in perfection. But for my money, Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, is the most significant medieval art object in the county, ranking alongside Salle in Norfolk. Look up at the clerestory; it seems impossible, there is so much glass, so little stone; and yet it rides the building with an air of permanence. Beneath, there is a coyness about the aisles that I prefer to the mathematics of Lavenham. Here, it could not have been done otherwise; it distils human architectural experience. If St Peter and St Paul at Lavenham is man talking to God, Holy Trinity at Blythburgh is God talking to man.
At the east end, a curious series of initials in Lombardic script stretch across the outer chancel wall. You can see an image of this at the top. It reads A-N-JS-B-S-T-M-S-A-H-K-R. This probably stands for Ad Nomina JesuS, Beati Sanctae Trinitas, Maria Sanctorem Anne Honorem Katherine Reconstructus ('In the name of the blessed Jesus, the Holy Trinity, and in honour of Holy Mary, Anne and Katherine, this was rebuilt'). A fanciful theory is that they are the initials of the wives of the donors. However, note the symbol of the Trinity in the T stone, and I think this is a clue to the whole piece.
Figures stand on pedestals atop the south side and east end. The most easterly is unusual, a crowned old man sitting on a throne directly on the gable end. This is a medieval image of God the Father, a rare survival. Moving westwards from here we find the Blessed Virgin in prayerful pose, Christ as the Saviour of the World holding an orb in one hand and blessing with the other, and then a collared bear with a ragged staff, a seated woodwose, another bear, this time with a collar and bell, and last of all a fox with a goose in its mouth, his jaws grasping the neck:
The porch is part of the late 15th century rebuilding, but it was considerably restored in the early 20th century. Interestingly, the angels crowning the battlements look medieval - but they weren't there in 1900, so must have come from somewhere else. Pretty much all the porch's features of interest date from this time. These include the small medieval font pressed into service as a holy water stoup, and image niche above the doors. This has been filled in more recent years by an image if the Holy Trinity; God the Father holds the Son suspended while a dove representing the Holy Spirit alights; you can see medieval versions of this at Framlingham and Little Glemham. Of all medieval imagery, this was the most frowned upon by puritans. An image of God the Father was thought the most suspicious of all idolatries. Indeed, as late as the 1870s, when the Reverend White edited the first popular edition of the Diary of William Dowsing, he actually congratulated Dowsing on destroying images of the Holy Trinity in the course of his 1644 progress through the counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
William Dowsing visited on the morning on April 9th, 1644. It was a Tuesday, and he had spent most of the week in the area. The previous day he'd been at Southwold and Walberswick to the east, but preceded his visit here with one to Blyford, which lies to the west, so he was probably staying overnight at the family home in Laxfield. He found twenty images in stained glass to take to task (a surprisingly small number, given the size of the place) and two hundred more that were inaccessible that morning (probably in the great east window). Three brass inscriptions incurred his wrath (but again, this is curious; there were many more) and he also ordered down the cross on the porch and the cross on the tower. Most significantly of all, he decided the angels in the roof should go.
Lots of Suffolk churches have angels in their roofs. None are like Blythburgh's. You step inside, and there they are, exactly as you've seen them in books and in photographs. They are awesome, breathtaking. There are twelve of them. Perhaps there were once twenty. How would you get them down if ordered to do so? The roof is so high, and the stencilling of IHS symbols would also have to go.
Perhaps this was already indistinct by the time Dowsing visited. Perhaps Tuesday, 9th of April 1644 was a dull day.
Several of the angels are peppered with lead shot. Here is another of those Suffolk legends; that Dowsing and the churchwardens fired muskets at the angels to try and bring them down. But when the angels were restored in the 1970s, the lead shot removed was found to be 18th century; contemporary with them there is a note in the churchwardens accounts that men were paid for shooting jackdaws living inside the building, so that probably explains where the shot came from. Here are some details of that wonderful roof:
The otherwise splendid church guide also repeats the error that the Holy Trinity symbol in the porch filled a gap that had been 'empty since 1644'. But there was certainly no image in it when Dowsing arrived here, or anywhere else in Suffolk; statues were completely outlawed by injunctions in the early years of the reign of Edward VI, almost a hundred years before the morning of Dowsing's visit.
Another feature used as evidence of puritan destruction is the ring fixed into the most westerly pillar of the north arcade. Cromwell's men stabled their horses here, apparently. Well, it almost certainly is a ring for tying horses to, and the broken bricks at the cleared west end also suggest this; but there is no reason to think that Cromwell and the puritans were responsible. For a full century before Cromwell, and for nearly two hundred years afterwards, a church as big as this would have had a multitude of uses. Holy Trinity was built for the rituals of the Catholic church; once these were no longer allowed, a village like Blythburgh, which can never have had more than 500 people, would have seen it as an asset in other ways. It was only with the 19th century sacramental revival brought about by the Oxford Movement that we started getting all holy again about our parish churches. Perhaps it was used as an overnight stables for passing travellers on the main road; not an un-Christian use for it to be put to, I think.
In August 1577, a great storm brought down the steeple, which fell into the church and damaged the font. This was at the height of Elizabethan superstition, and the devil was blamed; his hoof marks can still be seen on the church door. Supposedly, a black dog ran through the church, killing two parishioners; he was seen the same day at St Mary, Bungay. Black Shuck is the East Anglian devil dog, the feared hound of the marshes; and Holy Trinity is the self-styled Cathedral of the Marshes, so it is appropriate that he appeared here. You can see where the font has been broken. You can also see that this was one of the rare, beautiful seven sacrament fonts, similar in style to the one at Westhall; but, like those at neighbouring Wenhaston and Southwold, it has been completely stripped of imagery. Almost certainly, this was in the 1540s, but there is a story that the font at Wenhaston was chiselled clean as part of the 19th century restoration. More importantly in any case, the storm, or the dog, or the devil, damaged the roof; it would not be properly repaired for more than 400 years. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, accounts note that Holy Trinity is not impregnable to the weather. By the 19th century, parishioners attended divine service with umbrellas. By the 1880s, it was a positively dangerous building to be in, and the Bishop of Norwich ordered it closed.
Why had Holy Trinity not been restored? Simply, this is a big church, with a tiny village. There was no rich patron, and in any case the parishioners had a passion for Methodism. Probably, repairs had been mooted, but not a wholesale restoration as we have seen at Lavenham, Long Melford and Southwold. By the 1880s, attention in England had turned to the preservation of medieval detail; in short, restorations were not as ignorant as they had been a quarter of a century earlier. Suggestions that Holy Trinity should be restored in the manner of the other three were blocked by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, and this owed a lot to the energy of William Morris, the Society's secretary.
The slow, patient restoration of this building took the best part of a century; indeed, when I first visited in the 1980s I was still aware of a sense of decay.
Nothing could be further from the truth today. You step into a wide, white, open space, one of England's great church interiors. There, high above you, is the glorious roof and the angels of God. The brick floors spread around the scraped font, which still bears its dedicatory inscription and standing places for participants. You turn into the central gangway, and more than twenty empty indents for brasses stretch before you. Dowsing can be blamed for the destruction of hardly any of them. In reality, you see the work of 18th and 19th century thieves and collectors.
The bench-ends are superb. The benches themselves were reconstructed in the late 19th century, supposedly from the main post of Westleton windmill, but the ends are some of the county's finest medieval images. There are partial sets of basically three series: the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Works of Mercy, and the Labours of the Seasons. There are also angels bearing symbols of the Holy Trinity and the Crown. There are other figures too, obscure and fragmentary and whose purpose is unclear, as if surviving figments of a broken dream. The quality of what remains makes you grieve for what has been lost.
The rood screen is a disappointment; most of it is modern, and the medieval bits perfunctory and scoured. Having said this, note how tiny the exit from the north aisle rood loft stair is. Also at this end of the church, a scattering of medieval glass, mainly angels. There is more in the south aisle, including a collection of shields of the Holy Trinity:
But step through the central aisle to see something remarkable. The priest and choir stalls are fronted by exquisite carvings of the Apostles, the Evangelists, John the Baptist, St Stephen, Mary Queen of Heaven and Christ in Majesty. Seeing these eighteen carvings is a bit like gobbling up a very large box of chocolates, but it is worth stopping to consider quite how genuine they all are. For a start, there could not have been choir stalls here in medieval times, and in any case we know that these desks and their frontages were in the north aisle chapel until the 19th century. They were used as school benches in the 17th century; they still bear holes for inkpots, and the graffiti of a bored Dutch child (his father was probably working on draining the marshes) is dated 1665. There is nothing at all like them anywhere else in Suffolk.
Whatever, the east end of the chancel and aisles are thrillingly modern, wholly devotional. In the north aisle, traditionally the Hopton chantry, extraordinary friezes of skeletons become symbols of the four evangelists behind the altar. Beside them is Peter Ball's beautiful Madonna and Child. Separating the south aisle chapel from the sanctuary is is one of Suffolk's biggest Easter sepulchres, tomb of the Hoptons. Behind the high altar, branches arranged like huge stag antlers spread dramatically. It is all just about perfect. Tucked to one side of the organ is a clockjack; Suffolk has two, and the other is down-river at Southwold. They date from the late 17th century, and presumably once struck the hours; at high church Blythburgh and Southwold today, they are used to announce the entry of the ministers.
This is a wonderful church to wander around in, the light and the air changing with the seasons, a suffused sense of the numinous presenting its different faces according to the time of day and time of year. Come here on a bright spring morning, or in the drowsy heat of a summer's day. Come on a cold winter afternoon as the colours fade and the smell of woodsmoke from neighbouring cottages weaves a spell above the old stone floors and woodwork. And before you leave, find the doorway in the south-west corner of the nave. It opens onto a low, narrow stairway. You can go up it. It leads up into the parvise storey of the south porch, now reappointed and dedicated as a tiny chapel, a peaceful spot to spend a few moments before continuing your journey.
You may be reading this entry in a far-off land; or perhaps you are here at home. Whatever, if you have not visited this church, then I urge you to do so. It is the most beautiful church in Suffolk, a wonderful art object, and it is always open in daylight. It remains one of the most significant medieval buildings in England. If you only visit one of Suffolk's churches, then make it this one
Simon Knott, 2014.
Patient Name: Unknown
D.O.B: Unknown
Gender: Male
Race: Mixed
Weight: 175lbs
Notes:
There is one man we keep that isn't like the rest. Unlike the others, he can think on his own... He moves on his own... He isn't like the others we've created. He was different. Very dangerous.
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Credit: InOldNews | Sumit Das
Location & Date: Dhaka 02/07/2024
Description: Riverine water transport is robust in Bangladesh primarily due to the country's extensive network of rivers and waterways, which are vital for transportation and commerce. Bangladesh is crisscrossed by major rivers like the Padma, Jamuna, and Meghna, as well as numerous smaller rivers and tributaries. These rivers serve as natural highways, connecting remote villages to urban centers and facilitating the movement of goods and people across the country.
This CC-BY-licensed footage of climate change was published with support from Internews' Earth Journalism Network and The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).