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The Provinces year-end Public Accounts show B.C. had a strong fiscal result last year, bolstered by a faster-than-expected economic recovery as government made record investments to support British Columbians.
Despite unprecedented spending to support people and businesses, B.C. ended the 2021-22 fiscal year with a $1.3-billion surplus as the provinces economy outperformed both public- and private-sector forecasts.
To access Public Accounts online, visit:
www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/finances/public-ac...
The technical PowerPoint presentation is available
Day 5 of 2017 Mid-Season Invitational Group Stage at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 14 May 2017.
Before March 2 2015, please come here to nominate the entire Chinatown as the historic site to be preserved, don't expect City of Vancouver to save Chinatown when the Council approved more condo to be built in Chinatown at rapid rate to destroy the Chinatown.
www.heritagebc.ca/blog?articleid=162
Chinese Historic Places Recognition Project
THE HERITAGE BATTLE FOR CHINATOWN
Historic Vancouver neighbourhood is being redeveloped, raising fears it will lose its character.
By JOHN MACKIE, VANCOUVER SUN November 15, 2014
The marketing line for the Keefer Block condo development in Chinatown is “Heritage Meets Modern.”
But just how much heritage will be left after a wave of modern developments washes over the historic district is a matter of debate.
A new proposal for the 700-block of Main Street would demolish the last three buildings from Hogan’s Alley, a once-notorious back lane that was the longtime home of Vancouver’s black community.
Another condo development at 231 Pender would replace a funky, Chinese-themed garage that is listed on Canada’s Register of Historic Places. Angelo Tosi’s family has owned their building at 624 Main since 1930. It may date back to 1895, and looks it — the fixtures and shelving are as old as the hills.
But Tosi is 82, and will probably sell when the price is right. He doesn’t expect his store to survive.
“It’ll be gobbled up by the monstrous buildings,” said Tosi. “And then they’ll take it all, and it’s finished. They won’t keep the heritage on the bottom, they’ll put down whatever they want.”
His fatalistic attitude reflects the changes in Chinatown, which is undergoing a development boom after zoning changes by the City of Vancouver.
The protected “historic” area of Chinatown is now Pender Street, while much of Main, Georgia and Keefer can now be redeveloped, with heights of up to 90 feet (nine storeys). A few sites can go even higher.
Two towers are going up at Keefer and Main — the nine-storey, 81-unit Keefer Block, and the 17-storey, 156-unit 188 Keefer. Up the street at 137 Keefer, a development permit application has just gone in for a new nine-storey “multi-family building.”
None of them has stirred up much controversy. But a recent public meeting about a 12-storey, 137-unit condo to be built on an empty lot at Keefer and Columbia got people riled up.
“There was a lot of angry people that night,” said Henry Yu, a UBC history professor who feels a “vision plan” the Chinatown community worked on with the city for several years is being ignored.
“The vision plan gets passed, (but it has) no teeth,” said Yu. “Actually (there is) no policy, it’s a wish list of ‘Oh, we’d like seniors housing, we’d like to do this, we’d like to do that.’
“Almost immediately, the two (highrise) buildings in the 600-, 700-block Main go up, and they’re just basically Yaletown condos. Not even Yaletown — Yaletown has more character.
“These are straight out of the glass tower (model), no (historic) character, obliterating everything in terms of tying it to the kind of streetscape of Chinatown. You’re going to split the historic two or three blocks of Chinatown with a Main Street corridor of these glass towers.”
Yu says Chinatown has historically been small buildings on 25-foot lots, which makes for a jumble of small stores that gives it a unique look and character. But the new developments are much wider, and just don’t look like Chinatown.
“The two 600-, 700-block buildings have a rain shield that’s an awning, a glass awning that runs the whole block,” said Yu. “That’s the design guideline for the city as a whole, but it was nothing to do with Chinatown, (which is) narrow frontages, changing awnings.
“We said that (to the city planners), we raised it and raised it, but the planners just shoved it down our throat.”
Kevin McNaney is Vancouver’s assistant director of planning. He said the city changed the zoning in parts of Chinatown to help revitalize the neighbourhood, which has been struggling.
“We have been taking a look across Chinatown,” said McNaney. “What we’re finding is that rents are dropping, and vacancies are rising. And that’s a big part of the strategy of adding more people to revitalize Chinatown.
“There are only 900 people currently living in Chinatown, many of them seniors. It’s just not the population base needed to support businesses, so a lot of the businesses are going under. Along Pender Street you see a lot of vacancies right now.
“So at the heart of this plan is to bring more people to revitalize Chinatown, and also use that development to support heritage projects, affordable housing projects and cultural projects.”
Henry Yu disagrees. “The idea that you need density in Chinatown itself, that you need your own captive customer base, is moronic,” he said.
“Where else in the city would you make that argument, that nobody can walk more than two blocks, that no one is going to come in here from somewhere else?
“They will. People go to the International Summer Market in Richmond in an empty gravel field. Ten thousand people at night come from everywhere in the Lower Mainland, because there’s something worth going to.
“The problem isn’t that you need a captive audience that has no other choice but to shop in Chinatown — that’s just stupid, there’s plenty of people in Strathcona. The problem is, is there something worth coming to (in Chinatown)? And that has to do with the character, what the mix is, what kind of commercial.”
Ironically, all the new construction comes just as Chinatown seems to be undergoing a bit of a renaissance. Several new businesses have popped up in old buildings, attracted by the area’s character and cheap rents.
The très-hip El Kartel fashion boutique recently moved into a 6,000 sq. ft space at 104 East Pender that used to house Cathay Importers. It’s on the main floor of the four-storey Chinese Benevolent Association Building, which was built in 1909.
Across the street at 147 East Pender is Livestock, a runner and apparel store that is so cool it doesn’t even have a sign. “We were in Gastown at the corner of Cordova and Abbott, (and) just felt a change was needed,” said store manager Chadley Abalos.
“We found the opportunity in Chinatown, so we decided to move here. We feel it’s one of the new spots that are booming. You see a lot of new businesses — restaurants, clothing stores, furniture. We see the potential in it growing.”
Russell Baker owns Bombast, a chic furniture store at 27 East Pender. But he is not new to the neighbourhood — Bombast has been there for 10 years.
“I think (Chinatown is) one of the most interesting parts of the city,” he said.
“It’s still got some variety, some texture, architecturally, socially, economically. A lot of what’s happened to the downtown peninsula (in recent years) constitutes erasure. This is one of the places that still sort of feels like … it feels more urban than some parts of downtown. I would say downtown is a vertical suburb.
“If you like cities, Chinatown feels like one. That’s why we’re here.”
Baker said he expected Chinatown to happen a lot sooner than it did. Retailers that do well there still tend to be destinations, rather than stores that rely on heavy street traffic. “The buzz is that Chinatown is happening, but it’s really strategic, what’s happening,” he said. “Fortune Sound Club, that’s a niche market that’s destination. That’s the kind of thing that works down here. We’re destination, Bao Bei (restaurant) is destination.”
The new businesses make for an interesting mix with the old ones. The 200 block East Georgia Street is hopping with hipster bars (the Pacific Hotel, Mamie Taylor’s) and art galleries (Access Gallery, 221A, Centre A). But it also retains classic Chinatown shops like the Fresh Egg Mart and Hang Loong Herbal Products.
The question is whether the small businesses will be displaced as the area gentrifies. Real estate values have soared — Soltera paid $6.5 million for the northwest corner of Keefer and Main in 2011, Beedie Holdings paid $16.2 million for two parcels of land at Columbia and Keefer in 2013.
That seems like a lot for a site that’s two blocks from the troubled Downtown Eastside, but Houtan Rafii of the Beedie Group said that’s what land costs in Vancouver.
“It is a significant, substantial amount of money, but compared to most every area in Vancouver, it’s not dissimilar, whether you’re in Gastown, downtown, Concord-Pacific, even on the boundaries of Strathcona or on Hastings close to Clark or Commercial,” said Rafii. “It’s not an obscene amount of money, it’s market.”
Rafii said the Beedie Group met with local groups for a year about its development, and was surprised at the reaction it got at the public meeting, which was held because Beedie is looking to rezone the site to add an additional three storeys.
Yu doesn’t have a problem with the Beedie proposal per se, but feels it’s on a key site in Chinatown, and should be developed accordingly.
“It’s not the building’s fault,” said Yu.
“People are going ‘What’s wrong with this glass tower, it’s working everywhere else, and Chinese people love buying this stuff if it’s UBC.’
“That’s not the point. There’s plenty of room around the city to build glass towers (that are) 40 storeys, 50 storeys, whatever. Why do they need to be in this spot?
“This one is right in the heart (of Chinatown). Across the street is the Sun Yat-sen (garden), the Chinese Cultural Centre. On the same street is the (Chinese workers) monument. Next door is the back alley of Pender.”
Yu said a recent study found there will be a need for 3,300 income-assisted senior housing beds in the Lower Mainland over the next 15 years. He said the Columbia and Keefer site would be perfect for a seniors project.
“There’s a particular kind of resonance to the idea this is a traditional place where a lot of Chinese seniors can retire to,” he said.
“There is a five-year waiting list for the Simon K.Y. Lee Success long-term care home, so there’s huge demand, huge need, this is a place where they want to go. (Building a seniors home) would actually would help revitalize (Chinatown), because seniors bring sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters into a community.
“That’s the Chinatown vision plan, that’s what’s in there, that’s what those discussions were about. And yet what we’ve got is 137 luxury condo units for hip youngsters. That’s the Beedie proposal, and that’s what the last two towers (on Main) were. It’s not just insulting, it’s the thwarting of the very promise (of the vision plan).”
Wu would like to see a moratorium on new developments in Chinatown “until design guidelines are actually built to create a zone that respects the (area’s special) character.”
Retired city planner Nathan Edelson agrees. Which is significant, because he worked on the Chinatown vision plan for over a decade.
“My suggestion is that there should be a moratorium on the rezonings, for sure, until they can get an assessment of what the current new development is,” said Edelson. “To what degree are they contributing to, or harming Chinatown, the historic character of Chinatown? And it’s not an obvious answer.”
Read more:
www.vancouversun.com/business/Battle+Chinatown/10384991/s...
I was last here on a cold and grey day at the beginning or March.
Graveney stretches along the road, but All Saints sits on a quiet bend, and felt wonderfully isolated.
And not at all friendly, I have to say. It was locked, as expected, so I took aome outside shots and we moved on eatwards, but somehow I really wanted to see inside here, just to see if it could be warmer than it felt on that March morning.
I parked beside the road, I saw the door of the porch open, and a light filled space beyond.
Looked good....
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The Victorians did not leave too much of a mark here, for the mellow red tiles, box pews and ledger slabs remain. There is a heavy medieval rood screen and the empty north and south aisles allow us to appreciate the building as it might originally have appeared. In the north aisle is a memorial brass to John Martyn (d. 1436) with cathedral-like proportions, being over 56 in long.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Graveney
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GRAVENEY
LIES the next parish north-westward from Hernehill. It was called in the time of the Saxons, Graven-ea, and afterwards, by corruption of language, Gravenel, in like manner as Oxney, Pevensey, and Rumency, were corruptly called Oxenel, Pevensel, and Rumenel; (fn. 1) the name of it denoting its low and watery situation, and it is now, by contraction, usually called Grainey.
IT LIES about two miles from the high London road, on the north side of it, at the 48th mile-stone, the parish of Goodnestone intervening, in a low country adjoining the marshes, of which there is a large quantity, both fresh and salt within it, Faversham creek and the Swale being the western and northern boundaries of it. The soil of it various, there being in the level part some rich tillage land, and on the rises or small hills in it, a light soil of both sand and gravel. The church stands in the eastern part of the parish, having Graveneycourt, with an antient gateway, and numerous offices, singularly built round it, well worth observation, as denoting its former respectable state. In the western part is Nagdon, adjoining to Faversham creck, having a decoy for wild fowl, and a large quantity of marsh land belonging to it. There is but little thoroughfare here, and no village, the houses being interspersed straggling throughout it. Upon the whole though unhealthy, it has not an unpleasant aspect, being well cloathed with trees, especially elm, which are very thriving here, and in great plenty; the roads are remarkably well taken care of, as are the poor, and the whole parish seems to thrive well under the care of the inhabitants of Graveney-court. There are some parts of this parish separated from the rest by those of Faversham and Goodneston intervening.
There are several scarce plants observed by Mr. Jacob in this parish, and enumerated in this Plantæ Favershamienses.
THE ARCHBISHOP'S paramount manor of Boughton claims over the whole of this parish, as being within that hundred, subordinate to which is the manor of Graveney.
In the year 811, Wlfred, archbishop of Canterbury, purchased this place of Cenulph, king of Mercia, who had made the kingdom of Kent tributary to him, for the use of Christ-church, Canterbury, as appears by the leiger book of that priory, and that it was given L. S. A. that is, Libere Sicut Adisham, with the same liberties, immunities, and privileges that Adisham was. Soon after which, one Werhard, a powerful priest, and kinsman to the archbishop, found means to gain possession of it, and kept it till that prelate's death in 830, when Feogild succeeding to the see of Canterbury, though he sat in it but three months, yet in that time he compelled Werhard to restore Gravene then computed at thirty-two hides of land, to the church; and it was afterwards confirmed to it in anno 941, by king Edmund, Eadred his brother, and Edwyn son of the latter; (fn. 2) and it remained part of the revenues of Christchurch at the coming of archbishop Lanfranc to that see in 1070, when on his division of them, between himself and the monks of his church, this manor fell to his share, of whom it was afterwards held by knight's service. In which state it continued at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, anno 1080, in which it is thus entered, under the general title of Terra Militum Archiepi, that is, land held of the archbishop by knight's service.
In Boltune hundred the same Richard (who owed fealty to the archbishop) held of the archbishop Gravenel. It was taxed for one suling. The arable land is. In demesne there is one carucate, and eight villeins, with ten borderers having two carucates. There are five servants, and ten acres of meadow, and four saltpits of four shillings. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth one hundred shillings, now six pounds, of these the monks of Canterbury have twenty shillings.
Who this Richard was I do not find, though Somner calls him Ricardus Constabularius; however, it is not improbable, but he might afterwards adopt the surname of Gravene, from his having the possession of this place; certain it is, that it was afterwards held by a family who took their name from it. William de Gravene held it in the reign of king Henry III. of the archbishop, as one knight's fee. John de Gravene died possessed of it in the 56th year of the same reign, after which it became the property of the family of Feversham.
Thomas de Feversham died possessed of it in the beginning of the reign of king Edward III. leaving Joane his wife surviving, and in the window of the north chancel were formerly the arms of Feversham, A fess chequy, or, and gules, between six crosses, bottony, or; and underneath, Thomas Feversham, susticiar, & Johanna Uxor. ejus; on the pavement is a stone with two half-figures in brass for them, with an inscription round it in old French, part of which is gone; probably that which Weever mentions. (fn. 3) She afterwards entitled her second husband Sir Roger de Northwood to this manor, during her life; accordingly he paid aid for it in the 20th year of that reign, as one knight's see, which he held in right of his wife, of the archbishop, which was formerly held by Richard de Gravene. After her death her son Richard de Feversham succeeded to this manor, of which he died possessed in 1381, and was buried in this church, having married the daughter of Robert Dodde. His tomb, of Bethersden marble, remains against the south wall. In the south chancel, on the top, were two figures, and four coats of arms, the brasses gone; round the edge is this inscription, in brass, Ora pro aibs Roberti Dodde & Rici de Feuersham filii sui quonda dni de Gravene obiit, &c. Above the tomb, is a recess in the wall, with an antient carved arch above it. He had a daughter Joane, who became his heir, and married John Botiller, esq. and in her right became entitled to this manor, she died in 1408, and was buried in the south chancel here, her figure in brass on her gravestone is gone, but the inscription still remains. By her he had a son of his own name. Either he or his father was sheriff anno 22 king Richard II. John Botiller, esq the son, was knight of the shire in the 1st year of king Henry V.'s reign. They bore for their arms, Sable, three covered cups, or, within a bordure, argent; and John Botiller, probably the father, was esquire to archbishop Courtney, and mentioned in his will, proved anno 1396, being the 20th of Richard II.
There is a gravestone in the south chancel here, which most probably was for John Botiller the son; on it was his figure in brass, now gone, and four coats of arms; the two first are gone, the third Botiller, the fourth Feversham, a fess chequy, between six crosses, bottony, or. The inscription was remaining in Weever's time. This stone, I am informed, was some years ago removed out of the north chancel hither, and in the window of this chancel is this coat of arms, quarterly, first, Botiller, as above; second and third, a fess chequy, or, and gules, in chief three crosses, bottony, or; the bottom part being broken, the fourth is likewise broken. Underneath are these words remaining, Johes er, & Jonna ux ejs. Joane his wife was daughter and heir of William de Frogenhall, by whom he had a daughter and sole heir Anne, who carried it in marriage to John Martyn, judge of the common pleas, the son of Richard Martyn, of Stonebridge, who built much at his seat of Graveney court, where he partly resided. (fn. 4) He died in 1436, leaving his widow surviving, who then became again possessed of this manor in her own right. She afterwards married Thomas Burgeys, esq. whom she likewise survived, and dying in 1458 was buried beside her first husband in the north chancel of this church. His gravestone is of a very large size, and is most richly inlaid with brass, which is well preserved, having the figures of him and his wife, and other ornaments over the whole of it. There were four coats of arms, only the second of which, that of Boteler, is remaining. He bore for his arms, Argent, on a chevron, gules, three talbot bounds, passant, or. Her second husband Thomas Burgeys died in 1452, and was buried in the same chancel, where his gravestone remained till within these few years. At the upper end of the stone are two coats in brass, first Boteler impaling Frogenhall; second, a fess chequy impaling the like. Another coat, at the bottom, is gone, as is his figure.
In the descendants of Judge Martyn, residents at Graveney-court, this manor continued down to Robert Martyn, who likewise resided here, and died in the first year of Edward VI. (fn. 5) leaving his two daughters, Joane, married to Richard Argall, and Elizabeth to Stephen Reames, of Faversham, his coheirs. From them this manor was passed away by sale to John Pordage, of Rodmersham, in whose name it continued till it was at length sold to Daniel Whyte, esq. of Vinters, in Boxley, whose descendant of the same name, about the beginning of king George II.'s reign, alienated it to Mr. Edward Blaxland, who afterwards resided here, and bore for his arms, on a fess, three falcous volant, jessed and belled. He died in 1739. This occasioned this manor to be separated in several divisions and again afterwards in further subdivisions, among his descendants, in which state it now remains; but those of the male line of the name of Blaxland, still continue to reside at it. From the beginning of the last century to the middle of it, the Napletons, a family of good account in these parts of the county, were lessees of Graveney-court, and resided at it; and from that time to the latter end of it, the Houghhams were occupiers of it, and resided here. Many of both families lie buried in this church, as do all the Blaxlands, since their coming to the possession of this estate.
NAGDEN, formerly spelt Negdon, is a noted estate in the north-west part of this parish, consisting mostly of marsh land, which was once part of the endowment of the abbey of Faversham, and continued amongst the revenues of it till its final dissolution in the 30th year of Henry VIII. at which time it was valued at eight pounds per annum.
This estate thus coming into the hands of the crown, was granted by the king next year to Sir Thomas Cheney, lord warden, to hold in capite, who alienated it, in the 36th year of that reign, to Robert Martyn, of Graveney-court, who died in the first year of king Edward VI. (fn. 6) leaving his two daughters his coheirs, Joane, married to Richard Argall, and Elizabeth to Stephen Reames, who jointly possessed this estate. After which both these moieties seem to have been conveyed to Ciriac Petit, of Colkins, in this neighbourhood, who died possessed of the entire see of it in 1591, and in his descendants it continued down to Mr. William Petit, who in 1709 conveyed it by sale to dame Sarah Barrett, of Lee, widow, who died in 1711, upon which this estate came to her only son by her first husband, Sir Francis Head, bart. who died possessed of it in 1716. (fn. 7) He left four sons, who became entitled to this estate on their father's death, as coheirs in gavelkind. On the death of the eldest Sir Richard Head, bart. in 1721, his share devolved to his three brothers. James Head, esq. died afterwards intestate in 1727, and unmarried, on which Sir Francis Head, bart. and John Head, D. D. became possessed of it in undivided moieties, and the latter that same year conveyed his moiety of it to the former, who in 1745 sold the entire fee of it to John Smith, esq. of Faversham, who has since conveyed it to his son, John Smith, junior, esq. of Ospringe, the present possessor of it. The estate of Nagden pays nine shillings per annum, on Lammas day, to the vicar of Graveney, in lieu of tithes.
Charities.
On a tablet in the church, the benefactions of several pieces of land are recorded, amounting in the whole to upwards of four acres. These are put up as benefactions to the church; but by the information of the clerk, they belonged to the poor, to whom the yearly produce of them was distributed till of late. It is now applied to the repairs of the church.
The poor constantly relieved are about ten, casually 25.
GRAVENEY is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Ospringe.
The church is dedicated to All Saints, and consists of three isles and a high chancel, and two side ones formerly called chapels, the south one being dedicated to St. John, and the north one to the Virgin Mary. The steeple, which is a tower, stands at the north-west corner. In it are three bells. The antient gravestones in this church have been removed from where they originally laid, to make room for the present ones. Thus that of John Martyn, as I am informed, has been removed out of the north into the south chancel. In this north chancel they have been likewise still further displaced; there are now two rows of gravestones in it, lying three and three. In the west row are now, the first southward, Judge Martyn's; the second, Mr. Edward Blaxland's, who died in 1739; and the third, Thomas Burgeys, esq. For the making room for Mr. E. Blaxland's, Judge Martyn's stone was removed from the middle or second place to the first, where before his son's lay, till removed to the south chancel. This practice, of disturbing the ashes of the dead, as is but too frequent in churches of late, calls loudly for some authority to prevent it in future.
The church of Graveney, with the advowson of the vicarage, was in very early times part of the possessions of the priory of St. Mary Overies, in Southwark, with which it continued till the final dissolution of it in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it came into the hands of the crown, together with all the revenues and estates belonging to it.
The parsonage remained in the crown some years longer than the advowson of the vicarage, as will be mentioned hereafter, that is, till the 3d year of queen Elizabeth, when the queen granted this rectory, being then valued at 7l. 6s. 8d. yearly rent, to archbishop Parker and his successors, in exchange for other premises. (fn. 8) Since which it has continued part of the possessions of the see of Canterbury to this time.
This parsonage has been from time to time demised on a beneficial lease, at the above yearly rent. In 1643 Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson, widow, was tenant of it. John Baker, esq. of St. Stephen's, near Canterbury, is the present lessee of it.
But the advowson of the vicarage did not continue so long in the crown, for it was granted, among others, in 1558, to the archbishop and his successors, (fn. 9) with whom it now continues, his grace the archbishop being now patron of it.
This vicarage is valued in the king's books at fifty pounds, and the yearly tenths at 1l. 4s. per annum. In 1578 there were communicants here ninety. In 1640 the communicants were sixty-five, and it was valued at sixty pounds per annum.
In the year 1244 archbishop Boniface, on the presentation of the prior and convent of St. Mary Overies, as appears by an antient book belonging to it, instituted Ralph, the curate of Gravene, to the perpetual vicarage of this parish, so that he should receive and take in the name of it, all fruits and oblations, with all other things belonging to the church, excepting two sheaves of the tithe, and should take the same to his own use.
In the same manuscript, on a dispute between the prior and convent, rectors of this church, and Richard, lord of Gravenel, concerning tithes in this parish, it was decreed in 1283, before the rural dean of Ofpringe, that the vicar should receive, in the name of the religious, as well as in his own right, all tithes arising in future from the feedings and pastures in his own marshes, called North-marsh and Leved-marsh, which should be paid to him without any cavil or exception. (fn. 10)
The vicar has a house and two acres of glebe land.
¶The vicarage is worth about fifty pounds per annum. He is entitled, by the above composition, to all tithes, excepting the two sheaves mentioned in it, and by prescription likewise; which third part of the corn tithes is now usually known by the name of the vicar's third sheaf. But the impropriator's lease being for all the tithes of the parish, without any such exception, has occasioned many quarrels and disputes about this third sheaf, which are now entirely subsided, and the vicar is accustomed to take one shock out of every thirty shocks of corn, in right of his vicarage.
Stevie Nicks And Dave Stewart Perform At Sydney Entertainment Centre
You wouldn't usually expect for Dave Stewart to be support for a Stevie Nicks tour, but that's exactly what's happening this Australian tour, and Sydney fans saw it happen at the iconic Sydney Entertainment Centre tonight.
Casual fans probably didn't know that Stewart produced Nicks' new album, In Your Dreams, and believe us - it's a real treat for both Stewart and Nicks' fans.
Brian McFadden acted as a bit of a third wheel, but there's no doubt McFadden still enjoys a strong fan base in Australia.
Nicks performed Fleetwood Mac's Dreams, the band's prized #1 from years gone by.
We also heard numbers from her new A Vampire's Dream, Soldier's Angel.
The new songs featured Stewart on guitar and resonated with the Sydney audience.
If you were a Nicks, Stewart or even a McFadden fan, this is the place you had to be at tonight.
Promotional information secured by the Australia promoter of the tour reads:
McManus Entertainment is thrilled to announce that Brian McFadden will be joining the legendary Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart as a special guest for the 2011 Australian tour. McFadden will join the bill for the entire tour.
Celebrated musician and songwriter Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics will also be touring Australia for this very special show.
Joining Stevie for these special shows will be celebrated musician and songwriter Dave Stewart from Eurythmics, who co-produced Stevie's new solo album, "In Your Dreams". Fans of both Fleetwood Mac and Eurythmics will be thrilled to know that Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart will be performing their greatest hits from their respective bands as well as highlights form their solo careers.
"I'm so excited to bring Stevie back to Australia and give her the opportunity to play to her many fans across the country," said promoter Andrew McManus. "Stevie has one of the most unique and recognisable voices in the history of popular music and is also one of the greatest songwriters of all time. And I think there will be a whole new generation of fans due to the recent episode of 'Glee' based on the legendary Fleetwood Mac album, "Rumours."
Apart from Stevie's incredible work with Fleetwood Mac, she has also had an extensive solo career, collectively having more than 40 top 50 hits and selling more than 140 million albums worldwide. Just a few of her many solo hits include Edge of Seventeen, Leather and Lace, Stand Back, Bella Donna, Rooms On Fire and Stop Draggin' My Heart Around. Stevie will also be playing songs from Fleetwood Mac's extensive back catalogue. Some of their most loved songs include Rhiannon, Gypsy, Sara, Landslide, Dreams and Seven Wonders.
Joining Stevie on her Australian tour is Grammy and BRIT Award winning musician, songwriter and producer, Dave Stewart. Dave is best known for his work with Eurythmics and recently co-produced and co-wrote many of the songs on Stevie's latest album, "In Your Dreams". The album closes with the Stevie and Dave duet Cheaper Than Free. And Stevie sang a track with Dave on his 2010 solo album, "The Blackbird Diaries". His music career spans three decades and more than 100 million album sales. Some of Dave's biggest hits include I Only Want To Be With You (The Tourists) and Eurythmics hits Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Missionary Man, Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves, Would I Lie To You? and Thorn In My Side.
It's was a wonderful night for music fans in Sydney and a concert that anyone who attended will remember fondly for many years to come.
Websites
Stevie Nicks official website - The Nicks Fix
Dave Stewart official website
Brian McFadden
Sydney Entertainment Centre
McManus Entertainment
Flourish PR
Eva Rinaldi Photography Flickr
www.flickr.com/evarinaldiphotography
Eva Rinaldi Photography
Music News Australia
Day 5 of 2017 Mid-Season Invitational Group Stage at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 14 May 2017.
My Father-in-Laws pride and joy - the Aston Martin DB5.
Painstaking pieced together over 2 years, this 1:8 scale replica model is as heavy as it is beautiful.
It features full electrics to power the lights and engine sounds, and has everything on it it that Bond used in the movie Goldfinger - its brilliant :)
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I had no idea what to expect at Yalding, either the town or church. Jools realised it was near to West Farleigh, so we went to investigate.
Across what looked like a canal and then the river via an old pack bridge, with the tower of the church on the far bank.
The town, or this part of it, stretched either side of the High Street, and once parked, we approach the church down an alleyway and I see the porch doors open; a good sign.
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The little cupola on the west tower is topped by a weathervane dated 1734, and summons us to a large church, heavily restored in the 1860s, but worth travelling a long way to see. The nave roof has two interesting features - one is a form of celure or canopy of honour over the third bay from the west. It must have served some long-forgotten purpose. At the east end of the nave there is a real Canopy of Honour in its more usual position over the chancel arch. The south transept contains many interesting features - niches in the walls, bare stonework walls and a good arcaded tomb chest recessed into the south wall. There is a telling string course that suggests a thirteenth-century date, although the two windows in its east wall are Decorated in style. The most recent feature in the church - and by far the most important - is the engraved glass window in the chancel. It was engraved by Laurence Whistler in 1979 and commemorates Edmund Blunden, the First World War poet. It depicts a trench, barbed wire, a shell-burst and verses from Blunden's poems. This feature apart it is the nineteenth-century work that dominates Yalding - especially the awful encaustic tiles with arrow-like designs, the crude pulpit with symbols of the evangelists and the poor quality pews. The glass isn't much better, the Light of the World in the south chancel window being especially poor, but the south window of the south transept (1877) showing scenes from the Life of Christ redeems the state of the art.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Yalding
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YALDING.
NORTH-WESTWARD from Hunton lies Yalding, antiently written Ealding, which signifies the antient meadow or low ground.
Most of this parish is in the hundred of Twyford, and the rest of it, viz. the borough of Rugmerhill, is in the antient demesne of Aylesford. That part of this parish, which holds of the manor of West Farleigh, is in the borough of West Farleigh, and the borsholder thereof ought to be chosen at the court leet there, and so much thereof as is held of the manor of Hunton, is in the borough of Hunton, and the borsholder thereof is chosen at the court leet there; and the inhabitants of neither of these boroughs owe service to the court holden for the hundred of Twyford, within which hundred they both are; but at that court a constable for that hundred may be chosen out of either of these boroughs.
THIS PARISH lying southward of the quarry hills, is within the district of the Weald. It is but narrow, but extends full four miles in length from north to south, the upper or northern part reaches up to the quarry hill adjoining to West Farleigh, near which is Yalding down, on which is a large kiln for the purpose of burning pit coal into coke, which is effected by laying the coal under earth, and when set on fire quenching the cinders; the method is used in making charcoal from wood, the former particularly is much used in the oasts for the drying of hops, so profitably encouraged in this neighbourhood. Below it, near the river Medway, its western boundary in this part, opposite to Nettlested, stands the seat of Sir John Gregory Shaw, bart. a retired, but not an ill chosen situation. It was for several generations the residence of the family of Kinward, which from the reign of king Henry VIII. was possessed of good estates in this parish and its neighbourhood, and bore for their arms, Azure, on a bend or, three roses gules, between three cross-croslets, fitchee argent. Robert Kenward, esq. of Yalding, resided here, and dying in 1720, was buried with the rest of his family in this church; he left a son John, and several daughters, of whom the third, Martha, married the late Sir Gregory Page, bart. and died S. P. John Kenward, esq. the son, died in 1749, leaving by Alicia his wife, youngest daughter of Francis Brooke, esq. of Rochester, one daughter and heir Alicia, who carried this seat and a considerable estate in this neighbourhood to Sir John Shaw, bart. late of Eltham, whose eldest son, Sir John Gregory Shaw, bart. is the present owner of it, and resides here. (fn. 1). In this part of the parish the land is kindly both for corn and hops, of which there are several plantations, and round the down there are some rich grass lands, but further southward where the parish extends to Brenchley, Horsemonden, and Mar den, it is rather a sorlorn country, the land lying very low, and the soil is exceeding wet and miry, and much of it very poor, and greatly subject to rushes, being a stiff unfertile clay; the hedge rows are broad and interspersed with quantities of large spreading oak trees.
The river Medway flows from Tunbridge along the west side of the upper part of this parish as mentioned before, there are across it here two bridges, Twyford and Brandt bridge, leading hither from Watringbury, Nettlested and East Peckham; a small stream, which comes from Marden, and is here called the Twist, flows through the lower part of this parish towards the west side of it, and joins the main river at Twyford bridge, which extends over both of them; another larger stream being a principal head of the Medway flowing from Style-bridge by Hunton clappers, separating these two parishes, joins the main river, about a quarter of a mile below Twyford bridge; on the conflux of these two larger streams the town of Yalding is situated, having a long narrow stone bridge of communication from one part of the town to the other, on the opposite bank of the Hunton stream. Leland who lived in king Henry the VIIIth.'s reign, calls it a a praty townelet, to which however at present it has no pretensions. The church and court-lodge stand at the north end of the town. A fair is held in it on WhitMonday, and on October 15, yearly. The high road over Teston bridge, and through West Farleigh, leads through the town, and thence southward along the hamlets of Denover and Collens-street to Marden; at a small distance from the former is the borough of Rugmarhill, esteemed to be within the antient demesne of Aylesford, belonging to Mrs. Milner.
Adjoining the town southward is Yalding lees, over which there is another high road, which leads from Twyford bridge, parallel with the other before-mentioned, along the hamlet of Lodingford, and thence through the lower part of this parish towards Brenchley, near the boundaries of which in this parish is an estate still called Oldlands, which appears in king Edward II's reign to have been part of the demesne lands of the manor of Yalding, for he then confirmed to the priory of Tunbridge a rent charge to be received out of the asserts of the old and new lands of the late Richard de Clare, in Dennemannesbrooke, which he had given to it on its foundation; lower down, close to the stream of the Twist, is the manor house of Bockingsold, the lands of which extend across the river into Brenchley and Horsemonden and other parishes.
A third high road over Brandt bridge passes along the western bounds of this parish, over Betsurn-green towards Lamberhurst and Sussex.
A new commission of sewers under the great seal, was not many years ago obtained to scour and cleanse that branch of the river Medway, or if I may so call it, the Yalding river from Goldwell in Great Chart, through Smarden, Hunton, and other intermediate parishes to its junction with the Rain river, at a place called Stickmouth, a little below the town of Yalding.
The commissioners for the navigation of the river Medway, about twenty years ago, made a navigable cut or canal, from a place in the river called Hampsted, where they judiciously constructed a lock to a place in the river near Twyford bridge, where they erected a tumbling bay for the water, when at a certain height, to pass over. The contrivance of this cut from one bend or angle of the river to the other, is of the greatest utility to the navigation, by not only shortening the passage, but by baying up a convenient depth of water, which they could not have had along the lees, and other adjoining low lands on each side of that part of the river, which is avoided by it, or at least not without a very great expence.
At the river here the barges are loaded with timber, great guns, bullets, &c. for Chatham and Sheerness docks, London, and other parts, and bring back coals, and other commodities for the supply of the neighbouring country.
In 1757 a large eel was caught in the river here, which measured five feet nine inches in length, and eighteen inches in girt, and weighed upwards of forty pounds.
THE MANOR OF YALDING, or Ealding, as it was usually written, was, after the conquest, part of the possessions of the eminent family of Clare, who became afterwards earls of Gloucester and Hertford, (fn. 2) the ancestor of whom, Richard Fitz Gilbert, came into England with William the Conqueror, and gave him great assistance in the memorable battle of Hastings, and in respect of his near alliance in blood to the king, he was advanced to great honor, and had large possessions bestowed upon him, both in Normandy and England; among the latter was this estate of Yalding, as appears from the survey of Domesday, taken in the 15th year of the Conqueror's reign, in which it is thus entered, under the title of Terra Richardi F. Gislebti:
Richard de Tonebridge holds Ealdinges, and Aldret held it of king Edward, and then and now it was taxed at two sulings. The arable land is sixteen carucates. There are two churches (viz. Yalding and Brenchley) and fifteen servants, and two mills of twenty-five shillings, and four fisheries of one thousand and seven hundred eels, all but twenty. There are five acres of pasture, and wood for the pannage of one hundred and fifty hogs.
In the time of king Edward the Consessor, and afterwards, it was worth thirty pounds, now twenty pounds, on account of the lands lying waste to that amount.
The above-mentioned Richard Fitz Gilbert, at the latter end of the Conqueror's reign, was usually called Richard de Tonebridge, from his possessions and residence there, and his descendants took the name of Clare, for the like reason of their possessing that honor. His descendant, Gilbert, son of Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, owned it in the reign of king Henry III. and in the 21st year of Edward I. he claimed before the justices itinerant, and was allowed all the privileges of a manor.
¶Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, his son, by Joane, of Acres, king Edward I.'s daughter, succeeded to it, and dying in the 7th year of king Edward II. without surviving issue, his three sisters became his coheirs, and on the partition of their inheritance, this manor, among others in this county, was allotted to Margaret, the second sister, then wife of Hugh de Audley, junior, who in the 12th year of Edward II. obtained for his manor of Ealding, a market to be held here weekly, and a fair to continue three days yearly, viz. the vigil, the day of the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the day subsequent to it. He died in the 21st year of it, holding this manor, which he held for his life, by the law of England, of the king in capite. He left an only daughter and heir Margaret, then the wife of Ralph Stafford, who in her right became possessed of the manor of Yalding, and was a man greatly esteemed by king Edward III. who among other marks of his favor, in his 24th year, advanced him to the title of earl of Stafford.
After which it continued in his descendants down to his great grandson, Humphry Stafford, who was created duke of Buckingham anno 23 Henry VI. whose grandson Henry, duke of Buckingham, having put himself in arms against king Richard, in favor of Henry, earl of Richmond, and being deserted by his army, had concealed himself in the house of one Ralph Banister, who had been his servant, who on the king's proclamation of a reward of 1000l. or 100l. per annum, for the discovering of the duke, betrayed him, and he was without either arraignment or judgment, beheaded at Salisbury.
YALDING is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester and deanry of Malling.
The church, which is a large handsome building, consists of three isles and a large chancel, with a square tower at the west end. Against the south wall in it is a very antient altar tomb, which has been much desaced, on which is remaining, Ermine, a bend gules. There was formerly a brass plate on it. On a large stone in the middle isle, is a memorial for Robert Penhurst, descended from Sir Robert Penhurst, of Penhurst, in Suffex, who died in 1610. The arms, on a shield, a mullet. In the chancel there is a handsome monument for the family of Warde, who bore for their arms, Azure, a cross flory or, and one for the family of Kenward, in this parish. In the pavement of the church are several large broad stones, a kind of petrifaction of the testaceous kind, dug up in the moors or low lands in this parish.
Richard de Clare, earl of Hertford, gave the church of Aldinges, with the chapel of Brenchesley, and all their appurtenances, in pure and perpetual alms, to the priory of Tunbridge, lately founded by him.
Gilbert de Glanvill, bishop of Rochester, who came to that fee in the 31st year of king Henry II. confirmed this gift, and granted, that the prior and canons should possess the appropriation of this church in pure and perpetual alms; saving a perpetual vicarage in it, granted by his authority, with the assent and presentation of the prior and canons as follows:
That the vicar should have the altarage, and all obventions, and small tithes belonging to this church, and all houses, which were within the court, and the land belonging to the church, together with the tenants and homages, and the alder-bed, and the tithes of sheaves of Wenesmannesbroke, and the tithes of Longesbroke, of the new assart, and the moiety of meadow belonging to the church; all which were granted to him, to hold under the yearly pension of two shillings, duly to be paid to the prior and canons; and that the vicar should sustain all episcopal burthens and customs, as well for the prior and canons as for himself. And he granted to the prior and canons as part of the appropriation, the tithes of sheaves of this church, excepting the said tithes of Wenesmannesbroke, and of Longebroke; and that they should have the moiety of the meadow belonging to the church, with the fisheries, and the place in which the two greater barns stood, with the barns themselves, and the whole outer court in which the stable stood, with the garden which was towards the east, and the small piece of land which lay by the garden, and the rent of four-pence, which ought to be paid yearly to the court of Eyles forde; reserving to himself the power of altering the endowment of this vicarage, if at any time it should seem expedient; saving, nevertheless, all episcopal rights to the bishop of Rochester, &c. (fn. 16)
The church of Yalding, together with the advowson of the vicarage, remained with the priory of Tunbridge, till the suppression of it, in the 17th year of king Henry VIII. when being one of those smaller monasteries which cardinal Wolsey had obtained for the endowment of his colleges, it was surrendered into his hands, with all the possessions belonging to it.
After which the king granted his licence to him, in his 18th year, to appropriate and annex this church, among others of the cardinal's patronage, to the dean and canons of the college founded by him in the university of Oxford. But here it staid only four years, when this great prelate being cast in a præmunire in 1529, the estates of that college were forfeited to the king, and became part of the royal revenue.
¶Queen Elizabeth, in her 10th year, granted the rectory or parsonage of Yalding, and the advowson of the vicarage, for thirty years, to Mr. John Warde, at the yearly rent of thirty pounds, in whose possession they continued till king James I. in his 5th year, granted the see of them to Richard Lyddale and Edward Bostock, at the like yearly rent, (fn. 17) and they soon afterwards alienated them to Ambrose Warde, gent. of this parish, son of John above-mentioned, in whose descendants they continued down till they came into the possession of three brothers, Thomas, of Littlebrook, in Stone; George and Ambrose, among whose descendants they came afterwards to be divided, and again sub-divided in different shares, one third part to captain Thomas Amhurst, of Rochester; one third of a third part, and a third of a sixth part to Mr. Holmes, of Derby; Mr. Ambrose Ward, of Littlebrook, and the Rev. Mr. Richard Warde, late of Oxford, each alike, and the remaining sixth part by the Rev. Mr. John Warde, the present vicar of this parish, who some years ago rebuilt the vicarage-house in a very handsome manner.
This rectory now pays a yearly fee-farm rent of thirty pounds to the crown.
It is valued in the king's books, at 20l. 18s. 9d. and the yearly tenths at 2l. 1s. 10½d.
There are two separate manors, one belonging to the rectory or parsonage, and the other to the vicarage of this church.
© copyrighted image; all rights reserved.
With just a two weeks left (well you never know), we finally had a chance to take some pregnancy / maternity photos of our friends Maria & Patrik.
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This is my favorite of the bunch!
Strobist info:
Main light is a 540EZ in a white shoot through camera left. A 430EX is bounced camera right via the ceiling and back wall and a second 430EX is bounced via a white wall camera right. Trying the whole "drowning in light" method :) Initial metering was done with the Sekonic L-358. Strobes triggered with Elinchrom Skyports.
* 1m 13secs sequence
Finally, a video sequence, taken through the window of our DMU service back to Darnall, where two of us had left out cars to get the train into Worksop at 11 this morning. The video was shot on my Samsung S7 phone and through the window of the class 144, 'rocking and rolling' along. It shows the rake of coaches and the class 345, 345023, sat on the nearest siding road to the main lines, albeit at the other side of the palisade fence which surrounds the HArry Needle's Yard. At this time, about 13:45, the rake of VTEC coaches and the rear DVT, 82226, have been reversed onto the line next to the Electric Unit and the DVT can be seen poking out beyond the line of grey/blue Electric Unit coaches. Some information about the 345 units, brought up from the Queen Elisabeth line in London-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_345
At some point, the Yard will become much fuller and there is, we were informed, to be other classes and sets brought here for both storage and maintenance, so it looks like the place will be very lively indeed, though not accessible to photographers, easily... shame a viewing platform couldn't have been erected somewhere to facilitate the enthusiast requirements ... apologies for the various background noises!
I had no idea what to expect at Yalding, either the town or church. Jools realised it was near to West Farleigh, so we went to investigate.
Across what looked like a canal and then the river via an old pack bridge, with the tower of the church on the far bank.
The town, or this part of it, stretched either side of the High Street, and once parked, we approach the church down an alleyway and I see the porch doors open; a good sign.
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The little cupola on the west tower is topped by a weathervane dated 1734, and summons us to a large church, heavily restored in the 1860s, but worth travelling a long way to see. The nave roof has two interesting features - one is a form of celure or canopy of honour over the third bay from the west. It must have served some long-forgotten purpose. At the east end of the nave there is a real Canopy of Honour in its more usual position over the chancel arch. The south transept contains many interesting features - niches in the walls, bare stonework walls and a good arcaded tomb chest recessed into the south wall. There is a telling string course that suggests a thirteenth-century date, although the two windows in its east wall are Decorated in style. The most recent feature in the church - and by far the most important - is the engraved glass window in the chancel. It was engraved by Laurence Whistler in 1979 and commemorates Edmund Blunden, the First World War poet. It depicts a trench, barbed wire, a shell-burst and verses from Blunden's poems. This feature apart it is the nineteenth-century work that dominates Yalding - especially the awful encaustic tiles with arrow-like designs, the crude pulpit with symbols of the evangelists and the poor quality pews. The glass isn't much better, the Light of the World in the south chancel window being especially poor, but the south window of the south transept (1877) showing scenes from the Life of Christ redeems the state of the art.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Yalding
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YALDING.
NORTH-WESTWARD from Hunton lies Yalding, antiently written Ealding, which signifies the antient meadow or low ground.
Most of this parish is in the hundred of Twyford, and the rest of it, viz. the borough of Rugmerhill, is in the antient demesne of Aylesford. That part of this parish, which holds of the manor of West Farleigh, is in the borough of West Farleigh, and the borsholder thereof ought to be chosen at the court leet there, and so much thereof as is held of the manor of Hunton, is in the borough of Hunton, and the borsholder thereof is chosen at the court leet there; and the inhabitants of neither of these boroughs owe service to the court holden for the hundred of Twyford, within which hundred they both are; but at that court a constable for that hundred may be chosen out of either of these boroughs.
THIS PARISH lying southward of the quarry hills, is within the district of the Weald. It is but narrow, but extends full four miles in length from north to south, the upper or northern part reaches up to the quarry hill adjoining to West Farleigh, near which is Yalding down, on which is a large kiln for the purpose of burning pit coal into coke, which is effected by laying the coal under earth, and when set on fire quenching the cinders; the method is used in making charcoal from wood, the former particularly is much used in the oasts for the drying of hops, so profitably encouraged in this neighbourhood. Below it, near the river Medway, its western boundary in this part, opposite to Nettlested, stands the seat of Sir John Gregory Shaw, bart. a retired, but not an ill chosen situation. It was for several generations the residence of the family of Kinward, which from the reign of king Henry VIII. was possessed of good estates in this parish and its neighbourhood, and bore for their arms, Azure, on a bend or, three roses gules, between three cross-croslets, fitchee argent. Robert Kenward, esq. of Yalding, resided here, and dying in 1720, was buried with the rest of his family in this church; he left a son John, and several daughters, of whom the third, Martha, married the late Sir Gregory Page, bart. and died S. P. John Kenward, esq. the son, died in 1749, leaving by Alicia his wife, youngest daughter of Francis Brooke, esq. of Rochester, one daughter and heir Alicia, who carried this seat and a considerable estate in this neighbourhood to Sir John Shaw, bart. late of Eltham, whose eldest son, Sir John Gregory Shaw, bart. is the present owner of it, and resides here. (fn. 1). In this part of the parish the land is kindly both for corn and hops, of which there are several plantations, and round the down there are some rich grass lands, but further southward where the parish extends to Brenchley, Horsemonden, and Mar den, it is rather a sorlorn country, the land lying very low, and the soil is exceeding wet and miry, and much of it very poor, and greatly subject to rushes, being a stiff unfertile clay; the hedge rows are broad and interspersed with quantities of large spreading oak trees.
The river Medway flows from Tunbridge along the west side of the upper part of this parish as mentioned before, there are across it here two bridges, Twyford and Brandt bridge, leading hither from Watringbury, Nettlested and East Peckham; a small stream, which comes from Marden, and is here called the Twist, flows through the lower part of this parish towards the west side of it, and joins the main river at Twyford bridge, which extends over both of them; another larger stream being a principal head of the Medway flowing from Style-bridge by Hunton clappers, separating these two parishes, joins the main river, about a quarter of a mile below Twyford bridge; on the conflux of these two larger streams the town of Yalding is situated, having a long narrow stone bridge of communication from one part of the town to the other, on the opposite bank of the Hunton stream. Leland who lived in king Henry the VIIIth.'s reign, calls it a a praty townelet, to which however at present it has no pretensions. The church and court-lodge stand at the north end of the town. A fair is held in it on WhitMonday, and on October 15, yearly. The high road over Teston bridge, and through West Farleigh, leads through the town, and thence southward along the hamlets of Denover and Collens-street to Marden; at a small distance from the former is the borough of Rugmarhill, esteemed to be within the antient demesne of Aylesford, belonging to Mrs. Milner.
Adjoining the town southward is Yalding lees, over which there is another high road, which leads from Twyford bridge, parallel with the other before-mentioned, along the hamlet of Lodingford, and thence through the lower part of this parish towards Brenchley, near the boundaries of which in this parish is an estate still called Oldlands, which appears in king Edward II's reign to have been part of the demesne lands of the manor of Yalding, for he then confirmed to the priory of Tunbridge a rent charge to be received out of the asserts of the old and new lands of the late Richard de Clare, in Dennemannesbrooke, which he had given to it on its foundation; lower down, close to the stream of the Twist, is the manor house of Bockingsold, the lands of which extend across the river into Brenchley and Horsemonden and other parishes.
A third high road over Brandt bridge passes along the western bounds of this parish, over Betsurn-green towards Lamberhurst and Sussex.
A new commission of sewers under the great seal, was not many years ago obtained to scour and cleanse that branch of the river Medway, or if I may so call it, the Yalding river from Goldwell in Great Chart, through Smarden, Hunton, and other intermediate parishes to its junction with the Rain river, at a place called Stickmouth, a little below the town of Yalding.
The commissioners for the navigation of the river Medway, about twenty years ago, made a navigable cut or canal, from a place in the river called Hampsted, where they judiciously constructed a lock to a place in the river near Twyford bridge, where they erected a tumbling bay for the water, when at a certain height, to pass over. The contrivance of this cut from one bend or angle of the river to the other, is of the greatest utility to the navigation, by not only shortening the passage, but by baying up a convenient depth of water, which they could not have had along the lees, and other adjoining low lands on each side of that part of the river, which is avoided by it, or at least not without a very great expence.
At the river here the barges are loaded with timber, great guns, bullets, &c. for Chatham and Sheerness docks, London, and other parts, and bring back coals, and other commodities for the supply of the neighbouring country.
In 1757 a large eel was caught in the river here, which measured five feet nine inches in length, and eighteen inches in girt, and weighed upwards of forty pounds.
THE MANOR OF YALDING, or Ealding, as it was usually written, was, after the conquest, part of the possessions of the eminent family of Clare, who became afterwards earls of Gloucester and Hertford, (fn. 2) the ancestor of whom, Richard Fitz Gilbert, came into England with William the Conqueror, and gave him great assistance in the memorable battle of Hastings, and in respect of his near alliance in blood to the king, he was advanced to great honor, and had large possessions bestowed upon him, both in Normandy and England; among the latter was this estate of Yalding, as appears from the survey of Domesday, taken in the 15th year of the Conqueror's reign, in which it is thus entered, under the title of Terra Richardi F. Gislebti:
Richard de Tonebridge holds Ealdinges, and Aldret held it of king Edward, and then and now it was taxed at two sulings. The arable land is sixteen carucates. There are two churches (viz. Yalding and Brenchley) and fifteen servants, and two mills of twenty-five shillings, and four fisheries of one thousand and seven hundred eels, all but twenty. There are five acres of pasture, and wood for the pannage of one hundred and fifty hogs.
In the time of king Edward the Consessor, and afterwards, it was worth thirty pounds, now twenty pounds, on account of the lands lying waste to that amount.
The above-mentioned Richard Fitz Gilbert, at the latter end of the Conqueror's reign, was usually called Richard de Tonebridge, from his possessions and residence there, and his descendants took the name of Clare, for the like reason of their possessing that honor. His descendant, Gilbert, son of Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, owned it in the reign of king Henry III. and in the 21st year of Edward I. he claimed before the justices itinerant, and was allowed all the privileges of a manor.
¶Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, his son, by Joane, of Acres, king Edward I.'s daughter, succeeded to it, and dying in the 7th year of king Edward II. without surviving issue, his three sisters became his coheirs, and on the partition of their inheritance, this manor, among others in this county, was allotted to Margaret, the second sister, then wife of Hugh de Audley, junior, who in the 12th year of Edward II. obtained for his manor of Ealding, a market to be held here weekly, and a fair to continue three days yearly, viz. the vigil, the day of the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the day subsequent to it. He died in the 21st year of it, holding this manor, which he held for his life, by the law of England, of the king in capite. He left an only daughter and heir Margaret, then the wife of Ralph Stafford, who in her right became possessed of the manor of Yalding, and was a man greatly esteemed by king Edward III. who among other marks of his favor, in his 24th year, advanced him to the title of earl of Stafford.
After which it continued in his descendants down to his great grandson, Humphry Stafford, who was created duke of Buckingham anno 23 Henry VI. whose grandson Henry, duke of Buckingham, having put himself in arms against king Richard, in favor of Henry, earl of Richmond, and being deserted by his army, had concealed himself in the house of one Ralph Banister, who had been his servant, who on the king's proclamation of a reward of 1000l. or 100l. per annum, for the discovering of the duke, betrayed him, and he was without either arraignment or judgment, beheaded at Salisbury.
YALDING is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester and deanry of Malling.
The church, which is a large handsome building, consists of three isles and a large chancel, with a square tower at the west end. Against the south wall in it is a very antient altar tomb, which has been much desaced, on which is remaining, Ermine, a bend gules. There was formerly a brass plate on it. On a large stone in the middle isle, is a memorial for Robert Penhurst, descended from Sir Robert Penhurst, of Penhurst, in Suffex, who died in 1610. The arms, on a shield, a mullet. In the chancel there is a handsome monument for the family of Warde, who bore for their arms, Azure, a cross flory or, and one for the family of Kenward, in this parish. In the pavement of the church are several large broad stones, a kind of petrifaction of the testaceous kind, dug up in the moors or low lands in this parish.
Richard de Clare, earl of Hertford, gave the church of Aldinges, with the chapel of Brenchesley, and all their appurtenances, in pure and perpetual alms, to the priory of Tunbridge, lately founded by him.
Gilbert de Glanvill, bishop of Rochester, who came to that fee in the 31st year of king Henry II. confirmed this gift, and granted, that the prior and canons should possess the appropriation of this church in pure and perpetual alms; saving a perpetual vicarage in it, granted by his authority, with the assent and presentation of the prior and canons as follows:
That the vicar should have the altarage, and all obventions, and small tithes belonging to this church, and all houses, which were within the court, and the land belonging to the church, together with the tenants and homages, and the alder-bed, and the tithes of sheaves of Wenesmannesbroke, and the tithes of Longesbroke, of the new assart, and the moiety of meadow belonging to the church; all which were granted to him, to hold under the yearly pension of two shillings, duly to be paid to the prior and canons; and that the vicar should sustain all episcopal burthens and customs, as well for the prior and canons as for himself. And he granted to the prior and canons as part of the appropriation, the tithes of sheaves of this church, excepting the said tithes of Wenesmannesbroke, and of Longebroke; and that they should have the moiety of the meadow belonging to the church, with the fisheries, and the place in which the two greater barns stood, with the barns themselves, and the whole outer court in which the stable stood, with the garden which was towards the east, and the small piece of land which lay by the garden, and the rent of four-pence, which ought to be paid yearly to the court of Eyles forde; reserving to himself the power of altering the endowment of this vicarage, if at any time it should seem expedient; saving, nevertheless, all episcopal rights to the bishop of Rochester, &c. (fn. 16)
The church of Yalding, together with the advowson of the vicarage, remained with the priory of Tunbridge, till the suppression of it, in the 17th year of king Henry VIII. when being one of those smaller monasteries which cardinal Wolsey had obtained for the endowment of his colleges, it was surrendered into his hands, with all the possessions belonging to it.
After which the king granted his licence to him, in his 18th year, to appropriate and annex this church, among others of the cardinal's patronage, to the dean and canons of the college founded by him in the university of Oxford. But here it staid only four years, when this great prelate being cast in a præmunire in 1529, the estates of that college were forfeited to the king, and became part of the royal revenue.
¶Queen Elizabeth, in her 10th year, granted the rectory or parsonage of Yalding, and the advowson of the vicarage, for thirty years, to Mr. John Warde, at the yearly rent of thirty pounds, in whose possession they continued till king James I. in his 5th year, granted the see of them to Richard Lyddale and Edward Bostock, at the like yearly rent, (fn. 17) and they soon afterwards alienated them to Ambrose Warde, gent. of this parish, son of John above-mentioned, in whose descendants they continued down till they came into the possession of three brothers, Thomas, of Littlebrook, in Stone; George and Ambrose, among whose descendants they came afterwards to be divided, and again sub-divided in different shares, one third part to captain Thomas Amhurst, of Rochester; one third of a third part, and a third of a sixth part to Mr. Holmes, of Derby; Mr. Ambrose Ward, of Littlebrook, and the Rev. Mr. Richard Warde, late of Oxford, each alike, and the remaining sixth part by the Rev. Mr. John Warde, the present vicar of this parish, who some years ago rebuilt the vicarage-house in a very handsome manner.
This rectory now pays a yearly fee-farm rent of thirty pounds to the crown.
It is valued in the king's books, at 20l. 18s. 9d. and the yearly tenths at 2l. 1s. 10½d.
There are two separate manors, one belonging to the rectory or parsonage, and the other to the vicarage of this church.
This World Class attraction was everything we expected and more. Construction has just begun on a major expansion, but that has been managed in such a way that it does not in any way detract from the experience now.
This album focuses on the artwork inside the buildings and on the other interior spaces including the Eleven Restaurant and the Gift Shop. A separate album posted a few days ago is devoted to the two April mornings that we spent exploring just some of the trails that crisscross the 120 acres of Arkansas forest around the museum.
Alice Walton and her co-creative team can be proud of the vision and execution of everything on this 120 acre site.
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"Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission.
Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, spearheaded the Walton Family Foundation's involvement in developing Crystal Bridges. The museum's glass-and-wood design by architect Moshe Safdie and engineer Buro Happold features a series of pavilions nestled around two creek-fed ponds and forest trails. The 217,000 square feet complex includes galleries, several meeting and classroom spaces, a library, a sculpture garden, a museum store designed by architect Marlon Blackwell, a restaurant and coffee bar, named Eleven after the day the museum opened, "11/11/11". Crystal Bridges also features a gathering space that can accommodate up to 300 people. Additionally, there are outdoor areas for concerts and public events, as well as extensive nature trails. It employs approximately 300 people, and is within walking distance of downtown Bentonville."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Bridges_Museum_of_American_Art
crystalbridges.org/nature-trails/
...
As expected, after hearing about the deaths of Kelsey and Stone, the US Army decided to retaliate: Maj Gen Persifor Smith ordered Lt George Stoneman to lead a military expedition to punish Chief Augustine for the deaths of Kelsey and Stone. Unable to locate the Augustine band, the US troops instead found the Pomo village of Badonnapoti in Upper Lake. As far as can be determind, the village Pomo had no relation to the Pomo of Kelseyville. Regardless, Stoneman decided to attack. Finding that his rifle range could not reach the village, he instructed Lt Nathaniel Lyon to move reinforcements up by whaling boats. On April 15, while Stoneman fired his cannons to distract the villagers from the South, Lyon stormed the island on one of his whaling boats from the North. It was a horrific slaughter. Most sources state about 5 Pomo fought back against the attack, using slings and arrows. Most fled into the tule surrounding the island, only to run into the second party on the second whaling boat from the South. Women and children were shot and stabbed, and one source records observing children picked up by bayonets and thrown into the water. One six-year old survived by hiding in the water and breathing through a tule reed. The exact death toll varies widely, but is generally accepted to be around 75 to 150. Losses in the US Army and settlers was 0. Stoneman then led his forces on a wide sweep through the Russian River valley, attacking several villages and killing perhaps an equal number in those communities.
Nataniel Lyon later became famed in the American Civil War as the first attacking Union hero, only to be killed soon after at Wilson's Creek. In the same conflict, George Stoneman gained a mixed legacy, failing in raids in 1863 and 1864, only to succeed at the very end of the war (as sung in the Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"). Kelsey and Stone were found and buried, the last time under historical markers in 1950 after repeated acts of vandalism. The other Kelseys continued their rein of terror, against the indigenous Natives and otherwise. Chief Augustine survived and years later was a primary source on the whole incident.
After the slaughter at Bloody Island the Pomo were divided into Rancherias. The communities that survived have lately prospered, opening up casinos throughout the Clear Lake Region. Bloody Island is still near Pomo land, and a sore point between them and the State of California concerned the recognition of the massacre location. Previous monuments (usually describing some sort of battle) have been repeatedly vandalized or destroyed.
Bloody Island is the hill located here. Reclamation projects have made what was once part of the lake farmland. An old monument from the 1940s reads:
BLOODY ISLAND
SCENE OF A BATTLE BETWEEN U.S. SOLDIERS
UNDER COMMAND OF CAPTAIN LYONS AND
INDIANS UNDER CHIEF AUGUSTINE,
APRIL 14TH, 1850.
DEDICATED AS AN HISTORICAL MONUMENT BY
THE NATIVE SONS OF THE GOLDEN WEST
MAY 20, 1942
Almost everything on the plaque is in fact incorrect. The splash of red suggests that someone has taken exception to the monument. Nevertheless it is the only marker at the actual spot of Bloody Island. Someone else apparently placed a Pomo basket near the marker.
Upper Lake, California.
What To Expect When You're Expecting premiere photos and review mark boardman and the team at markmeets
The Theosophical Society, founded in New York in 1875, includes a Rosicrucian current that sees the Rosy Cross as ‘the divine light of self-knowledge’ (Franz Hartmann, 1838-1912). Yet there are no commentaries specifically dedicated to the Chymical Wedding in the theosophical literature. Like Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), the co-founder of the Theosophical Society, the Austrian theosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was convinced that the mysteries of the Rosy Cross were ‘solely passed on through oral tradition’ (1906). Steiner became the Secretary General of the German branch of the Theosophical Society in 1902. He expected to discover authentic Rosicrucian rituals when he joined the Freemasons as his mentor Goethe had. But like the theosophers, he observed that the true spirit of the Rosy Cross was no longer to be found in the secret societies of his day. In 1906, the ‘Rosy Cross of the Theosophical Society’ began presenting the ‘Mystery of Golgotha’ as an entirely unique event in the history of mankind, at odds with the Theosophical Society’s custom of granting equal importance to all religions. In 1917, ten years after leaving Annie Besant’s Esoteric School and five years after founding the Anthroposophical Society, Steiner published a study on the Chymical Wedding in Berlin. The present article shows that this written commentary was a means for him to situate himself in the continuity of the Rosicrucian tradition of esoteric Christianity while introducing his own theosophy, which he called ‘anthroposophy’ or ‘spiritual science’, as the heir of the authentic Rosicrucians. The reference to the authoritative text allowed him to illustrate and justify his former assertions on 1) the actual existence of Christian Rosenkreuz and the Rosicrucian order, 2) the seven stages of Rosicrucian initiation, 3) Rosicrucianism as the best way of initiation for modern European man, 4) the “etheric vision” of Christ based on the action of Christian Rosencreuz’s “etheric body”. These ideas influenced a number of Western esotericists, including Neville Meakin (†1912), Max Heindel (1865-1919) and Jan van Rijckenborgh (1896-1968).
1 Chymical Wedding by Christian Rosencreutz has been the subject of an important reception1 within certain modern Western esoteric currents2, in particular since the end of the 19th century. In a context of criticism of positivism and enthusiasm for spiritualism from the United States, occultism was on the rise in Europe around 1900, and the Rosicrucians were a fashionable subject. In France, for example, the Martinist writer Joseph Péladan (1858-1918) organized between 1892 and 1897, in Parisian art galleries, several Salons de la Rose-Croix in which symbolist artists known as the Belgian painter Fernand Khnopff took part. . In this contribution, I will focus mainly on the period from 1875 – the date of the founding of the Theosophical Society in New York by the Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott and a few others – to 1917, the year of the publication in Berlin of the Commentary on the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rose-Croix by the Austrian occultist Rudolf Steiner. The aim will be to understand Steiner's commentary from the inside, to reconstitute its internal logic from an emic perspective3, and to perceive in doing so the construction of the Rosicrucian myth specific to this esoteric4 vision of the world that is anthroposophy. . It will also be a question of resituating this commentary in the theosophical literature which preceded it and of bringing to light its influence on later esoteric literature.
Theosophical literature and the Chemical Weddings (1877-1902)
5 Franz Hartmann: Unter den Adepten und Rosenkreuzern (Leipzig n.d.). Berlin 1963, p. 96.
2The Theosophical Society is an international association teaching a religious syncretism of occultist and esoteric inspiration with a strong oriental flavor, particularly Buddhist and Hindu. Theosophical literature does not include a commentary dedicated specifically to the Chemical Wedding, but rather scattered reflections emphasizing the importance of Rosicrucianism as a Western path of self-knowledge leading to the knowledge of God. The German theosophist Franz Hartmann (1838-1912) states for example: “Es wird uns klar sein, daß es den Rosenkreuzern nicht so sehr um intellektuelle Forschung und Vielwisserei, als vielmehr um die göttliche Selbsterkenntnis zu tun war und um die Kraft des wahren Glaubens , der zu dieser Gotteserkenntnis führt. 5 The Theosophical Society does not regard any religion as superior to others; all express, according to her, an aspect of a universal truth. According to the famous motto of the Society, “there is no religion superior to truth”. According to Helena P. Blavatsky, the true spirit of the Rose-Croix no longer animates the Rosicrucians of her time:
6 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky: Isis unveiled. Key to the Mysteries of Ancient Science and Theology (...)
The Rose-Croix Brothers, mysterious practitioners of the Middle Ages, still exist, but only in name. They may 'shed tears over the grave of their revered Master Hiram Abiff', but they will search in vain for the true place 'where the acacia branch was placed'. The dead letter remains alone, the spirit has fled.6
3 This spirit is, according to her, much more preserved in literature – and Blavatsky explicitly quotes the famous initiatory novel by the British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton Zanoni7 – than in the various lodges and groups claiming Rosicrucianism in his time in Europe and in the USA. None seem to find favor in his eyes. We can think of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, a Rosicrucian order founded in London in 1865 by master masons William J. Hughan and Robert W. Little, or L'Aube Dorée, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society (whose rituals are inspired by the Golden Rose-Cross, at least for the distribution of degrees) founded in London in 1888 by Samuel Liddell Mathers and William Wynn Westcott, both members of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Note that Westcott later became theosophist. These groups multiplied at the end of the 19th century. In France, the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix founded in 1888 by Stanislas de Guaita (1861-1897) and Joséphin Péladan (1858-1918) had the role of perfecting the training of Martinists and included the French doctor and occultist Gérard Anaclet Vincent Encausse (1865-1916), known as Papus, among its members. In Germany, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), a para-Masonic organization oriented towards magic, was animated by a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Germania, the German-English occultist Theodor Reuß, who in 1902 obtained the right, with the German theosophist Franz Hartmann, to practice the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and the Rite of Memphis-Misraïm.
Rudolf Steiner, the “Rose-Croix” of the Theosophical Society (1902-1906)
8 Gary Lachmann: Rudolf Steiner, a biography. Paris 2009.
9 Rudolf Steiner: Mein Lebensgang. Eine nicht vollendete Autobiography [1925], Rudolf Steiner Gesam (...)
10 Hartmann: Unter den Adepten, quoted by Friedrich Lienhard: Unter dem Rosenkreuz: ein Hausbuch aus (...)
4It was also in 1902 that Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian born in 1861 in a small village in Croatia (which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), became Secretary General of the German section of the Theosophical Society, multiplying the conferences across Germany and beyond8. Steiner states in his autobiography that he became close to the Theosophists because, like them, he was convinced of the existence of a “spiritual world”9. At the beginning of the 20th century, Steiner gave less importance to the Rosicrucian manifestos than to an oral Rosicrucian tradition which would have remained intact within secret societies. He asserted in December 1906 that nothing of authentic Rosicrucianism would be found in the Rosicrucian writings of the early seventeenth century. Steiner endorses the argument of theosophists like Franz Hartmann who describe the essence of the authentic Rose-Croix as "the divine light of self-knowledge"10 and who are convinced that the mysteries of the Rose-Croix are only transmitted orally:
But you can see how difficult it has always been to get to know Rosicrucianism from the fact that Helmont, Leibniz and others were unable to find out anything about the Rosicrucians. The Rosicrucian initiation is historically traced back to a book from the beginning of the 17th century, which states, among other things, that the Rosicrucians dealt with alchemical things, as well as with other things, for example with higher education and so on. So it is written in the Fama Fraternitatis. / Nothing can be found there either about what really is Rosicrucianism, because the mysteries of the Rosicrucians have only been handed down through oral tradition. What has externally attached itself to the name Rosicrucian is very little suitable for fathoming the nature of the Rosicrucians.11
5 Steiner is also nourished by another tradition, in this case German thought and its “great geniuses”, which, according to him, must fertilize theosophy. Steiner thinks in particular of Goethe, whose thought cannot be grasped, according to him, without a deep understanding of its occult foundation. After having studied philosophy in Vienna and read in particular Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, after having defended in 1891 a doctoral thesis in philosophy at the University of Rostock, Steiner worked in Weimar on the edition of the scientific work of Goethe, and gave numerous lectures on Goethe to members of the Theosophical Society. Thus, in the lecture “Die okkulte Grundlage in Goethes Schaffen” (1905), he refers to Goethe’s poem Die Geheimnisse (1785), which according to him expresses the mysteries of the Rose-Croix12. Steiner takes Goethe for a Rose-Croix initiate. In 1780, the German poet was initiated into Freemasonry in the Amalia lodge in Weimar, and received in 1783 into the Order of the Illuminated under the name of Abaris. Speeches and many poems bear witness to this interest in Freemasons, but also several passages from Wilhelm Meister, from Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) as well as Das Märchen (The Fairy Tale of the Beautiful Lily)
6 Steiner attempts to revitalize the Rosicrucian tradition not only by relating himself to the Rosicrucian inspiration of Goethe, but also by concretely seeking authentic Rosicrucians and rituals; he thinks he can do this by joining Freemasonry, like his mentor Goethe. It was in 1904-1905 that Steiner began to participate in Masonic activities, hoping to introduce the occult teachings of Theosophy into them. In 1905, he was initiated by Theodor Reuß into the Rite of Misraïm, with his wife – which cost him dearly, as noted by the German historian Helmut Zander14 –, and in 1906 became President of the “Chapter and Mystical Temple” Mystica Aeterna, in Berlin. In January 1906, he obtained permission from Theodor Reuß to bring into this Freemason Chapter as many members of the Theosophical Society (and other people) as he wished15. But he is somewhat wary of Reuß: “Reuß ist kein Mensch, auf den irgendwie zu bauen wäre. […] Wir haben es mit einem ‘Rahmen’, nicht mit mehr in der Wirklichkeit zu tun. Augenblicklich steckt gar nichts hinter der Sache. Die okkulten Mächte haben sich ganz davon zurückgezogen. 16 According to Helmut Zander, there is no historical proof that Steiner belonged to another Masonic society. In 1907, Steiner was appointed Grand Master of the Rite of Misraïm and led initiation ceremonies in this capacity. The First World War, however, marked the end of Steiner's Masonic activities. Between 1902 and 1906, Steiner developed his Christology independently within the Theosophical Society without this posing any particular problem. His relationship with Annie Besant is excellent: he is part of her Esoteric School and comments glowingly on the German translation of his work Esoteric Christianity published in 1903.
The gradual break with the Theosophists and the founding of the Anthroposophical Society (1906-1912)
18 Steiner, “Die drei Einweihungspfade”, lecture given in Basel on September 19, 1906 before (...)
19 Ibid., p. 92: “der größte der Religionslehrer”.
20 On the action of the Buddha, carried out at the request of the servant of Christ, Christian Rose-Croix, see (...)
7 It was in 1906 that Steiner distinguished for the first time three forms of initiation: the Eastern path, which presupposes the absolute obedience of the student to a guru, the Christian path, which would no longer be adapted to modern man due to the evolution of science and culture, and the Rosicrucian path, which would be free from any enslaving master-disciple relationship18. Alongside this hierarchy of initiatic schools, the "mystery of Golgotha" was mentioned for the first time, at the end of 1906, a concept which would become central to Steiner's Christology: Christ, considered as "the greatest religious teacher"19, embodies in an earthly physical body the solar macrocosmic Christ principle. He gives "the greatest impulse that the soul is able to assimilate" by coming from other worlds to unite with the earth. The Christ impulse, what Steiner calls the "mystery of Golgotha", is for him a completely unique and exceptional fact in the history of humanity. It is no coincidence that in several of his lectures, Steiner emphasizes that the life of Christ goes further than that of the Buddha, since it reaches the resurrection while that of the Buddha ends in the transfiguration20. By focusing his thought on the figure of Christ, Steiner approaches European theological traditions which consider Christ as a personal figure; but he distances himself from the theosophists of Adyar who give equal importance to all religions and consider Jesus as a “great initiate” among others. It was in this context that Annie Besant was elected President of the Theosophical Society in 1907. The same year, Steiner left the Esoteric School of Besant to found an independent esoteric school, teaching a Rosicrucian path rooted in a specifically European esoteric tradition. .
8 According to Helmut Zander, it was above all in opposition to Annie Besant that Steiner increasingly sought, from 1906-1907, to situate himself in a Rosicrucian tradition and to “Christologize” his thought21. The fact that in 1903 Steiner did not mention Christian Rose-Croix in his list of great initiates shows, according to Zander, that the Rosicrucian tradition was built gradually. It is also with the aim of building this European tradition that Steiner would have integrated Christian Rose-Croix in a series of reincarnations: Lazare, Hiram Abiff, the Count of Saint-Germain, etc. When Steiner and Besant agreed at the Munich Congress in May 1907, it was decided that Steiner would teach the Western, "Rosicrucian" path, and Besant the Eastern path. According to Zander, this agreement is superficial and hides a settlement of power. The day after the Congress, Steiner begins the cycle of lectures entitled Die Theosophie des Rosenkreuzers in which he emphasizes the superiority of the Rosicrucian path, and therefore, according to the German historian, his personal superiority over Besant. Zander is of the opinion that in these lectures, in particular in the last lecture of the cycle entitled "Theosophy according to the Rosicrucian method", the Rosicrucian reference would be applied like a thin superstructure on specifically Theosophical themes and, given its vague in the occultist circles of his time, would serve as an empty frame that Steiner could fill as he pleased with content from Christian and European esotericism22. This theory only seems partly relevant because the reference to the Rosicrucians is present long before the break with Besant and anchored in the German tradition, in Goethe in particular. From 1903-1904, Steiner presented Christian Rose-Croix and Jesus as the "two great Masters of the West", thus minimizing the influence of the Eastern Masters. In 1906 Steiner described the seven stages of the Rosicrucian path23, also present or explained in other texts, as in the Science of the Occult (1910) for example.
9 The fundamental disagreement concerns the theory of the return of Christ developed by Besant after the Munich Congress and explains that Steinerian Christology developed with increased speed after 1907. In 1908, Steiner clearly asserts the superiority of Christianity: “[… ] das Christentum ist größer als alle Religion! Das ist die Rosenkreuzerweisheit. 24 In 1911 he held conferences on Christian Rosicrucians at the newly created Rosicrucian branch of the Theosophical Society, where the disagreements appeared more and more evident. Unlike the Theosophists, Steiner considers Christian Rose-Croix as a personality who really lived in the 13th century, and the Rosicrucian order as an organization that really existed. The influence of the spiritual entity that is Christian Rose-Croix would be exerted mainly from his “etheric body”25, incarnated or not26. The action of Christ can take place according to Steiner only from the "etheric"27, that is to say from a subtle field of life forces made up of four ethers and located between the material and the astral plane. For Steiner, there can be no return of Christ to the physical plane, as the Theosophists assert. When leaders of the Theosophical Society believe they have found a new Messiah in the person of the young Hindu Jiddu Krishnamurti, Steiner separates definitively from the Theosophical Society to found, at the end of 1912, the Anthroposophical Society.
Rudolf Steiner anthroposophist: the role of the Chemical Weddings in the construction of a Rosicrucian tradition (1912-1917)
28 Rudolf Steiner: The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rose-Croix 1459, recorded by J. V. Andreae, Stud (...)
29 Rudolf Steiner: Die Theosophie des Rosenkreuzers, Vierzehn Vorträge, München 22. May bis 6. June 1 (...)
11 Steiner no doubt chose to comment on the Wedding because it was the Rosicrucian text he knew best31, but that is not the only reason. The importance he attached to this commentary is evident in the fact that, unlike many other things he has said about Christian Rose-Croix at conferences, it is a written study that he wrote himself. This is indicative of a change in initiatory method in modern times:
32 Bettina Gruber: “Überlegungen zu einer Begriffsdiskussion”. In: Moritz Baßler / Hildegard Châtel (...)
33 Aurélie Choné: Rudolf Steiner, Carl Gustav Jung, Hermann Hesse, Passeurs between East and West. (...)
As the written expression of the traditional teaching transmitted from master to disciple, the book increasingly replaces the oral transmission of knowledge within secret societies, and becomes what connects the instructor and the reader, or more precisely, the Real. and the reader. Reading thus becomes the occasion for a practice, that of a conscious relationship. This ‘self-initiation through reading’32 is a characteristic trend of modernity, perceptible as early as the 19th century. It is based on respect for the subject and his autonomy of thought, but in return requires significant self-discipline and a very firm will.33
30 Rudolf Steiner: Das rosenkreutzerische Christentum. Stuttgart 1950.
10 In 1917, five years after the foundation of the Anthroposophical Society, Steiner published in Berlin a study devoted to the Chemical Weddings28. A series of questions does not fail to arise: how to explain that Steiner felt the need to give a commentary on the Weddings when he did not comment on either the Fama or the Confessio? How to explain that he found it necessary to write a study insisting on the importance of this text eleven years after having affirmed that the oral tradition was more important than the Manifestos? Why did you publish this commentary precisely in 1917, more than a century ago, when he had already given several lectures in previous years on the Rosicrucian path, in particular ten years earlier, in 1907, Die Philosophie des Rosenkreuzers29 and in 1911-1912, on Rosicrucian Christianity30? And finally, for what purpose does he write this comment?
12 As secret societies no longer conveyed the authentic message according to Steiner, it no doubt seemed necessary to him, sensing the end of his life approaching, to write down what he knew of this original message. We will show that this written commentary was a means for him, at a time when he needed to affirm the identity of his movement in the face of the theosophists, to situate himself in the continuity of the Western tradition of Christian esotericism and to present anthroposophy as the heiress of the authentic Rosicrucians. If he appeals to an authoritative text, Les Noces Chymiques, it is to illustrate and justify his previous remarks:
on the real existence of Christian Rose-Croix and the Rosicrucian Order,
on the content of the Rosicrucian initiatory path,
on the superiority of the Rosicrucian path at the present time,
on the etheric vision of Christ thanks to the action of Christian Rose-Croix from the "etheric world".
The real existence of Christian Rose-Croix and the Order of the Rose-Croix
34 On this subject, see the article by Stefania Salvadori in this volume.
13 For Steiner, Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654) is the author of Les Noces Chymiques and he wrote the work in 1603, thirteen years before its publication in Strasbourg in 1616. It should be noted that these dates are roughly in line with the assertions of the most current researchers. Steiner does not seek to challenge by means of historical arguments the assertions of historians who hold the work to be “a kind of literary deception” (NC, 264). But he considers it impossible that a young man of seventeen had “the maturity required to ridicule the evaporated minds of his time, by presenting them with a phantasmagoria under the name of the Rosicrucian current”. Moreover, the spiritually very high content of Les Noces is not for him contradictory with the young age of the author. In his eyes, Andreae wrote under the dictation of “great intuitive forces” (NC, 269). Later, having become a pietistic theologian, Andreae would have lost this intuition, which explains why he was able to deny his story afterwards. Steiner points out that in transcribing the experiences of Christian Rose-Croix, the young Andreae encountered strong resistance, in this case “events similar to those which led to the Thirty Years’ War” (NC, 8). By comparing this situation to the one he knew himself, at a time when the development of anthroposophy was hampered by opposing forces, he clearly places himself in the continuity of the Rosicrucian current.
14 In his commentary, Steiner begins by explaining how the work should be approached, devoting several pages to the “method”, or rather to the attitude to adopt when faced with the text. Because it is precisely not an intellectual, scientific method in the usual sense of the word. Humility, self-knowledge and purification of the soul are the necessary conditions for the spiritual world to be able, through the text, to speak to the soul in the form of images, symbols, "secret figures" such as those of the Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer35. A rather similar attitude of attentive listening with regard to images (and the products of the unconscious) characterizes the psychology of the depths of C. G. Jung (in particular the active imagination): it is not a question of seeking to understand intellectually the image that presents itself, but rather to let it act, to mature in the soul, to brood over it in oneself, until its meaning becomes clear; this requires great patience and the awareness that, as in any deep esoteric text, the message is never completely unveiled, deeper layers always remaining hidden.
15 The key to Steiner's argument therefore rests on a precise method, which he claims to deduce from the attitude and mode of perception of Christian Rose-Croix himself, as described in the novel. The historical method seems to him inappropriate for clarifying overly complicated controversies. “Spiritual Science” is presented as the most adequate way to deduce from the text itself the authenticity of the experiences described, and therefore the reality of the existence of Christian Rose-Croix as well as of the Rosicrucian current. It is not for him an allegory, but a true story, which confirms what he affirmed in his lectures of 1911 on the historical, and not mythical, figure of Christian Rose-Croix.
The content of the Rosicrucian initiatory school
16 In his commentary of 1917, Steiner explains, through the lived experience of Christian Rose-Croix, the seven stages of the Rosicrucian path which he had already exposed ten years earlier, in Die Theosophie des Rosenkreuzers: the study, the imagination, inspiration, the preparation of the Philosopher's Stone, the correspondences between macrocosm and microcosm, diving into the macrocosm and bliss. The seven days correspond to the stages of the initiatory path of Christian Rose-Croix towards the suprasensible worlds and reflect a process of alchemical transformation which leads him towards his spiritual rebirth.
17 From the first day, it is a question of an “imaginative vision” that Christian Rose-Croix had seven years earlier, which announced to him that he would be invited to the “Chymic Wedding”. Another imagination has him “see” a young woman in a blue dress studded with stars – the “manifestation of an entity from the spirit world” (NC, 195) according to Steiner. Another imagination reveals to him a portal, the threshold of the suprasensible world according to Steiner, and a castle, place of spiritual experience. Then comes the fourth day, with the presentation to the Kings and their decapitation: these symbols are for Steiner “authentic imaginations, in conformity with the laws which govern the evolution of the soul” (NC, 243). The ordeals that kings undergo foreshadow what must happen to Christian Rose-Croix himself. He feels the tragedy of the royal hall “as if his own soul lived it: Decapitation is a stage in his own evolution. (NC, 244) According to Steiner, the whole alchemical process described highlights "the mystery of psychic metamorphosis" (NC, 263), namely "the way in which the forces of knowledge, developed by the organism in the ordinary course of life, are transformed into forces of supersensible investigation. (NC, 253) The term "power of knowledge" is imbued with the philosophy of life (Lebensphilosophie) present at the time of Steiner, but it is a question of directing this vitalism towards a spiritualism by transforming sensitive knowledge in supersensible knowledge, which is possible only on condition "of being penetrated by the forces of death." (NC, 247) Thus Christian Rose-Croix contemplates the death of the "kings" in his soul, namely the death of "his means of knowledge, such as they result from the metamorphosis of the material processes of his organism, without himself intervenes. (NC, 248-249) By passing from natural alchemy to the art of alchemy, he will be able to confer on his ordinary faculties of knowledge a particular character which the processes of organic evolution have removed from them. The purpose of the fifth day is precisely, according to Steiner, to complete the natural alchemy. Christian Rose-Croix directs his gaze towards the “laboratory” of nature, where it “gives birth to the vital element of growth” (NC, 249). In the Tower of Olympus, during the preparation of the Stone of the Sages, the inanimate forces of knowledge are brought to life.
18 The seventh day describes the accomplishment of the alchemical work and the promotion of Christian Rose-Croix to the rank of “Knight of the Stone of Gold”. The man whose forces of the soul – thought, feeling, will – are transformed, is as if born again: he becomes the “father” of his own faculties of knowledge. It is a true gnosis in the sense of knowledge, the birth of new forces of supersensible knowledge. This also explains the Steinerian interpretation of the end of the story: Christian Rose-Croix expects to expiate the "fault" of having succumbed to the temptation by looking at Venus naked on the fifth day, and to be condemned to the charge of guardian; but this is not the case, because this guardian turns out in fact to be only a part of himself that he is able to distinguish from himself; and here we are almost approaching a Jungian interpretation of The Wedding , except that the existence of a spiritual world is clearly posed in Steiner: “He becomes the guardian of his own psychic life; but this office in no way prevents him from maintaining free relations with the world of the spirit. (NC, 260-261)
The Rosicrucian path, the initiatory school most suited to modern Europeans
19 Steiner also explains in his commentary on the Marriage why the Rosicrucian way is the most suitable for modern Western man.
20 First, it does not involve blindly following a guru as in the Eastern path as Steiner imagines it, or having absolute faith in the personality of Jesus Christ as in the Christian path. The Rosicrucian path gives less importance to feelings than to facts that can be observed and studied. The first stage of the journey, study, demonstrates the importance of a scientific approach. Steiner emphasizes that Christian Rose-Croix was versed in the knowledge provided by the study of the “Liberal Sciences and Arts” of his time and that he sought to unite knowledge and faith. This is also, according to Steiner, the objective of anthroposophy and as he can situate it in the continuity of the Rosicrucian current: neither religion nor philosophy, the Science of the mind (Geisteswissenschaft) aims to know the worlds suprasensibles with the same rigor as science studies the phenomena of the physical, sensible world.
36 Steiner: “The mission of Christian Rose-Croix, his character and his task. The mission of Gautama Bu (...)
21 This is only possible through the knowledge of nature, the very object of natural alchemy. In his commentary on the Wedding, Steiner clearly opposes the paths of mysticism and alchemy: “The alchemist seeks a knowledge of nature which opens the way to a true knowledge of man. (NC, 214) as the mystic turns inward. According to Steiner, it is quite revealing that the Rosicrucian current was born in the 15th century – a very dark period marked, according to him, by the appearance of the materialist current, which played a major role in scientific theories, especially in matters astronomy; with the beginnings of modern science – Copernicus (1473-1543), Galileo (1564-1642), Kepler (1571-1630), etc. – developed, according to him, “a vision of the world which saw in the macrocosm only an immense machinery composed of material globes”36. A new science must bring the necessary corrective to this materialistic tendency; and Steiner sees it represented in the Weddings through the figure of the Virgin whose name is Alchemy: "this suprasensible science comes from the spiritual worlds whereas the knowledge of the Seven 'Liberal Arts' is acquired on the sensible plane" (NC, 236).
22 In the same spirit, Agrippa von Nettesheim (1487-1535) and Paracelsus (1493-1541) sought, according to Steiner, to explore the laws of nature and access the superior worlds from the natural sciences, through the study of the five elements . The alchemist learns to know his soul as well as nature and discovers that the same forces act there. This is the fifth stage of the Rosicrucian path, the correspondences between macro- and microcosm. The contemplation of natural processes like dissolution and putrefaction becomes meditation, fervent prayer, and arouses a sense of devotion. According to Steiner, the sanctity of nature is at the center of Les Noces, the mission of Christian Rose-Croix being to discover the spirit in nature. As a Knight of the Stone of Gold, he will have to live in accordance with the two mottos inscribed on the medal he receives, as well as the other Knights, on the seventh day: "Art is the servant of nature" and “Nature is the daughter of time. (NC, 259)
37 Antoine Faivre: Access to Western esotericism. Paris vol. I 1986, vol. II, 1996.
23 Steiner presents the Science of the Spirit as the heir to the Rosicrucian current in that it seeks to rediscover the religious character that the study of nature had in the Middle Ages, to reveal the spiritual reality behind the veil of nature. At the same time, he seeks to show the evolution of the Rosicrucian teaching. Mainly based on the natural sciences in the Middle Ages, in connection with alchemy, it became in its time "Science of the mind" in connection with the natural sciences in the Goethean sense of the term. The great Rosicrucian meditation on the symbol of the cross surrounded by seven roses, described for example in 1910 in Die Geheimwissenschaft (Science of the Occult), is deeply linked to living Nature, one of the criteria of esotericism according to Antoine Faivre37, since it is first of all a question of representing a plant which opens out, its roots which plunge into the darkness, its stem which rises towards the light. It involves the transformation of the forces of life into spiritual forces by a process of transmutation of the "etheric" into supersensible energy: this inner alchemy constitutes the very essence of the new Rosicrucian mysteries according to Steiner.
38 Johann Valentin Andreae: The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rose-Croix. In: Bernard Gorceix: The bi (...)
24 Finally, Steiner wishes to show through the experiences of Christian Rose-Croix and his companions that the Rosicrucian initiation is a personal path at the service of society: “The presence of such men in the social order will be a leaven for those who it and will help clean it up. (NC, 261) On reading Les Noces, it clearly appears that Christian Rose-Croix will play a special role because he is led to see more marvels38 than his companions who "only perceive what is shown to them, without the intervention of their personal will. (NC, 230) By continuing to serve as a guardian after receiving the supreme reward, he does not return to his solitary life, out of the world; he sees himself obliged to link spiritual life and social life in the service of others (karma-yoga, one would say in the Indian tradition), which is characteristic of a modern initiation. Steiner situates anthroposophy in the continuity of this tradition by insisting on education for freedom and by showing the importance of the concrete societal applications of its ideas in fields as diverse as pedagogy, agriculture, medicine and science. 'architecture.
25 In his commentary on Les Noces, Steiner particularly insists on the visions and imaginations of Christian Rose-Croix, which would be produced by the action of his “etheric body”. On Easter Friday, Christian's supersensible perception allows him to have the vision of the woman in the blue dress: "This activity of the etheric body can be compared to the bringing into action of a radiant light. (NC, 195-196) It is this activity that every human being is called upon to develop thanks to a daily meditative practice allowing the metamorphosis of his soul and the development of faculties of supersensible perception. Through this central practice in the Rosicrucian initiation as Steiner understands it, the student feels the influence of the etheric body of Christian Rose-Croix and can perceive the appearance of Christ in his own etheric body, that is, say realize the Christ in himself, the inner Christ, without going through a guru or other spiritual master. According to Steiner, all of humanity would be called to live this experience of the road to Damascus, and not only the circle of Rosicrucian initiates. The mission of the "Science of the Spirit" would be to divulge the Rosicrucian mystery to as many people as possible today.
39 On this subject, see Véronique Liard's contribution: “Carl Gustav Jung and the Chymic Weddings. Alc (...)
40 I refer here to chapter 10 of C. G. Jung's Psychological Types: Psychologische Typen. Zurich (...)
41 However, this interpretation should be qualified. Indeed, experience plays a very important role (...)
26We can see a certain affinity between the Steinerian commentary and the Jungian reading39 of the Wedding: in both cases, the initiatory journey of Christian Rose-Croix expresses the “mystery of psychic metamorphosis” (NC, 263). The big difference comes from the way of thinking of Jung and Steiner, and their opposite attitude towards reality. From a Jungian perspective,40 one could perhaps qualify Steiner’s philosophical temperament as “extroverted” and that of Jung as “introverted” (this is moreover how he saw himself); indeed, the anthroposophist links his thought closely to real objects while the founder of depth psychology is above all concerned with his inner world. Steiner is an idealist in that the spiritual world has for him a character of truth and absolute in the same way as the objects which are in front of him, without possible contestation, while for Jung, nourished by Kant, thought partially derives from subjectivity, which places all metaphysics beyond the reach of human understanding and establishes an empirical approach to reality. Jung needs to look within himself for landmarks to evolve in his inner world, without resorting to metaphysics to name things outside of him; he tends to see in him realities which, for the extrovert, are external.
42 We can think in particular of biodynamic agriculture – the processes of decomposition, putr (...)
43 See the third stage of the conjunction described at the end of Carl Gustav Jung: Mysterium conjunct (...)
44 On the comparison of these paths, see Aurélie Choné: Rudolf Steiner, Carl Gustav Jung, Herman (...)
27 Steiner considers the mystical path (introverted attitude according to the Jungian typology) unsuited to the materialistic modern age, and considers the alchemical path (extroverted attitude according to the Jungian typology) which passes through the knowledge of nature, as the most appropriate today. today. Could this be the reaction of an extrovert who does not understand the other attitude? Jung also uses alchemy, but more in the psychological sense of an inner psychic transformation; he emphasizes the writings that translate external experiences into symbolic processes revealing the archetypes of the collective unconscious, which he wants to find in order to shed light on his journey and that of his patients. But if Jung seems to be more interested in the interior side (oratory) and Steiner in the operative side of alchemy42 (laboratory), the fact remains that the psychiatrist also integrates a much broader dimension through the notion of unus mundus43, and that the anthroposophist pays great attention to inner processes, emphasizing the passage from natural alchemy to the Science of the mind. Anthroposophy, which seeks to develop our perception of the supersensible world, and depth psychology, which aims to approach the Self in order to reach the totality of our being, have important similarities in the journey they offer towards greater freedom. and autonomy.
28 If Les Noces has caught the attention of such different thinkers, it is undoubtedly because this writing offers a fine example of a balanced appreciation between the two points of view. The oratory is as important there as the laboratory. There is both the experimental side (Tower of Olympus) and the importance of moral purification (weighing test, vault of Venus). Extroverts tend to make it a laboratory affair by denying the other side, while introverts stress the projection of psychic contents onto matter and make it a process of individuation, neglecting the experimental side which is very vague in the definitions of the materials, which vary from one to another. But the secret undoubtedly lies in the right balance between extroversion and introversion, science and faith, laboratory and oratory.
Assessment and posterity of the anthroposophical reception of Les Noces until today
29 All the arguments deployed in Steiner’s extremely dense Commentary combine to demonstrate that the Weddings are “an objective relationship of an authentic quest” (NC, 263). Steiner felt the need to give a commentary on the Wedding - rather than on the Fama or the Confessio - because this story contains a wealth of images and symbols which make visible, in the form of evocative imaginations, the passage from sensitive to supersensitive. This commentary aims to anchor Steiner's theosophy, which he calls anthroposophy, in the Rosicrucian tradition of esoteric Christianity. Steiner thus stands out from the Theosophical Society and Eastern initiation by proposing a “Rosicrucian initiation” adapted to modern man in that it brings together faith and science, knowledge and contemplation of nature. Starting from the Manifesto, he seeks to prove what he has asserted in previous conferences and to give greater authority to his words through the exegesis of the source text itself. In doing so, he presents himself as the successor to the Rosicrucian current, which is supposed to express the quintessence of the great previous religions, and therefore the cutting edge of all spiritual teachings.
30 His reception of Les Noces will find an important echo in the anthroposophical milieu, among students and close friends like Michael Bauer46 (1871-1929), who was a member of his esoteric School. Today, the Rosicrucian reference is still very present among anthroposophists. According to the Dutch writer Jelle van der Meulen, for example, Steiner was initiated by Christian Rose-Croix47. The links between Anthroposophy and Rosicrucianism have been studied by engineer Viktor Stracke (1903-1991) and physician Peter Selg (1963- )48. Les Noces gave rise to a new commentary by Bastiaan Baan, director of the seminary of the Fellowship of Christians in North America, and former Waldorf school teacher. Overall, the interpretation of Les Noces is the object of a deepening in two main directions: meditation50 and cosmology51.
52 The outer order of the Stella Matutina was known as the Mystic Rose or Order of the M.R. i (...)
53 Crispian Villeneuve: Rudolf Steiner in Britain: A Documentation of His Ten Visits, 1902‑25, vol. 1 (...)
54 The Table Round (Ordo Tabulae Rotundae) is a neo-Arthurian mystical order that Felkin also exported (...)
55 Zander: Anthroposophy in Deutschland. t. I, p. 844.
56 See the contribution of Sébastien Gregov in this volume.
31 We also mention the influence of Steiner on the English doctor Robert Felkin, who in 1903 created the magical order Stella Matutina (Morning Star)52 in England, a splinter group from the Golden Dawn, and on Neville Meakin53, a member of the Stella Matutina. They saw in him an authentic representative of the Rosicrucian tradition, the missing link in the chain of the Rose-Croix dating back to the 17th century. Known by the initials EOL (Ex oriente Lux), Grand Master of the neo-Arthurian Order Ordo Tabulae Rotundae54, Meakin met Steiner in 1910 and 1912, received the initiation of adeptus minor in the Chapter Mystica aeterna and embarked in 1911 for Constantinople, traveling in the footsteps of the pilgrimage described in the Fama Fraternitatis. Steiner's ideas on the real existence of Christian Rose-Croix and his Order, as well as on the different incarnations of Christian Rose-Croix, will influence Max Heindel (1865-1919), who was vice-president of theosophy of Adyar in California in 1904-1905 and student of the Esoteric School of Steiner in 1907-1908. In 1909 Heindel created the Rosicrucian Fellowship in California. Steiner would accuse him in 1913 of having plagiarized several of his lectures55. Finally, let us mention the obvious influence of the Steinerian reading of the Wedding on the Dutch Rosicrucian Jan van Rijckenborgh, a former disciple of Heindel who founded the Lectorium Rosicrucianum in the 1920s.
The festival celebrates the finest in both gardening and food. Visitors can expect stunning show gardens and nursery displays alongside a bounty of food producers, shopping and top tips from garden experts and celebrity chefs.
Set against the picturesque Malvern Hills, show gardens are always a number one destination, with five designers being awarded with RHS Gold Medals in 2016.
The Floral Marquee is bursting with examples of the finest nurseries in the UK and abroad, with many old favourites and new varieties on sale.
The foodie hotspot, Festival Food and Drink Pavilion, is a lively market of food producers offering a variety of artisan produce. At the heart is a Kitchen Theatre where celebrity guests and local producers showcase their skills and produce.
Other festival favourites include the School Gardens, Get Going Get Growing pavilion and Family Day (Sunday).
RHS Malvern Spring Festival is a joint partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society and Three Counties Agricultural Society.
An entirely new vision brings RHS Malvern Spring Festival into full bloom for 2017, taking inspiration from the event’s Spa town heritage. The landmark four-day spectacle, taking place from Thursday 11 – Sunday 14 May at the Three Counties Showground, welcomes all new features and exhibits and a vibrant line up of the finest in gardening, food and lifestyle.
Jane Furze, Head of RHS Malvern Spring Festival, said: “We are so excited to share the glorious plans that are afoot for RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017. It really is going to be a sensational year for our leading event with plenty for everyone. Whether you’re a newcomer to gardening, a veteran horticulturalist or simply looking for a family day out, RHS Malvern Spring Festival has it all. We look forward to welcoming visitors to our stunning showcase of spring in May.”
The new vision for RHS Malvern Spring Festival takes inspiration from Malvern Spa’s Victorian heyday as a fashionable health resort – a place where day-trippers descended to take advantage of the clean air and to enjoy the health giving waters amongst the romantic beauty of the hills and into a town of pleasure gardens, assembly rooms and numerous eating-places.
Promising a bountiful day out for everyone, visitors can expect:
NEW FOR 2017
FLORAL MARQUEE
RHS Malvern Spring Festival boasts the UK’s longest Floral Marquee at over 195 metres – the equivalent length of four Olympic swimming pools. The Floral Marquee welcomes more than 65 leading UK and international nurseries, setting the horticultural standards with impressive displays of prized blooms and new varieties. Exhibitors in the Floral Marquee represent the very best in plants and advice available. Here visitors can browse and buy from the very best.
JOE SWIFT’S PLANT HUNTER PARLOUR
BBC Gardeners’ World presenter and acclaimed garden expert, Joe Swift brings to life a new centerpiece of the Floral Marquee – Joe’s Plant Hunter Parlour. This immersive experience like no other features daily talks from award winning nurseries and welcomes budding gardeners big and small to discover, learn and indulge their inner plant hunter.
LIVE WELL
Newly introduced for the very first time, this dedicated zone interprets and explores the theme of health and wellbeing in the 21st century.
JEKKA MCVICAR’S HEALTH & WELLBEING GARDEN
The centrepiece of the Live Well zone, British Queen of Herbs, Jekka McVicar designs and builds a specially commissioned permanent garden, bringing to life the role gardens continue to play in our health and sense of wellbeing. Jekka’s garden is a living working space for mind, body and senses.
The garden is both a tranquil seating space where visitors can spend time amongst the aromatic herb beds, and a place to learn and explore what living well meant in yesteryear and what it means today. Visitors are invited to join daily ‘herbal conversations’ with Jekka herself and explore the awe-inspiring world of alternative therapies. The garden is in support of Pathways, a day service for adults with learning disabilities and difficulties.
GROW
A horticultural experience by Jon Wheatley, RHS Gold Medal winning gardener and Chairman of RHS South West in Bloom, Grow takes inspiration from interactive Country gardens and wildflower borders, showcasing a variety of edible beds and bountiful Grow To Show competitions.
SPA GARDENS
A brand new category introduced for the very first time to RHS Malvern Spring Festival, offering a unique platform for emerging gardening talent. Glorious gardens from up and coming designers bring to life the new vision and reflect the thirst for knowledge, new horizons and innovative technology at the heart of Malvern’s Victorian heritage. Gold Medal winning Chelsea garden designer, Jo Thompson is mentoring the new talent as they embark on this exciting new challenge. The Spa Gardens category also features one garden from an international designer supported by the esteemed Moscow Flower Show. This is part of a newly introduced exchange programme, which in return offers one selected British Spa Garden designer the once in a lifetime chance to showcase at Moscow Flower Show in July.
INDOOR SHOPPING ARCADES
A premium quality shopping experience, it is here that visitors can pick up unique pieces in fashion, furniture, homewares, horticulture, gifts and more from independent designers, craftsmen, artisans and artists.
PLANT ARCADES
An exciting open-air shopping experience with over 35 nurseries, each showcasing a wonderful array of plants. Plant steals aplenty can be found here, especially during the famous sell-off on Sunday.
MAKING A WELCOME RETURN
FESTIVAL GREEN
The heart of RHS Malvern Spring Festival featuring a colourful array of pleasure gardens, a bandstand of live music, an impressive collection of classic cars, an array of global flavours from the International Street Food Market, and plenty of places to picnic. It is here visitors rediscover the Victorian love of amusement, surprise and delight, alongside enjoying unique show gardens unlike any other.
FESTIVAL THEATRE
Hosted by RHS Malvern Spring Festival favourite and award winning writer and broadcaster, James Alexander-Sinclair, the Festival Theatre plays host to a lively line up of leading experts and familiar faces. Visitors may take a seat and enjoy demonstrations, talks and exciting features as personalities share their knowledge and passion for all things gardening and food. Confirmed experts include Carol Klein, Joe Swift, Jekka McVicar and Jon Wheatley with plenty more to be announced soon.
SHOW GARDENS
The highest standard of garden design is showcased in the Show Gardens of RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017. Leading designers create awe-inspiring gardens as they compete for prestigious RHS accolades including Gold medals and the coveted Best In Show. RHS Malvern Spring Festival is famed as the show that raises the bar for design and horticultural talent with numerous RHS Gold medals awarded in 2016. This year is tipped to be no exception.
FOOD & DRINK PAVILION
A foodie hotspot, the Food & Drink Pavilion is a magnificent celebration of British tastes with bountiful offerings from the country’s best-loved artisan producers. Expect the freshest field produce, big cheeses, bread of heaven, specialty gins, decadent bakes and more.
KITCHEN GARDEN THEATRE
This animated live kitchen, hosted by Mark Diacono, showcases a line up of delicious cookery demonstrations from culinary experts and the country’s top chefs. Mark shares advice from his home farm cookery school, Otter Farm and experience as head gardener at River Cottage.
YOUNG GARDENER
A hive of activity tailored to inspire the next generation of gardeners and horticulturalists with fun hands-on activities to help children learn and explore the wonderful world of plants and gardens.
FAMILY DAY
Budding gardeners great and small are invited to get green fingered with a dedicated Family Day on the Sunday of RHS Malvern Spring Festival. This exciting and educational day with plenty of hands on activities is the ideal opportunity to engage children in the fun of gardening and the great outdoors. Expect Kids Cookery demonstrations, make and take crafts, Kids Plant and Grow workshops with BBC Blue Peter Gardener, Chris Collins and more.
SCHOOL GARDENS
RHS Malvern Spring Festival is one of the only RHS Shows in the UK to have a collection of Show Gardens designed and built entirely by young people. This year sees over 12 schools and educational groups from across the three counties taking part, led by BBC Blue Peter Gardener, Chris Collins.
RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 will take place from Thursday 11 May until Sunday 14 May. For more information, please call 01684 584900 or visit
British Queen of Herbs, Jekka McVicar will unveil the first ever specially commissioned permanent garden at RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017. A magnificent centrepiece of the celebrated event’s all-new Live Well zone, Jekka’s garden will bring to life the contribution horticulture continues to make to our health and wellbeing in today’s bustling modern world. The Health & Wellbeing Garden will be launched when the show opens its gates on Thursday 11 May at the Three Counties Showground.#
RHS Ambassador for Health through Horticulture, Jekka McVicar said: “I am delighted to have been asked to create a lasting garden for RHS Malvern Spring Festival. I want the Health & Wellbeing Garden to be a usable and beautiful space that is embraced by people of all ages – a space for growth, education and reflection. With the Malvern Hills as a dramatic backdrop, RHS Malvern Spring Festival is such a beautiful place and because it’s at the start of the summer, it’s always a time of such optimism. It is a real privilege to bring this garden to life as part of such a dynamic and exciting show.”
Jekka’s Health & Wellbeing garden, as the focus for the new Live Well Zone, is inspired by the increasing need for reflection and escape from the stresses of modern life. It also seeks to preserve and share the vital knowledge of how horticulture and its associated therapies can help the mind, body and soul. The garden will be a living, working space with a tranquil seating area, where visitors can immerse themselves amongst the aromatic herb beds, and also educate themselves on the place that herbs and horticulture play in today’s society.
Head of RHS Malvern Spring Festival, Jane Furze said: “It is a real pleasure to be working with Jekka to build a garden not only for this year’s event, but also for the future. Jekka’s designs look spectacular and we cannot wait to see these brought to life and shared with our many visitors. The Health & Wellbeing Garden will no doubt be a real highlight of RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 and for many years to come.”
Throughout the 4-days of RHS Malvern Spring Festival, Jekka will host daily ‘herb conversations’ in the garden, unearthing hidden gems from the world of alternative therapies, food and gardening. Jekka will also provide insights into herbs as the foundation of modern medicine, seeking to preserve the knowledge that over time is danger of being lost.
The Health & Wellbeing Garden is in support of Pathways, a work-focused day service for adults with learning disabilities and difficulties. Pathways use gardening and the environment as an educational tool to introduce young adults to the working world. Clients of Pathways benefit from gaining vital skills for entering the working world, these include trust, communication, interaction with peers, taking direction and responsibility for themselves and others.
Leaving a legacy, Jekka’s garden will provide Pathways with a nurturing space to continue their works in encouraging clients to grow. Throughout the show times, Pathways will sell plants and refreshments from the garden. Funds raised from these sales go towards covering the costs of the residential trip taken twice each year for clients of Pathways, a vital retreat for clients that contributes to their sense of wellbeing. Outside of show days, Pathways and local schools will host sessions in the garden. The garden aims to inspire visitors of all ages and abilities with engaging elements tailored for all.
Jekka’s design will incorporate the unique and flexible WoodBlocX system, specially selected to provide permanent raised bed structures to house the garden’s vast selection of herbs and edibles. The centrepiece of the garden contains four large planted sections featuring smooth curves constructed from the unique WoodBlocX system. WoodBlocX use sustainable, long-lasting, organic and FSC accredited wooden bricks, which can be used to create any shape such as the naturally fluid curves seen in Jekka’s elegant design.
Considered an unmatched expert by the UK’s top chefs and horticulturalists, Jekka McVicar is an enterprising British herb grower, organic gardening expert, author and broadcaster. Jekka’s Herb Farm, in nearby South Gloucestershire, boasts the largest collection of culinary herbs in the UK with more than 500 different varieties.
Alongside her RHS Ambassadorship for Health through Horticulture, Jekka’s accolades include 62 RHS Gold Medals, Garden Media Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and the RHS Lawrence Medal for the best exhibit shown at any RHS show in 2009. Jekka is also a Vice President of the RHS, Vice President of the Herb Society, is a founder member of the RHS Herb advisory group, and a member of the RHS Three Counties Agricultural Society Joint Committee. Jekka has herself exhibited at RHS Malvern Spring Festival since 1993 and has been a vital contributor to the team at Three Counties for over a decade.
RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 will take place from Thursday 11 May until Sunday 14 May. Tickets are now on sale. For more information and to book tickets, please call
There you stood on the edge of your feather, Expecting to fly.
While I laughed, I wondered whether I should wave goodbye, Knowing that you'd gone.
By the summer it was healing, We had said goodbye. All the years we'd spent with feeling
Ended with a cry. Babe, now you know I'd try
Expecting to Fly - Neil Young/Buffalo Springfield Lovely song...
Better in black :)
By 2022, BC is expecting one million job openings in the province created by retirements and our growing economy. "BC's Skills for Jobs Blueprint: Re-engineering Education and Training” is a comprehensive strategy to re-engineer BC’s education and apprenticeship systems.
The strategy sets out three overarching objectives to maximize the potential of BC’s workforce: A head-start to hands-on learning in our schools; A shift in education and training to better match jobs in demand; A stronger partnership with industry and labour to deliver training and apprenticeships.
READ MORE: www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/2014/04/bc-launches-skills-for-job...
We stumbled upon All Saints en route to a different church, and as all those seen thus far on this day had been small and plain, not much was expected. But I saw the tower from along the main street, and looked impressive. and once parked we found it unlocked and welcoming.
Star of the show is the northern chapel, given over to the Culpepper family, with a fabulous tomb in the centre. On the walls, dozens of blank shields show what had been planned to be the family mausoleum for centuries, but things changed, the family moved away and the chapel has just three shields decorated.
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There was considerable damage caused to this church in an earthquake of 1382. The medieval accounts survive so we know that 48s 2d was spent on the rebuilding. Little can have changed to the structure since that time, except for the construction of a north chapel in 1638. This chapel has a charming pattern of flint flushwork triangles in a horizontal course below the battlements. It contains one of the most interesting seventeenth-century monuments in Kent - to commemorate Lady Elizabeth Culpepper (d. 1638), carved and signed by the Court Sculptor Edward Marshall. The detail is amazing and the cord that connects her ring and wrist is always pointed out to visitors. The rest of the church was restored early in the career of George Gilbert Scott Jr in 1876 (see also Frinsted) and retains its patina of age unimaginable in a restoration by Scott Sr. The pulpit is early seventeenth century and dates from a few years after the much crocketed font cover. There are three signed monuments by Rysbrack and a tall crownpost roof of good construction in the nave.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Hollingbourne
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HOLLINGBORNE.
THE next parish north-westward from Harrietsham is Hollingborne, called in Domesday, Hoilingeborde, and in later records, Holingburnan and Holingeburne. It probably took its name from the spring which rises in the vale underneath the hill, in this parish.
THE PARISH of Hollingborne is situated much the same as that of Harrietsham last described, close to the great ridge of chalk hills, at the foot of which is the village called Hollingborne-street, in which at the south end of it stands the church and vicarage, and near them a well-looking brick mansion, of the time of queen Elizabeth, which by its appearance must have had owners of good condition in former times, but what is remarkable the rector of Hollingborne claims some rooms in this house in right of his rectory at this time. The road through Newnhambottom from Ospringe and Canterbury passes through Hollingborne-street, and thence through Eyhorne, commonly called Iron-street, in this parish, where there are two good houses, one belonging to Robert Salmon, esq. who resides in it, and the other built not many years since by Mr. John Weeks, who died possessed of it in 1785. Hence the road leads on, and joins the Ashford high road through Bersted to Maidstone. The southern part of this parish consists mostly of a deep sand, the whole of it below the hill is well watered by some small streams, which running southward join the Lenham rivulet in its way to Maidstone. Nearer the street the soil becomes a chalk, which continues to the summit of the hill, at the edge of which stands Mr. Duppa's house, whence the remaining part of this parish northward, situated on high ground, and exposed to the cold bleak winds, is but a wild and dreary country, with thick hedgerows, and frequent coppices of wood, mostly of hazel and oak, and small unthriving trees of the latter dispersed among them; the soil a deep tillage land, wet and very poor, being a red cludgy earth, covered with quantities of flint stones. On Eyhorne green, or as it is commonly called Broad-street, in this parish, in October yearly, two constables are chosen, one for the upper, the other for the lower half hundred of Eyhorne, each of which district consists of the twelve adjoining parishes, the borsholders in which, and the several boroughs in them, except such as are chosen at the different court leets, are chosen here likewise.
This parish, with the manor of Elnothington in it, together with the rest of the hundred of Eyhorne, was antiently bound to contribute to the repair of the sixth pier of Rochester bridge.
ÆTHELSTAN ETHELING, son of Ethelred II. gave by his will in 1015, to Christ-church, in Canterbury, his lands at Hollingborne, with their appurtenances, excepting one plough-land, which he had given to Siserth. In the MSS. in Bennet college library, Cambridge, of the evidences of Christ-church, Canterbury, intitled Thorn, printed in Decim. Script. f. 2221, this gift is said to have been made in 980; a very improbable circumstance, the king, his elder brother, at that time being but fourteen years of age.
These lands he had bought of his father, and gave them, with his consent, to Christ-church, L. S. A. that is, free from all secular service, excepting the trinoda necessitas, in like manner as Adisham had been given to it.
The manor of Hollingborne remained part of the possessions of the church of Canterbury at the time of the conquest, when the revenues of it were enjoyed as one common estate by the archbishop and his convent; but archbishop Lanfranc, after the example of foreign churches, separating them, in the partition Hollingborne fell to the share of the monks, and was allotted for their subsistence, (or ad Cibum, as it was usually termed) and it is accordingly thus entered in the book of Domesday, under the general title of Terra Monachorum Archiepi, i. e. the land of the monks of the archbishop.
The archbishop himself holds Hoilingeborde. It was taxed at six sulings. The arable land is twenty-four carucates. In demesne there are two, and sixty-one villeins, with sixteen borderers, having twenty-three carucates. There is a church, twelve servants, and two mills, and eight acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of forty hogs. In the whole, in the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth twenty pounds, and now it is worth thirty pounds. To this manor there adjoins half a suling, which never paid scot, this the bishop of Baieux rents of the archbishop.
At this time, the whole of the above premises seems to have been valued at thirty pounds.
King Henry II. granted to the monks of Christchurch a charter for their lands at Hollingborne upon the Hills. In the 10th year of king Edward II. the prior obtained a charter of free-warren for his manor of Hollingborne, among others; about which time it was, with its appurtenances, valued at 46l. 9s. 8d. King Henry VI. by his letters patent, in his 25th and 26th year, granted to the prior a market, to be held at this place weekly on a Wednesday, and a fair yearly on the feast of St. Anne. (fn. 1)
William Selling, who was elected prior in the next reign of king Edward IV. anno 1472, during the time of his holding that dignity, greatly improved the prior's apartments here. After which, it seems to have undergone no material alteration till the dissolution of the priory, which was surrendered into the hands of king Henry VIII. in the 31st year of his reign.
The manor of Hollingborne did not remain long in the hands of the crown; for the king settled it, by his dotation charter, in his 33d year, on his newerected dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions it now remains.
There is a court-leet and court baron regularly held by the dean and chapter for this manor, which extends likewise into the adjoining parishes of Hucking, Bredhurst, and Harrietsham, the quit-rents of it called Beadle-rents, being about forty-two pounds per annum.
¶BUT THE DEMESNE LANDS of this manor have been from time to time leased out by the dean and chapter at a reserved rent of 10l. 9s. The year after the grant of it to them, they demised them by lease to I. Reynolde, as they did anno 19 Elizabeth to William Puresoy, in whose family they remained till the beginning of king James I.'s reign. After which the Fludds held them in lease, and continued so to do, till their interest in them was passed away to W. Alabaster, D. D. After which these premises were held in succession by Bargrave, Boys, Farewell, and Gookin, till the year 1684, when Sir Thomas Culpeper, had a lease of them, in whose family they continued till John Spencer Colepeper, of the Charterhouse, passed away his interest in them to the Hon. Robert Fairfax, who held them in 1758, and then alienated his lease to Francis Child, esq. banker in London, whose brother Robert Child, esq. of London, banker, dying in 1782, the trustees of his will, Robert Dent and John Keysel, esqrs. are now in the possession of his interest in the lease of these demesnes, under the dean and chapter, besides which the dean and chapter have several other lands and woods here leased out by them to different persons.
HOLLINGBORNE is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deaury of Sutton; and is exempt from the jurisdiction of the archdeacon.
The church, which is dedicated to All Saints, is a handsome building, consisting of three large isles, with a chancel at the end of the middle one, and a square tower at the west end. The chancel is much enriched with the monuments of the family of Culpeper, of Greenway-court, and for two of the lords Culpeper, one of them by Rysbrack; on the north side is one for Sir Martin Barnham and his two wives, in 1610, their three figures kneeling at a desk, and underneath their children. At the east end of the north isle there is a small neat chapel, raised up several steps to give room for a vault underneath, in which lie the remains of all this branch of the Culpeper family. The sides of the chapel are filled with black escutcheons, and square tablets of black marble alternately, only two of these among the numbers of them are filled up, and those with younger branches of the family settled elsewhere, a proof of the disappointment of the vain endeavours of the builder to transmit the memory of his descendants to posterity. On the middle of the pavement is a beautiful raised monument of white marble, and the figure of a lady, lying at full length, in the habit of the times, of exceeding good sculpture, in memory of Elizabeth, lady of Sir Thomas Culpeper, daughter of John Cheney, esq. of Sussex, obt. 1638. In the isle a monument for Nich. Chaloner, esq. obt. 1706. Against the north wall of the north isle for two of the family of Duppa, and at the lower end of the church, for the Plummers, Collins's and Dykes. In the middle isle a stone, on which have been the figures of a man and woman in brass, but two shields of arms remain, being quarterly, first and fourth, A chevron, engrailed on a chief, three sleurs de lis; second and third, Three fishes, wavy, sessways, in pale.
There is belonging to this church, a most superb altar-cloth, and a pulpit-cloth and cushion, of purple velvet, ornamented with different figures of fruits of pomegranets and grapes, wrought in gold, the needlework of the daughters of Sir John Colepeper, afterwards created lord Colepeper, who employed themselves for almost the space of twelve years in the working of them, during their father's absence abroad with king Charles II.
The communion plate is very handsome, and an swerable to the above-mentioned furniture, being mostly the gift of the family of Colepeper, and some of it of Baldwin Duppa, esq.
John Eweyn, by his will proved in 1527, gave a table of alabaster, to stand upon the altar of St. John the Baptist in this church; and money to the repair of St. John's chapel in it. John Aleff, parson of Hollingborne, as appears by his will in 1537, was buried in the way beside the porch-door, on the right hand, and that there was set in the wall, nigh his grave, a stone with a plate of sculpture, mentioning where and when he was buried. He had before been vicar of Little Chart, and of St. Laurence Wolton, as he was then of St. John's Sherburne, in Hampshire.
The church of Hollingborne, to which the chapels of Hucking and Bredhurst were antiently annexed, is a sinecure rectory, with a vicarage endowed. The rector of Hollingborne is at this time patron of the perpetual curacy of the chapel of Bredhurst. The archbishop is patron both of the rectory and of the vicarage of Hollingborne, the vicar of which is collated to this vicarage, with the chapel of Hucking annexed.
The vicarage was endowed before the year 1407, in which year Arthur Sentleger, the rector, granted to William Maunby, vicar of this church, a messuage, with its appurtenances in this parish, for the habitation of himself and his successors for ever. (fn. 5) In archbishop Chichele's register, at Lambeth, there is an unauthenticated writing of a composition, made about the year 1441, for it is without date, between William Lyeff, then rector here, and John Fsylde, vicar, upon the assignation of a proper portion for the endowment of this vicarage in future times.
The rectory of Hollingborne is valued in the king's books at 28l. 15s. 5d. and the tenths at 2l. 17s. 6 1/7d. The vicarage is valued in them at 7l. 6s. 8d. and the yearly tenths at 14s. 8d. The vicarage in 1640 was valued at eighty-six pounds, and the communicants were then 271. It is now of the yearly certified value of 70l. 16s. 8d.
The vicarage was augmented twenty pounds per annum, by lease between Ralph Staunton, rector, and Sir Thomas Culpeper, of this parish.
¶The name of Culpeper, or Colepeper, is so variously spelt in different deeds and records, that it is impossible to keep with any rule to either spelling; on all the monuments, and in the parish register, (excepting in two instances in the last) it is spelt Culpeper.
The snow line dipped south of the Poconos unexpectedly and we got between three and four inches.
It's early in the year for us.
We won't be posting for a few days, Happy Thanksgiving!
They flapped but dared not fly. Not just yet.
Impersonating church steeples, three young great blue herons appeared close to taking their inaugural flights. Canada Day, Roberts Bay, Sidney BC.
Wasn't expecting to see this in Assford, and having stayed in Assford until the evening, I suppose I couldn't leave without trying some night shots, and this vehicle was on SouthEastern Trains Rail Replacement Service to and from Canterbury West.
And be sure to check by my other acount: www.flickr.com/photos_user.gne?path=&nsid=77145939%40..., to see what else I saw Very Recently!!
Before March 2 2015, please come here to nominate the entire Chinatown as the historic site to be preserved, don't expect City of Vancouver to save Chinatown when the Council approved more condo to be built in Chinatown at rapid rate to destroy the Chinatown.
www.heritagebc.ca/blog?articleid=162
Chinese Historic Places Recognition Project
THE HERITAGE BATTLE FOR CHINATOWN
Historic Vancouver neighbourhood is being redeveloped, raising fears it will lose its character.
By JOHN MACKIE, VANCOUVER SUN November 15, 2014
The marketing line for the Keefer Block condo development in Chinatown is “Heritage Meets Modern.”
But just how much heritage will be left after a wave of modern developments washes over the historic district is a matter of debate.
A new proposal for the 700-block of Main Street would demolish the last three buildings from Hogan’s Alley, a once-notorious back lane that was the longtime home of Vancouver’s black community.
Another condo development at 231 Pender would replace a funky, Chinese-themed garage that is listed on Canada’s Register of Historic Places. Angelo Tosi’s family has owned their building at 624 Main since 1930. It may date back to 1895, and looks it — the fixtures and shelving are as old as the hills.
But Tosi is 82, and will probably sell when the price is right. He doesn’t expect his store to survive.
“It’ll be gobbled up by the monstrous buildings,” said Tosi. “And then they’ll take it all, and it’s finished. They won’t keep the heritage on the bottom, they’ll put down whatever they want.”
His fatalistic attitude reflects the changes in Chinatown, which is undergoing a development boom after zoning changes by the City of Vancouver.
The protected “historic” area of Chinatown is now Pender Street, while much of Main, Georgia and Keefer can now be redeveloped, with heights of up to 90 feet (nine storeys). A few sites can go even higher.
Two towers are going up at Keefer and Main — the nine-storey, 81-unit Keefer Block, and the 17-storey, 156-unit 188 Keefer. Up the street at 137 Keefer, a development permit application has just gone in for a new nine-storey “multi-family building.”
None of them has stirred up much controversy. But a recent public meeting about a 12-storey, 137-unit condo to be built on an empty lot at Keefer and Columbia got people riled up.
“There was a lot of angry people that night,” said Henry Yu, a UBC history professor who feels a “vision plan” the Chinatown community worked on with the city for several years is being ignored.
“The vision plan gets passed, (but it has) no teeth,” said Yu. “Actually (there is) no policy, it’s a wish list of ‘Oh, we’d like seniors housing, we’d like to do this, we’d like to do that.’
“Almost immediately, the two (highrise) buildings in the 600-, 700-block Main go up, and they’re just basically Yaletown condos. Not even Yaletown — Yaletown has more character.
“These are straight out of the glass tower (model), no (historic) character, obliterating everything in terms of tying it to the kind of streetscape of Chinatown. You’re going to split the historic two or three blocks of Chinatown with a Main Street corridor of these glass towers.”
Yu says Chinatown has historically been small buildings on 25-foot lots, which makes for a jumble of small stores that gives it a unique look and character. But the new developments are much wider, and just don’t look like Chinatown.
“The two 600-, 700-block buildings have a rain shield that’s an awning, a glass awning that runs the whole block,” said Yu. “That’s the design guideline for the city as a whole, but it was nothing to do with Chinatown, (which is) narrow frontages, changing awnings.
“We said that (to the city planners), we raised it and raised it, but the planners just shoved it down our throat.”
Kevin McNaney is Vancouver’s assistant director of planning. He said the city changed the zoning in parts of Chinatown to help revitalize the neighbourhood, which has been struggling.
“We have been taking a look across Chinatown,” said McNaney. “What we’re finding is that rents are dropping, and vacancies are rising. And that’s a big part of the strategy of adding more people to revitalize Chinatown.
“There are only 900 people currently living in Chinatown, many of them seniors. It’s just not the population base needed to support businesses, so a lot of the businesses are going under. Along Pender Street you see a lot of vacancies right now.
“So at the heart of this plan is to bring more people to revitalize Chinatown, and also use that development to support heritage projects, affordable housing projects and cultural projects.”
Henry Yu disagrees. “The idea that you need density in Chinatown itself, that you need your own captive customer base, is moronic,” he said.
“Where else in the city would you make that argument, that nobody can walk more than two blocks, that no one is going to come in here from somewhere else?
“They will. People go to the International Summer Market in Richmond in an empty gravel field. Ten thousand people at night come from everywhere in the Lower Mainland, because there’s something worth going to.
“The problem isn’t that you need a captive audience that has no other choice but to shop in Chinatown — that’s just stupid, there’s plenty of people in Strathcona. The problem is, is there something worth coming to (in Chinatown)? And that has to do with the character, what the mix is, what kind of commercial.”
Ironically, all the new construction comes just as Chinatown seems to be undergoing a bit of a renaissance. Several new businesses have popped up in old buildings, attracted by the area’s character and cheap rents.
The très-hip El Kartel fashion boutique recently moved into a 6,000 sq. ft space at 104 East Pender that used to house Cathay Importers. It’s on the main floor of the four-storey Chinese Benevolent Association Building, which was built in 1909.
Across the street at 147 East Pender is Livestock, a runner and apparel store that is so cool it doesn’t even have a sign. “We were in Gastown at the corner of Cordova and Abbott, (and) just felt a change was needed,” said store manager Chadley Abalos.
“We found the opportunity in Chinatown, so we decided to move here. We feel it’s one of the new spots that are booming. You see a lot of new businesses — restaurants, clothing stores, furniture. We see the potential in it growing.”
Russell Baker owns Bombast, a chic furniture store at 27 East Pender. But he is not new to the neighbourhood — Bombast has been there for 10 years.
“I think (Chinatown is) one of the most interesting parts of the city,” he said.
“It’s still got some variety, some texture, architecturally, socially, economically. A lot of what’s happened to the downtown peninsula (in recent years) constitutes erasure. This is one of the places that still sort of feels like … it feels more urban than some parts of downtown. I would say downtown is a vertical suburb.
“If you like cities, Chinatown feels like one. That’s why we’re here.”
Baker said he expected Chinatown to happen a lot sooner than it did. Retailers that do well there still tend to be destinations, rather than stores that rely on heavy street traffic. “The buzz is that Chinatown is happening, but it’s really strategic, what’s happening,” he said. “Fortune Sound Club, that’s a niche market that’s destination. That’s the kind of thing that works down here. We’re destination, Bao Bei (restaurant) is destination.”
The new businesses make for an interesting mix with the old ones. The 200 block East Georgia Street is hopping with hipster bars (the Pacific Hotel, Mamie Taylor’s) and art galleries (Access Gallery, 221A, Centre A). But it also retains classic Chinatown shops like the Fresh Egg Mart and Hang Loong Herbal Products.
The question is whether the small businesses will be displaced as the area gentrifies. Real estate values have soared — Soltera paid $6.5 million for the northwest corner of Keefer and Main in 2011, Beedie Holdings paid $16.2 million for two parcels of land at Columbia and Keefer in 2013.
That seems like a lot for a site that’s two blocks from the troubled Downtown Eastside, but Houtan Rafii of the Beedie Group said that’s what land costs in Vancouver.
“It is a significant, substantial amount of money, but compared to most every area in Vancouver, it’s not dissimilar, whether you’re in Gastown, downtown, Concord-Pacific, even on the boundaries of Strathcona or on Hastings close to Clark or Commercial,” said Rafii. “It’s not an obscene amount of money, it’s market.”
Rafii said the Beedie Group met with local groups for a year about its development, and was surprised at the reaction it got at the public meeting, which was held because Beedie is looking to rezone the site to add an additional three storeys.
Yu doesn’t have a problem with the Beedie proposal per se, but feels it’s on a key site in Chinatown, and should be developed accordingly.
“It’s not the building’s fault,” said Yu.
“People are going ‘What’s wrong with this glass tower, it’s working everywhere else, and Chinese people love buying this stuff if it’s UBC.’
“That’s not the point. There’s plenty of room around the city to build glass towers (that are) 40 storeys, 50 storeys, whatever. Why do they need to be in this spot?
“This one is right in the heart (of Chinatown). Across the street is the Sun Yat-sen (garden), the Chinese Cultural Centre. On the same street is the (Chinese workers) monument. Next door is the back alley of Pender.”
Yu said a recent study found there will be a need for 3,300 income-assisted senior housing beds in the Lower Mainland over the next 15 years. He said the Columbia and Keefer site would be perfect for a seniors project.
“There’s a particular kind of resonance to the idea this is a traditional place where a lot of Chinese seniors can retire to,” he said.
“There is a five-year waiting list for the Simon K.Y. Lee Success long-term care home, so there’s huge demand, huge need, this is a place where they want to go. (Building a seniors home) would actually would help revitalize (Chinatown), because seniors bring sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters into a community.
“That’s the Chinatown vision plan, that’s what’s in there, that’s what those discussions were about. And yet what we’ve got is 137 luxury condo units for hip youngsters. That’s the Beedie proposal, and that’s what the last two towers (on Main) were. It’s not just insulting, it’s the thwarting of the very promise (of the vision plan).”
Wu would like to see a moratorium on new developments in Chinatown “until design guidelines are actually built to create a zone that respects the (area’s special) character.”
Retired city planner Nathan Edelson agrees. Which is significant, because he worked on the Chinatown vision plan for over a decade.
“My suggestion is that there should be a moratorium on the rezonings, for sure, until they can get an assessment of what the current new development is,” said Edelson. “To what degree are they contributing to, or harming Chinatown, the historic character of Chinatown? And it’s not an obvious answer.”
Read more:
www.vancouversun.com/business/Battle+Chinatown/10384991/s...
Rare to the area but small numbers seen in expected in habitats during migration. Breeding grounds are Alaska to central Quebec.
In winter, they frequent a wide variety of wetland types throughout Central and South America, the West Indies, and the southern United States. (BOW Cornell)
While only 6 are seen here there were 7 in the small flock. High number for this location. Los Osos, California
MTA New York City Transit conducted extensive outreach to notify and educate the public about the L project and its service impact when the tunnel rehabilitation portion of the project began on Friday, April 26, 2019. The project is expected to take 15-18 months to complete.
Although the autumn season in Vancouver has its share of rainy days, the trees changing colour is phenomenal and easily makes up for the wet weather! Last week, I had the chance to work with this gorgeous yummy mommy Elena, lead organizer of Meetup.com’s Pregnant and Fabulous Group for Vancouver’s pregnant ladies. At 8 months into her term, Elena booked her maternity photo session with me at Vancouver’s gorgeous Queen Elizabeth Park.
At 4 weeks pregnant symptoms and changes that are occurring inside the body are not visible. Most of the changes are occurring in the bloodstream. What occurs is a release of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) which is known as the pregnancy hormone. It is this hormone that prompts a positive...
www.bestmommyblog.com/what-to-expect-at-four-weeks-of-pre...
Promise Fulfilled, Accomplishment Achieved at WSSU Commencement on May 14
WINSTON-SALEM, NC -- For Jeanette Valentine, earning her bachelor’s degree in business administration will be fulfilling on many levels.
Valentine, 50, is one of the approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students who are expected to participate in WSSU’s Spring Commencement exercises on May 14 at 9:45 a.m. in the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Stephen A. Smith, noted journalist, media personality and motivational speaker, will be the keynote speaker.
Commencement will mark a special satisfaction not just because Valentine, a travel audit officer in WSSU’s accounting department, will be graduating with her 24-year-old son William R. Valentine. It’s because of a long-time promise fulfilled. Valentine made the promise to her mother back in 1978. Her mother and father never graduated from high school. When Valentine’s mother, who was battling cancer, asked her to promise she would graduate college, Valentine did. Valentine’s mother died two weeks before she graduated high school. Valentine was devastated over losing her mother.
“I started school at WSSU that year, but it lasted only one semester. I didn’t have the drive. I was still too distressed and overcome by my mother’s death. I couldn’t focus on school,” Valentine said.
Instead, Valentine got married, had two children and eventually went to work at a few jobs before coming to work at WSSU in 2006. In 2007, she decided to return to school since her children were adults. At the same time, her son who graduated high school in 2004 was thinking about returning to college after quitting previously. By fall 2007, both with full-time jobs returned to school at WSSU. He was an exercise science major and she was in the School of Business and Economics.
“He was so career focused on his job and he was doing well. But I kept pushing him and telling him he had to get a degree. I was thrilled he came back to school and that we were in school at the same time. It was exciting,” said Valentine.
Eventually Valentine saw her son was distracted by work. They talked and it was he who asked they agree to push each other so they could graduate at the same time.
That time is now. Valentine is thrilled they are graduating together. She says it feels like she has kept the promise made to her mother times two.
“In addition to the accomplishment, it may be quite an emotional day,” Valentine said.
Valentine is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the international honor society for collegiate schools of business as well as Alpha Sigma Lambda, a national honor society for Adult Learners in Continuing Higher Education. She plans to pursue her master’s degree at Liberty University.
Extraordinary Journey
It will be a festive ending to an extraordinary journey for Jerrica Scott, 24, of Winston-Salem. For Scott, commencement will symbolize the end of a passage marked by limitations, fear and uncertainty. It will be a celebration of a personal renaissance, driven by a theme that anything is possible with faith, passion and purpose.
“No matter how bad things may look, you can make a difference in your own life and the lives of others if you work really hard and know things can change. Soon things may look different, then not so bad, better, even good.”
Scott’s journey is verification of her belief. She entered WSSU to earn a four-year bachelor’s degree in elementary education six years ago as a single teen-aged mom. During that time as a full-time student, living on her own with her young daughter, she worked full-time, changed majors multiple times, quit school, got married, had another child, returned to school, made up a semester of credits lost when she quit and found her way back to the major that gave her the purpose.
“Just before I started my freshman year, I could hear people saying now that I had a baby as a teenager, my life was over or I wouldn’t get very far,” noted Scott. “Because I got pregnant in high school and had a baby in my first year of college, it didn’t mean I would be a failure. I did not want to be the stereotype of a young single mom who would work only at fast food restaurants or be on welfare the rest of her life.”
Although Scott was determined, she became distracted during her second year.
“I was failing classes miserably. I was living on my own and I was 18 years old. I felt lost and beaten, so I quit school,” Scott said who worked as a waitress. “Then one day, my manager told me the biggest thing he regretted was not finishing school. So if you don’t want to be waiting tables for the rest of your life, you need to go back to school. “
That was the turning point for Scott. She also thought about her mother, a cosmetologist, who always stressed the importance of education and often expressed interest in wanting her children to be greater than she. Scott soon quit her job and returned to school. Her best friend and others helped her find her way back to the major that aligned with where her talents and passions had always been -- elementary education.
“My best friend told me this is what I suppose to be doing. She told me we are going over there right now and you are going to get enrolled back into school. I just thank her,” said Scott.
Then she met a good man who cared about her and her daughter. It was like an unattainable dream. They soon married. Her second daughter was born in 2010. Now in school and completely focused on her education, Scott delivered the baby on a Friday and returned class on Monday.
Scott is currently working as a substitute teacher and searching for a fulltime permanent teaching job. She is also going to be the “first in my family to graduate college.”
Multiple Job Offers Early in Her Senior Year
Information technology major Kristen Dunlap, 21, of Charlotte, has accomplished a standout achievement, even before she completed her last year of college. In this challenging economy, she had two job offers from Fortune 500 companies one before her senior year, the other early in her senior year. She selected one position which she will begin this summer.
Dunlap attributes her success to internships, which she began participating in back in her freshman year. That first one was a summer research experience for undergraduate WSSU computer science students at WSSU, funded by NASA. She used, GIS visualization tools to visualize North Carolina weather patterns. The goal of the summer program was to expose students to researching skills and help to develop their problem solving and critical thinking skills.
For her second year, Dunlap interned at the NASA Langley, Va., facility where she worked as a liaison between the technology and client teams for the database tracking system used to manage NASA’s contractual projects.
For summer 2010, she was an intern at Altria Client Services in Richmond ,Va., where she worked on data archiving to consolidate previous and current information to migrate to a new system.
“You can never underestimate the value of internships. I started utilizing the WSSU Career Services office in my second year. My parents always told me to be aggressive at seeking job opportunities. I didn’t want to be a person to work hard for four years and have no job in the end,” Dunlap said.
She will start her new job at Altria Client Services as an IT assistant analyst.
The Entertainment Mogul
Erikka Rainey, 22, of Philadelphia wants to be a female Sean “P-Diddy” Combs. In fact, she has wanted to be an entertainment mogul from a very young age. As a child, she dabbled in music and even took classes, but by age 14, she knew wholeheartedly that she wanted to be on the business side of the music industry.
“When I first learned about P-Diddy, I knew that was where I wanted my future to be,” said Rainey. “I look up to P- Diddy because I’m working to be the first female to start a record label, then restaurants, clothing lines and television shows.”
When she sees a famous entertainer, she wonders what sort of things they did in their career to get famous. If not famous, she wonders what it would take to make them famous. While at WSSU she jumped at every opportunity to market and promote musical artists and events. She worked with Hidden Beach Recordings to promote events for a new CD. She passed out flyers and did social media and internet marketing for jazz artist Monette Sudler of Philadelphia this past summer.
“If there’s one thing I live by, it’s take advantage of all opportunities. Don’t close yourself off to anything. You never know what you will learn that can be the key to your future,” Rainey said.
An honor student, Rainey will be attending New York University’s (NYU) music business program in the fall. She plans to maintain at least one home in New York City after graduate school when her career kicks off.
Wasn't expecting to see this vehicle Today!, and this vehicle appears to be Brand New at L&I Coaches, and maybe the first New Vehicle that L&I Coaches of Westgate and Westwood in Thanet have ever bought, and I also first saw this vehicle at Dover Castle last week but couldn't get a shot.
And be sure to check by my other acount: www.flickr.com/photos_user.gne?path=&nsid=77145939%40..., to see what else I saw Very Recently!!
Yes I'm back again.
However due to my main computer on which I edit my work being struck down with a big bad virus, this picture and all the others I am uploading, were Unedited but have now been replaced with Edited versions. So enjoy and Thanks for your patience and understanding.
I do still hate everything about this shit that is new Flickr and always will, but an inability to find another outlet for my work that is as easy for me to use as the Old BETTER Flickr was, has forced me back to Flickr, even though it goes against everything I believe in.
I don't generally have an opinion on my own work, I prefer to leave that to other people and so based on the positive responses to my work from the various friends I had made on Flickr prior to the changes I have decided to upload some more of my work as an experiment and to see what happens.
So make the most of me before they delete my acount: www.flickr.com/photos/69558134@N05/?details=1, to stop me complaining!!