View allAll Photos Tagged it_support
If ME Models does offer metal versions of all of its curved track products, then the upgrade you see illustrated above will be possible.
I would really love to substitute the sub-standard R40-Straight combinations with their equivalent radius components. Not only does it look so much better, but its pretty clear the rolling stock is going run much smoother through those curves. This will ease the wear-and-tear on wheels, bogies, and couplers and for RC/PF trains, it should increase battery endurance due to the reduce drag through curves.
Also illustrated in the centre of the track diagram are a couple of preliminary concepts of extended switch geometries. I'm still working out the details of the geometry to make it work and referring to real-world permanent way engineering practice for switches. Its pretty complicated! I've also looked at using the track template CAD software (now free) called TEMPLOT since it supports any track scale to generate track configurations. I used TEMPLOT (the paid version) ages ago to make EM gauge point templates--its tricky to use, but its about as good as it gets for prototype fidelity.
The House of Chocolate, my new Lego Ideas project, I hope you like it. SUPPORT:
>>> 10'000 supporters can make this project a real LEGO set, so hit the SUPPORT link! <<<
From bean to bar chocolate makers, come in and try our delicious artisan chocolate!
.
.
#chocolate #lego #house #frombeantobar #factory #craft #smallbatch #afol #moc #legomodularbuilding #christmas #legocreatorexpert #legocity #legocitylife #architecture #brothersbrick #eurobricks #brickstagram #mocsmaker #legoideas #lepralego #brickinspired #legofan #legoworld #wintervillage #briques #ideas #british #winter
Information from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod
Cape Cod
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the area of Massachusetts. For other uses, see Cape Cod (disambiguation).
For other uses, see Cod (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 41°41′20″N 70°17′49″W / 41.68889°N 70.29694°W / 41.68889; -70.29694
Map of Massachusetts, with Cape Cod (Barnstable County) indicated in red
Dunes on Sandy Neck are part of the Cape's barrier beach which helps to prevent erosion
Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is an island and a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States. It is coextensive with Barnstable County. Several small islands right off Cape Cod, including Monomoy Island, Monomoscoy Island, Popponesset Island, and Seconsett Island, are also in Barnstable County, being part of municipalities with land on the Cape. The Cape's small-town character and large beachfront attract heavy tourism during the summer months.
Cape Cod was formed as the terminal moraine of a glacier, resulting in a peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1914, the Cape Cod Canal was cut through the base or isthmus of the peninsula, forming an island. The Cape Cod Commission refers to the resultant landmass as an island; as does the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in regards to disaster preparedness.[1] It is still identified as a peninsula by geographers, who do not change landform designations based on man-made canal construction.[citation needed]
Unofficially, it is one of the biggest barrier islands in the world, shielding much of the Massachusetts coastline from North Atlantic storm waves. This protection helps to erode the Cape shoreline at the expense of cliffs, while protecting towns from Fairhaven to Marshfield.
Road vehicles from the mainland cross over the Cape Cod Canal via the Sagamore Bridge and the Bourne Bridge. The two bridges are parallel, with the Bourne Bridge located slightly farther southwest. In addition, the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge carries railway freight as well as tourist passenger services.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Geography and political divisions
o 1.1 "Upper" and "Lower"
* 2 Geology
* 3 Climate
* 4 Native population
* 5 History
* 6 Lighthouses of Cape Cod
* 7 Transportation
o 7.1 Bus
o 7.2 Rail
o 7.3 Taxi
* 8 Tourism
* 9 Sport fishing
* 10 Sports
* 11 Education
* 12 Islands off Cape Cod
* 13 See also
* 14 References
o 14.1 Notes
o 14.2 Sources
o 14.3 Further reading
* 15 External links
[edit] Geography and political divisions
Towns of Barnstable County
historical map of 1890
The highest elevation on Cape Cod is 306 feet (93 m), at the top of Pine Hill, in the Bourne portion of the Massachusetts Military Reservation. The lowest point is sea level.
The body of water located between Cape Cod and the mainland, bordered to the north by Massachusetts Bay, is Cape Cod Bay; west of Cape Cod is Buzzards Bay. The Cape Cod Canal, completed in 1916, connects Buzzards Bay to Cape Cod Bay; it shortened the trade route between New York and Boston by 62 miles.[2] To the south of Cape Cod lie Nantucket Sound; Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, both large islands, and the mostly privately owned Elizabeth Islands.
Cape Cod incorporates all of Barnstable County, which comprises 15 towns: Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. Two of the county's fifteen towns (Bourne and Sandwich) include land on the mainland side of the Cape Cod Canal. The towns of Plymouth and Wareham, in adjacent Plymouth County, are sometimes considered to be part of Cape Cod but are not located on the island.
In the 17th century the designation Cape Cod applied only to the tip of the peninsula, essentially present-day Provincetown. Over the ensuing decades, the name came to mean all the land east of the Manomet and Scussett rivers - essentially the line of the 20th century Cape Cod Canal. Now, the complete towns of Bourne and Sandwich are widely considered to incorporate the full perimeter of Cape Cod, even though small parts of these towns are located on the west side of the canal. The canal divides the largest part of the peninsula from the mainland and the resultant landmass is sometimes referred to as an island.[3][4] Additionally some "Cape Codders" – residents of "The Cape" – refer to all land on the mainland side of the canal as "off-Cape."
For most of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Cape Cod was considered to consist of three sections:
* The Upper Cape is the part of Cape Cod closest to the mainland, comprising the towns of Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee. Falmouth is the home of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and several other research organizations, and is also the most-used ferry connection to Martha's Vineyard. Falmouth is composed of several separate villages, including East Falmouth, Falmouth Village, Hatchville, North Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth, and Woods Hole, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Davisville, Falmouth Heights, Quissett, Sippewissett, and others).[5]
* The Mid-Cape includes the towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis. The Mid-Cape area features many beautiful beaches, including warm-water beaches along Nantucket Sound, e.g., Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, which gets its name from one of the inventors of Technicolor, Herbert Kalmus. This popular windsurfing destination was bequeathed to the town of Barnstable by Dr. Kalmus on condition that it not be developed, possibly one of the first instances of open-space preservation in the US. The Mid-Cape is also the commercial and industrial center of the region. There are seven villages in Barnstable, including Barnstable Village, Centerville, Cotuit, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville, and West Barnstable, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Craigville, Cummaquid, Hyannisport, Santuit, Wianno, and others).[6] There are three villages in Yarmouth: South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and Yarmouthport. There are five villages in Dennis including, Dennis Village(North Dennis), East Dennis, West Dennis, South Dennis and Dennisport.[7]
* The Lower Cape traditionally included all of the rest of the Cape,or the towns of Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. This area includes the Cape Cod National Seashore, a national park comprising much of the outer Cape, including the entire east-facing coast, and is home to some of the most popular beaches in America, such as Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach in Eastham. Stephen Leatherman, aka "Dr. Beach", named Coast Guard Beach the 5th best beach in America for 2007.[8]
[edit] "Upper" and "Lower"
The terms "Upper" and "Lower" as applied to the Cape have nothing to do with north and south. Instead, they derive from maritime convention at the time when the principal means of transportation involved watercraft, and the prevailing westerly winds meant that a boat with sails traveling northeast in Cape Cod Bay would have the wind at its back and thus be going downwind, while a craft sailing southwest would be going against the wind, or upwind.[9] Similarly, on nearby Martha's Vineyard, "Up Island" still is the western section and "Down Island" is to the east, and in Maine, "Down East" is similarly defined by the winds and currents.
Over time, the reasons for the traditional nomenclature became unfamiliar and their meaning obscure. Late in the 1900s, new arrivals began calling towns from Eastham to Provincetown the "Outer Cape", yet another geographic descriptor which is still in use, as is the "Inner Cape."
[edit] Geology
Cape Cod and Cape Cod Bay from space.[10]
East of America, there stands in the open Atlantic the last fragment of an ancient and vanished land. Worn by the breakers and the rains, and disintegrated by the wind, it still stands bold.
“
”
Henry Beston, The Outermost House
Cape Cod forms a continuous archipelagic region with a thin line of islands stretching toward New York, historically known by naturalists as the Outer Lands. This continuity is due to the fact that the islands and Cape are all terminal glacial moraines laid down some 16,000 to 20,000 years ago.
Most of Cape Cod's geological history involves the advance and retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet in the late Pleistocene geological era and the subsequent changes in sea level. Using radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers have determined that around 23,000 years ago, the ice sheet reached its maximum southward advance over North America, and then started to retreat. Many "kettle ponds" — clear, cold lakes — were formed and remain on Cape Cod as a result of the receding glacier. By about 18,000 years ago, the ice sheet had retreated past Cape Cod. By roughly 15,000 years ago, it had retreated past southern New England. When so much of Earth's water was locked up in massive ice sheets, the sea level was lower. Truro's bayside beaches used to be a petrified forest, before it became a beach.
As the ice began to melt, the sea began to rise. Initially, sea level rose quickly, about 15 meters (50 ft) per 1,000 years, but then the rate declined. On Cape Cod, sea level rose roughly 3 meters (11 ft) per millennium between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago. After that, it continued to rise at about 1 meter (3 ft) per millennium. By 6,000 years ago, the sea level was high enough to start eroding the glacial deposits that the vanished continental ice sheet had left on Cape Cod. The water transported the eroded deposits north and south along the outer Cape's shoreline. Those reworked sediments that moved north went to the tip of Cape Cod.
Provincetown Spit, at the northern end of the Cape, consists largely of marine deposits, transported from farther up the shore. Sediments that moved south created the islands and shoals of Monomoy. So while other parts of the Cape have dwindled from the action of the waves, these parts of the Cape have grown.
Cape Cod National Seashore
This process continues today. Due to their position jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, the Cape and islands are subject to massive coastal erosion. Geologists say that, due to erosion, the Cape will be completely submerged by the sea in thousands of years.[11] This erosion causes the washout of beaches and the destruction of the barrier islands; for example, the ocean broke through the barrier island at Chatham during Hurricane Bob in 1991, allowing waves and storm surges to hit the coast with no obstruction. Consequently, the sediment and sand from the beaches is being washed away and deposited elsewhere. While this destroys land in some places, it creates land elsewhere, most noticeably in marshes where sediment is deposited by waters running through them.
[edit] Climate
Although Cape Cod's weather[12] is typically more moderate than inland locations, there have been occasions where Cape Cod has dealt with the brunt of extreme weather situations (such as the Blizzard of 1954 and Hurricane of 1938). Because of the influence of the Atlantic Ocean, temperatures are typically a few degrees cooler in the summer and a few degrees warmer in the winter. A common misconception is that the climate is influenced largely by the warm Gulf Stream current, however that current turns eastward off the coast of Virginia and the waters off the Cape are more influenced by the cold Canadian Labrador Current. As a result, the ocean temperature rarely gets above 65 °F (18 °C), except along the shallow west coast of the Upper Cape.
The Cape's climate is also notorious for a delayed spring season, being surrounded by an ocean which is still cold from the winter; however, it is also known for an exceptionally mild fall season (Indian summer), thanks to the ocean remaining warm from the summer. The highest temperature ever recorded on Cape Cod was 104 °F (40 °C) in Provincetown[13], and the lowest temperature ever was −12 °F (−24.4 °C) in Barnstable.[14]
The water surrounding Cape Cod moderates winter temperatures enough to extend the USDA hardiness zone 7a to its northernmost limit in eastern North America.[15] Even though zone 7a (annual low = 0–5 degrees Fahrenheit) signifies no sub-zero temperatures annually, there have been several instances of temperatures reaching a few degrees below zero across the Cape (although it is rare, usually 1–5 times a year, typically depending on locale, sometimes not at all). Consequently, many plant species typically found in more southerly latitudes grow there, including Camellias, Ilex opaca, Magnolia grandiflora and Albizia julibrissin.
Precipitation on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is the lowest in the New England region, averaging slightly less than 40 inches (1,000 mm) a year (most parts of New England average 42–46 inches). This is due to storm systems which move across western areas, building up in mountainous regions, and dissipating before reaching the coast where the land has leveled out. The region does not experience a greater number of sunny days however, as the number of cloudy days is the same as inland locales, in addition to increased fog. Snowfall is annual, but a lot less common than the rest of Massachusetts. On average, 30 inches of snow, which is a foot less than Boston, falls in an average winter. Snow is usually light, and comes in squalls on cold days. Storms that bring blizzard conditions and snow emergencies to the mainland, bring devastating ice storms or just heavy rains more frequently than large snow storms.
[hide]Climate data for Cape Cod
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Average high °C (°F) 2.06
(35.7) 2.5
(36.5) 6.22
(43.2) 11.72
(53.1) 16.94
(62.5) 23.5
(74.3) 26.39
(79.5) 26.67
(80.0) 25.06
(77.1) 18.39
(65.1) 12.56
(54.6) 5.44
(41.8) 26.67
(80.0)
Average low °C (°F) -5.33
(22.4) -5
(23.0) -1.33
(29.6) 2.72
(36.9) 8.72
(47.7) 14.61
(58.3) 19.22
(66.6) 20.28
(68.5) 15.56
(60.0) 9.94
(49.9) 3.94
(39.1) -2.22
(28.0) -5.33
(22.4)
Precipitation mm (inches) 98
(3.86) 75.4
(2.97) 95
(3.74) 92.5
(3.64) 83.6
(3.29) 76.7
(3.02) 62.2
(2.45) 65
(2.56) 74.7
(2.94) 84.8
(3.34) 90.7
(3.57) 92.7
(3.65) 990.9
(39.01)
Source: World Meteorological Organisation (United Nations) [16]
[edit] Native population
Cape Cod has been the home of the Wampanoag tribe of Native American people for many centuries. They survived off the sea and were accomplished farmers. They understood the principles of sustainable forest management, and were known to light controlled fires to keep the underbrush in check. They helped the Pilgrims, who arrived in the fall of 1620, survive at their new Plymouth Colony. At the time, the dominant group was the Kakopee, known for their abilities at fishing. They were the first Native Americans to use large casting nets. Early colonial settlers recorded that the Kakopee numbered nearly 7,000.
Shortly after the Pilgrims arrived, the chief of the Kakopee, Mogauhok, attempted to make a treaty limiting colonial settlements. The effort failed after he succumbed to smallpox in 1625. Infectious diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza caused the deaths of many other Kakopee and Wampanoag. They had no natural immunity to Eurasian diseases by then endemic among the English and other Europeans. Today, the only reminder of the Kakopee is a small public recreation area in Barnstable named for them. A historic marker notes the burial site of Mogauhok near Truro, although the location is conjecture.
While contractors were digging test wells in the eastern Massachusetts Military Reservation area, they discovered an archeological find.[citation needed] Excavation revealed the remains of a Kakopee village in Forestdale, a location in Sandwich. Researchers found a totem with a painted image of Mogauhok, portrayed in his chief's cape and brooch. The totem was discovered on property on Grand Oak Road. It is the first evidence other than colonial accounts of his role as an important Kakopee leader.
The Indians lost their lands through continued purchase and expropriation by the English colonists. The documentary Natives of the Narrowland (1993), narrated by actress Julie Harris, shows the history of the Wampanoag people through Cape Cod archaeological sites.
In 1974, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council was formed to articulate the concerns of those with Native American ancestry. They petitioned the federal government in 1975 and again in 1990 for official recognition of the Mashpee Wampanoag as a tribe. In May 2007, the Wampanoag tribe was finally federally recognized as a tribe.[17]
[edit] History
Cranberry picking in 1906
Cape Cod was a landmark for early explorers. It may have been the "Promontory of Vinland" mentioned by the Norse voyagers (985-1025). Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 approached it from the south. He named Martha's Vineyard Claudia, after the mother of the King of France.[18] The next year the explorer Esteban Gómez called it Cape St. James.
In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold named it Cape Cod, the surviving term and the ninth oldest English place-name in the U.S.[19] Samuel de Champlain charted its sand-silted harbors in 1606 and Henry Hudson landed there in 1609. Captain John Smith noted it on his map of 1614 and at last the Pilgrims entered the "Cape Harbor" and – contrary to the popular myth of Plymouth Rock – made their first landing near present-day Provincetown on November 11, 1620. Nearby, in what is now Eastham, they had their first encounter with Native Americans.
Cape Cod was among the first places settled by the English in North America. Aside from Barnstable (1639), Sandwich (1637) and Yarmouth (1639), the Cape's fifteen towns developed slowly. The final town to be established on the Cape was Bourne in 1884.[20] Provincetown was a group of huts until the 18th century. A channel from Massachusetts Bay to Buzzards Bay is shown on Southack's map of 1717. The present Cape Cod Canal was slowly developed from 1870 to 1914. The Federal government purchased it in 1928.
Thanks to early colonial settlement and intensive land use, by the time Henry Thoreau saw Cape Cod during his four visits over 1849 to 1857[21], its vegetation was depauperate and trees were scarce. As the settlers heated by fires, and it took 10 to 20 cords (40 to 80 m³) of wood to heat a home, they cleared most of Cape Cod of timber early on. They planted familiar crops, but these were unsuited to Cape Cod's thin, glacially derived soils. For instance, much of Eastham was planted to wheat. The settlers practiced burning of woodlands to release nutrients into the soil. Improper and intensive farming led to erosion and the loss of topsoil. Farmers grazed their cattle on the grassy dunes of coastal Massachusetts, only to watch "in horror as the denuded sands `walked' over richer lands, burying cultivated fields and fences." Dunes on the outer Cape became more common and many harbors filled in with eroded soils.[22]
By 1800, most of Cape Cod's firewood had to be transported by boat from Maine. The paucity of vegetation was worsened by the raising of merino sheep that reached its peak in New England around 1840. The early industrial revolution, which occurred through much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, mostly bypassed Cape Cod due to a lack of significant water power in the area. As a result, and also because of its geographic position, the Cape developed as a large fishing and whaling center. After 1860 and the opening of the American West, farmers abandoned agriculture on the Cape. By 1950 forests had recovered to an extent not seen since the 18th century.
Cape Cod became a summer haven for city dwellers beginning at the end of the 19th century. Improved rail transportation made the towns of the Upper Cape, such as Bourne and Falmouth, accessible to Bostonians. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Northeastern mercantile elite built many large, shingled "cottages" along Buzzards Bay. The relaxed summer environment offered by Cape Cod was highlighted by writers including Joseph C. Lincoln, who published novels and countless short stories about Cape Cod folks in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and the Delineator.
Guglielmo Marconi made the first transatlantic wireless transmission originating in the United States from Cape Cod, at Wellfleet. The beach from which he transmitted has since been called Marconi Beach. In 1914 he opened the maritime wireless station WCC in Chatham. It supported the communications of Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, Admiral Byrd, and the Hindenburg. Marconi chose Chatham due to its vantage point on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded on three sides by water. Walter Cronkite narrated a 17-minute documentary in 2005 about the history of the Chatham Station.
Much of the East-facing Atlantic seacoast of Cape Cod consists of wide, sandy beaches. In 1961, a significant portion of this coastline, already slated for housing subdivisions, was made a part of the Cape Cod National Seashore by President John F. Kennedy. It was protected from private development and preserved for public use. Large portions are open to the public, including the Marconi Site in Wellfleet. This is a park encompassing the site of the first two-way transoceanic radio transmission from the United States. (Theodore Roosevelt used Marconi's equipment for this transmission).
The Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport was President Kennedy's summer White House during his presidency. The Kennedy family continues to maintain residences on the compound. Other notable residents of Cape Cod have included actress Julie Harris, US Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, figure skater Todd Eldredge, and novelists Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Influential natives included the patriot James Otis, historian and writer Mercy Otis Warren, jurist Lemuel Shaw, and naval officer John Percival.
[edit] Lighthouses of Cape Cod
Race Point Lighthouse in Provincetown (1876)
Lighthouses, from ancient times, have fascinated members of the human race. There is something about a lighted beacon that suggests hope and trust and appeals to the better instincts of mankind.
“
”
Edward Rowe Snow
Due to its dangerous constantly moving shoals, Cape Cod's shores have featured beacons which warn ships of the danger since very early in its history. There are numerous working lighthouses on Cape Cod and the Islands, including Highland Light, Nauset Light, Chatham Light, Race Point Light, and Nobska Light, mostly operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. The exception is Nauset Light, which was decommissioned in 1996 and is now maintained by the Nauset Light Preservation Society under the auspices of Cape Cod National Seashore. These lighthouses are frequently photographed symbols of Cape Cod.
Others include:
Upper Cape: Wings Neck
Mid Cape: Sandy Neck, South Hyannis, Lewis Bay, Bishop and Clerks, Bass River
Lower Cape: Wood End, Long Point, Monomoy, Stage Harbor, Pamet, Mayo Beach, Billingsgate, Three Sisters, Nauset, Highland
[edit] Transportation
Cape Cod is connected to the mainland by a pair of canal-spanning highway bridges from Bourne and Sagamore that were constructed in the 1930s, and a vertical-lift railroad bridge. The limited number of access points to the peninsula can result in large traffic backups during the tourist season.
The entire Cape is roughly bisected lengthwise by U.S. Route 6, locally known as the Mid-Cape Highway and officially as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway.
Commercial air service to Cape Cod operates out of Barnstable Municipal Airport and Provincetown Municipal Airport. Several bus lines service the Cape. There are ferry connections from Boston to Provincetown, as well as from Hyannis and Woods Hole to the islands.
Cape Cod has a public transportation network comprising buses operated by three different companies, a rail line, taxis and paratransit services.
The Bourne Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, with the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge in the background
[edit] Bus
Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority operates a year-round public bus system comprising three long distance routes and a local bus in Hyannis and Barnstable Village. From mid June until October, additional local routes are added in Falmouth and Provincetown. CCRTA also operates Barnstable County's ADA required paratransit (dial-a-ride) service, under the name "B-Bus."
Long distance bus service is available through Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway, with regular service to Boston and Logan Airport, as well as less frequent service to Provincetown. Peter Pan Bus Lines also runs long distance service to Providence T.F. Green Airport and New York City.
[edit] Rail
Regular passenger rail service through Cape Cod ended in 1959, quite possibly on June 30 of that year. In 1978, the tracks east of South Dennis were abandoned and replaced with the very popular bicycle path, known as the Cape Cod Rail Trail. Another bike path, the Shining Sea Bikeway, was built over tracks between Woods Hole and Falmouth in 1975; construction to extend this path to North Falmouth over 6.3 miles (10.1 km) of inactive rail bed began in April 2008[23] and ended in early 2009. Active freight service remains in the Upper Cape area in Sandwich and in Bourne, largely due to a trash transfer station located at Massachusetts Military Reservation along the Bourne-Falmouth rail line. In 1986, Amtrak ran a seasonal service in the summer from New York City to Hyannis called the Cape Codder. From 1988, Amtrak and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation increased service to a daily frequency.[24] Since its demise in 1996, there have been periodic discussions about reinstating passenger rail service from Boston to reduce car traffic to and from the Cape, with officials in Bourne seeking to re-extend MBTA Commuter Rail service from Middleboro to Buzzards Bay[25], despite a reluctant Beacon Hill legislature.
Cape Cod Central Railroad operates passenger train service on Cape Cod. The service is primarily tourist oriented and includes a dinner train. The scenic route between Downtown Hyannis and the Cape Cod Canal is about 2½ hours round trip. Massachusetts Coastal Railroad is also planning to return passenger railroad services eventually to the Bourne-Falmouth rail line in the future. An August 5, 2009 article on the New England Cable News channel, entitled South Coast rail project a priority for Mass. lawmakers, mentions a $1.4-billion railroad reconstruction plan by Governor Deval Patrick, and could mean rebuilding of old rail lines on the Cape. On November 21, 2009, the town of Falmouth saw its first passenger train in 12 years, a set of dinner train cars from Cape Cod Central. And a trip from the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts on May 15, 2010 revealed a second trip along the Falmouth line.
[edit] Taxi
Taxicabs are plentiful, with several different companies operating out of different parts of the Cape. Except at the airport and some bus terminals with taxi stands, cabs must be booked ahead of time, with most operators preferring two to three hours notice. Cabs cannot be "hailed" anywhere in Barnstable County, this was outlawed in the early nineties after several robbery attempts on drivers.
Most companies utilize a New York City-style taximeter and charge based on distance plus an initial fee of $2 to $3. In Provincetown, cabs charge a flat fare per person anywhere in the town.
[edit] Tourism
Hyannis Harbor on Nantucket Sound
Although Cape Cod has a year-round population of about 230,000, it experiences a tourist season each summer, the beginning and end of which can be roughly approximated as Memorial Day and Labor Day, respectively. Many businesses are specifically targeted to summer visitors, and close during the eight to nine months of the "off season" (although the "on season" has been expanding somewhat in recent years due to Indian Summer, reduced lodging rates, and the number of people visiting the Cape after Labor Day who either have no school-age children, and the elderly, reducing the true "off season" to six or seven months). In the late 20th century, tourists and owners of second homes began visiting the Cape more and more in the spring and fall, softening the definition of the high season and expanding it somewhat (see above). Some particularly well-known Cape products and industries include cranberries, shellfish (particularly oysters and clams) and lobstering.
Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, also berths several whale watching fleets who patrol the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Most fleets guarantee a whale sighting (mostly humpback whale, fin whale, minke whale, sei whale, and critically endangered, the North Atlantic Right Whale), and one is the only federally certified operation qualified to rescue whales. Provincetown has also long been known as an art colony, attracting writers and artists. The town is home to the Cape's most attended art museum, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Many hotels and resorts are friendly to or cater to gay and lesbian tourists and it is known as a gay mecca in the summer.[26]
Cape Cod is a popular destination for beachgoers from all over. With 559.6 miles (900.6 km) of coastline, beaches, both public and private, are easily accessible. The Cape has upwards of sixty public beaches, many of which offer parking for non-residents for a daily fee (in summer). The Cape Cod National Seashore has 40 miles (64 km) of sandy beach and many walking paths.
Cape Cod is also popular for its outdoor activities like beach walking, biking, boating, fishing, go-karts, golfing, kayaking, miniature golf, and unique shopping. There are 27 public, daily-fee golf courses and 15 private courses on Cape Cod.[27] Bed and breakfasts or vacation houses are often used for lodging.
Each summer the Naukabout Music Festival is held at the Barnstable County Fair Grounds located in East Falmouth,(typically) during the first weekend of August. This Music festival features local, regional and national talent along with food, arts and family friendly activities.
[edit] Sport fishing
Cape Cod is known around the world as a spring-to-fall destination for sport anglers. Among the species most widely pursued are striped bass, bluefish, bluefin tuna, false albacore (little tunny), bonito, tautog, flounder and fluke. The Cape Cod Bay side of the Cape, from Sandwich to Provincetown, has several harbors, saltwater creeks, and shoals that hold bait fish and attract the larger game fish, such as striped bass, bluefish and bluefin tuna.
The outer edge of the Cape, from Provincetown to Falmouth, faces the open Atlantic from Provincetown to Chatham, and then the more protected water of Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds, from Chatham to Falmouth. The bays, harbors and shoals along this coastline also provide a robust habitat for game species, and during the late summer months warm-water species such as mahi-mahi and marlin will also appear on the southern edge of Cape Cod's waters. Nearly every harbor on Cape Cod hosts sport fishing charter boats, which run from May through October.[28]
[edit] Sports
The Cape has nine amateur baseball franchises playing within Barnstable County in the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Wareham Gatemen also play in the Cape Cod Baseball League in nearby Wareham, Massachusetts in Plymouth County. The league originated 1923, although intertown competition traces to 1866. Teams in the league are the Bourne Braves, Brewster Whitecaps, Chatham Anglers (formerly the Chatham Athletics), Cotuit Kettleers, Falmouth Commodores, Harwich Mariners, Hyannis Harbor Hawks (formerly the Hyannis Mets), Orleans Firebirds (formerly the Orleans Cardinals), Wareham Gatemen and the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Pro ball scouts frequent the games in the summer, looking for stars of the future.
Cape Cod is also a national hot bed for baseball and hockey. Along with the Cape Cod Baseball League and the new Junior Hockey League team, the Cape Cod Cubs, many high school players are being seriously recruited as well. Barnstable and Harwich have each sent multiple players to Division 1 colleges for baseball, Harwich has also won three State titles in the past 12 years (1996, 2006, 2007). Bourne and Sandwich, known rivals in hockey have won state championships recently. Bourne in 2004, and Sandwich in 2007. Nauset, Barnstable, and Martha's Vineyard are also state hockey powerhouses. Barnstable and Falmouth also hold the title of having one of the longest Thanksgiving football rivalries in the country. The teams have played each other every year on the Thanksgiving since 1895. The Bourne and Barnstable girl's volleyball teams are two of the best teams in the state and Barnstable in the country. With Bourne winning the State title in 2003 and 2007. In the past 15 years, Barnstable has won 12 Division 1 State titles and has won the state title the past two years.
The Cape also is home to the Cape Cod Frenzy, a team in the American Basketball Association.
Soccer on Cape Cod is represented by the Cape Cod Crusaders, playing in the USL Premier Development League (PDL) soccer based in Hyannis. In addition, a summer Cape Cod Adult Soccer League (CCASL) is active in several towns on the Cape.
Cape Cod is also the home of the Cape Cod Cubs, a new junior league hockey team that is based out of Hyannis at the new communtiy center being built of Bearses Way.
The end of each summer is marked with the running of the world famous Falmouth Road Race which is held on the 3rd Saturday in August. It draws about 10,000 runners to the Cape and showcases the finest runners in the world (mainly for the large purse that the race is able to offer). The race is 7.2 miles (11.6 km) long, which is a non-standard distance. The reason for the unusual distance is that the man who thought the race up (Tommy Leonard) was a bartender who wanted a race along the coast from one bar (The Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole) to another (The Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights). While the bar in Falmouth Heights is no longer there, the race still starts at the front door of the Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole and now finishes at the beach in Falmouth Heights. Prior to the Falmouth race is an annual 5-mile (8.0 km) race through Brewster called the Brew Run, held early in August.
[edit] Education
Each town usually consists of a few elementary schools, one or two middle schools and one large public high school that services the entire town. Exceptions to this include Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School located in Yarmouth which services both the town of Yarmouth as well as Dennis and Nauset Regional High School located in Eastham which services the town of Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown (optional). Bourne High School is the public school for students residing in the town of Bourne, which is gathered from villages in Bourne, including Sagamore, Sagamore Beach, and Buzzards Bay. Barnstable High School is the largest high school and is known for its girls' volleyball team which have been state champions a total of 12 times. Barnstable High School also boasts one of the country's best high school drama clubs which were awarded with a contract by Warner Brothers to created a documentary in webisode format based on their production of Wizard of Oz. Sturgis Charter Public School is a public school in Hyannis which was featured in Newsweek's Magazine's "Best High Schools" ranking. It ranked 28th in the country and 1st in the state of Massachusetts in the 2009 edition and ranked 43rd and 55th in the 2008 and 2007 edition, respectively. Sturgis offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in their junior and senior year and is open to students as far as Plymouth. The Cape also contains two vocational high schools. One is the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich and the other is Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School located in Bourne. Lastly, Mashpee High School is home to the Mashpee Chapter of (SMPTE,) the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. This chapter is the first and only high school chapter in the world to be a part of this organization and has received much recognition within the Los Angeles broadcasting industry as a result. The officers of this group who have made history are listed below:
* President: Ryan D. Stanley '11
* Vice-President Kenneth J. Peters '13
* Treasurer Eric N. Bergquist '11
* Secretary Andrew L. Medlar '11
In addition to public schools, Cape Cod has a wide range of private schools. The town of Barnstable has Trinity Christian Academy, Cape Cod Academy, St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School, and Pope John Paul II High School. Bourne offers the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, Orleans offers the Lighthouse Charter School for elementary and middle school students, and Falmouth offers Falmouth Academy. Riverview School is located in East Sandwich and is a special co-ed boarding school which services students as old as 22 who have learning disabilities. Another specialized school is the Penikese Island School located on Penikese Island, part of the Elizabeth Islands off southwestern Cape Cod, which services struggling and troubled teenage boys.
Cape Cod also contains two institutions of higher education. One is the Cape Cod Community College located in West Barnstable, Barnstable. The other is Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Bourne. Massachusetts Maritime Academy is the oldest continuously operating maritime college in the United States.
[edit] Islands off Cape Cod
Like Cape Cod itself, the islands south of the Cape have evolved from whaling and trading areas to resort destinations, attracting wealthy families, celebrities, and other tourists. The islands include Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, as well as Forbes family-owned Naushon Island, which was purchased by John Murray Forbes with profits from opium dealing in the China trade during the Opium War. Naushon is one of the Elizabeth Islands, many of which are privately owned. One of the publicly accessible Elizabeths is the southernmost island in the chain, Cuttyhunk, with a year-round population of 52 people. Several prominent families have established compounds or estates on the larger islands, making these islands some of the wealthiest resorts in the Northeast, yet they retain much of the early merchant trading and whaling culture.
//What a disaster
William Saunderson-Meyer says the floods just another blow to a province that was already on its knees
KwaZulu-Natal has declared a provincial state of disaster to try to cope with the devastating floods of the past week.
This is normally a temporary mechanism of which the primary purpose is to facilitate speedy national government assistance to hard-pressed provincial and local authorities. It also triggers the release of emergency funds from the National Treasury.
But in KZN’s case, they might as well make it permanent. This is a province that has been on its knees for some time and it ain’t getting up any time soon.
After all, KZN hasn’t even staunched the bloodied nose it suffered nine months ago. That’s when one wing of the African National Congress government — the Radical Economic Transformation followers of former president Jacob Zuma — tried to bury the other — the so-called reformists led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
KZN hasn’t even properly tallied the body blows it suffered then. The official estimates for the insurrection were 45,000 businesses affected, R50bn in economic damage, 129,000 jobs lost, and 354 killed.
These estimates are probably on the low side. For example, the number of people who were killed in the mayhem doesn’t include the many whose bodies were simply never found and counted.
And the true economic cost is incalculable. There’s been substantially increased emigration of minorities, cancelled investment, and the loss of international confidence in KZN as a safe tourist destination. In at least a dozen small, country towns, all the business infrastructure was destroyed, paradoxically by the very people who worked and shopped in those buildings.
Now the floods. The death toll is over 300 and still rising. Some 6,000 homes have been destroyed and road, water sewage and electrical infrastructure uprooted. As I write this, roaming mobs are opportunistically plundering container depots, stranded trucks, abandoned homes and vulnerable businesses, reportedly unhindered — as was the case during last year’s riots — by the police and army.
Naturally, no disaster is complete without a scapegoat. Ramaphosa, as is his style, was quick off the mark to finger the culprit — climate change.
“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” Ramaphosa told reporters while inspecting a devastated Durban. “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
What balderdash. Whatever role climate change may or may not have played in the larger scheme of things, it’s nonsense to pin on it responsibility for the plight of KZN. That lies with the ANC government.
First, this was not an unforeseeable bolt from the heavens. The forecasters warned months back that this was likely to be an exceptionally wet summer because of the La Niña weather pattern that occurs every few years.
There are also historical precedents for extreme weather in KZN, which a prudent administration would have taken note of.
In 1984, Tropical Storm Domoina wreaked havoc in a swathe from Mozambique, through Swaziland to KZN. Although the current downpour is worse, the scale is nevertheless in the same ballpark.
This latest storm — as yet unnamed — dumped 450mm of rain on Durban in 48 hours. Domoina let loose 615mm in 24 hours on Swaziland and northern KZN.
But the true difference between those events, 38 years apart, lies in the lack of preparedness on the part of today’s authorities. In 1984 the SA Air Force deployed 25 helicopters to airlift people to safety. In the 2000 Mozambique floods, 17 SAAF helicopters rescued more than 14,000 people.
This time, according to a News24 report, the SA Police Service and the SAAF, combined, have been unable to put a single chopper in the air. The erosion of South Africa’s military means that of the SAAF’s 39 Oryx helicopters, only 17 are serviceable.
Durban-based 15 Squadron has not a single helicopter available for search and rescue — they are reportedly primarily used as VIP transport — but two SAAF choppers supposedly have been despatched from Gqeberha to help. The SAPS airwing has only one serviceable helicopter but “the pilot on duty has been booked off sick”.
Second, throughout the province, local government is also in a state of disaster and unable to do its job. The scale of the KZN impairment can be measured in the flood destruction of homes.
Some 4,000 shanties have been destroyed, many because officialdom was too lax to forbid building on the floodplain and against precariously unstable hillsides. Another 2,000 of the homes swept away were so-called RDP houses, shoddily built during the kickback-and-steal bonanza of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme of the late 1990s.
In Durban, the eThekwini metro is bloated and inert. It carries a rates and services debt of R17bn, of which R1bn is owed by the national government.
Durban is also infamously corrupt. Former mayor Zandile Gumede — along with 21 co-accused — is facing fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges in connection with a R320m municipal tender.
Yet at the weekend, even as the rain was bucketing down, she won the ANC’s regional leadership contest hands-down, despite the party’s supposed “step-aside when accused” rule.
The ANC-aligned Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has no illusions about the party it supports. It issued a statement calling on the government to ensure that unlike the plundering of Covid-19 emergency relief funds, the KZN disaster funds were not stolen or misused.
Fat chance. The ANC has already announced that its parliamentary constituency offices in KZN would become “hubs for humanitarian support” and appealed for the donation of relief supplies. Watch the trousering by the ANC’s public representatives of anything that the public is dumb enough to leave with them.
It’s in KZN where the ANC’s brazen indifference to the law and antipathy towards the Constitution is at its most obvious and most destructive.
On Monday, Zuma's corruption trial once again failed to take off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when he successfully blocked the process with another round of delaying legal actions. His lawyers also had some carefully threatening words for the judiciary in a separate Supreme Court of Appeal action.
They urged SCA President Mandisa Maya to reconsider the dismissal of his latest corruption prosecution challenges. They warned that last year’s deadly July unrest was “in part, traceable to a perceived erroneous and unjust judicial outcome” that put Zuma briefly in prison for contempt of court.
“When such conceived mistakes are committed, the citizens (wrongly) feel entitled to resort to self-help…”
Floods, fires and locusts are devastating but at least happen relatively rarely. The ANC, alas, is a seemingly unending plague.
Yellowstone has many areas considered to be "sagebrush steppe" including the adjacent valleys, Little America (where this photo was taken) and Lamar, often described as the "Serengeti of America" for the large number of animals it supports. Not many animals depend on it, but pronghorns depend on it and it is even said to flavor their meat, though it's not at all the same species of "sage" we use as seasoning. Deer, rabbits, and bighorn sheep will also partake in the strongly aromatic leaves. Bison, of which there are several thousand in Yellowstone, will eat it as a last resort.
These plants still have last summer's flowers, now spent, attached to them.
//What a disaster
William Saunderson-Meyer says the floods just another blow to a province that was already on its knees
KwaZulu-Natal has declared a provincial state of disaster to try to cope with the devastating floods of the past week.
This is normally a temporary mechanism of which the primary purpose is to facilitate speedy national government assistance to hard-pressed provincial and local authorities. It also triggers the release of emergency funds from the National Treasury.
But in KZN’s case, they might as well make it permanent. This is a province that has been on its knees for some time and it ain’t getting up any time soon.
After all, KZN hasn’t even staunched the bloodied nose it suffered nine months ago. That’s when one wing of the African National Congress government — the Radical Economic Transformation followers of former president Jacob Zuma — tried to bury the other — the so-called reformists led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
KZN hasn’t even properly tallied the body blows it suffered then. The official estimates for the insurrection were 45,000 businesses affected, R50bn in economic damage, 129,000 jobs lost, and 354 killed.
These estimates are probably on the low side. For example, the number of people who were killed in the mayhem doesn’t include the many whose bodies were simply never found and counted.
And the true economic cost is incalculable. There’s been substantially increased emigration of minorities, cancelled investment, and the loss of international confidence in KZN as a safe tourist destination. In at least a dozen small, country towns, all the business infrastructure was destroyed, paradoxically by the very people who worked and shopped in those buildings.
Now the floods. The death toll is over 300 and still rising. Some 6,000 homes have been destroyed and road, water sewage and electrical infrastructure uprooted. As I write this, roaming mobs are opportunistically plundering container depots, stranded trucks, abandoned homes and vulnerable businesses, reportedly unhindered — as was the case during last year’s riots — by the police and army.
Naturally, no disaster is complete without a scapegoat. Ramaphosa, as is his style, was quick off the mark to finger the culprit — climate change.
“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” Ramaphosa told reporters while inspecting a devastated Durban. “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
What balderdash. Whatever role climate change may or may not have played in the larger scheme of things, it’s nonsense to pin on it responsibility for the plight of KZN. That lies with the ANC government.
First, this was not an unforeseeable bolt from the heavens. The forecasters warned months back that this was likely to be an exceptionally wet summer because of the La Niña weather pattern that occurs every few years.
There are also historical precedents for extreme weather in KZN, which a prudent administration would have taken note of.
In 1984, Tropical Storm Domoina wreaked havoc in a swathe from Mozambique, through Swaziland to KZN. Although the current downpour is worse, the scale is nevertheless in the same ballpark.
This latest storm — as yet unnamed — dumped 450mm of rain on Durban in 48 hours. Domoina let loose 615mm in 24 hours on Swaziland and northern KZN.
But the true difference between those events, 38 years apart, lies in the lack of preparedness on the part of today’s authorities. In 1984 the SA Air Force deployed 25 helicopters to airlift people to safety. In the 2000 Mozambique floods, 17 SAAF helicopters rescued more than 14,000 people.
This time, according to a News24 report, the SA Police Service and the SAAF, combined, have been unable to put a single chopper in the air. The erosion of South Africa’s military means that of the SAAF’s 39 Oryx helicopters, only 17 are serviceable.
Durban-based 15 Squadron has not a single helicopter available for search and rescue — they are reportedly primarily used as VIP transport — but two SAAF choppers supposedly have been despatched from Gqeberha to help. The SAPS airwing has only one serviceable helicopter but “the pilot on duty has been booked off sick”.
Second, throughout the province, local government is also in a state of disaster and unable to do its job. The scale of the KZN impairment can be measured in the flood destruction of homes.
Some 4,000 shanties have been destroyed, many because officialdom was too lax to forbid building on the floodplain and against precariously unstable hillsides. Another 2,000 of the homes swept away were so-called RDP houses, shoddily built during the kickback-and-steal bonanza of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme of the late 1990s.
In Durban, the eThekwini metro is bloated and inert. It carries a rates and services debt of R17bn, of which R1bn is owed by the national government.
Durban is also infamously corrupt. Former mayor Zandile Gumede — along with 21 co-accused — is facing fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges in connection with a R320m municipal tender.
Yet at the weekend, even as the rain was bucketing down, she won the ANC’s regional leadership contest hands-down, despite the party’s supposed “step-aside when accused” rule.
The ANC-aligned Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has no illusions about the party it supports. It issued a statement calling on the government to ensure that unlike the plundering of Covid-19 emergency relief funds, the KZN disaster funds were not stolen or misused.
Fat chance. The ANC has already announced that its parliamentary constituency offices in KZN would become “hubs for humanitarian support” and appealed for the donation of relief supplies. Watch the trousering by the ANC’s public representatives of anything that the public is dumb enough to leave with them.
It’s in KZN where the ANC’s brazen indifference to the law and antipathy towards the Constitution is at its most obvious and most destructive.
On Monday, Zuma's corruption trial once again failed to take off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when he successfully blocked the process with another round of delaying legal actions. His lawyers also had some carefully threatening words for the judiciary in a separate Supreme Court of Appeal action.
They urged SCA President Mandisa Maya to reconsider the dismissal of his latest corruption prosecution challenges. They warned that last year’s deadly July unrest was “in part, traceable to a perceived erroneous and unjust judicial outcome” that put Zuma briefly in prison for contempt of court.
“When such conceived mistakes are committed, the citizens (wrongly) feel entitled to resort to self-help…”
Floods, fires and locusts are devastating but at least happen relatively rarely. The ANC, alas, is a seemingly unending plague.
The stadium's signature feature is a circular section lattice arch of 7 m (23 ft) internal diameter with a 315 m (1,033 ft) span, erected some 22° off true, and rising to 133 m (436 ft). It supports all the weight of the north roof and 60% of the weight of the retractable roof on the southern side. The archway is the world's longest unsupported roof structure.
Microsoft has set an ambitious goal for Windows 10, one billion installs within three years and to help get users to adopt the OS, the company is offering free upgrades to most Windows users. Additionally, the OS is being delivered via Windows Update and is supposed to be an entirely opt-in...
www.solutionssquad.com/blog/microsoft-admits-windows-10-w...
Yosemite National Park is a national park largely in Mariposa County, and Tuolumne County, California, United States. The park covers an area of 1,189 mi² (3,081 km²) and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. Yosemite is visited by over 3 million visitors each year, with most only seeing Yosemite Valley. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity (about 89% of the park is designated wilderness area). It was also the first park set aside by the U.S. federal government. Although not the first designated national park, Yosemite was a focal point in the development of the national park idea, largely owing to the work of people like John Muir.
Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and it supports a diversity of plants and animals. The park has an elevation range from 2,000 to 13,114 feet (600 to 4000 m) and contains five major vegetation zones: chaparral/oak woodland, lower montane, upper montane, subalpine and alpine. Of California's 7,000 plant species, about 50% occur in the Sierra Nevada and more than 20% within Yosemite. There is suitable habitat or documented records for more than 160 rare plants in the park, with rare local geologic formations and unique soils characterizing the restricted ranges many of these plants occupy.
The geology of the Yosemite area is characterized by granitic rocks and remnants of older rock. About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and then tilted to form its relatively gentle western slopes and the more dramatic eastern slopes. The uplift increased the steepness of stream and river beds, resulting in formation of deep, narrow canyons. About 1 million years ago, snow and ice accumulated, forming glaciers at the higher alpine meadows that moved down the river valleys. Ice thickness in Yosemite Valley may have reached 4,000 feet (1200 m) during the early glacial episode. The downslope movement of the ice masses cut and sculpted the U-shaped valley that attracts so many visitors to its scenic vistas today.
Geography
Yosemite National Park is located in the central Sierra Nevada of California. It takes 3.5 hours to drive to the park from San Francisco and about six hours from Los Angeles. Yosemite is surrounded by wilderness areas: the Ansel Adams Wilderness to the southeast, the Hoover Wilderness to the northeast, and the Emigrant Wilderness to the north.
The 1,200-square-mile (3,100 km²) park contains thousands of lakes and ponds, 1,600 miles (2,600 km) of streams, 800 miles (1300 km) of hiking trails, and 350 miles (560 km) of roads. Two federally designated wild and scenic rivers, the Merced and Tuolumne, begin within Yosemite's borders and flow west into the Central Valley of California. Annual park visitation exceeds 3.5 million, with most visitor use concentrated in the seven square mile (18 km²) area of Yosemite Valley.
Rocks and erosion
Almost all of the landforms in the Yosemite area are cut from the granitic rock of the Sierra Nevada Batholith (a batholith is a large mass of intrusive igneous rock that formed deep below the surface). About 5% of the park (mostly in its eastern margin near Mount Dana) are from metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary rocks. These rocks are called "roof pendants" because they were once the roof of the underlying granitic rock.
Erosion acting upon different types of uplift-created joint and fracture systems is responsible for creating the valleys, canyons, domes, and other features we see today (these joints and fracture systems do not move, and are therefore not faults). Spacing between joints and fracture systems is largely due to the amount of silica in the granite and granodiorite rocks; more silica tends to create larger spaces between joints and fractures and thus a more resistant rock.
Pillars and columns, such as Washington Column and Lost Arrow, are created by cross joints. Erosion acting on master joints is responsible for creating valleys and later canyons. The single most erosive force over the last few million years has been from large alpine glaciers, which have turned the previously V-shaped river-cut valleys into U-shaped glacial-cut canyons (such as Yosemite Valley and Hetch Hetchy Valley). Exfoliation (caused by the tendency of crystals in plutonic rocks to expand at the surface) acting on granitic rock with widely spaced joints is responsible for creating domes such as Half Dome and North Dome and inset arches like Royal Arches.
Popular features
Yosemite Valley represents only one percent of the park area, but this is where most visitors arrive and stay. El Capitan, a prominent granite cliff that looms over the valley, is one of the most popular world destinations for rock climbers because of its diverse range of difficulties and numerous established climbing routes in addition to its year-round accessibility. Impressive granite domes such as Sentinel Dome and Half Dome rise 3,000 feet and 4,800 feet (900 and 1450 m), respectively, above the valley floor.
The high country of Yosemite contains beautiful areas, such as Tuolumne Meadows, Dana Meadows, the Clark Range, the Cathedral Range, and the Kuna Crest. The Sierra crest and the Pacific Crest Trail run through Yosemite, with peaks of red metamorphic rock, such as Mount Dana and Mount Gibbs, and granite peaks, such as Mount Conness. Mount Lyell is the highest point in the park.
The park has three groves of ancient Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) trees; the Mariposa Grove (200 trees), Tuolumne Grove (25 trees), and the Merced Grove (20 trees). Giant Sequoia are the most massive trees in the world and are one of the tallest and longest-lived (Coast Redwoods that live along the Northern Californian coast are the tallest and the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine of Eastern California are the oldest). These trees were much more widespread before the start of the last Ice Age (Geology of U.S. Parklands, page 227).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Medium Mark E "Stinger" was a British tank of the late First World War. It was a development of the Medium Mark A "Whippet" and intended to complement the slower British heavy tanks by using its relative mobility and speed in exploiting any break in the enemy lines.
On 3 October 1916 William Tritton, about to be knighted for developing the Mark I tank, proposed to the Tank Supply Committee that a faster and cheaper tank should be built to exploit gaps that the heavier but slow tanks made, an idea that up till then had been largely neglected since it had been at that time a typical cavalry task. An armored vehicle would have a much higher survivability, though, and the new tank was to be able to move in the same environment as the rhomboid-shaped tanks of the first generation.
The proposal was accepted on 10 November and approved by the War Office on 25 November 1916. Actual construction of the new tank type started on 21 December and it was designated "Mark A". The first prototype, nicknamed "Whippet" due to its (relatively) light structure and high speed, was equipped with a revolving turret taken from an Austin armored car — the first for a British tank design. It was ready on 3 February 1917 and participated in the tank trials day at Oldbury on 3 March. The next day, in a meeting with the French to coordinate allied tank production, the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces Field Marshal Haig ordered the manufacture of two hundred vehicles, the first to be ready on 31 July. Although he was acting beyond his authority, as usual, his decisions were confirmed in June 1917.
The first production tanks left the factory in October and they differed from the prototype in having a fixed crew compartment instead of the turret, a polygonal structure at the rear of the vehicle. Two engines of the type used in contemporary double-decker buses were in a forward compartment, each one driving a track separately. The Mark A was armed with four air-cooled machine guns and lacked a heavier cannon.
Two Mark As were delivered to the first unit to use them, F Battalion of the Tank Corps (later 6th Battalion), on 14 December 1917. In December 1917 the order was increased from 200 to 385, but this was later cancelled in favor of more advanced designs, leading to the Mark B, C, D and finally the E types.
Medium Mark B-D remained prototypes and introduced several novelties like a separate engine compartment, new transmission systems (the Mark A was complicated to drive since it was steered through the separate throttle input to its two engines), a smoke screen device installed in the exhaust system. However, these medium tanks became bigger and heavier (in excess of 20 tons), and their development appeared like a dead end.
As a short-term alternative, and certainly influenced by the highly successful light Renault FT tank from France, William Tritton proposed a modified variant of the Medium Mark A. It would incorporate many lessons learned from the Mark A's initial operational use in France, as well as proven innovations that had been tested so far in the Mark B-D prototypes and in other vehicles.
The resulting Medium Mark E tank was based on the Mark A chassis, but actually only the suspension system, the tracks and the hull’s floor were actually the same. The hull with the engine and crew compartment was thoroughly redesigned and their positions exchanged: The engine was moved to the back, while the crew’s compartment was moved to the front. The fuel tank was re-located from the front to a low position between the engine bay and the cabin. Through this shift of the center of gravity the Mark E was expected to have a much better climbing ability, despite the relatively low front idler wheel.
The Mark A's twin powerplant was replaced by a single Ricardo 4-cylinder petrol engine, which produced 105 hp (76 kW). It not only offered more power and torque than the former arrangement, it also was lighter and was coupled with a new sliding gear transmission that drove the tracks at the rear and featured four speeds forward, one reverse. One main clutch plus two subsidiary clutches (one for each of the two tracks) were used for steering the tank, a much more efficient arrangement than the former dual throttle/gearbox mechanism.
Another novelty was the re-introduction of a turret, mounted on top of the crew compartment close to the vehicle's front and with a free 360° arc of fire. The octagonal turret, made from riveted steel plates, just like the rest of the hull, furthermore featured a cupola for the commander at the top. It was fully operated by hand, though, and did not have a rotating floor.
As main armament the turret carried a light Vickers 2-pounder “pom-pom” gun, a 40 mm caliber rapid-fire gun, outfitted with a water-cooled barrel and a Vickers-Maxim mechanism. This weapon was originally ordered in 1915 by the Royal Navy as an anti-aircraft weapon for ships of cruiser size and below, but it had already been earmarked for the use on board of the early "Little Willie" tank. It was successfully tested for this application, but actually never mounted to this experimental vehicle, which never got beyond the prototype stage.
The Vickers 2-pounder was a versatile weapon, though, and added considerable firepower to the Medium tank class. It could fire single shells like an ordinary gun, but it could also be fed with hand-loaded fabric belts and fire automatically at up to 200 rpm (even though this figure was only theoretical, since the barrel would quickly overheat under constant fire or the firing mechanism would jam, esp. in the hot environment of a tank). Typically, short belts of 5 rounds each were used, almost exclusively consisting of explosive shells. A total of 275 rounds could be carried, 45 ready in the turret and the rest in racks in the lower hull. Beyond explosive rounds, the Vickers 2-pounder could also fire armor-piercing shells against fortified bunkers or enemy tanks, as well as shrapnel rounds against soft targets.
Three air-cooled 0.303 inch Hotchkiss machine guns in ball mounts in the lower hull, firing to the sides and forward, completed the vehicle’s armament. 3.000 rounds for the machine guns were carried. While the 2-pounder in the turret was operated by the commander and a dedicated gunner, the machine guns were operated from case to case by one or two assistant drivers who were also tasked with re-supplying the cannon ammunition from the racks in the lower hull.
A prototype was built from an unfinished Mark A chassis at Fosters of Lincoln in just six weeks, and, since it was based on an existing design, the trials were radically shortened on behalf of the British Tank Supply Committee. 200 Medium Mark E tanks were almost blindly ordered in late 1917, and production immediately started, even though the output numbers were only limited and detail improvements were made while the tanks went through the workshops.
The Stingers' first operational use was, grouped in so-called “X-companies” attached to larger units made of heavy Mk. IV and V tanks, the Amiens offensive on 8 August 1918, which was described by the German supreme commander General Ludendorff, as "the Black Day of the German Army". Behind the heavy British tank the Stingers effectively broke through into the German rear areas causing the loss of the artillery in an entire front sector, a devastating blow from which the Germans were unable to recover.
Until the end of the war, only a total of 56 Stingers had been completed and delivered to the troops, the rest of the order was cancelled and the unfinished hulls scrapped. Only about twenty Medium Mark E tanks survived and were soon relegated to training units. In front line service, the Medium Mark E was soon replaced by the Vickers Medium Mark I from 1924 onwards, which introduced a suspension that allowed much higher road and cross-country speed, as well as many features that set the conceptual standard for modern tanks.
Specifications:
Crew: 4-5 (commander, gunner/loader, driver, 1-2x mechanic/assistant driver/machine gun operator)
Weight: 16.5 t
Length: 20 ft (6.10 m)
Width: 8 ft 7 in (2.62 m)
Height: 10 ft 1 in (3.06 m)
Suspension: none (unsprung)
Ground clearance: 1 ft 1 in (33 cm)
Armor:
14 – 22 mm (0.55 – 0.87 in)
Performance:
Speed: 8.5 mph (14 km/h) on even ground
Operational range: 240 km (150 mi)
Power/weight: 12,96 PS/tonne (11,5 hp/ton)
Engine:
1Í Ricardo 4-cylinder petrol engine with 105 hp (76 kW)
Transmission:
Fosters of Lincoln sliding gear transmission (four speeds forward, one reverse)
Armament:
1× Vickers 2-pounder (1.57”/40mm) rapid-fire gun
3× 7.92 mm Hotchkiss machine guns
The kit and its assembly:
This build was inspired by whiffy EMHAR 1:72 Medium Mark A, built by fellow modeler RAFF-35 at whatifmodelers.com. The WWI tank had been thoroughly modified through a simple reverse of the tracks, so that the engine would now be placed at the rear and the crew compartment at the front, with some modifications like a new driver’s hatch and an alcove for a forward-firing gun. I liked the idea and kept it in the back of my mind, and recently got hold of the EMHAR kit.
The basic concept would be the same, but I wanted a further update in the form of a turret, so that the tank would feature a “modern” layout like the next generation Vickers Medium tank.
The EMHAR kit is very simple, with molded tracks, and it basically goes together well. However, in my conversion almost nothing remained at its original place! The tracks were built and taken OOB, just the mud chutes had to be painted before the assembly because the interior remains well visible, but the opening don’t allow any delicate painting inside (see below).
The central hull was reversed and the new front end received a raised underside. Then the engine cover was added and the tank was installed – also onto the new front. Since the reversed tracks were now relatively higher than on the Whippet’s original layout, I decided to discard the original crew compartment and scratch a new one, also with regard to the addition of a turret which would necessitate a lower and flat roof.
The new superstructure was created from single panels from the original cabin (e.g. using the machine gun portholes) and styrene sheet material. The boxy design of WWI tanks made this feat quite easy, and only a few seams had to be filled with putty.
Originally I planned to use an early Valentine turret, but found it to look too modern for the rest of the vehicle. Luckily I found an early M3 Stewart turret in my stash (from the Hasegawa kit) as an alternative donor part, and it turned out to be the much better choice. It was taken almost OOB, I just modified the gun barrel to resemble a typical Vickers 2-pounder barrel and muzzle, modified the gun mantlet, and the attachment point for the M3’s AA machine gun disappeared.
I also used the commander figure from the M3 kit and left the cupola hatch open – I just replaced the figure’s head, so that it would (more) resemble a British WWI officer.
Once the basic structure was completed, I added some air vents and visor slits made from styrene material and replaced/added rivets with white glue. As an additional detail I added a pair of prongs to the front – I found a help to overcome barbed wire obstacles with the relatively low front tracks to be quite plausible, and it supports the vehicle’s overall “edgy” look.
Painting and markings:
Well, this is not really authentic, but I wanted “something different”. British late WWI tanks were, after 1916, typically painted in a uniform dark khaki drab or earth brown, with red and white ID markings. However, I found this option to be quite dull, since there had been some, well, creative alternatives a little while earlier.
One of these were the Solomon schemes, christened by their inventor and typically applied to the early Mark I and IV tanks in France. These were disruptive multi-color schemes, sometimes edged with more or less wide black stripes. Even though there was a standard to be followed, frontline units painted the vehicles AFAIK with much freedom, and if you try to find references, there’s the impression of “anything goes”.
My interpretation of the Solomon scheme consists of no less than five colors (sand yellow, blue-grey, medium green, red brown and dark brown) plus black demarcation lines. Painting was done with Humbrol enamels (94, 87, 252, 113 and 173) and thinned Revell 9 (Tar black) for the lines, everything done with brushes. The tracks were painted separately, before the final assembly of the model, with an irregular mix of iron, grey and some red brown.
After that, decals were added (taken mostly from the OOB sheet, I just used a different vehicle name) and sealed with acrylic varnish. Next, the model received a wash with a highly thinned reddish brown (acrylic paints), a dry brushing treatment with light grey and sand, and finally some mud was simulated around the lower hull with an individual mix of brown artist pigments: initially, the lower model surfaces were wetted with water and then pigments were rubbed into it with a short brush, in order to create a mud-like paste for the running gear area. Then, once cured, more dry pigments were applied with a big, soft brush, simulating dust in the upper hull regions. This considerably toned the camouflage colors down, and confirms the real life practice of painting tanks in just a uniform brownish khaki tone, because the dirt and mud from the battlefield would soon cover any elaborate camouflage pattern!
An unusual project, and the result is certainly “different”. Creating the new superstructure from bits and pieces was a tedious effort, but I think the result does not look implausible? The resulting tank looks a lot like an XXL size Renault FT, and the silhouette reminds me a lot of the later French Somua S-35 tank? The paint scheme is certainly weird, but I think that – despite the bright colors – it would be quite effective in a “normal” environment. Not certain how it would have fared in the blasted no man’s land of WWI, though?
#AbFav_FREE_
(Salix caprea)
Also known as the pussy willow, the male catkins of the goat willow look like a cat’s paws.
It supports lots of wildlife, including the elusive and regal purple emperor butterfly.
Salix (willow) is a species of willow, one of two species commonly called pussy willow.
Unlike most willows, its brittle twigs are not suitable for weaving.
The wood burns well and makes a good fuel and charcoal.
The flowers are soft silky silvery catkins, borne in early spring before the new leaves appear.
Have a good day and thanks for your visit, so very much appreciated, Magda, (*_*)
For more: www.indigo2photography.com
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN (BY LAW!!!) TO USE ANY OF MY images or TEXT on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission.
If you do, without accreditation, it is STEALING © All rights reserved
Pussy, Willow, Catkin, Salix, design, winter, conceptual Art, branch, studio, colour, black-background, square,"Nikon D7200", Magda indigo
This picture appears in Chapter 8 of my book Your Business Plan is Like a Bra - It Supports Your Every Move.
My favorite quote from this chapter: People are shallow, they'll judge you by your cover.
Saturday, and hey, hey it's the weekend.
I felt as though the weather had kept me trapped in the house pretty much all week, so I wanted to go out.
Jools came back from work evening, saying that her old boss had visited Rochester Cathedral and said there is a fantastic art display of thousands of paper doves, and a huge table made from reclaimed 5,000 tree trunk found in a fen in Norfolk.
Yes, we would like some of that action, and as it has been three years since we were last there, seemed like a good idea.
In fact, at the beginning of March 2020, it was the first trip we took in the new Audi, and of course, two weeks later there was lockdown and deaths.
So, a trip back, at Easter, for a rebirth and to see some art and a huge table.
But first, shopping.
And being the start of the month, we get much more than usual, including wine to make sloe port and stuff for washing and cleaning.
Back home to put it all away and have breakfast and second coffee before heading out. Though because of Brexit-related delays in the port, we did have to leave through Guston and Pineham to get to the A2 as traffic through Whitfield was at a standstill.
Up the A2 to Faversham, then along the Motorway until we turned off just after the Medway bridge. It was later than we had hoped, but thought nothing of it, really.
But there was a food festival on near the caste, and all parking was full, we drove along the river thinking we would just give up, then following the sat nav back into town we find a tiny car park with spaces, and just a few minutes walk from the cathedral and castle.
Perfect.
As we drove past the parish church in Strood, I saw thatt he door was open: oh good.
On the way to the cathedral, we called into a café for breakfast. Second breakfast. Elevenses. I had a bacon butty and Jools had a panini, which hit the spot, meaning we were ready to go and mingle with people.
By the time we emerged, and walked along the High Street to the church, it was closed. So I took some shots of the outside, and then we headed for the bridge over the Medway, and before the Cathedral, there was the Bridge Chapel.
I had discovered from a fr
iend that the Bridge over the Medway at Rochester was owned, repaired and funded by a charity/trust, and had been this was pretty much from the 14th century.
Only the other shell of the Chantry Chapel of the Bridge now remains, but a new roof has been put on, and the chapel now used for meetings, and has a large wooden table filling most of the Chancel. I record the details, say thanks to the two friendly guides, and we finally walk to the Cathedral.
The food festival needed tickets to go in, it smelled good, and a band was playing poor Britpop numbers to entertain the thin crowds.
We entered the cathedral, and hit by the sight of over 10,000 paper doves, all lit with pink light, having over the Nave.
It was impressive.
As was the table, pushed to one side but half the length of the Nave, and made of two and three thick planks.
I went round taking shots of the stained glass with the big lens, whilst Jools sat and looked after the camera bag.
Despite it being a cool day, with my fleece on I was hot, so needed a drink, and along the old High Street was The George, and they showed us to the "garden", which was a huge tent filled with people, one party were loudly celebrating someone's 40th birthday.
But our drinks were brought quickly, and being in the corner we could people watch, of course.
It was two, and time to go home. The traffic jams of earlier had melted away, so we walked to the car, turned out onto the main road out of town, to the motorway and home.
On the radio Citeh put 4 (four) past Liverpool, then all was about preparations for the main group of games.
We arrived back home at three, time for a brew and two hot cross buns each, and for me, listen to the footy on the radio, and hopeful that City's late push to the play-offs would start today.
It didn't.
A 1-0 loss to Sheffield Utd, just one shot on goal, and the season is deader than flares.
I watched the evening game, Chelsea losing to Villa, whilst Craig returned on the radio and spun some funk and soul.
Perfect.
--------------------------------------------------
Rochester Cathedral has been transformed by ‘Peace Doves’ an artwork by Peter Walker Sculptor
Bringing a message of peace and hope, the Peace Doves artwork has been created from around fifteen thousand individually hand made paper doves, together they collectively form this beautiful artwork which as a whole reflects joining together in unity, peace and hope moving forward.
Peace Doves is an artwork that has been re-curated for different spaces as it tours the UK, adaptations have been seen in Liverpool, Lichfield, Derby, Sheffield and now at Rochester.
The Peace Doves project has incorporated educational engagement with many schools and community groups in the local area and each person has written individual messages of peace and hope onto each dove.
Throughout history the dove has been viewed as a symbol of peace in many different cultures. For example in Greek mythology the dove is a symbol of the renewal of life, and liturgically within the Bible the dove appears at the Baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan and in the teachings of Noah and the Ark as a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
www.rochestercathedral.org/peacedoves
--------------------------------------------------
The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Rochester, the second oldest bishopric in England after that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The edifice is a Grade I listed building (number 1086423)
The Rochester diocese was founded by Justus, one of the missionaries who accompanied Augustine of Canterbury to convert the pagan southern English to Christianity in the early 7th century. As the first Bishop of Rochester, Justus was granted permission by King Æthelberht of Kent to establish a church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle (like the monastery at Rome where Augustine and Justus had set out for England) on the site of the present cathedral, which was made the seat of a bishopric. The cathedral was to be served by a college of secular priests and was endowed with land near the city called Priestfields.[3][a][b]
Under the Roman system, a bishop was required to establish a school for the training of priests.[4] To provide the upper parts for music in the services a choir school was required.[5] Together these formed the genesis of the cathedral school which today is represented by the King's School, Rochester. The quality of chorister training was praised by Bede.
The original cathedral was 42 feet (13 m) high and 28 feet (8.5 m) wide. The apse is marked in the current cathedral on the floor and setts outside show the line of the walls. Credit for the construction of the building goes to King Æthelberht rather than St Justus. Bede describes St Paulinus' burial as "in the sanctuary of the Blessed Apostle Andrew which Æthelberht founded likewise he built the city of Rochester."[c][7]
Æthelberht died in 617 and his successor, Eadbald of Kent, was not a Christian. Justus fled to Francia and remained there for a year before he was recalled by the king.[8]
In 644 Ithamar, the first English-born bishop, was consecrated at the cathedral.[d] Ithamar consecrated Deusdedit as the first Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury on 26 March 655.[9]
The cathedral suffered much from the ravaging of Kent by King Æthelred of Mercia in 676. So great was the damage that Putta retired from the diocese and his appointed successor, Cwichelm, gave up the see "because of its poverty".[10]
In 762, the local overlord, Sigerd, granted land to the bishop, as did his successor Egbert.[e][11] The charter is notable as it is confirmed by Offa of Mercia as overlord of the local kingdom.
Following the invasion of 1066, William the Conqueror granted the cathedral and its estates to his half-brother, Odo of Bayeux. Odo misappropriated the resources and reduced the cathedral to near-destitution. The building itself was ancient and decayed. During the episcopate of Siward (1058–1075) it was served by four or five canons "living in squalor and poverty".[12] One of the canons became vicar of Chatham and raised sufficient money to make a gift to the cathedral for the soul and burial of his
Gundulf's church
Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, amongst others, brought Odo to account at the trial of Penenden Heath c. 1072. Following Odo's final fall, Gundulf was appointed as the first Norman bishop of Rochester in 1077. The cathedral and its lands were restored to the bishop.
Gundulf's first undertaking in the construction of the new cathedral seems to have been the construction of the tower which today bears his name. In about 1080 he began construction of a new cathedral to replace Justus' church. He was a talented architect who probably played a major part in the design or the works he commissioned. The original cathedral had a presbytery of six bays with aisles of the same length. The four easternmost bays stood over an undercroft which forms part of the present crypt. To the east was a small projection, probably for the silver shrine of Paulinus which was translated there from the old cathedral.[f] The transepts were 120 feet long, but only 14 feet wide. With such narrow transepts it is thought that the eastern arches of the nave abuted the quire arch.[14] To the south another tower (of which nothing visible remains) was built. There was no crossing tower.[15] The nave was not completed at first. Apparently designed to be nine bays long, most of the south side but only five bays to the north were completed by Gundulf. The quire was required by the priory and the south wall formed part of its buildings. It has been speculated that Gundulf simply left the citizens to complete the parochial part of the building.[16] Gundulf did not stop with the fabric, he also replaced the secular chaplains with Benedictine monks, obtained several royal grants of land and proved a great benefactor to his cathedral city.
In 1078 Gudulf founded St Bartholomew's Hospital just outside the city of Rochester. The Priory of St Andrew contributed daily and weekly provisions to the hospital which also received the offerings from the two altars of St James and of St Giles.[17]
During the episcopates of Ernulf (1115–1124) and John (I) (1125–1137) the cathedral was completed. The quire was rearranged, the nave partly rebuilt, Gundulf's nave piers were cased and the west end built. Ernulf is also credited with building the refectory, dormitory and chapter house, only portions of which remain. Finally John translated the body of Ithamar from the old Saxon cathedral to the new Norman one, the whole being dedicated in 1130 (or possibly 1133) by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by 13 bishops in the presence of Henry I, but the occasion was marred by a great fire which nearly destroyed the whole city and damaged the new cathedral. It was badly damaged by fires again in 1137 and 1179. One or other of these fires was sufficiently severe to badly damage or destroy the eastern arm and the transepts. Ernulf's monastic buildings were also damaged.
Probably from about 1190, Gilbert de Glanville (bishop 1185–1214) commenced the rebuilding of the east end and the replacement on the monastic buildings. The north quire transept may have been sufficiently advanced to allow the burial of St William of Perth in 1201, alternatively the coffin may have lain in the north quire aisle until the transept was ready. It was then looted in 1215 by the forces of King John during siege of Rochester Castle. Edmund de Hadenham recounts that there was not a pyx left "in which the body of the Lord might rest upon the altar".[14] However, by 1227, the quire was again in use when the monks made their solemn entry into it. The cathedral was rededicated in 1240 by Richard Wendene (also known as Richard de Wendover) who had been translated from Bangor.[14][18]
The shrines of Ss Paulinus and William of Perth, along with the relics of St Ithamar, drew pilgrims to the cathedral. Their offerings were so great that both the work mentioned above and the ensuing work could be funded.
Unlike the abbeys of the period (which were led by an abbot) the monastic cathedrals were priories ruled over by a prior with further support from the bishop.[19] Rochester and Carlisle (the other impoverished see) were unusual in securing the promotion of a number of monks to be bishop. Seven bishops of Rochester were originally regular monks between 1215 and the Dissolution.[20] A consequence of the monastic attachment was a lack of patronage at the bishop's disposal. By the early 16th century only 4% of the bishop's patronage came from non-parochial sources.[21] The bishop was therefore chronically limited in funds to spend on the non-monastic part of the cathedral.
The next phase of the development was begun by Richard de Eastgate, the sacrist. The two eastern bays of the nave were cleared and the four large piers to support the tower were built. The north nave transept was then constructed. The work was nearly completed by Thomas de Mepeham who became sacrist in 1255. Not long after the south transept was completed and the two bays of the nave nearest the crossing rebuilt to their current form. The intention seems to have been to rebuild the whole nave, but probably lack of funds saved the late Norman work.
The cathedral was desecrated in 1264 by the troops of Simon de Montfort, during sieges of the city and castle. It is recorded that armed knights rode into the church and dragged away some refugees. Gold and silver were stolen and documents destroyed. Some of the monastic buildings were turned into stables.[22] Just over a year later De Montfort fell at the Battle of Evesham to the forces of Edward I. Later, in 1300, Edward passed through Rochester on his way to Canterbury and is recorded as having given seven shillings (35p) at the shrine of St William, and the same again the following day. During his return he again visited the cathedral and gave a further seven shillings at each of the shrines of Ss Paulinus and Ithamar.
The new century saw the completion of the new Decorated work with the original Norman architecture. The rebuilding of the nave being finally abandoned. Around 1320 the south transept was altered to accommodate the altar of the Virgin Mary.
There appears to have been a rood screen thrown between the two western piers of the crossing. A rood loft may have surmounted it.[23] Against this screen was placed the altar of St Nicholas, the parochial altar of the city. The citizens demanded the right of entrance by day or night to what was after all their altar. There were also crowds of strangers passing through the city. The friction broke out as a riot in 1327 after which the strong stone screens and doors which wall off the eastern end of the church from the nave were built.[24] The priory itself was walled off from the town at this period. An oratory was established in angulo navis ("in the corner of the nave") for the reserved sacrament; it is not clear which corner was being referred to, but Dr Palmer[25] argues that the buttress against the north-west tower pier is the most likely setting. He notes the arch filled in with rubble on the aisle side; and on nave side there is a scar line with lower quality stonework below. The buttress is about 4 feet (1.2 m) thick, enough for an oratory. Palmer notes that provision for reservation of consecrated hosts was often made to the north of the altar which would be the case here.
The central tower was at last raised by Hamo de Hythe in 1343, thus essentially completing the cathedral. Bells were placed in the central tower (see Bells section below). The chapter room doorway was constructed at around this time. The Black Death struck England in 1347–49. From then on there were probably considerably more than twenty monks in the priory.
The modern paintwork of the quire walls is modelled on artwork from the Middle Ages. Gilbert Scott found remains of painting behind the wooden stalls during his restoration work in the 1870s. The painting is therefore part original and part authentic. The alternate lions and fleurs-de-lis reflect Edward III's victories, and assumed sovereignty over the French. In 1356 the Black Prince had defeated John II of France at Poitiers and took him prisoner. On 2 July 1360 John passed through Rochester on his way home and made an offering of 60 crowns (£15) at the Church of St Andrew.[27]
The Oratory provided for the citizens of Rochester did not settle the differences between the monks and the city. The eventual solution was the construction of St Nicholas' Church by the north side of the cathedral. A doorway was knocked through the western end of the north aisle (since walled up) to allow processions to pass along the north aisle of the cathedral before leaving by the west door.[27][28]
In the mid-15th century the clerestory and vaulting of the north quire aisle was completed and new Perpendicular Period windows inserted into the nave aisles. Possible preparatory work for this is indicated in 1410–11 by the Bridge Wardens of Rochester who recorded a gift of lead from the Lord Prior. The lead was sold on for 41 shillings.[g][29] In 1470 the great west window at the cathedral was completed and finally, in around 1490, what is now the Lady Chapel was built.[27] Rochester Cathedral, although one of England's smaller cathedrals, thus demonstrates all styles of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.[30]
In 1504 John Fisher was appointed Bishop of Rochester. Although Rochester was by then an impoverished see, Fisher elected to remain as bishop for the remainder of his life. He had been tutor to the young Prince Henry and on the prince's accession as Henry VIII, Fisher remained his staunch supporter and mentor. He figured in the anti-Lutheran policies of Henry right up until the divorce issue and split from Rome in the early 1530s. Fisher remained true to Rome and for his defence of the Pope was elevated as a cardinal in May 1535. Henry was angered by these moves and, on 22 June 1535, Cardinal Fisher was beheaded on Tower Green.
Henry VIII visited Rochester on 1 January 1540 when he met Ann of Cleves for the first time and was "greatly disappointed".[31] Whether connected or not, the old Priory of St Andrew was dissolved by royal command later in the year, one of the last monasteries to be dissolved.
The west front is dominated by the central perpendicular great west window. Above the window the dripstone terminates in a small carved head at each side. The line of the nave roof is delineated by a string course above which rises the crenelated parapet. Below the window is a blind arcade interrupted by the top of the Great West Door. Some of the niches in the arcade are filled with statuary. Below the arcade the door is flanked with Norman recesses. The door itself is of Norman work with concentric patterned arches. The semicircular tympanum depicts Christ sitting in glory in the centre, with Saints Justus and Ethelbert flanking him on either side of the doorway. Supporting the saints are angels and surrounding them are the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Ss Matthew (a winged man), Mark (a lion), Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle).[52] On the lintel below are the Twelve Apostles and on the shafts supporting it King Soloman and the Queen of Sheba.[53] Within the Great West Door there is a glass porch which allows the doors themselves to be kept open throughout the day.
Either side of the nave end rises a tower which forms the junction of the front and the nave walls. The towers are decorated with blind arcading and are carried up a further two stories above the roof and surmounted with pyramidal spires. The aisle ends are Norman. Each has a large round headed arch containing a window and in the northern recess is a small door. Above each arch is plain wall surmounted by a blind arcade, string course at the roof line and plain parapet. The flanking towers are Norman in the lower part with the style being maintained in the later work. Above the plain bases there are four stories of blind arcading topped with an octagonal spire.[54]
The outside of the nave and its aisles is undistinguished, apart from the walled up north-west door which allowed access from the cathedral to the adjacent St Nicholas' Church.[28] The north transept is reached from the High Street via Black Boy Alley, a medieval pilgrimage route. The decoration is Early English, but reworked by Gilbert Scott. Scott rebuilt the gable ends to the original high pitch from the lower one adopted at the start of the 19th century. The gable itself is set back from the main wall behind a parapet with walkway. He also restored the pilgrim entrance and opened up the blind arcade in the northern end of the west wall.[55]
To the east of the north transept is the Sextry Gate. It dates from Edward III's reign and has wooden domestic premises above. The area beyond was originally enclosed, but is now open to the High Street through the memorial garden and gates. Beyond the Sextry Gate is the entrance to Gundulf's Tower, used as a private back door to the cathedral.
The north quire transept and east end are all executed in Early English style, the lower windows light the crypt which is earlier. Adjoining the east end of the cathedral is the east end of the Chapter Room which is in the same style. The exact form of the east end is more modern than it appears, being largely due to the work of Scott in the 19th century. Scott raised the gable ends to the original high pitch, but for lack of funds the roofs have not been raised; writing in 1897 Palmer noted: "they still require roofs of corresponding pitch, a need both great and conspicuous".[56]
On the south side of the cathedral the nave reaches the main transept and beyond a modern porch. The aisle between the transepts is itself a buttress to the older wall behind and supported by a flying buttress. The unusual position of this wall is best explained when considering the interior, below. The southern wall of the presbytery is hidden by the chapter room, an 18th-century structure.
he western part of the nave is substantially as Gundulf designed it. According to George H. Palmer (who substantially follows St John Hope) "Rochester and Peterborough possess probably the best examples of the Norman nave in the country".[60] The main arcade is topped by a string course below a triforium. The triforium is Norman with a further string course above. The clerestory above is of perpendicular style. From the capitals pilasters rise to the first string course but appear to have been removed from the triforium stage. Originally they might have supported the roof timbers, or even been the springing of a vault.[61]
The easternmost bay of the triforium appears to be Norman, but is the work of 14th-century masons. The final bay of the nave is Decorated in style and leads to the tower piers. Of note is the north pier which possibly contains the Oratory Chapel mentioned above.[62]
The aisles are plain with flat pilasters. The eastern two bays are Decorated with springing for vaulting. Whether the vault was ever constructed is unknown, the present wooden roof extends the full length of the aisles.
The crossing is bounded to the east by the quire screen with the organ above. This is of 19th-century work and shows figures associated with the early cathedral. Above the crossing is the central tower, housing the bells and above that the spire. The ceiling of the crossing is notable for the four Green Men carved on the bosses. Visible from the ground is the outline of the trapdoor through which bells can be raised and lowered when required. The floor is stepped up to the pulpitum and gives access to the quire through the organ screen.
The north transept is from 1235 in Early English style. The Victorian insertion of windows has been mentioned above in the external description. Dominating the transept is the baptistery fresco. The fresco by Russian artist Sergei Fyodorov is displayed on the eastern wall. It is located within an arched recess. The recess may have been a former site of the altar of St Nicholas from the time of its construction in 1235 until it was moved to the screen before the pulpitum in 1322. A will suggests that "an altar of Jesu" also stood here at some point, an altar of some sort must have existed as evidenced by the piscina to the right of the recess.[64] The vaulting is unusual in being octpartite, a development of the more common sexpartite. The Pilgrim Door is now the main visitor entrance and is level for disabled access.
he original Lady Chapel was formed in the south transept by screening it off from the crossing. The altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary was housed in the eastern arch of the transept. There are traces of painting both on the east wall and under the arch. The painting delineates the location of the mediaeval north screen of the Lady Chapel. Around 1490 this chapel was extended westwards by piercing the western wall with a large arch and building the chapel's nave against the existing south aisle of cathedral. From within the Lady Chapel the upper parts of two smaller clerestory windows may be seen above the chapel's chancel arch. Subsequently, a screen was placed under the arch and the modern Lady Chapel formed in the 1490 extension.
The south transept is of early Decorated style. The eastern wall of it is a single wide arch at the arcade level. There are two doorways in the arch, neither of which is used, the northern one being hidden by the memorial to Dr William Franklin. The south wall starts plain but part way up is a notable monument to Richard Watts, a "coloured bust, with long gray beard".[65] According to Palmer there used to be a brass plaque to Charles Dickens below this but only the outline exists, the plaque having been moved to the east wall of the quire transept.[66] The west wall is filled by the large arch mentioned above with the screen below dividing it from the present Lady Chapel.
The Lady Chapel as it now exists is of Decorated style with three lights along southern wall and two in the west wall. The style is a light and airy counterpart to the stolid Norman work of the nave. The altar has been placed against the southern wall resulting in a chapel where the congregation wraps around the altar. The window stained glass is modern and tells the gospel story.
The first, easternmost, window has the Annunciation in the upper light: Gabriel speaking to Mary (both crowned) with the Holy Spirit as a dove descending. The lower light shows the Nativity with the Holy Family, three angels and shepherds. The next window shows St Elizabeth in the upper light surrounded by stars and the sun in splendour device. The lower light shows the Adoration of the Magi with Mary enthroned with the Infant. The final window of the south wall has St Mary Magdelene with her ointment surrounded by Tudor roses and fleurs-de-lis in the upper light with the lower light showing the Presentation in the Temple. The west wall continues with St. Margaret of Scotland in the upper light surrounded by fouled anchor and thistle roundels. The reference is to the original dedication of the cathedral as the Priory of St Andrew. The lower light shows the Crucifixion with Mary and St Peter. The final window is unusual, the upper light is divided in three and shows King Arthur with the royal arms flanked by St George on the left and St Michael on the right. The lower light shows the Ascension: two disciples to the left, three women with unguents to the right and three bare crosses top right.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Cathedral
-----------------------------------------------
The priory and cathedral church
ABOUT THE YEAR 600, Ethelbert, king of Kent, at the instance of St. Augustine, began to build a CHURCH at Rochester, in honour of St. Andrew, and a MONASTERY adjoining to it, of which church St. Augustine in 604, appointed Justus to be bishop, and placed secular priests in the monastery; for the maintenance of whom the king gave a portion of land to the south of the city, called Prestefelde; to be possessed by them for ever, and he added other parcels of land, both within and without the walls of the city. (fn. 1) And notwithstanding in after times the gifts to this church were many and extensive, yet by the troubles which followed in the Danish wars, it was stripped of almost all of them, and at the time of the conquest it was in such a state of poverty, that divine worship was entirely neglected in it, and there remained in it only five secular priests, who had not sufficient for their maintenance.
Many of the possessions belonging to the church of Rochester had come into the hands of the conqueror at his accession to the crown, most of which he gave to his half-brother, Odo, bishop of Baieux, from whom archbishop Lanfranc recovered them, amongother lands belonging to his own church, in the solemn assembly of the whole county, held by the king's command at Pinnenden-heath, in the year 1076.
Soon after this, Gundulf was elected bishop of Rochester, to whom and to this church, archbishop Lanfranc immediately restored all those lands which he had recovered, formerly belonging to it.
Bishop Gundulf displaced the secular canons which he found here, and with the advice and assistance of archbishop Lanfranc, placed Benedictine monks in their room, the number of which, before his death, amounted to sixty. Besides which, the bishop continuing his unwearied zeal in promoting the interest of his church, recovered and purchased back again many other lands and manors, which had been formerly given to it by several kings, and other pious persons, and had been at different times wrested from it. He followed the example of archbishop Lanfranc, and separated his revenues from those of his monks; for before the bishop and his monks lived in common as one family. He rebuilt the church and enlarged the priory; and though he did not live to complete the great improvements he had undertaken, yet he certainly laid the foundation of the future prosperity of both. (fn. 2) The most material occurrences which happened to the church and priory, from the above time to the dissolution of the latter, will be found in the subsequent account of the several priors and bishops of this church.
From the conquest to the reign of Henry VIII. almost every king granted some liberties and privileges, as well to the bishop of Rochester as to the prior of the convent; each confirmed likewise those granted by his predecessors. The succeeding bishops and archbishops confirmed the possessions of the priory to the monks of it, as did many of the popes. The Registrum Roffense is full of these grants in almost every page and as the most material of them are mentioned under the respective places they relate to in the course of this history, the reader will, it is hoped, the more readily excuse the omission of them in this place.
A list of the Priors of Rochester.
Ordowinus was appointed the first prior, and was witness to the charter of foundation, dated Sept. 20, 1089. He afterwards resigned. (fn. 3)
Arnulph, originally a monk of Christ church, was constituted in his room, and continued here till he was elected prior of Canterbury, in 1096, from whence he was preferred to the abbot of Peterborough, and in 1115, to the see of Rochester. He was a good benefactor to this priory, and built the dormitory, chapter house, and refectory.
Ralph succeeded him; he had been a monk at Caen, and came over into England with Lanfranc, in 1107. On his being chosen abbot of Battle, in Sussex, he resigned this office. On the death of bishop Gundulf, the monks of Rochester desired him for their bishop, but in vain.
Ordowinus was again restored in 1107. He is said to have held this office under bishop Ernulph, therefore he was living in 1115.
Letard presided here under the same bishop.
Brian presided in 1145; and died on Decemb. 5, 1146.
Reginald, who in the year 1154, obtained from pope Adrian IV. a confirmation of the privliges of the church of Rochester. He is said to have died on April 29, in the obituary of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, but the year is not mentioned, nor that of the election of
Ernulf II. who was prior in the time of bishop Walter. The next I find is
William de Borstalle, who was preferred to the priorship from being cellarer to this monastery.
Silvester, who was his successor, from being cellarer was likewise made prior. In his time, anno 1177, the church and the offices, as well within as without the walls were burnt. He rebuilt the refectory and dormitory, and three windows in the chapter house, towards the east. His successor was
Richard, who in 1182, resigned this office on being chosen abbot of Burton, in Staffordshire.
Alfred succeeded him as prior, and quitted it on being made abbot of Abingdon by king Henry II. between the years 1185 and 1189. (fn. 4)
Osbert de Scapella, from being sacrist was chosen prior. He wrote several books, and made the window of St. Peter's altar, and did many other works; he was a great benefactor to the buildings of this church.
Ralph de Ros, who presided in 1199, was the next prior, and whilst he was sacrist built the brewhouse, and the prior's great and lesser chamber, the stone houses in the church yard, the hostiary, stable, and the barn in the vineyard, and caused the church to be covered and most of it leaded.
Helias seems to have succeeded him. He finished the covering of the church with lead, and built with stone a stable for himself and his successors. He also leaded that part of the cloisters next the dormitory, and made the laundry and door of the refectory.
William is said after him to have enjoyed this office in 1222.
Richard de Derente was elected prior of Rochester in 1225; he, among others, in the year 1227, signified to the archbishop the election of Henry de Sandford to the see of Rochester, and he is said to have presided in the year 1238, and to have been succeeded by
William de Hoo, sacrist of this church, who was chosen prior in 1239. He built the whole choir of this church, from the north and south wings, out of the oblations made at the shrine of St. William; and after having governed here for two years, because he would not consent to the sale of some lands belonging to his convent, he was much persecuted, and resigning this office, became a monk at Wooburn, and there died. In his time, in 1240, the altar in the infirmary chapel was dedicated to St. Mary; and on the nones of November that year the cathedral church itself being finished, was dedicated by the bishop, assisted by the bishops of Bangor and St. Andrew. (fn. 5)
Alexander de Glanville succeeded him, who dying suddenly of grief, in 1252, was succeeded by
John de Renham or Rensham. In his time the church and monastery were plundered, and many ornaments and charters taken away. He is said by some to have resigned in Dec. 1283; but in reality he was then deposed by John, archbishop of Canterbury, visiting this church as metropolitan.
Thomas de Woldham, alias Suthflete, was elected bishop of Rochesler, and refused it; but being elected a second time, was consecrated in the parish of Chartham, in Kent, the 6th of January, 1291. (fn. 6)
Simon de Clyve, sacrist of this church, who growing infirm, resigned this office of prior in 1622, and was the same year succeeded by
John de Renham or Rensham who, was again chosen prior, in 1292. He died in 1294, and
Thomas de Shuldeford succeeded him, who being infirm, resigned in 1301, and was succeeded by
John de Greenstreet in February the same year, on whose resignation, in 1314.
Hamo de Hethe was elected to this office that year, as he was to the see of Rochester in 1317, though he was not consecrated till two years afterwards; during the time he governed this church as prior and bishop he was a great benefactor to it.
John de Westerham succeeded him, in 1320, and died in 1321, and was succeeded by
John de Speldhurst, cellarer of this convent, who was chosen by the monks, and confirmed by the bishop; he resigned in 1333. His successor was
John de Shepey, S. T. P. In 1336, he built the new refectory, and received towards the expence of it one hundred marcs. In his time also, in 1344, the shrines of St. Michael, St. Paulinus, and St. Ythamar, were now made with marble and alabaster, which cost two hundred marcs; and the year before he caused the tower to be raised higher with wood and stone, and covered it with lead, and placed four new bells there, calling them Dunstan, Paulin, Ythamar, and Lanfranc. On December 27, 1352, he was elected bishop of Rochester by papal bull. (fn. 7)
Robert de Suthflete, warden of Filchestowe cell succeeded on his predecessor's preferment to the bishop. ric in 1352, he died in 1361.
John de Hertlepe or Hertley, warden of the same cell, was chosen to succeed him that year; he resigned in 1380, and was succeeded by
John de Shepey, S. T. P. the subprior, who was elected the same year; he governed the priory thirtynine years, and died in 1419.
William de Tunbrigg was the next prior, who having been elected by the monks, was confirmed by the archbishop of Canterbury (the see of Rochester being vacant) the same year; he presided in 1444, and was soon succeeded by John Clyfe, in 1447. After him,
John Cardone was prior, in 1448.
William Wode was prior in the reign of king Edward IV. and he was succeeded by
Thomas Bourne, who was prior in 1480, to whom
William Bishop probably succeeded; he occurs prior in 1496, and seems to have been succeeded by
William Frysell, who was elected to this office in 1509. His successor in it was probably
Laurence. Mereworth, who occurs prior in 1533 and 1534, when he, with eighteen monks, subscribed to the king's supremacy.
Walter Boxley was the next, and last prior of this monastery; for king Henry VIII. in the 31st year of his reign, granted a commission to the archbishop of Canterbury, George lord Cobham, and others, to receive the surrendry of this priory; and accordingly, the above mentioned prior and convent, by their instrument, under their common seal, dated April 8, that year (1540) with their unanimous assent and consent, deliberately, and of their own certain knowledge and mere motion, from certain just and reasonable causes, especially moving their minds and consciences, of their own free good will, gave and granted all that their monastery, and the scite thereof, with all their churches, yard, debts, and moveable goods, together with all their manors, demesnes, messuages, &c. to king Henry. VIII. with a general warrantry against all persons whatsoever. This deed was executed in the presence of a master in chancery, and was afterwards inrolled in the court of augmentation.
The prior above mentioned, after the dissolution of this monastery, again took on him his original family and lay name of Phillips; for when any person took upon him the monastic habit, he immediately assumed the name of the place of his dwelling or birth, that by having so done, he might be divested and alienated from all former family connections and relationship, and consider himself entirely as the son of the church, and as having no other relations than those who were his brethren in the monastery.
The priory of Rochester was valued at 486l. 11s. 5d. yearly income; (fn. 8) the whole of which came into the king's hands, as above mentioned; who, though he was empowered by parliament to erect new sees, and ecclesiastical corporate bodies out of the estates belonging to these suppressed monasteries, yet more than two years passed before there was any new establishment founded by him here.
AFTER the dissolution of the priory of Rochester, king Henry VIII. by his charter under his privy seal, dated June 18, in his 33d year, founded within the precincts of the late monastery here, to the glory and honour of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, a CATHEDRAL CHURCH of one dean and six prebendaries, who were to be priests, together with other ministers necessary for the performing of divine service, in future to be called, The Cathedral church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary of Rochester, and to be the episcopal seat of the bishop of Rochestet and his successors; and he granted the same episcopal seat within the precincts of the late monastery, to him and his successors for ever; and he appointed Walter Philippes, late prior there, the first dean of this church, and Hugh Aprice, John Wildbore, Robert Johnson, John Symkins, Robert Salisbury, and Richard Engest, the six prebendaries of it; and he incorporated them by the name of the dean and chapter of it, and granted that they should have perpetual succession, and be the chapter of the bishopric of Rochester, to plead and be impleaded by that name, and have a common seal; and he granted to the dean and chapter and their successors, the scite and precincts of the late monastery, the church there, and all things whatsoever within it, excepting and reserving to the king the particular buildings and parts of it therein mentioned; which premises, or at least the greatest part of them, seem to have been afterwards granted to the dean and chapter; and also excepting always to the bishop of Rochester and his successors, the great messuage, called the Bishop's palace, with all other his lands and tenements, in right of his bishopric, to hold the said scite, precincts, church, and appurtenances, to the dean and chapter and their successors for ever in pure and perpetual alms; and he granted them full power of making and admitting the inferior officers of the church, and afterwards of correcting and displacing them as they thought fit; saving to the king the full power of nominating the dean and six prebendaries, and also six almsmen, by his letters patent, as often as they should become vacant; and lastly, he granted, that they should have these his letters patent made and sealed in the accustomed manner, under his great seal. These letters patent were sealed with the great seal, June 20th following.
The dotation charter, under the king's privy seal, is dated the same day; by which he granted to the dean and chapter, and their successors, sundry premises, manors, lands, tenements, rents, advowsons and appropriations, part of the possessions of the late priory of Rochester, of the late priory of Ledys, of the hospital of Stroud and of the priory of Boxley, in the counties of Kent, Buckingham, Surry, and in the city of London, to hold in pure and perpetual alms, and he granted them, and each of them to be exempt and discharged from all payments of first fruits and tenths, reserving to him and his successors, in lieu thereof, the yearly sum of one hundred and fifteen pounds, (which rent has been since increased to 124l 6s. for reasons as has been already mentioned under Southfleet and Shorne in the former volumes of this history) and lastly, that they should have these his letters patent made and sealed with his great seal, &c. On the 4th of July following, the king granted a commission to George, lord Cobham, and others, reciting, that whereas he had lately founded and erected the said cathedral church in the scite and place of the late priory at Rochester, and in the same one dean, six prebendaries, six minor canons, one deacon and subdeacon, six lay clerks, one master of the choristers, eight choristers, one teacher of the boys in grammar, to consist of twenty scholars, two subsacrists, and six poor men, he gave power and authority to them, or any two of them, to repair to the scite of the late priory, and there, according as they thought fit, to allot the whole of it, and to assign to the dean and canons separate and fit stalls in the choir, and separate places in the chapter there, and to allot to the dean the new lodging, containing two parlours, a kitchen, four bedchambers, the gallery, the study over the gate, with all other buildings leading to the house of John Symkins, one of the residentiaries, together with the garden adjoining, on the north side of the king's lodging. The hay, barn in the woodyard of the dean under the vestry, a stable for the dean adjoining the gate of the tower, and the pidgeon-house on the wall adjoining the ponds; and also to the prebendaries and minor canons and other ministers, and persons above-mentioned, and to each of them, according to their degree, convenient houses, and places about the church to be divided and assigned to each of them, as far as the buildings and ground of the scite would allow, so that the said dean and canons might have separate houses for their convenient habitation, and that the rest of the ministers and persons, that is, minor canons, deacon and subdeacon, scholars, choiristers, and upper and under master, should have smaller houses, in which they and their families should inhabit, and further, that they should put the dean, canons and other ministers in possession of the houses and premises so assigned as asoresaid, provided always, that the said minor canons, and other ministers (except the dean and prebendaries) should eat at one common table, according to the statutes to be prescribed to them, and that they should certify under their seals to the chancellor and court of augmentation what they had done in it.
About three years afterwards, a body of statutes for the government of this church was delivered to it by three commissioners appointed by the king for that purpose, but like many others, they were neither under the great seal nor indented, so that their validity continued in dispute till the reign of queen Anne, in the sixth year of whose reign, an act passed to make them good and valid in law, so far as they were not inconsistent with the constitution of the church, or the laws of the land.
In these statutes, besides the members already mentioned, there is named a porter, who was likewise to be a barber, a butler, a cook and an under-cook; all the members still subsist in this church, except the deacon and subdeacon, the butler, cook and under-cook; the two first have been disused ever since the reformation, or at least very soon afterwards, and the other three are not necessary, as there is not. any common table kept, nor indeed does there appear to have been one kept as directed by the statutes, for the several members of this church, excepting the dean and prebendaries, and the six almsmen. There were also by the statutes yearly exhibitions of five pounds to be paid to four scholars, two at each university. By the statutes they were to be more than fifteen, and under twenty years of age, to be chosen from this school in preference, and if none such were here, then from any other, so that there were neither fellow or scholar in either university; the pension of five pounds to continue till they commenced bachelor, and that within the space of four years; after which they were to enjoy the same for three years; when commencing master of arts they were to be allowed six pounds per annum, and after that 6l. 13s. 4d. The college to be at the option of the dean, or vice-dean, and chapter, who nominate the scholars, and forty pounds was directed to be laid out yearly in charity, and the repairing of highways and bridges.
By the charter of foundation, king Henry VIII. reserved to himself and his successors the right of nominating and appointing, by his letters patent, the dean and prebendaries, and by the statutes the dean must be a doctor of divinity, a batchelor, or doctor of law, and each of the prebendaries the same, or master of arts, or batchelor of laws, and to be appointed by the king's letters patent under his great seal, and presented to the bishop. The dean continues to be nominated by the king, four of the prebends are in the gift of the lordkeeper of the great seal, one is annexed by letters patent, and confirmed by act of parliament, anno 12 queen Anne, to the provostship of Oriel college, in Oxford, and confirmed by parliament the same year, and another was by letters patent, anno 13 king Charles I. annexed to the archdeaconry of Rochester. The crown likewise nominates the six poor bedesmen, who are admitted by warrant under the sign manual; these are in general old and maimed sailors, who are pensioners of the chest at Chatham.
Walter Phillips, the last prior, on the surrendry of this monastery into the king's hands, was, by the foundation charter of the dean and chapter, dated June 18, anno 33 Henry VIII. appointed the first dean. He died in 1570. (fn. 9)
Edmund Freake, S. T. P. was installed in 1570, and was consecrated bishop of Rochester in 1571.
Thomas Willoughby, S. T. P. and prebendary of Canterbury, in 1574, he died in 1585.
John Coldwell, M. D. of St. John's college, Cambridge, in 1585, and was consecrated bishop of Salisbury in 1591.
Thomas Blague, S. T. P. master of Clare-hall, and rector of Bangor, in 1591, and died in 1611.
Richard Milbourne, A. M. rector of Cheam, in Surry, and vicar of Sevenoke, in 1611, and was consecrated bishop of St. David's in 1615. (fn. 10)
Robert Scott, S. T. P. and master of Clare-hall, in 1615. He died in 1620.
Godfrey Goodman, a native of Essex, and fellow of Trinity college, then master of Clare-hall, Cambridge, afterwards prebendary of Westminster, rector of Kemmerton, in Gloucestershire, and West Isley, in Berkshire, and S. T. P. in 1620, and was consecrated bishop of Gloucester in 1624.
Walter Balcanquall, a native of Scotland, and S. T. P. in 1624. He was first fellow of Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, then master of the Savoy. (fn. 11) He resigned this deanry for that of Durham in 1638. (fn. 12)
Henry King, S. T. P. of Christ-church, Oxford, archdeacon of Colchester, residentiary of St. Paul's, and canon of Christ-church, (fn. 13) in 1638, and was consecrated bishop of Chichester in 1641.
Thomas Turner, S. T. P. canon residentiary of St. Paul's, London, rector of St. Olave's, Southwark, and of Fetcham, in Surry, in 1641, and was made dean of Canterbury in 1643.
Benjamin Laney, S. T. P. master of Pembroke-hall, vicar of Soham, in Cambridgeshire, rector of Buriton, in Hampshire, and prebendary of Westminster and Winchester, in 1660, and was consecrated bishop of Peterborough, at the latter end of that year. (fn. 14)
Nathaniel Hardy S. T. P. rector of St. Dionis Backchurch, archdeacon of Lewes, and rector of Henley upon Thames, in 1660. He died at Croydon in 1670, and was buried in the church of St. Martin's in the Fields, of which church he was vicar, having been by his will a good benefactor to the members of this cathedral, and their successors, as well as to the parishes of this city.
Peter Mew, S. T. P. succeeded in 1670. He had been canon of Windsor, archdeacon of Berks, and pre sident of St. John's college, Oxford. He was consecrated bishop of Bath and Wells at the end of the year 1672. (fn. 15)
Thomas Lamplugh, S. T. P. in 1672. He was first fellow of queen's college, Oxford, then principal of Alban-hall, and vicar of St. Martin's in the Fields. He was consecrated bishop of Exeter in 1676. (fn. 16)
John Castilion, S. T. P. prebendary of Canterbury, and vicar of Minster, in Thanet, in 1676. He died in 1688, and was buried in Canterbury cathedral.
On the death of Dr. Castilion, Simon Lowth, A. M. was nominated that year by king James II. to succeed him; but not being qualified as to his degree according to the statutes, his admittance and installation was refused, and the revolution quickly after following, he was set aside, and Dr. Ullock was nominated in his itead.
Henry Ullock, S. T. P. succeeded in 1689, at that time prebendary of this church, and rector of Leyborne. He died in 1706, and was buried there.
Samuel Pratt, S. T. P. clerk of the closet, succeeded in 1706. (fn. 17) He was canon of Windsor, vicar of Twickenham, and chaplain of the Savoy chapel. He died in 1723.
Nicholas Claggett, S. T. P. rector of Brington, in Northamptonshire, and of Overton sinecure, in Hampshire, and archdeacon of Buckingham in 1724. He was promoted to the bishopric of St. David's in 1731.
Thomas Herring, S. T. P. was first of Jesus college, Cambridge, and afterwards fellow of Bennet college. After a variety of parochial preferments he was advanced to this deanry in 1731, which he held in commendam from 1737, when he was promoted to the bi shopric of Bangor till his translation to the archbishopric of York in 1743. (fn. 18)
William Bernard, S. T. P. prebendary of Westminster, (fn. 19) succeeded in 1743, but next year was promoted to the see of Raphoe, in Ireland. (fn. 20)
John Newcome, S. T. P. lady Margaret's lecturer of divinity, and master of St. John's college, Cambridge, in 1744. He had supplied the divinity chair at Cambridge with great reputation, during the latter part of Dr. Bentley's life, then regius professor, who for several years before his death had retired from all public business. He died in 1765.
William Markham, LL. D. and prebendary of Durham, in 1765. He was a great benefactor to the deanry-house, the two wings of which were erected by him, but were not finished before his quitting this preferment for the deanry of Christ-church, Oxford, which he did in 1767. (fn. 21)
Benjamin Newcombe, S. T. P. and rector of St. Mildred's, in the Poultry, in 1767. He was afterwards vicar of Lamberhurst, and died at Rochester in 1775.
Thomas Thurlow, D. D. and master of the Temple, in 1775, was in 1779 made bishop of Lincoln. (fn. 22)
Richard Cust, S. T. P. canon of Christ-church, in Oxford, which he resigned on this promotion. He was a younger brother of the late Sir John Cust, bart. of Lincolnshire, speaker of the house of commons, and uncle to lord Brownlow. He resigned this deanry in 1781, on being made dean of Lincoln, and residentiary of that cathedral.
Thomas Dampier, son of Thomas Dampier, dean of Durham, was educated at Eton, and was afterwards fellow of King's college, in Cambridge, vicar of Boxley, prebendary of Durham, and master of Sherborne hospital. In 1780 he was created by royal mandate S. T. P. and in March 1782, succeeded to this deanry, with which he holds, excepting the fellowship, the several preferments before-mentioned.
THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ROCHESTER is situated at a small distance from the south side of the middle of the High-street, within the antient gate of the priory.
This church was rebuilt by bishop Gundulph in the year 1080, and some part of this building still remains. The whole bears venerable marks of its antiquity, but time has so far impaired the strength of the materials with which it is built, that in all likelihood the care and attention of the present chapter towards the support of it will not be sufficient to prevent the fall of great part of it at no great distance of time.
The cathedral consists of a body and two isles, the length of it from the west door to the steps of the choir is fifty yards; at the entrance of the choir is the lower or great cross isle, the length of which is one hundred and twenty-two feet; from the steps of the choir to the east end of the church is fifty-two yards; at the upper end of the choir is another cross isle of the length of ninety feet. In the middle of the western cross isle, at the entrance of the choir, stands the steeple, which is a spire covered with lead, being one hundred and fifty-six feet in height, in which hang six bells. Between the two cross isles, on the north side without the church, stands an old ruined tower, no higher than the roof of the church. This is generally allowed to have been erected by bishop Gundulph, and there is a tradition of its having been called the bell tower, and of its having had five bells hanging in it; yet the better conjecture is, that it was first intended as a place of strength and security, either as a treasury or a repository for records. The walls of it are six feet thick, and the area on the inside twenty-four feet square. On the opposite side, at the west end of the south isle, is a chapel of a later date than the isle, wherein the bishop's consistory court is held, and where early prayers were used to be read till within these few years. The roof of the nave or body of the church, from the west end to the first cross isle, is flat at the top like a parish church, as it is likewise under the great steeple; but all the other parts, viz. the four cross isles, the choir, and those on each side of it, except the lower south isle, which was never finished, are handsomely vaulted with stone groins.
The choir is upwards of five hundred and seventy years old, being first used at the consecration of Henry de Sandford in 1227. It is ornamented, as well as other parts of the church, with small pillars of Petworth marble, which however, as well as many of those in a neighbouring cathedral, have been injudiciously covered with whitewash, and several of them with thick coats of plaister. The choir was repaired, as to new wainscot, stalls, pews, &c. at a large expence, in 1743, and very handsomely new paved; at which time the bishop's throne was rebuilt at the charge of bishop Wilcocks.
The organ is over the entrance into the choir. The late one was erected early in the last century, and was but a very indifferent instrument. In the room of which a new one, built by Green, was erected in in 1791, which is esteemed an exceeding good instrument.
At the north end of the upper cross isle, near the pulpit, is a chapel, called St. Williams's chapel, a saint whose repute brought such considerable profit to this priory, as to raise it from a state of poverty to affluence and riches. A large stone chest, much defaced, is all that remains of his shrine.
At the south-east corner of the opposite cross isle is an arched door-way, richly carved and ornamented with a variety of figures, which formerly led to the chapter-house of the priory, in the room of which there is erected a small mean room, which is made use of as a chapter-house and library; for the increase of this library, the same as was intended at Canterbury; every new dean and prebendary gives a certain sum of money at their admission towards the increase of books in it, instead of making an entertainment, as was formerly the custom. In this library is that well known and curious MSS. called the Textus Roffensis, compiled chiefly by bishop Ernulfus in the 12th century, which was published by Thomas Hearne, from a copy in the Surrenden library. During the troubles in the last century this MSS. was conveyed into private hands, nor could the dean and chapter after the restoration, for two years, discover where it was; and at last they were obliged to solicit the court of chancery for a decree to recover it again. Since which they have been once more in great danger of being deprived of it; for Dr. Harris, having borrowed it for the use of his intended history of this county, sent it up to London by water, and the vessel being by the badness of the weather overset, this MSS. lay for some hours under water before it was discovered, which has somewhat damaged it.
There is also another antient MSS. here, entitled Custumale Roffense, thought by some to be more antient than the other. Great part of this MSS. has been published by Mr. Thorpe in a volume under that title.
Near the west end, in the same isle, is a square chapel, called St. Edmund's chapel; hence you descend into the undercroft, which is very spacious and vaulted with stone. There seems to have been part of it well ornamented with paintings of figures and history, but the whole is so obliterated, that nothing can be made out what it was intended for.
The body of this church, the greatest part of which is the same as was erected by bishop Gundulph, is built with circular arches on large massy pillars, with plain capitals; the smaller arches above them being decorated with zigzag ornaments. The roof of the nave seems to have been raised since, and all the windows made new and enlarged at different times, particularly the large one in the west front; though the roof is now flat, by the feet of the groins still remaining, it appears as if this part of the church had been, or at least was intended to be vaulted. The breadth of it, with the side isles, is twenty-two yards. The west front extends eighty-one feet in breadth; the arch of the great door is certainly the same which bishop Gundulph built, and is a most curious piece of workmanship; every stone has been engraved with some device, and it must have been very magnificent in its original state. It is supported the depth of the wall, on each side the door, by several small columns, two of which are carved into statues representing Gundulph's royal patrons, Henry I. and his queen Matilda. The capitals of these columns, as well as the whole arch, are cut into the figures of various animals and flowers The key-stone of the arch seems to have been designed to represent our Saviour in a niche with an angel on each side, but the head is broken off; under this figure are twelve others, representing the apostles, few of which are entire.
In this front were four towers, one on each side the great door, and the others at the two extremes; three of these terminated in a turret, and the other in an octangular tower, above the roof. That tower at the north corner being in danger of falling, was taken down a few years ago, in order to be rebuilt. Dean Newcombe left one hundred pounds towards the finishing of it. Against the lower part of this tower was the figure of bishop Gundulph, with his crozier in his hand; on the rebuilding of which it was replaced, but the tower remains unfinished, at not half the height it was before, to the great disfigurement of the front of this church. Since which the tower at the opposite, or south-west corner, being ruinous, has likewise been taken down even with the roof of the church.
The royal grammar school of this foundation, besides the exhibitions before-mentioned, has had a later benefactor in Robert Gunsley, clerk, rector of Titsey, in Surry, who by his will in 1618, gave to the master and fellows of University college, Oxford, sixty pounds per annum, for the maintenance of four scholars to be chosen by them from the free school of Maidstone, and from this grammar school, such as are natives of the county of Kent only, of whom those of his name and kindred to have the preference, who are to be allowed chambers, and fifteen pounds per annum.
To conclude the account of this priory and cathedral, it should be observed that the precincts of it, after the dissolution, seem to have been a scene of devastation and confusion: the buildings were huge, irregular and ruinous, and little calculated to be turned into separate dwellings for small private families. Even a century afterwards, in the great rebellion in 1647, they were reported to be in a ruinous and woeful condition; at which time the church itself does not seem to have been much better; for archbishop Laud, in his return of the state of this diocese to Charles I. in 1633, says, that the cathedral suffered much for want of glass in the church windows, that the church-yard lay very indecently, and that the gates were down; about nine years afterwards this church suffered much from the fury of the rebel soldiers under colonel Sandys, who having plundered it, and broken to pieces what they could, made use of it as a tipling house, (fn. 23) and the body of the church was used as a carpenter's shop and yard, several sawpits being dug, and frames for houses made by the city joiners in it.
After the restoration dean Hardy took great pains to repair the whole of it, which was effected by means of the benefactions of the gentry of the county, and 7000l. added by the dean and chapter; notwithstanding which, time has so corroded and weakened every part of this building, that its future existence for any length of time has been much feared, but this church has lately had every endeavour used, and great repairs have been made which it is hoped will secure it from the fatal ruin which has threatened it, the inside has been beautified, and being kept exceeding clean, it makes at this time a very pleasing appearance.
In this cathedral, among other monuments, inscriptions, &c. are the following:— In the choir, within the altar rails on the south wall, under three small arches, are pictures of three bishops with their mitres and crosiers, now almost defaced, on the outside these arms, first, the see of Rochester; second, the priory of Canterbury; third, a cross quartier pierced azure; within the rails, under the north and south windows, are several stone coffins and other remains of bishops monuments, but no inscriptions or arms; on the north side the choir a large altar monument for bishop Lowe, on the south side of it, these arms on a bend, three wolves
"The skull is a bony structure that forms the head of the skeleton in most vertebrates. It supports the structures of the face and provides a protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. In the human these two parts are the neurocranium and the viscerocranium or facial skeleton that includes the mandible as its largest bone. The skull forms the anterior most portion of the skeleton and is a product of cephalisation—housing the brain, and several sensory structures such as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. In the human these sensory structures are part of the facial skeleton.
Functions of the skull include protection of the brain, fixing the distance between the eyes to allow stereoscopic vision, and fixing the position of the ears to enable sound localisation of the direction and distance of sounds. In some animals such as horned ungulates, the skull also has a defensive function by providing the mount (on the frontal bone) for the horns.
The English word "skull" is probably derived from Old Norse "skalli" meaning bald, while the Latin word cranium comes from the Greek root κρανίον (kranion)."
Source: wikipedia.org
Exclusively to the Republics' Airforce the O-2c Provider is a Light close air support, scout, and electronic warfare asset.
It has 2 20mm wing-mounted cannons with 200 rounds each, wingtip ECM pods with 4 underwing hardpoints.
The O-2 can sport MK.12 small diameter bombs, AGM-101 ATGMs, 70mm rocket pods and additional ECM equipment under its wings.
This light turbo prop is highly valued by the Republics Airforce and the ground units it supports.
Having flow over 600+ combat hours in the middle east and 400+ in proxy wars with Kotavia.
La chiesa del Santo Volto, inaugurata l'8 dicembre 2006, si trova all'incrocio tra via Borgaro e corso Svizzera dove sorgevano grandi fabbriche (Michelin, Teksid, Deltasider S.p.A., Pianelli&Traversa). In questa nuova area nasceva l'esigenza, come dichiarava il Cardinal Poletto, di "fornire il servizio religioso al nuovo quartiere" e di costruire, in forme monumentali, la prima chiesa del XXI secolo.
Progettata dall'architetto svizzero Mario Botta, si compone di sette torri perimetrali alte 35 m, di una sala polivalente sotterranea e di una ampia serie di locali nei quali si sono trasferiti uffici della curia torinese (per una superficie di 12000 metri quadri). L'interno, molto luminoso grazie ai raggi di luce che penetrano perpendicolarmente dalle alte torri, ha una capacità di 700 posti. Come elemento di continuità tra la preesistente acciaieria e l'attuale chiesa è stata lasciata la vecchia ciminiera: un campanile post-moderno, avvolto da una struttura metallica elicoidale che dà un senso di slancio verso la croce posta sulla sommità. Le campane invece si trovano ai piedi della ciminiera, di fianco alle gradinate che danno accesso al sagrato.
Santo Volto Church in Turin has a heptagonal plan surrounded by seven towers to which the lower bodies of the chapels are connected. The choice for this plan, besides having a strong religious and symbolic meaning, orients the main axis of the church towards the city. The new parish complex gathers all the services once spread all over the city. Below the church main hall there is a hypogeal congress hall. Inside the other bodies of the building, in addition to offices and apartments, there is a ferial chapel, a parsonage and other facilities for the youth formation and recreation. From one side it visually reminds of the industrial roots of the place, from the other side it supports the cross. Surrounded by a helical steel structure with thin, spiked sheets that recall thorns, the chimney gleams by day and by night.
#AbFav_FREE_
(Salix caprea)
Also known as the pussy willow, the male catkins of the goat willow look like a cat’s paws.
It supports lots of wildlife, including the elusive and regal purple emperor butterfly.
Salix (willow) is a species of willow, one of two species commonly called pussy willow.
Unlike most willows, its brittle twigs are not suitable for weaving.
The wood burns well and makes a good fuel and charcoal.
The flowers are soft silky silvery catkins, borne in early spring before the new leaves appear.
Have a good day and thanks for your visit, so very much appreciated, Magda, (*_*)
For more: www.indigo2photography.com
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN (BY LAW!!!) TO USE ANY OF MY images or TEXT on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission.
If you do, without accreditation, it is STEALING © All rights reserved
Pussy, Willow, Catkin, Salix, design, winter, conceptual Art, branch, studio, colour, black-background, square,"Nikon D7200", Magda indigo
My first attempt at SHIPtember (build a 100+ stud spaceship within the month
of September). I started September 1st with a clean workspace and completed it
on September 29th.
Length: 109 studs (34")
Width: 73 studs (23")
Weight: 9 lbs
Piece Count: ~5100
The Deep Freeze Discoverer is a high speed reconnaissance ship capable of both atmospheric and lower orbit flight. Built to monitor the uncharted and uninhabited continents of Ice Planet 2002. It supports an array of dispersible communication droids and twin intercontinental rockets. Skis allow it to land on any snowfield or icy lake its single pilot may encounter. The Deep Freeze Discoverer is a true asset for the Ice Planet star fleet.
More pictures can be found at My Website or my Flickr Album.
Lava Beds National Monument, located in the California interior, Klamath Valley, near the southern border of California, was the most desert-like, dry area we visited on this trip, yet it supports blooming flora and the insects that depend on that plant life.
The French Communist Party (PCF) has been a part of the political scene in France since 1920, peaking in strength around the end of World War II. It originated when a majority of members resigned from the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) party to set up the French Section of the Communist International (SFIC). The SFIO had been divided over support for French participation in World War I and over whether to join the Communist International (Comintern). The new SFIC defined itself as revolutionary and democratic centralist. Ludovic-Oscar Frossard was its first secretary-general, and Ho Chi Minh was also among the founders. Frossard himself resigned in 1923, and the 1920s saw a number of splits within the party over relations with other left-wing parties and over adherence to the Communist International's dictates. The party gained representation in the French parliament in successive elections, but also promoted strike action and opposed colonialism. Pierre Sémard, leader from 1924 to 1928, sought party unity and alliances with other parties; but leaders including Maurice Thorez (party leader from 1930 to 1964) imposed a Stalinist line from the late 1920s, leading to loss of membership through splits and expulsions, and reduced electoral success. With the rise of Fascism this policy shifted after 1934, and the PCF supported the Popular Front, which came to power under Léon Blum in 1936. The party helped to secure French support for the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and opposed the 1938 Munich agreement with Hitler. During this period the PCF adopted a more patriotic image, and favoured an equal but distinct role for women in the communist movement.The party was banned in 1939 on the outbreak of World War II. Under Comintern direction the PCF opposed the war and may have sabotaged arms production. The leadership, threatened with execution, fled abroad. After the German invasion of 1940 the party failed to persuade the occupiers to legalise its activities, and while denouncing the war as a struggle between imperialists, began to organise opposition to the occupation. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union the next year, the Comintern declared Germany to be an enemy, and the PCF expanded its anti-German activities, forming the National Front movement within the broader Resistance and organising direct action and political assassinations through the armed Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) group. At the same time the PCF began to work with de Gaulle's "Free France", the London-based government in exile, and later took part in the National Council of the Resistance (CNR).Although the PCF opposed de Gaulle's formation of the Fifth Republic in 1958, the following years saw a rapprochement with other left-wing forces and an increased strength in parliament. With Waldeck Rochet as its new secretary-general, the party supported François Mitterrand's unsuccessful presidential bid in 1965 and started to move apart to a limited extent from the Soviet Union. During the student riots and strikes of May 1968, the party supported the strikes while denouncing the revolutionary student movements. After heavy losses in the ensuing parliamentary elections, the party adopted Georges Marchais as leader and in 1973 entered into a "Common Programme" alliance with Mitterrand's reconstituted Socialist Party (PS). Under the Common Programme, however, the PCF steadily lost ground to the PS, a process that continued after Mitterrand's victory in 1981.Initially allotted a minor share in Mitterrand's government, the PCF resigned in 1984 as the government turned towards fiscal orthodoxy. Under Marchais the party continued loyal to the Soviet Union up to its fall in 1991, and made little move towards "Eurocommunism". Extensive reform of the party's structure and policies had to wait until 1994, when Robert Hue became leader. The party's renunciation of much traditional communist dogma after this did little to stem its declining popularity, although it entered government again in 1997 as part of the Plural Left coalition. Elections in 2002 gave worse results than ever for the PCF, now led by Marie-George Buffet. Under Buffet, the PCF turned away from parliamentary strategy and sought broader social alliances. It condemned the Nicolas Sarkozy government's response to riots in 2005 and adopted a more militant stance towards the European Union. Buffet's attempt to stand in the 2007 presidential election as a common candidate of the "anti-liberal left" had little success. To maintain a presence in parliament after 2007 the party's few remaining deputies had to group together with those from The Greens and others to create the Democratic and Republican Left (GDR). Subsequently a broader electoral coalition, the Left Front (FG), was formed including the PCF, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's Left Party (PG), United Left, and others. The FG has continued up to the present and has brought the French communists somewhat better electoral results, at the price of some tension within the party and with other parties in the FG. With Pierre Laurent as leader since 2010, in a symbolic move the party no longer includes the hammer and sickle logo on its membership cards.The French Communist Party was founded in December 1920 by a split in the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), led by the majority of party members who supported membership in the Communist International (or "Komintern") founded in 1919 by Lenin after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.The outbreak of World War I in 1914 sparked tensions within the SFIO, when a majority of the SFIO took what left-wing socialists called a "social-chauvinist" line in support of the French war effort. Gradually, anti-war factions gained in influence in the party and Ludovic-Oscar Frossard was elected general secretary in October 1918. Additionally, the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia aroused hope for a similar communist revolution in France among some SFIO members.After the war, the issue of membership in the new Communist International became a major issue for the SFIO. In the spring of 1920, Frossard and Marcel Cachin, director of the party newspaper L'Humanité, were commissioned to meet with Bolshevik leaders in Russia. They observed the second congress of the Communist International, during the course of which Vladimir Lenin set out the 21 conditions for membership. When they returned, Frossard and Cachin recommended that the party join the Communist International.At the SFIO's Tours Congress in December 1920, this opinion was supported by the left-wing faction (Boris Souvarine, Fernand Loriot) and the 'centrist' faction (Ludovic-Oscar Frossard, Marcel Cachin), but opposed by the right-wing faction (Léon Blum). This majority option won three quarters of the votes from party members at the congress. The pro-Kominterm majority founded a new party, known as the French Section of the Communist International (Section française de l'Internationale communiste, SFIC), which accepted the strict conditions for membership.
A majority of socialist parliamentarians and local officeholders were opposed to membership, particularly because of the Communist International's strict democratic centralism and its denunciation of parliamentarianism. These members went on to form a rump SFIO, which had a much smaller membership than the SFIC but which could count on a strong base of officeholders and parliamentarians.The founders of the SFIC took with them the party paper L'Humanité, founded by Jean Jaurès in 1904, which remained tied to the party until the 1990s. In the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) trade unions, the Communist minority split away to form the United General Confederation of Labour (CGTU) in 1922.The new communist party defined itself as a revolutionary party, which used legal as well as clandestine or illegal means. The party organization was run under strict democratic centralist precepts, until the 1990s: the minority factions were compelled to follow the majority faction, any organized factions or contrary opinions were forbidden, while membership was tightly controlled and dissidents often purged from the party.Ho Chi Minh, who would create the Viet Minh in 1941 and then declare the independence of Vietnam, was one of its founding members.In its early years, as the communists fought the SFIO for control of the French left, the new party was weakened and marginalized by a series of splits and expulsions.The "bolshevization" or stalinization imposed by the Communist International, as well as Zinoviev's power over the Communist International, led to internal crises. "Bolshevization" implied not only the adoption of the political strategy of the Communist International but a reorganization of party's structure on the model of the Bolsheviks (discipline, local organization under the shape of "cells", ascent of a young political staff which came from the working-class).The first secretary-general of the PCF, Ludovic-Oscar Frossard, was often reluctant to obey the directives of the Communist International. Indeed, the party leadership was opposed to the strategy of the "proletarian unique front". Furthermore, one of Frossard's internal opponents, Boris Souvarine, was a member of the secretariat of the Communist International. Frossard resigned and left the PCF in 1923 to found a dissident United Communist Party which later became the Communist Socialist Party (but Frossard himself rejoined the SFIO). The general secretariat of the Party was shared by Louis Sellier (center faction) and Albert Treint (left-wing faction). At the same time, Boris Souvarine was expelled from the Communist International and the PCF due to his sympathy for Leon Trotsky.
In the 1924 legislative election, the PCF won 9.8% of the vote and 26 seats, considerably weaker than the SFIO. But under the leadership of the left-wing faction, priority was given to general strikes and revolutionary actions rather than elections. In the French Parliament, the PCF's first elected deputies were opposed to the Cartel des Gauches coalition formed by the SFIO and the Radical Party, which governed between 1924 to 1926.In order to reconcile the various factions of the party, Pierre Sémard, railroad worker and union activist, was chosen as the new secretary-general. He wanted to put an end to sectarianism, which was criticized by communist officeholders and leaders of the CGTU. Most notably, he proposed alliances with other left-wing parties (including the SFIO) in order to combat fascism. This strategy was criticized by the board of the Communist International as "parliamentarist". At the same time, the party campaigned against French colonialism in Morocco (the Rif War), leading to the detention of some PCF members, including Sémard. On his release from prison, he became more and more controversial. Only 11 PCF candidates were elected in the Chamber of Deputies in the 1928 election, although the PCF increased its support to 11%.
In 1927, in the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin sidelined his opponents (Zinoviev, Kamenev and Leon Trotsky) and imposed a strict "class against class" line on the Communist International. In France, a Stalinist committee took control of the PCF . Its most influential figures came from the Communist Youth, notably Henri Barbé and Pierre Célor. They applied the "class against class" political line of the Communist International, denouncing social democracy and the SFIO as akin to bourgeois parties. Simultaneously, the new leadership purged dissidents, like Louis Sellier, former secretary-general, who created the Worker and Peasant Party, which merged with the Communist Socialist Party to form the Party of Proletarian Unity (PUP). By the end of the 1920s, the party contained fewer than 30,000 members.
The collegial leadership of the party was divided between young leaders and more experienced politicians. The secretary for organization, Maurice Thorez, was chosen as the new secretary-general in 1930. In 1931, Barbé and Celor were accused of responsibility for excesses in the "class against class" strategy. Nonetheless, the strategy was continued.Indeed, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, which affected France beginning in 1931, caused much anxiety and disturbance, as in other countries. As economic liberalism failed, many were eagerly looking for new solutions. Technocratic ideas were born during this time (Groupe X-Crise), as well as autarky and corporatism in the fascist movement, which advocated union of workers and employers. Some members were attracted to these new ideas, most notably Jacques Doriot. A member of the presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern from 1922 onwards, and from 1923 onwards the secretary of the French Federation of Young Communists, later elected to the French Chamber of Deputies from Saint-Denis, he came to advocate an alliance between the Communists and SFIO. Doriot was then expelled in 1934, and with his followers. Afterwards he moved sharply to the right and formed the French Popular Party, which would be one of the most collaborationist parties during the Vichy regime.
The PCF was the main organizer of a counter-exhibition to the 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris, called "The Truth about the Colonies". In the first section, it recalled Albert Londres and André Gide's critics of forced labour in the colonies and other crimes of the New Imperialism period; in the second section, it contrasted imperialist colonialism to "the Soviets' policy on nationalities". In 1934 the Tunisian Federation of the PCF became the Tunisian Communist Party.[2]
The PCF suffered substantial loses in the 1932 election, winning only 8% of the vote and 10 seats. The 1932 election saw the victory of another Cartel des gauches. This time, although the PCF did not participate in the coalition, it supported the government from the outside (soutien sans participation), similar to how the Socialists, prior to the First World War, had supported republican and Radical governments without participating.The Communist Party attracted various intellectuals and artists in the 1920s, including André Breton, the leader of the Surrealist movement, Henri Lefebvre (who would be expelled in 1958), Paul Éluard, Louis Aragon, and others.This second Cartel coalition fell following the far-right 6 February 1934 riots, which forced Radical Prime Minister Édouard Daladier to cede power to the conservative Gaston Doumergue. Following this crisis, the PCF, like the whole of the socialist movement, feared that France was on the verge of fascist takeover. Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and the destruction of the Communist Party of Germany following the 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire led Moscow and Stalin to change course, and adopt the popular front strategy whereby communists were to form anti-fascist coalitions with their erstwhile socialist and bourgeois enemies. Maurice Thorez spearheaded the formation of an alliance with the SFIO, and later the Popular Front in 1936.
During the Popular Front era (after 1934) the PCF rapidly grew in size and influence, its growth fueled by the popularity of the Comintern's Popular Front strategy, which allowed an anti-fascist alliance with the SFIO and the Radical Party. The PCF made substantial gains in the 1934 cantonal elections and established themselves as the dominant political force in working-class municipalities surrounding Paris (the Red Belt) in the 1935 municipal elections.
The Popular Front won the 1936 elections; the PCF itself made major gains - taking 15.3% and 72 seats. SFIO leader Léon Blum formed a Socialist-Radical government, supported from the outside by the PCF. However, the Popular Front government soon collapsed under the strains of domestic financial problems (including inflation) and foreign policy issues (the radicals opposed intervention in the Spanish Civil War while the socialists and communists were in favour), and was replaced by a moderate government led by Édouard Daladier.
As the only major communist party in western Europe that was still legal, the PCF played a major role in supporting the Spanish Second Republic during the Spanish Civil War, alongside the Soviet Union. Blum's government officially maintained a neutral policy of non-intervention, but in practice his government ensured the safe passage of aid and Soviet weapons to the besieged Spanish republicans. The PCF often played a major role in such actions, and it sent a number of French volunteers to fight for the republicans in the International Brigades. At the end of the conflict, the PCF organized humanitarian aid for Spanish refugees.
The PCF's 72 deputies (along with only three others) opposed the ratification of the Munich Accords, signed by Daladier and Neville Chamberlain. The PCF believed that the accords would allow Hitler to turn his attention eastwards, towards the Soviet Union.
On 12 August 1936, a party organization was formed in Madagascar, the Communist Party (French Section of the Communist International) of the Region of Madagascar.[3]
New social positions[edit]
The cross-class coalition of the Popular Front forced the Communists to accept some bourgeois cultural norms they had long ridiculed.[4] These included patriotism, the veterans' sacrifice, the honor of being an army officer, the prestige of the bourgeois, and the leadership of the Socialist Party and the parliamentary Republic. Above all the Communists portrayed themselves as French nationalists. Young Communists dressed in costumes from the revolutionary period and the scholars glorified the Jacobins as heroic predecessors.The Communists in the 1920s saw the need to mobilize young women, but saw them as auxiliaries to male organizations. In the 1930s there was a new model, of a separate but equal role for women. The Party set up the Union des Jeunes Filles de France (UJFF) to appeal to young working women through publications and activities geared to their interests. The Party discarded its original notions of Communist femininity and female political activism as a gender-neutral revolutionary. It issued a new model more attuned to the mood of the late 1930s and one more acceptable to the middle class elements of the Popular Front. It now portrayed the ideal Young Communist as a paragon of moral probity with her commitment to marriage and motherhood, and gender-specific public activism.Under Buffet's leadership after 2003, the PCF shifted away from the PS and Hue's mutation. Instead, it attempted to actively reach out to and embrace social movements, trade unions and non-communist activists as a strategy to counter the PCF's decline. The party sought to create a broader alliance including 'anti-liberal' and anti-capitalist actors from civil society or trade unions.One of the shifts in the PCF's strategy after 2003 came in the form of a more militant Euroscepticism (in 2001, the PCF had only abstained rather than voted against the Treaty of Nice while they were in government). As such, in 2005, the PCF played a leading role in the left-wing NO campaign in the referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE). The victory of the NO vote, along with a campaign against the Bolkestein directive, earned the party some positive publicity.In 2005, a labour conflict at the SNCM in Marseille, followed by a 4 October 2005 demonstration against the New Employment Contract (CNE) marked the opposition to Dominique de Villepin's right-wing government; Villepin shared his authority with Nicolas Sarkozy, who, as Minister of the Interior and leader of the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) was a favourite for the upcoming presidential election. Marie-George Buffet also criticized the government's response to the fall 2005 riots, speaking of a deliberate "strategy of tension" employed by Sarkozy, who had called the youth from the housing projects "scum" (racaille) which needed to be cleaned up with a Kärcher high pressure hose. While most of the Socialist deputies voted for the declaration of a state of emergency during the riots, which lasted until January 2006, the PCF, along with the Greens, opposed it.In 2006, the PCF and other left-wing groups supported protests against the First Employment Contract, which finally forced president Chirac to scrap plans for the bill, aimed at creating a more flexible labour law.
Nevertheless, the PCF's new strategy did not bring about a major electoral recovery. In the 2004 regional elections, the PCF ran some independent lists in the first round - some of them expanded to civil society actors, like Marie-George Buffet's list in Île-de-France. The results were rather positive for the party, which won nearly 11% in Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy, 9% in Auvergne and 7.2% in Île-de-France. In the 2004 cantonal elections, the PCF won 7.8% nationally and 108 seats; a decent performance, although it was below the party's result in previous cantonal elections in 2001 (9.8%) and 1998 (10%). The PCF did poorly in the 2004 European elections, winning only 5.88% and only 2 out of 78 seats.
The new strategy, likewise, also faced internal resistance on two fronts: on the one hand from the party's traditionalist and Marxist-Leninist "orthodox" faction and from the refondateurs/rénovateurs ("refounders" or "rebuilders") who wanted to create a united front with parties and movements on the left of the PS.Buoyed by the success of the left-wing NO campaign in 2005, the PCF and other left-wing nonistes from 2005 attempted to create "anti-liberal collectives" which could run a common 'anti-liberal left' candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Buffet, backed by the PCF (except for the réfondateurs), proposed her candidacy and emerged as the winner in most preparatory votes organized by these collective structures. However, the entire effort soon fell into disarray before collapsing completely. The far-left - represented by Oliver Besancenot (Revolutionary Communist League) and Arlette Laguiller (Workers' Struggle) was unwilling to participate in the efforts to begin with, preferring their own independent candidacies. José Bové, initially a supporter of the anti-liberal collectives, later withdrew from the process and announced his independent candidacy. The PCF's leadership and members voted in favour of maintaining Buffet's candidacy, despite the failure of the anti-liberal collectives and called on other left-wing forces to support her candidacy. This support was not forthcoming, and after a low-key campaign she won only 1.93%, even lower than Robert Hue's 3.4% in the previous presidential election. Once again, the low result meant that the PCF did not meet the 5% threshold for reimbursement of its campaign expenses.The presidential rout was followed by an equally poor performance in the subsequent legislative elections, in which it won only 4.3% of the vote and 15 seats. Having fallen the 20-seat threshold to form its own group in the National Assembly, the PCF was compelled to ally itself with The Greens and other left-wing MPs to form a parliamentary group, called Democratic and Republican Left (GDR). The PCF's poor showing in 2007 weighed a lot on its budget.
French Communist Party in Paris 2012
In the 2008 municipal elections, the PCF fared better than expected but nevertheless had contrasted results overall. It gained Dieppe, Saint Claude, Firminy and Vierzon as well as other smaller towns and kept most of its large towns, such as Arles, Bagneux, Bobigny, Champigny-sur-Marne, Echirolles, Fontenay-sous-Bois, Gardanne, Gennevilliers, Givors, Malakoff, Martigues, Nanterre, Stains and Venissieux. However, the PCF lost some key communes in the second round, such as Montreuil, Aubervilliers and particularly Calais, where an UMP candidate ousted the PCF after 37 years. In the cantonal elections on the same day, the PCF won 8.8% and 117 seats, a small increase on the 2004 results.
Left Front (2009- )Marie-George Buffet at the launch of the FG, 2009The PCF, to counter its slow decline, sought to build a broader electoral coalition with other (smaller) left-wing or far-left parties. In October 2008, and again at the PCF's XXXIV Congress in December 2008, the PCF issued a call for the creation of a "civic and progressive front".[23] · [24] The Left Party (PG), led by PS dissident Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and other small parties including the United Left responded positively to the call, forming the Left Front (Front de gauche, FG), at first for the 2009 European Parliament election. The FG has since turned into a permanent electoral coalition, extended for the 2010 regional elections, 2011 cantonal elections, 2012 presidential election and the 2012 legislative election.The FG allowed the PCF to halt its decline, but perhaps with a price. The FG won 6.5% in the 2009 European elections, 5.8% in the 2010 regional elections and 8.9% in the 2011 cantonal elections. However, paying the price of its greater electoral and political independence vis-a-vis the PS, it fell from 185 to 95 regional councillors after the 2010 elections.Nevertheless, the FG strategy caused further tension and even dissent within PCF ranks. Up to the higher echelons of the PCF leadership, some were uneasy with Mélenchon's potential candidacy in the 2012 presidential election and the PCF disagreed with Mélenchon's PG on issues such as participation in PS-led regional executives.[25] In 2010, a number of leading réfondateurs within the PCF (Patrick Braouezec, Jacqueline Fraysse, François Asensi, Roger Martelli...) left the party to join the small Federation for a Social and Ecological Alternative (FASE).
At the PCF's XXXV Congress in 2010, Buffet stepped down in favour of Pierre Laurent, a former journalist.
In 2010, the PCF played a leading role in the protests against Éric Woerth's pension reform, which raised the retirement age by two years.On 5 June 2011, the PCF's national delegates approved, with 63.6% against, a resolution which included an endorsement of Mélenchon's candidacy as the FG's candidate in the 2012 presidential election. A few days later, on 16–18 June, an internal primary open to all PCF members was held, ratifying Mélenchon's candidacy. Mélenchon's candidacy for the FG, the position endorsed by the PCF leadership, won 59%. PCF deputy André Chassaigne took 36.8% and Emmanuel Dang Tran, an "orthodox" Communist, won only 4.1%.[26][27] Mélenchon won 11.1% in the first round of the presidential election on 22 April 2012.
The 2012 legislative election in June saw the FG win 6.9%, a result below Mélenchon's first round result but significantly higher than the PCF's result in 2007. Nevertheless, the PCF - which made up the bulk of FG incumbents and candidates - faced a strong challenge from the PS in its strongholds in the first round, and, unexpectedly, found a number of its incumbents place behind the PS candidate in the first round. Applying the traditional rule of "mutual withdrawal", FG/PCF candidates who won less votes than another left-wing candidates withdrew from the runoff. As a result, the FG was left with only 10 seats - 7 of those for the PCF. It was the PCF's worst seat count in its entire history.Despite this defeat, the PCF leadership remains supportive of the FG strategy. Pierre Laurent was reelected unopposed at the XXXVI Congress in February 2013.On the same occasion, the hammer and sickle were removed from party membership cards. Pierre Laurent stated that "It is an established and revered symbol that continues to be used in all of our demonstrations, but it doesn't illustrate the reality of who we are today. It isn't so relevant to a new generation of communists."
On our day trip to the Great Barrier Reef on our holiday in Australia, July 25, 2014 Queensland, Australia.
It would have been wonderful to have been able to gone snorkelling but I am claustrophobic so couldn't. We did go in the submarine they have that goes under water to look at the corals and fish which was great but the glass was all scratched up so the photos didn't turn out too well.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland.
A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to limit the impact of human use, such as fishing and tourism. Other environmental pressures on the reef and its ecosystem include runoff, climate change accompanied by mass coral bleaching, and cyclic population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. According to a study published in October 2012 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the reef has lost more than half its coral cover since 1985.
The Great Barrier Reef has long been known to and used by the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is an important part of local groups' cultures and spirituality. The reef is a very popular destination for tourists, especially in the Whitsunday Islands and Cairns regions. Tourism is an important economic activity for the region, generating over $3 billion per year.
The Great Barrier Reef supports a diversity of life, including many vulnerable or endangered species, some of which may be endemic to the reef system.It is one of the seven wonders of the natural world. It is larger than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing on earth visible from space.
For More Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef
The days drag and the weeks fly by.
It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.
The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.
But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparison.
Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.
We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.
Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.
There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.
We won't starve.
We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.
Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.
Also, Jools picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.
What to do with the day?
Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.
First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.
No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.
Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.
Ash is a large village that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.
The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.
indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, revealing an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.
Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the church there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.
And it was.
The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.
got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.
We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rolls, four small pork pies and two Cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told ourselves) and finally found the peppers.
Three peppers cost £50!
Then back home, along the A2.
And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.
Yummy.
There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.
At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.
And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.
Oh dear.
Oh dear indeed.
We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.
------------------------------------------------
An enormous church, picturesquely set at an angle of the village street. It owes its size to the fact that it supported a college of priests in the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, but the north aisle was not replaced, reducing the church to the odd shape we see today. The unusual pillars which divide the nave from the south aisle are of timber, not stone as a result of lack of money. At the end of the south aisle is the Oxenden chapel, which contains that family's excellent bull's head monument. The contemporary metalwork screens and black and white pavements add great dignity to this part of the building. By going through a curved passage from the chapel you can emerge in the chancel, which is dominated by a stone reredos of fifteenth-century date. This French construction was a gift to the church in the 1930s and while it is not good quality carving, is an unusual find in a Kent church.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Wingham
------------------------------------------
hortly after 1280AD Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury established a college of priests at Wingham, with a provost and six canons. From 1286 the priests lived in the attractive timber-framed house opposite St Mary's church. The college accounts for the size of the church, which seems enormous considering the present size of Wingham itself.
There was a cruciform church here before the college was established, but that building was remodelled around 1290, leaving us several excellent Geometric Gothic windows. A south porch and tower were added around 1400. The porch is curious in that there are two stories externally, but internally only one. There are many reminders of the church's past, however; the arch between the south transept and south nave aisle is late Norman, as is a blocked arch on the west wall of the north transept.
By the early 16th century the nave was in poor condition. A local brewer named George Ffogarde of Canterbury was granted a license to raise money for its repair. Having a considerable sum of money for church repair, the unscrupulous brewer absconded with the funds, embezzling £224, a huge sum for the time. The missing funds may explain why the nave was rebuilt using cheaper timber posts to support the arcades, rather than more costly stone.
The octagonal timber posts are of chestnut wood, topped by a crown-post timber roof. Sometime before the mid-19th century the timbers were encased in plaster to resemble Doric columns, but thankfully the plaster has been stripped off and we can appreciate the timber! The nave was rebuilt in the late 16th century, diminishing its footprint and leaving behind some rather odd features, like an external piscina on what was originally the easternmost pier of the nave arcade. Another odd touch is provided by the north transept, remodelled with wood frames in the Georgian period. I'm not sure I can call to mind another essentially medieval church with wooden-framed windows!
In the chancel is a lovely 14th century triple-seat sedilia and piscina. The chancel and nave are separated by a 15th century screen, now truncated, with blank panels which must have once boasted painted figures of saints. But the real treasure in the chancel is a series of ten 14th century misericords. Six of the misericord carvings are simply decorative, with floral or foliage designs. Two show animals; one appears to be a horse, another a donkey. The final two carvings are the most interesting; one shows a woman in a wimple, the other a Green Man peering out from a screen of foliage.
Behind the altar is a lovely 15th century reredos, brought here from Troyes in France. The reredos is in two sections, the upper section depicting the Passion of Christ, the lower showing the Last Supper and the Adoration of the Kings. There are small fragments of rather attractive 14th century grisailles glass in the chancel windows, and near the font are a number of surviving medieval floor tiles.
The interior is full of monuments to the Oxenden and Palmer families. The finest of these are to be found in the north transept chapel. On the east wall of the chapel is a memorial to Sir Nicholas Palmer (d. 1624). The memorial was designed by Nicholas Stone and shows effigies of Palmer and his wife under Corinthian columns and an open pediment. On the north wall is the monument to a later Thomas Palmer (d. 1656) with a bust of the deceased, now somewhat the worse for wear. A tablet to Streynsham Master (d. 1718) is on the south chapel wall, and has a fairly typical pair of skulls at the base of the tablet, wreathed in olive branches.
The most extravagant and eye-catching memorial in the church, however, is to be found in the north transept chapel, which is guarded by ornate wrought-iron screens. In the centre of the chapel is an ebullient obelisk, dated 1682, commemorating the Oxenden family. This free-standing obelisk, possibly designed by Arnold Quellin, is of white stone, with exquisite fruit and flowers cascading down each side, with large black ox heads at each angle of the base. The base is embellished with four putti (cherubic 'infants'). The effect is quite extraordinary; most people will either love it or hate it (I loved it). Also in the south transept is a wall tablet to Charles Tripp (d. 1624).
Other monuments worth mentioning include a 14th century tomb recess in the south aisle wall and a number of 15th century indents in the chancel floor which once contained memorial brasses to canons.
The church is set within a large walled enclosure, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. Unusually, the churchyard wall has been listed Grade-II by the Department of the Environment for its historical interest.
www.britainexpress.com/counties/kent/churches/wingham.htm
-------------------------------------------
WINGHAM
IS the next adjoining parish south-westward from Ash, situated for the most part in the upper half hundred of the same name, and having in it the boroughs of Wingham-street, Deane, Twitham, and Wenderton, which latter is in the lower half hundred of Wingham.
WINGHAM is situated in a healthy pleasant country, the greatest part of it is open uninclosed arable lands, the soil of which, though chalky, is far from being unfertile. The village, or town of Wingham, is nearly in the middle of the parish, having the church and college at the south-west part of it; behind the latter is a field, still called the Vineyard. The village contains about fifty houses, one of which is the court-lodge, and is built on the road leading from Canterbury to Sandwich, at the west end of it runs the stream, called the Wingham river, which having turned a corn-mill here, goes on and joins the Lesser Stour, about two miles below; on each side the stream is a moist tract of meadow land. Near the south boundary of the parish is the mansion of Dene, situated in the bottom, a dry, though dull and gloomy habitation; and at the opposite side, next to Staple, the ruinated mansion of Brook, in a far more open and pleasant situation. To the northward the parish extends a considerable way, almost as far as the churches of Preston and Elmstone. The market, granted anno 36 king Henry III. as mentioned hereafter, if it ever was held, has been disused for a number of years past; though the market-house seems yet remaining. There are two fairs held yearly here, on May 12, and November 12, for cattle and pedlary.
In 1710 there was found on the court-lodge farm, by the plough striking against it, a chest or coffin, of large thick stones, joined together, and covered with a single one at the top. At the bottom were some black ashes, but nothing else in it. The ground round about was searched, but nothing else was sound.
Henry de Wengham, a person of great note and extraordinary parts, and much in favour with Henry III. was born here, who in 1255 made him lord chancellor. In 1259, he was elected bishop of Winchester, which he resused, but towards the latter end of the same year he was chosen bishop of London, being still chancellor, and was consecrated the beginning of the year following. He died in 1262, and was buried in his own cathedral. He bore for his arms, Gules, a heart between two wings, displayed, or.
WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. eldest son of Sir William Cowper, bart. of Ratling-court, in Nonington, having been made lord-keeper of the great seal in 1705, was afterwards by letters patent, dated Dec. 14, 1706, created lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham; and in 1709, was declared lord chancellor. After which, anno 4 George I. he was created earl Cowper and viscount Fordwich, in whose descendants these titles have continued down to the right hon. Peter-Lewis-Francis Cowper, the fifth and present earl Cowper, viscount Fordwich and baron of Wingham. (fn. 1)
The MANOR OF WINGHAM was part of the antient possessions of the see of Canterbury, given to it in the early period of the Saxon heptarchy, but being torn from it during the troubles of those times, it was restored to the church in the year 941, by king Edmund, his brother Eadred, and Edwin that king's son. (fn. 2) Accordingly it is thus entered, under the general title of the archbishop's possessions, taken in the survey of Domesday:
In the lath of Estrei, in Wingeham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Wingeham in demesne. It was taxed at forty sulings in the time of king Edward the Consessor, and now for thirty-five. The arable land is . . . . . . In demesne there are eight carucates, and four times twenty and five villeins, with twenty borderers having fifty-seven carucates. There are eight servants, and two mills of thirty-four sulings. Wood for the pannage of five hogs, and two small woods for fencing. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth seventy-seven pounds, when he received it the like, and now one hundred pounds. Of this manor William de Arcis holds one suling in Fletes, and there be has in demesne one carucate, and four villeins, and one knight with one carucate, and one fisbery, with a saltpit of thirty pence. The whole value is forty shillings. Of this ma nor five of the archbishop's men hold five sulings and an half and three yokes, and there they have in demesne eight carucates, and twenty-two borderers, and eight servants. In the whole they are worth twenty-one pounds.
In the 36th year of king Henry III. archbishop Boniface obtained the grant of a market at this place. The archbishops had a good house on this manor, in which they frequently resided. Archbishop Baldwin, in king Henry II.'s reign, staid at his house here for some time during his contention with the monks of Christ-church, concerning his college at Hackington. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained king Edward I. here in his 23d year, as did archbishop Walter Reynolds king Edward II. in his 18th year. And king Edward III. in his 5th year, having landed at Dover, with many lords and nobles in his train, came to Wingham, where he was lodged and entertained by archbishop Meopham. And this manor continued part of the see of Canterbury till archbishop Cranmer, in the 29th year of king Henry VIII. exchanged it with the king for other premises. After which it continued in the crown till king Charles I. in his 5th year, granted the scite, called Wingham court, with the demesne lands of the manor, to trustees, for the use of the city of London. From whom, by the direction of the mayor and commonalty, it was conveyed, at the latter end of that reign, to Sir William Cowper, knight and baronet, in whose descendants it has continued down to the right hon. Peter-Francis Cowper, earl Cowper, who is the present owner of it. (fn. 3)
BUT THE MANOR ITSELF, with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.
TRAPHAM is a mansion in this parish, which was formerly in the possession of a family of the same name, who resided at it, but after they were extinct it passed into that of Trippe, who bore for their arms, Gules, a chevron, or, between three borses heads erased, sable, bridled, collared and crined of the second; (fn. 4) and John Tripp, esq. resided here in queen Elizabeth's reign, as did his grandson Charles, who seems to have alienated it to Sir Christopher Harflete, of St. Stephen's, whose son Tho. Harflete, esq. left an only daughter and heir Afra, who carried it in marriage to John St. Leger, esq. of Doneraile, in Ireland, descended from Sir Anthony St. Leger, lord deputy of Ireland in Henry VIII.'s reign, and they joined in the alienation of it to Brook Bridges, esq of the adjoining parish of Goodneston, whose descendant Sir Brook Wm. Bridges, bart. of that place, is the present owner of it.
The MANOR OF DENE, situated in the valley, at the southern boundary of this parish, was antiently the inheritance of a family who took their surname from it, and held it by knight's service of the archbishop, in king Edward I's reign, but they seem to have been extinct here in that of king Edward III. After which it passed into the family of Hussey, who bore for their arms, Per chevron, argent and vert, three birds counterchanged; and then to Wood, before it came by sale into the family of Oxenden, who appear to have been possessed of it at the latter end of Henry VI.'s reign, about which time they had become by marriage, owners of Brook and other estates in this parish. The family of Oxenden have been resident in this county from the reign of king Edward III. Solomon Oxenden, being the first mentioned in the several pedigrees of it, whose near relation Richard Oxenden was prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, in that reign; in this name and family of Oxenden, whose arms were Argent, a chevron, gules, between three oxen, sable, armed, or; which coat was confirmed to the family by Gyan, king at arms, anno 24 Henry VI. this manor and seat continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, who was on May 8, 1678, created a baronet, whose youngest grandson Sir George Oxenden, bart. succeeding at length to the title on the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry, resided at Dene, where he died in 1775, having served in parliament for Sandwich, and been employed in high offices in administration, and leaving behind him the character of a compleat gentleman. He married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheirs of Edward Dunck, esq. of Little Wittenham, in Berkshire, by whom he had two sons, of whom George, the second, was made by will heir to the estate of Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, on his death, s. p. and changed his name to Dixwell as enjoined by it, but died soon afterwards likewise, s. p. and that estate came at length to his eldest brother Henry, who succeeded his father in the title of Baronet. He married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Sir George Chudleigh, bart. of Devonshire, since deceased, by whom he has issue Henry Oxenden, esq. of Madekyn, in Barham, who married Mary, one of the daughters of Col. Graham, of St. Laurence, near Canterbury, by whom he has issue. Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. now resides at Brome, and is the present possessor of this manor and seat, as well as the rest of his father's estates in this parish. (fn. 5) Lady Hales, widow of Sir Thomas Pym Hales, bart. of Bekesborne, now resides in it.
TWITHAM, now usually called Twittam, is a hamlet in this parish, adjoining to Goodneston, the principal estate in which once belonged to a family of that name, one of whom Alanus de Twitham is recorded as having been with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, who bore for his arms, Semee of crosscroslets, and three cinquesoils, argent, and held this estate in Twitham, of the archbishop, and they appear to have continued possessed of it in the 3d year of king Richard II. Some time after which it came into the possession of Fineux, and William Fineux sold it anno 33 Henry VIII. to Ingram Wollet, whose heirs passed it away to one of the family of Oxenden, of Wingham, in whose descendants it has continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, the present possessor of it.
On the foundation of the college of Wingham, archbishop Peckham, in 1286, endowed the first diaconal prebend in it, which he distinguished by the name of the prebend of Twitham, with the tithes of the lands of Alanus de Twitham, which he freely held of the archbishop there in Goodwynestone, at Twytham. (fn. 6)
BROOK is an estate in this parish, situated northward from Twitham, which was formerly the estate of the Wendertons, of Wenderton, in this parish, in which it remained till by a female heir Jane, it went in marriage to Richard Oxenden, gent. of Wingham, who died in 1440, and was buried in Wingham church, in whose name and family it continued down to Henry Oxenden, of Brook, who left two daughters and coheirs, of whom Mary married Richard Oxenden, of Grays Inn, barrister-at-law, fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart, who afterwards, on his wife's becoming sole heiress of Brook, possessed it, and resided here. He left Elizabeth his sole daughter and heir, who carried it in marriage to Streynsham Master, esq. a captain in the royal navy, the eldest surviving son of James Master, esq. of East Langdon, who died some few days after his marriage; upon which she became again possessed of it in her own right, and dying in 1759, s. p. gave it by will to Henry Oxenden, esq. now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, and he is the present owner of it.
WENDERTON is a manor and antient seat, situated northward from Wingham church, eminent, says Philipott, for its excellent air, situation, and prospect, which for many successive generations had owners of that surname, one of whom, John de Wenderton, is mentioned in Fox's Martyrology, as one among other tenants of the manor of Wingham, on whom archbishop Courtnay, in 1390, imposed a penance for neglecting to perform some services due from that manor. In his descendants this seat continued till John Wenderton, of Wenderton, in the 1st year of Henry VIII. passed it away to archbishop Warham, who at his decease in 1533, gave it to his youngest brother John Warham, whose great-grandson John, by his will in 1609, ordered this manor to be sold, which it accordingly soon afterwards was to Manwood, from which name it was alienated, about the middle of the next reign of king Charles I. to Vincent Denne, gent. who resided here, and died in 1642, s. p. whose four nieces afterwards became by will possessed of it, and on the partition of their estates, the manor and mansion, with part of the lands since called Great Wenderton, was allotted to Mary, the youngest of them, who afterwards married Vincent Denne, sergeant-at-law, and the remaining part of it, which adjoins to them, since called Little Wenderton, to Dorothy, the third sister, afterwards married to Roger Lukin, gent. of London, who soon afterwards sold his share to Richard Oxenden, esq. of Brook, from one of which family it was sold to Underdown, by a female heir of which name, Frances, it went in marriage to John Carter, esq. of Deal, the present owner of it.
BUT GREAT WENDERTON continued in the possession of Sergeant Denne, till his death in 1693, when Dorothy, his eldest daughter and coheir, carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Ginder, who bore Argent, on a pale, sable, a cross fuchee, or, impaling azure, three lions heads, or; as they are on his monument. He resided at it till his death in 1716, as did his widow till her decease in 1736, when it came to her nephew Mr. Thomas Hatley, who left two daughters his coheirs, the eldest surviving of whom, Anne, carried it in marriage, first to Richard Nicholas, esq. and then successively to Mr. Smith and Mr. James Corneck, of London, and Mrs. Corneck, the widow of the latter, is the present possessor of it.
At the boundary of this parish, adjoining to Preston and Ash, lies THE MANOR OF WALMESTONE, usually called Wamston, which was antiently part of the possessions of the family of Septvans, one of whom, Robert de Septvans, held it in king Edward II.'s reign, of the archbishop; whose descendant Sir William de Septvans died possessed of it in the 25th year of that reign. (fn. 7) How long it continued in this name I have not found; but at the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign it was become the property of William Bonington, of Canterbury, who died in 1463, and directed it by his will to be sold. After which it became, about the latter end of king Henry VIII.'s reign, the property of Walter Hendley, esq. the king's attorney-general, who left three daughters his coheirs, and they joined in the sale of it to Alday, who alienated it to Benedict Barnham, esq. alderman of London, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Elizabeth, carried it in marriage to Mervin Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, who being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, was executed anno 7 Charles I. Soon after which this manor seems to have been divided, and one part of it, since called Little Walmestone, in which was included the manor and part of the demesne lands, passed from his heirs to the Rev. John Smith, rector of Wickham Breaus, who having founded a scholarship at Oxford, out of the lands of it, presently afterwards sold it to Solly, of Pedding, in which name it continued till Stephen Solly, gent. of Pedding, and his two sons, John and Stephen, in 1653, joined in the conveyance of it to Thomas Winter, yeoman, of Wingham, in which name it remained for some time. At length, after some intermediate owners, it was sold to Sympson, and John Sympson, esq. of Canterbury, died possessed of it in 1748, leaving his wife surviving, who held it at her decease, upon which it came to her husband's heir-atlaw, and it is now accordingly in the possession of Mr. Richard Simpson.
BUT GREAT WALMESTONE, consisting of the mansion-house, with a greater part of the demesne lands of the manor, was passed away by the heirs of the earl of Castlehaven to Brigham, and Mr. Charles Brigham, of London, in the year 1653, sold it to William Rutland, of London, who left two daughters his coheirs, of whom Mary married John Ketch, by whom she had a sole daughter Anne, who afterwards at length became possessed of it, and carried it in marriage to Samuel Starling, gent. of Worcestershire, who in 1718, conveyed it, his only son Samuel joining in it, to Thomas Willys, esq. of London, afterwards created a baronet. After which it passed in the same manner, and in the like interests and shares, as the manor of Dargate, in Hernehill, down to Matthew, Robert and Thomas Mitchell, the trustees for the several uses to which this, among other estates belonging to the Willis's, had been limited; and they joined in the sale of it, in 1789, to Mr. William East, whose son, Mr. John East, of Wingham, is the present owner of it.
ARCHBISHOP KILWARBY intended to found a college in this church of Wingham, but resigning his archbishopric before he could put his design in practice, archbishop Peckham, his successor, in the year 1286, perfected his predecessor's design, and founded A COLLEGE in this church, for a provost, whose portion, among other premises, was the profits of this church and the vicarage of it, and six secular canons; the prebends of which he distinguished by the names of the several places from whence their respective portions arose, viz. Chilton, Pedding, Twitham, Bonnington, Ratling, and Wimlingswold. The provost's lodge, which appears by the foundation charter to have before been the parsonage, was situated adjoining to the church-yard; and the houses of the canons, at this time called Canon-row, opposite to it. These latter houses are, with their gardens and appurtenances, esteemed to be within the liberty of the town and port of Hastings, and jurisdiction of the cinque ports. This college was suppressed in the 1st year of king Edward VI. among others of the like sort, when the whole revenue of it was valued at 208l. 14s. 3½d. per annum, and 193l. 2s. 1d. clear; but Leland says, it was able to dispend at the suppression only eighty-four pounds per annum. Edward Cranmer, the last master, had at the dissolution a pension of twenty pounds per annum, which he enjoyed in 1553. (fn. 8)
After the dissolution of the college, the capital mansion, late belonging to the provost, remained in the crown till king Edward VI. in his 7th year, granted the scite of it, with the church appropriate of Wingham, and all tithes whatsoever arising within the parish, and one acre of glebe-land in it, to Sir Henry Palmer, subject to a payment of twenty pounds annually to the curate or vicar of it.
The Palmers of Wingham were descended from a very antient one at Angmerin, in Suffex, who bore for their arms, Or, two bars, gules, each charged with three tresoils of the field, in chief, a greyhound, currant, sable. In the seventh descent from Ralph Palmer, esq. of that place, in king Edward II.'s reign, was descended Sir Edward Palmer, of Angmerin, who left three sons, born on three successive Sundays, of whom John, the eldest, was of Sussex, which branch became extinct in queen Elizabeth's reign; Sir Henry, the second son, was of Wingham; and Sir Thomas, the youngest, was beheaded in queen Mary's reign. Sir Henry Palmer, the second son, having purchased the grant of the college of Wingham, as before-mentioned, made it the seat of his residence, as did his son Sir Thomas Palmer, who was sheriff anno 37 Elizabeth, and created a baronet in 1621. He so constantly resided at Wingham, that he is said to have kept sixty Christmases, without intermission, in this mansion, with great hospitality. He had three sons, each of whom were knighted. From the youngest of whom, Sir James, descended the Palmers, of Dauney, in Buckinghamshire, who upon the eldest branch becoming extinct, have succeeded to the title of baronet; and by his second wife he had Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemain. Sir Thomas Palmer, the eldest of the three brothers, died in his father's life-time, and left Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, heir to his grandfather; in whose descendants, baronets, of this place, this mansion, with the parsonage of Wingham appropriate, continued down to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, who died possessed of it in 1723, having had three wives; by the first he had four daughters; by the second he had a son Herbert, born before marriage, and afterwards a daughter Frances; the third was Mrs. Markham, by whom he had no issue; and she afterwards married Thomas Hey, esq. whom she likewise survived. Sir Thomas Palmer, by his will, gave this seat, with the parsonage appropriate and tithes of Wingham, inter alia, after his widow's decease, to his natural son Herbert Palmer, esq. above-mentioned, who married Bethia, fourth daughter of Sir Thomas D'Aeth, bart. of Knolton. He died in 1760, s. p. and by will devised his interest in the reversion of this seat, with the parsonage, to his wife Bethia, for her life, and afterwards to his sister Mrs. Frances Palmer, in tail. But he never had possession of it, for lady Palmer furvived him, on whose death in 1763, Mrs. Bethia Palmer, his widow, became entitled to it, and afterwards married John Cosnan, esq. who died in 1773. She survived him, and resided here till her death in 1789. In the intermediate time, Mrs. Frances Palmer having barred the entail made by her natural brother Herbett above-mentioned, died, having devised the see of this estate, by her will in 1770, to the Rev. Thomas Hey, rector of Wickhambreaux, and his heirs, being the eldest son of the last lady Palmer by her last husband. Mr. Hey accordingly, on the death of Mrs. Cosnan, who died s. p. succeeded to this seat and estate. He married first Ethelreda, eldest daughter and coheir of dean Lynch, since deceased, by whom he has no surviving issue; and secondly, Mrs. Pugett, widow of Mr. Puget, of London. He now resides in this seat of Wingham college, having been created D. D. and promoted to a prebend of the church of Rochester.
Charities.
JOHN CHURCH, yeoman, of this parish, in 1604, gave 1cl. to the poor, to distribute yearly at Easter, 10s. to the poor for the interest of it.
HECTOR DU MONT, a Frenchman, born in 1632, gave the silver cup and patten for the holy communion.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, president for the East-India Company at Surat, in 1660, gave the velvet cushion and pulpitcloth.
JOHN RUSHBEACHER, gent. of this parish, in 1663, gave five acres of land in Woodnesborough, the rents to be annually distributed to ten of the meaner sort of people of Wingham, not receiving alms of the parish, now of the yearly value of 4l.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, above-mentioned, in 1682, gave 500l. for the repairing and beautifying this church, and the Dene chancel.
SIR JAMES OXENDEN, knight and baronet, of Dene, founded and endowed a school in this parish with 16l. per annum for ever, for teaching twenty poor children reading and writing, now in the patronage of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
RICHARD OXENDEN, esq. of Brook, in 1701, gave an annuity of 4l. for ever, to the minister, for the reading of divine service and preaching a sermon, in this church, on every Wednesday in Lent, and on Good Friday; and he at the same time gave 20s. yearly for ever, to be distributed, with the consent of the heirs of the Brook estate, to eight poor people, who should be at divine service on Easter-day, to be paid out of the lands of Brook, now vested in Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
THOMAS PALMER, esq. of St. Dunstan's in the East, London, gave 300l for the repairing, adorning and beautifying the great chancel of this church.
MRS. ELIZABETH MASTER, esq. relict of Strensham Master, of Brook, in 1728, gave the large silver flaggon; and MRS. SYBILLA OXENDEN, spinster, of Brook, at the same time gave a large silver patten for the communion.
Besides the above benefactions, there have been several lesser ones given at different times in money, both to the poor and for the church. All which are recorded in a very handsome table in the church, on which are likewise painted the arms of the several benefactors
There are about forty poor constantly relieved, and casually twenty.
THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is exempt from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a handsome building, consisting of two isles and three chancels, having a slim spire steeple at the west end, in which is a peal of eight bells and a clock. The church consists of two isles and three chancels. The former appear to have been built since the reformation; the latter are much more antient. It is handsome and well built; the pillars between the isles, now cased with wood, are slender and well proportioned. The outside is remarkably beautiful in the flint-work, and the windows throughout it, were regular and handsomely disposed, superior to other churches, till later repairs destroyed their uniformity. The windows were formerly richly ornamented with painted glass, the remains of which are but small. In the south window, in old English letters, is Edward Warham, gentill . . . . of making this window . . . . and underneath the arms of Warham. In the north isle is a brass tablet for Christopher Harris, curate here, and rector of Stourmouth, obt. Nov. 24, 1719. Over the entrance from this isle into the high chancel, is carved on the partition, the Prince of Wales's badge and motto. In the south wall is a circular arch, plain, seemingly over a tomb. A monument for T. Ginder, gent. obt. 1716. In the south east window the arms of Warham. A memorial for Vincent Denne, gent. of Wenderton, obt. 1642. In the high chancel are seven stalls on each side. On the pavement are several stones, robbed of their brasses, over the provosts and religious of the college. A stone, coffin-shaped, and two crosses pomelle, with an inscription round in old French capitals, for master John de Sarestone, rector, ob. XII Kal. May MCCLXXI. Several monuments and memorials for the family of Palmer. The south chancel is called the Dene chancel, belonging to that seat, under which is a vault, in which the family of Oxenden, owners of it, are deposited. In the middle, on the pavement, is a very costly monument, having at the corners four large black oxens beads, in allusion to their name and arms. It was erected in 1682. On the four tablets on the base is an account of the family of Oxenden, beginning with Henry, who built Denehouse, and ending with Dr. Oxenden, dean of the arches, who died in 1704. There are monuments in it likewise for the Trippes. The north chancel is called the Brook chancel, as belonging to that seat, in which are monuments for the Oxendens and Masters's of this seat. This chancel is shut out from the church, and is made use of as a school-room, by which means the monuments are much desaced, and the gravestones, from the filth in it, have become wholly obliterated. On one of these stones was a brass plate, now gone, for Henry Oxenden, esq. who built Dene, obt. 1597.
Elizabeth, daughter of the marquis of Juliers, and widow of John, son of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, after being solemnly veiled a nun, quitted her prosession, and was clandestinely married to Sir Eustace de Danbrichescourt, in a chapel of the mansion-house of Robert de Brome, a canon of this collegiate church, in 1360; for which she and her husband were enjoined different kinds of penance during their lives, which is well worth the reading, for the uncommon superstitious mockery of them. (fn. 9)
At the time of the reformation, the church was partly collegiate, and partly parochial. The high chancel, separated from the rest of the church by a partition, served for the members of the college to perform their quire service in. The two isles of the church were for the parishioners, who from thence could hear the quire service; and in the north isle was a roodlost, where one of the vicars went up and read the gospel to the people. At which time, I find mention of a parish chancel likewise.
The church of Wingham formerly comprehended not only this parish, but those likewise of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, and Wimlingswold; but archbishop Peckham, in 1282, divided them into four distinct parochial churches, and afterwards appropriated them to his new-founded college of Wingham, with a saving to them of certain portions which the vicars of them were accustomed to receive. The profits of this church and the vicarage of it, together with the parsonage-house, being thus appropriated and allotted to the provost, as part of his portion and maintenance, the archbishop, in order that the church should be duly served, by his foundation charter, ordered, that the provost and canons should each of them keep a vicar who should constantly serve in it. In which state it continued till the suppression of the college, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. when it came, among the rest of the revenues of the college, into the hands of the crown, where this parsonage appropriate, to which was annexed, the nomination of the perpetual curate serving in this church, remained till it was granted by king Edward VI. in his 7th year, to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. Since which it has continued in like manner, together with the scite of the college, as has been already mentioned, to the Rev. Dr. Hey, who is the present possessor of this parsonage, together with the patronage of the perpetual curacy of the church of Wingham.
In 1640 the communicants here were three hundred and sixty-one.
¶The curacy is endowed with a stipend of twenty pounds per annum, paid by the owner of the parsonage, and reserved to the curate in the original grant of the college by king Edward VI. and with four pounds per annum, being the Oxenden gift before mentioned; besides which, the stipend of the resident curate, and his successors, was increased in 1797, by a liberal benefaction made by the Rev. Dr. Hey, of one hundred pounds per annum, clear of all deductions, to be paid out of the parsonage, and of a house, garden, and piece of pasture land adjoining, for the curate's use, both which were settled by him on trustees for that purpose.
Happy Easter everyone ~
On a walk around the city to see what I may find March 31, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand.
One hundred giant eggs were hidden in secret locations throughout Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch overnight to kickstart an Easter egg hunt.
Dozens of volunteers helped to hide the eggs - which have been decorated by people including Dick Frizzell, Dame Trelise Cooper and Colin Mathura-Jeffree - for the Whittaker's Big Egg Hunt that runs until April 22.
It supports the Starship Foundation, a charity supporting the national children's hospital.
Each egg has a unique code on it that can be texted in to win the overall prize, a 340g 18ct Whittaker's Gold Slab made by Partridge Jewellers.
The giant eggs will be auctioned off for the Starship, 80 on Trade Me and the rest at a gala event on April 16.
Whittaker's will also give at least $150,000 to the Starship from sales of its Peanut Slabs and other chocolate during the hunt.
Starship Foundation chief executive Brad Clark said extraordinary creativity had gone into the eggs - "from realism to abstract, to dinosaurs hatching, stainless-steel sculpture, a bunny biplane and so much more".
For More Info: www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
The days drag and the weeks fly by.
It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.
The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.
But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparison.
Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.
We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.
Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.
There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.
We won't starve.
We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.
Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.
Also, Jools picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.
What to do with the day?
Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.
First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.
No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.
Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.
Ash is a large village that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.
The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.
indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, revealing an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.
Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the church there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.
And it was.
The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.
got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.
We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rolls, four small pork pies and two Cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told ourselves) and finally found the peppers.
Three peppers cost £50!
Then back home, along the A2.
And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.
Yummy.
There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.
At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.
And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.
Oh dear.
Oh dear indeed.
We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.
------------------------------------------------
An enormous church, picturesquely set at an angle of the village street. It owes its size to the fact that it supported a college of priests in the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, but the north aisle was not replaced, reducing the church to the odd shape we see today. The unusual pillars which divide the nave from the south aisle are of timber, not stone as a result of lack of money. At the end of the south aisle is the Oxenden chapel, which contains that family's excellent bull's head monument. The contemporary metalwork screens and black and white pavements add great dignity to this part of the building. By going through a curved passage from the chapel you can emerge in the chancel, which is dominated by a stone reredos of fifteenth-century date. This French construction was a gift to the church in the 1930s and while it is not good quality carving, is an unusual find in a Kent church.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Wingham
------------------------------------------
hortly after 1280AD Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury established a college of priests at Wingham, with a provost and six canons. From 1286 the priests lived in the attractive timber-framed house opposite St Mary's church. The college accounts for the size of the church, which seems enormous considering the present size of Wingham itself.
There was a cruciform church here before the college was established, but that building was remodelled around 1290, leaving us several excellent Geometric Gothic windows. A south porch and tower were added around 1400. The porch is curious in that there are two stories externally, but internally only one. There are many reminders of the church's past, however; the arch between the south transept and south nave aisle is late Norman, as is a blocked arch on the west wall of the north transept.
By the early 16th century the nave was in poor condition. A local brewer named George Ffogarde of Canterbury was granted a license to raise money for its repair. Having a considerable sum of money for church repair, the unscrupulous brewer absconded with the funds, embezzling £224, a huge sum for the time. The missing funds may explain why the nave was rebuilt using cheaper timber posts to support the arcades, rather than more costly stone.
The octagonal timber posts are of chestnut wood, topped by a crown-post timber roof. Sometime before the mid-19th century the timbers were encased in plaster to resemble Doric columns, but thankfully the plaster has been stripped off and we can appreciate the timber! The nave was rebuilt in the late 16th century, diminishing its footprint and leaving behind some rather odd features, like an external piscina on what was originally the easternmost pier of the nave arcade. Another odd touch is provided by the north transept, remodelled with wood frames in the Georgian period. I'm not sure I can call to mind another essentially medieval church with wooden-framed windows!
In the chancel is a lovely 14th century triple-seat sedilia and piscina. The chancel and nave are separated by a 15th century screen, now truncated, with blank panels which must have once boasted painted figures of saints. But the real treasure in the chancel is a series of ten 14th century misericords. Six of the misericord carvings are simply decorative, with floral or foliage designs. Two show animals; one appears to be a horse, another a donkey. The final two carvings are the most interesting; one shows a woman in a wimple, the other a Green Man peering out from a screen of foliage.
Behind the altar is a lovely 15th century reredos, brought here from Troyes in France. The reredos is in two sections, the upper section depicting the Passion of Christ, the lower showing the Last Supper and the Adoration of the Kings. There are small fragments of rather attractive 14th century grisailles glass in the chancel windows, and near the font are a number of surviving medieval floor tiles.
The interior is full of monuments to the Oxenden and Palmer families. The finest of these are to be found in the north transept chapel. On the east wall of the chapel is a memorial to Sir Nicholas Palmer (d. 1624). The memorial was designed by Nicholas Stone and shows effigies of Palmer and his wife under Corinthian columns and an open pediment. On the north wall is the monument to a later Thomas Palmer (d. 1656) with a bust of the deceased, now somewhat the worse for wear. A tablet to Streynsham Master (d. 1718) is on the south chapel wall, and has a fairly typical pair of skulls at the base of the tablet, wreathed in olive branches.
The most extravagant and eye-catching memorial in the church, however, is to be found in the north transept chapel, which is guarded by ornate wrought-iron screens. In the centre of the chapel is an ebullient obelisk, dated 1682, commemorating the Oxenden family. This free-standing obelisk, possibly designed by Arnold Quellin, is of white stone, with exquisite fruit and flowers cascading down each side, with large black ox heads at each angle of the base. The base is embellished with four putti (cherubic 'infants'). The effect is quite extraordinary; most people will either love it or hate it (I loved it). Also in the south transept is a wall tablet to Charles Tripp (d. 1624).
Other monuments worth mentioning include a 14th century tomb recess in the south aisle wall and a number of 15th century indents in the chancel floor which once contained memorial brasses to canons.
The church is set within a large walled enclosure, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. Unusually, the churchyard wall has been listed Grade-II by the Department of the Environment for its historical interest.
www.britainexpress.com/counties/kent/churches/wingham.htm
-------------------------------------------
WINGHAM
IS the next adjoining parish south-westward from Ash, situated for the most part in the upper half hundred of the same name, and having in it the boroughs of Wingham-street, Deane, Twitham, and Wenderton, which latter is in the lower half hundred of Wingham.
WINGHAM is situated in a healthy pleasant country, the greatest part of it is open uninclosed arable lands, the soil of which, though chalky, is far from being unfertile. The village, or town of Wingham, is nearly in the middle of the parish, having the church and college at the south-west part of it; behind the latter is a field, still called the Vineyard. The village contains about fifty houses, one of which is the court-lodge, and is built on the road leading from Canterbury to Sandwich, at the west end of it runs the stream, called the Wingham river, which having turned a corn-mill here, goes on and joins the Lesser Stour, about two miles below; on each side the stream is a moist tract of meadow land. Near the south boundary of the parish is the mansion of Dene, situated in the bottom, a dry, though dull and gloomy habitation; and at the opposite side, next to Staple, the ruinated mansion of Brook, in a far more open and pleasant situation. To the northward the parish extends a considerable way, almost as far as the churches of Preston and Elmstone. The market, granted anno 36 king Henry III. as mentioned hereafter, if it ever was held, has been disused for a number of years past; though the market-house seems yet remaining. There are two fairs held yearly here, on May 12, and November 12, for cattle and pedlary.
In 1710 there was found on the court-lodge farm, by the plough striking against it, a chest or coffin, of large thick stones, joined together, and covered with a single one at the top. At the bottom were some black ashes, but nothing else in it. The ground round about was searched, but nothing else was sound.
Henry de Wengham, a person of great note and extraordinary parts, and much in favour with Henry III. was born here, who in 1255 made him lord chancellor. In 1259, he was elected bishop of Winchester, which he resused, but towards the latter end of the same year he was chosen bishop of London, being still chancellor, and was consecrated the beginning of the year following. He died in 1262, and was buried in his own cathedral. He bore for his arms, Gules, a heart between two wings, displayed, or.
WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. eldest son of Sir William Cowper, bart. of Ratling-court, in Nonington, having been made lord-keeper of the great seal in 1705, was afterwards by letters patent, dated Dec. 14, 1706, created lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham; and in 1709, was declared lord chancellor. After which, anno 4 George I. he was created earl Cowper and viscount Fordwich, in whose descendants these titles have continued down to the right hon. Peter-Lewis-Francis Cowper, the fifth and present earl Cowper, viscount Fordwich and baron of Wingham. (fn. 1)
The MANOR OF WINGHAM was part of the antient possessions of the see of Canterbury, given to it in the early period of the Saxon heptarchy, but being torn from it during the troubles of those times, it was restored to the church in the year 941, by king Edmund, his brother Eadred, and Edwin that king's son. (fn. 2) Accordingly it is thus entered, under the general title of the archbishop's possessions, taken in the survey of Domesday:
In the lath of Estrei, in Wingeham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Wingeham in demesne. It was taxed at forty sulings in the time of king Edward the Consessor, and now for thirty-five. The arable land is . . . . . . In demesne there are eight carucates, and four times twenty and five villeins, with twenty borderers having fifty-seven carucates. There are eight servants, and two mills of thirty-four sulings. Wood for the pannage of five hogs, and two small woods for fencing. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth seventy-seven pounds, when he received it the like, and now one hundred pounds. Of this manor William de Arcis holds one suling in Fletes, and there be has in demesne one carucate, and four villeins, and one knight with one carucate, and one fisbery, with a saltpit of thirty pence. The whole value is forty shillings. Of this ma nor five of the archbishop's men hold five sulings and an half and three yokes, and there they have in demesne eight carucates, and twenty-two borderers, and eight servants. In the whole they are worth twenty-one pounds.
In the 36th year of king Henry III. archbishop Boniface obtained the grant of a market at this place. The archbishops had a good house on this manor, in which they frequently resided. Archbishop Baldwin, in king Henry II.'s reign, staid at his house here for some time during his contention with the monks of Christ-church, concerning his college at Hackington. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained king Edward I. here in his 23d year, as did archbishop Walter Reynolds king Edward II. in his 18th year. And king Edward III. in his 5th year, having landed at Dover, with many lords and nobles in his train, came to Wingham, where he was lodged and entertained by archbishop Meopham. And this manor continued part of the see of Canterbury till archbishop Cranmer, in the 29th year of king Henry VIII. exchanged it with the king for other premises. After which it continued in the crown till king Charles I. in his 5th year, granted the scite, called Wingham court, with the demesne lands of the manor, to trustees, for the use of the city of London. From whom, by the direction of the mayor and commonalty, it was conveyed, at the latter end of that reign, to Sir William Cowper, knight and baronet, in whose descendants it has continued down to the right hon. Peter-Francis Cowper, earl Cowper, who is the present owner of it. (fn. 3)
BUT THE MANOR ITSELF, with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.
TRAPHAM is a mansion in this parish, which was formerly in the possession of a family of the same name, who resided at it, but after they were extinct it passed into that of Trippe, who bore for their arms, Gules, a chevron, or, between three borses heads erased, sable, bridled, collared and crined of the second; (fn. 4) and John Tripp, esq. resided here in queen Elizabeth's reign, as did his grandson Charles, who seems to have alienated it to Sir Christopher Harflete, of St. Stephen's, whose son Tho. Harflete, esq. left an only daughter and heir Afra, who carried it in marriage to John St. Leger, esq. of Doneraile, in Ireland, descended from Sir Anthony St. Leger, lord deputy of Ireland in Henry VIII.'s reign, and they joined in the alienation of it to Brook Bridges, esq of the adjoining parish of Goodneston, whose descendant Sir Brook Wm. Bridges, bart. of that place, is the present owner of it.
The MANOR OF DENE, situated in the valley, at the southern boundary of this parish, was antiently the inheritance of a family who took their surname from it, and held it by knight's service of the archbishop, in king Edward I's reign, but they seem to have been extinct here in that of king Edward III. After which it passed into the family of Hussey, who bore for their arms, Per chevron, argent and vert, three birds counterchanged; and then to Wood, before it came by sale into the family of Oxenden, who appear to have been possessed of it at the latter end of Henry VI.'s reign, about which time they had become by marriage, owners of Brook and other estates in this parish. The family of Oxenden have been resident in this county from the reign of king Edward III. Solomon Oxenden, being the first mentioned in the several pedigrees of it, whose near relation Richard Oxenden was prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, in that reign; in this name and family of Oxenden, whose arms were Argent, a chevron, gules, between three oxen, sable, armed, or; which coat was confirmed to the family by Gyan, king at arms, anno 24 Henry VI. this manor and seat continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, who was on May 8, 1678, created a baronet, whose youngest grandson Sir George Oxenden, bart. succeeding at length to the title on the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry, resided at Dene, where he died in 1775, having served in parliament for Sandwich, and been employed in high offices in administration, and leaving behind him the character of a compleat gentleman. He married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheirs of Edward Dunck, esq. of Little Wittenham, in Berkshire, by whom he had two sons, of whom George, the second, was made by will heir to the estate of Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, on his death, s. p. and changed his name to Dixwell as enjoined by it, but died soon afterwards likewise, s. p. and that estate came at length to his eldest brother Henry, who succeeded his father in the title of Baronet. He married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Sir George Chudleigh, bart. of Devonshire, since deceased, by whom he has issue Henry Oxenden, esq. of Madekyn, in Barham, who married Mary, one of the daughters of Col. Graham, of St. Laurence, near Canterbury, by whom he has issue. Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. now resides at Brome, and is the present possessor of this manor and seat, as well as the rest of his father's estates in this parish. (fn. 5) Lady Hales, widow of Sir Thomas Pym Hales, bart. of Bekesborne, now resides in it.
TWITHAM, now usually called Twittam, is a hamlet in this parish, adjoining to Goodneston, the principal estate in which once belonged to a family of that name, one of whom Alanus de Twitham is recorded as having been with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, who bore for his arms, Semee of crosscroslets, and three cinquesoils, argent, and held this estate in Twitham, of the archbishop, and they appear to have continued possessed of it in the 3d year of king Richard II. Some time after which it came into the possession of Fineux, and William Fineux sold it anno 33 Henry VIII. to Ingram Wollet, whose heirs passed it away to one of the family of Oxenden, of Wingham, in whose descendants it has continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, the present possessor of it.
On the foundation of the college of Wingham, archbishop Peckham, in 1286, endowed the first diaconal prebend in it, which he distinguished by the name of the prebend of Twitham, with the tithes of the lands of Alanus de Twitham, which he freely held of the archbishop there in Goodwynestone, at Twytham. (fn. 6)
BROOK is an estate in this parish, situated northward from Twitham, which was formerly the estate of the Wendertons, of Wenderton, in this parish, in which it remained till by a female heir Jane, it went in marriage to Richard Oxenden, gent. of Wingham, who died in 1440, and was buried in Wingham church, in whose name and family it continued down to Henry Oxenden, of Brook, who left two daughters and coheirs, of whom Mary married Richard Oxenden, of Grays Inn, barrister-at-law, fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart, who afterwards, on his wife's becoming sole heiress of Brook, possessed it, and resided here. He left Elizabeth his sole daughter and heir, who carried it in marriage to Streynsham Master, esq. a captain in the royal navy, the eldest surviving son of James Master, esq. of East Langdon, who died some few days after his marriage; upon which she became again possessed of it in her own right, and dying in 1759, s. p. gave it by will to Henry Oxenden, esq. now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, and he is the present owner of it.
WENDERTON is a manor and antient seat, situated northward from Wingham church, eminent, says Philipott, for its excellent air, situation, and prospect, which for many successive generations had owners of that surname, one of whom, John de Wenderton, is mentioned in Fox's Martyrology, as one among other tenants of the manor of Wingham, on whom archbishop Courtnay, in 1390, imposed a penance for neglecting to perform some services due from that manor. In his descendants this seat continued till John Wenderton, of Wenderton, in the 1st year of Henry VIII. passed it away to archbishop Warham, who at his decease in 1533, gave it to his youngest brother John Warham, whose great-grandson John, by his will in 1609, ordered this manor to be sold, which it accordingly soon afterwards was to Manwood, from which name it was alienated, about the middle of the next reign of king Charles I. to Vincent Denne, gent. who resided here, and died in 1642, s. p. whose four nieces afterwards became by will possessed of it, and on the partition of their estates, the manor and mansion, with part of the lands since called Great Wenderton, was allotted to Mary, the youngest of them, who afterwards married Vincent Denne, sergeant-at-law, and the remaining part of it, which adjoins to them, since called Little Wenderton, to Dorothy, the third sister, afterwards married to Roger Lukin, gent. of London, who soon afterwards sold his share to Richard Oxenden, esq. of Brook, from one of which family it was sold to Underdown, by a female heir of which name, Frances, it went in marriage to John Carter, esq. of Deal, the present owner of it.
BUT GREAT WENDERTON continued in the possession of Sergeant Denne, till his death in 1693, when Dorothy, his eldest daughter and coheir, carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Ginder, who bore Argent, on a pale, sable, a cross fuchee, or, impaling azure, three lions heads, or; as they are on his monument. He resided at it till his death in 1716, as did his widow till her decease in 1736, when it came to her nephew Mr. Thomas Hatley, who left two daughters his coheirs, the eldest surviving of whom, Anne, carried it in marriage, first to Richard Nicholas, esq. and then successively to Mr. Smith and Mr. James Corneck, of London, and Mrs. Corneck, the widow of the latter, is the present possessor of it.
At the boundary of this parish, adjoining to Preston and Ash, lies THE MANOR OF WALMESTONE, usually called Wamston, which was antiently part of the possessions of the family of Septvans, one of whom, Robert de Septvans, held it in king Edward II.'s reign, of the archbishop; whose descendant Sir William de Septvans died possessed of it in the 25th year of that reign. (fn. 7) How long it continued in this name I have not found; but at the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign it was become the property of William Bonington, of Canterbury, who died in 1463, and directed it by his will to be sold. After which it became, about the latter end of king Henry VIII.'s reign, the property of Walter Hendley, esq. the king's attorney-general, who left three daughters his coheirs, and they joined in the sale of it to Alday, who alienated it to Benedict Barnham, esq. alderman of London, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Elizabeth, carried it in marriage to Mervin Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, who being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, was executed anno 7 Charles I. Soon after which this manor seems to have been divided, and one part of it, since called Little Walmestone, in which was included the manor and part of the demesne lands, passed from his heirs to the Rev. John Smith, rector of Wickham Breaus, who having founded a scholarship at Oxford, out of the lands of it, presently afterwards sold it to Solly, of Pedding, in which name it continued till Stephen Solly, gent. of Pedding, and his two sons, John and Stephen, in 1653, joined in the conveyance of it to Thomas Winter, yeoman, of Wingham, in which name it remained for some time. At length, after some intermediate owners, it was sold to Sympson, and John Sympson, esq. of Canterbury, died possessed of it in 1748, leaving his wife surviving, who held it at her decease, upon which it came to her husband's heir-atlaw, and it is now accordingly in the possession of Mr. Richard Simpson.
BUT GREAT WALMESTONE, consisting of the mansion-house, with a greater part of the demesne lands of the manor, was passed away by the heirs of the earl of Castlehaven to Brigham, and Mr. Charles Brigham, of London, in the year 1653, sold it to William Rutland, of London, who left two daughters his coheirs, of whom Mary married John Ketch, by whom she had a sole daughter Anne, who afterwards at length became possessed of it, and carried it in marriage to Samuel Starling, gent. of Worcestershire, who in 1718, conveyed it, his only son Samuel joining in it, to Thomas Willys, esq. of London, afterwards created a baronet. After which it passed in the same manner, and in the like interests and shares, as the manor of Dargate, in Hernehill, down to Matthew, Robert and Thomas Mitchell, the trustees for the several uses to which this, among other estates belonging to the Willis's, had been limited; and they joined in the sale of it, in 1789, to Mr. William East, whose son, Mr. John East, of Wingham, is the present owner of it.
ARCHBISHOP KILWARBY intended to found a college in this church of Wingham, but resigning his archbishopric before he could put his design in practice, archbishop Peckham, his successor, in the year 1286, perfected his predecessor's design, and founded A COLLEGE in this church, for a provost, whose portion, among other premises, was the profits of this church and the vicarage of it, and six secular canons; the prebends of which he distinguished by the names of the several places from whence their respective portions arose, viz. Chilton, Pedding, Twitham, Bonnington, Ratling, and Wimlingswold. The provost's lodge, which appears by the foundation charter to have before been the parsonage, was situated adjoining to the church-yard; and the houses of the canons, at this time called Canon-row, opposite to it. These latter houses are, with their gardens and appurtenances, esteemed to be within the liberty of the town and port of Hastings, and jurisdiction of the cinque ports. This college was suppressed in the 1st year of king Edward VI. among others of the like sort, when the whole revenue of it was valued at 208l. 14s. 3½d. per annum, and 193l. 2s. 1d. clear; but Leland says, it was able to dispend at the suppression only eighty-four pounds per annum. Edward Cranmer, the last master, had at the dissolution a pension of twenty pounds per annum, which he enjoyed in 1553. (fn. 8)
After the dissolution of the college, the capital mansion, late belonging to the provost, remained in the crown till king Edward VI. in his 7th year, granted the scite of it, with the church appropriate of Wingham, and all tithes whatsoever arising within the parish, and one acre of glebe-land in it, to Sir Henry Palmer, subject to a payment of twenty pounds annually to the curate or vicar of it.
The Palmers of Wingham were descended from a very antient one at Angmerin, in Suffex, who bore for their arms, Or, two bars, gules, each charged with three tresoils of the field, in chief, a greyhound, currant, sable. In the seventh descent from Ralph Palmer, esq. of that place, in king Edward II.'s reign, was descended Sir Edward Palmer, of Angmerin, who left three sons, born on three successive Sundays, of whom John, the eldest, was of Sussex, which branch became extinct in queen Elizabeth's reign; Sir Henry, the second son, was of Wingham; and Sir Thomas, the youngest, was beheaded in queen Mary's reign. Sir Henry Palmer, the second son, having purchased the grant of the college of Wingham, as before-mentioned, made it the seat of his residence, as did his son Sir Thomas Palmer, who was sheriff anno 37 Elizabeth, and created a baronet in 1621. He so constantly resided at Wingham, that he is said to have kept sixty Christmases, without intermission, in this mansion, with great hospitality. He had three sons, each of whom were knighted. From the youngest of whom, Sir James, descended the Palmers, of Dauney, in Buckinghamshire, who upon the eldest branch becoming extinct, have succeeded to the title of baronet; and by his second wife he had Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemain. Sir Thomas Palmer, the eldest of the three brothers, died in his father's life-time, and left Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, heir to his grandfather; in whose descendants, baronets, of this place, this mansion, with the parsonage of Wingham appropriate, continued down to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, who died possessed of it in 1723, having had three wives; by the first he had four daughters; by the second he had a son Herbert, born before marriage, and afterwards a daughter Frances; the third was Mrs. Markham, by whom he had no issue; and she afterwards married Thomas Hey, esq. whom she likewise survived. Sir Thomas Palmer, by his will, gave this seat, with the parsonage appropriate and tithes of Wingham, inter alia, after his widow's decease, to his natural son Herbert Palmer, esq. above-mentioned, who married Bethia, fourth daughter of Sir Thomas D'Aeth, bart. of Knolton. He died in 1760, s. p. and by will devised his interest in the reversion of this seat, with the parsonage, to his wife Bethia, for her life, and afterwards to his sister Mrs. Frances Palmer, in tail. But he never had possession of it, for lady Palmer furvived him, on whose death in 1763, Mrs. Bethia Palmer, his widow, became entitled to it, and afterwards married John Cosnan, esq. who died in 1773. She survived him, and resided here till her death in 1789. In the intermediate time, Mrs. Frances Palmer having barred the entail made by her natural brother Herbett above-mentioned, died, having devised the see of this estate, by her will in 1770, to the Rev. Thomas Hey, rector of Wickhambreaux, and his heirs, being the eldest son of the last lady Palmer by her last husband. Mr. Hey accordingly, on the death of Mrs. Cosnan, who died s. p. succeeded to this seat and estate. He married first Ethelreda, eldest daughter and coheir of dean Lynch, since deceased, by whom he has no surviving issue; and secondly, Mrs. Pugett, widow of Mr. Puget, of London. He now resides in this seat of Wingham college, having been created D. D. and promoted to a prebend of the church of Rochester.
Charities.
JOHN CHURCH, yeoman, of this parish, in 1604, gave 1cl. to the poor, to distribute yearly at Easter, 10s. to the poor for the interest of it.
HECTOR DU MONT, a Frenchman, born in 1632, gave the silver cup and patten for the holy communion.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, president for the East-India Company at Surat, in 1660, gave the velvet cushion and pulpitcloth.
JOHN RUSHBEACHER, gent. of this parish, in 1663, gave five acres of land in Woodnesborough, the rents to be annually distributed to ten of the meaner sort of people of Wingham, not receiving alms of the parish, now of the yearly value of 4l.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, above-mentioned, in 1682, gave 500l. for the repairing and beautifying this church, and the Dene chancel.
SIR JAMES OXENDEN, knight and baronet, of Dene, founded and endowed a school in this parish with 16l. per annum for ever, for teaching twenty poor children reading and writing, now in the patronage of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
RICHARD OXENDEN, esq. of Brook, in 1701, gave an annuity of 4l. for ever, to the minister, for the reading of divine service and preaching a sermon, in this church, on every Wednesday in Lent, and on Good Friday; and he at the same time gave 20s. yearly for ever, to be distributed, with the consent of the heirs of the Brook estate, to eight poor people, who should be at divine service on Easter-day, to be paid out of the lands of Brook, now vested in Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
THOMAS PALMER, esq. of St. Dunstan's in the East, London, gave 300l for the repairing, adorning and beautifying the great chancel of this church.
MRS. ELIZABETH MASTER, esq. relict of Strensham Master, of Brook, in 1728, gave the large silver flaggon; and MRS. SYBILLA OXENDEN, spinster, of Brook, at the same time gave a large silver patten for the communion.
Besides the above benefactions, there have been several lesser ones given at different times in money, both to the poor and for the church. All which are recorded in a very handsome table in the church, on which are likewise painted the arms of the several benefactors
There are about forty poor constantly relieved, and casually twenty.
THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is exempt from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a handsome building, consisting of two isles and three chancels, having a slim spire steeple at the west end, in which is a peal of eight bells and a clock. The church consists of two isles and three chancels. The former appear to have been built since the reformation; the latter are much more antient. It is handsome and well built; the pillars between the isles, now cased with wood, are slender and well proportioned. The outside is remarkably beautiful in the flint-work, and the windows throughout it, were regular and handsomely disposed, superior to other churches, till later repairs destroyed their uniformity. The windows were formerly richly ornamented with painted glass, the remains of which are but small. In the south window, in old English letters, is Edward Warham, gentill . . . . of making this window . . . . and underneath the arms of Warham. In the north isle is a brass tablet for Christopher Harris, curate here, and rector of Stourmouth, obt. Nov. 24, 1719. Over the entrance from this isle into the high chancel, is carved on the partition, the Prince of Wales's badge and motto. In the south wall is a circular arch, plain, seemingly over a tomb. A monument for T. Ginder, gent. obt. 1716. In the south east window the arms of Warham. A memorial for Vincent Denne, gent. of Wenderton, obt. 1642. In the high chancel are seven stalls on each side. On the pavement are several stones, robbed of their brasses, over the provosts and religious of the college. A stone, coffin-shaped, and two crosses pomelle, with an inscription round in old French capitals, for master John de Sarestone, rector, ob. XII Kal. May MCCLXXI. Several monuments and memorials for the family of Palmer. The south chancel is called the Dene chancel, belonging to that seat, under which is a vault, in which the family of Oxenden, owners of it, are deposited. In the middle, on the pavement, is a very costly monument, having at the corners four large black oxens beads, in allusion to their name and arms. It was erected in 1682. On the four tablets on the base is an account of the family of Oxenden, beginning with Henry, who built Denehouse, and ending with Dr. Oxenden, dean of the arches, who died in 1704. There are monuments in it likewise for the Trippes. The north chancel is called the Brook chancel, as belonging to that seat, in which are monuments for the Oxendens and Masters's of this seat. This chancel is shut out from the church, and is made use of as a school-room, by which means the monuments are much desaced, and the gravestones, from the filth in it, have become wholly obliterated. On one of these stones was a brass plate, now gone, for Henry Oxenden, esq. who built Dene, obt. 1597.
Elizabeth, daughter of the marquis of Juliers, and widow of John, son of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, after being solemnly veiled a nun, quitted her prosession, and was clandestinely married to Sir Eustace de Danbrichescourt, in a chapel of the mansion-house of Robert de Brome, a canon of this collegiate church, in 1360; for which she and her husband were enjoined different kinds of penance during their lives, which is well worth the reading, for the uncommon superstitious mockery of them. (fn. 9)
At the time of the reformation, the church was partly collegiate, and partly parochial. The high chancel, separated from the rest of the church by a partition, served for the members of the college to perform their quire service in. The two isles of the church were for the parishioners, who from thence could hear the quire service; and in the north isle was a roodlost, where one of the vicars went up and read the gospel to the people. At which time, I find mention of a parish chancel likewise.
The church of Wingham formerly comprehended not only this parish, but those likewise of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, and Wimlingswold; but archbishop Peckham, in 1282, divided them into four distinct parochial churches, and afterwards appropriated them to his new-founded college of Wingham, with a saving to them of certain portions which the vicars of them were accustomed to receive. The profits of this church and the vicarage of it, together with the parsonage-house, being thus appropriated and allotted to the provost, as part of his portion and maintenance, the archbishop, in order that the church should be duly served, by his foundation charter, ordered, that the provost and canons should each of them keep a vicar who should constantly serve in it. In which state it continued till the suppression of the college, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. when it came, among the rest of the revenues of the college, into the hands of the crown, where this parsonage appropriate, to which was annexed, the nomination of the perpetual curate serving in this church, remained till it was granted by king Edward VI. in his 7th year, to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. Since which it has continued in like manner, together with the scite of the college, as has been already mentioned, to the Rev. Dr. Hey, who is the present possessor of this parsonage, together with the patronage of the perpetual curacy of the church of Wingham.
In 1640 the communicants here were three hundred and sixty-one.
¶The curacy is endowed with a stipend of twenty pounds per annum, paid by the owner of the parsonage, and reserved to the curate in the original grant of the college by king Edward VI. and with four pounds per annum, being the Oxenden gift before mentioned; besides which, the stipend of the resident curate, and his successors, was increased in 1797, by a liberal benefaction made by the Rev. Dr. Hey, of one hundred pounds per annum, clear of all deductions, to be paid out of the parsonage, and of a house, garden, and piece of pasture land adjoining, for the curate's use, both which were settled by him on trustees for that purpose.
Hello! Hope you enjoy this photo! I just love the light and how this flower has one in focus and the rest out of focus!
-----------------------------------------
Follow for more and check my other photos also!
------------------------------------------
Support my work by buying my photos! Click Here!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Website: dannyphotography.myportfolio.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or will like to use my photos feel free to contact me.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please Share My Work As It Supports Me :)
The days drag and the weeks fly by.
It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.
The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.
But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparison.
Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.
We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.
Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.
There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.
We won't starve.
We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.
Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.
Also, Jools picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.
What to do with the day?
Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.
First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.
No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.
Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.
Ash is a large village that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.
The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.
indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, revealing an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.
Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the church there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.
And it was.
The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.
got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.
We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rolls, four small pork pies and two Cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told ourselves) and finally found the peppers.
Three peppers cost £50!
Then back home, along the A2.
And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.
Yummy.
There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.
At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.
And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.
Oh dear.
Oh dear indeed.
We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.
------------------------------------------------
An enormous church, picturesquely set at an angle of the village street. It owes its size to the fact that it supported a college of priests in the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, but the north aisle was not replaced, reducing the church to the odd shape we see today. The unusual pillars which divide the nave from the south aisle are of timber, not stone as a result of lack of money. At the end of the south aisle is the Oxenden chapel, which contains that family's excellent bull's head monument. The contemporary metalwork screens and black and white pavements add great dignity to this part of the building. By going through a curved passage from the chapel you can emerge in the chancel, which is dominated by a stone reredos of fifteenth-century date. This French construction was a gift to the church in the 1930s and while it is not good quality carving, is an unusual find in a Kent church.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Wingham
------------------------------------------
hortly after 1280AD Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury established a college of priests at Wingham, with a provost and six canons. From 1286 the priests lived in the attractive timber-framed house opposite St Mary's church. The college accounts for the size of the church, which seems enormous considering the present size of Wingham itself.
There was a cruciform church here before the college was established, but that building was remodelled around 1290, leaving us several excellent Geometric Gothic windows. A south porch and tower were added around 1400. The porch is curious in that there are two stories externally, but internally only one. There are many reminders of the church's past, however; the arch between the south transept and south nave aisle is late Norman, as is a blocked arch on the west wall of the north transept.
By the early 16th century the nave was in poor condition. A local brewer named George Ffogarde of Canterbury was granted a license to raise money for its repair. Having a considerable sum of money for church repair, the unscrupulous brewer absconded with the funds, embezzling £224, a huge sum for the time. The missing funds may explain why the nave was rebuilt using cheaper timber posts to support the arcades, rather than more costly stone.
The octagonal timber posts are of chestnut wood, topped by a crown-post timber roof. Sometime before the mid-19th century the timbers were encased in plaster to resemble Doric columns, but thankfully the plaster has been stripped off and we can appreciate the timber! The nave was rebuilt in the late 16th century, diminishing its footprint and leaving behind some rather odd features, like an external piscina on what was originally the easternmost pier of the nave arcade. Another odd touch is provided by the north transept, remodelled with wood frames in the Georgian period. I'm not sure I can call to mind another essentially medieval church with wooden-framed windows!
In the chancel is a lovely 14th century triple-seat sedilia and piscina. The chancel and nave are separated by a 15th century screen, now truncated, with blank panels which must have once boasted painted figures of saints. But the real treasure in the chancel is a series of ten 14th century misericords. Six of the misericord carvings are simply decorative, with floral or foliage designs. Two show animals; one appears to be a horse, another a donkey. The final two carvings are the most interesting; one shows a woman in a wimple, the other a Green Man peering out from a screen of foliage.
Behind the altar is a lovely 15th century reredos, brought here from Troyes in France. The reredos is in two sections, the upper section depicting the Passion of Christ, the lower showing the Last Supper and the Adoration of the Kings. There are small fragments of rather attractive 14th century grisailles glass in the chancel windows, and near the font are a number of surviving medieval floor tiles.
The interior is full of monuments to the Oxenden and Palmer families. The finest of these are to be found in the north transept chapel. On the east wall of the chapel is a memorial to Sir Nicholas Palmer (d. 1624). The memorial was designed by Nicholas Stone and shows effigies of Palmer and his wife under Corinthian columns and an open pediment. On the north wall is the monument to a later Thomas Palmer (d. 1656) with a bust of the deceased, now somewhat the worse for wear. A tablet to Streynsham Master (d. 1718) is on the south chapel wall, and has a fairly typical pair of skulls at the base of the tablet, wreathed in olive branches.
The most extravagant and eye-catching memorial in the church, however, is to be found in the north transept chapel, which is guarded by ornate wrought-iron screens. In the centre of the chapel is an ebullient obelisk, dated 1682, commemorating the Oxenden family. This free-standing obelisk, possibly designed by Arnold Quellin, is of white stone, with exquisite fruit and flowers cascading down each side, with large black ox heads at each angle of the base. The base is embellished with four putti (cherubic 'infants'). The effect is quite extraordinary; most people will either love it or hate it (I loved it). Also in the south transept is a wall tablet to Charles Tripp (d. 1624).
Other monuments worth mentioning include a 14th century tomb recess in the south aisle wall and a number of 15th century indents in the chancel floor which once contained memorial brasses to canons.
The church is set within a large walled enclosure, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. Unusually, the churchyard wall has been listed Grade-II by the Department of the Environment for its historical interest.
www.britainexpress.com/counties/kent/churches/wingham.htm
-------------------------------------------
WINGHAM
IS the next adjoining parish south-westward from Ash, situated for the most part in the upper half hundred of the same name, and having in it the boroughs of Wingham-street, Deane, Twitham, and Wenderton, which latter is in the lower half hundred of Wingham.
WINGHAM is situated in a healthy pleasant country, the greatest part of it is open uninclosed arable lands, the soil of which, though chalky, is far from being unfertile. The village, or town of Wingham, is nearly in the middle of the parish, having the church and college at the south-west part of it; behind the latter is a field, still called the Vineyard. The village contains about fifty houses, one of which is the court-lodge, and is built on the road leading from Canterbury to Sandwich, at the west end of it runs the stream, called the Wingham river, which having turned a corn-mill here, goes on and joins the Lesser Stour, about two miles below; on each side the stream is a moist tract of meadow land. Near the south boundary of the parish is the mansion of Dene, situated in the bottom, a dry, though dull and gloomy habitation; and at the opposite side, next to Staple, the ruinated mansion of Brook, in a far more open and pleasant situation. To the northward the parish extends a considerable way, almost as far as the churches of Preston and Elmstone. The market, granted anno 36 king Henry III. as mentioned hereafter, if it ever was held, has been disused for a number of years past; though the market-house seems yet remaining. There are two fairs held yearly here, on May 12, and November 12, for cattle and pedlary.
In 1710 there was found on the court-lodge farm, by the plough striking against it, a chest or coffin, of large thick stones, joined together, and covered with a single one at the top. At the bottom were some black ashes, but nothing else in it. The ground round about was searched, but nothing else was sound.
Henry de Wengham, a person of great note and extraordinary parts, and much in favour with Henry III. was born here, who in 1255 made him lord chancellor. In 1259, he was elected bishop of Winchester, which he resused, but towards the latter end of the same year he was chosen bishop of London, being still chancellor, and was consecrated the beginning of the year following. He died in 1262, and was buried in his own cathedral. He bore for his arms, Gules, a heart between two wings, displayed, or.
WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. eldest son of Sir William Cowper, bart. of Ratling-court, in Nonington, having been made lord-keeper of the great seal in 1705, was afterwards by letters patent, dated Dec. 14, 1706, created lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham; and in 1709, was declared lord chancellor. After which, anno 4 George I. he was created earl Cowper and viscount Fordwich, in whose descendants these titles have continued down to the right hon. Peter-Lewis-Francis Cowper, the fifth and present earl Cowper, viscount Fordwich and baron of Wingham. (fn. 1)
The MANOR OF WINGHAM was part of the antient possessions of the see of Canterbury, given to it in the early period of the Saxon heptarchy, but being torn from it during the troubles of those times, it was restored to the church in the year 941, by king Edmund, his brother Eadred, and Edwin that king's son. (fn. 2) Accordingly it is thus entered, under the general title of the archbishop's possessions, taken in the survey of Domesday:
In the lath of Estrei, in Wingeham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Wingeham in demesne. It was taxed at forty sulings in the time of king Edward the Consessor, and now for thirty-five. The arable land is . . . . . . In demesne there are eight carucates, and four times twenty and five villeins, with twenty borderers having fifty-seven carucates. There are eight servants, and two mills of thirty-four sulings. Wood for the pannage of five hogs, and two small woods for fencing. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth seventy-seven pounds, when he received it the like, and now one hundred pounds. Of this manor William de Arcis holds one suling in Fletes, and there be has in demesne one carucate, and four villeins, and one knight with one carucate, and one fisbery, with a saltpit of thirty pence. The whole value is forty shillings. Of this ma nor five of the archbishop's men hold five sulings and an half and three yokes, and there they have in demesne eight carucates, and twenty-two borderers, and eight servants. In the whole they are worth twenty-one pounds.
In the 36th year of king Henry III. archbishop Boniface obtained the grant of a market at this place. The archbishops had a good house on this manor, in which they frequently resided. Archbishop Baldwin, in king Henry II.'s reign, staid at his house here for some time during his contention with the monks of Christ-church, concerning his college at Hackington. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained king Edward I. here in his 23d year, as did archbishop Walter Reynolds king Edward II. in his 18th year. And king Edward III. in his 5th year, having landed at Dover, with many lords and nobles in his train, came to Wingham, where he was lodged and entertained by archbishop Meopham. And this manor continued part of the see of Canterbury till archbishop Cranmer, in the 29th year of king Henry VIII. exchanged it with the king for other premises. After which it continued in the crown till king Charles I. in his 5th year, granted the scite, called Wingham court, with the demesne lands of the manor, to trustees, for the use of the city of London. From whom, by the direction of the mayor and commonalty, it was conveyed, at the latter end of that reign, to Sir William Cowper, knight and baronet, in whose descendants it has continued down to the right hon. Peter-Francis Cowper, earl Cowper, who is the present owner of it. (fn. 3)
BUT THE MANOR ITSELF, with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.
TRAPHAM is a mansion in this parish, which was formerly in the possession of a family of the same name, who resided at it, but after they were extinct it passed into that of Trippe, who bore for their arms, Gules, a chevron, or, between three borses heads erased, sable, bridled, collared and crined of the second; (fn. 4) and John Tripp, esq. resided here in queen Elizabeth's reign, as did his grandson Charles, who seems to have alienated it to Sir Christopher Harflete, of St. Stephen's, whose son Tho. Harflete, esq. left an only daughter and heir Afra, who carried it in marriage to John St. Leger, esq. of Doneraile, in Ireland, descended from Sir Anthony St. Leger, lord deputy of Ireland in Henry VIII.'s reign, and they joined in the alienation of it to Brook Bridges, esq of the adjoining parish of Goodneston, whose descendant Sir Brook Wm. Bridges, bart. of that place, is the present owner of it.
The MANOR OF DENE, situated in the valley, at the southern boundary of this parish, was antiently the inheritance of a family who took their surname from it, and held it by knight's service of the archbishop, in king Edward I's reign, but they seem to have been extinct here in that of king Edward III. After which it passed into the family of Hussey, who bore for their arms, Per chevron, argent and vert, three birds counterchanged; and then to Wood, before it came by sale into the family of Oxenden, who appear to have been possessed of it at the latter end of Henry VI.'s reign, about which time they had become by marriage, owners of Brook and other estates in this parish. The family of Oxenden have been resident in this county from the reign of king Edward III. Solomon Oxenden, being the first mentioned in the several pedigrees of it, whose near relation Richard Oxenden was prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, in that reign; in this name and family of Oxenden, whose arms were Argent, a chevron, gules, between three oxen, sable, armed, or; which coat was confirmed to the family by Gyan, king at arms, anno 24 Henry VI. this manor and seat continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, who was on May 8, 1678, created a baronet, whose youngest grandson Sir George Oxenden, bart. succeeding at length to the title on the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry, resided at Dene, where he died in 1775, having served in parliament for Sandwich, and been employed in high offices in administration, and leaving behind him the character of a compleat gentleman. He married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheirs of Edward Dunck, esq. of Little Wittenham, in Berkshire, by whom he had two sons, of whom George, the second, was made by will heir to the estate of Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, on his death, s. p. and changed his name to Dixwell as enjoined by it, but died soon afterwards likewise, s. p. and that estate came at length to his eldest brother Henry, who succeeded his father in the title of Baronet. He married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Sir George Chudleigh, bart. of Devonshire, since deceased, by whom he has issue Henry Oxenden, esq. of Madekyn, in Barham, who married Mary, one of the daughters of Col. Graham, of St. Laurence, near Canterbury, by whom he has issue. Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. now resides at Brome, and is the present possessor of this manor and seat, as well as the rest of his father's estates in this parish. (fn. 5) Lady Hales, widow of Sir Thomas Pym Hales, bart. of Bekesborne, now resides in it.
TWITHAM, now usually called Twittam, is a hamlet in this parish, adjoining to Goodneston, the principal estate in which once belonged to a family of that name, one of whom Alanus de Twitham is recorded as having been with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, who bore for his arms, Semee of crosscroslets, and three cinquesoils, argent, and held this estate in Twitham, of the archbishop, and they appear to have continued possessed of it in the 3d year of king Richard II. Some time after which it came into the possession of Fineux, and William Fineux sold it anno 33 Henry VIII. to Ingram Wollet, whose heirs passed it away to one of the family of Oxenden, of Wingham, in whose descendants it has continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, the present possessor of it.
On the foundation of the college of Wingham, archbishop Peckham, in 1286, endowed the first diaconal prebend in it, which he distinguished by the name of the prebend of Twitham, with the tithes of the lands of Alanus de Twitham, which he freely held of the archbishop there in Goodwynestone, at Twytham. (fn. 6)
BROOK is an estate in this parish, situated northward from Twitham, which was formerly the estate of the Wendertons, of Wenderton, in this parish, in which it remained till by a female heir Jane, it went in marriage to Richard Oxenden, gent. of Wingham, who died in 1440, and was buried in Wingham church, in whose name and family it continued down to Henry Oxenden, of Brook, who left two daughters and coheirs, of whom Mary married Richard Oxenden, of Grays Inn, barrister-at-law, fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart, who afterwards, on his wife's becoming sole heiress of Brook, possessed it, and resided here. He left Elizabeth his sole daughter and heir, who carried it in marriage to Streynsham Master, esq. a captain in the royal navy, the eldest surviving son of James Master, esq. of East Langdon, who died some few days after his marriage; upon which she became again possessed of it in her own right, and dying in 1759, s. p. gave it by will to Henry Oxenden, esq. now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, and he is the present owner of it.
WENDERTON is a manor and antient seat, situated northward from Wingham church, eminent, says Philipott, for its excellent air, situation, and prospect, which for many successive generations had owners of that surname, one of whom, John de Wenderton, is mentioned in Fox's Martyrology, as one among other tenants of the manor of Wingham, on whom archbishop Courtnay, in 1390, imposed a penance for neglecting to perform some services due from that manor. In his descendants this seat continued till John Wenderton, of Wenderton, in the 1st year of Henry VIII. passed it away to archbishop Warham, who at his decease in 1533, gave it to his youngest brother John Warham, whose great-grandson John, by his will in 1609, ordered this manor to be sold, which it accordingly soon afterwards was to Manwood, from which name it was alienated, about the middle of the next reign of king Charles I. to Vincent Denne, gent. who resided here, and died in 1642, s. p. whose four nieces afterwards became by will possessed of it, and on the partition of their estates, the manor and mansion, with part of the lands since called Great Wenderton, was allotted to Mary, the youngest of them, who afterwards married Vincent Denne, sergeant-at-law, and the remaining part of it, which adjoins to them, since called Little Wenderton, to Dorothy, the third sister, afterwards married to Roger Lukin, gent. of London, who soon afterwards sold his share to Richard Oxenden, esq. of Brook, from one of which family it was sold to Underdown, by a female heir of which name, Frances, it went in marriage to John Carter, esq. of Deal, the present owner of it.
BUT GREAT WENDERTON continued in the possession of Sergeant Denne, till his death in 1693, when Dorothy, his eldest daughter and coheir, carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Ginder, who bore Argent, on a pale, sable, a cross fuchee, or, impaling azure, three lions heads, or; as they are on his monument. He resided at it till his death in 1716, as did his widow till her decease in 1736, when it came to her nephew Mr. Thomas Hatley, who left two daughters his coheirs, the eldest surviving of whom, Anne, carried it in marriage, first to Richard Nicholas, esq. and then successively to Mr. Smith and Mr. James Corneck, of London, and Mrs. Corneck, the widow of the latter, is the present possessor of it.
At the boundary of this parish, adjoining to Preston and Ash, lies THE MANOR OF WALMESTONE, usually called Wamston, which was antiently part of the possessions of the family of Septvans, one of whom, Robert de Septvans, held it in king Edward II.'s reign, of the archbishop; whose descendant Sir William de Septvans died possessed of it in the 25th year of that reign. (fn. 7) How long it continued in this name I have not found; but at the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign it was become the property of William Bonington, of Canterbury, who died in 1463, and directed it by his will to be sold. After which it became, about the latter end of king Henry VIII.'s reign, the property of Walter Hendley, esq. the king's attorney-general, who left three daughters his coheirs, and they joined in the sale of it to Alday, who alienated it to Benedict Barnham, esq. alderman of London, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Elizabeth, carried it in marriage to Mervin Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, who being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, was executed anno 7 Charles I. Soon after which this manor seems to have been divided, and one part of it, since called Little Walmestone, in which was included the manor and part of the demesne lands, passed from his heirs to the Rev. John Smith, rector of Wickham Breaus, who having founded a scholarship at Oxford, out of the lands of it, presently afterwards sold it to Solly, of Pedding, in which name it continued till Stephen Solly, gent. of Pedding, and his two sons, John and Stephen, in 1653, joined in the conveyance of it to Thomas Winter, yeoman, of Wingham, in which name it remained for some time. At length, after some intermediate owners, it was sold to Sympson, and John Sympson, esq. of Canterbury, died possessed of it in 1748, leaving his wife surviving, who held it at her decease, upon which it came to her husband's heir-atlaw, and it is now accordingly in the possession of Mr. Richard Simpson.
BUT GREAT WALMESTONE, consisting of the mansion-house, with a greater part of the demesne lands of the manor, was passed away by the heirs of the earl of Castlehaven to Brigham, and Mr. Charles Brigham, of London, in the year 1653, sold it to William Rutland, of London, who left two daughters his coheirs, of whom Mary married John Ketch, by whom she had a sole daughter Anne, who afterwards at length became possessed of it, and carried it in marriage to Samuel Starling, gent. of Worcestershire, who in 1718, conveyed it, his only son Samuel joining in it, to Thomas Willys, esq. of London, afterwards created a baronet. After which it passed in the same manner, and in the like interests and shares, as the manor of Dargate, in Hernehill, down to Matthew, Robert and Thomas Mitchell, the trustees for the several uses to which this, among other estates belonging to the Willis's, had been limited; and they joined in the sale of it, in 1789, to Mr. William East, whose son, Mr. John East, of Wingham, is the present owner of it.
ARCHBISHOP KILWARBY intended to found a college in this church of Wingham, but resigning his archbishopric before he could put his design in practice, archbishop Peckham, his successor, in the year 1286, perfected his predecessor's design, and founded A COLLEGE in this church, for a provost, whose portion, among other premises, was the profits of this church and the vicarage of it, and six secular canons; the prebends of which he distinguished by the names of the several places from whence their respective portions arose, viz. Chilton, Pedding, Twitham, Bonnington, Ratling, and Wimlingswold. The provost's lodge, which appears by the foundation charter to have before been the parsonage, was situated adjoining to the church-yard; and the houses of the canons, at this time called Canon-row, opposite to it. These latter houses are, with their gardens and appurtenances, esteemed to be within the liberty of the town and port of Hastings, and jurisdiction of the cinque ports. This college was suppressed in the 1st year of king Edward VI. among others of the like sort, when the whole revenue of it was valued at 208l. 14s. 3½d. per annum, and 193l. 2s. 1d. clear; but Leland says, it was able to dispend at the suppression only eighty-four pounds per annum. Edward Cranmer, the last master, had at the dissolution a pension of twenty pounds per annum, which he enjoyed in 1553. (fn. 8)
After the dissolution of the college, the capital mansion, late belonging to the provost, remained in the crown till king Edward VI. in his 7th year, granted the scite of it, with the church appropriate of Wingham, and all tithes whatsoever arising within the parish, and one acre of glebe-land in it, to Sir Henry Palmer, subject to a payment of twenty pounds annually to the curate or vicar of it.
The Palmers of Wingham were descended from a very antient one at Angmerin, in Suffex, who bore for their arms, Or, two bars, gules, each charged with three tresoils of the field, in chief, a greyhound, currant, sable. In the seventh descent from Ralph Palmer, esq. of that place, in king Edward II.'s reign, was descended Sir Edward Palmer, of Angmerin, who left three sons, born on three successive Sundays, of whom John, the eldest, was of Sussex, which branch became extinct in queen Elizabeth's reign; Sir Henry, the second son, was of Wingham; and Sir Thomas, the youngest, was beheaded in queen Mary's reign. Sir Henry Palmer, the second son, having purchased the grant of the college of Wingham, as before-mentioned, made it the seat of his residence, as did his son Sir Thomas Palmer, who was sheriff anno 37 Elizabeth, and created a baronet in 1621. He so constantly resided at Wingham, that he is said to have kept sixty Christmases, without intermission, in this mansion, with great hospitality. He had three sons, each of whom were knighted. From the youngest of whom, Sir James, descended the Palmers, of Dauney, in Buckinghamshire, who upon the eldest branch becoming extinct, have succeeded to the title of baronet; and by his second wife he had Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemain. Sir Thomas Palmer, the eldest of the three brothers, died in his father's life-time, and left Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, heir to his grandfather; in whose descendants, baronets, of this place, this mansion, with the parsonage of Wingham appropriate, continued down to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, who died possessed of it in 1723, having had three wives; by the first he had four daughters; by the second he had a son Herbert, born before marriage, and afterwards a daughter Frances; the third was Mrs. Markham, by whom he had no issue; and she afterwards married Thomas Hey, esq. whom she likewise survived. Sir Thomas Palmer, by his will, gave this seat, with the parsonage appropriate and tithes of Wingham, inter alia, after his widow's decease, to his natural son Herbert Palmer, esq. above-mentioned, who married Bethia, fourth daughter of Sir Thomas D'Aeth, bart. of Knolton. He died in 1760, s. p. and by will devised his interest in the reversion of this seat, with the parsonage, to his wife Bethia, for her life, and afterwards to his sister Mrs. Frances Palmer, in tail. But he never had possession of it, for lady Palmer furvived him, on whose death in 1763, Mrs. Bethia Palmer, his widow, became entitled to it, and afterwards married John Cosnan, esq. who died in 1773. She survived him, and resided here till her death in 1789. In the intermediate time, Mrs. Frances Palmer having barred the entail made by her natural brother Herbett above-mentioned, died, having devised the see of this estate, by her will in 1770, to the Rev. Thomas Hey, rector of Wickhambreaux, and his heirs, being the eldest son of the last lady Palmer by her last husband. Mr. Hey accordingly, on the death of Mrs. Cosnan, who died s. p. succeeded to this seat and estate. He married first Ethelreda, eldest daughter and coheir of dean Lynch, since deceased, by whom he has no surviving issue; and secondly, Mrs. Pugett, widow of Mr. Puget, of London. He now resides in this seat of Wingham college, having been created D. D. and promoted to a prebend of the church of Rochester.
Charities.
JOHN CHURCH, yeoman, of this parish, in 1604, gave 1cl. to the poor, to distribute yearly at Easter, 10s. to the poor for the interest of it.
HECTOR DU MONT, a Frenchman, born in 1632, gave the silver cup and patten for the holy communion.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, president for the East-India Company at Surat, in 1660, gave the velvet cushion and pulpitcloth.
JOHN RUSHBEACHER, gent. of this parish, in 1663, gave five acres of land in Woodnesborough, the rents to be annually distributed to ten of the meaner sort of people of Wingham, not receiving alms of the parish, now of the yearly value of 4l.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, above-mentioned, in 1682, gave 500l. for the repairing and beautifying this church, and the Dene chancel.
SIR JAMES OXENDEN, knight and baronet, of Dene, founded and endowed a school in this parish with 16l. per annum for ever, for teaching twenty poor children reading and writing, now in the patronage of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
RICHARD OXENDEN, esq. of Brook, in 1701, gave an annuity of 4l. for ever, to the minister, for the reading of divine service and preaching a sermon, in this church, on every Wednesday in Lent, and on Good Friday; and he at the same time gave 20s. yearly for ever, to be distributed, with the consent of the heirs of the Brook estate, to eight poor people, who should be at divine service on Easter-day, to be paid out of the lands of Brook, now vested in Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
THOMAS PALMER, esq. of St. Dunstan's in the East, London, gave 300l for the repairing, adorning and beautifying the great chancel of this church.
MRS. ELIZABETH MASTER, esq. relict of Strensham Master, of Brook, in 1728, gave the large silver flaggon; and MRS. SYBILLA OXENDEN, spinster, of Brook, at the same time gave a large silver patten for the communion.
Besides the above benefactions, there have been several lesser ones given at different times in money, both to the poor and for the church. All which are recorded in a very handsome table in the church, on which are likewise painted the arms of the several benefactors
There are about forty poor constantly relieved, and casually twenty.
THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is exempt from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a handsome building, consisting of two isles and three chancels, having a slim spire steeple at the west end, in which is a peal of eight bells and a clock. The church consists of two isles and three chancels. The former appear to have been built since the reformation; the latter are much more antient. It is handsome and well built; the pillars between the isles, now cased with wood, are slender and well proportioned. The outside is remarkably beautiful in the flint-work, and the windows throughout it, were regular and handsomely disposed, superior to other churches, till later repairs destroyed their uniformity. The windows were formerly richly ornamented with painted glass, the remains of which are but small. In the south window, in old English letters, is Edward Warham, gentill . . . . of making this window . . . . and underneath the arms of Warham. In the north isle is a brass tablet for Christopher Harris, curate here, and rector of Stourmouth, obt. Nov. 24, 1719. Over the entrance from this isle into the high chancel, is carved on the partition, the Prince of Wales's badge and motto. In the south wall is a circular arch, plain, seemingly over a tomb. A monument for T. Ginder, gent. obt. 1716. In the south east window the arms of Warham. A memorial for Vincent Denne, gent. of Wenderton, obt. 1642. In the high chancel are seven stalls on each side. On the pavement are several stones, robbed of their brasses, over the provosts and religious of the college. A stone, coffin-shaped, and two crosses pomelle, with an inscription round in old French capitals, for master John de Sarestone, rector, ob. XII Kal. May MCCLXXI. Several monuments and memorials for the family of Palmer. The south chancel is called the Dene chancel, belonging to that seat, under which is a vault, in which the family of Oxenden, owners of it, are deposited. In the middle, on the pavement, is a very costly monument, having at the corners four large black oxens beads, in allusion to their name and arms. It was erected in 1682. On the four tablets on the base is an account of the family of Oxenden, beginning with Henry, who built Denehouse, and ending with Dr. Oxenden, dean of the arches, who died in 1704. There are monuments in it likewise for the Trippes. The north chancel is called the Brook chancel, as belonging to that seat, in which are monuments for the Oxendens and Masters's of this seat. This chancel is shut out from the church, and is made use of as a school-room, by which means the monuments are much desaced, and the gravestones, from the filth in it, have become wholly obliterated. On one of these stones was a brass plate, now gone, for Henry Oxenden, esq. who built Dene, obt. 1597.
Elizabeth, daughter of the marquis of Juliers, and widow of John, son of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, after being solemnly veiled a nun, quitted her prosession, and was clandestinely married to Sir Eustace de Danbrichescourt, in a chapel of the mansion-house of Robert de Brome, a canon of this collegiate church, in 1360; for which she and her husband were enjoined different kinds of penance during their lives, which is well worth the reading, for the uncommon superstitious mockery of them. (fn. 9)
At the time of the reformation, the church was partly collegiate, and partly parochial. The high chancel, separated from the rest of the church by a partition, served for the members of the college to perform their quire service in. The two isles of the church were for the parishioners, who from thence could hear the quire service; and in the north isle was a roodlost, where one of the vicars went up and read the gospel to the people. At which time, I find mention of a parish chancel likewise.
The church of Wingham formerly comprehended not only this parish, but those likewise of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, and Wimlingswold; but archbishop Peckham, in 1282, divided them into four distinct parochial churches, and afterwards appropriated them to his new-founded college of Wingham, with a saving to them of certain portions which the vicars of them were accustomed to receive. The profits of this church and the vicarage of it, together with the parsonage-house, being thus appropriated and allotted to the provost, as part of his portion and maintenance, the archbishop, in order that the church should be duly served, by his foundation charter, ordered, that the provost and canons should each of them keep a vicar who should constantly serve in it. In which state it continued till the suppression of the college, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. when it came, among the rest of the revenues of the college, into the hands of the crown, where this parsonage appropriate, to which was annexed, the nomination of the perpetual curate serving in this church, remained till it was granted by king Edward VI. in his 7th year, to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. Since which it has continued in like manner, together with the scite of the college, as has been already mentioned, to the Rev. Dr. Hey, who is the present possessor of this parsonage, together with the patronage of the perpetual curacy of the church of Wingham.
In 1640 the communicants here were three hundred and sixty-one.
¶The curacy is endowed with a stipend of twenty pounds per annum, paid by the owner of the parsonage, and reserved to the curate in the original grant of the college by king Edward VI. and with four pounds per annum, being the Oxenden gift before mentioned; besides which, the stipend of the resident curate, and his successors, was increased in 1797, by a liberal benefaction made by the Rev. Dr. Hey, of one hundred pounds per annum, clear of all deductions, to be paid out of the parsonage, and of a house, garden, and piece of pasture land adjoining, for the curate's use, both which were settled by him on trustees for that purpose.
The days drag and the weeks fly by.
It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.
The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.
But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparison.
Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.
We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.
Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.
There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.
We won't starve.
We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.
Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.
Also, Jools picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.
What to do with the day?
Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.
First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.
No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.
Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.
Ash is a large village that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.
The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.
indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, revealing an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.
Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the church there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.
And it was.
The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.
got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.
We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rolls, four small pork pies and two Cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told ourselves) and finally found the peppers.
Three peppers cost £50!
Then back home, along the A2.
And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.
Yummy.
There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.
At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.
And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.
Oh dear.
Oh dear indeed.
We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.
------------------------------------------------
An enormous church, picturesquely set at an angle of the village street. It owes its size to the fact that it supported a college of priests in the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, but the north aisle was not replaced, reducing the church to the odd shape we see today. The unusual pillars which divide the nave from the south aisle are of timber, not stone as a result of lack of money. At the end of the south aisle is the Oxenden chapel, which contains that family's excellent bull's head monument. The contemporary metalwork screens and black and white pavements add great dignity to this part of the building. By going through a curved passage from the chapel you can emerge in the chancel, which is dominated by a stone reredos of fifteenth-century date. This French construction was a gift to the church in the 1930s and while it is not good quality carving, is an unusual find in a Kent church.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Wingham
------------------------------------------
hortly after 1280AD Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury established a college of priests at Wingham, with a provost and six canons. From 1286 the priests lived in the attractive timber-framed house opposite St Mary's church. The college accounts for the size of the church, which seems enormous considering the present size of Wingham itself.
There was a cruciform church here before the college was established, but that building was remodelled around 1290, leaving us several excellent Geometric Gothic windows. A south porch and tower were added around 1400. The porch is curious in that there are two stories externally, but internally only one. There are many reminders of the church's past, however; the arch between the south transept and south nave aisle is late Norman, as is a blocked arch on the west wall of the north transept.
By the early 16th century the nave was in poor condition. A local brewer named George Ffogarde of Canterbury was granted a license to raise money for its repair. Having a considerable sum of money for church repair, the unscrupulous brewer absconded with the funds, embezzling £224, a huge sum for the time. The missing funds may explain why the nave was rebuilt using cheaper timber posts to support the arcades, rather than more costly stone.
The octagonal timber posts are of chestnut wood, topped by a crown-post timber roof. Sometime before the mid-19th century the timbers were encased in plaster to resemble Doric columns, but thankfully the plaster has been stripped off and we can appreciate the timber! The nave was rebuilt in the late 16th century, diminishing its footprint and leaving behind some rather odd features, like an external piscina on what was originally the easternmost pier of the nave arcade. Another odd touch is provided by the north transept, remodelled with wood frames in the Georgian period. I'm not sure I can call to mind another essentially medieval church with wooden-framed windows!
In the chancel is a lovely 14th century triple-seat sedilia and piscina. The chancel and nave are separated by a 15th century screen, now truncated, with blank panels which must have once boasted painted figures of saints. But the real treasure in the chancel is a series of ten 14th century misericords. Six of the misericord carvings are simply decorative, with floral or foliage designs. Two show animals; one appears to be a horse, another a donkey. The final two carvings are the most interesting; one shows a woman in a wimple, the other a Green Man peering out from a screen of foliage.
Behind the altar is a lovely 15th century reredos, brought here from Troyes in France. The reredos is in two sections, the upper section depicting the Passion of Christ, the lower showing the Last Supper and the Adoration of the Kings. There are small fragments of rather attractive 14th century grisailles glass in the chancel windows, and near the font are a number of surviving medieval floor tiles.
The interior is full of monuments to the Oxenden and Palmer families. The finest of these are to be found in the north transept chapel. On the east wall of the chapel is a memorial to Sir Nicholas Palmer (d. 1624). The memorial was designed by Nicholas Stone and shows effigies of Palmer and his wife under Corinthian columns and an open pediment. On the north wall is the monument to a later Thomas Palmer (d. 1656) with a bust of the deceased, now somewhat the worse for wear. A tablet to Streynsham Master (d. 1718) is on the south chapel wall, and has a fairly typical pair of skulls at the base of the tablet, wreathed in olive branches.
The most extravagant and eye-catching memorial in the church, however, is to be found in the north transept chapel, which is guarded by ornate wrought-iron screens. In the centre of the chapel is an ebullient obelisk, dated 1682, commemorating the Oxenden family. This free-standing obelisk, possibly designed by Arnold Quellin, is of white stone, with exquisite fruit and flowers cascading down each side, with large black ox heads at each angle of the base. The base is embellished with four putti (cherubic 'infants'). The effect is quite extraordinary; most people will either love it or hate it (I loved it). Also in the south transept is a wall tablet to Charles Tripp (d. 1624).
Other monuments worth mentioning include a 14th century tomb recess in the south aisle wall and a number of 15th century indents in the chancel floor which once contained memorial brasses to canons.
The church is set within a large walled enclosure, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. Unusually, the churchyard wall has been listed Grade-II by the Department of the Environment for its historical interest.
www.britainexpress.com/counties/kent/churches/wingham.htm
-------------------------------------------
WINGHAM
IS the next adjoining parish south-westward from Ash, situated for the most part in the upper half hundred of the same name, and having in it the boroughs of Wingham-street, Deane, Twitham, and Wenderton, which latter is in the lower half hundred of Wingham.
WINGHAM is situated in a healthy pleasant country, the greatest part of it is open uninclosed arable lands, the soil of which, though chalky, is far from being unfertile. The village, or town of Wingham, is nearly in the middle of the parish, having the church and college at the south-west part of it; behind the latter is a field, still called the Vineyard. The village contains about fifty houses, one of which is the court-lodge, and is built on the road leading from Canterbury to Sandwich, at the west end of it runs the stream, called the Wingham river, which having turned a corn-mill here, goes on and joins the Lesser Stour, about two miles below; on each side the stream is a moist tract of meadow land. Near the south boundary of the parish is the mansion of Dene, situated in the bottom, a dry, though dull and gloomy habitation; and at the opposite side, next to Staple, the ruinated mansion of Brook, in a far more open and pleasant situation. To the northward the parish extends a considerable way, almost as far as the churches of Preston and Elmstone. The market, granted anno 36 king Henry III. as mentioned hereafter, if it ever was held, has been disused for a number of years past; though the market-house seems yet remaining. There are two fairs held yearly here, on May 12, and November 12, for cattle and pedlary.
In 1710 there was found on the court-lodge farm, by the plough striking against it, a chest or coffin, of large thick stones, joined together, and covered with a single one at the top. At the bottom were some black ashes, but nothing else in it. The ground round about was searched, but nothing else was sound.
Henry de Wengham, a person of great note and extraordinary parts, and much in favour with Henry III. was born here, who in 1255 made him lord chancellor. In 1259, he was elected bishop of Winchester, which he resused, but towards the latter end of the same year he was chosen bishop of London, being still chancellor, and was consecrated the beginning of the year following. He died in 1262, and was buried in his own cathedral. He bore for his arms, Gules, a heart between two wings, displayed, or.
WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. eldest son of Sir William Cowper, bart. of Ratling-court, in Nonington, having been made lord-keeper of the great seal in 1705, was afterwards by letters patent, dated Dec. 14, 1706, created lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham; and in 1709, was declared lord chancellor. After which, anno 4 George I. he was created earl Cowper and viscount Fordwich, in whose descendants these titles have continued down to the right hon. Peter-Lewis-Francis Cowper, the fifth and present earl Cowper, viscount Fordwich and baron of Wingham. (fn. 1)
The MANOR OF WINGHAM was part of the antient possessions of the see of Canterbury, given to it in the early period of the Saxon heptarchy, but being torn from it during the troubles of those times, it was restored to the church in the year 941, by king Edmund, his brother Eadred, and Edwin that king's son. (fn. 2) Accordingly it is thus entered, under the general title of the archbishop's possessions, taken in the survey of Domesday:
In the lath of Estrei, in Wingeham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Wingeham in demesne. It was taxed at forty sulings in the time of king Edward the Consessor, and now for thirty-five. The arable land is . . . . . . In demesne there are eight carucates, and four times twenty and five villeins, with twenty borderers having fifty-seven carucates. There are eight servants, and two mills of thirty-four sulings. Wood for the pannage of five hogs, and two small woods for fencing. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth seventy-seven pounds, when he received it the like, and now one hundred pounds. Of this manor William de Arcis holds one suling in Fletes, and there be has in demesne one carucate, and four villeins, and one knight with one carucate, and one fisbery, with a saltpit of thirty pence. The whole value is forty shillings. Of this ma nor five of the archbishop's men hold five sulings and an half and three yokes, and there they have in demesne eight carucates, and twenty-two borderers, and eight servants. In the whole they are worth twenty-one pounds.
In the 36th year of king Henry III. archbishop Boniface obtained the grant of a market at this place. The archbishops had a good house on this manor, in which they frequently resided. Archbishop Baldwin, in king Henry II.'s reign, staid at his house here for some time during his contention with the monks of Christ-church, concerning his college at Hackington. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained king Edward I. here in his 23d year, as did archbishop Walter Reynolds king Edward II. in his 18th year. And king Edward III. in his 5th year, having landed at Dover, with many lords and nobles in his train, came to Wingham, where he was lodged and entertained by archbishop Meopham. And this manor continued part of the see of Canterbury till archbishop Cranmer, in the 29th year of king Henry VIII. exchanged it with the king for other premises. After which it continued in the crown till king Charles I. in his 5th year, granted the scite, called Wingham court, with the demesne lands of the manor, to trustees, for the use of the city of London. From whom, by the direction of the mayor and commonalty, it was conveyed, at the latter end of that reign, to Sir William Cowper, knight and baronet, in whose descendants it has continued down to the right hon. Peter-Francis Cowper, earl Cowper, who is the present owner of it. (fn. 3)
BUT THE MANOR ITSELF, with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.
TRAPHAM is a mansion in this parish, which was formerly in the possession of a family of the same name, who resided at it, but after they were extinct it passed into that of Trippe, who bore for their arms, Gules, a chevron, or, between three borses heads erased, sable, bridled, collared and crined of the second; (fn. 4) and John Tripp, esq. resided here in queen Elizabeth's reign, as did his grandson Charles, who seems to have alienated it to Sir Christopher Harflete, of St. Stephen's, whose son Tho. Harflete, esq. left an only daughter and heir Afra, who carried it in marriage to John St. Leger, esq. of Doneraile, in Ireland, descended from Sir Anthony St. Leger, lord deputy of Ireland in Henry VIII.'s reign, and they joined in the alienation of it to Brook Bridges, esq of the adjoining parish of Goodneston, whose descendant Sir Brook Wm. Bridges, bart. of that place, is the present owner of it.
The MANOR OF DENE, situated in the valley, at the southern boundary of this parish, was antiently the inheritance of a family who took their surname from it, and held it by knight's service of the archbishop, in king Edward I's reign, but they seem to have been extinct here in that of king Edward III. After which it passed into the family of Hussey, who bore for their arms, Per chevron, argent and vert, three birds counterchanged; and then to Wood, before it came by sale into the family of Oxenden, who appear to have been possessed of it at the latter end of Henry VI.'s reign, about which time they had become by marriage, owners of Brook and other estates in this parish. The family of Oxenden have been resident in this county from the reign of king Edward III. Solomon Oxenden, being the first mentioned in the several pedigrees of it, whose near relation Richard Oxenden was prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, in that reign; in this name and family of Oxenden, whose arms were Argent, a chevron, gules, between three oxen, sable, armed, or; which coat was confirmed to the family by Gyan, king at arms, anno 24 Henry VI. this manor and seat continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, who was on May 8, 1678, created a baronet, whose youngest grandson Sir George Oxenden, bart. succeeding at length to the title on the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry, resided at Dene, where he died in 1775, having served in parliament for Sandwich, and been employed in high offices in administration, and leaving behind him the character of a compleat gentleman. He married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheirs of Edward Dunck, esq. of Little Wittenham, in Berkshire, by whom he had two sons, of whom George, the second, was made by will heir to the estate of Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, on his death, s. p. and changed his name to Dixwell as enjoined by it, but died soon afterwards likewise, s. p. and that estate came at length to his eldest brother Henry, who succeeded his father in the title of Baronet. He married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Sir George Chudleigh, bart. of Devonshire, since deceased, by whom he has issue Henry Oxenden, esq. of Madekyn, in Barham, who married Mary, one of the daughters of Col. Graham, of St. Laurence, near Canterbury, by whom he has issue. Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. now resides at Brome, and is the present possessor of this manor and seat, as well as the rest of his father's estates in this parish. (fn. 5) Lady Hales, widow of Sir Thomas Pym Hales, bart. of Bekesborne, now resides in it.
TWITHAM, now usually called Twittam, is a hamlet in this parish, adjoining to Goodneston, the principal estate in which once belonged to a family of that name, one of whom Alanus de Twitham is recorded as having been with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, who bore for his arms, Semee of crosscroslets, and three cinquesoils, argent, and held this estate in Twitham, of the archbishop, and they appear to have continued possessed of it in the 3d year of king Richard II. Some time after which it came into the possession of Fineux, and William Fineux sold it anno 33 Henry VIII. to Ingram Wollet, whose heirs passed it away to one of the family of Oxenden, of Wingham, in whose descendants it has continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, the present possessor of it.
On the foundation of the college of Wingham, archbishop Peckham, in 1286, endowed the first diaconal prebend in it, which he distinguished by the name of the prebend of Twitham, with the tithes of the lands of Alanus de Twitham, which he freely held of the archbishop there in Goodwynestone, at Twytham. (fn. 6)
BROOK is an estate in this parish, situated northward from Twitham, which was formerly the estate of the Wendertons, of Wenderton, in this parish, in which it remained till by a female heir Jane, it went in marriage to Richard Oxenden, gent. of Wingham, who died in 1440, and was buried in Wingham church, in whose name and family it continued down to Henry Oxenden, of Brook, who left two daughters and coheirs, of whom Mary married Richard Oxenden, of Grays Inn, barrister-at-law, fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart, who afterwards, on his wife's becoming sole heiress of Brook, possessed it, and resided here. He left Elizabeth his sole daughter and heir, who carried it in marriage to Streynsham Master, esq. a captain in the royal navy, the eldest surviving son of James Master, esq. of East Langdon, who died some few days after his marriage; upon which she became again possessed of it in her own right, and dying in 1759, s. p. gave it by will to Henry Oxenden, esq. now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, and he is the present owner of it.
WENDERTON is a manor and antient seat, situated northward from Wingham church, eminent, says Philipott, for its excellent air, situation, and prospect, which for many successive generations had owners of that surname, one of whom, John de Wenderton, is mentioned in Fox's Martyrology, as one among other tenants of the manor of Wingham, on whom archbishop Courtnay, in 1390, imposed a penance for neglecting to perform some services due from that manor. In his descendants this seat continued till John Wenderton, of Wenderton, in the 1st year of Henry VIII. passed it away to archbishop Warham, who at his decease in 1533, gave it to his youngest brother John Warham, whose great-grandson John, by his will in 1609, ordered this manor to be sold, which it accordingly soon afterwards was to Manwood, from which name it was alienated, about the middle of the next reign of king Charles I. to Vincent Denne, gent. who resided here, and died in 1642, s. p. whose four nieces afterwards became by will possessed of it, and on the partition of their estates, the manor and mansion, with part of the lands since called Great Wenderton, was allotted to Mary, the youngest of them, who afterwards married Vincent Denne, sergeant-at-law, and the remaining part of it, which adjoins to them, since called Little Wenderton, to Dorothy, the third sister, afterwards married to Roger Lukin, gent. of London, who soon afterwards sold his share to Richard Oxenden, esq. of Brook, from one of which family it was sold to Underdown, by a female heir of which name, Frances, it went in marriage to John Carter, esq. of Deal, the present owner of it.
BUT GREAT WENDERTON continued in the possession of Sergeant Denne, till his death in 1693, when Dorothy, his eldest daughter and coheir, carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Ginder, who bore Argent, on a pale, sable, a cross fuchee, or, impaling azure, three lions heads, or; as they are on his monument. He resided at it till his death in 1716, as did his widow till her decease in 1736, when it came to her nephew Mr. Thomas Hatley, who left two daughters his coheirs, the eldest surviving of whom, Anne, carried it in marriage, first to Richard Nicholas, esq. and then successively to Mr. Smith and Mr. James Corneck, of London, and Mrs. Corneck, the widow of the latter, is the present possessor of it.
At the boundary of this parish, adjoining to Preston and Ash, lies THE MANOR OF WALMESTONE, usually called Wamston, which was antiently part of the possessions of the family of Septvans, one of whom, Robert de Septvans, held it in king Edward II.'s reign, of the archbishop; whose descendant Sir William de Septvans died possessed of it in the 25th year of that reign. (fn. 7) How long it continued in this name I have not found; but at the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign it was become the property of William Bonington, of Canterbury, who died in 1463, and directed it by his will to be sold. After which it became, about the latter end of king Henry VIII.'s reign, the property of Walter Hendley, esq. the king's attorney-general, who left three daughters his coheirs, and they joined in the sale of it to Alday, who alienated it to Benedict Barnham, esq. alderman of London, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Elizabeth, carried it in marriage to Mervin Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, who being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, was executed anno 7 Charles I. Soon after which this manor seems to have been divided, and one part of it, since called Little Walmestone, in which was included the manor and part of the demesne lands, passed from his heirs to the Rev. John Smith, rector of Wickham Breaus, who having founded a scholarship at Oxford, out of the lands of it, presently afterwards sold it to Solly, of Pedding, in which name it continued till Stephen Solly, gent. of Pedding, and his two sons, John and Stephen, in 1653, joined in the conveyance of it to Thomas Winter, yeoman, of Wingham, in which name it remained for some time. At length, after some intermediate owners, it was sold to Sympson, and John Sympson, esq. of Canterbury, died possessed of it in 1748, leaving his wife surviving, who held it at her decease, upon which it came to her husband's heir-atlaw, and it is now accordingly in the possession of Mr. Richard Simpson.
BUT GREAT WALMESTONE, consisting of the mansion-house, with a greater part of the demesne lands of the manor, was passed away by the heirs of the earl of Castlehaven to Brigham, and Mr. Charles Brigham, of London, in the year 1653, sold it to William Rutland, of London, who left two daughters his coheirs, of whom Mary married John Ketch, by whom she had a sole daughter Anne, who afterwards at length became possessed of it, and carried it in marriage to Samuel Starling, gent. of Worcestershire, who in 1718, conveyed it, his only son Samuel joining in it, to Thomas Willys, esq. of London, afterwards created a baronet. After which it passed in the same manner, and in the like interests and shares, as the manor of Dargate, in Hernehill, down to Matthew, Robert and Thomas Mitchell, the trustees for the several uses to which this, among other estates belonging to the Willis's, had been limited; and they joined in the sale of it, in 1789, to Mr. William East, whose son, Mr. John East, of Wingham, is the present owner of it.
ARCHBISHOP KILWARBY intended to found a college in this church of Wingham, but resigning his archbishopric before he could put his design in practice, archbishop Peckham, his successor, in the year 1286, perfected his predecessor's design, and founded A COLLEGE in this church, for a provost, whose portion, among other premises, was the profits of this church and the vicarage of it, and six secular canons; the prebends of which he distinguished by the names of the several places from whence their respective portions arose, viz. Chilton, Pedding, Twitham, Bonnington, Ratling, and Wimlingswold. The provost's lodge, which appears by the foundation charter to have before been the parsonage, was situated adjoining to the church-yard; and the houses of the canons, at this time called Canon-row, opposite to it. These latter houses are, with their gardens and appurtenances, esteemed to be within the liberty of the town and port of Hastings, and jurisdiction of the cinque ports. This college was suppressed in the 1st year of king Edward VI. among others of the like sort, when the whole revenue of it was valued at 208l. 14s. 3½d. per annum, and 193l. 2s. 1d. clear; but Leland says, it was able to dispend at the suppression only eighty-four pounds per annum. Edward Cranmer, the last master, had at the dissolution a pension of twenty pounds per annum, which he enjoyed in 1553. (fn. 8)
After the dissolution of the college, the capital mansion, late belonging to the provost, remained in the crown till king Edward VI. in his 7th year, granted the scite of it, with the church appropriate of Wingham, and all tithes whatsoever arising within the parish, and one acre of glebe-land in it, to Sir Henry Palmer, subject to a payment of twenty pounds annually to the curate or vicar of it.
The Palmers of Wingham were descended from a very antient one at Angmerin, in Suffex, who bore for their arms, Or, two bars, gules, each charged with three tresoils of the field, in chief, a greyhound, currant, sable. In the seventh descent from Ralph Palmer, esq. of that place, in king Edward II.'s reign, was descended Sir Edward Palmer, of Angmerin, who left three sons, born on three successive Sundays, of whom John, the eldest, was of Sussex, which branch became extinct in queen Elizabeth's reign; Sir Henry, the second son, was of Wingham; and Sir Thomas, the youngest, was beheaded in queen Mary's reign. Sir Henry Palmer, the second son, having purchased the grant of the college of Wingham, as before-mentioned, made it the seat of his residence, as did his son Sir Thomas Palmer, who was sheriff anno 37 Elizabeth, and created a baronet in 1621. He so constantly resided at Wingham, that he is said to have kept sixty Christmases, without intermission, in this mansion, with great hospitality. He had three sons, each of whom were knighted. From the youngest of whom, Sir James, descended the Palmers, of Dauney, in Buckinghamshire, who upon the eldest branch becoming extinct, have succeeded to the title of baronet; and by his second wife he had Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemain. Sir Thomas Palmer, the eldest of the three brothers, died in his father's life-time, and left Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, heir to his grandfather; in whose descendants, baronets, of this place, this mansion, with the parsonage of Wingham appropriate, continued down to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, who died possessed of it in 1723, having had three wives; by the first he had four daughters; by the second he had a son Herbert, born before marriage, and afterwards a daughter Frances; the third was Mrs. Markham, by whom he had no issue; and she afterwards married Thomas Hey, esq. whom she likewise survived. Sir Thomas Palmer, by his will, gave this seat, with the parsonage appropriate and tithes of Wingham, inter alia, after his widow's decease, to his natural son Herbert Palmer, esq. above-mentioned, who married Bethia, fourth daughter of Sir Thomas D'Aeth, bart. of Knolton. He died in 1760, s. p. and by will devised his interest in the reversion of this seat, with the parsonage, to his wife Bethia, for her life, and afterwards to his sister Mrs. Frances Palmer, in tail. But he never had possession of it, for lady Palmer furvived him, on whose death in 1763, Mrs. Bethia Palmer, his widow, became entitled to it, and afterwards married John Cosnan, esq. who died in 1773. She survived him, and resided here till her death in 1789. In the intermediate time, Mrs. Frances Palmer having barred the entail made by her natural brother Herbett above-mentioned, died, having devised the see of this estate, by her will in 1770, to the Rev. Thomas Hey, rector of Wickhambreaux, and his heirs, being the eldest son of the last lady Palmer by her last husband. Mr. Hey accordingly, on the death of Mrs. Cosnan, who died s. p. succeeded to this seat and estate. He married first Ethelreda, eldest daughter and coheir of dean Lynch, since deceased, by whom he has no surviving issue; and secondly, Mrs. Pugett, widow of Mr. Puget, of London. He now resides in this seat of Wingham college, having been created D. D. and promoted to a prebend of the church of Rochester.
Charities.
JOHN CHURCH, yeoman, of this parish, in 1604, gave 1cl. to the poor, to distribute yearly at Easter, 10s. to the poor for the interest of it.
HECTOR DU MONT, a Frenchman, born in 1632, gave the silver cup and patten for the holy communion.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, president for the East-India Company at Surat, in 1660, gave the velvet cushion and pulpitcloth.
JOHN RUSHBEACHER, gent. of this parish, in 1663, gave five acres of land in Woodnesborough, the rents to be annually distributed to ten of the meaner sort of people of Wingham, not receiving alms of the parish, now of the yearly value of 4l.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, above-mentioned, in 1682, gave 500l. for the repairing and beautifying this church, and the Dene chancel.
SIR JAMES OXENDEN, knight and baronet, of Dene, founded and endowed a school in this parish with 16l. per annum for ever, for teaching twenty poor children reading and writing, now in the patronage of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
RICHARD OXENDEN, esq. of Brook, in 1701, gave an annuity of 4l. for ever, to the minister, for the reading of divine service and preaching a sermon, in this church, on every Wednesday in Lent, and on Good Friday; and he at the same time gave 20s. yearly for ever, to be distributed, with the consent of the heirs of the Brook estate, to eight poor people, who should be at divine service on Easter-day, to be paid out of the lands of Brook, now vested in Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
THOMAS PALMER, esq. of St. Dunstan's in the East, London, gave 300l for the repairing, adorning and beautifying the great chancel of this church.
MRS. ELIZABETH MASTER, esq. relict of Strensham Master, of Brook, in 1728, gave the large silver flaggon; and MRS. SYBILLA OXENDEN, spinster, of Brook, at the same time gave a large silver patten for the communion.
Besides the above benefactions, there have been several lesser ones given at different times in money, both to the poor and for the church. All which are recorded in a very handsome table in the church, on which are likewise painted the arms of the several benefactors
There are about forty poor constantly relieved, and casually twenty.
THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is exempt from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a handsome building, consisting of two isles and three chancels, having a slim spire steeple at the west end, in which is a peal of eight bells and a clock. The church consists of two isles and three chancels. The former appear to have been built since the reformation; the latter are much more antient. It is handsome and well built; the pillars between the isles, now cased with wood, are slender and well proportioned. The outside is remarkably beautiful in the flint-work, and the windows throughout it, were regular and handsomely disposed, superior to other churches, till later repairs destroyed their uniformity. The windows were formerly richly ornamented with painted glass, the remains of which are but small. In the south window, in old English letters, is Edward Warham, gentill . . . . of making this window . . . . and underneath the arms of Warham. In the north isle is a brass tablet for Christopher Harris, curate here, and rector of Stourmouth, obt. Nov. 24, 1719. Over the entrance from this isle into the high chancel, is carved on the partition, the Prince of Wales's badge and motto. In the south wall is a circular arch, plain, seemingly over a tomb. A monument for T. Ginder, gent. obt. 1716. In the south east window the arms of Warham. A memorial for Vincent Denne, gent. of Wenderton, obt. 1642. In the high chancel are seven stalls on each side. On the pavement are several stones, robbed of their brasses, over the provosts and religious of the college. A stone, coffin-shaped, and two crosses pomelle, with an inscription round in old French capitals, for master John de Sarestone, rector, ob. XII Kal. May MCCLXXI. Several monuments and memorials for the family of Palmer. The south chancel is called the Dene chancel, belonging to that seat, under which is a vault, in which the family of Oxenden, owners of it, are deposited. In the middle, on the pavement, is a very costly monument, having at the corners four large black oxens beads, in allusion to their name and arms. It was erected in 1682. On the four tablets on the base is an account of the family of Oxenden, beginning with Henry, who built Denehouse, and ending with Dr. Oxenden, dean of the arches, who died in 1704. There are monuments in it likewise for the Trippes. The north chancel is called the Brook chancel, as belonging to that seat, in which are monuments for the Oxendens and Masters's of this seat. This chancel is shut out from the church, and is made use of as a school-room, by which means the monuments are much desaced, and the gravestones, from the filth in it, have become wholly obliterated. On one of these stones was a brass plate, now gone, for Henry Oxenden, esq. who built Dene, obt. 1597.
Elizabeth, daughter of the marquis of Juliers, and widow of John, son of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, after being solemnly veiled a nun, quitted her prosession, and was clandestinely married to Sir Eustace de Danbrichescourt, in a chapel of the mansion-house of Robert de Brome, a canon of this collegiate church, in 1360; for which she and her husband were enjoined different kinds of penance during their lives, which is well worth the reading, for the uncommon superstitious mockery of them. (fn. 9)
At the time of the reformation, the church was partly collegiate, and partly parochial. The high chancel, separated from the rest of the church by a partition, served for the members of the college to perform their quire service in. The two isles of the church were for the parishioners, who from thence could hear the quire service; and in the north isle was a roodlost, where one of the vicars went up and read the gospel to the people. At which time, I find mention of a parish chancel likewise.
The church of Wingham formerly comprehended not only this parish, but those likewise of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, and Wimlingswold; but archbishop Peckham, in 1282, divided them into four distinct parochial churches, and afterwards appropriated them to his new-founded college of Wingham, with a saving to them of certain portions which the vicars of them were accustomed to receive. The profits of this church and the vicarage of it, together with the parsonage-house, being thus appropriated and allotted to the provost, as part of his portion and maintenance, the archbishop, in order that the church should be duly served, by his foundation charter, ordered, that the provost and canons should each of them keep a vicar who should constantly serve in it. In which state it continued till the suppression of the college, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. when it came, among the rest of the revenues of the college, into the hands of the crown, where this parsonage appropriate, to which was annexed, the nomination of the perpetual curate serving in this church, remained till it was granted by king Edward VI. in his 7th year, to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. Since which it has continued in like manner, together with the scite of the college, as has been already mentioned, to the Rev. Dr. Hey, who is the present possessor of this parsonage, together with the patronage of the perpetual curacy of the church of Wingham.
In 1640 the communicants here were three hundred and sixty-one.
¶The curacy is endowed with a stipend of twenty pounds per annum, paid by the owner of the parsonage, and reserved to the curate in the original grant of the college by king Edward VI. and with four pounds per annum, being the Oxenden gift before mentioned; besides which, the stipend of the resident curate, and his successors, was increased in 1797, by a liberal benefaction made by the Rev. Dr. Hey, of one hundred pounds per annum, clear of all deductions, to be paid out of the parsonage, and of a house, garden, and piece of pasture land adjoining, for the curate's use, both which were settled by him on trustees for that purpose.
c/n unknown.
Built 1959.
It’s very pleasing to see that the last remaining Mk1 Victor ‘XH648’ is now undergoing a thorough restoration and has an assured future with the museum. It will be no short project and she is seen here during initial strip down in Hangar 5 at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford Airfield, Cambridgeshire, UK.
26th May 2017.
The following history for XH648 is from the IWM website:-
“XH648 was originally built as a B1 and its first flight was on 27th November 1959. It was delivered to No. 57 Squadron at Honington on 21st December 1959. In October 1960 it went to Handley Page at Radlett for conversion to B1A status, which involved new ECM equipment as well as changing the engines to Sapphire mk 20701s. Improved radio and radar equipment was also fitted. After the conversion and a period of test flying, XH648 was delivered to RAF Cottesmore on 11th May 1961 to join 15 Squadron. Flown as part of the Far East Air Force during the confrontation with Indonesia in 1962-63 it was the only Victor to drop 35 1000lb bombs at the same time over the Song Song area. On return from Indonesia, XH648 remained with 15 Squadron, until 3rd April 1964, when it was delivered back to RAF Honington, to join 55 Squadron. Less than a year later, in 1965 it was converted by Handley Page in 1965 into a two-point tanker, making it a B(K)1A This involved the fitting of Mk 20B refuelling pods under each wing. It then returned to 55 Squadron, who shortly afterwards moved to RAF Marham. It was here that XH648 remained for the next ten years. On 23rd June 1975, XH648 was transferred to 57 Squadron (also based at Marham), where it supported the Squadron's final year as a Mk1 tanker Squadron. It was retired to Duxford on 2nd June 1976.”
The Manhattan Beach Pier is a pier located in Manhattan Beach, California, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The pier is 928 feet (283 m) long and located at the end of Manhattan Beach Boulevard.[4] An octagonal Mediterranean-style building sits at the end of the pier and houses the Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab & Aquarium. Surfers can be seen below the pier and sometimes weave in and out of the mussel-covered pilings. The pier is popular with locals, tourists, photographers, and artists and for fishing. It offers sunsets and vantage points from the shore and hillside.
History
Pre-history
In 1897, the Potencia Company was incorporated to develop land in the area and proposed a seaside resort with wharves and piers.[1] The area was named Potencia, but the city of Manhattan was incorporated in 1912 with the word "Beach" being added in 1927.[1] The name was chosen by land developer John Merrill[disambiguation needed], a native of New York.[1]
A pier is believed to have been one of the first features built when the Manhattan Beach community was developed.[5] Two wooden piers were built in 1901, one at Center Street (later renamed Manhattan Beach Boulevard[6]) and one at Marine Avenue called Peck's Pier and Pavilion.[2]
The Center Street Pier was 900 feet (270 m) long and pylons were made by fastening three railroad rails together and driving them into the ocean floor.[5] It supported a narrow wooden deck and wave motor to generate power for the Strand lighting system, but sources disagree about whether the system worked.[1][2][5] Part of the wave motor may still be buried in the sands at the shore end of the present pier.[2] This "old iron pier", as it was called, was destroyed by a major storm in 1913.[5]
Current pier
The pier from Manhattan Beach Boulevard
Lack of money, lawsuits, storms, World War I and debates about when and where to build another pier delayed Manhattan Beach from having a pier completed until 1920.[1][5] Engineer A.L. Harris developed the concept of the circular end for less exposure and damage to the pilings by the waves.[1] The pier was completed and dedicated on July 5, 1920.[1][2] The next version built was a cement pier with a rounded end and it was 928 feet (283 m) long.[5] Octagonal house that now holds a lunch restaurant was completed in 1922.[5] In 1928, a 200-foot (61 m) wooden extension was added but it was destroyed in a storm in 1940.[5] In 1991 the pier was restored to its 1920s appearance with a dedication ceremony in 1992.[5]
In 1928 the pier was extended out 200 feet (at no cost to the city) when a Captain Larsen of Redondo Beach offered to pay for an extension in exchange for the rights to run a shoreboat between the pier and his barge Georgina.[1] On January 9, 1940, 90 feet (27 m) of the extension were ripped away during a winter storm. The extension was never repaired and the remaining section was swept away in February 1941.[1]
In 1946 the pier and adjoining beach were deeded over from the city of Manhattan Beach to the state.[1] During the next four decades the pier would remain a focus of beachfront activity, but Mother Nature and old age took their toll and by the 1980s the pier was in sad shape and in need of renovation.[1]
Restoration took place in the early 1990s with a focus on retention of the old time appearance, much like Pier 7 in San Francisco.[1] The original pier had to be fixed as old age and decay required extensive repair, and in fact made it unsafe by the late 1980s (when a jogger was injured by falling concrete).[1]
In 1995, the pier was declared a state historic landmark.[3][7] It is the oldest standing concrete pier on the West Coast.[7][8] It is managed by the County of Los Angeles, Department of Beaches and Harbors.[1] Correction: The Pier is managed by the City of Manhattan Beach Public Works
Attractions
Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab & Aquarium
The Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium is located at the end of the pier, and is free to the public. The Aquarium includes a shark tank, tide pool touch tank with animals common to Southern California, tanks with lobsters, and baby sharks as well as brightly colored, non-native fish and invertebrates.[2] The aquarium is open Saturdays & Sundays 10 a.m. to sunset and Monday through Friday 3 p.m. to sunset and group and education tours offered.[2]
The octagonal building includes a Spanish tile roof and large gooseneck reflectors to improve lighting.[1]
Fishing
According to Pierfishing.com the sandy beach area yields the normal surf species; barred surfperch, croakers, small rays and guitarfish (shovelnose shark). The pier is especially known for its magnificent barred surfperch fishing. At times, anglers catch hundreds of them within an hour of time, using mainly small jigs and sandcrabs. The area around the pilings yield pileperch, walleye surfperch, silver surfperch, and other common pier species. Mid-pier, casting away from the pier, yields small tom cod (white croaker) and herring (queenfish), jacksmelt, yellowfin croaker and an occasional halibut. Action at the end of the pier is improved by the surrounding artificial reef which is located about 65 feet (20 m) from the end. Fish at the deepest water end include bonito, Pacific mackerel, jack mackerel, barracuda, an occasional white seabass or even yellowtail, and reef visitors like kelp bass, sand bass and sculpin (scorpionfish).[1] The resident species in Santa Monica Bay may be dangerous to eat, but those that migrate in and out of the bay are considered safe to eat.[1] A variety of baits are utilized.
Surfing
The pier played a significant role in the history of surfing. The pier was a popular spot for Southern California surfers in the 1940s, the early days of modern surfing. Dale Velzy, the first commercial surfboard shaper, started his business building and repairing boards under the pier before renting a nearby storefront in 1949, starting what is considered the first surf shop.[9]
In film
It is used in
Point Break (1991) - Keanu Reeves buys his surfboard from a shop located on the pier.
Starsky & Hutch (2004) - Starsky (Ben Stiller), can be seen stretching under the pier.
Tequila Sunrise (1988) - Mel Gibson's character lives on the beach near the pier.
The Manhattan Beach Pier is a pier located in Manhattan Beach, California, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The pier is 928 feet (283 m) long and located at the end of Manhattan Beach Boulevard.[4] An octagonal Mediterranean-style building sits at the end of the pier and houses the Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab & Aquarium. Surfers can be seen below the pier and sometimes weave in and out of the mussel-covered pilings. The pier is popular with locals, tourists, photographers, and artists and for fishing. It offers sunsets and vantage points from the shore and hillside.
History
Pre-history
In 1897, the Potencia Company was incorporated to develop land in the area and proposed a seaside resort with wharves and piers.[1] The area was named Potencia, but the city of Manhattan was incorporated in 1912 with the word "Beach" being added in 1927.[1] The name was chosen by land developer John Merrill[disambiguation needed], a native of New York.[1]
A pier is believed to have been one of the first features built when the Manhattan Beach community was developed.[5] Two wooden piers were built in 1901, one at Center Street (later renamed Manhattan Beach Boulevard[6]) and one at Marine Avenue called Peck's Pier and Pavilion.[2]
The Center Street Pier was 900 feet (270 m) long and pylons were made by fastening three railroad rails together and driving them into the ocean floor.[5] It supported a narrow wooden deck and wave motor to generate power for the Strand lighting system, but sources disagree about whether the system worked.[1][2][5] Part of the wave motor may still be buried in the sands at the shore end of the present pier.[2] This "old iron pier", as it was called, was destroyed by a major storm in 1913.[5]
Current pier
The pier from Manhattan Beach Boulevard
Lack of money, lawsuits, storms, World War I and debates about when and where to build another pier delayed Manhattan Beach from having a pier completed until 1920.[1][5] Engineer A.L. Harris developed the concept of the circular end for less exposure and damage to the pilings by the waves.[1] The pier was completed and dedicated on July 5, 1920.[1][2] The next version built was a cement pier with a rounded end and it was 928 feet (283 m) long.[5] Octagonal house that now holds a lunch restaurant was completed in 1922.[5] In 1928, a 200-foot (61 m) wooden extension was added but it was destroyed in a storm in 1940.[5] In 1991 the pier was restored to its 1920s appearance with a dedication ceremony in 1992.[5]
In 1928 the pier was extended out 200 feet (at no cost to the city) when a Captain Larsen of Redondo Beach offered to pay for an extension in exchange for the rights to run a shoreboat between the pier and his barge Georgina.[1] On January 9, 1940, 90 feet (27 m) of the extension were ripped away during a winter storm. The extension was never repaired and the remaining section was swept away in February 1941.[1]
In 1946 the pier and adjoining beach were deeded over from the city of Manhattan Beach to the state.[1] During the next four decades the pier would remain a focus of beachfront activity, but Mother Nature and old age took their toll and by the 1980s the pier was in sad shape and in need of renovation.[1]
Restoration took place in the early 1990s with a focus on retention of the old time appearance, much like Pier 7 in San Francisco.[1] The original pier had to be fixed as old age and decay required extensive repair, and in fact made it unsafe by the late 1980s (when a jogger was injured by falling concrete).[1]
In 1995, the pier was declared a state historic landmark.[3][7] It is the oldest standing concrete pier on the West Coast.[7][8] It is managed by the County of Los Angeles, Department of Beaches and Harbors.[1] Correction: The Pier is managed by the City of Manhattan Beach Public Works
Attractions
Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab & Aquarium
The Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium is located at the end of the pier, and is free to the public. The Aquarium includes a shark tank, tide pool touch tank with animals common to Southern California, tanks with lobsters, and baby sharks as well as brightly colored, non-native fish and invertebrates.[2] The aquarium is open Saturdays & Sundays 10 a.m. to sunset and Monday through Friday 3 p.m. to sunset and group and education tours offered.[2]
The octagonal building includes a Spanish tile roof and large gooseneck reflectors to improve lighting.[1]
Fishing
According to Pierfishing.com the sandy beach area yields the normal surf species; barred surfperch, croakers, small rays and guitarfish (shovelnose shark). The pier is especially known for its magnificent barred surfperch fishing. At times, anglers catch hundreds of them within an hour of time, using mainly small jigs and sandcrabs. The area around the pilings yield pileperch, walleye surfperch, silver surfperch, and other common pier species. Mid-pier, casting away from the pier, yields small tom cod (white croaker) and herring (queenfish), jacksmelt, yellowfin croaker and an occasional halibut. Action at the end of the pier is improved by the surrounding artificial reef which is located about 65 feet (20 m) from the end. Fish at the deepest water end include bonito, Pacific mackerel, jack mackerel, barracuda, an occasional white seabass or even yellowtail, and reef visitors like kelp bass, sand bass and sculpin (scorpionfish).[1] The resident species in Santa Monica Bay may be dangerous to eat, but those that migrate in and out of the bay are considered safe to eat.[1] A variety of baits are utilized.
Surfing
The pier played a significant role in the history of surfing. The pier was a popular spot for Southern California surfers in the 1940s, the early days of modern surfing. Dale Velzy, the first commercial surfboard shaper, started his business building and repairing boards under the pier before renting a nearby storefront in 1949, starting what is considered the first surf shop.[9]
In film
It is used in
Point Break (1991) - Keanu Reeves buys his surfboard from a shop located on the pier.
Starsky & Hutch (2004) - Starsky (Ben Stiller), can be seen stretching under the pier.
Tequila Sunrise (1988) - Mel Gibson's character lives on the beach near the pier.
//What a disaster
William Saunderson-Meyer says the floods just another blow to a province that was already on its knees
KwaZulu-Natal has declared a provincial state of disaster to try to cope with the devastating floods of the past week.
This is normally a temporary mechanism of which the primary purpose is to facilitate speedy national government assistance to hard-pressed provincial and local authorities. It also triggers the release of emergency funds from the National Treasury.
But in KZN’s case, they might as well make it permanent. This is a province that has been on its knees for some time and it ain’t getting up any time soon.
After all, KZN hasn’t even staunched the bloodied nose it suffered nine months ago. That’s when one wing of the African National Congress government — the Radical Economic Transformation followers of former president Jacob Zuma — tried to bury the other — the so-called reformists led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
KZN hasn’t even properly tallied the body blows it suffered then. The official estimates for the insurrection were 45,000 businesses affected, R50bn in economic damage, 129,000 jobs lost, and 354 killed.
These estimates are probably on the low side. For example, the number of people who were killed in the mayhem doesn’t include the many whose bodies were simply never found and counted.
And the true economic cost is incalculable. There’s been substantially increased emigration of minorities, cancelled investment, and the loss of international confidence in KZN as a safe tourist destination. In at least a dozen small, country towns, all the business infrastructure was destroyed, paradoxically by the very people who worked and shopped in those buildings.
Now the floods. The death toll is over 300 and still rising. Some 6,000 homes have been destroyed and road, water sewage and electrical infrastructure uprooted. As I write this, roaming mobs are opportunistically plundering container depots, stranded trucks, abandoned homes and vulnerable businesses, reportedly unhindered — as was the case during last year’s riots — by the police and army.
Naturally, no disaster is complete without a scapegoat. Ramaphosa, as is his style, was quick off the mark to finger the culprit — climate change.
“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” Ramaphosa told reporters while inspecting a devastated Durban. “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
What balderdash. Whatever role climate change may or may not have played in the larger scheme of things, it’s nonsense to pin on it responsibility for the plight of KZN. That lies with the ANC government.
First, this was not an unforeseeable bolt from the heavens. The forecasters warned months back that this was likely to be an exceptionally wet summer because of the La Niña weather pattern that occurs every few years.
There are also historical precedents for extreme weather in KZN, which a prudent administration would have taken note of.
In 1984, Tropical Storm Domoina wreaked havoc in a swathe from Mozambique, through Swaziland to KZN. Although the current downpour is worse, the scale is nevertheless in the same ballpark.
This latest storm — as yet unnamed — dumped 450mm of rain on Durban in 48 hours. Domoina let loose 615mm in 24 hours on Swaziland and northern KZN.
But the true difference between those events, 38 years apart, lies in the lack of preparedness on the part of today’s authorities. In 1984 the SA Air Force deployed 25 helicopters to airlift people to safety. In the 2000 Mozambique floods, 17 SAAF helicopters rescued more than 14,000 people.
This time, according to a News24 report, the SA Police Service and the SAAF, combined, have been unable to put a single chopper in the air. The erosion of South Africa’s military means that of the SAAF’s 39 Oryx helicopters, only 17 are serviceable.
Durban-based 15 Squadron has not a single helicopter available for search and rescue — they are reportedly primarily used as VIP transport — but two SAAF choppers supposedly have been despatched from Gqeberha to help. The SAPS airwing has only one serviceable helicopter but “the pilot on duty has been booked off sick”.
Second, throughout the province, local government is also in a state of disaster and unable to do its job. The scale of the KZN impairment can be measured in the flood destruction of homes.
Some 4,000 shanties have been destroyed, many because officialdom was too lax to forbid building on the floodplain and against precariously unstable hillsides. Another 2,000 of the homes swept away were so-called RDP houses, shoddily built during the kickback-and-steal bonanza of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme of the late 1990s.
In Durban, the eThekwini metro is bloated and inert. It carries a rates and services debt of R17bn, of which R1bn is owed by the national government.
Durban is also infamously corrupt. Former mayor Zandile Gumede — along with 21 co-accused — is facing fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges in connection with a R320m municipal tender.
Yet at the weekend, even as the rain was bucketing down, she won the ANC’s regional leadership contest hands-down, despite the party’s supposed “step-aside when accused” rule.
The ANC-aligned Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has no illusions about the party it supports. It issued a statement calling on the government to ensure that unlike the plundering of Covid-19 emergency relief funds, the KZN disaster funds were not stolen or misused.
Fat chance. The ANC has already announced that its parliamentary constituency offices in KZN would become “hubs for humanitarian support” and appealed for the donation of relief supplies. Watch the trousering by the ANC’s public representatives of anything that the public is dumb enough to leave with them.
It’s in KZN where the ANC’s brazen indifference to the law and antipathy towards the Constitution is at its most obvious and most destructive.
On Monday, Zuma's corruption trial once again failed to take off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when he successfully blocked the process with another round of delaying legal actions. His lawyers also had some carefully threatening words for the judiciary in a separate Supreme Court of Appeal action.
They urged SCA President Mandisa Maya to reconsider the dismissal of his latest corruption prosecution challenges. They warned that last year’s deadly July unrest was “in part, traceable to a perceived erroneous and unjust judicial outcome” that put Zuma briefly in prison for contempt of court.
“When such conceived mistakes are committed, the citizens (wrongly) feel entitled to resort to self-help…”
Floods, fires and locusts are devastating but at least happen relatively rarely. The ANC, alas, is a seemingly unending plague.
//What a disaster
William Saunderson-Meyer says the floods just another blow to a province that was already on its knees
KwaZulu-Natal has declared a provincial state of disaster to try to cope with the devastating floods of the past week.
This is normally a temporary mechanism of which the primary purpose is to facilitate speedy national government assistance to hard-pressed provincial and local authorities. It also triggers the release of emergency funds from the National Treasury.
But in KZN’s case, they might as well make it permanent. This is a province that has been on its knees for some time and it ain’t getting up any time soon.
After all, KZN hasn’t even staunched the bloodied nose it suffered nine months ago. That’s when one wing of the African National Congress government — the Radical Economic Transformation followers of former president Jacob Zuma — tried to bury the other — the so-called reformists led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
KZN hasn’t even properly tallied the body blows it suffered then. The official estimates for the insurrection were 45,000 businesses affected, R50bn in economic damage, 129,000 jobs lost, and 354 killed.
These estimates are probably on the low side. For example, the number of people who were killed in the mayhem doesn’t include the many whose bodies were simply never found and counted.
And the true economic cost is incalculable. There’s been substantially increased emigration of minorities, cancelled investment, and the loss of international confidence in KZN as a safe tourist destination. In at least a dozen small, country towns, all the business infrastructure was destroyed, paradoxically by the very people who worked and shopped in those buildings.
Now the floods. The death toll is over 300 and still rising. Some 6,000 homes have been destroyed and road, water sewage and electrical infrastructure uprooted. As I write this, roaming mobs are opportunistically plundering container depots, stranded trucks, abandoned homes and vulnerable businesses, reportedly unhindered — as was the case during last year’s riots — by the police and army.
Naturally, no disaster is complete without a scapegoat. Ramaphosa, as is his style, was quick off the mark to finger the culprit — climate change.
“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” Ramaphosa told reporters while inspecting a devastated Durban. “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
What balderdash. Whatever role climate change may or may not have played in the larger scheme of things, it’s nonsense to pin on it responsibility for the plight of KZN. That lies with the ANC government.
First, this was not an unforeseeable bolt from the heavens. The forecasters warned months back that this was likely to be an exceptionally wet summer because of the La Niña weather pattern that occurs every few years.
There are also historical precedents for extreme weather in KZN, which a prudent administration would have taken note of.
In 1984, Tropical Storm Domoina wreaked havoc in a swathe from Mozambique, through Swaziland to KZN. Although the current downpour is worse, the scale is nevertheless in the same ballpark.
This latest storm — as yet unnamed — dumped 450mm of rain on Durban in 48 hours. Domoina let loose 615mm in 24 hours on Swaziland and northern KZN.
But the true difference between those events, 38 years apart, lies in the lack of preparedness on the part of today’s authorities. In 1984 the SA Air Force deployed 25 helicopters to airlift people to safety. In the 2000 Mozambique floods, 17 SAAF helicopters rescued more than 14,000 people.
This time, according to a News24 report, the SA Police Service and the SAAF, combined, have been unable to put a single chopper in the air. The erosion of South Africa’s military means that of the SAAF’s 39 Oryx helicopters, only 17 are serviceable.
Durban-based 15 Squadron has not a single helicopter available for search and rescue — they are reportedly primarily used as VIP transport — but two SAAF choppers supposedly have been despatched from Gqeberha to help. The SAPS airwing has only one serviceable helicopter but “the pilot on duty has been booked off sick”.
Second, throughout the province, local government is also in a state of disaster and unable to do its job. The scale of the KZN impairment can be measured in the flood destruction of homes.
Some 4,000 shanties have been destroyed, many because officialdom was too lax to forbid building on the floodplain and against precariously unstable hillsides. Another 2,000 of the homes swept away were so-called RDP houses, shoddily built during the kickback-and-steal bonanza of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme of the late 1990s.
In Durban, the eThekwini metro is bloated and inert. It carries a rates and services debt of R17bn, of which R1bn is owed by the national government.
Durban is also infamously corrupt. Former mayor Zandile Gumede — along with 21 co-accused — is facing fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges in connection with a R320m municipal tender.
Yet at the weekend, even as the rain was bucketing down, she won the ANC’s regional leadership contest hands-down, despite the party’s supposed “step-aside when accused” rule.
The ANC-aligned Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has no illusions about the party it supports. It issued a statement calling on the government to ensure that unlike the plundering of Covid-19 emergency relief funds, the KZN disaster funds were not stolen or misused.
Fat chance. The ANC has already announced that its parliamentary constituency offices in KZN would become “hubs for humanitarian support” and appealed for the donation of relief supplies. Watch the trousering by the ANC’s public representatives of anything that the public is dumb enough to leave with them.
It’s in KZN where the ANC’s brazen indifference to the law and antipathy towards the Constitution is at its most obvious and most destructive.
On Monday, Zuma's corruption trial once again failed to take off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when he successfully blocked the process with another round of delaying legal actions. His lawyers also had some carefully threatening words for the judiciary in a separate Supreme Court of Appeal action.
They urged SCA President Mandisa Maya to reconsider the dismissal of his latest corruption prosecution challenges. They warned that last year’s deadly July unrest was “in part, traceable to a perceived erroneous and unjust judicial outcome” that put Zuma briefly in prison for contempt of court.
“When such conceived mistakes are committed, the citizens (wrongly) feel entitled to resort to self-help…”
Floods, fires and locusts are devastating but at least happen relatively rarely. The ANC, alas, is a seemingly unending plague.
Also, you can find my photos on Facebook You can be fan of Vasken Spiru Photography
... The city was for a time included among the dominions of Pyrrhus of Epirus. In 229 BC it came under the control of the Roman Republic, to which it was firmly loyal; it was rewarded in 168 BC with booty seized from Gentius, the defeated king of Illyria. In 148 BC Apollonia became part of the Roman province of Macedonia,specifically of Epirus Nova. In the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar it supported the latter, but fell to Marcus Iunius Brutus in 48 BC. The later Roman emperor Augustus studied in Apollonia in 44 BC under the tutelage of Athenodorus of Tarsus; it was there that he received news of Caesar's murder. ....
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonia,_Illyria
All photography and content are copyright © Vasken Spiru. All rights are reserved world wide. None of these photographs or stories may be reproduced and/or used publicly in any way without the written permission. If you are interested in using my pictures, please contact me at vaskenspiru@gmail.com
This cable drum nad been in this stream for over 20 years. Now it supports part of the stream's ecosystem.
Happy Easter everyone ~
On a walk around the city to see what I may find March 31, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand.
One hundred giant eggs were hidden in secret locations throughout Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch overnight to kickstart an Easter egg hunt.
Dozens of volunteers helped to hide the eggs - which have been decorated by people including Dick Frizzell, Dame Trelise Cooper and Colin Mathura-Jeffree - for the Whittaker's Big Egg Hunt that runs until April 22.
It supports the Starship Foundation, a charity supporting the national children's hospital.
Each egg has a unique code on it that can be texted in to win the overall prize, a 340g 18ct Whittaker's Gold Slab made by Partridge Jewellers.
The giant eggs will be auctioned off for the Starship, 80 on Trade Me and the rest at a gala event on April 16.
Whittaker's will also give at least $150,000 to the Starship from sales of its Peanut Slabs and other chocolate during the hunt.
Starship Foundation chief executive Brad Clark said extraordinary creativity had gone into the eggs - "from realism to abstract, to dinosaurs hatching, stainless-steel sculpture, a bunny biplane and so much more".
For More Info: www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
We are now on the 1st floor level of Francis Stewart's 16th century north wing. The windows on the right look out over the courtyard and the quoin stones of the north-west angle of the keep can be seen running up the wall in the centre of the photo.
As I said under the previous photo, the ground floor of this wing is actually 15th century (and 14th century barmkin) and was obviously considered to be too narrow for the grand private dining and reception rooms envisaged by Francis Stewart on his return from Italy. On the right, the 15th century work ended where the railing are, so the portico not only provided protection from the harsh Scottish sunshine, but it supported a new south wall, 2 yards further out into the courtyard. The floor must have been of timber over the resulting gap. This wall of course is the ornate one, with the diamond-panelled façade, the idea for which Francis Stewart got from the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara.
29 janvier 2011
Les fils ont été retirés et la cicatrice est bien fermée, elle mettra sans doute 1 ou 2 mois pour marcher normalement. Par contre le vétérinaire a cautérisé un kyste qu'elle avait à la queue et le trou profond n'est pas cicatrisé et la plaie très vilaine, alors elle a encore un pansement et doit remettre sa collerette car en 2 jours elle a réussi à enlever son pansement sans la collerette ! Je dois revoir le docteur dans une semaine.
Je pense que cela va prendre beaucoup de temps pour que cette plaie soit cicatrisée malheureusement. Je regrette de lui avoir fait enlever ce kyste !
J'étais si contente de pouvoir la laisser vivre sans cette maudite collerette qu'elle n'aime pas !
Voyez les photos que j'ai prises ce matin ici : www.flickr.com/photos/jogabi/5354935385/page4/
18 janvier 2011
Mes Ami(e)s,
Merci pour tous vos messages de soutien et d'amour envers ma Poussy que j'ai ramenée ce soir à la maison. Dans 10 jours, je dois la ramener chez le vétérinaire pour retirer les fils, d'ici là elle a une collerette pour ne pas se lécher car il n'y a pas de pansements ! Elle supporte mal cette collerette et se cogne partout. Ma pauvre Poussynette est dans un bel état.
J'ai ajouté des photos à la fin des commentaires - www.flickr.com/photos/jogabi/5354935385/page4/
Je suis triste ce soir ....
Bisous mes Ami(e)s
UPDATE
January 29, 2011
The wire were withdrawn and the scar is well closed, it will undoubtedly put 1 or 2 months to go normally.
On the other hand the veterinary surgeon cauterized a cyst that she had with the tail and the deep hole is not healed and the very unpleasant wound, then it still has a bandage and must give its flange because in 2 days it succeeded in removing its bandage without the flange ! I must re-examine the doctor in one week. I think that will take much time so that this wound is healed unfortunately.
I regret having made him remove this cyst! I stays so glad to be able to let it live without this cursed flange that she do not like!
See the pictures taken this morning here : www.flickr.com/photos/jogabi/5354935385/page4/
UPDATE 18.01.11
My dear Friend ,
Thank you for all your messages of support and love towards my Poussy that I brought back to the house this evening . In 10 days, I must bring back it in the veterinary clinik to withdraw wire, now she have a flange not to be licked because he n' there does not have bandages! It supports this flange badly and is knocked everywhere.
My poor Poussynette is in a beautiful state. I added recent pictures at the end of the comments - www.flickr.com/photos/jogabi/5354935385/page4/
Thank you very much for all and kisses.
I'm sad this evening ....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17 janvier 2011
Ma Poussy s'est bien réveillée de son importante intervention chirurgicale, comme c'est une grosse opération, elle est sous perfusion pour les douleurs, je dois rappeler le vétérinaire demain matin qui me confirmera si je peux aller la chercher demain soir.
Merci à toutes et tous pour vos messages d'encouragements et vos pensées envers ma Poussy.
UPDATE
January 17, 2011
My Poussy is well awaked of its important surgical operation, like is a big operation, she is under perfusion for the pains, I must tomorrow morning phone to the veterinary surgeon who will assure me if I can go to seek it tomorrow evening.
Thank you with all for your messages of support and your thoughts towards my Poussy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ma Poussy sera opérée lundi suite à sa mauvaise chute et la déchirure du ligament croisé à sa patte arrière gauche.
Cette semaine elle a été brave car elle se déplace avec difficulté ne pouvant poser sa patte au sol. Elle essaie quand même de sauter sur les meubles et lavabo sans succès, alors je la porte et je la redescends car elle ne doit pas faire du sport ....
Merci infiniment pour tous vos messages de soutien et d'amour pour ma Poussy cette semaine, je sais que vos pensées seront avec elle lundi prochain.
Je me réjouis que ce cauchemar soit fini pour elle surtout.
Je vous donnerai des nouvelles de l'intervention du vétérinaire dès que j'en aurai. Elle rentrera à la maison mardi.
Bisous à vous tous !
My Poussy will be operated Monday following a bad fall and the tear of the ligament crossed with its leg postpones left. This week it was brave because it moves with difficulty not being able to pose its leg on the ground. It nevertheless tries to jump on the chairs and wash-hand basin without success, then I carry it and I go down again it because it should not make sport….
Thank you infinitely for all your messages of support and of love for my Poussy this week, I know that your thoughts will be with her next Monday. I delighted that this nightmare is finished for her especially.
I will give you news of this intervention of the veterinary surgeon as soon as I in will have. She will return to the house Tuesday
Kisses to all of you my friends (Sorry for my bad english ..)
The Noss Head Lighthouse is an active 19th-century lighthouse near Wick in Caithness in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is located at the end of Noss Head, a peninsula on the north-west coast of Caithness that overlooks Sinclairs Bay, three miles north-east of Wick. It is notable as being the first lighthouse that was built with a diagonally-paned lantern room.
The need for the lighthouse was promoted by the Northern Lights Commissioners. The light first entered service in 1849, and consists of an 18-metre-high (59 ft) cylindrical tower, which is painted white. It supports a single gallery and a lantern with a black cupola. There are 76 steps to the top of the tower. Adjacent to the tower are a pair of keeper's cottages and subsidiary buildings, bounded by a walled compound.
The lighthouse was built by Mr. Arnot of Inverness, with the construction being overseen by the notable lighthouse engineer Alan Stevenson (uncle of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson), who for the first time used diagonal glass panes and framing for the exterior lantern. Considered to be both stronger, and less likely to interrupt the light from the optic, the design was employed as the standard for all future lighthouses built by the Board.
As a way to provide work for those local people who had been affected by the Highland potato famine, and needed Poor Relief, labourers were hired at a rate of 3s/6d per day (£18 as of 2024) to construct an access road from Wick to the lighthouse.
In 1987 the light was converted to automatic operation. This same year, all of the former keepers’ cottages and related structures were sold, along with the 39 acres of land upon which they were built. The sole exception being Noss Head Lighthouse Tower which is still owned and operated by the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB). Following automation, the original Fresnel lens and mechanical drive train from the lighthouse were removed and are now exhibited on two floors of the Wick Heritage Centre, one of the few lens and drive train from this period that are still in full working order.
Between 1997 and 2014, the Clan Sinclair Trust (registered charity number: SCO28778) created a residential study centre for research into the Clan Sinclair history. The main research library was within the former First & Second Assistant Lighthouse Keepers' dwellings at Noss Head Lighthouse Station. Up until 23rd May 2017, the Clan Sinclair Trust charity owned both the Castle Sinclair Girnigoe and the Noss Head Lighthouse Station. However, the trustees of the Clan Sinclair charity consulted with its members and decided to sell the lighthouse station and utilise the funds released, to pay for the Castle Sinclair Girnigoe structure to be stabilised and further surpluses to be deployed in the castle’s upkeep.
After the death of Clan Sinclair Trust and charity founder, Mr Ian Sinclair in 2014, the remaining trustees, Viscount Thurso and the Earl of Caithness, with crucial support from the charity patron, HRH Prince Charles, the Noss Head lighthouse premises were kept from deteriorating any further. This was vital in ensuring that the lighthouse buildings were in a sufficiently good state, so as to be capable of viable restoration. The Noss Head Lighthouse buildings remained empty until 23 May 2017. On that day, following a fundraising effort, the Noss Head Lighthouse compound was purchased by subscribers of the “not-for-profit” organisation: Unique Property Bulletin Ltd., (official number: SC413700). An express purpose of this “not-for-profit” entity is to halt problematic deterioration in several of the empty, decaying lighthouse buildings around the U.K. A major refurbishment at Noss Head Lighthouse Station was completed by the new custodians. This made the buildings fit for habitation. That has secured their viability and future. Lighthouse buildings all over the world are falling into disrepair. So it is important to coordinate the help of volunteers and donors to halt this ruination of iconic lighthouse structures. The Noss Head Lighthouse buildings had already become derelict in the 1990s. The Clan Sinclair Trust and charity brought the Noss Head Lighthouse Station back from ruination between 1997 and 2014. History would have repeated itself at both Castle Sinclair Girnigoe and Noss Head Lighthouse Station from 2017 to 2024 were it not for the efforts of the charity: Clan Sinclair Trust now headed by King Charles. Plus onward fundraising and renovation efforts by “not-for-profit” organisations and registered charities. For those with an interest in preserving important Grade A, B and C listed lighthouse buildings, attention beyond Noss Head to lighthouse stations such as Neist Point and Ailsa Craig island is necessary. These and many other lighthouse buildings require not-for-profit and registered charity intervention to prevent them being lost, via dilapidation and decay, forever. During the 2017 to 2019 renovations at Noss Head, the official Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) brought about a significant schedule of repairs, plus maintenance and repainting of the main Noss Head Lighthouse Tower. Both the “not-for-profit” entity and the Northern Lighthouse Board took their turn in bringing the site at Noss Head Lighthouse Station back to the top Grade A condition that the Northern Lighthouse Board set for all of their statutorily listed properties.
In October 2017 the main rotational light at Noss Head Lighthouse Tower was extinguished by the Northern Lighthouse Board and a new, static LED beam was installed.
With a focal height of 53m above sea level, the light can be seen for 25 nautical miles. Its light characteristic is made up of a flash of light every twenty seconds. The colour being white or red, varying with direction. The light and tower is maintained by the Northern Lighthouse Board, and is registered under the international Admiralty number A3544 and has the NGA identifier of 114-3012.
The Lighthouse Tower, former First Assistant and Second Assistant Keeper's Cottages, along with the Stable Block are protected as a category A listed building, and considered to be of national or international importance. The original 1849-built Principal Keeper's Cottage and Occasional Keeper's House were demolished in the 1960s, and a modern detached rectangular single-storey newbuild replaced these to the west of the main lighthouse tower. The 1960s-built structures are not listed, although they are within the environs of the category A listed properties, and as such require appropriate protocols to be observed in relation to their maintenance and upkeep.
Noss Head is a headland on the north-west coast of Scotland that overlooks Sinclairs Bay. It lies approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north-east of Wick in Caithness, in the Highland council area of Scotland.
Noss Head was first mentioned in the historical record as early as the 2nd century AD by Greek geographer Ptolemaios as Verubium Promontorium.
A sea area of 800 ha (3.1 sq mi) off Noss Head has been designated as a Marine Protected Area (MPA) since 2014. It is home to the largest bed of horse mussels known in Scottish waters, which lies at a depth of between 35 and 45 m below sea level. Living amongst the mussel beds are many other species, including soft corals, tubeworms, barnacles, sea firs, and sea mats, brittlestars, crabs, worms and molluscs.
The MPA is designated a Category IV protected area by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.
The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.
Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.
Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".
Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".
Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.
Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.
In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.
When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.
The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.
Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.
According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".
The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.
For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.
In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.
A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.
Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.
The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.
There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.
Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.
The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.
These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.
The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.
Climate
The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.
Places of interest
An Teallach
Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)
Arrochar Alps
Balmoral Castle
Balquhidder
Battlefield of Culloden
Beinn Alligin
Beinn Eighe
Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station
Ben Lomond
Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Cairngorms National Park
Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore
Cairngorm Mountains
Caledonian Canal
Cape Wrath
Carrick Castle
Castle Stalker
Castle Tioram
Chanonry Point
Conic Hill
Culloden Moor
Dunadd
Duart Castle
Durness
Eilean Donan
Fingal's Cave (Staffa)
Fort George
Glen Coe
Glen Etive
Glen Kinglas
Glen Lyon
Glen Orchy
Glenshee Ski Centre
Glen Shiel
Glen Spean
Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)
Grampian Mountains
Hebrides
Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.
Highland Wildlife Park
Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Jail
Inverness Castle
Inverewe Garden
Iona Abbey
Isle of Staffa
Kilchurn Castle
Kilmartin Glen
Liathach
Lecht Ski Centre
Loch Alsh
Loch Ard
Loch Awe
Loch Assynt
Loch Earn
Loch Etive
Loch Fyne
Loch Goil
Loch Katrine
Loch Leven
Loch Linnhe
Loch Lochy
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
Loch Lubnaig
Loch Maree
Loch Morar
Loch Morlich
Loch Ness
Loch Nevis
Loch Rannoch
Loch Tay
Lochranza
Luss
Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran
Rannoch Moor
Red Cuillin
Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83
River Carron, Wester Ross
River Spey
River Tay
Ross and Cromarty
Smoo Cave
Stob Coire a' Chàirn
Stac Polly
Strathspey Railway
Sutherland
Tor Castle
Torridon Hills
Urquhart Castle
West Highland Line (scenic railway)
West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)
Wester Ross
Light Stencils
gel over flash, cardboard box bout 4 foot deep, the stencil cut out and laminated to give it support, stuffed box with tissue ( if you zoom you'll see it in the stencils), ran around my garden flashing my sb800
This strip of linear, rugged cliffs, full of rock debris, was identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports 500 breeding pairs of yelkouan shearwaters.
The area is also used as a campsite by tourists, and is one of the attractions of cruise boats like the Fernandes II (pictured).
Copyright © Kappa Vision / Jean-Paul Borg
For all my latest photos, please visit and like Kappa Vision on Facebook.
This picture appears in Chapter 1 of Your Business Plan is Like a Bra - It Supports Your Every Move.
My favorite quote from this chapter: An inch of doing is worth more than a hundred miles of theorizing.
On a walk around the Christchurch Botanic Gardens April 3, 2014 New Zealand.
One hundred giant eggs were hidden in secret locations throughout Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch overnight to kickstart an Easter egg hunt.
Dozens of volunteers helped to hide the eggs - which have been decorated by people including Dick Frizzell, Dame Trelise Cooper and Colin Mathura-Jeffree - for the Whittaker's Big Egg Hunt that runs until April 22.
It supports the Starship Foundation, a charity supporting the national children's hospital.
Each egg has a unique code on it that can be texted in to win the overall prize, a 340g 18ct Whittaker's Gold Slab made by Partridge Jewellers.
The giant eggs will be auctioned off for the Starship, 80 on Trade Me and the rest at a gala event on April 16.
Whittaker's will also give at least $150,000 to the Starship from sales of its Peanut Slabs and other chocolate during the hunt.
Starship Foundation chief executive Brad Clark said extraordinary creativity had gone into the eggs - "from realism to abstract, to dinosaurs hatching, stainless-steel sculpture, a bunny biplane and so much more".
For More Info: www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
Chester has 2,000 years of history. It was a Roman military fortress and an important port when Liverpool was only a village. It supported the King in the Civil War in the 17th century and was attacked by Cromwell's followers. It has the country's oldest race course and one of the most photographed clocks in England. The old walled city is breathtaking and makes history come alive.
The Middle Ages (from the 13th to the 15th century) were a busy time in Chester. The "Rows", the Old Dee Bridge and the Cross in the centre of Chester all date from this period.
The prosperity of the 17th century is reflected in some of our oldest black and white houses. These beautiful buildings were copied by the Victorians in the late 19th century.
Sankt Nikolai kyrka (Church of St. Nicholas), most commonly known as Storkyrkan (The Great Church) and Stockholms domkyrka (Stockholm Cathedral), is the oldest church in Gamla Stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is an important example of Swedish Brick Gothic. Situated next to the Royal Palace, it forms the western end of Slottsbacken, the major approach to the Royal Palace, while the streets Storkyrkobrinken, Högvaktsterrassen, and Trångsund pass north and west of it, respectively. South of the church is the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building facing the Stortorget square and containing the Swedish Academy, Nobel Library, and Nobel Museum.
Storkyrkan was first mentioned in a written source dated 1279 and according to tradition was originally built by Birger Jarl, the founder of the city itself. For nearly four hundred years it was the only parish church in the city, the other churches of comparable antiquity originally built to serve the spiritual needs of religious communities (e.g., Riddarholm Church). It became a Lutheran Protestant church in 1527. The parish church since the Middle Ages of the Nikolai parish, covering the whole island on which the Old Town stands, it has also been the cathedral of Stockholm since the Diocese of Stockholm was created out of the Archdiocese of Uppsala and the Diocese of Strängnäs in 1942. Because of its convenient size and its proximity to the earlier royal castle and the present royal palace it has frequently been the site of major events in Swedish history, such as coronations, royal wedding and royal funerals. The last Swedish king to be crowned here was Oscar II in 1873. Crown Princess Victoria, oldest daughter of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, was married to Daniel Westling on 19 June 2010 in Storkyrkan, the same date on which her parents were also married in Storkyrkan in 1976.
The most famous of its treasures is the dramatic wooden statue of Saint George and the Dragon attributed to Bernt Notke (1489). The statue, commissioned to commemorate the Battle of Brunkeberg (1471), also serves as a reliquary, containing relics supposedly of Saint George and two other saints. A bronze copy from the early 20th century is found on Österlånggatan just south of the church.
The church also contains a copy of the oldest known image of Stockholm, the painting Vädersolstavlan ("The Sun Dog Painting"), a 1632 copy of a lost original from 1535. The painting was commissioned by the scholar and reformer Olaus Petri, a 19th-century statue of whom is found on the eastern side of the church. It depicts a halo display, e.g. sun dogs, which gives the painting its name and in the 16th century was interpreted as a presage.
The monumental pulpit is the work of Burchard Precht in 1698-1702 and is in a French Baroque style. It became the model for a number of other large pulpits in Sweden. From the rear of its lofty sounding board issues widely billowing dragery, in front of which hover two large winged genii on either side of a radiant sun bearing the Hebrew letters יהוה. The relief on the front of the pulpit itself depicts the story of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28). The door of the pulpit is adorned with a relief of Christ's head, while its pediment is crowned by a statue of Hope with putti on either side. Below the memorial are the arms of the Funck family who bore the greater cost of the pulpit. Beneath the pulpit and surrounded by an iron railing lies the worn gravestone of Olaus Petri.
The view down the central aisle of the church is dominated on either side by the Royal Pews, one facing the other on either side of the central aisle. They were designed by the celebrated architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger and made by Burchard Precht. Each consists of a large enclosed box with decorated sides and back. High above each of the Royal Pews is a large royal crown forming a canopy above it, supported by two genii in flowing mantles, and from which billow sculptured hangings behind the royal seat, while above hover numerous putti. The royal seats are themselves upholstered in blue velvet with rich applied embroidery.
The main altar--"The Silver Altar"—is a wooden triptych with an ebony veneer with sculptured reliefs in silver in ascending order of the Last Supper on the predella; a large depiction of the Crucifixion of Christ between silver statues of Moses and John the Baptist in niches with small silver columns on either side; of the Burial of Christ (between silver statues of the evangelists Matthew and Mark; of Christ's Harrowing of Hell (between statues of the evangelists John and Luke; and on the pediment at top of the triptych, a silver statue of the Risen Christ between two reclining soldiers.
On either side of the Silver Altar is a sculpture holding a candle, one of St. Nicholas (the patron of the church) and the other of St. Peter, both designed by G. Torhamn and carved in oak by the sculptor Herbst in 1937. The rose window above and behind the Silver Altar was made in Paris in the 1850s, the first of a series of modern stained windows in the church contributed by various donors. The Silver Altar and the rose window above it fill the wall space formerly occupied by the apse of the medieval chancel removed by Gustavus Vasa when he expanded the fortifications of the Tre Kronor Castle, while the statue of the Olaus Petri monument at the back exterior of the church stands on the site of the medieval high altar.
The organ currently hiding inside the 1772 organ facade is made in 1960 by the firm Marcussen & Son in Aabenra, Denmark. The organ is all mechanic, has 54 voices spread over four manuals and pedal.
_______________________________________________
Orgelverket som idag döljer sig innanför 1772 års orgelfasad är tillverkat 1960 av firma Marcussen & Son i Aabenra, Danmark. Orgeln är helmekanisk, har 54 stämmor fördelade på 4 manualer och pedal. De fyra manualerna: Ryggpositiv, Huvudverk, Svällverk, Bröstverk och Pedalverk. Ryggpositivet är utlyft ur själva orgeln och är placerat i framkant av orgelläktaren.
The 337 only has eighteen days left under Go Ahead London (Stockwell) operation, before passing to TUK.
E151-162 were new for the route, and 152-160
still work on it, supported by a couple of 60 reg pinched from the 118.
This is E154 passing Clapham Junction Station, I would ride it on its next trip. 6.5.24.