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There is a danger of running out of superlatives when trying to describe Beverley Minster. It is not only the second finest non-cathedral church in the country but is architecturally a far finer building than most of our cathedrals themselves! It will come as a surprise to many visitors to find this grand edifice simply functions today as a parish church and has never been more than collegiate, a status it lost at the Reformaton. What had added to its mystique and wealth was its status as a place of pilgrimage housing the tomb of St John of Beverley, which drew visitors and revenue until the Reformation brought an end to such fortunes and the shrine was destroyed (though the saint's bones were later rediscovered and reinterred in the nave). That this great church itself survived this period almost intact is little short of a miracle in itself.
There has been a church here since the 8th century but little remains of the earlier buildings aside from the Saxon chair near the altar and the Norman font in the nave. The present Minster's construction spans the entirety of the development of Gothic architecture but forms a surprisingly harmonious whole nevertheless, starting with Early English in the 13h century choir and transepts (both pairs) with their lancet windows in a building phase that stopped at the first bays of the nave. Construction was then continued with the nave in the 14th century but only the traceried windows betray the emergent Decorated style, the design otherwise closely followed the work of the previous century which gives the Minster's interior such a pleasingly unified appearance (the only discernable break in construction within can be seen where the black purbeck-marble ceased to be used for certain elements beyond the eastern bay of the nave). Finally the building was completed more or less by 1420 with the soaring west front with its dramatic twin-towers in Perpendicular style (the east window must have been enlarged at this point too to match the new work at the west end).
The fabric happily survived the Reformation intact aside from the octagonal chapter-house formerly adjoining the north choir aisle which was dismantled to raise money by the sale of its materials while the church's fate was in the balance (a similar fate was contemplated for the rest of the church by its new owners until the town bought it for retention as a parish church for £100). The great swathes of medieval glass alas were mostly lost, though seemingly as much to neglect and storm-damage in the following century than the usual iconoclasm. All that survived of the Minster's original glazing was collected to form the patchwork display now filling the great east window, a colourful kaleidoscope of fragments of figures and scenes. Of the other furnishings the choir stalls are the major ensemble and some of the finest medieval canopied stalls extant with a full set of charming misericords (though most of these alas are not normally on show).
There are suprisingly few monuments of note for such an enormous cathedral-like church, but the one major exception makes up for this, the delightful canopied Percy tomb erected in 1340 to the north of the high altar. The tomb itself is surprisingly plain without any likeness remaining of the deceased, but the richly carved Decorated canopy above is alive with gorgeous detail and figurative embellishments. There are further carvings to enjoy adorning the arcading that runs around the outer perimeter of the interior, especially the north nave aisle which has the most rewarding carved figures of musicians, monsters and people suffering various ailments, many were largely restored in the 19th century but still preserve the medieval spirit of irreverent fun.
To summarise Beverley Minster would be difficult other than simply adding that if one enjoys marvelling at Gothic architecture at its best then it really shouldn't be missed and one should prioritise it over the majority of our cathedrals. It is a real gem and a delight to behold, and is happily normally open and welcoming to visitors (who must all be astonished to find this magnificent edifice is no more than a simple parish church in status!). I thoroughly enjoyed this, my second visit here (despite the best efforts of the poor weather!).
Barsana Monastery - Maramures - Romania
Barsana Monastery - -
Barsana monastery, one of the main attractions in Maramures, Romania
When UNESCO designated parts of the Maramures Region in Northern Transylvania a WORLD HERITAGE site, it was aimed at protecting the stylized wooden architecture and its dramatic vernacular. Of particular appeal are the tall spires of orthodox churches that dot the area. One of these is the recently constructed Barsana Monastery complex - actually a convent with sixteen nuns. Created in post-Communist years on the site of a church abandoned in 1790, the complex has become a significant cultural and religious attraction. Its 56 meter-tall (180 feet) spired church is reputedly the tallest wooden structure in Europe.
www.flickr.com/photos/wwwdragos/7614653774/in/set-7215762...
For the annual school performance, I was elected to choreograph and teach a contemporary dance piece which comments on the social issues of the exclusion of individuals. I had only three days to design and make the outfit while teaching five inexperienced dancers. I wanted to draw all six of us together, as if we were dancing as one, with the struggles of exclusion pulling us apart. I designed and made the costume out of one large piece of elasticated white fabric, cut into a circle with six waistbands cut and sewn into it. Achieving perfect balance for the dancers within the circle required exact placing of all six holes in the fabric, this proved to be a challenge.
I chose to create this particular costume for its dramatic effect, as through joining each of the skirts into one, I was drawing on the theme of the necessity for society to work together.
Extremely rare in cultivation, Nernstia mexicana is one of the most beautiful flowering plants in the world. Native to San Luis Potosí and Hidalgo, Mexico between ~1000-3600m elevation, this slow-growing shrub has tidy grey-green leaves with recurved margins and a matte finish. These serve as a perfect backdrop to its dramatic pure white trumpet flowers which emit a fantastic fragrance. This species has considerable horticultural potential and it is my hope that it will someday be available to plant collectors and gardeners in all climates suitable to its cultivation.
Nernstia mexicana belongs to the Coffee-Gardenia family (Rubiaceae) and more specifically to the Portlandiinae subtribe of the Chiococceae tribe, which means that it is a close relative to other glamorous genera such as Osa and Portlandia.
**Calhan Paint Mines Archeological District** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 00000783, date listed 7/14/2000
Approx. 0.5 mi. SE of jct. S. Calhan Rd. and Paint Mine Rd.
Calhan, CO (El Paso County)
The Calhan Paint Mines archaeological district is located in an area of white sandstone and colored clay features southeast of Calhan, Colorado, approximately 31 miles northeast of Colorado Springs. The area is composed of gullies and drainages that resemble “badlands” formations. The same erosional processes that have stripped some areas within the Paint Mines of soils, producing its unique geological features, have also worked to bury cultural deposits in other parts of the district, recording a complex archaeological record of human activity. (1)
Paint Mines Interpretive Park is a unique natural open space in Calhan, CO, featuring four miles of trails, including a main loop commonly referred to as the Paint Mines Interpretive Trail. The park is known for its dramatic, colorful geological formations, or "hoodoos" and spires, created by erosion of iron-oxide-rich clays and sandstone. (Google AI)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form catalog.archives.gov/id/84130078
Scotland baked in the sun today 25/5/2018, with the sun beating down it felt like a day to get out and about, I decided to revisit one of my favourite sites
Dunnottar Castle as it is located
40 minutes drive from my home in Aberdeen,a piper played as visitors and tourists arrived , what a magnificent sight.
I wandered along the base of the castle and enjoyed the bay with its calm waters and great views, after an hour or so it was time to leave and climb the numerous stairs back up the hill to the car park.
Castles History.
Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.
The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.
The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.
The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.
History
Early Middle Ages
A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.
The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.
The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.
Later Middle Ages
During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.
In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.
In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.
Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.
In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.
William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.
16th century rebuilding
Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".
Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.
James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.
During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.
In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.
A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.
An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.
Civil wars
Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.
Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.
Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.
The Honours of Scotland
Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.
They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.
In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.
Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.
Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.
Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.
At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.
Whigs and Jacobites
Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.
The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.
The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.
The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".
Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.
Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.
In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.
Later history
The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.
In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.
Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.
It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.
Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.
Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.
Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.
The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.
Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.
Description
Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.
The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).
The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".
Defences
The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.
The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.
Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.
Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.
The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.
A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.
Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.
Tower house and surrounding buildings
The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west
The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.
Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.
Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.
This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.
The palace
The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.
It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.
Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.
At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.
The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.
The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.
Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.
At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.
The Postcard
A postcard that was published by John Hinde Ltd. of 6, Rupert Street, London W1. The photography was by John Hinde, F.R.P.S., and the card was printed in the Irish Republic.
Note that 'A Hard Day's Night' is being shown at the London Pavilion. The film premiered at the theatre on the 6th. July 1964, and in the rest of the UK from the 10th. July 1964.
The card was posted in Edgware, Middlesex using a 3d. stamp on Wednesday the 3rd. August 1966. It was sent to:
Mrs. Netheridge,
3, Rowantree Close,
London N21.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Mrs. Netheridge,
I hope you are well.
I am at my sister Jackie's
home on holiday.
I made my sister Jackie's
baby boy a pair of shoes.
Love from Daphne
xxxxxxxx"
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space in London's West End. It was built in order to connect Regent Street with Piccadilly. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction.
The Circus now connects Piccadilly, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue, the Haymarket, Coventry Street (onwards to Leicester Square) and Glasshouse Street.
Piccadilly Circus is close to major shopping and entertainment areas, and its status as a major traffic junction has made the Circus a busy meeting place and a tourist attraction in its own right.
Piccadilly Circus is particularly known for its video display and neon signs mounted on the corner building on the northern side, as well as the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain and statue of Anteros (which is popularly, though mistakenly, believed to represent Eros).
Piccadilly Circus is surrounded by several notable buildings, including the London Pavilion and Criterion Theatre. Underneath the plaza is Piccadilly Circus Underground Station, part of the London Underground system.
History of Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus connects to Piccadilly, a thoroughfare whose name first appeared in 1626 as Piccadilly Hall, named after a house belonging to one Robert Baker, a tailor famous for selling piccadills, a term used for various kinds of collars.
The street was named Portugal Street in 1692 in honour of Catherine of Braganza, the queen consort of King Charles II, but by 1743 it was being referred to as Piccadilly.
Piccadilly Circus was created in 1819, at the junction with Regent Street, which was then being built under the planning of John Nash on the site of a house and garden belonging to a Lady Hutton. The intersection was then known as Regent Circus South (just as Oxford Circus was known as Regent Circus North), and it did not begin to be known as Piccadilly Circus until the mid 1880's, with the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue. In the same period, the Circus lost its circular form.
The junction has been a very busy traffic interchange since construction, as it lies at the centre of Theatreland, and handles exit traffic from Piccadilly, which Charles Dickens Jr. described as follows in 1879:
"Piccadilly, the great thoroughfare leading
from the Haymarket and Regent Street
westward to Hyde Park Corner, is the nearest
approach to the Parisian boulevard of which
London can boast."
Piccadilly Circus tube station was opened on the 10th. March 1906, on the Bakerloo line, and on the Piccadilly line in December of that year. In 1928, the station was extensively rebuilt to handle an increase in traffic.
Piccadilly Circus's first electric advertisements appeared in 1908, and, from 1923, electric billboards were set up on the façade of the London Pavilion. Electric street lamps, however, did not replace the gas ones until 1932.
The circus became a one-way roundabout on the 19th. July 1926, and traffic lights were first installed on the 3rd. August 1926.
During World War II many servicemen's clubs in the West End served American soldiers based in Britain. So many prostitutes roamed the area approaching the soldiers that they received the nickname "Piccadilly Commandos", and both Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office discussed possible damage to Anglo-American relations.
The Holford Plan for the Circus
At the start of the 1960's, it was determined that the Circus needed to be redeveloped to allow for greater traffic flow. In 1962, Lord Holford presented a plan which would have created a "double-decker" Piccadilly Circus; the upper deck would have been an elevated pedestrian concourse linking the buildings around the perimeter of the Circus, with the lower deck being solely for traffic, most of the ground-level pedestrian areas having been removed to allow for greater vehicle flow.
This concept was kept alive throughout the rest of the 1960's. A final scheme in 1972 proposed three octagonal towers (the highest 240 feet (73 m) tall) to replace the Trocadero, the Criterion and the "Monico" buildings.
Fortunately the plans were permanently rejected by Sir Keith Joseph and Ernest Marples; the key reason given was that Holford's scheme only allowed for a 20% increase in traffic, and the Government required 50%.
The Holford plan is referenced in the documentary film "Goodbye, Piccadilly", produced by the Rank Organisation in 1967 as part of their Look at Life series when it was still seriously expected that Holford's recommendations would be acted upon. Piccadilly Circus has since escaped major redevelopment, apart from extensive ground-level pedestrianisation around its south side in the 1980's.
Terrorist Bombs
Piccadilly Circus has been targeted by Irish republican terrorists multiple times. On the 24th. June 1939 an explosion occurred, although no injuries were caused, and on the 25th. November 1974 a bomb injured 16 people. A 2lb bomb also exploded on the 6th. October 1992, injuring five people.
The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain
The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in Piccadilly Circus was erected in 1893 to commemorate Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th. Earl of Shaftesbury. Lord Shaftesbury was a Victorian politician, philanthropist and social reformer.
It was removed from the Circus twice and moved from the centre once.
The first time was in 1922, so that Charles Holden's new tube station could be built directly below it. The fountain returned in 1931. During the Second World War, the fountain was removed for the second time and replaced by advertising hoardings. It was returned again in 1948.
When the Circus underwent reconstruction work in the late 1980's, the entire fountain was moved from the centre of the junction at the beginning of Shaftesbury Avenue to its present position at the southwestern corner.
The subject of the Memorial is the Greek god Anteros, and was officially given the name The Angel of Christian Charity, but it is generally mistakenly believed to be his brother Eros.
Location and Sights
Piccadilly Circus is surrounded by tourist attractions, including the Criterion Theatre, London Pavilion and retail stores. Nightclubs, restaurants and bars are located in the area and neighbouring Soho, including the former Chinawhite Club.
Illuminated Signs
Piccadilly Circus was surrounded by illuminated advertising hoardings on buildings, starting in 1908 with a Perrier sign, but only one building now carries them, the one in the north-western corner between Shaftesbury Avenue and Glasshouse Street. The site is unnamed (usually referred to as "Monico" after the Café Monico, which used to be on the site); it has been owned by property investor Land Securities Group since the 1970's.
The earliest signs used incandescent light bulbs; these were replaced with neon lights and with moving signs (there was a large Guinness clock at one time). The first Neon sign was for the British meat extract Bovril.
From December 1998, digital projectors were used for the Coke sign, the square's first digital billboard, while in the 2000's there was a gradual move to LED displays, which by 2011 had completely replaced neon lamps.
The number of signs has reduced over the years as the rental costs have increased, and in January 2017 the six remaining advertising screens were switched off as part of their combination into one large ultra-high definition curved Daktronics display, turning the signs off during renovation for the longest time since the 1940's. On the 26th. October 2017, the new screen was switched on for the first time.
Until the 2017 refurbishment, the site had six LED advertising screens above three large retail units facing Piccadilly Circus on the north side, occupied by Boots, Gap and a mix of smaller retail, restaurant and office premises fronting the other streets.
A Burger King located under the Samsung advert, which had been a Wimpy Bar until 1989, closed in 2008, and was converted into a Barclays Bank.
Coca-Cola has had a sign at Piccadilly Circus since 1954. In September 2003, the previous digital projector board and the site that had been occupied by Nescafé was replaced with a state-of-the-art LED video display that curves round with the building.
From 1978 to 1987 the spot had been used by Philips Electronics, and a neon advertisement for Foster's used the location from 1987 until 1999.
For several months in 2002, the Nescafé sign was replaced by a sign featuring the quote "Imagine all the people living life in peace" by Beatle John Lennon. This was paid for by his widow Yoko Ono, who spent an estimated £150,000 to display an advert at this location. Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero, Fanta, Sprite and Vitamin Water have all been advertised in the space.
The Hyundai Motors sign launched on the 29th. September 2011. It replaced a sign for Sanyo which had occupied the space since 1988, the last to be run using neon lights rather than Hyundai's computerised LED screen.
Earlier Sanyo signs with older logos had occupied the position since 1978, although these were only half the size of the later space.
McDonald's added its sign in 1987, replacing one for BASF. The sign was changed from neon to LED in 2001. A bigger, brighter screen was installed by Daktronics in 2008.
Samsung added its sign in November 1994, the space having been previously occupied by Canon Inc. (1978–84) and Panasonic (1984–94). The sign was changed from neon to LED in summer 2005, and the screen was upgraded and improved in autumn 2011.
L'Oréal, Hunter Original and eBay had signs in the Piccadilly Circus billboards since October 2017. One Piccadilly, the highest resolution of all the LED displays was installed by Daktronics in late 2013, underneath the Samsung and McDonald's signs. It allowed other companies to advertise for both short- and long-term leases, increasing the amount of advertising space but using the same screen for multiple brands.
The Curve, a similar space to One Piccadilly, was added in 2015, replacing a space previously occupied by Schweppes (1920–61), BP (1961–67), Cinzano (1967–78), Fujifilm (1978–86), Kodak (1986–90) and TDK (1990–2015).
On special occasions the lights are switched off, such as the deaths of Winston Churchill in 1965 and Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. On the 21st. June 2007, they were switched off for one hour as part of the Lights Out London campaign.
Other companies and brands that have had signs on the site include Bovril, Volkswagen, Max Factor, Wrigley's Spearmint, Skol, Air India and Will's Gold Flake Cigarettes.
By way of a summary, and to aid the dating of other photographs of Piccadilly Circus, major brands and dates are as follows:
-- BASF up to 1987
-- Bovril from 1923
-- BP 1961 to 1967
-- Canon 1978 to 1984
-- Cinzano 1967 to 1978
-- Coca Cola from 1954
-- eBay from 2017
-- Fosters 1987 to 1999
-- Guinness from 1930 - see below
-- Fujifilm 1978 to 1986
-- Hyundai from 2011
-- Kodak 1986 to 1990
-- l'Oréal from 2017
-- McDonald's from 1987
-- Nescafé from 1999
-- Panasonic 1984 to 1994
-- Perrier from 1908
-- Philips 1978 to 1987
-- Samsung from 1994
-- Sanyo 1978 to 2011
-- Schweppes 1920 to 1961
-- TDK 1990 to 2015
Guinness
-- From 1930 to 1932, a Guinness ad showed a pint of Guinness and stated that 'Guinness is Good For You.'
-- From 1932 to 1953 the Guinness ad featured a clock and stated 'Guinness Time' as well as 'Guinness is Good For You.'
-- From 1954 to 1959 the Guinness clock had two sealions under it.
-- From 1959 to 1972 the Guinness ad featured a cuckoo clock with a swinging pendulum featuring two back-to-back toucans.
The Criterion Theatre
The Criterion Theatre, which is a Grade II* listed building, stands on the south side of Piccadilly Circus. Apart from the box office area, the entire theatre, with nearly 600 seats, is underground, and is reached by descending a tiled stairway. Columns are used to support both the dress circle and the upper circle, restricting the views of many of the seats inside.
The theatre was designed by Thomas Verity, and opened as a theatre on the 21st. March 1874, although original plans were for it to become a concert hall.
In 1883, the Criterion was forced to close in order to improve ventilation and to replace gaslights with electric lights, and was re-opened the following year. The theatre closed in 1989 and was extensively renovated, re-opening in October 1992.
The London Pavilion
On the north-eastern side of Piccadilly Circus is the London Pavilion. The first building bearing the name was built in 1859, and was a music hall. In 1885, Shaftesbury Avenue was built through the former site of the Pavilion, and a new London Pavilion was constructed, which also served as a music hall. In 1924 electric billboards were erected on the side of the building.
In 1934, the building underwent significant structural alteration and was converted into a cinema. In 1986, the building was rebuilt, preserving the 1885 façade, and converted into a shopping arcade.
In 2000, the building was connected to the neighbouring Trocadero Centre, and signage on the building was altered in 2003 to read "London Trocadero". The basement of the building connects with the Underground station.
Major Shops
The former Swan & Edgar department store on the west side of the Circus was built in 1928–29 to a design by Reginald Blomfield. Since the closure of the department store in the early 1980's, the building has been successively the flagship London store of music chains Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and Zavvi. The current occupier is clothing brand The Sting.
Lillywhites is a major retailer of sporting goods located on the corner of the circus and Lower Regent Street, next to the Shaftesbury fountain. It moved to its present site in 1925. Lillywhites is popular with tourists, and they regularly offer sale items, including international football jerseys at up to 90% off.
Nearby Fortnum & Mason is often considered to be part of the Piccadilly Circus shopping area, and is known for its expansive food hall.
The County Fire Office
Dominating the north side of the Circus, on the corner of Glasshouse Street, is the County Fire Office building, with a statue of Britannia on the roof. The original building was designed by John Nash as the extreme southern end of his Regent Street Quadrant.
Its dramatic façade was clearly influenced by Inigo Jones's old Somerset House. Although Robert Abraham was the County Fire Insurance Company's architect, it was probably Nash who was instrumental in choosing the design.
In 1924 the old County Fire Office was demolished and replaced with a similar but much coarser building designed by Reginald Blomfield, but retaining the statue of Britannia. During the London Blitz it was the only building in the Circus to be damaged, although only a few window panes were blown out. The building is Grade II listed.
Piccadilly Circus Underground Station
Piccadilly Circus station on the London Underground is located directly beneath Piccadilly Circus itself, with entrances at every corner. It is one of the few stations to have no associated buildings above ground, and is fully underground. The below-ground concourse and subway entrances are Grade II listed.
The station is on the Piccadilly line between Green Park and Leicester Square, and the Bakerloo line between Charing Cross and Oxford Circus.
Demonstrations at Piccadilly Circus
The Circus' status as a high-profile public space has made it the location for numerous political demonstrations, including the 15th. February 2003 anti-war protest and the "Carnival Against Capitalism" protest against the 39th. G8 summit in 2013.
Piccadilly Circus in Popular Culture
The phrase 'It's like Piccadilly Circus' is commonly used in the UK to refer to a place or situation which is extremely busy with people. It has been said that a person who stays long enough at Piccadilly Circus will eventually bump into everyone they know.
Probably because of this connection, during World War II, "Piccadilly Circus" was the code name given to the Allies' D-Day invasion fleet's assembly location in the English Channel.
Piccadilly Circus has inspired both artists and musicians. Piccadilly Circus (1912) is the name and subject of a painting by British artist Charles Ginner, part of the Tate Britain collection.
Sculptor Paul McCarthy produced a 320-page two-volume edition of video stills by the name of Piccadilly Circus.
In the lyrics of their song "Mother Goose", on the Aqualung album from 1971, the band Jethro Tull tells:
"And a foreign student said to me:
'Was it really true there were
elephants, lions too, in Piccadilly
Circus?'".
Bob Marley mentioned Piccadilly Circus in his song "Kinky Reggae", on the Catch a Fire album in 1973.
L. S. Lowry's painting Piccadilly Circus, London (1960), part of Lord Charles Forte's collection for almost three decades, sold for £5,641,250 when auctioned for the first time at Christie's on the 16th. November 2011.
Contemporary British painter Carl Randall's painting 'Piccadilly Circus' (2017) is a large monochrome canvas depicting the area at night with crowds, the making of which involved painting over 70 portraits from life.
In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), the second campaign mission takes place at Piccadilly Circus, where the game has the player intervene during a terrorist attack by the fictional terrorist group Al-Qatala. There is also a multi-player map called Piccadilly, which appears to take place in the aftermath of the terrorist attack.
Circa
Circa is an art platform based at London's Piccadilly Circus. They commission and stream a monthly programme of art and culture, every evening at 20:21, across a global network of billboards in London, Tokyo and Seoul.
Established in October 2020 by British-Irish artist Josef O'Connor, the daily and free public art programme pauses the world famous advertisements in Piccadilly Circus and across a global network of screens for three minutes every evening.
They commission new work to fill the space that considers the world in response to the present year. It is the largest digital art exhibition in Europe. O'Connor recalls:
‘I first had the idea when I was 19, but it was only
about three years ago that I acted on it and reached
out to the screen owner, Landsec, via Twitter.
I was inspired by Piccadilly’s kinetic architecture -
how it morphed and changed with time to reflect
the world - from neon lights in 1908 to the iconic
red and white Sanyo sign in the 1990's, etc.
You could accurately guess the decade by just
looking at a photo or postcard of the landmark.
This inspired the concept for Circa, to pause time
and commission artists to create new work that
considers the world around them, circa 2020/21, etc.’
The first artist to fill the three-minute daily slot was Ai Weiwei, who is quoted as saying in an interview with The Art Newspaper that:
"Circa 2020 offers a very important platform
for artists to exercise their practice and to
reach out to a greater public”.
Other notable artists and curators whose works have been exhibited as part of the Circa programme include Cauleen Smith, Eddie Peake, Patti Smith, James Barnor curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Vivienne Westwood, David Hockney, Alvaro Barrington and Anne Imhof.
Each commission for the project is approved by an independent council chaired by the British independent curator and ex-director of The Royal Academy, Norman Rosenthal.
On the 1st. January 2021, Circa commissioned two live performances from Patti Smith to help put an end to 2020 and beckon in the New Year. The New Year's Eve screening in Piccadilly Circus was eventually cancelled due to Covid restrictions, but the performance was still broadcast for free via the Circa YouTube Channel on the 31st. December to an audience of over 1.5million people around the world.
Circa and Serpentine Galleries' collaborative presentation of James Barnor’s work in April 2021 completed a journey that began more than half a century ago, when Barnor photographed BBC Africa Service presenter Mike Eghan against the backdrop of Piccadilly Circus’s neon signs in 1967.
The iconic image is held within the Tate collection, and was the inspiration behind Ferdinando Verderi’s Italian Vogue cover, with Barnor remote-shooting model Adwoa Aboah standing in the exact same location to create a present reflection on the past.
To celebrate her 80th. Birthday, British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood was commissioned by Circa to present a new video work in Piccadilly Circus created with her brother entitled 'Don't Buy a Bomb,' an anti-war message presented for ten minutes on the Piccadilly Lights screen.
In the ten-minute film, the punk icon performed a re-written rendition of ‘Without You’ from My Fair Lady to offer a stark warning of societal indifference to looming environmental catastrophes, a cry against the arms trade, and its link to climate change.
In May 2021, British artist David Hockney's 2.5 minute iPad drawing of a sunrise entitled “Remember you cannot look at the sun or death for very long,” was broadcast by Circa across digital billboard screens in London's Piccadilly Circus, New York's Times Square and prominent locations in Los Angeles, Tokyo and the largest outdoor screen in Seoul.
Oppression in China
So what else happened on the day that Daphne posted the card?
Well, on the 3rd. August 1966, a radio broadcast by China's Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in Ürümqi called on the people of the multi-ethnic Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to support the Cultural Revolution.
Within a month, the predominantly Sunni Muslim Uyghurs were under the persecution of the mostly Han Chinese Red Guards.
Archie C. Kuntze
Also on that day, a U.S. Navy board of inquiry recommended a court-martial for Captain Archie C. Kuntze for misconduct during his two years as commander of the supply depot operations within South Vietnam.
Captain Kuntze, who called himself "The American Mayor of Saigon", was convicted on the 14th. November 1966 of lesser charges involving a romantic affair. He received a reprimand.
Lenny Bruce
The 3rd. August 1966 also marked the death at the age of 40 of the American comedian Lenny Bruce. He died from an overdose of morphine.
Lenny was found in the bathroom at his home at 8825 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California, reportedly with the needle of his syringe still lodged in his arm.
The day before, he had received a foreclosure notice on his house.
Famed for its dramatic rapids and canyons, the Colorado is one of the most desirable whitewater rivers in the United States. A section of the river above Moab, known as the Colorado "Daily" or "Fisher Towers Section", is the most visited whitewater run in Utah, with more than 77,000 visitors in 2011 alone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
...with majolica tile dome
Brief Description
The Amalfi coast is an area of great physical beauty and natural diversity. It has been intensively settled by human communities since the early Middle Ages. There are a number of towns such as Amalfi and Ravello with architectural and artistic works of great significance. The rural areas show the versatility of the inhabitants in adapting their use of the land to the diverse nature of the terrain, which ranges from terraced vineyards and orchards on the lower slopes to wide upland pastures.
Justification for Inscription
The Committee decided to inscribe this site on the basis of criteria (ii), (iv) and (v), considering that the Costiera Amalfitana is an outstanding example of a Mediterranean landscape, with exceptional cultural and natural scenic values resulting from its dramatic topography and historical evolution.
Source: whc.unesco.org/en/list/830
Redmond, Oregon
Listed 10/30/2013
Reference Number: 13000859
Petersen Rock Garden, which has state-wide significance, is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C in the areas of Art and Landscape Architecture, as a folk art environment, for its significance as an exceptional work of art that combines architecture, landscape, art, and sculpture in a unified whole. Located approximately eight miles southwest of Redmond, Oregon, the work recalls European and American grotto traditions, juxtaposed with American iconography and vernacular folk art traditions, through the creativity and artistry of Danish immigrant Rasmus Christian Petersen. Petersen, who began constructing the garden after finishing his education in Danish and American culture at Nysted Folk High School in Nebraska and three successful decades of farming, was also influenced by his homestead's setting in central Oregon, with its dramatic views of the Cascade range . Creation of the garden represents the last chapter in Petersen's life. The gardens are all the more remarkable for their unexpectedness in the desert landscape and their lack of precedent in their creator's life. The Period of Significance for the site is 1927, the date of construction of the Petersen's residence, to 1952, the date of Petersen's death. The gardens and property as a whole retain excellent integrity and easily convey the reasons for their significance.
National Register of Historic Places Homepage
Noravank (Armenia, 2013)
Noravank (New Monastery) was founded by Bishop Hovhannes in 1105. Surp Astvatsatsin, built by the 13th-century by the architect Momik, is a masterpiece both for its architecture and its dramatic setting.
Details best viewed in Original Size.
The Mutianyu section of The Great Wall is situated 56 miles (90km) north of Beijing and is known for its dramatic mountainous setting, fewer visitors and its less intrusive tourist industry. With a series of watchtowers along its recently restored length, the wall you can see here dates from 1368 and was built upon the foundations of a wall built during the Northern Qi Dynasty (AD 550-577).
San Pedro Coastal Park in California overlooks the Pacific Ocean. This area, known for its dramatic cliffs and ocean views, has a history tied to geological instability, most notably the "Sunken City" area which experienced landslides in the early 20th century. Today, the park serves as a public space for enjoying the coastal environment and its natural beauty.
All Saints in Pavement, York is distinguished by its dramatic octagonal tower, a major landmark of the city and masterpiece of late medieval architecture. The church itself is of mainly 14th/15th century date, though lost its chancel in the following centuries. The west window contains reset late 14th century panels depicting the Passion.
This church is generally open and welcoming to visitors.
A Scissor-tailed Flycatcher flings a cricket into the air, preparing to catch it with precision. The action is frozen mid-toss, framed by soft light and an open field.
I took this photo at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. The bird had just landed on the grass head and began flipping its catch before swallowing it whole.
This species, Tyrannus forficatus, is known for its dramatic tail and acrobatic hunting. Insects like crickets and grasshoppers make up much of its summer diet.
Badlands National Park is in South Dakota. Its dramatic landscapes span layered rock formations, steep canyons and towering spires. Bison, bighorn sheep and prairie dogs inhabit its sprawling grasslands. The Badlands Loop Road (Highway 240) winds past scenic lookouts. Several trails begin near the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. The Fossil Exhibit Trail is a boardwalk with displays on fossils uncovered in the park.
Possibly the most beautiful 'vía verde' in Andalucia is the route between Puerto Serrano, west of Algodonales on the Ronda-Sevilla road, and the former bandit haven Olvera, sitting on its dramatic pinnacle north-east of Ronda. The view from this section of the ''vía verde' is close to Olvera and looks towards Pruna Castle in the distance. There are plenty more photos of Olvera if you take a look at the set in www.flickr.com/photos/36623892@N00/sets/ - thank you.
Famed for its dramatic rapids and canyons, the Colorado is one of the most desirable whitewater rivers in the United States. A section of the river above Moab, known as the Colorado "Daily" or "Fisher Towers Section", is the most visited whitewater run in Utah, with more than 77,000 visitors in 2011 alone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
Flanked by columns, the barrel vaulted entrance of this three bedroom home is echoed in its dramatic arched windows and gables. In this house plan, interior columns add elegance while visually dividing foyer from dining room and great room from kitchen. The great room is made even larger by its cathedral ceiling and bank of windows, including an arched clerestory window. A box bay window adds space to the formal dining room, while the kitchen features an angled center island with breakfast counter for the busy family. The floor plan's master suite, secluded on the first floor, boasts his and her walk-in closets and garden tub with skylight. Two bedrooms upstairs share another skylit bath. *Photographed home may have been modified from the original construction documents.* www.dongardner.com/house-plan/248/the-barclay/
Malta.
Hop on hop off sightseeing tour of Gozo.
Dwejra, with its dramatic coastal formations and sea spilling over the rocks, is a magical attraction. Here you can swim in the spectacular deep sea of the bay, in the calm shallows of the inland sea or in the foamy waters around the Blue Hole – one of Gozo’s top dive-sites.
Dwejra is also home of the Fungus Rock or, as it is locally known, “Il-Ġebla tal-Ġeneral”, General’s Rock. It is so called in remembrance of the Italian General who centuries ago fell to his death while supervising quarrying in the area. History tells us that a special plant believed to have medicinal and healing properties used to grow on Fungus Rock and because of this the Rock used to be heavily guarded during the era of the Knights of Malta. Anyone caught stealing the crop was sentenced to death or to a life rowing the Knights’ galleys. The crop was picked and brought to the mainland using a primitive system of baskets and pulleys.
Photo showing Cod.Act (CH). Their project Nyloïd is an impressive sound sculpture, a huge tripod consisting of three six-meter-long nylon limbs animated by sophisticated mechanical and sound devices. Sensual, animal and threatening, this mobile draws its dramatic power from the reactivity of its plastic and sound material to diverse mechanical constraints. Similar to a living object, its tension, effort and suffering, which result from its contortions and its vocal manifestation, can be sensed.
credit: Florian Voggeneder
Famed for its dramatic rapids and canyons, the Colorado is one of the most desirable whitewater rivers in the United States A section of the river above Moab, known as the Colorado "Daily" or "Fisher Towers Section", is the most visited whitewater run in Utah, with more than 77,000 visitors in 2011 alone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
REFORD GARDENS | LES JARDINS DE METIS
Beautiful flowers at Reford Gardens.
Visit : www.refordgardens.com/
From Wikipedia:
Elsie Stephen Meighen - born January 22, 1872, Perth, Ontario - and Robert Wilson Reford - born in 1867, Montreal - got married on June 12, 1894.
Elsie Reford was a pioneer of Canadian horticulture, creating one of the largest private gardens in Canada on her estate, Estevan Lodge in eastern Québec. Located in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, her gardens have been open to the public since 1962 and operate under the name Les Jardins de Métis and Reford Gardens.
Born January 22, 1872 at Perth, Ontario, Elsie Reford was the eldest of three children born to Robert Meighen and Elsie Stephen. Coming from modest backgrounds themselves, Elsie’s parents ensured that their children received a good education. After being educated in Montreal, she was sent to finishing school in Dresden and Paris, returning to Montreal fluent in both German and French, and ready to take her place in society.
She married Robert Wilson Reford on June 12, 1894. She gave birth to two sons, Bruce in 1895 and Eric in 1900. Robert and Elsie Reford were, by many accounts, an ideal couple. In 1902, they built a house on Drummond Street in Montreal. They both loved the outdoors and they spend several weeks a year in a log cabin they built at Lac Caribou, south of Rimouski. In the autumn they hunted for caribou, deer, and ducks. They returned in winter to ski and snowshoe. Elsie Reford also liked to ride. She had learned as a girl and spent many hours riding on the slopes of Mount Royal. And of course, there was salmon-fishing – a sport at which she excelled.
In her day, she was known for her civic, social, and political activism. She was engaged in philanthropic activities, particularly for the Montreal Maternity Hospital and she was also the moving force behind the creation of the Women’s Canadian Club of Montreal, the first women club in Canada. She believed it important that the women become involved in debates over the great issues of the day, « something beyond the local gossip of the hour ». Her acquaintance with Lord Grey, the Governor-General of Canada from 1904 to 1911, led to her involvement in organizing, in 1908, Québec City’s tercentennial celebrations. The event was one of many to which she devoted herself in building bridges with French-Canadian community.
During the First World War, she joined her two sons in England and did volunteer work at the War Office, translating documents from German into English. After the war, she was active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Montreal Council of Social Agencies, and the National Association of Conservative Women.
In 1925 at the age of 53 years, Elsie Reford was operated for appendicitis and during her convalescence, her doctor counselled against fishing, fearing that she did not have the strength to return to the river.”Why not take up gardening?” he said, thinking this a more suitable pastime for a convalescent woman of a certain age. That is why she began laying out the gardens and supervising their construction. The gardens would take ten years to build, and would extend over more than twenty acres.
Elsie Reford had to overcome many difficulties in bringing her garden to life. First among them were the allergies that sometimes left her bedridden for days on end. The second obstacle was the property itself. Estevan was first and foremost a fishing lodge. The site was chosen because of its proximity to a salmon river and its dramatic views – not for the quality of the soil.
To counter-act nature’s deficiencies, she created soil for each of the plants she had selected, bringing peat and sand from nearby farms. This exchange was fortuitous to the local farmers, suffering through the Great Depression. Then, as now, the gardens provided much-needed work to an area with high unemployment. Elsie Reford’s genius as a gardener was born of the knowledge she developed of the needs of plants. Over the course of her long life, she became an expert plantsman. By the end of her life, Elsie Reford was able to counsel other gardeners, writing in the journals of the Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society. Elsie Reford was not a landscape architect and had no training of any kind as a garden designer. While she collected and appreciated art, she claimed no talents as an artist.
Elsie Stephen Reford died at her Drummond Street home on November 8, 1967 in her ninety-sixth year.
In 1995, the Reford Gardens ("Jardins de Métis") in Grand-Métis were designated a National Historic Site of Canada, as being an excellent Canadian example of the English-inspired garden.(Wikipedia)
Visit : www.refordgardens.com/
LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS
Créés par Elsie Reford de 1926 à 1958, ces jardins témoignent de façon remarquable de l’art paysager à l’anglaise. Disposés dans un cadre naturel, un ensemble de jardins exhibent fleurs vivaces, arbres et arbustes. Le jardin des pommetiers, les rocailles et l’Allée royale évoquent l’œuvre de cette dame passionnée d’horticulture. Agrémenté d’un ruisseau et de sentiers sinueux, ce site jouit d’un microclimat favorable à la croissance d’espèces uniques au Canada. Les pavots bleus et les lis, privilégiés par Mme Reford, y fleurissent toujours et contribuent , avec d’autres plantes exotiques et indigènes, à l’harmonie de ces lieux.
Created by Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, these gardens are an inspired example of the English art of the garden. Woven into a natural setting, a series of gardens display perennials, trees and shrubs. A crab-apple orchard, a rock garden, and the Long Walk are also the legacy of this dedicated horticulturist. A microclimate favours the growth of species found nowhere else in Canada, while the stream and winding paths add to the charm. Elsie Reford’s beloved blue poppies and lilies still bloom and contribute, with other exotic and indigenous plants, to the harmony of the site.
Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada
Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
Gouvernement du Canada – Government of Canada
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Detail of the beautiful mid-14th century canopy of the Percy Tomb on the north side of the high altar. The tomb itself has disappeared and the exact identity of its occupant remains unclear, though Lady Eleanor (d.1328) is considered a likely candidate.
beverleyminster.org.uk/visit-us-2/percy-canopy/
There is a danger of running out of superlatives when trying to describe Beverley Minster. It is not only the second finest non-cathedral church in the country but is architecturally a far finer building than most of our cathedrals themselves! It will come as a surprise to many visitors to find this grand edifice simply functions today as a parish church and has never been more than collegiate, a status it lost at the Reformaton. What had added to its mystique and wealth was its status as a place of pilgrimage housing the tomb of St John of Beverley, which drew visitors and revenue until the Reformation brought an end to such fortunes and the shrine was destroyed (though the saint's bones were later rediscovered and reinterred in the nave). That this great church itself survived this period almost intact is little short of a miracle in itself.
There has been a church here since the 8th century but little remains of the earlier buildings aside from the Saxon chair near the altar and the Norman font in the nave. The present Minster's construction spans the entirety of the development of Gothic architecture but forms a surprisingly harmonious whole nevertheless, starting with Early English in the 13h century choir and transepts (both pairs) with their lancet windows in a building phase that stopped at the first bays of the nave. Construction was then continued with the nave in the 14th century but only the traceried windows betray the emergent Decorated style, the design otherwise closely followed the work of the previous century which gives the Minster's interior such a pleasingly unified appearance (the only discernable break in construction within can be seen where the black purbeck-marble ceased to be used for certain elements beyond the eastern bay of the nave). Finally the building was completed more or less by 1420 with the soaring west front with its dramatic twin-towers in Perpendicular style (the east window must have been enlarged at this point too to match the new work at the west end).
The fabric happily survived the Reformation intact aside from the octagonal chapter-house formerly adjoining the north choir aisle which was dismantled to raise money by the sale of its materials while the church's fate was in the balance (a similar fate was contemplated for the rest of the church by its new owners until the town bought it for retention as a parish church for £100). The great swathes of medieval glass alas were mostly lost, though seemingly as much to neglect and storm-damage in the following century than the usual iconoclasm. All that survived of the Minster's original glazing was collected to form the patchwork display now filling the great east window, a colourful kaleidoscope of fragments of figures and scenes. Of the other furnishings the choir stalls are the major ensemble and some of the finest medieval canopied stalls extant with a full set of charming misericords (though most of these alas are not normally on show).
There are suprisingly few monuments of note for such an enormous cathedral-like church, but the one major exception makes up for this, the delightful canopied Percy tomb erected in 1340 to the north of the high altar. The tomb itself is surprisingly plain without any likeness remaining of the deceased, but the richly carved Decorated canopy above is alive with gorgeous detail and figurative embellishments. There are further carvings to enjoy adorning the arcading that runs around the outer perimeter of the interior, especially the north nave aisle which has the most rewarding carved figures of musicians, monsters and people suffering various ailments, many were largely restored in the 19th century but still preserve the medieval spirit of irreverent fun.
To summarise Beverley Minster would be difficult other than simply adding that if one enjoys marvelling at Gothic architecture at its best then it really shouldn't be missed and one should prioritise it over the majority of our cathedrals. It is a real gem and a delight to behold, and is happily normally open and welcoming to visitors (who must all be astonished to find this magnificent edifice is no more than a simple parish church in status!). I thoroughly enjoyed this, my second visit here (despite the best efforts of the poor weather!).
The Amalfi Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southern Italy’s Campania region, is renowned for its dramatic cliffs, colorful seaside villages, and Mediterranean charm. Stretching along the Sorrentine Peninsula, it includes iconic destinations such as Sorrento, Positano, and Amalfi town.
Sorrento, perched above the Bay of Naples, offers sweeping views of Mount Vesuvius and serves as a gateway to the coast. Positano is famed for its pastel-hued houses cascading down steep hillsides to pebble beaches and turquoise waters. Amalfi, once a powerful maritime republic, is known for its historic cathedral, lively piazza, and lemon-based delicacies like limoncello.
The region’s narrow, winding roads and scenic boat routes connect these destinations, making the Amalfi Coast one of the world’s most picturesque coastal journeys.
Barsana Monastery - Maramures - Romania
The stations of The Cross, wall decoration in the Church
Barsana monastery, one of the main attractions in Maramures, Romania
When UNESCO designated parts of the Maramures Region in Northern Transylvania a WORLD HERITAGE site, it was aimed at protecting the stylized wooden architecture and its dramatic vernacular. Of particular appeal are the tall spires of orthodox churches that dot the area. One of these is the recently constructed Barsana Monastery complex - actually a convent with sixteen nuns. Created in post-Communist years on the site of a church abandoned in 1790, the complex has become a significant cultural and religious attraction. Its 56 meter-tall (180 feet) spired church is reputedly the tallest wooden structure in Europe.
www.flickr.com/photos/wwwdragos/7614653774/in/set-7215762...
Originally the headquarters of the The Grolier Club, an organization of book collectors and graphics arts enthusiasts-- named for a Renaissance bibliophile. The building, built in 1889 to a Charles Romeyn design, is an official landmark, noted for its dramatic arches. Now known as The Madison.
Kite Surfers Mission Island.
That's Ice on the Shore !
The Sleeping Giant is a formation of mesas and sills on Sibley Peninsula which resembles a giant lying on its back when viewed from the west to north-northwest section of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. As one moves southward along the shoreline toward Squaw Bay the Sleeping Giant starts to separate into its various sections. Most distinctly in the view from the cliffs at Squaw Bay the Giant appears to have an Adam's Apple. The formation is part of Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. Its dramatic steep cliffs are among the highest in Ontario (250 m). The southernmost point is known as Thunder Cape, depicted by many early Canadian artists such as William Armstrong.
One Ojibway legend identifies the giant as Nanabijou, who was turned to stone when the secret location of a rich silver mine now known as Silver Islet was disclosed to white men.[3]
The Brynmawr factory complex, initially used for rubber manufacturing, was later used for the manufacture of Semtex explosives.
The centrepiece, the main factory area, comprised a group of nine concrete shell roof sections, grouped three by three, each 25.9metres long and 18.9metres wide. Each section, a two-way span, was slightly domed to make use of the compressive strength of the reinforced concrete which, at less than 90 mm thick, appeared wafer-thin for its dramatic clear span. The design of these concrete shell roofs is considered to be a collaboration of design and technological expertise between Ronald Jenkins and Ove himself; Jenkins had worked with Ove during their time together at JL Kier & Co, in fact it had been Ove who had given Jenkins the job at Kier’s.
The roof sections were punctuated by circular roof lights in a style popular with Modern Movement architects (like the atrium at the Boots ‘wets’ building constructed in 1932 by Owen Williams). This, together with clerestory glazing of lunettes formed by geometry of the shell sections, gave an extraordinary cathedral-like quality of natural light to the factory space. The rectangular roof sections were supported at each corner by columns a mere 4.3metres above the floor.
This gave a human scale to the vast interior, which after all had been used for assembly and production work, so that from a functional point of view an increased height would have been of no benefit. But once the manufacturing function was lost, the low headroom of the structure restricted the number of alternatives for future use, and ultimately this factor may have sealed the fate for this unique building.
Around the perimeter of the main factory area was a series of ancillary buildings covered by a multiplicity of small-scale barrel-vaulted concrete roof constructions, over poured-in-situ concrete walling.
After 50 years, the building was deemed to be unsuitable for present-day use, and was considered by local authorities to be an obstacle to progress in expanding the local economy. So in 2001, despite having been awarded a Grade II* listing, and despite the best efforts of conservationists, the complex was demolished, thus depriving future generations of a wonderful example of engineering excellence. Source New Ways: The Founding of Modernism.
From World Heritage Site Bid Documentation
"Cunard Building 1913-1916 Grade II* This substantial building was built as the offices of the Cunard Shipping company to the designs of Willink and Thicknesse, with Arthur Davis (of Mewes and Davis) as consultant. Its proportions, unadorned silhouette, rusticated and battered plinth, bold projecting cornice and solid parapet give it the form of an Italian palazzo. However, its multi-storey form, and its elevations, decorated with French classical details are derived from American beaux-arts buildings such as those of McKim Mead and White in New York. It is also remarkable for its symbolism expressed in trophies of conflict and peace, for the building was erected during the First World War, and the portraits of races from around the world, symbolising the global operations of the company. The Cunard Building has six storeys plus a basement, nine bays to the two principal elevations and seventeen bays to the marginally secondary elevations. The centre bays of the ground floor project to form monumental entrances, each one enhanced by massive panelled oak doors, engaged fluted columns, stone paneled reveals and stone coffered ceilings. The east frontage onto the Strand is further pronounced by its dramatic approach up a flight of stone stairs, flanked by a pair of bronze lamps with fluted columns, claw feet, acanthus leaf shields on huge stone plinths. Inside, there is an ornate principal corridor linking Brunswick Street and Water Street. It has a black and white marble floor, a coffered ceiling and a twin flight staircase. The former first class passenger waiting room on the river side of the building has appropriately high quality fittings and the board room has a commanding position in the centre of the fifth floor river elevation and also has fittings of the highest quality. The building was much admired on completion, and provided a foretaste of life aboard ship for those sailing across the oceans with Cunard."
**Lincoln Historic District** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 66000477, date listed 10/15/1966
U.S. 380
Lincoln, NM (Lincoln County)
A National Historic Landmark (www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalhistoriclandmarks/list-of-nh...).
Lincoln, New Mexico was founded circa 1854 by a band of Hispano farmers from the Rio Grande valley who were enabled by increased U.S. military protection against Apache raids to exploit the fertile land of the Rio Bonito valley. Known, as La Placita del Rio Bonito (the little town by the beautiful river).
The story of Lincoln, New Mexico, duplicates that of most of the cow towns that sprang up on the advancing cattlemen's frontier in the years following the Civil War. Like its counterparts throughout the West, it was a business and social community serving surrounding ranges. To it drifted cowboys, badmen, gunfighters, rustlers, soldiers, and famous lawmen. It was a scene of courtroom battles, public executions, and gunfights. As in other parts of the cattle country, conflict over water, government beef contracts, and grazing rights engendered bad feeling. At Lincoln one of the famous feuds for which the cattle frontier is noted reached its dramatic climax. (1)
The Montaño Store was built before 1868 and became State property in 1966. The building was operated as a store and boarding house, for at least 30 years after the Civil War by Jose Montaño and his wife, Josefa. (2)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg...
(2) Old Lincoln Town oldlincolntown.org/site/montano-store/
One of the many carvings adorning the wall arcading in the north aisle.
There is a danger of running out of superlatives when trying to describe Beverley Minster. It is not only the second finest non-cathedral church in the country but is architecturally a far finer building than most of our cathedrals themselves! It will come as a surprise to many visitors to find this grand edifice simply functions today as a parish church and has never been more than collegiate, a status it lost at the Reformaton. What had added to its mystique and wealth was its status as a place of pilgrimage housing the tomb of St John of Beverley, which drew visitors and revenue until the Reformation brought an end to such fortunes and the shrine was destroyed (though the saint's bones were later rediscovered and reinterred in the nave). That this great church itself survived this period almost intact is little short of a miracle in itself.
There has been a church here since the 8th century but little remains of the earlier buildings aside from the Saxon chair near the altar and the Norman font in the nave. The present Minster's construction spans the entirety of the development of Gothic architecture but forms a surprisingly harmonious whole nevertheless, starting with Early English in the 13h century choir and transepts (both pairs) with their lancet windows in a building phase that stopped at the first bays of the nave. Construction was then continued with the nave in the 14th century but only the traceried windows betray the emergent Decorated style, the design otherwise closely followed the work of the previous century which gives the Minster's interior such a pleasingly unified appearance (the only discernable break in construction within can be seen where the black purbeck-marble ceased to be used for certain elements beyond the eastern bay of the nave). Finally the building was completed more or less by 1420 with the soaring west front with its dramatic twin-towers in Perpendicular style (the east window must have been enlarged at this point too to match the new work at the west end).
The fabric happily survived the Reformation intact aside from the octagonal chapter-house formerly adjoining the north choir aisle which was dismantled to raise money by the sale of its materials while the church's fate was in the balance (a similar fate was contemplated for the rest of the church by its new owners until the town bought it for retention as a parish church for £100). The great swathes of medieval glass alas were mostly lost, though seemingly as much to neglect and storm-damage in the following century than the usual iconoclasm. All that survived of the Minster's original glazing was collected to form the patchwork display now filling the great east window, a colourful kaleidoscope of fragments of figures and scenes. Of the other furnishings the choir stalls are the major ensemble and some of the finest medieval canopied stalls extant with a full set of charming misericords (though most of these alas are not normally on show).
There are suprisingly few monuments of note for such an enormous cathedral-like church, but the one major exception makes up for this, the delightful canopied Percy tomb erected in 1340 to the north of the high altar. The tomb itself is surprisingly plain without any likeness remaining of the deceased, but the richly carved Decorated canopy above is alive with gorgeous detail and figurative embellishments. There are further carvings to enjoy adorning the arcading that runs around the outer perimeter of the interior, especially the north nave aisle which has the most rewarding carved figures of musicians, monsters and people suffering various ailments, many were largely restored in the 19th century but still preserve the medieval spirit of irreverent fun.
To summarise Beverley Minster would be difficult other than simply adding that if one enjoys marvelling at Gothic architecture at its best then it really shouldn't be missed and one should prioritise it over the majority of our cathedrals. It is a real gem and a delight to behold, and is happily normally open and welcoming to visitors (who must all be astonished to find this magnificent edifice is no more than a simple parish church in status!). I thoroughly enjoyed this, my second visit here (despite the best efforts of the poor weather!).
Because of its dramatic Sunset Blvd location, classic Art Deco features and iconic film industry status, the Sunset Tower has appeared in numerous movies including “The Italian Job,” “Get Shorty” and “The Player.”
Smailholm Tower is a peel tower at Smailholm, around five miles (8 km) west of Kelso in the Scottish Borders. Its dramatic situation, atop a crag of Lady Hill, commands wide views over the surrounding countryside. The tower is located at grid reference NT637346, just west of Sandyknowe farm, and is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument in the care of Historic Scotland. In June 2007 it was awarded the maximum "five-star" status as a tourist attraction from VisitScotland, a rating bestowed on only eight other sites in Scotland.
Pudatso is China's first national park, opened in 2007, Nestled deep in the mountains of northwest Yunnan at an elevation ranging from 3,500 to 4,000 meters (11,500 to 13,100 feet), Pudatso is an integral part of the Three Parallel Rivers Scenic Area, as it is the source of China's three most famous rivers: the Yellow, Yangtze, and Mekong. The area is recognized for its dramatic topological contours and rich biodiversity. Foremost among the lakes in the park are the Bita and Shudu lakes, though the extended wetlands area extends far beyond to encompass forested mountains, grasslands in river valleys and a great abundance of rare plants and animals.
Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
The Chanin Building, built in 1927-29, rises 56 stories at the comer of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street. Designed by the architectural firm of Sloan & Robertson with sculptural decoration by Rene Chambellan, it is a major example of Art Deco architecture in New York City. Erected under the supervision of the Chanin Construction Company, the building still serves as the organization’s headquarters.
Irwin S. Chanin (b.1892) established his firm in 1919 to build one-family houses in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, after studying engineering at Cooper union, working on subway construction in New York and Philadelphia, and participating in the construction of a poison gas factory for the U.S. Amy during World War I.
His first venture in Bensonhurst was so successful that he brought his brother Henry I. Chanin (1893-1973) into the firm, and they proceeded to build more houses and also apartment buildings in Brooklyn and then erected an office building in downtown Brooklyn. Extending their activities to Manhattan in 1924, they constructed the Fur Center Building. 'That same year the Chan ins expanded into the theater business, 'eventually building eight theaters, including the fabulous 6000-seat Roxy. The Chanins also managed a number of these theaters.
The 1400-roan Hotel Lincoln, on Eighth Avenue between 44th and 45th. Streets was completed and opened by the Chanins in 1S28. Following the completion of the Chanin Building in 1929, the firm expanded its activities into the Manhattan apartment field, building the Majestic and Century apartment houses on Central Park West. Extensive suburban building activity occupied much of the firm's tire during the 1930s and 1940s. A notable example was Green Acres, a residential park community in Valley Stream, Long Island, begun in 1936. During World War II the firm built 2000 pro-fabricated dwellings in Newport News,Virginia, five hangars at National Airport in Washington, the Naval Or dance Laboratory in White Oak, Maryland, and five Navy powder magazine buildings in Indian Head, Maryland.
Tte firm has also built numerous manufacturing buildings in the New York City area and the impressive Coney Island Pumping Station for the City of New York. By 1952 when Irwin S. Chanin was profiled in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, the Chanin Organization was composed of approximately 25 firms and corporations engaged in architecture, engineering, and construction, and in ownership and operation of real estate.
In August 1926 the Chanins acquired a 105-year leasehold on the site of the Manhattan Storage Warehouse on the west side of Lexington Avenue between 41st and 42nd Streets in order to build their new office tower. Plans were filed and work begun in 1927. When the steel structure work was completed on July 2, 1928, the Chanins followed their traditional practice of driving two gold rivets into a column on the uppermost floor. On January 23, 1929, exactly one year after Irwin S. Chanin drove the first rivet into the st.ee! frame, construction was completed—testimony to the skill of the workmen and the efficiency of the Chanin Construction Company. It was opened for business that January 29 and was hailed as "another step in the evolution of the skyscraper . At that time, it was the first major skyscraper to have been built in the area around Grand Central Terminal, anticipating a major shift in the business district of the city. Other notable skyscrapers such as the Chrysler and Daily News Buildings soon followed. Its 660-foot height was then exceeded only by the Woolworth Building and Metropolitan Life Tower in New York and the Cleveland Terminal Building in Cleveland. Irwin S. Chanin was not, however, interested in creating the world's tallest office building but rather in building an efficient, up-to-date, progressive structure that would attract the modern business man and be a credit to the Chanin firm.
To create this image, he commissioned the architectural firm of Sloan & Robertson.
Sloan & Robertson was one of the major New York architectural firms of the 1920s and '30s. John Sloan (1888-1954) studied architecture at New York University, then supervised construction for the U. S. Army In various capacities between 1900 and 1920. In private practice in 1920, he received the commission for the Pershing Square Building, 100 East U2nd Street. He formed a partnership in 1924 with T. Markoe Robertson (1878.-1962) who had been educated at Yale University and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In addition to the Chanin Building, the firm was responsible for the Graybar Building, 420 Lexington Avenue; the Maritime Exchange Building, 80 Broad Street; the 29 Broadway Office Building; the Plaza Building, 625 Madison Avenue; apartment buildings at 1 Beekman Place and 895 Park Avenue; and alterations, modernization, and an annex for the St. Regis Hotel.
The firm was also active 'in the design of buildings for hospitals and institutions, including the House of Detention for Women at 10 Greenwich Avenue, the Ward's Island Sewage Disposal Plant, the Rikers Island Penitentiary, buildings for the Harlem Hospital, and the Southampton Hospital, Architectural plans for the West Side Elevated Highway between Canal and 72nd Streets and the New York State exhibit building, marine amphitheatre and stage at the 1939 New York World's Fair were also carried out by the firm. In the Chanin Building as in so much of their work during the 1930s, they created a striking example of Art Deco architecture, using that most characteristic Art Deco building type, the skyscraper.
The Chanin Building rises 56 stories in a series of setbacks culminating in a tower, designed in accordance with the 1916 zoning ordinance. The site itself, which was bounded by streets on three sides, was governed by three sets of zoning rules. This made the tower rather than the street frontage the controlling factor in regard to massing. Critic Matlack Price praised the Chanin Building as "an impressive realization of the most hopeful predictions that were made years ago, when the zoning laws first imposed the set-back restrictions on tall structures. At once it becane necessary to design in
masses rather than in facades." The design of the tower was also influenced by the widely-publicized entry submitted by Eliel Saarinen in the competition for a new building for the Chicago Tribune (1922) .
The Saarinen design proved a fertile source for many Art Deco architects.
The first 17 stories completely cover tine plot except on the center of trie Lexington Avenue facade which is recessed above the fourth story. Major setbacks begin above the seventeenth story, forming a pyramidal base for the tower which rises uninterrupted from the thirtieth to the fifty-second story. The upper four stories of the tower are further recessed and accented with buttresses. The steel frame is clad with buff brick, terra cotta, and limestone, and is ornamented in such a way as to emphasize seme of the special functions within.
As was the customary in skyscraper design, the architects were interested in establishing a clearly-defined base for the composition and a strong interest at and relationship to the street. The first floor was intended for shops. Originally the plate glass shop windows were enclosed by bronze enframements set in Belgian black marble.
Later alterations have obscured sane of the original detail. Also at first floor level are major entrances on Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street. Above the first floor runs a bronze frieze telling the story of evolution. It shows different kinds of plant and animal life, beginning with low marine forms, then more complex forms, and finally birds and fish. At the second and third floors, which were intended for financial institutions, are triple window groups framed in bronze and divided between the floors by bronze spandrel panels with characteristic Art Deco ornament.
Each window group is flanked by limestone piers with ornamented terra-cotta capitals. Hie windows above the entrances are given a distinctive treatment with ornamental spandrel panels of a different design. Incorporated into the window framing are curved bronze supports holding canopies above the entrances. The canopies themselves have been altered. The fourth story is completely covered with an elaborate pattern of stylized plant forms executed in terra cotta. The use of such stylized forms is a characteristic associated with Art Deco design.
Trie ornament on these floors was designed by the noted architectural sculptor Rene Chambellan (1893-1955) in collaboration with Jacques Delamarre (b. 1907), head of the architectural staff of the Chanin Construction Company. Among the buildings for which Chambellan executed architectural sculpture were Radio City Music Hall and other buildings at Rockefeller Center, the East Side Airline Terminal, the Russell Sage Foundation Building, the Tribune Ttwer in Chicago, the Stirling Library at Yale, and the Pershing Stadium in Vincennes, France.
In the Chanin Building Delamarre was responsible for many of the details of the interior design and through the years supervised the many projects which the Chanin organization chose to design "in-house." Chambellan and Delamarre also collaborated on the design of the sculptural reliefs and bronze grilles adorning the vestibules inside the building entrances. They symbolically portray various aspects of the theme "the City of Opportunity," telling "the story of a city in which it is possible for a nan to rise from a humble station to wealth and influence by sheer power of his mind and hands." This, in fact, was a tribute to the success and achievement of Irwin S. Chanin.
Cc\ the Lexington Avenue side, a series of buttresses at the fifth and sixth stories accent the recessed portion of the facade. The form of these buttresses echoes the form of those at tine crown of the tower. Buttress forms extending from the thirtieth to the forty-ninth floor also accentuate the comers of the brick-faced tower.
The termination of the buttress forms at the forty-ninth floor indicates sore of the special functions in the floors above. The fiftieth and the fifty-first floors-now converted to office space— originally housed a theater which was to serve the theatrical division of the Chanin Organization. The Chanin offices continue to be housed in the crcKn of the tower which begins at tiie fifty-second floor. The most prominent features of the crown are the protruding buttresses which provide a distinctive termination for the tower.
Projecting ornament executed in abstract patterns at the fifty-second floor adds further interest to the Tower. Originally a battery of 212 flood-lights illuminated the crown of the tower at night adding to its dramatic effect of the skyline. This emphasis on dramatic illumination is another quality associated with Art Deco architecture, and it is characteristically displayed in one of Hugh Ferriss' noted renderings of the buildings.
When completed in 1929 the Chanin Building was praised by architectural, critic Matlack Price as being "a splendid contribution to twentieth century architecture.. .that.. .powerfully rationalizes all the novel features of this new style,-and.. .a splendid contribution to the architecture of all time because it is a good design."
The quality of the design and the ornament continue to delight and are now recognized as exemplifying the characteristics of the Art Deco skyscraper. it remains a striking visual asset to the Grand Central area and continues to function successfully as an office building.
- From the 1978 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
Smailholm Tower is a peel tower at Smailholm, around five miles (8 km) west of Kelso in the Scottish Borders. Its dramatic situation, atop a crag of Lady Hill, commands wide views over the surrounding countryside. The tower is located at grid reference NT637346, just west of Sandyknowe farm, and is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument in the care of Historic Scotland. In June 2007 it was awarded the maximum "five-star" status as a tourist attraction from VisitScotland, a rating bestowed on only eight other sites in Scotland.
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The beautiful and now tranquil setting of Augustinian Lanercost Priory belies an often troubled history. Standing close to Hadrian's Wall, it suffered frequent attacks during the long Anglo-Scottish wars, once by Robert Bruce in person. The mortally sick King Edward I rested here for five months in 1306-7, shortly before his death on his final campaign.
The east end of the 13th-century church survives to its full height, housing within its dramatic triple tier of arches some fine monuments.
Day 302 of 365, and a supply run into London led to a diversion to Canary Wharf Tube Station with its dramatic glass canopies.
Detail of the Mater Dolorata by Hans Baldung Grien, circa 1516.
Things that caught my eye in the Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest.
"This panel was painted during Baldung’s sojourn in Freiburg, around 1516. Until the picture’s recent restoration the sword piercing the Virgin’s heart was covered by overpainting. On the basis of the iconographical tradition it can be supposed that the picture formed a pair to a Vir Dolorum (Man of Sorrows) which has not come down to us. On the other hand, it may be assumed that it belonged to the same altarpiece as the Lamentation in Berlin and a panel depicting St Verena (Landesmuseum, Münster). The model for Baldung’s Mater Dolorosa was Dürer’s picture painted in 1496-97 (Bayerische Staatsgemälde-Sammlungen, Munich), but its dramatic expression betrays the influence of Grünewald."
**Lincoln Historic District** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 66000477, date listed 10/15/1966
U.S. 380
Lincoln, NM (Lincoln County)
A National Historic Landmark (www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalhistoriclandmarks/list-of-nh...).
Lincoln, New Mexico was founded circa 1854 by a band of Hispano farmers from the Rio Grande valley who were enabled by increased U.S. military protection against Apache raids to exploit the fertile land of the Rio Bonito valley. Known, as La Placita del Rio Bonito (the little town by the beautiful river).
The story of Lincoln, New Mexico, duplicates that of most of the cow towns that sprang up on the advancing cattlemen's frontier in the years following the Civil War. Like its counterparts throughout the West, it was a business and social community serving surrounding ranges. To it drifted cowboys, badmen, gunfighters, rustlers, soldiers, and famous lawmen. It was a scene of courtroom battles, public executions, and gunfights. As in other parts of the cattle country, conflict over water, government beef contracts, and grazing rights engendered bad feeling. At Lincoln one of the famous feuds for which the cattle frontier is noted reached its dramatic climax. (1)
Built from 1885 – 1887 under the guidance of Father John Marie Garnier, the parishioners built this church – the largest church in Lincoln County at that time – a little over 3,000 sq. ft. The church is built of adobes made on site and vigas hauled in from the Capitan Mountains. (2)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg...
(2) Old Lincoln Town oldlincolntown.org/site/san-juan-mission/
The Amalfi Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southern Italy’s Campania region, is renowned for its dramatic cliffs, colorful seaside villages, and Mediterranean charm. Stretching along the Sorrentine Peninsula, it includes iconic destinations such as Sorrento, Positano, and Amalfi town.
Sorrento, perched above the Bay of Naples, offers sweeping views of Mount Vesuvius and serves as a gateway to the coast. Positano is famed for its pastel-hued houses cascading down steep hillsides to pebble beaches and turquoise waters. Amalfi, once a powerful maritime republic, is known for its historic cathedral, lively piazza, and lemon-based delicacies like limoncello.
The region’s narrow, winding roads and scenic boat routes connect these destinations, making the Amalfi Coast one of the world’s most picturesque coastal journeys.
Among the first Americans to successfully produce feature films on their own terms was Maya Deren (1917–1961), whose letters and artifacts are held at BU’s Department of Special Collections. Armed with a 16mm camera, Deren wrote, directed, and starred in a handful of experimental films in the 1940s and 1950s that established her reputation today as one of the most important artists in the history of American avant-garde film. Best known for the darkly surreal Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), with its dramatic jump cuts and cyclical, irrational narrative, Deren is often referred to as the archetypal independent filmmaker, one who eschewed the film industry entirely but still managed to reach an audience, even if it meant showing films on her living room wall.
BU’s Deren holdings recently were used by the Czech-trained Viennese filmmaker Martina Kuladcek in making her new documentary In the Mirror with Maya Deren, which opens on January 24 at the Anthology Film Archive in New York City. Most notably, Kuladcek’s film features rare sound recordings of Deren speaking, which are part of BU’s collection.
Deren made the recordings primarily in Haiti in the late 1940s with a wire recorder, a device that uses magnetic tape and was popular during World War II. She spent several years there researching voodoo and spiritual dance rituals for her 1953 book, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti, and for an eponymous film, which was released posthumously, in 1977. Even though Deren often appeared in her own films, they typically feature no dialogue so even film buffs familiar with her work are startled to hear her voice in In the Mirror
Smailholm Tower is a peel tower at Smailholm, around five miles (8 km) west of Kelso in the Scottish Borders. Its dramatic situation, atop a crag of Lady Hill, commands wide views over the surrounding countryside. The tower is located at grid reference NT637346, just west of Sandyknowe farm, and is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument in the care of Historic Scotland. In June 2007 it was awarded the maximum "five-star" status as a tourist attraction from VisitScotland, a rating bestowed on only eight other sites in Scotland.
Famed for its dramatic rapids and canyons, the Colorado is one of the most desirable whitewater rivers in the United States. A section of the river above Moab, known as the Colorado "Daily" or "Fisher Towers Section", is the most visited whitewater run in Utah, with more than 77,000 visitors in 2011 alone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
Komainu (狛犬), often called lion-dogs in English, are statue pairs of lion-like creatures either guarding the entrance or the honden, or inner shrine of many Japanese Shinto shrines or kept inside the inner shrine itself, where they are not visible to the public. The first type, born during the Edo period, is called sandō komainu (参道狛犬 visiting road Komainu), the second and much older type jinnai komainu (陣内狛犬 shrine inside komainu). They can sometimes be found also at Buddhist temples, nobility residences or even private homes / Itsukushima (厳島) a/k/a Miyajima (宮島), which in Japanese means "Shrine Island”, is an island in the western part of the Inland Sea of Japan, located in the northwest of Hiroshima Bay. Frequent ferry services operates to carry traffic between the island and the mainland. The trip takes about ten minutes. There is also an hourly express passenger ferry to Hiroshima Harbor. The island is one of Hayashi Gahō 's “Three Views of Japan” specified in 1643. Itsukushima is part of the city of Hatsukaichi in Hiroshima Prefecture. The island was part of the former town of Miyajima before the 2005 merger with Hatsukaichi. Itsukushima is famous for the Itsukushima Shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. According to records, the shrine was established in the time of Empress Suiko. The warrior-courtier Taira no Kiyomori gave the shrine its present form. In 1555, Mōri Motonari defeated Sue Harukata at the Battle of Miyajima. Toyotomi Hideyoshi built a large building, the Senjō-kaku, on a hill above the shrine. Itsukushima has a number of shrines and temples [in Japan, the term "shrine" implies a Shinto religious structure and "temple" implies a Buddhist one], including Toyokuni Shrine with a five-storied pagoda and Daiganji Temple - one of the three most famous Benzaiten temples of Japan. The island is also famous for its upper hill side cherry blossoms and maple leaf autumn foliage. The island, including the waters around it (part of the Seto Inland Sea), are within Setonaikai National Park. This sea is affected by strong tides. At low tide, the bottom of the sea is exposed past the island's torii – [a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred]. At high tide, the sea covers all the previously exposed seabed mud and fills areas underneath the shrine boardwalk. Miyajima's maple trees are renowned throughout Japan and blanket the island in crimson in the autumn. Momiji manjū, pastries filled with azuki jam or custard, are popular souvenirs and carry maple-leaf emblems. Many other varieties such as chocolate and cheese are available. Because the island is seen as sacred, trees may not be cut for lumber and Deer roam freely. Deer are thought of as sacred in the native Shinto religion because they are considered messengers of the gods. They walk the streets of the city, not afraid of the tourists / Itsukushima Shrine (厳島神社 Itsukushima-jinja) is a Shinto shrine best known for its "floating" torii gate. The Itsukushima shrine is one of Japan's most popular tourist attractions. It is most famous for its dramatic gate, or torii on the outskirts of the shrine , the sacred peaks of Mount Misen, extensive forests, and its aesthetic ocean view. The shrine complex itself consists of two main buildings: the Honsha shrine and the Sessha Marodo-jinja, as well as 17 other different buildings and structures that help to distinguish it. The complex is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and six of its buildings and possessions have been designated by the Japanese government as National Treasures.
One of the carvings adorning the wall arcading at the west end of the south aisle. This section is actually 'fake', being a highly convincing early 18th century copy of the genuine medieval work nearby.
There is a danger of running out of superlatives when trying to describe Beverley Minster. It is not only the second finest non-cathedral church in the country but is architecturally a far finer building than most of our cathedrals themselves! It will come as a surprise to many visitors to find this grand edifice simply functions today as a parish church and has never been more than collegiate, a status it lost at the Reformaton. What had added to its mystique and wealth was its status as a place of pilgrimage housing the tomb of St John of Beverley, which drew visitors and revenue until the Reformation brought an end to such fortunes and the shrine was destroyed (though the saint's bones were later rediscovered and reinterred in the nave). That this great church itself survived this period almost intact is little short of a miracle in itself.
There has been a church here since the 8th century but little remains of the earlier buildings aside from the Saxon chair near the altar and the Norman font in the nave. The present Minster's construction spans the entirety of the development of Gothic architecture but forms a surprisingly harmonious whole nevertheless, starting with Early English in the 13h century choir and transepts (both pairs) with their lancet windows in a building phase that stopped at the first bays of the nave. Construction was then continued with the nave in the 14th century but only the traceried windows betray the emergent Decorated style, the design otherwise closely followed the work of the previous century which gives the Minster's interior such a pleasingly unified appearance (the only discernable break in construction within can be seen where the black purbeck-marble ceased to be used for certain elements beyond the eastern bay of the nave). Finally the building was completed more or less by 1420 with the soaring west front with its dramatic twin-towers in Perpendicular style (the east window must have been enlarged at this point too to match the new work at the west end).
The fabric happily survived the Reformation intact aside from the octagonal chapter-house formerly adjoining the north choir aisle which was dismantled to raise money by the sale of its materials while the church's fate was in the balance (a similar fate was contemplated for the rest of the church by its new owners until the town bought it for retention as a parish church for £100). The great swathes of medieval glass alas were mostly lost, though seemingly as much to neglect and storm-damage in the following century than the usual iconoclasm. All that survived of the Minster's original glazing was collected to form the patchwork display now filling the great east window, a colourful kaleidoscope of fragments of figures and scenes. Of the other furnishings the choir stalls are the major ensemble and some of the finest medieval canopied stalls extant with a full set of charming misericords (though most of these alas are not normally on show).
There are suprisingly few monuments of note for such an enormous cathedral-like church, but the one major exception makes up for this, the delightful canopied Percy tomb erected in 1340 to the north of the high altar. The tomb itself is surprisingly plain without any likeness remaining of the deceased, but the richly carved Decorated canopy above is alive with gorgeous detail and figurative embellishments. There are further carvings to enjoy adorning the arcading that runs around the outer perimeter of the interior, especially the north nave aisle which has the most rewarding carved figures of musicians, monsters and people suffering various ailments, many were largely restored in the 19th century but still preserve the medieval spirit of irreverent fun.
To summarise Beverley Minster would be difficult other than simply adding that if one enjoys marvelling at Gothic architecture at its best then it really shouldn't be missed and one should prioritise it over the majority of our cathedrals. It is a real gem and a delight to behold, and is happily normally open and welcoming to visitors (who must all be astonished to find this magnificent edifice is no more than a simple parish church in status!). I thoroughly enjoyed this, my second visit here (despite the best efforts of the poor weather!).
I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.
Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.
The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.
The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.
The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.
History
Early Middle Ages
A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.
The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.
The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.
Later Middle Ages
During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.
In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.
In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.
Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.
In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.
William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.
16th century rebuilding
Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".
Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.
James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.
During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.
In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.
A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.
An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.
Civil wars
Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.
Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.
Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.
The Honours of Scotland
Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.
They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.
In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.
Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.
Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.
Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.
At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.
Whigs and Jacobites
Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.
The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.
The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.
The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".
Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.
Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.
In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.
Later history
The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.
In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.
Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.
It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.
Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.
Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.
Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.
The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.
Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.
Description
Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.
The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).
The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".
Defences
The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.
The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.
Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.
Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.
The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.
A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.
Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.
Tower house and surrounding buildings
The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west
The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.
Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.
Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.
This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.
The palace
The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.
It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.
Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.
At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.
The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.
The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.
Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.
At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.