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The Great East Window at St Mary Redcliffe.
St Mary Redcliffe lost the majority of its medieval stained glass during the damage done by Parliamentary forces in the 17th century. In 1842, the committee responsible for the restoration of the church were mostly concerned with the condition of the stonework which was estimated to cost some £40,000 to repair, but were determined to have the large east window, which at the time was bricked up, filled with glass. In 1847, the committee awarded the contract for its design and implementation to William Wailes of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, one of the most prolific stained glass designers of the 19th century, who estimated the cost at £330. This window was replaced in 1904 by a design by Clayton & Bell; Wailes' window being destroyed.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, widely known as St Mary Redcliffe, is the main Church of England parish church for the Redcliffe district of Bristol. The first reference to a church on the site appears in 1158, with the present building dating from 1185 to 1872. The church is considered one of the country’s finest and largest parish churches as well as an outstanding example of English Gothic architecture. The church is so large it is sometimes mistaken for Bristol Cathedral by tourists. It is, unsurprisingly of Grade I listed status.
The church is notable for its many large stained glass windows, decorative stone vaults, flying buttresses, rare hexagonal porch and massive Gothic spire. With a height of 84 metres to the top of the weathervane, St Mary Redcliffe is the second-tallest structure in Bristol and the sixth-tallest parish church in the country. The church spire is a major Bristol landmark, visible from across the city and until the completion of Castle Park View in 2020, was the tallest structure ever to have been erected in Bristol.
St Mary Redcliffe has received widespread critical acclaim from various architects, historians, poets, writers and monarchs. Queen Elizabeth I, on a visit to the church in 1574, described St Mary Redcliffe as “The fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England”; Simon Jenkins gives St Mary Redcliffe the maximum five-star rating in his book ‘England’s Thousand Best Churches’, one of only eighteen to receive such a rating, describing it as a “masterpiece of English Gothic”; and Nikolaus Pevsner says that “St Mary Redcliffe need not fear comparison with any other English parish church”.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
The Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn is an exceptionally complete and well-preserved medieval northern European trading city on the coast of the Baltic Sea.
The city developed as a significant centre of the Hanseatic League during the major period of activity of this great trading organization in the 13th-16th centuries.
The medieval town walls, including eight towers and two twin-towered gateways, one of which is seen here, form a complete circuit of 730 metres around the old town and were built between 1283 and 1285. The town walls and castle at Caernarfon were declared part of a World Heritage Site in 1986. According to UNESCO, the castle and walls together with other royal castles in Gwynedd "are the finest examples of late 13th century and early 14th century military architecture in Europe".
Even in its ruined state, the structure of Holyrood Abbey possesses a captivating beauty, whispering tales of centuries past. The skeletal remains of its Gothic architecture reach towards the sky, a testament to the skilled craftsmanship of its builders.
The elegant pointed arches, though now open to the elements, still evoke a sense of soaring grandeur and spiritual aspiration. Sunlight and shadow dance across the weathered stones, highlighting the intricate details of what once were majestic columns and delicate tracery. You can almost trace the lines of the vaulted ceilings that once echoed with hymns and royal pronouncements.
Immediately adjacent to Skálholt Cathedral on the same site, St Thorlak’s Booth (Þorláksbúð) is a modern house aiming to copy the style of buildings that stood around Skálholt Cathedral in its heyday the first half of the 16th century to the end of the 18th century. It was built by Gunnar Bjarnason.
It is now used as a chapel.
早安! 一週的第一天，需要點活力與朝氣，就派義大利的正太與蘿莉出來給大家打氣吧!
這個小鎮，就是先前提到的托斯卡尼中被獲選為WHS之一的聖吉米亞諾，偶們到這裡的時機，正職學生們的校外教學旺季，所以古老的城鎮雖然少了觀光客的壅擠(還是很多啦)，卻多了學生們青春的肉體與嘻鬧啊(聽起來怪怪的)。
In San Gimignano, SI, Tuscany, Italy ~
繼續拿出小抄碎碎念：
聖吉米尼亞諾是義大利中北部托斯卡納大區錫耶納省的一個城牆環繞的中世紀小城，主要以中世紀建築，尤其是城外數公里就可看見的塔樓聞名(就是畫面中遠方的塔樓)，還出產白葡萄酒Vernaccia di San Gimignano聞名。
公元前3世紀，聖吉米尼亞諾就已經是伊特魯里亞人的村落。
而在中世紀和文藝復興時期，該城就是沿著法蘭契傑納朝聖之路前往羅馬朝聖的香客們的歇腳之處。
在托斯卡尼如波倫亞和佛羅倫斯的全部或大部分塔樓都已經因為戰爭、災禍或城市改造而消失的現代，聖吉米尼亞諾卻保留了14座不同高度的塔樓，成為它的國際符號，所以要看到這些中古世紀留下來的古老塔樓，來這裡就對了~
Chairs in the sanctuary of Tewkesbury Abbey. The chairs look late 17th Century - built for appearances, not for comfort!
The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury – commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey – is located in the English county of Gloucestershire. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Considered one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Britain, it has the largest Romanesque crossing tower in Europe. Tewkesbury had been a centre for worship since the 7th Century. A priory was established there in the 10th Century. The present building was started in the early 12th Century. It was unsuccessfully used as a sanctuary in the Wars of the Roses. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it became the parish church for the town. George Gilbert Scott led the Restoration of the building in the late 19th Century.
The churchmanship of the Abbey is strongly Anglo-Catholic.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
The chancel of Holy Trinity, Cookham. The tracery in the east window is 19th Century, but it is in early 14th Century jambs. Perhaps the pièce de résistance of the church is its early 14th Century wooden beam roof, just visible here. I can find no information about the glass.
Holy Trinity is the parish church for the Berkshire village of Cookham, and is particularly associated with the artist Sir Stanley Spencer. It is part of the Church of England’s Diocese of Oxford.
Holy Trinity is a Grade II* listed building containing several significant monuments. Although the earliest stone church building may have existed from 750, and there was a Saxon monastery here by the 8th Century, the earliest identifiable part of the current church is the Lady Chapel, built in the late 12th Century on the site of the cell of a female anchorite who lived next to the church. It was extended and improved several times between then and the reformation, with the tower added around 1500. It was “restored” by our Victorian friends in 1860.
Cookham (pop. 5,200) is located between Maidenhead and High Wycombe in the outer reaches of London's commuter belt. It is particularly famous as the home of artist Sir Stanley Spencer; the village and its people were the predominant subjects of his work, often transmogrified into Biblical themes and scenes. Kenneth Grahame, who lived in one of the village's sub-hamlets as a child, is said to have been inspired by the River Thames at Cookham to write The Wind in the Willows. In 2011, The Daily Telegraph deemed Cookham Britain's second richest village.
...imagine to be here...
take a boat and sail on the lake towards North....
this is one of the possible views of Sirmione you can have
on the Garda lake, Southern part, once upon a time a great castle... where history meets nature.... the characteristic of this magic lake in Northern Italy...
The Scaliger castle (13th century). This is a rare example of medieval port fortification, which was used by the Scaliger fleet. The building of this complex started in 1277 by Mastino della Scala. It presents the typical Ghibelline swallowtail merlons and the curtain-walls (with three corner towers) in pebbles alternating with two horizontal bands of brick courses. The walls on the inside were finished with plaster with graffiti, simulating blocks of stone. The castle stands at a strategic place at the entrance to the peninsula. It is surrounded by a moat and it can only be entered by two drawbridges. The castle was established mainly as a protection against enemies, but also against the locals. The main room houses a small museum with local finds from the Roman era and a few medieval artifacts.
The small church Sant’Anna della Rocca, next to the castle. It dates from the 12th century and was used mainly by the garrison and the few local villagers. The frescoes in the church date from the 14th - 17th century.
The church of San Pietro in Mavino, built in Lombard times (A.D. 765) but renovated in the early 14th century. At the portal one can see a brick wall with the date 1320. It is secluded from the town and is situated on the hill. The term "mavino" refers to the Latin phrase "in summas vineas" (up in the vineyards). The church has a rectangular plan and is oriented east-west. The cancel contains three apses. The one in the middle shows a Christ Pantocrator in Byzantine tradition; the one on the left a Madonna Enthroned; the one on the right a Crucifixion. The ceiling is made of wooden beams. The church containss frescoes from the 12th-16th centuries. The Romanesque bell tower dates from 1070. The church has been used in the past as a military hospital and its surroundings as a cemetery for plague victims.
The church Santa Maria Maggiore (late 15th century) is located in the town centre. It stands on the site of the former Lombard church of San Martino (second half of the 8th century). It has a rectangular shape with a polygonal apse and is oriented east-west. It has a single nave, divided by three arches. It is decorated with early 15th-century frescoes. The frescoes at the bottom of the north wall even belong to an earlier period. The contemporary wooden statue of the Madonna Enthroned is also of special interest.
for more informations:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirmione
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The ruins of Coventry’s former St Michael’s Cathedral, photographed from the west.
The original St Michael’s was almost completely destroyed by the Luftwaffe; the rubble was not cleared for seven years. Only the tower, spire, the outer wall and the bronze effigy and tomb of its first bishop, Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs, survived. Largely constructed in the late 14th and 15th Centuries in red sandstone, it was one of the largest parish churches in England and only elevated to cathedral status in 1918 with the creation of the Diocese of Coventry as a result of rapid population growth in the industrial West Midlands. The Perpendicular Gothic spire still dominates the site: the top of the weathervane is 88 metres above the ground, making it the tallest structure in Coventry; among Church of England cathedrals, only Norwich and Salisbury have a higher spire. The ruins remain a permanent memorial to the 600 or so residents of Coventry who died on the night the cathedral was destroyed. The site of the ruins is open to visitors is are occasionally used for acts of worship, particularly those related to reconciliation.
Just occasionally people tell me they don’t like Coventry Cathedral. I couldn’t disagree more; a powerful symbol of Resurrection, restored to a very different life barely twenty years after being destroyed in the Blitz on 14 November 1940. The Modernist Cathedral of St Michael of the 20th Century both surrounded by and incomprehensible without the ruins of 14th Century building that surrounds it.
Coventry Cathedral incarnates the twin and interconnected British revivals of the two decades after the end of the Second World War – a revival of high culture and a revival of Christian faith. Basil Spence’s cathedral housing Jacob Epstein’s sculptures, John Piper’s massive arrangements of stained glass into windows, and Graham Sutherland’s tapestry, still in 2021 the largest in the world, represent collectively a totemic achievement in modernist visual arts and architecture.
The brief for the competition to select the architect of the new Cathedral demanded that the design emphasise the celebration of the Eucharist; Spence himself had a further vision of the building as the repository of great modern works of art. He described his building as “a plain jewel casket”. Piper’s windows cast shafts of colour into the heart of the nave, while the plain glass West Screen, which faces to the geographical south, allows much natural light into the building, essential given that the east end is entirely filled with Graham Sutherland’s great tapestry, still the largest in the world at 22 metres tall by 12 metres wide.
Coventry Cathedral was built to a tight budget – “not more than £985,000” – and making much use of reinforced concrete, the new cathedral was constructed in just six years, between Queen Elizabeth II laying the foundation stone on 23 March 1956 and the dedication ceremony on 25 May 1962.
Could there have been a finer or more appropriate setting for the world première of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem on 30 May 1962? On that night, the Cathedral’s great post-War religious theme was also incarnated in the three soloists: Peter Pears (Britten’s partner) from the host nation, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau from Germany, Galina Vishnevskaya from the USSR, representing three belligerent nations. That tri-national partnership continues to be symbolised by the presence of a replica of the Stalingrad Madonna given by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, where the original hangs, with a second copy being in Kazan Cathedral in Volgograd.
A building that breathes with the presence of the Holy Spirit, giving new life the Church in every generation.
The organ console - and some of its big pipes - at St Mary Redcliffe. The church has a four manual pipe organ by Harrison and Harrison of Durham, built in 1912. This at the north side of the choir.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, widely known as St Mary Redcliffe, is the main Church of England parish church for the Redcliffe district of Bristol. The first reference to a church on the site appears in 1158, with the present building dating from 1185 to 1872. The church is considered one of the country’s finest and largest parish churches as well as an outstanding example of English Gothic architecture. The church is so large it is sometimes mistaken for Bristol Cathedral by tourists. It is, unsurprisingly of Grade I listed status.
The church is notable for its many large stained glass windows, decorative stone vaults, flying buttresses, rare hexagonal porch and massive Gothic spire. With a height of 84 metres to the top of the weathervane, St Mary Redcliffe is the second-tallest structure in Bristol and the sixth-tallest parish church in the country. The church spire is a major Bristol landmark, visible from across the city and until the completion of Castle Park View in 2020, was the tallest structure ever to have been erected in Bristol.
St Mary Redcliffe has received widespread critical acclaim from various architects, historians, poets, writers and monarchs. Queen Elizabeth I, on a visit to the church in 1574, described St Mary Redcliffe as “The fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England”; Simon Jenkins gives St Mary Redcliffe the maximum five-star rating in his book ‘England’s Thousand Best Churches’, one of only eighteen to receive such a rating, describing it as a “masterpiece of English Gothic”; and Nikolaus Pevsner says that “St Mary Redcliffe need not fear comparison with any other English parish church”.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
Late evening sun catches the wonderful stonecarving on the east end of the original Coventry Cathedral. The south west corner of the new cathedral is just visible left of shot.
Just occasionally people tell me they don’t like Coventry Cathedral. I couldn’t disagree more; a powerful symbol of Resurrection, restored to a very different life barely twenty years after being destroyed in the Blitz on 14 November 1940. The Modernist Cathedral of St Michael of the 20th Century both surrounded by and incomprehensible without the ruins of 14th Century building that surrounds it.
Coventry Cathedral incarnates the twin and interconnected British revivals of the two decades after the end of the Second World War – a revival of high culture and a revival of Christian faith. Basil Spence’s cathedral housing Jacob Epstein’s sculptures, John Piper’s massive arrangements of stained glass into windows, and Graham Sutherland’s tapestry, still in 2021 the largest in the world, represent collectively a totemic achievement in modernist visual arts and architecture.
The brief for the competition to select the architect of the new Cathedral demanded that the design emphasise the celebration of the Eucharist; Spence himself had a further vision of the building as the repository of great modern works of art. He described his building as “a plain jewel casket”. Piper’s windows cast shafts of colour into the heart of the nave, while the plain glass West Screen, which faces to the geographical south, allows much natural light into the building, essential given that the east end is entirely filled with Graham Sutherland’s great tapestry, still the largest in the world at 22 metres tall by 12 metres wide.
Coventry Cathedral was built to a tight budget – “not more than £985,000” – and making much use of reinforced concrete, the new cathedral was constructed in just six years, between Queen Elizabeth II laying the foundation stone on 23 March 1956 and the dedication ceremony on 25 May 1962.
Could there have been a finer or more appropriate setting for the world première of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem on 30 May 1962? On that night, the Cathedral’s great post-War religious theme was also incarnated in the three soloists: Peter Pears (Britten’s partner) from the host nation, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau from Germany, Galina Vishnevskaya from the USSR, representing three belligerent nations. That tri-national partnership continues to be symbolised by the presence of a replica of the Stalingrad Madonna given by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, where the original hangs, with a second copy being in Kazan Cathedral in Volgograd.
A building that breathes with the presence of the Holy Spirit, giving new life the Church in every generation.
The 13th Century gavit, an entrance hall of sort of super-narthex, at the Monastery-Cathedral of St John the Baptist at Hovhannavank, 45 minutes drive from Yerevan.
There was a wooden church here as early as the 4th Century, but the current building consists of a 5th Century basilica on the north (not visible in this shot), now used as a chapel for personal prayer, and a 13th Century cathedral through the door just below centre of shot.
The cupola of the main church has been damaged twice times in earthquakes - in 1679 and 1919, rebuilt both times, and the building suffered further damage in the 1988 earthquake which is a central event in shaping contemporary Armenia.
It is in good condition now and there is an active conservation programme.
I personally believe that the beautifully kept interior of St Peter's Church at Oundle is one of the most attractive that I have seen, and the close support of Oundle School is apparent in the excellent facilities provided. However, neither British Listed Buildings nor Simon Jenkins (who has a very high regard for the beautiful spire) have much to say about the interior, which was beautifully restored in 1864 by Sir George Gilbert Scott.
The pulpit is around 500 years old and was restored to its original colours in the 1960s. Many carved heads stare down from the ceiling and the walls. The most recent of these depict a former Vicar and Bishop of Peterborough – complete with glasses and mitre!
Aerial view of The Minster Church of St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
Founded by Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich, in 1101 and completed in 1119, St Nicholas is England’s largest parish church. Built to serve the growing medieval town and its herring industry, the church originally stood within a walled graveyard, part of which remains visible in the image.
Severely damaged during bombing raids in the Second World War, the Minster was almost completely rebuilt in the 1950s under architect Stephen Dykes Bower. Its copper-clad roof—now a defining feature of the Great Yarmouth skyline—was added during the post-war restoration. The church was granted Minster status in 2011.
Visible in the image are the surviving sections of the medieval town wall in the foreground and the compact urban grid of central Great Yarmouth beyond.
Temple Church was built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. It was consecrated on 10 February 1185 by Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem
Southwark Cathedral in south London dates back to 1106AD but has been a holy site for many years longer. I took these photos with my Samsung phone camera. The cathedral is surrounded by other buildings and is difficult to get any long shots
The roof of chantry chapel on the south side of Wells Cathedral by the crossing, exceuted in memory of Canon Hugh Sugar, Treasurer of Wells. He died in 1498, and this would have been built very soon afterwards. Within a generation the chantry would be abolished in England and much of the stonecarving skill displayed here along with it.
Around 1500, a chantry chapel in England, usually built to accommodate a priest saying Mass and at most a handful of worshippers, would have been in almost constant use as a place for which Mass could be offered for the souls of the dead. Many wealthy people left substantial sums of money to employ priests to say Mass on their behalf regularly after they died, and the money also paid for wonders of craftsmanship like this.
When heavy rain made it impossible to hike, we decided to visit Haut-Kœnigsbourg Castle. The castle has a rich history that goes back more than 800 years. It was originally built in the 12th century by the Hohenstaufen family and served as a strategic fortress, controlling important trade routes in the region. The castle sits on a high hill overlooking the Upper Rhine Plain, offering expansive views of the surrounding landscape. The castle was destroyed during the Thirty Years' War in 1633 by Swedish troops and lay in ruins for centuries. In the early 20th century, the German Emperor Wilhelm II restored the castle to reinforce German heritage in Alsace. The restoration, completed between 1900 and 1908 by architect Bodo Ebhardt, rebuilt the castle in a medieval style, blending historical accuracy with some creative touches. Despite the creative touches, we truly enjoyed the morning we spent there - Haut-Kœnigsbourg Castle, Orschwiller, Alsace Region, France
Bryggen is a historic harbour district in Bergen, one of North Europe’s oldest port cities on the west coast of Norway which was established as a centre for trade by the 12th century.
In 1350 the Hanseatic League established a “Hanseatic Office” in Bergen. They gradually acquired ownership of Bryggen and controlled the trade in stockfish from Northern Norway through privileges granted by the Crown. The Hanseatic League established a total of four overseas Hanseatic Offices, Bryggen being the only one preserved today.
The octagonal stone pulipt in Tewkesbury Abbey, given in 1878 by the Rev'd CW Grove in memory of his late wife.
The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury – commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey – is located in the English county of Gloucestershire. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Considered one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Britain, it has the largest Romanesque crossing tower in Europe. Tewkesbury had been a centre for worship since the 7th Century. A priory was established there in the 10th Century. The present building was started in the early 12th Century. It was unsuccessfully used as a sanctuary in the Wars of the Roses. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it became the parish church for the town. George Gilbert Scott led the Restoration of the building in the late 19th Century.
The churchmanship of the Abbey is strongly Anglo-Catholic.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
Just one last shot before the night plunges the facade of the cathedral into sleep.
Juste une dernière prise avant que la nuit ne plonge la façade de la cathédrale dans le sommeil.
Explore FP # 6. Thanks to all of you.
For the gory details, view large on black
Friends, here is another church interior shot. This is the St. Thomas Church on 5th Avenue in New York. Completed in 1913, the church is built in the French High Gothic style. Except for its length, Saint Thomas is of cathedral proportions, with the nave vault rising 95 feet above the floor. The church is built completely of stone, according to medieval construction principles. The size, spacing, and number of columns and arches are precisely what is necessary to support the structure - and give it the unique acoustical properties associated with churches built of the same materials and in the same way during the Middle Ages.
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[Photo Specs]
- HDR from 3 RAW shots (+2, 0, -2 EV) tonemapped in Photomatix.
- Layer of curves and brightness in Photoshop
- Layer of reduced saturation for master
- Layer of saturation for yellows (reduced saturation, increased lightness)
- Layer of saturation for red (reduced saturation and lightness)
- A layer of unsharp mask in Photoshop.
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