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Geghard Monastery is the jewel of Armenia’s tourist crown and deservedly so. It is cut into the cliffs that tower above it in the dramatic Azat River Gorge and so, above it, are around two dozen tiny rock chapels. It is almost like a Hollywood set for a Tolkien epic, except it is far too real for that.
The monastery was founded in the 4th century, according to tradition by Gregory the Illuminator. Although recorded as being well appointed Late Antiquity, it was destroyed by Arabs in the 10th Century. So the current building dates from 1215, along with its wonderful stone-carvings, and inscriptions on the site indicating it was becoming more active from the 1160s. Earthquakes also did it plenty of damage over the centuries; but it thrives again in the 2020s.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
The ruins of Kirkham Priory are situated on the banks of the River Derwent, at Kirkham, North Yorkshire, England. The Augustinian priory was founded in the 1120s by Walter l'Espec, lord of nearby Helmsley, who also built Rievaulx Abbey. The priory was surrendered in 8 December 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Legend has it that Kirkham was founded in remembrance of l'Espec's only son who had died nearby as a consequence of his horse being startled by a boar. The area was later used to test the D-Day landing vehicles, and was visited by Winston Churchill. The ruins are now Grade I listed and in the care of English Heritage.
Gatehouse ruins
Kirkham Priory gatehouse ruins. The armorials of various benefactors are visible sculpted on stone escutcheons
The Gatehouse of Kirkham Priory, built c. 1290–95, is a specimen of English Gothic medieval architecture. It is a rare survival of such a gatehouse, comparable to that of Butley Priory in Suffolk. It has a wide arch of continuous mouldings with a crocketed gable running up to the windows, with sculptures of S.George and the Dragon on the left, and David and Goliath to the right. Above the arch is Christ in a pointed oval recess, plus two figures below of St. Bartholomew and St. Philip, in niches. There are also many escutcheons with the armorials of the various benefactors of the Priory, including the arms of de Ros, Scrope, de Forz, Vaux, FitzRalph & Espec (3 cart-wheels, each with 6 spokes).
Samsung phone photos of my visit to the Tower of London the 2nd of July 2021. I had to book a ticket on line so booked the first slot at 9am. It was very slow there due to Covid-19 but great to visit without the crowds that would be there from all over the world in normal times. The Tower of London dates back to 1066 with the White Tower being built in 1078. The castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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.
Vicars' Close, in Wells, Somerset, England, is claimed to be the oldest purely residential street with original buildings surviving intact in Europe. Dating back to 1340. Beautiful gem of a place.
Saturday 14th of August 2021 and a trip to the closest Cathedral to me in Portsmouth. Portsmouth Cathedral was built in 1180AD and paid for my a local wealthy Norman merchant. It has a very interesting history. In 1449AD the Bishop of Chichester was murdered in Portsmouth by sailors so the cathedral was closed for a time and the people of Portsmouth excommunicated! The Cathedral is just a short walk from the closest beach at the Hot Walls.
A picturesque canal scene in Bruges, Belgium. Historic brick buildings line the waterway, reflecting in the calm water. People relax on a riverside walkway, enjoying the ambiance. This photo perfectly captures the charm of a European city.
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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.
Looking west along the nave of Winchester Cathedral to the great West Window, which was constructed in the mid-14th Century. The glass was destroyed by Parliamentarian soldiers in December 1642. It was lovingly restored by the townspeople as a mosaic following the Restoration of the Monarchy, but it has never regained its original appearance, the damage was too great.
The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winchester Cathedral, is the cathedral of the city of Winchester, England, and is among the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and is the mother church for the Church of England’s Diocese of Winchester.
The cathedral as it stands today was built from 1079 to 1532. It has a very long and very wide nave in the Perpendicular Gothic style, an Early English retrochoir, and Norman transepts and tower. With an overall length of 170 metres, it is the longest medieval cathedral in the world, and only surpassed by five more churches, four of them built in the 20th Century. It is also the sixth-largest cathedral by area in England.
The first Christian church in Winchester can be traced back to c. 648, when King Cenwalh of Wessex built a small, cross-shaped building just north of the present building. This ‘Old Minster’, became the cathedral for the new Diocese of Winchester in 662, but no trace of it other than its ground plan exists today. From 963 to 993, bishop Æthelwold and then Alphege greatly expanded the church, which was briefly the largest church in Europe. Also on the same site was the New Minster, in direct competition with the neighbouring Old Minster, begun by Alfred the Great but completed in 901 by his son Edward the Elder.
The present building, however, was begun after the Norman Conquest, perhaps inevitably. William the Conqueror installed his friend and relative Walkelin as the first Norman Bishop of Winchester in 1070, and nine years later, in 1079, Walkelin began the construction of a huge new Norman cathedral, on a site just to the south of the Old and New Minsters, the site of the present building. The new cathedral was consecrated with the completion of the east end in 1093, and the following day, demolition of the New and Old Minsters began and left virtually no remains.
Work quickly progressed to the transepts and central tower, and these were certainly complete by 1100. In 1107, the central tower fell but was reconstructed and much of the work on this core of the present building was completed by 1129 to a very high standard, much of it surviving today.
A new Early English retrochoir was started in 1202, but the next expansions after that would not start until 1346, when Bishop Edington demolished the Norman west front and began building a new Perpendicular Gothic facade, featuring a huge west window, which still stands today. Edington also began renovation of the nave, but this was mostly carried out by his successors, most notably William of Wykeham and his master mason, William Wynford, who remodelled the massive Norman nave into a soaring Perpendicular Gothic masterpiece. This they achieved by encasing the Norman stone in new ashlar, recutting the piers with Gothic mouldings and pointed arches, and reorganising the three-tier nave into two tiers, by extending the arcade upwards into what was the triforium and extending the clerestory downwards to meet it. The wooden ceiling was replaced with a decorative stone vault. Following Wykeham's death in 1404, this remodelling work continued under successive bishops, being completed ca. 1420.
Between then and 1528, major rebuilding and expansion was carried out on the Norman choir and Early English retrochoir. This work included the building of further chantry chapels, the replacement of the Norman east end with a Perpendicular Gothic presbytery, and the extension of Luci's retrochoir into a Lady Chapel. Unlike the rebuilding of the nave some 100 years earlier, the Gothic presbytery was vaulted in wood and painted to look like stone, as at York Minster. With its progressive extensions, the east end is now about 34 metres beyond that of Walkelin's building.
With Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Priory of Saint Swithun, was dissolved in 1539, and the cathedral’s shrines and altar were destroyed. The monastic buildings, including the cloister and chapter house, were later demolished, mostly during the 1560–1580 tenure of the reformist bishop Robert Horne.
The 17th century saw important changes to the interior, including the erection of a choir screen by Inigo Jones in 1638–39, the insertion of a wooden fan vault underneath the crossing tower (previously the tower was open to the church) and the destruction of much medieval glass and imagery by Parliamentarian soldiers in December 1642, including the near-complete destruction of the massive Great West Window by Cromwell and his forces. The window was put back together by the townspeople as a mosaic following the Restoration of the Monarchy, but it has never regained its original appearance, the damage was too great.
In the 18th century, many visitors commented on the neglect of the cathedral and the town; Daniel Defoe described the latter in about 1724 as “a place of no trade… no manufacture, no navigation”. Major restoration, however, followed in the early 19th Century under the direction of architect William Garbett and then John Nash
At the turn of the 20th century, Winchester Cathedral was in grave danger of collapse. Huge cracks had appeared in the walls, some of them large enough for a small child to crawl into, the walls were bulging and leaning, and stone fell from the walls. After several false solutions that may have made things worse, over six years from 1906-12, diver William Walker worked six or seven hour shifts every day diving through septic water full of corpses and laying a new cement under-layer for the cathedral and its foundations. Walker laid more than 25,000 bags of concrete, 115,000 concrete blocks, and 900,000 bricks. In 1911, flying buttresses were also added along the length of the south nave to complete the work.
In 2011, a new single-story extension in the corner of the north presbytery aisle was completed, the first new extension on the cathedral since the mid-16th Century, housing toilet facilities, storage and a new boiler. An extensive programme of interior restoration was completed between 2012-19.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
Saturday 14th of August 2021 and a trip to the closest Cathedral to me in Portsmouth. Portsmouth Cathedral was built in 1180AD and paid for my a local wealthy Norman merchant. It has a very interesting history. In 1449AD the Bishop of Chichester was murdered in Portsmouth by sailors so the cathedral was closed for a time and the people of Portsmouth excommunicated! The Cathedral is just a short walk from the closest beach at the Hot Walls.
Samsung phone photos of my visit to the Tower of London the 2nd of July 2021. I had to book a ticket on line so booked the first slot at 9am. It was very slow there due to Covid-19 but great to visit without the crowds that would be there from all over the world in normal times. The Tower of London dates back to 1066 with the White Tower being built in 1078. The castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A ponte românica de Puente la Reina é um dos exemplos de arquitetura civil mais interessantes do Caminho de Santiago em Navarra. Ela foi construída no século XI por uma rainha anónima de Navarra, que se acredita ter sido Muniadona de Castilla, esposa de Sancho el Mayor ou Estefanía, esposa do rei García el de Nájera. A ponte tem sete arcos de meio ponto e cinco pilares, e é um dos monumentos mais belos da rota. Ela é ponto de encontro de peregrinos que seguem para Santiago de Compostela ao longo do Caminho de Santiago.
The Romanesque bridge of Puente la Reina is one of the most interesting examples of civil architecture on the Way of Saint James in Navarre. It was built in the 11th century by an anonymous queen of Navarre, believed to have been Muniadona de Castilla, wife of Sancho el Mayor or Estefanía, wife of King García el de Nájera. The bridge has seven half-point arches and five pillars and is one of the most beautiful monuments on the route. It is a meeting point for pilgrims heading to Santiago de Compostela along the Way of Saint James.
Chichester Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It is located in Chichester, in West Sussex, United Kingdom. It was founded as a cathedral in 1075. I had a really good look around bot inside and outside the cathedral and this photo was taken with my Samsung phone camera from the Bishops gardens,
Tallinn is the oldest capital city in Northern Europe.
Tallinn's Old Town is in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is ranked as a global city and has been listed among the top 10 digital cities in the world.
Source: 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 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.
Travelled up to Salisbury today to revisit the wonderful cathedral. It has the tallest spire in the United Kingdom. I climbed to the top of the spire last time I visited back in 2014. The tower is not open at the moment due to Covid-19 rules on social distancing. Salisbury cathedral is one of our newer Norman cathedrals as it was not built until 1220AD. Sadly the weather today as you can see was cloudy and overcast.
St Mary's Anglican parish church, was built in the 1130s in the outer bailey of Portchester Castle. The church was built for an Augustinian priory which Pont de l'Arche established within the castle in 1128. Part of the priory was demolished leaving just the church. Portchester castle was built by the Normans sometime between 1066 and 1100. The castle was built on a former Roman Fort which was built between 285AD & 290AD and was home to the Roman fleet in Britain.
Visit to the Tower of London the 2nd of July 2021. I had to book a ticket on line so booked the first slot at 9am. It was very slow there due to Covid-19 but great to visit without the crowds that would be there from all over the world in normal times. The Tower of London dates back to 1066 with the White Tower being built in 1078. The castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Littlecote House near Hungerford dates from the 13th century, and is effectively three houses rolled into one. The original medieval mansion (on the left of the picture) was inhabited by the de Calstone family from around 1290. The Great Hall at this end of the building was converted into a Cromwellian Chapel in 1642. When William Darrell married Elizabeth de Calstone in 1415, he inherited the house. His family went on to build the adjoining Tudor mansion in the mid-16th century. Henry VIII courted Jane Seymour at the house; her grandmother was Elizabeth Darrell. The major Elizabethan brick extension was completed in 1592. Elizabeth I, James I, Charles II, and William of Orange all stayed there.
In September 1943 the US 101st Airborne Division requisitioned part of the house, and it became home to regimental staff, regimental headquarters company, and headquarters company of the 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The house provided office space and sleeping quarters for 506th officers with the best rooms being allocated to Col. Robert F. Sink, Regimental Commander and Lt. Col. Charles H. Chase, his executive officer. The colonel used the library as his office, and a memorial plaque can now be found in this room. From airfields in this area, including Ramsbury just to the west of here, the Airborne Division took off during the night of 5 June 1944, the eve of D-Day, as part of the invasion of Normandy. Easy Company from this regiment have become famous through the book and TV mini-series "Band of Brothers". All other ranks lived in Nissen huts built alongside the main drive between the house and the east lodge.
Littlecote House is currently a hotel.
Saturday 14th of August 2021 and a trip to the closest Cathedral to me in Portsmouth. Portsmouth Cathedral was built in 1180AD and paid for my a local wealthy Norman merchant. It has a very interesting history. In 1449AD the Bishop of Chichester was murdered in Portsmouth by sailors so the cathedral was closed for a time and the people of Portsmouth excommunicated! The Cathedral is just a short walk from the closest beach at the Hot Walls.
On Explore/Flickr Top 500, May 11, 2009
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Sometimes, construction blunders can be one of the wonders of the world. The Pisa cathedral belltower built in the late 1100s, is famously known as "The Leaning Tower of Pisa"
Though intended to stand vertically, the tower has leaned due to faulty planning -- I guess, the foundation is not good -- among other things perhaps. The tower's height is around 55 meters and leaning at about 4 degrees. Doing the trigonometric calculation (ie. Sine Law -- since sine of 90 degrees is 1 we have : 55xSIN 4), then we can say that to the top of the tower is about 4 meters from where it should be if it were standing upright (just slightly longer than 3.8 meters).
So if you stay at the lower end near the top of the tower, you can look down clearly below. Hmm... probably why Galileo had no problems doing his gravitational ball-experiments.
Pisa Cathedral Belltower
Pisa, Tuscany
Italy
The Temple Church is a Royal peculiar church in the City of London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. It was consecrated on 10 February 1185 by Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem
Chichester Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It is located in Chichester, in West Sussex, United Kingdom. It was founded as a cathedral in 1075
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 main cathedral, 13th Century, 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.
Like many Armenian churches there is a gavit, a sort of super-narthex, which also dates from the 13th Century - this is to the right of the complex as seen from here with the lower cupola.
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.