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The Gherardesca ivory Diptych [402 CE]
London BM MN 1857,1013.1 -
Original photo by courtesy of British Museum, photoshop treatment by PA
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Leaf of a diptych; ivory; the panel is carved with the apotheosis of a pagan figure in three scenes:
at bottom: four elephants draw a carriage carrying a dignitary, who sits beneath an aedicula with a gabled roof. He wears a toga and carries a staff and laurel branch.
Beyond the carriage, a funeral pyre surmounted by a quadriga bearing a god. From this pyre fly two eagles.
Above, a man borne by personifications of two winds into heaven, where he is welcomed by five male figures. He passes an arc with six zodiacal signs, and is watched by the sun god Helios.
At the top of the panel, an openwork scroll with monogram.
The Gherardesca ivory Diptych, detail upper part [402 CE]
London BM MN 1857,1013.1 -
Original photo by courtesy of Dan Diffendale, photoshop treatment by PA
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Leaf of a diptych; ivory; the panel is carved with the apotheosis of a pagan figure in three scenes:
Above, a man borne by personifications of two winds into heaven, where he is welcomed by five male figures. He passes an arc with six zodiacal signs, and is watched by the sun god Helios.
at bottom: four elephants draw a carriage carrying a dignitary, who sits beneath an aedicula with a gabled roof. He wears a toga and carries a staff and laurel branch.
Beyond the carriage, a funeral pyre surmounted by a quadriga bearing a god. From this pyre fly two eagles.
At the top of the panel, an openwork scroll with monogram
I read the letters ~ A C H M O R S V
Source: BM
Le buffet est le fruit du travail collectif d’une famille de sculpteurs et de menuisiers audomarois, les Piette.
La famille des Piette comprenait le père, Jean, les fils, Antoine-Joseph et Jean-Henri, ainsi que le gendre, Jacques-Joseph Baligand.
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The case is the work of a family of regional sculptors & wood carvers, the Piettes.
The family consisted of the father, Jean ; the sons, Antoine-Joseph & Jean-Henri ; & the son-in-law, Jacques-Joseph Baligand.
METHODIST CHURCH, SCHOOL ROOM, COACH HOUSE AND ATTACHED WALLS
Overview
Heritage Category: Listed Building
Grade: II
List Entry Number: 1157925
Date first listed: 19-Jan-1987
District:
North Somerset (Unitary Authority)
Parish: Churchill
National Grid Reference: ST 44352 59773
Details
Methodist Church, School Room and Coach House. Dated 1879 (on east gable end of School Room). By Foster and Wood of Bristol. Squared and coursed rockfaced rubble with flush ashlar quoins and dressings, stone copings, plain tile roofs and brick stacks. 3-bay church at right-angles to road to left-hand linked to 4-bay School Room by 4-bay corridor with service rooms. School Room further linked by loggia to porte cochere and Coach House. The complex forms an irregular L-shaped plan. Free-form Gothic style. Church with south-east porch and south apsidal ending with cusped openwork panelled parapets and crocketted pinnacles. Windows are 2 and 3-cusped lights of florid Perpendicular style. North-east staircase turret with pyramidal cap for gallery access. Interior. South gallery, barrel roof in nave, canted barrel roof in chancel. Contemporary fittings and stained glass in all windows. School Room with cross-mullion windows under gabled heads. Some applied half-timbering with brick infil to east and west gable ends. Good dentil coursed bargeboards. Similar details to Coach House complex. Tall panelled brick stacks. Spear railings fence between buildings and graveyard. Boundary walls, 1 metre high, with gate entrances to east and west ends with fine cast iron gas lamp standards. Further walls and railings to Coach House courtyard. The complex, built for Sidney Hill of Langford House , makes a fine group with the Clock Tower.
The Cathedral Church of St Andrew, Wells (Wells Cathedral)
Overview
Heritage Category: Listed Building
Grade: I
List Entry Number: 1382901
Date first listed: 12-Nov-1953
Statutory Address: CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST ANDREW, CATHEDRAL GREEN
County: Somerset
District: Mendip (District Authority)
Parish: Wells
National Grid Reference: ST 55148 45885
Details
Cathedral Bishopric established in 909. Saxon cathedral built, nothing now visible (excavations 1978/79). See transferred to Bath in 1090. Church extended and altered in 1140, in Norman style, under Bishop Robert Lewes; part of this lies under south transept of the present church.
Present church begun, at east end, in 1176 and continued to consecration in 1239, but with substantial interruption from 1190-1206. Designer Adam Lock, west front probably by Thomas Norreys. Nave, west front (but not towers), north porch, transepts, and part of choir date from this phase. Bishopric becomes Bath and Wells in 1218. Central tower begun 1315, completed 1322. Designer Thomas Witney Lady Chapel begun 1323, completed c 1326. Probably by Thomas Witney. At this stage the Chapel a free-standing structure to the east of the original (1176) east end. Extension of choir and presbytery in 1330 to connect with the new Lady Chapel. Designer Thomas Witney, but presbytery vaults by William Joy.
Following signs of dangerous settlement and cracking under the new tower, the great arches and other work inserted to prevent collapse in 1337; designer William Joy. (The St Andrew's arches known as strainer arches). South-west tower begun in 1385 to design of William Wynford, completed c 1395. North-west tower built 1410. Tracery added to nave windows in 1410. Central tower damaged by fire in 1439; repair and substantial design modification (designer not known) completed c 1450. Stillington's chapel built 1477, (off east cloister) designer William Smyth, who also designed the fan vault to the main crossing. The chapel was demolished in 1552.
MATERIALS: Doulting ashlar with blue Lias dressings, partly replaced by Kilkenny marble, some Purbeck marble internal dressings, and pink rubble outer cloister walls.
PLAN: Cruciform plan with aisled nave and transepts, north porch, cruciform aisled chancel with transeptal chapels and Retroquire. East Lady Chapel, north-east Chapter House and south Cloister.
EXTERIOR: Early English Gothic style, Decorated Gothic style Chapter House, Retroquire and Lady Chapel, Perpendicular Gothic style west and crossing towers and cloister. Early English windows throughout, mainly filled with two-light tracery c 1415, with a parapet of cusped triangles added c 1320 to all but the Chapter House and west front. Five-sided Lady Chapel has angle buttresses, drip and a parapet of cusped triangles, with wide five-light windows with reticulated tracery of cusped spheroid triangles; a late C14 flying buttress with a square pinnacle to the south-east. North chancel aisles: the east bay has a shallow two-centre arched five-light window with Decorated tracery, steeper three-light windows to the west bays, the transept chapel window of four-lights with reticulated tracery. The early C14 east end of the chancel has flying buttresses to the gable and three east bays; the east end has a five-light window with Decorated tracery, including two mullions up to the soffit, and a raised surround beneath a shallow canted parapet, with the coped gable set back and lit by four lozenge windows divided by a wide Y-shaped mullion; the north clerestory windows of three-lights, the three to the east have ogee hoods, the three late C12 west and two north transept windows linked by a continuous hood mould.
North Transept and nave aisles have a plinth, sill band, corbel table and parapet, with wide buttresses separating aisle lancet windows with inserted early C15 two-light Perpendicular tracery, and a clerestory with similar moulding and fenestration. Transept gable in three stages, with clasping buttress turrets and sill bands: three lower-stage windows and one to the end of west aisle, middle stage has a blind arcade of six lancets, the middle four truncated beneath three tall stepped lancets to upper stage, with similar blind panels paired to the turrets, and medallions to the spandrels; a weathered band beneath an arcade of stepped blind lancets, and panelled turret pinnacles with octagonal caps, a third to the flanking aisle; the right-hand turret has a good c 1475 clock with paired soldiers above striking two bells, and a crenellated canopy. Nine-bay nave aisle, ten-bay clerestory, of which the two windows flanking the transept re-entrant cut off above a mid C14 relieving arch.
Fine north porch two bays deep with blue Lias shafts and C18 outer doors: entrance archway of five orders with alternate paired banded columns with stiff leaf capitals to the west, carved showing the martyrdom of King Edmund to the east, and a roll-moulded arch, including two orders of undercut chevron mouldings with filigree decoration over fine doors of c 1200; clasping buttresses with octagonal pinnacles as the transept, and a gable with six stepped lancets beneath three stepped parvise lancets with sunken panels in the spandrels. Inside of two bays, articulated by banded vault shafts with stiff leaf capitals to a sexpartite vault; side benches are backed by arcades of four bayed seats with stiff leaf spandrels, beneath a string bitten off at the ends by serpents; a deeply recessed upper arcade of three arches to a bay, with complex openwork roll mouldings intersecting above the capitals, on coupled shafts free standing in front of attached shafts, enriched spandrels, and openwork Y-tracery in the tympanum beneath the vault. The south end decorated after the front entrance, including a moulded arch with a chevron order, and containing a pair of arched doorways with a deeply-moulded trumeau and good panelled early C13 doors with C15 Perpendicular tracery panels.
South elevation is similar: the chancel wall of the 1340 extension is recessed for the three east bays with flying buttresses, the windows to the west have uncusped intersecting tracery. Crossing tower has a c 1200 blind arcade to a string level with the roof ridge; upper section 1313, remodelled c 1440, has ribbed clasping buttresses to gabled niches with figures and pinnacles with sub-pinnacles; each side of three bays separated by narrow buttresses with pinnacles, a recessed transom with openwork tracery beneath and louvred trefoil-headed windows above, gabled hoods and finials. Corbels within for a spire, destroyed 1439.
West front screen is a double square in width, divided into five bays by very deep buttresses, with the wider nave bay set forward. The towers stand outside the aisles, the design of the front continued round both ends and returned at the rear. Statues of c 1230-1250, to an uncertain iconographic scheme. Divided vertically into three bands, beneath a central nave gable and Perpendicular towers; arches with originally blue Lias shafts, now mostly Kilkenny marble, and stiff leaf capitals. A tall, weathered plinth, with a central nave entrance of four orders with paired doorways and quatrefoil in the tympanum containing the seated Virgin with flanking angels, and smaller aisle entrances of two orders. Above is an arcade of gabled hoods over arches, containing paired trefoil-headed statue niches with bases and fifteen surviving figures; two-light Perpendicular tracery windows between the buttresses outside the nave; sunken quatrefoils in the spandrels, which cut across the corners of the buttresses. The third and principal band contains three tall, slightly stepped nave lancets, paired blind lancets between the outer buttresses, with narrower arches flanking them and to the faces and sides of the buttresses, all with banded Lias shafts and roll-moulded heads; the three arches to the sides and angled faces on the south-west and north-west corners have intersecting mouldings as in the north porch. All except the window arches contain two tiers of gabled statue niches with figures, taller ones in the upper tier, and across the top is an arcade of trefoil-headed statue niches with seated figures and carved spandrels. The nave buttresses have gabled tops containing cinquefoil-arched niches, and tall pinnacles with arched faces and conical tops; above the nave is a three-tier stepped gable with a lower arcade of ten cinquefoil-arched niches containing seated figures, a taller arcade of twelve niches with c 1400 figures of the Apostles, and a central top section with outer trefoil arches, corner sunken quatrefoils; the central oval recess with cusped sides and top contains a 1985 figure of Christ in Judgement beneath a pinnacle, with crosses and finials on the weathered coping. The Perpendicular towers continue the buttresses up with canopied statue niches to their faces and blank panelling to the sides, before raking them back into deep angle buttresses; between are a pair of two-light west windows, louvred above a transom and blind below, with a blind arcade above the windows, and a low crenellated coping.
INTERIOR: Lady Chapel: An elongated octagon in plan, with triple vault shafts with spherical foliate capitals to a tierceron vault forming a pattern of concentric stars, with spherical bosses and a paint scheme of 1845; the three west arches with Purbeck marble shafts onto the Retroquire have blind arched panels above; beneath the windows is a sill mould with fleurons, and a bench round the walls. Stone reredos has six statue niches with crocketed canopies and smaller niches in between, with four C19 sedilia with ogee-arched and crocketed canopies and a C14 cusped ogee trefoil-arched south doorway; C19 encaustic tiles.
The Retroquire extends laterally into east chapels each side and transeptal chapels: all with ogee-arched piscinae with crockets and finials, with a complex asymmetrical lierne vault on Purbeck marble shafts and capitals. The three east bays of the choir added early C14, and the high lierne vault of squares extended back over the three late C12 west bays, on triple vault shafts, Purbeck marble with roll-moulded capitals for the C14 and limestone with stiff leaf capitals for the C12; above the two-centre aisle arches and below the clerestory walk is a richly-carved openwork grille of statue niches with canopies, containing eight early C20 figures across the east end; clerestory walk has ogee-arched doorways. Rich canopies over choir stalls on Purbeck marble shafts, and five sedilia with enriched canopies. Ogee-arched doorways with crockets and pinnacles each side of the choir give onto the aisles, which have lierne vaults forming hexagons.
Transepts: Three bays deep and three wide, with cluster columns and stiff leaf capitals, including some fine figure carving in the south-west aisle, paired triforium arches between the vault shafts; the chancel aisles entered by C14 ogee-arched doorways with cinquefoil cusps and openwork panels each side; the north transept has a doorway from the east aisle with a depressed arch and moulded sides with a panelled Perpendicular ridge door, and Perpendicular panelled stone screens across the arcade; the south transept has an early C14 reredos with cusped ogee arches. The openings to the crossing contain inserted cross ogee strainer arches with triple chamfered moulding, on the west one an early C20 raised crucifix and flanking figures on shafted bases, and the roof has late C15 fan vaulting with mouchettes to the springers.
Nave: Ten-bay nave has compound columns of eight shafts with stiff leaf capitals enriched with figures, a continuous hood mould, with carved stops until the four west bays, which also have more richly-carved stiff leaf; a continuous triforium arcade of roll-moulded lancets with moulded rere arches, three to each bay, with enriched tympana and paterae in the spandrels above, carved corbels and springers to vault shafts above to a quadripartite vault without ridges; vault painted to a scheme of 1844. A panelled c 1450 gallery in the south clerestory window six from the west; aisles vaulted as nave, with enriched stiff leaf corbels. The west end has a trefoil-headed blank arcade on blue Lias shafts and a central stilted depressed-arch doorway, beneath the three west windows; the aisles end with a lateral rib from the vault to the west arcade. Chapels beneath the towers have sexpartite vaults with an enriched hole for the bell ropes; the south-west chapel has a shallow arch to the cloister beneath three cusped arched panels. The parvise over the north chapel contains a rare drawing floor. Two chantry chapels set between the east nave piers have fine openwork Perpendicular tracery and cresting, the south chapel of St Edmund c 1490 has a fan-vaulted canopy over the altar and two statue niches with canopies, and an ogee-arched doorway, the North Holy Cross Chapel c 1420 has quatrefoil panelling to the east canopy, distressed statue niches, and four-centre arched doorways.
FITTINGS: Lady Chapel: Brass lectern 1661 has a moulded stand and foliate crest.
Retroquire, North-East Chapel: fine oak C13 Cope Chest with a two-leaf top doors; panelled C17/C18 chest; north transept chapel: C17 oak screen with columns, formerly part of cow stalls, with artisan Ionic capitals and cornice, set forward over chest tomb of John Godilee; C14 floor tiles; south-east chapel: Bound oak C14 chest for Chapter Seal.
North Transept: Very fine c 1390 clock, considered the second oldest in the world after Salisbury Cathedral (qv), the face with heavenly bodies represented and four knights riding round above, and a quarter jack in the corner striking bells with a hammer and his heels; pine chest with bowed top.
Choir: Very fine stalls with misericords, c 1335; Bishop's Throne, c 1340, restored by Salvin c 1850, wide with panelled, canted front and stone doorway, deep nodding cusped ogee canopy over, with three stepped statue niches and pinnacles; C19 pulpit opposite, octagonal on a coved base with panelled sides, and steps up from the North aisle; organ within the chancel arch rebuilt and new case 1974.
South Transept: Round font from the former Saxon cathedral, with an arcade of round-headed arches, on a round plinth, with a c 1635 cover with heads of putti round sides.
Nave: Pulpit and tomb of William Knight, mid C16, built out from the Sugar chantry, with panelled buttresses, curved sides and a cornice.
Library: Good shelves and desks with panelled ends, cornices and scroll crests, and benches with ogee ends with ball finials of 1686.
MONUMENTS: Quire Corpus Christi North Transept Chapel: marble chest tomb of Robert Creyghton d 1672, an alabaster effigy on a sarcophagus with bowed sides; chest tomb of John Middleton, d c 1350, effigy set beneath the window; chest tomb of John Middleton, d c 1350, effigy set beneath the window; chest tomb of John Godelee, d 1333, effigy on a chest with open ogee arcade.
North Quire aisle: chest tombs of Bishop Giso, d 1088, Ralph of Salisby, d 1463, alabaster, and two further c 1230 effigies of Saxon Bishops, on mid C20 plinths; panelled chest tomb with three heraldic panels and moulded top; South-East Chapel of St John the Baptist: chest tomb encloses north side, with arcaded sides, thin mullions to a good openwork top with cusped gables and a canopy to east end.
St Katherine's Transept Chapel: Chest tomb of John Drokensford, d 1329, a painted effigy on a chest with open ogee arcade, as that for John Godelee; chest tomb of John Gunthorpe, d 1498 with five heraldic panels and moulded top. South chancel aisle: effigy of John Bernard, d 1459 on a mid C20 plinth; fine chest tomb of Bishop Bekynton, d 1464 but made c 1450, a cadaver within the open lower section with enriched shafts and angel capitals, with a painted marble figure on top, surrounded by a fine C15 wrought-iron screen with buttress stanchions; raised, incised coffin slab of Bishop Bytton d 1274, blue Lias; large chest tomb of Bishop Harvey d 1894 with five trefoil panels and an effigy with putti to the head; three c 1230 effigies of Saxon Bishops on mid C20 plinths; chest tomb of Bishop Harewell d 1386, a marble effigy on a C20 plinth.
North Transept, east aisle: Enriched marble chest tomb of John Still d 1607 with black Corinthian columns to entablature, sarcophagus with alabaster effigy; chest tomb to Bishop Kidder, d 1703 marble with an enriched naturalistic reclining figure of his daughter in front of two urns of her parents.
South Transept: Chapel of St Calixtus, fine un-named chest tomb of c 1450, with carved alabaster panels and effigy; Chapel of St Martin, chest tomb of William Bykonyll c 1448 with an arcaded front, cusped shallow arch over the effigy, panelled ceiling and a rich crested top; C15 wrought-iron gates to both chapels; in the south wall, good monument to Bishop William de Marchia, d 1302, three cusped cinquefoil-headed arches on moulded shafts, ogee hoods and pinnacles to a crenellated top, with an effigy within, with a three-bay segmental vaulted canopy, and decorated with six carved heads beneath.
STAINED GLASS: Original early glass is mainly in the choir and Lady Chapel; the Parliamentarians caused extensive damage generally in August 1642 and May 1643. Earliest fragments are in two windows on the west side of the Chapter House staircase (c 1280-90), and in two windows in the south choir aisle (c 1310-20), but of principal interest is the Lady Chapel range, c 1325-30, the east window including extensive repairs by Willement, 1845, and the others with substantial complete canopy-work, otherwise much in fragments. The choir east window is a fine Jesse Tree, including much silver stain, flanked by two windows each side in the clerestory, with large figures of saints, all these of c 1340-45; a further window each side is late C19. The chapel of St Katherine has interesting panels of c 1520, attributed to Arnold of Nijmegen; these, in the south and east windows were acquired from the destroyed church of St John, Rouen, the last panel was bought in 1953. The large triple lancet to the nave west end was glazed at the expense of Dean Creyghton at a cost of £140 in c 1664: repaired in 1813, but the central light largely replaced to a design by A K Nicholson between 1925-31. The main north and south transept end windows are by Powell, 1903-05, and the nave south aisle has four paired lights of 1881-1904, with a similar window at the west end of each aisle.
1726 or 1735, by Jan de Rijk ; the center panel is located exactly where a rugwerk might have been, but I don't know whether there was ever a rugwerk
A small part of the relics of Saint John the Baptist is found in this church.
The history of the church dates back to 1682, when a lord named Mihul built a church dedicated to the "Beheading of Saint John the Baptist".
The church is better known as "Bradu-Boteanu", because a tall fir tree grew near the church and because the church was near a slum called "Boteanu".
During the 1977 earthquake, nearby, the "Dunarea" block collapsed, located next to the beautiful church-monument of "Ienia" or "Enea".
During the work of clearing the debris, the equipment apparently "accidentally" also demolished the Ienia church located to the left of the "Dunarea" block, opposite the Ion Mincu Institute of Architecture and opposite the Intercontinental Hotel and the National Theater.
Since then, the Boteanu Church, taking over its patron saint and soul, has been called "Boteanu – Ienii"
in 1682, when the master Mihul built a wooden church on the northern border, then of Bucharest, with the patron saint "The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist".
It was called Bradu-Boteanu, from a taller fir tree near the church, but also from the nearby "Boteanu" slum.
Two of the founder's descendants, Maxem and Gheorghe, erected, during the time of Scarlat Vodă Ghica, on June 5, 1760, on the foundations of the old wooden foundation, a brick church.
After approximately 150 years, between 1908-1911,
"in place of the small church, which was in the shape of a cross, without a porch, with two towers much too high for the modest proportions of the church, into which you had to descend to enter it, the current church was built, adding the patron saint "Sfinţii Voievozi"
as we learn from the inscription at the church door.
The church that exists today was founded by Zinca Izvoranul, together with the parishioners, between 1908-1911.
At the entrance to the church, one can see, under the casket, the portrait of Mihail Rioșeanu, related to the founder of the holy place.
From the old church from 1760, only part of the inscription is preserved, in Slavonic or Cyrillic letters, which can be found at the entrance to the church, on the outer wall on the right.
The plan of the current church is in the shape of Byzantine cross, with an addition of a porch at the entrance.
The painting is made in tempera by the priest painter Vasile Damian, in neo-Byzantine style.
The iconostasis is made of oak wood, with columns and openwork belts, with icons from top to bottom made of silvered metal by the sculptor C. M. Babic, in 1911, his signature being on the back of the imperial doors.
Oak screen made up from parts of a 16c screen possibly from elsewhere, has delicate openwork tracery and foliage cornices. Beyond the screen the choir stalls date from 1893 made with the original older wood with Gothic panels to ends and fronts
- Church of St Peter & St Paul, Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire
Probably dating back to the 16th century, Wheal Luna tin mine is known to have been in operation in 1838. The miners followed the ore bearing lode back into the cliffs, digging the tin out out with hand tools and leaving the worthless rock in situ.
The concrete leat spanning the openworkings ran from the dressing floors of the 1940 tin mill at Turnavore shaft, Polberro mine, and took the waste water away to be discharged into the sea.
TL 1922 ST PAUL'S WALDEN ST PAULS WALDEN
11/176 Church of All Saints
27.5.68
GV I
Parish church. Probably C12 or C13 walling, tower on different axis to nave; window in S aisle c.1300; early C14 S arcade, N windows to nave, S porch altered, chancel arch, and details in lower part of tower; C15 upper stage to tower, clearstorey windows and embattled parapets; early C16 S chapel (Hoo or Lady Chapel), chancel remodelled 1727 for Edward Gilbert of the Bury, restored 1891-5 by Bodley and Garner (contractor Rattee and Kett of Cambridge) and completed and NE vestry added 1901 (Kelly (1914)231), E window opened 1946, chancel colour
scheme 1972 by Raymond Erith, church rooms in churchyard linked to N door 1973-4 by Priestman, Williams & Bennett. Flint rubble with coursed flint facing and stone dressings, E end and S chapel plastered. Steep red tile roof to chancel, slate roof to nave hipped to E, flatter pitched metal roofs behind parapets elsewhere. Pyramid slate roof to church rooms with deep rendered fascia, band of windows and blue brick base buried in ground. Church with chancel and S chapel, higher nave with windows at 2 levels in N side. S aisle, gabled S porch, and heavy
buttressed W tower. Small NE vestry with gabled corner buttresses. Chancel has 2 round-headed small N windows which were its only lighting until 1946. A 3-bays plaster-vaulted interior with stone floor with black dots. Barrel vault with panelled central ridge, coffered arches on panelled pilasters with moulded impost. Fielded panels to lower parts of walls with windows in end bays on N with paterae and garlands in
spandrels. Elaborate memorial plaster panel and eared surround in middle on S with oval centre, relief urn with putti and 'EG ob 1762' on urn. Painted inscription on back of centrepiece of screen records 'THIS/Chancel was First/Repair'd & Beautifi'd/by EDWARD GILBERT/ESQ of the Bury/in the Year of our Lord 1727.' Central panel on N wall has armorial centre and door to vestry discretely inserted below. Elaborate carved wooden reredos fills E wall with fluted Corinthian pilasters and arched centre in triumphal arch motif. Segmental pediments to 3 parts
and finials rising above, with putti supporting the ends of the
pediments. Lamb and flag central panel behind altar. Central round- headed panel now a stained glass memorial window of Crucifixion by Hugh Easton 1946. Elegant stone altar 1957 on 2 stone pedestals. Elaborate carved wooden screen under chancel arch altered to profile of chancel vault. Triple arched with higher and wider central opening. 4 slender Corinthian columns with separate pieces of entablature raised on
a high panelled plinth with central wrought iron gate. Stepped top above arches has pairs of putti supporting urns with scrolled candelabra and finials. Ogee curved upper feature similar. Tall rectangular nave has 5-bays S arcade c.1320 on octagonal piers with moulded caps and bases, 2-centred arches of 2 chamfered orders, and hoodmould with heads. 3 ogee-pointed Dec windows in N wall also c.1320 each of 2 trefoil lights with tracery and deep reveals. Pointed N door with segmental rear arch
contemporary. 3 clearstorey C15 windows in N and S walls of 2 cinquefoil lights. Narrow upper door for roodloft to right of chancel arch. Carved wooden pulpit in early C18 style at SE after 1908. Flat boarded painted ceiling divided by a grid of painted battens, with coved cornice along side walls and 5 corbels on E wall with painted Latin inscription below. Decoration by Bodley and Garner. The tall tower arch of 2 moulded orders with half-octagonal responds, moulded caps and bases. Wooden gallery
1897, high up at W. Fine lettering to black marble armorial slabs along central aisle. S aisle has 5-bays open timber roof and raised plinth 3-steps higher at W end with stone C15 font. Octagonal embattled bowl with band of leaf carving, octagonal panelled shaft and moulded base. Oak cover with openwork ogee finial. Adjoining S window of 3 trefoil lights, Kentish tracery, moulded rear arch and label c.1300. Plain C14 doorway to E and 2 C15 3-lights windows with cinquefoil lights under segmental heads. Blocked window in W wall similar with tracery of head
exposed externally. In NW angle a narrow 4-centred doorway to tower stair. Large chest tomb in SW angle with polished black marble panels, recessed baluster corners with reeded band, and inscription at N to Peter Nicol d.1798. Varied stone corbels, one a gargoyle, supporting inner end of trusses with wheel-tracery in spandrels at N. Moulded purlin and wallplates. S chapel has similar painted boarded ceiling to nave, E window of 4 cinquefoil lights under square head, 3 S windows of 3-lights with square heads, and small 4-centred S doorway. 3-bays stone
arcade on N has 4-centred arches blocked at mid depth of wall, capitals, hexagonal piers with bases cut in the upper parts into half-octagonal shafts with hollow fillet between. Arch to S aisle of similar detail. Many black marble armorial slabs in floor. Recessed into W wall to left of arch a wall monument to Henry Stapleford d.1631 and his wife d.1620. Kneeling figures facing across a desk, child behind wife. Open triangular pediment on black marble pilasters and inscribed panel below. Discreet white and black marble wall monument to Hon George Bowes
d.1806. Simple oak screen at entrance. C15 with panelled lower part and 2-lights on each side of entrance and gilded transom to top. Depressed ogee arch to each light and Perp tracery. Externally the Perp 4-lights E window has carved spandrels and moulded strings rising in a V up the gable with descenders and carved stops. Ferramenta to similar windows on S side of chapel. Clunch dressings repaired in plaster. Angle buttress and 2 buttresses ending below height of window heads. The gabled S porch has an outer arch of 2 continuously chamfered orders, stone seats, and restored medieval roof of one bay. Hollow chamfered stone corbels at corners, knee-braces and wallposts to chamfered cambered tie-beams bearing short king-posts with hollow chamfered brace to hollow-chamfered ridge beam. Chamfered end stopped wallplates and flat rafters. S door of
2 orders continuously moulded. Oak door with moulded battens. W Tower of 2 stages with large angle buttresses. W wall extends to S in a projecting stair turret carried higher than the embattled parapet. Pole and vane on top, C14 W window a single trefoil light, rebated for internal shutter, has early C14 stained glass window of Virgin and child, the Virgin mostly brown and green, the child draped in red. C14 W doorway of 2 continuous hollow chamfered orders. Narrow plain lancets to 3 sides high up in ground stage. 2-light quatrefoil headed bell opening on each side. Openings at 5 levels on W side. Moulded plinth to stair
turret and buttresses but not tower. (VCH (1908)409-10: RCHM (1911)196-7: Kelly (1914)231: Pevsner (1977)329-30: Morris (1980)56-8).
Official list entry
Heritage Category:Listed Building
Grade:I
List Entry Number:1269316
Date first listed:18-Jan-1949
Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
Location
Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
District: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:Malmesbury
National Grid Reference:ST 93280 87320
Details
Benedictine Abbey church, now parish church. Church founded c637 by Irish hermit Mailduib, monastery founded during abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705), though no pre-C12 work survives; church probably begun under Bishop Roger (c1118-1139), and mostly dates from c1160-80 with a 9-bay aisled nave, transepts with E chapels, chancel, ambulatory with 3 radiating chapels, and S porch, rebuilt 1350-1450 above gallery level with clerestory, vault, crossing spire and W towers, a lengthened chancel and Lady Chapel; spire fell 1479. After Dissolution nave altered by William Stumpe of Abbey House (qv) and damaged W parts walled for the parish church, W tower fell c1662, W window by Goodridge 1830, restored W end 1903. MATERIALS: limestone ashlar with stone tiles. STYLE: late Romanesque style C12 work, Decorated Gothic style C14 extensions. PLAN: reduced since the Dissolution to 6 E bays of nave, with short lengths of transept walls and S corner of W end. EXTERIOR: the E end has a single N chancel bay and matching chancel arch with paired half shafts set in square piers with quarter round capitals, beneath the 2-centre arched line of the vault, and tas-de-charges with sunken mouchettes; the jambs of next E bay has matching aisle and triforium semi-circular jambs with chevron mouldings. Inner wall of N transept has blocked 2-centred aisle arch containing a C16 doorway and 3-light mullion window, and a blind round-arched doorway to the right; 6-bay N elevation has a blind former cloister wall along the aisle divided by buttresses, with a roll-top coping, and round-arched windows above a cill band containing C14 tracery, with a steep gable in the fourth bay containing a 3-light Decorated tracery window; at the left end is a blocked, round-arched C12 doorway with an archivolt of relief palmettes, and a cusped cinquefoil arch set within. The C14 clerestory has flying buttresses with tall pyramidal pinnacles between 3-light 2-centre arched windows, 2-light at the E end, with paterae to each side of the three E windows. S transept as N, 2 bays after the aisle arch, an incomplete arcade of interlacing round arches with a chevron moulding
beneath 2 storeys of round-arched windows with splayed reveals, the lower windows flanked by narrow round-arched recesses containing inner arches open to a passage through the walls. The arcade continues along the former external side of the S transept and to the 9-bay S elevation, otherwise as the N side with a Decorated cusped openwork parapet to aisle and nave, and with second and third bays from E containing C14 2-centre windows with Decorated tracery. C12 porch rebuilt externally in C14 with angle buttresses, has a very fine splayed round-arched entrance of 3 orders, without capitals, richly carved with iconographic Biblical scenes set in oval panels, and separated by richly carved mouldings, and a hood with dog head stops. Inside is a similarly-moulded doorway and C14 door, beneath a tympanum of Christ in Glory supported by 2 angels, with along both sides the round-arched arcade above a bench, beneath finely-carved lunettes each of 6 Apostles with a horizontal flying angel above. In the E re-entrant is a square stair turret with a pyramidal roof. The incomplete W end has a massive clasping buttress stair turret to the S corner in 4 stages separated by moulded strings, blank from the ground, a pair of blind round-arched panels containing lower arched panels to the second stage, an arcade of narrow interlacing round-arches to the third, and a taller arcade to the fourth stage with square section mouldings; the bay to the left as the S aisle, with a pair of round arches with flanking half arches at the second stage enriched with chevron moulding, containing pairs of round-arches; above is an arcade of 5 round-arches, and a blind wall topped with a C20 parapet. The S side of the central entrance bay has the jamb of a round-arched entrance with 2 orders carved as the S porch and plain capitals, beneath the jamb of a large C14 W window with the springers of 4 cusped transoms. INTERIOR: nave arcade has round shafts with scallop capitals to sharply moulded 2-centre arches, with billet mouldings to the 2 E arches, and billet hoods with dog head stops; the triforium has blind round arches with attached shafts to cushion capitals, a chevron moulding, with an arcade of 4 similar arches within; splayed clerestory windows have rere arches. An attached shaft extends up from the piers to C14 tas-de-charges, and a lierne vault with carved bosses. A 'Watching Loft' is corbelled out above the fourth pier on the S side of the nave, with plain openings and billet moulded cornice. The C12 aisles have pointed quadripartite vaults and benches,
the blind arcade of the outside beneath the windows, on the S side without the middle columns; the E end bays have C15 stone screens with Perpendicular tracery. To the left of the entrance is a winder stair to the C14 parvis over the porch, which has C20 panelling. MEMORIALS: running counter-clockwise from the entrance, a wall monument to Joseph Cullerne, d1764, a marble panel with raised bracketed top section; wall monument to Robert Greenway, d1751, a marble shield; wall monument to Bartholomew Hiren, d1703, a panel with a broken pediment; at the W end, a wall monument to Dame Cyscely Marshal, d 162?, with a slate panel in a carved alabaster frame; to the left a late C17 cartouche with drapes; in the N aisle, a dresser tomb of King Athelston, d939, with narrow buttresses to the sides, with a recumbent figure of the King with his feet on a lion, and a vaulted canopy behind his head; wall monument to Elizabeth Warneford, d1631, a slate plaque set in a moulded alabaster frame with shields along the sides, a cartouche, and a segmental cornice over; wall tablet to Isaac Watts, d 1789, an oval marble panel set in slate; wall tablet to Johannes Willis, mid C18, a marble panel with gadroon beneath and a cornice; wall tablet to GI Saunders, d1806, with a round-arched top and moulded frame; wall tablet to Elizabeth George, d1806, a well-carved cartouche with putti below; wall tablet to Edward Cullerne, d1765, marble with yellow marble inserts and a pediment; wall tablet to Mary Thomson, d1723, a stone panel with draped surround including an hour glass; wall tablet facing the entrance to Willima Robernce (?), d1799, a stone frame including a small inscribed pointing hand in the corner. Set in the chancel floor are a group of 8 brasses from late C17 to mid C18. FITTINGS: include a round C15 font from St Mary Westport (qv), with a turned base and fluted sides; at the W end of the nave, is the font used since the C17; in the S aisle, a glass case containing a verge of 1615, carved with features of the Abbey; at the E end the S aisle is the parish chest dated 1638, panelled with 3 locks; communion rail of c1700 with twisted balusters. In the parvis are kept 4 volumes of an illustrated manuscript Bible of 1407. GLASS: mostly C14 glass in the N aisle; the Luce window in the S aisle designed by Burne Jones and made by William Morris. HISTORICAL NOTE: the use of pointed arches and vaults in the aisles is structurally advanced and transitional with Early Gothic, and links Malmesbury with subsequent West Country churches, but the carving is Anglo Saxon in character, and probably borrowed from manuscript illustrations. The conventual buildings stood on the N side of the church; for the reredorter and sections of the precinct wall, see
Abbey House, Market Cross (qv), and for the guest house, see Old Bell Hotel, Gloucester Street (qv). (Victoria History of the Counties of England: Crowley DA: Wiltshire: 1991-: 157; Archaeologia: Brakspear H: Malmesbury Abbey: 1912-; Smith MQ: The Sculptures of the S Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: Malmesbury: 1973-; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Wiltshire: London: 1963-: 321-327; Midmer R: English Medieval Monasteries 1066-1540: London: 1976-: 212).
© Historic England 2022
Detailed pictures of the Practical Sampler I completed in May 2011. Most of the bands are based on designs and inspiration from the DMC booklet "Broideries Ajourées Sur Toile" from the Antique Pattern Library www.antiquepatternlibrary.org
Leaving the village of Llanystumdwy after a visit to the David Lloyd George Museum and seeing his grave.
Church of St John the Baptist
Grade II Listed Building
History
The parish church stands on an early site. It was rebuilt as 'a handsomer edifice neatly fitted up' in 1819, then dedicated to a C6 missionary Sant Tydecho, but was rebuilt on a larger scale in 1862 by Henry Kennedy, architect to the diocese of Bangor, in a Gothic style. It was further inproved internally in 1890 and rededicated in 1892 to St Ieuan gan Alltud Eifion. The church was known in the C18 for is patronage of bards, including Evan Evans, 'Ieuan Fardd' (1731-1788) the eminent poet and scholar, who was curate here from 1769-1770.
Exterior
Built of roughly coursed squared microgranite, with gritstone dressings, and slate roofs. The building consists of a nave with a south porch, a short narrower presbytery, and large north and south transepts. Double buttresses at the W end rising from a wide battered base, rise to a gabled bellcote with three openings for bells. The S porch has an external arch of 2 chamfered orders and coped gable with a cusped terminal stone. Nave buttresses, the lower offset rising from ground level. 1- and 2-light windows with cusped geometric tracery, varied at the W end, with a higher 2-light window. On the N side a low W end window, partially blocked. 2-light windows to the transepts and a large 3-light window with elaborate tracery at the E end. All gables are coped.
Attached to the porch are slate headstones of Richard Williams, Cefn-y-maen d.1747, Rebeccah Hughes d.1860, Jane Morris d.1860, Catherine Ellis and children d.1805 (in Latin), and Catherine Ellis of Gwynfryn, d.1736, buried 1803. In the churchyard is a monument of 1781 to William Williams of the East India Company.
Interior
Wide nave with slender trussed collar rafter roof. The truss at the junction of nave with transepts is arch-braced from low stone corbels, and this has a similar arch-braced collar truss at the start of each transept, together defining the crossing. Walls plastered and painted. Quarry tile floor, encaustic tiles in the crossing and mosaic in the sanctuary.
Fittings: stone reredos of 5 bays on short trilobed red marble columns, each arch framing raised symbols of the faith. Pulpit, a carved limestone octagon raised over 4 steps, cinquefoil arches on similar short marble columns, and the panels filled with chequerwork, this and the reredos commemorating Samuel Owen Priestley, d.1872, and wife. Font, a plain octagonal stone bowl with an oak cover. Lectern, of oak, carved openwork between side posts. The altar rail is also of oak and arcaded. The organ, which originally had a barrel organ mechanism, was a gift to the church in 1867.
Glass: E Window, c1862, in memory of Mary Nanney, d.1849, and sister Anne Morgan; E nave windows, Annunciation and the Good Shepherd, good later C19 glass; S Transept, a Baptism of Christ, 1886, by Mayrick? of London; W window, SS Peter and Paul, for Ellis Anwyl Owen, rector 1837-46.
Monuments: Nave, N side from W: (a) Gothic marble commemorative tablet on slate, by R D Towyn, to John Williams, surgeon, of Talarfor, d.1875; (b) Slate gravestone of Owen Gruffydd, d.1730, 'the most honorable of all', one of the last bards in the bardic tradition who wrote political and religious cywyddau, and Christmas carols; (c) Gothic white marble tablet, the outer edge carved with flowers and fruits, by Hall of Derby, to Samuel Owen Priestly of Trefan and Tyddynmadoc coch, d.1872; (d) Small slate tablet to Lt Col Godfrey Drage of Cae Terfyn, d.1853, 'a gallant soldier'; (e) Marble tablet with cornice and urn over, against slate, to John Wynne Hughes of Trefan, d.1795; Nave, S wall, (f) Marble tablet, the cornice supporting a draped figure leaning on an upturned sword and holding a balance, to Henrietta Ellis Nanney of Gwynfryn, d.1815, and commemorating husband, David Ellis Nanney, barrister, d.1819; and (g) Polished limestone plaque to Dorothea Pughe-Jones of Ynysgain, d.1955.
Two unfixed boards inscribed with the Commandments and the Creed.
Reasons for Listing
Included as a good example of a completely rebuilt C19 church in the full Gothic revival tradition of the mid century.
~1500 ; rebuilt in the new church bldg. in 1877 by architect David Walker.
The "flat" panels of the soffit are not original.
An excellent article about this screen can be read @
www.buildingconservation.com/articles/llananno-rood/llana...
Coachwork by Henri Chapron
At the paris Motor Show 1933, Delahaye broke totally with their traditional productions by presenting two modern chassis with independent front wheels : the four-cylinder Type 134 and the six-cylinder, 3,2-litre Type 138. The latter would lead to the celebrated Type 135, characterized by a lower chassis frame of even more modern design, with side-frames of with tubular struts, the ensemble being electrically welded.
In June 1934 Delahaye obtained approval from the Service des Mines (French vehicle-testing service) for a chassis with a 3,5-litre engine known as the 135M (for modified). The engine entered production in 1935 after being tested in competition.
This 135M with bodywork by Henri Chapron, belonged for many years to the well-known collector Jacques Dumontant, who inherited it from his father and often used it on his travels in search of vintage cars. Although that 135M usually came with openwork sheet-metal wheels, this one has more elegant wire wheels, always available as an option at the time.
Zoute Concours d'Elegance
The Royal Zoute Golf Club
Zoute Grand Prix 2016
Knokke - Belgium
Oktober 2016
I have been traveling to Leuven once a month for some 17 months now, and have not, until yesterday, visited the church of St Peter.
It stands in the centre of the town, opposite the ornate Town Hall, and around most of it is a wide pedestrianised area, so it doesn't feel hemmed in.
It is undergoing renovation, and a large plastic sheet separates the chancel from the rest of the church, and in the chancel, called the treasury, are many wonderful items of art. And maybe due to the €3 entrance fee, I had the chancel to myself, and just my colleagues with me when I photographed the rest.
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Saint Peter's Church (Dutch: Sint-Pieterskerk) of Leuven, Belgium, is situated on the city's Grote Markt (main market square), right across the ornate Town Hall. Built mainly in the 15th century in Brabantine Gothic style, the church has a cruciform floor plan and a low bell tower that has never been completed. It is 93 meters long.
The first church on the site, made of wood and presumably founded in 986, burned down in 1176.[1] It was replaced by a Romanesque church, made of stone, featuring a West End flanked by two round towers like at Our Lady's Basilica in Maastricht. Of the Romanesque building only part of the crypt remains, underneath the chancel of the actual church.
Construction of the present Gothic edifice, significantly larger than its predecessor, was begun approximately in 1425, and was continued for more than half a century in a remarkably uniform style, replacing the older church progressively from east (chancel) to west. Its construction period overlapped with that of the Town Hall across the Markt, and in the earlier decades of construction shared the same succession of architects as its civic neighbor: Sulpitius van Vorst to start with, followed by Jan II Keldermans and later on Matheus de Layens. In 1497 the building was practically complete,[1] although modifications, especially at the West End, continued.
In 1458, a fire struck the old Romanesque towers that still flanked the West End of the uncompleted building. The first arrangements for a new tower complex followed quickly, but were never realized. Then, in 1505, Joost Matsys (brother of painter Quentin Matsys) forged an ambitious plan to erect three colossal towers of freestone surmounted by openwork spires, which would have had a grand effect, as the central spire would rise up to about 170 m,[2] making it the world's tallest structure at the time. Insufficient ground stability and funds proved this plan impracticable, as the central tower reached less than a third of its intended height before the project was abandoned in 1541. After the height was further reduced by partial collapses from 1570 to 1604, the main tower now rises barely above the church roof; at its sides are mere stubs. The architect had, however, made a maquette of the original design, which is preserved in the southern transept.
Despite their incomplete status, the towers are mentioned on the UNESCO World Heritage List, as part of the Belfries of Belgium and France.
The church suffered severe damage in both World Wars. In 1914 a fire caused the collapse of the roof and in 1944 a bomb destroyed part of the northern side.
The reconstructed roof is surmounted at the crossing by a flèche, which, unlike the 18th-century cupola that preceded it, blends stylistically with the rest of the church.
A very late (1998) addition is the jacquemart, or golden automaton, which periodically rings a bell near the clock on the gable of the southern transept, above the main southern entrance door.
Despite the devastation during the World Wars, the church remains rich in works of art. The chancel and ambulatory were turned into a museum in 1998, where visitors can view a collection of sculptures, paintings and metalwork.
The church has two paintings by the Flemish Primitive Dirk Bouts on display, the Last Supper (1464-1468) and the Martyrdom of St Erasmus (1465). The street leading towards the West End of the church is named after the artist. The Nazis seized The Last Supper in 1942.[3] Panels from the painting had been sold legitimately to German museums in the 1800s, and Germany was forced to return all the panels as part of the required reparations of the Versailles Treaty after World War I.[3]
An elaborate stone tabernacle (1450), in the form of a hexagonal tower, soars amidst a bunch of crocketed pinnacles to a height of 12.5 meters. A creation of the architect de Layens (1450), it is an example of what is called in Dutch a sacramentstoren, or in German a Sakramentshaus, on which artists lavished more pains than on almost any other artwork.
In side chapels are the tombs of Duke Henry I of Brabant (d. 1235), his wife Matilda (d. 1211) and their daughter Marie (d. 1260). Godfrey II of Leuven is also buried in the church.
A large and elaborate oak pulpit, which is transferred from the abbey church of Ninove, is carved with a life-size representation of Norbert of Xanten falling from a horse.
One of the oldest objects in the art collection is a 12th-century wooden head, being the only remainder of a crucifix burnt in World War I.
There is also Nicolaas de Bruyne's 1442 sculpture of the Madonna and Child enthroned on the seat of wisdom (Sedes Sapientiae). The theme is still used today as the emblem of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
Title: Hanukkah lamp
Description: Bench-type menorah with brass Sabbath candle holders, 8 oil wicks, and 4 legs. A separate row of oil wicks with hinged lid screwed to base, on four feet. Back wall attached to side with slot holders. Decorated with a 7 branch menorah flanked by rampant deer and 2 columns. Side walls have openwork design.
Artist: Unknown
Medium: brass: cast
Date: Poland, 19th Century
Persistent URL: digital.cjh.org/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=511383
Repository: Yeshiva University Museum
Accession number: 1987.005
Rights Information: No known copyright restrictions; may be subject to third party rights. For more copyright information, click here.
See more information about this image and others at CJH Digital Collections.
Gold, 242 C.E (medallion), 250-300 C.E. (setting and chain), From Egypt
L. chain 45.5 cm.; Diam. medallion 5.2 cm. ); W. 350 grams
The gold medallion struck from dies; its frame cast, cut, hammered, chiselled and burnished. The necklace is a chain composed of intricate layers of interlocking foil made from gold strips hammered and cut, at its extremities two snake protomes, repoussé, hammered, chiselled, and worked in and out from gold sheet; a gold wire fusion-welded to the edge of the necks, in front of which a round-headed pin on either side secures the chain. A thick, round wire section protrudes from the mouth on one, formed into a loop and fusion-welded to it, and just above on the other, formed into a hook. The medallion hangs from the chain by means of a thick, ribbed gold strip that is hammered to a pointed hook at one end and at the other to a wire that goes through a small section of ribbed gold strip folded over into a cylinder and soldered onto the edge of the mount; as the wire comes out it is coiled around like a spring which fits over the hook. Thus, in antiquity it was very easy to unhook the loop and slide the medallion off it or pry open the loop, freeing it from the chain.
Condition: the medallion in mint condition, the mount reset on the back and minor restoration to the chain where slightly damaged in four places.
Medallions to mark significant events, such as this, were struck at the imperial mint in Rome as presentation gifts for important officials. Emperor Gordian III (ruled A.D. 238-244) accompanied by Timesitheus, prefect of the guard, led his army across the Hellespont on his way to Syria at the onset of his campaign against Shapur I, the Sassanian king.
The obverse of the medallion shows Gordian as a victorious warrior with spear and shield, the latter decorated with a scene of the emperor on horseback accompanied by two winged Victories in the act of crowning him. An abbreviated inscription reads: IMP(ERATOR) GORDIANUS PIUS FELIX AUG(USTUS). The reverse depicts the sea crossing at the Hellespont, with the inscription TRAIECTUS AUG(USTI)--"the crossing over by the Emperor". Several other related medallions with the same reverse (most in bronze) have survived [1], but this is the largest and finest so far known.
The medallion found its way to Egypt, known for being a wealthy province, and it was probably there that it was set in an openwork mount to enable hanging on an elaborate chain ending in snake heads. A comparable necklace, but ending in lion heads, is in Baltimore [2]. The chains composed of layers of intertwined gold bands, which produce wavy surfaces, are so juxtaposed with each other that they throw off a shimmering light.
Snake heads of very similar style and construction are to be found on the ends of two gold bracelets: one in the British Museum [3], which also happens to be from Egypt, and another in Berlin [4], but without a provenance. It would seem that all the above examples belong to the 3rd century A.D. and suggest that the necklace and the mount are almost contemporary with the medallion.
Exhibited and Published:
Gesichter, cat. no. 181, pp. 302-303 ill.
1 Gnecchi, F.: I medaglioni romani II (Milan, 1912), nos. 39-43, pp. 91-92; and one example in gold, once in the Jameson Collection: Mattingly, H., Sydenham, E.A.: Roman Imperial Coinage (London, 1949), vol. 4,3, no. 323.
2 Oliver, A.: Jewelry. Ancient to Modern (Baltimore, 1979), no. 327, p. 118 (from Lycia); another similar chain: Zahn, R.: Galerie Bachstitz (Berlin, 1921), no. 33, p. 11.
3 Marshall, F.H.: Catalogue of the Jewellery, Greek, Etruscan & Roman in the British Museum (London, 1911), no. 2815, p. 330, pl. 65 (as "2nd-3rd century").
4 Greifenhagen, A.: Schmuckarbeiten in Edelmetall II (Berlin, 1975), p. 41, pl. 35,4 (formerly Guilhou Collection, as "3rd century").
Text and picture from the website of George Ortiz.
The Grade I Listed Leeds Minster, in Leeds, North Yorkshire.
A church at “Ledes” is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 although it is likely that there had been a church on the same site for much longer, as evidenced by the fragments of Anglo-Scandinavian stone crosses (known as the Leeds Cross) found on the site during the construction of the current church. The church was rebuilt twice, after a fire in the 14th century, and again in the 19th century.
Walter Farquhar Hook, Vicar of Leeds from 1837 until preferment as Dean of Chichester in 1859 was responsible for the construction of the present building, and of the revitalisation of the Anglican church throughout Leeds as a whole. The architect was Robert Dennis Chantrell.
It was originally intended only to remodel the church in order to provide space for a larger congregation. In November 1837 a scheme was approved under which the tower would have been moved from the crossing to the north side, the chancel widened to the same breadth as the nave, and the north aisle roof raised. When work began, however, it was discovered that much of the structure was in a perilous condition, and it was decided to replace the church completely.
The new building was the largest new church in England built since Sir Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral erected after the Great Fire of London and consecrated in 1707. The new parish church was rebuilt by voluntary contributions from the townspeople at a cost of over £29,000 and consecrated on 2 September 1841.
Cruciform in plan, the minster is built in ashlar stone with slate roofs, in an imitation of the English Gothic style of the late 14th century, a period of transition from the Decorated to the Perpendicular. The church is 180 feet long and 86 feet wide, its tower rising to 139 feet. The chancel and nave each have four bays of equal length with clerestories and tall aisles.
The tower is situated at the centre of north aisle. Below the tower on the north side is the main entrance. The tower has four unequal stages with panelled sides and corner buttresses terminating in crocketed turrets with openwork battlements and crocketted pinnacles. The clock was made by Potts of Leeds.
Information Source:
Both of these bronze spearheads are tall and slender with defined central ridges.
One example is un-ornamented, while the other exhibits rows of symmetrical openwork and widens at the base like an arrowhead.
Hollow sockets with small holes reveal that these spearheads were once mounted atop staffs and wielded from a distance.
Official list entry
Heritage Category:Listed Building
Grade:I
List Entry Number:1269316
Date first listed:18-Jan-1949
Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
Location
Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
District: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:Malmesbury
National Grid Reference:ST 93280 87320
Details
Benedictine Abbey church, now parish church. Church founded c637 by Irish hermit Mailduib, monastery founded during abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705), though no pre-C12 work survives; church probably begun under Bishop Roger (c1118-1139), and mostly dates from c1160-80 with a 9-bay aisled nave, transepts with E chapels, chancel, ambulatory with 3 radiating chapels, and S porch, rebuilt 1350-1450 above gallery level with clerestory, vault, crossing spire and W towers, a lengthened chancel and Lady Chapel; spire fell 1479. After Dissolution nave altered by William Stumpe of Abbey House (qv) and damaged W parts walled for the parish church, W tower fell c1662, W window by Goodridge 1830, restored W end 1903. MATERIALS: limestone ashlar with stone tiles. STYLE: late Romanesque style C12 work, Decorated Gothic style C14 extensions. PLAN: reduced since the Dissolution to 6 E bays of nave, with short lengths of transept walls and S corner of W end. EXTERIOR: the E end has a single N chancel bay and matching chancel arch with paired half shafts set in square piers with quarter round capitals, beneath the 2-centre arched line of the vault, and tas-de-charges with sunken mouchettes; the jambs of next E bay has matching aisle and triforium semi-circular jambs with chevron mouldings. Inner wall of N transept has blocked 2-centred aisle arch containing a C16 doorway and 3-light mullion window, and a blind round-arched doorway to the right; 6-bay N elevation has a blind former cloister wall along the aisle divided by buttresses, with a roll-top coping, and round-arched windows above a cill band containing C14 tracery, with a steep gable in the fourth bay containing a 3-light Decorated tracery window; at the left end is a blocked, round-arched C12 doorway with an archivolt of relief palmettes, and a cusped cinquefoil arch set within. The C14 clerestory has flying buttresses with tall pyramidal pinnacles between 3-light 2-centre arched windows, 2-light at the E end, with paterae to each side of the three E windows. S transept as N, 2 bays after the aisle arch, an incomplete arcade of interlacing round arches with a chevron moulding
beneath 2 storeys of round-arched windows with splayed reveals, the lower windows flanked by narrow round-arched recesses containing inner arches open to a passage through the walls. The arcade continues along the former external side of the S transept and to the 9-bay S elevation, otherwise as the N side with a Decorated cusped openwork parapet to aisle and nave, and with second and third bays from E containing C14 2-centre windows with Decorated tracery. C12 porch rebuilt externally in C14 with angle buttresses, has a very fine splayed round-arched entrance of 3 orders, without capitals, richly carved with iconographic Biblical scenes set in oval panels, and separated by richly carved mouldings, and a hood with dog head stops. Inside is a similarly-moulded doorway and C14 door, beneath a tympanum of Christ in Glory supported by 2 angels, with along both sides the round-arched arcade above a bench, beneath finely-carved lunettes each of 6 Apostles with a horizontal flying angel above. In the E re-entrant is a square stair turret with a pyramidal roof. The incomplete W end has a massive clasping buttress stair turret to the S corner in 4 stages separated by moulded strings, blank from the ground, a pair of blind round-arched panels containing lower arched panels to the second stage, an arcade of narrow interlacing round-arches to the third, and a taller arcade to the fourth stage with square section mouldings; the bay to the left as the S aisle, with a pair of round arches with flanking half arches at the second stage enriched with chevron moulding, containing pairs of round-arches; above is an arcade of 5 round-arches, and a blind wall topped with a C20 parapet. The S side of the central entrance bay has the jamb of a round-arched entrance with 2 orders carved as the S porch and plain capitals, beneath the jamb of a large C14 W window with the springers of 4 cusped transoms. INTERIOR: nave arcade has round shafts with scallop capitals to sharply moulded 2-centre arches, with billet mouldings to the 2 E arches, and billet hoods with dog head stops; the triforium has blind round arches with attached shafts to cushion capitals, a chevron moulding, with an arcade of 4 similar arches within; splayed clerestory windows have rere arches. An attached shaft extends up from the piers to C14 tas-de-charges, and a lierne vault with carved bosses. A 'Watching Loft' is corbelled out above the fourth pier on the S side of the nave, with plain openings and billet moulded cornice. The C12 aisles have pointed quadripartite vaults and benches,
the blind arcade of the outside beneath the windows, on the S side without the middle columns; the E end bays have C15 stone screens with Perpendicular tracery. To the left of the entrance is a winder stair to the C14 parvis over the porch, which has C20 panelling. MEMORIALS: running counter-clockwise from the entrance, a wall monument to Joseph Cullerne, d1764, a marble panel with raised bracketed top section; wall monument to Robert Greenway, d1751, a marble shield; wall monument to Bartholomew Hiren, d1703, a panel with a broken pediment; at the W end, a wall monument to Dame Cyscely Marshal, d 162?, with a slate panel in a carved alabaster frame; to the left a late C17 cartouche with drapes; in the N aisle, a dresser tomb of King Athelston, d939, with narrow buttresses to the sides, with a recumbent figure of the King with his feet on a lion, and a vaulted canopy behind his head; wall monument to Elizabeth Warneford, d1631, a slate plaque set in a moulded alabaster frame with shields along the sides, a cartouche, and a segmental cornice over; wall tablet to Isaac Watts, d 1789, an oval marble panel set in slate; wall tablet to Johannes Willis, mid C18, a marble panel with gadroon beneath and a cornice; wall tablet to GI Saunders, d1806, with a round-arched top and moulded frame; wall tablet to Elizabeth George, d1806, a well-carved cartouche with putti below; wall tablet to Edward Cullerne, d1765, marble with yellow marble inserts and a pediment; wall tablet to Mary Thomson, d1723, a stone panel with draped surround including an hour glass; wall tablet facing the entrance to Willima Robernce (?), d1799, a stone frame including a small inscribed pointing hand in the corner. Set in the chancel floor are a group of 8 brasses from late C17 to mid C18. FITTINGS: include a round C15 font from St Mary Westport (qv), with a turned base and fluted sides; at the W end of the nave, is the font used since the C17; in the S aisle, a glass case containing a verge of 1615, carved with features of the Abbey; at the E end the S aisle is the parish chest dated 1638, panelled with 3 locks; communion rail of c1700 with twisted balusters. In the parvis are kept 4 volumes of an illustrated manuscript Bible of 1407. GLASS: mostly C14 glass in the N aisle; the Luce window in the S aisle designed by Burne Jones and made by William Morris. HISTORICAL NOTE: the use of pointed arches and vaults in the aisles is structurally advanced and transitional with Early Gothic, and links Malmesbury with subsequent West Country churches, but the carving is Anglo Saxon in character, and probably borrowed from manuscript illustrations. The conventual buildings stood on the N side of the church; for the reredorter and sections of the precinct wall, see
Abbey House, Market Cross (qv), and for the guest house, see Old Bell Hotel, Gloucester Street (qv). (Victoria History of the Counties of England: Crowley DA: Wiltshire: 1991-: 157; Archaeologia: Brakspear H: Malmesbury Abbey: 1912-; Smith MQ: The Sculptures of the S Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: Malmesbury: 1973-; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Wiltshire: London: 1963-: 321-327; Midmer R: English Medieval Monasteries 1066-1540: London: 1976-: 212).
© Historic England 2022
mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.
“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.
Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.
This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?
Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.
I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.
A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?
Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.
“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”
In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.
Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.
After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.
Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.
I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.
Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.
Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?
Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?
Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.
Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.
This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?
Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?
Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.
When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.
Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?
Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”
There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.
Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.
Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.
playground_postcard_milwaukee
Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.
(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Bronze, gold, and silver, 3rd century B.C.E. - 3rd century C.E.
L. 11 cm.
This bronze tortoise appears to stop for a moment, taking a break from a slow walk, with the right legs pulled back and the left legs pushed forward, and with the head lifted up to the left. The tail is directed to the upper right. The openworked shell is removable, like a lid, and a hole is made at a side of the center ridge, where the center of gravity of the lid is presumed to be, perhaps to allow a string to be attached through it. There appear to be traces of damage caused by a chain link at the top of its head, suggesting that the head and the lid might have been chained together. The inside of the lid and the body of the tortoise, which the lid covers, fit snugly by means of a tongue and groove joint. The bottom is provided with three irregularly shaped ventilating holes.
Tiny silver dots are inlaid on the surface of the four legs, which have strong claws, and on the stout neck to mimic reptile skin; the realistic face and the tail are covered with gold, and translucent, brownish, round stones are placed in the eye holes. In the under shell, the grooves are shown by wavy lines of silver inlay. Small as it is, the magnificent body filled with power from head to tail communicates the solemnness and awe of a sacred tortoise.
The area where the lid meets the rest of the figure is adorned with a decorative scale pattern and seven-eyes like motif one row on the lid and two rows on the body. The shell is strikingly unusual; it is represented by silver wire inlay, which makes a linear flow that appears sharp at the center. Either side of the shell is adorned with designs in gold inlay which resemble a curved bird's beak. Both the front and rear ends of the shell provide a grainy texture executed in gold inlay. This openwork shell design is reminiscent of the cloud spirit, manifested as fantastic bird and dragon designs, on herb vessels and censers dating back to the period of Warring States, such as those found in tombs in Wangshan Jianglingxian, and Zeng Hou Yi, Hubei Province.–1
In the Han period (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), censers were generally produced with a lid sculpted to resemble a sacred mountain, and, frequently, the support was carved with a design of a tortoise or a Chinese phoenix. Censers made in the shape of an animal are relatively rare, though examples are known from excavations in Shanxi, Henan, and Hubei Provinces.–2 The present figure is not only rare but remarkable in that an animal-shaped censer was made with such care and interest in realism, far surpassing the need dictated by utility for daily life.
From the time of antiquity, the tortoise has been regarded as a sacred animal that possesses knowledge about future outcomes or events, and it was believed that prosperity would bless a household if the family obtained a particularly auspicious specimen. A commonly-held image of a tortoise as a messenger from a deity called for a tortoise that was fist-sized, gold in color, with the edges of both sides of the shell serrated like saw teeth and claws that were extremely sharp. It was also said that hair begins to grow on a tortoise after it is 1000 years old and, when it is 5000 years old, it was to be regarded as sacred.–3 It may not be too far off the mark to say that the artist summoned an aggregation of such images about the tortoise when creating this rather realistic golden censer in a tortoise shape.
Text and image from the website of the Miho Museum.
The center sections {in red} built by Esias Compenius from 1603-13 ; the lateral extensions by Adolf Reubke, 1859.
A thorough history of the instrument can be found at www.compenius-orgel.de/geschichtederorgel.htm
St Michael’s Church, Lewes
156-158 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1XU
Grade I listed
List Entry Number: 1287005
25.2.52 Church of St Michael & railings
GV I
Parish church. C13, C14, 1748, restored and extended in 1885. Flint with stone dressings and plain tiled roofs, except pebbledashed tower with shingled spire. West tower, nave with north and south aisles, chancel. Round west tower with circular bell-opening to south. Tall octagonal spire. Main street front to south of flint with stone plinth, door and window dressings and moulded cornice-parapet with ball-finials at each end, essentially the front given by the remodelling of the south aisle wall in 1748, gothicised in 1885. 3 central pointed-arch windows with hood-moulds, enclosing two lancets and quatrefoil in arches, with pointed-arch entrances with panelled doors and hood- moulds in outer bays, topped by oculi now enclosing quatrefoil windows. Main entrance in west end of south aisle with segment-headed doorway topped by small round-arched window above and to left. All gables parapetted and coped. Interior: 5 bay C14 south arcade with double hollow-chamfered arches. Timber arcade of 1748 to north aisle, panelled arches to octagonal columns with quasi- Tuscan capitals. Chancel of 1885. Monuments: Tablet to Sir Nicholas Pelham, d. 1559. Columned with kneeling parents and children below. Between the church and the hall to the left are railings of cast-iron, neo-Gothic in style probably dating from the alterations of 1885. Central gates with pointed overthrow with Gothic-arched soffit; panelled openwork sides with cusped arches and colonnettes. Railings and gates matching with low dog-rails.
Listing NGR: TQ4132110001
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1287005
Church House to the west was built in 1881 to serve for church functions and the Sunday School. It incorporates the Town Clock which overhangs the High Street.
The parish church of St Michael in Lewes is distinguished by its 13th century round tower and slender shingled spire. This is one of only three round towers in Sussex. Other parts of the church date from the 14th, 18th and 19th centuries. The south wall, along the High Street, is a fine example of knapped and squared flintwork. The 19th century stained glass is by Henry Holland. On the tower there is a figure of St. Michael by Harry Phillips (1976). The church interior has recently been redecorated with new lighting, and further work is planned.
More info can be found here:-
test.sussexparishchurches.org/product/lewes-st-michael-hi...
mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.
“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.
Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.
This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?
Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.
I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.
A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?
Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.
“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”
In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.
Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.
After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.
Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.
I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.
Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.
Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?
Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?
Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.
Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.
This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?
Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?
Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.
When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.
Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?
Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”
There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.
Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.
Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.
playground_postcard_milwaukee
Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.
(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.
“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.
Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.
This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?
Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.
I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.
A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?
Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.
“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”
In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.
Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.
After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.
Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.
I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.
Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.
Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?
Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?
Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.
Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.
This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?
Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?
Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.
When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.
Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?
Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”
There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.
Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.
Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.
playground_postcard_milwaukee
Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.
(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Arcelia Wrap skirt by designer Kristin Omdahl - as published by Interweave in their new book, "A Knitting Wrapsody".
Knit up a lace skirt that looks crocheted! Wear over a contrasting skirt or dress - or even as a halter top over a tunic and leggings. The pattern includes a couple of unusual techniques, including pleats, crochet-inspired circular motif edging, and an incredibly quick openwork pattern. The edging is worked vertically but joined in two different ways for the hem and side of the skirt.
Now and then - 1857 - 1866 Antique lithograph by William Spreat www.rareoldprints.com/p/312 before the 19c clock was installed
Church of St. James, Chawleigh Devon - mostly 15c & early 16c with major renovation in 1840s.
It consists of a nave and chancel, south aisle and south Radford Chapel under parallel roofs, west tower, south porch and low 19c vestry built in Tudor Gothic style in the angle between east end of the aisle and chancel.
There is no chancel arch, instead there is an early 16c oak rood screen of 12 bays which was " faithfully renovated" in 1910 according to a brass plaque, and includes empty doorways to the chancel & south chapel.
There are ceiled wagon roofs throughout. The similar roofs to nave and aisle appear wholly 19c whilst the more ornate chancel wagon roof with its small panels, cross braces and carved bosses may include 16c carpentry - It has unusual delicate openwork wall plate, more the type of carving to be expected on a rood screen.
The three stage west tower is roughcast with mostly original early 16c granite dressings and is topped by 19c brass weather cock. The 19c round clock faces have Roman numerals.
"A local band ring the bells hanging in the tapering tower; the Local Ministry Team, small choir and regular organist all help to maintain welcoming weekly Sunday morning services. This together with various other activities gives a Christian presence in the village".
mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.
“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.
Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.
This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?
Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.
I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.
A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?
Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.
“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”
In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.
Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.
After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.
Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.
I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.
Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.
Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?
Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?
Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.
Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.
This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?
Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?
Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.
When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.
Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?
Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”
There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.
Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.
Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.
playground_postcard_milwaukee
Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.
(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
A bank holiday weekend visit to Arbury Hall, near Nuneaton in Warwickshire. It is only open to the public on the four bank holiday weekends (8 days a year).
It is a private lived in house. While you can have tours of the house, you are not allowed to take photos inside, so grounds and exteriors only.
A Grade I listed building
Listing Text
NUNEATON AND BEDWORTH ARBURY PARK
SP38NW
4/7 Arbury Hall
06/12/47
GV I
Country house. Late C16 for Sir Edmund Anderson. Chapel remodelled 1678.
Completely remodelled and Gothicised 1749-1803 for Sir Roger Newdigate. Designs
by William Hiorn, mason-architect 1748-1755, Henry Keene 1761-1776 and Henry
Couchman, clerk of works 1776-1789, and probably also by Sir Roger himself;
Sanderson Miller may also have been involved. Grey Attleborough and Wilnecote
sandstone ashlar. Roofs hidden by parapets. Ashlar external and other stacks.
Courtyard plan. Gothic Revival style, with late Perpendicular details. 3
storeys. Moulded plinth and string courses, and moulded and embattled parapets
with crocketed pinnacles throughout. Moulded and chamfered 4-centred openings
throughout. Sashes and casements have Gothick glazing bars. South garden front:
western bay window 1752, eastern bay 1761, central Dining Room range 1769-1779.
Symmetrical. 1-1-3-1-1 bays. Projecting wings have polygonal clasping buttresses
to outer corners, with blind quatrefoil and lancet panelling, rising into
panelled and crocketed pinnacles. 2-storey polygonal bays have windows to 3
sides, leaf carving and blind arches. Elaborately moulded quatrefoil panel with
coat of arms below first floor windows. Second floor has straight-headed windows
of 2 arched lights with hood moulds throughout. Large one-storey 3-bay central
projection has polygonal clasping buttresses rising into panelled and crocketed
turrets with niches. Elaborate decoration throughout, with blind arcading and
quatrefoil frieze, and arcaded parapet with panelled and crocketed pinnacles
between bays. Large 4-light windows have panel tracery and ogee outer arches
with finials. Lower single-storey bays to left and right have moulded doorways
with hood moulds, and double-leaf sash doors with painted wood tracery and blind
tracery panels. Openwork embattled parapets. First floor has sashes. North
entrance front, probably designed 1783 but built 1792-1796, of 1-3-1 bays. Large
external stacks between centre and blank outer bays. Angles have buttresses with
turrets similar to garden front. Central 3-bay porte-cochere has angle and other
buttresses rising into panelled crocketed pinnacles. Moulded cornice and parapet
with finials. Interior is vaulted, with moulded piers. Central double-leaf sash
door has fanlight with painted wood tracery. Flanking bays have small quatrefoil
window in square panel. Windows to left and right of porte-cochere on each floor
are mostly blind. First floor has more elaborately treated windows; central
tripartite window has simple intersecting tracery. Second floor has central
2-light window, similar to garden front. East front of c.1786. Two storeys;
1-3-2-1 bays. 3 large external stacks. Detailing largely similar to entrance
front. 3-bay section has large polygonal one-storey bay window, of 7 mullioned
and transomed lights with elaborate Gothick glazing. Central sash door. Blind
fret frieze, moulded cornice and vine leaf frieze. Crocketed pinnacles and
fleur-de-lys cresting. West front of 1789-1803 is irregular. Some rubble walling
and remains of blocked mullioned and transomed windows may be a survival from
the earlier house. 3 large external stacks. Interior: Entrance Hall and the
Cloisters of 1783-1785 have plaster quadripartite vaulting with moulded ribs and
shafts. Semi-circular apse has stone geometrical staircase with re-used openwork
balusters, scrollwork, newel posts and finials of c.1580. Old armorial glass in
some windows. Chapel has plaster ceiling of 1678 by Edward Martin. Central
shaped panel has inner wreath and deep coving with festoons, and richly
decorated outer border of flowers, fruit and foliage. Small similarly decorated
shaped panels. Acanthus cornice. Contemporary panelling of bolection-moulded
lower panels; upper moulded panels have shouldered and indented architraves, and
are separated by carved drops suspended from winged cherubs' heads. Arched organ
recess at west end has fluted Tuscan pilasters, more elaborate drops between the
panels, and a late C18 ceiling. Panelled pulpit. Library of 1754-1761 by Hiorn
has Gothick panelling with shafts, cornice and ogee-gabled bookcases, and open
fretwork arches to bay window and recess. Chimney-piece has panelling and canopy
of 3 ornamented ogee arches. Segmental plaster ceiling with 'Etruscan' motifs
and medallions from a design of 1791 by Sir Roger. Dining Room by Keene
1769-1773 on the site of the hall. Plaster fan vaulting with wall shafts.
Windows are treated as an aisle with Gothick-panelled arches. Very large
fireplace has polygonal turrets with crocketed buttresses, moulded arch and a
row of triangular canopied niches with cresting. Tall elaborate canopied niches
above fireplace and in walls have casts of Roman statues. East wall has
Gothic-panelled recess with Classical relief. Gothic-panelled doors and
doorcases with triple canopies and pinnacles. Drawing Room by Keene 1762-1763
has Gothick plaster panelling with inset portraits. Segmental Gothic plasterwork
vault, and fan vault in bay window. Chimneypiece, inspired by the monument of
Aymer de Vallance in Westminster Abbey, carved 1764 by Richard Hayward of Weston
Hall (q.v.). Saloon, Little Sitting Room and School Room (Chaplain's Room), all
decorated under direction of Couchman. Saloon of 1786-1794, probably from
designs by Keene, has vaulting and pendants inspired by Henry VII's chapel;
scagliola columns and Gothic capitals were supplied by Joseph Alcott 1797.
Little Sitting Room has marble fireplace of c.1740 with eared architrave. School
Room has Gothick fireplace with ogee arch, inset with Classical medallions
probably carved by Hayward. Long Gallery on first floor has stone fireplace of
c.1580. Panelling, and possibly the painted wooden overmantel with columns and
obelisks, of c.1606. Shallow Gothic plaster vault and large moulded arch to
lobby of 1787. 'Arbury Hall is one of the finest examples of the early Gothic
Revival in England' (Buildings of England, p67). The house was built on the site
of a monestery.
(VCH: Warwickshire: Vol IV, p173-174; Buildings of England: Warwickshire:
p67-71; Gordon Nares: Arbury Hall, Country Life 8 October 1953, pp1126-1129; 15
October 1953, p1210-1213; 29 October 1953, pp1414-1417; G.C. Tyack: Country
House Building in Warwickshire 1500-1914, ppl98-206; Arbury Hall guidebook)
Listing NGR: SP3351989255
This text is from the original listing, and may not necessarily reflect the current setting of the building.
Official list entry
Heritage Category:Listed Building
Grade:I
List Entry Number:1269316
Date first listed:18-Jan-1949
Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
Location
Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
District: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:Malmesbury
National Grid Reference:ST 93280 87320
Details
Benedictine Abbey church, now parish church. Church founded c637 by Irish hermit Mailduib, monastery founded during abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705), though no pre-C12 work survives; church probably begun under Bishop Roger (c1118-1139), and mostly dates from c1160-80 with a 9-bay aisled nave, transepts with E chapels, chancel, ambulatory with 3 radiating chapels, and S porch, rebuilt 1350-1450 above gallery level with clerestory, vault, crossing spire and W towers, a lengthened chancel and Lady Chapel; spire fell 1479. After Dissolution nave altered by William Stumpe of Abbey House (qv) and damaged W parts walled for the parish church, W tower fell c1662, W window by Goodridge 1830, restored W end 1903. MATERIALS: limestone ashlar with stone tiles. STYLE: late Romanesque style C12 work, Decorated Gothic style C14 extensions. PLAN: reduced since the Dissolution to 6 E bays of nave, with short lengths of transept walls and S corner of W end. EXTERIOR: the E end has a single N chancel bay and matching chancel arch with paired half shafts set in square piers with quarter round capitals, beneath the 2-centre arched line of the vault, and tas-de-charges with sunken mouchettes; the jambs of next E bay has matching aisle and triforium semi-circular jambs with chevron mouldings. Inner wall of N transept has blocked 2-centred aisle arch containing a C16 doorway and 3-light mullion window, and a blind round-arched doorway to the right; 6-bay N elevation has a blind former cloister wall along the aisle divided by buttresses, with a roll-top coping, and round-arched windows above a cill band containing C14 tracery, with a steep gable in the fourth bay containing a 3-light Decorated tracery window; at the left end is a blocked, round-arched C12 doorway with an archivolt of relief palmettes, and a cusped cinquefoil arch set within. The C14 clerestory has flying buttresses with tall pyramidal pinnacles between 3-light 2-centre arched windows, 2-light at the E end, with paterae to each side of the three E windows. S transept as N, 2 bays after the aisle arch, an incomplete arcade of interlacing round arches with a chevron moulding
beneath 2 storeys of round-arched windows with splayed reveals, the lower windows flanked by narrow round-arched recesses containing inner arches open to a passage through the walls. The arcade continues along the former external side of the S transept and to the 9-bay S elevation, otherwise as the N side with a Decorated cusped openwork parapet to aisle and nave, and with second and third bays from E containing C14 2-centre windows with Decorated tracery. C12 porch rebuilt externally in C14 with angle buttresses, has a very fine splayed round-arched entrance of 3 orders, without capitals, richly carved with iconographic Biblical scenes set in oval panels, and separated by richly carved mouldings, and a hood with dog head stops. Inside is a similarly-moulded doorway and C14 door, beneath a tympanum of Christ in Glory supported by 2 angels, with along both sides the round-arched arcade above a bench, beneath finely-carved lunettes each of 6 Apostles with a horizontal flying angel above. In the E re-entrant is a square stair turret with a pyramidal roof. The incomplete W end has a massive clasping buttress stair turret to the S corner in 4 stages separated by moulded strings, blank from the ground, a pair of blind round-arched panels containing lower arched panels to the second stage, an arcade of narrow interlacing round-arches to the third, and a taller arcade to the fourth stage with square section mouldings; the bay to the left as the S aisle, with a pair of round arches with flanking half arches at the second stage enriched with chevron moulding, containing pairs of round-arches; above is an arcade of 5 round-arches, and a blind wall topped with a C20 parapet. The S side of the central entrance bay has the jamb of a round-arched entrance with 2 orders carved as the S porch and plain capitals, beneath the jamb of a large C14 W window with the springers of 4 cusped transoms. INTERIOR: nave arcade has round shafts with scallop capitals to sharply moulded 2-centre arches, with billet mouldings to the 2 E arches, and billet hoods with dog head stops; the triforium has blind round arches with attached shafts to cushion capitals, a chevron moulding, with an arcade of 4 similar arches within; splayed clerestory windows have rere arches. An attached shaft extends up from the piers to C14 tas-de-charges, and a lierne vault with carved bosses. A 'Watching Loft' is corbelled out above the fourth pier on the S side of the nave, with plain openings and billet moulded cornice. The C12 aisles have pointed quadripartite vaults and benches,
the blind arcade of the outside beneath the windows, on the S side without the middle columns; the E end bays have C15 stone screens with Perpendicular tracery. To the left of the entrance is a winder stair to the C14 parvis over the porch, which has C20 panelling. MEMORIALS: running counter-clockwise from the entrance, a wall monument to Joseph Cullerne, d1764, a marble panel with raised bracketed top section; wall monument to Robert Greenway, d1751, a marble shield; wall monument to Bartholomew Hiren, d1703, a panel with a broken pediment; at the W end, a wall monument to Dame Cyscely Marshal, d 162?, with a slate panel in a carved alabaster frame; to the left a late C17 cartouche with drapes; in the N aisle, a dresser tomb of King Athelston, d939, with narrow buttresses to the sides, with a recumbent figure of the King with his feet on a lion, and a vaulted canopy behind his head; wall monument to Elizabeth Warneford, d1631, a slate plaque set in a moulded alabaster frame with shields along the sides, a cartouche, and a segmental cornice over; wall tablet to Isaac Watts, d 1789, an oval marble panel set in slate; wall tablet to Johannes Willis, mid C18, a marble panel with gadroon beneath and a cornice; wall tablet to GI Saunders, d1806, with a round-arched top and moulded frame; wall tablet to Elizabeth George, d1806, a well-carved cartouche with putti below; wall tablet to Edward Cullerne, d1765, marble with yellow marble inserts and a pediment; wall tablet to Mary Thomson, d1723, a stone panel with draped surround including an hour glass; wall tablet facing the entrance to Willima Robernce (?), d1799, a stone frame including a small inscribed pointing hand in the corner. Set in the chancel floor are a group of 8 brasses from late C17 to mid C18. FITTINGS: include a round C15 font from St Mary Westport (qv), with a turned base and fluted sides; at the W end of the nave, is the font used since the C17; in the S aisle, a glass case containing a verge of 1615, carved with features of the Abbey; at the E end the S aisle is the parish chest dated 1638, panelled with 3 locks; communion rail of c1700 with twisted balusters. In the parvis are kept 4 volumes of an illustrated manuscript Bible of 1407. GLASS: mostly C14 glass in the N aisle; the Luce window in the S aisle designed by Burne Jones and made by William Morris. HISTORICAL NOTE: the use of pointed arches and vaults in the aisles is structurally advanced and transitional with Early Gothic, and links Malmesbury with subsequent West Country churches, but the carving is Anglo Saxon in character, and probably borrowed from manuscript illustrations. The conventual buildings stood on the N side of the church; for the reredorter and sections of the precinct wall, see
Abbey House, Market Cross (qv), and for the guest house, see Old Bell Hotel, Gloucester Street (qv). (Victoria History of the Counties of England: Crowley DA: Wiltshire: 1991-: 157; Archaeologia: Brakspear H: Malmesbury Abbey: 1912-; Smith MQ: The Sculptures of the S Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: Malmesbury: 1973-; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Wiltshire: London: 1963-: 321-327; Midmer R: English Medieval Monasteries 1066-1540: London: 1976-: 212).
© Historic England 2022
Goshavank monastery026, bell tower and book depository
The book depository with a bell tower in Goshavank is a structure of unusual composition. Originally, before 1241. there had been in its place a small building with niches for keeping books with a wooden glkhatun type ceiling. Adjacent to it on the western side was a vast premise which probably served as a refectory and an auditorium. It also had wooden roofing which, judging by its size, had three tents and four internal wooden abutments.
Then, a two-floor bell tower was built over the book depository. The construction was carried out in two stages. Eight wall-attached abutments and a stone roofing consisting of two pairs of intersecting arches were constructed in the book depository for the cross-plan superstructure. The top floor was elevated only to the height of two rows of stone masonry, as evidenced by the incomplete half-columns situated on the facades. In the second stage, accomplished in 1291 by the patrons Dasapet and Karapet, the top — a small church with two altar apses, crowned with a multicolumn rotund belfry — was completed. The entrance to the church was from the roof of the auditorium by a cantilever stone stair.
The decoration of the building was rather modest. The book depository’s semi-circular and dihedral grooved abutments were topped with plain slabs with the lower corners sloped in the shape of trefoils. The roofings of the corner sections, designed on the false vault principle, are composed of triangles differing in size and shape and arranged in such a way as to form eight-pointed stars. The decoration and design of the base of the rotund belfry, which reproduces in stone modified details of the “glkhatun” wooden tent, is more imposing. The bell tower was taller than Grigor church, and therefore dominated Goshavank ensemble.
The outer appearance of the building is marked by the gradation of its bulks from the heavy bottom part to the openwork top which emphasizes the domination of the vertical in the building’s composition. The architectural peculiarities of the composition of the bell tower influenced the design of the structures like the two-story sepulchral churches in Yeghvard and Noravank built in Armenia in the second quarter of the fourteenth century.
The chalcedony cameo of this gold necklace shows facing busts of a man and a woman, an unusual arrangement on cameo gems. The woman's hairstyle dates the cameo to the mid-250s CE.
Although now part of a pendant, the cameo was originally a decorative pin or brooch, since there are the remains of a hinge and a catchplate on the back. The cameo is set in an openwork frame with four garnets in oval box settings. Each of the four openwork areas between the garnets has a different pattern, displaying variations on the openwork decoration that was extremely popular in the 200s and 300s CE.
The chain of the necklace is ropelike, and the hook-and-eye clasp is decorated with a leaf-shaped plate. The use of leaf plates is found on other chains of this period but usually on both elements of the clasp, not just on one side.
The assortment of personal jewelry in the hoard is believed to have been discovered together, and now part of the Getty collection. It must have belonged to a wealthy woman with ties to the imperial court, as suggested by a pendant displaying the bust of an empress and an ornate belt set with coins showing the heads of emperors. The latest coin in the belt, minted during the reign of Theodosius I (379-395 CE), provides an approximate date for the jewelry.
Roman, cameo about 250 CE, pendant about 379-395 CE. Probably made in Constantinople. Gold, garnet, and chalcedony cameo.
Getty Villa Museum, Pacific Palisades, California (83.AM.225.2)
Steel sculpture; female figure of a stilt-walker (Moko Jumbie). Figure has articulated limbs, painted black. Wears a loincloth composed of plastic and synthetic fibres, shoulder pieces made from nylon netting and gold-sprayed metal breast ornaments. Openwork copper pipe skirt soldered together and hooked onto waist of figure. Numerous composite objects attached to figure including wooden masks and comb; metal bells, keys and toy aeroplane; plastic ornaments sprayed gold; textile decorations. Figure wears gold-sprayed leather and synthetic trainers with toes exposed. Wooden mask with attached vertical headdress made of strips of sheet metal sprayed gold with multiple small metal objects attached including keys, figures, chains, and bells. Wings secured to back of figure, sprayed black and gold. Figure has spiral copper armlet on right proper arm.
Created by Zak Ové for the British Museum's Celebrating Africa season.
The Museum commissioned these figures to coincide with London’s Notting Hill Carnival at the end of August. Moko Jumbie figures became a key feature of carnival in Trinidad in the early 1900s. Oral traditions describe the Moko Jumbie as a guardian of villages who could foresee danger and protect inhabitants from evil forces. Traditionally, Moko Jumbie figures wore long colourful skirts or trousers over their stilts and masks covering their faces. They were sometimes accompanied by dwarfs – represented in the installation in the Great Court by two ‘lost souls’, on loan to the Museum from Zak Ové – who provided a visual height contrast.
Zak Ové works with sculpture, film and photography. He uses these ‘new-world’ materials to pay tribute to both spiritual and artistic African identity. This Moko Jumbie display is part of a larger body of work that draws inspiration from the Trinidad carnival. The works are born from Ové’s documentation of and interest in the African Diaspora and African history. The artist’s intellectual and creative responses to this history are filtered through his own personal and cultural upbringing in London and Trinidad. The relationship between carnival and Africa derives from the enforced movement of peoples during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Between around 1500 and 1900, millions of people were transported from West and Central Africa to the Caribbean and North, Central and South America.
Carnival in Trinidad began as a predominantly elite event. In the late 1700s French immigrants arrived on the island to run plantations, bringing with them enslaved Africans. The plantation owners staged elaborate masquerade balls during the carnival season. Africans also brought their own masking traditions of which the Moko Jumbie is but one. Masking for Africans in the Caribbean was a way to connect to ancestors and nature as well as ideas of ‘home’. But traditional masquerades were also used to satirically depict their masters and turn a critical eye on plantation society. After full emancipation in 1838, Africans took over the streets at carnival time, using song, dance and masquerade to re-dress the still existing social inequalities.
[British Museum]
Eastgate and Eastgate Clock in Chester, Cheshire, England, stand on the site of the original entrance to the Roman fortress of Deva Victrix. It is a prominent landmark in the city of Chester and is said to be the most photographed clock in England after Big Ben.
The original gate was guarded by a timber tower which was replaced by a stone tower in the 2nd century, and this in turn was replaced probably in the 14th century. The present gateway dates from 1768 and is a three-arched sandstone structure which carries the walkway forming part of Chester city walls. In 1899 a clock was added to the top of the gateway to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria two years earlier. It is carried on openwork iron pylons, has a clock face on all four sides, and a copper ogee cupola. The clock was designed by the Chester architect John Douglas. The whole structure, gateway and clock, was designated as a Grade I listed building on 28 July 1955
And now, finally, I reveal the outcome of this very special project initiated by a drawing of Marietta.
First, the "dress", the basis of this set.
It is composed of three separate elements.
- A blouse, almost entirely in old cotton lace, left transparent, with the cuffs and collar of ruffled cotton muslin, edged with fine lace. A fake pearl necklace and a jewel adorns the chest.
- A sleeveless dress using the same model as the Malina dress.
The top of the dress is cut in a dotted swiss fabric, ivory dots on white background. And the skirt is fashioned from a beautiful cotton lace embroidered sometimes as a "broderie anglaise" sometimes as an openwork "venice lace".
In addition, I added a bouquet embroidery on the bust, suggesting two-tone gold and silver, with a subtle mix of pearls and silk ribbon underlined by rayon thread.
The rest of the skirt is lightly beaded to evoke the glint of some snowflakes that would be lost there.
- A tulle petticoat, trimmed by a small and dense tulle ruffle and highlighted by a beaded silk ribbon.
Since this dress will be worn by a custom Vanilla, I used mine as model...
The frosted berries were made by me. The leaves are made of polymer clay, varnished and falsely frosted after baking and berries are made with beads, also frosted.
La Ceja, Antioquia, Colombia.
Esta es la casa de unos amigos en La Ceja. La construyeron en el estilo colonial que vino de España, especialmente de Andalucía. Tiene todos los elementos característicos, como el patio interno de piedra, las chambranas en madera que rodean la casa; los calados en puertas y ventanas, el techo en teja de barro y un jardín precioso lleno de flores.
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This is the house of some friends in La Ceja. They built it in the colonial style that came from Spain, especially Andalusia. It has all the characteristic elements, such as the internal stone patio, the wooden frames that surround the house; the openwork on doors and windows, the clay tile roof and a beautiful garden full of flowers.
Opening of The Albert Bridge
The handsome new bridge which spans the river Torrens near the site of the old Frome, Bridge, and has been named after the late Prince Albert, was formally opened at noon on Wednesday May 7, by the Mayoress (Mrs Buik), in the presence of a large assemblage of leading citizens.
The bridge is an iron erection with the exception of the abutments, which are of stone, the lower part from the ground line to the plinth course being from Mr Bundey's quarry at Teatree Gully, while the piers, panels, and coping composing the superstructure are of Sydney freestone. The bridge has a total length of 120 feet between the abutments, and is composed of three spans—that in the centre being 60 feet, and those at the ends 30 feet each. The total width is 42 feet between the handrails, divided into a carriageway of 30 feet and two footpaths of six feet. The bridge has the appearance of an arched structure, but in reality it consists of continuous girders throughout, of which those over the central opening balance the side spans, which act as cantilevers. By this arrangement no weight is thrown upon the abutments, as would have been the case had an ordinary form of construction been adopted.
The piers in the river, which bear the whole weight of the bridge, are each formed of three cast-iron cylinders, the outer being 4½ feet diameter decreasing to 3 feet, and the inner 6 feet diameter decreasing to 4½ feet. These are provided at the bottom with a cutting edge, and are carried down to a depth of from 12 to 15 feet below the bed of the river, passing through a strong gravel and resting upon the_ gravel or upon an indurated clay which underlies it. The first cylinder was sunk dry, pumps having been used to keep down the water which flowed in from the gravel through which the cylinder passed. The power required to keep down the water was, however, so great that the contractors determined to sink the cylinders by means of a diver working under water, and the remaining cylinders have been sunk by this method. The diver excavated the gravel round the edge of the cylinders, which were heavily weighted by being loaded at the top with large blocks of cast iron and the bracing links from the old City Bridge, and as the gravel was removed by the diver the cylinder sunk by its own weight. When the cylinders had been sunk to the required depth they were filled up with concrete, and upon this bed stones were laid after the cylinders had been raised to the height of the under side of the girders. The cylinders are provided with ornamental bases and caps.
The height of the girders at the springing of the piers is 7¼ feet, and at the abutments 6½ feet, the radius of the curve of the under side of the girders for the side and centre spans being 28 feet and 106½ feet respectively. The girders are of wrought iron, and have a web 3/8 inch thick throughout, the flange-plates being of the same thickness. These are two feet wide and increase in number from a single plate at the ends to three at the piers. There are three girders, which are spaced 15 feet apart, and are securely braced together over the piers: these run the whole length of the bridge, and upon them cross girders are fixed 1¼ feet deep and 6 feet apart: the latter project 6½ feet beyond the girders and form cantilevers for carrying the footpath and parapet.
The roadway is carried by 3-inch jarrah planking resting upon joists of the same material, and which are borne by the cross girders. The footway is covered with timber planking two inches thick. The ends of the cross girders support a moulded cornice with corbels, to which are attached the brackets which secure the handrail and the openwork panels under it. Over the caps of the river piers half-columns with fluted sides are carried up, covering the junctions of the springing of the curves of the girders, and giving the spectator just the idea of the extra strength required at these points to support pilasters of iron, which relieve the monotony of the handrail and are ornamented with panels on each side, the one facing the roadway being filled in with the arms of the Corporation of Adelaide. A lamp of graceful design upon each of these pilasters completes the bridge, which is a handsome one, though of massive proportions and, perhaps, a trifle heavy in appearance. The panels and lamps are, however, not yet erected as in consequence of the large amount of minute work upon them they were not ready for shipment with the rest of the ironwork. They are expected to arrive in a few days.
The bridge has been erected under the superintendence of Mr Langdon, the City Surveyor, by the contractors, Messrs Davies & Wishart, the contract price being £7,550. There have been some extras, however, which have brought the actual cost of the bridge up to £9,000. The design was chosen by the City Council in an open competition, the successful competitor being Mr John H Grainger, who is to be complimented upon the handsome bridge which is now completed.
The opening ceremony was a very simple affair. The bridge was gaily decorated with flags and banners, and a couple of arches of evergreen spanned the roadway. In the centre of the structure a temporary platform had been erected, and here the Mayor and Mayoress, members of the Government, and the City Corporation stood while the bridge was being formally named and declared open for traffic. The Mayor arrived in his carriage immediately after the time given had indicated the hour, and he was soon afterwards followed by a string of vehicles containing most of those who were anxious to see the ceremony. Among these were the Chief Secretary, Hon W Morgan, the Commissioner of Public Works (Hon G C Hawker), the Commissioner of Crown Lands (Hon T Playford), Messrs Townsend, Fowler, and Fraser MP's, Colonel Downes and Major Godwin, Mr R C Patterson, Assistant Engineer: the members of the Corporation: Mr Langdon, the City Surveyor: and several ex-members of the Corporation and other gentlemen interested in the erection of a third bridge between North and South Adelaide. The Mayor announced that his wife had been asked to formally open the bridge. Mrs Buik then stepped forward, and after breaking the bottle of wine in the orthodox fashion, formally named the structure "The Albert Bridge”, and declared it open for traffic.
The Mayor then came forward and said that he had been desired by his wife to say on her behalf that she felt highly honoured at being asked to perform the ceremony of opening this beautiful bridge. He believed it was universally admitted that though the bridge was smaller than the City Bridge it was better in many respects, at any rate it was much more beautiful. It was called the "Albert Bridge" after the illustrious husband of our beloved Queen.
The cost of the bridge was about £9,000 altogether, the contract price was £8,100, the extra cost being incurred principally through it having been found necessary to deepen the foundations. He felt sure the citizens would admit that the contractors had fairly and properly done their work, and that the bridge would be an ornament to the city as well as a great convenience to the eastern end of the town.
Ref: Evening Journal (Adelaide SA) 7 May 1879.