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Finally, here's your chance to design and build your own Jcarwil Papercraft model.
Simply cut out, fold, and glue.
Recommended Materials:
8 x 11 " Cardstock Paper
Scissors (Optional: Xacto Knife)
Glue Gun w/ Glue Sticks (Alternative: Clear Tape)
12" Ruler ( Alternative: Any other straight edge available)
Printing Instructions: Save image at full size. Then open the saved image from your computer and print it out at full scale.
HAVE FUN!!!
NOTE: This printout is for non-commercial purposes only.
Any questions please email me at jcarwil@hotmail.com
Thank You!!!
It's partly cloudy, and it'll probably rain around 2 PM for about 10 minutes, again.
While the driver of that Honda Ridgeline might not agree, Baynard Police are out in force earning their pay on Limestone Reef Road today.
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II
Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R
For more info about the dioramas, check out the FAQ: 1stPix FAQ
About Dr. Takeshi Yamada:
Educator, medical assistant, author and artist Takeshi Yamada was born and raised at a traditional and respectable house of samurai in Osaka, Japan in 1960. He studied art at Nakanoshima College of Art in Osaka, Japan. As an international exchange student of Osaka Art University, he moved to the United States in 1983 and studied art at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA and Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD in 1983-85, and completed his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 1985.
Yamada obtained his Master of Fine Art Degree in 1987 at the University of Michigan, School of Art in Ann Arbor, MI. Yamada’s “Visual Anthropology Artworks” reflects unique, distinctive and often quickly disappearing culture around him. In 1987, Yamada moved to Chicago, and by 1990, Yamada successfully fused Eastern and Western visual culture and variety of cross-cultural mythology in urban allegories, and he became a major figure of the River North (“SUHU” district) art scene. During that time he also developed a provocative media persona and established his unique style of super-realism paintings furnishing ghostly images of people and optically enhanced pictorial structures. By 1990, his artworks were widely exhibited internationally. In 2000, Yamada moved to New York City.
Today, he is highly media-featured and internationally famed for his “rogue taxidermy” sculptures and large-scale installations, which he calls “specimens” rather than “artworks”. He also calls himself “super artist” and “gate keeper” rather than the “(self-expressing) artist“. His passion for Cabinet of Curiosities started when he was in kindergarten, collecting natural specimens and built his own Wunderkammer (German word to express “Cabinet of Curiosities“). At age eight, he started creating “rogue taxidermy monsters” such as two-headed lizards, by assembling different parts of animal carcasses.
Internationally, Yamada had over 600 major fine art exhibitions including 50 solo exhibitions including Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Columbia, and the United States. Yamada also taught classes and made public speeches at over 40 educational institutions including American Museum of Natural History, Louisiana State Museum, Laurenand Rogers Museum of Art, International Museum of Surgical Science, University of Minnesota, Montana State University, Eastern Oregon University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Mount Vernon Nazarene College, Salem State College, Osaka College of Arts, Chemeketa Community College, Maryland Institute College of Art, etc. Yamada’s artworks are collection of over 30 museums and universities in addition to hundreds of corporate/private art collectors internationally. Yamada and his artworks were featured in over 400 video websites. In addition, rogue taxidermy artworks, sideshow gaffs, cryptozoological artworks, large sideshow banners and showfronts created by Yamada in the last 40 years have been exhibited at over 100 of state fairs and festivals annually nationwide, up to and including the present.
Yamada won numerous prestigious awards and honors i.e., “International Man of the Year”, “Outstanding Artists and Designers of the 20th Century”, “2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century”, “International Educator of the Year”, “One Thousand Great Americans”, “Outstanding People of the 20th Century”, “21st Century Award for Achievement”, “Who’s Who in America” and “Who’s Who in The World”. The Mayors of New Orleans, Louisiana and Gary, Indiana awarded him the “Key to the City”. Yamada’s artworks are collections of many museums and universities/colleges i.e., Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Chicago Athenaeum Museum, Eastern Oregon University, Montana State University and Ohio State University.
Yamada was profiled in numerous TV programs in the United States, Japan and Philippine, Columbia, i.e., A&E History Channel, Brooklyn Cable Access Television, “Chicago’s Very Own” in Chicago, “Takeshi Yamada’s Divine Comedy” in New Orleans, and Chicago Public Television’s Channel ID. Yamada also published 22 books based on his each major fine art projects i.e., “Homage to the Horseshoe Crab”, Medical Journal of the Artist”, “Graphic Works 1996-1999”, “Phantom City”, “Divine Comedy”, “Miniatures”, “Louisville”, “Visual Anthropology 2000”, “Heaven and Hell”, “Citizen Kings” and “Dukes and Saints” in the United States. In prints, Yamada and his artworks have been featured in numerous books, magazine and newspapers internationally i.e., The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time out New York (full page color interview), Washington Times, The Fine Art Index, New American Paintings, Village Voice 9full page interview), Chicago Art Scene (front cover), Chicago Tribune Magazine (major color article), Chicago Japanese American News, Strong Coffee, Reader, Milwaukee Journal, Clarion, Kaleidoscope, Laurel Leader-Call, The Advertiser News, Times-Picayune (front page, major color articles), Michigan Alumnus (major color article), Michigan Today (major color article), Mardi Gras Guide (major color article), The Ann Arbor News (front covers), Park Slope Courier (color pages), 24/7 (color pages), Brooklyn Free Press (front cover) and The World Tribune.
(updated November 24, 2012)
Reference (videos featuring sea rabbits and Dr. Takeshi Yamada):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ek-GsW9ay0
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJK04yQUX2o&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrCCxV5S-EE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0QnW26dQKg&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpVCqEjFXk0
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NlcIZTFIj8&feature=fvw
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UPzGvwq57g
s87.photobucket.com/albums/k130/katiecavell/NYC%2008/Coney%20Island/?action=view¤t=SeaRabbitVid.mp4
www.animalnewyork.com/2012/what-are-you-doing-tonight-con...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeAdsChmSR8
Reference (sea rabbit artifacts)
www.wondersandmarvels.com/2012/06/coney-island-sea-rabbit...
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3/5417188428/in/photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3/5417189548/in/photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3/5416579163/in/photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3/5417191794/in/photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3/5417192426/in/photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3/5417192938/in/photostream
Reference (flickr):
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit15/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit14/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit13
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit12
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit11
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit10
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit9/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit8/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit7
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit6
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit5/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit4/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit2/
www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit1/
www.flickr.com/photos/museumofworldwonders3/
www.flickr.com/photos/museumofworldwonders2
www.flickr.com/photos/museumofworldwonders/
www.flickr.com/photos/takeshiyamadapaintings/
Reference (newspaper articles and reviews):
www.amctv.com/shows/immortalized/about
blogs.amctv.com/photo-galleries/immortalized-cast-photos/...
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704828104576021750...
www.villagevoice.com/2006-11-07/nyc-life/the-stuffing-dre...
karlshuker.blogspot.com/2011/06/giant-sea-serpents-and-ch...
amusingthezillion.com/2011/12/08/takeshi-yamadas-jersey-d...
amusingthezillion.com/2010/12/07/art-of-the-day-freak-tax...
amusingthezillion.com/2010/10/27/oct-29-at-coney-island-l...
amusingthezillion.com/2010/09/18/photo-of-the-day-takeshi...
amusingthezillion.com/2009/11/07/thru-dec-31-at-coney-isl...
4strange.blogspot.com/2009/02/ten-of-takeshi-yamada-colle...
www.flickr.com/photos/museumofworldwonders/5440224421/siz...
Reference (fine art websites):
www.roguetaxidermy.com/members_detail.php?id=528
www.brooklynartproject.com/photo/photo/listForContributor...
www.bsagarts.org/member-listing/takeshi-yamada/
www.horseshoecrab.org/poem/feature/takeshi.html
www.artfagcity.com/2012/09/06/recommended-go-brooklyn-stu...
Reference (other videos):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=otSh91iC3C4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhIR-lz1Mrs
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BttREu63Ksg
(updated November 24, 2012)
The task at hand. The Land Adventurer finds his target and plants bombs on the supports of a Cobra outpost.
Paula Scher has designed a large-scale mural for the museum lobby that pays homage to the graphics of rights movements and brings them together in a bold new composition centered on a raised human hand.
Scher’s mural unites the Center’s themes in a colorful collage composed of graphics from landmark human rights movements. The dynamic image centers on a raised hand demanding to be counted. Lines radiate out to embrace the words and images that helped engage people in the cause. The mural connects the various movements and highlights them as part of an evolving struggle to protect the human rights of all. The mural also acknowledges the important role that posters, placards, symbols and other graphics have played in garnering support.
To create the mural, Scher and her designers researched historic posters, selecting over 25 for the final display. The original posters were of varying age and quality, so the team digitized the pieces and used printouts to assemble the collage. The final mural measures 35 feet by 12 feet, and is dimensional, built in layers. The pieces are arranged in tracks outlined by the lines radiating from the hand.
Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.
The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.
Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.
Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".
Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.
In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).
Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.
Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.
As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.
As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.
Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.
Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.
On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.
The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.
During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.
In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.
The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.
Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.
The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.
Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.
By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942
In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.
Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.
The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.
Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .
Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.
The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.
In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.
The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.
Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.
Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.
The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.
The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.
The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.
After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.
Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.
The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.
During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.
During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.
In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.
From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.
One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.
After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.
In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.
The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.
Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.
In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.
The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.
In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.
At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.
Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.
In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.
Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.
In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.
Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.
To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.
Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.
In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.
During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.
Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.
In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.
Sofala: Sofala was one of the Bathurst area's most successful goldmining towns. Gold was still Sofala's primary industry right up to the 1940s. Today, you can still fossick for gold dust in the Turon River..
Just 46 km from Bathurst, Sofala is reportedly Australia's oldest surviving gold-rush town. Set in an idyllic Country NSW location beside the pretty Turon River, Sofala's setting includes a rugged mountain backdrop that has attracted artists over the years. In 1947, Russell Drysdale captured the main street's timber buildings and hot, dusty emptiness in his famous work, Sofala..
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A historical walking tour through townwill allow you explore the Upper Turon for reminders of the gold rush, including diggings, gravestones, buildings and a Chinese miner settlement..
From Wikepedia: Sofala is a village in New South Wales, Australia, 255 kilometres (158 mi) north-west of Sydney, within Bathurst Regional Council. It is located beside the Turon River. Sofala is just off the Bathurst-Ilford Road, with only local traffic through the town itself. At the 2006 census, Sofala had a population of 208.[1].
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Turon River Near Sofala.
Sofala came about as a direct result of the gold rush which had been spurred on when Edward Hargraves discovered gold at Summerhill Creek on 12 February 1851. By June of that year, thousands of people had set up mining operations in the valley, and both the Royal Hotel and a general store were built in 1851 to handle the increased demand. Initially, gold was found in the area known as Gold Point on the Turon River. When the alluvial gold ran out, mining turned to quartz reef mining.[2] The town was a centre of opposition of the gold licensing system in New South Wales at the time. A considerable proportion of the miners were Chinese.[3].
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Sofala Public School was established in 1878.[4] There was an Anglican church and a Catholic convent.[5].
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Attractions today include the gold-rush-era Sofala Royal Hotel[6] and the old gaol. Small-scale gold workings are still active in the town. Sofala has been reported to be the oldest surviving gold-rush town in Australia. There are still gold prospectors who pass the time using metal detectors, gold pans, and sluice boxes to recover small quantities of gold dust..
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Russell Drysdale's painting Sofala, a depiction of the main street of the town, won the Wynne Prize for 1947.[7].
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The 1974 Peter Weir film The Cars That Ate Paris was filmed in the town. Village scenes in the 1994 John Duigan film Sirens were also filmed in Sofala..
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A noted business is Finglinna Studios, which supplies stained glass to churches and other public buildings.
Protesters outside the Apple Store on London's Regent Street in solidarity with the population of Congo, who on the one hand are being exploited by British and other western multinationals for the country's rich resources - especially industrial scale mining of diamonds, gold, timber, copper, oil, and gas and cobalt, leading to massed evictions and also the exploitation of child labour. The continuing legacy of the country's shocking history of colonial exploitation. As if that wasn't enough to blunt the prospects for Congolese people, Rwanda, with its own eye on some of those same resources, is backing and arming M23 rebels within Congo who have committed wholesale human rights abuses, including rape. The UK, increasingly dependent on the goodwill of the Rwandan government for it's shameful crackdown on asylum seekers, refuses to recognise the extent of the catastrophe in Congo or to even consider sanctions against Rwanda.
A Congo activist sings outside the Apple Store - www.youtube.com/watch?v=huWvYMyiQdM
Although this image is being posted as creative commons non-commercial share alike, the following organisations and publications are welcome to reproduce it even if it is to raise money without the need for permission or any payment. Please see the link below - However they should still attribute and publish the image on a share alike basis. For more info please email me at alisdare@gmail.com.
Judging from that 2014 Dodge Ram, Engine 5 looks just as bright and shiny as ever...
1:64 Code 3 Collectibles
Pierce Quantum
Virginia Beach Fire Department
City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA
1:64 Greenlight 2014 Dodge Ram 1500 with small utility trailer
Hitch and Tow Series
Olympus E-M10
For more info about the dioramas, check out the FAQ: 1stPix FAQ
First Ascent of the Matterhorn
Zermatt's place in history was tragically secured with the first ascent of the Matterhorn in the 19th century. As the surrounding peaks were climbed in the 1830's to 50's, there developed intense competition to conquer the Matterhorn, which for many years had been considered "unclimbable". The English climber Edward Whymper had made several abortive attempts from the Italian side, when in 1865, he learned that the Rev. Charles Hudson was to attempt the Matterhorn from Zermatt. 1st climb
Hurrying over the Theodulpass, he joined forces together with Lord Francis Douglas, George Hadow, and the guides Michel Croz (from Chamonix), and Peter Taugwalder and his son (from Zermatt).
On the 14th of July the ascent was triumphantly achieved. However during the descent, just below the summit on the north face, Hadow slipped. In three disastrous seconds, Hadow fell onto the unprepared Croz, subsequently pulling Hudson and Douglas away from the face. The elder Taugwalder belayed the rope round a rock; but it snapped and four of the seven climbers fell thousands of feet to their deaths down the north wall.
News of the triumph and tragedy flashed around the world, and Zermatt and the Matterhorn have held a special fascination for many people ever since.
www.schweizerseiten.ch/info/matterhorn.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6EMrF6uQrM
Edward Whymper
English mountaineer and artist who was associated with the exploration of the Alps and was the first man to climb the Matterhorn (14,691 feet [4,478 metres]).
Privately educated, Whymper entered his father’s wood engraving business and ultimately succeeded as head of it. He was sent to Switzerland in 1860 to make sketches for a book on the Alps and became a mountaineer thereafter. In the western Alps he climbed Mont Pelvoux (1861) and Les Écrins (1864). On his eighth attempt to scale the Matterhorn, on July 14, 1865, Whymper made the ascent by the Swiss ridge. On the descent, one member of his party slipped and pulled down three more—all four fell to their deaths. The rope broke, saving Whymper and two guides. One of the best known of all mountaineering accidents, this event is recorded in Whymper’s Scrambles Amongst the Alps (1871; condensed as Ascent of the Matterhorn, 1879), which is illustrated with his own engravings.
In 1867 and 1872 Whymper visited Greenland with the intention of crossing its ice cap, but he became convinced that the undertaking would prove too costly for him. In Ecuador (1880) he twice ascended Chimborazo, and he spent a night on the summit of Cotopaxi (19,347 feet [5,897 metres]), the world’s highest continuously active volcano. He published Travels Amongst the Great Andes of Ecuador (1892), which contained much valuable information for geographers, geologists, and mountaineers. He also compiled two handbooks on the climbing of Chamonix (1896) and Zermatt (1897; both reprinted 1974). Whymper’s last journeys were in the Canadian Rockies (1901–05).
Scale: HO
Category: Steam
Subcategory: Logging
Road: MISC. (MISC.)
Whyte: 2-4-4-2
Description: #126 ARTICULATED
Importer: Gem Model Railways (GEM)
Catalog: 625
Builder: Akane
Year(s): 1964
Qty Made: 41
A patrol supervisor assists a K-9 unit on a burglar alarm at the Mystic Beach Visitor Center on S. Ocean.
It's probably nothing, but maybe someone just couldn't wait for one of those cartoon map pamphlets with all those valuable coupons inside.
Baynard Police
Ford CVPI
Unit #4556
K-9 Unit #27
Mikey
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II
Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R
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+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
The KAI T-50 Golden Eagle (골든이글) is a family of South Korean supersonic advanced trainers and light combat aircraft, developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) with Lockheed Martin. The T-50 is South Korea's first indigenous supersonic aircraft and one of the world's few supersonic trainers.
The T-50 program started in the late Nineties and was originally intended to develop an indigenous trainer aircraft capable of supersonic flight, to train and prepare pilots for the KF-16 and F-15K, replacing trainers such as T-38 and A-37 that were then in service with the ROKAF. Prior South Korean aircraft programs include the turboprop KT-1 basic trainer produced by Daewoo Aerospace (now part of KAI), and license-manufactured KF-16.
The mother program, code-named KTX-2, began in 1992, but the Ministry of Finance and Economy suspended the original project in 1995 due to financial constraints. The basic design of the aircraft was set by 1999, and eventually the development of the aircraft was funded 70% by the South Korean government, 17% by KAI, and 13% by Lockheed Martin.
In general, the T-50 series of aircraft closely resembles the KF-16 in configuration, but it actually is a completely new design: the T-50 is 11% smaller and 23% lighter than an F-16, and in order to create enough space for the two-seat cockpit, the air intake was bifurcated and placed under the wing gloves, resembling the F/A-18's layout.
The aircraft was formally designated as the T-50 'Golden Eagle' in February 2000, the T-50A designation had been reserved by the U.S. military to prevent it from being inadvertently assigned to another aircraft model. Final assembly of the first T-50 took place between 15 January and 14 September 2001. The first flight of the T-50 took place in August 2002, and initial operational assessment from 28 July to 14 August 2003.
The trainer has a cockpit for two pilots in a tandem arrangement, both crew members sitting in "normal" election seats, not in the F-16's reclined position. The high-mounted canopy is applied with stretched acrylic, providing the pilots with good visibility, and has been tested to offer the canopy with ballistic protection against 4-lb objects impacting at 400 knots.
The ROKAF, as original development driver, placed an initial production contract for 25 T-50s in December 2003, with aircraft scheduled to be delivered between 2005 and 2009. Original T-50 aircraft were equipped with the AN/APG-67(v)4 radar from Lockheed Martin. The T-50 trainer is powered by a GE F404 engine built under license by Samsung Techwin. Under the terms of the T-50/F404-102 co-production agreement, GE provides engine kits directly to Samsung Techwin who produces designated parts as well as performing final engine assembly and testing.
The T-50 program quickly expanded beyond a pure trainer concept to include the TA-50 armed trainer aircraft, as well as the FA-50 light attack aircraft, which has already similar capabilities as the multirole KF-16. Reconnaissance and electronic warfare variants were also being developed, designated as RA-50 and EA-50.
The TA-50 variant is a more heavily armed version of the T-50 trainer, intended for lead-in fighter training and light attack roles. It is equipped with an Elta EL/M-2032 fire control radar and designed to operate as a full-fledged combat platform. This variant mounts a lightweight three-barrel cannon version of the M61 Vulcan internally behind the cockpit, which fires linkless 20 mm ammunition. Wingtip rails can accommodate the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, a variety of additional weapons can be mounted to underwing hardpoints, including precision-guided weapons, air-to-air missiles, and air-to-ground missiles. The TA-50 can also mount additional utility pods for reconnaissance, targeting assistance, and electronic warfare. Compatible air-to-surface weapons include the AGM-65 Maverick missile, Hydra 70 and LOGIR rocket launchers, CBU-58 and Mk-20 cluster bombs, and Mk-82, -83, and -84 general purpose bombs.
Among the operators of the TA-50 are the Philippines, Thailand and the ROKAF, and the type has attracted a global interest, also in Europe. The young Republic of Scotland Air Corps (locally known as Poblachd na h-Alba Adhair an Airm) chose, soon after the country's independence from the United Kingdom, after its departure from the European Union in 2017, the TA-50 as a complement to its initial procurements and add more flexibility to its small and young air arm.
According to a White Paper published by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2013, an independent Scotland would have an air force equipped with up to 16 air defense aircraft, six tactical transports, utility rotorcraft and maritime patrol aircraft, and be capable of “contributing excellent conventional capabilities” to NATO. Outlining its ambition to establish an air force with an eventual 2,000 uniformed personnel and 300 reservists, the SNP stated the organization would initially be equipped with “a minimum of 12 interceptors in the Eurofighter/Typhoon class, based at Lossiemouth, a tactical air transport squadron, including around six [Lockheed Martin] C-130J Hercules, and a helicopter squadron”.
According to the document, “Key elements of air forces in place at independence, equipped initially from a negotiated share of current UK assets, will secure core tasks, principally the ability to police Scotland’s airspace, within NATO.” An in-country air command and control capability would be established within five years of a decision in favor of independence, it continues, with staff also to be “embedded within NATO structures”.
This plan was immediately set into action after the country's independence in late 2017 with the purchase of twelve refurbished Saab JAS 39A Gripen interceptors for Quick Reaction Alert duties and upgraded, former Swedish Air Force Sk 90 trainers for the RoScAC. But these second hand machines were just the initial step in the mid-term procurement plan.
The twelve KAI TA-50 aircraft procured as a second step were to fulfill the complex requirement for a light and cost-effective multi-purpose aircraft that could be used in a wide variety of tasks: primarily as an advanced trainer for supersonic flight and as a trainer for the fighter role (since all Scottish Gripens were single seaters and dedicated to the interceptor/air defense role), but also as a light attack and point defense aircraft.
Scotland was offered refurbished F-16C and Ds, but this was declined as the type was deemed to be too costly and complex. Beyond the KAI T-50, the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master and the BAe Hawk were considered, too, but, eventually, a modified TA-50 that was tailored to the RoScAC’s procurement plans was chosen by the Scottish government.
In order to fulfill the complex duty profile, the Scottish TA-50s were upgraded with elements from the FA-50 attack aircraft. They possess more internal fuel capacity, enhanced avionics, a longer radome and a tactical datalink. Its EL/M-2032 pulse-Doppler radar has been modified so that it offers now a range two-thirds greater than the TA-50's standard radar. It enables the aircraft to operate in any weather, detect surface targets and deploy AIM-120 AAMs for BVR interceptions. The machines can also be externally fitted with Rafael's Sky Shield or LIG Nex1's ALQ-200K ECM pods, Sniper or LITENING targeting pods, and Condor 2 reconnaissance pods to further improve the machine’s electronic warfare, reconnaissance, and targeting capabilities.
Another unique feature of the Scottish Golden Eagle is its powerplant: even though the machines are originally powered by a single General Electric F404 afterburning turbofan and designed around this engine, the RoScAC TF-50s are powered by a Volvo RM12 low-bypass afterburning turbofan. These are procured and serviced through Saab in Sweden, as a part of the long-term collaboration contract for the RoScAC’s Saab Gripen fleet. This decision was taken in order to decrease overall fleet costs through a unified engine.
The RM12 is a derivative of the General Electric F404-400. Changes from the standard F404 includes greater reliability for single-engine operations (including more stringent birdstrike protection) and slightly increased thrust. Several subsystems and components were also re-designed to reduce maintenance demands, and the F404's analogue Engine Control Unit was replaced with the Digital Engine Control – jointly developed by Volvo and GE – which communicates with the cockpit through the digital data buses and, as redundancy, mechanical calculators controlled by a single wire will regulate the fuel-flow into the engine.
Another modification of the RoScAC’s TA-50 is the exchange of the original General Dynamics A-50 3-barrel rotary cannon for a single barrel Mauser BK-27 27mm revolver cannon. Being slightly heavier and having a lower cadence, the BK-27 featured a much higher kinetic energy, accuracy and range. Furthermore, the BK-27 is the standard weapon of the other, Sweden-built aircraft in RoScAC service, so that further synergies and cost reductions were expected.
The Scottish Department of National Defense announced the selection of the TA-50 in August 2018, after having procured refurbished Saab Sk 90 and JAS 39 Gripen from Sweden as initial outfit of the country's small air arm with No. 1 Squadron based at Lossiemouth AB.
Funding for the twelve aircraft was approved by Congress on September 2018 and worth € 420 mio., making the Golden Eagle the young country’s first brand new military aircraft. Deliveries of the Golden Hawk TF.1, how the type was officially designated in Scottish service, began in November 2019, lasting until December 2020.
The first four Scottish Golden Hawk TF.1 aircraft were allocated to the newly established RoScAC No. 2 Squadron, based at Leuchars, where the RoScAC took control from the British Army. The latter had just taken over the former air base from the RAF in 2015, losing its “RAF air base” status and was consequentially re-designated “Leuchars Station”, primarily catering to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards who have, in the meantime, become part of Scotland’s Army Corps. The brand new machines were publically displayed on the shared army and air corps facility in the RoScAC’s new paint scheme on 1st of December 2019 for the first time, and immediately took up service.
General characteristics:
Crew: 2
Length: 13.14 m (43.1 ft)
Wingspan (with wingtip missiles): 9.45 m (31 ft)
Height: 4.94 m (16.2 ft)
Wing area: 23.69 m² (255 ft²)
Empty weight: 6,470 kg (14,285 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 12,300 kg (27,300 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Volvo RM12 afterburning turbofan, rated at 54 kN (12,100 lbf) dry thrust
and 80.5 kN (18,100 lbf) with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 1.5 (1,640 km/h, 1,020 mph at 9,144 m or 30,000 ft)
Range: 1,851 km (1,150 mi)
Service ceiling: 14,630 m (48,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 198 m/s (39,000 ft/min)
Thrust/weight: 0.96
Max g limit: -3 g / +8 g
Armament:
1× 27mm Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon with 120 rounds
A total of 7 hardpoints (4 underwing, 2 wingtip and one under fuselage)
for up to 3,740 kg (8,250 lb) of payload
The kit and its assembly:
A rare thing concerning my builds: an alternative reality whif. A fictional air force of an independent Scotland crept into my mind after the hysterical “Brexit” events in 2016 and the former (failed) public vote concerning the independence of Scotland from the UK. What would happen to the military, if the independence would take place, nevertheless, and British forces left the country?
The aforementioned Scottish National Party (SNP) paper from 2013 is real, and I took it as a benchmark. Primary focus would certainly be set on air space defense, and the Gripen appears as a good and not too expensive choice. The Sk 90 is a personal invention, but would fulfill a good complementary role.
Nevertheless, another multi-role aircraft would make sense as an addition, and both M-346 and T-50 caught my eye (Russian options were ruled out due to the tense political relations), and I gave the TA-50 the “Go” because of its engine and its proximity to the Gripen.
The T-50 really looks like the juvenile offspring from a date between an F-16 and an F-18. There’s even a kit available, from Academy – but it’s a Snap-Fit offering without a landing gear but, as an alternative, a clear display that can be attached to the engine nozzle. It also comes with stickers instead of waterslide decals. This sounds crappy and toy-like, but, after taking a close look at kit reviews, I gave it a try.
And I am positively surprised. While the kit consists of only few parts, moulded in the colors of a ROCAF trainer as expected, the surfaces have minute, engraved detail. Fit is very good, too, and there’s even a decent cockpit that’s actually better than the offering of some “normal” model kits. The interior comes with multi-part seats, side consoles and dashboards that feature correctly shaped instrument details (no decals). The air intakes are great, too: seamless, with relatively thin walls, nice!
So far, so good. But not enough. I could have built the kit OOB with the landing gear tucked up, but I went for the more complicated route and trans-/implanted the complete landing gear from an Intech F-16, which is available for less than EUR 5,- (and not much worth, to be honest). AFAIK, there’s white metal landing gear for the T-50 available from Scale Aircraft Conversions, but it’s 1:48 and for this set’s price I could have bought three Intech F-16s…
But back to the conversion. This landing gear transplantation stunt sounds more complicated as it actually turned out to be. For the front wheel well I simply cut a long opening into the fuselage and added inside a styrene sheet as a well roof, attached under the cockpit floor.
For the main landing gear I just opened the flush covers on the T-50 fuselage, cut out the interior from the Intech F-16, tailored it a little and glued it into its new place.
This was made easy by the fact that the T-50 is a bit smaller than the F-16, so that the transplants are by tendency a little too large and offer enough “flesh” for adaptations. Once in place, the F-16 struts were mounted (also slightly tailored to fit well) and covers added. The front wheel cover was created with 0.5 mm styrene sheet, for the main covers I used the parts from the Intech F-16 kit because they were thinner than the leftover T-50 fuselage parts and feature some surface detail on the inside. They had to be adapted in size, though. But the operation worked like a charm, highly recommended!
Around the hull, some small details like missing air scoops, some pitots and antennae were added. In a bout of boredom (while waiting for ordered parts…) I also added static dischargers on the aerodynamic surfaces’ trailing edges – the kit comes with obvious attachment points, and they are a small detail that improves the modern look of the T-50 even more.
Since the Academy kit comes clean with only a ventral drop tank as ordnance, underwing pylons from a SEPECAT Jaguar (resin aftermarket parts from Pavla) and a pair of AGM-65 from the Italeri NATO Weapons set plus launch rails were added, plus a pair of Sidewinders (from a Hasegawa AAM set, painted as blue training rounds) on the wing tip launch rails.
Since the T-50 trainer comes unarmed, a gun nozzle had to be added – its position is very similar to the gun on board of the F-16, on the upper side of the port side LERX. Another addition are conformal chaff/flare dispensers at the fin’s base, adding some beef to the sleek aircraft.
Painting and markings:
I did not want a grey-in-grey livery, yet something “different” and rather typical or familiar for the British isles. My approach is actually a compromise, with classic RAF colors and design features inspired by camouflage experiments of the German Luftwaffe on F-4F Phantoms and Alpha Jets in the early Eighties.
For the upper sides I went for a classic British scheme, in Dark Green and Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 163 and 164), colors I deem very appropriate for the Scottish landscape and for potential naval operations. These were combined with elements from late RAF interceptors: Barley Grey (Humbrol 167) for the flanks including the pylons, plus Light Aircraft Grey (Humbrol 166) for the undersides, with a relatively high waterline and a grey fin, so that a side or lower view would rather blend with the sky than the ground below.
Another creative field were the national markings: how could fictional Scottish roundels look like, and how to create them so that they are easy to make and replicate (for a full set for this kit, as well as for potential future builds…)? Designing and printing marking decals myself was an option, but I eventually settled for a composite solution which somewhat influenced the roundels’ design, too.
My Scottish roundel interpretationconsists of a blue disk with a white cross – it’s simple, different from any other contemporary national marking, esp. the UK roundel, and easy to create from single decal parts. In fact, the blue roundels were die-punched from blue decal sheet, and the cross consists of two thin white decal strips, cut into the correct length with the same stencil, using generic sheet material from TL Modellbau.
Another issue was the potential tactical code, and a small fleet only needs a simple system. Going back to a WWII system with letter codes for squadrons and individual aircraft was one option, but, IMHO, too complicated. I adopted the British single letter aircraft code, though, since this system is very traditional, but since the RoScAC would certainly not operate too many squadrons, I rather adapted a system similar to the Swedish or Spanish format with a single number representing the squadron. The result is a simple 2-digit code, and I adapted the German system of placing the tactical code on the fuselage, separated by the roundel. Keeping British traditions up I repeated the individual aircraft code letter on the fin, where a Scottish flag, a small, self-printed Fife coat-or-arms and a serial number were added, too.
The kit saw only light weathering and shading, and the kit was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
Creating this whif, based on an alternative historic timeline with a near future perspective, was fun – and it might spawn more models that circle around the story. A Scottish Sk 90 and a Gripen are certain options (and for both I have kits in the stash…), but there might also be an entry level trainer, some helicopters for the army and SAR duties, as well as a transport aircraft. The foundation has been laid out, now it’s time to fill Scotland’s history to come with detail and proof. ;-)
Besides, despite being a snap-fit kit, Academy’s T-50 is a nice basis, reminding me of some Hobby Boss kits but with less flaws (e .g. most of the interiors), except for the complete lack of a landing gear. But with the F-16 and Jaguar transplants the simple kit developed into something more convincing.
Bright and early Saturday morning, Bella paid Charlotte a little visit. Because Bella had to work, she came by to wish Charlotte a very happy birthday, and to ask her if it would be alright if her bear “Toulouse” came to Charlotte’s birthday party in her place, as she had to work that day. Bella knows that Charlotte covets her bear, and that this would make her most happy. Even though she was a little sad that Bella wouldn’t be there that day, Charlotte was thrilled to have Toulouse as her special guest!
***********************************************************************************
Charlotte is a vintage/mod Living Fluff # 1143 (1971-1972) wearing the 50th Anniversary Skipper Repro (2014) Happy Birthday dress # 1919 (1965).
In these pictures:
Toulouse, the magical bear, was a gift from a friend.
I got the idea for the floor tiles from the very talented Ronda Vallejo of MiniaturesfromAvalon on Etsy.
*From the Ideal Tammy Dollhouse (c. 1963): One background is from its kitchen (enlarged and modified), the other is from its living room, as well as the kitchen sink & stove.*
The fridge and little table (spray painted) are from Barbie All Around Home Kitchen Playset (2000).
Vintage Deluxe Reading Dream Kitchen table set and dishwasher (c. 1963).
*Honorée got the dishwasher in her divorce settlement, and gave it to Florence, as she felt that Florence, as a single mother, could make better use of it, however Florence can’t quite get use to having a dishwasher, and usually does her dishes by hand!*
Miniature cookbooks by BakingInMiniature on Etsy.
“ScotTowels” and “Soilax” cleaning product are from a My Merry “Cleaning Closet” set (early 1960s).
Vintage Barbie minis.
Re-Ments.
The People's Princess. A repainted and restyled Franklin Mint doll. Repainted for eBay auction www.ebay.com/usr/ncruz_doll_art
FOR MORE OF MY ART, PLEASE VISIT MY WEB SITE AT WWW. NCRUZ.COM . Link below:
See more examples of my work at my web site: www.ncruz.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/ncruzdollart
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Blog: noelcruzcreations.blogspot.com/
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Deviant Art: noeling.deviantart.com/
on eBay at www.ebay.com/usr/ncruz_doll_art
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin
Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,723,914 (2018) inhabitants make it the second most populous city proper of the European Union after London. The city is one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and contiguous with its capital, Potsdam. The two cities are at the center of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which is, with 6,004,857 (2015) inhabitants and an area of 30,370 square km, Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions.
Berlin straddles the banks of the River Spree, which flows into the River Havel (a tributary of the River Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel, and Dahme rivers (the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee). Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. About one-third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers, canals and lakes. The city lies in the Central German dialect area, the Berlin dialect being a variant of the Lusatian-New Marchian dialects.
First documented in the 13th century and situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417–1701), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), and the Third Reich (1933–1945). Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious countries, the city was divided; West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989) and East German territory. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany, while Bonn became the West German capital. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany.
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and science. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination. Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics.
Berlin is home to world-renowned universities, orchestras, museums, and entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events. Its Zoological Garden is the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. With the world's oldest large-scale movie studio complex, Berlin is an increasingly popular location for international film productions. The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a very high quality of living. Since the 2000s Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany.
GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize physically the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989 the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period over 100,000 people attempted to escape and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.
In 1989 a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left.[6] The "fall of the Berlin Wall" paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Following good performance from the pioneering diesel-hydraulic locomotive the DB Class V 80, the Deutsche Bundesbahn planned in 1953 to build several types of new diesel locomotive, primarily to replace steam powered locomotives.These were: V 60, and V 65, both shunters, the V 65.2, also for shunting as well as light freight trains, the heavy DB Class V 200, for express passenger trains, and the universal V 160 for both freight and passenger work on the main network.
The new V 160 class was a central piece in this line-up, because it would replace important steam-powered engines such as the BR 03, BR 23, BR 38.10 (former Prussian P 8 class), BR 39 (ex P 10), BR 50, BR 57 (ex G 10) and BR 78 (ex T 18). Steam heating for passenger coaches was necessary, and a top speed of 120 km/h was specified. Initially, a 1,600 hp powerplant, consisting of two engines of the same type as in the light V 80 was planned, the first newly developed diesel locomotive built for main line service by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (but only built in 10 examples). This dual engine arrangement had already been successfully introduced in the heavy V 200, which was initially powered by two 1,000 hp diesel engines. However, it was soon realized, that, if a single, high-powered engine could be used, weight, complexity and therefore maintenance and other costs would be considerably reduced. The V 160’s design was modified accordingly and a single MTU V16 four-stroke diesel engine was chosen. Both two-axle bogies were powered via drive shafts from a two speed hydraulic drive from Voith, which offered a compromise between the requested high speed for light passenger trains and the alternative reduced second gear with lower top speed, but much higher torque, for freight train service. Gears could only be switched when the locomotive was standing still, though.
In the spring of 1956, V 160 development began at Krupp. Welded steel components along with other lightweight materials were used to keep the axle load well below 20t, so that the V 160 could be safely operated on secondary lines. However, in the main production series of locomotives, some of the lighter weight welded construction was abandoned in favor of less expensively produced components - leading to an increase in axle weight from ~18.5 to ~20t, which was still acceptable but lowered overall production costs. This was furthermore not regarded as a major problem since the DB perspectively started to abandon branch lines, switching to more economical diesel multiple units or giving them up altogether towards the Seventies.
The first V 160 unit was delivered on 6 August 1960, with eight more following by 1962 from both Krupp and Henschel. These prototype units, due to their rounded, “busty” front end, were later to become unusual amongst the entire V 160 family and earned them the nickname “Lollo” (in allusion to Gina Lollobrigida). A final prototype V 160 010, the tenth, was manufactured by Henschel in 1963 and the first to feature the serial locomotives’ angled front end, which was inspired by the design of the super-heavy V 320 Henschel prototype.
Despite the single main engine, the V 160 was still a complex locomotive. In addition to the main engine, the V 160 featured a small, independent auxiliary diesel engine, driving a generator providing the 110 V electrical supply for lighting as well as driving an electric air compressor for the brakes. The steam heating apparatus, sourced from Hagenuk and powered by fuel oil, took up one end of the locomotive, between the engine and drivers cabin. It had the capacity to satisfactorily heat 10 coaches when the outside temperature was -10°C. For passenger train service, most V 160 locomotives were also equipped for push-pull operation, as well as for multiple working, controlled via a 36 pin control cable and respective sockets on the locomotives front ends.
The prototypes performed well, and volume production began, numbers V 160 011 to V 160 224 being built between 1964 and 1968 by Krupp, Henschel, KHD, Krauss-Maffei and MaK. The first V 160/216 locomotives entered service on the Hamburg to Lübeck line, working push-pull double decked passenger trains, replacing the BR 38.10 and BR 78 steam engines. The engines were also used on freight workings as well. On push-pull passenger working, the locomotives were sometimes found in the middle of the train - which facilitated easier separation of carriages en route.
By the time the 156th example was under completion, the Deutsche Bundesbahn changed its numbering system. From then on, the V 160 class were re-designated as Class (Baureihe = BR) 216, with the individual unit numbering continuing as before. Over the next decade, because of changing requirements – mostly in terms of increased power, speed as well as the requirement for electrical passenger heating – a number of related classes sprang up, the BR 210, 215, 217, 218 and 219. Although some were a little longer and carried additional components (e.g. an auxiliary jet engine), all of them were essentially based on the original V 160 and more than 800 machines of all types were eventually built.
Since the 1990s, the Bundesbahn’s BR 216 locomotives scope of work started to shift more on freight than on passenger trains because of the lack of steam-heated passenger stock. From 2000 onwards, the Deutsche Bahn AG’s BR 216 fleet was phased out, with the last locomotive being decommissioned in 2004.
Several locomotives were sold to private operators like rail construction companies and remained in frequent use, and some retired BR 216s were re-built and offered for sale, too. The first in the series of rebuilt Class 216s was called type “DH 1504” and created in 1998 by the firm 'On Rail'. Despite only little external changes, the result was an almost completely new locomotive, only the transmission, bogies and frame were saved from the original locomotive. The original V16 diesel engine with 1,370 kW (1.900 hp), was replaced with a lighter but more powerful 1500 kW (2,085 hp) V12 four-stroke diesel engine, also from MTU. On customer demand, a new electric Webasto heating system could be installed instead of the original steam heating system, making the DH 1504 capable of operating modern passenger trains, and for this purpose the units were also fitted for multiple working as well as for remote control operation (e.g. for shunting). Another option was additional ballast, so that the axle load could be kept at 20 tons for better traction. Otherwise, 18 t axle load was standard for the revamped DH 1504.
Since 1998, 6 of these locomotives were re-built for private operators in Germany. By late 2019, three DH 1504 locomotives were in the use of the Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen (OHE), two work for the Niederrheinische Verkehrsbetriebe (NIAG) and one for the Mindener Kreisbahnen (MKB). However, the biggest sales success for OnRail’s modernized BR 216 was the export to Poland, where the PKP (Polskie Koleje Państwowe, Polish State Railways). After its privatization in 2001, the PKP was looking for a low-cost replacement for its last ST-43 Class diesel electric freight locomotives of Romanian origin, which dated back to the 1960ies. Twenty DH 1504 locomotives for mixed duties were built by OnRail between 2001 and 2005 and entered PKP service as Class SU-29 (spalinowa uniwersalna = mixed-traffic diesel locomotive with hydraulic transmission and multiple-unit control). Their initial primary field of duty was the cross-border freight traffic on the east-west relation on the PKP “Polskie line Kolejowe”, the so-called “Niederschlesische Gütermagistrale”. Since 2005, this route had been expanded, electrified and became double-railed, so that the SU-29s gradually took over more and more passenger train duties on non-electrified major lines. The SU-29 machines are expected to remain in PKP service beyond 2030.
General characteristics:
Gauge: 1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in) standard gauge
UIC axle arrangement: B´B´
Overall length: 16,800 mm (52 ft 57⁄8 in)
Pivot distance: 8,600 mm
Bogie distance: 2,800 mm
Wheel diameter (when new): 1000 mm
Fuel supply: 3,800 l
Service weight: 80 t
Engine:
MTU 4000R20 V12diesel engine with 1500 kW (2,085 hp) at 1,800 RPM
Gearbox:
Voith L821rs 2-speed gearbox
Performance:
Maximum speed: 120 km/h (75 mph) or 80 km/h (50 mph)
Torque: 235,2 kN
The kit and its assembly:
Well, this is a rather unusual what-if “build”, since this not a model kit as such but rather the conversion of a readymade H0 gauge model railway locomotive for the “Back into service” group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2019.
The inspiration was not original, though: some time ago I stumbled across a gift set from the former East-German manufacturer Piko, apparently for the Polish market. It contained a set of double deck passenger wagons, and a (highly simplified, toy-like) German BR 216 in PKP markings. It was called SU-29 and carried a very crude and garish green livery with yellow front ends – inspired by real world PKP diesel locomotives, but… wrong. I found this so bizarre that it stuck in my mind. When I dug a little further, my surprise even grew when I found out that there were other national adaptations of this simple Piko BR 216 (e .g. for Denmark) and that Piko’s competitor Roco offered a similar BR 215 in PKP colors, too! This time, the fictional locomotive was designated SU-47 (which cannot be since this would indicate a locomotive with electric power transmission – poor job!), and it also wore a bright green livery with yellow front markings. Bizarre… And the PKP does NOT operate any BR 216 at all?!
However, with the GB topic in mind, I decided to create my own interpretation of this interesting topic – apparently, there’s a market for whiffy model locomotives? The basis became a 2nd hand Märklin 3075 (a BR 216 in the original red DB livery), not a big investment since this is a very common item.
In order to easy painting, the locomotive was disassembled into its major sections and the body stripped of any paint in a one-week bath in oven cleaner foam, a very mild and effective method.
The heavy metal chassis was not modified, it just received a visual update (see below).
The upper body underwent some cosmetic surgery, though, but nothing dramatic or structural, since the DH 1504 described above only differs in minor external details from the original BR 216. I decided to modify the front ends, especially the lights: Locomotives in PKP service tend to have VERY large lamps, and I tried to incorporate this characteristic feature through masks that were added over the original light conductors, scratched from styrene tube material.
In the course of this facial surgery, the molded handles at the lower front corners were lost. They were later replaced with three-dimensional silver wire, mounted into small holes that were drilled into the hull at the appropriate positions. Fiddly stuff, but I think the effort was worth it.
The original vent grills between the lower lamps were sanded away and covers for the multiple working cable adapters on the front ends added – scratched with small styrene profile bits.
For a cleaner, modern look, I removed the original decorative aluminum profile frame around the upper row of cooling louvers. The roof was modified, too: beyond the bigger headlight fairing, the exhaust for the auxiliary diesel engine was removed, as well as the chimney for the old steam heating system. The diesel engine’s exhaust pipes were lengthened (inspired by similar devices carried by DB BR 218), so that the fumes would be deviated away from the locomotive’s hull and the following wagons. Horns and a blade antenna for each driver’s cabin were added, too.
Painting and markings:
Both Piko and Roco V 160s in PKP markings look garish – righteously, though, since PKP locomotives used to carry for many years very striking colors, primarily a dark green body with a light green/teal contrast area on the flanks and yellow quick recognition front markings. However, I did not find any of the two model designs convincing, since they rather looked like a simple toy (Piko) or just wrong (Roco, with a surreal grass green contrast tone instead of the pale teal).
I rather went for something inspired by real world locomotives, like the PKP’s SU- and SP-45s. The basic design is an upper body with a dark green base (Humbrol 76, Uniform Green) and a pale green-grey area around the upper row of louvres (an individual mix of Humbrol 96 and 78). The kink under the front windows was used for waterline reference, the front section under the windows (in the dark green base) was painted in bright yellow (Humbrol 69) as a high-viz contrast, a typical feature of PKP locomotives. The chassis received a grey-green frame (somewhat visually stretching the locomotive) with bright red (Humbrol 19) headstocks, a nice color contrast to the green body and the yellow bib.
Silver 1.5mm decal stripes (TL Modellbau) were used to create a thin cheatline along and around the whole lower section. At some time I considered another cheatline between the light and dark green, but eventually ignored this idea because it would have looked too retro. The locomotive’s roof became medium grey (Revell 47).
The running gear and the tanks between the bogies were painted in very dark grey (Humbrol 67, similar to the original DB livery in RAL 7021) and weathered with a light black ink wash, some thinned Burnt Umbra (simulating dust and rust) plus some light dry-brushing with dark grey that emphasized the surface details. This used look was also taken to the upper body of the locomotive with watercolours (Grey, Black and some Sienna and Burnt Umbra) for a more natural look of daily service – rather subtle, and I emphasized the louvres, esp. on the light background, where they tended to disappear.
Individual markings consist of single decal letters in silver and white in various sizes (also TL Modellbau) for the locomotive’s registration code as well as of H0 scale catenary warnings from Nothaft Hobbybedarf, plus some generic stencils from various model decal sheets (incl. Cyrillic stencils from an 1:72 MiG-21 decal sheet…).
For a uniform finish I gave the locomotive an overall coat of matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – it still has a slightly sheen finish and matches well the look of Märklin’s standard rolling stock.
A different kind of what-if project, but this has not been my first H0 scale locomotive conversion. The fictional PKP SU-29 looks a bit weird, with the garish paint scheme and the oversized headlights, but this strangeness makes this model IMHO quite convincing. The model is fully functional, even the light works well in the enlarged headlight fairings. Maybe I’ll sell it, since I do not have the appropriate model railway set at hand to effectively use it (which is also the reason for the rather limited scope of pictures of the finished item). And I am curious what people might be willing to pay for such a unique, fictional item?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The SS Nieuw Amsterdam
S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam
Career (Netherlands)
Flag of the Netherlands.svg
Name: Nieuw Amsterdam
Namesake: New Amsterdam (New York)
Operator: Holland America Line
Builder: N.V. Rotterdam Drydock Company, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Laid down: January 5, 1936
Launched: April 10, 1937
Christened: April 10, 1937
Maiden voyage: May 10, 1938
Fate: Scrapped in 1974
General characteristics
Tonnage: 36,287 gross tons (36,667 tons after 1947 refit)
Length: 758 feet (231.5 m)
Beam: 88 feet (26.9 m)
Installed power: Single reduction geared turbines; 34,000 shp
Propulsion: Twin screws
Speed: 20.5 knots (38.0 km/h)
Capacity: 1,220: 556 First Class, 455 Second Class, 209 Third Class
The Nieuw Amsterdam was a Dutch ocean liner built in Rotterdam for the Holland America Line. This Nieuw Amsterdam, the second of four Holland America ships with that name, is considered by many to have been Holland America's finest ship.
Originally she was to be named Prinsendam, however during construction, Holland America Line decided to name their new flagship Nieuw Amsterdam, in honor of the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, modern day New York.
Construction on the new liner was carried out at the N.V. Rotterdam Drydock Company. Christened by Queen Wilhelmina in April 1937, Nieuw Amsterdam was, at 36,982 tonnes, the largest liner ever constructed in the Netherlands up to that time. Proudly she was dubbed the Dutch "Ship of peace" since there were no provisions for possible war use incorporated in her design.
Interior[edit]
The Nieuw Amsterdam was the Netherlands' "ship of state", just as the Normandie was France's, the Queen Mary was Britain's and United States was the United States', and numerous Dutch artists vied for the honor of creating some part of the ship.
The first-class dining room aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam
Their creation emerged in the spring of 1938, a light-colored and very spacious ship throughout, and although she had spacious public rooms, the colour scheme used gave her an even larger feel. Modern in every way, her owners proclaimed her "the ship of tomorrow". She followed the Art Deco trend of the day in both interior decorations and exterior design. The interiors were distinguished by fluorescent lighting, aluminum motifs, and gentle pastels throughout the ship that created an understated elegance that would make the liner a favorite among seasoned transatlantic passengers.[1]
One of the ship’s centerpieces was the first class restaurant, having a Moroccan leather ceiling which was adorned by numerous Murano glass light fixtures, and columns covered in gold leaf. Tinted mirrors, ivory walls and satinwood furniture all contributed to create the luxurious atmosphere. The restaurant had no portholes or windows facing the open sea, making it depend solely on artificial illumination. This might sound a bit odd, but it was just the same in the first class restaurant on board the fabulous Normandie of 1935.[2] There also were two swimming pools on board, one outdoor and the other indoors on E-deck. It featured expensive Delft tiling which was an impressive sight.
Passengers must have found it difficult to believe they were at sea when in the air-conditioned First Class Theater. The deeply cushioned seats commanded an unobstructed view of the stage, and the egg-shaped contour of the auditorium took advantage of the latest in scientific sound-proofing materials and amplifying equipment to ensure perfect acoustics for concerts, dramatic performances and pre-release motion pictures. Found at the front end of the Theatre was a striking mural in red, black and gold by Reyer Stolk. The Nieuw Amsterdam was the second ship in the world after the Normandie to boast a theater, a feature the larger and faster Queen Mary did not have.
A favorite rendezvous of many Nieuw Amsterdam passengers was the handsome First Class Smoking Room with its rich Circassian walnut paneling and deep, luxurious armchairs and settees. Flanked by two enclosed sun verandas extending to the sides of the ship, the Smoking Room had its own modern bar stocked with a connoisseur choice of fine liquors.
First Class staterooms on the Nieuw Amsterdam were unusually attractive, ranging in size from cozy single person cabins to elaborate cabins-de-luxe. The handsome and modern decorative scheme made the cabins comfortable spots for daytime and evening relaxation. All First Class cabins on Nieuw Amsterdam had a private bathroom, a unique feature which no previous liner could boast.
Early career[edit]
On April 23, 1938, the Nieuw Amsterdam set out on her sea trials, which were to take place on the North Sea. Testing her speed and manoeuvring capability, the new vessel turned out to be all that she was supposed to be. Upon her return from the sea trials, the Nieuw Amsterdam was transferred to Holland America ownership and officially registered in the Dutch merchant fleet.
The sleek new liner's maiden voyage was set for May 10, 1938, and upon her arrival in New York she immediately won adulation and acclaim.
Although she was neither as large or fast as many of her contemporaries, she was to be a popular liner for the Dutch and was showered with superlatives. Her sleek outline and two slim funnels provided a striking profile and she soon garnered a loyal following amid stiff competition from great liners such as Cunard's Queen Mary and the superb Normandie of the French Line. Despite the fierce competition, Nieuw Amsterdam proved to be one of the few money-making vessels of the day.[3]
Wartime service[edit]
The Netherlands’ “ship of peace” was not to enjoy the praise lavished on her for long. After only seventeen voyages, Nieuw Amsterdam was laid up at Hoboken, New Jersey in 1939 after the German invasion of Poland. She would be idle for only a year, however, and was requisitioned by the British Ministry of Transport after Holland fell to Hitler’s armies. She would spend the remainder of the war years as a troop transport, despite the fact she had been constructed without the consideration of ever being used in a military capacity. During the course of the conflict she would transport over 350,000 troops and steam some 530,452 nautical miles (982,397 km) before being returned to the Holland America Line in 1946.
Refitting the Nieuw Amsterdam[edit]
The Nieuw Amsterdam triumphantly returned to her home port of Rotterdam on April 10, 1946. Fifteen weeks were required to remove the troop fittings: the special kitchens, alarm systems, hammocks, and 36 guns.
Then 2,000 tons of furniture and decorations were shipped to the Netherlands from wartime storage in San Francisco. The furnishings were for the most part in very poor condition, a result of six years of neglect. About 3,000 chairs and 500 tables were sent back to their original builders for reupholstering and refinishing. One quarter of the furnishings had to be replaced entirely.
Factories and warehouses in Europe combed their supplies for materials and fabrics, much of which had been concealed from the Nazis during the occupation. Many smaller parts, such as hinges and clamps, had to be made by hand, since the machinery that once made them had been stolen or destroyed by the enemy.
The first-class main hall aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam
The entire rubber flooring was renewed, as was nearly all of the carpeting. All of the steel work was scaled and preserved and all piping cleaned. All ceilings and floors were removed; all of the liners 374 bathrooms were rebuilt. In the passenger spaces the wood paneling, which had been scratched and mutilated, was sanded down to half its thickness and relacquered. All the cabin's closets and fixtures were replaced. The entire electrical wiring system was renewed.
Having been painted over for blackouts and cracked in tropical climates, 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of glass was refurbished. Even the hand rails had to be repolished to eradicate thousands of carved initials. The project was monumental, because of the material shortages and the decline of the number of skilled craftsmen.
On October 29, 1947, after 18 months at the shipyard, the Nieuw Amsterdam reentered transatlantic service. Over 100 liners were restored with similar efforts.
Post war career and demise[edit]
The Nieuw Amsterdam as a cruise ship
The refit took eighteen months and cost more than her original construction, but on October 29, 1947, the Nieuw Amsterdam was finally back on the transatlantic run. Her passenger accommodations had been slightly altered, and the ship emerged with a gross tonnage some 400 tons larger than before, ending up at 36,667.[4]
For the next twenty years Nieuw Amsterdam would enjoy a loyal following and financial success. Even when joined by a more contemporary fleet mate in 1959, the SS Rotterdam, the Nieuw Amsterdam still commanded a loyal following and remained one of the most popular ships on the north Atlantic. Her several refits in the 1950s ensured she remained in top condition and continued service despite her being near thirty years of age. In 1967 severe boiler problems seemed to indicate an end to the venerable liner’s career, however new US Navy surplus boilers were installed during a sixteen week shipyard period at Wilton-Fijenoord in Schiedam and her career continued.
Painting of the Nieuw Amsterdam
In the same decade jet travel had made continued Atlantic passenger runs impractical, so Nieuw Amsterdam was shifted to cruising in the Caribbean. Soon escalating operating cost and competition from newer cruise vessels meant an end to the grand liner’s service career. Nieuw Amsterdam had been an enduring icon on the North Atlantic for the better part of three decades—certainly her refined interiors and impeccable service added much to her appeal.
The ship sailed to the breakers in 1974
Here are a few recent additions to my brass locomotive collection.
Scale: HO
Category: Steam
Subcategory:
Road: New York Central (NYC)
Whyte: 4-6-4
Description: J-3A HUDSON
Builder: George D. Stock
Year(s): 1950's
Qty Made: 1
A large solar prominence seen by NASA's SDO spacecraft on April 11, 2011 at approximately 5pm EDT.
I put an image of Earth at upper right to show actual approximate scale.
Courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams. Edited by J. Major.
See more images and video from SDO here: sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however, we are just a short distance from Cavendish Mews, in front of Mr. Willison’s grocers’ shop. Willison’s Grocers in Mayfair is where Lettice has an account, and it is from here that Edith, Lettice's maid, orders her groceries for the Cavendish Mews flat, except on special occasions, when professional London caterers are used. Mr. Willison prides himself in having a genteel, upper-class clientele including the households of many titled aristocrats who have houses and flats in the neighbourhood, and he makes sure that his shop is always tidy, his shelves well stocked with anything the cook of a duke or duchess may want, and staff who are polite and mannerly to all his important customers. The latter is not too difficult, for aside from himself, Mrs. Willison does his books, his daughter Henrietta helps on Saturdays and sometimes after she has finished school, which means Mr. Willison technically only employs one member of staff: Frank Leadbetter his delivery boy who carries orders about Mayfair on the bicycle provided for him by Mr. Willison. He also collects payments for accounts which are not settled in his Binney Street shop whilst on his rounds.
Edith, is stepping out with Frank, so as she nears the shop, she hopes that the errand she has to run for today will allow her to have a few stolen minutes with Frank under the guise of ordering a few provisions required immediately. As she crosses Binney Street, Edith is delighted to see Frank busily decorating the front window. Mr. Willison always has a splendid window display of tinned and canned goods, but as she approaches the window she can see that it is especially festive, draped with patriotic bunting of Union Jacks and blue and red flags. As Frank, crouched in the window, carefully places a jar of Golden Shred marmalade next to a box of Ty-Phoo tea and in front of a jar of Marmite where it glows in the light pouring through the plate glass, Edith taps gently, so as not to startle her beau.
Frank smiles broadly and waves enthusiastically as he looks up and sees his sweetheart on the other side of the glass and he beckons her in as he slips back into the shadowy confines of the grocer’s.
“Please come in, milady!” he says cheekily as he opens the plate glass shop door for her, bows and doffs an invisible cap as the bell tinkles prettily overhead. “Pray what may we get to you? Let Willison’s the Grocer’s satisfy your every whim.”
“Oh Frank!” Edith giggles as she steps across the threshold. “Get along with you!”
Stepping into the shop she immediately smells the mixture of comforting aromas of fresh fruits, vegetables and flour, permeated by the delicious scent of the brightly coloured boiled sweets coming from the large cork stoppered jars on the shop counter. The sounds of the busy street outside die away, muffled by shelves lined with any number of tinned goods and signs advertising everything from Lyon’s Tea* to Bovril**.
“Where is Mrs. Willison?” Edith continues warily, her eyes darting to the spot behind the end of the return counter near the door where the proprietor’s wife usually sits doing her husband’s accounts, looking imperiously down her nose at Edith through her gold framed pince-nez***.
“Luckily the old trout is out with Mr. Willison attending Miss Henrietta’s school.” Frank explains.
“Don’t tell me that impudent little minx is in trouble?” Edith asks with a cheeky spark of hope in her voice. She knows that it’s uncharitable, and unchristian of her to wish the young girl ill, but she is still riled over the last time Edith met Frank near the rear door of Mr. Willison’s grocers, where, as he stole a kiss from her, Henrietta spied upon them. Henrietta, who had seen the young couple from a lace framed upstairs window where she was often seen spying on the comings and goings of the neighbourhood, called out loudly to her disapproving mother downstairs in the shop that Edith and Frank were loitering in the back lane, which caused the woman with her old fashioned upswept hairstyle and her high necked starched shirtwaister**** blouse to come hurrying to the back door as fast as her equally old fashioned whale bone S-bend corset***** and button up boots would allow her, where she promptly berated both Edith and Frank with her acerbic tongue, accusing them of lowering the tone of Mr. Willison’s establishment by loitering with intent and fraternising shamelessly. Edith’s cheeks flush at the mere memory of that embarrassing moment with Mrs. Willison.
“No,” Frank goes on. “Miss Henrietta is receiving an award at school today for an essay she penned.”
“With poison, no doubt.” mutters Edith. She sighs heavily before continuing, “I hate how you call her ‘Miss Henrietta’. She’s no better than you, Frank. In fact she’s a darn sight lesser if you ask me.”
“Now, now, Edith. Calm down.” Frank places his slender hands on her forearms and wraps his long and elegant fingers around them comfortingly. “You may well be right, but she is my employer’s daughter.”
“And full of her own self-importance.” Edith interrupts.
Frank politely ignores her outburst as he continues, “So I must address her as such.”
“Well, it’s not right, Frank.” Edith sulks.
“That much is true too,” Frank agrees with a sad nod. “And you know I am a man who wants to right the wrongs dealt to hardworking fold like you and I, but this is one fight I can’t have yet, Edith. This bit of deference I need to keep up if I want to keep my job.”
“All the same, Frank. I don’t think it’s right.” Edith opines again.
“Anyway, let’s not let Henrietta Willison spoil this wonderfully rare moment where we find each other alone together, Edith.” Frank says, pulling her into an embrace. Quickly looking around the quiet shop interior filled with groceries to make sure no-one will see them, Frank gently kisses Edith lovingly on the lips.
After a few stolen moments, Frank reluctantly breaks their kiss.
“Oh Frank!” Edith exclaims, her head giddy with pleasure and voice heady with love.
“Now, Miss Watsford,” Frank asks in a mock businesslike tone. “What can I do for the maid of the Honourable Miss Chetwynd today?”
“Well, it’s a funny coincidence, but you happened to be putting what I need in your window display, just as I arrived, Frank.” Edith elucidates. “I need a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade urgently.”
“Urgently?” Frank queries. “Gosh, that does sound extreme.”
“But I do, Frank. Miss Lettice has a potential new client coming up from Wiltshire today, and being a somewhat impromptu visit, I haven’t any cake to serve them. I was just about to make my Mum’s pantry chocolate cake when I realised that I’m out of orange marmalade.”
“Well that does sound like a serious situation.” Frank agrees.
“Don’t tease me Frank! I’m serious.” Edith’s pretty pale blue eyes grow wide. “If I don’t provide something nice to eat for Miss Lettice’s potential new client, everything could go awry, and then I’d get into such trouble.”
“Well, I can’t have my best girl getting into trouble because she is missing the essential ingredient to her mum’s delicious chocolate cake, can I?” Frank says. “However I don’t understand why you have marmalade in a cake. It sounds a bit odd to me.”
“That’s because you aren’t a baker, Frank. Mum taught me this recipe for chocolate cake which is based on cheap everyday staples you have in the pantry, and that’s why she calls it a pantry chocolate cake.”
“Go on,” Frank says, placing his elbows on the counter and resting his smiling face in his hands. “You have my full attention.”
“Well, I use the marmalade to give the cake a nice citrus flavour in addition to the chocolate, and it keeps it moist, so it doesn’t dry out when baking. This way, I don’t have to worry about peeling or squeezing oranges either.”
“Fascinating!” Frank breathes, smiling broadly as he listens to Edith.
“And that’s why I need the marmalade, Frank.” Edith says nervously. “I’ll be lost without it.”
“Well, that is a problem, but it’s one I think I can remedy easily.” He smiles as he fossicks behind the counter and withdraws a jar of orange marmalade from somewhere unseen beneath it. Smiling proudly, as though he is a magician who has just conjured his best magic trick, he places it on the surface of counter.
“Oh you’re a brick, Frank!” Edith exclaims with eyes sparkling at the sight of the jar as she reaches out and takes it, placing it carefully into her basket.
“I’ll add that to Miss Lettice’s account, shall I?”
“If you would, Frank.”
As Frank writes the purchase on a scrap of lined paper to give to Mrs. Willison to enter into Mr. Willison’s ledger in her fine looping copperplate when she returns, he asks, “So do you like my window display then, Edith?”
“Oh yes!” gushes Edith. “Very much so, Frank. It’s wonderfully gay and patriotic.”
“I should hope it would be!” Frank replies, as he finishes scrawling Edith’s purchase on the paper with a slightly blunt pencil.
“Why, what’s it in aid of, Frank?”
“Edith!” Frank gasps. “I must have failed abysmally if you can’t tell.” He frowns, lines of concern furrowing his young brow. “Mr. Willison will never let me arrange the window again if you’re anything to go by.”
“Oh, get on with you, Frank!” Edith laughs.
However, Frank doesn’t join in her light hearted laughter and continues to look dourly at the back of the window display he has set up. “I’m serious, Edith. Mr. Willison finally let me arrange a window on my own because I implored him that I wanted to do it, and you can’t even identify what it’s promoting.”
“Well,” Edith defends, blushing as she does so. “To be fair, I was more concentrating on you, Frank.” When the worried look still doesn’t vanish from his face she adds. “Now that you aren’t standing in it, distracting me, I’ll go and take another look.”
She turns around and walks over to the window and peers through the side over the tops of a pyramid of Sunlight soap and a stack of Twinings tea varieties. An equally high pyramid of biscuit varieties, all in bright and colourful tins stands on the other side, whilst several more tins of biscuits appear at the back of the wide window ledge used for advertising. In front of them stand tins of golden syrup and black treacle, jars of marmalade, packets of tea and jelly crystals, containers of baking powder and cocoa, and at the very front of the window, almost flush against the glass, a cardboard cut out of a gollywog advertising Robertson’s marmalade and a little boy smiling as he promotes Rowntree’s clear gums, which Edith knows Mr. Willison keeps safely out of reach behind the shop counter and away from sticky little fingers. Edith gasps as she realises why Frank had hung bunting in the window, for at the back of the display, where usually there would be an advertisement for Lyon’s Tea or Bisto Gravy******, there is a poster promoting the British Empire Exhibition******* at Wembly********. A crowd of figures from British history and the nations of the British Empire crowd for space along several rows, many proudly waving the flags of Empire, whilst the exhibition name and dates are flanked by two very proud stylised Art Deco lions.
“The British Empire Exhibition!” Edith gasps, as Frank’s head appears next to a Huntley and Palmer********* biscuit tin on the opposite side of the display to her. “Now that you aren’t crouched in the window, I can see it clearly, Frank.”
“Mr. Willison gave me strict instructions to fill the window with only British made products.”
“And you’ve done a splendid job, Frank.” Edith replies, causing her beau to smile with pride and blush with embarrassment at her effusive compliment. As she looks at all the products again, she adds, “And I’m glad to see McVite and Price********** at the top of the pyramid of biscuits.
“Well, I couldn’t very well step out with the daughter of a McVitie and Price Line Manager and not have it on the top, could I, Edith?”
“Indeed no, Frank.” Edith smiles. “Dad will be pleased as punch when I tell him.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Edith.” Franks says with a sigh.
“I think it will be quite a spectacle,” Edith muses, as she stares at the poster. “I’ve read in the newspapers that there will be fifty-six displays and pavilions from around the Empire! Imagine that! There will be palaces for industry, and art.”
“And housing and transport too***********, don’t forget.” adds Frank. “Each colony will be assigned its own distinctive pavilion to reflect local culture and architecture.”
“I would like to see the Queen’s Dolls’ House************.” Edith sighs. “I hear it is a whole world in miniature, and it even has electric lights.”
“Well, isn’t that fortunate?”
Edith pauses mid thought and looks quizzically at Frank. “I suppose it would be,” she considers. “If you were a doll living in the Queen’s Doll House.”
Frank starts laughing, quietly at first before growing into louder and louder guffaws.
“What, Frank?” Edith asks, blushing. “What have I said? What’s so funny?”
After a few moments, Frank manages to recover himself. “You do make me laugh, dear Edith.” He wipes the tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes. “Thank you.” He sighs. “I was really saying it’s fortunate because, I was going to ask you whether you would like to go and see the British Empire Exhibition. I’m just as keen to see all the marvellous wonders of Empire as you are.”
“Oh Frank!” Edith gasps, any discomfort and displeasure at her beau laughing at her forgotten as she runs around to his side of the window and throws her arms around his neck. “Frank, you’re such a brick! I’d love to!” And without another word, she places her lips against his and kisses him deeply.
*Lyons Tea was first produced by J. Lyons and Co., a catering empire created and built by the Salmons and Glucksteins, a German-Jewish immigrant family based in London. Starting in 1904, J. Lyons began selling packaged tea through its network of teashops. Soon after, they began selling their own brand Lyons Tea through retailers in Britain, Ireland and around the world. In 1918, Lyons purchased Hornimans and in 1921 they moved their tea factory to J. Lyons and Co., Greenford at that time, the largest tea factory in Europe. In 1962, J. Lyons and Company (Ireland) became Lyons Irish Holdings. After a merger with Allied Breweries in 1978, Lyons Irish Holdings became part of Allied Lyons (later Allied Domecq) who then sold the company to Unilever in 1996. Today, Lyons Tea is produced in England.
**Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to Marmite and Vegemite. Bovril can be made into a drink ("beef tea") by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast in a similar fashion to Marmite and Vegemite.
***Pince-nez is a style of glasses, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, "to pinch", and nez, "nose".
****A shirtwaister is a woman's dress with a seam at the waist, its bodice incorporating a collar and button fastening in the style of a shirt which gained popularity with women entering the workforce to do clerical work in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
*****Created by a specific style of corset popular between the turn of the Twentieth Century and the outbreak of the Great War, the S-bend is characterized by a rounded, forward leaning torso with hips pushed back. This shape earned the silhouette its name; in profile, it looks similar to a tilted letter S.
******The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.
*******The British Empire Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held at Wembley Park, London England from 23 April to 1 November 1924 and from 9 May to 31 October 1925. In 1920 the British Government decided to site the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park, on the site of the pleasure gardens created by Edward Watkin in the 1890s. A British Empire Exhibition had first been proposed in 1902, by the British Empire League, and again in 1913. The Russo-Japanese War had prevented the first plan from being developed and World War I put an end to the second, though there had been a Festival of Empire in 1911, held in part at Crystal Palace. One of the reasons for the suggestion was a sense that other powers, like America and Japan, were challenging Britain on the world stage. Despite victory in Great War, this was in some ways even truer in 1919. The country had economic problems and its naval supremacy was being challenged by two of its former allies, the United States and Japan. In 1917 Britain had committed itself eventually to leave India, which effectively signalled the end of the British Empire to anyone who thought about the consequences, while the Dominions had shown little interest in following British foreign policy since the war. It was hoped that the Exhibition would strengthen the bonds within the Empire, stimulate trade and demonstrate British greatness both abroad and at home, where the public was believed to be increasingly uninterested in Empire, preferring other distractions, such as the cinema.
********A purpose-built "great national sports ground", called the Empire Stadium, was built for the Exhibition at Wembley. This became Wembley Stadium. Wembley Urban District Council was opposed to the idea, as was The Times, which considered Wembley too far from Central London. The first turf for this stadium was cut, on the site of the old tower, on the 10th of January 1922. 250,000 tons of earth were then removed, and the new structure constructed within ten months, opening well before the rest of the Exhibition was ready. Designed by John William Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton, and built by Sir Robert McAlpine, it could hold 125,000 people, 30,000 of them seated. The building was an unusual mix of Roman imperial and Mughal architecture. Although it incorporated a football pitch, it was not solely intended as a football stadium. Its quarter mile running track, incorporating a 220 yard straight track (the longest in the country) were seen as being at least equally important. The only standard gauge locomotive involved in the construction of the Stadium has survived, and still runs on Sir William McAlpine's private Fawley Hill railway near Henley.
*********Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time, morning and afternoon tea and reading time.
**********McVitie's (Originally McVitie and Price) is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie and Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Harlesden, London (where Edith’s father works). McVitie and Price's first major biscuit was the McVitie's Digestive, created in 1892 by a new young employee at the company named Alexander Grant, who later became the managing director of the company. The biscuit was given its name because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestive was created in 1925. Although not their core operation, McVitie's were commissioned in 1893 to create a wedding cake for the royal wedding between the Duke of York and Princess Mary, who subsequently became King George V and Queen Mary. This cake was over two metres high and cost one hundred and forty guineas. It was viewed by 14,000 and was a wonderful publicity for the company. They received many commissions for royal wedding cakes and christening cakes, including the wedding cake for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Under United Biscuits McVitie's holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.
***********The Palace of Engineering was originally called the Palace of Housing and Transport when the British Empire Exhibition opened. It contained a crane capable of moving 25 tons (a practical necessity, not an exhibit) and contained displays on engineering, shipbuilding, electric power, motor vehicles, railways, including locomotives, metallurgy and telegraphs and wireless. In 1925 there seems to have been less emphasis on things that could also be classified as Industry, with instead more on housing and aircraft. The Palace of Industry was slightly smaller. It contained displays on the chemical industry, coal, metals, medicinal drugs, sewage disposal, food, drinks, tobacco, clothing, gramophones, gas and Nobel explosives.
************Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a dollhouse built in 1:12 scale in the early 1920s, completed in 1924, for Queen Mary, the wife of King George V. It was designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, with contributions from many notable artists and craftsmen of the period, including a library of miniature books containing original stories written by authors including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and A. A. Milne illustrated by famous illustrators of the time like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. The idea for building the dollhouse originally came from the Queen's cousin, Princess Marie Louise, who discussed her idea with one of the top architects of the time, Sir Edwin Lutyens, at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1921. Sir Edwin agreed to construct the dollhouse and began preparations. Princess Marie Louise had many connections in the arts and arranged for the top artists and craftsmen of the time to contribute their special abilities to the house. It was created as a gift to Queen Mary from the people, and to serve as a historical document on how a royal family might have lived during that period in England. It showcased the very finest and most modern goods of the period. Later the dollhouse was put on display to raise funds for the Queen's charities. It was originally exhibited at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 and again in 1925, where more than 1.6 million people came to view it, and is now on display in Windsor Castle, at Windsor, as a tourist attraction.
This bright window display may look like it is full of real products from today and yesteryear, but just like Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, these items are all 1:12 scale miniature pieces from my own collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The window is full of wonderful British household brands, some of which like Robertson’s Golden Shred Marmalade, Marmite, Oxo stock cubes and Twinings tea we still know today. All these pieces have been made by various artisans including Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire and Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, or supplied from various stockists of 1:12 miniatures including Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop and Shephard’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom, or through various online stockists. I created the Union Jack bunting that is draped to either side of the display. I also recreated the British Empire Exhibition poster.
The two carboard displays at the very front for Rountree’s Gums and Golden Shred Marmalade are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. The Golliwog advertising Robertson’s Golden Shred Marmalade in particular has some nostalgia for me, and takes me back to my own childhood. The famous Robertson's Golliwog symbol (not seen as racially charged at the time) appeared in 1910 after a trip to the United States to set up a plant in Boston. His son John bought a golliwog doll there. For some reason this started to appear first on their price lists and was then adopted as their trade mark. I have pins with the Robertson’s Golliwog on it that I collected as a child. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like these advertising pieces for miniature shops. What might amaze you, looking at these cardboard stand-ups is that they are just like their real life equivalents, both front and back! To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a real miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
Golden Shred orange marmalade and Silver Shred lime marmalade still exist today and are common household brands both in Britain and Australia. They are produced by Robertson’s. Robertson’s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson’s Silver Shred is a clear, tangy, lemon flavoured shredded marmalade. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
In 1859 Henry Tate went into partnership with John Wright, a sugar refiner based at Manesty Lane, Liverpool. Their partnership ended in 1869 and John’s two sons, Alfred and Edwin joined the business forming Henry Tate and Sons. A new refinery in Love Lane, Liverpool was opened in 1872. In 1921 Henry Tate and Sons and Abram Lyle and Sons merged, between them refining around fifty percent of the UK’s sugar. A tactical merger, this new company would then become a coherent force on the sugar market in anticipation of competition from foreign sugar returning to its pre-war strength. Tate and Lyle are perhaps best known for producing Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Lyle’s Golden Treacle.
Peter Leech and Sons was a grocers that operated out of Lowther Street in Whitehaven from the 1880s. They had a large range of tinned goods that they sold including coffee, tea, tinned salmon and golden syrup. They were admired for their particularly attractive labelling. I do not know exactly when they ceased production, but I believe it may have happened just before the Second World War.
Founded by Henry Isaac Rowntree in Castlegate in York in 1862, Rowntree's developed strong associations with Quaker philanthropy. Throughout much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, it was one of the big three confectionery manufacturers in the United Kingdom, alongside Cadbury and Fry, both also founded by Quakers. In 1981, Rowntree's received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. In 1988, when the company was acquired by Nestlé, it was the fourth-largest confectionery manufacturer in the world. The Rowntree brand continues to be used to market Nestlé's jelly sweet brands, such as Fruit Pastilles and Fruit Gums, and is still based in York.
Twinings is a British marketer of tea and other beverages, including coffee, hot chocolate and malt drinks, based in Andover, Hampshire. The brand is owned by Associated British Foods. It holds the world's oldest continually used company logo, and is London's longest-standing ratepayer, having occupied the same premises on the Strand since 1706. Twinings tea varieties include black tea, green tea and herbal teas, along with fruit-based cold infusions. Twinings was founded by Thomas Twining, who opened Britain's first known tea room, at No. 216 Strand, London, in 1706; it still operates today. Holder of a royal warrant, Twinings was acquired by Associated British Foods in 1964. The company is associated with Earl Grey tea, a tea infused with bergamot, though it is unclear when this association began, and how important the company's involvement with the tea has been. Competitor Jacksons of Piccadilly – acquired by Twinings during the 1990s – also had associations with the bergamot blend. In April 2008, Twinings announced their decision to close its Belfast Nambarrie plant, a tea company in trade for over 140 years. Citing an "efficiency drive", Twinings moved most of its production to China and Poland in late 2011, while retaining its Andover, Hampshire factory with a reduced workforce. In 2023, Twinings ceased production of lapsang souchong, replacing it with a product called "Distinctively Smoky", widely considered to be inferior quality.
In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.
Bird’s were best known for making custard and Bird’s Custard is still a common household name, although they produced other desserts beyond custard, including the blancmange. They also made Bird’s Golden Raising Powder – their brand of baking powder. Bird’s Custard was first formulated and first cooked by Alfred Bird in 1837 at his chemist shop in Birmingham. He developed the recipe because his wife was allergic to eggs, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. The Birds continued to serve real custard to dinner guests, until one evening when the egg-free custard was served instead, either by accident or design. The dessert was so well received by the other diners that Alfred Bird put the recipe into wider production. John Monkhouse (1862–1938) was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-founded Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly. Monk and Glass custard was made in Clerkenwell and sold in the home market, and exported to the Empire and to America. They acquired by its rival Bird’s Custard in the early Twentieth Century.
Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.
Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.
Bournville is a brand of dark chocolate produced by Cadbury. It is named after the model village of the same name in Birmingham, England and was first sold in 1908. Bournville Cocoa was one of the products sold by Cadbury. The label on the canister is a transitional one used after the First World War and shared both the old fashioned Edwardian letter B and more modern 1920s lettering for the remainder of the name. The red of the lettering is pre-war whilst the orange and white a post-war change.
Peek Freans is the name of a former biscuit making company based in Bermondsey, which is now a global brand of biscuits and related confectionery owned by various food businesses. De Beauvoir Biscuit Company owns but does not market in the United Kingdom, Europe and United States; Mondelēz International owns the brand in Canada; and English Biscuit Manufacturers owns the brand in Pakistan. Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd was registered in 1857 by James Peek (1800–1879) and his nephew-in-law George Hender Frean. The business was based in a disused sugar refinery on Mill Street in Dockhead, South East London, in the west of Bermondsey. With a quickly expanding business, in 1860, Peek engaged his friend John Carr, the apprenticed son of the Carlisle-based Scottish milling and biscuit-making family, Carr's. From 1861, Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd started exporting biscuits to Australia, but outgrew their premises from 1870 after agreeing to fulfil an order from the French Army for 460 long tons of biscuits for the ration packs supplied to soldiers fighting the Franco-Prussian War. After hostilities ended, the French Government ordered a further 16,000 long tons (11 million) sweet "Pearl" biscuits in celebration of the end of the Siege of Paris, and further flour supplies for Paris in 1871 and 1872, with financing undertaken by their bankers the Rothschilds. The consequential consumer demands of emigrating French expatriate soldiers, allowed the company to start exporting directly to Ontario, Canada from the mid-1870s. On 23 April 1873, the old Dockhead factory burnt down in a spectacular fire,[1] which brought the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) out on a London Fire Brigade horse-drawn water pump to view the resulting explosions. In 1906, the Peek, Frean and Co. factory in Bermondsey was the subject of one of the earliest documentary films shot by Cricks and Sharp. This was in part to celebrate an expansion of the company's cake business, which later made the wedding cakes for both Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten (later Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh) and Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III), and Lady Diana Spencer. In 1924, the company established their first factory outside the UK, in Dum Dum in India. In 1931, five personnel from the Bermondsey factory went to Australia to train the staff in the new factory in Camperdown, in Sydney. In 1949, they established their first bakery in Canada, located on Bermondsey Road in East York, Ontario, which still today produces Peek Freans branded products. After 126 years, the London factory was closed by then owner BSN on Wednesday 26 May 1989.
Carr's is a British biscuit and cracker manufacturer, currently owned by Pladis Global through its subsidiary United Biscuits. The company was founded in 1831 by Jonathan Dodgson Carr and is marketed in the United States by Kellogg's. In 1831, Carr formed a small bakery and biscuit factory in the English city of Carlisle in Cumberland; he received a royal warrant in 1841. Within fifteen years of being founded, it had become Britain's largest baking business. Carr's business was both a mill and a bakery, an early example of vertical integration, and produced bread by night and biscuits by day. The biscuits were loosely based on dry biscuits used on long voyages by sailors. They could be kept crisp and fresh in tins, and despite their fragility could easily be transported to other parts of the country by canal and railway. Carr died in 1884, but by 1885, the company was making 128 varieties of biscuit and employing 1000 workers. In 1894 the company was registered as Carr and Co. Ltd. but reverted to being a private company in 1908. Carrs Flour Mills Limited was incorporated after acquiring the flour-milling assets. It became part of Cavenham Foods in 1964 until 1972, when it was sold to United Biscuits group, along with Cavenham's other biscuit brands Wright's Biscuits and Kemps for $10 million. United Biscuits was sold by its private equity owners to the Turkish-based multinational Yıldız Holding in 2014; in 2016 all UB brands including Carr's were combined with Yildiz's other snack brands to form Pladis Global.
Macfarlane Lang and Company began as Lang’s bakery in 1817, before becoming MacFarlane Lang in 1841. The first biscuit factory opened in 1886 and changed its name to MacFarlane Lang & Co. in the same year. The business then opened a factory in Fulham, London in 1903, and in 1904 became MacFarlane Lang & Co. Ltd. In 1948 it formed United Biscuits Ltd. along with McVitie and Price.
A co-operative wholesale society, or CWS, is a form of co-operative federation (that is, a co-operative in which all the members are co-operatives), in this case, the members are usually consumer cooperatives. The best historical examples of this are the English CWS and the Scottish CWS, which are the predecessors of the 21st Century Co-operative Group. Indeed, in Britain, the terms Co-operative Wholesale Society and CWS are used to refer to this specific organisation rather than the organisational form. They sold things like tea, cocoa and biscuits.
Sunlight Soap was first introduced in 1884 by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.
Before the invention of aerosol spray starch, the product of choice in many homes of all classes was Robin starch. Robin Starch was a stiff white powder like cornflour to which water had to be added. When you made up the solution, it was gloopy, sticky with powdery lumps, just like wallpaper paste or grout. The garment was immersed evenly in that mixture and then it had to be smoothed out. All the stubborn starchy lumps had to be dissolved until they were eliminated – a metal spoon was good for bashing at the lumps to break them down. Robins Starch was produced by Reckitt and Sons who were a leading British manufacturer of household products, notably starch, black lead, laundry blue, and household polish. They also produced Jumbo Blue, which was a whitener added to a wash to help delay the yellowing effect of older cotton. Rekitt and Sons were based in Kingston upon Hull. Isaac Reckitt began business in Hull in 1840, and his business became a private company Isaac Reckitt and Sons in 1879, and a public company in 1888. The company expanded through the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. It merged with a major competitor in the starch market J. and J. Colman in 1938 to form Reckitt and Colman.
Scales of a Papilio Palinurus Daedalus, also known as Emerald Sparrowtail. There's various shades of green here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papilio_palinurus
I know there's some weird dark edges, this is vignetting caused by me not configuring the tube lens properly. There's an issue somewhere, I'll try fix it maybe later...
Stack of 165 exposures in Zerene Stacker, Pmax.
Nikon D810, ISO 64, 0.6 seconds exposure. Thorlabs ITL200 with Mitutoyo Mplan 10x Apo lens. 3um/step.
Stackshot rail, Thorlabs optical setup. Diffusion provided by some jelly container wrapped in tracing paper. Illuminated with OSL2.
Processed in Capture One Pro.
Pictures from The Great Western LEGO Show at STEAM, Swindon, in October 2013. This is from Carl Greatrix' absolutely stunningly realistic train diorama. Some purists might not like the way Carl mixes model train landscaping techniques with LEGO, but there's no denying that it looks spectacular.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamish_Museum
Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.
The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of industrial revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.
The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums. It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.
History
Genesis
In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.
Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.
In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.
Establishment and expansion
In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.
The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.
In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.
With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.
At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993.[8] Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage, followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.
In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.
Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011)[28] band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.
Remaking Beamish
A major development, named 'Remaking Beamish', was approved by Durham County Council in April 2016, with £10.7m having been raised from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3.3m from other sources.
As of September 2022, new exhibits as part of this project have included a quilter's cottage, a welfare hall, 1950s terrace, recreation park, bus depot, and 1950s farm (all discussed in the relevant sections of this article). The coming years will see replicas of aged miners' homes from South Shields, a cinema from Ryhope, and social housing will feature a block of four relocated Airey houses, prefabricated concrete homes originally designed by Sir Edwin Airey, which previously stood in Kibblesworth. Then-recently vacated and due for demolition, they were instead offered to the museum by The Gateshead Housing Company and accepted in 2012.
Museum site
The approximately 350-acre (1.4 km2) current site, once belonging to the Eden and Shafto families, is a basin-shaped steep-sided valley with woodland areas, a river, some level ground and a south-facing aspect.
Visitors enter the site through an entrance arch formed by a steam hammer, across a former opencast mining site and through a converted stable block (from Greencroft, near Lanchester, County Durham).
Visitors can navigate the site via assorted marked footpaths, including adjacent (or near to) the entire tramway oval. According to the museum, it takes 20 minutes to walk at a relaxed pace from the entrance to the town. The tramway oval serves as both an exhibit and as a free means of transport around the site for visitors, with stops at the entrance (south), Home Farm (west), Pockerley (east) and the Town (north). Visitors can also use the museum's buses as a free form of transport between various parts of the museum. Although visitors can also ride on the Town railway and Pockerley Waggonway, these do not form part of the site's transport system (as they start and finish from the same platforms).
Governance
Beamish was the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of county councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) The museum is now operated as a registered charity, but continues to receive support from local authorities - Durham County Council, Sunderland City Council, Gateshead Council, South Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Council. The supporting Friends of Beamish organisation was established in 1968. Frank Atkinson retired as director in 1987. The museum has been 96% self-funding for some years (mainly from admission charges).
Sections of the museum
1913
The town area, officially opened in 1985, depicts chiefly Victorian buildings in an evolved urban setting of 1913.
Tramway
The Beamish Tramway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, with four passing loops. The line makes a circuit of the museum site forming an important element of the visitor transportation system.
The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973, with the whole circle in operation by 1993.[8] It represents the era of electric powered trams, which were being introduced to meet the needs of growing towns and cities across the North East from the late 1890s, replacing earlier horse drawn systems.
Bakery
Presented as Joseph Herron, Baker & Confectioner, the bakery was opened in 2013 and features working ovens which produce food for sale to visitors. A two-storey curved building, only the ground floor is used as the exhibit. A bakery has been included to represent the new businesses which sprang up to cater for the growing middle classes - the ovens being of the modern electric type which were growing in use. The building was sourced from Anfield Plain (which had a bakery trading as Joseph Herron), and was moved to Beamish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The frontage features a stained glass from a baker's shop in South Shields. It also uses fittings from Stockton-on-Tees.
Motor garage
Presented as Beamish Motor & Cycle Works, the motor garage opened in 1994. Reflecting the custom nature of the early motor trade, where only one in 232 people owned a car in 1913, the shop features a showroom to the front (not accessible to visitors), with a garage area to the rear, accessed via the adjacent archway. The works is a replica of a typical garage of the era. Much of the museum's car, motorcycle and bicycle collection, both working and static, is stored in the garage. The frontage has two storeys, but the upper floor is only a small mezzanine and is not used as part of the display.
Department Store
Presented as the Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, (but more commonly referred to as the Anfield Plain Co-op Store) this department store opened in 1984, and was relocated to Beamish from Annfield Plain in County Durham. The Annfield Plain co-operative society was originally established in 1870, with the museum store stocking various products from the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established 1863. A two-storey building, the ground floor comprises the three departments - grocery, drapery and hardware; the upper floor is taken up by the tea rooms (accessed from Redman Park via a ramp to the rear). Most of the items are for display only, but a small amount of goods are sold to visitors. The store features an operational cash carrier system, of the Lamson Cash Ball design - common in many large stores of the era, but especially essential to Co-ops, where customer's dividends had to be logged.
Ravensworth Terrace
Ravensworth Terrace is a row of terraced houses, presented as the premises and living areas of various professionals. Representing the expanding housing stock of the era, it was relocated from its original site on Bensham Bank, having been built for professionals and tradesmen between 1830 and 1845. Original former residents included painter John Wilson Carmichael and Gateshead mayor Alexander Gillies. Originally featuring 25 homes, the terrace was to be demolished when the museum saved it in the 1970s, reconstructing six of them on the Town site between 1980 and 1985. They are two storey buildings, with most featuring display rooms on both floors - originally the houses would have also housed a servant in the attic. The front gardens are presented in a mix of the formal style, and the natural style that was becoming increasingly popular.
No. 2 is presented as the home of Miss Florence Smith, a music teacher, with old fashioned mid-Victorian furnishings as if inherited from her parents. No. 3 & 4 is presented as the practice and home respectively (with a knocked through door) of dentist J. Jones - the exterior nameplate having come from the surgery of Mr. J. Jones in Hartlepool. Representing the state of dental health at the time, it features both a check-up room and surgery for extraction, and a technicians room for creating dentures - a common practice at the time being the giving to daughters a set on their 21st birthday, to save any future husband the cost at a later date. His home is presented as more modern than No.2, furnished in the Edwardian style the modern day utilities of an enamelled bathroom with flushing toilet, a controllable heat kitchen range and gas cooker. No. 5 is presented as a solicitor's office, based on that of Robert Spence Watson, a Quaker from Newcastle. Reflecting the trade of the era, downstairs is laid out as the partner's or principal office, and the general or clerk's office in the rear. Included is a set of books sourced from ER Hanby Holmes, who practised in Barnard Castle.
Pub
Presented as The Sun Inn, the pub opened in the town in 1985. It had originally stood in Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, and was donated to the museum by its final owners, the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Originally a "one-up one down" cottage, the earliest ownership has been traced to James Thompson, on 21 January 1806. Known as The Tiger Inn until the 1850s, from 1857 to 1899 under the ownership of the Leng family, it flourished under the patronage of miners from Newton Cap and other collieries. Latterly run by Elsie Edes, it came under brewery ownership in the 20th Century when bought by S&N antecedent, James Deuchar Ltd. The pub is fully operational, and features both a front and back bar, the two stories above not being part of the exhibit. The interior decoration features the stuffed racing greyhound Jake's Bonny Mary, which won nine trophies before being put on display in The Gerry in White le Head near Tantobie.
Town stables
Reflecting the reliance on horses for a variety of transport needs in the era, the town features a centrally located stables, situated behind the sweet shop, with its courtyard being accessed from the archway next to the pub. It is presented as a typical jobmaster's yard, with stables and a tack room in the building on its north side. A small, brick built open air, carriage shed is sited on the back of the printworks building. On the east side of the courtyard is a much larger metal shed (utilising iron roof trusses from Fleetwood), arranged mainly as carriage storage, but with a blacksmith's shop in the corner. The building on the west side of the yard is not part of any display. The interior fittings for the harness room came from Callaly Caste. Many of the horses and horse-drawn vehicles used by the museum are housed in the stables and sheds.
Printer, stationer and newspaper branch office
Presented as the Beamish Branch Office of the Northern Daily Mail and the Sunderland Daily Echo, the two storey replica building was built in the mid-1980s and represents the trade practices of the era. Downstairs, on the right, is the branch office, where newspapers would be sold directly and distributed to local newsagents and street vendors, and where orders for advertising copy would be taken. Supplementing it is a stationer's shop on the left hand side, with both display items and a small number of gift items on public sale. Upstairs is a jobbing printers workshop, which would not produce the newspapers, but would instead print leaflets, posters and office stationery. Split into a composing area and a print shop, the shop itself has a number of presses - a Columbian built in 1837 by Clymer and Dixon, an Albion dating back to 1863, an Arab Platen of c. 1900, and a Wharfedale flat bed press, built by Dawson & Son in around 1870. Much of the machinery was sourced from the print works of Jack Ascough's of Barnard Castle. Many of the posters seen around the museum are printed in the works, with the operation of the machinery being part of the display.
Sweet shop
Presented as Jubilee Confectioners, the two storey sweet shop opened in 1994 and is meant to represent the typical family run shops of the era, with living quarters above the shop (the second storey not being part of the display). To the front of the ground floor is a shop, where traditional sweets and chocolate (which was still relatively expensive at the time) are sold to visitors, while in the rear of the ground floor is a manufacturing area where visitors can view the techniques of the time (accessed via the arched walkway on the side of the building). The sweet rollers were sourced from a variety of shops and factories.
Bank
Presented as a branch of Barclays Bank (Barclay & Company Ltd) using period currency, the bank opened in 1999. It represents the trend of the era when regional banks were being acquired and merged into national banks such as Barclays, formed in 1896. Built to a three-storey design typical of the era, and featuring bricks in the upper storeys sourced from Park House, Gateshead, the Swedish imperial red shade used on the ground floor frontage is intended to represent stability and security. On the ground floor are windows for bank tellers, plus the bank manager's office. Included in a basement level are two vaults. The upper two storeys are not part of the display. It features components sourced from Southport and Gateshead
Masonic Hall
The Masonic Hall opened in 2006, and features the frontage from a former masonic hall sited in Park Terrace, Sunderland. Reflecting the popularity of the masons in North East England, as well as the main hall, which takes up the full height of the structure, in a small two story arrangement to the front of the hall is also a Robing Room and the Tyler's Room on the ground floor, and a Museum Room upstairs, featuring display cabinets of masonic regalia donated from various lodges. Upstairs is also a class room, with large stained glass window.
Chemist and photographer
Presented as W Smith's Chemist and JR & D Edis Photographers, a two-storey building housing both a chemist and photographers shops under one roof opened on 7 May 2016 and represents the growing popularity of photography in the era, with shops often growing out of or alongside chemists, who had the necessary supplies for developing photographs. The chemist features a dispensary, and equipment from various shops including John Walker, inventor of the friction match. The photographers features a studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken. The corner building is based on a real building on Elvet Bridge in Durham City, opposite the Durham Marriot Hotel (the Royal County), although the second storey is not part of the display. The chemist also sells aerated water (an early form of carbonated soft drinks) to visitors, sold in marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles (although made to a modern design to prevent the safety issue that saw the original bottles banned). Aerated waters grew in popularity in the era, due to the need for a safe alternative to water, and the temperance movement - being sold in chemists due to the perception they were healthy in the same way mineral waters were.
Costing around £600,000 and begun on 18 August 2014, the building's brickwork and timber was built by the museum's own staff and apprentices, using Georgian bricks salvaged from demolition works to widen the A1. Unlike previous buildings built on the site, the museum had to replicate rather than relocate this one due to the fact that fewer buildings are being demolished compared to the 1970s, and in any case it was deemed unlikely one could be found to fit the curved shape of the plot. The studio is named after a real business run by John Reed Edis and his daughter Daisy. Mr Edis, originally at 27 Sherburn Road, Durham, in 1895, then 52 Saddler Street from 1897. The museum collection features several photographs, signs and equipment from the Edis studio. The name for the chemist is a reference to the business run by William Smith, who relocated to Silver Street, near the original building, in 1902. According to records, the original Edis company had been supplied by chemicals from the original (and still extant) Smith business.
Redman Park
Redman Park is a small lawned space with flower borders, opposite Ravensworth Terrace. Its centrepiece is a Victorian bandstand sourced from Saltwell Park, where it stood on an island in the middle of a lake. It represents the recognised need of the time for areas where people could relax away from the growing industrial landscape.
Other
Included in the Town are drinking fountains and other period examples of street furniture. In between the bank and the sweet shop is a combined tram and bus waiting room and public convenience.
Unbuilt
When construction of the Town began, the projected town plan incorporated a market square and buildings including a gas works, fire station, ice cream parlour (originally the Central Cafe at Consett), a cast iron bus station from Durham City, school, public baths and a fish and chip shop.
Railway station
East of the Town is the Railway Station, depicting a typical small passenger and goods facility operated by the main railway company in the region at the time, the North Eastern Railway (NER). A short running line extends west in a cutting around the north side of the Town itself, with trains visible from the windows of the stables. It runs for a distance of 1⁄4 mile - the line used to connect to the colliery sidings until 1993 when it was lifted between the town and the colliery so that the tram line could be extended. During 2009 the running line was relaid so that passenger rides could recommence from the station during 2010.
Rowley station
Representing passenger services is Rowley Station, a station building on a single platform, opened in 1976, having been relocated to the museum from the village of Rowley near Consett, just a few miles from Beamish.
The original Rowley railway station was opened in 1845 (as Cold Rowley, renamed Rowley in 1868) by the NER antecedent, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, consisting of just a platform. Under NER ownership, as a result of increasing use, in 1873 the station building was added. As demand declined, passenger service was withdrawn in 1939, followed by the goods service in 1966. Trains continued to use the line for another three years before it closed, the track being lifted in 1970. Although in a state of disrepair, the museum acquired the building, dismantling it in 1972, being officially unveiled in its new location by railway campaigner and poet, Sir John Betjeman.
The station building is presented as an Edwardian station, lit by oil lamp, having never been connected to gas or electricity supplies in its lifetime. It features both an open waiting area and a visitor accessible waiting room (western half), and a booking and ticket office (eastern half), with the latter only visible from a small viewing entrance. Adorning the waiting room is a large tiled NER route map.
Signal box
The signal box dates from 1896, and was relocated from Carr House East near Consett. It features assorted signalling equipment, basic furnishings for the signaller, and a lever frame, controlling the stations numerous points, interlocks and semaphore signals. The frame is not an operational part of the railway, the points being hand operated using track side levers. Visitors can only view the interior from a small area inside the door.
Goods shed
The goods shed is originally from Alnwick. The goods area represents how general cargo would have been moved on the railway, and for onward transport. The goods shed features a covered platform where road vehicles (wagons and carriages) can be loaded with the items unloaded from railway vans. The shed sits on a triangular platform serving two sidings, with a platform mounted hand-crane, which would have been used for transhipment activity (transfer of goods from one wagon to another, only being stored for a short time on the platform, if at all).
Coal yard
The coal yard represents how coal would have been distributed from incoming trains to local merchants - it features a coal drop which unloads railway wagons into road going wagons below. At the road entrance to the yard is a weighbridge (with office) and coal merchant's office - both being appropriately furnished with display items, but only viewable from outside.
The coal drop was sourced from West Boldon, and would have been a common sight on smaller stations. The weighbridge came from Glanton, while the coal office is from Hexham.
Bridges and level crossing
The station is equipped with two footbridges, a wrought iron example to the east having come from Howden-le-Wear, and a cast iron example to the west sourced from Dunston. Next to the western bridge, a roadway from the coal yard is presented as crossing the tracks via a gated level crossing (although in reality the road goes nowhere on the north side).
Waggon and Iron Works
Dominating the station is the large building externally presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works, estd 1857. In reality this is the Regional Museums Store (see below), although attached to the north side of the store are two covered sidings (not accessible to visitors), used to service and store the locomotives and stock used on the railway.
Other
A corrugated iron hut adjacent to the 'iron works' is presented as belonging to the local council, and houses associated road vehicles, wagons and other items.
Fairground
Adjacent to the station is an events field and fairground with a set of Frederick Savage built steam powered Gallopers dating from 1893.
Colliery
Presented as Beamish Colliery (owned by James Joicey & Co., and managed by William Severs), the colliery represents the coal mining industry which dominated the North East for generations - the museum site is in the former Durham coalfield, where 165,246 men and boys worked in 304 mines in 1913. By the time period represented by Beamish's 1900s era, the industry was booming - production in the Great Northern Coalfield had peaked in 1913, and miners were relatively well paid (double that of agriculture, the next largest employer), but the work was dangerous. Children could be employed from age 12 (the school leaving age), but could not go underground until 14.
Deep mine
Reconstructed pitworks buildings showing winding gear
Dominating the colliery site are the above ground structures of a deep (i.e. vertical shaft) mine - the brick built Winding Engine House, and the red painted wooden Heapstead. These were relocated to the museum (which never had its own vertical shaft), the winding house coming from Beamish Chophill Colliery, and the Heapstead from Ravensworth Park Mine in Gateshead. The winding engine and its enclosing house are both listed.
The winding engine was the source of power for hauling miners, equipment and coal up and down the shaft in a cage, the top of the shaft being in the adjacent heapstead, which encloses the frame holding the wheel around which the hoist cable travels. Inside the Heapstead, tubs of coal from the shaft were weighed on a weighbridge, then tipped onto jigging screens, which sifted the solid lumps from small particles and dust - these were then sent along the picking belt, where pickers, often women, elderly or disabled people or young boys (i.e. workers incapable of mining), would separate out unwanted stone, wood and rubbish. Finally, the coal was tipped onto waiting railway wagons below, while the unwanted waste sent to the adjacent heap by an external conveyor.
Chophill Colliery was closed by the National Coal Board in 1962, but the winding engine and tower were left in place. When the site was later leased, Beamish founder Frank Atkinson intervened to have both spot listed to prevent their demolition. After a protracted and difficult process to gain the necessary permissions to move a listed structure, the tower and engine were eventually relocated to the museum, work being completed in 1976. The winding engine itself is the only surviving example of the type which was once common, and was still in use at Chophill upon its closure. It was built in 1855 by J&G Joicey of Newcastle, to an 1800 design by Phineas Crowther.
Inside the winding engine house, supplementing the winding engine is a smaller jack engine, housed in the rear. These were used to lift heavy equipment, and in deep mines, act as a relief winding engine.
Outdoors, next to the Heapstead, is a sinking engine, mounted on red bricks. Brought to the museum from Silksworth Colliery in 1971, it was built by Burlington's of Sunderland in 1868 and is the sole surviving example of its kind. Sinking engines were used for the construction of shafts, after which the winding engine would become the source of hoist power. It is believed the Silksworth engine was retained because it was powerful enough to serve as a backup winding engine, and could be used to lift heavy equipment (i.e. the same role as the jack engine inside the winding house).
Drift mine
The Mahogany Drift Mine is original to Beamish, having opened in 1855 and after closing, was brought back into use in 1921 to transport coal from Beamish Park Drift to Beamish Cophill Colliery. It opened as a museum display in 1979. Included in the display is the winding engine and a short section of trackway used to transport tubs of coal to the surface, and a mine office. Visitor access into the mine shaft is by guided tour.
Lamp cabin
The Lamp Cabin opened in 2009, and is a recreation of a typical design used in collieries to house safety lamps, a necessary piece of equipment for miners although were not required in the Mahogany Drift Mine, due to it being gas-free. The building is split into two main rooms; in one half, the lamp cabin interior is recreated, with a collection of lamps on shelves, and the system of safety tokens used to track which miners were underground. Included in the display is a 1927 Hailwood and Ackroyd lamp-cleaning machine sourced from Morrison Busty Colliery in Annfield Plain. In the second room is an educational display, i.e., not a period interior.
Colliery railways
The colliery features both a standard gauge railway, representing how coal was transported to its onward destination, and narrow-gauge typically used by Edwardian collieries for internal purposes. The standard gauge railway is laid out to serve the deep mine - wagons being loaded by dropping coal from the heapstead - and runs out of the yard to sidings laid out along the northern-edge of the Pit Village.
The standard gauge railway has two engine sheds in the colliery yard, the smaller brick, wood and metal structure being an operational building; the larger brick-built structure is presented as Beamish Engine Works, a reconstruction of an engine shed formerly at Beamish 2nd Pit. Used for locomotive and stock storage, it is a long, single track shed featuring a servicing pit for part of its length. Visitors can walk along the full length in a segregated corridor. A third engine shed in brick (lower half) and corrugated iron has been constructed at the southern end of the yard, on the other side of the heapstead to the other two sheds, and is used for both narrow and standard gauge vehicles (on one road), although it is not connected to either system - instead being fed by low-loaders and used for long-term storage only.
The narrow gauge railway is serviced by a corrugate iron engine shed, and is being expanded to eventually encompass several sidings.
There are a number of industrial steam locomotives (including rare examples by Stephen Lewin from Seaham and Black, Hawthorn & Co) and many chaldron wagons, the region's traditional type of colliery railway rolling stock, which became a symbol of Beamish Museum. The locomotive Coffee Pot No 1 is often in steam during the summer.
Other
On the south eastern corner of the colliery site is the Power House, brought to the museum from Houghton Colliery. These were used to store explosives.
Pit Village
Alongside the colliery is the pit village, representing life in the mining communities that grew alongside coal production sites in the North East, many having come into existence solely because of the industry, such as Seaham Harbour, West Hartlepool, Esh Winning and Bedlington.
Miner's Cottages
The row of six miner's cottages in Francis Street represent the tied-housing provided by colliery owners to mine workers. Relocated to the museum in 1976, they were originally built in the 1860s in Hetton-le-Hole by Hetton Coal Company. They feature the common layout of a single-storey with a kitchen to the rear, the main room of the house, and parlour to the front, rarely used (although it was common for both rooms to be used for sleeping, with disguised folding "dess" beds common), and with children sleeping in attic spaces upstairs. In front are long gardens, used for food production, with associated sheds. An outdoor toilet and coal bunker were in the rear yards, and beyond the cobbled back lane to their rear are assorted sheds used for cultivation, repairs and hobbies. Chalkboard slates attached to the rear wall were used by the occupier to tell the mine's "knocker up" when they wished to be woken for their next shift.
No.2 is presented as a Methodist family's home, featuring good quality "Pitman's mahogany" furniture; No.3 is presented as occupied by a second generation well off Irish Catholic immigrant family featuring many items of value (so they could be readily sold off in times of need) and an early 1890s range; No.3 is presented as more impoverished than the others with just a simple convector style Newcastle oven, being inhabited by a miner's widow allowed to remain as her son is also a miner, and supplementing her income doing laundry and making/mending for other families. All the cottages feature examples of the folk art objects typical of mining communities. Also included in the row is an office for the miner's paymaster.[11] In the rear alleyway of the cottages is a communal bread oven, which were commonplace until miner's cottages gradually obtained their own kitchen ranges. They were used to bake traditional breads such as the Stottie, as well as sweet items, such as tea cakes. With no extant examples, the museum's oven had to be created from photographs and oral history.
School
The school opened in 1992, and represents the typical board school in the educational system of the era (the stone built single storey structure being inscribed with the foundation date of 1891, Beamish School Board), by which time attendance at a state approved school was compulsory, but the leaving age was 12, and lessons featured learning by rote and corporal punishment. The building originally stood in East Stanley, having been set up by the local school board, and would have numbered around 150 pupils. Having been donated by Durham County Council, the museum now has a special relationship with the primary school that replaced it. With separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls at either end, the main building is split into three class rooms (all accessible to visitors), connected by a corridor along the rear. To the rear is a red brick bike shed, and in the playground visitors can play traditional games of the era.
Chapel
Pit Hill Chapel opened in 1990, and represents the Wesleyan Methodist tradition which was growing in North East England, with the chapels used for both religious worship and as community venues, which continue in its role in the museum display. Opened in the 1850s, it originally stood not far from its present site, having been built in what would eventually become Beamish village, near the museum entrance. A stained glass window of The Light of The World by William Holman Hunt came from a chapel in Bedlington. A two handled Love Feast Mug dates from 1868, and came from a chapel in Shildon Colliery. On the eastern wall, above the elevated altar area, is an angled plain white surface used for magic lantern shows, generated using a replica of the double-lensed acetylene gas powered lanterns of the period, mounted in the aisle of the main seating area. Off the western end of the hall is the vestry, featuring a small library and communion sets from Trimdon Colliery and Catchgate.
Fish bar
Presented as Davey's Fried Fish & Chip Potato Restaurant, the fish and chip shop opened in 2011, and represents the typical style of shop found in the era as they were becoming rapidly popular in the region - the brick built Victorian style fryery would most often have previously been used for another trade, and the attached corrugated iron hut serves as a saloon with tables and benches, where customers would eat and socialise. Featuring coal fired ranges using beef-dripping, the shop is named in honour of the last coal fired shop in Tyneside, in Winlaton Mill, and which closed in 2007. Latterly run by brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy, it had been established by their grandfather in 1937. The serving counter and one of the shop's three fryers, a 1934 Nuttal, came from the original Davy shop. The other two fryers are a 1920s Mabbott used near Chester until the 1960s, and a GW Atkinson New Castle Range, donated from a shop in Prudhoe in 1973. The latter is one of only two known late Victorian examples to survive. The decorative wall tiles in the fryery came to the museum in 1979 from Cowes Fish and Game Shop in Berwick upon Tweed. The shop also features both an early electric and hand-powered potato rumblers (cleaners), and a gas powered chip chopper built around 1900. Built behind the chapel, the fryery is arranged so the counter faces the rear, stretching the full length of the building. Outside is a brick built row of outdoor toilets. Supplementing the fish bar is the restored Berriman's mobile chip van, used in Spennymoor until the early 1970s.
Band hall
The Hetton Silver Band Hall opened in 2013, and features displays reflecting the role colliery bands played in mining life. Built in 1912, it was relocated from its original location in South Market Street, Hetton-le-Hole, where it was used by the Hetton Silver Band, founded in 1887. They built the hall using prize money from a music competition, and the band decided to donate the hall to the museum after they merged with Broughtons Brass Band of South Hetton (to form the Durham Miners' Association Brass Band). It is believed to be the only purpose built band hall in the region. The structure consists of the main hall, plus a small kitchen to the rear; as part of the museum it is still used for performances.
Pit pony stables
The Pit Pony Stables were built in 2013/14, and house the museum's pit ponies. They replace a wooden stable a few metres away in the field opposite the school (the wooden structure remaining). It represents the sort of stables that were used in drift mines (ponies in deep mines living their whole lives underground), pit ponies having been in use in the north east as late as 1994, in Ellington Colliery. The structure is a recreation of an original building that stood at Rickless Drift Mine, between High Spen and Greenside; it was built using a yellow brick that was common across the Durham coalfield.
Other
Doubling as one of the museum's refreshment buildings, Sinker's Bait Cabin represents the temporary structures that would have served as living quarters, canteens and drying areas for sinkers, the itinerant workforce that would dig new vertical mine shafts.
Representing other traditional past-times, the village fields include a quoits pitch, with another refreshment hut alongside it, resembling a wooden clubhouse.
In one of the fields in the village stands the Cupola, a small round flat topped brick built tower; such structures were commonly placed on top of disused or ventilation shafts, also used as an emergency exit from the upper seams.
The Georgian North (1825)
A late Georgian landscape based around the original Pockerley farm represents the period of change in the region as transport links were improved and as agriculture changed as machinery and field management developed, and breeding stock was improved. It became part of the museum in 1990, having latterly been occupied by a tenant farmer, and was opened as an exhibit in 1995. The hill top position suggests the site was the location of an Iron Age fort - the first recorded mention of a dwelling is in the 1183 Buke of Boldon (the region's equivalent of the Domesday Book). The name Pockerley has Saxon origins - "Pock" or "Pokor" meaning "pimple of bag-like" hill, and "Ley" meaning woodland clearing.
The surrounding farmlands have been returned to a post-enclosure landscape with ridge and furrow topography, divided into smaller fields by traditional riven oak fencing. The land is worked and grazed by traditional methods and breeds.
Pockerley Old Hall
The estate of Pockerley Old Hall is presented as that of a well off tenant farmer, in a position to take advantage of the agricultural advances of the era. The hall itself consists of the Old House, which is adjoined (but not connected to) the New House, both south facing two storey sandstone built buildings, the Old House also having a small north–south aligned extension. Roof timbers in the sandstone built Old House have been dated to the 1440s, but the lower storey (the undercroft) may be from even earlier. The New House dates to the late 1700s, and replaced a medieval manor house to the east of the Old House as the main farm house - once replaced itself, the Old House is believed to have been let to the farm manager. Visitors can access all rooms in the New and Old House, except the north–south extension which is now a toilet block. Displays include traditional cooking, such as the drying of oatcakes over a wooden rack (flake) over the fireplace in the Old House.
Inside the New House the downstairs consists of a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen (scullery) with pantry. It also includes a living room, although as the main room of the house, most meals would have been eaten in the main kitchen, equipped with an early range, boiler and hot air oven. Upstairs is a main bedroom and a second bedroom for children; to the rear (i.e. the colder, north side), are bedrooms for a servant and the servant lad respectively. Above the kitchen (for transferred warmth) is a grain and fleece store, with attached bacon loft, a narrow space behind the wall where bacon or hams, usually salted first, would be hung to be smoked by the kitchen fire (entering through a small door in the chimney).
Presented as having sparse and more old fashioned furnishings, the Old House is presented as being occupied in the upper story only, consisting of a main room used as the kitchen, bedroom and for washing, with the only other rooms being an adjoining second bedroom and an overhanging toilet. The main bed is an oak box bed dating to 1712, obtained from Star House in Baldersdale in 1962. Originally a defensive house in its own right, the lower level of the Old House is an undercroft, or vaulted basement chamber, with 1.5 metre thick walls - in times of attack the original tenant family would have retreated here with their valuables, although in its later use as the farm managers house, it is now presented as a storage and work room, housing a large wooden cheese press.[68] More children would have slept in the attic of the Old House (not accessible as a display).
To the front of the hall is a terraced garden featuring an ornamental garden with herbs and flowers, a vegetable garden, and an orchard, all laid out and planted according to the designs of William Falla of Gateshead, who had the largest nursery in Britain from 1804 to 1830.
The buildings to the east of the hall, across a north–south track, are the original farmstead buildings dating from around 1800. These include stables and a cart shed arranged around a fold yard. The horses and carts on display are typical of North Eastern farms of the era, Fells or Dales ponies and Cleveland Bay horses, and two wheeled long carts for hilly terrain (as opposed to four wheel carts).
Pockerley Waggonway
The Pockerley Waggonway opened in 2001, and represents the year 1825, as the year the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. Waggonways had appeared around 1600, and by the 1800s were common in mining areas - prior to 1800 they had been either horse or gravity powered, before the invention of steam engines (initially used as static winding engines), and later mobile steam locomotives.
Housing the locomotives and rolling stock is the Great Shed, which opened in 2001 and is based on Timothy Hackworth's erecting shop, Shildon railway works, and incorporating some material from Robert Stephenson and Company's Newcastle works. Visitors can walk around the locomotives in the shed, and when in steam, can take rides to the end of the track and back in the line's assorted rolling stock - situated next to the Great Shed is a single platform for passenger use. In the corner of the main shed is a corner office, presented as a locomotive designer's office (only visible to visitors through windows). Off the pedestrian entrance in the southern side is a room presented as the engine crew's break room. Atop the Great Shed is a weather vane depicting a waggonway train approaching a cow, a reference to a famous quote by George Stephenson when asked by parliament in 1825 what would happen in such an eventuality - "very awkward indeed - for the coo!".
At the far end of the waggonway is the (fictional) coal mine Pockerley Gin Pit, which the waggonway notionally exists to serve. The pit head features a horse powered wooden whim gin, which was the method used before steam engines for hauling men and material up and down mineshafts - coal was carried in corves (wicker baskets), while miners held onto the rope with their foot in an attached loop.
Wooden waggonway
Following creation of the Pockerley Waggonway, the museum went back a chapter in railway history to create a horse-worked wooden waggonway.
St Helen's Church
St Helen's Church represents a typical type of country church found in North Yorkshire, and was relocated from its original site in Eston, North Yorkshire. It is the oldest and most complex building moved to the museum. It opened in November 2015, but will not be consecrated as this would place restrictions on what could be done with the building under church law.
The church had existed on its original site since around 1100. As the congregation grew, it was replaced by two nearby churches, and latterly became a cemetery chapel. After closing in 1985, it fell into disrepair and by 1996 was burnt out and vandalised leading to the decision by the local authority in 1998 to demolish it. Working to a deadline of a threatened demolition within six months, the building was deconstructed and moved to Beamish, reconstruction being authorised in 2011, with the exterior build completed by 2012.
While the structure was found to contain some stones from the 1100 era, the building itself however dates from three distinct building phases - the chancel on the east end dates from around 1450, while the nave, which was built at the same time, was modernised in 1822 in the Churchwarden style, adding a vestry. The bell tower dates from the late 1600s - one of the two bells is a rare dated Tudor example. Gargoyles, originally hidden in the walls and believed to have been pranks by the original builders, have been made visible in the reconstruction.
Restored to its 1822 condition, the interior has been furnished with Georgian box pews sourced from a church in Somerset. Visitors can access all parts except the bell tower. The nave includes a small gallery level, at the tower end, while the chancel includes a church office.
Joe the Quilter's Cottage
The most recent addition to the area opened to the public in 2018 is a recreation of a heather-thatched cottage which features stones from the Georgian quilter Joseph Hedley's original home in Northumberland. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig by Beamish. His original cottage was demolished in 1872 and has been carefully recreated with the help of a drawing on a postcard. The exhibit tells the story of quilting and the growth of cottage industries in the early 1800s. Within there is often a volunteer or member of staff not only telling the story of how Joe was murdered in 1826, a crime that remains unsolved to this day, but also giving visitors the opportunity to learn more and even have a go at quilting.
Other
A pack pony track passes through the scene - pack horses having been the mode of transport for all manner of heavy goods where no waggonway exists, being also able to reach places where carriages and wagons could not access. Beside the waggonway is a gibbet.
Farm (1940s)
Presented as Home Farm, this represents the role of North East farms as part of the British Home Front during World War II, depicting life indoors, and outside on the land. Much of the farmstead is original, and opened as a museum display in 1983. The farm is laid out across a north–south public road; to the west is the farmhouse and most of the farm buildings, while on the east side are a pair of cottages, the British Kitchen, an outdoor toilet ("netty"), a bull field, duck pond and large shed.
The farm complex was rebuilt in the mid-19th century as a model farm incorporating a horse mill and a steam-powered threshing mill. It was not presented as a 1940s farm until early 2014.
The farmhouse is presented as having been modernised, following the installation of electric power and an Aga cooker in the scullery, although the main kitchen still has the typical coal-fired black range. Lino flooring allowed quicker cleaning times, while a radio set allowed the family to keep up to date with wartime news. An office next to the kitchen would have served both as the administration centre for the wartime farm, and as a local Home Guard office. Outside the farmhouse is an improvised Home Guard pillbox fashioned from half an egg-ended steam boiler, relocated from its original position near Durham.
The farm is equipped with three tractors which would have all seen service during the war: a Case, a Fordson N and a 1924 Fordson F. The farm also features horse-drawn traps, reflecting the effect wartime rationing of petrol would have had on car use. The farming equipment in the cart and machinery sheds reflects the transition of the time from horse-drawn to tractor-pulled implements, with some older equipment put back into use due to the war, as well as a large Foster thresher, vital for cereal crops, and built specifically for the war effort, sold at the Newcastle Show. Although the wartime focus was on crops, the farm also features breeds of sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry that would have been typical for the time. The farm also has a portable steam engine, not in use, but presented as having been left out for collection as part of a wartime scrap metal drive.
The cottages would have housed farm labourers, but are presented as having new uses for the war: Orchard Cottage housing a family of evacuees, and Garden Cottage serving as a billet for members of the Women's Land Army (Land Girls). Orchard Cottage is named for an orchard next to it, which also contains an Anderson shelter, reconstructed from partial pieces of ones recovered from around the region. Orchard Cottage, which has both front and back kitchens, is presented as having an up to date blue enameled kitchen range, with hot water supplied from a coke stove, as well as a modern accessible bathroom. Orchard Cottage is also used to stage recreations of wartime activities for schools, elderly groups and those living with dementia. Garden Cottage is sparsely furnished with a mix of items, reflecting the few possessions Land Girls were able to take with them, although unusually the cottage is depicted with a bathroom, and electricity (due to proximity to a colliery).
The British Kitchen is both a display and one of the museum's catering facilities; it represents an installation of one of the wartime British Restaurants, complete with propaganda posters and a suitably patriotic menu.
Town (1950s)
As part of the Remaking Beamish project, with significant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum is creating a 1950s town. Opened in July 2019, the Welfare Hall is an exact replica of the Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre which was built in 1957 near Bishop Auckland. Visitors can 'take part in activities including dancing, crafts, Meccano, beetle drive, keep fit and amateur dramatics' while also taking a look at the National Health Service exhibition on display, recreating the environment of an NHS clinic. A recreation and play park, named Coronation Park was opened in May 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
The museum's first 1950s terrace opened in February 2022. This included a fish and chip shop from Middleton St George, a cafe, a replica of Norman Cornish's home, and a hairdressers. Future developments opposite the existing 1950s terrace will see a recreation of The Grand Cinema, from Ryhope, in Sunderland, and toy and electricians shops. Also underdevelopment are a 1950s bowling green and pavilion, police houses and aged miner's cottages. Also under construction are semi-detached houses; for this exhibit, a competition was held to recreate a particular home at Beamish, which was won by a family from Sunderland.
As well as the town, a 1950s Northern bus depot has been opened on the western side of the museum – the purpose of this is to provide additional capacity for bus, trolleybus and tram storage once the planned trolleybus extension and the new area are completed, providing extra capacity and meeting the need for modified routing.
Spain's Field Farm
In March 2022, the museum opened Spain's Field Farm. It had stood for centuries at Eastgate in Weardale, and was moved to Beamish stone-by-stone. It is exhibited as it would have been in the 1950s.
1820s Expansion
In the area surrounding the current Pockerley Old Hall and Steam Wagon Way more development is on the way. The first of these was planned to be a Georgian Coaching Inn that would be the museum's first venture into overnight accommodation. However following the COVID-19 pandemic this was abandoned, in favour of self-catering accommodation in existing cottages.
There are also plans for 1820s industries including a blacksmith's forge and a pottery.
Museum stores
There are two stores on the museum site, used to house donated objects. In contrast to the traditional rotation practice used in museums where items are exchanged regularly between store and display, it is Beamish policy that most of their exhibits are to be in use and on display - those items that must be stored are to be used in the museum's future developments.
Open Store
Housed in the Regional Resource Centre, the Open Store is accessible to visitors. Objects are housed on racks along one wall, while the bulk of items are in a rolling archive, with one set of shelves opened, with perspex across their fronts to permit viewing without touching.
Regional Museums Store
The real purposes of the building presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works next to Rowley Station is as the Regional Museums Store, completed in 2002, which Beamish shares with Tyne and Wear Museums. This houses, amongst other things, a large marine diesel engine by William Doxford & Sons of Pallion, Sunderland (1977); and several boats including the Tyne wherry (a traditional local type of lighter) Elswick No. 2 (1930). The store is only open at selected times, and for special tours which can be arranged through the museum; however, a number of viewing windows have been provided for use at other times.
Transport collection
Main article: Beamish Museum transport collection
The museum contains much of transport interest, and the size of its site makes good internal transportation for visitors and staff purposes a necessity.
The collection contains a variety of historical vehicles for road, rail and tramways. In addition there are some modern working replicas to enhance the various scenes in the museum.
Agriculture
The museum's two farms help to preserve traditional northcountry and in some cases rare livestock breeds such as Durham Shorthorn Cattle; Clydesdale and Cleveland Bay working horses; Dales ponies; Teeswater sheep; Saddleback pigs; and poultry.
Regional heritage
Other large exhibits collected by the museum include a tracked steam shovel, and a coal drop from Seaham Harbour.
In 2001 a new-build Regional Resource Centre (accessible to visitors by appointment) opened on the site to provide accommodation for the museum's core collections of smaller items. These include over 300,000 historic photographs, printed books and ephemera, and oral history recordings. The object collections cover the museum's specialities. These include quilts; "clippy mats" (rag rugs); Trade union banners; floor cloth; advertising (including archives from United Biscuits and Rowntree's); locally made pottery; folk art; and occupational costume. Much of the collection is viewable online and the arts of quilting, rug making and cookery in the local traditions are demonstrated at the museum.
Filming location
The site has been used as the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly Catherine Cookson dramas, produced by Tyne Tees Television, and the final episode and the feature film version of Downton Abbey. Some of the children's television series Supergran was shot here.
Visitor numbers
On its opening day the museum set a record by attracting a two-hour queue. Visitor numbers rose rapidly to around 450,000 p.a. during the first decade of opening to the public, with the millionth visitor arriving in 1978.
Awards
Museum of the Year1986
European Museum of the Year Award1987
Living Museum of the Year2002
Large Visitor Attraction of the YearNorth East England Tourism awards2014 & 2015
Large Visitor Attraction of the Year (bronze)VisitEngland awards2016
It was designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997 as a museum with outstanding collections.
Critical responses
In responding to criticism that it trades on nostalgia the museum is unapologetic. A former director has written: "As individuals and communities we have a deep need and desire to understand ourselves in time."
According to the BBC writing in its 40th anniversary year, Beamish was a mould-breaking museum that became a great success due to its collection policy, and what sets it apart from other museums is the use of costumed people to impart knowledge to visitors, rather than labels or interpretive panels (although some such panels do exist on the site), which means it "engages the visitor with history in a unique way".
Legacy
Beamish was influential on the Black Country Living Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town and, in the view of museologist Kenneth Hudson, more widely in the museum community and is a significant educational resource locally. It can also demonstrate its benefit to the contemporary local economy.
The unselective collecting policy has created a lasting bond between museum and community.
working on a dio that will be rayna's living room.
i am aiming at a shabby chic vibe but in a contemporary way (if that makes any sense!)
some of the furniture is ready,that is the sectional sofa and an older table, some kind of library or shelves have to be added and maybe a fireplace.
i have to decide on a window and a view, finish upholstering and floor, add details and i am done.
piece of cake,lol!
My original interest in buses, dates to the time when as a child I had some little toy (model) buses. In those far off days, you had to use your imagination. Most models were of London buses. My family was never well off, my parents worked hard all their lives to give my older sister and myself the best they could manage. Whilst not spoilt, we were always loved and spent time together as a family. I have brought my own kids up in the same way.
I collected "Matchbox" buses and started repainting them from the age of five or six. The early ones would be done by my big sister for me. We used to buy paint in Woolworths. This was a Lone Star London RF, around N Gauge.
Today you can buy virtually any model bus you want, in any livery and a great industry has grown up around the hobby.
I still love the old "Matchbox" and similar scale buses, and recently re-acativated my passion for repainting them.
This is the Leetown Bus Company on their scenic service to the village of Melville in the Scottish Highlands. (Yes, it's obvious that I've too much time on my hands, but I was waiting for paint to dry!!).
A simple pleasure that I still enjoy.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam
Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, during the Great Depression, it was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. In bills passed by Congress during its construction, it was referred to as the Hoover Dam, after President Herbert Hoover, but was named Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. In 1947, the name Hoover Dam was restored by Congress.
Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water, and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques used were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.
Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead and is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction, with 7 million tourists a year. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.
Source: hoover.archives.gov/hoovers/hoover-dam
85 years after its completion, Hoover dam is still considered an engineering marvel. It is named in honor of President Herbert Hoover, who played a crucial role in its creation.
For many years, residents of the American southwest sought to tame the unpredictable Colorado River. Disastrous floods during the early 1900’s led residents of the area to look to the federal government for aid, and experiments with irrigation on a limited scale had shown that this arid region could be transformed into fertile cropland, if only the river could be controlled. The greatest obstacle to the construction of such a dam was the allocation of water rights among the seven states comprising the Colorado River drainage basin. Meetings were held in 1918, 1919 and 1920, but the states could not reach a consensus.
Herbert Hoover had visited the Lower Colorado region in the years before World War I and was familiar with its problems and the potential for development. Upon becoming Secretary of Commerce in 1921, Hoover proposed the construction of a dam on the Colorado River. In addition to flood control and irrigation, it would provide a dependable supply of water for Los Angeles and Southern California. The project would be self-supporting, recovering its cost through the sale of hydroelectric power generated by the dam.
In 1921, the state legislatures of the Colorado River basin authorized commissioners to negotiate an interstate agreement. Congress authorized President Harding to appoint a representative for the federal government to serve as chair of the Colorado River Commission and on December 17, 1921, Harding appointed Hoover to that role.
When the commission assembled in Santa Fe in November 1922, the seven states still disagreed over the fair distribution of water. The upstream states feared that the downstream states, with their rapidly developing agricultural and power demands, would quickly preempt rights to the water by the “first in time, first in right” doctrine. Hoover suggested a compromise that the water be divided between the upper and lower basins without individual state quotas. The resulting Colorado River Compact was signed on November 24, 1922. It split the river basin into upper and lower halves with the states within each region deciding amongst themselves how the water would be allocated.
A series of bills calling for Federal funding to build the dam were introduced by Congressman Phil D. Swing and Senator Hiram W. Johnson between 1922 and 1928, all of which were rejected. The last Swing-Johnson bill, titled the Boulder Canyon Project Act, was largely written by Hoover and Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work. Congress finally agreed, and the bill was signed into law on December 21, 1928 by President Coolidge. The dream was about to become reality.
On June 25, 1929, less than four months after his inauguration, President Herbert Hoover signed a proclamation declaring the Colorado River Compact effective at last. Appropriations were approved and construction began in 1930. The dam was dedicated in 1935 and the hydroelectric generators went online in 1937. In 1947, Congress officially "restored" Hoover's name to the dam, after FDR's Secretary of the Interior tried to remove it. Hoover Dam was built for a cost of $49 million (approximately $1 billion adjusted for inflation). The power plant and generators cost an additional $71 million, more than the cost of the dam itself. The sale of electrical power generated by the dam paid back its construction cost, with interest, by 1987.
Today the Hoover Dam controls the flooding of the Colorado River, irrigates more than 1.5 million acres of land, and provides water to more than 16 million people. Lake Mead supports recreational activities and provides habitats to fish and wildlife. Power generated by the dam provides energy to power over 500,000 homes. The Hoover Compromise still governs how the water is shared.
Additional Foreign Language Tags:
(United States) "الولايات المتحدة" "Vereinigte Staaten" "アメリカ" "美国" "미국" "Estados Unidos" "États-Unis"
(Nevada) "نيفادا" "内华达州" "नेवादा" "ネバダ" "네바다" "Невада"
(Arizona) "أريزونا" "亚利桑那州" "एरिजोना" "アリゾナ州" "애리조나" "Аризона"
(Hoover Dam) "سد هوفر" "胡佛水坝" "हूवर बांध" "フーバーダム" "후버 댐" "Гувера" "Presa Hoover"
I love making such little trays filled with various candies and cookies :)
Makes me smile ^^
Entirely handmade by myself except the ceramic dish.
1:12 dollhouse scale
Suyata's very nice plastic kit of a futuristic armoured sports car. Painted with Tamiya lacquers, Alclad, and Citadel acrylics.
Built for The Modelling News - you can read my review including the full building and painting process here:
www.themodellingnews.com/2021/05/build-review-ptii-suyata...
This is one of artist Dale Chihuly's glass art displays at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. The exhibition at the Garden is named "Chihuly: The Nature of Glass" and Chihuly's work is displayed from November 22, 2008 to May 31, 2009. The Nature of Glass exhibit features new and unique works of glass artfully located throughout the Garden. Dale Chihuly is known for his innovative glass sculptures, and his work is immediately recognizable for its grand scale and vibrant colors. This is Chihuly's first exhibition in an outdoor desert environment.
“The artist permits and encourages photography of the artwork in this exhibition for educational and non-commercial use only.”
INFORMATION ON ARTIST DALE CHIHULY:
Dale Patrick Chihuly (b. September 20, 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, United States) is an American glass sculptor. Chihuly graduated from high school in Tacoma. Supported by his mother, after his brother George's death in a flight-training accident in Florida and his father's death of a heart attack, he enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound (now University of Puget Sound) in 1959.
In 1967, he received a Master of Science in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chihuly lives and works in his 25,000 square foot (2300 m²) studio, nicknamed "The Boathouse" for its former use, on Lake Union. Since losing the vision in one of his eyes in a car accident in 1976, Chihuly (who wears an eyepatch) no longer has the depth perception necessary to handle the molten glass himself. Instead, he conceptualizes each project with paint and canvas and then employs a team of artists to do the work.
About his work: His fascination with abstract nature forms comes from his mother's garden in Tacoma, Washington. One of his sculptures would be prominently displayed on the sitcom Frasier, which is set in nearby Seattle. His love for the ocean and its creatures is also reflected in his art.
Over the past forty years, Chihuly's glass sculptures have explored color, design, and assemblage. Although his work varies in size and color, he is best known for his multipart blown masterpieces. Also interested in Irish culture, he has produced a sizeable volume of "Irish cylinders," which are more modest in conception than his blown glass works.
Some of Chihuly's works cover whole ceilings of casinos and hotels, while others are hand-sized abstract flowers. Chihuly uses intense colors to bring his work to life. He is also known for using neon and argon.
Chihuly uses nature as a setting for his pieces, and tries to create his pieces as though they are part of nature. He sometimes entwines his pieces around tree branches and trunks. He also suspends them in space and floats them in water. Although it is not widely known, some components of Chihuly's installations (for example, the stacked aqua-colored chunks that decorate the Tacoma "Bridge of Glass") are made of an acrylic-type material rather than glass.
Source: Wikipedia
INFORMATION ABOUT THE DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN:
Nestled amid the red buttes of Papago Park, the Desert Botanical Garden hosts one of the world’s finest collections of desert plants. One of only 44 botanical gardens accredited by the American Association of Museums, this one-of-a-kind museum showcases 50 acres of beautiful outdoor exhibits. Home to 139 rare, threatened and endangered plant species from around the world, the Garden offers interesting and inspiring experiences to more than 300,000 visitors each year.
A charter member of the Museum Association of Arizona and National Center for Plant Conservation, the Garden is fully accredited with the American Association of Museums and American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. It continues to build on its 63-year legacy of environmental stewardship, and has become nationally and internationally renowned for its plant collections, research and educational programs.
Source: www.dbg.org/index.php/about
Cypripedium calceolus var. parviflorum - "Small Yellow Lady's Slipper"
One to rarely two flowers, the inflated lower petal (the slipper) is ¾ to 1¼ inches long, glossy yellow, with purple splotches lining pouch opening and faint purple veination on lower pouch. Bright yellow flower column, splashed with purple, broadens into a flat oval lip, appressed tightly into pouch opening. Lateral petals are narrow, up to 2 inches long, typically spirally twisted, dark purple/brown but can be lighter, flecked with greenish striping. Sepals are similar in color, 2 are fused behind the lip; upper sepal is broader and is erect above the lip. A single leaf-like, sparsely hairy floral bract stands erect at the top of the stem, behind the ovary.
2 to 5 leaves, oval to elliptical, 2½ to 6½ inches long with distinct parallel veins are alternately attached and sheathe the stem. Several scale-like leaves sheathe the lower stem. 10 or more stems may emerge from a single root.
Found in sunny, damp ditches and seeps, this native orchid is becoming scarce in many areas due to futile attempts at transplanting in gardens.
Image © Jeff Abbas - 2010/2011
Please do not reproduce without express permission.
Print available on request via Flickr Mail
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are to the west of London, in nearby Buckinghamshire, at Dorrington House, a smart Jacobean manor house of the late 1600s built for a wealthy merchant, situated in High Wycombe, where Lettice’s elder sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), resides with her husband Charles Lanchenbury and their three children, Harrold, Annabelle and baby Piers. Situated within walking distance of the market town’s main square, the elegant red brick house with its high-pitched roof and white painted sash windows still feels private considering its close proximity to the centre of the town thanks to an elegant and restrained garden surrounding it, which is enclosed by a high red brick wall.
Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, had organised a romantic dinner at the Savoy* for he and Lettice to celebrate his birthday. However, when Lettice arrived, she was confronted not with the smiling face of her beau, but the haughty and cruel spectre of his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia. Lady Zinnia, and Selwyn’s Uncle Bertrand had been attempting to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia had, up until that moment been snubbing Lettice, so Selwyn and Lettice arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela were also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn could spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia wouldn’t be able to avoid Lettice any longer. Zinnia is a woman who likes intrigue and revenge, and the revenge she launched upon Lettice that evening at the Savoy was bitterly harsh and painful. With a cold and calculating smile Lady Zinna announced that she had packed Selwyn off to Durban in South Africa for a year. She made a pact with her son: if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with Lettice, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about her as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and Lady Zinnia planned. If however, he still feels the same way about Lettice when he returns, Lady Zinnia agreed that she would concede and will allow him to marry her.
Leaving London by train that very evening, Lettice returned home to Glynes, where she stayed for a week, moving numbly about the familiar rooms of the grand Georgian country house, reading books from her father’s library distractedly to pass the time, whilst her father fed her, her favourite Scottish shortbreads in a vain effort to cheer her up. However, rather than assuage her broken heart, her father’s ministrations only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life: keep designing interiors, keep shopping and most importantly, keep attending social functions where there are plenty of press photographers. “You may not be permitted to write to Selwyn,” Lady Sadie said wisely. ‘But Zinnia said nothing about the newspapers not writing about your plight or your feelings on your behest. Let them tell Selwyn that you still love him and are waiting for him. They get the London papers in Durban just as much as they get them here, and Zinnia won’t be able to stop a lovesick and homesick young man flipping to the society pages as he seeks solace in the faces of familiar names and faces, and thus seeing you and reading your words of commitment to him that you share through the newspaper men. Tell them that you are waiting patiently for Selwyn’s return.”
Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls in the lead up to the festive season. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and was welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year. On New Year’s Eve, Lally, sitting next to Lettice, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, and since arriving at Dorrington House with her sister and brother-in-law, she has enjoyed being quiet, spending quality time with her niece and nephews in the nursery, strolling the gardens with her sister or simply curling up in a window seat and reading.
This morning we find ourselves in one of Dorrington House’s ten guest bedrooms: a pretty and cosy one overlooking the elegant rear garden in which Lettice has been accommodated since her arrival from Glynes. Lettice lies beneath the beautifully embroidered satin comforter, luxuriating in the joy of being allowed to have breakfast in bed at her sister’s house. If she were at home in Glynes, there is no way known that her mother would let her take her breakfast in her boudoir, never mind in bed, since Lettice is unmarried and therefore undeserving of such a privilege**. She sighs contentedly as she listens to the blackbirds and robins chirping in the greenery beyond the sash window of her comfortably appointed room. In the hearth a fire, lit for her by one of Lally’s lower house maids long before Lettice was awake, crackles cheerfully, its heat warming the room enough that Lettice may sit up against a nest of her pillows and have her bare arms exposed without feeling cold. In the distance she can hear the clock on the landing ticking away the minutes and hours of the day, and still further away the muffled sound of a childish squeal indicates that Lettice’s nephew and niece are awake and playing in the day nursery with their nanny. Lettice sighs again and stretches her legs beneath the covers, her left foot connecting with the wooden breakfast tray placed at the foot of the bed by Lally’s cook, Mrs. Sawyer, nudging it slightly, causing the breakfast china and the ornate Indian silver teapot on it to rattle in protest at being pushed out of the way. She picks up a current copy of Vogue that has been sent to her from London and silently peruses the latest frocks from Paris whilst she contemplates reaching down and taking up her breakfast tray to put on her lap to commence her breakfast, but just the thought of doing so seems like too much of an effort. So, she casts a desultory gaze over the newest designs by Jeanne Lanvin*** instead and dreams about dancing with Selwyn arrayed in such a gown.
As she admires a robe de style**** design in black with embroidered red poppies, Lettice’s morning daydreams are interrupted by a gentle tapping at her door.
Quickly tossing the copy of Vogue aside, Lettice snatches up her pale pink bed jacket trimmed in marabou feathers from the other side of the large bed, and drapes it across her bare shoulders and arms as the tapping begins for a second time. “Yes?” she asks as calmly as possible.
The door opens and Lally pokes her head around it. “It’s only me, Tice darling. May I come in?”
“Lally!” Lettice exclaims as she shuffles herself into a more upright position against the nest of pillows behind her. “Yes, of course! Do, do come in, darling.”
“Thank you.” Lally replies quietly, slipping into her sister’s room and closing the door behind her.
Lally looks around what she and Charles call the ‘Chinese Bedroom’ because of all the Eighteenth Century chinoiserie furnishings filling it, still unused to the best guest bedroom in the house being occupied. Traces of her little sister lie about everywhere. Her travelling set of brushes and a mirror sit on the dressing table’s surface, along with bottles of Lettice’s favourite perfumes and a selection of her cosmetics. A blue hatbox sits against the Chinese dressing screen with the hat Lettice wore to the wedding of Mary, Princess Royal***** to Viscount Lascelles in 1922 sitting atop it. Her peacock blue embroidered robe hangs from the end of the screen, whilst a row of dainty shoes sit just behind it, the latter obviously organised into neat order by one of the housemaids, since Lettice is not known for the organisation of her own wardrobe. The room is filled with the comforting fug of sleep intermixed with the scent of woodsmoke and roses brought in especially for Lettice from the Dorrington House greenhouse. And there, on the left side of the bed is Lettice, draped in her delicate bedjacket, her golden tresses spilling freely across the pillows behind her.
“I hope you don’t mind me popping in like this.” Lally says a little defensively. “Oh, you haven’t touched your breakfast.” She observes the undisturbed pot of tea, hard boiled egg, triangle of toast, square of butter from the home farm and orange from the Dorrington House orangery******. “Is everything alright?”
“Oh it’s fine, Lally, and yes,” Lettice lurches towards the breakfast tray, dragging it across the orange and yellow embroidered flowers of the counterpane towards her. “Breakfast is perfect. I was just about to start. I was just so engrossed in my latest copy of Vogue.”
“I see.” Lally purrs with a satisfied smile. “I see you received your post this morning then.”
“Yes, thank you Lally.” Lettice indicates with an open hand to the two copies of Vogue as well as a card sent down from London sitting atop a silver salver next to a silver letter opener near the raised mound of her feet beneath the covers.
“I received some post this morning too.” Lally admits, holding up a postcard featuring an idealised photographic scene of a couple in a donkey cart.
“Not a postcard from Charles, opining about me having breakfast abed, surely? He and Lord Lachenbury only left for India a few days ago.”
“Oh!” Lally says, laughing as she looks at the postcard. “No! No, Charles and Lord Lachenbury will still be en route abord the P&O*******. No, it will be ages before the arrive in Bombay.”
“Then what is it?” Lettice enquires.
“It’s an invitation for the two of us to attend a luncheon party at Mrs. Alsop’s down at Shalstone Cottage.”
“That sounds rather dull. A cottage? Who is Mrs. Alsop, Lally?”
“Head of the local branch of the WI********.” Lally pulls a face. “She’s a dreadful gossip, and rather a bore, I’m afraid. I can say you’re indisposed if you like, but as treasurer of the WI, I had better go.”
“Well,” Lettice says with a sigh, reaching down to the silver salver near the foot of the bed and snatching up the card from atop its envelope. “Even if I didn’t want to come, I’d go to support you, Lally. However, you may have to pass on my excuses anyway.” She holds the card out to her elder sister.
“What is it, Tice?”
“It’s from Aunt Egg.” Lettice wags the card in her sister’s direction. “Read it.”
Approaching the bed, Lally accepts the card from her sister. She smiles and snorts in amusement as she stares at the stylised gilt decorated Art Nouveau card featuring a woman in a long russet coloured tea gown facing away from the viewer, her old fashioned upswept hairstyle with its topknot clearly a feature of the design. “God bless Aunt Egg. Anyone would think she was living in 1904 not 1924.”
“I know.” agrees Lettice with a smile as she starts buttering her toast, the crisp scrape of her knife against the slice cutting through the air.
“She’s going to leave you all her jewellery, you know, Tice.” Lally says with a knowing look.
“Oh!” Lettice scoffs, waving her sister’s remark away dismissively with a wave of her hand. “She teases all of us with her flippant remarks about her jewellery. No, she plays her hand close to her chest.”
“But you’re the most like her, Tice: the most artistic. I’m just like all the other Chetwynd cousins – a rather pedestrian country squire’s wife who attends luncheons at the behest of the head of the WI – unlike you, who has her own successful interior design business and socialises with a smart and select London set.”
“Read the card, Lally.” Lettice hisses as she takes a bite of her toast.
Lally reads aloud, “’Dearest Lettice, I’m sorry to write like this, but I really can’t have you lolling about at Dorrington House, being pandered to, and mollycoddled by Lally.’” Lally drops her arms, the card still clenched tightly in her right hand. She stares wide eyes in astonishment at their aunt’s statement. “Mollycoddling! What a cheek, Aunt Egg!”
“Well,” Lettice indicates down to the breakfast tray across her lap as she gulps down a slice of toast. “Charles would doubtless agree with her. Let’s be honest, Lally, that whilst I have adored staying here with you, being feted, and waited upon hand and foot, you are pandering to me.”
“Well…” mutters Lally, blushing as she speaks.
“Keep reading.” Lettice insists as she takes up the silver teapot and pours hot tea into her dainty blue sprigged china teacup.
Lally takes up the card again. “Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, ‘being pandered to, and mollycoddled by Lally. It’s time you stopped hiding away in the bucolic bosom of Buckinghamshire’,” Lally pauses again. “Aunt Egg does have a way with words, doesn’t she?” She sniggers and shakes her head.
“Keep reading!” Lettice insists.
“’And come home to London, where I will admit, you are missed by your Embassy Club coterie of friends. Only last week I heard from Cilla Carter Minnie Palmerston, and Margot Channon three times, asking when you were coming home. I simply must insist that you come back post haste. However, like me, I know you are a woman of your own will,’” Lally looks across at her sister as she sips her tea in bed. “She’s right there. The two of you are by far the most stubborn of the women in the Chetwynd family.”
“Keep reading, Lally!”
“’So, well aware of the fact that you won’t return solely upon my request, I have had to make arrangements to compel you out of your broken hearted stupor in the stultifying countryside and thrust you back into the beating heart of London society. I’ve managed to wrangle an invitation for you, and Dicke and Margot Channon, to attend one of Sir John and Lady Caxton’s amusing Friday to Monday long weekend parties at Gossington along with a host other notable Bright Young Things********. It will do you good to be with some people of your own age.’” Lally drops her arms again. “People your own age?” she blusters. “Does Aunt Egg suddenly think me ninety, rather than thirty five?”
“You know how she is, dear Lally.” She’s just trying to create a compelling reason for me to leave you and go back to London as she bids. Don’t take it personally.” Lettice implores as she takes another dainty bite of her toast. “Keep reading.”
“’The Channons will be expecting dinner at Cavendish Mews on Monday evening to discuss arrangements. Apparently, Dickie has enough money for petrol for the motor to be able to drive three of you up to Gossington! Will wonders never cease? Please wire, if indeed you can find a telegraph office in the wilds of Buckinghamshire, what train you will be arriving on at Victoria Station and I will arrange to collect you. With love, Aunt Egg.’”
“So you see, Lally darling, I’ll have to arrange a journey back to London.” Lettice says apologetically. “Perhaps you can drop me at High Wycombe railway station on your way to luncheon this afternoon, and then send Tipden back to fetch me after he drops you off at Mrs. Whatsit’s.”
“Mrs. Alsop.” Lally reiterates.
“Exactly!” Lettice sighs. “Quite right! By the time he’s back I’ll have sent a wire.”
“Well of course, Tipden and my car are at your disposal, Lettice darling,” Lally says in a disappointed voice. “But it really is too beastly of Aunt Egg to charge in and spoil our plans like this. I was arranging for us to visit Lady Verney********* at Claydon House********** in Aylesbury Vale whilst you were stopping with me. Oh well!” She sighs and raises her hands in despair. “I shall simply have to telephone her and cancel.”
“I’m sure you could still visit Lady Verney, even without me, Lally darling.”
“You’d like Lady Varney. She’s been a campaigner for girls’ education for decades now, and is really quite intelligent and independent.”
“Oh that is a pity, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped, Lally. An invitation from the Caxtons cannot be refused.”
“And who are Sir John and Lady Caxton?” Lally queries. “I don’t think I know them.”
“Oh, Sir John and Lady Gladys are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their amusing weekend parties at their Scottish country estate and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John, so they attract a mixture of witty writers and artists mostly.”
“Oh!” Lally gasps. “So that’s who it is!”
“Who, Lally?”
“Aunt Egg mentioned to me when we were at Glynes over Christmas and New Year, that she was arranging something for you with a lady novelist. It must be this, Lady Gladys.”
“I suppose the artistic connection is how Aunt Egg knows the Caxtons, although, I didn’t actually know that they were acquainted.”
“Well she must be more than acquainted with them if Aunt Egg could,” Lally scans the message on the card in her aunt’s spidery cursive handwriting. “Wrangle you an invitation, Tice darling.” Lally sighs disappointedly before snatching the half eaten slice of toast off her sister’s plate and takes a large bite from it. After swallowing her mouthful she continues, “I don’t see why, if she has organised an invitation for Dickie and Margot Channon, why she couldn’t have arranged one for me. She knows Charles has set sail for India and that I’ll be alone without you.”
“You’re hardly alone, Lally darling. What about Mrs. Alsop?” Lettice says with a cheeky grin as she takes back what is left of her triangle of toast.
“Oh, ha-ha!” replies Lally sarcastically.
“But in all seriousness Lally, you aren’t alone here. There are Nettie Fisher and Alice Newsome, and all those other lovely friends of yours who have been so hospitable to me since I arrived. They are all quite wonderful.”
“I suppose.” Lally replies deflatedly.
“Well, this is all rather thrilling!” Lettice says excitedly, pushing aside her breakfast tray and throwing back the covers with a sudden surge of gusto. “The Caxtons are quite eccentric characters, especially Lady Gladys, and from what I’ve read of them, they are refreshingly different and amusing. Thus, there is never a shortage of guests for their Friday to Monday house parties, and invitations to Gossington are a highly desirable, yet all too rare commodity. Margot will be beside herself!”
“Well then, however sad it is, I shall bid you a fond farewell, dear Tice.”
Lettice climbs out of bed and embraces her sister lovingly, inhaling her familiar scent of Yardley’s English Lavender. “Don’t worry, Lally darling.” She kisses her affectionately on the left cheek. “I’ll come back down again as soon as this weekend with the Caxtons is over.”
“I bet you won’t, Tice!” Lally retorts resignedly. She holds her sister at arm’s length, taking in the sudden vitality that has put a sparkle back into her eyes and roses into her cheeks. “This will be the beginning of a welcome distraction for you.” Then she adds sadly, “And one that is far better than any remedy I can provide you with. Best you follow Aunt Egg’s instructions and go back to London.”
“Oh thank you, Lally Darling!” Lettice cries joyfully, throwing her hands around her elder sister’s neck and clinging tightly to her. “You are a brick!”
“Yes, you’ll get all of Aunt Egg’s jewellery, Tice darling. You are her favourite by far.”
*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.
**Before the Second World War, if you were a married Lady, it was customary for you to have your breakfast in bed, because you supposedly don't have to socialise to find a husband. Unmarried women were expected to dine with the men at the breakfast table, especially on the occasion where an unmarried lady was a guest at a house party, as it gave her exposure to the unmarried men in a more relaxed atmosphere and without the need for a chaperone.
***The House of Lanvin was named after its founder Jeanne Lanvin in 1889. Jeanne Lanvin was born in 1867 and opened her first millinery shop in rue du Marche Saint Honore in 1885. Jeanne made clothes for her daughter, Marie-Blanche de Polignac, which began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people, who requested copies for their own children. Soon, she was making dresses for their mothers, which were included in the clientele of her new boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. In 1909, Jeanne Lanvin joined the Syndicat de la Couture, which marked her formal status as a couturière. The Lanvin logo was inspired by a photograph taken for Jeanne Lanvin as she attended a ball with her daughter wearing matching outfits in 1907. From 1923, the Lanvin empire included a dye factory in Nanterre. In the 1920s, Lanvin opened shops devoted to home decor, menswear, furs and lingerie, but her most significant expansion was the creation of Lanvin Parfums SA in 1924. "My Sin", an animalic-aldehyde based on heliotrope, was introduced in 1925, and is widely considered a unique fragrance. It would be followed by her signature fragrance, Arpège, in 1927, said to have been inspired by the sound of her daughter's practising her scales on the piano.
****The ‘robe de style’ was introduced by French couturier Jeanne Lanvin around 1915. It consisted of a basque bodice with a broad neckline and an oval bouffant skirt supported by built in wire hoops. Reminiscent of the Spanish infanta-style dresses of the Seventeenth Century and the panniered robe à la française of the Eighteenth Century they were made of fabric in a solid colour, particularly a deep shade of robin’s egg blue which became known as Lanvin blue, and were ornamented with concentrated bursts of embroidery, ribbons or ornamental silk flowers.
*****Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood (1897 – 1965), was the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the sister of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and aunt of Queen Elizabeth II. She married Viscount Lascelles on the 28th of February 1922 in a ceremony held at Westminster Abbey. The bride was only 24 years old, whilst the groom was 39. There is much conjecture that the marriage was an unhappy one, but their children dispute this and say it was a very happy marriage based upon mutual respect. The wedding was filmed by Pathé News and was the first royal wedding to be featured in fashion magazines, including Vogue.
******An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large form of greenhouse or conservatory.
*******In 1837, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company first secured a Government contract for the regular carriage of mail between Falmouth and the Peninsular ports as far as Gibraltar. The company, established in 1835 by the London shipbroking partnership of Brodie McGhie Willcox (1786-1861) and Arthur Anderson (1792-1868) and the Dublin Ship owner, Captain Richard Bourne (1880-1851) had begun a regular steamer service for passengers and cargo between London, Spain and Portugal using the 206 ton paddle steamer William Fawcett. The growing inclination of early Twentieth Century shipping enterprises to merge their interests, and group themselves together, did not go unnoticed at P&O, which made its first major foray in this direction in 1910 with the acquisition of Wilhelm Lund’s Blue Anchor Line. By 1913, with a paid-up capital of some five and half million pounds and over sixty ships in service, several more under construction and numerous harbour craft and tugs to administer to the needs of this great fleet all counted, the P&O Company owned over 500,000 tons of shipping. In addition to the principal mail routes, through Suez to Bombay and Ceylon, where they divided then for Calcutta, Yokohama and Sydney, there was now the ‘P&O Branch Line’ service via the Cape to Australia and various feeder routes. The whole complex organisation was serviced by over 200 agencies stationed at ports throughout the world. At the end of 1918, the Group was further strengthened by its acquisition of a controlling shareholding in the Orient Line and in 1920, the General Steam Navigation Company, the oldest established sea-going steamship undertaking, was taken over. In 1923 the Strick Line was acquired too and P&O became, for a time, the largest shipping company in the world. With the 1920s being the golden age of steamship travel, P&O was the line to cruise with. P&O had grown into a group of separate operating companies whose shipping interests touched almost every part of the globe. By March 2006, P&O had grown to become one of the largest port operators in the world and together with P&O Ferries, P&O Ferrymasters, P&O Maritime Services, P&O Cold Logistics and its British property interests, the company was, itself, acquired by DP World for three point three billion pounds.
*******The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organization for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being the first speaker in 1897. It was based on the British concept of Women's Guilds, created by Rev Archibald Charteris in 1887 and originally confined to the Church of Scotland. From Canada the organization spread back to the motherland, throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth, and thence to other countries. Many WIs belong to the Associated Country Women of the World organization. Each individual WI is a separate charitable organisation, run by and for its own members with a constitution agreed at national level but the possibility of local bye-laws. WIs are grouped into Federations, roughly corresponding to counties or islands, which each have a local office and one or more paid staff.
********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.
*********Lady Margaret Maria Verney, was an English-born Welsh educationist. Verney was the daughter of Lady Sarah Elizabeth Amherst and her husband John Hay-Williams, 2nd Baronet Williams of Bodelwyddan. On the death of her father in 1859, she inherited his house "Rhianfa", on Anglesey, which she retained as a family home. In 1868 she married Sir Edmund Hope Verney, MP, then merely Captain Verney. She became a leading campaigner for girls' education in Britain. In 1894 she became a member of the Statutory Council of the University of Wales, holding the position until 1922.
**********Claydon House is a country house in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England, near the village of Middle Claydon. It was built between 1757 and 1771 and is now owned by the National Trust. Claydon has been the ancestral home of the Verney family since 1620. The present Verney family, are the descendants of Sir Harry Calvert, 2nd Baronet who inherited the house in 1827. He was very tenuously related to the Verneys only through marriage. However, he adopted the name Verney on inheriting. The house was given to the National Trust in 1956 by Sir Ralph Verney, 5th Baronet. His son, Sir Edmund Verney, 6th Baronet, a former High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, lived in the house until 2019.
This cosy boudoir may look real to you, but it is in fact made up of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The mahogany stained breakfast tray came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. On its surface the crockery, serviettes with their napkin rings came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The teapot also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. It is sterling silver, hallmarked Birmingham 1910 and has a removable lid, so it was probably a commissioned piece of Edwardian whimsy for someone wealthy, be they an adult or child. The cutlery came from an online stockist of miniatures. The orange comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The egg cup come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The egg in the egg cup is amongst some of the smallest miniatures I own, and came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The square of butter in the glass dish has been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.
The two copies of Vogue, the Art Nouveau style card and the addressed and postmarked envelope on the silver tray are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like the card and envelope. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The small silver letter salver is a 1:12 artisan miniature piece of sterling silver. The artist is unknown. Being made of silver, it is very heavy for its size. The sterling silver letter opener is made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures.
Lettice’s comforter is in fact a piece of beautiful vintage embroidered sari silk from the 1970s, laid over a box to give the appearance of the corner of a bed. I even put my fingers under the covers to give the impression of a body as you can see in the bottom right-hand corner of the image, where the comforter is raised slightly.
Lettice’s elegant straw hat sitting on the French blue hatbox in the background is decorated with an oyster satin ribbon, three feathers and an ornamental flower. The maker for this hat is unknown, but I acquitted it through Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism as this one is are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable.
The blue hatbox in the background on which the hat sits is a 1:12 artisan miniature and made of blue kid leather which is so soft to the touch, and small metal handles, clasps and ornamentation. It has been purposely worn around their edges to give it age. It also comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in England.
The Chinese screen is made of black japanned wood and features hand painted soapstone panels, so it is very heavy. I picked it up at an auction some twenty years ago.
The dressing table featuring fine marquetry banding appears to have been made by the same unknown artisan who made the round table. This piece I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The brush on its surface is part of a set painted by miniature artisan Victoria Fasken, and was also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The vase on the dressing table surface is a 1950s Limoges piece. The vase is stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. I found this treasure in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. The pink roses it contains came from beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The Chippendale style chair pushed into the dressing table is a very special piece. It came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. It is part of a dining table setting for six. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.
The 1928 Ford Model A was a typical donor car for the development of the early Harry Miller Race cars. Such items included the steering box, axles, differential, springs, and the transmission; although most were highly modified for racing.
In this model, the miniature Offy engine was scaled from drawings of the full-size engine and sports Ron’s custom made Winfield carburetors. Ron says it runs best on E-85 Ethanol and spark ignition. Stainless steel was used to fabricate almost everything except the engine, transmission, differential, rims, and body. The model has functional gauges, pedals for the accelerator and brakes, shift lever for forward and reverse, and an external hand brake. The hand pump pressurizes the fuel tank that is located behind the driver’s seat and the lubrication is via dry sump with the oil tank located between the driver and engine. Also it is equipped with steering, leaf spring suspension, friction shocks, and Ron’s custom-made spoke and splined knockoff wheels
Ron built this model as a tribute to his Father who owned and raced the full-size car in the mid 1920s. It is almost exact- even down to the numbers and lettering on the body. Except for the engine Ron fabricated everything from memory and a few family photos of his Dad’s race car. This model measures 32 inches long, 16 inches wide, 13 inches high, and weighs 25 pounds.
See Another View of This Car at: www.flickr.com/photos/15794235@N06/42872928132/in/photost...
See More Tether Cars, RC Cars, and Engines at: www.flickr.com/photos/15794235@N06/sets/72157645118796544/
See More Inline Engines at: www.flickr.com/photos/15794235@N06/sets/72157638336677194/
See Our Model Engine Collection at: www.flickr.com/photos/15794235@N06/sets/72157602933346098/
Visit Our Photo Sets at: www.flickr.com/photos/15794235@N06/sets
Courtesy Paul and Paula Knapp
Miniature Engineering Museum
A small-scale tabletop image of the Santo Entierro, or the Dead Christ. (Matthew 27:59-61), inside a bone-inlaid narra urna.
"Little Mercies: Miniature Images of Faith" was the Museo di Don Bosco's special exhibition for the Lenten Season of 2020, which opened on Ash Wednesday February 26th and was to run until Viernes Dolores (Friday of Sorrows) April 3rd.
The images in this exhibit consist of small-scale processional tableaux, and were loaned by the Museum of the Incarnation in Malolos, Bulacan. Several of these tableaux are actually brought out in procession in the evening of Holy Wednesday in the Parish of the Immaculate Conception of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Malolos.
Due to the imposition of the Covid-19 lockdown beginning March 15th, the exhibition has since been moved online and to social media. Once the community quarantines are lifted and museums are allowed to reopen, the Museo di Don Bosco may welcome visitors again. In the meantime, please check out this Lenten exhibition online including on dbmanda.one-bosco.org/museo
Yashinon-DX 50mm 1.7, presented as a breakdown of its main component assemblies.
Disassembly procedure reads from top left to bottom right.
From here it's easy to work out the rest given some experience with lenses.
The optical assembly (top right) drops into the lens housing/focus assembly, located by the circular brass key into the groove of the inner helicoid - both seen pictured. The 2 brass shims pictured beside the optical assy. are selected for fine focus adjustment; their thickness determines the stack height of the optical assembly on its seat (and therefore its minimum focal distance from the film plane at infinity), whilst the retaining ring (2nd top left) secures it all in place. The helicoid itself has hard stops preset by a machined groove in the brass carriage engaging a set screw - and cannot be adjusted.
From this point, the front and rear lens groups can be removed from the optical barrel, which houses the aperture blades in the centre.
The rear lens group unscrews accordingly.
The front lens group unscrews from the barrel accordingly.
Disassembly of the front lens group for cleaning, after the group has been removed from the barrel, requires removing the front element and is difficult at first due to the adhesive used and the awkward topology of the assembly.
The element is secured in the optical group body by the conical shroud which doubles as its retaining ring. The threads of the conical ring are recessed deep at its base. There is a small gap between the outside of this conical ring and the front lip of the optical group body from which it protrudes - because of the proximity of these walls, the surface tension of liquid solvent will prevent it from migrating into the gap sufficiently; it was necessary to use a syringe with a needle to get acetone down into this gap to the location of the threads - after which unscrewing of the shroud/retainer was possible. It takes a bit of time and patience.
The lens housing/focus mechanism, helicoid assembly and rear aperture selection assembly are separated and accessible by the sequence shown on the bottom row, from left to right.
The focus grip ring is secured by 3 screws accessed from the front of the lens, beneath the location of the front name plate/filter thread ring.
After which, there are 3 grub screws accessible holding the sleeve with the focus scale to the helicoid carriage and another 3 tiny grub screws holding the sleeve with focus/aperture indicator to the body. These screws are not tight but threadlocked and need only be loosened (after solvent) to remove the sleeves. Once these sleeves are removed, there are 3 larger countersunk screws visible which attach the rear flange/aperture selection assy. to the helicoid assy.; shown bottom right.
Disassembly of the helicoid for servicing requires removing the 2 brass keys locating the inner helicoid section to the fixed body, the inner section can then be unscrewed from the brass helicoid carriage. Removing the hard-stop set screw on the fixed body allows the brass helicoid carriage to then be unscrewed fully and separated from the fixed body.
It's necessary to count the turns of the helicoid rings to off for their correct re-assembly - but as the focus is set by the shim stack on the optical barrel and the helicoid rings are mechanically located with keyways, there's no precise alignment to set, making it relatively easy to service/rebuild.
Upon re-assembly, the aperture fork on the optical barrel assembly engages the aperture selection assy. between the aperture selection cam rocker and the sprung follower lever (connected to the aperture stop-down pin that sticks out the back of the flange).
It's easier if you set the aperture control to 'A' (auto-mode) and f16, making sure the sprung follower lever is fully disengaged (pin fully stuck out flange), as this opens up the gap between the follower lever and cam rocker nice and wide for the aperture fork to slot into.
...if you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about - its the bit located at about 4 o'clock on the aperture assy. pictured - there's no gap as I have it configured in the picture @ f1.7, making assembly difficult; doing the above ('A' mode, f16) opens up a gap here for the fork to drop into.
Have fun!
Ben
Hanoi; Vietnamese: Hà Nội is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts and 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam. It was eclipsed by Huế, the imperial capital of Vietnam during the Nguyễn Dynasty (1802–1945), but Hanoi served as the capital of French Indochina from 1902 to 1954. From 1954 to 1976, it was the capital of North Vietnam, and it became the capital of a reunified Vietnam in 1976, after the North's victory in the Vietnam War.
The city lies on the right bank of the Red River. Hanoi is 1,760 km north of Ho Chi Minh City and 120 km west of Hai Phong city.
October 2010 officially marked 1000 years since the establishment of the city. The Hanoi Ceramic Mosaic Mural is a 4 km ceramic mosaic mural created to mark the occasion.
NAMES
Hanoi (河內) has had many names throughout history. During the Chinese occupation of Vietnam, it was known first as Long Biên, then Tống Bình (宋平, "Song Peace") and Long Đỗ (龍肚, "Dragonbelly"). In 866, it was turned into a citadel and named Đại La (大羅, "Big Net"). During the Lê dynasty, Hanoi was known as Đông Kinh (東京, "Eastern Capital"); this gave the name to Tonkin.
HISTORY
Pre-Thăng Long period
Hanoi has been inhabited since at least 3000 BC. The Cổ Loa Citadel in Dong Anh district served as the capital of the Âu Lạc kingdom founded by the Shu emigrant Thục Phán after his 258 BC conquest of the native Văn Lang.
In 197 BC, Âu Lạc Kingdom was annexed by Nanyue, which ushered in more than a millennium of Chinese domination. By the middle of the 5th century, in the center of ancient Hanoi, the Liu Song Dynasty set up a new district (縣) called Songping (Tong Binh), which later became a commandery (郡), including two districts Yihuai (義懷) and Suining (綏寧) in the south of the Red River (now Từ Liêm and Hoài Đức districts) with a metropolis (the domination centre) in the present inner Hanoi. By the year 679, the Tang dynasty changed the region's name into Annan (Pacified South), with Songping as its capital.
In order to defeat the people’s uprisings, in the later half of the 8th century, Zhang Boyi (張伯儀), a Tang dynasty viceroy, built Luocheng (羅城, La Thanh or La citadel, from Thu Le to Quan Ngua in present-day Ba Dinh precinct). In the earlier half of the 9th century, it was further built up and called Jincheng (金城, Kim Thanh or Kim Citadel). In 866, Gao Pian, the Chinese Jiedushi, consolidated and named it Daluocheng (大羅城, Dai La citadel, running from Quan Ngua to Bach Thao), the then-largest citadel of ancient Hanoi.
Thăng Long, Đông Đô, Đông Quan, Đông Kinh
In 1010, Lý Thái Tổ, the first ruler of the Lý Dynasty, moved the capital of Đại Việt to the site of the Đại La Citadel. Claiming to have seen a dragon ascending the Red River, he renamed the site Thăng Long (昇龍, "Soaring Dragon") - a name still used poetically to this day. Thăng Long remained the capital of Đại Việt until 1397, when it was moved to Thanh Hóa, then known as Tây Đô (西都), the "Western Capital". Thăng Long then became Đông Đô (東都), the "Eastern Capital."
In 1408, the Chinese Ming Dynasty attacked and occupied Vietnam, changing Đông Đô's name to Dongguan (Chinese: 東關, Eastern Gateway), or Đông Quan in Sino-Vietnamese. In 1428, the Vietnamese overthrew the Chinese under the leadership of Lê Lợi, who later founded the Lê Dynasty and renamed Đông Quan Đông Kinh (東京, "Eastern Capital") or Tonkin. Right after the end of the Tây Sơn Dynasty, it was named Bắc Thành (北城, "Northern Citadel").
During Nguyễn Dynasty and the French colonial period
In 1802, when the Nguyễn Dynasty was established and moved the capital to Huế, the old name Thăng Long was modified to become Thăng Long (昇龍, "Soaring Dragon"). In 1831, the Nguyễn emperor Minh Mạng renamed it Hà Nội (河内, "Between Rivers" or "River Interior"). Hanoi was occupied by the French in 1873 and passed to them ten years later. As Hanoï, it became the capital of French Indochina after 1887.
DURING TWO WARS
The city was occupied by the Japanese in 1940 and liberated in 1945, when it briefly became the seat of the Viet Minh government after Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independence of Vietnam. However, the French returned and reoccupied the city in 1946. After nine years of fighting between the French and Viet Minh forces, Hanoi became the capital of an independent North Vietnam in 1954.
During the Vietnam War, Hanoi's transportation facilities were disrupted by the bombing of bridges and railways. These were all, however, promptly repaired. Following the end of the war, Hanoi became the capital of a reunified Vietnam when North and South Vietnam were reunited on July 2, 1976.
MODERN HANOI
On May 29, 2008, it was decided that Hà Tây Province, Vĩnh Phúc Province's Mê Linh District and 4 communes of Lương Sơn District, Hòa Bình Province be merged into the metropolitan area of Hanoi from August 1, 2008. Hanoi's total area then increased to 334,470 hectares in 29 subdivisions with the new population being 6,232,940., effectively tripling its size. The Hanoi Capital Region (Vùng Thủ đô Hà Nội), a metropolitan area covering Hanoi and 6 surrounding provinces under its administration, will have an area of 13,436 square kilometres with 15 million people by 2020
Hanoi has experienced a rapid construction boom recently. Skyscrapers, popping up in new urban areas, have dramatically changed the cityscape and have formed a modern skyline outside the old city. In 2015, Hanoi is ranked # 39 by Emporis in the list of world cities with most skyscrapers over 100 m; its two tallest buildings are Hanoi Landmark 72 Tower (336m, tallest in Vietnam and second tallest in Southeast Asia after Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers) and Hanoi Lotte Center (272m, also second tallest in Vietnam)
GEOGRAPHY
LOCATION - TOPOGRAPHY
Hanoi is located in northern region of Vietnam, situated in the Vietnam’s Red River delta, nearly 90 km away from the coastal area. Hanoi contains three basic kind of terrain, which are the delta area, the midland area and mountainous zone. In general, the terrain is gradually lower from the north to the south and from the west to the east, with the average height ranging from 5 to 20 meters above the sea level. The hills and mountainous zones are located in the northern and western part of the city. The highest peak is at Ba Vi with 1281 m, located in the western part of the region.
CLIMATE
Hanoi features a warm humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa) with plentiful precipitation. The city experiences the typical climate of northern Vietnam, with 4 distinct seasons. Summer, from May until August, is characterized by hot and humid weather with abundant rainfall. September to October is fall, characterized by a decrease in temperature and precipitation. Winter, from November to January, is dry and cool by national standards. The city is usually cloudy and foggy in winter, averaging only 1.5 hours of sunshine per day in February.
Hanoi averages 1,680 millimetres of rainfall per year, the majority falling from May to September. There are an average of 114 days with rain.
The average annual temperature is 23.6 °C with a mean relative humidity of 79%. The highest recorded temperature was 42.8 °C on May 1926 while the lowest recorded temperature was 2.7 °C on January 1955.
ADMINISTRATIVES DIVISIONS
Hà Nội is divided into 12 urban districts, 1 district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. When Ha Tay was merged into Hanoi in 2008, Hà Đông was transformed into an urban district while Sơn Tây degraded to a district-leveled town. They are further subdivided into 22 commune-level towns (or townlets), 399 communes, and 145 wards.
DEMOGRAPHICS
Hanoi's population is constantly growing (about 3.5% per year), a reflection of the fact that the city is both a major metropolitan area of Northern Vietnam, and also the country's political centre. This population growth also puts a lot of pressure on the infrastructure, some of which is antiquated and dates back to the early 20th century.
The number of Hanoians who have settled down for more than three generations is likely to be very small when compared to the overall population of the city. Even in the Old Quarter, where commerce started hundreds of years ago and consisted mostly of family businesses, many of the street-front stores nowadays are owned by merchants and retailers from other provinces. The original owner family may have either rented out the store and moved into the adjoining house or moved out of the neighbourhood altogether. The pace of change has especially escalated after the abandonment of central-planning economic policies and relaxing of the district-based household registrar system.
Hanoi's telephone numbers have been increased to 8 digits to cope with demand (October 2008). Subscribers' telephone numbers have been changed in a haphazard way; however, mobile phones and SIM cards are readily available in Vietnam, with pre-paid mobile phone credit available in all areas of Hanoi.
ECONOMY
Hanoi has the highest Human Development Index among the cities in Vietnam. According to a recent ranking by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Hanoi will be the fastest growing city in the world in terms of GDP growth from 2008 to 2025. In the year 2013, Hanoi contributed 12.6% to GDP, exported 7.5% of total exports, contributed 17% to the national budget and attracted 22% investment capital of Vietnam. The city's nominal GDP at current prices reached 451,213 billion VND (21.48 billion USD) in 2013, which made per capita GDP stand at 63.3 million VND (3,000 USD). Industrial production in the city has experienced a rapid boom since the 1990s, with average annual growth of 19.1 percent from 1991–95, 15.9 percent from 1996–2000, and 20.9 percent during 2001–2003. In addition to eight existing industrial parks, Hanoi is building five new large-scale industrial parks and 16 small- and medium-sized industrial clusters. The non-state economic sector is expanding fast, with more than 48,000 businesses currently operating under the Enterprise Law (as of 3/2007).
Trade is another strong sector of the city. In 2003, Hanoi had 2,000 businesses engaged in foreign trade, having established ties with 161 countries and territories. The city's export value grew by an average 11.6 percent each year from 1996–2000 and 9.1 percent during 2001–2003. The economic structure also underwent important shifts, with tourism, finance, and banking now playing an increasingly important role. Hanoi's business districts are traditionally Hoàn Kiếm and the neighborhood; and a newly developing Cầu Giấy and Từ Liêm in the western part.
Similar to Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi enjoys a rapidly developing real estate market. The current most notable new urban areas are central Trung Hoa Nhan Chinh, Mỹ Đình, the luxurious zones of The Manor, Ciputra and Times City.
Agriculture, previously a pillar in Hanoi's economy, has striven to reform itself, introducing new high-yield plant varieties and livestock, and applying modern farming techniques.
Together with economic growth, Hanoi's appearance has also changed significantly, especially in recent years. Infrastructure is constantly being upgraded, with new roads and an improved public transportation system.
LANDMARKS
As the capital of Vietnam for almost a thousand years, Hanoi is considered one of the main cultural centres of Vietnam, where most Vietnamese dynasties have left their imprint. Even though some relics have not survived through wars and time, the city still has many interesting cultural and historic monuments for visitors and residents alike. Even when the nation's capital moved to Huế under the Nguyễn Dynasty in 1802, the city of Hanoi continued to flourish, especially after the French took control in 1888 and modeled the city's architecture to their tastes, lending an important aesthetic to the city's rich stylistic heritage. The city hosts more cultural sites than any other city in Vietnam, and boasts more than 1,000 years of history; that of the past few hundred years has been well preserved.
OLD QUARTER
The Old Quarter, near Hoàn Kiếm Lake, has the original street layout and architecture of old Hanoi. At the beginning of the 20th century the city consisted of only about 36 streets, most of which are now part of the old quarter. Each street then had merchants and households specializing in a particular trade, such as silk or jewelry. The street names nowadays still reflect these specializations, although few of them remain exclusively in their original commerce. The area is famous for its small artisans and merchants, including many silk shops. Local cuisine specialties as well as several clubs and bars can be found here also. A night market (near Đồng Xuân Market) in the heart of the district opens for business every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening with a variety of clothing, souvenirs and food.
Some other prominent places are: The Temple of Literature (Văn Miếu), site of the oldest university in Vietnam 1010; One Pillar Pagoda (Chùa Một Cột); Flag Tower of Hanoi (Cột cờ Hà Nội). In 2004, a massive part of the 900-year-old Hanoi Citadel was discovered in central Hanoi, near the site of Ba Đình Square.
LAKES
A city between rivers built from low land, Hanoi has many scenic lakes and is sometimes called "city of lakes." Among its lakes, the most famous are Hoàn Kiếm Lake, West Lake, and Bay Mau Lake (inside Thongnhat Park). Hoan Kiem Lake, also known as Sword Lake, is the historical and cultural center of Hanoi, and is linked to the legend of the magic sword. West Lake (Hồ Tây) is a popular place for people to spend time. It is the largest lake in Hanoi and there are many temples in the area. The lakeside road in the Nghi Tam - Quang Ba area is perfect for bicycling, jogging and viewing the cityscape or enjoying lotus ponds in the summer. The best way to see the majestic beauty of a Westlake sunset is to view it from one of the many bars around the lake, especially the Sofitel Plaza rooftop bar.
COLONIAL HANOI
Under French rule, as an administrative centre for the French colony of Indochina, the French colonial architecture style became dominant, and many examples remain today: the tree-lined boulevards (e.g. Phan Dinh Phung street) and its many villas and mansions, Grand Opera House, State Bank of Vietnam (formerly The Bank of Indochina), Presidential Palace (formerly the Palace of the Governor-General of French Indochina), St. Joseph's Cathedral, and the historic Hotel Metropole. Many of the colonial structures are an eclectic mixture of French and traditional Vietnamese architectural styles, such as the National Museum of Vietnamese History, the Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts and the old Indochina Medical College. Gouveneur-Général Paul Doumer (1898-1902) played a crucial role in colonial Hanoi's urban planning. Under his tenure there was a major construction boom.
Critical historians of empire have noted that French colonial rule imposed a system of white supremacy on the city. Vietnamese subjects supplied labor and tax revenue, but the privileges and comforts of the city went to the white population. French efforts at rat eradication revealed some of the colonial city's racial double-standards.
MUSEUMS
Hanoi is home to a number of museums:
- National Museum of Vietnamese History
- Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts
- Vietnam Museum of Ethnology
- Vietnam Museum of Revolution
- Hỏa Lò Prison (Hanoi Hilton)
- Ho Chi Minh Museum
- Hanoi Contemporary Arts Centre
- Vietnam Military History Museum
- Hanoi Museum
TOURISM
Hanoi is a very picturesque city, the leafy metropolis sometimes dubbed the "Paris of Asia." With its tree-fringed boulevards, more than two dozen lakes and thousands of French colonial-era buildings, Hanoi is a popular tourist attraction and one of only a few Asian capitals to retain its historic charm amid rapid modernization and population growth.
In 2015, Hanoi ranks #4 in TripAdvisor's list of the World's Best Destinations (Travellers' Choice).
And Hanoi is the most affordable international destination in TripAdvisor's annual TripIndex report. Created to help travelers plan and budget their summer holiday, the TripIndex looks at the average cost of a three-night trip in 60 key tourist cities around the world.
ENTERTAINMENT
A variety of options for entertainment in Hanoi can be found throughout the city. Modern and traditional theaters, cinemas, karaoke bars, dance clubs, bowling alleys, and an abundance of opportunities for shopping provide leisure activity for both locals and tourists. Hanoi has been named one of the top 10 cities for shopping in Asia by Water Puppet Tours. The number of art galleries exhibiting Vietnamese art has dramatically increased in recent years, now including galleries such as "Nhat Huy" of Huynh Thong Nhat.
A popular traditional form of entertainment is Water puppetry, which is shown, for example, at the Thăng Long Water Puppet Theatre."
CUISINE
Hanoi has rich culinary traditions. Many of Vietnam's most famous dishes, such as phở, chả cá, bánh cuốn and cốm are believed to have originated in Hanoi. Perhaps most widely known is Phở - a simple rice noodle soup often eaten as breakfast at home or at street-side cafes, but also served in restaurants as a meal. Two varieties dominate the Hanoi scene: Phở Bò, containing beef, and Phở Gà, containing chicken.
Vietnam's national dish phở has been named as one of the Top 5 streetfoods in the world by globalpost.
Hanoi has a number of restaurants whose menus specifically offer dishes containing dog, snake and various species of insects. Insect-inspired menus can be found at a number of restaurants in Khuong Thuong village, Hanoi. The signature dishes at these restaurant are those containing processed ant-eggs, often in the culinary styles of Thai people or Vietnam's Muong and Tay ethnic people.
EDUCATION
Hanoi, as the capital of French Indochina, was home to the first Western-style universities in Indochina, including: Indochina Medical College (1902) - now Hanoi Medical University, Indochina University (1904) - now Hanoi National University (the largest), and École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine (1925) - now Hanoi University of Fine Art.
After the Communist Party took control over Hanoi in 1954 with support from the Soviet Union, many new universities were built, among them, Hanoi University of Technology, still the largest technical university in Vietnam. Recently ULIS (University of Languages and International Studies) was rated as one of the top universities in Southeast Asia for languages and language studies at the undergraduate level. Other universities that are not part of Vietnam National University or Hanoi University include Hanoi School for Public Health and Hanoi School of Agriculture.
Hanoi is the largest centre of education in Vietnam. It is estimated that 62% of the scientists in the whole country are living and working in Hanoi. Admissions to undergraduate study are through entrance examinations, which are conducted annually and open for everyone (who has successfully completed his/her secondary education) in the country. The majority of universities in Hanoi are public, although in recent years a number of private universities have begun operation. Thăng Long University, founded in 1988, by some Vietnamese mathematics professors in Hanoi and France is the first private university in Vietnam. Because many of Vietnam's major universities are located in Hanoi, students from other provinces (especially in the northern part of the country) wishing to enter university often travel to Hanoi for the annual entrance examination. Such events usually take place in June and July, during which a large number of students and their families converge on the city for several weeks around this intense examination period. In recent years, these entrance exams have been centrally coordinated by the Ministry of Education, but passing marks are decided independently by each university.
Although there are state owned kindergartens, there are also many private ventures that serve both local and international needs. Pre-tertiary (elementary and secondary) schools in Hanoi are generally state run, but there are also some independent schools. Education is equivalent to the K–12 system in the US, with elementary school between grades 1 and 5, middle school (or junior high) between grades 6 and 9, and high school from grades 10 to 12.
TRANSPORT
Hanoi is served by Noi Bai International Airport, located in the Soc Son District, approximately 15 km north of Hanoi. The new international terminal (T2), designed and built by Japanese contractors, opened in January 2015 and is a big facelift for Noibai International Airport. In addition, a new highway and the new Nhat Tan cable-stay bridge connecting the airport and the city center opened at the same time, offering much more convenience than the old road (via Thanglong bridge). Taxis are plentiful and usually have trip meters, although it is also common to agree on the trip price before taking a taxi from the airport to the city centre.
Hanoi is also the origin or departure point for many Vietnam Railways train routes in the country. The Reunification Express (tàu Thống Nhất) runs from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City from Hanoi station (formerly Hang Co station), with stops at cities and provinces along the line. Trains also depart Hanoi frequently for Hai Phong and other northern cities. The Reunification Express line was established during French colonial rule and was completed over a period of nearly forty years, from 1899 to 1936. The Reunification Express between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City covers a distance of 1,726 km and takes approximately 33 hours. As of 2005, there were 278 stations on the Vietnamese railway network, of which 191 were located along the North-South line.
The main means of transport within Hanoi city are motorbikes, buses, taxis, and a rising number of cars. In recent decades, motorbikes have overtaken bicycles as the main form of transportation. The increased number of motorcycles can cause gridlock. To minimize this and the negative consequences for the environment and health, the local government is trying to increase public transportation. Public buses run on many routes and fares can be purchased on the bus, with very cheap prices (30 cents for a journey where a taxi might cost $10).
There are 2 metro lines under construction in Hanoi now. The first one is expected to be operational in 2016, the second in 2018
Persons on their own or traveling in a pair who wish to make a fast trip around Hanoi to avoid traffic jams or to travel at an irregular time or by way of an irregular route often use "xe ôm" (literally, "hug bike"). Motorbikes can also be rented from agents within the Old Quarter of Hanoi.
WIKIPEDIA
Some before and after some much needed repairs and clean up on this HO scale Crown Willamette 2-6-6-2T engine by Toby Models (Japan), imported to the USA by Northwest Shortline in 1959.
Scale: HO
Category: Steam
Subcategory: Logging
Road: CROWN (CROWN)
Whyte: 2-6-6-2T
Description: #12 ARTICULATED
Importer: North West Shortline (NWSL)
MANUFACTURE
Builder: Toby
Year(s): 1959
Qty Made: 202
While a convoy of early bird adventurers is headed out for a day of thrills and spills on an off-road expedition, another customer is in for a different kind of adventure at MBTC.
H2 Outdoors
Beach Bypass Rd.
Mystic Beach
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II
Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R
For more info about the dioramas, check out the FAQ: 1stPix FAQ
By Mattel! Get your CHERYL too!
Cheryl Ladd by Mattel. Ladd kept Charlie's Angels riding high after Fawcett left as her little sister Kris Munroe. Fawcett guested for six more episodes from season 3-5 but Ladd made her mark. Ladd went on to other series including films as Grace Kelly, appearances on NCIS, CSI: Miami, Hope & Faith, Las Vegas and films such as Love's Everlasting Courage, and Eve's Christmas.
Noel Cruz not only repaints the dolls but styles/cuts and perfects each dolls hair to resemble the celebrity he has repainted.
Ladd as painted and styled by artist Noel Cruz for www.myfarrah.com.
Photo/Graphic Layout & web sites www.ncruz.com & www.myfarrah.com by www.stevemckinnis.com.
In my job, I do get around. You might have noticed.
This week my destination was Denmark's 3rd city, Odense. It is most famous for being the birthplace of one Hans Christian Andersen, story=teller supreme. Although he left town at the age of 15, and from what I gather, once famous sponged off people for a place to kip rather than use hotels. Each to their own.
My taxi driver back to the hotel said he translated HCA's diaries into French and found him to be a bore and not likable.
Who'd have thunk it?
I was dropped off at the Cathedral, dedicated to the last of the Viking Kings, Cnut, but found it locked, I was ten minutes after closing.
Anyway, I wandered around the town, looking for Hans# house, but saw plenty of signs pointing the way, but not the house. Did find the car park for the house, so snapped the sign for that and went back to the hotel.
---------------------------------------------
Odense (Danish pronunciation: [ˈoðˀn̩sə] ( listen)) is the third largest city in Denmark. It has a population of 173,814 as of January 2015,[citation needed] and is the main city of the island of Funen. By road, Odense is located 45 kilometres (28 mi) north of Svendborg, 144 kilometres (89 mi) to the south of Aarhus and 167 kilometres (104 mi) to the southwest of Copenhagen. The city is the seat of Odense Municipality and was the seat of Odense County until 1970, and Funen County from 1970 until 1 January 2007, when Funen County became part of the Region of Southern Denmark. Odense has close associations with Hans Christian Andersen who is remembered above all for his fairy tales. He was born in the city in 1805 and spent his childhood years there.
There has been human settlement in the Odense area for over 4,000 years, although the name was not mentioned in writing until 988, and by 1070, it had already grown into a thriving city. Canute IV of Denmark, generally considered to be the last Viking king, was murdered by unruly peasants in Odense's St Alban's Priory on 10 July 1086. Although the city was burned in 1249 following a royal rivalry, it quickly recovered and flourished as a centre of commerce in the Middle Ages. After a period of decline, large-scale plans for development were made during the 18th century, which led to the rebuilding of Odense Palace and the building of a canal to the Port of Odense, facilitating trade. In 1865, one of the largest railway terminals in Denmark was built, further increasing the population and commerce, and by 1900, Odense had reached a population of 35,000. Odense's Odinstårnet was one of the tallest towers in Europe when built in 1935 but was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. The University of Southern Denmark was established in 1966.
In the present day, Odense remains the commercial hub of Funen, and has a notable shopping district with a diversity of stores. Several major industries are located in the city including the Albani Brewery and GASA, Denmark's major dealer in vegetables, fruits and flowers. The city is home to Odense Palace, erected by King Frederick IV who died there in 1730, the Odense Theatre, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, and the Hans Christian Andersen Museum, situated in the house that was the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. In sports, Odense has a number of football clubs including OB, BM, B1909, and B1913, the Odense Bulldogs professional ice hockey team, and the city also hosts the H.C. Andersen Marathon. Odense is served by Hans Christian Andersen Airport and Odense station, which lies on the line between Copenhagen and the Jutland peninsula.
The name Odense is derived from Odins Vé, meaning "Odin's sanctuary" as the area was known as a sanctuary for worshippers of the Nordic god, Odin.[1]
Odense is one of Denmark's oldest cities. Archaeological excavations in the vicinity show proof of settlement for over 4,000 years since at least the Stone Age.[2][1] The earliest community was centred on the higher ground between the Odense River to the south and Naesbyhoved Lake (now dry) to the north. Nonnebakken, one of Denmark's former Viking ring fortresses, lay to the south of the river.[3] Today, Odense's Møntergården Museum has many artefacts related to the early Viking history in the Odense area.[4] The Vikings built numerous fortifications along the river banks to defend it against invaders coming in from the coast.
The city celebrated its thousandth anniversary in 1988, commemorating the first mention of the town's name in a letter dated 18 March 988 from the German Emperor Otto III which granted rights to Odense and neighbouring settlements.[5] The first church in Odense appears to have been St Mary's,[6] probably built in the late 12th century.[7] The territory, previously part of the vast archbishopric of Hamburg, was created a Catholic diocese in 988. The first recorded bishops of Odense were Odinkar Hvide and Reginbert, who was consecrated by Æthelnoth, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1022.[8]
Recent excavations have shown that from the early 11th century, the town developed in the area around Albani Torv, Fisketorvet, Overgade and Vestergade.[3] By 1070, Odense had already grown into a city of stature in Denmark.[1] Canute IV of Denmark, generally considered to be the last Viking king, was murdered by unruly peasants, discontent with the high taxes he imposed on the town, in Odense's St Alban's Priory on 10 July 1086.[1] He was canonized in 1100.[9] The priory no longer exists, although a church has been situated on the site since about 900. At the beginning of the 12th century, Benedictine monks from England founded St Canute's Abbey. It was here the English monk Ælnoth wrote Denmark's first literary work, Vita et Passio S. Canuti (The Life and Passion of St Canute).[9] Canute's shrine in Odense Cathedral (which was attached to the priory) attracted pilgrims throughout the Middle Ages.
In the Middle Ages, a number of churches and monasteries were built in the town. St Canute's Church (Skt. Knuds Kirke), now the cathedral, dates from the end of the 13th century and was closely connected to the Benedictine Order. The town's other old churches are St Mary's (Vor Frue Kirke) and St John's (Skt. Hans Kirke) with its adjacent monastery. Greyfriars Monastery (Gråbrødre Kloster) was founded by the Franciscans in 1279.[5]
In 1247 Odense was burned by Abel of Denmark during conflicts with his brother King Erik IV.[11] The cathedral had to be completely rebuilt.[12] Nevertheless, the town continued to flourish as a commercial centre, and was charted in 1335.[10] The city thrived economically during the Middle Ages, attracting many merchants and craftsman who traded their goods.[2]
In 1482 Bishop Karl Rønnov brought the German printer Johann Snell to Odense to print a short prayer book, Breviarium Ottoniense, considered to be the first work to be printed in Scandinavia. In parallel Snell printed De obsidione et bello Rhodiano, an account of the Turkish siege of the island of Rhodes.[13][14]
After the Danish Reformation, involving the suppression of the Catholic bishopric in 1536, the city enjoyed a sustained period of prosperity from the 1530s to the mid-17th century, becoming northern Funen's commercial centre. One of the main sources of income was the sale of cattle, providing substantial funds for the construction of fine half-timbered houses for the local merchants. The local nobility also participated in the city's development by building residences where they spent the winter months. But the city's prosperity came to an abrupt end in the late 1650s heavy taxes were imposed after the end of the Swedish Wars. A period of stagnation ensued until the end of the 18th century.[9]
From the 16th century the town was the meeting-place of several parliaments, and until 1805 Odense was the seat of the provincial assembly of Funen. By 1700 Odense's population was about 4,000.
Odense is the see of the bishop of Funen. Saint Canute's Cathedral (Danish: Sankt Knuds Kirke) was formerly connected with the great Benedictine monastery of the same name, and is one of the largest and finest buildings of its kind in Denmark.[55][56] Originally dating from 1081–1093, the church was rebuilt in the 13th century in brick in a pure Gothic style. Under the altar lies Canute (Danish: Knud), the patron saint of Denmark and his brother on public display. A large fragment of Byzantine cloth is displayed next to the two skeletons. The cathedral also boasts one of Denmark's most remarkable altarpieces, a magnificent triptych by Claus Berg. Kings John (Danish: Hans) and Christian II are buried in the city.[57]
St Alban's Church, built in the Neogothic style and consecrated in 1908, is the Roman Catholic church of Odense. Its steeple is 54 m (177 ft) high.[58] St Mary's Church (Vor Frue Kirke or Our Lady's Church), built in the 13th century and restored in 1851–1852 and again in 1864, contains a carved 16th-century altarpiece by Claus Berg of Lübeck.[59] St John's Church (Sankt Hans Kirke), first mentioned in 1295, was built by the Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Order of Saint John. Not much of the original building remains as it was rebuilt in 1636 and subsequently restored. Built of red brick with horizontal decorations on the chancel wall, it has large Gothic windows. The date of 1496 on one of the bells in the step-ribbed tower may well be the year the church was completed. The tower is adjacent to Odense Palace which was originally built as a monastery.[60]
Ansgars Church was the first church to be built in Odense since the Middle Ages. Completed in 1902, it was designed by Niels Jacobsen in the late Romanesque style in red brick on granite foundations. The cross-shaped interior is complemented by a spired bell-tower, 45 m (148 ft) high.[61] The Peace Church (Fredenskirke) consecrated in 1920 was so named in gratitude for the end of the First World War. The church was the work of Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint who went on to design Copenhagen's Grundtvig's Church.
Just to be safe, call the wife honey, or dear, so she doesn't realize you're talking about the barrelback, or your baby blue Nomad.
1:64 Johnny Lightning:
Vintage Barrelback
Wood Boat
Hulls and Haulers Release 1A
1:64 Greenlight Collectibles:
1955 Chevrolet Nomad
Hitch and Tow Series 16
Vintage Service Station
Greenlight Mechanic's Corner Series 3
Standard Oil
W. Third & Clayton Street
Home Town USA
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II
Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R
Kenichi Matsumoto: "Last night, I have a new picture on the D&GRN R.R. with the rescue train which I just have finished.
The 2 MW freight cars in the consist are "rail car" and "truck car" are from
the kit of wood and metal by Southern Tool& Manufacturing Co. , once
exisisted in Elon College, N.C.- maybe products in 1950s. I bought these
kits at $7.00 each when I attended the Narrow Gauge Convention of this year
in Pasadena, CA .
The heavy crane is a brass model by Tenshodo in 1950s. The frame of the
car used many hand cut parts from thick brass sheet. They were made
by the prisoner in Chiba Prison as their rehabilitation program. At that
time, they were called "Chiba Workshop" in the Tenshodo office. They also
made the heavy depressed flat car with 6 axles.
The crane tender is Varney's plastic products.
The C&S 2-10-2 is the Challenger Imports-BooRim products and the caboose of
the same road was by the OMI.
Making train consist has a lot of fun for me.
The oldest by far to hit Normandy on D-Day, and most likely the only one to start off with a limp and a cane, the legend has got some ground to make up, in a hurry, after his Higgins Boat landed a mile off course.
“We’ll start the war from right here!”
- Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
1:64 GreenLight Collectibles:
1942 Willys MB Jeep
#20362162-S
Battalion 64 Series 2
#1stPixUSMil
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III
Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R
www.legion.org/honor/249166/theodore-roosevelt-jr-%E2%80%...
Bird’s Eye View of Saint Boniface, Manitoba [map]. Scale not given. J.J. Stoner, Madison, Wis. Beck & Pauli Lith. Milwaukee, Wis., 1880.
This remarkable image of St. Boniface was made in late 1879 by American cartographer Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler (1842-1922). Over the course of a 54-year career, Fowler made hundreds of such “bird’s eye” maps throughout the northeastern US states. During a visit to Manitoba, he also made maps of Emerson and Morris, as well as Winnipeg across the Red River. When his Winnipeg map went on sale in February 1880 (at a cost of 50 cents a copy), the Manitoba Free Press noted that “a good deal of labor has been expanded in producing it, and the details are very correct, every building and street being properly located and recognizable.” Fowler was employed by J.J. Stoner of Madison, Wisconsin who, in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, specialized in making city panoramas. These views were typically a combination map and aerial image, sketched from about 2,000 feet aloft in a hot air balloon. Whether Fowler used a balloon to draw his Manitoba maps is unknown; he may have simply extrapolated from ground maps.(Laliberte, Larry. 2008. “Picture the Map: An Online Cartographic Collection of Manitoba History Using Flickr.” Manitoba History, no. 57, February, p. 29-32.)
Image Courtesy of Gordon Goldsborough
Related Information:
1950s photographic Bird's Eye View looking south east.
www.flickr.com/photos/paul_balcaen/2792629/sizes/l/in/set...
To zoom and pan click here: