First full day of our Smoky Mountains photo adventure.

Tuckaleechee Caverns Townsend, Tennessee

Monday, August 19th, 2019

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A view from the ambulatory toward the south transept and the south nave aisle, Saint Gatien Cathedral in Tours.

HDR

Chettinad houses are distinct in architectural style and character.It is intimately connected with family rituals.Big pials,courtyards, long halls corridors etc serve many purposes, All family functions and festivals, marriages are held here.The houses are constructed in such a way to suit hot climatic conditions of this region. Thick big walls , use of lime mortar,wooden ceilings, terracotta tiles make the houses very cool. Rain water harvestings are done wonderfully.Great use of Burma teak, Belgium glass, Athankudi hand made tiles, marble work,ceramic tiles, artistic wood work etc make houses very attractive Very spacious raised platform pial (திண்ணை), central courtyard முற்றம்). and big reception halls are very common here.I have seen beautiful image of goddess Lakshmi in the front of many houses

A lovely Scottish home with beautiful patio view of Bla Bhein on the road near Loch Slapin north from Elgol.

design, décor, interior, Sweden, apartment, loft, cozy, bathroom See more at www.ideasandhomes.com

Spacious interior of a class JS locomotive cab. Air brake nearest the driver, independent air brake (for engine and tender only - see StD's comment below) ahead of that. Under the driver's forearm is the handle, with ratchet, for the air-operated reverser; the loco is in back gear. By the driver's feet are two floor buttons, one for the air horn, one for the chime whistle.

The pull-up handle by the driver's seat is for the left-hand injector, the shiny rod on the right the lever for opening the 'butterfly' firehole doors - however, the doors are normally operated by air via a button on the cab floor. Above the latter is a kettle. Spare shovel hung on the firebox backhead.

The cab window has a canopy outside so that in rain and snow you can stick your head out (especially when going backwards) without getting wet. Most of these engines had a car wing mirror screwed to the windowsill - handy given half of all movements are in back gear. The rear of the cab extends into the front of the tender - in which there is a bed of sorts; presumably for use during any prolonged periods of inactivity.

Sandaoling open-cast mine, Xinjiang province, China.

Chettinad - Mansions

Chettinad is rich in cultural heritage, art and architecture, and is well known for its houses, embellished with marble and Burma teak, wide courtyards, spacious rooms,

In the heart of Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India, there exists a semi-arid area of about 1,550 sq Km that is known as the Chettinad region. It is currently occupied by about 110,000 Chettiars spread out over two towns and 73 villages.

The unique architectural design of these Chettinad houses is what sets them apart. They were usually built on palatial scales to show off the richness of the owner and consisted of a series of central courtyards. The materials and expertise to build these palatial homes were brought from all over the world and created an eye-catching glorious mix of the east and west. The elaborately carved front door usually opened onto a central courtyard, which progressively opened into more courtyards that finally ended on the backdoor; so standing at the front door, you could actually visualize the backdoor through these series of diminishing courtyards. The courtyards were surrounded by verandahs on all sides that opened out into cool spacious rooms and occupied by a large extended family; usually, there were at least three generations existing under one roof at any given time!

These large airy courtyards were used as socializing points for festivals, weddings, births or funeral get-together occasions. The courtyards were supported by intricately carved pillars usually made of Burmese teak and were a sight to behold. They also had a wonderful way of painting their walls with a mix of egg white, shell powder and limestone that lent a unique shimmering finish to the walls that can even be seen today after more than a century. It also helped in keeping the house cool, aside from the design of the house itself contributing to a comfortable temperature within its interiors.

2702 Golf Dr, York, PA has just been listed by John Linton! Room for everyone! 4/5 bedroom or In-law suite. Bonus workshop(27.5 x 18.8) for the craftsman in the family. Large lot, spacious room sizes and finished lower level. Enjoy summer evenings on the deck with a view of the first green. Photographed by Lindsey Steiner for Real Estate Exposures realestateexposures.com/ realestateexposures.com/ www.facebook.com/realestateexposures/photos/a.12909603742...

This tiny cabin design makes the perfect mountain getaway or rental property. The floor plan is a simple, open layout with a cathedral ceiling to enhance visual space and a wrap-around porch to enjoy nature. A double-sided fireplace is a treat for the great room and master bedroom. The kitchen island provides a cooktop and bar seating for mealtime. Additional amenities include a storage closet, a linen closet, a washer/dryer nook, and a bathroom with a spacious walk-in shower and overhead skylight. *Photographed home may have been modified from the original construction documents.* www.dongardner.com/house-plan/1601/the-dwight

Non hdr & no polarizer used on this. Just some minor adjustments in Photoshop Elements 6. I'm loving my new Tokina 11-16 2.8 lens.

Sibiu, Romania

Indoor challenges in the houses of the future - spacious or cramped - and desert outside

Climbing into a Scammell Contractor makes a nice change - easy to access and plenty of room once you are there! Scammell Contractor KAX395P

One of the longest running Citroen products and replacement for the legendary DS, the Citroen CX was a worthy continuation of the groundbreaking developments that made its predecessor such a household name, and was able to mix a spacious interior with incredible comfort and all the panache and style you'd expect from a French family car.

The car was designed and styled by Robert Opron, and took on many external features from the previous DS, including a long sweeping body and smooth curved back. Internally the car updated the many endearing features of the original, with unique hydro-pneumatic integral self-leveling suspension, speed-adjustable DIRAVI power steering (first introduced on the Citroën SM), and a uniquely effective interior design that did away with steering column stalks, allowing the driver to reach all controls while both hands remained on the steering wheel.

The car was powered by a range of 2.0L to 2.5L Inline-4 Citroen engines, producing power outputs between 102hp and 141hp, whilst there was also a 180hp edition featuring SM Injection Electronique.

The car was rushed to launch in 1974, sadly resulting in many teething troubles such as a lack of power-steering, making the car very difficult to drive as 70% of its weight is carried over the front wheels. Originally, the CX was developed as a rotary-engined car, with several negative consequences. The CX engine bay is small because rotary engines are compact, but the Comotor three-rotor rotary engine was not economical and the entire rotary project was scrapped the year the CX was introduced. The firm went bankrupt in 1974, partly due a series of investments like Comotor that didn't result in profitable products.

Throughout its production life however, the company continued adding developments to the car, including a 128hp GTi edition in 1977, rustproofing and fully automatic transmission in 1981, and a new 2.5L Turbo-Diesel engine in 1984.

Although the car garnered a reputation for poor reliability at first, it was soon lauded as one of the best Citroens ever built, and a credible replacement for the legendary DS. By the late 1980's however the car's 15 year old design was now in deep water, and competition such as Audi's and Mercedes of the time were starting to damage the sales. As such, in May 1989, the replacement car, the Citroen XM, was launched, but suffered from poor reliability issues due to the electronic hydropneumatic suspension. As such, the CX Estate version remained in production until 1991 when both problems with the XM were rectified, and a later developed XM Break was released.

In total, 1.2 million of these cars were produced, and are widely considered to be the last great Citroen cars before Peugeot took control in 1976. However, many people forget this car as well as the XM that replaced it, most feeling a strong affection towards the original DS of the 1950's. The car did however make a comeback on Top Gear, as Jeremy Clarkson converted a CX into a gigantic block of flats that doubled as a Motorhome, only to be blown over in the wind and eventually be pushed off a cliff!

Stay in style to experience a spacious, luxurious with a blend of modern and stylish furniture of the Deluxe room at the Hotel de la Paix in Geneva Switzerland. Deluxe rooms have a view on the Geneva Lake and are well equipped : Room size are From 35 to 45 square metres (from 377 to 484 square feet)

The Ajanta Caves (Ajiṇṭhā leni; Marathi: अजिंठा लेणी) in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE. The caves include paintings and sculptures described by the government Archaeological Survey of India as "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting", which are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, with figures of the Buddha and depictions of the Jataka tales. The caves were built in two phases starting around the 2nd century BCE, with the second group of caves built around 400–650 CE according to older accounts, or all in a brief period of 460 to 480 according to the recent proposals of Walter M. Spink. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The caves are located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, near Jalgaon and just outside the village of Ajinṭhā 20°31′56″N 75°44′44″E), about 59 kilometres from Jalgaon railway station on the Delhi – Mumbai line and Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai line of the Central Railway zone, and 104 kilometres from the city of Aurangabad. They are 100 kilometres from the Ellora Caves, which contain Hindu and Jain temples as well as Buddhist caves, the last dating from a period similar to Ajanta. The Ajanta caves are cut into the side of a cliff that is on the south side of a U-shaped gorge on the small river Waghur, and although they are now along and above a modern pathway running across the cliff they were originally reached by individual stairs or ladders from the side of the river 35 to 110 feet below.

The area was previously heavily forested, and after the site ceased to be used the caves were covered by jungle until accidentally rediscovered in 1819 by a British officer on a hunting party. They are Buddhist monastic buildings, apparently representing a number of distinct "monasteries" or colleges. The caves are numbered 1 to 28 according to their place along the path, beginning at the entrance. Several are unfinished and some barely begun and others are small shrines, included in the traditional numbering as e.g. "9A"; "Cave 15A" was still hidden under rubble when the numbering was done. Further round the gorge are a number of waterfalls, which when the river is high are audible from outside the caves.

The caves form the largest corpus of early Indian wall-painting; other survivals from the area of modern India are very few, though they are related to 5th-century paintings at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. The elaborate architectural carving in many caves is also very rare, and the style of the many figure sculptures is highly local, found only at a few nearby contemporary sites, although the Ajanta tradition can be related to the later Hindu Ellora Caves and other sites.

HISTORY

Like the other ancient Buddhist monasteries, Ajanta had a large emphasis on teaching, and was divided into several different caves for living, education and worship, under a central direction. Monks were probably assigned to specific caves for living. The layout reflects this organizational structure, with most of the caves only connected through the exterior. The 7th-century travelling Chinese scholar Xuanzang informs us that Dignaga, a celebrated Buddhist philosopher and controversialist, author of well-known books on logic, lived at Ajanta in the 5th century. In its prime the settlement would have accommodated several hundred teachers and pupils. Many monks who had finished their first training may have returned to Ajanta during the monsoon season from an itinerant lifestyle.

The caves are generally agreed to have been made in two distinct periods, separated by several centuries.

CAVES OF THE FIRST (SATAVAHANA) PERIOD

The earliest group of caves consists of caves 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15A. According to Walter Spink, they were made during the period 100 BCE to 100 CE, probably under the patronage of the Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE – c. 220 CE) who ruled the region. Other datings prefer the period 300 BCE to 100 BCE, though the grouping of the earlier caves is generally agreed. More early caves may have vanished through later excavations. Of these, caves 9 and 10 are stupa halls of chaitya-griha form, and caves 12, 13, and 15A are vihāras (see the architecture section below for descriptions of these types). The first phase is still often called the Hinayāna phase, as it originated when, using traditional terminology, the Hinayāna or Lesser Vehicle tradition of Buddhism was dominant, when the Buddha was revered symbolically. However the use of the term Hinayana for this period of Buddhism is now deprecated by historians; equally the caves of the second period are now mostly dated too early to be properly called Mahayana, and do not yet show the full expanded cast of supernatural beings characteristic of that phase of Buddhist art. The first Satavahana period caves lacked figurative sculpture, emphasizing the stupa instead, and in the caves of the second period the overwhelming majority of images represent the Buddha alone, or narrative scenes of his lives.

Spink believes that some time after the Satavahana period caves were made the site was abandoned for a considerable period until the mid-5th century, probably because the region had turned mainly Hindu

CAVES OF THE LATER OR VAKATAKA PERIOD

The second phase began in the 5th century. For a long time it was thought that the later caves were made over a long period from the 4th to the 7th centuries CE, but in recent decades a series of studies by the leading expert on the caves, Walter M. Spink, have argued that most of the work took place over the very brief period from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty. This view has been criticized by some scholars, but is now broadly accepted by most authors of general books on Indian art, for example Huntington and Harle.

The second phase is still often called the Mahāyāna or Greater Vehicle phase, but scholars now tend to avoid this nomenclature because of the problems that have surfaced regarding our understanding of Mahāyāna.

Some 20 cave temples were simultaneously created, for the most part viharas with a sanctuary at the back. The most elaborate caves were produced in this period, which included some "modernization" of earlier caves. Spink claims that it is possible to establish dating for this period with a very high level of precision; a fuller account of his chronology is given below. Although debate continues, Spink's ideas are increasingly widely accepted, at least in their broad conclusions. The Archaeological Survey of India website still presents the traditional dating: "The second phase of paintings started around 5th – 6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries". Caves of the second period are 1–8, 11, 14–29, some possibly extensions of earlier caves. Caves 19, 26, and 29 are chaitya-grihas, the rest viharas.

According to Spink, the Ajanta Caves appear to have been abandoned by wealthy patrons shortly after the fall of Harishena, in about 480 CE. They were then gradually abandoned and forgotten. During the intervening centuries, the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed, although the local population were aware of at least some of them.

REDISCOVERY

On 28 April 1819, a British officer for the Madras Presidency, John Smith, of the 28th Cavalry, while hunting tiger, accidentally discovered the entrance to Cave No. 10 deep within the tangled undergrowth. There were local people already using the caves for prayers with a small fire, when he arrived. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other larger animals, Captain Smith vandalized the wall by scratching his name and the date, April 1819. Since he stood on a five-foot high pile of rubble collected over the years, the inscription is well above the eye-level gaze of an adult today. A paper on the caves by William Erskine was read to the Bombay Literary Society in 1822. Within a few decades, the caves became famous for their exotic setting, impressive architecture, and above all their exceptional, all but unique paintings. A number of large projects to copy the paintings were made in the century after rediscovery, covered below. In 1848 the Royal Asiatic Society established the "Bombay Cave Temple Commission" to clear, tidy and record the most important rock-cut sites in the Bombay Presidency, with John Wilson, as president. In 1861 this became the nucleus of the new Archaeological Survey of India. Until the Nizam of Hyderabad built the modern path between the caves, among other efforts to make the site easy to visit, a trip to Ajanta was a considerable adventure, and contemporary accounts dwell with relish on the dangers from falls off narrow ledges, animals and the Bhil people, who were armed with bows and arrows and had a fearsome reputation.

Today, fairly easily combined with Ellora in a single trip, the caves are the most popular tourist destination in Mahrashtra, and are often crowded at holiday times, increasing the threat to the caves, especially the paintings. In 2012, the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation announced plans to add to the ASI visitor centre at the entrance complete replicas of caves 1, 2, 16 & 17 to reduce crowding in the originals, and enable visitors to receive a better visual idea of the paintings, which are dimly-lit and hard to read in the caves. Figures for the year to March 2010 showed a total of 390,000 visitors to the site, divided into 362,000 domestic and 27,000 foreign. The trends over the previous few years show a considerable growth in domestic visitors, but a decline in foreign ones; the year to 2010 was the first in which foreign visitors to Ellora exceeded those to Ajanta.

PAINTINGS

Mural paintings survive from both the earlier and later groups of caves. Several fragments of murals preserved from the earlier caves (Caves 9 and 11) are effectively unique survivals of court-led painting in India from this period, and "show that by Sātavāhana times, if not earlier, the Indian painter had mastered an easy and fluent naturalistic style, dealing with large groups of people in a manner comparable to the reliefs of the Sāñcī toraņa crossbars".

Four of the later caves have large and relatively well-preserved mural paintings which "have come to represent Indian mural painting to the non-specialist", and fall into two stylistic groups, with the most famous in Caves 16 and 17, and apparently later paintings in Caves 1 and 2. The latter group were thought to be a century or more later than the others, but the revised chronology proposed by Spink would place them much closer to the earlier group, perhaps contemporary with it in a more progressive style, or one reflecting a team from a different region. The paintings are in "dry fresco", painted on top of a dry plaster surface rather than into wet plaster.

All the paintings appear to be the work of painters at least as used to decorating palaces as temples, and show a familiarity with and interest in details of the life of a wealthy court. We know from literary sources that painting was widely practised and appreciated in the courts of the Gupta period. Unlike much Indian painting, compositions are not laid out in horizontal compartments like a frieze, but show large scenes spreading in all directions from a single figure or group at the centre. The ceilings are also painted with sophisticated and elaborate decorative motifs, many derived from sculpture. The paintings in cave 1, which according to Spink was commissioned by Harisena himself, concentrate on those Jataka tales which show previous lives of the Buddha as a king, rather than as an animal or human commoner, and so show settings from contemporary palace life.

In general the later caves seem to have been painted on finished areas as excavating work continued elsewhere in the cave, as shown in caves 2 and 16 in particular. According to Spink's account of the chronology of the caves, the abandonment of work in 478 after a brief busy period accounts for the absence of painting in caves such as 4 and 17, the later being plastered in preparation for paintings that were never done.

COPIES

The paintings have deteriorated significantly since they were rediscovered, and a number of 19th-century copies and drawings are important for a complete understanding of the works. However, the earliest projects to copy the paintings were plagued by bad fortune. In 1846, Major Robert Gill, an Army officer from Madras presidency and a painter, was appointed by the Royal Asiatic Society to replicate the frescoes on the cave walls to exhibit these paintings in England. Gill worked on his painting at the site from 1844 to 1863 (though he continued to be based there until his death in 1875, writing books and photographing) and made 27 copies of large sections of murals, but all but four were destroyed in a fire at the Crystal Palace in London in 1866, where they were on display.

Another attempt was made in 1872 when the Bombay Presidency commissioned John Griffiths, then principal of the Bombay School of Art, to work with his students to make new copies, again for shipping to England. They worked on this for thirteen years and some 300 canvases were produced, many of which were displayed at the Imperial Institute on Exhibition Road in London, one of the forerunners of the Victoria and Albert Museum. But in 1885 another fire destroyed over a hundred paintings that were in storage. The V&A still has 166 paintings surviving from both sets, though none have been on permanent display since 1955. The largest are some 3 × 6 metres. A conservation project was undertaken on about half of them in 2006, also involving the University of Northumbria. Griffith and his students had unfortunately painted many of the paintings with "cheap varnish" in order to make them easier to see, which has added to the deterioration of the originals, as has, according to Spink and others, recent cleaning by the ASI.

A further set of copies were made between 1909 and 1911 by Christiana Herringham (Lady Herringham) and a group of students from the Calcutta School of Art that included the future Indian Modernist painter Nandalal Bose. The copies were published in full colour as the first publication of London's fledgling India Society. More than the earlier copies, these aimed to fill in holes and damage to recreate the original condition rather than record the state of the paintings as she was seeing them. According to one writer, unlike the paintings created by her predecessors Griffiths and Gill, whose copies were influenced by British Victorian styles of painting, those of the Herringham expedition preferred an 'Indian Renascence' aesthetic of the type pioneered by Abanindranath Tagore.

Early photographic surveys were made by Robert Gill, who learnt to use a camera from about 1856, and whose photos, including some using stereoscopy, were used in books by him and Fergusson (many are available online from the British Library), then Victor Goloubew in 1911 and E.L. Vassey, who took the photos in the four volume study of the caves by Ghulam Yazdani (published 1930–1955).

ARCHITECTURE

The monasteries mostly consist of vihara halls for prayer and living, which are typically rectangular with small square dormitory cells cut into the walls, and by the second period a shrine or sanctuary at the rear centred on a large statue of the Buddha, also carved from the living rock. This change reflects the movement from Hinayana to Mahāyāna Buddhism. The other type of main hall is the narrower and higher chaitya hall with a stupa as the focus at the far end, and a narrow aisle around the walls, behind a range of pillars placed close together. Other plainer rooms were for sleeping and other activities. Some of the caves have elaborate carved entrances, some with large windows over the door to admit light. There is often a colonnaded porch or verandah, with another space inside the doors running the width of the cave.

The central square space of the interior of the viharas is defined by square columns forming a more or less square open area. Outside this are long rectangular aisles on each side, forming a kind of cloister. Along the side and rear walls are a number of small cells entered by a narrow doorway; these are roughly square, and have small niches on their back walls. Originally they had wooden doors. The centre of the rear wall has a larger shrine-room behind, containing a large Buddha statue. The viharas of the earlier period are much simpler, and lack shrines. Spink in fact places the change to a design with a shrine to the middle of the second period, with many caves being adapted to add a shrine in mid-excavation, or after the original phase.

The plan of Cave 1 shows one of the largest viharas, but is fairly typical of the later group. Many others, such as Cave 16, lack the vestibule to the shrine, which leads straight off the main hall. Cave 6 is two viharas, one above the other, connected by internal stairs, with sanctuaries on both levels.

The four completed chaitya halls are caves 9 and 10 from the early period, and caves 19 and 26 from the later period of construction. All follow the typical form found elsewhere, with high ceilings and a central "nave" leading to the stupa, which is near the back, but allows walking behind it, as walking around stupas was (and remains) a common element of Buddhist worship (pradakshina). The later two have high ribbed roofs, which reflect timber forms, and the earlier two are thought to have used actual timber ribs, which have now perished. The two later halls have a rather unusual arrangement (also found in Cave 10 at Ellora) where the stupa is fronted by a large relief sculpture of the Buddha, standing in Cave 19 and seated in Cave 26. Cave 29 is a late and very incomplete chaitya hall.

The form of columns in the work of the first period is very plain and un-embellished, with both chaitya halls using simple octagonal columns, which were painted with figures. In the second period columns were far more varied and inventive, often changing profile over their height, and with elaborate carved capitals, often spreading wide. Many columns are carved over all their surface, some fluted and others carved with decoration all over, as in cave 1.

The flood basalt rock of the cliff, part of the Deccan Traps formed by successive volcanic eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous, is layered horizontally, and somewhat variable in quality, so the excavators had to amend their plans in places, and in places there have been collapses in the intervening centuries, as with the lost portico to cave 1. Excavation began by cutting a narrow tunnel at roof level, which was expanded downwards and outwards; the half-built vihara cave 24 shows the method. Spink believes that for the first caves of the second period the excavators had to relearn skills and techniques that had been lost in the centuries since the first period, which were then transmitted to be used at later rock-cut sites in the region, such as Ellora, and the Elephanta, Bagh, Badami and Aurangabad Caves.

The caves from the first period seem to have been paid for by a number of different patrons, with several inscriptions recording the donation of particular portions of a single cave, but according to Spink the later caves were each commissioned as a complete unit by a single patron from the local rulers or their court elites. After the death of Harisena smaller donors got their chance to add small "shrinelets" between the caves or add statues to existing caves, and some two hundred of these "intrusive" additions were made in sculpture, with a further number of intrusive paintings, up to three hundred in cave 10 alone.

A grand gateway to the site, at the apex of the gorge's horsehoe between caves 15 and 16, was approached from the river, and is decorated with elephants on either side and a nāga, or protective snake deity.

ICONOGRAPHY OF THE CAVES

In the pre-Christian era, the Buddha was represented symbolically, in the form of the stupa. Thus, halls were made with stupas to venerate the Buddha. In later periods the images of the Buddha started to be made in coins, relic caskets, relief or loose sculptural forms, etc. However, it took a while for the human representation of the Buddha to appear in Buddhist art. One of the earliest evidences of the Buddha's human representations are found at Buddhist archaeological sites, such as Goli, Nagarjunakonda, and Amaravati. The monasteries of those sites were built in less durable media, such as wood, brick, and stone. As far as the genre of rock-cut architecture is concerned it took many centuries for the Buddha image to be depicted. Nobody knows for sure at which rock-cut cave site the first image of the Buddha was depicted. Current research indicates that Buddha images in a portable form, made of wood or stone, were introduced, for the first time, at Kanheri, to be followed soon at Ajanta Cave 8 (Dhavalikar, Jadhav, Spink, Singh). While the Kanheri example dates to 4th or 5th century CE, the Ajanta example has been dated to c. 462–478 CE (Spink). None of the rock-cut monasteries prior to these dates, and other than these examples, show any Buddha image although hundreds of rock-cut caves were made throughout India during the first few centuries CE. And, in those caves, it is the stupa that is the object of veneration, not the image. Images of the Buddha are not found in Buddhist sailagrhas (rock-cut complexes) until the times of the Kanheri (4th–5th century CE) and Ajanta examples (c. 462–478 CE).

The caves of the second period, now all dated to the 5th century, were typically described as "Mahayana", but do not show the features associated with later Mahayana Buddhism. Although the beginnings of Mahāyāna teachings go back to the 1st century there is little art and archaeological evidence to suggest that it became a mainstream cult for several centuries. In Mahayana it is not Gautama Buddha but the Bodhisattva who is important, including "deity" Bodhisattva like Manjushri and Tara, as well as aspects of the Buddha such as Aksobhya, and Amitabha. Except for a few Bodhisattva, these are not depicted at Ajanta, where the Buddha remains the dominant figure. Even the Bodhisattva images of Ajanta are never central objects of worship, but are always shown as attendants of the Buddha in the shrine. If a Bodhisattva is shown in isolation, as in the Astabhaya scenes, these were done in the very last years of activities at Ajanta, and are mostly 'intrusive' in nature, meaning that they were not planned by the original patrons, and were added by new donors after the original patrons had suddenly abandoned the region in the wake of Emperor Harisena's death.

The contrast between iconic and aniconic representations, that is, the stupa on one hand and the image of the Buddha on the other, is now being seen as a construct of the modern scholar rather than a reality of the past. The second phase of Ajanta shows that the stupa and image coincided together. If the entire corpus of the art of Ajanta including sculpture, iconography, architecture, epigraphy, and painting are analysed afresh it will become clear that there was no duality between the symbolic and human forms of the Buddha, as far as the 5th-century phase of Ajanta is concerned. That is why most current scholars tend to avoid the terms 'Hinayana' and 'Mahayana' in the context of Ajanta. They now prefer to call the second phase by the ruling dynasty, as the Vākāţaka phase.

CAVES

CAVE 1

Cave 1 was built on the eastern end of the horse-shoe shaped scarp, and is now the first cave the visitor encounters. This would when first made have been a less prominent position, right at the end of the row. According to Spink, it is one of the latest caves to have been excavated, when the best sites had been taken, and was never fully inaugurated for worship by the dedication of the Buddha image in the central shrine. This is shown by the absence of sooty deposits from butter lamps on the base of the shrine image, and the lack of damage to the paintings that would have been happened if the garland-hooks around the shrine had been in use for any period of time. Although there is no epigraphic evidence, Spink believes that the Vākāţaka Emperor Harishena was the benefactor of the work, and this is reflected in the emphasis on imagery of royalty in the cave, with those Jakata tales being selected that tell of those previous lives of the Buddha in which he was royal.

The cliff has a more steep slope here than at other caves, so to achieve a tall grand facade it was necessary to cut far back into the slope, giving a large courtyard in front of the facade. There was originally a columned portico in front of the present facade, which can be seen "half-intact in the 1880s" in pictures of the site, but this fell down completely and the remains, despite containing fine carving, were carelessly thrown down the slope into the river, from where they have been lost, presumably carried away in monsoon torrents.

This cave has one of the most elaborate carved façades, with relief sculptures on entablature and ridges, and most surfaces embellished with decorative carving. There are scenes carved from the life of the Buddha as well as a number of decorative motifs. A two pillared portico, visible in the 19th-century photographs, has since perished. The cave has a front-court with cells fronted by pillared vestibules on either side. These have a high plinth level. The cave has a porch with simple cells on both ends. The absence of pillared vestibules on the ends suggest that the porch was not excavated in the latest phase of Ajanta when pillared vestibules had become a necessity and norm. Most areas of the porch were once covered with murals, of which many fragments remain, especially on the ceiling. There are three doorways: a central doorway and two side doorways. Two square windows were carved between the doorways to brighten the interiors.

Each wall of the hall inside is nearly 12 m long and 6.1 m high. Twelve pillars make a square colonnade inside supporting the ceiling, and creating spacious aisles along the walls. There is a shrine carved on the rear wall to house an impressive seated image of the Buddha, his hands being in the dharmachakrapravartana mudra. There are four cells on each of the left, rear, and the right walls, though due to rock fault there are none at the ends of the rear aisle. The walls are covered with paintings in a fair state of preservation, though the full scheme was never completed. The scenes depicted are mostly didactic, devotional, and ornamental, with scenes from the Jataka stories of the Buddha's former existences as a bodhisattva), the life of the Gautama Buddha, and those of his veneration. The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-life size figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle (see illustrations above). According to Spink, the original dating of the paintings to about 625 arose largely or entirely because James Fegusson, a 19th-century architectural historian, had decided that a scene showing an ambassador being received, with figures in Persian dress, represented a recorded embassy to Persia (from a Hindu monarch at that) around that date.

CAVE 2

Cave 2, adjacent to Cave 1, is known for the paintings that have been preserved on its walls, ceilings, and pillars. It looks similar to Cave 1 and is in a better state of preservation.

Cave 2 has a porch quite different from Cave one. Even the façade carvings seem to be different. The cave is supported by robust pillars, ornamented with designs. The front porch consists of cells supported by pillared vestibules on both ends. The cells on the previously "wasted areas" were needed to meet the greater housing requirements in later years. Porch-end cells became a trend in all later Vakataka excavations. The simple single cells on porch-ends were converted into CPVs or were planned to provide more room, symmetry, and beauty.

The paintings on the ceilings and walls of this porch have been widely published. They depict the Jataka tales that are stories of the Buddha's life in former existences as Bodhisattva. Just as the stories illustrated in cave 1 emphasize kingship, those in cave 2 show many "noble and powerful" women in prominent roles, leading to suggestions that the patron was an unknown woman. The porch's rear wall has a doorway in the center, which allows entrance to the hall. On either side of the door is a square-shaped window to brighten the interior.

The hall has four colonnades which are supporting the ceiling and surrounding a square in the center of the hall. Each arm or colonnade of the square is parallel to the respective walls of the hall, making an aisle in between. The colonnades have rock-beams above and below them. The capitals are carved and painted with various decorative themes that include ornamental, human, animal, vegetative, and semi-divine forms.

Paintings appear on almost every surface of the cave except for the floor. At various places the art work has become eroded due to decay and human interference. Therefore, many areas of the painted walls, ceilings, and pillars are fragmentary. The painted narratives of the Jataka tales are depicted only on the walls, which demanded the special attention of the devotee. They are didactic in nature, meant to inform the community about the Buddha's teachings and life through successive rebirths. Their placement on the walls required the devotee to walk through the aisles and 'read' the narratives depicted in various episodes. The narrative episodes are depicted one after another although not in a linear order. Their identification has been a core area of research since the site's rediscovery in 1819. Dieter Schlingloff's identifications have updated our knowledge on the subject.

CAVE 4

The Archeological Survey of India board outside the caves gives the following detail about cave 4: "This is the largest monastery planned on a grandiose scale but was never finished. An inscription on the pedestal of the buddha's image mentions that it was a gift from a person named Mathura and paleographically belongs to 6th century A.D. It consists of a verandah, a hypostylar hall, sanctum with an antechamber and a series of unfinished cells. The rear wall of the verandah contains the panel of Litany of Avalokiteśvara".

The sanctuary houses a colossal image of the Buddha in preaching pose flanked by bodhisattvas and celestial nymphs hovering above.

CAVES 9-10

Caves 9 and 10 are the two chaitya halls from the first period of construction, though both were also undergoing an uncompleted reworking at the end of the second period. Cave 10 was perhaps originally of the 1st century BCE, and cave 9 about a hundred years later. The small "shrinelets" called caves 9A to 9D and 10A also date from the second period, and were commissioned by individuals.

The paintings in cave 10 include some surviving from the early period, many from an incomplete programme of modernization in the second period, and a very large number of smaller late intrusive images, nearly all Buddhas and many with donor inscriptions from individuals. These mostly avoided over-painting the "official" programme and after the best positions were used up are tucked away in less prominent positions not yet painted; the total of these (including those now lost) was probably over 300, and the hands of many different artists are visible.

OTHER CAVES

Cave 3 is merely a start of an excavation; according to Spink it was begun right at the end of the final period of work and soon abandoned. Caves 5 and 6 are viharas, the latter on two floors, that were late works of which only the lower floor of cave 6 was ever finished. The upper floor of cave 6 has many private votive sculptures, and a shrine Buddha, but is otherwise unfinished. Cave 7 has a grand facade with two porticos but, perhaps because of faults in the rock, which posed problems in many caves, was never taken very deep into the cliff, and consists only of the two porticos and a shrine room with antechamber, with no central hall. Some cells were fitted in.

Cave 8 was long thought to date to the first period of construction, but Spink sees it as perhaps the earliest cave from the second period, its shrine an "afterthought". The statue may have been loose rather than carved from the living rock, as it has now vanished. The cave was painted, but only traces remain.

SPINK´S DETAILED CHRONOLOGY

Walter M. Spink has over recent decades developed a very precise and circumstantial chronology for the second period of work on the site, which unlike earlier scholars, he places entirely in the 5th century. This is based on evidence such as the inscriptions and artistic style, combined with the many uncompleted elements of the caves. He believes the earlier group of caves, which like other scholars he dates only approximately, to the period "between 100 BCE – 100 CE", were at some later point completely abandoned and remained so "for over three centuries", as the local population had turned mainly Hindu. This changed with the accession of the Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka Dynasty, who reigned from 460 to his death in 477. Harisena extended the Central Indian Vakataka Empire to include a stretch of the east coast of India; the Gupta Empire ruled northern India at the same period, and the Pallava dynasty much of the south.

According to Spink, Harisena encouraged a group of associates, including his prime minister Varahadeva and Upendragupta, the sub-king in whose territory Ajanta was, to dig out new caves, which were individually commissioned, some containing inscriptions recording the donation. This activity began in 462 but was mostly suspended in 468 because of threats from the neighbouring Asmaka kings. Work continued on only caves 1, Harisena's own commission, and 17–20, commissioned by Upendragupta. In 472 the situation was such that work was suspended completely, in a period that Spink calls "the Hiatus", which lasted until about 475, by which time the Asmakas had replaced Upendragupta as the local rulers.

Work was then resumed, but again disrupted by Harisena's death in 477, soon after which major excavation ceased, except at cave 26, which the Asmakas were sponsoring themselves. The Asmakas launched a revolt against Harisena's son, which brought about the end of the Vakataka Dynasty. In the years 478–480 major excavation by important patrons was replaced by a rash of "intrusions" – statues added to existing caves, and small shrines dotted about where there was space between them. These were commissioned by less powerful individuals, some monks, who had not previously been able to make additions to the large excavations of the rulers and courtiers. They were added to the facades, the return sides of the entrances, and to walls inside the caves. According to Spink, "After 480, not a single image was ever made again at the site", and as Hinduism again dominated the region, the site was again abandoned, this time for over a millennium.

Spink does not use "circa" in his dates, but says that "one should allow a margin of error of one year or perhaps even two in all cases".

IMPACT ON MODERN INDIAN PAINTINGS

The Ajanta paintings, or more likely the general style they come from, influenced painting in Tibet and Sri Lanka.

The rediscovery of ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta provided Indian artists examples from ancient India to follow. Nandlal Bose experimented with techniques to follow the ancient style which allowed him to develop his unique style. Abanindranath Tagore also used the Ajanta paintings for inspiration.

WIKIPEDIA

Tatra 12 vintage car interior in the Museum of Transportation section at the National Technical Museum, Prague

The "The Gables" has a beautiful dining room with a spacious bay window and a smaller lancet window featuring Art Nouveau stained glass, and an elegant tiled fireplace. It was the first room used for a wedding breakfast when "The Gables" became a venue for hire. The stained glass in both the bay window and the side lancet window feature stylised Art Nouveau fruit hanging from elegantly draped branches and vines. Some look like oranges, some apples and others plums.

"The Gables" is a substantial villa that sits proudly on leafy Finch Street in the exclusive inner city suburb of East Malvern.

Built in 1902 for local property developer Lawrence Alfred Birchnell and his wife Annie, "The Gables" is considered to be one of the most prominent houses in the Gascoigne Estate. The house was designed by Melbourne architect firm Ussher and Kemp in what was the prevailing style of the time, Queen Anne, which is also known as Federation style (named so after Australian Federation in 1901). Ussher and Kemp were renowned for their beautiful and complex Queen Anne houses and they designed at least six other houses in Finch Street alone. "The Gables" remained a private residence for many years. When Lawrence Birchnell sold it, the house was converted into a rooming house. It remained so throughout the tumultuous 1920s until 1930 when it was sold again. The new owners converted "The Gables" into a reception hall for hire for private functions. The first wedding reception was a breakfast held in the formal dining room in 1930, followed by dancing to Melbourne’s first jukebox in the upstairs rooms. Notorious Melbourne gangster Joseph Theodore Leslie "Squizzy" Taylor was reputed to have thrown a twenty-first birthday party for his girlfriend of the day in the main ballroom (what had originally been the house's billiards room). "The Gables" became very famous for its grand birthday parties throughout the 1930s and 1940s. With its easy proximity to the Caulfield Race Course, "The Gables" ran an underground speakeasy and gambling room upstairs and sold beer from the back door during Melbourne’s restrictive era of alcohol not sold after six o'clock at night. Throughout its history, "The Gables" has been a Melbourne icon, celebrating generation after generation of Melbourne’s wedding receptions, parties and balls. Lovingly restored, the atmosphere and charm of "The Gables" have been retained for the future generations.

Grand in its proportions, "The Gables" is a sprawling villa that is built of red brick, but its main feature, as the name suggests, is its many ornamented gables. The front façade is dominated by six different sized gables, each supported by ornamental Art Nouveau influenced timber brackets. The front and side of the house is skirted by a wide verandah decorated with wooden balustrades and rounded fretwork. "The Gables" features two grand bay windows and three other large sets of windows along the front facade, all of which feature beautiful and delicate Art Nouveau stained glass of stylised flowers or fruit. Impressive Art Nouveau stained glass windows can also be found around the entrance, which features the quote made quite popular at the time by Australian soprano Nellie Melba "east, west, home's best." Art Nouveau stained glass can be found in all of the principal rooms of the house; both upstairs and down. “The Gables” also features distinctive chimneys and the classic Queen Anne high pitched gable roofs with decorative barge-boards, terra-cotta tiles and ornate capping.

As a result of Federation in 1901, it was not unusual to find Australian flora and fauna celebrated in architecture. This is true of "The Gables", which features intricate plaster work and leadlight throughout the mansion showing off Australian gum leaves and flowers. "The Gables" has fifteen beautifully renovated rooms, many of which are traditionally decorated, including beautiful chandeliers, ornate restored wood and tile fireplaces, leadlight windows, parquetry flooring, sixteen foot ceilings and a sweeping staircase. The drawing room still also features the original leadlight conservatory "The Gables" boasted when it was first built.

"The Gables", set on an acre of land, still retains many of the original trees, including the original hedge and two enormous cypress trees in the front. The garden was designed by William Guilfoyle, the master landscape architect of the Royal Botanical Gardens, and "The Gables" still retains much of it original structure. It features a rose-covered gazebo, a pond and fountain, as well as the tallest Norfolk Island pine in the area, which can be seen from some of the tallest skyscrapers in the Melbourne CBD.

Henry Hardie Kemp was born in Lancashire in 1859 and designed many other fine homes around Melbourne, particularly in Kew, including his own home “Held Lawn” (1913). He also designed the APA Building in Elizabeth Street in 1889 (demolished in 1980) and the Melbourne Assembly Hall on Collins Street between 1914 and 1915. He died in Melbourne in 1946.

Beverley Ussher was born in Melbourne in 1868 and designed homes and commercial buildings around Melbourne, as well as homes in the country. He designed "Milliara" (John Whiting house) in Toorak, in 1895 (since demolished) and "Blackwood Homestead" in Western Australia. He died in 1908.

Beverley Ussher and Henry Kemp formed a partnership in 1899, which lasted until Beverley's death in 1908. Their last building design together was the Professional Chambers building in Collins Street in 1908. Both men had strong Arts and Crafts commitments, and both had been in partnerships before forming their own. The practice specialised in domestic work and their houses epitomize the Marseilles-tiled Queen Anne Federation style houses characteristic of Melbourne, and considered now to be a truly distinctive Australian genre. Their designs use red bricks, terracotta tiles and casement windows, avoid applied ornamentation and develop substantial timber details. The picturesque character of the houses results from a conscious attempt to express externally with gables, dormers, bays, roof axes, and chimneys, the functional variety of rooms within. The iconic Federation houses by Beverley Ussher and Henry Kemp did not appear until 1892-4. Then, several of those appeared in Malvern, Canterbury and Kew.

Queen Anne style was mostly a residential style inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement in England, but also encompassed some of the more stylised elements of Art Nouveau, which gave it an more decorative look. Queen Anne style was most popular around the time of Federation. With complex roofline structures and undulating facades, many Queen Anne houses fell out of fashion at the beginning of the modern era, and were demolished.

The Pigeon Warehouse site was pretty big with lots of large, open, empty sheds to explore

(Extract from Macedon Ranges cultural heritage and landscape study. 4 v. 1994.).

.

Henry Suetonius Officer reputedly aquired the Duneira site from

1872-1877 (Blocks 4,5,10,11,14) paying some £84 for 38 acres but

rate listings give Robert Officer as the owner. .

.

Suetonius Henry Officer (1830-1883).

Officer was born in Hullgreen, New Norfolk, Tasmania 1830, the

son of Sir Robert & Lady Officer. He was educated in Edinburgh

with his brother, Charles, and returned to the colonies, seeking

gold in Victoria but eventually settling for pastoralism in

company with his brothers and Charles Miles{ ibid.}. They managed

stations in the Wimmera and the Riverina, James marrying in 1866

and commencing construction of a 20 room homestead at Murray

Downs & Willakool, two adjoining properties fronting the Murray

River. After experimentation with irrigation, via steam pumps and

windmills, he was able to develop extensive orchards and crops. He was also, like his brother, interested in

acclimatisation, having developed an ostrich farm on his property

(Charles was a council member of the Zoological & Acclimatisation

Society for 10 years, president in 1887). .

.

Blighted by illness, Suetonius reputedly moved to Leighwood,

Toorak (Melbourne) in 1881, having erected the first stage of

Duneira at Mount Macedon, but died two years later. However his son, Henry jnr. was

born at South Yarra in 1869 and his next child, Jessie, was born

at Macedon in 1877, indicating that he was in residence at both

places prior to the dates previously supposed..

.

Suetonius probably commissioned the first stage of Duneira to be

erected as a summer house between c1874-6. The architect Levi

Powell is thought to have designed a house for him there around

that date. The first improvements listed on the site were

stables in 1874 when Robert Officer was rated as owning the site. The house was reputedly not occupied regularly

until c1881 when Suetonius moved to Toorak.

However it appears he and his family were in residence at Duneira

by 1877..

.

When Suetonius died in 1883 his wife, Mary Lillias Rigg Officer

(nee Cairns), of Glenbervie, Glenferrie Road, Toorak was the

co-executor of the estate, with merchant Robert Harper; she is

the rate occupier in 1888. Mrs Officer was the

sister of Mrs Robert Harper (Huntly Burn) and Mrs John C lloyd

(Montpelier, later Timsbury): all three houses were reputedly

built in the same period... .

.

The house bricks for the first stage were said to have come from

the Macedon Brick Kiln (once near the Macedon railway station,

set up in c1888-9?) with external walls built in 14" Flemish bond

from slop-moulded bricks (9 inch by 2.1/2). The bricks were reputedly carted

from Macedon by Cogger. The footings were of bluestone

and reputedly dressed sandstone blocks also survive, suggesting

that the first stage was face brick with stone quoins and the

next renovation c1888 added wings and a cement coating to the

whole complex. Floor frames were reputedly supported on stone

dwarf walls and joists were 6x2.1/2 inch jarrah, with flooring

being 6 inch pine}. Seaweed was apparently used for

ceiling insulation..

.

The servants' wing verandah was skillion in form with timber

posts with classical capitals. The main verandah had coupled

posts (rebuilt with single posts) a panelled frieze and slimmer

capitals set just under the frieze rail}. The

balustrade may have been of single cast-iron balusters..

.

Just prior to the sale to the speculator, James Smith Reid in

1890, and during the occupation of Edward Dyer, major additions

were made to the house complex and a reputedly a caretaker's

lodge was placed at the gate (survives, altered c1920s) but this

appears to have been added by Reid in the early 1890s. .

.

The added rooms were reputedly: billiard (32'x24') and dining

rooms, kitchen, servants bathroom, service block with 5 rooms

(engine room, dairy, pantry, store, boiler room, built of

Northcote machine made 9" brickwork). Damp proof coursing was

used in these additions compared to the slate of the first stage

and acetylene gas (engine room) was thought used for lighting

from this period, as reticulated in 1.1.2" mains and 1/2 inch

branches to internal and some external verandah lights.

Cast-iron elaborately detailed water radiators were also used,

with hot water pumped from the boiler room, and later a duplicate

boiler allowed hot water to be reticulated taps in the house{

ibid.}..

.

The description in rate books expands to villa and cottages (on

37 acres) for the first time under Reid in c1893 but the annual

valuation had already peeked in 1888 at £200 in the occupation of

Edward Dyer. An Edward Dyer was listed at that time as a fruiterer in

Burwood Road, Hawthorn..

.

The water supply is from a concrete tank fed by a spring.

Outbuildings include timber clad stables, storerooms,

blacksmith's shop, coachman's room, milking bails, hay shed and a

green house. The stables (extended) were described as having had

a shingled gabled roof (rear skillion) with loft entered via an

external stair at the north end. It had a blacksmith's

shop (altered for garage c1941), carriage and coachman's rooms,

two stores and vertically boarded main doors{ ibid.,p24}. The

milking and hay sheds had hipped roof forms and timber cladding

and frame. The interior was white-washed. The greenhouse

in the secret hedged garden is of a later date, with a timber

frame built up on 11" cavity brickwork walls, with a brick floor

and heated water pipes under each shelf. The boiler is near the

entry..

.

The `Gisborne Gazette' reported on Duneira in 1903 under the

heading of `A Popular Health Resort':.

`Duneira certainly merits a few remarks though beautiful

residences and grounds are by no means rare in that locality..

(when Reid purchased it, it was `little better than a wilderness'

and he had spared no expense to restore it).. After passing the

lodge at the main entrance, a broad serpentine drive leads up to

the house and from there the grounds are laid out in broad

sloping lawns surmounted with choice borders and fringed with

trees which however do not interfere to any great extent with the

view. There is of course no lack of flowers which grow

luxuriantly on the mount but the great feature of Duneira is the lawns, those open green expanses which delight the eye at all times of the year. the secret of this perennial verdure is to be found in the copious water supply with which Macedon is blessed (spring at rear of house, tapped by tunnelling 40m into the hill, ie. grass grows up to base of Monterey pines)..

.

During Reid's time there, the valuation increased marginally in

1899-1900 and again soon after, with Reid's address being given as care of Rosstrevor Magill, South Australia, in c1909-10. JS Reid died in 1922, leaving the property to the management of JS Reid jun (a chemist) and the merchant GL Dewez of Sydney,

his widow Martha Turnbull Reid and William Riggall.

Reid was the son of the Rev. James Reid of Queensland but gained success as a journalist, starting newspapers in gold mining areas such as Gympie, Charters Towers, Etheridge and Wilcannia, NSW. He was at Broken Hill when the Broken Hill P/L commenced, printing their prospectus. He became a director of BHP. His occupation was listed as `speculator' in the early 1900s.

In the 1920s Mrs Martha Reid's `little Eden' was described by a touring group of horticulturalists, thus:

`.. a trim green lawn with magnificent Japanese cypress which was voted the finest in Australia; nearby a splendid weeping elm caught the eye; the maples, beech and the horse chestnuts supply fresh tints; majestic Oregons tower towards heaven...

Everywhere soft tinted rhododendrons and azaleas bloomed in the sunshine and near a rock garden decked with flowers of every conceivable hue, myriad tinted tulips thrust up their heads.'.

Again, in 1927, the Victorian Nurserymens & Seedmens Association noted of Duneira:

`...where probably the finest display of rhododendrons is to be seen; these and a magnificent specimen of `Cupressus lawsoniana'

"Aurea" caused us to linger longer than the specified time. The rock garden dotted with a remarkable collection of alpines, several linden trees and pendulous birches were considered to be a feature unparalleled elsewhere in the State Mrs Reid owned it until 1941, selling to Dr Alfred & Betty Alcock (nee Nicholas) of Toorak, being reputedly a gift from Alfred Nicholas.

The auction was in December 1940 when Duneira was described as a substantially constructed brick villa with slate roof containing spacious return verandah, entrance hall, sitting, morning and dining rooms, an excellent billiard room, large glazed vestibule, 5 main bedrooms, two well appointed bathrooms, 4 maids bedrooms, maids' sitting room and bathroom, well appointed kitchen, store rooms and septic sewage, central heating,

private gas service and extensive outbuildings on 38 acres. The 500 metre elm-lined drive was said to be the longest (privately owned?) elm avenue in Australia.

Extensive renovations followed the Alcock purchase including electricity, removal of the concave and skillion roof timber verandahs, enlarging of openings, conversion of the billiard room to a lounge, new bathrooms in bedrooms, servants rooms converted, larger kitchen and improved connection to dining, more water storage, covered way to link service wing with house, creation of a new entry point from the courtyard, enlarged stable for cars with barn for machinery store, removal of trees, and the replacement of previously gravelled paths and roads (with open brick drains) with concrete and asphalt. Mrs Alcock remarried (Stuart Wickens) but maintained her interest in the garden, reputedly having created the `secret garden'.

Mrs Alcock resold to Keith Allen and R.Lowe in c1977. Keith Allan presumably replaced the verandah, following his reported intention to do so in 1978.

Mr & Mrs Laurie Matheson purchased it in 1981, just prior to Matheson's involvement in the Ivanov, Combe affair which caused some controversy in Australia and the 1983 Hope Royal Commission.

In the same period he was noted for a high speed dash in his Ferrari to save Duneira from the 1983 fires.

Matheson was a trade commissioner to eastern Europe (1968-) and later via Heine Brothers (1972-) and his own Commercial Bureau, he negotiated extensively with Russia over trade links. Prior to this, while in the navy, Matheson (then aged 33) had commanded the unit in search of Prime Minister Holt who disappeared at Cheviot beach in 1963. He had been educated at Burnside orphanage and later Yenco agricultural college, NSW. Matheson is credited with having built the reproduction porch entrance from the court yard.

Until recently it was still owned by the widow of Laurence Matheson whose memorial (q.v.) at the Macedon cemetery is so distinctive. The same artist (for the memorial) had provided two statues for the garden depicting the Mathesons but after the recent sale, these were removed.

The East and West Lawns are of central importance to the aesthetic significance of the property, being the major landscaping feature through which the Elm Avenue runs. This comprises approximately ninety Dutch Elms (Ulmus X hollandica) underplanted with bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) and is one of the best surviving examples of a private formal avenue in Victoria. Another strong aesthetic feature of the property are the two northern avenues of sycamores and oaks, and the hedges of mature rhododendrons, holly and Portuguese laurels.

The collection of significant trees, includes many large and rare conifers, rhododendrons and other cool climate plants. Besides the avenue of Dutch Elms (Ulmus x hollandica), other significant trees include the Ilex kingiana (Himalayan Holly), Abies procera (Noble Fir), Prunus serrulata 'Shirotae' (Japanese Flowering Cherry). Other important trees include the many Douglas Firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Giant Fir (Abies grandis), Caucasian Fir (Abies nordmanniana), an unusual form of the Norway Spruce (Picea abies), Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), Linden (Tilia X europaea), Montpelier Maple (Acer monspessulanum), Antarctic Beech (Nothofagus moorei) & Cut-leaved Walnut (Juglans regia 'Laciniata') which is extremely rare in cultivation.

I learned fairly early that in wildlife rehabilitation, it is easy to bite off more than you can chew. The emus walked out of their box and into our living room with all the assurance of a pair of aristocrats returning to their ancestral seat, and looked very determined to take up residence. Endearing as they were, they would, of course, have to be moved on to more spacious accommodation before they put on a growth spurt. Fortunately, there were two wildlife parks in Canberra, and these were well equipped for raising larger birds and mammals and preparing them for release, and to one of these they went. I remember their striped heads looking out at me from the top of their box as they were carried away.

There were other tasks which were best undertaken in small doses. My experiences of rearing baby possums and kangaroos were usually limited to a single week, often when I was sick at home. More than this was quite impossible for a schoolboy, for marsupial babies are every bit as demanding as human ones, albeit a good deal less raucous. The most exciting of these was Norman, a young grey kangaroo who, by the time he went on to his next foster-parent, was capable of leaping the fourteen steps to our back verandah in a single bound.

Once, the vet to whom I obsessively apprenticed myself every holiday received a wedge-tailed eagle with a broken wing: far too dangerous a proposition for me to handle. The proprietor of the same local wildlife park and two of his burly assistants were called in to wrestle the bird to the floor whilst the vet examined its fractured wing. I remember the fixed and malignant glare in its eye, and its talons as big as a man’s hand.

Some of the animals that I did take on nevertheless taxed me to the utmost. Amongst these, the friar birds were perhaps the most remarkable. I have already mentioned the unspeakable agony I experienced on more than one occasion after inadvertently allowing a friar bird to grasp my hand with its claws, but after treatment, a new and equally taxing challenge arose. Friar birds are honeyeaters, and are so named because their vulturine heads and necks are completely bald, as though their monkish barber had grown a little overenthusiastic with the tonsuring shears. The exposed skin is black, and the eyes are a deep orange. At the base of the beak, in front of those eyes, there is a knobbly lump. This combination of characteristics lends the friar bird a rather demonic appearance, which is augmented by the bird’s yobbling, subtly human-sounding voice.

The friar bird with whom I grew most familiar was, predictably, christened Friar Tuck – a name which delighted some of my friends, who were just discovering the appeal of spoonerisms – and he had an insatiable appetite for honey, fruit and insects. Honey, mixed with warm water, was tied in test-tubes to the side of his cage, where it could be conveniently lapped by his black and feathery tongue. Soon, I discovered that he was partial to bottled baby food, particularly ‘fruit and honey breakfast’, and shopkeepers began to look quizzically at this fifteen-year-old boy and his basketfuls of baby-food purchases. So far, so good: fruit and honey were in abundant supply. The insects were the problem. Anyone who has worked in wildlife rehabilitation will confirm that insectivorous birds are peculiarly demanding. I had the requisite colony of mealworms, but it was impossible to induce them to reproduce at quite the exponential rate that was required. In any case, friar birds cannot live on meal-worms alone: they require variety, or else they get bad-tempered. My parents invested in a glowing purple blowfly-zapper for their kitchen, and I found myself constantly checking the tray beneath it for the half-fried remains. The bird didn't seem to object to the blackened bits. I turned over stones looking for Christmas beetle larvae and worms, but usually only found red-backed spiders. There were innumerable woodlice, of course, but most birds (chickens excepted) seem to find these distasteful. Soon, I was devising insect traps with all the inventiveness of a trap-door spider, enslaved to a bald-headed bird with evil eyes which gobbled everything I offered, and then squawked expectantly for more.

Perhaps, after all, it would have been easier to take on the emus.

Photo hand-tinted by Leslie Watson, c. 1986.

"Spacious Comfortable Bungalow" is the way this was described. The Blue Ribbon plans may have had some kind of plan ID in the book, but not in the magazine. This house has a great porch.

Source: American Builder

Yes, believe it or not, the origin of the mighty Range Rover goes back to the communistic clumsiness of British Leyland, where, in one of their rare moments of genius, they realised the dream that a contemporary 4x4 could be married with the luxuries and styling of a regular saloon car!

The original concept of the Range Rover can be traced back to the groundbreaking original Land Rover of the 1940's, where upon its introduction in 1948 as an extended development of the American Willy's Jeep, the Land Rover had taken the world by storm and become the most desired 4x4 in the world. Light, practical, endlessly tunable and easy to maintain, the Land Rover was a hit across the globe, primarily in the colonies of the British Empire, taking people to remote regions that had once been only within the reach of a Horse or a Camel. Initially, a plan was made to create a saloon style version of the Land Rover in 1949 with the help of coachbuilder Tickford, dubbed the 'Land Rover Station-Wagon', but this was not exactly a success and sold only 700 examples before the car was withdrawn from production in 1951. The main features of the Station-Wagon were a wooden-framed body, seven seats, floor carpets, a heater, a one-piece windscreen and other car-like features, its hand-built nature kept prices high.

In 1954 Land Rover took another stab at the Station Wagon concept, only this time it was built in-house rather than outsourced to a different company. This version's primary market was for those who required an off-road vehicle with greater capacity, such as ambulances or even small buses in remote regions such as the Scottish Highlands. But even though this second incarnation of the Station Wagon was available with features such as an interior light, heater, door and floor trims and upgraded seats, the basic Land Rover roots of this car meant it was still tough and capable, but the firm suspension made its road performance somewhat mediocre.

In 1958, Land Rover took yet another stab with the Road Rover, a development of combining the Land Rover chassis and running gear with the internal furnishings and body of a regular saloon car. The intended audience of the Road Rover was again in the remote British Colonies of Africa and the Australian Outback, where the firm suspension would be useful on the long, uneven roads. By the 1960's however, developments across the pond in the United States were starting to rock Rover's boat, as the newly coined Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) began to make progress. International Harvester released the Scout, and Ford the Bronco, offering a different blend of off and on-road ability from existing utility 4x4s such as the Land Rover and the Jeep, proving capable of good on-road comfort and speed while retaining more than adequate off-road ability for most private users. The Jeep Wagoneer proved the concept further, being both spacious and practical, but still with the raunchy off-road abilities to conquer the harsh American terrain.

Being frontline observers to this, Rover dealers in the United States looked on in horror as the American motor industry cornered the market for the SUV, and through frustration the president of Rover's USA division sent head office a Land Rover Series II 88 fitted with a Buick V8, designed for contemporary American pickup trucks, which offered far greater on-road performance and refinement than any Land Rover then in production.

Things came full circle though thanks to a man named Charles Spencer King, a former apprentice at Rolls Royce and one of the most prominent figures in the ownership of Rover and its transition to British Leyland. Taking over the development, he began the development program with the 100-inch Station Wagon project, taking the original concepts of the previous Road Rover and fitting it with coil springs after coming to the conclusion that only long-travel coil springs could provide the required blend of luxury car comfort and Land Rover's established off-road ability. His realisation of this apparently came when he drove a Rover P6 across rough scrubland adjacent to Land Rover's Solihull Factory, but was also helped by the fact that Land Rover purchased the coil springs from a Ford Bronco and began developing from those. Permanent 4WD was also necessary so as to provide both adequate handling and to reliably absorb the power that would be required by the vehicle if it was to be competitive, which came through in the form of a new transmission known as the Land Rover 101 Forward Control. The final piece to the puzzle though was the use of the Buick derived Rover V8, a strong, reliable, lightweight and endlessly tunable engine. In addition to the regular V8, the car was fitted with both a starting handle for emergencies, and carburettors to help continue to supply fuel at extreme angles.

The final design, launched in 1970 with bodywork styled largely by the engineering team rather than David Bache's styling division, was marketed as 'A Car For All Reasons'. In its original guise, the Range Rover was more capable off-road than the Land Rover but was much more comfortable, offering a top speed in excess of 100mph, a towing capacity of 3.5 tons, spacious accommodation for five people and groundbreaking features such as a four-speed, dual-range, permanent four-wheel-drive gearbox and hydraulic disc brakes on all wheels. The body was constructed, in keeping with other Rover products, of lightweight aluminium, and in its first incarnation was only available as a two-door utilitarian runabout, rather than the five-door luxury car we know today. This was rectified in 1981 when a 4-door version was made available, but this doesn't mean that the Range Rover wasn't a success before this change.

Upon its launch in June 1970, the Range Rover was lauded with critical acclaim, and Rover was praised for succeeding in marrying the practicalities of a modern 4x4 with the luxury capabilities of a standard road car. With a top speed of 95mph and a 0-60 acceleration of less than 15 seconds, performance was stated as being better than many family saloon cars of its era, and off-road performance was good, owing to its long suspension travel and high ground clearance. The bulky but practical design was also praised, with many considering it a piece of artwork, with one example being put on display in the Louvre in Paris! Early celebrity ownership also helped the sales quota, but not in the same way you'd expect today. Instead of Musicians and Movie Stars buying up stashes of Range Rovers like they do nowadays, people of established wealth such as Princess Diana and Government bodies became proud custodians of these mighty machines.

Problems however were quick to occur, as let's not forget, this was a British Leyland product. Reliability was a major issue, with strike cars being especially poor as many would leave the factory with vital components missing or not installed properly. To save costs, many pieces of the cars were carried over from other Leyland products, with switches and dials being donated from Austin Allegros, and the door handles coming direct from Morris Marinas. Name any of the faults endemic to British Leyland products of the time, and the Range Rover suffered from the same curse, be they mechanical, electric, cosmetic, or, worst of all, the demon rust!

But the Range Rover survived to see the 1980's despite its faults, and after the introduction of an extra set of doors it started to gain a true identity as the luxury motor of choice for the new money. With the additional 5-door layout, new variants such as the long wheelbase Vogue and the SE (Special Equipment) versions took many of the luxury items of the Jaguar XJ series such as leather seats and hazelnut wooden trim and placed them into the Range Rover. In the 1980s as well, special utility versions began to be developed, including a 6x6 Fire Tender for airfields and small airports, Ambulances for military bases and remote regions, and one special variant for his holiness the Pope, affectionately dubbed the Popemobile!

However, towards the late 1980's the Range Rover in its original incarnation was starting to look very much its age. The angular design was looking tired, and internally its utilitarian roots were in evidence. The dashboard was not much like that of a regular saloon car, but more a bus or a truck, with a huge steering wheel like that from a tractor, and was not particularly well equipped. Land Rover however intended to narrow the Range Rover's portfolio to the truly luxury market rather than having the low end versions which didn't sell as well due to their expense. In 1989 Land Rover launched the Discovery, which was similar in size to the Range Rover but cheaper and given a more family layout with seats and furnishings being carried over from the Austin Montego. To bring the Range Rover back into the front line of luxury motors for the 1990's, Rover Group (the descendant of British Leyland) put together a plan to design a new car under the chassis codenumber P38A (or just P38 for short). Four years of development and £300 million later, the car was launched to a whirlwind of critical acclaim. With a beautifully equipped interior, a more car-like design of dashboard and with a wider variety of luxury trim levels, including the personalised Autobiography editions, the P38 was the first of the mighty Range Rovers to appeal to the bling-bling generation.

This, however, left the original Range Rover out in the cold, and even though it was still a much loved part of the British motoring scene, the time had come for the original, dubbed the Range Rover Classic after launch of the P38. The last of the original Range Rovers slunk silently of the production line at Solihull in 1996, with production now fully based on the new P38, as well as to future developments such as the Freelander of 1997 and ongoing Discovery and Defender. Today original Range Rovers are somewhat easy to come by depending on where you look. In London you'll find a fair few (after all, these were the original Chelsea Tractors), but even in the country you'll bump into these things, especially around my home of Devon where the Range Rover/Land Rover products were perfect for the rugged Moorland terrain. Early British Leyland ones you'd be hard pressed to find, most rusting away in the 1980's, but the Rover Group ones of the 80's and 90's are by no means rare.

But even so, 45 years after the first Range Rover left the factory in Solihull, Range Rovers continue to be produced today, now in it's 4th Generation and available in more variations than ever before! Although British Leyland has long since died together with their many woeful products such as the Morris Marina and the Austin Allegro, the Range Rover is very much their legacy, the last of their original products to survive the strikes and bankruptcy, fighting off the fuel crisis and privatisation by the Thatcher Government, and then being split in 2000 by BMW and juggled between owners Ford and TATA Steel, and still being the luxury motorised toy of the modern day rich! :)

Citylink LSK 879 entering Glasgow on route 900

C-Aircross Concept is a modern and spacious SUV which thrives in both cities and large open spaces. With its internationally styled silhouette, it is a foresight into the Citroën offensive into the European SUV segment. The unique personality of C-Aircross follows in the footsteps of New C3 which launched in January.

87th Geneva International Motor Show

Internationaler Auto-Salon Genf

Suisse - Schweiz - Switzerland

March 2017

San Francisco CA

NoT Ai

Tindari anciently Tyndaris or Tyndarion (Greek: Τυνδαρίς, Strab.; Τυνδάριον, Ptol.) is a small city (a frazione) in the comune of Patti, in the Province of Messina in Sicily, between Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto and Cefalù.Tindari has a famous sanctuary and is also famous for the poem "Vento a Tindari", written by Salvatore Quasimodo.Tyndaris was situated on a bold and lofty hill standing out as a promontory into the spacious bay of the Tyrrhenian Sea bounded by the Punta di Milazzo on the east, and the Capo Calavià on the west, and according to the Itineraries was 36 miles from Messana (modern Messina). It was a Greek city, and one of the latest of all the cities in Sicily that could claim a purely Greek origin, having been founded by the elder Dionysius in 396 or 395 BC. The original settlers were the remains of the Messenian exiles, who had been driven from Naupactus, Zacynthus, and the Peloponnese by the Spartans after the close of the Peloponnesian War. These had at first been established by Dionysius at Messana, when he repeopled that city; but the Spartans having taken umbrage at this, he transferred them to the site of Tyndaris, which had previously been included in the territory of Abacaenum. The colonists themselves gave to their new city the name of Tyndaris, from their native divinities, the "Tyndaridae" or Dioscuri, and readily admitting fresh citizens from other quarters, soon raised their whole population to the number of 5000 citizens. The new city thus rose at once to be a place of considerable importance.It is next mentioned in 344 BC, when it was one of the first cities that declared in favor of Timoleon after his landing in Sicily.At a later period we find it mentioned as espousing the cause of Hieron, and supporting him during his war against the Mamertines, 269 BC. On that occasion he rested his position upon Tyndaris on the left, and on Tauromenium (modern Taormina) on the right.Indeed the strong position of Tyndaris made it an important strategic post on the Tyrrhenian sea, as Tauromenium was on the Sicilian sea, and hence we find it frequently mentioned in accounts of subsequent wars. In the First Punic War it was at first dependent upon Carthage; and though the citizens, alarmed at the progress of the Roman arms, were at one time on the point of turning to Rome, they were restrained by the Carthaginians, who carried off all the chief citizens as hostages. In 257 BC, the Battle of Tyndaris took place off the coast of Tyndaris, between the city and the Liparaean islands, in which a Roman fleet under Gaius Atilius Regulus obtained some advantage over the Carthaginian fleet, but without any decisive result. The Roman fleet is described on that occasion as touching at the promontory of Tyndaris, but the city had not yet fallen into their hands, and it was not until after the fall of Panormus (modern Palermo) in 254 BC that Tyndaris expelled the Carthaginian garrison and joined the Roman alliance.We hear little of Tyndaris under Roman government, but it appears to have been a flourishing and considerable city. Cicero calls it nobilissima civitas and we learn from him that the inhabitants had displayed their zeal and fidelity towards the Romans upon many occasions. Among others they supplied naval forces for the armament of Scipio Africanus the Younger, a service for which he repaid them by restoring to them a statue of Mercury which had been carried off by the Carthaginiansn and which continued as an object of great veneration in the city, until it was stolen by the rapacious Verres. Tyndaris was also one of seventeen cities selected by the Roman senate, apparently as an honorary distinction, to contribute to certain offerings to the temple of Venus at Eryx. In other respects it had no peculiar privileges, and was in the condition of an ordinary municipal town, with its own magistrates, local senate, etc., but was certainly in the time of Cicero one of the most considerable places in the island. It, however, suffered severely from the exactions of Verres and the inhabitants, to revenge themselves on their oppressor, publicly demolished his statue as soon as he had quit the island. Tyndaris again bore a considerable part in the war between Sextus Pompeius and Octavian (36 BC). It was one of the points occupied and fortified by the former, when preparing for the defence of the Sicilian straits, but was taken by Agrippa after his naval victory at Mylae, and became one of his chief posts, from which he carried on offensive warfare against Pompey. Subsequently to this we hear nothing more of Tyndaris in history; but there is no doubt of its having continued to subsist throughout the period of the Roman Empire. Strabo speaks of it as one of the places on the north coast of Sicily which, in his time, still deserved the name of cities; and Pliny gives it the title of a Colonia. It is probable that it received a colony under Augustus, as we find it bearing in an inscription the titles of Colonia Augusta Tyndaritanorum. Pliny indeed mentions a great calamity which the city had sustained, when (he tells us) half of it was swallowed up by the sea, probably from an earthquake having caused the fall of part of the hill on which it stands, but we have no clue to the date of this event; The Itineraries attest the existence of Tyndaris, apparently still as a considerable place, in the fourth century. By the 19th century, the site of Tyndaris was wholly deserted, but the name was retained by a church, which crowned the most elevated point of the hill on which the city formerly stood, and was still called the Madonna di Tindaro. It is c. 180 m above the sea-level, and forms a conspicuous landmark to sailors. Considerable ruins of the ancient city, are also visible. It occupied the whole plateau or summit of the hill, and the remains of the ancient walls may be traced, at intervals, all round the brow of the cliffs, except in one part, facing the sea, where the cliff is now quite precipitous. It is not improbable that it is here that a part of the cliff fell in, in the manner recorded by Pliny Two gates of the city are also still distinctly to be traced. The chief monuments, of which the ruins are still extant within the circuit of the walls, are: the theatre, of which the remains are in imperfect condition, but sufficient to show that it was not of large size, and apparently of Roman construction, or at least, like that of Tauromenium, rebuilt in Roman times upon the Greek foundations; a large edifice with two handsome stone arches, commonly called a Gymnasium, but the real purpose of which is very difficult to determine; several other edifices of Roman times, but of wholly uncertain character, a mosaic pavement, and some Roman tombs.

Tìndari è una frazione di Patti, comune italiano della provincia di Messina in Sicilia.La città venne fondata da Dionisio di Siracusa nel 396 a.C. come colonia di mercenari siracusani che avevano partecipato alla guerra contro Cartagine, nel territorio della città sicula di Abacaenum (Tripi), e prese il nome di Tyndaris, in onore di Tindaro, re di Sparta e sposo di Leda, padre putativo di Elena e dei Dioscuri, Castore e Polluce.Durante la prima guerra punica, sotto il controllo di Gerone II di Siracusa, fu base navale cartaginese, e nelle sue acque si combatté nel 257 a.C. la battaglia di Tindari, nella quale la flotta romana, guidata dal console Aulo Atilio Calatino, mise in fuga quella cartaginese.Con Siracusa passò in seguito nell'orbita romana e fu base navale di Sesto Pompeo. Presa da Augusto nel 36 a.C., che vi dedusse la colonia romana di Colonia Augusta Tyndaritanorum, una delle cinque della Sicilia, Cicerone la citò come nobilissima civitas.Nel I secolo d.C. subì le conseguenze di una grande frana, mentre nel IV secolo fu soggetta a due distruttivi terremotiSede vescovile, venne conquistata dai Bizantini nel 535 e cadde nel 836, nelle mani degli Arabi dai quali venne distrutta.Vi rimase il santuario dedicato alla Madonna Nera di Tindari, progressivamente ingrandito, che ospita una Maria con il Bambino scolpita in legno, considerata apportatrice di grazie e miracolosa.Il Santuario di Tindari si trova all'estremità orientale del promontorio, a strapiombo sul mare, in corrispondenza dell'antica acropoli, dove una piccola chiesa era stata costruita sui resti della città abbandonata.La statua della Madonna Nera, scolpita in legno di cedro, vi venne collocata in epoca imprecisata, forse giunta qui dall'Oriente in seguito al fenomeno dell'iconoclastia, nell'VIII-IX secolo.La chiesa, distrutta nel 1544 dai pirati algerini, venne ricostruita tra il 1552 e il 1598 e il santuario venne ampliato dal vescovo Giuseppe Pullano con la costruzione di una nuova chiesa più grande che fu consacrata nel 1979. La festa del santuario si svolge ogni anno tra il 7 e l'8 settembre.

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Gibside is an estate in the Derwent Valley in North East England. It is between Rowlands Gill, Tyne and Wear and Burnopfield, County Durham, and a few miles from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Gibside was previously owned by the Bowes-Lyon family. It is now a National Trust property. Gibside Hall, the main house on the estate, is now a shell, although the property is most famous for its chapel. The stables, walled garden, Column to Liberty and Banqueting House are also intact.

The Blakiston family acquired the estate by marriage in about 1540. Sir William Blakiston (1562–1641) replaced the old house with a spacious mansion between 1603 and 1620. Both the Royal (King James I of England) coat of arms and the Blakiston coat of arms are seen over the entrance of the old Hall. The Gibside property came into the possession of the Bowes family in 1713; a result of the marriage in 1693 of Sir William's great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Blakiston, to Sir William Bowes (1657–1707) of Streatlam Castle (now demolished).

Until 1722, the basis of the Bowes' influence was their own estate and house of Streatlam Castle, County Durham. However, after that date the acquisition through marriage of the Blakiston estate of Gibside gave the Bowes family an even greater influence in the north of the county and a share in the immense wealth that was to be acquired from the coal trade. The Blakiston estate included some of the area's richest coal seams.

In 1767 the granddaughter of Sir William Bowes – the "Bowes heiress" Mary Eleanor Bowes – married John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, who changed his surname to Bowes due to a provision in her father's will that any suitor had to take the family name. This was a device to continue the Bowes lineage in the absence of a male heir.

After the split inheritance dispute following the death of John Bowes, 10th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, in 1820, it belonged to his legitimated son John Bowes until his death in 1885 (he is buried in the Gibside chapel), when under the entail it reverted to his cousin the 13th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. It had been the main residence of John Bowes' mother, Mary Milner, by then Dowager Countess of Strathmore, and her second husband, the politician Sir William Hutt (who had been John Bowes' tutor), and remained in his ownership until his death in 1882.

Improvements to Gibside carried out by the Bowes-Lyon family in the 18th and early 19th centuries included landscaping, Gibside Chapel, built between 1760 and 1812, the Banqueting House, a column of Liberty, a substantial stable block, an avenue of oaks and several hundred acres of forest. The top floor of the main house was remodelled as a giant parapet in 1805.

The chapel reflects the Calvinist leanings of the family, and though nominally Anglican, the interior is dominated by a huge and centrally placed "three-decker" pulpit. There is a house for the minister/chaplain nearby. Some holders of the position would not have been able to hold a Church of England parish living, on account of their views. The leading Palladian architect James Paine is attributed with most of the work of the 1750s and 1760s.

The Banqueting House was built in 1746, and is an early example of Gothic Revival architecture, of the early form often called "Gothick". It has now been restored and is available for letting by the Landmark Trust, who now own it.

A large monument, originally called the "Column of British Liberty", now usually just the "Column to Liberty", was begun in the 1750s by the hugely wealthy Sir George Bowes, reflecting his Whig politics. Set at the top of a steep hillock, the monument itself is a Doric order column, and topped by a standing bronze female figure, originally gilded, carrying a cap of liberty on a pole.

The Bowes-Lyon family had other major country houses, Glamis Castle in Scotland, and Streatlam Castle, County Durham, relatively close to Gibside.

The house became vacant in the 1920s after the Bowes-Lyon family sold some of its properties to pay death duties. The building was stripped of its fixtures and fittings, with many of the fireplaces and other items being transferred to Glamis Castle. Parts of the structure were demolished in 1958, including the removal of the roof. What remains is protected by Grade II* listed building status and included in the Heritage at Risk Register.

Parts of the grounds have been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, including a forest garden.

The chapel and Long Walk have been in the National Trust's ownership since 1965, and an additional 354 acres (1.43 km2) of the grounds were acquired in 1993. The Banqueting House has been in the ownership of the Landmark Trust since 1981, the building having been restored from a derelict shell. The stables now house a learning and discovery centre.

Women's Land Army girls were billeted at Gibside during World War I.

The Bowes-Lyon family descends from George Bowes of Gibside and Streatlam Castle (1701–1760), a County Durham landowner and politician, through John Bowes, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, chief of the Clan Lyon. Following the marriage in 1767 of the 9th Earl (John Lyon) to rich heiress Mary Eleanor Bowes, the family name was changed to Bowes by Act of Parliament. The 10th Earl changed the name to Lyon-Bowes and the 13th Earl, Claude, changed the order to Bowes-Lyon.

Notable members of the family include:

Mary Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1749–1800), known as "The Unhappy Countess", was an 18th-century British heiress, notorious for her licentious lifestyle, who was married at one time to the 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.

Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, (1855–1944) was a landowner, and the father of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

Patrick Bowes-Lyon (1863–1946), younger brother of the 14th Earl, winner of the 1887 Wimbledon doubles.

Fergus Bowes-Lyon (1889–1915) noted golfer killed in the First World War, brother of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (born Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon; 1900–2002), Queen of the United Kingdom as the wife of George VI, and mother of Elizabeth II.

Princess Anne of Denmark, born Anne Ferelith Fenella Bowes-Lyon (1917–80), was the mother of royal photographer Patrick Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield, and a first cousin of Elizabeth II.

Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon were the third and fifth daughters of John Herbert Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother's brother, and his wife, Fenella Bowes-Lyon. In 1941, when Katherine was 15 years old and Nerissa was 22, they were sent from the family home in Scotland to Royal Earlswood Hospital at Redhill, Surrey, where they would live out the rest of their days.

Michael Bowes-Lyon, 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1957–2016).

Related places

The Bowes Museum, a purpose-built public art gallery for John Bowes and his wife Joséphine Chevalier, Countess of Montalbo, has a nationally renowned art collection and is situated in the town of Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham, England.

Gibside, a country estate, set amongst the peaks and slopes of the Derwent Valley, near Rowlands Gill, Tyne and Wear, North East England, which was previously owned by the Bowes-Lyon family and is now a National Trust property.

Glamis Castle, situated beside the village of Glamis in Angus, Scotland, is the home of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and is open to the public.

St Paul's Walden Bury is a stately home and surrounding gardens of the Bowes-Lyon family located in the village of St Paul's Walden in Hertfordshire, best known for its connection to the late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

Streatlam Castle, a Baroque stately home owned by the Bowes-Lyon family, located near the town of Barnard Castle in County Durham, England. It proved too expensive to maintain, and so was blown up with dynamite in 1959.

Other

Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1606 for Patrick Lyon.

Monster of Glamis, allegedly a surviving deformed member of the Bowes-Lyon family, born in 1821 and kept in seclusion in Glamis Castle.

The National Trust (Welsh: Ymddiriedolaeth Genedlaethol; Irish: Iontaobhas Náisiúnta) is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is the separate and independent National Trust for Scotland.

The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest". It was given statutory powers, starting with the National Trust Act 1907. Historically, the Trust acquired land by gift and sometimes by public subscription and appeal, but after World War II the loss of country houses resulted in many such properties being acquired either by gift from the former owners or through the National Land Fund. Country houses and estates still make up a significant part of its holdings, but it is also known for its protection of wild landscapes such as in the Lake District and Peak District.

In addition to the great estates of titled families, it has acquired smaller houses, including some whose significance is not architectural but through their association with famous people, for example, the childhood homes of singer/composers John Lennon and Paul McCartney of The Beatles.

One of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, the Trust owns almost 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres; 2,500 km2; 970 sq mi) of land and 780 miles (1,260 km) of coast. Its properties include more than 500 historic houses, castles, archaeological and industrial monuments, gardens, parks, and nature reserves. Most properties are open to the public for a charge (members have free entry), while open spaces are free to all. The Trust has an annual income of over £680 million, largely from membership subscriptions, donations and legacies, direct property income, profits from its shops and restaurants, and investments. It also receives grants from a variety of organisations including other charities, government departments, local authorities, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The Trust was incorporated on 12 January 1895 as the "National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty", which is still the organisation's legal name. The founders were social reformer Octavia Hill, solicitor Sir Robert Hunter and clergyman Hardwicke Rawnsley.

In 1876, Hill, together with her sister Miranda Hill, had set up a society to "diffuse a love of beautiful things among our poor brethren". Named after John Kyrle, the Kyrle Society campaigned for open spaces for the recreational use of urban dwellers, as well as having decorative, musical, and literary branches. Hunter had been solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society, while Rawnsley had campaigned for the protection of the Lake District. The idea of a company with the power to acquire and hold buildings and land had been mooted by Hunter in 1894.

In July 1894 a provisional council, headed by Hill, Hunter, Rawnsley and the Duke of Westminster met at Grosvenor House and decided that the company should be named the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Articles of association were submitted to the Board of Trade and on 12 January 1895, the Trust was registered under the Companies Act. Its purpose was to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest"

1/6 scale living room lights, door, TV works.

For the best part of the last year, I have been posting shots of Kent churches on Twitter, to break up the torrent of horrible news relating to COVID, Brexit and our Dear Leader, and in doing so, I have discovered many churches I visited at the start of the project, needed to redone.

Goudhurst, is, apparently, the highest point in Kent, or so Jools tells me. I will just check that with Wikki: Hmm, it seems not. That is Betsom's Hill north of the M25 near to the border with London. Goudhurst is not even in the top ten.

I can confirm we approached the village along a long hill from a river valley, finally climbing up the narrow high street, getting round the parked cars and finding a space nearly big enough for the car near to the church.

On the other side of the road from the church, a series of very Kent houses and buildings, all decorated with pegtiles, in the Kent fashion, and to the south, the imposing structure of The Star and Eagle Hotel.

The church sits in it's large graveyard, pretty as a picture on a sunny summer's afternoon as on my first visit, but on a grey, late autumn afternoon, just as the light fades, it loses some of its charm.

The church itself is resplendent with it's honey-coloured stone, squat tower and spreading aisles on both sides.

There is a welcome notice on the door in the west end of the tower stating that the church is always open and all are indeed, welcome.

Its a fine touch.

Inside, it is light and spacious, so spacious to have to grand leather sofas in the nave, not sure if this is for glamping, or for some other reason, but they're doing no harm.

There are several fine wall monuments and brasses, and a wooden memorial to a couple set under a window from the 16th century.

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Seen from afar Goudhurst is Kent's answer to Rye - a small hilltop village over which broods the lovely church. Its west tower, dating from the seventeenth century, is rather low, but the honey-coloured sandstone is particularly beautiful here. We enter the church through the tower, and are impressed by the way in which the width and height of the nave and its aisles combine to make such a noble structure. There are two remarkably fine wooden effigies dating from the sixteenth century, carved and painted and set into a purpose-built bay window. Nearby, in the south chapel, the walls are crammed with monuments and there are three brasses, one of which is covered by a stone canopy - not particularly grand but unexpected and functional.

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Goudhurst

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GOUDHURST

LIES the next parish southward from Marden. The northern part of it, as far southward as the stream formerly called Risebridge river, which flows from Bedgebury to Hope mill, and a smaller part likewise on the other side of it, adjoining to the rivulet called the Bewle westward, is in the hundred of Marden, and lower division of the lath of Scray; the rest of the parish southward of the first-mentioned stream, is in the hundred of West, alias Little Barnefield, and lath of Aylesford, comprehending the whole of that hundred. So much of this parish as is within the borough of Faircrouch, is in the hundred of Cranbrook; as much as is in the boroughs of Pattenden, Lilsden, Combwell, and Chingley or Bromley, is in the same hundred of West, alias Little Barnefield; and the residue is in the hundred of Marden. It lies wholly within the district of the Weald, and in the division of West Kent.

The borsholders of the boroughs of Highamden, Pattenden, and Hilsden, in this parish, are chosen at the court-leet holden for the manor of East Farleigh, and the inhabitants owe no service but to that manor; only a constable for the hundred of West Barnefield may be chosen out of such parts of them as lay within it for that hundred. The manor of Maidstone likewise extends into this parish, over lands as far southward as Rise-bridge.

THE PARISH OF GOUDHURST is very pleasantly situated, being interspersed on every side with frequent hill and dale. The trees in it are oak, of a large size, and in great plenty throughout it, as well in the woods, as broad hedge-rows and shaves round the fields. The lands are in general very fertile; the soil, like the adjoining parishes, is mostly a deep stiff clay; being heavy tillage land, but it has the advantage of a great deal of rich marle at different places, and in some few parts sand, with which the roads are in general covered; and in the grounds near Finchcocks, there is a gravel-pit, which is the only one, I believe, in this part of the county. There is much more pasture than arable land in it, the former being mostly fatting lands, bullocks fatted on them weighing in general from 120 to 130 stone. It is well watered with several streams in different parts of it, all which uniting with the Teis, flow in one channel, along the western side of this parish, towards the Medway. The eastern and southern parts of it are much covered with thick coppice wood, mostly of oak. The turnpike road from Maidstone over Cocksheath through Marden, leads through the upper part of this parish southward, dividing into two branches at Winchethill; that to the left goes on to Comborne, and leaving the town of Goudhurst a little to the right, joins the Cranbrooke road a little beyond it. That to the right, having taken into it a branch of the Woodgate road from Tunbridge, near Broadford-bridge, goes on to the town of Goudhurst, and thence eastward to Cranbrooke and Tenterden; and the great high road from Lamberhurst through Stonecrouch to Hawkhurst, and into Sussex, south-east, goes along the southern bounds of this parish.

The parish is about eight miles long and four broad. There are about three hundred houses in it, and somewhat more than five inhabitants to a house. It is very healthy; sixty years of age being esteemed, if not the prime, at least the middle age of life; the inhabitants of these parts being in great measure untainted with the vices and dissipation too frequently practised above the hill.

There are two heaths or commons here; the one called Pyles-health, and the other Killdown, in West Barnefield hundred.

THE TOWN, or village of Goudhurst, stands in the hundred of Marden, about half a mile within the lower or southern bounds of it, on an hill, commanding an extensive view of the country all around it. It is not paved, but is built on the sides of five different roads which unite at a large pond in the middle of it. The houses are mostly large, antient and well-timbered, like the rest of those in this neighbourhood, one of them, called Brickwall, belongs to the Rev. Mr. Thomas Bathurst. Within memory there were many clothiers here, but there are none now. There is some little of the woolstapling business yet carried on.

On the summit of the hill, on which the town stands, is the church, a conspicuous object to the neighbouring country, and near it was the marketplace, which was pulled down about the year 1650, and the present small one built lower down, at the broad place in the town near the pond. The market was held on a Wednesday weekly, for cattle, provisions, &c. till within memory; it is now entirely disused, there is a fair held yearly in the town, upon the day of the assumption of our lady, being August 26, for cattle, hardware, toys, &c. This market and fair were granted in the year of king Richard II. to Joane, widow of Roger de Bedgebury, the possessors of which estate claim at this time the privilege of holding them, by a yearly rent to the manor of Marden.

At the hamlet of Stonecrouch is a post-office of very considerable account, its district extending to Goudhurst, Cranbrooke, Tenterden, Winchelsea, Rye, and Hastings, and all the intermediate and adjoining places, to which letters are directed by this Stonecrouch bag.

ALMOST adjoining to the town eastward, on the road leading to Tenterden, there is A HAMLET, called LITTLE GOUDHURST, in which there is an antient seat, called TAYWELL, which for many generations was possessed by a family of the name of Lake, who bore for their arms, Sable, a bend between six crosscroslets, fitchee, argent. In the north isle of this church, under which is a vault, in which this family lie buried, there is a marble, on which is a descent of them. The last of them, Thomas Lake, esq. barrister-at-law, resided here, but dying without issue male, his daughters and coheirs became possessed of it; one of whom married Maximilian Gott, esq. and the other Thomas Hussey, esq. whose son Edward Hussey, esq. of Scotney, now possesses the entire see of this estate, which is demised for a long term of years to Mr. Olive, who has almost rebuilt it, and resides in it.

AT A SMALL DISTANCE southward from the abovementioned seat, is another, called TRIGGS, which was for several descents the residence of the Stringers, a family of good account in the different parts of this county. John Stringer, esq. son of Edward Stringer, of Biddenden, by Phillis his wife, daughter of George Holland, gent. resided here in king Charles I.'s reign, and married Susanna, daughter of Stephen Streeter, of Goudhurst, by whom he had Stephen, of Goudhurst; John, gent. of Ashford, who left a daughter and heir Mary, married to Anthony Irby, esq. Edward and Thomas, both of Goudhurst; the latter left two sons. Thomas and Edward, and a daughter Catherine, who married William Belcher, M. D. by whom the had Stringer Belcher, and other children. The Stringers bore for their arms, Per chevron, or, and sable, in chief two eagles displayed of the second, in the base a fleur de lis of the first.

Stephen Stringer, the eldest son of John, resided at Triggs in the reign of king Charles II. and was succeeded in it by his second son Stephen Stringer, esq. who kept his shrievalty here in the 6th year of queen Anne. He died without male issue, leaving by Jane his wife, daughter of John Austen, esq. of Broadford, four daughters his coheirs, Jane, married to Thomas Weston, of Cranbrooke; Hannah to William Monk, of Buckingham. in Sussex, whose eldest daughter and coheir married Thomas Knight, esq. of Godmersham; Elizabeth married Edward Bathurst, esq. of Finchcocks, and Anne married John Kirril, esq. of Sevenoke. (fn. 1) This seat was afterwards alienated to Francis Austen, esq. of Sevenoke, whose son Francis Mottley Austen, esq. of Sevenoke, is the present owner of it.

THE MANOR OF MARDEN claims over the greatest part of this parish; part of it, being the dens beforementioned, are within the manor of East Farleigh, and the remaining part, called Wincehurst-den, is within the manor of Gillingham, near Chatham. Although that part of this parish which lies within the hundred of West Barnefield, being the most southern part of it, contains those places which are of, by far, the greatest note in it, yet, for the sake of regularity in my description, I shall begin with those in the hundred of Marden, partly already described, and having finished that, proceed next to the hundred of West Barnefield, and the matters worthy of notice in it.

BOKINFOLD is a manor of large extent, situated in the hundred of Marden, having formerly a large park and demesnes belonging to it, which extended into the parishes of Brenchley, Horsemonden, Yalding, Marden, and Goudhurst, the house of it being situated in that of Yalding, in the description of which parish the reader will find an ample account of the former state and possessors of it. (fn. 2) It will, therefore, be sufficient to mention here, in addition to it, that the whole of this manor coming at length into the possession of Sir Alexander Colepeper. He in the 3d year of queen Elizabeth levied a fine of it, and three years afterwards alienated that part of this manor, and all the demesnes of it which lay in Brenchley, Horsemonden, Yalding, and Marden, to Roger Revell, as has been mentioned under the parish of Yalding, and THE REMAINDER OF IT in this parish, held of the manor of Marden, to Sharpeigh, whose descendant Stephen Sharpeigh passed that part of it away in 1582, to Richard Reynolds, whose son and heir John Reynolds, about the 41st year of queen Elizabeth, conveyed it to Richard Eliot, and he, about the year 1601, alienated it to Thomas Girdler, who the next year sold it to John Reynolds, and he, in the 5th year of king James, transmitted it to John Beale, who, about 1609, passed it away to John Harleston, of Ickham, and he settled it by will on Richard Harleston, who in like manner devised it to his kinsman Richard Bishop, and he, soon after the death of king Charles I. sold it to Mr. Stephen Stringer, of Triggs, in Goudhurst, whose son, of the same name, was sheriff anno 6 queen Anne, and left five daughters his coheirs, of whom Elizabeth, the third, married Edward Bathurst, esq. of Finchcocks, and on the division of their inheritance, he, in her right, became possessed of this manor. He died in 1772, upon which this estate came to his son, the Rev. Thomas Bathurst, rector of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire, the present owner of it. A court baron is regularly held for this manor.

In 1641 the archbishop collated Richard Amhurst, clerk, to the free chapels of Bockinfold and Newsted annexed, in the archdeaconry of Canterbury, then vacant and of his patronage. (fn. 3)

COMBORNE is an estate, situated in the northernmost part of this parish, adjoining to Winchet-hill, in the hundred of Marden likewise; which place of Winchet-hill was antiently the original seat in this county, of the family of Roberts, of Glassenbury.

An ancestor of this family, William Rookherst, a gentleman of Scotland, left his native country, and came into England in the 3d year of king Henry I. and had afterwards the surname of Roberts, having purchased lands at Winchet-hill, on which he built himself a mansion, calling it Rookherst, after himself. This place came afterwards to be called Ladiesden Rokehurst, alias Curtesden, and continued the residence of this family till the reign of king Richard II. when Stephen Roberts, alias Rookherst, marrying Joane, the daughter and heir of William Tilley, of Glassenbury, removed thither, and the remains of their residence here are so totally effaced, as to be known only by the family evidences, and the report of the neighbourhood.

But their estate at Winchet-hill continued several generations afterwards in their descendants, till it was at length alienated to one of the family of Maplesden, of Marden, in whose descendants this estate, together with that of Comborne adjoining, continued down to Edward Maplesden; esq. of the Middle Temple, who died in 1755, s. p. and intestate. Upon which they descended to Alexander Courthope, esq. of Horsemonden, the son of his sister Catherine, and to Charles Booth, esq. the grandson of his sister Anne, as his coheirs in gavelkind, and on a partition of those estates between them, Winchet-hill was allotted to Charles Booth, esq. afterwards Sir Charles Booth, of Harrietsham-place, who died possessed of it, s. p. in 1795, and his devisees, for the purposes of his will, are now in the possession of it; but Comborne was allotted to Alexander Courthope, esq. since deceased, whose nephew John Cole, esq. now possesses it.

FINCHCOCKS is a feat in this parish, situated within the hundred of Marden, in that angle of it which extends south-westward below Hope mill, and is likewise within that manor. It was formerly of note for being the mansion of a family of the same surname, who were possessed of it as early as the 40th year of Henry III. They were succeeded in it by the family of Horden, of Horden, who became proprietors of it by purchase in the beginning of king Henry VI.'s reign, one of whom was Edward Horden, esq. clerk of the green cloth to king Edward VI. queen Mary, and queen Elizabeth, who had, for some considerable service to the crown, the augmentation of a regal diadem, added to his paternal coat by queen Elizabeth. He left two daughters his coheirs, Elizabeth, married to Mr. Paul Bathurst, of Bathurst-street, in Nordiam, and Mary to Mr. Delves, of Fletchings, who had Horden for his share of the inheritance, as the other had this of Finchcocks. He was descended from Laurence Bathurst, of Canterbury, who held lands there and in Cranbrooke, whose son of the same name, left three sons, of whom Edward, the eldest, was of Staplehurst, and was ancestor of the Bathursts, of Franks, in this county, now extinct, (fn. 4) of the earls Bathurst, and those of Clarenden-park, in Wiltshire, and Lydney, in Gloucestershire; Robert Bathurst, the second, was of Horsemonden; and John, the third son, was ancestor of the Bathursts, of Ockham, in Hampshire. Robert Bathurst, of Horsemonden above-mentioned, by his first wife had John, from whom came the Bathursts, of Lechlade, in Gloucestershire, and baronets; and Paul, who was of Nordiam, and afterwards possessor of Finchcocks, from whose great-grandson William, who was a merchant in London, descended the Bathursts, of Edmonton, in Middlesex. By his second wife he had John, who was of Goudhurst, ancestor of the Bathursts, of Richmond, in Yorkshire. In the descendants of Paul Bathurst before-mentioned, this seat continued down to Thomas Bathurst, esq. who by his will devised this seat and estate to his nephew Edward, only son of his younger brother William, of Wilmington, who leaving his residence there on having this seat devised to him, removed hither, and rebuilt this seat, at a great expence, in a most stately manner. He resided here till his death in 1772, having been twice married, and leaving several children by each of his wives. By his first wife Elizabeth, third daughter and coheir of Stephen Stringer, esq. of Triggs, he had three sons, Edward, who left a daughter Dorothy, now unmarried, and John and Thomas, both fellows of All Souls college, in Oxford, the latter of whom is now rector of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. Before his death he conveyed this seat and estate by sale to his son by his second wife, Mr. Charles Bathurst, who on his decease in 1767, s. p. devised it by will to his brother, the Rev. Mr. Richard Bathurst, now of Rochester, the present possessor of it. This branch of the family of Bathurst. bore for their arms the same coat as those of Franks, in this county, and those of Cirencester, Lydney, and Clarendon, viz. Sable, two bars, ermine, in chief three crosses pattee, or, with a crescent for difference; but with a different crest, viz. Party per fess, and pale, a demi wolf argent, and sable, holding a regal crown, or; which I take to be that borne by Edward Horden, whose heir Paul Bathurst, their ancestor, married, and whose coat of arms they likewise quartered with their own.

¶AT NO GREAT DISTANCE from Finchcocks, in the same hundred, lies a capital messuage, called RISEDEN, alias GATEHOUSE, which formerly belonged to a family named Sabbe, one of whom, Simon Sabbe, sold it, before the middle of the last century, to Mr. Robert Bathurst, from whom it descended down, with an adjoining estate, called TRILLINGHERST, to another Robert Bathurst, who died in 1731, and lies buried in this church, whose daughter Mary sold them both to Sir Horace Mann, bart. the present possessor of them.

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol7/pp64-73

It feels like I have been here before, but no shots of it is on my stream, and my notebook says I have not been before either.

So, first time to Meopham.

St John sits on a busy road, but has a spacious car park, and from that I saw the large "church open" sign near the porch.

Great news.

But after slinging my full camera bag on my back and walking to the modern door, I could not budge it. So, I take shots round the outside and the churchyard, then walk back to the car.

A warden arrives, unloads some fresh flowers from her car: are you going to open the church?

Yes I am.

Perfect.

So, I carried her flowers to the door, where she tried to open the door; she couldn't open it.

But she jiggled with the lock, and went at the door with a shoulder charge, and the door opened.

Hoorah!

Inside I found a heavily victoianised church, with windows that had medieval glass fragments.

The nave has been reordered, with modern chairs and a modern altar in the chancel arch, which gives a great feeling of space inside the church.

Did I mention the tiles? Well, they were fabulous.

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A large fourteenth-century church with a regularity of detail that tells of much nineteenth-century replacement. The tall octagonal piers of the five-bay arcade are capped by a pretty clerestory of small quatrefoils. The wooden pulpit was made for St Margaret's, Westminster, in 1682 and brought here in 1800 by the then vicar who taught at Westminster School. It has charming cherubs' heads, cockle shells and festoons and could go a long way to enlivening a dull sermon! The former chantry chapel of Simon de Mepham (1272-1333), Archbishop of Canterbury, and a fourteenth-century political pawn, is linked to the chancel by an iron-grilled window.

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Meopham

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MEOPHAM.

THE next parish southward from Nutsted is Meopham, vulgarly called Mepham, and antiently written, Meapaham. (fn. 1)

MEOPHAM is situated about twenty-four miles from London, and nine from Dartford. It is rather a bye out of the way place, lying among the hills, and no well frequented thoroughfare through it. It is a large parish, extending near five miles from north to south, and near three miles from east to west; lies for the most part on high ground, though with continued hill and dale; the soils in it are various, much of it is poor and chalky, but in the vallies it is heavy tillage land; the roads are stony, narrow, and bad, but the air, like the neighbouring hilly parishes, is very healthy. The village, having the church and Court-lodge in it, stands in the centre of the parish; in the southern part there are several coppice woods, mostly of beech and birch, intermixed with scrubby oak trees, which in these parts hardly ever grow to any size; there are several small hamlets in different parts of it, as Mellaker, Hook-green, and Camer, in the northern parts; Pitfield-green, Priest-wood, and Culverstone-green, in the southern parts. In the former part of the parish, at Camer, there is a good modern house, which was built by Mr. George Master, whose son, George Master, esq. likewise resided here; he died unmarried, and without issue, leaving his sister, Catherine, his heir, married to Mr. Smith, of Croydon, in Surry, who in her right became possessed of it; after his death she removed to East Malling; her eldest son, George Smith, esq. married Rebecca, daughter of the Rev. Nicholas Brett, of Spring-grove, in Wye. He now possesses this house, and resides here.

This parish, among others in this neighbourhood, was antiently contributary to the repair of the ninth pier of Rochester bridge.

¶ATHELSTANE, king of England, gave the perpetual inheritance of Meopham to duke Eadulf, who, in 940, with the king's consent, gave it to Christ church, in Canterbury, in the presence of archbishop Wlselm, free from all secular service and royal tribute, excepting the trinoda necessitas of repelling invasions, and the repairs of castles and highways. Queen Ediva, mother of king Edmund and king Edred, in 961, gave Meopham to Christ church for the health of her soul, with the like privileges; by which it may be observed, that in the accounts of the donations of the Saxon kings, the same manors and places are frequently mentioned, as having been given by several different kings, which was occasioned by their continual dissensions, and contending with each other with various success; one king taking away the possessions of the church, and another regranting the same. Besides, it has been frequently found, that when one of these kings gave a small parcel of land in a parish or manor, in the Saxon codocils, he has been recorded as having given the whole of it. Soon after this the church's possessions were further increased here; for whilst Ælsstane was bishop of Rochester, who came to the see in 945, and died in 984, one Birtrick, a rich and powerful man, who then resided here, devised, with the consent of Elsswithe his wife, his land at Meopham, by his last testament, a most curious record of the customs of those times, to Christ church, Canterbury, together with sixty marcs of gold, thirty to the bishop and thirty to the convent; and one necklace of twenty marcs and two cups of silver. The original is in the Saxon language, and is inserted, with a Latin interpretation of it, both in Lambarde and in the Registrum Roffense, (fn. 2) and by Dr. Hickes, in his Differtatio Epistolaris, at the end of his Thesaurus, with his notes and remarks on it; by it the antient form and phrases of a testament may be known, and it may be observed by it—that the husband and wife joined in making their testaments; that lands were devisable by testament in old time; and by what words estates of inheritance were wont to be created; that the lord's consent was thought requisite to the testament of the tenant, and that it was procured by the gift of a heriot, which, as Bracton says, was done at first, Magis de gratia quam de jure: and lastly, what weapons, jewels, and ornaments, were then worn and in use.

MEOPHAM remained among the possessions of Christ church, at the consecration of archbishop Lanfranc, in the 4th year of William the Conqueror's reign; who, when he separated the manors and lands belonging to his church, allotted this manor to the monks for their subsistance, cloathing, and other ne cessary uses; and it is accordingly thus entered in the record of Domesday, under the general title of land of the monks of the archbishop.

The archbishop himself holds Mepeham. It was taxed in the time of king Edward the Confessor for ten sulins, now for seven. The arable land is 30 carucates. In demesne there are four, and 25 villeins, with seventy one borderers, having 25 carucates. There is a church, and 17 servants, and 16 acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of 10 hogs. In the whole value, in the time of king Edward, it was worth 15 pounds and 10 shillings, now 26 pounds. Richard de Tonebridge has in his lowy what is worth 18 shillings and sixpence. Wood for the pannage of 20 hogs.

This manor was De cibo monachorum, that is, to the use of their refectory. (fn. 3) In the year 1306, anno 35 king Edward I. Henry Prior and the chapter of Christ church, Canterbury, released to their homagers and tenants of Mepham certain customs and services for an annual rent, to be paid yearly to them within the manor of Mepham.

¶King Edward II. by his letters patent, in his 10th year, granted to the prior and convent free warren for themselves and their successors, in all their demesne lands in Meopham. King Henry VI. in his 25th year, granted to them a market at Meopham weekly, on a Saturday; and one yearly fair, on the feast of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. (fn. 4)

MEOPHAM is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester, and being a peculiar of the archbishop, is within the deanry of Shoreham. The church, which is a large handsome building, with a square tower at the west end, is dedicated to St. John Baptist.

Among other monuments and inscriptions in it are the following: In the chancel, a memorial for Henry Haslin, esq. of Meopham, who married Mary, daughter of Sir George Courthope, of Wileigh, in Sussex, and Elizabeth his wife, and had two sons and one daughter, obt. 1658; a brass plate for John Follham, vicar here, obt. June 13, 1455. In the north side of the chancel is an antient stone, with Saxon letters cut round the edge, but without any reference to shew the person buried under it. In the nave, a stone for Christopher Copland, vicar here thirty-seven years, ob. 12 Cal. June, 1707.

Within the memory of several antient people of this parish, some of the bells of this church being to be new cast, and there being wanting a sufficient quantity of metal to do it, some persons tore off the brass inscriptions from the stones in this church, except that of Follham above mentioned, and threw them into the heating metal, to add to its quantity.

Simon Meopham, elected archbishop of Canterbury in 1327, was born here. He rebuilt this church, which was repaired by archbishop Courtney about seventy years afterwards, who annexed to it four new alms houses for the use of the poor. (fn. 11)

This church was always esteemed as an appendage to the manor of Meopham, in which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory of Christ church, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it was, together with the rest of the possessions of the priory, surrendered into the king's hands; who, by his donation charter, in his 33d year, settled this manor, the rectory, and the advowson of the vicarage of this church, among other premises, on his new founded dean and chapter of Christ church, Canterbury, with whom the inheritance of the rectory or parsonage still remains, the present lessee of it being John Market, esq. of this parish. But the advowson of the vicarage was soon afterwards conveyed to the archbishop of Canterbury, and His Grace the archbishop still continues at this time patron of it.

Archbishop Richard, Becket's immediate successor, in the reign of king Henry II. is said to have appro priated this church to the use of the almonry of the priory of Christ church, but this appropriation does not seem to have taken place, for in the 8th year of king Richard II. the portion paid from this church to the almonry was the yearly gross sum of 61. 13s. 4d. at which time it was not appropriated, as appears by the certificate given in to the abbot of St. Augustine's, appointed by the king's letters patent collector of the half tenth, then granted to the king by the clergy, when this church was taxed at 261. 8d.

King Richard II. was a great benefactor to the priory of Christ church; (fn. 12) and among other marks of his favour, in the 9th year of his reign, he gave licence to the monks to appropriate the churches of Meopham and Godmersham to their own use. Accordingly William Courtney, archbishop of Canterbury, appropriated this church to them, and most probably to that of their almonry, in compliance with the intention of his predecessor.

¶In an antient valuation of the churches in this diocese, made in the 15th year of king Edward I. the church of Meopham is valued at forty marcs. (fn. 13) On the sequestration of the possessions of deans and chapters, after the death of king Charles I. the manor and rectory of Meopham were surveyed in 1649, by order of the state, an account of which has already been given above; and in 1650, there was another survey taken, in which it was returned, that Meopham was a vicarage presentative, worth 50l. per annum, Mr. Gibbon then incumbent, in the room of the late Mr. Pigget, then sequestered; that there was a pension of 5l. 6s. 8d. per annum, paid by the late dean and chapter of Canterbury, who had the impropriation, worth 120l. per annum, let on lease to Mr. Henry Haslin. This vicarage is valued in the king's books at 16l. 3s. 4d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 2s. 4d. (fn. 14)

The vicar of Meopham receives all manner of tithes, except corn, and enjoys an augmentation of thirty pounds per annum, paid by the lessee of the parsonage, and the annual pension of 5l. 6s. 8d. from the dean and chapter.

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp356-367

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