Ivan Ropet

Ivan Pavlovich Ropet (pseudonym of Ivan Nikolaevich Petrov, 1845, Petergof – 1908) was an architect widely regarded as the originator of the Russian Revival in architecture, which is sometimes called the "Ropet Style" after him. His work was hailed by Vladimir Stasov as "the future of our architecture".
Biography.
Raised in the family of his uncle, Ropet studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Alexey Gornostaev, pioneer of Russian Revival and a master of tented roof design. Together with Viktor Hartmann, Ropet aspired to revive a truly national style of architecture, based primarily on ornate wooden huts of rural Russia.
Basically, Ropet's circle propagated the same theories of the romantic nationalism as The Five did in regard to Russian music. Between 1874 and 1880, they brought out a series of albums of "Russian Architecture Motifs" which made their work known throughout Russia. Most of his works were in timber; one of the few still standing is the bath at Abramtsevo.
Ropet made use of the Victorian craze for world's fairs to propagate his ideas abroad. He designed the Russian pavilions at the World's Fairs in Paris (1878) and Chicago (1893). In Russia, he was responsible for the influential polychrome pavilions at the Polytechnic Exposition of 1872 in Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod Fair of 1896.
Among the more permanent works ascribed to Ropet are the Bassin Apartment House in St. Petersburg and the Russian Embassy in Tokyo.


Wotton House

Wotton House, or Wotton, Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, England, is a stately home built between 1704 and 1714, to a design very similar to that of the contemporary version of Buckingham House. The house is an example of English Baroque and a Grade I listed building. The architect is uncertain although William Winde, the designer of Buckingham House, has been suggested. The grounds were laid out by George London and Henry Wise with a formal parterre and a double elm avenue leading down to a lake. Fifty years later William Pitt the Elder and Capability Brown improved the landscape, creating pleasure grounds with two lakes. After a fire gutted the main house in 1820 Richard Grenville, 1st Earl Temple, commissioned John Soane to rebuild it. After the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the last direct Grenville male heir, died in 1889, the house was let to a succession of tenants; including, notably; the philanthropist, Leo Bernard William Bonn (1850-1929) who became deaf while residing at Wotton, and later founded (1911) what became the RNID. His son and heir, the decorated First World War hero, Major Walter Basil Louis Bonn, DSO, MC, MA (Oxon.) FRSA, FZSL (1885-1973) is also listed as resident at Wotton House; in the New College archives, at Oxford University; during his three years as an Oxford undergraduate, there, 1903-1906, while living fifteen miles away from his family home of many years, at Wotton House.
In 1929 Wotton was bought by Major Michael Beaumont MP who renovated it. In 1947 Beaumont sold the estate to a charity who divided the grounds into small parcels and let the main house to two boys' schools. By 1957 the house had become derelict and was due to be demolished when Elaine Brunner found it and with the help of the architect Donald Insall restored most of the Soane features. Her daughter and son-in-law David Gladstone have continued the work she started. The South Pavilion (the former coach house) was sold separately in 1947. It has had a number of notable owners including Sir Arthur Bryant and John Gielgud, and is now co-owned by former British Prime Minister Tony and his wife Cherie Blair, as well as David Gladstone, with David Gladstone owning the main building (shown above) and the former British Prime Minister owning the smaller house next to it, with the fields of land being co-owned/used.
History.
Since the twelfth century there had been a manor house at Wotton Underwood owned by the Grenville family. In 1704 Richard Grenville (1646-1719) built Wotton House on a new site on a mound looking down to a natural lake. The design was very similar to that of Buckingham House which was built at the same time and later became Buckingham Palace. The architect is unknown, but Sir Howard Colvin suggested John Fitch; John Millar believes it could be by Elizabeth Wilbraham; while Historic England suggests William Winde, whom Pevsner also references.
In 1749 Richard Grenville, the elder brother of George Grenville (Prime Minister between 1763 and 1765), inherited Stowe House through his wife Hester, sister of Viscount Cobham. Wotton was then run in tandem with Stowe. A fire destroyed the interior of the house in 1820 but the coach house and kitchen pavilion (the "Clock Pavilion") survived intact. Richard Grenville, Earl Temple (later Duke of Buckingham and Chandos), immediately engaged John Soane to restore the main house. Soane lowered the house, removing the top floor and reducing the height of the first floor windows, giving it a Georgian proportion. He made inventive use of the existing floor plans and created a three-storey, top-lit "Tribune", alongside a new stone staircase, in place of the old entrance hall. With its Soane interiors Wotton had a succession of Grenville occupiers until 1889, when the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, the last direct male heir, died, the house was let to a succession of tenants. It was rented and then bought by Michael Beaumont (MP for Aylesbury) in 1929 and had it renovated by the architect Arthur Stanley George Butler, concealing all of Soane's detailing including the central three-storey tribune.
When Beaumont moved to Kildare in Ireland, the house was sold to a charity, the Merchant Venturers of Bristol. It was neglected down through the Second World War (when it was not requisitioned), but it was put up for sale shortly thereafter. After the war much of the grounds were sold in small parcels and in the early 1950s the building was used by two boys' boarding schools, Wotton House Boys' School followed by Cokethorpe School (since relocated to near Witney).
Restoration of the main house.
Elaine (Mrs Patrick) Brunner purchased the main house and the Clock Pavilion from Buckinghamshire County Council for £6,000 in 1957, two weeks before it was scheduled for demolition. Brunner engaged Donald Insall Associates to carry out extensive work on the house, repairing the dilapidations, undoing most of the Butler alterations and restoring Soane's architectural details. However the central feature of Soane's redesign, the "Tribune", which had been destroyed by Butler, was still unrestored when she died in 1998. The house passed to April, Brunner's daughter and her husband David Gladstone. The grounds are open to the public at least one day a week during the summer months, but viewing of the house is by appointment only. In 2007 David Gladstone held a conference at Wotton in an attempt to determine the name of the original architect of the house. The conference generated at least two follow up papers: Howard Colvin (2010) proposed that John Fitch may have been the original architect, and later the same year John Millar (2010) proposed that it may have been Elizabeth Wilbraham (1632–1705).
Conversion of the Coach House into the South Pavilion.
The original Coach House (later re-christened the South Pavilion) and the walled formal garden were purchased by Tristram Gilbert and Andre DuGuay shortly before Elaine Brunner purchased the main house. They restored both and lived there until about 1965. The walled garden was opened to the public. The South Pavilion was sold to Sir Arthur Bryant, the historian, and then to Sir John Gielgud who, photographs show, further restored it. In 2000 Gielgud died there. In 2008 it was bought by Tony and Cherie Blair for £4m.
History of the grounds.
In 1726 Richard Grenville inherited from his father the Wotton estate, which yielded a rental income of over £3000 per annum. In 1735 he introduced an Enclosure Act in Parliament which cleared the area of dwellings, enabling the transformation during the 1750s of the London & Wise garden into the new style of natural landscape. In 1754 another Hester, sister of Richard and George, married William Pitt the Elder at Wotton and soon took over the project that Richard had envisioned. By that date Richard had taken over at Stowe and George was living at Wotton. Capability Brown had left Stowe House in 1749 where he had been working as head gardener and was brought in to help Pitt execute the project, in particular the extensive water works. It is not known exactly what the relative roles and contributions of Pitt and Brown were, although Pitt was a well-known landscape designer in his own right. The Pleasure Grounds cover 200 acres and incorporate two lakes, one of 35 acres and one of 12, joined by a canal. They are enclosed within a circular belt, as was common at the time, and the visitor encounters a series of temples, bridges and statues along the circuit.
In April 1786 John Adams (the future second President of the United States on tour with Thomas Jefferson – who would serve as his vice-president before becoming President himself) spent a few days visiting some stately homes to the north west of London, and one of those they visited was Wotton. On their return to London Adams wrote "Stowe, Hagley, and Blenheim, are superb; Woburn, Caversham, and the Leasowes are beautiful. Wotton is both great and elegant, though neglected". Jefferson noted in his diary: "But two gardeners. Much neglected". On hearing of the historically dilapidated state of the Park; on 17 April 1988, and following attendance of Divine Service, at the neighbouring Buckinghamshire Parish Church of Dinton (see Parish News: May 2018, 30th Anniversary Royal Visit) HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, decided to make a dendrologically inspired visit to Wotton House, during the tenure of a thespian acquaintance; Sir John Gielgud; and while staying with the Cotton family, at nearby Tythrop Park; Her Royal Highness thus undertook an informal Royal Visit, in order to view the gates, park, and South Pavilion, at Wotton; accompanied by the former (1901-1911) Wotton House resident's great grandson (Commissioner Philip Bonn of the International Tree Protection Commission - ITPC) together with Her Royal Highness's friend; Mr Ned Ryan; and the RPS; who followed at a discreet distance behind the Princess's Rolls Royce; containing Her Royal Highness and the guests from the weekend house party at Tythrop Park, Kingsley, in an adjoining district of Buckinghamshire.
All the grounds were sold by Major Beaumont in 1947 and were bought by neighbouring farmers in parcels. Between 1957 and 1985 Elaine Brunner gradually bought back some 400 acres of the grounds. Since 1998 David Gladstone has overseen the restoration of much of the original scheme by his estate manager, Michael Harrison.


Quenby Hall

Quenby Hall is a Jacobean house in parkland near the villages of Cold Newton and Hungarton, Leicestershire, England. It is described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as "the most important early-seventeenth century house in the county [of Leicestershire]". The Hall is Grade I listed, and the park and gardens grade II, by English Heritage.
Location.
Quenby Hall is just south of Hungarton, about east of the centre of Leicester and is best reached from the A47 road by taking the turn towards Hungarton at the village of Billesdon.
Descent of the manor.
Ashby family.
The Ashby family acquired an estate in Quenby in the 13th century. By 1563 they had acquired the whole Manor, and soon afterwards moved to enclose and depopulate it.
Quenby Hall was built between 1618 and 1636 by George Ashby (1598–1653), High Sheriff of Leicestershire for 1627. The village of Quenby was held by the Ashby family from the 13th century and remains of the village are in the present park. The village population was at least 25 in 1377 based on poll tax data. There may have been a house on the site before building of the current house which began in 1618. A clock on the west front is dated 1620. Building finished in 1636. The house is 'H-shaped' and on a hillside location. It has three storeys and a very shallow pitched roof.
George Ashby was succeeded by his son, also George, who married the daughter of Euseby Shuckburgh of Naseby, Northamptonshire. Their son George, MP for Leicestershire, was known as 'Honest George Ashby the Planter' because of the large number of trees he planted at Quenby. He died in 1728, and in the mid-18th century Quenby Hall passed to his great-nephew Shukburgh Ashby (died 1792), MP for Leicester and Fellow of the Royal Society. Quenby Hall remained in the Ashby family until 1904.
Mrs Greaves.
The house was bought in 1904 and restored by Rosamund Greaves (née Lloyd), then remarried with Lord Henry Grosvenor, who restored much of the Jacobean interior. Her son sold Quenby Hall in 1924 to Sir Harold Nutting, "newly rich from bottling Guinness", who at the end of the decade commenced his notable mastership of the Quorn Hunt.
de Lisle.
The de Lisles then bought Quenby Hall in 1972. They made extensive restorations at Quenby, which was eventually turned into a cheese-making business on the estate in 2005, in order to bypass planning regulations banning the family from inhabiting the home full time. The business failed in July 2011 with debts of £250,000 caused by over-expansion. The business had then a turnover of about £1.8m and employed about 40 staff. In April 2011 administrators were brought in to find a buyer but none was forthcoming, perhaps due to problems with the export market caused by a recent incident of listeria in the Quenby product. In late 2013 the family put up Quenby Hall for sale for £11.6 million.
Stilton cheese.
After a break of 250 years, production began again in 2005 but the business folded in 2011.
Film location.
Part of the British film "A Cock and Bull Story" (2006) was made at the Hall.


Gaddesden Place

Gaddesden Place, near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England, was designed by architect James Wyatt and built between 1768 and 1773, and was the home of the noted Hertfordshire Halsey family.
The house is set in an elevated position overlooking the Gade Valley and is said to enjoy one of the finest views in the Home Counties.
History.
The Halseys moved to Great Gaddesden in 1458 and later became lessees of the Rectory of Gaddesden until March 12, 1545. When King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries during the Reformation, he granted the estate of King's Langley Priory to William Hawes (or Halsey, also Chambers).
The Halsey family residence was at the Golden Parsonage, a sixteenth-century mansion situated in Gaddesden Row. Thomas Halsey (1731–1788) MP erected a new mansion, Gaddesden Place, to Wyatt's design, about a mile south-west of the Golden Parsonage. In 1774 the family moved to Gaddesden Place, and the Golden Parsonage was partially demolished. In 1788 Thomas Halsey died, leaving the estate to his only surviving daughter, Sarah. She married Joseph Thompson Whately, and he adopted took the Halsey name and coat of arms.
Gaddesden Place was gutted by fire, on the 1 February 1905, and was subsequently rebuilt in 1908 by Cole A Adams. The quadrant links and north and south pavilions were demolished in 1955 and 1963 because of dry rot.
The building was purchased in 1984 by the technology entrepreneur Charles Moir, founder of the software company Computer Concepts, now known as Xara. Since then, Gaddesden Place has been the headquarters of Xara Group Ltd. In 2007, Xara was acquired by the German software company Magix.
Architecture.
Gaddesden Place is a Grade II* listed building and is a noted example of Palladian architecture. It is said to be Wyatt's first country work and represents his conformity at the start of his active career to the English Palladian tradition.
It features an entrance surrounded by a 19th-century porte-cochère. On the south side, overlooking the valley, there is a large central portico of five bays (rebuilt 1905) supported by ionic columns. A distinctive semicircular single-storey conservatory, added in 1891, links to an outer wing which has Venetian windows.
At the entrance to the grounds on Red Lion Lane there is an 1870 half-timbered brick and Bath stone gatehouse lodge, which is Grade II listed.
The landscaped gardens, which feature a pair of Atlas cedars were laid out by Edward Kemp in 1872.
In popular culture.
Gaddesden Place and its grounds have been frequently used as film locations. The house was used as the location for Villa Diodati in Ken Russel's 1986 horror film, "Gothic", in which Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) entertains Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (Julian Sands).
It has also appeared in the TV series "Lewis"; in "The Once and Future Ex" episode of Jeeves and Wooster (1993), as Lord Worplesdon's New York residence; and in the Foyle's War episode, "A Lesson in Murder".
Other productions that have shot at Gaddesden Place have included "Fanny by Gaslight" (1944), "A Kiss Before Dying" (1991), "Little Britain" (2000–07), "The Legend of Tarzan" (2016), "The Current War" (2018), "Slaughterhouse Rulez" (2018), and "Holby City" (s21e01 2019).


St Peter upon Cornhill

St Peter upon Cornhill is an Anglican church on the corner of Cornhill and Gracechurch Street in the City of London of medieval origin. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. It is now a satellite church in the parish of St Helen's Bishopsgate. It lies in the ward of Cornhill.
Early history.
The church of St Peter upon Cornhill stands on the highest point of the City of London. A tradition grew up that the church was of very ancient origin and was the seat of an archbishop until the coming of the Saxons in the 5th century, after which London was abandoned and Canterbury became the seat for the 6th-century Gregorian mission to the Kingdom of Kent.
The London historian John Stow, writing at the end of the 16th century, reported "there remaineth in this church a table whereon is written, I know not by what authority, but of a late hand, that King Lucius founded the same church to be an archbishop's see metropolitan, and chief church of his kingdom, and that it so endured for four hundred years". The "table" (tablet) seen by Stow was destroyed when the medieval church was burnt in the Great Fire of London, but before this time a number of writers had recorded what it said. The text of the original tablet as printed by John Weever in 1631 began:
Be hit known to al men, that the yeerys of our Lord God an clxxix [AD 179]. "Lucius" the fyrst christen kyng of this lond, then callyd Brytayne, fowndyd the fyrst chyrch in London, that is to sey, the Chyrch of Sent "Peter" apon Cornhyl, and he fowndyd ther an Archbishoppys See, and made that Chirch the Metropolitant, and cheef Chirch of this kingdom...
A replacement, in the form of an inscribed brass plate, was set up after the Great Fire and still hangs in the church vestry. The text of the brass plate has been printed several times, for example by George Godwin in 1839, and an engraving of it was included in Robert Wilkinson's "Londina Illustrata" (1819–25).
In 1444 a "horsemill" was given to St Peter's. The bells of St Peter are mentioned in 1552, when a bell foundry in Aldgate was asked to cast a new bell.
Present building.
The church was badly damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The parish tried to patch it up, but between 1677 and 1684 it was rebuilt to a design by Christopher Wren at a cost of £5,647. The new church was shorter than its predecessor, the eastern end of the site having been given up to widen Gracechurch Street.
St Peter's was described by Ian Nairn as having "three personalities inextricably sewn into the City". The eastern frontage to Gracechurch Street is a grand stone-faced composition, with five arched windows between Ionic pilasters above a high stylobate. The pilasters support an entablature; above that is a blank attic storey, then a gable with one arched window flanked by two round ones. The north and south sides are stuccoed and much simpler in style. Unusually, shallow 19th-century shops have survived towards Cornhill, squeezed between the church and the pavement. The tower is of brick, its leaded cupola topped with a small spire, which is in turn surmounted by a weather vane in the shape of St Peter's key.
The interior is aisled, with square arcade piers resting on the medieval pier foundations. The nave is barrel vaulted, while the aisles have transverse barrel vaults. Unusually for a Wren church, there is a screen marking the division between nave and chancel. This was installed at the insistence of the rector at the time of rebuilding, William Beveridge.
St Peter's was formerly the regimental church of the Royal Tank Regiment, having been adopted as such in 1954 at the suggestion of the then rector, Douglas Owen, who had served as a Padre with the regiment. Since 2007 the regimental church has been St Mary Aldermary.
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950. It is now a satellite church in the parish of St Helen's Bishopsgate and is used for staff training, bible studies and a youth club. The St Helen's church office controls access to St Peter's.
Charles Dickens mentions the churchyard in "Our Mutual Friend". A theatre group called The Players of St Peter were formed at the church in 1946 and performed there until 1987. They are now based at St Clement Eastcheap where its members perform medieval mystery plays each November.
Features and points of interest.
Music.
In June 1834 14-year-old Elizabeth Mounsey became the organist of St Peter's. She remained in the position for 48 years, until her resignation in 1882. The organ in the gallery of St Peter's has an autographed souvenir quote from a J.S. Bach Passacaglia on display, which Felix Mendelssohn gave to Mounsey on 30 September 1840 after he gave an impromptu performance on the church's organ.
Jowett.
In the 1830s, the notable missionary William Jowett was a lecturer at the church.


Singer House

Singer House (), also widely known as the House of the Book (), is a building in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is located at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and the Griboyedov Canal, directly opposite the Kazan Cathedral. It is recognized as a historical landmark, has official status as an object of Russian cultural heritage and serves as the headquarters of the VKontakte.
History.
The building was designed by architect Pavel Suzor for the Russian branch of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. The management of the Singer Company initially intended to construct a skyscraper, similar to the Singer Building, the company headquarters under construction at that time in New York City, but the Saint Petersburg building code did not allow structures taller than the Winter Palace (the Emperor's residence). Suzor found an elegant solution to the 23.5 meter height limit: the six-story Art Nouveau building is crowned with a glass tower, which in turn is topped by a glass globe sculpture created by Estonian artist Amandus Adamson. This tower creates the impression of a substantial elevation, but is subtle enough not to overshadow either the Kazan Cathedral or the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.
During the First World War the US Embassy was briefly located in the building. In 1919, not long after the October Revolution, the building was given to the Petrograd State Publishing House. It quickly became the city's largest bookstore, and was subsequently named "The House of Books" in 1938. The bookstore remained functioning during the Siege of Leningrad until November 1942, reopening again in 1948. The building closed for reconstruction from 2004 to 2006, reopening as the home of several businesses, including the House of Books and Café Singer.


Leura, Bellevue Hill

Leura is a heritage-listed former residence and school boarding house and now residence at 24 Victoria Road, Bellevue Hill, Municipality of Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Walter Liberty Vernon and Howard Joseland, and built during 1891. It is also known as Street House (Cranbrook School). It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History.
The traditional owners of the land from South Head to Petersham were the Cadigal people. Following European occupation of Woollahra the Cadigal band disappeared from the area by about the middle of the 19th century.
Bellevue Hill.
The name given to the suburb was taken from that given to the look-out area which later became Bellevue Park - named "Belle Vue" by Governor Macquarie as an alternative to the colloquial "Vinegar Hill" which Macquarie considered vulgar. The area was accessed by the Old South Head Road from 1811 and the New South Head Road from the 1830s. Victoria Road was formed by the Surveyor General, Sir Thomas Mitchell's survey of 1844.
Point Piper Estate.
The subject properties were originally part of the extensive Point Piper Estate, land accumulated by Captain John Piper since 1816, later conveyed to the emancipist traders Cooper and Levey in 1826 following Piper experiencing financial difficulties. The estate, by then comprising , became the property exclusively of Daniel Cooper in 1847. After 1850 Cooper began offering some sections of his estate for sale and others as 99 year leases.
Edwin Tooth took up a lease of over in Bellevue Hill in December 1854. Following Edwin's death, his brother Robert Tooth built the mansion Cranbrook on the southern side of New South Head Road in 1859-60. Cranbrook was eventually sold to the founders of Cranbrook School in 1917.
In Edward Knox and his brother-in-law William GIlchrist sub-leased an area of Edwin's land in Bellevue Hill, and by the turn of the century had purchased the freehold from the Cooper family. Edward built the house "Rona" on his part of the land in 1883. Edward Knox and William Gilchrist made available a portion of land adjacent to Rona for Edward's brother Thomas Forster Knox.
"Leura".
Site of an old Aboriginal camp and has a natural spring.
What became "Leura" was Lot 5 of the 1883 subdivision. The house "Leura" was built in 1891 for Thomas Forster (Tom) Knox, adjoining Rona. The tender for construction of the house dated 3 April 1890 is reprinted in "Cranbrook - the first fifty years 1918-1968" by A. C. Child, Cranbrook School, 1968, 159. It has been suggested in the Classification sheet of the National Trust of Australia (NSW), 1978 and the Woollahra Heritage Study 1984 that the architect for the house was "probably the same architect" as Rona, namely G. A. Morell. However a note on the tender reads "Addendum to contract by Mr. Vernon" - which suggests that the architect was in fact Walter Liberty Vernon. The house was completed in the following year, 1891, for Thomas Knox.
The date of construction predates the requirement of the 1906 Local Government Act (which came into force in 1909) that a building application including plans/drawings be lodged with the relevant Council. Thus no plans of the original building are held by Woollahra Municipal Council.
Thomas Knox and his family lived at "Leura" from 1891 until 1956 when Miss Helen Knox died and the house was sold.
Thomas Forster Knox (1849-1919).
Thomas Knox was managing director of the Sydney branch of Dalgety & Co. Ltd. from 1884-1912 when he resigned. He was the third son of Sir Edward Knox (1819-1901), founder of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. (CSR) in 1855 and builder of Fiona, at Darling Point, in 1864.
Thomas married Miss Ritchie, daughter of a well-known pastoralist of the western district of Victoria and had two sons (Captain Edward Knox RFA and Thomas Knox) and two daughters (Helen and Norah). Thomas Sr. trained in the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (CBC) under Sir Thomas Dibbs (of Graythwaite, North Sydney), who had himself been taken into the bank in 1847 by Thomas's father Sir Edward Knox.
Thomas was a notable personality in Sydney commercial circles, having been involved in controlling or assisting control of a number of large commercial undertakings. He furthered the widespread interests of Dalgety & Co., Ltd. developing its pastoral and agricultural interests. On his resignation as managing director in 1912, the London directors of the company offered him chairmanship of the local board of advice, a role he took until his death. He was also chairman of directors of the Permanent Trustee Company and of the United Insurance Company, Australian Gaslight Co. and Fresh Food and Ice Co. He owned an extensive rural property at Wyalong, NSW and a cattle station in the Burnett district of Queensland. He was keenly interested in the last Shackleton expedition to the south polar regions and organised a fund to install wireless telegraphy instruments on Captain Macintosh's ship, the "Aurora", and provided some scientific apparatus to the expedition. For some years he was president of the Warrigal Club and member of the Union Club. He was a member of the Australian Jockey Club, of which his younger brother Adrian Knox was chairman. Thomas also sat on the board of directors of the Carrington Hospital.
Edward Knox (1847-1933), industrialist was second son of Sir Edward Knox, founder of the CSR. Edward joined CSR in 1864 as a junior clerk, took charge of its crushing mills on the Clarence River in 1870 and was appointed general manager in 1880, expanding its operations into Queensland and Fiji, building seven new mills and a refinery in Auckland, New Zealand. He became chairman and managing director of CSR in 1920 and resigned in 1932. He served on four royal commissions including one into Sydney's water supply in 1902, served as an alderman on Woollahra Municipal Council from 1887-1902, the University of Sydney's Senate (1894-1919), Sydney Grammar School trustee (1884-1924) and National Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1907, among other involvements. His house Rona was completed in 1883. Edward's great pleasure was sailing: in 1875 he and his brother Tom bought and raced "Pleiades". In 1881 he had built "Sirocco" a ten-ton cutter, winning many races in this over 20 years.
A (an undated) photograph of the garden ('home of T. F. Knox, Esq.) showed rich plantings of trees, shrubs and ground covers, including (pointed out in its caption) a border of rock lilies ("Dendrobium" speciosissimum orchids) and azaleas ("Rhododendron indicum" cv.s) "typical of Bellevue Hill gardens".
A local sketch map from a 1902 Bellevue Hill Estate advertisement shows the mansions built on the Double Bay-Bellevue Hill leaseholds. It shows "Leura" but not a house on it - unlike "Rona" to one side and C. Stephen's property to the other. At that time Leura's land ran all the way downhill to Victoria Road.
The house was partially gutted by fire in January 1909 and the wooden shingle roof replaced by terracotta shingles. Helen Rutledge in her book "My Grandfather's House" remembered the fire which "completely gutted" the house. She notes that it had originally been roofed with oak shingles, but after the fire was re-roofed with brown Marseilles tiles.
Helen Rutledge gives a detailed account of the gardens and outlook at Leura in her book. She describes it as "extremely beautiful". G. Nesta Griffiths ('Some houses and people of New South Wales, 155) also noted that Leura was "so well-known for its beautiful garden". The house having been built on an outcrop of rock above the quarry "forward of Rona" afforded a "spectacular view". 'Mrs Knox capitalised on her unyielding terrain and made a brilliant and unusual rock garden. With its winding paths and exotic planting, it was a more famous garden than that of Rona, but most memorable were the massed rock lilies (in fact orchids, "Dendrobium speciosum").
Unlike Rona, no lawns were attempted, except for a tennis court away from the house on a more or less level corner. The long S-shaped drive was handsomely planted and curved round a tropical jungle of palms, bananas, ginger and bird of paradise flower (Strelitzia sp.) which was watered by the spring that once was piped across the road to water the Cranbrook horse paddock. Giant bamboos were grown between the two houses (Rona and Leura) and enhanced the view without blocking it...Neighbourly gates were set at different levels for the use of the two families. When discussing the fire, Rutledge also refers to the rose bushes that grew "beside the house".
In March 1926 Woollahra Council approved a subdivision of Leura and separately an application for a "house and garage" on part of the Leura estate by the owner Edward Ritchie Knox. The architect was D. M. Mitchell. This property, Coonambula, became known as 22 Victoria Road.
As part of the "Knox Settlement" (referred to in the 1949 valuation lists of the NSW Dept. of the Valuer-General) the Leura estate was re-subdivided into six lots in 1949. Rona had been re-subdivided in 1948. A letter accompanying the June 1949 subdivision plan notes that under Thomas Knox's will the property "had to be divided among several beneficiaries in accordance with certain provisions..." and "in order to comply with these conditions...it has been necessary to prepare a subdivision."
The plan dated 1945 consisted of 8 lots but re-subdivision was rejected by Council due to the "objectionable shape of the allotments and unsatisfactory access to Lots 1 & 3". The plan shows the footprint of Leura (house), the garage and locations of several walls, tennis court and drive. A revised subdivision plan was drawn up by Surveyors Foxall and Lines in June 1949 and approved in September 1949, creating Lot 1 (16 Victoria Rd.), Lot 2 (18 Victoria Rd.), Lot 3 (20 Victoria Rd.), Lot 4 (22 Victoria Rd. - Coonambula), Lot 5 (24 Victoria Rd. Leura: was described in 1952 and 1955 valuations as "house, attic, storeroom and garage" consisting of 1 acre 8.5 perches, with "access to Victoria Road by an existing driveway", Lot 6 24A Victoria Rd.
In 1956, the house (Lot 5 - 24 Victoria Rd.) was purchased at auction by Cranbrook School, after the death of Miss Helen Knox in February 1956. It served as "Street House" for sixty boarder boys, named after the then President of the School Council, Sir Kenneth Street.
Following the School Council's adoption of a proposal for development of the school by the architects Fowell, Mansfield, Jarvis and Maclauran in the early 1970s, Street House was sold c.1979. After being sold by the school the property reverted to its original name, Leura. It appears to have been transferred to M. (& B.) Levy in c.1979. It was sold again in c.1985 and reported in "The Eastern Herald" that the new owners (who appear to be W. J. Shipton) had embarked on a substantial program of renovation'.
In 1986 it was sold by property developer Bill Shipton to Ken and Christine Allen. Woollahra Council development application records note a K. Allen in that year and in 1990.
Businessman Ken and his wife Christina Allen sold Leura prior to a proposed 10 November 2015 auction for over $30m, setting a new suburb record. The Allens held the property for over three decades and spent $7.3m on it in 1986. The Allens are now London-based.
Domain noted the new owners, Chinese businessman and keen super yachter, Wilson Lee and his wife Baoyu Wu have obtained the keys, and that the property sold for a Bellevue Hill auction high of $30.8m, the day before the auction. Lee is chief of China's wealth manager Noah Group, but better known locally for his super yacht, "Ark 323", which made the trip out here from Shanghai Noah Sailing Club last year to become the first all-Chinese crew to compete in the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. Leura is barely visible from Victoria Road. A report of the sale included a photograph of the property.
Description.
Garden.
The garden consists of over of established grounds, resort style sanctuary. It retains its splendid setting and panoramic views of Sydney Harbour; the curved drive passes below in front of the house. The site is an old Aboriginal camp and has a natural spring. Trees include a Hill's fig on the house's western side (Ficus microcarpa 'Hillii'). It has a commanding position to harbour and is important in the visual catchment from New South Head Road .
Mansion.
"Leura" is a Federation Queen Anne style mansion (1891) adjoining "Rona" and probably by the same architect. Early Queen Anne style, leading to Federation style. Leadlight doors and window at rear. Timber panelling. Grand stair. Prominent siting to Sydney Harbour. Site of an old Aboriginal camp and has a natural spring. Knox family connection. Architect probably G. A. Morell as for Rona. Timber shingle roof destroyed by fire at turn of the century and replaced by terracotta shingles.
Substantial marine villa but in 1890, probably the last collaboration between (Walter Liberty) Vernon and (Howard) Joseland. Two storey brick house retains its splendid setting and panoramic views of Sydney harbour. The characteristic Shavian planning is evident in the arrangement of the principal rooms, which overlook the harbour, around the substantial stair hall. The small gable that marks the entrance and the main stair hall are Gothic Revival in character, employing restrained Gothic style tracery to the large window that lights the stairhall and to the front door. The stairhall has been altered; the ceiling and the upper rooms were unfortunately destroyed in a fire in 1909. A new roofline, with an additional gable was built. The generous two-storey verandah employs cast iron columns, providing the necessary strength for the added height.
A number of the original decorative details survive, such as the wave motif to the dado rail, the blue and white transfer tiles and the fern and sunburst detail to the grate in the dining room. The decorative motifs used are similar to the interior schemes designed by French-Australian artist Lucien Henry. Details such as panelled timber ceilings and soffits and the incised Japanese-style curves in the solid brackets to the first floro are details that appear in Vernon's later domestic designs, the former in his own house at Wendover and in the postal chamber of the Newtown Post Office and the latter in the staff residence in the grounds of Callan Park. Further evidence that the house is largely Vernon's work is a surviving (unpublished) tender analysis held by Woollahra Council. Completed by "Mr. Vernon", the list included prices from two of the builders engaged to build a number of the residences in the Neutral Bay Estate. It is likely that detailed supervision of the construction of Leura was undertaken by Joseland; the houe was not completed until 1891, by which time Vernon had been appointed Government Architect. Of Vernon's surviving work prior to this appointment, it is this design that marks the watershed between the London-influenced Queen Anne Revival and Shavian English Domestic Revival and the more restrained local variant of the style: the Federation style. It was the domestic-scale public buildings designed by Vernon and the Government Architect's Branch in the 1890s that helped to spread the Federation style across the state, however he had already been using a similar architectural vocabulary before his appointment to the position.
The billiard room on the house's south-west is a later addition.
Condition.
As at 27 August 2015, very good.
Modifications and dates.
It has since returned to the private sector.
Heritage listing.
"Leura" was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.


Englefield House

Englefield House is an Elizabethan country house with surrounding estate at Englefield in the English county of Berkshire. The gardens are open to the public all year round on particular weekdays and the house by appointment only for large groups.
Englefield House and its adjoining entrance courtyard are listed Grade II* on the National Heritage List for England, and the formal gardens and parkland are listed at Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The lodges, gateway, gates and flanking walls are also listed as a group at Grade II, as are the terrace walls to the southeast of the main house.
History.
The present house was erected before 1558. There were substantial alterations by Thomas Hopper in the 1820s.
Englefield House was the home of the Englefield family, supposedly from the time of King Edgar. Sir Thomas Englefield was the Speaker of the House of Commons. In 1559, the house was confiscated from Thomas Englefield's grandson, Sir Francis Englefield, a servant of the Catholic Queen Mary, for "consorting with [the] enemies" of the new Protestant monarch, Elizabeth I.
Popular local tradition is that the Queen granted Englefield to her spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, although there is no evidence of this. After a succession of short-lived residents, the estate was eventually purchased by John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester, famous for his Civil War defence of Basing House in Hampshire. He retired to Englefield at the Restoration and is buried in the parish church. From his Paulet descendants, the house passed, through marriage, to the Benyon family.
Numerous members of the Benyon family have also been members of parliament. Recent descent has been: Lord Francis Paulet (d. 1696); Francis Paulet (d. 1712); Anne Paulet (d.1729); Powlett Wright the elder (d.1741); Powlett Wrighte the younger (d. 1779); Nathan Wrighte (d. 1789) (descendants of Sir Nathan Wright(e) (1654–1721), Lord Keeper of the Great Seal); Richard Benyon the younger (d. 1796); Richard Benyon De Beauvoir (d. 1854); Richard Fellowes Benyon (d. 1897); James Herbert Benyon (d. 1935); Sir Henry Benyon, Bt. (d. 1959); Vice-Admiral Richard Benyon (d. 1967) and Sir William Richard Benyon (d. 2014).
In 1781 the estate was short of money and Nathaniel Wrighte decided to rent the house. The rent was set for 400 guineas p.a. but he eventually let Englefield to Lady Margaret Clive for 300 as he was keen to find the right tenant who would not interfere with the houses character too much. The house was rented complete with a library of thousands of pounds worth of books.
On 20 May 2017 the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, Pippa Middleton, married financier James Matthews at St Mark's Church on the Englefield Estate. A reception was held at Englefield House shortly after the service. Guests included the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge.
Film and television.
Englefield House has been the filming location for a number of movies, including "", "Match Point", "The King's Speech", and "Great Expectations", and "The Go-Between", as well as for television series such as Black Mirror, episode "Playtest," "Agatha Christie's Marple", "Agatha Christie's Poirot" episode "Taken at the Flood", "Hex" and the reality television series "I Wanna Marry "Harry"". It was also used as Auradon Prep in the Disney TV Movies "Descendants", "Descendants 2", and "Descendants 3", and more recently parts of the house have been used as the Sandringham Estate in Netflix's “The Crown”.
Estate.
The country estate is owned by the Benyon family; which is headed by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Benyon, a former MP sitting for the Conservative party. The estate includes most of the parish; it is owned by a family company, the Englefield Estate, covering some .


Great Synagogue (Danzig)

The Great Synagogue (, ), was a synagogue of the Jewish Community of Danzig in the city of Danzig, Germany (later Free City of Danzig, now Gdańsk, Poland). It was built in 1885–1887 on Reitbahnstraße, now Bogusławski Street. It was the largest synagogue in the city, and was demolished by the Free City authorities in May 1939.
Design.
The synagogue was built in the Neo-Renaissance style on the basis of a long rectangle. It was one of the most distinctive buildings in Danzig, with its large dome, two towers and a lantern seen at night. In the middle of a front row there was a large stained glass window with the Star of David, and all spires were topped with meshed Stars of David.
The spacious interior was topped with a sail vault, from which enormous chandeliers were hung. The main chamber was located underneath the dome. The Aron Kodesh ark was on a pedestal behind a "parokhet" curtain in an apse. Above the ark, the tables of the Decalog were supported by two stone lions. Behind it were large organs and the choir of 100 members. The bimah was behind the pedestal.
Over 2000 people could participate in the services. In the main chamber there were two rows of benches for over 1600 people. Along the sidewalls and over the western entrance there were massive arcade galleries for over 300 women, supported by multi-sided pillars. The walls were decorated with motifs of plants, geometric symbols and Biblical verses. The entire synagogue had electric heating and lighting, relatively uncommon in the late 19th century.
History.
The synagogue was financed by the five reform communities: Altschottland (modern Stary Szkoty), Weinberg (modern Winnicka), Langfuhr (modern Wrzeszcz), Danzig-Breitgasse (modern Szeroka) and Danzig-Mattenbuden (modern Szopy). It was built by a company from Berlin, Ende and Boeckman, chosen by the city council.
It was opened with a ceremony on 15 September 1887, by the Danzig rabbi Kossman Werner, in the presence of the city council and the faithful. The scrolls of Torah were transported in from the Old Synagogue and two other synagogues (the Great Synagogue was seen as a building uniting the Danzig Jews), placed in the Aron Kodesh and the Eternal Light was lit. The first service was held on 8 December 1887.
At the beginning of the 20th century the synagogue became one of the most notable centres of Reform Judaism. A large museum of Judaism contained many rare and old items, particularly the collection of Lesser Giełdziński. Many concerts were held here, and rabbis and professors from all around the world gave lectures.
The 1920s saw the rising antisemitism and the increasing strength of the Nazi Party in Germany. Danzig was closely tied to Germany, from which it was officially separated by the Treaty of Versailles, and it became an increasingly unpleasant place for Jews, particularly after March 1933, when the local Nazi party won control of the city government. The synagogue thereafter was a target of two arson attempts. Both were stopped by a local militia formed by the local Jewish population to protect the building in concert with the Danzig police, who feared that any negligence of the attacks on Jews would lead to a Polish intervention. While the Constitution of the Free City of Danzig offered Danzig Jews greater protection than their brethren in Germany, Nazi sympathizers invaded the synagogue in August 1938 and trampled the Torah scrolls. The communities' leaders decided to safeguard some of their relics – the archives were shipped to Jerusalem, the library to Vilnius, and the museum to the United States. At the same time, mounting fiscal pressure forced the synagogue to sell the organs to Kraków, candlesticks to Warsaw, and the benches to Nowy Port. This was not enough, and in early 1939 the synagogue was sold to the senate of Danzig. On 15 April 1939, the last service was held in the building, and soon thereafter the senate took control. A banner was hung on a fence surrounding the building with the text: "Come, lovely May, and free us from the Jews". On 2 May, the Nazi-dominated government began demolishing the building.
After the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, Nazi troops moved into the city, eradicating any resistance and claiming the city for Germany. During the Second World War most of the Jews of Danzig were murdered in the Holocaust. Survivors mostly left Europe to settle in Israel.
There are no realistic plans to rebuild the synagogue. Much of the site of the synagogue is vacant; part of the land is held by the new Gdańsk community, and part belongs to the Urząd Ochrony Państwa (Office for State Protection). On the rest, however, a theatre has been built. The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre opened in September 2014.


St Mary at the Quay Church, Ipswich

St Mary at the Quay Church is a redundant Anglican church in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It originally served the thriving industry around the docks. The area then became run down but has more recently been redeveloped, with the dock being converted into a marina.
History.
St Mary's was built between about 1450 and 1550, possibly on the site of an earlier church, in the dockland area of the town, the centre of the merchant community. It was one of twelve medieval churches in Ipswich, and one of three mariners' churches. At this time it was probably known as Stella Maris (Our Lady, Star of the Sea). During the 18th century the focus of economic activity moved away from the dockland area, and the size of the congregation declined. Over the years, flooding of the church has caused structural problems and, in an attempt to prevent this, the vaults were filled with concrete during the 19th century. In 1940–42 during the Second World War, the church was damaged by bombs, and most of the stained glass was lost.
After the war the church closed for worship. In the 1990s repairs to it were organised by the Friends of Friendless Churches, and it was then used as the headquarters of Ipswich's Boys' Brigade. When they left the church, it closed again, and was vested in the Churches Conservation Trust in 1973. By this time most of the furnishings and contents had been removed. The Trust has organised structural repairs to the church, in particular to deal with the flooding, as the salt water was causing decay of the columns of the arcades. During the 2000s the church was a venue for conceptual art exhibitions and performances. For a time it was home to an arts organisation known as Key Arts. In 2010 plans were made for the church to be converted into a mental health wellbeing centre, run by Suffolk Mind, assisted by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Architecture.
The church is constructed in flint with stone dressings. Its plan includes a nave with a clerestory, north and south aisles, transepts, and a west tower. The tower has diagonal buttresses decorated with flushwork, and an embattled parapet. Its architectural style is Perpendicular.
Inside the church, the nave has a double hammerbeam roof, with carvings of the apostles, important figures in Ipswich history, and other designs. In the church is a 15th-century octagonal font. The font had been removed to a church at Brantham, but has been returned. Also in the church are the tomb and brass of Henry Tooley, who built the almshouses nearby, and a copy of the Pownder brass. Thomas Pounder (or Pownder), like Henry Tooley, was an Ipswich merchant. The original of the brass is in Ipswich Museum.


Summerville Depot

The Summerville Depot, at 120 E. Washington Ave. in Summerville, Georgia, was built in 1918. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
It is a one-story frame Prairie School-style depot building. It has a hipped roof and wide eaves, and weatherboard siding above tongue-and-groove exterior wainscoting.
Ownership of the building was acquired in 1989 by the Chattooga County Historical Society, along with a long-term lease on the land with Norfolk Southern Corporation. It planned to restore the depot for use by the historical society and other civic organizations and to include museum exhibits. When listed in 1992, there were plans for an original block and tackle and telegraph key to be restored to the property.
It was deemed "an excellent example of a combination railroad passenger and freight depot constructed in the
early 1900s."


Ernest M. Wood

Ernest Michael Wood (June 17, 1863–January 25, 1956) was an architect based in Quincy, Illinois. A Quincy native, Wood entered into architecture in 1886 as a draftsman of Quincy architect Harvey Chatten. Wood remained in Chatten's practice until 1891, when he opened his own practice; collaborative works by the two include the Richard F. Newcomb House, a Richardsonian Romanesque home completed in 1891. During the early part of his career, Wood mainly designed buildings in popular period styles; examples of this period of his work include the 1900 Tudor Revival One Thirty North Eighth Building and his 1906 addition to the Romanesque State Savings Loan and Trust Company building. In the 1900s, though, Wood began to study the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School. Wood corresponded with Wright, and his work is largely responsible for introducing the Prairie School to the Quincy region. Wood's office and studio, which he completed in 1911, was his first major Prairie School work and his introduction of the design to Quincy. In addition to his work in Quincy proper, Wood also designed Prairie School homes in Camp Point and Warsaw in Illinois and Hannibal and Palmyra in Missouri.
Significant works.
Several of Wood's works have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places:


Crescent School (Toronto)

Crescent School is an independent elementary and secondary boys' school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It teaches boys from Grades 3 to 12. Established in 1913 by John William James, the school was situated in several locations during its early years.
History.
Crescent School was founded in September 1913 by its first headmaster, John William James, known as "Jimmy" to his friends. He opened his school to a group of boys at his home at 43 Rosedale Road. The school experienced many changes and financial difficulties in its early days, but the school persisted and became a leader in Canadian boys' education.
In 1933, Susan Massey ( Denton), the aunt of Vincent Massey (who served as Governor General of Canada in the 1950s), donated her mansion and 40 acres of land to the school, making its expansion possible. The mansion and land were located on part of the Massey family's farm in East York, near Victoria Park Avenue and Dawes Road. The school operated there until 1969, when the property was sold to developers, who subsequently built the Crescent Town neighbourhood on that site. By 1970, the school had moved to its current location on Bayview Avenue, which was formerly the estate of businessman Frank Porter Wood.
In 2014, Sylvia Duckworth, a teacher at Crescent School, was awarded a National Certificate of Excellence in Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence.
In 2015, David Grant, a teacher at Crescent School, was awarded a Certificate of Achievement in the Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence.
In 2017, Michael Jansen, a teacher at Crescent School, was awarded the Chemical Institute of Canada's Beaumier Award for High School/CÉGEP Chemistry Teachers. In 2018, Michael Jansen was presented with a Certificate of Achievement in the Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence.
House System.
Each student at Crescent is a member of one of six Houses. Each House is named after a notable figure in Canadian history. Each House is governed by a head House Captain in the Upper School, while each grade appoints their own captains. The six Houses (and their colours) are:
The Houses compete for points which culminate in a year-end award to whichever House has the most points. The House system is an integral part of Crescent life, and it dates back to the early years of Crescent's history. The original two Houses were named the Greens and Greys.
Facilities.
Field House – In 2002, Crescent opened the "Field House", a 30,000-square-foot space (the size of three average gymnasiums) is used for tennis, basketball, indoor track and ball hockey. This replaced the three outdoor tennis courts that had been situated there before.
Centre for Creative Learning – In 2004, the Centre for Creative Learning opened, featuring a professionally equipped, 350-seat theatre, meeting rooms and a reception area.
Innes Field – In 2008, an artificial turf surface, called Innes Field, opened. It replaced the previous grass playing fields.
Lau Family Wing – In 2011, Crescent opened the Lau Family Wing, an addition adjacent to the existing Centre for Creative Learning (CCL). The building was named in honour of Ming Wai Lau (Class of 1997), and the Joseph Lau Luen Hung Family Charitable Trust, the main benefactors. Most Middle School classes, as well as some Upper School classes, are held in the Lau Family Wing.
Latifi Family Commons – In September 2014, the Latifi Family Commons, a $3 million (CDN) facility housing Crescent programs including University Counselling and Crescent Student Services, was opened. It is named for Michael and Marilena Latifi, who are parents of Crescent School students.
Libraries – The Margaret Donnelly Library, which opened in 2012, is used by boys in Grades 3 to 6. The Middle School/Upper School Library, which opened in 2014, is designed for older boys.
Athletics.
Crescent teams include basketball, hockey, baseball, track and field, rugby, volleyball, badminton, tennis, swimming, soccer, cross country running, squash, golf and Ultimate Frisbee. The school has a longstanding record of success in both CISAA and OFSAA. Crescent was and still is known for its Rugby team.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Crescent School held athletic events with other private and independent schools in the Greater Toronto Area. These events were often reported on in the Globe & Mail newspaper; the soccer match between the Crescent School and Appleby College held on November 30, 1937, ended in a tie. During this interwar era, the School held an annual boxing tournament with, "...Parents, Old Boys and friends of the School..." invited to attend. In addition to boxing, soccer, and cricket, the School also held an "annual aquatic gala" where prizes were given to the best boys.
In 2019, Crescent won its first ever CAIS National Soccer Title, defeating St. Andrew's College 2-1 in the final, held at St. Andrew's. Coached by Mr. Docherty and Mr. Gadd-Thomson, it signified a large step forward in Crescent's athletics program. In March 2020, their D1 Basketball team placed 2nd at AA OFSAA, the school's highest ranking in some time.
Co-curricular programs.
Robotics
Since 2000, Crescent has been involved with FIRST Robotics Competition, an international competition in which professionals and high school students are teamed together to solve an engineering design problem in an intense yet cooperative way. In 2003, the Crescent FIRST Robotics Team won the regional Chairman's Award in recognition of the contribution it has made to the field of Robotics.
In 2011, Crescent's Team 610, placed second in both the Waterloo and Greater Toronto Area and placed fifth at the FIRST Championship in St. Louis. Crescent has also participated in another competition, RoboFest.
In 2013, Crescent placed first at the BAE Systems Granite State competition. In the same year, the team went on to become the 2013 FIRST Robotics World Champions.
In 2017, Crescent placed second at the FIRST Robotics World Championships, after ranking as the top team in Ontario.
Outreach
Crescent's Outreach program emphasizes local, national and international opportunities that take an experiential learning and community service approach. Crescent School students can participate in outreach projects in Toronto and around the world. Examples include a tutoring program where Crescent students in Grades 7-12 tutor students at Toronto elementary schools; volunteering with community service organizations and participating in charity events. In 2015/2016, Crescent School partnered with Havergal College to form the "Dignity For All" program; the program raised over $50,000 in support of the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Outreach trips are offered each year for Upper School students. During the 2013/2014 school year, Crescent students participated in trips to Nicaragua, Tanzania, India, South Africa and Cambodia. In 2016/2017, outreach trips went to Tanzania and to northern Ontario.
Business Team
The Crescent School Business Team focuses on increasing Upper School students' knowledge of business beyond what is taught within the classroom. The team also strives to provide life skills experience such as collaboration, competition, sportsmanship, leadership, problem solving and perseverance.
Business Team members compete at DECA, a student business competition targeting students from Grade 9 to 12. It prepares students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, management and entrepreneurship. Crescent School competes at the regional and provincial level of DECA, and placed in the top 10 for nine years running. Eight students qualified for DECA Internationals in 2015, and another six qualified for Internationals in 2016.
Case Competitions target students who are looking to excel beyond DECA with university-style and -level cases. Crescent School also hosts its own case competitions. It has been running for over five years, with over nine participating independent schools. Four additional competition dates occur throughout the year.
The Business Team's Investment Team is a student-run and led, real-money investment portfolio started in 2012. The team currently manages over $50,000. Students are responsible for developing the portfolio's overall strategy, performing fundamental research and valuation analysis, assessing and recommending investments, presenting to the Investment Team for approval and ultimately presenting to the Investment Committee (a panel of one or more adults from the industry). The Investment Team is continuing to grow its capital base through the generosity of past, current and future parents. It has published reports (Weekly Economic Report, The Update and Bi-Weekly Digest) on its performance. The Junior Business Club introduces Grade 9 and 10 students to investing, DECA and presentation skills.
Arts
Crescent School's arts program includes drama, music, visual arts and media arts. In all grades, students have opportunities to "take creative risks and explore their artistic abilities." The school presents three drama performances, multiple music concerts and several art exhibits each year. An annual multi-disciplinary show called Luna showcases work by all Crescent students. Crescent drama students also participate in "art activism" to raise awareness of youth homelessness.
Admission.
Here is the estimated student intake by grade for the school year:
For the 2016/2017 school year, tuition fees were $31,750 per year. For the 2017/2018 school year, tuition was $32,350. For the 2018/2019 school year, tuition is $39,250. Tuition covers the cost of most academic activities and athletic facilities.
University placement.
Graduates of Crescent School attend universities in Canada, with many students pursuing higher education in the United States and the United Kingdom. From 2004-2014, the most popular Canadian university destinations for graduates in Canada were the University of Western Ontario (25 in 2014), Queen's University (22 in 2014) and the University of Waterloo (5 in 2014). Outside of Canada, graduates have gone on to study at Harvard University, Stanford University, Cambridge University, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics, among others.


Auckland Town Hall

Auckland Town Hall is a Edwardian building on Queen Street in the Auckland CBD, New Zealand, known both for its original and ongoing use for administrative functions (such as Council meetings and hearings), as well as its famed Great Hall and separate Concert Chamber. Auckland Town Hall and its surrounding context is highly protected as a 'Category A' heritage site in the Auckland District Plan.
History.
Building.
Opened on 14 December 1911 by Lord Islington, Governor of New Zealand, the building is one of the most prominent heritage structures on Queen Street. Costing £126,000 (approximately $21 million in 2017) to construct, it was designed by Australian architects, JJ & EJ Clarke, their Italian Renaissance Revival building design being selected from among 46 proposals. The five-storey building was specially designed to fit the wedge-shaped piece of land that had been acquired for it in the 1870s at the junction of Queen Street and Grey Street. It bears a striking resemblance to the Lambeth Town Hall at Brixton, London, built at around the same time. The Town Hall formed Auckland's first permanent seat of both administration and entertainment in the city's history, with its Great Hall (seating 1,673 people) modelled on the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and considered as having among the finest acoustics in the world.
The exterior is constructed of two types of stone; the ground floor is made of a dark volcanic basalt, heavily rusticated, which contrasts with the pale stonework of the upper storeys. Oamaru limestone from the south island was used for the upper part of the building. The lower part is often assumed to be Auckland basalt but was actually sourced from Melbourne, in Australia. This was probably due to the architects already having a history of sourcing consistently good quality stone from the quarries there, as well as the availability of heavy duty steam saws to handle the notoriously difficult stone.
The interior contains several varieties of English ceramic surfaces - tessellated floors and glazed ceramic wall tiles. The semi-circular Council Chamber is fitted with wood panelling and Art-Nouveau-style electric light fittings, while stained glass is a feature of all the main rooms. The ceilings throughout all the main floors are ornamented with good quality plasterwork, the Great Chamber being the most elaborate. The great four-sided clock in the building's tower was donated by Arthur Myers (MP and former Auckland mayor) and the Great Hall's pipe organ by Sir Henry Brett. The Town Hall project was championed by Myers before and during his time as mayor (1905–1909), and one of his last acts in office was to lay the foundation stone.
The Town Hall's interior was extensively restored from 1994–1997 at a cost of NZ$33 million, partially because the unreinforced masonry structure did not meet earthquake standards. Australian engineering firm Sinclair Knight Merz pioneered various techniques to reinforce the structure without substantially changing the heritage character of the building.
In 2007, the exterior underwent additional restoration work. A number of ornamental details on the exterior had been removed in the 1950s due to earthquake concerns, and some of the Oamaru limestone was damaged during aggressive stone cleaning. After careful research and analysis, these were replaced by limestone sourced from the same levels of the North Otago quarry that provided the original stone. Interior acoustic performance was corrected by the removal of earlier ill-judged and obtrusive intervention measures and their replacement by less-visible and more effective treatments. Interior paintwork was restored throughout to the original Edwardian-era colours. Complex fragmented porcelain and glazed ceramic tiling was restored with exact, new purpose-made replicas in the lavish main entrance foyer. The original carpet was recreated (for reference, a small portion of the original was left in one corner of the Council Chamber). The stained glass windows were restored and (where necessary), rebuilt and the entire building was unobtrusively fire protected.
Town Hall Organ.
The Town Hall Organ, dating from 1911, is the largest musical instrument in the country, and is itself a 'Protected Object' in New Zealand law. It was extensively remodelled in 1969–1970 when the organ reform movement reached New Zealand, significantly altering and reducing its original Romantic-era power, discarding many parts of the original, and adding new ones to produce a then-fashionable Baroque sound.
The resulting compromised instrument was dismantled in January 2008 for restoration and rebuilding. The rebuilt organ, incorporating remaining parts of the 1911 original, some recently recovered components, and new elements, was built by Orgelbau Klais of Bonn, Germany. It returned to the Great Hall at the end of 2008, and was reassembled as the country's largest (and once again most powerful), organ.
Auckland City had committed itself to providing NZ$3 million to the restoration project, with a $500,000 remainder obtained via private fundraising. The restored organ was officially unveiled on 21 March 2010, with a specially commissioned symphony.
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.
In early February 2016, the administration staff of New Zealand's largest metropolitan orchestra, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, moved into the vacant former mayoral office suite, making Auckland Town Hall, where the orchestra largely performs, its new home.


Odeon Leicester Square

The Odeon Leicester Square (currently branded Odeon Luxe Leicester Square) is a prominent cinema building in the West End of London. Built in the Art Deco style and completed in 1937, the building has been continually altered in response to developments in cinema technology, and was the first Dolby Cinema in the United Kingdom. The cinema is often used for film premieres.
The cinema occupies the centre of the eastern side of Leicester Square in London, featuring a black polished granite facade and high tower displaying its name. Blue neon outlines the exterior of the building at night. It was built to be the flagship of Oscar Deutsch's Odeon Cinema circuit and still holds that position today. It hosts numerous world and European film premieres, including the annual Royal Film Performance.
History.
The Odeon cinema building was completed by Sir Robert McAlpine in 1937 to the design of Harry Weedon and Andrew Mather on the site of the Turkish baths and the adjoining Alhambra Theatre a large music hall dating from the 1850s. The site cost £550,000, the cinema took seven months to build at a cost of £232,755 with 2116 seats. The opening night was Tuesday 2 November 1937; the film shown that night was "The Prisoner of Zenda".
The interior was an art-deco auditorium, with a ribbed ceiling and sidewalls, featuring concealed strip lighting in coves, and two bas relief sculptures of naked nymphs were positioned on the front splay walls, as if leaping towards the screen. All the seats were covered in a faux-leopard skin material. A modernisation in 1967 removed many of the original features, with all of the ribbed plasterwork from the balcony to the proscenium replaced by smooth finishes. A refurbishment in 1998 included new versions of some lost details, including the figures, and seating upholstery pattern.
The first widescreen (screen ratio 1.66:1) installed in Great Britain was premiered on 14 May 1953; the film shown was "Tonight We Sing". The British debut of CinemaScope (screen ratio 2.55:1) following soon after on 19 November 1953 with the quasi-biblical epic, "The Robe". The first cinema to show CinemaScope in London was the Odeon Tottenham Court Road (on 9 June 1953), which was also the venue for the first screening of Cinerama.
The theatre's chief engineer, Nigel Wolland, was awarded an MBE for services to the film industry in 2007. The theatre's general manager, Chris Hilton, was awarded an MBE for services to the film industry in 2010.
After Nigel Wolland's retirement in 2006, Mark Nice was appointed the cinema's chief engineer. Mark Nice was later promoted to the position of Odeon company engineer with Toni Purvis and Michael Mannix assuming the role of Operations Manager Digital.
Technical specifications.
The first Dolby Cinema system to be installed in the UK is at Odeon Leicester Square. This introduced a combination of Dolby Vision dual-laser projection system and a Dolby Atmos 'moving audio' system.
The Odeon is the largest single-screen cinema in the United Kingdom and one of the few with its circle and stalls remaining intact. The cinema is equipped to show films in 35mm, 70mm and digital on a 48 ft. widescreen and includes stage facilities for live performances.
The cinema has an operating Compton organ, its console lit from within by coloured lighting, and a safety curtain detailed in 1930s art-deco motifs.
Two sets of tabs (curtains) are also installed and used for most performances. The cinema houses all major digital sound systems: Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, Dolby Digital and DTS. It had the UK's first wide-screen installed in 1953, and more recently, was the first to have a digital projector installed in 1999.
There are 800 seats – including 22 full-recliner seats in the Royal Box – and a "Royal Retiring Room" for visiting monarchs. Oscar's Bar (named after Odeon's founder Oscar Deutsch) features views across Leicester Square from a glass enclosed balcony.
In March 2011, all the cinema's screens converted to digital projection equipment with 3D capability. Up until 2009 the cinema and film distributors did not have faith in the reliability of digital presentations, so the cinema would run a 35mm print alongside. If the digital show failed the projectionist would switch to film. If that projector then failed, the performance would be abandoned. One 35mm/70mm projector has been retained, and has been used for recent 70mm releases including "Interstellar", "The Hateful Eight", and "Dunkirk". A silver screen is used for 3D presentations, placed in front of the white screen used for 2D presentations. The silver screen is a fraction smaller and screen tabs are not used during 3D performances. Most of the trained projectionists at the Odeon retired, or were made redundant in 2011. Presentations are now mostly automated.
Screens 2 – 5.
Inserted into what was once an alleyway running alongside the main house is Odeon Studios, a "mini-plex" containing five much smaller auditoria, each seating between fifty and sixty patrons. It was originally named Odeon Mezzanine, but was rebranded following a refurbishment in 2012. Following the latest refurbishment in 2018, screens 2 to 5 offer an intimate experience with luxury seating and state of the art technology throughout.
Recent developments.
In 2018 Odeon undertook a full refurbishment at a projected cost of £10–15m, which saw the building retained as a single-screen cinema with stalls and circle levels, with the stated intention to maintain its character. The cinema closed on 10 January 2018 with an anticipated reopening in time for the BFI London Film Festival in October—which it failed to meet. The cinema reopened on 21 December 2018 rebranded as part of the Odeon Luxe chain, with a reduced capacity in luxury seats, an enhanced concession offering, and the first commercial Dolby Cinema screen to open in the UK.


Semperoper

The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden (Saxon State Opera) and the concert hall of the Staatskapelle Dresden (Saxon State Orchestra). It is also home to the Semperoper Ballett. The building is located on the Theaterplatz near the Elbe River in the historic centre of Dresden, Germany.
The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841. After a devastating fire in 1869, the opera house was rebuilt, partly again by Semper, and completed in 1878. The opera house has a long history of premieres, including major works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
History.
The first opera house at the location of today's Semperoper was built by the architect Gottfried Semper. It opened on 13 April 1841 with an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. The building style itself is debated among many, as it has features that appear in three styles: early Renaissance and Baroque, with Corinthian style pillars typical of Greek classical revival. Perhaps the most suitable label for this style would be eclecticism, where influences from many styles are used, a practice most common during this period. Nevertheless, the opera building, Semper's first, was regarded as one of the most beautiful European opera houses.
Following a devastating fire in 1869, the citizens of Dresden immediately set about rebuilding their opera house. They demanded that Gottfried Semper do the reconstruction, even though he was then in exile because of his involvement in the May 1849 uprising in Dresden. The architect had his son, Manfred Semper, build the second opera house using his plans. Completed in 1878, it was built in Neo-Renaissance style. During the construction period, performances were held at the "Gewerbehaussaal", which opened in 1870.
The building is considered to be a prime example of "Dresden Baroque" architecture. It is situated on the Theatre Square in central Dresden on the bank of the Elbe River. On top of the portal there is a Panther quadriga with a statue of Dionysos. The interior was created by architects of the time, such as Johannes Schilling. Monuments on the portal depict artists, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, William Shakespeare, Sophocles, Molière and Euripides. The building also features work by Ernst Rietschel and Ernst Julius Hähnel. In the pre-war years, the Semperoper premiered many of the works of Richard Strauss.
In 1945, during the last months of World War II, the building was largely destroyed again, this time by the bombing of Dresden and subsequent firestorm, leaving only the exterior shell standing. Exactly 40 years later, on 13 February 1985, the opera's reconstruction was completed. It was rebuilt to be almost identical to its appearance before the war, but with the benefit of new stage machinery and an accompanying modern rear service building. The Semperoper reopened with the opera that was performed just before the building's destruction in 1945, Carl Maria von Weber's "Der Freischütz". When the Elbe flooded in 2002, the building suffered heavy water damage. With substantial help from around the world, it reopened in December of that year.
Present-day administration and operations.
Today, the orchestra for most operas is the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. The Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) of the Semperoper is normally a different person from that of the Staatskapelle when it presents concerts. Exceptions have been Karl Böhm, Hans Vonk, and Fabio Luisi who have held both positions. Whilst the Semperoper does not have a GMD as of 2015, the current chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden is Christian Thielemann, as of the 2012/13 season. The current "Intendant" (General Manager) of the company is Wolfgang Rothe. Since the 2018/19 season, Omer Meir Wellber is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden.
Since the 2018-2019 season, the "Intendant" of the Semper is Peter Theiler. In May 2021, his initial contract as "Intendant" was extended through the 2023-2024 season, at which time Theiler is scheduled to conclude his tenure in the post.


Congregation Ahavas Achim Anshi Austria

Congregation Ahavas Achim Anshi Austria, also known as Congregation B'Nai Israel, is a historic synagogue located at Rochester in Monroe County, New York. It was built in 1928, and is a two-story, Georgian Revival style brick building with decorative cast stone classical details. It is five-bays wide with the end bays being square towers and a recessed triangular parapet is between the two towers. The front façade features a portico with four Ionic order round columns. The building was used as a synagogue until 1961.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.


Temple House (Pine Bluff, Arkansas)

The Temple House is a historic house at 1702 South Oak Street in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It is a two-story brown brick structure, with a low-pitch hip roof and broad eaves typical of the Prairie School of architecture. A single-story flat-roof porch extends across the front, continuing to a form a porte-cochere to the left, with brick piers and low brick wall with stone coping. The house was built c. 1910 to a design by the architectural firm of Theo Sanders.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.


All Saints Church, Handley

All Saints Church stands to the north of the village of Handley, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. The church is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Malpas. Its benefice is combined with that of St Alban, Tattenhall.
History.
There has been a church on this site from the 12th century. In a restoration in 1854 by James Harrison all the masonry was removed except for the west tower which had been built in 1512. During the restoration a Norman doorway on the north side of the church was lost, but the hammerbeam roof dated 1661 was retained. A chancel and vestry were added in 1891.
Architecture.
Exterior.
The church is built in ashlar red sandstone with a Welsh slate roof. Its plan consists of west tower, a three-bay nave, a one-bay chancel, a vestry, and a south porch. The tower has three stages and corner buttresses. An inscription on its south wall records its building in 1512. It has a west door above which is a three-light window with empty niches on each side. The belfry windows have three lights, the top of the tower is embattled, it has gargoyles, and the string course includes carved heads.
Interior.
The nave has a hammerbeam roof with "excellent scrolled carved corbels". On the north side of the church is a stained glass window by William Wailes. The 17th-century font is octagonal in red sandstone and the parish chest is dated 1677. There is a ring of six bells, the oldest three dating from around 1512, from 1615 and from 1682. A bell from 1709 was cast by Rudhall of Gloucester and the remaining two bells were cast in 1906 by John Taylor and Company. The parish registers begin in 1570 and the churchwardens' accounts in 1710.


Eaton Family Residence-Jewish Center of Norwich

The Eaton Family Residence-Jewish Center of Norwich is a historic home located at 72 S. Broad Street in Norwich, Chenango County, New York. It was built in 1914 and is a -story, tan brick residence with a green ceramic tile, side-gabled roof resting on a cut stone foundation in the Colonial Revival style. The main block is rectangular, five bays wide and two bays deep. The main entrance is set within a prominent one bay wood portico with gabled roof supported by paired, fluted classical columns. Starting in 1955, it has been used as a synagogue and community center by local German-Jewish refugees.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.


National Botanic Garden of Wales

The National Botanic Garden of Wales () is a Botanical Garden located in Llanarthney in the River Tywi valley, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The garden is both a visitor attraction and a centre for botanical research and conservation, and features the world's largest single-span glasshouse measuring long by wide.
The National Botanic Garden of Wales seeks "to develop a viable world-class national botanic garden dedicated to the research and conservation of biodiversity, lifelong learning and the enjoyment of the visitor." The Garden is a registered charity reliant upon funding from visitors, friends, grants and gifts. Significant start-up costs were shared with the UK Millennium Fund.
History of the site.
The Middleton family from Oswestry built a mansion here in the early 17th century. In 1789 Sir William Paxton bought the estate for £40,000 to create a water park. He used his great wealth to employ some of the finest creative minds of his day, including the eminent architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell, whom he commissioned to design and build a new Middleton Hall, turning the original one into a farm. The new Middleton Hall became ‘one of the most splendid mansions in South Wales’ which ‘far eclipsed the proudest of the Cambrian mansions in Asiatic pomp and splendour’.
Paxton created an ingenious water park. Water flowed around the estate via a system of interconnecting lakes, ponds and streams linked by a network of dams, water sluices, bridges and cascades. Spring water was stored in elevated reservoirs that fed into a lead cistern on the mansion’s roof, allowing Paxton’s residence to enjoy piped running water and the very latest luxury, water closets.
In 1806, Paxton engaged Pepys Cockerell again to design and then oversee the construction of Paxton's Tower on the estate, which was completed in 1809. A Neo-Gothic folly erected in honour of Lord Nelson, it is situated on a hilltop near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley. Today the folly is now owned by the National Trust.
By the time of Paxton's death in 1824, Middleton Hall estate covered some . The sale agents engaged that year described the estate thus in their catalogue:
Middleton Hall estate was sold to Jamaican-born West India merchant, Edward Hamlin Adams, for £54,700. Adams, neither a gardener nor a lover of water features, added buildings that aided his love of country sports, but let the bath houses fall into disrepair. Of the gardens, only those immediately visible from the house were maintained.
In 1842 the estate passed into the hands of his eccentric son Edward, who immediately changed his name from Adams into the Welsh form Abadam. Not loving the country or gardens, according to his estate manager Thomas Cooke, Edward was a social nightmare. As his son predeceased him, on his death in 1875 the estate passed to his eldest daughter, Lucy, then next sister Adah who had married into the local Hughes family. In 1919 the estate changed hands again when Major William J. H. Hughes sold it to Colonel William N. Jones.
Edward Abadam's youngest daughter, Alice, was a leading suffragist, and a blue plaque to her was unveiled in 2018, the centenary of women's suffrage, in the gardens of what had been Middleton Hall, her childhood home, by her great-niece Margaret Vaughan.
In 1931, the mansion was completely gutted by fire, leaving only the walls standing, themselves covered in globules of molten lead from the melted roof. After this the estate fell into decline, and 20 years later the walls of the main house were pulled down. The site was then bought by Carmarthenshire County Council, and leased to young farmers hoping to make their way into an agricultural career. A tree on the site, known as the Llanarthne oak, was almost cut down at this time during the clearance of a paddock on one of the farms. It survived and in 2016 was named as Wales's Tree of the Year.
History of the garden.
In 1978, interest had been captured by local walkers, who were keen to revive the splendour of what they could see around them. Setting up a fund raising scheme, the little money raised led to the rediscovery of a number of historical features.
The idea for a National Botanic Garden of Wales originated from the Welsh artist, William Wilkins, whose aunt had described to him the ruins of an elaborate water features she had discovered while walking in the local woods at Pont Felin Gat. Under the guidance of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, an application was made to the Millennium Commission to fund Britain’s first national botanic garden for 200 years.
Virtually on the site of Cockerell's mansion, the Great Glasshouse now forms the centrepiece. Much of the original water-scape has been restored, and extended by introducing cascades to the western approach to the Glasshouse. The extraordinary original view the east side of the mansion offered over the grounds has been restored, extending as originally to Paxton's Tower in the distance. Many experts have commented that this view gives visitors an ability to see and hence understand something of what the great landscape architects of the end of the eighteenth century understood by the word "Picturesque".
The Garden was opened to the public for the first time on 24 May 2000, and was officially opened on 21 July by Charles, Prince of Wales. Foster + Partners won the Gold Medal for Architecture at the National Eisteddfod of Wales of 2000 for their work on the Great Glasshouse. In 2003, the garden ran into serious financial difficulties, and in 2004 it accepted a financial package from the Welsh Assembly Government, Carmarthenshire County Council and the Millennium Commission to secure its future.
The site extends to , and among the garden's rare and threatened plants is the whitebeam "Sorbus leyana". 21st Century approaches to recycling and conservation have been used in the design of the centre: biomass recycling is used to provide heating for some of the facilities such as the visitor centre and glasshouses.
With many plant exhibits now fully mature, and exhibits and activities to attract younger visitors, three quarters of income is now self-generated, with the remaining quarter in grants. In 2019, there were 160,000 visitors, quoted as being a "sustainable average".
Botanical collections.
Placed virtually on the same site as Paxton's new but now demolished Middleton Hall, the Great Glasshouse, designed by Foster and Partners, is the largest structure of its kind in the world. The structure is long and wide, with a roof containing 785 panes of glass. Housing plants from several Mediterranean climate regions, the plants are divided into sections from Chile, Western Australia, South Africa, California, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean itself.
The Double Walled Garden has been rebuilt from the ruins, and is being developed to house a wide variety of plants, including a modern interpretation of a kitchen garden in one quarter, and ornamental beds to display the classification and evolution of all flowering plant families in the other three quarters.
In 2007, a new tropical glasshouse, designed by Welsh architect John Belle, was opened to continue the classification displays with tropical monocotyledons.
In 2015 a large collection of Welsh apple varieties was planted. A Welsh pomona (annotated survey) is planned.
Waun Las national nature reserve.
The Waun Las national nature reserve is accessed from the garden and comprises some of wildflower meadows and pastures.


Wimbourne House

Wimbourne House (also known as Wimborne House or the William Kent House) is a historic townhouse at 22 Arlington Street in St James's, a district of the City of Westminster in central London, England. Designed in the Palladian style by William Kent, it was built between 1743 and 1754, being completed after the architect's death. It is a Grade II* listed building, and the west front overlooks Green Park. The building now houses special event rooms for the adjacent Ritz Hotel.
History.
Henry Pelham, Prime Minister between 1743 and 1754, hired William Kent to design the house located at 22 Arlington Street in two phases. The original construction began simultaneously with his elevation as prime minister and continued even after the 1748 death of the architect Kent. When Kent died, the work was completed by Stephen Wright. In the 18th century, Arlington Street was not only fashionable but was known as the 'ministerial street'. Pelham's neighbours included Robert Walpole at No. 5, Lord Tyrconnel, the Duchess of Norfolk and his enemy Lord Carteret, later Earl Granville. The decoration and construction of the house was completed in early 1754, but Pelham died suddenly on 6 March 1754.
The house was then occupied by Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Gower, who would later become Marquess of Stafford. Leveson-Gower resided at 22 Arlington while the house he was having built by architect Sir William Chambers was being completed, and he was followed by another Prime Minister, Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton. In 1774, Henry Pelham-Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, took possession of his family's home and began renovations, which continued until his death in 1778.
The first owner of the house known in the 19th century was John Jeffreys Pratt, Marquess Camden. In the year of his death, 1840, Marquess Camden sold the house to Major Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort, who had served in the Peninsular War as an aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington.
When the Duke of Beaufort bought the house, he renamed the house after his title, and during his residency, it was known as "Beaufort House." He hired architect Owen Jones, who had studied the Alhambra, to embellish the interiors and expended enormous sums refurbishing the interior of the house. Beaufort sold the house a year before he died to William Hamilton, 11th Duke of Hamilton.
The 11th Duke of Hamilton purchased the house in 1852 and promptly renamed the structure "Hamilton House". He purchased the house for £60,000 and lavished more money on the house for approximately a decade, including installing iron firebacks with his coronet and motto. Upon his death, the house passed to his widow, who sold it via auction in 1867 to Sir Ivor Bertie Guest, who was engaged to Lady Cornelia Spencer-Churchill, daughter of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. In 1880, the title of Baron Wimborne was conveyed to Guest, who renamed the house as had been customary, to coincide with his title.
As with previous owners, Guest undertook numerous renovations. For example, one of his main additions was the ballroom: passing from the entry hall to the winter garden, the ballroom was resplendent in elaborately carved and gilded mouldings. The Ritz Hotel had originally inquired about acquiring the house in 1898, only to be rebuffed by Lord Wimbourne, who replied that he was thinking of enlarging his garden, asking "how much do you want for the Ritz?".
Wimbourne House had been greatly expanded during the 18th and 19th centuries, but most of these additions were removed in the 1970s, and an effort to restore the "Kentian character" of the building was made.
In 2000, the architectural firm of Ettwein Bridges Architects was hired to create rooms as function suites for the adjacent Mewès & Davis’s Louis XVI style Ritz Hotel. After extensive study to try to preserve the elements and special characters of both of the heritage sites, an area was identified to connect the two buildings, which was filled with the inner-working machinery of the hotel. The new function suites and machinery plant had to be built and equipped while both the hotel and casino were still operating. Much of the machinery was relocated to the roof, and a new steel structure had to be inserted around existing structures to keep vibrations from the equipment to a minimum.
The decoration was entrusted to the Interior Architect of Paris, Philippe Belloir. It was fate which drew him to the Ritz hôtel and William Kent House. His talent, which adorns The Ritz, Paris, spoke for itself and attracted The proprietor’s interests. Their star crossed encounter by recommendation, and a mutual fervent appreciation for fine Interior décor .
Thus, Philippe Belloir was destined to mark the Georgian treasure of The Ritz London.
A challenge he took up with wonder and enthusiasm, he specially chose the Workshops and selected fabrics, furniture, lighting and various objects, in harmony with the various themes of The Ritz and William Kent House, acquired during his numerous renovations and restorations. In particular, he brought original touches to our historical treasure; namely the air conditioning units he designed, with their technology hidden in inside the chests of drawers and he also proposed and implemented a fish scale decoration between the different "Wedgwood" painted cartridges and he also proposed and implemented the painted faux wood panelling.
One of the manufacturing secrets he was willing to divulge was explained by an overriding rule that he always creates a harmonious atmosphere and presentation by drawing inspiration from the ceiling so that the room's décor presents a theme that fits with its history and contemporary purpose. His greatest challenge in the restoration of the Ritz and William Kent House was not in the details, but in coordinating, or rather, as he believes, orchestrating the overall design so that the rooms would complement each other and the characteristic interior of the London Ritz, despite the many themes of the estate.
Un inventaire et une description pris après la mort de Pelham ont servi de guide pour la restauration. Les peintures en grisaille que Kent avait façonnées pour le plafond de la Grande Salle, et d'autres, ont été restaurées et dorées. Certaines des tentatives de remodelage ultérieures ont été préservées, comme les motifs en écailles de poisson d'Owen Jones. Cent ans après que Ritz ait essayé à l'origine d'obtenir la maison, elle est devenue officiellement une partie de l'hôtel Ritz. [2]
An inventory and description taken after Pelham's death served as a guide for the restoration. The "grisaille" paintings that Kent had fashioned for the Great Room ceiling, and others, have been restored and regilded. Some of the later remodeling attempts have been preserved, like Owen Jones’s fish-scale motifs. One hundred years after Ritz originally tried to obtain the house, it officially became part of the Ritz Hotel.