Van Alen Building

The Van Alen Building is a modern apartment and penthouse block on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was named after William Van Alen, the architect of New York City's Chrysler Building and is designed as a 21st-century interpretation of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles. It was completed in 2001.
History.
Residential development along the north side of Marine Parade, a wide road leading eastwards along Brighton seafront across the top of East Cliff, began in about 1790 at the west end (nearest the old fishing village of Brighthelmston—the ancient heart of the city). The houses were large, well-appointed and benefited from superb direct sea views, so the area immediately became one of the highest-class areas of the growing town; in the 21st century it has been described as "the country's most impressive marine façade". Most of the area is protected by one of the 34 conservation areas in the city, and features one of its best and most consistent sets of Regency architecture.
One plot of land towards the western end was marred by a derelict petrol station for many years. In the late 1990s, housebuilder Berkeley Group Holdings, under its "Berkeley Homes" brand, bought the brownfield site and sought to redevelop it with a high-density residential development. Its proposal was an apartment block with two- and three-bedroom flats, all with balconies and sea views and served by an underground car park. Because the prominent site was so visually sensitive—on a main road into and out of Brighton and surrounded by high-quality, architecturally harmonious stuccoed buildings of moderate height—the company and their chosen architect had to present their plans to several parties. Brighton and Hove Borough (later City) Council and two national government bodies, English Heritage and the Royal Fine Arts Commission (now the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), were involved.
Berkeley Homes chose the London-based architecture firm PRC Fewster to design the building; the project's architect was Peter Rutter. The agreed design was 38 sea-facing apartments including two penthouses and accommodation for a concierge. The council required provision to be made for affordable housing as part of the development, so six new terraced houses were built at the rear of the block as well. Work began in 1999, and the block was completed in 2001. It was named after William Van Alen—architect of the Art Deco Chrysler Building in Manhattan, New York City.
The 38 flats went on sale in late May 2000, and within hours most had been sold; by 3 June 2000, it was reported that only eight were still available—despite an 18-month wait for completion, prices of up to £500,000 and only an artist's drawing to refer to. The flats were aimed at the top end of the market, for buyers interested in investment and luxury, and were priced accordingly. Former member of the Spice Girls Emma Bunton bought one of the penthouses in 2001 for use as a weekend retreat; it was sold a year later for about £750,000.
In the early hours of 11 August 2003, one of the penthouse flats was destroyed by fire. Firefighters spent five hours tackling flames which reached a height of . The flat was unoccupied at the time. Confused as to how the fire could have started—it worked its way into the flat from the wooden-floored balcony—fire investigators announced that a seagull may have picked up a smouldering cigarette in its beak and dropped it on the balcony when it found it was not edible. Two other theories, considered less likely, were that during the day, the glass balcony magnified and focused the sun's rays on to the wooden decking, causing it to smoulder and eventually catch fire; or that a firework lit on the beach flew on to the decking. The flat's market value at the time was about £750,000.
Architecture.
The Van Alen Building consists of three linked blocks of equal width, of which the westernmost is recessed significantly from Marine Parade. The centre bay is set further forwards but still recessed, and the easternmost (corner) bay fronts the road. Curved lines and surfaces are used throughout; the building thereby represents a 21st-century interpretation of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles which were popular themes in seaside resort architecture in the 1930s. In Brighton, this tradition was represented by the Embassy Court development of 1934–36 by Modernist architect Wells Coates—one of the city's most innovative and iconic modern buildings—and the Van Alen Building has been compared to it. The overall design has been praised as innovative by Brighton & Hove City Council and within the building industry. Local conservationists have also given their approval.
The white-painted façade has some nautical-themed windows in the style of portholes, long horizontal glazed areas facing the sea, and fully glazed balconies. These were installed instead of the intended opaque balconies at the request of the heritage bodies consulted, and are connected by Modernist-style "fins".


Allerton Hall

Allerton Hall is in Clarke's Gardens, Allerton, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
History.
During the medieval period the manor of Allerton was held by the Lathom family.
During her long widowhood, Elizabeth Lathom (née Legh), the wife of Richard Lathom (1563–1602), occupied Allerton Hall. And by her Will and Codicil, both executed in July, 1624, gave her second son, Edward Lathom, the occupation and profit of “this my hall in Allerton," and the houses and lands for three years after her death for the better discharging of her debts and to keep her other sons, Richard and John, “with dyet." and until her grandson, Richard Lathom (of Parbold, son of Thomas who died in 1623), then an infant of about two years old, the heir of Parbold and Allerton, "came of age".
Richard Lathom, a Royalist, fought alongside his uncles in the English Civil War. Richard survived the war but his Estate was "forfeited in the name of treason" by Cromwell's parliament in 1652.
"The commissioners" (of parliament who had confiscated the estate) sold it in 1654 to a John Sumpner of Midhurst, Sussex. for £2,700. Notwithstanding that the Lathoms, father, mother, and children, now dispossessed, were frequently convicted of recusancy and suffered the penalties accordingly, they contrived to hang on to both Parbold and Allerton a little longer. Indeed, it was not until 1670 that the Sumpners managed to eject the Lathoms, and only then by increasing the amount of the original purchase price.
When assessments were made for the hearth tax in 1666, Allerton Hall was one of the larger houses in the parish of Childwall with eight hearths; this was exceeded only by Speke Hall with twenty-one hearths and Brettargh Holt with nine. The estate was bought in 1736 by John Hardman and his brother James, and it is likely that the present house on the site originates from this time. John Hardman was a West Indies merchant originally from Rochdale. Sold to the Hardmans in 1736 for £7,700 and
rebuilt in the Palladian style. The Hardmans were involved in c 46 slave voyages between 1729
and 1761.
The property passed to James Hardman's widow, Jane, in 1754. In about 1779, the house was bought by the lawyer, philanthropist and abolitionist, William Roscoe. Roscoe completed the building of the house but had to sell it in 1816 when he became bankrupt.
During the American Civil War, the mansion was rented by Charles Kuhn Prioleau, an American landowner from South Carolina who financially supported the Confederate States and who married Mary Elizabeth Wright, daughter of the owner of the hall. In the early part of the 20th century the building was owned by the Clarke family who donated it to Liverpool City Council in 1927. The building was damaged by two fires, in 1994 and in 1995.
Architecture.
Allerton Hall is designed in Palladian style and built in red sandstone with three storeys. It is a symmetrical building, extending over eleven bays; the central three bays and the lateral two bays on each side project forward. The central three bays form a portico with Ionic columns and a pediment. The ground floor of the building is rusticated.
Surviving the fires, are a room at the west end which has panelled walls and a stucco ceiling in Rococo style, and parts of Roscoe's library. In the grounds to the west of the house is a sundial dated 1750.
Present day.
In 2009 Allerton Hall was run as a public house known as the "Pub in the Park". As of 2017, it is known as Allerton Hall - Farmhouse Inn.


Nichol House

The Nichol House is a historic house at 205 Park Place in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It is a two-story wood-frame structure, its exterior finished in a combination of brick veneer and stucco. A single-story shed-roofed porch extends across the front, supported by brick piers, with a second-story enclosed porch above the right side. Gable ends feature large Craftsman brackets and exposed rafter ends. The house was designed by Charles L. Thompson and was built in 1916 for a local banker.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.


Holy Cross Church, Woodchurch

Holy Cross Church is in Woodchurch, an area of Birkenhead, Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Birkenhead. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
History.
The fabric of the nave originates from the 12th century. However, the circular style graveyard suggests a pre-Norman date, possible Saxon or Romano-British. This early date is supported by the discovery of a portion of a 'Class D' Anglo-Saxon wheel cross at the grounds of the church in the late 19th or early 20th century and placed within the wall of the chancel within the church. The cross probably stood intact in the graveyard until the 17th century when many such crosses were destroyed by the Puritans In the 14th century the south aisle, chancel and tower were added. The south aisle was rebuilt in the 16th century and a south porch was added. Heavy diagonal buttresses were added to the tower in 1675. The vestry was built in 1766. The north aisle by Hubert Worthington was added in 1964–65.
Architecture.
Exterior.
The church is built in stone. The roofs are of slate with copper covering the latest additions to the church. Its plan consists of a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel, vestry and south porch. The tower is in two stages, the lower stage being very high. At the northwest and southwest corners of the tower are massive stepped buttresses. To its southeast is a square stair turret. Its top is embattled. In the porch is a shallow piscina and grooves said to be caused by the sharpening of arrows. The windows in the porch contain some medieval stained glass. The north wall of the nave is Norman and the chancel inclines to the north. Built into the wall of the chancel is a Saxon wheel cross. The chancel also contains old stained glass.
Interior.
On the north wall of the chancel are three 17th-century wooden epitaph panels containing the coats of arms of local people painted by Randle Holme. The wooden carved bench ends in the chancel date from the 15th century. At the back of the church is a charity board dated 1741. On the west wall are old bread shelves dated 1641 and 1670. On the west wall of the south aisle are the remnants of a Jesse window by Kempe which was damaged by a bomb in 1941 and restored in 1945. The octagonal font dates from the late 15th century and includes carvings of angels and scenes from the Passion. The floor contains some medieval encaustic tiles. The rood screen, designed by Bernard A. Miller and carved by Alan Durst, was added in 1934. The south window of the chancel is by Kempe, and is dated 1875. A processional cross dated 1937 was carved in ivory by Alan Durst. In the chancel is a monument by W. Spence to Margaret Hughes who died in 1802. The parish registers begin in 1571. There is a ring of eight bells which were cast in 1971 by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It is said to be one of the lightest rings in Britain.
Organ Specification.
The organ was built in 1938 by Rushworth and Dreaper and rebuilt in 1997 by the same firm. It is an electronic extension organ, with 2 manuals and a concave radiating pedal board. There are also confusingly 2 boxes, meaning that the entire instrument is boxed. Listed below are the list of stops, which on the instrument are tabbed, along with a list of where stops have been used again, and which box controls the stop. The number in brackets refers to the stop number below which from which it is borrowed.
Swell
Compass: Low C- C4 (61 keys)
1. Contra Salicional, 16', LH Box,(22)
2. Stopped Diapason, 8', RH Box, (13+24)
3. Salicional, 8', LH Box, (14+25)
4. Flute, 4', RH Box, (16+26)
5. Flautina, 2', RH Box
6. Larigot, 1⅓', RH Box
7. Twenty Second, 1' LH Box
8. Contra Tromba, 16', RH Box (27)
9. Tromba, 8', RH Box (28)
10. Octave Tromba, 4', RH Box
Great
Compass: Low C- C4 (61 keys)
11. Bourdon, 16', RH Box (21)
12. Open Diapason, 8', LH Box (23)
13. Stopped Diapason, 8', RH Box (2+24)
14. Salicional, 8', LH Box (3+25)
15. Octave Diapason, 4', LH Box
16. Flute, 4', RH Box (4+26)
17. Dulcet, 4', LH Box
18. Nazard, 2⅔', RH Box
19. Fifteenth, 2', LH Box
Pedal
Compass: Low C- C1 (30 keys)
20. Acoustic Bass, 32', RH Box
21. Sub Bass, 16', RH Box (11)
22. Salicional, 16', LH Box (1)
23. Octave, 8', LH Box (12)
24. Bass Flute, 8', RH Box (2+13)
25. Salicional, 8', LH Box (3+14)
26. Octave Flute, 4', RH Box (4+16)
27. Tromba, 16', RH Box (8)
28. Octave Tromba, 8', RH Box (9)
Accessories and couplers
Swell to Great
Swell to Pedal
Great to Peal
3 thumb pistons each to Great and Swell, giving double touch Pedal
3 toe Pedal pistons
3 toe Swell pistons
Reversible toe "Great to Pedal" piston


Natal City Park

Parque da Cidade Dom Nivaldo Monte, colloquially known as Parque da Cidade, is a park in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The City Park covers an area of 64 hectares, aimed at environmental preservation and education, and comprises eco-trails, jogging lanes, library, auditorium, orchidarium and more. The symbol of the Park is the central tower, 45 meter high, which houses the Memorial of the city, the Memorial should maintain exhibits about the history and development of Natal.
The area where the Park is located is, like most of Natal, covered by dunes. It is the second largest Park in Natal, the biggest being Parque das Dunas. And just like Parque das Dunas, this new park have an important role in keeping a good environment health: these parks function as a large filter, which captures rain water and cleans it before reaching the freatic sheet, they help maintain thermal balance, they shelter several species of fauna and flora, they add green space to the city.
The Park was designed by world-famous architect Oscar Niemeyer, the same who designed all the important buildings in Brasília, the seat of United Nations in New York and several other known buildings around the world.


Church of St James the Less, Sulgrave

The Church of St James the Less, Sulgrave, is the Church of England parish church of Sulgrave, a village and civil parish about north of Brackley, Northamptonshire. The present church dates largely from the 13th and 14th centuries and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
Architecture.
Sulgrave has had a church since the Anglo-Saxon era, although not on the current site. An earlier stone church is believed to have stood about north of the present one, on higher ground near the windmill.
The church on the present site was built in the 13th century, when the Cluniac Priory of St Andrew, Northampton held the advowson. At least some material from the original church was used in the rebuilding. Most notable is a triangular-headed doorway, characteristic of Anglo-Saxon architecture, that has been re-set as the west door of the west tower. This may date from the 10th century. The bell-openings to the top stage of the tower and the trefoiled lancet windows to the ground stage are Early English Gothic features that date it to the 13th century.
The tower had a spire, but it collapsed in the 14th century. A record from about 1340 reports the church as "destroyed", and 20 carts being at "Helmydene" (Helmdon, southeast of Sulgrave) to collect stone for its repair. Helmdon stone is a fine freestone and was certainly the best building stone in the area.
The work for which Helmdon stone was supplied may therefore have included the south aisle. This was added in the middle of the 14th century and retains all of its original Decorated Gothic windows. The four-bay arcade between the south aisle and the nave is Perpendicular Gothic and therefore somewhat later. Also in the south aisle is a squint to the high altar in the chancel, and a 14th- or 15th-century piscina, both of which were installed when the aisle had a side altar. The squint was blocked after the Reformation but reopened in 1885. The south door is 14th century. Outside it is the south porch, which is 16th-century Elizabethan with a characteristically Tudor four-centred arch. Over it is a datestone with the initials ER and year 1564. Elizabeth I visited Northampton that year so the initials may commemorate her visit.
The chancel has two south windows: the more easterly is Decorated Gothic and therefore earlier; the more westerly is Perpendicular Gothic. The baptismal font is octagonal and may date from the 1660s.
In 1840 the nave walls were raised by about , the ancient oak roof was replaced with a new deal one and the windows were reduced in height, all to accommodate the installation of galleries to increase the church's capacity. In 1885 the galleries were removed and the oak roof was restored. In the same year to compensate for the loss of the galleries the north aisle was added, re-using the 14th-century north doorway. The three-light east window of the chancel is also 19th-century Gothic Revival.
The two-light east window of the south aisle includes four stained glass coats of arms of successive generations of the Washington family. Each is surrounded by strapwork in white and yellow glass and they are probably 16th-century.
Furnishings.
St James' has an ancient wooden chest, hewn from a solid oak trunk and said to be 14th-century. It has two compartments and is bound with closely spaced iron bands.
In the south aisle is the Washington Pew, a 17th-century pew that was installed when the Washington family held Sulgrave Manor.
In 1929 a wooden screen was installed separating the ground stage of the tower from the nave to create a vestry. It was funded by the Women's Committee of the George Washington Institute and made by craftsmen of Broadway, Worcestershire.
The Colonial Dames of America presented the church with a pipe organ in 1930. This was replaced with a new one in 1975.
Monuments.
Under the floor of the east end of south aisle is the tomb Amee Washington who died in 1564, and her husband Lawrence who died in 1584. The tomb is covered by a slab of Hornton ironstone with monumental brasses set into it. There were originally six brasses in the set: a pair of figures of Lawrence and Amee Washington; a pair of smaller brasses, one their four sons, and one of their seven daughters; a brass of a family coat of arms and one with an inscription. The brasses of Amee Washington, the family coat of arms and the inscription are missing. In 1889 the two brasses of the children and the head of the brass of Lawrence Washington were stolen. They were recovered in 1923 and reinstalled in 1924 but no-one was ever charged with their theft.
In 1659 the Washingtons sold Sulgrave Manor, and in about 1673 it passed to a member of the Hodges family. On the south wall of the south aisle above the Washington pew are three neoclassical wall monuments to members of the Hodges family. The largest and most ornate is that to the brothers John and Rev Moses Hodges, both of whom died in 1724. It is of grey and white marble and has fluted pilasters.
Bells and clock.
In 1552 during the Edwardine Reformation the church was listed as having four bells in the west tower plus a sanctus bell. The churchwardens, John Humfrey and John Mayo, had sold one of the bells for £16 to pay for road and ford repairs in the parish. The buyers, Thomas Stuttesbury and Lawrence Washington, had so far paid £6, and the bell remained in the belfry until the balance was paid.
None of the bells listed in 1552 survives, but their metal may have been re-used in casting the present ones. The Sanctus bell was medieval, but in 1806 it was recast by John Briant of Hertford. One of the Newcombe family of bellfounders of Leicester cast the present third bell in 1610 and the fourth in 1612. Edward Hall of Drayton Parslow in Buckinghamshire cast the fifth bell in 1744. Matthew Bagley of Chacombe cast the second bell in 1769. John Briant of Hertford cast the tenor bell in 1808, making a ring of five. Gillett & Johnston of Croydon recast all five of the ring in 1928. This was increased to six when John Taylor & Co of Loughborough cast the present treble bell in 1932.
The present turret clock in the west tower was made and installed in 1928.
Benefice.
The parish is part of the benefice of Culworth, with Sulgrave and Thorpe Mandeville, and Chipping Warden, with Edgcote and Moreton Pinkney. It is in the deanery of Brackley, the archdeaconry of Northampton, and the Diocese of Peterborough.
Future.
The church hall is to be refurbished and upgraded with a grant from HS2 Ltd, which will include the installation of accessible toilets.


Pynes House

Pynes House is a Grade II* listed Queen Anne style country house built by Hugh Stafford between around 1700 and 1725, situated in the parish of Upton Pyne, Devon, 3 miles northwest of Exeter.
Description.
The house has four storeys and covers . Its present owners run the house as a wedding and events venue, offering 12 bedrooms. It is set in gardens and grounds of 37 acres. The building is primarily made of bricks to a square plan, with Portland stone dressings. The principal roof is slate, with four large brick chimney stacks. An 1827 account relates that "Pynes House contains some valuable pictures, particularly a fine Van Dyke, in the eating-room, and several excellent family portraits".
Poem.
The renovations at the house in 1789 inspired Sebastian Emmett to write the poem "Written on Viewing the Improvements at Pynes-House, the Seat of Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, Bart. Near Exeter. 1789", which talks about the house and the design of the gardens, but also alludes to the character of the nation at the time.


Galleri K

Galleru K, formerly Crome & Goldschmidt, is a shopping arcade situated on Strøget in central Copenhagen, Denmark. Completed in 1901, the building occupies the entire block between Kristen Bernikows Gade, Østergade (Strøget), Antonigade and Pilestræde.
History.
The former building at the site was acquired by Crome & Goldschmidt in 1884 and the company opened a department store in the building in 1887.
In 1897, two developers, J. Fisker and A. Volmer, purchased the buildings long the street. They constructed a new building known as Volmerhus at the site in connection with a widening of Kristen Bernikows Gade. It was designed by Erik Schiødte (1849-1909) and Christian Arntzen (1852-1911). Crome & Goldschmidt remained a tenant in the building and installed Denmark's first escalators in it in 1927.
The department store closed when Crome & Goldschmidt merged with Illum in 1971. It was relaunched as City Arkaden ("The City Arcade"). In 2004, a joint-venture between the Danish property developer Keops and the American AIG purchased the building. After a major refurbishment, it reopened in 2006 under the current name.
Design.
Galleri K contains about 30 shops and has a total area of about 10,000 square metres over two floors as well as underground parking. The original building is in the Historicist style. A covered atrium and arcade connects Kristen Bernikows Gade to Pilestræde where the architects created a small space with a café.
In popular culture.
Crome & Goldschmidt was used as a location in the films "En sømand gaar i land" (1954)
"Far til fire i sneen" (1954),
"Far til fire i byen" (1956) and "Tag til marked i Fjordby" (1957).


Landa Residence

The Landa Residence (built 1911–1913) is a designated Municipal Heritage Property located in the Riversdale, neighborhood of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Thomas E. Heath, Saskatoon's Early Fire Chief lived in the home from 1913–1915. In 1921, the house became the family residence of William and Fanny Landa, the first Jewish family to settle in Saskatoon. William Landa was a carriage maker who immigrated from Russia established the Landa Carriage Works that eventually become the Landa Auto Body Works. The building is of a Pre-World War I Prairie Vernacular architectural style.
The current owners received support from the City of Saskatoon Heritage Conservation Program to restore some of the historical elements of the building.


Moran State Park

Moran State Park is a public recreation area on Orcas Island in Puget Sound's San Juan Islands in the state of Washington, United States. The state park encompasses over 5,000 acres of various terrain including forests, wetlands, bogs, hills, and lakes. It is the largest public recreation area in the San Juan Islands and the fourth largest state park in the state. A park focal point is the observation tower atop Mount Constitution, the highest point in San Juan County at 2,407 feet.
History.
The park was originally the estate of Seattle mayor and shipbuilder Robert Moran. Due to poor health, Moran moved to Orcas Island and between 1906 and 1909 built his estate, which included a large mansion named Rosario. Wood and stone material found on the island were used to construct the estate's houses and buildings. In 1921, Moran gave a large portion of his property to the state of Washington for the creation of Moran State Park. The mansion and its grounds remain in private hands, operated as Rosario Resort and Spa.
In August 1935, 28 men from the 4768th Company of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began constructing a stone observation tower atop Mount Constitution. Designed by noted Seattle architect Ellsworth Storey, the tower became the literal and figurative high point of eight years of work by crews from the CCC's Camp Moran. The state park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
Activities and amenities.
The park has more than of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding, non-motorized boating from two boat ramps, and year-round camping in five camping areas. The Mount Constitution observation tower commands sweeping marine views from the highest point in the San Juan Islands.
Friends of Moran raise money for park needs through fundraising and by operating a small gift shop at the top of the mountain. The volunteer group organizes park cleanups and improvement events.


Casa de los Dragones

Casa de los Dragones () is an important landmark in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta on the north coast of Africa, and an extraordinary example of eclectic architecture. The house is on a corner of Kings Square.
History.
Commissioned in 1900 by Francisco Cerni González, Mayor of Ceuta between 1897 and 1903, in partnership with his brother Ricardo, the building was designed by Valencian architect José M. Cortina Pérez and completed in 1905.
Perez was an eclectic architect who designed the bottom of the building from artificial stone, and as a "pièce de résistance" adorned the roof with bronze dragons. The house is on the corner of Paseo de Camoens and Millán Astray Street in Kings Square.
The building was meant to take the name of the Cerni González brothers, but it became known as the House of the Dragons. This is a similar name to one of the architect‘s 1901 works in his home town of Valencia which is called the Building of the Dragons . The Valencia house also incorporates dragons, although more subtly, which also gives that house its name.
The next owners of the house were the sons of Ricardo Cerni González. The Spanish Falange party had their offices here after the 1936 revolution. The house was sold in 1946. The facade was repaired at the expense of Salomón Benhamú Roffé in 1973 and 1996.
The original dragons were removed in 1925 and lost, but four new dragons have been designed by Antonio Romero Vallejo. Made largely of resin and fiberglass which is painted to appear bronze, the new dragons consequently weigh less than 200 kg each. They were installed and formally opened in November 2006.
Vallejo is a local artist who was born in 1958. He is also responsible for the bronze "Tribute to the Artillery" which is outside the walls on Avenida Martinez Catena in Ceuta.


Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway Depot

The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway Depot in Aztec, New Mexico, is located at 314 Rio Grande. It was built in 1915 in Prairie School style. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
Railroad tracks were removed in 1968, and by 1985 the former depot was a residence. It has gable stickwork in "the Stick Style which was so popular for early western train stations" and broad enclosed eaves perhaps suggestive of Prairie Style influence. The original concrete passenger pad serves as a patio.


Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi

Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi ("Saints Vincent and Anastasius at Trevi") is a Baroque church in Rome, the capital of Italy. Built from 1646 to 1650 to the design of architect Martino Longhi the Younger and located in close proximity to the Trevi Fountain and the Quirinal Palace, for which it served as parish church, it is notable as the place where the "precordia" and embalmed hearts of 22 popes from Sixtus V to Leo XIII are preserved.
Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi lies on the location of a medieval church, mentioned in 962 in a bull by Pope John XII as a branch of the San Silvestro in Capite basilica as well as in 15th century records. Known as Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio since the 16th century, it was rebuilt in the Baroque style and completed in 1650. Two entablatures superimposed over the main one, all three with arched, angled or broken pediments, concentrate attention on the richly sculptural central bay of the façade's two storeys, in a theatrical composition "more curious than exemplary" that found few imitators. Its dense massing of Corinthian columns, ten in the lower order and six above make a total, with the columns flanking the "finestrone" of the upper tier, eighteen fully disengaged Corinthian columns, causing Roman wags to dub the façade "il canneto", "the canebrake".
The church was reconstructed on the order of Cardinal Mazarin, whose triumphantly presented coat of arms and cardinal's hat, supported by angels, is the focus of the façade composition. It is rumored that Mazarin's niece, Marie Mancini, a mistress of Louis XIV of France, is also portrayed on the facade, in the central female "mascaron". The sculptural portrayal of a laywoman and the support of the cardinal's ecclesiastical coat of arms by the sculptures of two barechested women make the church unique among churches in Rome.
Until the 1820s, Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi was known as the "Pontifical Parish" ("Parrocchia Pontificia"). The church's interior features a single nave; the altar is decorated by the painting "Martyrdom of Saints Vincent and Anastasius" by Francesco Pascucci. Prolific Italian illustrator and engraver Bartolomeo Pinelli (1771–1835) was buried in Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi.
Its travertine facade has proved porous; restoration with liquid hydraulic mortar and other materials was undertaken in 1989–90 to arrest deterioration.


Prosphorion Harbour

The Prosphorion Harbour () was a harbour in the city of Constantinople, active from the time when the city was still the Greek colony of Byzantium (657 BC – 324 AD), until the eve of the first millennium. Gradually enlarged, it was the first port to be built in the area of the future Constantinople.
Location.
The harbour lay on the southern shore of the Golden Horn, east of today's Galata Bridge, in the fifth region of Constantinople, where the sea walls made a deep nick, in correspondence of the Byzantine Gate of Eugenius (the Ottoman "Yalıköşkü kapısı"), and extended successively westwards, finally occupying the first inlet after the estuary entrance. The inlet where the basin once lay is now silted up, and corresponds today to the east part of the Sirkeci railway station area, south of the Ottoman "Sepetçiler köşkü". Administratively, the site belongs to the "Mahalle" of "Hoca Paşa" in "Eminönü", which is part of the Fatih district (the walled city) of Istanbul.
History and description.
The first harbour to be built in Constantinople's area during the time when it was the city-state of Byzantium lay on the Golden Horn, at the entrance of the Bosporus, in the angle formed by the sea and the end of Byzantium's walls, corresponding with the future Byzantine quarter named "ta Eugeniou" () after the Gate of Eugenius of the sea wall (the Ottoman "Yaliköşkü kapısı"). Its position lay immediately under the northwest slope of the first hill of the city. Thanks to its location along the southern shore of the Golden Horn, the harbour was protected from the heavy storms provoked by the Lodos, the south-west wind blowing from the Marmara Sea. After the reconstruction of Byzantium following its destruction under Septimius Severus (r. 193–211), the harbour grew to the west, finally enclosing the whole area today occupied by the Sirkeci railway station and its dependencies. The first landing place to be met at the east, possibly lying near the Gate of Eugenius, was named after Timasius (d. 396), a high officer active under Emperors Valens (r. 364–378) and Theodosius I (r. 379–395). Right after the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 324, the port received the name of "closed harbour" (, "kleistos limen") since it was protected by moles and defended by the sea walls and by the Tower of Eugenius.
The name of "Prosphorion", which the harbour assumed after the foundation of Constantinople, could derive either from its proximity to the city market (), or from another denomination of the place, "Phosphorion" (), because of a legend which saw Hecate "Phosphoros" ("Light-Bringer") helping there during the night the defenders of Byzantium besieged by Philip of Macedonia. Another theory assumes that the name came from the nearby market of the oxen (), which lay nearby, until it was moved by Emperor Constantine V (r. 741–75) to near the Forum Tauri.
About two hundred years before that, Justinian I (r. 527–65) had already moved the market of the sea goods from the Prosphorion to the larger Portus Sophiae on the Marmara Sea. Inside the harbour, a landing place, the "Scala Chalcedonensis", had been reserved for the inhabitants of Chalcedon, on the opposite side of the Bosporus. Despite that, the port had a purely commercial function: at the Prosphorion landed the commodities imported from the Bosporus, the Black Sea and Asia. As a result, the area was surrounded by many storehouses: the "Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae" records that during the 5th century four out of six "horrea" present in the city lay in the Prosphorion area. However, the harbour was subjected to heavy silting, so that at the eve of the first millennium it was definitively blocked by the mud. Its only surviving function until the late Palaiologan period was that of dockyard (, "naustathmos") for the Emperor during his trips from the Palace of Blachernae to the Hagia Sophia cathedral. The dockyard lay just in front of the Gate of Eugenius, known in that period as the "Royal Gate" (, "pyle basilike"), since the Emperor had to cross it in order to reach the church.
In 1457, shortly after the fall of the city in 1453 to the Ottoman Empire, the neglected harbour was included in the area protected by the walls of the newly built Sultan's palace.


Milton Brodie House

Milton Brodie House is a mansion near Kinloss in Moray, Scotland. Built for the Brodie family in 1710 on the site of an older tower house, it was originally called Windhills, but was renamed to commemorate the Milton estate that the family had formerly owned. In was substantially remodelled between 1835 and 1841 by William Robertson, and was designated a Category A listed building in 1989.
Description.
The nineteenth-century south facade of the house, which is rendered with incisions made to resemble ashlar, has seven bays, the central five with a single storey, and with the outer bays of two storeys advanced and wider than the rest, designed to camouflage the rear gable ends of the original house to the rear. In the centre of the facade is the main entrance, with a tetrastyle portico supported by Ionic columns.
The rest of the house is of two storeys plus an attic, and has four staircases, each one serving what were once free-standing wings prior to the addition of the facade. It is harled, with ashlar detailing. Its interior retains elaborate decorations, including plaster cornices and marble chimneypieces, dating from Robertson's remodelling.
In the grounds is an 18th-century garden house, octagonal in shape with a pyramid roof, which contains a sundial dated to 1661. The grounds are accessed by two gates, which have square ashlar gatepiers with carved ball finials, which are included in the listing for the building.
The house has been praised for its elegance. Architectural historians David Walker and Matthew Woodworth, writing in their Pevsner guidebook on the region, describe it as a "decidedly elegant country villa, and the epitome of summer splendour", while Charles McKean calls it "a delightful courtyard house", and praises its "unusually beautiful, feminine south front".
History.
The land that Milton Brodie House stands on was owned by Kinloss Abbey from the late 12th century, and around 1587 James Dundas, the chantor of Moray, built a tower house on the site, known as Windhills. Around 1653, the estate was acquired by the Brodie family, who demolished the tower house, and in 1710 built a U-plan Georgian mansion with courtyard, to which additional wings were added in the mid-18th century, and which still forms the core part of the house. This house was originally knows as Windyhills, after the tower house it replaced, but when James Brodie of Windyhills died in 1741, the estate passed to a relative, George Brodie, whose family estate of Milton (now Miltonduff) had been sold by his father to the Duffs of Braco; the family renamed the house Milton Brodie.
Between 1835 and 1841, William Robertson performed substantial alterations to the house, reorienting it with the addition of the south facade, and completely filling in the original courtyard.
Alterations were made to the house in 1987 by the conservation architect James Dunbar-Nasmith, and in 1989 it was designated a Category A listed building.


Gomel Palace

The Rumyantsev-Paskevich Residence is the main place of historical importance in the city of Gomel, Belarus. The grounds of the residence stretch for 800 meters along the steep right bank of the Sozh River. An image of the residence is featured on the Belarusian 20-ruble bill.
The two-storey palace of Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev was built between 1777 and 1796 to a Neoclassical design attributed to Ivan Starov. The palace replaced the ruined castle of Gomel's previous owner, Michael Frederick Czartoryski. The central part is surmounted by a square belvedere with a wide flat dome. The six-columned Corinthian portico faces an extensive English park. The main portico is placed on a high platform and is supported by four Corinthian columns.
After Pyotr Rumyantsev's death in 1796, the grounds were slowly improved by his son Nicholas (1754-1826). His brother Sergei was the next owner. He was never interested in country housekeeping and promptly sold the palace to the crown (1834). Gomel was immediately purchased by another Field Marshal, Ivan Paskevich, who had both the palace and the park substantially renovated. He employed architect Adam Idźkowski to add a four-storey tower and a three-storey wing to the existing structure.
After the Russian Revolution the palace was nationalized to house a local museum. Paskevich's daughter-in-law Irina had to move from the palace into an ordinary flat. The buildings sustained heavy damage in the Russian Civil War and World War II. They were shared by the Gomel History Museum and the local pioneers' palace until the late 1990s. The current Neoclassical interiors result from a late 1990s restoration campaign.
The park contains a modern statue of Count Nikolay Rumyantsev. The original marble statues of Euripides, Venus, Athena, Ares, Bacchus, and the Nymph were lost. It was only in 2006 that the replacement statues were put in place. The Paskevich art collection also boasted several paintings by Ivan Kramskoi, Marcin Zaleski, and January Suchodolski, as well as a marble bust of Count Rumyantsev by Antonio Canova.
The bronze equestrian statue of Prince Joseph Poniatowski by Bertel Thorvaldsen, which Paskevich had brought from Warsaw as a trophy in 1842, was dismantled by the Poles during the Polish-Soviet War and transported back to Warsaw, only to be destroyed by the Germans in the 1940s. Its copy stands in front of the Presidential Palace, Warsaw.
Other buildings on the grounds are the Russian Revival chapel with the tombs of Ivan Paskevich and his family, a winter garden (which originated as Prince Paskevich's sugar-mill), several subsidiary outbuildings, and a set of cannons captured by Paskevich's soldiers in the course of the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829).
By far the most conspicuous landmark in the park is the Neoclassical church of Sts. Peter and Paul. It was commissioned by Count Nikolay Rumyantsev from architect John Clark in 1809 but was not consecrated until 1824. The church is the seat of the local Orthodox bishopric.


62 and 62b Cadogan Square

62 and 62b Cadogan Square is a Grade II* listed building in Cadogan Square, London SW1.
It was built in 1883, and the architect was Richard Norman Shaw.


The Index (Dubai)

The Index is a tall, 80-storey skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Of the 80 floors, the first four floors are service floors, 5th–29th are to be offices and 31st–77th are residential use, 73rd and 75th floors are duplex penthouses and 77th to 80th floor are triplex penthouses. The tower is oriented exactly along the east–west axis so that the eastern and western concrete cores shelter the floors from the harsh, desert sun and the climatic effects of the area. The concrete cores shelter the building from the low angle, highly penetrating morning and evening sun leaving only the south facade exposed to the high angle, low penetrating midday sun. The south-facing facade utilizes extensive sun shades to lower solar gain.
The Index is one of the first towers in the region to intelligently embrace its climatic surrounding environment within its fundamental design principles. The tower's environmental strategy significantly lowers the requirement for air conditioning within the building and therefore substantially reduces the energy costs for its tenants. During the height of the summer, without air conditioning, the tower's internal temperatures will not surpass 28 degrees Celsius.
The tower has car parking for 2,442 cars. A double height sky lobby separates the offices and apartments with recreational facilities, such as the swimming pool and gym.
In June 2011, The Index Tower was the recipient of the 2011 Best Tall Building Middle East & Africa award by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
As of December 2015, the full retail space, two-thirds of the office floors and 1404 parking spaces were owned by Emirates REIT, UAE's first Real Estate Investment Trust.


White, Munger and Company Store

The White, Munger and Company Store is a historic building located in Winterset, Iowa, United States. Built in 1861 by Evan V. Evans who owned the property the building sits on, it is an early example of a vernacular limestone commercial building. The two-story structure is composed of locally quarried ashlar and rubble stone. It features a false front that hides the gable roof, a parapet with a bracketed stone cornice and cornice return. The storefront has subsequently been altered. White, Munger and Company operated a woolen mill east of town, and this store was associated with the mill. The building was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, and it was included as a contributing property in the Winterset Courthouse Square Commercial Historic District in 2015.


Tas-Samra Battery

Tas-Samra Battery () was an artillery battery in Ħamrun, Malta, built by Maltese insurgents during the French blockade of 1798–1800. It was part of a chain of batteries, redoubts and entrenchments encircling the French positions in Marsamxett and the Grand Harbour.
History.
The battery was built on top of a hill, overlooking the Floriana Lines, "Strada San Giuseppe" (the main road which led from Valletta to Mdina), Marsa and Corradino. It was very close to the hornwork of the Floriana Lines, and as such was one of the most important insurgent batteries.
Tas-Samra Battery took its name from the Chapel of Our Lady of Atocia, known as "tas-Samra" in Maltese, and originally dedicated to St. Nicholas. The chapel, which had been built in 1631 on the site of an earlier church, stood at the rear of the battery. The battery itself had a paved gun platform and a parapet with five embrasures. It had an open rear, but this was shielded by the chapel as well as a number of other buildings and rubble walls. One of these buildings was used as a barracks, and a flagpole was affixed to the side of the building. The battery was also guarded by two small sentry boxes on the east side.
At one point, the battery was armed with two 32-pounders, two 18-pounders, two 12-pounders, two 8-pounders and one 4-pounder, making a total of nine guns. However, contemporary illustrations show it armed with only four guns and two mortars. Two of the guns had been taken from St. Mary's Tower on Comino. Those stationed at Tas-Samra stormed the nearby Villino Blacas and killed the French tenant who was renting it for the last 8 years. During the siege the building was used for living and as a blockhouse.
The battery formed part of Tas-Samra Camp, one of the insurgents' main camps. The camp fell under the overall command of Francesco Saverio Caruana and the direct command of Angelo Cilia and his deputy Isidoro Attard, and it was garrisoned by the Żebbuġ, Siġġiewi and Naxxar Battalions. Later, men from the Royal Navy and HM Marine Forces also assisted the camp. Overall, the garrison was made up of 223 men, and it was eventually increased to up to 600 men. Apart from Tas-Samra Battery, the camp was also responsible for two nearby smaller batteries that were armed with three and four cannons.
Men from Tas-Samra managed to demolish all field walls up to the Floriana Lines, to prevent the French from having any cover in the case of a counterattack. During the siege, the French were desperate to neutralize Tas-Samra Battery, and at one point, they bombarded it constantly for five hours. In an act of defiance, the Maltese insurgents removed a large wooden crucifix from the chapel and erected it on the roof, and they flew a black flag. Three Maltese were killed by French bombardment. In another incident, a cannonball fired from Tas-Samra hit St. James Bastion in Valletta, where it decapitated a French soldier manning one of the guns.
Present day.
Like the other French blockade fortifications, Tas-Samra Battery was dismantled, possibly sometime after 1814. The area formerly occupied by the battery is now heavily built up as a residential area.
Although the battery itself no longer exists, the Chapel of Our Lady of Atocia is still standing, and it is one of the few surviving landmarks of the French blockade in Malta. The 17th-century building built during the rule of the Order of St. John located to the rear of the chapel, that was possibly used as a barracks, has also survived. The building is in a dilapidated state and has suffered from vandalism. It is believed to be the oldest building in the area. The building is a scheduled building but is not being looked after.


Hotel Saranac

The Hotel Saranac is a historic hotel in Saranac Lake, New York, a town served by the Adirondack Railway. Its full name is Hotel Saranac, Curio Collection by Hilton.
The hotel was designed by local architects William Scopes and Maurice Feustmann in an austere Colonial Revival (or Neo-Georgian) style and built in 1927. The hotel is a symmetrically-arranged, six-story building clad in brick veneer. In order to ensure fire safety, the hotel was built with steel framing and concrete floors. The large lobby on the second floor was modeled after the Grand Salon of the Davanzati Palace in Florence.
The hotel closed in 2013, underwent a $35-million renovation, and reopened in 2018. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
It is a member of the Historic Hotels of America.
It was asserted to have been the first fireproof hotel in the Adirondacks.
It was owned and operated by Paul Smith's College from 1962 to 2006. It was used by the college for on-the-job training as part of its hotel, resort, and culinary management program.


Torpo Station


Church of St Morwenna and St John the Baptist, Morwenstow

The Church of St Morwenna and St John the Baptist is the parish church of Morwenstow, north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, the most northerly parish in Cornwall. The church is dedicated to Morwenna, a local saint, and to John the Baptist, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Truro, the archdeaconry of Bodmin, and the deanery of Stratton. Its benefice is combined with that of St James, Kilkhampton to form the United Benefice of Kilkhampton with Morwenstow.
From 1835 to 1874 the vicar of the parish was Rev. R. S. Hawker, poet and antiquary who is credited with creating the modern form of the harvest festival church service to give thanks for a good harvest in 1842. It stands in a remote position near cliffs on the north coast of Cornwall. Amongst the tombs and gravestones in the churchyard is the preserved figurehead from a ship which was wrecked nearby.
The Church of St Morwenna and St John the Baptist is the most northerly church (and parish) in Cornwall.
History.
Although the earliest fabric in the present church is Norman, it is believed that an earlier Saxon church stood on the site. At some time before 1291 the advowson was granted to St John's Hospital at Bridgwater by the Bishop of Exeter. In a document dated 1296, the church was referred to as an "old and well-known structure". Additions to the church were made in the 13th, 15th and 16th centuries.
The church was restored in the 1850s under the direction of Parson Hawker when the box pews were removed and the wooden shingles on the roof were replaced. A further restoration took place in, or just after 1878, probably by J P St Aubyn. A vestry was added in 1887 and there were further restorations in 1904 and 1908. The colouring of the chancel roof was restored in 1934.
Architecture.
Exterior.
The church is built in stone with 19th-century slate roofs. Most of the stone is rubble but some dressed stone is present. The arcades dating from the 12th and 13th centuries are made from local dunstone, the 15th-century arcade is constructed from Polyphant stone, and the 16th-century piers and arches are in granite. The plan of the church consists of a west tower, a nave and chancel, five-bay north and south arcades, a south porch and a northeast vestry.
The tower has three stages. It is built in rubble with granite for the long and short quoins, the string course, embattled parapet, and the tall corner pinnacles with crocketted finials. The doorway to the porch consists of the outer order of a Norman doorway which has been moved from elsewhere. It includes zigzag carving and flowers carved in heavy relief. The doorway to the church itself consists of the inner two orders of the Norman doorway with zigzag carving on both orders. On the capitals are carved birds and pine cones.
Interior.
Internally the westerly three bays of the north arcade are Norman and include zigzag carving and a carved ram's head. The two easterly arcades are Transitional. The south arcade is mainly Perpendicular in style. The pew ends are carved with Gothic tracery above Renaissance arabesques. One pew end is inscribed with "T.K.", for Rev Thomas Kempthorne, who was vicar from 1539 to 1594; another has the date of 1575. The Norman font is roughly shaped with ropework decoration beneath a plain bowl.
The pulpit dates from the 20th century and incorporates some earlier woodwork as blind tracery. The chancel screen which was initially constructed by Parson Hawker was removed after his death and then replaced in 1908. It is made from fragments of 16th and 17th carving. In the chancel is a large reredos dated 1908 which was designed by E. H. Sedding and carved by the Pinwill sisters of Plymouth, probably Violet Pinwill. It contains a cartoon by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta and three engravings by John-Baptist Jackson.
In the south wall of the chancel is a piscina and on the north wall is a fragment of a mural painting dating from the late 15th or early 16th century. The painting depicts a female holding a scroll in her left hand with her right arm raised in blessing over a kneeling monk and is thought to represent St Morwenna.
In the church are a number of tomb chests and memorials. One of the memorials is a large slate plate in the floor beside the pulpit to the memory of Hawker's first wife, Charlotte, who died in 1863. At the west end of the church is a 17th-century communion table. In the south aisle is the Hawker memorial window by Lavers and Westlake which was erected in 1904. It depicts Parson Hawker and his dog, the church and various other features associated with him.
Organ.
The organ was built by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd of London in 1892 and rebuilt by Geo. Osmond of Taunton in 1969.
Bells.
There is a ring of six bells. Four of these were cast by Abel Rudhall in 1753, the other two being by Mears & Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry dated 1902.
External features.
Associated with the church are a number of structures listed at Grades II* and II. In the churchyard are a number of headstones and tomb chests.
Also in the churchyard is a granite Celtic cross which is said to have been moved from a nearby moor by Parson Hawker to commemorate the death of his first wife, Charlotte. Her initials C E H are carved on the shaft.
Elsewhere in the churchyard is a carved and painted wooden figurehead depicting the figure of Caledonia holding a drawn sword and shield. It is the figurehead from the Scottish brig , which was shipwrecked off Morwenstow in 1843 and is erected to the memory of its captain and crew who are buried nearby.
At the entry to the churchyard are an adjoining stile, a lychgate and a former mortuary. The stile dates from the 19th century. It is constructed in freestone ashlar and slate and was probably designed by Parson Hawker. The lychgate, which is wooden with a slate roof, was built in 1641 and extensively repaired in 1738. The former mortuary, which is now used as a store, is a stone building which was used for laying out the corpses of drowned sailors.
In a corner of the vicarage garden about 125 metres from the church is the holy well of St John over which is a medieval well house; its water has been used for baptisms for hundreds of years. This is a rectangular stone building with a timber door and a steeply gabled stone roof with a flat ridge.
 Further from the church, to its west, and 14 metres down the cliff face is the holy well of St Morwenna. Its well house also originates from the medieval period and it consists of a dressed stone-gabled structure built into the side of the cliff.
Nearby on the coast path is Hawker's Hut, constructed by Parson Hawker from driftwood. It is owned and managed by the National Trust.


Palace of Whitehall

The Palace of Whitehall (or Palace of White Hall) at Westminster, Middlesex, was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to White Hall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace does not survive, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of government.
White Hall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the street located on the site on which many of the current administrative buildings of the present-day British government are situated, and hence metonymically to the central government itself. At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered by Northumberland Avenue in the north; to Downing Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings facing Horse Guards Road in the west, to the then banks of the River Thames in the east (the construction of Victoria Embankment has since reclaimed more land from the Thames)—a total of about . It was about from Westminster Abbey.
History.
By the 13th century, the Palace of Westminster had become the centre of government in England, and had been the main London residence of the king since 1049. The surrounding area became a popular and expensive location. The Archbishop of York Walter de Grey bought a nearby property as his London residence soon after 1240, calling it York Place.
King Edward I stayed at York Place on several occasions while work was carried out at Westminster, and enlarged it to accommodate his entourage. York Place was rebuilt during the 15th century and expanded so much by Cardinal Wolsey that it was rivalled by only Lambeth Palace as the greatest house in London, the King's London palaces included. Consequently, when King Henry VIII removed the cardinal from power in 1530, he acquired York Place to replace Westminster (the royal residential, or 'privy' area of which had been gutted by fire in 1512) as his main London residence, inspecting its possessions in the company of Anne Boleyn. The name Whitehall or White Hall was first recorded in 1532; it had its origins in the white stone used for the buildings.
King Henry VIII hired the Flemish artist Anton van den Wyngaerde to redesign York Place, and he extended it during his lifetime. Inspired by Richmond Palace, he included sporting facilities, with a bowling green, indoor real tennis court, a pit for cock fighting (on the site of the Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall) and a tiltyard for jousting (now the site of Horse Guards Parade). It is estimated that more than £30,000 (several million at present-day value) were spent during the 1540s, half as much again as the construction of the entire Bridewell Palace. Henry VIII married two of his wives at the palace—Anne Boleyn in 1533 and Jane Seymour in 1536, and died there in January 1547. In 1611, the palace hosted the first known performance of William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest".
James VI and I made significant changes to the buildings, notably the construction in 1622 of a new Banqueting House built to a design by Inigo Jones to replace a series of previous banqueting houses dating from the time of Elizabeth I. Its decoration was finished in 1634 with the completion of a ceiling by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, commissioned by Charles I (who was to be executed in front of the building in 1649). By 1650 Whitehall Palace was the largest complex of secular buildings in England, with more than 1,500 rooms. Its layout was irregular, and its constituent parts were of many different sizes and in several different architectural styles, making it look more like a small town than a single building. The irregularity of the buildings was increased by the penchant of courtiers to build onto their assigned lodgings, either at their own expense or that of the King's. Sir Stephen Fox, Charles II's Clerk of the Green Cloth, obtained permission from the Office of Works in the 1660s to build additions to the three rooms he was assigned. By the time he was finished he had constructed a grand mansion with coach house, stables, and a view over the Thames, all within the palace network.
Charles II commissioned minor works. Like his father, he died at the palace—but from a stroke. James II ordered various changes by Sir Christopher Wren, including a chapel finished in 1687, rebuilding of the queen's apartments (c. 1688), and the queen's private lodgings (1689). The Catholic chapel of James II, constructed during a period of fierce anti-Catholicism in England, attracted much criticism and also awe when it was completed in December 1686. The ceiling was adorned with 8,132 pieces of gold leaf, and at the east end of the nave an enormous marble altarpiece (40 ft. high x 25 ft. wide) designed by Wren and carved by Grinling Gibbons dominated the room. The diarist John Evelyn noted that "I should not have believed I should ever have seen such things in the King of England's palace, after it pleased God to enlighten this nation."
Destruction.
By 1691 the palace had become the largest and most complex in Europe. On 10 April a fire broke out in the much-renovated apartment previously used by the Duchess of Portsmouth, damaging the older palace structures, though apparently not the state apartments. This actually gave a greater cohesiveness to the remaining complex. At the end of 1694 Mary II died in Kensington Palace of smallpox, and on the following 24 January lay in state at Whitehall; William and Mary had avoided Whitehall in favour of their palace at Kensington.
A second fire on 4 January 1698 destroyed most of the remaining residential and government buildings. It was started inadvertently by a servant in an upper room who had hung wet linen around a burning charcoal brazier to dry. The linen caught fire and the flames quickly spread throughout the palace complex, raging for 15 hours before firefighters could extinguish it. The following day, the wind picked up and re-ignited the fire farther north. Christopher Wren, then the King's Surveyor of Works, was ordered expressly by William III to focus manpower on saving the architectural jewel of the complex, the Banqueting House. Wren ordered bricklayers to block-up the main window on the building's south side to block the flames from entering. Around 20 buildings were destroyed to create a firebreak, but this did little to inhibit the westward spread of the flames.
John Evelyn noted succinctly on 5 January: "Whitehall burnt! nothing but walls and ruins left." Beside the Banqueting House, some buildings survived in Scotland Yard and some facing the park, along with the so-called Holbein Gate, eventually demolished in 1769.
During the fire many works of art were destroyed, probably including Michelangelo's "Cupid", a famous sculpture bought as part of the Gonzaga collections in the seventeenth century. Also lost were Hans Holbein the Younger's iconic mural "Portrait of Henry VIII" and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's marble portrait bust of King Charles I.
Present day.
The Banqueting House is the only integral building of the complex now standing, although it has been somewhat modified. Various other parts of the old palace still exist, often incorporated into new buildings in the Whitehall government complex. These include a tower and other parts of the former covered tennis courts from the time of Henry VIII, built into the Old Treasury and Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall.
Beginning in 1938, the east side of the site was redeveloped with the building now housing the Ministry of Defence (MOD), now known as MOD Main Building. An undercroft from Wolsey's Great Chamber, now known as Henry VIII's Wine Cellar, a fine example of a Tudor brick-vaulted roof some long and wide, was found to interfere not just with the plan for the new building but also with the proposed route for Horse Guards Avenue. Following a request from Queen Mary in 1938 and a promise in Parliament, provision was made for the preservation of the cellar. Accordingly, it was encased in steel and concrete and relocated nine feet to the west and nearly deeper in 1949, when building was resumed at the site after the Second World War. This was carried out without any significant damage to the structure and it now rests within the basement of the building.
A number of marble carvings from the former chapel at Whitehall (which was built for James II) can now be seen in St. Andrew's Church, Burnham-on-Sea, in Somerset, to where they were moved in 1820 after having originally been removed to Westminster Abbey in 1706.


King George V School, Hong Kong

King George V School (KGV, pronounced "K-G-Five"; (note: V is the Roman numeral) is a co-educational international secondary independent school of the English Schools Foundation (ESF), located in Ho Man Tin, Hong Kong. The school has 1740 students and is one of the oldest schools in Hong Kong. Students take IGCSEs/GCSEs followed by the International Baccalaureate Diploma or the British BTEC programme. There is a Learning Support Centre (LSC) for students with learning difficulties. The campus has an area of . The school is one of three ESF secondary schools in Kowloon and the New Territories, the others being Sha Tin College and Renaissance College.
History.
Pre-WWII period.
KGV is the oldest of all the schools in the English Schools Foundation. It first opened in 1894 on Nathan Road, and originally catered for the children of British people living in Kowloon. At the time, the school occupied just one small building. It was destroyed in a typhoon in 1896, and Kowloon College opened in its place in 1902. A major opening ceremony took place and was attended by many of Hong Kong's elite, including Major General Gascoigne, the Apostolic Vicar of Hong Kong Louis Piazzoli, and the Colony Secretary J.H. Stewart Lockhart. The school was built using donations from Hong Kong businessman Sir Robert Hotung. The school was subsequently renamed the Kowloon British School, then the Central British School, and later King George V School.
By 1930, the number of students in the school had grown to 300. Wooden huts were built at the back of the school to create extra classrooms. The playground was only . The then-headmaster, Mr. Nightingale, asked for a new and bigger school site, which was acquired, and the site plan was designed by a teacher surnamed Rowell. Classes at the new site began on 14 September 1936. The first headmaster of the new school was the Reverend Upsdell. The present school is still on the same site. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Sir William Peel, the then governor of Hong Kong, and the building was subsequently named the Peel Block in his honour.
WWII period.
In 1937, the Japanese army invaded China and many European women and children were evacuated from Shanghai to Hong Kong. They needed a place to stay in the summer and the school was used as a refugee camp. As World War II developed past 1939, the government started to worry about the safety of the children and in August 1940 the government ordered the evacuation of European women and children from Hong Kong. Thereafter, the school site was used by British forces as a hospital. When Hong Kong surrendered in the Battle of Hong Kong, the school site was taken over by the Japanese and used as a hospital for prisoners of war. It is rumoured that the Pavilion was once used as a torture chamber under the Japanese occupation and that ghosts of tortured victims inhabit the clock tower and room P14 which is currently used as a Media Room. Dead bodies were also said to be buried under the school field although when this was extensively excavated in preparation for the construction of an artificial playing surface in 2002/3, no such evidence was found. When classes at KGV resumed after WW2, the back of the stage still had the Japanese military's Rising Sun Flag painted on its back wall.
When the news was received that Japan had surrendered, the Japanese general commanding the school left holding his sword high. As soon as he left, the school raised the British Union flag, probably the first to be raised in Hong Kong following the Japanese surrender.
Post-WWII period.
The school re-opened in the summer of 1946 and in 1947 children of all nationalities were able to join the school. Since it was no longer exclusive for British pupils only, the school's name was changed on the school's speech day of 1948 to 'King George V School,' as George V was king when the foundation stone of the Peel Block was laid.
In 1979, principal Angela Smith decided that KGV should join the English Schools Foundation, and the transfer was complete by 1981. KGV is currently the oldest still active school in the ESF.
Additional Information.
In 2006, KGV was the first school in Asia to perform the musical, Les Misérables: School Edition.
In 2009, musician Mika visited King George V School. He viewed the artwork based on his music (created by Advanced Diploma students) and helped finish a mural on the B-block wall, painting "I am not what you think I am / I am made of gold." He followed by performing 'Grace Kelly' for the students.
A truncated body of a Spitfire fighter-aircraft was present in the lower south east corner classroom of KGV School up until the late fifties. There was also a cut-away R.R. Merlin engine on display with it. It was eventually stored in the basement of the "sports" pavilion, until the Air Commodore had it removed, restored and one year later it was placed at the Cenotaph in Central for remembrance day painted in the 'colours' of the air commodore's fighter plane during the war. The story of the Spitfire aircraft at KGV was once a major "legend" that no one had too much detail about, although this story is now largely forgotten by the current student body.
Students and the House System.
There are approximately 1,740 students of some 28 different nationalities enrolled in the school. Students are accepted from many ESF feeder primary schools in the English Schools Foundation including Kowloon Junior School, Beacon Hill School, and Clearwater Bay School.
The students are placed randomly in either of the four houses unless the students have lineage in the school. If the student has or had family members enrolled in KGV, they are automatically placed in the same house as those family members.
The house system is the basis for school competitions (excluding inter-school events). Houses are named after prominent former faculty members.
The houses, and their associated colours, are as follows:
Uniform.
KGV has always had an extremely strict and traditional uniform policy, owing to its British Colonial roots. With students having to wear ties during winter, black leather shoes, and leather belts. Despite relaxations to the uniform rules in all other ESF schools and most other Hong Kong international schools, such as allowing casual wear for seniors; KGV has refused to follow those trends as a matter of honour. Instead, old rules such as minimum skirt/short length and mandatory wearing of school issued socks, have been reinstated. Enforcement of uniform rules which had been only slightly relaxed in recent years, have also been made stricter. KGV maintains that such rules helps to instil discipline amongst students, helps build a sense of belonging and community, removes social/economic barriers between students, as well as helping with campus security by allowing staff to easily observe who is and isn't a students.
Tie: In the winter, students in years 7-11 must wear a navy blue tie with the school crest in a pattern covering the entire tie; and students in Years 12-13 must wear a navy blue tie with gold diagonal stripes and a single school crest at the bottom.
Curriculum.
The curriculum adopted by KGV, as an international school, is significantly different from the system commonly practised in Hong Kong.
Middle School Curriculum.
The Middle School curriculum is designed for Years 7 to 9. All subjects (Art, Drama, English, History, ICT, Mathematics, Music, Physical Education, Religious Studies, Geography, Science and Design Technology) are compulsory, and students must learn Mandarin and a European language (French, German or Spanish). In year 9, students can choose to drop either language they are studying for Global Perspectives, or take double Chinese if the European language is dropped. A coherent skills based curriculum is being introduced in 2014.
In year 7, students are not put into academically levelled sets apart from Maths and Chinese classes because it is considered as a "transition" year, offering a wide variety of "inquiry" opportunities, transitioning from the "PYP" inquiry format learning to KGV's Middle School Curriculum.
IGCSE.
In Years 10 and 11 all students follow a course leading to IGCSE examinations (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) in their chosen subjects. Some subjects are compulsory, but there is a choice to suit the aptitude and interest of students. All students are required to study the core subjects of English, Mathematics, Science (split into Biology, Chemistry and Physics), PE and PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education). Students also have to take a further course in IT, CIDA (Certificate in Digital Applications), which is equivalent to two GCSEs. Students must choose four further subjects by choosing one of the subjects from each of the boxes:
The boxes are designed to be balanced and to ensure that students can build on their strengths whilst keeping their options open for the future.
IB Diploma.
Starting from September 2007, KGV replaced the existing British A-Level Program with the International Baccalaureate diploma, offering the Diploma Programme. All students have to complete the core syllabus, consisting of an Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge and Creativity, Activity, Service. as well as 6 subjects, wherein a subjects in First Language, Second Language, Individuals and Societies, Science and Mathematics are required. Artistic or creative subjects are also offered, though these are optional.
BTEC.
From September 2011 the school replaced the A-Level Programme (which was an option for students who did not want to take IB) with the BTEC International Diploma, a vocational course.
Governance.
Student Council.
The Student Council is the student government of KGV. It consists of 12 to 15 students (determined by the popularity of the candidates) in Years 11 to 13. All of them are elected through student voting from years 10 to 13, with a two to three-week process where the candidates run campaigns, give speeches about their ideas for the school, ands make campaign videos and websites. SC members are elected for a period of one year, from the 1st of January to the 31st of December of that year. If elected to the council, year 12 students can then run for president of the council in another round of SC elections. SC presidential candidates run in a pair with a vice-presidential candidate, who can either be from year 11 or year 12.
The Student Council listens to the students' opinions through form representatives and assists the school's development and improvement. It has a powerful and respected voice on all facets of school administration. Many of its achievements in the past include input on the school Healthy Eating policy, smart card system, vertical tutoring, ICT usage, environment, assembly structure, physical education (PE) kits, site redevelopment, and the implementation of a PE equipment borrowing system during breaks.
In recent elections, issues of concern for KGV students have included the lack of means through which students can voice their concerns, the relaxation of the mobile phone policy, more vending machines, keeping the back gate open for late arrivals, taster lessons, uniform changes, amending the LPS/PHSE course, the preservation of student tradition such as the school pantomime, and more SAT/ACT exam guidance.
Principals.
Some of the actions taken by the current principal Mark Blackshaw include a no phone policy in school to promote greater student interaction and stricter changes to the school uniform rules.
School motto and song.
The motto of KGV is "Honestas Ante Honores", which means "Honesty Before Glory" in Latin.
The school song is sung at school events and assemblies such as Speech Day and End of Year Assembly. In recent years the school song has been sung in assemblies more frequently.
Here are we gathered from many a nation,
Arts to acquire that our peoples may serve.
Characters moulded by strict regulation,
Honour demands we this motto observe:
"Chorus"
Honestas ante Honores,
Honesty first then glories.
Loud raise the echoing chorus,
Honestas ante Honores.
Bold as the Lion Crest,
Blazoned on every breast.
Loud let resound the chorus,
Honestas ante Honores
Chivalry's courtesies claim cultivation.
Honour depends on such disciplined rule.
Honour acquiring a good reputation,
Honour the name of King George the Fifth School.
The motto, 'Honestas Ante Honores' forms the core theme of the School Song.
Sports.
KGV is known for its sports from athletics to volleyball; games often take place within the school campus as the school is one of the few in Hong Kong equipped with an on-site AstroTurf playing field. In 2008 and 2009, KGV were back-to-back winners of the Bauhinia Bowl, marking it as the best co-educational sporting school in Hong Kong for that academic year. Overall, KGV holds the record for the most Bauhinia Bowls won by a co-educational school in Hong Kong, with its 21 wins placing it two clear of Island School's 19 wins. 25 male and 20 female alumni from KGV have been prior winners of the Bauhinia Bowl sportsboy/sportsgirl of the year award. KGV's many sporting trophies are displayed in a trophy cabinet outside the assembly hall and records of individual and team accomplishments are preserved in a section of the school library.
Rugby.
Rugby has been a traditional sport at KGV for a very long time. In the 2007–2008 term, the A-grade rugby team won the 15s, 10s and 7s tournament; this had not been achieved before in the history of the school. This team includes many Hong Kong rugby representatives and the 2010 Larry Abel award winner; Aiden Bradley. A single word, "MANA" (meaning 'pride'), is shouted out at every practice and match to build up confidence in team members.
The school has recently embraced female rugby. The women's team includes many Hong Kong Bauhinia U16 rugby representatives, as well as players for the Hong Kong U18 Development and U18 Nationals for XVs and VIIs. In 2013 the women's team won the cup against the Hong Kong Standard Charter Select team in the first Bill Williams 7s tournament with a women's section.
Cricket.
Cricket has been a popular sport with KGV students for many years, with strong Junior and Senior teams. The KGV Junior Boys won the Hong Kong Schools league in May 2018.
Football.
Football has been a traditional sport at KGV for a long time.
The school often takes part in the Jing Ying Inter- School Football Tournament which is regarded as the elite football tournament within Hong Kong with the best school teams participating. The B-grade boys KGV team won the HKSSF championship in the 2018–2019 season.
Girls' Lacrosse.
Girls' Lacrosse was introduced in 2011. In May 2012, the KGV Girls' Lacrosse Team joined the Hong Kong Lacrosse League, which was between 2 adult teams and HKIS.
Basketball.
The season of 2011–2012, KGV A-grade boys' basketball team had won the HKSSF Division 3 basketball championship, it was first time for KGV basketball to win a championship.
Netball.
The netball team at KGV has been one of the school's best performing athletic teams. The teams are divided according to A, B, C grade depending on the player's age.
Swimming.
The girls and boys swimming teams compete separately in the annual Hong Kong Schools Sports Foundation (HKSSF) interschool competition, with the girls team achieving a promotion to the Division 1 competition in 2018 and the boys team continuing to perform strongly in Division 2. KGV has produced many swimmers who have won podium places in their events at the HKSSF swimming competitions.
Additionally, KGV swimmers regularly represent the English Schools Foundation at the annual Wheelock Swim for Millions charity race organised by the community chest. 2015 marked KGV's best showing in the competition with the boys opens team winning the school relay and the overall competition while the staff team came 3rd in the corporate relay.
Facilities.
Buildings.
Peel Block.
Completed in 1937, this block is named after Sir William Peel, the Governor of Hong Kong from 1930 to 1935. His name can be found on the foundation stone at the north-east corner of the building, it was personally laid there by the governor himself. This is the first block built on the present school site. It is protected under Hong Kong law because of its age and historical significance. The building's plan view is shaped like the letter E and has two storeys. The Peel Block is the administrative centre of KGV, it currently houses the School Hall, a gym, an archive room, equipment storage rooms, the Middle School Office, a reprographics room, the Learning Resource Centre, SSC rooms, the school's PSAT shop, the staff room and offices on the ground floor, and only one media classroom.
Since the KGV site was used as a hospital and a dungeon by the Japanese in World War II, there are many rumours about this block. Many have said that the former computer room is haunted and was a torture chamber during the Japanese Occupation, while others say that footsteps can be heard on the Peel Block's roof (or along the upper floor) at night. These rumours entertain the students in the school and make KGV a very unique place for both students and teachers.
The Hall, located in the centre of this block, has hardwood flooring in the centre and marble flooring on the side walkways and up halfway along the wall. At the front of the hall is the stage, and to the rear, there is a second balcony level. The hall is outfitted with advanced sound and lighting equipment, and used for events ranging from weekly Assembly to Speech Day (a award ceremony for Year 9s and above) to music and dance competitions. Before the 2013 construction of the Science Block and the Performing Arts Block, the building mainly housed science classrooms.
Hall.
The Hall, located in the centre of the Peel Block, has hardwood flooring in the centre and marble flooring on the side walkways and up halfway along the wall. It is used for events ranging from assemblies, Speech Day, to music and dance competitions. The large hall is 2 storeys tall, and includes a terraced balcony at the rear, for additional seating. Traditionally, manned theatrical (projection) lighting was staged at either end of the balcony's front rail/wall, often with a central "spotlight", for theatrical and/or orchestral recital performance evenings; video cameras on tripods were also set up here during the 80s and 90s, for filming many of KGVs traditional and other events.
Annex Block (AN).
Completed: 1982
Relocated: 2011
Demolished: 2013
The Annex Block housed two classrooms on the ground floor and two on the second floor. These classrooms were used exclusively for teaching Chinese and Spanish. However, this building has now been demolished and in its place stands the new science block. A second Annex block was situated next to the field on the current cricket field. That block was also demolished in late 2013 as rooms dedicated for modern languages are now available in the New Block, the space is used as basketball courts and cricket fields.
New Block (Language Block).
Situated on the south side of the campus, the New Block, completed in 1964, is three stories tall and is currently home to classrooms used for Language Subjects and DT, a computer help centre, and a nurse's office. The block is incorrectly referred to as the language block by most KGV students and staff.
Activities Centre.
Completed in 1983, the Activities Centre formerly consisted of two Drama Studios, Drama Office and P.E. changing rooms. The Activities Centre now houses one of three Art Studios on campus and three P.E. rooms.
Link Block.
Built in 1984, this five-storey building links the New Block, the Peel Block and the Activities Centre, with covered walkways on connecting floors. This building houses Design and Technology, Mathematics, English and Media classrooms, art studios, pastoral offices, and computer labs.
Jockey Club Sarah Roe Centre.
The Jockey Club Sarah Roe Centre (JCSRC) was built in 1986 with funds donated from the then Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club and named after Mrs. Sarah Roe, an occupational therapist, who was a founder of the Child Development Centre at the Matilda Hospital. The first floor of the building used to house the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) store. The Jockey Club Sarah Roe School, originally on the ground floor, later relocated into the Senior Student Centre. Currently, the Garden Rooms are being used as a Learning Support Centre, and the second floor as six classrooms that are used mainly for English oral exams, and two of them are occupied by the student support team.
Sarah Roe School / Senior Student Centre / Vertical Extension / IS Block.
Completed in 1996, the original building was erected on the footprint of KGV's two tennis courts, which were re-homed atop the building's roof. The Hong Kong Jockey Club Sarah Roe School (JCSRS) is housed on the KGV site, and occupies the ground, as well as most of the first floor of the building. This facility educates students with special needs across the English Schools Foundation, and is the only such unit in the entire foundation. KGV occupies the remaining floors. The remaining two floors are fully occupied by KGV and provide classroom spaces for humanities subjects, as well as staff offices.
Previously the 1st storey was used by KGV, and it housed BTEC Art Rooms, while the second storey of the building formally housed the Senior Student Centre. In 2001, a vertical extension to the building was completed. This added a third floor to the building, providing ten more classrooms as well as one of the four new computer labs on campus at the time.
B-block.
Completed: 1999
Demolished: 2014
These six ground-floor classrooms were meant as "temporary" classrooms, but as KGV grew, these classrooms became necessary and thus became a permanent fixture. Modern Languages were predominantly taught in these six rooms which occupy the "piazza" area encased inside the square formed by the Peel, New, and Link blocks. In 2014, rooms dedicated for modern languages opened in the New Block, meaning that there was no longer a specified use for the B-block. Thus, the B-block was being used for temporary Humanities classrooms, due to the Vertical Extension renovation. B-block classrooms were demolished in October 2014, making way for the expansion and renovation of the piazza area.
Science Block.
Built in 2013 the Science Block is a five-story building with a roof garden. This building mainly houses science laboratories, but other facilities are also found on the block, such as media classrooms. The Guilford Lecture Theatre covers the ground level of the building. There is a link between the second floor Science Block that allows students to access the third floor of the New Block. There were also two balconies on the second and fourth floors, where students can look over the field. In Summer 2019, these two balconies were turned into Classrooms, where they were called Breakout rooms, with numbers BR1 on fourth floor and BR2 on the second floor respectively.
Performing Arts Block.
Built in 2013, the Performing Arts Block is a five-story building built on the former canteen area and PTSA store, behind the Peel Block and beside the Swimming Pool. The building hosts a canteen, the Music Department, drama studios and changing rooms. Similar to the Science Block, the Performing Arts Centre also features a rooftop centre, the rooftop garden includes a small amphitheater for any performing uses.
Pavilion.
Built in 1940, this block occupies the south-west corner of the school field. Originally equipped with two changing rooms with showers (through the rest of the 20th century), they were converted into two classrooms (X1 and X2), leaving the storage and maintenance sheds on the ground floor. The classrooms have now been converted back into changing rooms. Although there is no conclusive evidence, it is believed by some students and teachers that the Pavilion was used as a torture chamber during World War II when the Japanese occupied the school, and traditional belief was that it was haunted.
Other facilities.
School Field.
KGV's artificially turfed field is ESF's multipurpose sports facility. It has markings for various sports, such as rugby, football (soccer), hockey, and also has a long & triple jump track running the perimeter of the field. The field itself is 100 metres long, and is flanked on its school side by a 100-metre-long sprint track and seating facilities for students. Prior to the AstroTurfing, there was opposition to the use of artificial turf. However, huge amounts of money spent on maintaining the natural grass on the field's base of hard clay was uneconomic and impractical, and the field would become a large dust bowl after a month or two of use and students would often get injured playing on the field.
The field was reopened on 29 April 2014 after a HK$34 million renovation. On the opening day, 575 students broke the Guinness World Record of 'Most Participants in a Beep Test', previously held by a college in Australia. This is the second world record broken by the school, the other being 'Most People Planking Simultaneously' with 1,549 students on 16 December 2011. In 2014, the field was rebuilt and to celebrate, the school went for the world record of Most People Participating in the Multi-Stage Fitness Test. A then-record of 575 beep test participants out of the 587 participants who started successfully completed the required number of intervals. This record was ratified by the Guinness World Records until it was broken by AFC Harrogate in 2017.
Swimming Pool.
Built-in 1979 the school's swimming pool is located behind the Peel Block. It is a 22-metre swimming pool with six lanes, normally in operation from April to November. As well as for sports, it used to play host to a variety of activities such as D-Day emulations by the history department and re-enactments of the Red Sea Crossing by the Religious Studies department; however these have now been cancelled. Also, Swim Heats in the school are normally held there. In 2016 some of the swim heats for the Swimming Gala were held in the pool a few days after the main event due to a thunderstorm on the main day.
Tennis Courts.
The two tennis courts are located on the roof of the SSC (Senior School Centre). They are sometimes used during PE lessons and during events involving Tennis. The KGV Tennis team practices there. However changes to the PE curriculum has meant that the two tennis courts are virtually never used.
Canteen.
The Canteen is the first two floors, Ground Floor and the First Floor of the Performing Arts Block. On the first floor are the main dishes, such as big bowls of pasta and fish and chips, all supplied by Sodexo. On the second floor are mainly big cupcakes, small side dishes, and salad. Food is also available from locations such as Leo's Cafe next to the Learning Resources Centre (LRC), Bowl, a small shop selling noodles, rice, chicken teriyaki and other options, and since 2019 a new Pizza selling stall was installed outside the link block.
Although the school has entered an agreement which guarantees the canteen a monopoly to food provisions on campus, a variety of food options are nonetheless available for senior students who are willing to violate school rules. Many senior students use take-away delivery services to order McDonald's and Kebabs from Ebeneezers. This has become the unofficial norm and a major rite of passage for members of the senior school. In recent years, tougher security measures, such as security guards around campus, has meant that senior students often forge early leave cards to exit school.
Future site development.
There were plans to amalgamate King George V School, Jockey Club Sarah Roe School and Kowloon Junior School to allow the three schools to grow further and work more closely given the close proximity of the three schools. This project was known as the Kowloon Learning Campus (KLC). This caused over 100 parents to sign a petition against the KLC in 2015. The then-KGV Principal Dr. Edward Wickins was appointed as the executive principal of the KLC who often informed the students of KGV of the progress of the KLC. However, in 2017 the ESF Board announced that the same goals the KLC would work to achieve would have also worked with three separate schools. Therefore, the project was scrapped. That same year Dr. Edward Wickins retired after 12 years at KGV.
Traditions.
KGV has many traditions in place, many of which have developed from the school's British colonial roots.
Assembly.
Formerly held Monday and Friday mornings, they are now held on Tuesday or Wednesday or Monday mornings. Assemblies are where announcements are made to the whole of middle or senior school and performances are given. However, due to the growth in student numbers since 2003, the hall can no longer be held with all students under one roof. Currently, whole school assemblies are broadcast live to other various locations on campus, including the Guilford Lecture Theatre (GLT) and the gymnasium.
Pantomime.
The Pantomime, otherwise known as the "panto", is performed by Year 13 students on the final day of the first term, prior to the start of the Christmas Break. Generally making fun of the school or its teachers, this event is invariably a great comedy show for all students. Unfortunately, in 2017, the cross-dressing was deemed sensitive content which led to Year 12s being the only year group that could watch the show.
One of the highlights of the production is the male students' cross-dressing show, as well as the traditional 'Brown Boys' segment.
Speech Day.
Speech Day is an annual formal occasion for students from Years 9–12 who have achieved academic excellence in KGV. It is reportedly the oldest school tradition still performed, the first Speech Day having been in 1924. Each subject comes with a subject prize and only one student from each year is awarded. Other awards are for community service, the Lion Yearbook, school public spirit, art, acting, music, and many more things. Students are nominated for awards through a form posted on the school bulletin or by heads of departments directly. The Speech Day Committee then selects the students to receive a prize. The committee is composed of a teacher supervisor and appointed students and votes on the awards. Teachers and alumni frequently attend, and the KGV orchestra and choir plays music. From 2015 onwards, Speech Day has been held in the school hall. The president of ESF and a distinguished guest are often invited each year to take part in the ceremony.
Christmas Carol Concert.
The Carol Concert is a concert, given by the KGV Orchestra, Choir, and Jazz band, which is open to the general public. "White Christmas" has been a staple of every KGV Christmas since the late 1980s, originally instituted by then head music teacher, Mr. Thompson, and sung by the School Choir at the Carol Concert evenings. In later years, it was performed by the Staff Choir during the Christmas Final Assembly (pictured).
Christmas Refugee Party.
Organised by the charity committee, the Christmas Refugee Party has been held to help Refugees in Hong Kong. This involves giving clothes and having a Christmas lunch in the canteen. Students can sign up to be volunteers.
KGV Karnival.
Known as the "Beach@KGV" in 2008, "KGViva" in 2007 and "Spring Fair" prior to 2003, this event is held annually in March or April where KGV is set up to be like a bazaar. Students set up games stalls and merchants set up small shops, with raffle ticket sales contributed to the PTSA to cover its general expenses. There are also performances by student groups, the Orchestras (Junior Orchestra and Senior Orchestra) and the Jazz Band. This tradition was discontinued in recent years.
KGV Survivor.
An elimination game, which is held on the last day of each school year, is held on the school field or in the hall where a series of questions are asked, different houses are separated and joined up at the finale. The winner of the game will get a prize that is different every year. However, it has been cancelled since 2016 due to various reasons.
Year 13 final assembly.
A final assembly on Year 13's final day before exam leave in the summer. Usually, a performance is given by Year 13 students, and final goodbyes are said. There is a recital of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If—" by the Head Boy, and Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou by the Head Girl. At the end, a band of teachers play Summer Holiday by Cliff Richard while the rest of staff (on stage) and school sing along. Prior to 2002 (but some time after 1992), students would spend the night at the school as well; this tradition was scrapped due to safety concerns.
Extracurricular Activities.
KGV had long offered a wide range of extracurricular activities, called CAS within the school, which have become a deeply rooted school tradition. A yearly CAS fair is organised where representatives from different clubs and organisations install stalls inside the school hall to encourage people to sign up to their respective activities. Students are allowed to skip half a class during the fair to visit the exhibitions. The CAS sign up is done online through the school's Lionel 2 system. Many students and the majority of seniors take part in at least one CAS activity, with clubs like Model United Nations being popular. CAS clubs are either directly controlled by a member of staff or are student-led, with a teacher supervisor.